Weakest USSR could have been at the end of WWII with an Allied Victory

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?
 
Barbarossa goes much better than in OTL but not well enough for nazis. Nazis might still somehow win Stalingrad and capture temporaly Moscow. Then with Western support Soveit expel Germans from their soil but are too weak conquering East Europe, at least not so much as in OTL.

After WW2 Soviet Union is strong enough that it can stand but in many issues it is very ruined and will collapse faster than in OTL, perhaps on 1970's.
 
I could see that when the Germans surrender the Russians may be somewhere in Poland, possibly east of Warsaw if the rising by the Poles does better, part way in Hungary, maybe part of Slovakia. The western Allies Occupy all of Austria, and occupation of any part of Germany by the Russians is not physically connected but rather the western Allies hand some land over to them temporarily.
 
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.
 
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.

Do you think they will able to enforce the liberation of the Baltics? Denouncing the Soviet for their complicity with the Nazi?
 

Redbeard

Banned
Kursk is a German victory (or at least they don't take as many losses) and the following winter offensive from the Red Army really doesn't achieve much. Stalin is even more demanding about a second front ASAP, but the Wallies stick to the plan and land in France in June 1944. Stalin is pissed.

So by D-day the Soviets are still far from the pre war borders, and as the Germans u. Reichsvorsitzender Rommel decide to put all eggs in the East Front basket the Wallies and the Reds meet in Ukraine in late 1944. Stalin is more pissed, and even FDR finds him tiresome.
 
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.
 
Stalin commits suicide during the opening phases of Barbarossa leading to a partial collapse of the front as a civil war breaks out amongst the Soviet power blocs. This allows Germany to capture Leningrad, Kiev, and Moscow. With the Soviets struggling, it becomes more of a guerilla war and quagmire for the occupiers. Pearl Harbor happens, Hitler declares war on America and it becomes a slog for the Allies as they now face first line German soldiers. Germany gets two doses of sunshine in 1945: Berlin and Nuremberg get their Götterdämmerung. Japan is starved into submission costing them millions of lives potentially unraveling the entire country leaving it on the verge of being a failed state. Chaos reigns thereafter. The Soviets eventually see the withdrawal of German troops but the western border returns to 1939. Likely secession movement in Ukraine further fuels the chaos. Due to the Germans attempting Generalplan OST, the wrecking of infrastructure, and no Lend Lease coupled with continued conflict, one could double the casualty rate OTL with issues of malnutrition, little to no healthcare, and population disruption. The next decade it serves as a failed state as the Allies attempt to support various factions more capitalistically palatable. Central Asia likely breaks away as does the Caucusus. By the time order is regained, Russia has suffered enough damage as to require decades to rebuild. The Cold War is stillborn.
 

Perkeo

Banned
The 20th July plot succeeds and Germany surrenders to the WAllies only before the Sowjet Union conquers eastern Europe. Maybe even some former Sowjet republics end up independent.

Admittedly, it is doubtfull that the putschist would surrender at all when the Wehrmacht is still standing at the eastern front. The time window is tiny if not non-existent. Maybe an earlier D-Day (or delayed eastern theatre) can enlarge it?
 

thorr97

Banned
Perhaps have the Germans "go for broke" in the East (even more than they already were) by using their chem and nerve weapons on the Soviets. This cuts the heart out of the Red Army and allows the Wehrmacht to grab the Caucasus oil fields. Doing all that does give the Germans some breathing space to the East but not enough to be a war winner. The Red Army regroups and retakes those oil fields in relatively short order - perhaps with WAllie troops helping in a drive up from Persia. The lack of oil from there however, has a crippling effect on the Soviet's offensive abilities and their follow-on attacks against the Germans are thus slower, weaker, and later as it takes time to rebuild the Red Army and equip it with sufficient protective gear to prevent a repeat of the German's WMD success.

In turn, the WAllied attacks to the West are more successful. They encounter fewer German units as more of the Wehrmacht is in the East and is being consumed as the Soviets respond in kind with their arsenal of chem weapons.

The Allies eventually meet deep inside of Poland with lots of grumbling by the Soviets that neither the Brits nor the US made use of any gas weapons against the Nazis.
 
taking a clue from Geon TL, Germany go for full defense in the west instead of launching the Ardenne offensive, retreating on the pre-war German border and using all possible assets against the Soviets, add stopping King Michel of Romania to sign a separate peace and while all this will surely not save Germany ass it will mean a lot more blood spilled by the URSS
 
add stopping King Michel of Romania to sign a separate peace

When Romania signed its peace, it wasn't any sort of stab-in-the-back. The Soviets had already shattered the Axis lines and encircled the German forces along the border. There was nothing to stop the Soviets from overrunning all of Romania anyways.
 
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perhaps with WAllie troops helping in a drive up from Persia.

Political reasons aside, the logistics of that drive would be very iffy. A quick napkin calc of the maximum Persian Corridor supply traffic and the requirements gives me 12 divisions at most, and that's still probably too high because of all the nondivisional stuff that needs supplies too. Those 12 (or less) divisions have a very long supply line even without any kind of disruption.
 

thorr97

Banned
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.
 
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.

Still, unless they can make it to Batumi and turn that it (and other Black Sea ports) into logistics hubs, it's going to be really tenuous.
 
I think AANW probably takes the cake. Split into three parts, one ruled by a tsar and one annexed by the United States after close to two decades of Nazi domination is hard to beat.
 

Redbeard

Banned
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.


Even if a simple PoD I think "no lend lease" will be very significant already in 1942. The Red Army was very weak in most of 1942 as most of the men and materiel available in June 1941 were lost and the factories dismantled in the areas now under German control were still far away from full production in the Urals. What kept the USSR from collapsing in 1942 was the reserve armies being raised in deep Russia and which to a significant degree were equipped with lend-lease equipment - that is at least what Kruchtjev and Zhukov said in their memoirs.

The forces raised in 1942 already were much below standard in training and had to be organised along very simple lines because the available officer corps did not yet have the needed skills and experience to handle units more complex than a brigade. In OTL these units usually "vaporised" after a few days of combat but acted to blunt the Wehrmacht meatgrinder. If we add to that an even worse level of equipment (which already was awful) I think it could very well have been the straw breaking the back of the camel.

And even if the "camel" survives a Red Army with no lend lease will be so much weaker that the prospect of pushing the Germans out of Russia appear remote. Not so much counted in number of tanks delivered from UK and USA to USSR (7.000), but much more in all the other items.

If using the "cost data" from this link: http://knowledgeglue.com/cost-ww2-vehicles/ the 450.000 trucks delivered to USSR in WWII would be equivalent to at least 25.000 T34 tanks. IOW if lend lease hadn't been the Soviets would have produced 26.000 less T34s and missed another 7.000 to produce the 450.000 trucks Lend Lease doesn't deliver. And now we're at logistics 92.7% of the wartime production of railroad equipment by the Soviet Union was supplied under Lend-Lease (incl. almost 2000 locomotives and more than 11.000 railcars). I haven't got cost data on locomotives but I'll guess a locomotive would cost as much as a tank and anyway I think rails were the most important item in the railroad deliveries (ie. steel production capacity). About 50.000 T34s were produced in OTL from 1940 until VE day.

Practically all of the high octane av gas for the Soviets was delivered through Lend Lease. Producing that yourself would have meant a huge and very expensive investment in the Soviet refineries which would have mean less resources elsewhere. http://www.oilru.com/or/47/1006/

A third of the Soviet wartime aircraft production came from Lend Lease.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lend-Lease

At the time when the Red Army went on the offensive it was largely fed by canned food delivered through Lend Lease. Canned food makes the logistic effort in feeding an army incredibly much easier, especially if you are on the offensive.

All in all I would not hesitate to conclude that a Red Army without Lend Lease will either collapse in 1942 as a field army (might carry on as a partisan force) or it will there after have to fight with about half the equipment/supplies it had in OTL and have very limited offensive power.
 
Wallies are a little more successful in Pacific in first six to eight months of war.

Result - US designates army divisions that were otl to go to Pac for Europe.

After Torch and Husky, a greater effort is made in Italy. The Wallies go through the soft underbelly of Europe.

Greek islands and Sardinia are liberated in '43.

Lend/lease is diverted from Soviets and given to Spain and Turkey in '43.

Allies do better in Italy in '44 as well as land in Dalmatia and Greek mainland.

Southern France becomes Dday in '44 with Pas de Calais as the Dragon.

Both Turkey and Spain join allies in fall of '44.

Turks neutralise Bulgaria

Spanish and Portuguese mop up eastern France, augmented by us divisions.

Main Wallies converge on Germany from South and from West.

Wallies have Germany, Austria, Czech, Hungary, Yugoslavia, and Bulgaria.

Soviets rush into Poland, Slovakia and Romania in '45 as Reich collapses.

Pac theatre is scaled back to Central Pac campaign by us navy and marines after Guadalcanal and Australia in DEI and Brits in Burma. Basically no McArthur to Philipines.

Timetables for cent Pac are a few months ahead of otl.

End result is Nap surrendering in Aug '45. Soviets still have manchuria and northern part of Korea but line in Koria is 51st parallel.
 

Deleted member 1487

Probably no Lend-Lease. Let the Soviets fight a parallel war as the Allies fight theirs and if they survive or not (or try and make a peace deal) they would be as weak as you could get them, survive or not, and still potentially have an Allied victory in the end.
 
Were the allies US/UK sort of hoping for something like this? They had to assume that a victorious USSR would probably grab as much territory post-war as it could, were there any attempts to keep the USSR weak?
 
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