WI: Soviet invasion of Europe in summer 1941

So I am right that taking eastern Ukraine did not require Typhoon, contrary to your assertion that it did.

If you want Army Group South to get it's ass kicked, maybe even see some of its forces encircled and destroyed given that no Typhoon means no Vyazma-Bryansk and an extensive left flank for AGS, in place of Army Group Center, sure.

The reason the Soviets were able to exploit German weakness in OTL mid-late 1942 was because the Germans were fighting on an incredibly long, overextended front and badly supplied in the south. ITTL they will be fighting on a shorter, more fortified front with a perfect supply situation.
ITTL, they'll be fighting on roughly just as large a front as they were mid-1943 with somewhat more forces (assuming they don't send a whole bunch to France or Italy like you say they would) and about the same supply situation they had in 1942 prior to Operation Blau (which was far from perfect). The Soviets, for their part, will be vastly better equipped, led, and trained then they were IOTL 1941. This means they would more resemble the Red Army of 1943 rather then the one of mid/late-1942... except massively larger. They'll even be able to peacefully incorporate all the hard lessons they learned in 1941 without being interrupted by having to conduct any offensives or defend against a German one, which is major advantage not even the Red Army of a 1942 where Barbarossa doesn't occur would have.

At worst for the Soviets, it goes like Second Smolensk: the Germans are able to fall back with their forces and only modest losses, but still lose something like 200-250 kilometers of ground and the bulk of their defensive works...

The military establishment prosecuted campaigns with great vigor and energy very late in the war when it was clear defeat was looming, and it is not at all implausible that they were do the same in this situation.
Not the offensive ones. Attacks such as the counter-offensive at Mortaine, the Second Ardenne Offensive, and Operation Spring Awakening are notable for the lack of faith the German military leadership put into them and the subsequent lack of energy in their conduct. The individual soldiers on the battlefield fought with great vigor (except for the Volksgrenadier, predictably enough) as did some of the field commanders, but in operational terms these were some of the worst led German offensives of the war, which is reflective of the fact that the operational commanders did not put any stock in their success.

We've been over this before in my thread. Montefiore, a professional historian who speaks Russian and spent years digging through Soviet archives, says the offer I referenced was genuine.
And Montefiore is directly contradicted by none other then Lavrenti Beria.

What I'm disputing is that it can be said with certainty that he'd renew it in TTL 1942 when in OTL he had no plans to start a war in 1942 in what would have been a much more favorable situation.
Well it is conceivable that he might wait an extra year. But whether he decides to go in 1942 or 1943, the Red Army will be in a far better position to launch offensives then it was IOTL 1942.

Stalin's attitude pre-Barbarossa OTL is not relevant since he was disabused of any idea of settling things peacefully with Hitler by Barbarossa.

Well, this hypothetical peace deal would also probably be seen as a temporary arrangement.
Halifax is in America by before Barbarossa even begins and there is no one left who is interested in even a temporary arrangement. And there is little reason to enter into such an arrangement given the imminence of American entry.

I was responding to your statement earlier that "Many of the resources German will send to the Atlantic and Med are not only inadequate but also not useful."
Oh, well then: the ground forces are not useful since the infrastructure in North Africa can't support them and they aren't going to achieve anything sitting in France or Italy waiting for an invasion that isn't coming until after Stalin has already re-entered the war. The German naval forces aren't useful cause there really mostly wasn't any on the Eastern Front. Much of the industrial resources aren't useful because the relevant assets in question are largely for fighting a ground war and not a naval-air war... you can't build a submarine or airplane in a factory meant for making tanks. That just leaves the aircraft, but even 100% of the Luftwaffe chances against the combined might of the RAF and USAAC can be summed up with a sentence involving snowballs and hell.

Okay, but you were willing to discuss it without immediately saying that it was so unlikely as to be not worth considering.
Well, then I'll say it right now: it's so unlikely as to be not worth considering. I'm just begging the assumption right now. :p

The entire chapter, beginning on the page I referenced, goes into the matter in detail.
The maybe you can give the details of what he says? Because I've already cited a source noting that there was already notable, existing, undamaged infrastructure that the Japanese seized intact. Oh, and that the industrial build-up of the region was so slow as to take almost a decade.

And the quote clearly implies that the industry of the Donets be used as is rather than being dismantled.
Ignoring that it would largely be evacuated or demolished by the Soviets and that the productivity of the work force would be reduced by the fact they would be steadily murdered by the Germans...

So no source, just history from 1500-1815, not in the 20th century.
No, the 20th too. British entry into both WW1 and WW2 was the product of the same policy.

Also in terms of Halifax wanting to rearm, that's what you do when your army was disarmed in a mass desperate evacuation if you want to have any sort of deterrent to invasion, having just been massively defeated and lost all your continental allies.
If Halifax both believed and was interested in a lasting peace with Hitler, then he wouldn't be interested in rearmament. What use is there for rearmament if you don't intend to fight?

His argument in Stumbling Colossus is that there was really not much the Soviets could have done to stop the Germans in 1941 given the history since the purges in 1937; they'd need another year at least to be a credible defender.
Glantz's argument is that there was really not much the Soviets could have to stop the Germans in the frontier regions given the history since the purges in 1937. Slowing down and bleeding the Germans offensive, taking some of the steam out of it, while managing to salvage most of the forces a lot like what happened in Western Ukraine is certainly possible. This would have a major impact on the Battles along the D'niepr River, in the Soviets favor.

Given he must have been aware in how bad a shape the Red Army was at that time (after all he was trying to buy time with the MR-Pact for a reason):

If Stalin were convinced of an attack in 1941 against his out-of-shape Red Army, may he (instead of going on the attack as the OP suggested) have abandoned all hope of actually fighting a proper defense in 1941 and instead opt for trading space for time? And focus 6 months of preparation on preparing the best fighting withdrawal and delaying action the Red Army is able to execute at that stage (plus evacuation of industries)? To pull back the Red Army in good order and conserve it best as can while it learns the tricks of the trade ("with live ammunition" so to speak)?

My guess is that just pulling back in an orderly fashion would have already slowed down the German advance more than the OTL defense. While conserving Soviet strength and still feeding Hitler's hubris (aka "Biggest Allied WWII Asset").

Pretty much this.

But this will give up much territory still. Would Stalin be willing to do that and be willing to do so as his strategy right from the start? And if he were: Would the Red Army of 1941 be capable of conducting a proper fighting retreat and delaying action? Or was it even incapable of that?
The idea of strategic defense-in-depth was certainly there among the Red Army's military establishment (it was discussed in 1940 and 1941) but wasn't something that was wholly embraced. It is possible that the Red Army, if forced to adapt to the fact that war may be coming in 1941, might revisit it since their other (incomplete) plans were predicated on war coming in 1942 and presumed an army that doesn't exist yet.

The Red Army was certainly capable of conducting an improvised fighting retreat with some success in both 1941 and 1942 show, so a planned fighting retreat would naturally go better. My gut feeling is that Stalin would still insist on holding onto the 1941 border for as long as possible before giving ground, which would still result in encirclement and destruction of Soviet forces. The encirclements won't be as large, destroying only a chunk of the Western Front instead of the whole thing (the Uman encirclement is a possible analogy, as there the Germans managed to catch and destroy a portion of the Southwestern and Southern Fronts but not it's entirety), and the Germans are in worse shape by the time they reach the river D'niepr. There Stalin is going to insist on holding-at-all costs, since the D'niepr is the last natural barrier between any invader from the west and the Soviets major industrial regions. And given the precedent of Kiev, it might actually work out.
 
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If you want Army Group South to get it's ass kicked, maybe even see some of its forces encircled and destroyed given that no Typhoon means no Vyazma-Bryansk and an extensive left flank for AGS, in place of Army Group Center, sure.

Well, this is an academic discussion, given that as I said before, something like Typhoon still probably does happen only AGC stops after Vyazma-Bryansk, but if Typhoon were to be called off, AGS would be given some of the forces given to Typhoon to guard its flank.

ITTL, they'll be fighting on roughly just as large a front as they were mid-1943 with somewhat more forces (assuming they don't send a whole bunch to France or Italy like you say they would) and about the same supply situation they had in 1942 prior to Operation Blau (which was far from perfect). The Soviets, for their part, will be vastly better equipped, led, and trained then they were IOTL 1941. This means they would more resemble the Red Army of 1943 rather then the one of mid/late-1942... except massively larger. They'll even be able to peacefully incorporate all the hard lessons they learned in 1941 without being interrupted by having to conduct any offensives or defend against a German one, which is major advantage not even the Red Army of a 1942 where Barbarossa doesn't occur would have.

It's not "somewhat more," it's almost all of the forces lost during Typhoon, all lost resisting the general Soviet counteroffensive, and all of the forces annihilated at Stalingrad. This gives the Germans a whole lot more to resist the Soviet attacks with. Such resistance will also be more effective because, as you pointed out, the Germans' OTL strategic intelligence was very bad, which was a major hindrance, but the TTL supposition is (for whatever reason) that it's good.

At worst for the Soviets, it goes like Second Smolensk: the Germans are able to fall back with their forces and only modest losses, but still lose something like 200-250 kilometers of ground and the bulk of their defensive works...

What we're debating.

Not the offensive ones. Attacks such as the counter-offensive at Mortaine, the Second Ardenne Offensive, and Operation Spring Awakening are notable for the lack of faith the German military leadership put into them and the subsequent lack of energy in their conduct. The individual soldiers on the battlefield fought with great vigor (except for the Volksgrenadier, predictably enough) as did some of the field commanders, but in operational terms these were some of the worst led German offensives of the war, which is reflective of the fact that the operational commanders did not put any stock in their success.

Well, even with a better understanding of Soviet strength, Barbarossa wasn't done against odds anywhere near as long as those late-war offensives.

And Montefiore is directly contradicted by none other then Lavrenti Beria.

Because a secret police chief intimately involved with the events he's discussing is a much more reliable source than a professional historian writing decades later.

Well it is conceivable that he might wait an extra year. But whether he decides to go in 1942 or 1943, the Red Army will be in a far better position to launch offensives then it was IOTL 1942.

And as I outlined above, the Germans will be in a far better position to defend than OTL. Also, this gets to the issue of Lend-Lease. I know you and wiking have a big dispute over how much it mattered in 1941-42; if he's right and it isn't given OTL until 1943 because the USSR isn't in the war the Soviet position will be reduced somewhat.

Stalin's attitude pre-Barbarossa OTL is not relevant since he was disabused of any idea of settling things peacefully with Hitler by Barbarossa.

He never had such an idea to begin with, not after the French collapse at any rate.

Halifax is in America by before Barbarossa even begins and there is no one left who is interested in even a temporary arrangement. And there is little reason to enter into such an arrangement given the imminence of American entry.

The imminence of American entry might not be the same as OTL if the German posture in the west is less aggressive, which it might be since the Germans in OTL 1942-2 expected to have the resources of the entire European USSR to back up their war effort against the Wallies.

Oh, well then: the ground forces are not useful since the infrastructure in North Africa can't support them and they aren't going to achieve anything sitting in France or Italy waiting for an invasion that isn't coming until after Stalin has already re-entered the war. The German naval forces aren't useful cause there really mostly wasn't any on the Eastern Front. Much of the industrial resources aren't useful because the relevant assets in question are largely for fighting a ground war and not a naval-air war... you can't build a submarine or airplane in a factory meant for making tanks. That just leaves the aircraft, but even 100% of the Luftwaffe chances against the combined might of the RAF and USAAC can be summed up with a sentence involving snowballs and hell.

The ground forces are useful as a deterrent. You yourself said in a very recent thread that the prospect of having to invade France against the resistance of a Germany which had not been ground down by the Soviet Union would be a daunting prospect for the Wallied publics. There's also the psychological element to consider-in OTL 1944 the Soviets had proven that the Germans could be defeated. With the TTL German-Soviet peace deal the image of German invincibility will remain where it was at its very height, with a perfect record of nothing but victory after victory. As for the resources, things such as tank factories themselves may not be useful, but the resources and raw materials given to them, such as steel and rubber, for example, can be immediately redirected to shipyards, etc.

The maybe you can give the details of what he says? Because I've already cited a source noting that there was already notable, existing, undamaged infrastructure that the Japanese seized intact. Oh, and that the industrial build-up of the region was so slow as to take almost a decade.

Here is the link to what is available via google preview. Your source lists a few industrial establishments prior to 1931. While together, they may sound like a lot, they do not prove that the overall level of industrial infrastructure wasn't very low as Liberman states.

Ignoring that it would largely be evacuated or demolished by the Soviets and that the productivity of the work force would be reduced by the fact they would be steadily murdered by the Germans...

You have yet to provide your source for most of the industry not evacuated being destroyed. The quote I provided implies clearly that the workforce (or that portion of it which could not be easily replaced anyway) wouldn't be killed.

If Halifax both believed and was interested in a lasting peace with Hitler, then he wouldn't be interested in rearmament. What use is there for rearmament if you don't intend to fight?

It could be for deterrence or defense.
 
Well, this is an academic discussion, given that as I said before, something like Typhoon still probably does happen only AGC stops after Vyazma-Bryansk,

Too late then. If the Germans conduct Vyazma-Bryansk and then stop, then they've already strung themselves out and left themselves vulnerable. They'll have expended all the supplies they so painfully stockpiled in late-September and the entire supply chain breaking down in October means they won't be able to replenish them. It also allows the Soviets to prepare more effectively for the winter counter-offensive since they don't have to keep throwing forces into the front piecemeal like they did IOTL October-November to fight and instead can get those forces better rested and refitted for the imminent attack.

Additionally, as the autumn wears on Stalin will have less-and-less reason to negotiate. He'll be encouraged by the apparent collapse of the German advance and increasing American involvement.

but if Typhoon were to be called off, AGS would be given some of the forces given to Typhoon to guard its flank.
AGS doesn't have the logistical infrastructure to support more forces, especially since the Soviets blew the most important rail bridges over the southern D'niepr. All giving them more forces does is result in an even greater breakdown of the advance.

It's not "somewhat more," it's almost all of the forces lost during Typhoon, all lost resisting the general Soviet counteroffensive, and all of the forces annihilated at Stalingrad.
Which translates into "somewhat more". We're talking ~3.3 million against ~7.5 million (in 1942) or 9 million (in 1943) as opposed to OTLs ~2.7 million versus 5.5 million. The ratios are even more in favor of the Soviets (if slightly so) then OTL. And that's assuming no major transfer of ground forces westward like you've been going on about.

This gives the Germans a whole lot more to resist the Soviet attacks with.
They can resist all they like. Fighting well in losing battles doesn't change that their losing battles.

As for the resources, things such as tank factories themselves may not be useful, but the resources and raw materials given to them, such as steel and rubber, for example, can be immediately redirected to shipyards, etc.
Sure, they can produce somewhat more subs by throwing more raw materials at the problem. Enough to materially affect the outcome of the battle of the Atlantic? Not even remotely.

Such resistance will also be more effective because, as you pointed out, the Germans' OTL strategic intelligence was very bad, which was a major hindrance, but the TTL supposition is (for whatever reason) that it's good.
Nowhere have we done anything to improve German strategic intelligence.

Well, even with a better understanding of Soviet strength, Barbarossa wasn't done against odds anywhere near as long as those late-war offensives.
It pretty much was. The Germans set themselves impossible goals.

Because a secret police chief intimately involved with the events he's discussing is a much more reliable source than a professional historian writing decades later.
Given that he outlined in detail the reasoning behind the event in question? Yeah.

And as I outlined above, the Germans will be in a far better position to defend than OTL.
Not really.

Also, this gets to the issue of Lend-Lease. I know you and wiking have a big dispute over how much it mattered in 1941-42; if he's right and it isn't given OTL until 1943 because the USSR isn't in the war the Soviet position will be reduced somewhat.
More then made up for the fact the Soviets aren't losing any industry in 1942 and won't be suffering any losses through the winter-spring of 1941-42. And then they get lend-lease in summer 1942 upon entering the war.

He never had such an idea to begin with, not after the French collapse at any rate.
After Barbarossa, though, he couldn't think of anything else.

The imminence of American entry might not be the same as OTL if the German posture in the west is less aggressive, which it might be
This is contradictory. If Germany makes peace with the USSR to focus on the war against the British, then it's posture in the west will become more aggressive. Additionally, we can expect American entry to be the roughly same as OTL since come December 1941, Japan bombs pearl harbour. At that point, the US is free to prosecute the war against German submarines (those that don't surface and identify themselves, thereby leaving themselves vulnerable to being blown away by nearby Royal Navy vessels, that is) and ship whatever they want to the British in American flagged vessels escorted by American flagged warships.

since the Germans in OTL 1942-2 expected to have the resources of the entire European USSR to back up their war effort against the Wallies.
First off, Ukraine+Belarus+the Baltic States is not the entire European USSR. Secondly, the value of those territories would be neutered by the devastation of invasion, rendering it a massive net drain on the German economy. Adam Tooze goes into this in great detail in Wages of Destruction. The economic justifications for the invasion positing Germany being able to easily and cheaply acquire plentiful resources from the USSR was built on nothing but a pile of Nazi fantasies.

The ground forces are useful as a deterrent.
It's too late to deter.

You yourself said in a very recent thread that the prospect of having to invade France against the resistance of a Germany which had not been ground down by the Soviet Union
Correct.

would be a daunting prospect for the Wallied publics.
Not correct. I've never said anything of the sort. I don't actually know whether the more difficult task of defeating a Germany that hasn't been ground down by the USSR would be enough to make the WAllied public call for peace. I'd hazard to say there is no real way of knowing for sure since it didn't actually happen.

If I had to hazard an educated guess, though, I would say they would. Many times before a authoritarian country has made the assumption that a democracy or the US would be unwilling to pay the blood price of defeating them only to be proven wrong. Stuff like Iraq, Korea, and Vietnam are not good barometers for this because those were limited conflicts of choice, fought with limited means, and limited goals. An existential total war on the scale of WW2 presents an entirely different social-psychological dimension to the various populace. Perhaps most tellingly, France and Britain which were both just as much democracies in 1914 as the US and Britain were in 1941, were perfectly willing to sacrifice millions of lives to defeat Germany in World War 1, which was more comparable to World War 2 in it's nature.

With the TTL German-Soviet peace deal the image of German invincibility will remain where it was at its very height, with a perfect record of nothing but victory after victory.
Except for being defeated in North Africa and against the Soviets in 1942/43.
 
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Too late then. If the Germans conduct Vyazma-Bryansk and then stop, then they've already strung themselves out and left themselves vulnerable. They'll have expended all the supplies they so painfully stockpiled in late-September and the entire supply chain breaking down in October means they won't be able to replenish them.

AGS doesn't have the logistical infrastructure to support more forces, especially since the Soviets blew the most important rail bridges over the southern D'niepr. All giving them more forces does is result in an even greater breakdown of the advance.

Vyazma-Bryansk is a fraction of the distance to the OTL German high-water mark and so is the distance the supplies have to travel. Also, defending in place doesn't use as many supplies as advancing and attacking into prepared defenses.

Which translates into "somewhat more". We're talking ~3.3 million against ~7.5 million (in 1942) or 9 million (in 1943) as opposed to OTLs ~2.7 million versus 5.5 million. The ratios are even more in favor of the Soviets (if slightly so) then OTL. And that's assuming no major transfer of ground forces westward like you've been going on about.

These numbers are off. The Axis lost 800,000 casualties for Stalingrad alone, and IIRC several hundred thousand during the post-Vyazma-Bryansk period of Typhoon. Also, the Soviet total won't be as big without the manpower of the areas liberated in OTL 1943.

They can resist all they like. Fighting well in losing battles doesn't change that their losing battles.

What we're debating.

Were the German shipyards not already maxed out on production.

Production can be increased with more resources and labor available.

Nowhere have we done anything to improve German strategic intelligence.

It's the entire premise of this discussion.

It pretty much was. The Germans set themselves impossible goals.

ITTL the German goal is a negotiated peace, not the A-A Line.

Given that he outlined in detail the reasoning behind the event in question? Yeah.

Nowhere have you provided any source attacking or discrediting Montefiore's account of the offer. All you've done is point out that Stalin, when he made it, did not expect the peace were it to be accepted to be permanent, which I have not disputed.

More then made up for the fact the Soviets aren't losing any industry in 1942 and won't be suffering any losses through the winter-spring of 1941-42. And then they get lend-lease in summer 1942 upon entering the war.

This is true if your side of the L-L debate between you and wiking is correct. Besides, how much industry did the Soviets lose in 1942 as a percentage of their total? I thought their main industrial centers were the already-lost Orel-Kharkov regions and the Urals, which were never seriously threatened. Also, you did acknowledge previously that Stalin might wait until 1943 to reenter the war.

After Barbarossa, though, he couldn't think of anything else.

None of which contradicts the point I'm making. In OTL 1941 Stalin did not plan to attack Germany in 1942 in what he believed would be a far better position than the one he would have in TTL 1942. He planned to be ready to defend if attacked, but there is no evidence he would have attacked himself. Saying "but in OTL he didn't realize peace with Hitler forever was impossible" is an inadequate objection, because he did.

This is contradictory. If Germany makes peace with the USSR to focus on the war against the British, then it's posture in the west will become more aggressive. Additionally, we can expect American entry to be the roughly same as OTL since come December 1941, Japan bombs pearl harbour. At that point, the US is free to prosecute the war against German submarines (those that don't surface and identify themselves, thereby leaving themselves vulnerable to being blown away by nearby Royal Navy vessels, that is) and ship whatever they want to the British in American flagged vessels escorted by American flagged warships.

The Germans aren't exactly trying to focus on the war with the British, so much as just sitting there and acting as a force in being to convince them that the war is deadlocked.

First off, Ukraine+Belarus+the Baltic States is not the entire European USSR. Secondly, the value of those territories would be neutered by the devastation of invasion, rendering it a massive net drain on the German economy. Adam Tooze goes into this in great detail in Wages of Destruction. The economic justifications for the invasion positing Germany being able to easily and cheaply acquire plentiful resources from the USSR was built on nothing but a pile of Nazi fantasies.

Yes, that's my point. In OTL the Germans believed in 1941-42 that they would shortly have the whole of the European USSR, not just the Baltics, Belarus and Ukraine, under their control and that this would add immensely to their war effort against the Wallies. Whether this is true or not is irrelevant to what they thought. If they hadn't believed this, for whatever reason (here it's because they've done a negotiated peace with the Soviet Union), their posture in the west might be less aggressive because their belief in their ability to win an all-out war with the Wallies is lessened and the priority they place on a compromise with them is correspondingly greater.

It's too late to deter.

What we're debating.

Correct.

Not correct. I've never said anything of the sort. I don't actually know whether the more difficult task of defeating a Germany that hasn't been ground down by the USSR would be enough to make the WAllied public call for peace. I'd hazard to say there is no real way of knowing for sure since it didn't actually happen.

If I had to hazard an educated guess, though, I would say they would. Many times before a authoritarian country has made the assumption that a democracy or the US would be unwilling to pay the blood price of defeating them only to be proven wrong. Stuff like Iraq, Korea, and Vietnam are not good barometers for this because those were limited conflicts of choice, fought with limited means, and limited goals. An existential total war on the scale of WW2 presents an entirely different social-psychological dimension to the various populace. Perhaps most tellingly, France and Britain which were both just as much democracies in 1914 as the US and Britain were in 1941, were perfectly willing to sacrifice millions of lives to defeat Germany in World War 1, which was more comparable to World War 2 in it's nature.

Okay, but you are acknowledging that this is a guess, albeit an educated one? It's not ASB or totally inconceivable for it to be wrong?

Except for being defeated in North Africa and against the Soviets in 1942/43.

What we're debating.
 
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