WWIII 1946 BOB II Poll suggestion

[stevep]

Originally Posted by Snake Featherston

Let's not forget the obvious, namely that the WAllies can and will be arming Baltic and Ukrainian nationalists. This, after all, is a war scenario, and the WAllies, especially in a Soviet-wank like this one, have no scruples about how they force the war to an end, and the Soviets unintentionally already set this precedent in reverse in much of the Balkans......

Snake

Not just the Ukrainians and Balts. There are a lot of other groups deeply unhappy with being under the Soviet yoke. [Although probably not yet as the allies will be busy rearming the massive forces they are re-moblising.] However expect large scale unrest, especially since the Soviets, between aptitude and shortages will be looting everything they can across Europe and leaving a trail of death and destruction behind them.

Steve

[Hairog]

Originally Posted by stevep

You mean other than the one they have already. An updated version of what worked in 1940, using the vastly superior resources available now, is what most of us are suggesting and would I think work fine.

Sorry but this is a thread only about how the RAF can defend itself given where we are in the story. I am done rehashing the story and will only address the RAF plan to defend itself.

I doubt if BC will be sitting back, especially since the Soviets have relatively little to stop it. [Wank point apart] However for FC the defensive approach worked very well in 1940 as given how much you're saying the Soviets are somehow maintaining in France and Belgium and that the UK would have a good idea of the odds it would make sense. If nothing else they would hopefully have learnt from the sweeps of 41/42.

So you are advocating that the RAF take the fight to the Soviets and give up home field and the ability to use their AA and the loss of all their downed pilot over enemy territory? Not to mention the loss of their radar advantage.

[Snake Featherston]

Originally Posted by stevep

Snake

Not just the Ukrainians and Balts. There are a lot of other groups deeply unhappy with being under the Soviet yoke. [Although probably not yet as the allies will be busy rearming the massive forces they are re-moblising.] However expect large scale unrest, especially since the Soviets, between aptitude and shortages will be looting everything they can across Europe and leaving a trail of death and destruction behind them.

Steve

True, I was just noting the most obvious/easy to supply groups in the USSR proper. Those also have the advantages of already being involved in bushwhacking the USSR in some very strategically sensitive areas.......thus fitting into the military version of Occam's Razor.

[stevep]

Originally Posted by Hairog

The Soviet objective is to intimidate or enforce Britain's neutrality. They do not want an unsinkable aircraft carrier sitting within reach of Moscow. Read the story and their demands are made plain in a number of places.

Hairog

So that's a sudden reverse from brilliance but immoral to stupid and naive? They can't achieve that without an actual occupation and the imposition of a puppet government, as both they and British know. Otherwise Britain can rearm and renew the war, especially given that the Soviets can't afford to maintain the concentration of forces they currently are in occupied France. Especially given the Soviet treachery and the fact that Stalin will assume very other leader is like him, there is no reason to accept the word of any British government. Nor will he be allowed to put into Britain any 'advisers' to supervise any such 'disarmament'. His agents might be able to tell him even if their still stupid enough to stay loyal but he can't use them without exposing them.

Steve

[hipper]

[QUOTE=Hairog;6368258]There was a squadron in France.

do you mean 616 squadron - the one that operated on the continent in 1945?

it was renumbered to 263 squadron in August 1945 and moved to RAF Ackrinton in the North of england.

By the way it looks like the RAF created 15 meteor squadrons during 1946 without a major world war.....

[Hairog]

[QUOTE=stevep;6368276]Hairog

Replying to you're reply to pdf27[quote]

They have access to some of the information GB had. That doesn't mean they will understand or use it. There are a lot of barriers to adsorbing information from outside, especially with the huge political and social differences. They can learn from history but may learn the wrong lessons. Especially since the right lessons may be politically 'wrong'.

The Cambridge 5 were British aristocracy. The person who had access IOTL to Ultra was one of them.

Britain may have some complacency but they have just seen a vicious attack by a former ally that has moblised forces large enough to gravely weaken its economy so the general opinion is that they have a hard fight ahead.

Ah but, in a virtually featureless landscape a simple landmark like a river or road is fairly easy to identity. In a cluttered landscape its a lot more difficult to tell which is the correct road say. Especially when you're vision is obscured by the heavy and very accurate flak or you're desperately dog-fighting with the fighters attacking you're formations.

I disagree. With the abilities they have honed in flying by the seat of their pants they will have no problem after spending the last 6 months studying their targets.

I don't think pdf27 is saying that at all. He's saying that the AA will contribute to inflicting huge losses on the Soviets and that the RAF if necessary can pull back to areas outside the south of England to regroup. The Soviets may have a fighter than can reach those areas but how many will they have at some point, if RAF does have to pull back and regroup?

I'm sorry but I don't understand that last sentence.

Also they would have to know where the fighter squadrons would be going to and be able to support attacks in time and take the necessary higher losses from the resultant combats and air defence.

Once again you've lost me. Sorry.

The 1st part is largely true I think. The 2ns is totally different and not something pdf27 said at all. Just that the Soviets will take huge, almost certainly unsustainable losses from AA alone against the most heavily defended targets. Coupled with the losses from FC and from general wear and tear the VVS will be reduced pretty drastically.

I don't know about "most certainly" but I catch your meaning.

As I said above I think complacency isn't going to be very common. It's difficult not to get the feeling from the tone of you're reply you're already trying to find reasons for the Soviets to 'win' again.

The JCS in 1946 in their war plans gave the RAF less than a month to survive against a possible attack by the VVS. What do some you seem to know that they didn't. These were the people who knew most intimately what the capabilities of the RAF in 1946 was and they were not confident at all.

Despite the problems they might manage to get that amount of forces in the region and be able to operate most of it, at least to some degree. However the facts suggest that ratio won't last very long.

And what "facts" might those be? Let's take an example of how the ratio will change.

Let's round things down to make it easier. 5000 vs 1000. In the first 2 weeks the RAF shoots down twice as many Soviet fighters as they lose. So the Soviets lose 1000 planes and the RAF loses 500. So now we have 4000 vs 500 or 8 to 1. Or even 3 times. So we have say 3500 vs 500 or 7 to 1. I think you can do the math. It will have to be 5 times in order for the ratio to even stay the same. Is it plausible that the RAF and all the AA defences together can inflict an over 5 to 1 loss rate?

[stevep]

Originally Posted by Hairog

Sorry but this is a thread only about how the RAF can defend itself given where we are in the story. I am done rehashing the story and will only address the RAF plan to defend itself.



So you are advocating that the RAF take the fight to the Soviets and give up home field and the ability to use their AA and the loss of all their downed pilot over enemy territory? Not to mention the loss of their radar advantage.

Hairog

Why are you repeatedly claiming people are saying things they aren't.

I am talking about how the RAF can defend itself in the position you have placed it in. I have not said anything about giving up home advantage? Other than the possible night attacks by BC that the Soviets have minimal ability to intercept.

Steve

[Hairog]

[QUOTE=hipper;6368466]

Originally Posted by Hairog

There was a squadron in France.

do you mean 616 squadron - the one that operated on the continent in 1945?

it was renumbered to 263 squadron in August 1945 and moved to RAF Ackrinton in the North of england.

No it wasn't the 616 and I am not at home or inclined to search through all of the Squadrons once again like I did a year ago. I am confident that there was a Squadron of Meteors in France in May 1946. Go ahead and look the entire history of the RAF Squadron by squadron like I did and if you don't find it I'll take another look at my notes when I get home. Otherwise please take my word for it.

By the way it looks like the RAF created 15 meteor squadrons during 1946 without a major world war.....

Not by May, 1946 and at that time they had to make a choice to either resurrect 3 times more Spitfires or build many fewer Meteors. They chose to go with bringing their Spitfires out of mothballs.

[Andre27]

A little info on the soviet navy in 1945/1946
http://www.navypedia.org/ships/russia/ru_list.htm

http://www.navypedia.org/ships/russia/ru_index.htm

Though total numbers seem somewhat impressive most naval vessels were in various stages of (dis)repair.

With almost no soviet naval presence, the RN may decide to do some shoot &scoot raids against soviet installations in Scandinavia/France.

Although it may not have a significant impact on the total number of soviet aircraft deployed, it may force the soviets to leave a relatively large force for defense.

[Hairog]

Originally Posted by stevep

Hairog

Why are you repeatedly claiming people are saying things they aren't.

I am talking about how the RAF can defend itself in the position you have placed it in. I have not said anything about giving up home advantage? Other than the possible night attacks by BC that the Soviets have minimal ability to intercept.

Steve

My goodness... repeatedly. I may have misunderstood your post but repeatedly. Give me another example please.


As to the night attacks. Please read the story.

[pdf27]

Originally Posted by Hairog

And the Soviets have access to all the information that the US and GB have as to what works and what doesn't. They can also learn from history and not make the same mistakes that the Germans made. Similarly the British could be complacent because of their victory in BOBI.

1) Having reports on what someone else thinks works is a world away from making it happen for yourself. Quite apart from the aspect of "not invented here", there is the incredibly difficult task of making sure the critical people talk to each other at the appropriate time. This sort of thing is not something the Soviets had done before, and it is extremely unlikely that they could get it to work in a short period of time in the circumstances. The battle they fought in the East was very different in air terms.
2) Given that the Soviets have just taken most of Western Europe, exactly how complacent could any member of the Western forces be feeling???

Originally Posted by Hairog

They will have radios but expect to have them jammed at times and will not be counting on radar to a large extent. They realize that they cannot compete with the British in the electronic warfare realm. They will take what they can get but will be using the tried and true methods that worked in the featureless Steps of Ukraine etc. If they could navigate in that kind of environment devoid of landmarks they will be able to in a land filled with rivers and easily recognizable landmarks.

Navigation and Command & Control are two very different things. Navigation over England is easy. Without radios and radar, however, you're limited to standing patrols (and indeed without radios your aircraft will find it much harder to fight as a team and will be proportionately less effective). Radios, radar, and the associated control system are an enormous advantage if the other side doesn't have them - easily doubling or trebling the effective size of your force.

Originally Posted by Hairog

See the post above. They have done something similar before and they can certainly duplicate it under even easier circumstances.

You're currently in mid-late September, right? Within 3-4 weeks the rains are going to start and you'll need all-weather airfields. The ones the Soviets used in the Battle of Berlin were almost certainly just open grass fields - you might just be able to get some of the lighter aircraft out of them in winter, but that's it. They've got a 3-4 week air campaign between now and May. The weather over the UK will also be closing in rapidly - and navigating over cloud is a great deal harder than over the steppe.

Originally Posted by Hairog

The Yak 9DD was introduced into service in 1944 and had a range of 2285km. This has been discussed before.

What fraction of the production run were these in OTL? So far as I can tell they were only produced during the war, not postwar, and in relatively small numbers. They don't look like something you can do a field conversion on, so unless your Deus ex Machina has been planning on refighting the Battle of Britain since 1944 then you won't have very many. 1,085 were built in 1944, with none after that, suggesting it was regarded as a bit of a dog. It was certainly slower and less manouverable than the standard version, and optimised for low altitude. This forces the VVS to attack at less than 10,000ft if they want an escort - right into the range limits of light flak.

The Yak-9D is also described as a "long range" version, and had a similar range to the Bf-109E. ~3,000 were built. This suggests that the other versions had even shorter legs - worth checking up on, because if so you may have a very limited number of escort fighters that can go any further than Kent/Sussex.

Originally Posted by Hairog

So are the Soviets and they won too.

Ruthless, yes. Professional, no. Some things the VVS did very well - support of ground troops for instance. Strategic air offensives were not one of them.

Originally Posted by Hairog

So you're advocating pulling back and letting Southern England be defended by AA alone? As seen above there is nowhere to pull back to in the British Isles. It is all within range of a very competitive single engine fighter.

Only if need be. Remember that the RAF's primary mission is to provide air cover to an RN fleet destroying an invasion. Everything else is secondary.

Originally Posted by vectorsite.net

The "Yak-9DD" was a very long range variant, with all eight wing tanks, a radio compass, and a long-range US-built SCR-174N radio. Armament was reduced to the ShVAK 20 millimeter cannon. It was built in limited numbers. Pilots were not fond of it since it was overweight, calling it the "flying cistern". A group of these were flown from the Ukraine to Italy to provide support for Tito's forces in Yugoslavia, operating against the Germans.

Originally Posted by Hairog

So the AA can take care of itself in other words and areas well defended by massive amounts of AA will be amply defended.

That was RAF doctrine from the fight against the V-1s - to have areas exclusively defended by guns, and areas exclusively defended by fighters. If you mix the two the effectiveness of each is diminished by not being sure what their target is.

Originally Posted by Hairog

So the RAF should not worry and not go to any extraordinary lengths to defend itself? Just sit back and see what the Soviets have in mind and then business as usual? Fight this war like the last?

More or less. They need to concentrate on remobilizing forces, converting to jets, etc. rather than worrying about something that they're well aware isn't possible. If that changes, they'll be aware almost immediately - RAF photo recon was superb by the end of the war, and given the performance advantage of RAF aircraft that isn't something the Soviets can do very much about.

Originally Posted by Hairog

I don't know where you got the idea that the sides were equal. They are not. The VVS outnumbers the RAF 5 to 1.

Number of airframes on strength is irrelevant. Number and relative position of airframes at the start of any given fight is critical - and here due to the superior position, logistics and C3 systems the RAF is likely to come out ahead.

[stevep]

Originally Posted by Hairog

The Cambridge 5 were British aristocracy. The person who had access IOTL to Ultra was one of them.

Which is totally beside the point. You're talking about understanding the doctrine and equipment of another nation in an alien environment and deciding, correctly, what lessons to learn. Even if the Cambridge 5 are still blindly loyal to their master and get the necessary info, which obviously won't be in Ultra intercepts, do you think they will pass on every iota of data available to them? Presuming they pass on relevant data will it get picked up by the people with the necessary power and knowledge, especially ultimately the man in charge. Who famously got all the information to prepare for a Nazi attack in 1941 and dropped the ball totally.

I disagree. With the abilities they have honed in flying by the seat of their pants they will have no problem after spending the last 6 months studying their targets.

So all those thousands of pilots are supernatural navigators even under heavy stress and given a system that often treats initiative as a fatal infection? Looking at a map is a lot different from seeing things on the ground, even apart from the differences in presentation. Also those same pilots haven't had 6 months to prepare for this as their been fighting their way across Europe and trying to sort out their new bases.

I'm sorry but I don't understand that last sentence.

Once again you've lost me. Sorry.

The Soviets have a fighter, I think it was a Yak something?, than can reach all parts of the UK. They have X numbers of it. If they use it they will take losses. If they use it in places where other fighters can't join it those losses will be heavier.

If the RAF have to withdraw to the north then those fighters can attack their bases. At which point, apart from identifying the necessary targets its the surviving numbers of that Yak v the surviving entire FC + air defences. The Soviet fighters and the bombers their the sole escort for are likely to suffer very heavily. All those losses will be compounded by the fact their operating at a longer range. As such more will be lost because accumulated damage, pilot injury, fuel losses means the a/c will crash before it get back to France.

I don't know about "most certainly" but I catch your meaning.

I said almost certainly.

The JCS in 1946 in their war plans gave the RAF less than a month to survive against a possible attack by the VVS. What do some you seem to know that they didn't. These were the people who knew most intimately what the capabilities of the RAF in 1946 was and they were not confident at all.

I don't know about the report or the circumstances of it. Correspondingly can the VVS sustain a month's high level operation against Britain, especially with the reinforcements that can arrive.

And what "facts" might those be? Let's take an example of how the ratio will change.

The facts are that the VVS are putting their arm into a grinder, going up against a defence that is about an order of magnitude more formidable than they have received before.

Let's round things down to make it easier. 5000 vs 1000. In the first 2 weeks the RAF shoots down twice as many Soviet fighters as they lose. So the Soviets lose 1000 planes and the RAF loses 500. So now we have 4000 vs 500 or 8 to 1. Or even 3 times. So we have say 3500 vs 500 or 7 to 1. I think you can do the math. It will have to be 5 times in order for the ratio to even stay the same. Is it plausible that the RAF and all the AA defences together can inflict an over 5 to 1 loss rate?

You are overlooking several points:
a) Both sides are getting reinforcements. This is almost certainly to be higher for the defenders than the attackers. Because the RAF has a huge number of former crews it will be urgently recruiting back to service and it will be ramping up production, whereas the Soviets are fighting on multiple fronts. Also, even if for some reason the US is refusing to support Britain I bet the dominions aren't. They have a large number of experienced pilots and a/c of their own.

b) Soviet losses are likely to be higher because they will be using a/c to air combat, a very strong air defence system and battle damage that means the a/c can't make it back across the channel. This will also mean a lot more pilot losses as many who survive will go down either in Britain or in the sea and few of them will get back. Also their operating a long way from their bases while the Brits are operating at their.

c) What targets are the Soviets going for? If they concentrate on FC and the air defences they can force the fighters to fight but do little to try and suppress British production. If they switch to industrial targets then they give FC a chance to regroup. If FC has to take a break and withdraw most of its resources to the north how many VVS fighters can try and take the war too them.

d) I was assuming that the ratio was as stated in the BoB, i.e. British fighters verses all attacking a/c i.e. fighters and bombers. Find it hard, especially given several months of war and a 2-3 month lull, that 1000 would be the number of total RAF front line a/c rather than the minimum number of fighters. What is the actual ratio of fighters to fighters?

e) As you have admitted Stalin isn't trying to invade so even if the RAF has to withdraw totally the Soviets are limited as to what they can do. They can continue attacks, at heavy losses from air defences until either they give up or the RAF re-enters the fray.

Steve

[pdf27]

Originally Posted by Hairog

And what "facts" might those be? Let's take an example of how the ratio will change.

Let's round things down to make it easier. 5000 vs 1000. In the first 2 weeks the RAF shoots down twice as many Soviet fighters as they lose. So the Soviets lose 1000 planes and the RAF loses 500. So now we have 4000 vs 500 or 8 to 1. Or even 3 times. So we have say 3500 vs 500 or 7 to 1. I think you can do the math. It will have to be 5 times in order for the ratio to even stay the same. Is it plausible that the RAF and all the AA defences together can inflict an over 5 to 1 loss rate?

Battle of Britain experience contradicts this. In a defensive fight, you will recover a significant proportion of your aircrew. During the BoB, the RAF lost 510 dead and I'm assuming another 20% too seriously injured to fly again soon. In the same time they lost just over a thousand single engined aircraft.

Assuming that you can get the airframes available, then even assuming the RAF can't train any new aircrew the strengths after the first two weeks are 4000 .vs. 750. If the RAF can find another 50 aircrew in the course of those two weeks, the 5:1 ratio of strength is maintained and the battle is heading for an attritional draw. If they can find more than that (and that isn't a big stretch - the Commonwealth Air Training Plan was churning out 1,000 aircrew PER WEEK at it's height) and supply them with aircraft the Soviets lose - and destroy their air force in the process.

[stevep]

Originally Posted by Hairog

My goodness... repeatedly. I may have misunderstood your post but repeatedly. Give me another example please.


As to the night attacks. Please read the story.

Hairog

Those two in that post should be enough.

Steve

[juanml82]

Fighter range can be worked out with a POD in which the Soviets play with aerial refuelling during WWII. Not much use by then but, once they start planning WWIII, they could put it into mass production, train the pilots for it and use it. This is about alternate history, after all.

The Soviet objective is to intimidate or enforce Britain's neutrality. They do not want an unsinkable aircraft carrier sitting within reach of Moscow. Read the story and their demands are made plain in a number of places.

The issue is, the Germans tried to do exactly that in WWII, and it didn't work for them. So, why does Stalin thinks the USSR can do it?


Numbers matter, a lot, in an attrition battle. Attrition battles are, actually, about each side's ability to send teenagers to their deaths. But we are not factoring the USAAF in this. The VVS won't be fighting the RAF alone unless we are talking about a completely different WWII. Of course, multiple fronts (Spain is mentioned, for instance), easy the logistical situation in northern France and diminish bottlenecks, because both sides need to cover all fronts.
OTOH, why would soviet pilots have more trouble finding their targets in Britain than they did during WWII? Their navigation capabilities don't need to be speculated upon, they 'simply' need to be researched.

[Hairog]

Originally Posted by pdf27

1) Having reports on what someone else thinks works is a world away from making it happen for yourself. Quite apart from the aspect of "not invented here", there is the incredibly difficult task of making sure the critical people talk to each other at the appropriate time. This sort of thing is not something the Soviets had done before, and it is extremely unlikely that they could get it to work in a short period of time in the circumstances. The battle they fought in the East was very different in air terms.

Hence Sergo. He has been changing the Soviet aerospace industry since 1943.

2) Given that the Soviets have just taken most of Western Europe, exactly how complacent could any member of the Western forces be feeling???

I agree. My point is that some people posting to this thread seem to think that the VVS is dead meat and there is no reason to panic or even change from what they did in 1940.

Navigation and Command & Control are two very different things. Navigation over England is easy. Without radios and radar, however, you're limited to standing patrols (and indeed without radios your aircraft will find it much harder to fight as a team and will be proportionately less effective). Radios, radar, and the associated control system are an enormous advantage if the other side doesn't have them - easily doubling or trebling the effective size of your force.

How about pentupling?

They will have radios but as I said they will not be relying on them.

You're currently in mid-late September, right? Within 3-4 weeks the rains are going to start and you'll need all-weather airfields. The ones the Soviets used in the Battle of Berlin were almost certainly just open grass fields - you might just be able to get some of the lighter aircraft out of them in winter, but that's it. They've got a 3-4 week air campaign between now and May. The weather over the UK will also be closing in rapidly - and navigating over cloud is a great deal harder than over the steppe.

The main aim of the VVS is to prevent the RAF from flying. If weather does the job so much the better. I would argue the VVS flew in much worse weather than the RAF could ever imagine.

What fraction of the production run were these in OTL? So far as I can tell they were only produced during the war, not postwar, and in relatively small numbers. They don't look like something you can do a field conversion on, so unless your Deus ex Machina has been planning on refighting the Battle of Britain since 1944 then you won't have very many. 1,085 were built in 1944, with none after that, suggesting it was regarded as a bit of a dog. It was certainly slower and less manouverable than the standard version, and optimised for low altitude. This forces the VVS to attack at less than 10,000ft if they want an escort - right into the range limits of light flak.

You don't think 1085 is a very many? Since the end of the war they have been preparing to take on the US and Britain. So yes they have been concentrating on the Tu2S and the Yak 9DD and Yak9PD.

The Yak-9D is also described as a "long range" version, and had a similar range to the Bf-109E. ~3,000 were built. This suggests that the other versions had even shorter legs - worth checking up on, because if so you may have a very limited number of escort fighters that can go any further than Kent/Sussex.

Once again 3000 is not many compared to what the RAF has available now?

Ruthless, yes. Professional, no. Some things the VVS did very well - support of ground troops for instance. Strategic air offensives were not one of them.

So once again the RAF has nothing to worry about? Is that what you are saying?

That was RAF doctrine from the fight against the V-1s - to have areas exclusively defended by guns, and areas exclusively defended by fighters. If you mix the two the effectiveness of each is diminished by not being sure what their target is.

Now that's very interesting. Do you advise that they do the same against this threat? Do you advocate that they do this in BOBII?

More or less. They need to concentrate on remobilizing forces, converting to jets, etc. rather than worrying about something that they're well aware isn't possible. If that changes, they'll be aware almost immediately - RAF photo recon was superb by the end of the war, and given the performance advantage of RAF aircraft that isn't something the Soviets can do very much about.

They have made the Mig 9 functional so the RAF is not alone up there. And some of them might have a British jet engine in them.

Number of airframes on strength is irrelevant. Number and relative position of airframes at the start of any given fight is critical - and here due to the superior position, logistics and C3 systems the RAF is likely to come out ahead.

So once again you are saying that they have nothing to worry about? That they can be complacent?

[Hairog]

Originally Posted by stevep

Hairog

Those two in that post should be enough.

Steve

Sorry Stevep but your trying to get this personal and I won't go there. Please stop.

[Hairog]

Originally Posted by pdf27

Battle of Britain experience contradicts this. In a defensive fight, you will recover a significant proportion of your aircrew. During the BoB, the RAF lost 510 dead and I'm assuming another 20% too seriously injured to fly again soon. In the same time they lost just over a thousand single engined aircraft.

Assuming that you can get the airframes available, then even assuming the RAF can't train any new aircrew the strengths after the first two weeks are 4000 .vs. 750. If the RAF can find another 50 aircrew in the course of those two weeks, the 5:1 ratio of strength is maintained and the battle is heading for an attritional draw. If they can find more than that (and that isn't a big stretch - the Commonwealth Air Training Plan was churning out 1,000 aircrew PER WEEK at it's height) and supply them with aircraft the Soviets lose - and destroy their air force in the process.

The number of planes will be the key not the pilots for the RAF. Consequently the ratio scenario I have proposed should be the key.

[Hairog]

Originally Posted by juanml82

Fighter range can be worked out with a POD in which the Soviets play with aerial refuelling during WWII. Not much use by then but, once they start planning WWIII, they could put it into mass production, train the pilots for it and use it. This is about alternate history, after all.

I don't think my readers would go for that. But interesting suggestion.

The issue is, the Germans tried to do exactly that in WWII, and it didn't work for them. So, why does Stalin thinks the USSR can do it?

There were not very many Nazis in GB. There are many communists in GB at this time. The Brits have been at war for 6 years with 6 months off. If the VVS clears the skies and offers Finlandization to the populous of GB. Remember Stalin, as do most committed Communists, believes that once the proletariat saw the truth they would choose Communism. There is a big difference between a Nazi and a communist. Communism as written is just another economic system and not a religion etc. As you know many elites in British society as well as the US dabbled in Communism. It appealed very much to the economically oppressed. We ain't talking apples to apples here.

IMHO it really isn't comparable to what Hitler tried to do.

Numbers matter, a lot, in an attrition battle. Attrition battles are, actually, about each side's ability to send teenagers to their deaths. But we are not factoring the USAAF in this. The VVS won't be fighting the RAF alone unless we are talking about a completely different WWII. Of course, multiple fronts (Spain is mentioned, for instance), easy the logistical situation in northern France and diminish bottlenecks, because both sides need to cover all fronts.
OTOH, why would soviet pilots have more trouble finding their targets in Britain than they did during WWII? Their navigation capabilities don't need to be speculated upon, they 'simply' need to be researched.

Here, here.

[Jim Smitty]

I haven't read your TL, but I would think there would be a few nukes still about. I think the US had 10 to 20 of them OTL at this point, nuke the bases would be the best answer. But since you have the British getting ready to fight a second BOB, something tells me, either the Soviets had disable the nukes or stole them.

Fighting a second BOB, the UK and US and proto-NATO forces will be using a B-17 turned into a proto-ACAWS aircraft, maybe a B-24 airframe. But the US was building them for operation Downfall OTL, when Japan surrendered the project was stop, but with a hot war going on again, I think the project will come back. So you should have a squadron of two of these proto-ACAWS aircraft in the air.

As to what the UK would do, I thinking they will used their command and control to full effect, low level attacks against Soviet bases to beat their radar. and every aircraft gun the proto-NATO forces can get their hands on.