Not Enough for Stalin 1946

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Not Enough for Stalin 1946 - 7/25/2001 9:45:00 AM

Tombstone

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Hey everybody, I'm kind of starting up work on a possible campaign covering a hypothetical offensive from the Soviet standpoint into Germany in 1946 against the Americans/British. Right now it starts off with an assault from Magdeburg-Leipzig line heading southwest toward Erfurt, then across Germany in an effort to take the Ruhrgebiet. American A-Bomb development had to have faltered and the war in Japan continues. Any thoughts on this? I wanted to discuss some of the issues that revolve around this topic to better polish the campaign's feel. The strategic plan is that 3 tank armies are driving west; 2nd Tank south of Magdeburg, 5th Guards Tank just north of Halle, and 6th Guards Tank north of Leipzig. 4th Shock Army is being used to break force the initial break through, and operations should lead along an axis going roughly from Erfurt to Marburg to Dusseldorf. Tomo

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- 7/25/2001 10:15:00 AM

A_B

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quote:

Hey everybody, I'm kind of starting up work on a possible campaign covering a hypothetical offensive from the Soviet standpoint into Germany in 1946 against the Americans/British. Right now it starts off with an assault from Magdeburg-Leipzig line heading southwest toward Erfurt, then across Germany in an effort to take the Ruhrgebiet. American A-Bomb development had to have faltered and the war in Japan continues. Any thoughts on this? I wanted to discuss some of the issues that revolve around this topic to better polish the campaign's feel. The strategic plan is that 3 tank armies are driving west; 2nd Tank south of Magdeburg, 5th Guards Tank just north of Halle, and 6th Guards Tank north of Leipzig. 4th Shock Army is being used to break force the initial break through, and operations should lead along an axis going roughly from Erfurt to Marburg to Dusseldorf.

A delay in the A bomb development seems very plausable. It seems like it could have easily taken another year or two. A few of the scientist involved die in a plane crash - whatever, and there is delay until '47/48. Perhaps you can make the turning/change/hard/surprise of the camapign the time when US forces that just defeated Japan are rushed to Russia. Or they invade Siberia once they conquer japan, with the advantage of their air superiority. As far as the operational side, i am not up to speed on what the russians had at the end of the war.

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- 7/26/2001 5:41:00 AM

ruxius

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WOW ! A very original thing ... And e'thing to be freely created from the beginning..that would be a very exciting job mister.. I will play the british trying to get Russian's south oil drills from Syria :D Good work !

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- 7/26/2001 8:18:00 AM

Del

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From what I recall the Soviets had lost much in the way of manpower. At the same time the US still had a very large pool to draw from. Also without the Western Allies supplying trucks to the Soviets they would have to reduce armaments construction to build their own trucks. Since the rail system was a shambles trucks would be a critical element. Another thing to remember is the length of the Soviet supply line. It was highly vulnerable to Western Allied air interdiction and, IMO, the Western Allies would have been able to achieve air superiority. While making your campaign don't forget about the Balkans/Italy.

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- 7/26/2001 9:13:00 AM

Tombstone

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I think that, although the Soviets had lost a GREAT deal of manpower they still had many bodies left and a LOT of tanks, good tanks. I think the allies would end up having air superiority, but the Soviets had tons of planes at that point and I think that the initial weeks of operations would see a hotly contested air-space. I want to involve a lot of airborne operations as well. Stuff where you relieve an airborne unit from encirclement, one where the airborne drop is done as an effort to pre-empt a defense of an urban area, and one where an airborne drop is done to intercept reinforcements (you) during an assault. I'm really interested in this stuff cause I think it opens up a lot of interesting gameplay and tactics... Some real context to rush, and a delay mission with real consequences to not delaying enough. Tomo

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- 7/26/2001 10:56:00 AM

troopie

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Also in 1946 you must consider the possibility of anti-Communist partisans in Eastern Europe. It would have been a logistical nightmare for the Soviets. troopie

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- 7/26/2001 5:07:00 PM

ruxius

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Good tips here about your campaigns..in any way Russians should be very fast to get a major surpirse advantage at the beginning while US had to reorganize from their ex-ally's shocking new assault... While Russians had some aircrafts, undoubtably air superiority should be definitively from US..that will be the only US balancing factor against JS tanks... Again Good work !

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- 7/26/2001 8:05:00 PM

bobaloo000

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Don't forget we were both fighting Japan at the end. I think there would have been a very good chance that Japan would have signed a peace treaty with one or the other and joined the war from that side. I would think that the USA could offer more, a slice of Eastern Siberia, a piece of China. Also, the civil war in China would have been more intense and would have involved both sides. That is were Japan could play a big role, as well as India and ANZAC.

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- 7/27/2001 1:18:00 AM

darroch

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what a great idea!!! You could unroll several campaigns under this one overall premise...so many fascinating what-ifs: Marshall killed in accident - no Marshall Plan - maybe strong and active pro-Soviet Communist partisans in Western Europen countries Maybe Greeks went Communist in 45-46...opens up really nice options for Balkan variables - who would Tito have fought with? Given Russia's crippled state after war (industry, manpower, infrastructure) is it safe to assume they would try and time it to catch West at weakest and try and win big and fast??? Would they just settle for Germany? How about a puppet insurgency in western Germany by Pro-Communist cadre - they are repressed by west and this gives USRR a trumped up excuse to intervene and try and grab all of Germany... What does France do? DeGaulle? Would the US-UK launch a counterthrust through Iran and grab the oil? Did someone say amphibious landings by USMC in the Balc Sea? Man, have you picked a fun topic!!!! :D :D

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- 7/27/2001 3:14:00 AM

Tombstone

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If, after the effort in Manchuria, the Soviets take a light defensive stance in the far east they could probably keep things under control over there. Japan joining up with the US is very unlikely. With no atomic bomb Japan probably wouldn't just give up either. If war in europe re-erupts then america may decide to hold off on Olympic. China is in the throes of a civil war and it's probably to convoluted for anyone to do anything significant to change its course while all this other bigger stuff is happening. Forces in north africa, india, and some from the US pacific could put together an attack through the middle east around the caspian sea to threaten caucasian oil, but the Soviets have Ploesti now too. To make this exciting we're gonna have to make some stuff up though. Poland, Romania, Yugoslavia, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Bulgaria have to not revolt and attack the Soviet Union. I'm planning to model a small part of a large offensive into Germany. The player would take the role of a forward detachment commander of a tank corps, at the head of one of the tank armies. In all reality, I believe that the US was in some ways just barely at the prime of it's warfighting capabilities when the war ended, I think once the intended 1945 US industrial plans for the war with Germany if it didn't end would make the Soviets fearful, but I also believe that the Soviet operational capabilities were a bit more mature than the American or British. The units that the western allies pushed from the Rhine to the Elbe were peanuts compared to many of the veteran soviet units. Tomo

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- 7/27/2001 10:42:00 PM

JTGEN

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Hugely interesting! I have lately being playing USSR vs US/UK and US vs USSR and this would be interesting. I would not be that sure of the allied air superiority. In the high level maybe but low level air combat would probably be Soviet supremacy. And the amount of those planes was huge. And do not forget commie partisans in allied back lines. The marine operations in baltic would most likely not be hapening that much. Soviets had pretty good navy and Swedes (Finns?) would restrict the area allies could operate, making them too vulnerable for land based air attac.

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- 7/27/2001 11:58:00 PM

RolandRahn_MatrixForum

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quote:

Originally posted by Tombstone: If war in europe re-erupts then america may decide to hold off on Olympic Tomo

Just some thoughts: - Olympic was sheduled to start on November 1st, 1945. It was not intended to capture all of Kyushu but only the southern part. - Coronet was sheduled to start on March 1st, 1946. It was only intended to capture the Kanto plain. - If the Japanese did not surrender at the start of the US/USSR war, they are extremely unlikely to surrender unconditionally after the outbreak of hostilities in europe (With a new enemy for the US they would see the chance for a negotiated peace) Since this campaign is going to take place in 1946, we can assume that large US forces are on Kyushu and perhaps even on Honshu. Another problem for the US was the way they demobilized after the German surrender. Since some US personal was drafted in 1940 and served now for more than four years, they adopted a point system for demobilizing. I think that each individual got one point for each month in service, one additional point for each month in service oversee, several points for each battle and for each wound, several points for each child (to reflect the difficult circumstances for men with family) e.t.c.. Once a special number was reached, the individual was eglible for a honorable discharge from service (with some exceptions for specialists like engineers). This would resulted in the discharge of many veteran NCOs and other men with valuable combat experience, who would be replaced with green troops. And one should concider that the most effective units would likely see service in Japan, while the troops in ETO would not have the same readiness (Who would get the important spare part X for weapon Y? The men fighting in the PTO or the men on garrison duty in ETO?). Off course, the US would be able to fix most this problems (shipping Veteran troops back to ETO from CONUS and perhaps from PTO, perhaps drafting the discharged veterans back into service e.t.c.), but during the first weeks of a conflict in ETO in 1946 the US would face severve quality problems. Kind regards, Roland BTW: I did not want to offend the US forces nor the men who served in Germany after the German surrender. I just wanted to point to some problems the US would have faced in such a conflict.

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- 7/28/2001 2:33:00 AM

Tombstone

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We have to assume that diplomatic deterioration was severe enough to warrant a precautionary buildup in europe (really just not taking a lot of units out, and keeping the units in britain on standby) This would mean ten-ish months of sitting around worried. I think the Americans and British would be plenty prepared, just not happy about it. Also, the US would have Armored Divisions with pershings and the UK would have centurions. The Soviets would still really be using primarily 34/85's and although IS tanks are powerfully armed and armored they really aren't all that great in a fluid tank battle. Not to mention the fact that centurions really kick ass. It'll be great... I almost have the scenario list down and all the possible branches, and I purchased a crap load of topo maps of germany... We should discuss the viability of other operations that the allies or the Soviets would initiate. The balkans, middle east, finland/sweden, china, whatever... Tomo

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- 7/28/2001 3:55:00 AM

ruxius

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I think the Russians who knew the economical power of Usa (since they started to receive help from them) , figured an attack from Berlin to west front much earlier than the Germans surrendered...according to Us superiority in the long they would beat in a rush in victory..so no time to wait..launch russian's tanks before the americans will be ready to answer..that would be the idea if Soviets ever wanted a prosecution of the war..

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- 7/28/2001 4:55:00 AM

Greenlake

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quote:

Originally posted by JTGEN: The marine operations in baltic would most likely not be hapening that much. Soviets had pretty good navy and Swedes (Finns?) would restrict the area allies could operate, making them too vulnerable for land based air attac.

No offense, but I can't see the Russian navy at that time being anything but a joke compared to the combined US/UK naval presence. And heck if these things did occur it wouldn't be all to surprising to see the Finns support the West given the past 6 years or so of on and off fighting with the Soviets.

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- 7/28/2001 5:25:00 PM

nyarlathotep

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I really like this idea! Also any chance that maybe in the initial onslaught the west rearms some of the German units with German equipment to help stem the tide? And I have to agree with Green in that the Russian navy would not even be a factor against the combined fleets of the west(or just the U.S. for that matter). After the almost complete destruction of the Japanese navy all the CV task forces would be released for operations against Russia while land based aircraft took over for support of Olympia/Coronet.

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- 7/29/2001 2:38:00 AM

victorhauser

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I personally believe that the Soviets were more war-weary by the end of 1945 than is generally believed. Their economy was in very bad shape, their nation was largely in ruins, and their population had been decimated. In addition, they were aware of the Manhattan Project, and even if that Project had been somehow delayed it would still have been a BIG Sword of Damocles. I do not believe that the Soviets would've been eager to fight another major war directly on the heels of the defeat of the Axis. Usually a nation goes to war if: 1) it believes its national survival is at stake; 2) it believes it can win; 3) to protect the vital interests of its Allies; and/or 4) it is invaded or attacked without provocation. It would take a whole LOT of "Hypothetical Ifs" to convince me that the Soviets would be willing to risk a major war with the Western Allies. Indeed, if Cold-War history is any indicator, the Soviets were willing to beat up on hapless minor nations or provide indirect support to minor nations who opposed the West, but they backed-down from every serious direct confrontation they had with the West. To me, this does not imply cowardice (I've always believed the Russians to be a brave people), but rather it indicates that the Soviets were pragmatic, realistic, and not fools--they knew they didn't have a very high probability of success.

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- 7/29/2001 6:40:00 AM

Tombstone

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In the end, who cares if it's REALLY possible. I think this offers up a lot of neat scenario and campaign ideas. Certainly the Soviet Union was in pain after 1945, but maybe Stalin's assessment was that the future of the Soviet Union wasn't secure unless a substantially larger sum of natural resources were hers, maybe he saw a future where an arms race with the USA would result in his nation going bankrupt and was trying to seize an opportunity to balance the economical disparity between them... Either way, we know that large battle ready units were deployed and where they were or could be. It could make for some fun play. Tomo

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- 7/30/2001 11:42:00 PM

JTGEN

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About the navy. I did not say that the Soviet fleet could have fought and won the western ones in Atlantic, but baltic sea is an other world. Russians had some good ships and a lot of submarines. If west would bring its big ships in Baltic, it would be a suicide. They could be shelled from land in many areas and tracked too. Airstike would have been all too easy way to destroy the fleets. Finland would probably not join west, atleast at the beginning. We still hav our geografical position and a large amount of foreign troops would have to come to assist us in the case of hostilities. If the western allies could get Sweden to join them, the question of large operations in baltic would be possible, but not much of a chance for that.

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