CalBear

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I appreciate you're trying to look at it rationally, but these folks know that what they're doing is not contributing anything.

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However, for the more sensitive among us I will edit out the Richards.
Unfortunately for you, Mods can see what you posted, even if you edit it.

Sometimes edgy and insulting snaps back.

Like now.

Kicked for a week for insults and trolling.
 

Deleted member 1487

A smarter move by Stalin is to wait until the Invasion of France. In that scenario Germany is pretty much screwed. Almost all their armies are in the west and there is little to stop Stalin from taking all of Poland Stalin may or may not be stopped in Eastern Germany.
Are you assuming Finland still happens and the Baltics haven't been dealt with yet? Even with the campaign in the West given Soviet issues they aren't going to get much beyond the Vistula.
 
Are you assuming Finland still happens and the Baltics haven't been dealt with yet? Even with the campaign in the West given Soviet issues they aren't going to get much beyond the Vistula.

Considering the forces both have in the east at that time , Germany will have to move lots of troops out of France and transfer them east.This will take time. The Germans can consider themselves lucky if they don't see Russian troops marching down the streets of Berlin.
 

Deleted member 1487

Considering the forces both have in the east at that time , Germany will have to move lots of troops out of France and transfer them east.This will take time. The Germans can consider themselves lucky if they don't see Russian troops marching down the streets of Berlin.
You're forgetting logistics. The Soviets have to advance out of the mess of logistics that is East Poland, effectively funneled by the Baltics (unless they also invade that simultaneously, which impacts the main push) and the Carpathians. Plus they have the rail gauge change at the German-Soviet border. Terrain in Poland isn't necessarily great for a rapid advance and the Soviet TOE is not set up for major force projection, as their MC in 1941 had too few trucks to even sustain operation on their own territory! Of course if there is a 1940 attack they wouldn't even have the reformed TOE of 1941, they'd have their penny packet armor TOE and probably no experience from Finland, nor time to absorb the lessons of France. So they are set up for a slow, plodding infantry advance. The Luftwaffe could rapidly shift East to delay the Soviets, German occupation forces could blow the bridges over the Vistula and other rivers, and within 10 days they can have divisions in the West moved to the East. The Soviets will not be moving fast enough or force projecting enough forces competently to do much in 10 days given their 1940 competence. Zhukov does not have the freedom to do what he did in Mongolia in 1939 in 1940, nor is the USSR capable of executing it after the Purges. In face David Glantz makes the case in "Stumbling Colossus" that in 1940 the Soviet military would pretty much collapse in on itself if it tried to force project out of Poland prior to 1943.
 
It would look better if he he did declare war on Germany and attack, force hittlers plan.

Would it stall yes, but say Stalin does declare war "on behalf of Poland". He gains western sympathies, forces a French or British response to assist. Germany is laid out in 1940. Sure Stalin isnt going to march to Berlin right away, but he will force the hand in the east then and there, while the French and British will have to do something or else look like fools.

It wouldn't be easy, but if he kept a large defensive reserve in the back it should be enough to hold with both Poland and the Soviets fighting ( even if for different reasons )
 
That's why i proposed for them to instead make peace with the finns and spend more troops into Germany, or for Stalin to not have purged so many generals.
Why so many noes? Clearly there must have been a PoD for such a scenario to seem feasible for the soviets. Stalin being less paranoid, at least.
That, or i'm overestimating.

The USSR was not yet at war with Finland.
 
Is Stalin posing as a friend and liberator of Poland, or is he following the M-R pact and then immediately attacking the Germans? The two scenarios would fold out very differently.

Either way, an attack on Germany wouldn't go too well at first - the logistical fundamentals just couldn't support a great victory. However, I don't think it would be anywhere near as bad as the Winter War. While attacking while most of the German army is in the East is a massive gift to the Allies, it would certainly save the Soviets from Barbarossa. Even if the Germans humiliate the Soviets, they still don't have the army of 1941, which was qualitatively far superior to the 1939 army - and the 1939 army is almost out of munitions and is tired after fighting through the Poles. The Germans just can't put much into their punches. And with Germany engaged in a 2 front war, they would never be able to build up the power to strike blows like the 1940 attack into France and the 1941 attack on the SU. They'd be forced to burn up valuable men and material fending off the feeble probes of the Soviets, British and French.

However, if Stalin is determined to attack, there's really no reason for him not to wait a few months. He can roll up the Baltics and secure Romania (greatly expanding Soviet ability to attack, given both actions would secure his flanks) and prepare an attack for the moment the Germans commit in France.

fasquardon
 
Why does everyone keep saying Stalin should attack Romania? Romania had a decent-sized military, more than capable of holding its own against the '39 Red Army, and benefited from a series of rivers and overall hilly terrain with sparse infrastructure on the defense. Romania was also very pro-French at this point - I'd give far, far better odds of Romania joining the Allies (after some negotiations), as soon as the Soviet entered, then them acting German-friendly for some strange reason.

Also, remember that Germany runs out of all the stuff needed to actually run an economy by '42 at the latest without 1 1/2 years of free stuff from the Soviets and without plundering France. (if Hitler even lasts that long and doesn't die from lead poisoning to the back of the head). Italy probably also joins in at the last second to say they also participated and get a seat at the conference.

As to the political situation - I think there may be a chance of London and Paris agreeing to Stalin taking over the Baltics and eastern Poland, with some German eastern provinces going to Poland as a compensation, though probably in both cases it will be less drastic than what happened OTL. Also better relations and increased trade between the Allies and the Soviet Union.

Finland keeps its OTL borders, since there will be no Winter War if the Red Army is engaged in Poland at the time.

Stalin probably goes for a war against Japan somewhere down the line once he sees a favorable configuration of forces and a political opportunity.

Hungary is forced to evacuated its occupied portion of Slovakia; Horthy government probably falls.

Czechoslovakia is restored; Tiso in Slovakia is probably forced into exile.

Anschluss with Austria is cancelled, and it once again becomes an unofficial Italian protectorate.
 
Why does everyone keep saying Stalin should attack Romania? Romania had a decent-sized military, more than capable of holding its own against the '39 Red Army, and benefited from a series of rivers and overall hilly terrain with sparse infrastructure on the defense.

Maybe because they are aware of the existence of the Polish-Romanian alliance. But in this case it probably would not have made a difference. In OTL Poland did not invoke it, and even if it had, Romania would probably have refused to honour the terms of the alliance for obvious reasons.

Romania was also very pro-French at this point - I'd give far, far better odds of Romania joining the Allies (after some negotiations), as soon as the Soviet entered, then them acting German-friendly for some strange reason.

Fighting on the Allied side did not help Poland.

Is Stalin posing as a friend and liberator of Poland, or is he following the M-R pact and then immediately attacking the Germans? The two scenarios would fold out very differently.

In OTL the official excuse for the Soviet invasion of Poland was to protect the population living there.
 
The Anglo-French are going to be pleasantly surprised. Until the Winter War, they were engaged in some remarkable wishful thinking about Stalin's intentions, believing that the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was some kind of ruse to put pressure on them. It was Finland which woke them up to the fact that Stalin was rather more serious then that.

In military terms, the people who are saying it will be a military catastrophe are wholly correct. The Red Army is just too much of a wreck at this point to effectively fight. Only German logistical weakness will prevent them from exploiting the subsequent Soviet defeats and driving into the Russians major industrial-agricultural-manpower regions like Barbarossa did OTL.

In the long-run though, Germany is screwed. They'll have to keep major forces in the East which means no Fall of France. The lack of loot from Western Europe and imports from the MR Pact will render them logistically and industrially crippled, unable to drive deep into the USSR. This gives the Soviets and Anglo-French all the time and resources they need to (re)build up overwhelming force and crush Germany. Predictions of it being over by '42 are accurate.
 
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Would the Germans release the Polish prisoners as a bid to halt the Russians? The Nazis may be bad, but they're no Communists, especially for the Poles. Since the *ahem* nastier portions of Nazi ideology haven't gone into effect yet, could the Poles be convinced to support the Germans as the lesser of two evils? After all, the Soviets didn't get permission to head into Poland in this scenario, they still invaded. If the Poles declare for Germany, it would put the Allies in an awkward situation.
 
It would help if the Soviets weren't adventuring in Finland at the same time, and removing the Purges would help even more. But...

I could see them trying it. Stalin really didn't seem to understand the abysmal shape of the Red Army, and it was at least big- 2 million men under arms, with a mobilization to 11 million being pretty straightforward. And quantity has a quality all it's own, and all that. Hell, as it is they used seven armies to invade Poland. Add the four armies used to attack Finland and they might think that they had overwhelming odds in their favor. OTOH they also did clearly seem to think that they needed more time to whip the Red Army into shape before confronting Germany. They were paying them off for a reason, after all. I guess I'd put it in the category of "I wouldn't be surprised, but I think it's very unlikely."

How would it go? Less certain. Surprise helps, and since the Germans were expecting an invasion from the east anyway surprise is probably possible. How suspicious were the Germans of just such a move at the time? I would think they'd have to have been idiots not to bear the possibility in mind, and they clearly weren't idiots. The Soviets didn't have the T-34 yet (panzers have been proven to eat T-26s and BT tanks for breakfast) and their operational skills had yet to be honed over four years of warfare.

I'm inclined to think that it goes poorly for Mother Russia.

The Allied reaction depends upon how the Soviets spin it. Especially if they send clandestine word of their intentions to "protect Poland" ahead of time, the reaction might be very favorable. At least until the Allies realize that the Polish government was being liquidated in favor of a communist replacement. After that, a three-way war! Woot! Until then, though, if the Germans start moving troops eastward at some point maybe the Allies take the opportunity to heat up the Phoney War.
 
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The Allied reaction depends upon how the Soviets spin it. Especially if they send clandestine word of their intentions to "protect Poland" ahead of time, the reaction might be very favorable. At least until the Allies realize that the Polish government was being liquidated in favor of a communist replacement. After that, a three-way war! Woot! Until then, though, if the Germans start moving troops eastward at some point maybe the Allies take the opportunity to heat up the Phoney War.

I really can't see this. Britain and France were at the time desperately working to get the Soviets to join their side and OTL both France and Britain were quite happy to use and dispose of Poles and Poland itself so long as they had a figleaf to hand.

fasquardon
 
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