WI: Operation Pike was carried out?

Goldwater64

Banned
I've been a reader here for a while, but I've only just started posting, so sorry if this has been covered before...

In the early days of WWII, especially after the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact and the Soviet invasion of Finland, the British viewed Stalin and the U.S.S.R. as an ally of Hitler and the Third Reich. As a result, a plan to attack the Soviet Union and disrupt German petroleum supplies by destroying the oilfields at Baku - Operation Pike - was drawn up and almost (depending on who you ask) carried out by the Anglo-French alliance in early 1940.

Suppose that the plan is carried out, and the R.A.F. bombs the Baku oil-fields, leading to a state of war between the Soviet Union and Western Allies. What would happen next?

Things are going to get pretty messy relatively quickly afterwards. I realize this won't turn into a Molotov-Ribbenwank :)D) where the Germans and Soviets carve up the whole world together, but it's still going to be interesting. After all, they'll be fighting on the same side, but an alliance won't last - Hitler needs his "lebensraum" in the long run...
 
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Nope I think he gets even more excited about it. If attacks on Baku effect deliveries to Germany he might even push for it sooner.

The force that was planned amounted to less than 100 aircraft carrying a bombload no bigger than 1,000lb...even if they could find the target.

I can't think of a raid less likley to have a useful to the UK effect.
 

Sir

Banned
It would be a disaster for the Western Allies. The USSR would be unfazed by the attacks and likely be able to take the Middle East with ease. Incompetance of the Soviet Generals notwithstanding, the Middle East was held down by scratch forces. After that, things only get worse. India is threatened. The Suez canal is threatened. France probably still falls to the Nazis. The Western Allies may try to recruit Japan as an ally, which alienates the USA. That which doesn't kill the Soviet Union (and there's nothing the can) only makes it stronger. The lessons in land warfare will be incorporated into the doctrine of the Red Army. The Soviet Union is on full war footing years earlier and crushes Barbarossa easily. From there the Red Army liberates Europe single handedly. The French Resistance welcomes their Soviet liberators and France joins the Soviet power block. Stalin ties up loose ends with Japan in Manchuria, and if Britain (and the USA if it has joined) want to win the war, they're going to have to nuke their way to Moscow. If the Western Allies are not willing/capable of such a daunting task, they're going to face the prospect of a USSR that controls all of Eurasia.
 
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