GeneralHannibal: It would take 1000 Afghanistans to get enough practice to make a difference.
jose1357: Well, considering I'm contemplating starting World War II, I'm not too worried about what the British think about all of it.
lifeless/Jape: Well, I don't really have the option to rid myself of him quite yet. That may change in the future, though.
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March 20th, 1938
Alexei Stukov sat in his office, nursing a stiff drink. He couldn't remember what it was, only that it wasn't vodka, having sworn off the stuff years earlier.
Without question, Stukov had far more important things to do than get himself lost in a drunk stupor. On the other hand, he could care less about those "important" things. Most of them he would have refuse to do if he wouldn't incur Stalin's wrath for disobeying.
Starting in mid-February, he had reluctantly compiled a comprehensive report on various high-ranking Red Army officers, working alongside NKVD officials and Uritskiy, under Stalin's orders of course, to find all traitorous or dangerous army officers.
The results had not been pretty. The Red Army's command structure had been decimated. Two Field Marshalls, Egorov and Tuchatevsky, were dead now, another, Voroshilov, forced from active service. About a dozen generals had been selected and vanished without a trace, as well as a multitude of lesser officers. Half the army commanders in the west were eliminated.
The resulting power vacuum needed to be filled, and quickly. To meet the need for higher ranking officrs, many had been promoted en masse. Stukov had been persuasive enough to select the generals himself, and he had done the best he could.
But the damage had been done. Many of the field armies were now under the command of men who had been division commanders a week earlier, and mere Major Generals were commanding whole armies in Siberia and the Far East.
The situation was not good and Stukov didn't like it one bit.
The door opened and Sergei Uritskiy stepped in, closing the door quietly behind him. Stukov looked up and set his drink down on the purge report.
"Glad to see you still with us, comrade," Stukov commented. Uritskiy had almost been replaced by NKVD chief Beria, but Stukov had managed to stop that from happening. The same could not be said for Yan Berzin, intelligence chief who had failed spectacularly to clear the country of foreign spies, an infestation well documented.
"A pleasure as always," Uritskiy replied dryly.
"So," Stukov drawled, pushing himself uncertainly up more properly in his chair. "You've heard the foreign news?"
"You mean German annexation of Austria? Of course."
Stukov sighed. "Here we are, struggling to barely keep our army competently lead while Hitler waltzes himself into a Third Reich. Where's Voroshilov at? I've been meaning to talk to him."
"Last I heard, he's busy at STAVKA. I can't blame him, considering the mess he has to work through."
Stukov nodded and reached for a discarded report paper. "Well," he mumbled apathetically. "We have another 2 tank divisions deployed now to Zhukov's corps... correction, he took over an infantry army... uh... I don't remember his name."
Uncharacteristically, Stukov smiled. Despite the losses to the Purge, it was only temporary. Before long, Stukov was sure he could set his grand plan into motion.