USSR invades Germany?

The initial Soviet assault is probably a comi-tragic disaster, but the Germans lack the resources to exploit it. Over the long-run, the Germans are destroyed in a two front war and Europe winds up divided between a Anglo-French bloc and a Soviet one.

I doubt the Allies want to see the USSR dominating Central Europe even if temporarily. The Western European governments of 1939-40 thought very differently about that than FDR did in 1944-45 especially without France ever being invaded by Germany ITTL.

Assuming the Soviets don't attack Finland (which they probably wouldn't if their going after Germany in late-'39/early-'40), the Western European Governments would very much welcome Soviet intervention against Germany and their attitudes would be quite close to those of Western Governments (not just FDR) in '44-'45.
 
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Deleted member 1487

Assuming the Soviets don't attack Finland (which they probably wouldn't if their going after Germany in late-'39/early-'40), the Western European Governments would very much welcome Soviet intervention against Germany and their attitudes would be quite close to those of Western Governments (not just FDR) in '44-'45.
Welcome it because it takes the pressure off of them, but not happy or willing to see the Soviets win and dominate even half of Germany or Poland.
In France Daladier outlawed the Communist party and the center-right were more interested in fighting Stalin than Hitler. Chamberlain was more afraid of Stalin than Hitler and was pretty pissed they had signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, thinking Germany would be defeated by the blockade. The Soviets were his long term enemy he had tried to work with Hitler to contain.
 
Welcome it because it takes the pressure off of them, but not happy or willing to see the Soviets win and dominate even half of Germany or Poland.

By mid-'39, they were even less interested in seeing Germany do so. And over time, as the propaganda encourages the view of the Soviets as noble allies, they'll likely fall into the same trap the OTL Allies did by the middle of the war.

In France Daladier outlawed the Communist party and the center-right were more interested in fighting Stalin than Hitler. Chamberlain was more afraid of Stalin than Hitler and was pretty pissed they had signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, thinking Germany would be defeated by the blockade. The Soviets were his long term enemy he had tried to work with Hitler to contain.

Why, Chaimberlain and the French were so pro-German and anti-Soviet that they initiated a military mobilization intended against Germany even before Munich with no thought about the Soviets reaction either way, publicly guaranteed Polish independence against foreign invasion with the intent of using the eventual German invasion as a casus belli to declare war on Germany, included a secret provision in that guarantee which specifically noted that the guarantee only applied to the event of a invasion by Germany and no-one else, attempted to negotiate a alliance with the USSR in the summer of '39, and refused to declare war on the USSR when the Poles asked in September 1939! Even the banning of the Communist Party was based on their opposition to the war against Hitler rather then their loyalty to Stalin (otherwise it would have occurred a lot earlier) and probably won't occur in a TL where the Soviets are attacking from the East for rather obvious reasons.

Hell, even after the Soviet invaded Finland, the various plans the Anglo-French cooked up against them (the Scandinavian intervention and Pike) were based on the assumptions these actions would harm the Germans first and foremost, with the harm against the Soviets being a secondary concern. Clearly these are all the actions of countries dead-set on opposing the USSR over Germany. :rolleyes:
 
So is the USSR. Considerably so. They had a major expansion between 1940-41 that gave them the numbers they had in June 1941 as well as equipment modernization. There was no KV-1 or T-34 yet. The radio shortage was even worse than in 1941. The PAK36 was in fact able to deal with ever tank in the Soviet arsenal in 1939-40. The aircraft, especially fighters, were grossly inferior even to the Bf109E.

If we were talking about a German invasion of the USSR in 1940 due to the issues you mention the German military having they'd certainly not do as well as they did in 1941, but this is the inverse, the USSR is in an even worse position than when defending in 1941 and have to attack with their problematic force.

Oh trust me, I don’t think they would make it very far into Western Poland before getting pushed back with awful losses, let alone Germany proper. What I was saying is that Germany would not have the opportunity to strike deep into the Soviet Union in any counterattack because by the time it builds up the strength for such a venture the Red Army would also have ample time to grow and modernize. Soviet industry would grow to significantly surpass German output as well. Fighting would be brutal and the Soviet Union would be in for a long battle, but I feel a drawn out brawl between the two in 1939 would end with Stalin succeeding.
 

Deleted member 1487

Oh trust me, I don’t think they would make it very far into Western Poland before getting pushed back with awful losses, let alone Germany proper. What I was saying is that Germany would not have the opportunity to strike deep into the Soviet Union in any counterattack because by the time it builds up the strength for such a venture the Red Army would also have ample time to grow and modernize. Soviet industry would grow to significantly surpass German output as well. Fighting would be brutal and the Soviet Union would be in for a long battle, but I feel a drawn out brawl between the two in 1939 would end with Stalin succeeding.
Grow yes, modernize no. The bigger issue the Germans would have though is the west front and lack of loot from western europe and continued blockade. That and Hitler facing a coup from the military for getting them into an unwinnable situation.
 
Grow yes, modernize no.

Why not? What is preventing the Soviets, aside from Nazis-esque myths of inherent Soviet backwardness, undertaking the relevant army reforms and rearmament they managed IOTL 1941-42 under the same pressures and far less favorable conditions?

That and Hitler facing a coup from the military for getting them into an unwinnable situation.

Their liable to rally around him harder in the face of the communist threat, like they did IOTL.
 
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Deleted member 1487

Why not? What is preventing the Soviets undertaking the relevant army reforms and rearmament they managed IOTL 1941-42 under the same pressures and far less favorable conditions?
The modern equipment was already in production in 1941, just not ramped up for total replacement yet. In 1939 the T-34 spec is still only on paper, the KV-1 isn't in production, same with the modern aircraft. IOTL besides a very few designs whatever new stuff they started out with they ended the war with. Plus a crushing defeat in 1939 in Poland isn't necessarily going to generate the useful lessons repeated smashings in 1941-42 yielded. Not only that, but Stalin has a lot more room to purge officers and not rehabilitate the worthwhile ones. IOTL it was hard not to considering how far the Germans had pushed, but ITTL if the Soviets are at square one on the border, but their core territory isn't threatened he can simply get away with repeatedly punishing failure instead of digging up purge survivors from the gulags with talent or have to let commanders learn from failure and continue on in command roles.
 
The modern equipment was already in production in 1941, just not ramped up for total replacement yet. In 1939 the T-34 spec is still only on paper, the KV-1 isn't in production, same with the modern aircraft. IOTL besides a very few designs whatever new stuff they started out with they ended the war with.

The war will make it painfully obvious that the Soviets need the modernized equipment, so it's liable to be rushed into production and ramped up somewhat faster given the earlier Soviet war mobilization as the need becomes more obvious. Your observation that the Soviets focused during the war on what they needed only reinforces the idea the Soviets modernized, not the opposite.

Plus a crushing defeat in 1939 in Poland isn't necessarily going to generate the useful lessons repeated smashings in 1941-42 yielded.

If anything, the repeated smashing of 1941-42 were a lot more harmful to the Soviet learning process then a singular catastrophe in Poland would be. An attritional war on the frontier will yield far more experienced officers and soldiers to push through the reforms even more rapidly then the repeated wholesale annihilation of Soviet armies from IOTL did. Dead or captured men can not contribute to the army they came from, after all.

Not only that, but Stalin has a lot more room to purge officers and not rehabilitate the worthwhile ones.

Stalin was rehabilitating officers and winding down the purges even without a war on, so the evidence is that it would accelerate the even if the Soviets aren't facing threat.

IOTL it was hard not to considering how far the Germans had pushed, but ITTL if the Soviets are at square one on the border, but their core territory isn't threatened he can simply get away with repeatedly punishing failure instead of digging up purge survivors from the gulags with talent or have to let commanders learn from failure and continue on in command roles.

Except he was digging out purge survivors and letting his commanders learn from their failures even before the Germans were at war with him, much less threatening his core territories. The issue for the Soviets during the war was more men failing to survive their failures to learn from them, not being killed by Stalin for their failures.
 
A few more observations from Merekovs history of the Soviet Army in this era.

The system of 1938 for mobilizing reservists consisted of splitting the existing infantry divisions into three parts, each as the cadre for a new division. Thus adding two more divisions required completely standing down a existing division. The problem inherent here was recognized & in Sept/Oct orders were issued to reorganize the system for mobilizing reservists into infantry divisions.

Merekov then describes a period of chaos for the next 20 months. Changes in doctrine, training, strategy, war plans, & haste led to multiple changes in the reserve forces. The hypothetical expansion to 300 divisions turned into a actual goal of somewhat more. Merekov refers to the problem of training HQ staff & commanders of a army of 100 divisions into staff for 300+ . Of course with proportionate expansion of corps and army staff.

Expecting that to happen in 20 months is of course unrealistic. By comparison the Germans took six years, 1934-1940 to get from a cadre for approx 25 divisions to 120. The US Army took 3 1/2 years, mid 1940 to late 1943, to expand from approx 40 RA & NG divisions to 90.
 
By comparison the Germans took six years, 1934-1940 to get from a cadre for approx 25 divisions to 120. The US Army took 3 1/2 years, mid 1940 to late 1943, to expand from approx 40 RA & NG divisions to 90.

What accounts for the Germans subsequent ability to raise an additional 65 divisions during the 11 months between the fall of France and the start of Barbarossa without affecting command quality? How about the Soviets ability to raise, or reraise, 500+ division (or division equivalents) in 1941-43, while simultaneously improving command quality? Would you argue it is because combat experience provided the cadres of experienced officers and soldiers to move into command positions much more rapidly then peacetime training?
 

Deleted member 1487

What accounts for the Germans subsequent ability to raise an additional 65 divisions during the 11 months between the fall of France and the start of Barbarossa without affecting command quality? How about the Soviets ability to raise, or reraise, 500+ division (or division equivalents) in 1941-43, while simultaneously improving command quality? Would you argue it is because combat experience provided the cadres of experienced officers and soldiers to move into command positions much more rapidly then peacetime training?
Quality was impacted for the Germans and Soviets compared to the prewar divisions. Soviet command improvement came with combat experience, but even as late as 1944 quality wasn't particularly high for Soviet infantry divisions (often quite bad as the best was reserved for the mobile divisions), while German quality dramatically decreased with quality manpower losses. In fact for the Soviets their 'improvement' for infantry units was mostly due to cutting them down to much smaller sizes and limiting the command responsibility of officers; they were hampered by poor training throughout the war and only really improving through the experience of the survivors.

The war will make it painfully obvious that the Soviets need the modernized equipment, so it's liable to be rushed into production and ramped up somewhat faster given the earlier Soviet war mobilization as the need becomes more obvious. Your observation that the Soviets focused during the war on what they needed only reinforces the idea the Soviets modernized, not the opposite.
Of course it will be obvious, but it is a bit different than having all the necessary machine tooling ready to put something into production and of course assuming the new equipment is ready for that. The T-34 was rushed as it was IOTL an really crappy in 1941 and ITTL it will be unready until then...and even crappier due to greater rush. Aircraft might be available sooner, but given the rush IOTL to get ready for the German invasion that is liable to go even worse:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axis_...during_Operation_Barbarossa#Soviet_Air_Forces

As it was in 1939-40 the VVS was a mess and was only starting to get modernized as of 1941. Losses of pilots was liable to be even worse, as most survived the initial surprise attack, which only destroyed the equipment that was near the border. Their OTL pilot losses came from accidents and in the air fighting rather than the surprise attacks. With a bunch of really shitting aircraft the VVS is going to be murked over Poland with modern aircraft really only trickling in in 1941.

All that is assuming that the Soviets go for modernization and production interruption, rather than doubling down on existing designs to maximize production and numbers in the field even if outclassed. After all 'quantity has a quality all it's own".

If anything, the repeated smashing of 1941-42 were a lot more harmful to the Soviet learning process then a singular catastrophe in Poland would be. An attritional war on the frontier will yield far more experienced officers and soldiers to push through the reforms even more rapidly then the repeated wholesale annihilation of Soviet armies from IOTL did. Dead or captured men can not contribute to the army they came from, after all.
The repeated smashing showed that the attempted reforms weren't working. Its when they stopped getting smashed that they knew they were hitting on an effective set of reforms. A major singular disaster in 1939 isn't going to provide the necessary hard knocks to work out the necessary kinks from the system any more than Finland actually did. Also the disaster that was likely to happen to Soviet forces attacking will wipe out the vast majority of troops committed. The things is likely a larger part of the pre-war army will survive than IOTL 1941, so perhaps that would be a kernel for expansion with reservists over the winter of 1939-40. One major defeat in Poland though isn't likely to initiate the very strong reforms of OTL, as the pressure just isn't there.

Stalin was rehabilitating officers and winding down the purges even without a war on, so the evidence is that it would accelerate the even if the Soviets aren't facing threat.
What? He started a new one in 1940 on the eve of invasion:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purge_of_the_Red_Army_in_1941
Not only that, but without the need to stop due to the Germans being at the gates of Moscow there isn't pressure to stop.
Look how Stalin handled failure in the border battles of 1941:
During the first months of the war, scores of commanders, most notably General Dmitry Pavlov, were made scapegoats for failures. Pavlov was arrested and executed after his forces were heavily defeated in the early days of the campaign. Only two of the accused were spared: People's Commissar of Armaments Boris Vannikov (released in July) and Deputy People's Commissar of Defense General Kirill Meretskov (released in September). The latter had admitted guilt, under torture.[2]

About 300 commanders, including Lieutenant General Nikolay Klich, Lieutenant General Robert Klyavinsh, and Major General Sergey Chernykh, were executed on October 16, 1941, during the Battle of Moscow. Others were sent to Kuybyshev, provisional capital of the Soviet Union, on October 17. On October 28 twenty were summarily shot near Kuybyshev on Lavrentiy Beria's personal order, including Colonel Generals Alexander Loktionov and Grigory Shtern, Lieutenant Generals Fyodor Arzhenukhin, Ivan Proskurov, Yakov Smushkevich, and Pavel Rychagov with his wife.[2]

In November Beria successfully lobbied Stalin to simplify the procedure for carrying out death sentences issued by local military courts so that they would no longer require approval of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court and Politburo for the first time since the end of the Great Purge. The right to issue extrajudicial death sentences was granted to the Special Council of the NKVD. With the approval of Stalin, 46 persons, including 17 generals, among them Lieutenant Generals Pyotr Pumpur, Pavel Alekseyev, Konstantin Gusev, Yevgeny Ptukhin, Nikolai Trubetskoy, Pyotr Klyonov, Ivan Selivanov, Major General Ernst Schacht, and People's Commissar of Ammunition Ivan Sergeyev, were sentenced to death by the Special Council. They were executed on the Day of the Red Army, February 23, 1942.

Except he was digging out purge survivors and letting his commanders learn from their failures even before the Germans were at war with him, much less threatening his core territories. The issue for the Soviets during the war was more men failing to survive their failures to learn from them, not being killed by Stalin for their failures.
Source? The 1941 Purges show otherwise. Rokossovsky was an exception, not the rule. He'd likely be pardoned here and used as IOTL, but may take some time to recover and not be immediately available for service given the torture he experienced. Also given that the Purges had officially ended in 1939, the Red Army wasn't in a particularly good way as of 1939, so even with rehabbed officers who were purged there is the gap in training/experience new officers got IOTL in 1939-41 before the invasion hit that would be missing here, as well as at least one crop of fresh officers.
 
What accounts for the Germans subsequent ability to raise an additional 65 divisions during the 11 months between the fall of France and the start of Barbarossa without affecting command quality? How about the Soviets ability to raise, or reraise, 500+ division (or division equivalents) in 1941-43, while simultaneously improving command quality? Would you argue it is because combat experience provided the cadres of experienced officers and soldiers to move into command positions much more rapidly then peacetime training?

It would be expansion of training. Reading through the bios of low & mid level Soviet officers I noticed most or all went through at least one school during the war. Those who went up several ranks often we're withdrawn from combat for a second school. I've also seen references to formal training programs for veteran units, involving mobile training schools or teams. These we're used to prepare for major attacks, or to improve the staff functioning of veteran units.

In the German officer bios there is a similar trend of leaving the combat zone for further formal training. What it looks like is a large scale expansion of formal school room training after the war starts.

However, in the German army there is a question of staff and leadership quality remaining high across the board. There is a sense that a lot of the new formations were often deficient. Similarly a portion of the Red Army units remained of low quality to the end.
 

Deleted member 1487

It would be expansion of training. Reading through the bios of low & mid level Soviet officers I noticed most or all went through at least one school during the war. Those who went up several ranks often we're withdrawn from combat for a second school. I've also seen references to formal training programs for veteran units, involving mobile training schools or teams. These we're used to prepare for major attacks, or to improve the staff functioning of veteran units.

In the German officer bios there is a similar trend of leaving the combat zone for further formal training. What it looks like is a large scale expansion of formal school room training after the war starts.

However, in the German army there is a question of staff and leadership quality remaining high across the board. There is a sense that a lot of the new formations were often deficient. Similarly a portion of the Red Army units remained of low quality to the end.
You might know better than I, but as with the Panzer divisions, IIRC the Germans generally removed half of their officers and NCOs from veteran divisions to fill out positions in new divisions to make them functional, replacing them with either new officers and NCOs or newly promoted ones with experience from the same division to make good the deficit. These experienced cadres helped get the new divisions functional, but there were deficient compared to pre-war trained ones for quite a while.
 

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Would anyone be willing to make a map of this scenario? Its a very interesting one.

I can see the USSR stealing many of Germany's scientists and technology in order to fuel their own, maybe a similar East and West divide like in our timeline. Mussolini's Italy would go the same route as Spain, and Japan would face a similar fate as in our timeline.
 
Quality was impacted for the Germans and Soviets compared to the prewar divisions.

This is not evidenced in their relative performance. The German divisions mobilized in 1940/41 performed just as well when committed to combat as the divisions mobilized in 1934-1940 and only saw decline from 1942 onwards as the German training system couldn't handle a campaign of constant attrition. It is true that the German formations which were freshly mobilized after Barbarossa's start saw quality impacts, but this does not seem to have afflicted those mobilized between the fall of France and the start of Barbarossa. Soviet rifle divisions performed much better in '43-'45 then they had in '41 and '42, even if they never matched their mechanized counterparts, despite the hasty mobilization and heavy losses.

In fact for the Soviets their 'improvement' for infantry units was mostly due to cutting them down to much smaller sizes and limiting the command responsibility of officers; they were hampered by poor training throughout the war and only really improving through the experience of the survivors.

Downsizing had already occurred during the latter part of 1941, but resulted in no significant improvement in combat performance. Soviet combat performance doesn't really pick up until well into 1942, long after any results from the downsizing should have become apparent. It also fails to explain the continued improvements in 1943/44.

Of course it will be obvious, but it is a bit different than having all the necessary machine tooling ready to put something into production and of course assuming the new equipment is ready for that.

They have the machine tooling and are very much ready to put these things into production, as they shortly did. Improvements to the technology will come even faster with concrete battle performance and knowledge of what works and what doesn't on hand.

The T-34 was rushed as it was IOTL an really crappy in 1941 and ITTL it will be unready until then...and even crappier due to greater rush.

The T-34 gave the Germans serious trouble in 1941, despite the Soviets poor crew training and organization hampering them, something the Soviets noticed and is the reason they focused on the design. Further combat allowed them to refine it and that would be the case IATL.

Aircraft might be available sooner, but given the rush IOTL to get ready for the German invasion that is liable to go even worse:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axis_...during_Operation_Barbarossa#Soviet_Air_Forces

As it was in 1939-40 the VVS was a mess and was only starting to get modernized as of 1941. Losses of pilots was liable to be even worse, as most survived the initial surprise attack, which only destroyed the equipment that was near the border. Their OTL pilot losses came from accidents and in the air fighting rather than the surprise attacks. With a bunch of really shitting aircraft the VVS is going to be murked over Poland with modern aircraft really only trickling in in 1941.

The modern aircraft will probably arrive in larger quantities come 1940/41 then they did OTL, with Soviet industry mobilized and rationalized to a much greater degree for war. The same mobilization and rationalization is also liable to inspire the same sort of improvements in Soviet aircraft technology, as it did OTL in 1941-45. More importantly though, the Soviets will sort out their organization and training that much more rapidly, which matters even more then what plane their flying. At the same time, without the loot from Western Europe, German production will be crashing during the latter part of 1940, so it's going to be going into 1941 without much of the modern gear it enjoyed OTL.

All that is assuming that the Soviets go for modernization and production interruption, rather than doubling down on existing designs to maximize production and numbers in the field even if outclassed. After all 'quantity has a quality all it's own".

Which ignores that the Soviets managed to go for modernization OTL without production interruption despite something far more disruptive then any sort of production switch (namely, losing large portions of their industrial base to a German invasion). They focused on what worked. The T-34 and KV-series, for all their flaws, worked in a way their older (and some other modern ones, like the T-50, whose production was duly canned) designs did not. The Soviets observed this and focused their production on them. When the Soviets see that their current equipment isn't cutting it, their going to introduce their prototypes and when they see those do better, they'll focus on getting those out en-masse.

The repeated smashing showed that the attempted reforms weren't working.

Incorrect. It showed the reforms hadn’t had time to take before they had to start from scratch again. There was no instantaneous switch that led to the Red Army to suddenly reach it's late-1942, it was a progressive thing that was halting and repeatedly interrupted, with each disaster setting it back as trained men and combat experience was lost en-masse and had to be replaced, forcing the next batch of forces to be rushed to the front before they could fully complete their training. Not until the Germans were finally halted in the Caucasus in late-summer 1942 were the Soviets able to enjoy a static front for long enough to fully finish training their forces. The Soviets will indeed suffer heavy losses in the opening month or two, but the inability of the Germans to exploit the disaster to the degree they did in Barbarossa would quickly see the front go static and leave the Soviets with much more resources and time to focus on fixing their issues rather then constantly be distracted by the struggle to simply survive.

What? He started a new one in 1940 on the eve of invasion:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purge_of_the_Red_Army_in_1941
Not only that, but without the need to stop due to the Germans being at the gates of Moscow there isn't pressure to stop.
Look how Stalin handled failure in the border battles of 1941:

Once again, you show no grasp of relative scale. The number of officers your own quote provides as being arrested in the 1941 is tiny compared to the arrests during the Great Purge. The trend of arrests was solidly downward and would terminate by the end of the year despite the war and all the associated catastrophes. The arrests stopped even before then. The only people arrested in connection with any disasters were those which occurred at the very beginning of the war. According to you, this should have been followed by a even larger onslaught of arrests and executions in response to the disasters at Smolensk-Kiev, then Typhoon, then Rzhev, then 2nd Kharkov, with Stalin only relenting when the Germans are at the gates of Stalingrad... but that didn't happen.

Source? The 1941 Purges show otherwise. Rokossovsky was an exception, not the rule. He'd likely be pardoned here and used as IOTL, but may take some time to recover and not be immediately available for service given the torture he experienced. Also given that the Purges had officially ended in 1939, the Red Army wasn't in a particularly good way as of 1939, so even with rehabbed officers who were purged there is the gap in training/experience new officers got IOTL in 1939-41 before the invasion hit that would be missing here, as well as at least one crop of fresh officers.

The '41 purges hardly show it, as I already pointed out above, nor does it disprove that rehabilitation of previous Soviet officers was already underway. You can only point to a few hundred purged, but Rokossovsky was one among thousands who were rehabilitated in 1940, as Glantz had detailed. Hell, Rokossovsky was rehabilitated in March of 1940. At that point, not only had the Soviet Union not gone to war yet, the Germans hadn't even knocked out France so Stalin wasn't even worried about the possibility of war with the Germans. And yet, already he was releasing people! And yes, while there will still be a gap, it would be made good in time as combat experience forces reform on the Soviets, as happened IOTL. Initial Soviet losses will probably be almost as heavy as in June/July 1941 OTL, but the inability of the Germans to exploit means they will quickly taper off to a much lesser level then that of August-December 1941. With the urgency of wartime mobilization, untouched industrial resources, and a static front providing a steady intake of experience without forcing continuous disruption of the training schedules, the reform of the Red Army will probably be accelerated such that the Red Army would be in fighting shape by the summer of 1940 (if starting in autumn 1939) or the winter of 1940/41 (if starting in spring 1940).
 
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Deleted member 1487

This is not evidenced in their relative performance. The German divisions mobilized in 1940/41 performed just as well when committed to combat as the divisions mobilized in 1934-1940 and only saw decline from 1942 onwards as the German training system couldn't handle a campaign of constant attrition. It is true that the German formations which were freshly mobilized after Barbarossa's start saw quality impacts, but this does not seem to have afflicted those mobilized between the fall of France and the start of Barbarossa. Soviet rifle divisions performed much better in '43-'45 then they had in '41 and '42, even if they never matched their mechanized counterparts, despite the hasty mobilization and heavy losses.
Can you provide a source on that? If anything it was the strategic situation and relative state of their opponents which drove field performance the way you're framing things. Soviet improved performance in 1943 is really not saying that much given performance quality in 1941-42.
The Germans operated on a wave system, so those mobilized in 1941 were occupation/security divisions that were not committed to front line combat and mostly used outside of the USSR:
https://www.axishistory.com/books/145-germany-heer/heer-unsorted/3422-the-german-mobilization-1941
Plus of those raised in 1940 most were the same, that is occupation/static/security units, with several others being formed from parts of existing divisions. I can only find a handful that were freshly raised in 1940:
https://www.axishistory.com/books/145-germany-heer/heer-unsorted/3421-the-german-mobilization-1940

Downsizing had already occurred during the latter part of 1941, but resulted in no significant improvement in combat performance. Soviet combat performance doesn't really pick up until well into 1942, long after any results from the downsizing should have become apparent. It also fails to explain the continued improvements in 1943/44.
Downsizing alone isn't going to fix everything wrong in 1941, but it was step in the right direction. Strategic situation matters quite a bit and the 'improved' performance seems more like a function of the strategic/operational situation, access to training, and what support was available. Improvements in 1943-44 is more a function of how many casualties they were suffering going down and more and more men surviving from month to month. Oh and LL kicking into high gear and the Wallies getting more into ground combat, plus the Luftwaffe moving mostly to the western fronts. ;)

They have the machine tooling and are very much ready to put these things into production, as they shortly did. Improvements to the technology will come even faster with concrete battle performance and knowledge of what works and what doesn't on hand.
How could they have the machine tools when the T-34 didn't even exist as a prototype in 1939??? Or the aircraft for that matter. For instance the MiG-1 prototype didn't even enter flight testing until April 1940. Same for the LaGG-3. The YaK-1 prototype entered flight testing in January 1940. The IL-2 prototype had just entered flight testing in October 1939 and took until 1941 to enter production. Basically none of the modern types of weapon systems that were just showing up in 1941 were even starting testing, so there is no way the machine tooling for these could even exist in 1939 or even 1940. Rushing their testing will only result in a worse design/production quality problems than IOTL 1941, which saw half of Soviet aircraft on hand lost in accidents in 6 months.

The T-34 gave the Germans serious trouble in 1941, despite the Soviets poor crew training and organization hampering them, something the Soviets noticed and is the reason they focused on the design. Further combat allowed them to refine it and that would be the case IATL.
That is likely exaggerated to make up for German failures in 1941, as it didn't stop the Germans from fighting all the way to the gates of Moscow despite being outclassed in AFV quality. Plus they weren't really available as a majority of Soviet AFVs until the Moscow campaign. But that doesn't matter ITTL, as the T-34 didn't even exist in 1939 except on paper:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-34#Origins
The first prototype wasn't built until 1940 and as it was the army was demanding more existing models than a 'newfangled' design. IOTL it took until September 1940 to be the first production T-34, which was a pretty garbage version of the design, with major upgrades necessary to even get to the still rather flawed 1941 model. They could of course rush the flawed version into production, which is probably if anything a boon to the Germans rather than the Soviets. Of course IMHO the German military would probably try and coup Hitler before 1941 to get out of the two front war, as ITTL Hitler doesn't have the support he got from the success in France and through 1940 and is much more politically vulnerable from getting Germany into a two front war that was pretty unpopular in 1939 when the invasion of Poland was first declared.
Quibbling over when and how new Soviet equipment gets into production is effectively meaningless in the wider strategic sense given that Germany is screwed in a two front war without having defeated France first.

The modern aircraft will probably arrive in larger quantities come 1940/41 then they did OTL, with Soviet industry mobilized and rationalized to a much greater degree for war. The same mobilization and rationalization is also liable to inspire the same sort of improvements in Soviet aircraft technology, as it did OTL in 1941-45. More importantly though, the Soviets will sort out their organization and training that much more rapidly, which matters even more then what plane their flying. At the same time, without the loot from Western Europe, German production will be crashing during the latter part of 1940, so it's going to be going into 1941 without much of the modern gear it enjoyed OTL.
You mean not at all in 1940 and only a trickle in 1941? Are you aware of the accident rates in peace time and early war time for the Soviet aircraft? They lost nearly as many aircraft in combat as they did to accidents in the 6 months of Barbarossa IOTL:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equipment_losses_in_World_War_II
Grigori F. Krivosheev states: "A high percentage of combat aircraft were lost in relation to the number available on 22 June 1941: 442% (total losses) or 216% (combat losses). In the air force over a half of losses were non-combat losses."[4]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axis_...ion_Barbarossa#Training,_equipment_and_purges
Only 37 Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-1 and 201 MiG-3s were operational on 22 June, and only four pilots had been trained to fly them.[85] The attempt to familiarise pilots with these types resulted in the loss of 141 pilots killed and 138 aircraft written off in accidents in the first quarter of 1941 alone.[66]

Soviet training left much to be desired. Stalin's purges had deprived the VVS of its senior and best commanders. It heralded a debilitating decline in military effectiveness. In the event of the Winter War and the German victory in the French Campaign, the Soviet leadership panicked and Stalin ordered a hasty overhaul of the armed forces. Order 0362, 22 December 1940, of the People's Commissar Defence ordered the accelerated training program for pilots which meant the cutting of training time. The program had already been cut owing to an earlier defence order, 008, dated 14 March 1940. It put an end to the flight training for volunteers, and instituted mass drafts. In February 1941, pilot training was cut further leading to a disastrous drop in the quality of pilot training prior to Barbarossa.[51]

The officer corps was decimated in the Great Purge and operational level effectiveness suffered. The 6,000 officers lost and then the subsequent massive expansion schemes, which increased the number of personnel from 1.5 million in 1938 to five million in 1941 flooded the VVS with inexperienced personnel and the infrastructure struggled to cope. It still left the VVS short of 60,000 qualified officers in 1941. Despite the expansion of flight schools from 12 to 83 from 1937 to June 1941, the schools lacked half their flight instructors and half of their allotted fuel supplies. Combined with these events, training was shortened a total of seven times in 1939-1940. The attrition and loss of experienced pilots in Barbarossa encouraged a culture of rapid promotion to positions beyond some pilots' level of competence. It created severe operational difficulties for the VVS.[83][84]

Which ignores that the Soviets managed to go for modernization OTL without production interruption despite something far more disruptive then any sort of production switch (namely, losing large portions of their industrial base to a German invasion). They focused on what worked. The T-34 and KV-series, for all their flaws, worked in a way their older (and some other modern ones, like the T-50, whose production was duly canned) designs did not. The Soviets observed this and focused their production on them. When the Soviets see that their current equipment isn't cutting it, their going to introduce their prototypes and when they see those do better, they'll focus on getting those out en-masse.
In peacetime. During wartime they tweeked existing designs mostly and were very careful about disrupting production. In 1941 they were luckily already producing the T-34 instead of T-26s, making all their latest aircraft and had phased out the old models, and had their latest small arms in production. In 1939 none of those new designs are even in production or even in prototype testing.

Incorrect. It showed the reforms hadn’t had time to take before they had to start from scratch again. There was no instantaneous switch that led to the Red Army to suddenly reach it's late-1942, it was a progressive thing that was halting and repeatedly interrupted, with each disaster setting it back as trained men and combat experience was lost en-masse and had to be replaced, forcing the next batch of forces to be rushed to the front before they could fully complete their training. Not until the Germans were finally halted in the Caucasus in late-summer 1942 were the Soviets able to enjoy a static front for long enough to fully finish training their forces. The Soviets will indeed suffer heavy losses in the opening month or two, but the inability of the Germans to exploit the disaster to the degree they did in Barbarossa would quickly see the front go static and leave the Soviets with much more resources and time to focus on fixing their issues rather then constantly be distracted by the struggle to simply survive.
'fully finish training' in 1942 is a very abbreviated training cycle by any measure, especially Soviet pre-war training. For any service even in 1944 training wasn't close to pre-war standards due to casualty rates. Things certainly improved, but the scale of losses simply meant it wasn't possible. Arguably the Soviets could do that much more easily ITTL without being invaded, but that is going to depend on the tempo of combat and equipment losses. In 1939-40 likely they are just going to mobilize reserves and throw them into combat per their reserve mobilization model and perhaps focus on training for larger segements of reserves to get them ready for combat...but I do wonder what the situation is going to be in the East with the Japanese given that the Khalkin Gol situation had just ended and the IJA is still looking for revenge and the Soviets have demonstrated that their agreements aren't worth the paper they're printed on, given they are violating the brand new Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact within weeks of signing it. The Soviets might find themselves in a two front war as of late 1939 and unable to spend time in training cycles or strip out the Far East for men and equipment to make good losses in the West. Plus Stalin might well order new offensives in the West to bring a rapid decision, including expanding the war into Romania so as to cut Germany off from oil, which will bring Italy into the war as well. The conflict has the potential to snowball and begin a rapid drain on Soviet resources very quickly far beyond just the situation in Poland.

Once again, you show no grasp of relative scale. The number of officers your own quote provides as being arrested in the 1941 is tiny compared to the arrests during the Great Purge. The trend of arrests was solidly downward and would terminate by the end of the year despite the war and all the associated catastrophes. The arrests stopped even before then. The only people arrested in connection with any disasters were those which occurred at the very beginning of the war. According to you, this should have been followed by a even larger onslaught of arrests and executions in response to the disasters at Smolensk-Kiev, then Typhoon, then Rzhev, then 2nd Kharkov, with Stalin only relenting when the Germans are at the gates of Stalingrad... but that didn't happen.
Sure, the 1941 Purges weren't as bad as the situation in the Great Purge, but it demonstrates Stalin's attitudes toward punishing failure even when in a desperate situation. The desperation of the situation in 1941-42 finally tapered the process off, but it was still ongoing and hitting the armaments industry and Soviet command structure rather viciously; combat was purging failed commanders more quickly though, so it is just as possible Stalin would have gone even harder, but since the Germans were doing the killing before the NKVD could Stalin didn't have the chance to purge as much as he might have. By the time the situation at Stalingrad happened Stalin didn't have any more options to purge, so had to suck it up and deal with what he had rather than continuing with the purges.

The '41 purges hardly show it, as I already pointed out above, nor does it disprove that rehabilitation of previous Soviet officers was already underway. You can only point to a few hundred purged, but Rokossovsky was one among thousands who were rehabilitated in 1940, as Glantz had detailed. Hell, Rokossovsky was rehabilitated in March of 1940. At that point, not only had the Soviet Union not gone to war yet, the Germans hadn't even knocked out France so Stalin wasn't even worried about the possibility of war with the Germans. And yet, already he was releasing people! And yes, while there will still be a gap, it would be made good in time as combat experience forces reform on the Soviets, as happened IOTL. Initial Soviet losses will probably be almost as heavy as in June/July 1941 OTL, but the inability of the Germans to exploit means they will quickly taper off to a much lesser level then that of August-December 1941. With the urgency of wartime mobilization, untouched industrial resources, and a static front providing a steady intake of experience without forcing continuous disruption of the training schedules, the reform of the Red Army will probably be accelerated such that the Red Army would be in fighting shape by the summer of 1940 (if starting in autumn 1939) or the winter of 1940/41 (if starting in spring 1940).
Rokossovsky was rehabilitated in March to help with the Winter War, because of the disaster that it had become. Can you quote Glantz about the people rehabbed in 1940?
In terms of the 1940-42 purges it hit the air force and armaments industry, as the army had largely be hit the hardest already in the Great Purge, so their further purging mostly hit after the war started. As to the loss rates for the Soviets in this war, a lot will depend on how Stalin conducts things; it is likely they invade Romania too to cut off German oil, which brings in Italy. Japan is another possibility too in this scenario, as they had just ended their border conflict, but now Germany is involved and Stalin just violated his agreement with them, which invalidates their agreement with the Japanese. So the Soviets might well find themselves fighting on multiple fronts by the end of 1939 and little breathing room to focus on expansion as they did IOTL in 1940-41. Given the problems with training and expanding the forces in 1940-41 despite a desperate rush to do so, the Soviets are probably not going to handle that particularly well initially; it's going to take time to fix a flawed system, as it did IOTL in 1941-42. Certainly the Soviets had a lot of advantages compared to OTL 1941-42 without being directly invaded, but they also have potentially multiple fronts and enemies to face, with no real allies to help supply them externally. The Allies aren't going to help the Soviets, just watch them and the Axis fight it out while they blockade the Germans and potentially work towards getting a coup against the Nazis going. Daladier and Chamberlain aren't what you'd call fans of Stalin. Likely by the time the Soviets get their act together some deal is worked out to end the conflict, as Stalin isn't really interested in a long draining war with Germany and potentially Italy and Japan as the Allies sit back and watch, while Hitler is likely not in a strong political position at home given the two front war and the entire blame for getting Germany into a no-win situation.
 
You might know better than I, but as with the Panzer divisions, IIRC the Germans generally removed half of their officers and NCOs from veteran divisions to fill out positions in new divisions to make them functional, replacing them with either new officers and NCOs or newly promoted ones with experience from the same division to make good the deficit. These experienced cadres helped get the new divisions functional, but there were deficient compared to pre-war trained ones for quite a while.

It varied in numbers. Siegfried Knappe describes how in 1939 the infantry division he was assigned to swapped 10% of its cadre with a newly activated reserve ID. It was a common practice. The US Army drew off cadres en bloc from existing units to stand up new reserve or AUS units. Up to a third of the leadership strength. Individuals were also transfered on a large scale. For its inital mobilization the US Army had a pool of 60,000+ reserve officers to fit in where needed. The Brits had their regimental system that was used to help cadre new battalions. Histories describe how the commander of the 55th Div Inf not only swapped cadres en mass between his Series B infantry regiments & the Active Series Fortress regiment attached, but transfered companies and battalions around his four regiments. In the 1938 Soviet Army Merekov describes there was a structural similarity to the Reichswehr system. Each infantry division was organized as field unit, but also represented the cadre for a division in each of its regiments.

The problem with large scale transfers of trained cadre from existing formations is it can make the formation ieffective for months until the new replacements are retrained. how long that takes depends on how well they are trained before arriving. The US Army roughly doubled its ground combat divisions between Dec 1941 & mid 1943. It could get a infantry division from initial authorization to combat ready in about 18 months. Retraining a Inf Div that had been tapped for a large bloc of cadre took up to six months, tho sometimes less. This training/retraining was complicated by the reorganization from the square to triangular division, and a second 1942 reorganization/streamlining of the triangular structure. There were some doctrinal changes along the way as well. So, the US Army managed to double or a bit more its ground formations in the better part of three years. Late1941 to late 1944 by comparison the Soviet Army attempted to triple their ground strength in three years and got caught in June 1941 half done. Add in doctrinal changes, and other friction & the 1941 combat performance looks like what one would expect. The whole sale use of just activated reservists for attacking Finnland is a extreme example. Nearly all the formations used in the opening offensive were activated in the previous 3-6 months. Raw conscripts at the lowest ranks, under trained reservists above, and a thin veneer of over promoted officers at the top. This was wholly insufficient time to bring them up to speed.
 
First: the Soviets don't have the ability to strike a mortal blow against Germany. Even later in the war, Soviet logistics had grave difficulty supporting an advance of more than 200 km. And that was after their motor transport had been enhanced with hundreds of thousands of Lend-Lease trucks. In 1939-1940, they would be lucky to reach the Oder.

Second: Soviet forces had lots of intrinsic deficiencies at this time - demonstrated in their appalling performance against Finland.

Third: the Soviet army was in a state of disruption due to the massive reorganization in progress.

Fourth: Stalin's whole reason for the pact with Hitler (as he told the Politburo) was to enable Germany to fight France and Britain, thus engulfing the chief "enemies of socialism" in exhausting war. Attacking Germany before that war has really started negates that; it would put the USSR in the position of doing the heavy lifting for the capitalist powers. (Stalin waa determined to avoid this, which is why he dismissed British warnings in 1941 as provocations.)

So it is very improbable. But if it happened... say during the "Phoney War", at the end of October 1939.

The French and British do nothing, except think real hard about attacking the Saar.

Germany quickly redeploys troops from the western front for a devastating counterattack.

The German counterattack crushes the Soviet forces invading Germany or standing in Poland, out to the pre-1939 border. They also occupy Lithuania and western Latvia (Courland). Campaigning halts for the winter while the Germans regroup.

Hitler now has a dilemma: Germany is fighting on two fronts, and there is little chance of a knockout blow either way. The USSR has great strategic depth, and Britiain and France won't stay passive forever. But Germany cannot afford to concentrate enough in the West for the equivalent of OTL FALL GELB, and in any case did not expect to win quickly; also, that would mean expanding the war when Germany is already stretched.

After much debate, Germany goes east in 1940, with Romania and Hungary as allies. A large force has to be left in the Saar to guard against Franco-British attack, but the east gets everything else. The renewed German offensive smashes up the Soviet front, and reaches Kiev, Smolensk, and Estonia by late August.

In France and Britain, embarrassment at their passivity and Communist agitation for action vie with the very real fear of massive casualties, anti-Communist tacit support for Germany against the USSR, and the French army's "paralysis by analysis". They finally attack in August with minimal success.

Germany shifts reserves from the East and drives back to the start line fairly quickly. However, in this limited theater, there is no scope for "blitzkrieg", and no panic among allied troops or commanders. The Allied commanders start listening to de Gaulle and other modernizers.

The air war is constrained by mutual fear of strategic bombing, expected to be far worse than it actually was OTL.

Winter sets in again. Soviet forces launch winter counter-attacks with minor successes.

From here: Germany makes further progress in the East against Soviet forces which are improving, but not fast enough. Anglo-French forces also improve, take and hold most of the Rhineland, but that's all. The U-boat campaign is much less effective as the Germans don't have Norway, nor bases in France, while the Allies have the French navy and French bases, and Italy is neutral, so the Med is safe.

How does it end? I can't see that far. For one thing, the Pacific War may start. Or FDR may retire in 1940, as the war situation is far less critical.
 
What accounts for the Germans subsequent ability to raise an additional 65 divisions during the 11 months between the fall of France and the start of Barbarossa without affecting command quality? How about the Soviets ability to raise, or reraise, 500+ division (or division equivalents) in 1941-43, while simultaneously improving command quality? Would you argue it is because combat experience provided the cadres of experienced officers and soldiers to move into command positions much more rapidly then peacetime training?
Looking at how units acted in 1942 and the massive casualties they took in 1942 and 1943 in comparison to German casualties, puts some doubts into command quality improvement.
 
Can you provide a source on that? If anything it was the strategic situation and relative state of their opponents which drove field performance the way you're framing things. Soviet improved performance in 1943 is really not saying that much given performance quality in 1941-42.

To deny the massive improvements the Red Army made in it's performance in this day and age basically has as much credence as reiterating Nazis propaganda. Soviet formations, both infantry and mechanized, went from being unable to fight as coherent units above the battalion level to fighting as full on combined-arms divisions/corps and even armies in 1943.

The Germans operated on a wave system, so those mobilized in 1941 were occupation/security divisions that were not committed to front line combat and mostly used outside of the USSR:
https://www.axishistory.com/books/145-germany-heer/heer-unsorted/3422-the-german-mobilization-1941
Plus of those raised in 1940 most were the same, that is occupation/static/security units, with several others being formed from parts of existing divisions. I can only find a handful that were freshly raised in 1940:
https://www.axishistory.com/books/145-germany-heer/heer-unsorted/3421-the-german-mobilization-1940

Your obviously not actually reading your source. Those links give a total of 63 divisions raised between July 1940 and December 1940 alone, of which 14 were infantry divisions raised specifically for the invasion of Russia, another 10 were panzer of which 9 were committed to Barbarossa and another 14 were motorized, 9 of which were committed to Russia. That's a total of 32 divisions, around half of the total raised in the latter part of 1940, and far more then a mere handful. Now in the case of the panzer divisions, I know that the raising was achieved by a reorganization which better balanced the panzer divisions by reducing the number of tanks so most of the panzer crews would have come from the already existant panzer divisions, but this still leaves the divisions infantry, artillery, and support personnel who have to be trained as well as the personnel of the motorized and infantry divisions. And yet, the German performance in 1941 was even better then that of 1940 or even 1939.

Downsizing alone isn't going to fix everything wrong in 1941, but it was step in the right direction. Strategic situation matters quite a bit and the 'improved' performance seems more like a function of the strategic/operational situation, access to training, and what support was available.

The ability to finish training and provision support was a direct function of the frontline stabilizing for long enough for the Soviets to do so.

Improvements in 1943-44 is more a function of how many casualties they were suffering going down and more and more men surviving from month to month.

So in other words what I've been saying will happen IATL. Thank you for agreeing.

How could they have the machine tools when the T-34 didn't even exist as a prototype in 1939??? Or the aircraft for that matter. For instance the MiG-1 prototype didn't even enter flight testing until April 1940. Same for the LaGG-3. The YaK-1 prototype entered flight testing in January 1940. The IL-2 prototype had just entered flight testing in October 1939 and took until 1941 to enter production. Basically none of the modern types of weapon systems that were just showing up in 1941 were even starting testing, so there is no way the machine tooling for these could even exist in 1939 or even 1940. Rushing their testing will only result in a worse design/production quality problems than IOTL 1941, which saw half of Soviet aircraft on hand lost in accidents in 6 months.

The T-34 and various Soviet equipment manufactured in '41/'42 used already existing machine tools for their manufacture. The cutting machinery for the T-34s turret, for example, had been first installed in Soviet factories in 1938. The fact the Soviets were able tout them into production is testament to the fact the tooling for their manufacture already existed.

That is likely exaggerated to make up for German failures in 1941, as it didn't stop the Germans from fighting all the way to the gates of Moscow despite being outclassed in AFV quality.

German failures did not hinge on the relative quality in AFV between the two forces, so the idea it's some sort of excuse doesn't follow. That the superior tactical performance of the few T-34s the Soviets could get into combat did not impact the operational/strategic situation does not disprove simply reaffirms the old adage that isolated tactical performance is meaningless in to a wider operational-strategic situation.

Quibbling over when and how new Soviet equipment gets into production is effectively meaningless in the wider strategic sense given that Germany is screwed in a two front war without having defeated France first.

Which makes it odd that your desperately trying to argue otherwise. Although given their economic situation, their also screwed in a one-front war against the USSR.

You mean not at all in 1940 and only a trickle in 1941? Are you aware of the accident rates in peace time and early war time for the Soviet aircraft? They lost nearly as many aircraft in combat as they did to accidents in the 6 months of Barbarossa IOTL:

I mean probably a trickle in 1940 and a large number in 1941. The accident rates did not prevent the Soviets from fixing their organization and training regimes nor would it IATL.

In peacetime. During wartime they tweeked existing designs mostly and were very careful about disrupting production. In 1941 they were luckily already producing the T-34 instead of T-26s, making all their latest aircraft and had phased out the old models, and had their latest small arms in production. In 1939 none of those new designs are even in production or even in prototype testing.

The T-70, IS-series, and to a lesser extent the T-44 were all designed and entered into production during the war, as did many of the Soviet aircraft models which formed up the main models of Soviet aircraft in '43 and '44, yet did so without much interruption in production. Furthermore, contrary to you claim, the old models in the Red Air Force were still in service in significant numbers. The Soviets had to fiddle with their small arms productions and were able to place into production several other new weapon systems (such as AT rifles and light artillery pieces) in ‘41 with massive quantitaties subsequently produced. Hell, as it was the switch from the old to modern models failed to significantly impact Soviet tank output in '40 or '41, so the supposition the Soviets can’t switch out for modern models while also ramping up overall production doesn’t have much support.

'fully finish training' in 1942 is a very abbreviated training cycle by any measure, especially Soviet pre-war training. For any service even in 1944 training wasn't close to pre-war standards due to casualty rates.
Average training time for enlisted in 1944 was two months longer then it had been prior to the war and officer training had doubled from one to two years, so 1944 training was in fact above pre-war standards.

Things certainly improved, but the scale of losses simply meant it wasn't possible.

And the scale of losses was a direct result of the Germans repeatedly encircling and annihilating entire Soviet armies repeatedly for a year on end, which isn't happening IATL after the first month or two.

Sure, the 1941 Purges weren't as bad as the situation in the Great Purge, but it demonstrates Stalin's attitudes toward punishing failure even when in a desperate situation. The desperation of the situation in 1941-42 finally tapered the process off, but it was still ongoing and hitting the armaments industry and Soviet command structure rather viciously; combat was purging failed commanders more quickly though, so it is just as possible Stalin would have gone even harder, but since the Germans were doing the killing before the NKVD could Stalin didn't have the chance to purge as much as he might have. By the time the situation at Stalingrad happened Stalin didn't have any more options to purge, so had to suck it up and deal with what he had rather than continuing with the purges.

It hit the Soviets so badly that you can't point to any instance of how it adversely affected the Soviet. And Stalin had plenty of options to purge by the time of Stalingrad. Rokossovsky, Konev, Timoshenko, Zhukov... just to name a few. All had previously screwed up pretty badly in quite recent disasters yet he didn't shoot them. What's more, even in the cases where Stalin reacted to defeats by shooting people, he also did more then that: he also tried to figure out what had fucked up and fix it. I know you are wedded to a cartoon villain view of Stalin because that conforms to your views that the USSR is just the punching bag of the Great Powers, but the reality is that Stalin was not such a one-dimensional a character. Even when he did scapegoat a mistake, he also attempted to fix it. As one historian said of him: "Stalin wasn't a very good forgiver. But he was a great learner."

Rokossovsky was rehabilitated in March to help with the Winter War, because of the disaster that it had become.

He was rehabbed to help with a war that had already ended? :rolleyes:

Can you quote Glantz about the people rehabbed in 1940?

I thought I had seen it in Stumbling Colossus but I was mistaken. I'm trying to track down the book I saw the figure in, both so I can cite it and give the exact number...

In terms of the 1940-42 purges it hit the air force and armaments industry, as the army had largely be hit the hardest already in the Great Purge, so their further purging mostly hit after the war started.

There is no evidence that the '41 purge had any impact on the air force and armaments industry. The fact that the Soviet air force constantly improved during the course of 1941 and '42 as did the armaments industry suggests it didn’t do much of anything.

As to the loss rates for the Soviets in this war, a lot will depend on how Stalin conducts things; it is likely they invade Romania too to cut off German oil, which brings in Italy. Japan is another possibility too in this scenario, as they had just ended their border conflict, but now Germany is involved and Stalin just violated his agreement with them, which invalidates their agreement with the Japanese. So the Soviets might well find themselves fighting on multiple fronts by the end of 1939 and little breathing room to focus on expansion as they did IOTL in 1940-41. Given the problems with training and expanding the forces in 1940-41 despite a desperate rush to do so, the Soviets are probably not going to handle that particularly well initially; it's going to take time to fix a flawed system, as it did IOTL in 1941-42. Certainly the Soviets had a lot of advantages compared to OTL 1941-42 without being directly invaded, but they also have potentially multiple fronts and enemies to face, with no real allies to help supply them externally.

Japan is not much of a possibility, as they were conclusively cowed by Khalkin Ghol and the Kwangtung army is in no position to attack. It's a similar story with Italy, whose poor performance already demonstrates how unprepared for war they are and only joined OTL 1940 because they expected the war to last a few weeks and your admission which is an assumption and not a given (seeing as Germany has run out of currency to pay for oil imports and it's ability to threaten Romania is badly compromised by having to fight a two-front, it's more likely a invasion of Romania would be superfluous in cutting off German oil supplies and the Soviets have the strategic sense not to make unnecessary enemies). The Soviets do have Allies to help them externally: the Anglo-French, who would be massively building up their own forces and drawing off far more German forces then the Anglo-Americans ever did in 1941-43. Even without them though, the Soviets they don't need external help: they have even more resources then they received IOTL 1943-44 while Germany by mid-1940 will be on the verge of an economic collapse.

And yeah, the Soviets will take time to fix their system. I never disputed that. It'll just take less time without them having to replace their entire army multiple times over. Historically, it took roughly 4-5 seasons (summer '41, autumn '41, winter '41/'42, spring '42, summer-autumn '42) for the Soviets to reach the point where they could reliably mount a defense against German armored thrusts and mount their own successful such thrusts in a similar (although not identical) style despite having to replace their army from scratch three times over, operating from a vastly shrunken human-resource base, and having to endlessly deal with situations where replacement had to receive more priority over improvement. With their improved strategic situation, it'll probably take the Soviets something around 2/3rd-3/4ths the amount of time. On the flip side, the German position is also much weaker in the longer-run, with their economy due to implode during the latter part of 1940, regardless of whether the Anglo-French are actively fighting them or not, so their own deterioration will also be duly accelerated.

The Allies aren't going to help the Soviets, just watch them and the Axis fight it out while they blockade the Germans and potentially work towards getting a coup against the Nazis going. Daladier and Chamberlain aren't what you'd call fans of Stalin.Likely by the time the Soviets get their act together some deal is worked out to end the conflict, as Stalin isn't really interested in a long draining war with Germany and potentially Italy and Japan as the Allies sit back and watch, while Hitler is likely not in a strong political position at home given the two front war and the entire blame for getting Germany into a no-win situation.

Of course the Allies are going to help the Soviets. Why wouldn't they? It's in their interest to ship as much material to the Soviets so as to ensure as few as their own people die and they know it. Daladier and Chaimberlain may not have been fans of Stalin, but contrary to your implications, they were even less fans of Hitler by 1939 after he had wiped his ass with the Munich Agreement. As 'Frigid but Unprovocative': British Policy towards the USSR from the Nazi-Soviet Pact to the Winter War, 1939 put it: "Anti-communist ideology during this period took a back seat to the demands of realpolitik." Better to split Central Europe and share it with the Soviets then to have the either the Soviets or the Germans control all of it. By the time the Soviets get their act together, the WAllies position against Hitler will have solidified, helped by their obtaining of military superiority over the Germans as their own rearmament continues apace while the German war economy disintegrates and their forces are attrited in the east, and their attitudes toward the Soviets improve out of tacit recognition of the Soviets shouldering the burden of the blood price, there would be no interest in any sort of deal, and Hitler's political position would have been reinforced by his previous successes, the fact Germany is at war with the great Bolshevik threat and people's reaction to that is to rally around the leader harder, and the generals sympathy towards his ideals that they later tried desperately to hide after he was dead.

After much debate, Germany goes east in 1940, with Romania and Hungary as allies. A large force has to be left in the Saar to guard against Franco-British attack, but the east gets everything else. The renewed German offensive smashes up the Soviet front, and reaches Kiev, Smolensk, and Estonia by late August.

I assume their logistics are fueled by magic and pixy dust? Because they certainly don't have the resources to launch such a deep offensive without knocking out France. Also, why are Romania and Hungary when the Anglo-French are undoubtedly able to exert them same influence they did IOTL to keep them out and not have it disrupted by the Germans knocking out France?

From here: Germany makes further progress in the East against Soviet forces which are improving, but not fast enough.



Again, I'm guessing the Germans have magic and pixy dust to continue advancing against improving Soviet forces which are not improving fast enough despite more time having passed since the start of the war from OTL because, well, inherently stupid Slavs I guess. And also are able to overcome their economy collapsing and hence their military resources drying up during the latter part of 1940 through teutonic aryan willpower.

Looking at how units acted in 1942 and the massive casualties they took in 1942 and 1943 in comparison to German casualties, puts some doubts into command quality improvement.

How so? Casualties in 1942 were about as high as those in 1941 in overall terms, but then the 1941's casualties took place in 5-6 months whereas the 1942 casualties took place a little over twice that time, so that makes it clear that casualty rates were about half as low, although a look at it by the half-year shows that they were closer to '41s in the first half of the year and further away in the latter half. 1943's casualties, and casualty rates, were then half-again that of 1942's.
 
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