How would you actually defeat and conquer the USSR during WW2?

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Richard Anderson
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Re: How would you actually defeat and conquer the USSR during WW2?

#31

Post by Richard Anderson » 23 May 2017, 04:45

T. A. Gardner wrote:In that photo you can see the guy standing behind the blade holding what appears to be a hand wheel I would presume raises and lowers the blade in some manner.
Interesting, I don't think I've seen all those before. Regardless, it is an interesting use of a combat vehicle far from the front where it was needed. And not quite equivalent to the 1,400 M1 Dozer Blade kits built for fitting on the Medium Tank M4 or the dozens of D7 Armored Bulldozer kits built by the British or the 250 Centaur armored bulldozers.
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Re: How would you actually defeat and conquer the USSR during WW2?

#32

Post by Yoozername » 23 May 2017, 15:01

If I had to guess, I would think that Panther is being used close to a Panther manufacturing facility. It is the earliest model and without a main gun. It would be interesting to see how the blade is actually attached. This may be a battlefield return from 1943 and may have the earlier engine or other issues.

The StuG IV would, on the other hand, would be a current model at that date.


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Re: How would you actually defeat and conquer the USSR during WW2?

#33

Post by Phaing » 29 May 2017, 01:35

How do you conquer the USSR?

Step one; treat the Russians like Human Beings.

Step two; ask the Russians to tell you what they did with Stalin's body, just to keep the records straight.

Step three; hold a joint victory parade with the ROA in Moscow, that October.

Sounds silly, but this was actually Stalin's greatest fear. Exploit it, and make (or break) the concessions later. Being a little less vicious and nihilistic than the Nazis would have paid tremendous dividends.
As it was, even as bad as they were, 900,000 Russians switched sides during the corse of the war.
Just imagine...

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Re: How would you actually defeat and conquer the USSR during WW2?

#34

Post by Michael Kenny » 29 May 2017, 01:50

Spielberger, Panzer IV & Its Variants page 72.

On May 25, 1944 Hitler judged the armored street
clearing vehicle, developed at the request of Gauleiter
Jordan to clear debris caused by air attacks from the streets,
to be extraordinarily useful. He requested that, for the time
being, ten Panzer III or IV chassis out of repaired stocks be
prepared for this purpose.
Panther grillef465.jpg
Last edited by Michael Kenny on 29 May 2017, 13:52, edited 2 times in total.

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Re: How would you actually defeat and conquer the USSR during WW2?

#35

Post by ljadw » 29 May 2017, 10:09

Phaing wrote:How do you conquer the USSR?


As it was, even as bad as they were, 900,000 Russians switched sides during the corse of the war.
.
This is questionable as it does not give the reasons why they switched sides : a lot switched sides to remain at live : live expectancy in a German POW camp was measured in weeks .

One could even say that if the Russians were treated as human beings, less would switch sides . :wink:

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Re: How would you actually defeat and conquer the USSR during WW2?

#36

Post by Phaing » 30 May 2017, 02:53

ljadw wrote:...
One could even say that if the Russians were treated as human beings, less would switch sides . :wink:
Are you saying that Stalin was a popular leader?
Everything I have heard says just the opposite.

Treating the civilians in the USSR as "well" as the civilians in occupied Western Europe would have been an improvement over what the Soviets had given them in the 1930s. Moscow was only competent at two things; Keeping its people repressed and prostrate, and fooling the rest of the world about what was going on inside their own borders. The Germans could have blown that place wide open... in fact, they crippled the USSR so badly that it never really recovered itself.

But instead, they made it obvious right from the start that this was nothing more than Colonial Imperialism, and ruined themselves as well. All in all, the 3rd Reich had a 20th century Military and a Government with a 17th century mentality.

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Re: How would you actually defeat and conquer the USSR during WW2?

#37

Post by ljadw » 30 May 2017, 04:30

In june 1941 the communist regime was reasonably safe and had a lot of support in the population, because the material circumstances in the SU were better in june 1941 than they were in august 1914 in Russia . There was opposition, but mostly in the territories conquered in 1939/1940.

Health improvement, etc, schools, etc had more importance for the population than the abstract notion of freedom .

And for the POWs : you don't get it : why should POWs fight for the enemy if he treats them correctly ? Did British, Americab POWs fight for the Germans ? A big part of the Soviet POWs fought for the Germans because they were treated very badly : to volunteer for the WM was the only possibility to escape to a certain death in a German POW camp .

If you were a POW of the Japanese and they proposed you to collaborate and in exchange you would have a better live , what would you do ?

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Re: How would you actually defeat and conquer the USSR during WW2?

#38

Post by Yuri » 30 May 2017, 07:53

Phaing wrote:How do you conquer the USSR?

Step one; treat the Russians like Human Beings.

Step two; ask the Russians to tell you what they did with Stalin's body, just to keep the records straight.

Step three; hold a joint victory parade with the ROA in Moscow, that October.

Sounds silly, but this was actually Stalin's greatest fear. Exploit it, and make (or break) the concessions later. Being a little less vicious and nihilistic than the Nazis would have paid tremendous dividends.
As it was, even as bad as they were, 900,000 Russians switched sides during the corse of the war.
Just imagine...
When you say Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, we must not forget that it was Union of different republics. Secondly, the Soviet Union is an Empire. In every Empire in crisis periods increases as the centrifugal and centripetal forces. You say that 900 000 Russian (right - Soviets) defected to the enemy, but you forget that more than 3,000,000 Soviet POWs chose to die rather than to serve the enemy

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Re: How would you actually defeat and conquer the USSR during WW2?

#39

Post by Phaing » 01 Jun 2017, 00:30

Yuri wrote: When you say Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, we must not forget that it was Union of different republics. Secondly, the Soviet Union is an Empire. In every Empire in crisis periods increases as the centrifugal and centripetal forces. You say that 900 000 Russian (right - Soviets) defected to the enemy, but you forget that more than 3,000,000 Soviet POWs chose to die rather than to serve the enemy
Right, thanks to the inhumane policies of the Nazis.
And that figure was quoted to Himmler in 1944 by the army, he was also shocked.

The point is, if Germany had been lead by Human beings instead of monsters, things would have been very different... but in that case, would the invasion have happened at all?

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Re: How would you actually defeat and conquer the USSR during WW2?

#40

Post by T. A. Gardner » 01 Jun 2017, 00:49

ljadw wrote:In june 1941 the communist regime was reasonably safe and had a lot of support in the population, because the material circumstances in the SU were better in june 1941 than they were in august 1914 in Russia . There was opposition, but mostly in the territories conquered in 1939/1940.

Health improvement, etc, schools, etc had more importance for the population than the abstract notion of freedom .

And for the POWs : you don't get it : why should POWs fight for the enemy if he treats them correctly ? Did British, Americab POWs fight for the Germans ? A big part of the Soviet POWs fought for the Germans because they were treated very badly : to volunteer for the WM was the only possibility to escape to a certain death in a German POW camp .

If you were a POW of the Japanese and they proposed you to collaborate and in exchange you would have a better live , what would you do ?
Unless you start looking at history.

Collectivization of agriculture was a disaster. Farm production from 1928 to 1950 fell. Not just crops either. The totals for livestock across the board fell before the war, during the war, and after the war. Many peasants and Kulaks resisted collectivization and were murdered for their efforts. Others slaughtered all their livestock to keep it from going to the collective, even as they were forced to. That resulted in a labor shortage in agriculture, further reducing yields.

Great strides were made in industrialization, but the quality of the output was often pretty iffy. Sort of the same thing happened when Mao tried to push rapid industrialization in China postwar.

City workers and dwellers did somewhat better under Communism than rural peasants, kulaks, and others living in more remote areas.

If anything, the war covered up the worst of the Communist economic system with wartime necessity and depravation. Once the war ended, the system was laid bare for the marginal one it was. Had WW 2 not occurred for the Soviet Union economic and political collapse would probably have occurred by the early 1970's.

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Re: How would you actually defeat and conquer the USSR during WW2?

#41

Post by ljadw » 02 Jun 2017, 15:57

Phaing wrote:
Yuri wrote: When you say Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, we must not forget that it was Union of different republics. Secondly, the Soviet Union is an Empire. In every Empire in crisis periods increases as the centrifugal and centripetal forces. You say that 900 000 Russian (right - Soviets) defected to the enemy, but you forget that more than 3,000,000 Soviet POWs chose to die rather than to serve the enemy
Right, thanks to the inhumane policies of the Nazis.
And that figure was quoted to Himmler in 1944 by the army, he was also shocked.

The point is, if Germany had been lead by Human beings instead of monsters, things would have been very different... but in that case, would the invasion have happened at all?

Your question is questionable, :lol: :who was leading Germany and the decision to execute Barbarossa are 2 different things, who had no influence on each other . In the ATL (= the OTL with not Hitler but von Papen,or the Crown Prinz leading Germany ) Barbarossa would still happen, as Barbarossa was forced upon the German leadership by the existing military situation . And, hitler or no Hitler, would change nothing .

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Re: How would you actually defeat and conquer the USSR during WW2?

#42

Post by ljadw » 02 Jun 2017, 15:59

"Thanks to the inhumane policies of the Nazi's " : this is wrong . It must be : in spite of the inhumane policies of the nazis .

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Re: How would you actually defeat and conquer the USSR during WW2?

#43

Post by losna » 02 Jun 2017, 23:17

ljadw wrote:
1 ) That is an unproved claim : a lot of these 5 million were evacuated to the east
According to this table - IIRC that you posted first - 5 millions were simply under German control in 1943 and no more accessible to the Red Army unless a front shifing occurred. Furthermore, there aren't records of mass movements of sobiet citizens in the WW2 apart some skilled workers at the very beginning. That said, if the Wehrmacht makes its way to the Volga shores and holds the ground for a year, at most two, the Red Army will either stay on the defensive or simply run out of men, given the enormous losses taken by the Soviets against Germans - whetheter tey're on the offensive or on the defensive.
Attachments
HumanReserves43.jpg

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Re: How would you actually defeat and conquer the USSR during WW2?

#44

Post by ljadw » 03 Jun 2017, 08:25

T. A. Gardner wrote:
Unless you start looking at history.

Collectivization of agriculture was a disaster. Farm production from 1928 to 1950 fell. Not just crops either. The totals for livestock across the board fell before the war, during the war, and after the war. Many peasants and Kulaks resisted collectivization and were murdered for their efforts. Others slaughtered all their livestock to keep it from going to the collective, even as they were forced to. That resulted in a labor shortage in agriculture, further reducing yields.

Great strides were made in industrialization, but the quality of the output was often pretty iffy. Sort of the same thing happened when Mao tried to push rapid industrialization in China postwar.

City workers and dwellers did somewhat better under Communism than rural peasants, kulaks, and others living in more remote areas.

If anything, the war covered up the worst of the Communist economic system with wartime necessity and depravation. Once the war ended, the system was laid bare for the marginal one it was. Had WW 2 not occurred for the Soviet Union economic and political collapse would probably have occurred by the early 1970's.
Disaster is an exaggeration : farm production was increasing after 1950 :wink:

One should look at the results of collectivisation and the result is that the big famine of 1932 was the last one (with exception of the small one of 1946),although the collectivisation remained . Why were there no more famines ? No one knows .

That the quality of the industrial output was often pretty iffy is a fact, but this was not important for the population as the population compared only with was was produced before the war .

What the regime was telling the population was that they were better off than the generation before them and that their children would be better off than them .Meanwhile the country was joining the industrial states of the west, but the population had to make sacrifices ,and the population believed what the regime told them,because they saw the successes, while the failures remained hidden .

In 1940 more of the Soviet energy mix was produced by oil (18.7 %) than in the US (16 % ) .

I disagree with the last point : WWII did not prevent the collaps of the Soviet system, one can argue that it did hasten the collaps .

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Re: How would you actually defeat and conquer the USSR during WW2?

#45

Post by ljadw » 03 Jun 2017, 17:17

losna wrote:
ljadw wrote:
1 ) That is an unproved claim : a lot of these 5 million were evacuated to the east
According to this table - IIRC that you posted first - 5 millions were simply under German control in 1943 and no more accessible to the Red Army unless a front shifing occurred. Furthermore, there aren't records of mass movements of sobiet citizens in the WW2 apart some skilled workers at the very beginning. That said, if the Wehrmacht makes its way to the Volga shores and holds the ground for a year, at most two, the Red Army will either stay on the defensive or simply run out of men, given the enormous losses taken by the Soviets against Germans - whetheter tey're on the offensive or on the defensive.

The attachment is an estimate from FHO, and the estimates of FHO were not known for their accuracy.

The WM going to the Volga and holding there could only happen if the Soviets were definitively defeated, if they were not, the WM could not hold the Volga line .

The OP is starting from a wrong assumption = that it was possible to defeat and conquer the USSR :this was impossible . The only thing that was possible was to defeat the Red Army on the border and, if this resulted in the collaps of the regime, to occupy (not conquer) a small part of the SU:from the border to the Volga .

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