WW2: What If Stalin proposes Crete in 1942?

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What if Stalin feels he has a few divisions spare and wants to give the Germans a scare in the Balkan peninsula, and proposes an Anglo-Soviet operation to remove Crete from Axis control, to take place in 1942? Stalin supplies the troops (presumably shipped overland through Persia to embark in Egypt) and Churchill provides the ships and air-cover?
Would Churchill be tempted by the offer, and might it seem feasible to Churchill or at least worth trying?
 
Not happening. Even in late 1943, the Dodecanese campaign was an utter disaster for the Wallies. I can see Churchill pushing it, but definitely not Stalin.
 
Base Assumption

The starting point for this is that Stalin is the one who does propose it; maybe he figures it might get the Germans to switch troops away from Russia to send to the Balkans, in case after Crete the Allies make the hop to mainland Greece. Maybe he figures that if the Germans don't send any troops to the Balkans in response to Crete being seized, that the British can be persuaded to go back into Greece and to open up a 'second front' there, since they currently seem leery about crossing the Channel to France.
If Stalin can coax the British back onto mainland Europe anywhere, it gives the Germans a distraction from him, and Churchill was prepared to fight in Greece in 1941, as far as British/Allied resources allowed, and to make an effort to try to hang on to Crete.
 
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ViperKing

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Depending on when this is in 1942 the British are either still trying to fend off Rommel in Egypt and support Malta, or are devoting forces for Operation Torch. While things in Russia have stabilized from the dark days of 1941, the Germans are still giving the Russians a run for their money during the warmer months of 1942, so pulling out half a dozen or so divisions plus necessary support and logistics could mean not having enough forces to use somewhere along the front.

Then comes the issue of logistics. The Russians use a lot of different equipment and supplies that the British don't. They would either have to spend several months training up with British and U.S. equipment to better coordinate with the British, or spend several months building up a logistics support base in Egypt.
 

Anaxagoras

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The British would not want to see the Soviets in the Mediterranean. Churchill would say thanks, but no thanks.
 
There are several problems with this scenario. First of all the British are fighting in North Africa and would want to finish this before starting a new campaign. The Soviets would not want to launch this. The Soviets are facing millions of Germans and if it is late June onward then the Soviets are dealing with Fall Blau and the attack on Stalingrad-in short they won't think they have a few divisions to spare. The British would have to do all of the heavy lifting with the amphibious assault (which the Soviets have little experience with) and don't want the Soviets to be in Greece.
 
Interesting points

There are several problems with this scenario. First of all the British are fighting in North Africa and would want to finish this before starting a new campaign. The Soviets would not want to launch this. The Soviets are facing millions of Germans and if it is late June onward then the Soviets are dealing with Fall Blau and the attack on Stalingrad-in short they won't think they have a few divisions to spare. The British would have to do all of the heavy lifting with the amphibious assault (which the Soviets have little experience with) and don't want the Soviets to be in Greece.
To respond to 'would want to finish this before starting a new campaign', the UK & allied forces committed boots-on-the-ground to Greece/Crete in 1941 whilst already fighting already in Africa, so I'm not convinced that they would automatically dismiss Crete in 1942 as a non-starter because 'we're fighting in North Africa at the moment' - especially as the concept under consideration is that Russian troops are going to be the ones on the ground this time (plus presumably any 'free Greek forces', if there were any such formations available at this time). Furthermore, as I understand the situation, holding Crete potentially helps the Allied North Africa campaign, since gaining it allows its use as a base from which Axis shipping to Libya can be interdicted, whilst simultaneously removing it as an Axis base that can be used to similarly cover such convoys.

I'm also a bit doubtful over 'and don't want the Soviets to be in Greece'. Why not? The London government was perfectly happy to cooperate with the Russians in 1941 in a joint-operation to 'secure' Persia. Or would the Persian operation (or something which happened in it???) for some reason put the London government off any such further cooperation efforts - sufficiently so that they'd prefer the Germans and Italians to be in Crete, holding it, and using it as a base, to the Russians coming anywhere near it?

As regards British shipping involved, I assume it would have to be found/diverted from some other operation, if there weren't already available in that part of the Mediterranean for something like this.

Russian troops is the big question; it seems to me that during the winter of 1941-42 (especially when things seem to be going well for the Russians) that Stalin might think he could spare some troops for other theatres. (Or, if he got the idea sufficiently early, he might even want to carry out an attack on Crete as part of a diversion in preparation for the 1941-42 Russian winter offensives, although that might imply an Alien Space Bat level of forward-thinking and readiness on Stalin's part.)
I concede that it's possible that even if Stalin initially wanted to carry out such an operation in 1942 (Crete, that is to say), that once 'Fall Blau' arrived - if any Crete operation hadn't already taken place - that Stalin might very well inform the British that the troops he was intending to supply were in fact being allocated somewhere else more urgent...
 
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Bigger question:

With how much of a slog Churchill's "soft underbelly" invasion of Italy turned into (that man had a lot more bad ideas than good on the balance) how much worse would a followup campaign into Greece and the Balkans, which geographically and from an infrastructure standpoint is even less friendly than Italy was, be for the WAllies? Logically speaking that's the follow-up action to any kind of Crete campaign so the question that needs answering here is how does Stalin somehow convince the WAllies, who IIRC shot down Churchill's even loonier scheme to attempt a Balkans invasion (US generals in particular objected on the grounds such a campaign would be a waste of resources and was clearly intended to serve British long-term regional influence over winning the war ASAP), to go ahead with a half-baked invasion of some of the least suitable terrain for a major amphibious operation?

If a follow-on invasion of the Balkans isn't in the cards then what's the point of nabbing Crete in the first place? There's already plenty of other bases for launching raids against Italy and the Ploesti oil fields. Crete isn't going to give them much of an advantage in the Oil Campaign and from a grand strategic perspective leads right into a Greece & Balkans slogfest. Outside of bombing Romania (which the Allies already can do without Crete) or invading the Balkans (which the Allies rejected on the grounds of being a terrible plan) what reason would Stalin have for proposing an operation against Crete and the WAllies have for going along with it?
 
To respond to 'would want to finish this before starting a new campaign', the UK & allied forces committed boots-on-the-ground to Greece/Crete in 1941 whilst already fighting already in Africa, so I'm not convinced that they would automatically dismiss Crete in 1942 as a non-starter because 'we're fighting in North Africa at the moment' - especially as the concept under consideration is that Russian troops are going to be the ones on the ground this time (plus presumably any 'free Greek forces', if there were any such formations available at this time). Furthermore, as I understand the situation, holding Crete potentially helps the Allied North Africa campaign, since gaining it allows its use as a base from which Axis shipping to Libya can be interdicted, whilst simultaneously removing it as an Axis base that can be used to similarly cover such convoys.
They were defending Crete in 1941. This is an invasion and that is a big difference. It doesn't really help as the Allies already had a major advantage in naval power and didn't need to take out an Axis base. Plus, look at the geography. Crete is incredibly mountainous. Indeed, look at the casualty figures for the German invasion of Crete. Not counting those captured the Germans took more casualties. We can assume that a British/Soviet invasion would have a similar problem.

Look More Closely Later said:
I'm also a bit doubtful over 'and don't want the Soviets to be in Greece'. Why not? The London government was perfectly happy to cooperate with the Russians in 1941 in a joint-operation to 'secure' Persia. Or would the Persian operation (or something which happened in it???) for some reason put the London government off any such further cooperation efforts - sufficiently so that they'd prefer the Germans and Italians to be in Crete, holding it, and using it as a base, to the Russians coming anywhere near it?
Greece was far more important to the UK than Persia. Consider that, alone out of German occupied Eastern Europe, Greece didn't fall to Communism, in fact during the Greek Civil War the British sent the Greeks aid. The British also realized that after Barbarossa started Germany wasn't using Crete as a base for an invasion, but securing their southern flank. This made Crete far less strategically important than North Africa or Italy.
Look More Closely Later said:
As regards British shipping involved, I assume it would have to be found/diverted from some other operation, if there weren't already available in that part of the Mediterranean for something like this.
No the problem is that the Russians aren't going to be of much help initially. The British will have to provide all of the shipping for supplies and for the invasion. The Russians didn't have much experience with amphibious assault. British interests are far better served by winning in North Africa and then going on to Italy or France.
Look More Closely Later said:
Russian troops is the big question; it seems to me that during the winter of 1941-42 (especially when things seem to be going well for the Russians) that Stalin might think he could spare some troops for other theatres. (Or, if he got the idea sufficiently early, he might even want to carry out an attack on Crete as part of a diversion in preparation for the 1941-42 Russian winter offensives, although that might imply an Alien Space Bat level of forward-thinking and readiness on Stalin's part.)
I concede that it's possible that even if Stalin initially wanted to carry out such an operation in 1942 (Crete, that is to say), that once 'Fall Blau' arrived - if any Crete operation hadn't already taken place - that Stalin might very well inform the British that the troops he was intending to supply were in fact being allocated somewhere else more urgent...

An invasion of Crete isn't in Stalin's interests either. What Stalin wanted was a second front and with an invasion of the Balkans not going to happen Crete doesn't create a second front. Plus the Soviets didn't really have massive amounts of troops to spare. Following Barbarossa much of the Soviet reserves were used up. Once Stalin got reinforcements the fighting was around Moscow. Plus, Stalin knew the Germans were going to hit back, but he thought it would be around Leningrad or Moscow. This is why Fall Blau was such a disaster for the Russians. So Stalin still needs troops on the Eastern Front and has no reason to go to Crete.
 
And that's all for now...

Many thanks to those who've commented. I may revisit this idea at some point in an ASB context, but that's all for now.
If a moderator could lock this thread, please?
 
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