Should we assume that the Soviet attack on Manchuria basically went the same as in OTL?
Weber's Germany: The Veterinarian Totalitarian
- Thread starter Tom Colton
- Start date
That failed assassination might help the Germans almost as much as a successful one. A bomb was placed in Stalins bunker by an inside job and no way of knowing for sure how many others were involved. This might very well put Stalin in "Purge them all and let the gods of communism sort them out" mode.
Add to this a relatively sympathetic Anglosphere which may well feel no immediate desire to intervene when their two rivals are fighting it out, and I suspect things could get very very ugly... Of course OTL World War Two was basically "90% Nazis vs Soviets, 10% everything else (most of this I think being US vs Japan)" so...
I do wonder if the earlier defeat of Japan might have contributed to its lengthier and bloodier defeat, since the US presumably invaded the mainland a year or two earlier and thus didn't have nukes ready yet. I weep for Japan (well, not the leaders, the country and its citizens) but given the OTL "performance" by the Japanese Army command I don't think it could have been helped (I do wonder, in a timeline where the leaders weren't bat-shit insane, whether they could have secured a negotiated peace ITTL, playing on anti-Communist fears...)
iddt3
Donor
I do think it's unrealistic Japan lasts till '46 with no European front, even with fighting in China, American subs will choke the island, and Russian intervention + invasion will likely trigger the same reaction as the bomb + Russian intervention in OTL. Add to that, with the threat of Germany still ongoing, the strategic calculus doesn't favor an invasion of Japan itself. Choking them and letting them starve makes a lot more sense when you need to maintain massive forces in the European theater. A worse early war, and no "fresh" army in China, also means less victory disease on the part of the Japanese.
I guess it makes sense from a narrative "everything is awful" sense, but it's handwaving a fair bit of the strategic reality that would be facing Japan.
I guess it makes sense from a narrative "everything is awful" sense, but it's handwaving a fair bit of the strategic reality that would be facing Japan.
wait wait wait where did the Soviets get the naval assets to conduct an invasion of Hokkaido? Much of the Soviet Navies amphibious capability was gained from the American delivery of a number of specialized assault ships and landing craft to the Soviet navy as part of Operation Hula which allowed for the Soviet assault against Japanese positions in the Kuril Islands and the like but the Soviets aren't gonna get those ships ITTL and that means their sealift capability is virtually nil which means they can't take Hokkaido unless they massively invested into building a bluewater navy which considering the presence of German troops in the West is likely not the best idea
The Japaneses are probably even more distracted, with the invasion of Kyushu. The soviets probably need very little to get going.
Yes they need a little to get going they don't have a little AKA zero experience in a phib assault of the type required to deploy on Hokkaido exactly none of the fleet train and logistics assets required to supply Soviet forces on the Island
stirlingdraka
Donor
A wonderful update Tom Colton.
I loved the attempted assassination of Stalin and the earlier Operation Shogun even though it did help to kill President Hull.
I loved the attempted assassination of Stalin and the earlier Operation Shogun even though it did help to kill President Hull.IIRC France is not occupied so a D Day should be unnecessary.
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I'm talking of an American landing of European mainland itself to invade Germany, not necessarily on France though
Given the hints so far, we're likely going to see a "reversal" of OTL: the Reich and the Soviets slowly grinding it out in Eastern Europe (the Reich has a shorter front, but the Soviet's still have a lot of clay to trade for time and once the Russian Bear gets going it's hard to stop), while the WAllies re-enter the war via France and push hard into Germany, likely occupying all of it before the Reich is totally crushed. It's also entirely possible that the Reich falls into civil war once the writing is on the wall; IIRC a few members of the "military resistance"/Valkyrie plotters are still alive and kicking, including the ones like Henning von Tresckow who had a genuine moral antipathy towards Nazism (as opposed to figures like Stauffenberg, who only wanted to kill Hitler because they thought he was fucking things up).
Basically, we're probably going to see American and Soviet troops shaking hands over the Oder or the Neisse instead of the Elbe.
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altamiro
Banned
Nope. Tom Colton already made it clear that this 3rd Reich will collapse from within. With the situation as it is ITTL, no American government would actively enter the war except economically by propping up UK, and Weber is too cautious to just issue a DoW on USA as Hitler did.
I will also add my voice to those convinced that without lend-lease aid a Soviet invasion of Hokkaido is extremely questionable. I suppose that if Japan is starving enough they could get a foothold and ship in their tanks, but even then it'd be a very bloody affair.
Great you're back!
I bet even more Japanese ultra-nationalists and militarists will get away from their crimes than OTL, since, TTL, the Reds are just a sea branch away.
I bet there will be thousands of officers who will think themselves as lucky for merely slaving in the Kolyma, since, at least, they will still be alive.
And will NATO accept to fight alongside Stalin against Weber?
I bet even more Japanese ultra-nationalists and militarists will get away from their crimes than OTL, since, TTL, the Reds are just a sea branch away.
I bet there will be thousands of officers who will think themselves as lucky for merely slaving in the Kolyma, since, at least, they will still be alive.
And will NATO accept to fight alongside Stalin against Weber?
Notice I said that it's entirely possible that NATO invades Western Europe, only to rapidly break through because the Reich is collapsing into civil war.
Thanks for the praise, everyone, and yes, I suppose some explanations are due.
As has been guessed, especially by @Kung Fucious , in addition to an exploration as to how much longer you could conceivably extend the Reich's lifespan, also takes a look at how the Eastern and Western Fronts of our Second World War could undergo some ironic reversals and parallelisms, including a division of East and Southeast Asia much more similar to OTL's Eastern Europe, with Japan and China both divided into "North" and "South". The Red Army not having amphibious capability is something which I honestly didn't know, and don't have an easy fix for.
And, of course, Weber as always needs a good casus belli before acting, and an obvious cheat for weakening Russia enough (and also distracting the Western Allies) for Nazi Germany's second offensive to be as devastatingly effective as it will be is for all of them to be tied up in the East. My use of the Asia-Pacific War in this particular role has been criticised before, namely its entire existence as sans a concurrent Western Front it's extremely unlikely that Japan, even pushed into a corner by sanctions and pressed into seeking resources to continue the Second Sino-Japanese War, would actually expand their operations into attacking the US.
Still, faulty as these assumptions are, they're essential preconditions for the subsequent events to play out the way they will, so, uh, essentially, sorry about that, I'll need to figure something smarter out for Weber's Germany redux.
As has been guessed, especially by @Kung Fucious , in addition to an exploration as to how much longer you could conceivably extend the Reich's lifespan, also takes a look at how the Eastern and Western Fronts of our Second World War could undergo some ironic reversals and parallelisms, including a division of East and Southeast Asia much more similar to OTL's Eastern Europe, with Japan and China both divided into "North" and "South". The Red Army not having amphibious capability is something which I honestly didn't know, and don't have an easy fix for.
And, of course, Weber as always needs a good casus belli before acting, and an obvious cheat for weakening Russia enough (and also distracting the Western Allies) for Nazi Germany's second offensive to be as devastatingly effective as it will be is for all of them to be tied up in the East. My use of the Asia-Pacific War in this particular role has been criticised before, namely its entire existence as sans a concurrent Western Front it's extremely unlikely that Japan, even pushed into a corner by sanctions and pressed into seeking resources to continue the Second Sino-Japanese War, would actually expand their operations into attacking the US.
Still, faulty as these assumptions are, they're essential preconditions for the subsequent events to play out the way they will, so, uh, essentially, sorry about that, I'll need to figure something smarter out for Weber's Germany redux.
"North Japan" strikes me as highly unlikely to last for long- I could, barely, buy a Soviet invasion of Hokkaido, but beyond that? It's already stretching plausibility that the US and the WAllies aren't intervening more decisively (and earlier) in Japan and China, taking *longer* than OTL despite having fewer obligations, but Russia not only carving out but critically maintaining a sphere of influence in the east, even as they get sucker punched in the west, strikes me as a bridge too far.
China OTOH I could... maybe see splitting temporarily, assuming a heavier US and European support for the nationalists. I still find it difficult for a lengthy division, but by itself that doesn't seem entirely implausible (after all China spent long periods of time divided into several states OTL, no reason why nukes+communism couldn't do the same from the Warlord Era at least in theory). A less distracted US might well see intervening heavily in China as a necessity, especially after Hokkaido. The issue, again, becomes- if the USSR is going to be bloodied by Weber, while America et al remain on the sidelines, how do the Russians stop the US, Britain and France (or for that matter, Italy, vis a vis the Middle East and Balkans) from rolling back their sphere of influence in Europe and elsewhere? Not that Russia would be checked in all theaters, but they surely would do no better (and quite possibly worse) than OTL.
I would in fact be rather surprised if the US got involved in European wars. Considering that the US has long held Europe in disdain- focusing on the Americas and Asia- and has strong racialist tendencies (there was IIRC strong support for the Nazis right up until 1941; TTL I suspect that might be worse, given Weber's actions and effort to portray himself as anti-Communist). This in turn has unsettling implications for US domestic politics; given that racism- eugenics, etc.- would be less outre- one could see a McCarthy Era combining as well the worst tendencies of the KKK...
More generally the preservation of a Colonialist European mindset seems to me as a major change from OTL, and not for the better. If England and France avoid the OTL struggle they have a better position to maintain- or at least contest- their empires. A neutral fascist Italy has a significant chance of keeping Libya by simply swamping it with Italian settlers (with all that this implies). Without the US basically forcing Decolonization as part of their worldsystem there's less pressure to cut them loose (to say nothing of what a somewhat weaker USSR means for insurgencies from the left). And with Weber explicitly positioning himself as an anti-communist, I fear he'd get a lot of sympathy from the Anglosphere, which would probably not be willing to fight for Alsace-Lorraine, nor the communist Bolsheviks of Russia...
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The Soviets have already been beaten up pretty bad. I don't really see them be has successful in spreading their influence into Asia has OTL. Maybe we might see a Divided China but that might be it.
Also I don't really see Germany collapsing internally ITTL. Especially if Weber chooses a competent successor, like Heydrich. Which I could really see happening.
Also I don't really see Germany collapsing internally ITTL. Especially if Weber chooses a competent successor, like Heydrich. Which I could really see happening.
I remember that one pundit said that if Hitler had simply murdered domestic enemies and left his neighbours alone, he'd have died some time in the sixties in his own bed and the Reich would have eventually been voted out because the masses got sick of it. This is what I see happening with Weber......