WW2 USSR screws up badly

[Blink56]

Could it have been possibile during the second world war, for the Soviet Union to foul upin a major battle ?

Also I have an idea, what if the USSR has lost Leningrad by the end of November 1941. Now I have to say that I am not a good historian but what I can gather.Finland originally advance alll the way to Leningard and then stopped. It didn't let the Germans pass through it's tertoiory because they said that they had completed their war aims. Now here's the POD we have the Finish Government allow the german army to attack through it's territory. Then we have Leningrad atacked on both sides?

Here's the question. Would an attack succeed on Leningrad form both sides and what would be the affects on the whole war if that city fell to the German army ?

Also I need to ask if some members of the community could help me out by developing this idea. I havn't got much knowldge about WW2 but I would be happy if some members of the community could help me out by finding me links to infomation on the Eastern Front.

 

[Bavarian Raven]

...it could have prolonged the war on the eastern front for maybe a month or two longer...but it wouldn't have changed the outcome of the war...the only thing that could have done that was, if germany had another two or three million fully equipped battle ready soldiers in later 1942 or early 1943...

 

[Blink56]

Well that understandable but what I want to know is what could happen to the city after it falls and what would happen to the attacking forces, noce they take control of the city ?

 

[Permanganate]

Using the figures from Wikipedia for the numbers engaged around Leningrad from 1941-1944, Leningrad falling in 1941 would free up ~600k Axis troops for the 1942 offensives, while capturing or killing perhaps 700-800k Soviet troops.

That is a lot of Axis troops...the 1942 offensive will be more successful, and the greater northern success in 1941 might get Hitler more interested in Moscow, Archangelsk, and Murmansk instead of the Caucasus. Since the northern area is where the main Soviet armies are, where a lot of the Lend-Lease is coming through, and where the USSR's capital is, an offensive there is likely to be a lot more useful than the OTL Operation Blue.

 

[HueyLong]

Except Hitler still needed Caucasian oil.

 

[Blink56]

Yeah I can understand what you are saying but where could troops be used. They wouldn't just be transfered to Group Southwould they. So once they capture the city, what happenes to the remaining civilian population and what will happen after the fall of Leningrad?

Also what would happen to the commanders who are sucessful in the capture of Leningrad ?

 

[merlin]

I think, the opportunities for the fall of Leningrad were greater earlier. If Hoepner had been giving more support, a coup de-main seems plausible in early August. An early assault, means a less well defended City to contend with, and hence could have meant less chance of house-to-house street fighting. Perhaps, the troops used in Finmark i.e. from Northern Norwary due east, had been used instead against the Leningrad region!
With Leningrad taken, it gives the Germans a northern base - a sea port an alternative to vulnerable railways. Perhaps the Russians lose out in attempts to retake the City!?
The loss of Leningrad (whenever it happened) would have been a shock to Russian morale, and so could have effected the fall of Moscow - which surely would've been attempted earlier with Leningrad taken.

 

[Permanganate]

Except Hitler still needed Caucasian oil.

Germany got practically no Caucasus oil in OTL, and front line combat units had enough oil to operate until the last few months of the war. Obviously he didn't "need" the Caucasus oil, though it would have been beneficial.

It should have been obvious at the time that the oil fields were never going to be taken intact; the Majkop fields were a mess and Baku would probably have been even more throughly destroyed, useless until at least 1944. They were still a valuable target as their capture denies them to the USSR, but IIRC postwar research has shown they were less critical to the Soviet war effort than the Germans believed in 1942. Probably not worth driving all the way from the Ukraine for, especially when your half-assed plan that involves two directions of attack, at a near right angle to each other, leaves you overextended.

 

[ThomasG]

It should have been obvious at the time that the oil fields were never going to be taken intact; the Majkop fields were a mess and Baku would probably have been even more throughly destroyed, useless until at least 1944. They were still a valuable target as their capture denies them to the USSR, but IIRC postwar research has shown they were less critical to the Soviet war effort than the Germans believed in 1942. Probably not worth driving all the way from the Ukraine for, especially when your half-assed plan that involves two directions of attack, at a near right angle to each other, leaves you overextended.

Our you kidding? With the loss of Baku, Oil has to be diverted from Siberia and away from the factories and homes it were powering, the artificial rubber plants, etc. That would throw Russian Production into the toilet and come at a point when Tanker production was still a bottleneck.

Then add in the fact the Germans are sitting on Persia and Turkey, that threatens the British Oil supply and will cause even further problems.

 

[M79]

If Leningrad falls in 1941, Moscow will probably fall in late Nov/early Dec and the war likely goes to Germany.

If it falls after Kursk, it extends the war a few months if that.

But if it falls between Jan 1942 and Aug 1943 it means at least another 6 months of Eastern Front. If Operation Neptune (the long-awaited Stalingrad counteroffensive) is interrupted by the fall of Leningrad, it opens up a Moscow '43 scenario that might cause the USSR to move east of the Urals. Taking Baku and Murmansk would give Hitler serious inroads into Soviet production and start putting the Russian tank factories into bomber range. The Iron Curtain might be pushed to the Vistula/Danube, Bug/Iasu, or maybe Dniepr rivers. Russia falls in the 70s but the war lasts into 1946 or maybe even 1947 and lots more tech develops, with F-86s and MiG-15s fighting Ta 183s as B-47s and B-36s drop atom bombs on Germany, which might respond with A9 or A10 missile launches.

 

[Permanganate]

Our you kidding? With the loss of Baku, Oil has to be diverted from Siberia and away from the factories and homes it were powering, the artificial rubber plants, etc.

Don't reemember where I saw the numbers - it might have been the book The Dictators - but Caucasus was not as critical to the USSR by 1942 as it was ten years earlier. There were other oil wells east of the Urals. Production, training, and operations will all have a lot less oil to work with, but the USSR would have survived.

Then add in the fact the Germans are sitting on Persia and Turkey, that threatens the British Oil supply and will cause even further problems.

Germany was not ready to fight the Soviet Union plus the Allies across the Middle East in 1943.

 

[Max Sinister]

I don't know whether it was for the Finns that Leningrad wasn't taken. Hitler had another plan - he wanted to starve the city (and many hundred thousands indeed died). German troops fought in Petsamo, northern Finland. (In 1942 Hitler decided to take Leningrad, but it seems it was too late then.)

 

[Hendryk]

Whatever the cause, if the USSR is still at war against Germany by the time Japan surrenders in the Pacific, it means that Stalin doesn't have a window of opportunity to invade Japanese-occupied Manchuria. This in turn will deny the Chinese Communists a stronghold when the civil war against the Nationalists resumes, and ultimately butterflies away China's takeover by Mao. So whatever else happens, one-fifth of mankind has just been spared a particularly nasty brand of totalitarianism, and the Korean and Vietnam wars won't get to take place either.

It's an interesting hypothesis, and it could form the basis of a TL about a nicer, shinier second half of the 20th century.

 

[rudebadger]

Anyway you look at it, if Stalin screws up enough early in the war to give a boost to Germany's war effort, that just means in August 1945 Berlin gets nuked instead of Hiroshima.

 

[ThomasG]

Don't reemember where I saw the numbers - it might have been the book The Dictators - but Caucasus was not as critical to the USSR by 1942 as it was ten years earlier. There were other oil wells east of the Urals. Production, training, and operations will all have a lot less oil to work with, but the USSR would have survived.

Beyond the Urals where Hitler didn't care the least about beyond maybe assisting the Moslem republics in revolt.

Germany was not ready to fight the Soviet Union plus the Allies across the Middle East in 1943.

If the Caucasus is in their hands, then yes they are as Turkey will definitely join the war, the Arabs will revolt and even more dangerous, the Iranians will rise up.

 

[ThomasG]

Anyway you look at it, if Stalin screws up enough early in the war to give a boost to Germany's war effort, that just means in August 1945 Berlin gets nuked instead of Hiroshima.

Not at all. With Russia knocked out the war turns proxy with American and German backed client states fighting.

America doesn't know where the Germans are with their bomb project and won't risk it.

 

[Bavarian Raven]

...except as some books put it, the allies would do anything they could NOT to nuke germany because they were white...but they were obviously ok with nuking the asians...

 

[Larrikin]

Nuke victims

...except as some books put it, the allies would do anything they could NOT to nuke germany because they were white...but they were obviously ok with nuking the asians...

I give you Hamburg, the Ruhr, Dresden, etc. If the Allies had the bomb and the Nazis were still in the war, they would have worn a couple. Then the Japanese would have been told "you'll get the same" by having a couple dropped on them. In 1945 they were just one more, extremely efficient weapon, nothing more, nothing less, and would have been used on Germany with just as much alacrity as on Japan.

 

[Permanganate]

Beyond the Urals where Hitler didn't care the least about beyond maybe assisting the Moslem republics in revolt.

What's your point? My point was that the oil wells beyond the Urals could give the USSR enough oil to carry on fighting.

If the Caucasus is in their hands, then yes they are as Turkey will definitely join the war, the Arabs will revolt and even more dangerous, the Iranians will rise up.

There's no precedent in the 1943 Middle East for mass civilian uprisings in favor of a power that doesn't control the area, and the one time a government tried it (Iraq) they were quickly squashed by the Allies. If the Germans try this, they're bringing most of their supplies through partisan-affected rail lines through Poland, Ukraine, Russia, the Caucasus, and the the Middle East to get to the area where the Allies can deploy pretty much anything they want with sea supply. They've also still got the USSR to fight, which can cut off whole army groups if counterattacks ever reach the Black Sea. While better for Germany than OTL 1942-1943, this scenario is not good for them if the USA is in the war.

 

[Croesus]

Blink56: this is a nice WI and I hope you can develop it.

Some thoughts...

* Leningrad can fall without the Finns' opening up a western access. This can add a bit of depth to your TL as it calls into question the difficult Finnish-German relationship.

* Agree with merlin that the longer it takes the less likely it'll fall. So Leningrad needs to fall at the first thrust. You can posit a few more tanks, a bit more luck, a breakthrough here or a hasty retreat there to put the Germans in the city late 1941. The city will be devastated, but who in Germany cares?

* The thing I'd look closely at is the implications of Germany capturing the three big tank works semi-intact before they can be fully transported east. Recognising the T-34 influence in Panther design, and the KV-1 elements in Tiger design, it's would be interesting to see what the implications are of German tank designers getting a lot of the tools/dies, half/semi finished tanks, sections of surviving process line. I think that you would have a case for suggesting that better Panther/Tiger design emerge earlier.

* An associated point to the above would be investigating if, when confronted with Soviet manufacturing methods and the associated production figures that can be extrapolated, the Germans replace Goering as economic and production Tsar with Speer earlier. This would be possibly the most significant point to work through.

* With solidity at Leningrad you can posit German success in shutting down the Archangel run with the implications for Soviet re-supply: with fewer US trucks can the various Russian counter-offensives move as quickly frinst?

* A German Leningrad doesn't however change the Pripet Marshes situation and in a sense highlights how Germany must fight a Russian war to beat the Russians: better tanks won't help you winkle out the Partisan army that increasingly constricts the German supply lines.

* The removal of troops from Leningrad poses implications for all key German theatres: Moscow, Stalingrad, Sevastopol in the east; the Atlantic Wall and the Afrika Korps in the west.

There's heaps to work through on this and I hope you can take it on!

Croesus