Permanently Operating Factors - A Soviet LAN AAR

coz1: Haha But nah, Manchuria's being wrapped up

BritishImperial: Yeah, the Japanese were clever, but not powerful enough. Muwuaha. And whoops, yeah, the date's wrong. o

ColossusCrusher: Odd is fine

VILenin: Yeah, poor Berzarin was just marching a singular wave of soldiers against the Japanese, two deep 180,000 wide. As for a sneak invasion of Japan, sorry but I don't think that'll be happening...

Discomb: That's one reason

4th Dimension: Actually, the Japanese bombed it to bits as it hung around in Vladivostok, though I don't think I mentioned it. As for sneak attacks, I managed that in a different AAR, in a much more disadvantaged situation

First comment day!

VILenin: Well, that analogy isn't quite correct. 'If they can have paratroopers without transport planes, they can have marines without transports' would be more correct

BritishImperial: Man, you'd need ubermenschen to swim even from Korea to Japan. Sadly, Germany has a monopoly on those

Discomb: Civ-civ-civwhat?

VILenin: Whoo! And scarily enough, I was just reading a bit of Clausewitz yesterday where he compared military theorists to swimming instructors!

Second comment day!

4 kilometers west of Chernigov
June 20, 1988

Nikifor awoke with a start, his eyes, wide with panic, darting around looking for the source of the danger and his hand instinctively going to his side, to his crude but effective combat knife. But, of course, there was no one there. Just other passengers made lethargic by the brilliant post-midday sun that was flooding through the windows of the train. Nikifor closed his eyes and took deep breaths, a shiver running down his spine as his hands settled gently back into his lap. His chest continued its rhythmic heaving as he opened his eyes again to look sadly out the window. The train was moving northward, following a course roughly parallel to the Dnepr River. Arsenij had left him some time ago to continue stamping tickets, having promised that he would return some time, he had not been sure about the time of his return and Nikifor did not press him for an ephemeral promise. He, however, wished that Arsenij was with him. He needed to make sure Arsenij was still alive and breathing. When he had fallen asleep after Arsenij left, he had dreamed.

He had dreamed of battle.

It had been the meat grinder, the first of many meat grinders. With the glorious victories to the north, it had been decided to push forward further south as well despite the growing catastrophe. It had been a fully mechanized battle; Nikifor’s subconscious filling in the greater details that he had not known of at the time. Twelve divisions took part, six on either side. The ground had already tasted some blood earlier, but the fighting had been quick then. This was the first of the meat grinders, where men died and charred vehicles devastated the once pristine landscape. The battle had avoided the main areas of inhabitation due to its mechanized nature; no one had wanted to be caught in a city and thus they ravished the rolling countryside.

Nikifor was advancing through fields of grain, crouching low, his unwieldy mosin nagant rifle snagging on the stalks of wheat at every opportunity. Nikifor was swearing under his breath, sweat forming on his forehead and gliding down to sting his eyes. He was not entirely sure where anyone else was; they had been on a reconnaissance patrol and a German counter-patrol had burst in amongst their loose formation and scattered them. Light German armor rode down at least one. Nikifor gulped. That was a terrible death. And Nikifor was lost, lost in a sea of grain from which he was afraid to escape. He was terrified of what he might find. There were sounds of battle far away, the steady thunder of self-propelled artillery. Nikifor scratched at his brow, shaking more sweat into his eyes and causing him to swear softly even more. His dirty hand rubbed his eyes, but fortunately no grit fell into them.

An indeterminate amount of time passed. The sun was still high in the sky, having frightened away any protective clouds and scorching the battlefield below. Nikifor was still slowly moving forward, still alone. The sounds of battle had been gradually growing louder, and greater in intensity. Something was happening, but Nikifor was still alone, still lost. Nikifor looked up at the sky ahead futilely, unsure whether he was praying for something or looking for any sort of signs of battle. His eyes staring deep into the benevolent blue of the sky, his foot stubbed itself on something and caused Nikifor to unbalance and fall forward and hit his head on the ground. Groggily, Nikifor’s hands clawed at the crimson dirt, taking fistfuls of it as he pulled himself back to his knees and looked at what he had tripped over. It was a corpse.

Nikifor gasped in horror and fell backwards away from it. It was wearing a Soviet uniform. It was a Russian. It was someone Nikifor knew. How he knew this, he did not know for he could not look down upon its face, but he knew that it had once not been a stranger to him. Nikifor remained seated on the ground, pulled his legs toward his chest and rocked back and forth, tears running down his grimy face and leaving clear tracks behind them. He could have stayed like that forever. But he did not.

A shrieking brought him back to his senses, a shrieking that ended with a thunderous explosion nearby that tossed Nikifor onto his side. Gasping again in horror, he automatically picked up his rifle before standing up to nearly his full height and dashing blindly forward. More shells emerged from the sky’s embrace, causing shockwaves that flattened grain. Nikifor did not care, he charged forward madly, without sense or reason. And then he was out of the sea of grain. The transition was so sudden that Nikifor halted on his tip toes, waving his hands as if he was about to fall off of a cliff. His eyes widened and his breathing quickened and became shallower. It was battle.

A German panzer tank was trundling forward, its machine guns blazing into the thick grain, scything much of it down within its arc of fire. A machine gunner was adding to the cacophony of noise and bullets, also directing its message of blood and death into the field. Other Germans waited grimly in their haphazard trenches, their rifles ready. One of them excitedly pointed at Nikifor, and Nikifor gasped as the soldier swung his rifle around to aim at him. Time seemed to slow down. A singular report shattered the dissonance of death by fire, the machine guns temporarily stopped as if in salute. Nikifor was thrown forward.

He landed with a heavy thud and a yell onto the ground, onto his rifle.

Nikifor awoke with a start, his hands pressing into his stomach and another gripping his shoulder tightly. He looked desperately around him, fighting an urge to flail his arms about wildly. Instead, he forced himself to focus, gradually, on the face in front of him. It belonged to Arsenij. Arsenij was holding his shoulder. Nikifor took deep breaths and forced himself to relax, to settle his back against the back of the seat. Arsenij smiled at him and nodded, much as a parent might do to a child just awoken from a nightmare, and then sat down next to Nikifor. He kept his hand on Nikifor’s shoulder.

BritishImperial: Well, I guess "sweet" is one way to describe it...

VILenin: There's no war in 1988, it's just a dream

coz1: Thanks! I wanted something that would show the other side of the war. Not the camaraderie of a tightly-knit squad but the feeling of being alone in war. But not necessarily of the horrors of war (not yet). This scene might be revisited and fleshed out during the war itself...

First comment day!

Indeed it would...and it would also be interesting to see how closely the dream matches up with real life

Yeah, but your dreams are to name your capital ships after Pokemon and Disney characters

The Kremlin
July 1, 1937

Maksim Litvinov sighed wearily, his head drooping so low that it hit his desk. Instead of startling him, it merely caused him to yawn widely and gave him a shiver that shuddered his shoulders and down his back. Litvinov yawned again, just as widely as before. He could feel his feet throb, result of having to run around a large amount in the past week or so. Stalin had sent him to the Far East to visit Manchuria and Japan late in June to wrangle out peaces with both states that were relatively beneficial to the Soviet Union. Stalin had warned him, however, that ‘relatively beneficial’ meant two different things for the two different adversaries. Litvinov yawned a third time, his eyes threatening to close of their own accord. To forestall them in their quest, Litvinov managed to push himself off his desk and take a drink of water. He yawned again, and his back hurt.

Grimacing, Litvinov shook his head to clear it of the cobwebs induced by his tired state. When he arrived in Manchuria, his first task had been to learn Zhukov’s assessment at the strategic situation. Zhukov had told him that Vasilevskij had gotten a bit overconfident and consequently gotten himself isolated at Xinjing, having also conquered Mukden, but Zhukov had freed him from this. That had been sometime around or after the 21st of June, Litvinov did not pay much attention to the dates. Zhukov’s assessment had ended with the statement that, if necessary, they would fight to annexation but that everyone’s men were quite exhausted by the months of constant campaigning and they still had the Japanese to take care of. Litvinov understood that Zhukov wanted him simply to end the war with Manchuria, whatever end results might be. That is what Litvinov did.


The final bit of campaigning in Manchuria, much to the relief of the soldiers.

The Manchurians arrived soon after Litvinov did with another offer for peace. Unlike their previous offer of a return to the political status quo, this offer showed how much they had been humbled. They were willing to trade away vast amounts of their territory—naturally virtually all of it actually quite worthless in an industrial sense. Litvinov, knowing Zhukov’s interest in ending the war, jumped at the proposal as quickly as he could without seeming unduly hasty. Undue haste, of course, would have been counterproductive in that it probably would have convinced the Manchurians to retract their offer and keep fighting, assuming that the Soviets were close to the breaking point. Nevertheless, he was able to sign the peace treaty, giving the Soviets the majority of Manchuria.


Peace with Manchuria, peace with honor.

With that peace treaty done, Litvinov set out to wrangle with the Japanese even as Zhukov began redeploying to counter their activities in Manchuria. He would be doing this without Vasilevskij’s support, as one of the Manchurians’ conditions to peace was that all units on what would remain their territory would have to return to their original stations, and Vasilevskij had been occupying their capital city. However, he hoped that his single corps would be able to neutralize their forces effectively on its own, given its greater maneuverability. Nevertheless, it would only play a part in helping further Litvinov’s efforts at peace.


Zhukov moving his corps northward to counter the Japanese threat.

However, before Zhukov managed to do anything about the Japanese expansionism in Siberia, Japan came forward with an offer for peace themselves, as the Manchurians had. Litvinov postulated that their defeat in Estonia shook the government’s confidence, and the Manchurians’ own peace simply meant that the situation in Siberia had likely turned greatly against the Japanese—as far as they were aware, at least. They demanded territory whereas the Manchurians had surrendered territory, but Litvinov had been assured by Stalin that this was likely and relatively agreeable, as long as the war ended. Litvinov made a slight mistake during the negotiations, but in the end peace was reached and the Japanese demanded only three territories. Litvinov was sure that Stalin would accept this result despite Litvinov’s mistake.