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oberstbrooksy

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The World At War
The Soviet Union in World War 3



1113vrt.jpg



The living will envy the dead. -
Nikita Khruschev



 
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Hey guys, this AAR will take place with the USSR in the years of the third World war. It is using New World Order mod with Cold War tech tree add on, I began the game as the USSR in 1933 and have played all the way to 1973 and well, I have had such fun and it has been so engrossing I felt the third world war would well be worth an AAR. Hopefully I can finish this one, as my previous AAR sadly died when my machine decided to kill itself. I hope you guys enjoy reading it as much as I am thinking about it!
 
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Prologue - The Second World War



The post war world is one marked by ideological division, technological advancement, political upheaval, social evolution and global instability. The Soviet Union emerged from the cataclysm a broken and battered nation, but arguably the world’s most powerful nation. Out of the 80 million lives lost in the conflict, 32 million of them came from the USSR of which 12 million were military causalities. Vast areas of the western USSR were left depopulated, ravaged and barren from the exploits of both the defenders and invaders, but out of such colossal losses came final, total and ultimate victory.

22nt1.jpg

The remains of Minsk - January 1951

When Germany invaded Poland in summer 1939 the world was plunged into a war the likes of which had not been seen, in 1940 the German armies had laid waste to the nations of Western Europe. Historians held the USSR or at least the Stalinist regime as complicit in German aggression in this period due to the notorious Molotov-Von Ribbentrop pact dividing up Eastern Europe into regions to be annexed by the respective powers, namely Poland. In the interlude, Winter War between the USSR and Finland of December 1939-March 1940 the revolution was exported when a total Soviet victory instituted the Finnish Democratic Republic a client state of the USSR, the Baltic States, Bessarabia and northern Bukovina would accede as constituent republics of the USSR over the course of 1940. While Stalin watched the growing might of the Fascist powers, the massive industrial programs of the 1930s-1940 were put to bear on a rapid modernisation and expansion of the backward Soviet military, with the German subjugation of the Balkans in Spring 1941 and the attempted but ultimately the failed invasion of Britain shook the Soviet establishment as German-Soviet relations grew steadily colder and a constant stream of intelligence pointed to future German ambitions in the USSR, the military expansion and the vast Soviet military would take at least until 1944 by estimates to reach technical parity with the Third Reich.

mv3yp4.jpg

The Four Years Plans of 1933-1942 had Established a Credible Industrial Base

When the Hitlerites invaded on the April 4th 1942 the Soviet army was still years away from being able to counter the German threat, chronic lack of modern weaponry and heavy armaments, poor leadership and organisation still reeling from the purges saw but most critically, a sense of hubris over victory in the Winter War saw the valiant defences of the frontiers quickly collapse into a general route east. Within 2 weeks Eastern Poland and Lithuania were lost and Belarus was coming under direct attack, in the South the Red Army saw success as they checked the poorly led Romanian and Bulgarian invasion into Bessarabia. With the German thrusts saw the southern flank becoming exposed due to the poor performance of the Axis allies, the advance into Belarus and Latvia slowed giving critical time for the Soviets to prepare themselves, however by July a general offensive to the South by a recently formed German army group South led by General Rommel completely destroyed Soviet cohesion in Bessarbia and western Ukraine. However the damage had been done to the fascist invaders, the vital breathing space afforded by the heroes of the Southern front enabled the red army to mount vicious defensive engagements across the front inflicting costly victories on the Axis and slowing their advance. By Autumn the German advance had stalled on a long front from the gates of Leningrad to a desperate battle around Smolensk, then to the climactic battle of Kiev where the Germans had committed their offensive thrust and in return the Soviets had deployed the greatest amount of manpower and resources, the front finally ended at Odessa, where desperate holding actions attempted to buy Soviet forces still in the Western Ukraine time to retreat out of the path of the German offensive.

2ag85g5.gif

Fighting somewhere in the Ukraine - 1942

As winter set in and the Fascists froze, the Soviet army was feverish with activity, movement of troops and equipment around the front, the continuing defiant defence of Kiev and a rebounding Soviet air force prepared to weather the coming storm of spring. As expected a German offensive hit hard in the Ukraine, it had become clear to Soviet command that the Germans valued the prises of Southern Russia rather than the great cities of central Russia. By the start of summer the Crimea was cut off, the German general thrust being directed to eliminate the Southern flanks of Kiev and push to the Don River. Still Kiev held, entire regiments were poured into the fight and many disappeared completely amongst it, causalities were extortionate, but still Kiev held. Soviet victory in the Great Patriotic war is often attributed to the valiant defence of Kiev, Hitler and Stalin both set eyes upon the city and both traded blows over it, Hitler's fixation with Kiev led to the neglect of other fronts. But it would not last; Kiev fell after a year of heroic battle in November 1943. The Battle of Kiev had halted the German offensive, for the next two years stalemate set in as the Soviets and Germans traded titanic blows over a static front astride Russia. In Summer 46 the decisive point in the conflict occurred, draining every available tank, bomber, fighter, soldier and rifle he could from across his Fascist empire Hitler lunched operation Untergang, the German drive for Moscow. Along a 200 mile front centred on the city of Sumy, the Germans threw themselves against the Soviet defenders, the lines broke after a week of combat, such was the ferocity of the fighting at its peak it is said 100,000 men a day fell in the battle. Reeling from the shock, the Soviets scrambled to counter the German advance as upwards of 4 million Axis soldiers poured through this colossal gap, Kursk fell, Voronezh taken, Tula in sight, Moscow the prise. The entire Soviet Union being carved out from within, the war was being lost.

efjk8y.jpg

Fascist armour pours into the Sumy gap

As Tula fell and the Germans now at the gates of Moscow itself, Stalin called on the nation for its greatest effort, on the radio broadcast the artillery on red square could be heard firing. Stalin decreed if Moscow fell, he would fall with it, and the nation would follow, he called on the people to rise up, for every man, boy, women and girl to arm themselves, to come to the city and the nation’s defence. Stalin seen the writing on the wall, and so did Hitler. The coming battle would decide the war; both nations were in for the penny and in for the pound. However Hitler had fallen for his own hubris, Stalin's goading of Hitler to come for him in Moscow saw Hitler pull away vital crack German divisions from the pocket to assist the advance. The trap was set, the Soviet army and air force deployed with all their might and vigour into an offensive to close off the German advance and cut off millions of Axis troops and save Moscow, the battle was desperate, it was bloody and it was unrelenting. As Soviet aircraft fought with the Luftwaffa, Soviet armoured divisions smashed into the Romanian, Italian and token German rear-guard units. As Soviet armour clashed with German panzers, such was the bitterness and proximity of the fight that Soviet tank crews resorted to turning their T-34's into battering rams and rammed the German tanks and would then assault their dazed crews with whatever came to hand. With the German spearhead heavily engaged in the Moscow suburbs, and pushing right to the very gates of the Kremlin taking the opposite river bank and firing onto the complex itself, the Soviet southern offensive slammed shut the pocket and with it trapped 4 million axis soldiers. Stalin was informed of the victory as artillery rained upon his command centre in the Assumption Cathedral as the Grand Kremlin Palace burned.

fehxzc.jpg

Artist rendition of the legendary rammers of Kursk

The war had effectively been won, for the remainder of 1946 and spring of 1947 the Red Army crushed the Kursk pocket and with it, the German ability to wage the war. From 1947 to 1949 a slow and costly battle was fought from the gates of Moscow and on into Europe, the Axis satellites fell and in their place rose Communist states on the Soviet model, the United States having only entered the war formally in 1947 managed a large invasion of German occupied France, but with the vast majority of dwindling Axis power now directed against the Soviet juggernaut, it advanced quickly. In August 1949 the death blow was struck as a vengeful Soviet army entered Berlin, with Hitler dead, the Reich crushed, Germany formally surrendered unconditionally and in totality to the USSR on August 24th 1949.

o89mow.jpg

Victory!

With the war in Europe won, and communist states set up in Poland, Finland, Romania, Bulgaria, Italy, Spain, Eastern Germany, Austria, Hungary, Yugoslavia and Greece and Denmark split between communist and western aligned states the Soviet union emerged as the master of Europe's destiny, yet prizes were yet to be won. Six months after the German surrender, the Soviet Union declared war against Japan, its puppet states in Manchuria, China and Indochina. The Japanese were no match for the battle hardened Soviet military which swept across Asia, by 1951 a Soviet invasion of Japan itself restored peace across the globe, and also spread Soviet communism across the globe. China, the Indochinese states, Korea and Japan became communist states on the Soviet model. The west, or rather the United States had come out of the war with little combat experience to its name, but fielded the world’s largest economy built off the death and conflict of others. In the mind of Stalin and the battle weary but proud and victorious Soviet soldier, the United States actions had confirmed their suspicions, the USA was a front for capitalistic Imperialism, leaving the war to be fought and won by the blood of the Soviet worker, only for the US to swoop in once the fight is done and steal Soviet prizes in Western Europe and Taiwan. As soon as the war was over, the USSR was already diametrically opposed everything the United States did or represented. The Cold War had begun.

jadxcl.png

''The future for Europe? Communism!'' - 1949​
 
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Prologue - The Second World War



The post second world war world is one marked by idealogical division, technological advancement, political upheaval, social evolution and global instability. The Soviet Union emerged from the cataclysm a broken and battered nation, but arguably the worlds most powerful nation, out of the 80 million lives lost in the conflict, 32 million of them came from the USSR of which 12 million are military causalities. Vast areas of the western USSR were left depopulated, ravaged and barren from the exploits of both the defenders and invaders, but out of such colossal losses came final, total and ultimate victory.

22nt1.jpg

The remains of Minsk - January 1951

When Germany invaded Poland in Summer 1939 the world was plunged into a war the likes of which had not been seen, in 1940 the German armies had laid waste to the nations of Western Europe. Historians held the USSR or at least Stalin as complicit in German aggression as Stalin had willingly signed the Molotov-Von Ribbentrop pact dividing up Eastern Europe, namely Poland. In the Winter War between the USSR and Finland of December 1939-March 1940 the revolution was exported when a total Soviet victory instituted the Finnish Democratic Republic, the Baltic states, Bessarabia and northern Bukovina would be added to the growing domains of the USSR over the course of 1940. While Stalin watched the growing might of the Fascist powers, a massive rearmaments program was lunched in the Soviet Union, with the German subjugation of the Balkans in Spring 1941 and the attempted but ultimately the failed invasion of Britain shook the Soviet establishment as German-Soviet relations grew steadily colder and a constant stream of intelligence pointed to future German ambitions in the USSR, the armaments program was well timed.

mv3yp4.jpg

Armaments Program inspired a new wave of propaganda posters

When the Hitlerites invaded on the April 4th 1942 the Soviet army was still years away from being able to counter the German threat, chronic lack of modern weaponry and heavy armaments, poor leadership and organisation still reeling from the purges say valiant defences of the frontiers quickly collapse into a general route east. With in 2 weeks Eastern Poland and Lithuania were lost and Belarus was coming under direct attack, in the South the Red Army saw success as they checked the poorly led Romanian and Bulgarian invasion into Bessarabia. With the German thrusts southern flank becoming exposed due to the poor performance of the Axis allies the advance into Belarus and Latvia slowed giving critical time for the Soviets the prepare themselves, however by July a general offensive to the South by a recently formed German army group South led by General Rommel completely destroyed Soviet cohesion in Bessarbia and western Ukraine. However the damage had been done to the fascist invaders, the vital breathing space afforded by the heroes of the Southern front enabled the red army to mount a vicious defensive engagements across the front inflicting costly victories on the Axis and slowing their advance. By Autumn the German front had stalled on a long front from the gates of Leningrad to a desperate battle around Smolensk, then too the climatic battle of Kiev where the Germans had committed their offensive thrust and in return the Soviets had deployed the greatest amount of manpower and resources, the front finally ended at Odessa where a desperate holding actions attempted to buy Soviet forces still in the Western Ukraine time to retreat out of the path of the German offensive.

2ag85g5.gif

Fighting somewhere in the Ukraine - 1942

As Winter set in and the Fascists froze the Soviet army was feverish with activity, movement of troops and equipments around the front, the continuing defiant defence of Kiev and and a rebounding Soviet airforce prepared to weather the coming storm of Spring. As expected in Spring a German offensive hit hard in the Ukraine, it had become clear to Soviet command that the Germans valued the prises of Southern Russia rather than the great cities of central Russia. By the start of Summer the Crimea was cut off, the German general thrust being directed to eliminate the Southern flanks of Kiev and push to the Don river. Still Kiev held, entire regiments were poured into the fight and many disappeared completely amongst it, causalities were extortionate, but still Kiev held. Soviet victory in the Great Patriotic war is often attributed to the valiant defence of Kiev, Hitler and Stalin both set eyes upon the city and both traded blows over it, Hitler's fixation with Kiev led to the neglect of other fronts. But it would not last, Kiev fell after a year of heroic battle in November 1943. The Battle of Kiev had halted the German offensive, for the next two years stalemate set in as the Soviets and Germans traded titanic blows over a static front astride Russia. In Summer 46 the war changed, draining every available tank, bomber, fighter, soldier and rifle he could from across his Axis empire Hitler lunched operation Untergang, the German drive for Moscow. Along a 200 mile front centred on the city of Sumy, the Germans threw themselves against the Soviet defenders, the lines broke after a week of combat, such was the ferocity of the fighting at its peak it is said 100,000 men a day fell in the battle. Reeling from the shock, the Soviets scrambled to counter the German advance as upwards of 4 million Axis soldiers poured through this colossal gap, Kursk fell, Voronezh taken, Tula in sight, Moscow the prise. The entire Soviet union being carved out from within. The war was being lost.

efjk8y.jpg

Fascist armour pours into the Sumy gap

As Tula fell and the Germans now at the gates of Moscow itself, Stalin called on the nation for its greatest effort, on the radio broadcast the artillery on red square could be heard firing. Stalin decreed if Moscow fell, he would fall with it, and the nation would follow, he called on the people to rise up, for every man, boy, women and girl to arm themselves, to come to the city and the nations defence. Stalin seen the writing on the wall, and so did Hitler. The coming battle would decide the war, both nations were in for the penny and in for the pound. However Hitler had fallen for his hubris, Stalin's goading of Hitler to come for him in Moscow saw Hitler pull away vital crack German divisions from the pocket to assist the advance. The trap was set, the Soviet army and airforce deployed with all their might and vigour an offensive to close off the German advance and cut off millions of Axis troops and save Moscow, the battle was desperate, it was bloody and it was unrelenting. As Soviet aircraft fought with the Luftwaffa, Soviet armoured divisions smashed into the Romanian, Italian and token German rearguard units. As Soviet armoured clashed with German panzers, such was the bitterness and proximity of the fight that Soviet tank crews resorted to turning their T-34's into battering rams and rammed the German tanks and would then assault their dazed crews with whatever came to hand. With the German spearhead heavily engaged in the Moscow suburbs, and pushing right to the very gates of the Kremlin taking the opposite river bank and firing onto the complex itself, the Soviet southern offensive slammed shut the pocket and with it trapped 4 million axis soldiers. Stalin was informed of the victory as artillery rained upon his command centre in the Assumption Cathedral as the Grand Kremlin Palace burned.

fehxzc.jpg

Artist rendition of the legendary rammers of Kursk

The war had effectively been won, for the remainder of 1946 and Spring of 1947 the Red Army crushed the Kursk pocket and with it, the German ability to wage the war. From 1947 too 1949 a slow and costly battle was fought from the gates of Moscow in Europe, the Axis satellites fell and in their place rose Communist states on the Soviet model, the United States having only entered the war formally in 1947 managed a large invasion of German occupied France, but with the vast majority of Axis power now directed against the Soviet Union, it advances quickly. In August 1949 the death blow was struck as a vengeful Soviet army entered Berlin, with Hitler dead, the Reich crushed, Germany formally surrendered unconditionally and in totality to the USSR on August 24th 1949.

o89mow.jpg

Victory!

With the war in Europe won, and communist states set up in Poland, Finland, Romania, Bulgaria, Italy, Spain, Eastern Germany, Austria, Hungary, Yugoslavia and Greece and Denmark split between communist and western aligned states the Soviet union emerged as the master of Europe's destiny, yet prizes were yet to be won. Six months after the German surrender, the Soviet Union declared war against Japan, its puppet states in Manchuria, China and Indochina, Japanese were no match for the battle hardened Soviet military which swept across Asia, by 1951 a Soviet invasion of Japan itself restored peace across the globe, and also spread Soviet communism across the globe. China, Indochinese states, Korea and Japan became communist states on the Soviet model. The west, or rather the United States had come out of the war with little combat experience to its name, but fielded the worlds largest economy built off the death and conflict of others. In the mind of Stalin and the battle weary but proud and victorious Soviet soldier, the United States actions had confirmed their suspicions, the USA was a front for capitalistic Imperialism, leaving the war to be fought and won by the blood of the Soviet worker, only for the US to swoop in once the fight is done and steal Soviet prizes in Western Europe and Taiwan. As soon as the war was over, the USSR was already diametrically opposed everything the United states did or represented. The Cold War had begun.

jadxcl.png

''The future for Europe? Communism!'' - 1949​

Socialism,not communism

Translating as russian
 
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Prologue - The New World Order


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Even before the war, Stalin and the state where almost one and the same, Stalin was the state, the personification of the peoples collective wills, desires and hopes. In the immediate aftermath of the conflict, Stalin was treated almost as a divine figure in official state press. When Mao and Tito came to Moscow to confirm their positions with in the Soviet Bloc, they were intimidated by the sheer devotion to Stalin of the Soviet establishment. However Stalin was not the man he once was, the stresses of the war and poor diet had taken their toll upon the man of steel. A week before the signing of the COMECON economic assistance treaty and communist international military alliance - The Berlin Pact, Stalin suffered a stroke. While he recovered enough to be present at the event, it was a sign of coming end of the Stalinist era. Since as late as 1949 when Stalin suffered his first heart attack elements with in the Soviet union had begun preparing for Stalin's death, when the NKVD heard of such events Stalin suspected a coup in the works and began setting on another purge. The first victims of the growing Purge were the doctors of high level officials, often Jewish, Stalin had seen a plot by agents of an Israeli state that had turned its back on the sacrifices of the USSR and was now doing the bidding of its American masters. A Jewish Oblast was set up in Eastern Siberia and the USSR's remaining Jewish populations were expelled to ''protective relocation''.

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Soviet technology began to lead to the world into the future, bearing the fruits of investment and German ''repatriations''. In 1952 the Soviet Union put a satellite into space, the Sputnik-1, over the coming years the USSR would put the first dog in space before in 1959 Yuri Gargarin became the first human in space, later that year Valentina Tereshkova became the first women in space. Korolyov's pioneering rocketry had gifted the USSR a dominating lead in global space exploration. In the west there was a palpable feeling that they were losing this idealogical contest, western Leaders feared Soviet ''atom ships overhead'', western youth became infatuated with the tales and exploits of the Soviet cosmonauts heading to the stars. Such developments spurred the US to create NASA, however it was years behind advances made by the космос - Kosmos, the Soviet Space agency. The real contender with the USSR in the race to the stars was the British Royal Aeronautical and Space Corps, a highly advanced program born from the fruits of British war time rocketry and Frank Whittles genius.

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To the Sun! To the stars!

The USSR made great strides from German war time innovations, the jet engine was greatly adapted and saw massive proliferation in the Soviet Union by the end of the war. Adapted from captured and recovered German engines and home grown Soviet designs the jet engine revolutionised the Soviet air force and civil aeronautics. Once again the USA was slowly catching up, but Soviet technological leads were only met by the British. In the area of nuclear physics, globally advancement was slow and sluggish, the Soviet nuclear program had been started in 1940 led by Igor Kurchatov. By 1951 the first Soviet weapon had been completed and tested in secrecy in Northern Siberia, believed at the time to be the first ever nuclear weapon detonation when public knowledge of nuclear weapons was released in 1955 it shocked the Soviets when the US first tested their weapon in late 1949.

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First Soviet Nuclear Weapon, tested in Yakutia - March 1951

In 1953 Stalin died, his death sent the Communist bloc in mourning and shock. Beria was quick to secure his role as successor for Stalin, however others were not so eager to see the Stalinist era of purges and cult of the personality continue. As Beria was drawing up a list of his rivals he wished to remove, a cadre of reformers led by Nikita Khrushchev were able to depose Beria via shrewd political deal making within the Peoples Congress and the party structure, once Beria was removed from office, he was quickly arrested and eventually executed under the exact crimes he had sent many to the firing wall for.

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Khrushchev, the 4th Premier of the USSR

Khrushchev's accession was a major turning point in the Soviet Union, a break from the Stalinism of Beria and Stalin. Khrushchev would be a vital reformer of the entire Soviet model, from economics, to foreign policy to social interactions, a firebrand and some times bumbling Khrushchev would set the world on a new course. While Stalinism was preoccupied with international image and prestige, Khrushchev sought to bring back the Socialism into Communism, was the main aim of communism not the betterment of the lives of the workers? Khrushchev's main goals as soon as he came into office outside of securing his power, was a wide range of policies to improve the living standards, rights and positions of the Soviet peoples. Khrushchev denounced the personality cult of Stalin at the party congress of 1954, with this speech he began a wide raning process of de-Stalinisation, the removal of hard-liners from positions of power, the reform of the stalwart of Stalinist thought, the NKVD into the KGB, the release of millions of political prisoners from the gulags, rolling back on press censorship, widening of the freedom to speech (but not of speech) and a more democratic system of electing party leaders from the Soviet republics.

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“Our goals are clear. Our tasks are certain. Get to work, comrades!”

Alongside his political reforms, Khrushchev began a radical reform of the economy. Stalinist doctrine emphasised heavy industries, while the Soviet union was economically powerful, her coffers full and her resources abundant, the vast majority of her people lived in poverty. The order would redirect the economic emphasis from the traditional heavy industries to consumer goods, housing, infrastructure and social amenities. In 1954 a flurry of new housing complexes, apartments, housing blocks began to be built, the age of the ''commieblock'' had been born as millions of Soviet citizens moved from their wooden hovels to the socialist homes of the future. Car factories opened up and car ownership would slowly increase year on year, many Soviet citizens by 1960 owned their first radio or even a television set! Fridges, radiators, baths, water heaters began to enter the home place. The tranSiberian was greatly expanded and improved, great road and railways connected the Caucuses, Ukraine, Karelia to the Moscow core. Food shortages had always been a common theme, the Virgin lands campaign corrected this, while almost a disaster when inappropriate seed and a lack of machinery was directed to the scheme, the Winters of 1954-1957 were harsh ones, the food shortages worse than ever as the crop failed, but reform of the policy ensured that 1958's harvest was a fruitful and bountiful one. Year on year the crop yields increased. Where the USSR had to import food in the years of 1955-1958 afterwards the USSR became an exporter of food, its shops well stocked and its peoples pantries full, with staples such as wheat, corn, barley now successfully tackled the Virgin lands movements from 1961 onwards focused on increasing the annual output of diary products and meat.

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''Break Virgin lands!''

But the most influential and revolutionary of the reforms was the computerisation of the economy. On a factory visit in 1954 Khruschev was fascinated with the technical skills of Sergey Alexeyevich Lebedev to such an extent he poured funding into Lebedev's work, first came a series of military computing devices and then in 1959 Sergey proposed the computerisation of the entire economy to eliminate the slack, human error and corruption from the command economy. Over the coming decade the USSR's industry would become hyper efficient for the time with the help of computers. An entire new ministry, the ministry of trades and values was formed completely comprised of computer engineers integrating the efficiency of computing into the work of the other ministries.

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One of the trade ministries computers

The death of Stalin had sent shock waves around the communist bloc, Khrushchevs' rise and subsequent denunciation of Stalin had caused rifts, namely between the Asian communist states and the USSR. The Asian communist model was based on the Stalinist model of taking a peasant society and pulling it into industrialisation and crushing dissent, Mao had vowed to move the Chinese nation away from the guiding hand of Moscow. Unable to muster the internal support to break the link, Mao formally requested that the PRC be given the rights owed to it and that it follow its own path to communism, basically to follow its own independent policies and foreign affairs. Moscow flatly refused greatly cooling the relations between Mao and Moscow, however the Pro Moscow lobby in China, many of who had fought with the USSR and are only where they are thanks to the efforts of Moscow during the liberation, halted the excesses of Mao. In order to sooth relations Moscow afforded the PRC its own domestic economic policies, in 1958 Mao undertook the great leap forward leading to the great famine in China and the modest growth of industry in China. China's clout had been quashed and remained squarely in the Soviet orbit. In contrast Kim Il Sung's Korea rapidly expanded industrially through Soviet assistance, by 1968 Korea would boast the largest industrial base of the East Asian Communist bloc, double that of China.

2uynfr9.jpg

''WHEN THE ARMY AND PEOPLE UNITE AS ONE, LET US SEE WHO IN THE WORLD CAN CHALLENGE US''

In Europe affairs went differently, the Soviet spring had sparked an Hungarian Summer. Reformers in Hungary quickly lost control as mass popular actions broke out into open insurrection 1956, while the world was fixated on the Suez crisis, the Communist bloc moved to crush a nationalist revolution in Hungary. It halted reform in the European bloc for years and raised disquieting questions with in the Soviet establishment as too the direction of the thaw was taking them. The revolution was quickly and forcefully crushed.

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The Soviet garrison putting down the revolt.

The direct road to world war 3 began in 1954, in Japan. Unlike the other states conquered and liberated, Japan was a different case, the blend between feudalism social structure and the industrialised nature of the nation threw complication into the imposition of a hardline Stalinist state, the lack of any native communist party of reasonable standing left the occupying Soviet powers to pursue a pragmatic approach. The feudal structures were so heavily ingrained it would take decades to remove them, so to whittle them down a social democratic system was set up with land reform and social reforms to be weened in. However it was not too last, the Imperial family were able to escape in the dying days of the war and surrender to the Americans on Okinawa, ever since then with American aid, Japanese reactionaries had been agitating against Soviet rule. In 1954 things came to a head, with Soviet occupation troops having been repatriated the previous year , popular protests erupted across the nation, in the space of 3 days a CIA backed revolution overwhelmed the Japanese security services, crowds stormed and burned the Soviet embassy and looted the KGB office in Tokyo, a special meeting of the People's Diet formally renounced all relations with the USSR and entered into the protection of the Americans and restored the Emperor. Powerless and not willing to risk World War three, Khrushchev backed down, critically damaging his standing.

2ibhl06.jpg

The loss of Japan was a bitter pill to swallow

The Soviet Union would bide its time, scheming and finding any means to correct the humiliation of Japan. Defence spending tripled, Soviet ICBM's were stationed in the Western USSR and Kamchatka, Soviet forces in Europe were increased and the submarine forces began regular patrols around NATO coast lines. A mutual hatred had now grown into something more serious. The KGB and Soviet agents fuelled leftist civil wars across Latin America and central Africa, the communist party of Mexico received massive donations from an unnamed foreign power and became heavily militant, Soviet agents were suspected in industrial sabotage in the United States and in the workings of wild cat strikes. The USSR and with it the communist members pulled out of United Nations committees to seek a resolution to the partitions of Greece and Denmark, the red threat had come. In 1963 the third Arab Israeli war crippled global energy supply, the global economy crashed and when the Israeli armies overran Syria and Iraq the Soviet Union threatened intervention, the energy crisis would last until 1965.

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The 4 months war shook the globe

1959-1961 would see the USSR gain satisfaction for Japan. A group of rebels in Cuba under the leadership of Fidel Castro were able to overthrow the American puppet Batista and set about forming a socialist state, they came to the USSR requesting aid and support to safe guard the revolution, Moscow jumped at the opportunity to oblige them. By 1960 20,000 Soviet ''advisor's'' were in country, weekly economic aid ships from the USSR docked in Havana, the Americans protested and looked on with ire. American recon flights were flying hourly over Cuba, it came as a shock with their previously untouchable U2 spy aircraft began to be shot down over the island, a failed American supported invasion by Cuban exiles prompted a Soviet fleet to head to Cuba containing two nuclear fuelled carriers, an atomic battleship, several cruisers and a flotilla of destroyers. Cuba was firmly secure in the Soviet orbit for the time being, while US intelligence could not confirm,it was suspected that the Soviets were able to station medium range R-12 missiles in Cuba. The cold war was heating up.

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A ship of the newly formed Soviet Caribbean fleet in port at Havana​
 
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Oooh sounds like the soviet navy has got some serious love during the build up!

Nuclear battleships ftw!
 
Oooh sounds like the soviet navy has got some serious love during the build up!

Nuclear battleships ftw!

As is the orthodoxy, I abandoned the Navy during the war, but kept up research and when I had some decent techs I went on a massive naval expansion program. And I felt due to the nature of this timeline, Battleships haven't been as discredited as IRL

If only they could fire shells with fissionable material in them
 
That's really enjoyable and informative read. Can't wait to see more of that. By the way, do you plan to use NWO/CWTT to go all the way to 1999?
 
That's really enjoyable and informative read. Can't wait to see more of that. By the way, do you plan to use NWO/CWTT to go all the way to 1999?

I dunno, I doubt it.

I will likely have all the techs done by 1990, I am ten years ahead on pretty much all the techs.

I'll see how the war goes, if it goes full nuclear I might call it over then. I am just giving a run down of the interbellum, the war has just started when I last saved.
 
Prologue - The Road to War


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The addition of Cuba to the communist bloc was a major strategic coup for the USSR, it addressed the humiliation of Japan and more fundamentally checked the missle coverage gap between the USSR and the USA. It was almost certain the United States had stationed ICBM's, or at least nuclear capable strategic bombers in Japan and Western Europe, While previously the USSR kept its strategic weapons and bombers within the territorial confines of the USSR, now bombers, missile submarines and ICBM's began to be deployed into the Pact allies. By 1964 a permanent Soviet garrison of five infantry divisions, two armoured divisions, three naval infantry divisions and sizeable airpower of eight squadrons of MIG 21's and four squadrons of tactical Tupolev Tu-22 bombers and suspected and unknown numbers of ballistic missiles, then there was the two carriers, one battleship and 5 Cruisers and numerous smaller craft of the Soviet Caribbean fleet, complimented with a small number of attack submarines slipping into the Mexican gulf, upwards of a 100,000 Soviet military personnel were stationed in Cuba, complimenting the expanding Cuban armed forces.

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Soviet aircraft in Cuba - 1965

The sub continent was a constant source of global instability, when the British left in 1952 they divided the British Indian empire into three states, the Islamic Pakistan, the Buddhist island of Ceylon and the secular but majority Hindu Indian federation which included Burma. As soon as the British troops departed, religious civil war broke out as India's muslims rose in revolt in an attempt to break away to the newly formed Pakistan. India and Pakistan would clash over Kashmir in 1957, the war resulted in a devastating Pakistani victory when Pakistani troops triumphantly marched into New Delhi, much of the frontier and border areas of Bangladesh including Calcutta were incorporated into the Pakistani state. In the aftermath of the defeat, India teetered on the brink of collapse, many of India's ethnic groups began vying for independence, several of the repressed princely states pushed for succession, civil war rocked the land. The quick wits and keen political eye of the governor General Louis Mountbatten saved the state and reformed it into a more representative democracy and abolished the caste system. Mountbatten had won the love of much of India for his work during the ''year of strife''. In 1964 a minor border dispute would shake the world, for China, India and too a lesser extent Pakistan, quarrelled over various points of the frontier, in March of 1964 a skirmish between Indian and Chinese troops on the Yunnan frontier escalated into war, shocking the USSR most of all by the speed of the affair. The communist bloc supported the Chinese and 200,000 Soviet combat troops and sizeable airpower were allocated to Tibet to assist the Chinese effort.

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Indian vehicles fall victim to a Chinese ambush

An Indian advance from Arunachal Pradesh pushed into Tibet and Northern Yunnan, however when Soviet air power out of Lhasa began to be brought to bear the Indians were crippled. Supply columns made easy prey for Soviet CAS and opportunistic fighters, Soviet bombers struck military targets in New Delhi and as far south as Bombay, a Soviet offensive across the Himalayas into Pradesh, while sluggish put the Indians on the retreat. As the Soviet armoured moved, Soviet engineers built roads and passes to speed up logistics, many of these Himalayan roads would become key arteries post war. Chinese offensives into Myanmar failed miserably, however when Soviet armour and airpower was brought to bear the Indians folded quickly, two months after Soviet intervetion Pradesh was held by Soviet troops and had begun to push into Bihar before holding their advance on the Koshi river. US fleets arriving off the coast of India convinced the USSR to not advance into the Indian core, but instead to wrap up the offensive into Myanmar to secure the contested Chinese claims and then bring India to a settlement. By September the Indians were ousted from Northern Myanmar, some of the more hardline commanders wanted to bring the revolution to India, however it was decided to settle what we had come for and India agreed to hand over the contested claims to China. The Sino/Soviet-Indo war demonstrated that Soviet armour was the key to the battle, but also showed perhaps the USSR's allies wernt as capable as was thought. The war also sparked a Pakistani-Indian detante, Pakistan also in a border dispute with China watched with fear as India was crushed, in the post war Years India and Pakistan would form a mutual defence bloc and economic and military cooperation to try and form a bulwark against the Red threat to the North, while they benefited greatly from NATO/US aid, they rebuked any attempt to join the western alliance.

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Soviet columns crossing the rooftop of the world

The 1960's would see a steady expansion and modernisation of the Soviet army, with several divisions of air infantry, thousands of Hind class attack helicopters, tens of thousands of new T-72 model tanks and an entire amphibious army corp formed. The airforce was modernised as MIG-27's where introduced by 1967 and MIG-29 fighter aircraft being designed and put into production by 1971, the strategic bomber force was updated with new models of TU-97's and TU-22 aircraft replacing older models. However it was the navy which seen real expansion, over the course of a decade twelve aircraft carriers were commissioned, four nuclear, two conventional super carriers, four of which were helicopter carriers and the final two being Keiv class aviation cruisers. Eight battle ships were commissioned, two nuclear, six conventional missile battleships, upwards of twenty six cruisers of varying types, more than forty missile destroyers and frigates and over a hundred corvettes for coastal defence. The submarine fleet was no less complimented with new boats, several flotillas of Tango class boats replaced older models of diesel power submarines, the golf class missile submarines were replaced with the Delta class the nuclear ballistic and attack submarine fleets were the pride of the service, upwards of sixty Victor class attack submarines were commissioned, often deployed to the US coast and in two classified incidents, Soviet Victor class submarines were able to infiltrate New York harbour and San Francisco. In the San Francisco incident the boat remained in the area for four days and at night would surface and watch the lights of the city and on the third day sent a landing party ashore for a number of hours. The news while condemned by naval command as brash adventurism, in Moscow the news was well received. Harbour invasions became a common action of sub commanders seeking to make a name for themselves, however the practice was banned when a boat attempted to preform the action at a Swedish naval base and beached itself leading to an embarrassing international incident.

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The Kiev at sea

The Soviet space program hit new bounds of excellence as well, while work had begun on a lunar mission before American president Kennedy called on man to go to the moon, the challenge put new vigour into the project. By 1964 Soviet intelligence determined the American program was still in its infancy, the British however, where close to the Soviets, wile the Soviets were working on habitation and the lander itself, the British were perfecting their rocketry. After a couple of lunch failures with the R-1 rockets a Soyuz modified R-7 proved to be a successful candidate. On November 8th 1967 a R-7 rocket took off from Okhotsk Cosmodrome in Khabarovsk Krai, early the next day the news broke to the world that Vladimir Komarov and become the first human to step foot on another world. The red banner was planted on the moon and a day later Komarov, Konstantin Feoktistov and Boris Yegorov had returned to the earth, automatically becoming world famous and heroes of the Soviet Union.

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Victory for Socialist Science!

The Following Year the British would send two men to the moon and over the coming years the Soviets would return to the moon no less and twelve times and the British another four. There would not be an American moon landing, the first American on the moon got there as part of the British program. Eventually NASA would be latched to the British Commonwealth space program. In 1971 the first habited Space station the Salyut rocketed into the sky, every other week there was a rocket lunch from one of the four main Soviet Cosmodromes sending men and women into space, new satellites or probes to into the heavens. In 1972 preliminary research began on the Buran space shuttle program, it is hoped that this will reduce the costs of rockets and reduce the growing amount of debris in the lower atmosphere. In 1972 the Soviet Union proudly and confidently boasts ''1980 a permanently manned space station, 1990 a lunar base, 2000, a man on Mars!''.

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Soviet man – be proud, you opened the road to stars from Earth!

In Winter 1968 after a tumultuous decade and half of reform and progress, Comrade Khrushchev formally announced he would stand down as Premier in the new year. Sighting health concerns but namely that he had accomplished his goals which he had wanted when he became premier. A liberalised USSR with an invigorated economy, plentiful food and goods and rising living standards, he remarked ''The revolution stalls when the revolutionary grows old and becomes a patriarch''. Khrushchev threw his support behind the like minded reformer Alexei Kosygin, however it was not too be, the conservative minded Leonid Brezhnev's hard-line foreign and military policies eventually won out against Kosygin's promises of further reform and liberalisation rhetoric in the Peoples congressional election from the Supreme Soviet. The progressive era of Khrushchev had ended, the authoritarian years of the ageing Brezhnev had begun.

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Comerade Leonid Brezhev - 5th Premier of the USSR

Much to Khrushchev's ire, Brezhev began on a systematic reversal of the liberalisation of civil liberties, freedom speech was clamped down on, censorship increased, where Soviet citizens had briefly been given the opportunity to travel outside the USSR, this was quickly reversed. Economically Brezhev tried not to tamper with the reforms as they had produced much success, however more and more economic activity diverted to military research and armaments. His foreign policy was more confrontational, more showboating and grandstanding in the UN and against the West, funding and support to left wing rebel groups in Latin and America were allocated. The KGB would see its purview radically increase as its operations expanded and its domestic surveillance increased. Within the Communist Bloc his rise was seen with a mixed bag, the Chinese and Mao had always remained some what cold towards the USSR since the Khrushchev-Mao affair, Brezhev would see a reconciliation of sorts take place as doctrinally the USSR moved back to the orthodox line, the Asian Pact nations took warmly to Brezhev. In the Warsaw Pact states things were different, while sticking too their Stalinist roots after the Hungarian debacle, by 1968 many European Pact members had begun to emerge from the rigid model of old and start to adopt the more liberal policies of Khrushchev, when Brezhev reversed the thaw the new reforming leaders of European Pact were left in the cold with memories of Hungary, a population seeking the same conditions given by the USSR to its citizens and now hardliners in the Kremlin, Europe could prove troublesome to the new Brezhevite state. It was now the norm of a Soviet government to balance relations between its European and Asian spheres of influence.

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Soviet manoeuvres in Eastern Europe

The specific start to the third world war would begin in Turkey. Turkey was of strategic importance to both Warsaw Pact and NATO, lodged between NATO aligned Iran and Pact nations in the Balkans, Turkish governments had successfully been able to play both powers blocs off against each other. The Bosphorus was the artery for the USSR Black Sea and Mediterranean fleets to enter the Mediterranean, while the USSR and the democratic governments of Turkey maintained warm relations that enabled Turkey to agree to USSR fleet transits through the Bosporus. Naturally this put distance between Turkey and NATO, when the pro Soviet Turkish Workers party won the elections of 1972 the world was set on a road it could not return from. A CIA backed coup of Turkish army officers under General Kenan Evren overthrew the elected government in June 1972, four months later a KGB backed revolution ousted the generals from Ankara, a CIA backed counter revolt of right wing nationalists ousted the communists from Istanbul, Left wing Kurds with connections to the KGB stepped up their insurgency, quickly overrunning confused army units in the region.

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Anarchy in Ankara

By the end of the year with Turkish Kurdistan de facto independent, the country splitting down the seems and ethnic lines as regions fall into either communist or nationalist zones the world powers stepped up their rhetoric. The US went to the UN requesting a resolution to declare the elections fraudulent and to call for new elections and an international task force to secure peace in the region, the USSR went to the UN requesting a resolution to declare the elections legitimate. In February a large raid across the Turkish Kurdistan frontier into Iran saw over a 1000 Iranian soldiers killed and 1500 Kurds killed, followed by vicious ethnic conflict in Iranian Kurdistan fed by weapons coming from Turkey. Radical Islamism had been seeping to the fore as fundamentalists began to influence conservative Turks, when the Islamic peoples of the Caucasus began agitating for greater autonomy, Moscow was deeply alarmed. Soviet forces began building up in the Caucuses. When Palestinian militants began raiding Turkish army depots along the Turkish Syrian border, Israel conducted air-strikes on them and on suspected PLO targets in Syria. In April the Shah had had enough, the Iranian army crossed the Turkish frontier and invaded Turkish Kurdistan, the communist government declared war on Iran, the Turkish army fractured. The US began surgical strikes on pro government Turkish forces across the country assisting the Iranian advance and goading the nationalist generals to completely break from Ankara and set up their own state. DPR Greek forces mobilised along the Thracian border, Pact command went on high alert, the Soviet Black sea fleet has put to sea and Soviet aircraft are taking to the skies......

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Soviet MIG's scrambling from Soviet airbases in Georgia












 
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Photo with winter BTRs-It is 1st checen war,no?

Yeah, it is a little hard to find appropriate period photos to match the circumstances. Plus the fact all technology and unit models are ten years ahead than they should be...

I can see myself having to rely on Chechen war/Afghan-Soviet/Yugoslavian conflicts to get decent images with period Soviet equipment in action.