The question is, of course, very interesting. Let's try to imagine.
To begin with, we proceed from the fact that we are talking about the option "did not even think to attack." Since if we consider the situation in which Hitler simply postpones the start date of Operation Barbarossa by about a month, then everything is more or less clear. And even filmed more than once. In addition to the film "If tomorrow is war," you can also watch "Tankers" or "Squadron No. 5", where everything is well shown. Therefore, we will not consider such a development of events.
And let there be no plan "Barbarossa" and the like. What will happen? The situation with Great Britain is stalemate. The Wehrmacht cannot physically invade the British Isles. This requires many times more aircraft, and some of them have yet to be developed. It is necessary to strengthen at least a little bit of the fleet, and for this we still need to understand what exactly to build, except for landing ships. Trying to overtake the British in the number of battleships and large ships in general is useless. So you need to come up with something else, because domination in the English Channel and around, you need to ensure. And it is clear that a large airborne force is needed. Not one division of paratroopers and half a thousand of relatively small transport "Junkers", but five times more (at least) paratroopers, and a sufficient number of aircraft capable of transporting an entire army at a time. Including the ability to transport heavy equipment by air. This requires a large number of those very giant gliders or motor gliders that the Germans, as we know, designed and even produced.
Junkers' Ju.322 super-heavy glider, which remained at the design stage.
The super-heavy glider Messerschmidt Me.321, mass-produced.
Returning to the amphibious assault, we need a full-fledged marines, that is, assault units capable of landing on an unequipped and defended sea coast. With special equipment, including amphibious tanks and armored personnel carriers. And we need special landing craft. We all know what the Marines are using now and, in fact, most of that was already in WWII. Well, except for helicopters and hovercraft.
What other than invading the British Isles?
Gibraltar can be captured, Franco will most likely accept. It is possible to transfer significant expeditionary forces to North Africa, and, possibly, immediately to the Middle East: to Syria and Lebanon. In theory, Germany could expel the British from the Mediterranean region and the Middle East altogether, but this will change little strategically. Britain can only be defeated by capturing the Metropolis … at least.
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In theory, Germany has a chance to conduct a landing operation in the British Isles, but it takes time. And there is no time, since the British do not sit just like that either.
Now is the time to return to the Soviet Union.
It is clear that the fans of Rezun, Bunich and others believe that if Hitler had not attacked, the Red Army in any case began an offensive right up to Lisbon. With all the ensuing consequences for Europe.
But this version looks unlikely. In any case, all the plans of the Soviet Union in case of war that are available to us are of a defensive nature, since they were built "from the enemy." That is, there is a rigid attachment to the actions of the enemy and the blow is delivered depending on the location of his strike forces.
In the event of an offensive, in, say, 1940, when there were almost no German troops in Poland, and there were even fewer of them on the Soviet border, all the plans we know would look extremely stupid. On the whole, the operation to capture all of Europe looks like such an adventure that even a madman is hardly capable of.
But the option of a closer military alliance between Germany, the USSR and Japan, plus Italy and others, looks more likely. And this is already a nightmare of the Anglo-Saxons, including the United States. Moreover, it is the USSR that plays a key role in this union. It will, as it were, unite Germany and Japan, make it real, because without Moscow's participation, German-Japanese military cooperation will be (and indeed it was) a fiction.
The logic here is simple. Germany, although an enemy, is an enemy that is close and within reach. Based on the position of those years, one can reason like this: there is a common border with Germany, and having multiple superiority in forces and means, it will always be possible to deal with it. After June 22, 41, it turned out that everything is not so simple, but we are considering a different situation. But with the eternal enemy in the person of Great Britain there is a rare opportunity to end it. A direct full-fledged war between the USSR and England is very problematic due to geographical reasons, but in 1940 there is a chance, together with Germany, not to leave a wet place from the British.
Of course, it will also take time to prepare, but here it is already there. Since the joint resources with such an alliance are enormous, and even the support of England by the Americans is not particularly feared.
Of course, Hitler is unlikely to want to let thousands of Soviet tanks into Europe, it is clear that later it will be difficult to remove them from there. But this is not necessary. It is enough to transfer a dozen Soviet airborne corps. And some small forces can make up an amphibious assault, which, by the way, should be landed not only across the English Channel. The Italian battleships will come in handy, and if the Japanese aircraft carriers also find themselves in the Atlantic, then those Englishmen who have time to escape to Canada will be very lucky.
And after the complete defeat of Great Britain, the United States is unlikely to hold out for long against the Soviet-German-Japanese alliance. Something tells me that our tanks will perfectly be able to fight in Alaska … to which it is so close.
And I do not see anything incredible in such a development of events. In September 1939, the Wehrmacht and the Red Army normally interacted in Poland. It is clear that this is the friendship of a mongoose with a cobra, where at any moment everyone is ready to stab in the back. But who said that we should turn our backs?
It seems to me that if Hitler did not turn to the East, if he did not begin to transfer troops to Poland, the relations that developed between the USSR and Germany in 1939-40 could well remain for a long time. And if, as a result of such an alliance, Great Britain and the United States, at least, ceased to play a decisive role in the world for a long time, then we would be better off. It's hard to say how they would deal with Germany later. But something tells me that it could not happen worse than in reality. And Berlin would have been taken, and people would have lost less …
Author: Kirill Shishkin
