What's the weakest that the USSR could have been at the end of WWII with an allied victory? What PODs would make the USSR weaker?
Better Barbarossa or Germany, Japan first strategy for America, failed invasion of France in 43, Soviet spy ring busted in late 43 resulting in a lack of trust, Japan defeated in 44 with Manchurian forces surrendering to Nationalist China, US and Britain invade Italy and Greece successfully in 44 while the Soviets are still deep in Ukraine, in mid 44 Lend Lease is ended, in early 45 France and Bulgaria are invaded by the West, in the mid Spring Romania switches sides to join the West, Germany and Austria are invaded late Spring while the Soviets haven't made it to Poland yet, in mid Summer Western Germany and much of Hingary are occupied by the West and Poland begins to rebel in mass successfully, in late Summer the Allies force Germany's unconditional surrender.
The Soviets suffer far more casualties and infrastructure damage than OTL, with an extra 5 million military dead, 2 million permanently injured, and 8 million civilian dead. The only manage to take bits of Poland, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. They also have a much smaller military due to early end to Lend Lease and millions of extra casualties. They are completely blocked from China and Korea.
add stopping King Michel of Romania to sign a separate peace
perhaps with WAllie troops helping in a drive up from Persia.
Coiler,
That's a great find there. Thanks for sharing it. That is however, a table of Lend / Lease shipments and not a full-up combat operations support effort. Thus what the WAllies could've driven through for their own military ops could've been higher. Still though, it would indeed be a challenge getting the infrastructure into place in Persia to handle more and then running it up the relatively narrow space available along the Caspian's west shores and through the Caucuses mountains into Georgia and beyond.
One simple change that would impact would be no Lend Lease to Russia. Russia probably still manages to hang on and prevent German seizure of Moscow or Stalingrad, but:
- Every battle sees more Russian dead as they've got less equipment, poor transportation, and less ammo
- It takes longer for the Russians to stabilize defense against the Germans and begin to push back
- When the Russians go on the offensive, their strength is lower relative to the Germans so all progress is slower and costlier
All else being equal, the Russians might only make it into Poland before Germany surrenders to the W Allies. Additionally, the Russian Army and Air Force are both smaller (lower production and higher losses), their transportation infrastructure is in bad shape, and food/ammo supplies are low. Russia would also be far less able to move power to the East in force so they won't likely be able to mount large operations in Manchuria until later. So, they'll probably never get to Korea and they won't be such a powerful example to China at the end of the war.