IceBreakChron IV: IGNITING THE WAR

Started by JasonPratt, April 08, 2020, 07:54:47 AM

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JasonPratt

August 1939: Red Army border guards are the pool for NKVD Special Operation Forces (SOFs), the most aggressive strike formations in the Soviet military since the Civil War, notorious for their brutality even by NKVD standards.

After the Civil War, their military formation was reduced to just one division, the 1st NKVD SOF Division, under NKVD Brigade Commander Pavel Artyomyev, stationed near Moscow. In "Guarding Soviet Borders", p. 106, the author reports that a standalone battalion of NKVD SOF is put under command of Zhukov, as he prepares to blitz the Japanese in Mongolia. Their prime mission: "sweep out the immediate vicinity of the front". During the surprise blitz, Zhukov is pleased with their performance.

In their wake will soon come freshly spawned SOFs in droves, the hand-picked best the border guards have to offer. Per operational doctrine, they will be deployed precisely where the next "liberations" would soon be ready to roll, where "radical socio-political transformations" are about to begin.

Specifically, they will be deployed on the borders of Poland and the other Eastern European nations to be invaded by the Soviets throughout 1939 and 1940.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
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JasonPratt

The Day the (second!) Second World War Begins
------------------------------------------------------

The day has come -- the day a national government officially declares that the second World War has started, and officially acts in accordance with that acknowledgement!

That nation isn't anyone in the Western Hemisphere, nor the Southern Hemisphere. It isn't Germany, Poland, France, Britain, or Italy.

And the day is not September 1st, 1939.


The day is August 19th, 1939.

Zhukov telegrams Stalin, "Main Mission Accomplished." His main mission? To achieve total strategic surprise in preparing to invade Japanese-occupied territory, over the Japanese 6th Army. Stalin sends back a one word code: "Good."

Japan's war on China and nearby south-east Asian areas, has been going now since at least 1932; and of course this will segue into the Second World War. But no nation has declared that fighting to be World War II yet, because China isn't one nation, much less one of the Great Powers, but a group of warlord dictators. On August 20th, one of the Great Powers, the Soviet Union, will go to war with Japan -- very briefly.

So briefly that one would think this doesn't count as the start of a second world war...


On this same day (before or after receiving this telegram is unclear), Stalin orders his diplomats to cease diplomacy with the French and British delegates.

Vyacheslav Molotov, the formal head of the Soviet govenment, and so also the People's Commissar of Foreign Affairs, is ordered by party secretary Comrade Stalin to summon the Nazi ambassador, Friedrich von der Schulenberg. to Molotov's office. When Molotov receives Schulenberg, Stalin is listening in by microphone from his own office in the Kremlin, where he has called together Shaposhnikov, Beria, and Malenkov. Molotov's attitude to the German ambassador is (paraphrased by Suvorov), "All right, let Ribbentrop come, perhaps we will agree on something, perhaps we will find a solution to the question of Danzig and Poland."

After the meeting Stalin holds a fast discussion with his team, now including Molotov; with the result that Schulenberg has barely had time to reach the embassy to write a report, when he receives another call from the Kremlin: Molotov awaits you for a new meeting! This time Molotov hands him a draft from Stalin, to send as a preliminary proposal for cooperative action together, including in Poland. Stalin, via Molotov, tells Schulenberg, that Ribbentrop can be received in Moscow on August the 26th or 27th; but Hitler will soon tearfully(!??) beg to move Ribbentrop's visit up to August 23. (No idea where Suvorov gets the idea that Hitler begged with tears about this, although he is certainly happy to take the deal.)

Already here on the 19th, however, Stalin has given Schulenberg a draft of the impending mutual agreement with the directions that "the agreement will be in force only given the simultaneous signing of the special protocol on points of interest to the Agreeing Parties, regarding foreign policy." This vaguery is meant to spoof any interception of the cable to Hitler: Stalin means that the forthcoming public non-aggression Pact, and the equally public joint Nazi/Soviet Trade and Economic Agreement (which has already been ready for a long time, and which Stalin directs the Soviet Trade Mission in Berlin to immediately sign), will only count if Hitler through Ribbentrop agrees to the secret protocols about invading Poland and how to divide up the country and spheres of influence afterward.

Stalin is already selling enough Soviet oil, grain, cotton, iron ore, magnesium, chrome, vinadium, zinc, nicklet, and tin to Hitler, that cutting off these supplies would ruin Hitler's ability to make war -- not even counting a more direct threat to throw all Soviet support behind Poland, swamping Germany's attack with five or even ten million troops as well as any number of tanks, warplanes, and artillery. Stalin is agreeing, provisional to the Secret Protocols, to expand this trade agreement substantially, knowing full well that Hitler will use the materials to wage war not only on Poland, but on France and Britain -- who have given Stalin assurances they will not stand idly by anymore if Hitler goes for Poland!
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
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JasonPratt

Didn't I say some nation declares on this day that the Second World War has already started?!

Yep.

Stalin calls the Politburo together on this day, August 19, 1939, to start the process of summoning a fourth emergency session of the Deputies of the Supreme Soviet together in Moscow (which will take 7 to 12 days for some Deputies to arrive, due to the vast Russian distances, even by air where available). Their purpose: to enact universal conscription -- the conscription which Soviet doctrine expects to precede mobilization for the final revolutionary war against all property owners on Earth.

As long as Stalin taught his people, even the children, that Hitler must be feared as a tyrant and a monster, the USSR did not need universal conscription. As soon as a non-aggression pact with Hitler is being seriously offered, and not even signed yet, a universal mandatory draft all of a sudden becomes necessary!

Then why do this now? Stalin justifies the conscription, now to the Politburo, later to the Supreme Soviet, on this basis:

that a second world war has already started.

Remember, in Soviet military and ideological doctrine, Stalin has been preaching a necessary and expected second world war among property owners, in Lenin's Marxist theories, to weaken the imperialists and capitalists enough for a final worldwide revolutionary war to succeed -- with the Red Army invading nations to "liberate" the uprising workers.

Stalin, having contacted Hitler earlier today (through Hitler's ambassador to Moscow) to offer a deal for conquering Poland together, gives a speech to the Politburo explaining his justification for regarding the second world war as starting today, thus requiring universal conscription leading to mobilization.

Someone in the Soviet Union leaks this Politburo resolution to the French news agency Havas, later this year (see November 30th). Suvorov thinks this was leaked as a tacit protest to stop Stalin's plan, similar to plans for Lenin's October 1917 coup being leaked by Central Committee members Zinoviev and Kamenev to the capitalist press. The speech given by Stalin on this day will remain secret until found by historian Tatyana Semenovna Bushueva, in the Special Archives of the USSR, fund 7, index 1, document 1223, and published in the December 1994 issue of "Novyi Mir" [New World]. Suvorov acknowledges that (at the time of publishing "Chief Culprit" anyway) Russian historians dispute and deny the validity of this document, claiming it is unclear how and when the document was made. Suvorov regards it as authentic.

Some key excerpts quoted by Suvorov: "If we make a pact of mutual aid with Great Britain and France, Germany will give up Poland and... the War will be averted. [...] If we accept Germany's proposal about the conclusion of a pact regarding invasion, she will of course attack Poland, and France and England's involvement in this war will be inevitable. Western Europe will be subjected to serious disorders and disturbances. Under these conditions, we will have many chances to stay on the sidelines of the conflict, and we will be able to count on our advantageous entrance into the war... It is in the interest of the USSR -- the motherland of workers -- that the war unfolds between the Reich and the capitalist Anglo-French block. It is necessary to do everything within our powers to make this war last as long as possible, in order to exhaust the two sides. It is precisely for this reason that we must agree to signing the pact, proposed by Germany, and work on making this war, once declared, last a maximum amount of time. [...] All the people who fall under the 'protection' of victorious Germany will also become our allies. We will have a broad field of action for development of the world revolution."


Also on August 19th, 1939, according to Suvorov, the Politburo starts the plan of mustering forces in military districts in the interior, and then dispatching them to districts along the (not yet existent!) western border; a plan the Supreme Soviet, now being summoned, will approve around 15 days from now (once enough of them arrive). Suvorov is unclear whether the Politburo specifically resolved this plan today, or implicitly resolved it as part of universal conscription.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
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JasonPratt

August 20, 1939, the brief Mongolian War: at Khalkhyn-Gol, Zhukov prepares and successfully launches a blitzkrieg invasion, demonstrating that surprise blitzkrieg forces should be closer to the border than 30 to 40 miles if possible. 320 attack units, each 30 to 75 men, as well as isolated detachments numbering 100-150 men, are formed from border guard troops, in accordance with the continually refined Triandafillov invasion plans. "Drills are run on the basis of surprise attack plans worked out and refined in advance... Most important to achieving success was supposed to be the element of surprise." (JMH, 1965, #8, p.12)

Zhukov has forbidden almost all use of radio communications in setting up his blitz, and even land wire instructions are sent with short sentences with contexts only understood by the two people speaking. Each officer receives directions only within the frames of his duties and has no concept of the overall plan, the scope, or the dates of the offensive. Many people do not even know there is to be an offensive today at all! To fool Japanese spies, Zhukov before all has fooled his own soldiers and officers, many of whom until the last moment thought they were starting the preparations for a long period of defense.

Marshal Zhukov has ordered temporary bunkers built right up next to the border, off to the side of the intended axes of invasion, where they can support the first few minutes of the invasion without getting in the way, and without wasting resources on building real defenses on the border. Zhukov does see the political value of pretending to build defenses on the border, however, as he recalls in his "Recollections" later, p.161: "With these measures we strove to lead the enemy to believe there was a total absence on our side of preparations for offense, making a show of engaging in wide-ranging work on setting up defenses, and nothing but defenses."

The Japanese 6th Army has fallen for the maskirovka (the masquerade), and are caught off guard by Zhukov's surprise attack.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
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RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

JasonPratt

#19
At 5:45am, 153 Soviet bombers, under the cover of a corresponding number of fighters, carry out a surprise raid over Japanese air bases and command posts. Artillery joins in immediately, for 2 hours and 45 minutes -- a short time, relatively, for Soviet bombardment doctrine, but highly concentrated. During this time, Soviet air power turns around, lands, rearms (no need to refuel), and strikes with a second air raid! Zhukov ordered their air bases to be moved as close to the front lines as possible, not only allowing faster strike times and turnaround, but also allowing more ordnance instead of fuel. The bombers have not even reached cruising height before unloading their bombs, and returning. The main strike force features the excellent twin-engine SB bombers, totaling 181 aircraft; plus 23 of the TB-3 heavy bombers attacking from 1500 to 2000 meters. During the first hour and a half, not one Japanese artillery gun shoots back in response, and not even one Japanese aircraft gets off the ground.

At 9am, Zhukov's relatively weak center attacks to fix the enemy's direction, while his tanks speed around the flanks for envelopment, avoiding direct engagements to strike deep in the army's rear. Air bases are close enough to the front line, that the tanks can be easily given timely and accurate close air support.

Zhukov has also moved hospitals and supply bases to the front lines, quickly and efficiently providing ammunition, fuel, and everything necessary for battle, while also supporting the wounded promptly. Zhukov moved his and all other command posts to the front lines, so that he was personally able to see the battlefield panorama -- at least in the initial movements, and as the enemy's resistance collapsed he could move forward with his front line with no effort.

It should be noted that setting up these forward command posts was no easy feat. In the barren waste of Mongolia, the troops had to be supplied with everything, including wood to burn in the field kitchens. The main supply for the Baikal Military District headquarters was 1500 kilometers from the staging line; but not everything could be found there. Supplies brought from factories and central storages to the MD HQ, for passing on to the staging line, had to travel 7000 to 8000 kilometers! The final stretch of railroad had a very limited load-bearing capacity, and ended in a deserted steppe. After that, trucks had to carry supplies and tow heavy weapons (or tanks and other combat vehicles had to roll on their own) another 650 to 700 kilometers. Some supply trucks stayed at the staging line to ferry supplies from Zhukov's forward HQ to subordinate HQs, and thence down to company units; but most had to make continual round trips back to the end of the rail line. The most common Soviet truck of the period could cover that 1300 to 1400 km round trip in roughly five days -- if weather conditions were good! The round trip trucks and other automobiles naturally had to be refueled several times, out and back. At first this meant, with embarrassment, that the trucks had to carry away any fuel they had just brought! (Fuel dumps no doubt had to be built, or rough pipelines and pumps rigged, though Suvorov doesn't say so.)

Nevertheless, for Zhukov's successful waging of a war unknown to the world, his logistics staff managed to gather at the staging line 25,000 tons of ammunition; 15,000 tons of fuel and lubricants; 4,000 tons of food; 7,000 tons of fuel (Suvorov might mean aircraft fuel of a different grade than other vehicles, but perhaps due to a type doesn't specify, only repeats "fuel"), and a lot of other cargo.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
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JasonPratt

By August 23, the fourth day of the attack, the strategic circle drawn around Japanese troops tightens, and their rout begins (for example see the "Soviet Military Encyclopedia", Vol.8, p.353).

During the 30s, Stalin had ordered military maneuvers repeatedly staged on a massive scale. Each one (per Suvorov) drilled one theme: "operations in depth", which meant sudden crushing air strikes against enemy air bases, followed by airborne troops capturing the bases on the ground and airmobile troops landing behind them, flying ahead of an equally sudden assault by tanks in vast numbers deep into enemy territory.

Nazi high command does not even have the experience of practice in such large-scale maneuvers yet; they are currently planning the first of such training exercises to be sometime in the fall of 1939! (per Muller-Hillebrand's "Germany's Ground Forces 1933-1945", 2002, Vol.1, p.157.) When Hitler invades Poland upon Stalin's invitation for a combined assault (preliminaries for which are being offered today), the training exercises will never be conducted.

Zhukov's blitzkrieg into China was not invented on a spur of the moment: Soviet forces had been training such assaults for a decade already. Mongolia provided a much-needed live fire application of the theories, against enemies seriously shooting back -- and prepared to counter-attack. Zhukov's force isn't overwhelmingly strong enough to deal with other Japanese armies rushing to rescue the crumbling 6th Army, so he withdraws, keeping some gained territory which the Japanese don't care enough about regaining themselves. Zhukov's attack is operationally pointless -- except to practice blitzkrieg tactics in actual combat. It does however achieve one strategic objective, perhaps incidentally: the Japanese general headquarters decides going forward to concentrate their aggression elsewhere for a while -- against British and American colonies and bases, on the Asian mainland and at sea.

During the Mongolian operation, BT ('speed tank') units run into many problems with their suspensions on the rough terrain and poor roads. Worse, the tracks keep coming off by accident, too! That's because these tanks have been designed with overpowered engines, and with tracks expected (in training and doctrinal manuals) to be shed quickly, like a parachute once the tank has reached its operational area. The remaining wheels are often useless on the poor roads, much less the rough terrain; they are designed for superhighway quality roads (by the standard of this time period). Still, adjustments start to be made, even out in the field this far! -- with test results to be discussed soon.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
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RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

JasonPratt

August 20, 1939: five Soviet I-16 fighters become the world's first to use rockets (air-to-air RS-82 rocket missiles with remote detonators) as weapons, as the Su-2 and its family have been designed to do. They are, of course, nearly useless except in ground attack; but they can be of some use against level bombers. (Suvorov is unclear how they are being used other than in the Mongolian war. His source, Maslov's "Fighter I-16", pp.19-20, may have more details.)

The greatest Soviet air achievement before and during the war, however, is not a fighter, but the epic IL-2! In development at this time, this ground-attack flying tank would carry 8 such rockets along with its normal combat load, and would be the world's only plane during the war with an armor-plated airframe. To be more specific, its crew cabin, engine, and fuel tanks are all covered with armor, and indeed the main fuselage itself is one complex armor casing, up to 12mm thick, assembled from over twenty double-curved pieces. Only the wings, the tail part of the fusilage, and the tail unit itself are left unshielded. Even the canopy was 63mm armored glass! -- bullets fired from even close range only left insignificant scratches! Aside from its rockets, and/or a bomb load 400 to 600 kilograms, it also mounted two 23mm automatic cannons shooting at 500 rounds per minute, and two of the world-record fire-rate machine guns which Soviet designers could include for any aircraft (even dating back several years).

The designer Illyushin planned to include a rear-set .50 caliber gunner, as in the famous Stuka. Stalin personally called him (Suvorov unsourced) and told him to remove the rear-gunner from the design. Why? -- because it would not be needed: Stalin fully expected the IL-2 would never be attacked by German fighters. Stalin directed the weight savings to be redeemed in enlarging the fuel tank and the bomb load.

The IL-2, however, is not the Su-2 and its family: changes of this sort cannot be simply made to its design. The entire technology for producing the armored fuselage will have to be replaced, delaying the start of mass production. By June 21, 1941, only 249 will be produced.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

JasonPratt

August 22, 1939: from 1932 to 1937, Germany created world-class defensive fortified sectors between the Oder and Warta rivers, similar in quality to the Stalin Line, but naturally much less extensive (for covering smaller areas and having fewer resources to use on the project). Once the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact is signed and the Nazis start heading east, work will stop on the Oder Line, and the magnificent fortifications are stripped progressively of their personnel and material, never again to be manned by troops. Some are used to house vegetables, others are used for factory purposes (such as the amazing Hochwald area fortifications, two four-story combat structures linked by a 19-mile tunnel, which became an aircraft factory.)

Today, the day before the Pact is made, German General Guderian is ordered to command the "Pomerania Fortifications Headquarters". His goal is to reassure the Poles with purely defensive preparations; specifically by building rather light fortifications created off to the side of his expected line of invasion into Poland. Germany will invade in about a week. (Or actually sooner! -- Hitler will take a jump on the planned Molotov timetable and try to invade the day after the Pact is signed, so that he might not need to share Poland with Stalin after all.)

From Zinoviev's collected works (date unreported, citation not specific), "If Russia makes peace, this peace will only be temporary. The Socialist Revolution in Russia will only win when it is surrounded by a ring of sister Socialist republics. A peace made with imperialist Germany would only be an episodic phenomenon. It will provide a short break, after which war will boil once again."
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

JasonPratt

August 23, 1939: today, Stalin directs Molotov to sign the Ribbentrop Pact with Germany.

Also present on the Soviet side at the signing are Stalin himself (even though he has no political authority, technically speaking, to be there -- he has accepted only the equivalent of being the person who keeps the records for the American Democrat or Republican parties), and Marshal Boris Shaposhnikov: the Soviet military instructor whose mobilization theories are still accepted on this day in 1939, and will continue to be accepted down to at least the mid-80s.

Keep in mind that the Politburo (under Stalin's guidance) already voted to call together the Supreme Soviet, who are in the process of gathering, in order to enact the Soviet Union's first universal conscription, on the basis that the second world war has already started (on August 19th)! Conscription is the first step of mobilization; and per Shaposhnikov, once a nation the size of Russia starts mobilizing, a war is inevitable.

As Army General A. Mayorov will write later (reported in "JMH" #5, 1989, p.35), "In planning the invasion of Poland, Germany feared most of all the Soviet Union, not England and not France. That is precisely why fascist leaders hurried to conclude a pact about invasion, with the USSR."

From the head of the GRU, Army General P.I. Ivashutin (reported in "JMH", #6, 1991, p.11), "With this Pact, Hitler untied his hands for aggression."

Mayorov is not entirely correct (nor Suvorov in endorsing his opinion) that Hitler feared the Soviet Union more than England and France; Suvorov does not know in "Chief Culprit" or earlier (or perhaps knows but doesn't reveal), that Hitler upon completion of the pact decides to invade Poland one week early and sends out his divisions to go this evening! -- but he stops when the British Ambassador to Germany delivers a clear ultimatum that Britain will definitely go to war if Hitler invades. Thus Hitler (barely) manages to halt his divisions, and waits a week to invade upon the time agreed with Stalin. (This account can be found in Richard Hargreaves Blitzkrieg Unleashed: the German Invasion of Poland 1939.)

Still, this doesn't affect Suvorov's estimate: if Stalin had not signed a pact with Hitler, there would have been no invasion of Poland, and there would have been no World War II.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

JasonPratt

Upon the signing of this document, Stalin halts all construction and production for the "Stalin Line" (supposedly reported in V. A. Anfilof's "Immortal Feat", p.35, though Suvorov doesn't provide a quote.) Garrisons in the Fortified Sectors will be thinned out and then totally disbanded. Any offensive-capable weapons will be stripped out. The remaining arms, ammunition, as well as observation devices, and equipment for communication and fire control will be mothballed (per JMH, 1961, #9, p.120.) Note the distinction there, by the way! -- anything not capable of offensive use is put into storage, not put into defensive use elsewhere! Most structures will be buried; some will be given to kolkhozes (the murderously ruthless projects of seizing and resettlement of farmland during the Five-Year Plans) for vegetable storage.

Instead of building forward from the Stalin Line to create a second such Line (perhaps even more formidable) with its own similar security corridors at the new borders with German territory, and/or creating a third such line stretching back to the eastern banks of the Dnepr, Stalin orders the progressive destruction of the Stalin Line, replacing it with practically nothing.

Assembly lines for tactical anti-tank cannons are stopped; and production for regimental and divisional 76-mm cannons (such as found on the Line previously), which could also be used for direct anti-tank fire, are also stopped (per JMH 1961 No. 7, p.101, and No. 2, p.12). Anti-tank rifle production not only stops, but the guns are taken away from the Red Army's arsenal (per JMH 1961 ibid.) Suvorov apparently references Lieutenant-General Rosly's 1983 memoir, "Last Rest Stop -- Berlin", p.27, as testimony that anti-tank cannons already issued to the troops were directed to be used for other purposes, such as suppression of defensive fire during Soviet assaults. This not only applies during the final push into Berlin but, Suvorov implies, as a doctrine that had been decided back in 1939.

The thorough destruction of the Stalin Line will continue into the spring of 1941. Professor Colonel I.G. Starinov of the pre-GRU (one of Suvorov's favorite authors) was instrumental in helping create the defensive network of the Stalin Line originally. In his 1964 memoir, "Mines Awaiting Their Moment" (aka "Mines Await Their Hour"), often cited by Suvorov, p.176 in this case, he candidly writes, "A stupid situation arose. When we faced weak armies of small countries, our borders were truly locked. But when Nazi Germany became our neighbor, the defense structures along the former border were abandoned and even partly dismantled!"
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

JasonPratt

Hitler will start blitzing Poland two days later. The whole world will witness the assault, not only from Nazi propaganda footage and reports, but from foreign journalists in Warsaw, as well as foreign embassies from practically all nations.

Few people, by comparison, know about Zhukov's prior blitz of the Japanese 6th Army this month, where there were no international observers and journalists, and where neither side -- for obvious but differing reasons -- rushed out to tell the world about how quickly the Soviets defeated the Japanese; not even Soviet propaganda!

Major-General D. Ortenberg (one of the German Red Army trainees), eventually the editor-in-chief of the central military newspaper "Red Star" (Krasnaya Zvezda) during the Great Patriotic War, is the editor-in-chief of the 1st Army Group newspaper during Khalkhin-Gol. He will reminisce in "Red Star" itself later, August 18, 1993, that "In central newspapers all materials about Khalkhin-Gol effectively went to the trash bin: there was a strict order from Stalin to not print anything about the Khalkhin-Gol events." Suvorov reports that leafing through any Soviet national paper, including Pravda and Izvestia from those days, shows not a word about the brilliant blitz of an entire Japanese army.

Even bus tickets cannot be printed in Stalin's empire without a censor's permission! The strategy is simple: hide all defects, catastrophes, and mistakes (or blame them on someone else if they cannot be hidden), and praise all accomplishments. During these days, the reported news is that farms are producing slightly more milk and have dug slightly more potatoes; also a new factory has been built. The unprecedented defeat of a modern Japanese Army? -- the worst defeat of any Japanese Army in history?! -- the revenge of an entire embarrassing war lost to the Japanese under the hated Imperial Russia in 1904-5, opening along the way an entirely new art of war by a previously unseen method!? No, no, must not be printed, keep quiet, or Stalin will have your head plastered on a wall!
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

JasonPratt

August 31 1939: having created the world's first national air assault arm in 1930, and having inducted civilians into parachute infantry combat training for the past nine years (expending massive cash and resource outlays on the support infrastructure to do so), Stalin's officially inducted air assault forces now number over one million.

Hitler's air assault arm numbers around 4000.

Suvorov (or perhaps his English translator) somewhat inaccurately calls these "paratroopers" near the beginning of "Icebreaker" chapter 12. He will later clarify that while they have paratroop training, and other elite training and equipment, they are far from all airborne assault troops: there are twelve brigades of assault jumpers (roughly 36,000 troops), but the vast majority are meant to be deployed by airlift onto captured enemy airfields, after the assault troopers have jumped and captured the fields.

Using paratroopers as regular infantry has no special defensive value aside from their quality, and in some ways they are more brittle: they do not have the heavy and powerful infantry of regular infantry. They are great at capturing and holding airfields, and at springboarding from those into further offensive action in the enemy's former backfield. They are not so great on defense: like a factory with reinforcing bars made of gold instead of steel, except paratroopers cost more than literally their weight in gold!

Enormous numbers of Soviet children have starved to death to field more than one million Soviet airborne and airmobile troops! -- troops meant, by design, to wage battles on enemy territory, in accordance with Stalin's Soviet political doctrine and past practice. They will not, or barely, be used in coming Soviet invasions, including against Finland where they might have wildly succeeded against the Mannerheim Line. They will be saved for some other invasion against a foe much harder to crack than the Finns, requiring more secrecy so as not to spoil the strategic surprise -- even at the cost of risking the failure of the Finland invasion.

While the cost outlay hasn't been as monstrous, the national glider mania has also borne fruit: after all, someone needs to fly the gliders and military transport planes to land the airmobile troops and deploy the jump assaulters! At the start of World War Two, the Soviet Union holds 13 out of 18 world gliding records (per the "Encylcopedia of Aviation", 1994, p.421). The best Soviet combat aircraft builders are sometimes tasked with creating gliders, even the future father of Sputnik, Serguey Korolyov.

In 1939 alone, thirty thousand people are learning to fly a glider in the USSR. This is many times greater than the combined total of all other nations in the world. Ten or twelve Soviet R&D labs are locked in fierce competition to design and produce the best troop-carrying glider. Oleg Antonov designs the A-7 multi-seat troop glider; Gribovsky designs the G-11 carrier-glider (rated superb by Suvorov). Kolesnikov develops the KTs-20, and Korbula was working on a mammoth glider.

Oleg Antonov, who will later create the largest cargo warplane in the world, suggests adding wings and a tail assembly to a regular tank. The amazingly simple design allowed the crew to guide the glider by turning the turret and adjusting the barrel elevation (thus changing the center of gravity). Before landing the Krylatyi ("winged") Tank, the engine was turned on and the tracks revved to maximum speed, to use their friction as a brake upon touchdown. This ran into problems, to say the least! (As Suvorov quips, "In Soviet Russia, human life was cheaper than tank-mounted wings!") Eventually the preferred debarkation method will be to land in the water, since the BT models could be easily made amphibious (to climb out from under the water by sinking), and the floatable amphibious tanks are lighter to use as gliders anyway. This is a totally pointless tank to produce in 1942 while fighting a screaming defensive war, but they will go ahead and tried to finish it anyway.

Keep in mind the point of the attempt, however: this was an up-to-medium-weight airmobile tank which could only be feasibly deployed in good terrain so far behind enemy lines as to not need worrying about anti-air fire (or much resistance on the ground while the crew extricated themselves from the wings and maybe also from a lake), and delivered in a blue-sky clear of enemy interceptors. Stalin kept it in development just in case he needed to launch a surprise deep-strike airborne invasion somewhere. Until such an operation, a winged tank would be as useless as one million silk parachutes folded up neatly. (Which, unlike the winged tank, will see some combat action eventually! -- sort of...)


Speaking of the BT tanks: on August 31st, 1939:,Stalin has more BT type light tanks than all other tanks combined from all other nations in the world. Its family characteristics are designed to be maximally applied in a surprise deep-penetration attack into urban and near-urban areas with the best roads in the world; not fighting against strong points but bypassing them to interdict lines of supply, hit command headquarters, and to strike support bases (like airports and, to a lesser extent, naval ports). Soviet textbooks (uncited by Suvorov) emphasize that the wheels are more important than the tracks, which are seen as a crutch to be used just once and then ditched, like a parachute, once the light tanks have reached the areas where their wheels will work the best. Russia does not have superhighways where these tanks would work best. No nation with a contiguous border with Russia has a superhighway.

By the end of next month, Stalin will have engineered a common territorial border with the closest nation which has superhighways.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

JasonPratt

September 1, 1939: Hitler invades Poland. (Again. He actually invaded one week ago, just after the Pact was signed, but only one special-ops team crossed the border by the time Hitler put the brakes on the invasion.)

He has 2,977 tanks, roughly the same number Stalin has been producing per year in peacetime; Stalin has considerably more by now than the 21,100ish tanks he had at the start of the year. Not a single one of Hitler's operational tanks has the firepower to match the Soviet BA-3, BA-6, or BA-10 -- which are armored scout cars! -- and which will still outclass the vast majority of German tanks in firepower, speed, and even maneuverability in some ways, by June of 1941.  Hitler invades Poland and (publicly) starts World War II with six panzer divisions.

Six.

Only six.

Suvorov mocks this: "What sort of blitzkrieg could one dream about, having only six tank divisions?!"

(Note that Suvorov is somewhat inconsistent or unclear about Soviet tank numbers here. In "Chief Culprit" he clearly enumerates production figures for a combined total of 21,100ish Soviet tanks as of Jan 1st; but he also says in the same book that the Red Army has 6456 BT tanks on September 1st, with references cited either way. He appears to mean that Stalin has 6456 of the latest BT-28 tanks, among the tally of all tank models. I don't have his citation for this number, Meltiukhov's "Stalin's Missed Opportunity", p.525, so I don't know the context.)


British pilot Alfred Price (4000+ hours, 40+ aircraft types experience), in "World War II Fighter Conflict", pp 18-21, later judges the most powerfully armed fighter plane in production in the world, on the day Hitler invades Poland, to be...

...the Soviet I-16! -- designed by Polikarpov, surpassing the Me-109E in firepower by 2:1 and the Spitfire-1 by 3:1. It is also the only fighter in production, on this day, with armor plating around the pilot. "Those who think the Russians were backwards peasants, prior to World War II, who then made progress only by drawing on German insights, have to recall the facts."


Hitler has fifty-seven submarines on the day he invades Poland, a very respectable fleet by world standards on this day, including already what will be the most successful submarine type in World War II, the Type V-III. (Suvorov's source on that claim isn't clear about whether this success rate applies to Germany alone or across all nations.) While subs can be used defensively sometimes, such as the American defense of Midway Island against the Japanese carrier strike force, typically they are meant as offensive commerce raiders and certainly this is Hitler's intention.

On this same day, Stalin has 165 submarines, not only comparable in quality to the Nazi Type V-III but effectively identical. How?! -- simple: the Soviet Union had invited Weimar Germany to get around the Versailles Treaty by building submarines in Russia, and so according to American historian Anthony Sutton (in his "National Suicide: Military Aid to the Soviet Union", 1973, pp.152-53), the German delegation transferred to the Soviet Union the design of the Type V-III back in 1926. In Sutton's estimation, the Soviet Schuka-class submarine is based directly on this design, while the Soviet S-class is based on the German Type VII design. Soviet scientist S.A. Gorlov (in his "Top Secret: The Moscow-Berlin Alliance, 1923-1933", 2001, p.264), "It is, of course, difficult to imagine that Soviet shipbuilding, from which in German professional opinion 'nothing could be learned', all of a sudden could develop several promising types of submarines. Even though such ship designers as B.M. Malinin, A.N. Krylov, V.P. Kostenko and others were naturally gifted talents, it is doubtful that they would have ignored such outstanding completed designs and other specific German assistance." Especially when they basically recreated the same models for Soviet use!


Suvorov regards Major-General B. Muller-Gillebrand as producing the best studies (up through publication of "Chief Culprit") for the development of the German army during the reign of the Third Reich, specifically his "German Ground Force, 1933-1945". On his calculations, the Nazis are invading Poland on this day with enough pistol ammunition for 36 days; enough mountain artillery ammunition (for getting through the southern passes) for 18 days; enough light mortar shells for 13 days; enough heavy mortar shells for 11 days. They are bringing enough heavy field howitzer ammo for 60 days! But they have only brought enough 20mm ammo for their Panzer II cannons, their main tank of this operation, for six days of combat. (Ibid, Vol.1, p.161.) This is because Hitler's regime is still working on a peacetime war production plan. He has no choice: he lacks the materials for a wartime production plan, and this would be easy to spot and alert his neighbors about.


Stalin could stop Hitler's invasion at any moment. But he has chosen to cooperate with Hitler instead; and not out of fear of Hitler's power. Compared to Stalin's military, Hitler has only enough power to be an annoyance, perhaps not even an aggravation. Yet.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

JasonPratt

September 1, 1939: enough of the Supreme Soviet has arrived to start the 4th Special Session of the Supreme Soviet, summoned back on August 19th. In accordance with the Politburo resolution on the 19th, the Supreme Soviet enacts universal conscription for the first time in the history of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

Eventual Chief of the General Staff and Marshal of the Soviet Union Meretskov will later insist (in his 1968 memoir "In the Service of the Nation: Pages Remembered") that the USSR's first military draft of its population was adopted "under circumstances where the Second World War had already begun."

But the Soviets had agreed to cooperate with Hitler in conquering Poland, and had signed a non-aggression pact with him! Consequently, they had enabled Hitler, and technically cooperated with him, in doing something that they themselves were already sure would start World War 2! They are so sure of this, that on the first morning of Poland's invasion, when even Hitler doesn't know he is starting WW2, the deputies of the Supreme Soviet are urgently meeting in a Special Session to adopt legislation on the basis that they already know WW2 is starting. They were so sure of it, that the justification for the Politburo calling together the Supreme Soviet a few weeks ago, was that the second world war had already started back then! -- less than a day before Zhukov blitz-assaulted the 6th Japanese Army.

Air Force Colonel-General Yakovlev, at the time Stalin's personal aide, will recall later the general strategic understanding in Moscow: "Hitler was sure England and France would not fight for Poland." ("My Mission in Life", p.212.) Stalin might or might not know yet, that Hitler tried to launch his invasion one week earlier than today's planned date, then had called off the Nazi divisions at the last moment. But even if Stalin does know this, he must not know yet (per Yakovlev's testimony) that Hitler aborted invading before and without his planned Soviet ally support-invading from the east, partly upon receiving a diplomatic warning from the English ambassador to Berlin, that England would declare war if Hitler invaded Poland. Thus Hitler decided to wait for the planned joint invasion today on Sept 1; the idea being that if Stalin invades at the same time, then England and France will hesitate to declare war on Germany at the risk of aggravating Russia.

Stalin will not invade today, however: explaining apologetically that he just isn't prepared yet, while Soviet troops stand on Polish borders! Stalin promises he will be ready in two or three days.

Thus Hitler alone, in the view of most of the world, starts World War II: a war the Soviets considered to have already started on August 19th, 1939.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

JasonPratt

The conscription has a very odd detail in context. Traditionally in the Soviet Union up to now, limited conscription aimed only at men aged 21, which is a relatively old age for trying to train military reservists to fill out divisions and their constituent groups; and the armed forces were relatively selective about who they called in. But if you are going to do limited conscription anyway, why not start at age 18, when boys are more easily trained than adult men who are more set in their ways and who may have a family already (and wondering if they will be called up for the conscription)?

Now with universal conscription being enacted, the age is lowered to 19, and in some categories 18, and raised to any practical limit. (See for example Pravda's September 3rd, 1939 issue. The draft age of 18 years was established for those who had graduated from the Soviet equivalent of high school. Mostly they were drafted into military schools -- roughly equivalent to officer training schools -- willingly or not. Suvorov's own father was part of this age 18 group.)

The system for processing this training has already been in place, in a way that doesn't look aggressively threatening (only relatively few of men aged 21, no younger, no older); it only needs expanding. In one stroke Stalin has increased his official troops-in-action from one million to five and a half million.

True, many of these troops only 'officially' exist on paper; but a few million of even those merely-officially-existing troops, at any age, have already been pre-trained in various unofficial but still highly effective military fashions -- such as through the glider-pilot program and the airborne assault infantry program.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!