The calm before the Storm ~ A somewhat different Cold War

[Black Guardian]

Hey guys!
This is my first AAR in english ever, so excuse me for language-mistakes that might occur... I´m not a native english speaker

I´m currently playing a strange mix of modifications:
Graphic Improvement Pack, together with Skifs Icons and
most important: Historical Improvement Pack.

The Problem with this combination is, that not all pictures are fitting to the names - especially the Icons. I´m sorry for this, but i´m to lazy to delete all those pics and great icons...
However, i played Soviet Union Grand Campaign and didn´t want to attack Germany while it´s preoccupied with France - I wanted to wait for Operation Barbarossa and see, wether the "normal" AI can beat me on "normal" difficulty...
When i started playing i didn´t plan to make an AAR, thats why there are no pictures of the early war and only very few about Operation Barbarossa.
Yet, let´s come to the content:



A time of changes

In 1936, it seemed like the world was on the best way to recover from the Great Depression, which had affected almost the whole world. Unfortunately, the price for the improvement of the economic situation was increasing militarism and extremism. Fascist Governments in Italy, Germany and Japan had taken control and surpressed minoritys of the population like jews and foreigners.
During this time one of the worlds most powerful countries, the Soviet Union, wasn´t able to stop the Fascist menace because it was detained by political Isolationism.
The British and French didn´t like the Idea of Socialism and Communism and overestimated the Soviet Ideology as an even greater threat for democracy than National Socialism or Fasicsm. Their weakness and appeasement-policy empowered the Fascists and helped the Third Reich to grow stronger and stronger.
Finally, the tensions between the Allies and Axis resulted in an open war - the bloodiest war ever seen in history.
In the first two years, the Soviet Union gain a small benefit through the partition of Poland, but wasn´t affected by the bad sides of war. Stalin saw no reason to intervene in this conflict.
He had other plans...

One of this plans was, to prepare his military for the worst case that could happen: A German Invasion into the Soviet Union. While the war raged over Europe, the Red Army became one of the most advanced Forces of the World.
In 1939 the General Staff considered a test of the military abilities of our Forces. A test on the battlefields of Finland...
The Finnish Winter War was a big success for the soviet troops. After three months, Finland was almost completely controlled by Soviet Forces - their ridiculous peace offer on the 13th of January 1940 was rejected: The Soviets wanted all of Finland. In response to that aggressive Action, the Swedish Government declared War upon the Soviet Union and allied with their Finnish Friends.
Nevertheless Finland was annexed only days later and the Soviet War Machine began to steamroll Sweden. After a few weeks of dispersed fighting the Swedish Army was completely annihilated, their Air Force non-existant and one of their best battlecruiser sunk by the Soviet Battleship "Marat". The Swedish leadership had no choice and surrendered. Sweden became a part of the Soviet Union.

After this resounding success, Stalin was thinking once again of an intervention into the War between the Allies and the Axis, while German troops were concentraded along the french border. Soon he abolished this plans, because revolts and partisan activities caused problems in Finland and Sweden. The first objective was securing the new territory. After the German victory over France the Wehrmacht was redeployed along the Soviet Border. An offensive operation was unthinkable. The Wehrmacht wasn´t the Finish or Swedish Army but a massive elite-Army commanded by some of the best leaders the world had ever seen.
In 1941 the Nazis made the worst case come true: Operation Barbarossa was launched.

The Red Army was prepared for such an attack, but it wasn´t able to push forwards. Slowly our troops were pushed back, heavy battles were fought, our counterattacks slowed the Germans down and prevented them to use their Blitzkrieg-Tactics. The Defense in Depth-Strategy we used showed to be very effective.
Meanwhile, the Soviet War economy enabled us to produce a massive amount of troops. Furthermore, Reservists were called in and the Red Army grow stronger and stronger.
While the Northern Front, commanded by Field Marshall Timoshenko, stopped almost all German attacks and were even able to push the Wehrmacht out of East Prussia, our central and southern front wasn´t able to resist the Germans...
The Soviet Forces were pushed back to Kiev and German Troops crossed the Don River only weeks before the winter was coming.



The Situation on the 1st of October 1941

Ten days later, the first wave of fresh Soldiers reached the frontline: Our Factories had produced 70 new Infantry-Divisions



Our reinforcements on the way to the front & the Battle for Kielce. The German troops are outnumbered and weakened , while our Divisions are almost at full strenght. (On the southern front it´s a bit different...)
(Note: As i said, the unit icons don´t fit: ´45 Infantry Icons are ´41 Units... ´43 Icons show 1940-Standart and the 1941 Icons means our Units are on the standart of 1939)

With these reinforcements the Red Army was able to fight a bloody Winter War against the now outnumbered and weakened German troops. The Southern & Central Front was stabilized and commanded to lead a huge counterattack to regain control over the Ukraine.
The result was a huge encirclement:


The Situation in December 1941.
A vast amount of German Division is pocketed in the Ukraine & at Kiev.

After reducing the big pocket, many German Soldiers were killed or catched at the retreat to the last to provinces controlled by German troops: Kiev and Krivoy Rog



In the following battles for these two provinces, the most modern German Divisions had to surrender to the Red Army.



After these smashing victories, the Germans were on steady retreat...

[Black Guardian]

Hmm... it didn´t like too much pictured in one post...


Red flag over Europe


In March 1942 we controlled Norway, taken by the Germans in 1940 and retaken 1942 by the Soviet Union;
Poland, Romania and Slovakia.
The Red Army had crossed the Oder river and was fighting at the outskirts of Berlin...



Two months later Germany was completely taken, Hungary decided to join the Comintern and the first steps on Italian territory were made.
The British had been able to conquer Libya and the United States were at war with Japan since November 1941 (no, not December...)



After France was taken without serious resistance, we had to hunt down all the partisans and defeat Italy.
Germany surrendered in May 1942, the National Socialists were beaten.
Stalin was very happy about the termless capitulation of Germany and the huge area he now controlled. The Allies had done nothing to defeat Germany, so Stalin demanded the whole territory as part of the Soviet Union...



While Soviet Troops where fighting in Italy, the Spaniards joined the Axis to defend the European Fasicsm - they better didn´t.
Spain was steamrolled by Soviet Forces - but not only Soviet ones. Unfortunately, the Americans landed at the Spanish Southwest-Coast and conquered a part of Spain...
In Italy, the Situation was similar: British Forces landed at Sicily and Taranto and occupied a small part of Southeast - Italy... After the war was over, they released the Italian Social Republic.
After the War in Europe, some of our troops where redeployed to the east. The next Enemy was Japan.
In the meantime our Industry built a huge amount of garrisons which were placed all over Central Europe...

In 1943 our non-aggression pact with Japan ended.
Only days later the Soviet Forces began their advance into enemy territory...
Without meeting real resistance until reaching China we were able to conquer North Korea and those parts of China that were occupied by Japan.
Afterwards we signed a peace that gave us North Korea, Manchuko and some Pacific Islands. Continuing the war was no real option, because the Red Navy was (and is) not able to compete with the Japanese Navy.
In the following years we built up our Navy a little bit. It´s still not in fighting shape, because the Ships are all obsolete, our commanders untrained and the doctrines not researched. But it´s a power-projection: 25 Battleships, more than every country in the world.

In 1945 our peace treaty with Japan expired and we attacked once again, hoping to get some more territory...
Our paratroopers landed at an unprotected Province on the Japanese Home Islands and secured a bridgehead, while Naval Bombers secured the way for reinforcements. Two days later we had 15 Divisions landed on the Japanese Home Islands. After the fall of Tokio, the Japanese offered peace once again, giving us more pacific Islands...
Stalin didn´t see any reason to continue weakening Japan, as long as it fought against Allied Troops.
As long as the British and Americans have to deal with Japan, Stalin hopes to increase his sphere of influence.

At the beginning of 1946 the Soviet Union declared War upon Iraq. Quickly the Tank-Armies advanced into Iraq from the North. One may ask: Why Iraq?
This country is my stepping stone into the Middle East. When war with the Allies breaks out, I don´t want to waste time invading Iraq before i can step into Israel, Syria and Lebanon!
After the whole country was occupied, Stalin offered them to become a puppet state - but they resist. So we had no other choice than annexing the Iraq and releasing it as a puppet. The territory is worthless and i don´t want to waste resources on producing garrison Units...

Now only two fascist countries are left: Japan, engaged in a heavy war with the United States and Britain.
And Afghanistan, our little neighbour...

[therev]

Conquering the world means never having to say you're sorry.
Take out the Fascits and then those greedy capitalists

[Black Guardian]

The Soviet Military


After the Second World War endet with the Soviet occupation of vast parts of Europe, the Situation didn´t change for years:



Turkey, Yugoslavia, Ireland, Portugal and the newly formed Italian Social Republic remain as the only independent and neutral states.
Great Britain is of course leader of the Allies, Hungary is a Soviet Puppet State.

The Situation in the Pacific theatre looks desparating for the Fascists. Allied troops are retaking Ozeanea, a British Invasion Force even managed to land at Shikoku!
Look at those beautiful red Islands which are now in Soviet hands



Both Pictures show the situation in Februar 1946


Red Army

At this moment, the Red Army consists of:



The concentration of mobile troops (everything exept garrisons) and the territories they are placed in are:
Spain - 68 Divisions
Romania / Bulgaria / Greece - 54 Divisions
Germany/NL/Belgium/Denmark - 49 Divisions
France - 35 Divisions
Soviet-Indian&Afghanian Border - 30 Divisions
Austria - 28 Divisions
Italy - 21 Divisions
Czechoslovakia - 18 Divisions
Iraq - 17 Divisions
Manchuko/Korea - 16 Divisions
Scandinavia - 15 Divisions
Poland - 13 Divisions

On the 27th of February the latest Tank was officially shown the Red Army command and Stalin himself and their mass production began. Soon the first Tanks will be taken into service.
All other Units are on the latest technological divisional-standart, exept the Mountaineers, which will soon be upgraded. Our Artillery-Brigades are obsolet, but soon the research of a new model will begin.

On the First of April 1946 the "Mechanized Wave Doctrine" was developed and showed us the way into a new Era of Land Combat...

All in All, the Red Army is in best fighting shape.


The Red Airforce

The Red Airforce´ Arsenal:



While our Ground Forces are at the latest tech-level, our Airforce is only partial:
We´re able to build Turbojet-Interceptors as well as Turbojet-Multirole-Fighters. Furthermore our Close Air Support is very advanced.
Tactical- & Naval Bombers are on the Level of 1943;
Air Transports from the year 1940 are used.
Strategic Bombers aren´t existent.

After having a theoretical breakthrough in March and finishing the Rocket Assembly Line-Experiments at the 11th of May, our Comrade Sergej Korolev, one of the best rocket-scientiests is occupied with researching a flying bomb and later a flying rocket that will change warfare forever.
Furthermore our Arsenal will soon include the most powerful weapon ever seen: Igor Kurchatev has almost finished the development of a Nuclear Waste Bomb.
He commits that the progress is 95 % - the Project will soon be finished.
Once the tech is researched our nuclear reactors are upgraded to produce this weapon. We need them if we want to compete with the USA. Our intelligence warned us that they finished researching their Nuclear Waste Bomb already in 1944. It´s still unclear wether their Reactors are advanced enough to produce them.
No bomb has fallen on Japan yet.

Concerning our Doctrines in the Air-War, we are years behind. Unfortunately, we have not even researched the World War II doctrines. Alexander Novikov has convinced Stalin about the importance of new tactics for our airforce and got funds to start researching them.
He´s doing his work well.

The Red Navy



To make it short: The shape of the Red Navy is horrifying.

Our Battleships 'Marat' and 'Parishskaya Kommuna' are Ships of the Gangut-Class (1918)
'Berlin' and 'Paris' are so called Treaty-Battleships, while all the others are on the Level of 1936.
10 years obsolete.
The most modern thing our Navy has, are it´s submarines. Our knowledge enables us to build subs on the level of 1941. Still bad but much better than the battleships.

Our Naval Doctrine is at the moment "Fleet in Beeing" but it will be changed when we start building a modern navy.
If we want to compete with the United States, we´ll have to start doing so soon.

[lifeless]

pretty nice work...how big is the allies army?

[Adaptation]

lol@ switzerland. Swiss people are saying, we love our democracy!. But damn am i scared.

[Spitfire_Pilot]

Damn, the Red Banner is flying over Europe...do you plan on releasing some puppets, in Europe, such as Poland, France (if possible), Denmark, Sweden, etc.

[Black Guardian]

Crushing Fascism

In May 1946, after redeploying three supportive Air-Groups to the Afghanian Border (consisting of two times six MiG 9-Multirole Squadrons and one Tactical Bomber Squadron), the Soviet Union launched an Invasion to crush the last Fascist country on earth (Japan was expected to be defeated by the Allies soon).

While the Allies were still fighting in the pacific Stalin was nevertheless frightened about an Allied intervention.
On the 16th of May his doubts were washed away, when he was called by the Nuclear Research Faculty... They had sucessfully tested a Nuclear Bomb. Immediatly Stalin ordered the upgrading of the Soviet Nuclear Reactor... He had to wait until September until the first Nuke was ready. But Stalin was convinced that the US won´t attack him with the knowledge that a Nuclear Bomb was ready in four months... Even if the Soviets had neither the possibility to reach the us neither nor to deliver a Nuclear Bomb to it´s target at all - There were no Strategic Bombers, and the Bomb was not advanced enought to be placed at the Flying Rockets that could have been available.
He took the risk - and he was right.



The Battle for Afghanistan was no real match for our superior, highly trained Soviet Forced that faced an obsolete Army of Soldiers who had never seen a fight.
Only two days after the Invasion started, our brave Paratroopers landed at Kabul and repelled a desperated counterattack.
After the Main Armys had reached Kabul and Herat, the last advance for Kandahar started.



Of course the battle was no challenge for the Red Army, i want to honor the bravery of the Afghanian Soldiers that faced a much better army beeing outnumbered 4 on 1.
After the occupation of Kandahar, Afghanistan was annexed and became a Soviet Republic.

The beginning of Cold War

The Iran felt threatened by the Soviet Military Actions and asked the Allies for help - Iran is now part of the Allies...
Furthermore i had to realize that Turkey is also part of the US-Military Alliance, which is still at war with Japan.
This new situation means that we have to fight on two more fronts than expected in earlier plans.
Fortunately, the capability of the Red Army is high enough to manage this.

Yet not only the Allies were able to gain new Member - he Comintern had also developed a new method to expand their influence: Our Secret Service was told to send spys into some countries and to stage coups...
It took long until the first success could be celebrated:
Bolivia became Stalinist in July 1946.
Indeed it take three more months until Bolivia joined the Comintern...
In November 1946 the next success followed: Italy could be convinced that Communism is a good thing. They accepted joining our Military Alliance immidiatly after the succesful coup, which made a Italian Socialist Republic out of the Italian Social Republic...
To strengthen our new Ally and give him the possibility to develop faster the Soviets decided to give them back some territory.
The area south of La Spezia and Bologna was seceded to Italy.

Meanwhile our espionage-campaign in the United States showed that our compedator hadn´t even the Turbojet-Multirole-Fighter, which was Standart Equipment in the Red Airforce for more then a year! Furthermore it seemed like the United States hadn´t much better air doctrines... Only a few techs ahead.



Nevertheless they were leading in naval doctrines - and we will not be able to reach the same level. We don´t have any good Naval-Doctrine-Researcher...


On January the twelfth a message from an outpost at the Philipines reached the Central Command in Moscow.
Our worst dreams came true: The Americans were able to produce Nuclear Bombs.
As if that´s not enough, they even used it.
The Province Davao was completely devastated...
The first real nuke-usage showed that the US would not hesitate using their arsenal.



Eight days later a second bomb was thrown at Asahikawa...
The Soviet Government felt uncomfortable - How much nukes were in the American Arsenal? Only those two?
However, the decision to make peace with Japan seems very reasonable now. The US have thrown their Nukes against them. Who know, which Russian City i would have hit, if the Japanese had to surrender earlier?
Moscow? Leningrad?

From this moment on we have to think about our actions twice before ordering them. Even if our relation to the Allies are quiete good - The Cold War has begun.

And the Soviets are planning a strike into the heart of capitalism.

[Black Guardian]

Originally Posted by Spitfire_Pilot

Damn, the Red Banner is flying over Europe...do you plan on releasing some puppets, in Europe, such as Poland, France (if possible), Denmark, Sweden, etc.

Hehe... i think Europe looks very nice beeing red
The only change that is going to be made is (as said in the update) the return of some Provinces to Italy.
I don´t want to release puppets because it gives me a 5%-dissent hit for every released country and lowers my IC - you know. Furthermore my TK is far away from beeing red. (sounds unbelievable? It´s 400/910 to be correct)
If possible, i would release Scandinavia, ´cause i really like it - but i can´t to for some strange reason...
The Red Army has the Situation under control, Garrisons are placed all over Central Europe... Only in Scandinavia some revolts are causing some trouble, but nothing serious.

[Spitfire_Pilot]

Originally Posted by Black Guardian

Hehe... i think Europe looks very nice beeing red
The only change that is going to be made is (as said in the update) the return of some Provinces to Italy.
I don´t want to release puppets because it gives me a 5%-dissent hit for every released country and lowers my IC - you know. Furthermore my TK is far away from beeing red. (sounds unbelievable? It´s 400/910 to be correct)
If possible, i would release Scandinavia, ´cause i really like it - but i can´t to for some strange reason...
The Red Army has the Situation under control, Garrisons are placed all over Central Europe... Only in Scandinavia some revolts are causing some trouble, but nothing serious.

That is true, but there are also a some advantages, such as more soldiers so you dont need to waste money on garrisons and such, and besides you could only have to release a new nation every few months, not all at once afterall

[therev]

I am amazed that the US AI has used the bomb! This will make for an interesting next couple of years!
Get that A bomb working soon!

[GeneralHannibal]

You better have an A-bomb before you go to war or else bad things might happen.

[lifeless]

maybe the us used all its bombs already...that means you have a chance to catch up!

[Black Guardian]

Originally Posted by therev

Get that A bomb working soon!

It´s Februar ´47 - my bomb is ready for almost a quarter year... I just can´t carry it to the Allies yet
xD

Originally Posted by lifeless

maybe the us used all its bombs already...that means you have a chance to catch up!

I hope so - but maybee we shouldn´t be too confident about this... The US had researched it´s Nuclear Waste Bomb 3 years ago (in 1944).
I think, time will show wether they have.

[Black Guardian]

The Secret War

In the next few months, the Soviet Strategy had shown it´s efficiency. Although it was very expensive, the result was a very good one. The World-Revolution into Communism was forced by the Soviet Intelligence.
The first Experiments were made in the poorer countries of South America, soon after it´s start the first Revolt in Bolivia broke out and empowered a Stalinist Government.
Soon another country followed:



The Soviet Leadership was very happy about the fact that the Comintern had now two new members - even if those members weren´t very powerful...
The most important thing was, that our Ideology began to spread over South America.

On the 11th of March 1947 our Scientists developed the Nuclear Fission Bomb which were better than the former models and easier to build. Four months later our second Nuke was ready...

Meanwhile the Americans seemed to be much more advanced in their nuclear Tech. Their Arsenal was much bigger than expected. The two nukes used at Davao und Asahikawa weren´t the only ones:



The third American Nuke hit Agats in New Guinea.
Only 12 hours later another strike was reported.



A Soviet General commented the attacks with the words: "Welcome in the Age of Nuclear Warfare"
Because of the growing American threat our General Staff was ordered to create a Defense Plan against the Allies in case of a war. At this time the Soviet had no capabilities to deliver a Nuclear Strike, although they had the Bomb. Stalin demanded that not a single Nuke shall hit a town on Soviet coreland.

There for, all potential Airports were American Bombers could start to attack our homeland has to be taken in a short time. We estimate the American Strategic Bombers have a range around 1500 km. This means that the Airforce has to deploy Bomber Squadrons in Turkey, if they want to hit Moscow or Leningrad.
Taken that in account our first objective is to take out Turkey.

The Plan:



As soon as the war breaks out two Soviet Armys in Bulgaria will conquer Constantinople. At the same time our troops in the caucasus are advancing from the east. As soon as possible a naval Invasion from the Black Sea will open a second front (we are not able to cross the Sea of Marmara without transports). Once our troops have arrived, the transport-squadrons will be used to invade Izmit and Burza in the West.
The problem with Turkey is, that it´s territory is dominated by mountains which will slow down our troops.

Meanwhile our Troops in the Iraq will take Damascus and Beirut and annex Syria and Lebanon. Afterwards they will turn southwards and help the Divisions which are directly advancing into Israel. We hope that we can secure the Suez Channel very fast and secure the Mediterannean Sea.
Afterwards the troops will move on to invade Africa.

Another problem is Iran: As well as Turkey a country with much mountains and a low Infrastructure. It will take some time to annex Iran...
Anyway, without Allied Aid they won´t have a real chance.

While the Operations in Turkey, Iran and India will take long because of bad terrain and low infrastructure, i´m sure we will be able to defeat the American Forces in Spain very fast.



The enemy forces are no match for our troops, as you might see there are only 3 visible Divisions.
Once the Stait of Gibraltar is in our hands, the Mediterranean Sea is a huge cage for some Allied Fleets - and a playground for ours.
-------------

On the 21st of April another coup in Venezuela succeeded and the third Stalinist Government in South America was established.
We enforced our efforts to set up Soviet-Friendly Governments in Argentinia and Brazil as well...
On Mai 1st we staged another successful coup in Europe: Yugoslavia was now a Socialist state. However, it didn´t want to give up its neutrality and join our Alliance.
Strengthened by these results Stalin renewed the Idea of attacking "The heart of capitalism".

[Michaeru]

How have you managed to get Chile into your alliance? AFAIK, no AI controlled country joins the Comintern / SOV if not convinced to do so by acceptall.
Otherwise ... I hope the US used up their arsenal, because if not, bye bye Moscow.

[Black Guardian]

Originally Posted by Michaeru

How have you managed to get Chile into your alliance? AFAIK, no AI controlled country joins the Comintern / SOV if not convinced to do so by acceptall.
Otherwise ... I hope the US used up their arsenal, because if not, bye bye Moscow.

Hehe... i have developed a new strategy to get some Allies.
The Intelligence-Folder is very useful for this.
Just pump in 10 spies into the country you would like to have on your side - then stage a coup. It won´t work on the first try, so repeat this until it succeeds. Then you´ll have a government which has the same slider settings as you and +200 relation.
In some cases this doesn´t help getting a country into your alliance (Yugoslavia in my case), but with Chile, Bolivia, Venezuela and some others (you´ll see later ) it worked very well.
After the coup i had a 62% chance that they join the Comintern... it needed two or three attemps before they joines, but they did

[knugen_n1]

You'd better protect your new allies in south america with alot of air superioty and expeditonary forces, or else they won't last long...

[OAM]

Interesting!

[lifeless]

the revolution is spreading! wow the us used 4 nukes..