A more plausible scenario

After criticising the alternate history scenario so much, I feel obliged to suggest "something better".

Ok, RFC wanted a nice, no-Nazi Germany as a part of "Western Alliance", fighting against Soviet Russia in 1940s. Easy. Just let's kill Hitler earlier - during the "strange war". After the Poland Invasion, before the attacks on neutral countries. So, not much bad feeling between Germany and France/Britain. And Germany isn't too encouraged by the string of easy victories.

This would, of course, start infighting in German government. But at this moment, it would be pretty much localized, not affecting the overall Germany performance. And it would allow Britain and France to do the monumental stupidity: the "Operation Pike".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Pike

So, Britain and France bombed Baku. The results are far from expected. The Baku is not so easy to take out (we have nearly a THOUSAND fighters around by June 1940), and now they are in war with BOTH the Germany and Soviet Union. And they have no clue what to do next.

And then our good friend "kaiser" appeared on scene with anti-Nazi (at thus time, anti-Nazi leadership) military coup. By playing smartly, and disclosing the secret parts of Molotov-Ribbentrop protocols (with some, lets say, additions), he manages to persuade both German population AND the West, that the whole war around Poland is just a Hitler fault. And the real problem is Stalin, who fooled the stupid Hitler into believing him. So, Germany have nothing against West, lilttle against Poland, and eager to fight those dangerous Bolsheviks. He could even claim to be ready to restore Poland independence after the war - in such situation it would be plausible.

Even if Britain and Frnce would not believe "kaiser" much, they would have nowhere else to go. They could not just admit to their citizens that they started the war with USSR by mistake. So, they could go with German idea: claim that the war with Germany was all Hitler's stupidity and Stalin's plotting, and support - at least, formally - German Empire "crusade against Red Menace".

* Non-Nazi Germany - check.
* Gernan Empire restored - check.
* Western world unites against Soviet Union - check.
* The real probbility of taking the USSR out without demolishing all Europe in process - check.

Possible? Yes. Plausible? Yes.

P.S. I'm open to any criticism, of course. In fact, I would be very eager for it (because, of course, this scenario is NOT flawless)

Still nobody interested. A pity - I hoped for at least some discussion

I do not believe that you need to have Operation Pike occur as a precondition for France and England reconciling with Germany. All that needs to happen is for Hitler to die prior to the invasion of Poland and is then replaced by "the Kaiser" concurrently with Japan forming an alliance with the Soviet Union.

Seriously consider how the USSR's strategic interests in Europe are far, far more important than Eastern Asia. A Japanese empire that guards its back while forcing Western European powers to fight a war in Asia would enable the USSR to take the portions of Eastern Europe that became the Warsaw Pact.

Subsequently, the Soviet Union invades Poland, Finland, Czekslaviki and Yugoslavia which Stalin obviously wanted to do anyway concurrently with Japan's attacks on Pearl Harbor and European forces in SE Asia.. Given the distrust of the Bolshieviks, a reconciliation to enable an alliance against the USSR makes perfect sense. The only difference is that it is a shorter war.

TFLYTSNBN wrote:I do not believe that you need to have Operation Pike occur as a precondition for France and England reconciling with Germany. All that needs to happen is for Hitler to die prior to the invasion of Poland and is then replaced by "the Kaiser" concurrently with Japan forming an alliance with the Soviet Union.

Seriously consider how the USSR's strategic interests in Europe are far, far more important than Eastern Asia. A Japanese empire that guards its back while forcing Western European powers to fight a war in Asia would enable the USSR to take the portions of Eastern Europe that became the Warsaw Pact.

Subsequently, the Soviet Union invades Poland, Finland, Czekslaviki and Yugoslavia which Stalin obviously wanted to do anyway concurrently with Japan's attacks on Pearl Harbor and European forces in SE Asia.. Given the distrust of the Bolshieviks, a reconciliation to enable an alliance against the USSR makes perfect sense. The only difference is that it is a shorter war.

...A series of problems.

* Japan never ever thought about any alliance with USSR. It was completely against the wishes of IJA. Yes, IJA lost their dominant positions in late 1930s (mainly due to embarrassing defeats from the hands of Red Army), but still was powerful fraction in Japan.

* It would be very hard for USSR to attack Czech & Yugoslavia, because in this scenario Czech are under German occupation - and if "Kaiser" tried to gave them away, he would be hanged on the nearest lamppost by both military & industrialists - and USSR did not have any border with Yugoslavia.

* And anyway, it's completely impossible for FRANCE to be ready to ally with Germany for any practical reason short of described above. The Weber/Holo scenario just make no sense: once-defeated France would not support Germany efforts against USSR.

Dilandu wrote:After criticising the alternate history scenario so much, I feel obliged to suggest "something better".

Ok, RFC wanted a nice, no-Nazi Germany as a part of "Western Alliance", fighting against Soviet Russia in 1940s. Easy. Just let's kill Hitler earlier - during the "strange war". After the Poland Invasion, before the attacks on neutral countries. So, not much bad feeling between Germany and France/Britain. And Germany isn't too encouraged by the string of easy victories.

This would, of course, start infighting in German government. But at this moment, it would be pretty much localized, not affecting the overall Germany performance. And it would allow Britain and France to do the monumental stupidity: the "Operation Pike".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Pike

So, Britain and France bombed Baku. The results are far from expected. The Baku is not so easy to take out (we have nearly a THOUSAND fighters around by June 1940), and now they are in war with BOTH the Germany and Soviet Union. And they have no clue what to do next.

And then our good friend "kaiser" appeared on scene with anti-Nazi (at thus time, anti-Nazi leadership) military coup. By playing smartly, and disclosing the secret parts of Molotov-Ribbentrop protocols (with some, lets say, additions), he manages to persuade both German population AND the West, that the whole war around Poland is just a Hitler fault. And the real problem is Stalin, who fooled the stupid Hitler into believing him. So, Germany have nothing against West, lilttle against Poland, and eager to fight those dangerous Bolsheviks. He could even claim to be ready to restore Poland independence after the war - in such situation it would be plausible.

Even if Britain and Frnce would not believe "kaiser" much, they would have nowhere else to go. They could not just admit to their citizens that they started the war with USSR by mistake. So, they could go with German idea: claim that the war with Germany was all Hitler's stupidity and Stalin's plotting, and support - at least, formally - German Empire "crusade against Red Menace".

* Non-Nazi Germany - check.
* Gernan Empire restored - check.
* Western world unites against Soviet Union - check.
* The real probbility of taking the USSR out without demolishing all Europe in process - check.

Possible? Yes. Plausible? Yes.

The problem with those 1,000 fighters is the vast majority of them were either I-15 or I-16 fighters, both of which were second tier aircraft by 1940. The I-16 could take on RAF bombers for a short time but the I-15 would have been helpless in anything beyond head-on attacks.

doug941 wrote:
The problem with those 1,000 fighters is the vast majority of them were either I-15 or I-16 fighters, both of which were second tier aircraft by 1940. The I-16 could take on RAF bombers for a short time but the I-15 would have been helpless in anything beyond head-on attacks.

Well, since most of the bombers would also be... far from most modern ones, and RAF bombing accuracy in 1940 was notoriously low - it would restore the balance) Baku was one of the top priority air defense region, the other two being Moscow and Leningrad.

P.S. Also, lets not underestimate I-15. The majority of them were of I-153 (I-15 model 3) type, with top speed of 426 km/h on 10000 meters. They were pretty capble of chasing "Wellesley's" and "Farman's".

Dilandu wrote:

doug941 wrote:
The problem with those 1,000 fighters is the vast majority of them were either I-15 or I-16 fighters, both of which were second tier aircraft by 1940. The I-16 could take on RAF bombers for a short time but the I-15 would have been helpless in anything beyond head-on attacks.

Well, since most of the bombers would also be... far from most modern ones, and RAF bombing accuracy in 1940 was notoriously low - it would restore the balance) Baku was one of the top priority air defense region, the other two being Moscow and Leningrad.

P.S. Also, lets not underestimate I-15. The majority of them were of I-153 (I-15 model 3) type, with top speed of 426 km/h on 10000 meters. They were pretty capble of chasing "Wellesley's" and "Farman's".

The problem here is the main a/c to be used by the Western Allies were the Blenheim IV (day)and Martin Maryland (night). The Blenheim had a max speed of 428kph at 3,600 meters and the Maryland was 489kph at 3,960 meters. This means any attack coming from the rear or from either beam would be a one and done or to use American sports slang, a swing and a miss.
The I-16 at 525kph could intercept incoming a/c but with a range of 700 kilometers to dry tanks, any time spent searching for and/or closing in on a bomber stream means the defending pilots would almost have to think of using taran ramming attacks.

doug941 wrote:The problem here is the main a/c to be used by the Western Allies were the Blenheim IV (day)and Martin Maryland (night). The Blenheim had a max speed of 428kph at 3,600 meters and the Maryland was 489kph at 3,960 meters. This means any attack coming from the rear or from either beam would be a one and done or to use American sports slang, a swing and a miss.
The I-16 at 525kph could intercept incoming a/c but with a range of 700 kilometers to dry tanks, any time spent searching for and/or closing in on a bomber stream means the defending pilots would almost have to think of using taran ramming attacks.

Yes, but the problem was, that there wouldn't be any "bomber stream")

For the whole "Operation Pike" RAF barely managed to combine about 48 Blenheim's and some Wellesley's. France was able to field only about 65 Maryland's and 24 old & obsolete Farman F.220.

In short, the total force available was about 150 bombers. Of which only about 110 were suited for daylight operations (Wellesley's and Farman's would be just a targets in daylight). Considering the mechanical problems & other factors, the real force would be even less impressive - from 80 to 100 bombers.

And the range played to both sides. There are almost 900 km from Syrian airbases to Baku. It is basically the upper limit of Martin Maryland's combat radius. Wellesley's have a bit better range, but they are very under-armed, with only light machineguns for protection.

So, if the Allies tried to do daylight raids - the distance involved and deficiencies of their planes would play against them.

If they try nighttime raids - well, considering the RAF utter lack of accuracy in 1940, and traditionally-good Soviet maskirovka... it would be a true wonder, if they actually manage to hit Baku)

Dilandu wrote:

doug941 wrote:The problem here is the main a/c to be used by the Western Allies were the Blenheim IV (day)and Martin Maryland (night). The Blenheim had a max speed of 428kph at 3,600 meters and the Maryland was 489kph at 3,960 meters. This means any attack coming from the rear or from either beam would be a one and done or to use American sports slang, a swing and a miss.
The I-16 at 525kph could intercept incoming a/c but with a range of 700 kilometers to dry tanks, any time spent searching for and/or closing in on a bomber stream means the defending pilots would almost have to think of using taran ramming attacks.

Yes, but the problem was, that there wouldn't be any "bomber stream")

For the whole "Operation Pike" RAF barely managed to combine about 48 Blenheim's and some Wellesley's. France was able to field only about 65 Maryland's and 24 old & obsolete Farman F.220.

In short, the total force available was about 150 bombers. Of which only about 110 were suited for daylight operations (Wellesley's and Farman's would be just a targets in daylight). Considering the mechanical problems & other factors, the real force would be even less impressive - from 80 to 100 bombers.

And the range played to both sides. There are almost 900 km from Syrian airbases to Baku. It is basically the upper limit of Martin Maryland's combat radius. Wellesley's have a bit better range, but they are very under-armed, with only light machineguns for protection.

So, if the Allies tried to do daylight raids - the distance involved and deficiencies of their planes would play against them.

If they try nighttime raids - well, considering the RAF utter lack of accuracy in 1940, and traditionally-good Soviet maskirovka... it would be a true wonder, if they actually manage to hit Baku)

An attack by 5-7 squadrons, even in loose formation, would be a stream. Nowhere near the RAF over Cologne or the 8th over Berlin, but still a small stream.
Your sources and what I was able to find do not agree on the airfields. The ones I read agreed that the closest Syrian airfields as opposed to forward operating bases was Aleppo. Aleppo to Baku is approx 1200km over Turkish airspace. Making a dogleg over Iran to avoid Turkey jumps the distance by approx 100km more. Basing the notional attack force out of RAF Mosul cuts both time and range substantially. Mosul to Baku with a slight Turkish overflight is approx 740km. Flying over Iran and then by land over the USSR is approx 5-10km longer. Flying the most likely route by way of the Caspian is approx 830km. Going over water cuts down chances of inception by defending a/c, virtual eliminates any chance of defending AAA while in route and gives a better chance of finding the target area at night.
As for missing the target area? Travelers who visited the Baku area during the late Czarist years mention the ground under and around Baku was saturated with spilled oil and any wildfires could destroy the entire area. Direct hit, miss by 2km or miss by 10km, there was still a very good chance of starting that wildfire. And the Baku peninsula would, forgive the pun, stick out like a sore thumb when approached from the sea.