Britain and France bomb Soviet oil facilities in 1940

During 1940, Britain and France drew up plans to bomb the Soviet Caucusas oil facilities to stop them supplying Germany with oil while they were still 'friends'.

The forces allocated were hopeleslly inadequate for the task, Blenheims, Marylands and IIRC Wellingtons and the only thing it would have accomplished would have been to annoy the Soviets.

It was abandoned when Germany discovered the plans during their advance into France.

What implications does a very annoyed Soviet Union have for the British position in the Middle East and India and would Germany take advantage of this sooner?

 

Oh boy!

Well, real world, quite probably not much. Stalin was almost certainly too worried about Japanese and German attacks on the CCCP to start mucking about invading India or the Middle East. It would certainly mean even less trust etc of Britain (and presumably all the Western Allies) when the CCCP were rather forced to become their friends.

However, had Stalin decided to follow up the old Russian ambition of taking India from the British, I wonder what we could have done to stop him.

 

yess indead I hadn't taught about this ...

but I think it would have come to a war soviet allies too and probably the brittains would have begged the USA to join in the war

 

The Soviets would not beg for anyone's help, particularly not American help, I reckon. The British would have tried to make sure they were backed by the US, just like they historically did, and this would put both these countries in the same camp as the USSR, willing or not.

 

very little

Hitler was already planning on invading Russia so they would still end up at war.

What material the allies supplied to russia, even if it was no longer sent would have made little impact to the german/russian front.

Russia would still have sided with the allies once the germans invade. The enemy of my enemy and all that.

besides, we attacked the french fleet and they never held it against us :lol:

FNG

 

I also doubt stalin would have the cahoonies or the brains to attack the middle east or far east.

Face it, this was a guy who fueled up his enemies tanks so that they could attack him, despite everyone knowing germany was to attack russia.

FNG

 

the americans did sent a lot of equipment to russia by siberia and the russians did accept the brittisch supply convoys.

 

but in the overall scheme of things they provided a very small percentage of the equipment russia needed and used.

Don't see many hurracanes or shermans with russian crews.

Russia could probably have defeated germany on it's own without a french or italian front and without allied supplies.

Though germany could have fought russia to a standstill if left alone by the brits (bombing and resources to france, italy and north africa)

FNG

 

This is shown by the amount of surplus being found in Russia such as the ammount of Thompsons being found (still greased and unused)

 

Actually a rather large percentage (I don't have the numbers at hand) of Russia's trucks, boots, GP vehicles and so on were brought in by Lend-Lease, which enabled the Russians to focus their production on the tanks and planes they needed as well. Their own heavy industries were much more suited to this "rough" production anyway.

 

The Soviwet tank crews considered the Sherman tanks inferior to the T-34s of the GLORIOUS RED ARMY.

 

But then there are interviews out there with ex-Red Army tankers saying exactly the opposite...

http://www.fun-online.sk/forum/viewtopi ... ht=sherman

Now, back to topic:

 

I remember the time when my aguments were this single-minded...

 

well, the sherman is equal to the Panzer IV and a T-34 chews up any panzer IV he gets in front of his gun.

hey, i heard that the panzer V (panther) was a copy of the russian T-34. was it a better or an equal version? (to the original T-34. later they got the T-34 better pansered and equipt with a bigger gun)

 

Nope - later Pz IVs, although still relatively weak in armour, could take out the T-34 from quite a distance, thanks to the long 75mm gun

No no no no no!

The Panther was designed to be superior to the T-34/76, and hopefully its successor too. Which it was (T-34/85).

 

Really? Why?

No. The VK3002 is pretty much a direct copy, but it was not accepted. The MAN design has some commonalities with the T-34 (large roadwheels, sloped armor) but is not a direct copy at all.

The Panther is superior to all T-34 versions (in a tank vs tank engagement), but the T-34 is a better tank in the the strategic and tactical sense.

 

on the subject of the importance of the western supplies to russia it's
a mixed bag , the stress of the war was so cripling, the sacrifices and
pressure so geat than every bit of help was a blessing , the most
apreciated were the food ( roosevelt balls , a play on word ) the GM and
studbaker trucks , specialised industrial goods etc.
least appreciated were valentine tanks .
the russian were incensed when the mourmansk convoys got stopped
for a while , 42 I think, for the most frivolous of reasons for a russian
excessive losses
the british were incenced when in early 43 the russian requested a few
milles of gold braid ( after stalingrad they got rid of the political
commissars and wanted to reevalue the officer class )

jeaguer

 

i read it once i a book about the desert war. it said that the allies had with the sherman an equal tank to the panzer IV.

 

if anything the sherman was better than the mark IV in 42/43 in north africa as it had a better gun. Same with the Grant but it's 75mm gun was poorly mounted.

However the Mark IV long specials soon narrowed the gap

FNG