SOVIET FORCES DIVERGENCE BETWEEN OTL AND FFO: MAIN ASSUMPTIONS.
We have to assume that Soviet production rates in the armament industry experienced during the first quarter of 1941 would have been maintained till mid-May 1942 and that various projects which were in OTL developed just before the war could have been pursued without the massive disruption of plants and design offices Soviet Union suffered during summer and fall 1941. This can be called an "inertial" assumption. Things would have been what they actually were but for the a massive change (the OTL Barbarossa).
Another important assumption is that the new Red Army leadership would have been able to test some force structures revamping during large-scale manoeuvre in summer and winter 1941. We know, from Zhukov and other generals book of memories that both Zhukov and Boris Shaposhnikov were deeply concerned by the lack of experience at low and intermediate level in the Red Army. From B.M. Shaposhnikov memories (and declassified but still unpublished documents, which are in Military Archives) we know that at least by March 1941 Stalin had plainly acknowledged that lack of training was a problem. It is difficult to speculate to what extent training could have improved Soviet Troops performances by mid-May 1942. However, lack of training, non-realistic training procedures and lack of familiarization with modern equipments are noted by all Soviet military historians as important factors in poor combat performances by 1941 and 1942. Heavy losses prevented battle-experienced personnel to diffuse more realistic training in newly formed units till winter 1942/43. More systematic training between April/May 1941 to May 1942 would most certainly have had a positive influence on Soviet troops performances. A lower loss ratio during the first 6 months of the war would also have implied a much faster dissemination of battle-tested procedures among Soviet forces. The qualitative gap would not have disappeared at once but would have been much narrower than in OTL and would have closed at a faster rate.
Zhukov advocated tailoring down large mechanised units (Tank Army) by May 1941 because he felt that they were too heavy and clumsy to be skilfully used by the current Red Army officer corps. It is now known from Soviet Archives that German military operations against Yugoslavia had a very deep impact on the Soviet leadership. It definitely convinced Stalin that a war with Germany was in the coming (even if he still believed that never Hitler would be such a fool to attack Soviet Union before a separate peace in the West) and even more importantly it convinced the whole Red Army command that mechanised units would be the spearhead of any German attack. Actually G.K. Zhukov was instrumental in convincing Stalin by late 1940 that mobile warfare was the way of waging war. Even if the word "deep battle" could not be resurrected by then, Zhukov deeply believed in notions developed before the fateful 1937/38 purges. He had demonstrated to his fellow officers during summer 1940 exercises in the Kiev Military district that the linear defence advocated by then by the Soviet General staff was doomed to fail.
There is no reason to believe that Zhukov would have not used the nearly 11 months he would have gained in this time line to push forward and energetically the Red Army reform he had began by early 1941 in OTL. He certainly would have fostered the career of able staff officers, including Konev, Vassilevsky and Rokossovsky (he saved the first from the NKVD early 1939) and probably Bagramyan.
One important point here is to understand what actually happened in Soviet Union between December 1940 and February 1941. One main contentious point among the Soviet leadership was the relation between defensive and offensive postures. The Soviet leadership had been predicated toward offensive postures, even in strategic-defensive scenario because they believed in "combat-activity" and also because the wanted to prevent a potentially very damaging war to destroy the new-born industry built in the 30's. But an offensive posture is not to be confused with an offensive decision. This is frequently misunderstood by Western observers who don't carefully delineate what is strategically relevant and what is operational-level relevant in Soviet military thinking. What is "strategically relevant" is not decided by the Army but by the Party.
The Party line, by late 1940 and 1941 was defensive. Stalin knew that Soviet Union was much weaker than Germany and he has a deep respect for the German industry capability (actually he had an even greater respect for the US industry). The question to be solved was to know if defence was to be implemented through operational-level defence or through grabbing initiative and launching offensive moves. Generals Pavlov and Meretskov supported the latter idea. Zhukov and Timoshenko supported the idea that the Red Army would not be able to switch to the offensive during the "Initial Period of War" and had to cushion first the German attack before launching effective counter-offensives.
The debate was very heated, and in a very difficult environment, with Stalin ability to easily kill his opponents always looming over this debate proponents.
What is known are the following facts. In the January war-game session, Zhukov completely destroyed Pavlov's strategy. The first war-game was held on January 2th-6th, 1941. Zhukov played the "Blue" (Germans) and quickly overcame Pavlov's defences, encircled Soviet forces in the Byalistock salient and opened the way for a further push east. Maps from this war-game are actually extremely interesting because they are awfully close to what actually happened in OTL Barbarossa. A second war game was held between January 7th-11th. Ths time, Zhukov was in command of the "Red" side and Pavlov of the "Blue". It had been assumed that "Blue" force would have penetrated deep into Soviet defences south of Priyat Marshes and toward the Black Sea. Zhukov stopped the "Blue" attack through flanking counter-stroke, then switched to the counter-offensive, targeting Germany Allies (Rumania and Hungary) in a move which looks in retrospect very like what happened in 1944 in the wake of "Bagration".
The results of both games were extremely important. Stalin was sufficiently impressed to appoint Zhukov Chief of Staff by January 14th. If still biased toward the offensive, the Soviet dictator understood that most of military planning endorsed so far was faulty. Zhukov also was disagreeing with how war-game umpires had assessed casualties in both games. They expected a 9%-10% monthly loss ratio. Zhukov bluntly stated that in modern mobile warfare casualties (of all type) were to be much higher. Casualty figures were then not given in the final report because of this disagreement.
Zhukov made then a point about the danger of massing troops too far from the border. He openly questioned the position of the Molotov Line, he would have preferred to be erected at 80km-100km from the border. As this could not be changed, he advocated splitting the first strategic echelon in two operational echelons, and constituting a second strategic echelon much farther East.
A new round of war game happened in February 1941. This one is much less documented than January ones because this game was held under very strict secrecy, but archival evidences now fully support some earlier interpretations about what happened in February 1941 (particularly B. Fulgate and L. Dvoretsky "Thunder on the Dnepr", Presidio Press, 1997, 2001). The aim of this game was to test Soviet deep defences against a German offensive launched from Bobruisk and aiming at Smolensk. That Stalin had agreed to this game proves that he expected German forces to penetrate 400-600 km deep into Soviet defences during the war first weeks. This completely dispel all interpretations about a Soviet "strategic offensive" mindset by early 1941, which could have led to a Soviet attack by August 1941.
Zhukov's defence was very similar to what the Red Army actually did in Kursk in 1943. First, blunting German armoured pushes through tactically echeloned anti-tank defences, which were supposed to slow down Panzer divisions and wear them out of most of their potentials. Second, counter-attacking on both wings, threatening to encircle German forces.
It is then now quite obvious that Zhukov was not expecting to win the "Battle of Borders". The most he could expect was wearing down German forces till they reach a Dvina-Dnepr line. Then, he would have expected another major German offensive, most probably toward Moscow, along the so-called "land bridge" between the Dvina and the Dnepr. Destroying enemy forces during this battle was most probably his intent.
Zhukov however had probably discovered by February-March 1941 how weak was the Red Army. We don't know to what extent he revised his first intent. We know that in OTL the Red Army put a good show at Yelnia, significantly delaying German forces. Yelnia is exactly in the "land-bridge", where Zhukov intended first to fight the decisive defensive battle. In OTL, the combination of echeloned tactical defence combined with flank counter-attacks was practiced at Moscow, much farther East than anticipated first.
In this Alternate and hypothetical time-line however, the fierce resistance of British, French and Greek troops in northern Greece and around Skoplje/Kumanovo could also have helped to demonstrate Soviet high-ranking officers that deliberate defence could weaken the first German echelon to the point it could become vulnerable to a counter-attack. This would have been consistent with Marshal Shaposhnikov's own views and G.K. Zhukov's one too.
What the Soviet Army successfully experimented at Kursk in summer 1943 (first stopping Panzer units then counter-attacking) could have been as much a logical lesson of the campaign of Greece as a consequence of January-February 1941 war-games.
Zhukov had ordered in OTL the creation of special anti-tank brigades by March 1941. Such units would have been developed and certainly thoroughly trained. This would have been completely consistent with B.M. Shaposhnikov's views and we know for sure that Stalin listened to him probably to a greater extent than to any other General Staff officer. Quite important in the early 1941 context, the anti-tank brigade could be described as being useful in the defensive as well as in the offensive, where such formations could effectively protect flanks and allow for a substantial economy of force.
We have assumed that some major industrial decisions made by early 1940 and till early 1941 would not have been reversed, mainly a sharp reduction in large ship building (Battleships and Battlecruisers under construction were stopped in OTL by summer 1940) and a concentration on modern tanks and equipments. However the Soviet industry would not have been fully mobilized by mid-May 1942. This would not have been necessary as the Commissariat of Defence was already disseminating "educational" procurement orders in the civilian industrial sector by fall 1939 in OTL. However, Soviet designers would have used 1941 and early 1942 to debug-out some weapon systems, something that they didn't have the time to do in OTL.
It is also to be understood that Zhukov was a great believer into wargaming as a tool for enforcing realism. With Barbarossa delayed by the much more protracted Balkan and Greece campaigns, there is a very strong probability that more war-games would have been played, probably after summer 1941 exercises. These war-games would have been held at the higher strategic level, but certainly also at the Military District one. Much more realistic planning could then have been developed during fall 1941, to be tested again during winter 1941/42 exercises. As new equipment would have been flowing into the Red Army, this process of strategic and operational-level re-assessment could have generated a much more realist view of the kind of battles to be fought.
The Red Army operational doctrine would have been much more homogeneous, and the gap between top-level commanders well aware of strategic and operational constraints and limitations and lower levels still fully believing into the offensive doctrinal credo would have probably disappeared by early 1942. Not only would the Red Army have been better equipped and trained than in June 1941, but the very kind of "institutional crisis" (this word has been aptly used by David Glantz to describe the internal Red Army confusion prior Barbarossa) brought by spring 1941 by Zhukov's reforms and the dramatic re-assessment of strategic capabilities they implied would have evaporated.
From these initial assumptions another one arises quickly. The German advance in Soviet Union would most probably have been slower and less deep than in OTL. There is no doubt that the historical "initial period of war" was for Soviet Union a worst case scenario. However, if we assume that the German penetration is to be less dramatic than in OTL then this has important economic consequences.
The German attack had a disastrous effect on the Soviet economy.
Production figures for basic industrial commodities show a disastrous decline till mid-42. Electric power (in billion kwh) fell from 24.4 during the first half of 1941 to 19.3 during the second and to 14.1 during the first half of 1942. Steel production (in million tonnes) fell from 11.4 to 6.5 and then 4.0 in the same time. Rolled ferrous metals, which are an essential production in wartime fell from 8.2 million tonnes during the first half of 1941 to 4.4 and then 2.6 during the following two half-years. Production stabilized during the last 1942 half-year and began to increase in 1943.
The picture for agricultural production was bleak also. Soviet Union had produced 95.5 million tonnes of grain in 1940 and only 29.7 in 1942. The number of cattle, horses and hogs fell by factors of 2.1, 2.6 and 4.6 respectively. (S.A. Tjushkevich ed., Sovetskie Vooruzhennye Sily [The Soviet Armed Forces] Voennizdat, Moscow, 1978, chap. 8; a more complete description can be found in the official 6 volumes history of the "Great patriotic War" published in the 60's "Istorija Velikoj Otevechestnoj Vojny Sovetskogo Sojuza").
The Soviet industry reacted to this situation by specializing on a reduced number of standardised items. The Lend-Lease was also instrumental to help filling gaps till the end of the war as the USA provided 360,000 trucks, 43,000 jeeps, 2,000 locomotives and 11,000 railroad cars. The USA provided too a huge quantity of foodstuff decisively helping Soviet Union to survive the big agricultural crunch. (H.P. Van Tuyl, Feeding the Bear Greenwood Press , Westport, Conn. 1989).
In this time line, if we assume a slower and less deeper German penetration, damages to the Soviet economy are to be much smaller. Transferring some factories in the Urals could have been done in a much better organised way. As there is no political or strategic reason to have the Lend-Lease reduced (at least for monthly shipment figures), the Soviet industry would not have been forced to specialise to the same extent than in OTL. Production diversity could have been greater, and some unbalance the RKKA General Staff had to live with in OTL could have been corrected. This is an important point to keep in mind when assessing how the Soviet industry could have reacted to demands of war.
Here, one snowballing effect is to be taken into the picture. With war beginning in May 1942 and a much less disrupted industrial base, Soviet Armed forces would probably not need all the military hardware sent in OTL. With the Soviet tank industry working at full efficiency, sending Canadian-built Valentine infantry tanks, US M3 (light) and M3 (medium) would not have been necessary. By the same token, sending huge quantities of P-39/P-63/P-40 fighters and A20 light bombers would not have been needed, at least in the same numbers. One can suspect that by fall 1942 the Soviet government would have asked for planes, but probably advanced ones. This could have saved the Bell P-63 and to some extent the P-39 but the P-40 would have been redundant to Soviet needs. The same apply to the A20 with a lot more Pe-2 and Tu-2 built. Possibly some B-25 and B-17 could have been delivered, helping the Long-range Aviation (ADD, to be transformed in the 18th Air Army) to expand its capabilities.
With less tank transferred, more shipping space could have been allocated to machine-tools and food stuff. Another consequence would have been to make more tanks available to French and British forces by 1942 (and to their Allies, Greece, Netherlands and Yugoslavia). The same apply for fighters and bombers.
