WI: Soviets invade Turkey in early 1941?

Deleted member 97083

What if the Turkish Straits Crisis escalated earlier, the Turks refuse to let Soviet shipping through (as a statement against communism or something), and Stalin decided to invade Turkey in early 1941? Probably February 1941.

How would a Soviet invasion of Turkey perform given the resources they had in 1941?

How would it affect the war with the Axis starting in June 1941? Strategic position, allocation of troops, etc. Would Bulgaria be more threatened by Soviet Turkey, or would Soviet Turkey be more threatened by Bulgaria and the Axis?
 

Deleted member 97083

Was Turkey in the Soviet sphere in her pact with Germany?
I don't think it was discussed in Molotov-Ribbentrop. However Germany had no ambitions in Turkey, so it's unlikely a Soviet invasion of Turkey would lead to an immediate war. Most likely the Germans wait until the OTL date to invade.
 
Turkey during World War Two was a major producer of Chrome that was needed in the German Industrial War effort.

And the region of Central and North Turkey is mostly mountainous...

Soviet Logistical capabilities were mostly directed against Europe, Eastern Europe that is, and the Russian Army had issues with their logistical tail not up to snuff being directed against Europe, let alone the Caucasus Mountain region between Turkey and Southern Soviet Union.
 

Deleted member 1487

I don't think it was discussed in Molotov-Ribbentrop. However Germany had no ambitions in Turkey, so it's unlikely a Soviet invasion of Turkey would lead to an immediate war. Most likely the Germans wait until the OTL date to invade.
What? Germany had a ton of economic interests in Turkey and was desperately pushing for access to Turkish chromium supplies, which when they finally got them in 1943 saved the Nazi war effort and helped it continue to go into 1945.

Turkey during World War Two was a major producer of Chrome that was needed in the German Industrial War effort.

And the region of Central and North Turkey is mostly mountainous...

Soviet Logistical capabilities were mostly directed against Europe, Eastern Europe that is, and the Russian Army had issues with their logistical tail not up to snuff being directed against Europe, let alone the Caucasus Mountain region between Turkey and Southern Soviet Union.
Yes, the chromium was vital and Turkey as a major supplier of a bunch of stuff to the Nazis. They were so important Germany actually exported their latest and best fighter to the Turks in mid-1942, the Fw190:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focke-Wulf_Fw_190#Operators
Turkish Air Force — Not entirely unlike Finland's Ilmavoimat air arm of the World War II years, the Turkish Air Force was the only air force, other than the Finns, who operated both Allied and Axis aircraft throughout World War II. Beginning in mid-1942, received 72 examples of the Fw 190 A-3a (export model of A-3, a stood for ausländisch—foreign) from Germany to modernize their air force. These aircraft were basically Fw 190 A-3s, with BMW 801 D-2 engines and FuG VIIa radios and an armament fit of four MG 17s, with the option of installing two MG-FF/M cannon in the outer wing positions. The export order was completed between October 1942 and March 1943. The Fw 190 remained in service until the end of 1947 after that all of them had to be retired because of lack of spare parts.
That was even during the critical point of the war when Germany didn't even have enough FW190s to go around for all demands. If they were willing to export them to a neutral then at that point, they desperately wanted to court them for something and that something was chromium ore.

In terms of logistics, yeah I think you're spot on, the Russians would have tough going power projecting out of the Caucasus and would really need to rely on their navy to support any advance.
 
Turkey would be a rather valuable ally to Germany as Turkey was where they got shipments of Chromite Ore, a vital component in Stainless Steel production so they would likely be willing to send military aid just to make sure that those shipments don't stop. Speer had a comment to the attune of "Without those shipments, production would halt within six months".

Turkey had a peace time army of 174,000 men which didn't start seeing increase until the start of 1940, at that time they mustered ~230,000 men, one armoured brigade, and three cavalry brigades with four corps stationed in the eastern "frontiers" of the nation, one corps in Thrace and one in reserve. But almost all of the equipment was pre-WW1 with rifles like the Lee Enfield, Lebel, Masuiers etc. being used, this could easily be remedied with Italian or German made weaponry but it is still something to consider. They had fortifications along the Dardanelles and along the outer regions of the country to the East, including heavy works at Erzurum, Kars, Adana amoung some others. The airforce was 370 planes of all type with only about half of them being modern even though they had over 8,000 men in their airforce. The Turkish navy consisted of the outdated battle cruiser Yavuz (ex-Goeben), 4 destroyers, 5-6 submarines, 2 light cruisers, 3 mine-sweepers, 2 gunboats, 3 motor torpedo boats, 4 minelayers and a surveying vessel.

Depending on how the events play out ITTL (I.E if Barbarossa happens the same time and way and if Turkey isn't fully occupied) this could have some huge changes. IOTL, the Soviet Black seas fleet was a pretty major player during early operations/sieges. It could also allow the Black sea to be under "axis control", with Italian and German ships being able to come in into the black sea unlike IOTL (Turkey refused to let the ships enter and the German ships that had entered had mainly been transported over-land) as well as the Romanians (The Romanian navy consisted of four destroyers, twelve torpedo boats, four gunboats, six minelayers, three amphibious landing self-propelled barges, four submarine chasers, three submarines and five midget submarines.) to defeat Filipp Oktyabrsky and prevent the vital aid the fleet gave to important sieges like Odessa in 1941 (evacuating 86,000 soldiers and over 150,000 civilians), Sevastopol that could make the city fall at the end of 1941 instead of mid 1942. This would also prevent the counter-attack at Kerch and (possibly) allow the Germans to cross over the straight themselves or be able to have the 11th army properly act as the flanking guard for AGS at the start of 1942 like they were instructed too and allow an additional 600 aircraft (including a heavy mix of Medium bombers, and dive bombers) to be deployed elsewhere.
 

Deleted member 97083

How many Soviet troops would be committed to Turkey?
 
In this timeline would Soviets and Turks still be fighting in April when Germany invades Greece? Would this butterfly and no coup in Yugoslavia?
 

NoMommsen

Donor
Was Turkey in the Soviet sphere in her pact with Germany?
As @Achaemenid Rome said : I'm not sure, if the "straits problem" was adressed in the negotiations, though I would render it probable, given the age-old russian "thrust" there.

However, line of demarcation of spheres of interest was the Pruth-river. Therefore it could be argued, that the straits being south of it should be part of the german/fascist sphere of influence.
There WAS some considerable arguing and grumbling, when Stalin took the North-Bucovina, which was NOT (clearly) included or exclude of the soviet sphere in this agreement.
 
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