WI: Great Stand on the Ugra River gets bloody(er)?

What if the standoff between Akhmat Khan and Ivan III, rather than leading to the Tatars withdrawing and de facto recognizing Muscovite independence, boils over into a full-fledged battle? Which side would win? What would be the repercussions of a Muscovite victory, or conversely a Golden Horde victory? Would it start a larger war?
 
What if the standoff between Akhmat Khan and Ivan III, rather than leading to the Tatars withdrawing and de facto recognizing Muscovite independence, boils over into a full-fledged battle? Which side would win? What would be the repercussions of a Muscovite victory, or conversely a Golden Horde victory? Would it start a larger war?

It is rather difficult to have a full-fledged battle by being on the different sides of a river at while the Tatars tried to cross it using available fords in the early October, they were repelled in a fighting which lasted few days and Ahmat was forced to retreat from the river's bank, make a camp couple miles from it and start negotiations. The idea was obvious to both sides: frozen river would make crossing possible in any place so the Russian troops ended up retreating to Kremenets and Borovsk. However Ahmat outsmarted himself because his troops needed forage for the horses and sheep (brought for meat) and the winter cold forced them to retreat (and in a process to loot few cities which belonged to his Lithuanian ally).

So you can consider attempt of the crossing as a battle and in that specific situation Russians had a noticeable advantage due to the numerous firearms and artillery while the Tatars had only the bows.

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Expected Lithuanian help did not materialize either because they were distracted by the Crimean attack on Volyn. As a part of a general strategy Ivan sent troops by Volga to attack Ahmat's capital, Sarai, to provide a psychological pressure.

As far as Grand Strategy is involved, Ahmat was in a very dangerous situation. His only ally, Casimir IV was easily neutralized by the Crimea while he had, Moscow on the West and Siberia on the East and Nogai horde on the South.

Basically, a victory in a "full fledged" battle was not needed to Ivan because it would mean a lot of risk and losses with the same end result. He simply needed not to let Ahmet to get to his territory (the border was very close to Moscow).
 
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