WI: Soviets Attack Germany in Spring 1940

Minty_Fresh

Banned
Moving the mostly static and rudderless Soviet Army westwards to adjust for the new Polish lands was tough enough as it was. Taking the Baltic Countries did not happen until later in 1940. Therefore, the Baltics would have to become a (brief) battlefield, and the justifications for the conflict would have to be something deeply unpleasant for the West, with an almost Trotskyist justification for evangelizing the revolution or some such nonsense.

But that is not the point. The Soviet combat performance would have been terrible, but by sheer weight of numbers, it might be enough to mess up the Nazi's plans and force them into an early armistice with France and Britain (and I am not totally sure such an offer would be rejected), or more likely, have to shift the bulk of their strength east.

But if the Germans are attacked with most of their strength in Poland, it will go very very badly for the Soviets. If they are somehow by the grace of God and the stupidity of the German General staff able to attack with surprise and during the midst of the attack in the West, the Soviets logistical failures will cripple them while the Germans trade space for time. The infrastructure of Germany will allow most of the force tying down the Maginot Line and the force in Holland that OTL did not move aggressively southwards after the Dutch surrender to go east and delay until better units can be spared from the West. A line on the Vistula could be held long enough to allow a savage counterattack once the French campaign concludes.
 
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Deleted member 1487

Of 157 divisions available to Germany, 135 were to participate in the offensive against France. That would leave only 12 divisions to defend Germany and Occupied Poland. What if the Soviet Union had decided to take advantage of this pivot to launch an offensive of its own against Germany?
If after OTL Winter War they can't. They have also just fought against the Japanese in the Far East, have conquered East Poland with it's horrible infrastructure and made no effort to develop it for an offensive, still have yet to go after the Baltic States and Romania, so have open flanks, and need months to build up supplies and ready units for an offensive. They can't do it on the spur of the moment. When do they start preparing for a 1940 offensive? Because the Germans will detect it and react accordingly.
 
what they could do although contrary to their strategy at the time would be attack Romanian oilfields and end their own shipments of oil and other materials.
 
what they could do although contrary to their strategy at the time would be attack Romanian oilfields and end their own shipments of oil and other materials.

Now that may well be possible and would certainly put a damper on German operations. I am not sure just how much of their forces Russia would be able to throw at Romania, but it could draw Hungary,Bulgaria, and others into the fray.
 
I don't know if Stalin would do this. He was cautious as a rule and almost willfully ignored the beginnings of Operation Barbarossa. Keep in mind that this is less than a year after the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was signed.
 
If they do so, they win the war in either 1940 or 1942/1943, depending on if France still falls or not. Even the worst case scenario produces far fewer Soviet casualties.

If Stalin does decide to attack, or decides to at least keep such an option open, he will order whatever preparations can be done to the transport infrastructure in Poland sped up. Such an attack would likely be launched once the Germans begin their attack west.

And yes, it's possible the Germans might detect the preparations. So what? Are they going to sit idly by in the west as a result, and await their inevitable starvation and defeat? Or are they going to weaken an operation that already had razor-thin margins anyway?

Best-case scenario for the Germans:

- Attack in the west goes as OTL
- Trade with the USSR is cut off.
- Stalin invades, reaches the Vistula (and crosses it in several locations) and the outskirts of Kongisberg.
- Forces begin trickling in from the west, halt Soviet advance.
- France surrenders as OTL instead of trying to fight on
- More forces arrive, Vistula bridgeheads are eliminated.
- Most of the Heer and Luftwaffe relocated from the west, supplies of fuel and ammo built up for an attack - the narrowness of the front (compared to OTL) and the resulting high concentration of troops means you can't just sent one or two Panzer divisions willy-nilly wherever you see an opening - it has to be a concerted effort
- Counter-offensive is launched, cuts off upwards of 1 million Soviet soldiers, pre-invasion border reached.
- Soviet pocket is eliminated
- Soviets bring in second echelon formations

Ohh, would you look at that - it's October and the rains start falling. Better wait for them to stop, no?

- It's stopped raining, and the Germans launch another offensive, trap another million men, reach the Stalin line
- Soviets bring in third echelon

Dammit, winter's here already? Ok, fine, bring in winter clothes.

Now, let's look at the strategic situation a bit:
1. Britain has likely not withdrawn from Narvik. With Soviet control of the Baltics, that means the only iron ore Germany has gotten in the last 6 months have been plundered French stockpiles
2. With Germany in a life-or-death struggle, Romania won't be bullied so easily, meaning a pro-axis government doesn't come to power, meaning they stay neutral
3. Instead of the months-long rest the Luftwaffe enjoyed OTL prior to the BoB, here they have been thrust into more high-tempo operations literally seconds after France fell. Think losing 36% (more if the French get this silly idea to drag things out) of your combat strength over France is bad enough? Try continuing that for another 4 months, fighting off thousands of (admittedly crappy) Soviet aircraft not caught on the ground... By the time the rains set in, the LW will be a shell of its former strength.

However, all of the above is pocket change when one considers the following:

4. Supplies.
Germany received from the Soviet Union in the period prior to Barbarossa:
  • 1,600,000 tons of grains
  • 900,000 tons of oil
  • 200,000 tons of cotton
  • 140,000 tons of manganese
  • 200,000 tons of phosphates
  • 20,000 tons of chrome ore
  • 18,000 tons of rubber
  • 100,000 tons of soybeans
  • 500,000 tons of iron ores
  • 300,000 tons of scrap metal and pig iron
  • 2,000 kilograms of platinum
Large amounts of crude oil were delivered, with German documents in 1940 already indicating that the Soviets had delivered crude oil at a rate of 150,000 tons a month for five months in 900 German tank cars exclusively reserved for it.[61]

Moreover, they would have run out of almost everything of importance:
upload_2016-9-6_10-39-43.png


You will also notice that between June '41 and October '41 (5 months), Germany consumed as much oil as they had stockpiled prior to the Soviet trade kicking in. ITTL, Germany runs out of petrol sometime in mid '41, considering it doesn't get the year-long pause it had OTL and Romania is likely still neutral.

That won't matter much though, because there won't be any rubber tires for all the trucks in the first place. That, and a massive Europe-wide famine, as the German army hasn't occupied Ukrainian grain fields to live off from.

Honestly, I'd be very surprised if Hitler doesn't suffer some unfortunate accident at this point.
 
what they could do although contrary to their strategy at the time would be attack Romanian oilfields and end their own shipments of oil and other materials.

I doubt attempting to destroy Ploesti would bear much fruit, even the notion of sending in squads of suicide troops to destroy as much as possible before they run out of ammuniton likely wouldn't hold back production for a great deal of time. A Soviet offensive, provided the Germans were caught by surprise and the Soviets were prepared (no operation of such magnitude can take place spontanerously) would go better than some have predicted. The Germans would have been heavily outnumbered, not to mention that these divisions weren't exactly the cream of the crop. The Soviets would have had the qualitative and quantitative advantage, at least on paper.

The scenario isn't really comparable to the Winter War, Poland in late spring is not Finland in winter and the Soviets don't need to worry about their troops freezing to death due to lack of insulation however you still have the problems of leadership and logistics. Like in the Finnish conflict the leadership issues can be somewhat sorted with relative speed, failures can be sent to train Uguhyrs or given ten years without correspondence whilst more competent replacements take over to fight on. Logistics is harder to solve over night, I would guess that in the initial period of this Great Patriotic War that the Soviets may lose more tanks due to breakdowns than German firepower.

Despite supremacy on almost everything on paper, not to mention complete dominance of the air, the offensive likely runs out of steam as much due to lack of trucks rather than German resistance, probably around a natural defensive barrier like the Vistula which unlike OTL which the Germans actually have the troops to defend, eventually. Any slight hesitation during Sickle Cut could leave the French Army largely intact and even if the offensive takes place after it is completed there is still a good chance that France doesn't endure Fall Rot and has time to ensure some sort of coherence alongside a reformed BEF. Germany will now be in a two-front war even if the west needs time to lick its wounds.

It's difficult to imagine an immediate German counter-offensive in the east, though the battle in the skies will be savage. The VVS won't have been caught napping this time yet it can't destroy the Luftwaffe despite its numbers. The German pilots are likely to score the silly number of kills that they did IOTL but many of their comrades will follow the Soviets into the ground. Even worse, they're not without Soviet resources for a year and what they can pillage from France is likely to be far lesser with (at least) southern France still intact. Building anti-Soviet alliances is going to be trickier than in OTL with a tripartite alliance arrayed against them and without masses of fuel and grain and other resources flowing from the east a Barbarossa style operation just isn't feasible. They'll wither on the vine as the Allies grow stronger, the Soviets don't need to win in 1940 or indeed in 1941. "Do not hurry", or "Ne speshi" would be the mantra.

 
I think that The Red put it best. Such an invasion would place Germany in a very precarious position. In fact I would say that he underestimates the extent of the disaster. Making a stand on the Vistula might be difficult as it is not that far from the border in some places and it's unlikely that the German air-force would achieve the same kind of success as in OTL when they destroyed many aircraft on the ground.

As for Germany detecting and reacting to the Soviet invasion one has to consider the repeated failures of German intelligence in the Soviet Union and even if they discover it, will Hitler with his contempt for Soviet capabilities be willing to believe them?

The most serious problem for the Soviets is that the Western Allies might actually agree to a German ceasefire offer, especially if the Soviets attack Romania.
 

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
Donor
Monthly Donor
The Soviets would do better than OTL, but it would be easy for later Soviet and worldwide monday morning quarterbacks to speculate about why the Soviets got involved at such cost. Few will think that a German attack east on the scale of Barbarossa a plausible contingency.

As for the Western Allies, once they've declared war on the Germans and definitely once Germany started attacking countries in the north and west, nobody is going to care if the Russians have a valid-looking casus belli are not. Any Soviet move against Germany will be regarded as brave and welcomed by allied and pro-allied opinion, simply because it's *the Germans who are attacking the western allies*. No further work is needed to make the Germans look like the big bad.
 
Making a stand on the Vistula might be difficult as it is not that far from the border in some places

But the border is very far from Soviet logistical sources, which lie back towards the D'niepr river. The Soviets hadn't finished building up the logistical depots to support their forces in 1941, much less in 1940. The same terrible infrastructure in Eastern Poland/Western Belarus and Ukraine that impeded the German advance also badly affected the Soviet attempts at just defending in this period. This basically made Soviet forces around the 1941 frontier a big wasting asset that were just begging to get butchered by a German offensive. Moving west of the border only makes this worse.

It is true that the longer-term outlook for the Soviets after that become much brighter. Without Soviet imports, the Germans will not have the productive ability to obtain the needed logistical assets to penetrate into the Soviets vital industrial regions and probably fall well short of even reaching the D'niepr, bogging down on the resistance of whatever strategic reserve the Soviets would be keeping back. This means that the Soviets would be able to even more rapidly rebuild and train up the Red Army then they did OTL which, along with not having to advance as far, would lead to a faster overall victory. But that is hindsight speaking and the victory would still come at enormous human cost for the Soviets... even if a lesser one compared to OTL, but the Soviets wouldn't know that.

Honestly, the best thing for the Soviets to do with pure 20/20 hindsight isn't actually to attack at all. Instead, they withdraw to the 1939 border (the Stalin line specifically) where they can logistically support their forces and then declare war. That way they could dare the Germans to exhaust themselves coming at them over that terrible infrastructure while they build up overwhelming forces and the necessary logistical tail. That would even better fulfill @The Red's proposed "Ne speshi" mantra then attacking. Stalin's big mistake was treating the buffer space he had seized in Eastern Europe as something that had to be defended instead of as, you know, buffer space. But again, this is pure 20/20 hindsight. With 20/20 hindsight, anyone could do better.
 
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Granted that it might be best for Russia to pull back and await Germany's response, but IF they did attack about the time Germany is going into France, how many troops could they bring to play and how quickly could they get them to the front lines? How well might 1940 Russian planes, tanks, and other weapons go against the available German forces?
 
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