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Attempting to Fulfill the Plan MNKh Edition

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[X]Aleksandr Vasilevsky
[X] 35% GNP: Through the re-direction of additional party funds towards the plan of industrialization and military production, it may be possible to far accelerate the pace of acceleration. This quantity is the maximum VSNKh economists believe can be utilized before major problems occur. (435 Resources per turn) (-15 Party Influence)
 
[X]Boris Shaposhnikov
[X] 35% GNP

Vasilevsky's fine enough and good leadership is important, but there's only one guy who mentions logistics. Those are how you win wars, not just battles. All the radios and training in the world won't help leg infantry exploit a breakthrough better than mobile forces, nor will it help them if they have no food and bullets. It's not like Shaposhnikov is going to totally ignore radios and the officer corps, he just places trucks as a higher priority, and for good reason I think. Especially somewhere as massive and sparsely developed as the Soviet Union.
 
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Crazycryodude said:
[X]Boris Shaposhnikov
[X] 35% GNP

Vasilevsky's fine enough and good leadership is important, but there's only one guy who mentions logistics. Those are how you win wars, not just battles. All the radios and training in the world won't help leg infantry exploit a breakthrough better than mobile forces, nor will it help them if they have no food and bullets. It's not like Shaposhnikov is going to totally ignore radios and the officer corps, he just places trucks as a higher priority, and for good reason I think. Especially somewhere as massive and sparsely developed as the Soviet Union.
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I mean it's not like Vasilevsky is totally going to ignore mobile forces or logistics either. Better officer corps and coordination focus gives us an very good foundation for an modern army, with no worry about these things getting obsoleted. Modernizing too early can become an costly mistake on the other hand.

More importantly military academies etc are going to be relatively cheaper in terms of resources allowing us to focus on further industrialization options that are to be honest very costly.
 
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Crazycryodude said:
Vasilevsky's fine enough and good leadership is important, but there's only one guy who mentions logistics. Those are how you win wars, not just battles. All the radios and training in the world won't help leg infantry exploit a breakthrough better than mobile forces, nor will it help them if they have no food and bullets. It's not like Shaposhnikov is going to totally ignore radios and the officer corps, he just places trucks as a higher priority, and for good reason I think. Especially somewhere as massive and sparsely developed as the Soviet Union.
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For trucks lead time is weeks to months. For officers, it's years, even for junior ones like different kinds of lieutenants.
We have to focus on academies first in any case, if we're supporting expansion of RKKA come WWII.

Trucks and rails we're going to make regardless of what military advisor we're taking, and logistics theory is something Shaposhnikov can do in General Staff, without our interference.

SakSak said:
Finland itself posed no military threat and could pose no military threat. After all, the city of Leningrad by itself nearly outnumbered the entire Finnish nation (around 3+ million in Leningrad, about 3.5 million in whole of Finland) and almost certainly outproduced it - at the time, Finland was mostly agrarian with some forest industry. Their industrialization didn't occur until after the second world war, due to a need to pay for war reparations to USSR.

In Winter War, after the fabricated border incidence acting as Casus Belli, only the USSR forces already near Leningrad were used for the invasion. Everyone in the world, including most decision makers in Finland, expected the war to be over in two weeks to a month at most. That's why the Winter War is called a miracle.

The problem with Finland was never that Finland might become hostile, it was that Finland might be used (voluntarily or against their will) as a pathway for an actual peer power to open a front from. They also represented free manpower and industry (even if very little of it) promised to Moscow in the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact.
We can't really mitigate this view without somehow invading Finland prior to WWII, which would just lead to a different version of the War (possibly during a summer), or by arranging for a second civil war in Finland and supporting the local communists enough that they win. Either way, that's not exactly in our hands.
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Why invasion is invariant? If we tie finnish economics tightly enough to USSR, they themselves wouldn't voluntarily go to war.
Then it's the issue of making sure nobody can force them to - and for anyone else invading Finland is even harder, not accounting for USSR providing support. And if their economics is highly interlinked with USSR, then lesser things like a naval blockade wouldn't really work unless the USSR is blockaded as well...
 
Dwergar said:
Why invasion is invariant? If we tie finnish economics tightly enough to USSR, they themselves wouldn't voluntarily go to war.
Then it's the issue of making sure nobody can force them to - and for anyone else invading Finland is even harder, not accounting for USSR providing support. And if their economics is highly interlinked with USSR, then lesser things like a naval blockade wouldn't really work unless the USSR is blockaded as well...
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Because invasion is the only surefire solution to the problem of "border too close to our economic centers". Like, are you confused about the history of what happened? Do you think Finland wanted to fight a 1 v 100 war against a technologically, numerically, economically superior foe?
Territory was demanded of Finland (including moving the border back past all Finnish fortifications to within artillery strike distance of Finland's fourth largest city, and granting them a naval base almost within viewing distance of the capital), Finland refused to cede (obviously, they'd seen what happened in Baltics a month before), a border incident was fabricated by USSR, USSR invaded.

My point is that the cause of the war is (greatly simplified) down to following:
1) Geographical threat in the form of other powers marching through Finland
2) Finland being unable to offer prolonged, meaningful resistance to any global power of the time if seriously invaded (by certain someone in central europe)
3) Stalin being very aware of (1), and wanting to use (2) as a proactive solution to it, before someone else (like a certain someone in central europe) used (2) against him.
4) An agreement in Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact that Germany would do nothing if USSR invaded Finland.

Finland also traded quite heavily with all its neighbours including USSR in OTL. Having an interlinked economy is not a solution here, to my great regret. This is all foreign policy stuff, to which we have no direct influence.
 
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[X]Aleksandr Vasilevsky

Because I think it'll be easier as war approaches to modernize/mechanize and massively expand a military that had lots of good officers and a lot of capacity for training, than it'll be to massively expand and streamline/professionalize one (bearing mind that expansion already stresses the command and officer production systems) that has better hardware earlier.
 
[X]Aleksandr Vasilevsky
[X] 35% GNP: Through the re-direction of additional party funds towards the plan of industrialization and military production, it may be possible to far accelerate the pace of acceleration. This quantity is the maximum VSNKh economists believe can be utilized before major problems occur. (435 Resources per turn) (-15 Party Influence)
 
SakSak said:
Because invasion is the only surefire solution to the problem of "border too close to our economic centers". Like, are you confused about the history of what happened? Do you think Finland wanted to fight a 1 v 100 war against a technologically, numerically, economically superior foe?
Territory was demanded of Finland (including moving the border back past all Finnish fortifications to within artillery strike distance of Finland's fourth largest city, and granting them a naval base almost within viewing distance of the capital), Finland refused to cede (obviously, they'd seen what happened in Baltics a month before), a border incident was fabricated by USSR, USSR invaded.

My point is that the cause of the war is (greatly simplified) down to following:
1) Geographical threat in the form of other powers marching through Finland
2) Finland being unable to offer prolonged, meaningful resistance to any global power of the time if seriously invaded (by certain someone in central europe)
3) Stalin being very aware of (1), and wanting to use (2) as a proactive solution to it, before someone else (like a certain someone in central europe) used (2) against him.
4) An agreement in Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact that Germany would do nothing if USSR invaded Finland.

Finland also traded quite heavily with all its neighbours including USSR in OTL. Having an interlinked economy is not a solution here, to my great regret. This is all foreign policy stuff, to which we have no direct influence.
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I'm not confused. I just think that it might be possible for us to proactively affect that, should we both make sure it's in Finland's best interest to remain our allies/satellites - trade in particular being available as opposed to diplomatic and ideological avenues of influence that aren't available to Mikoyan - and if we make sure that Finland cannot be walked over (And really, how a certain someone in Central Europe is supposed to invade Finland? They'd have to cross the Baltics, and, assuming at least a degree of competence on part of Finns and Soviets, it shouldn't turn out like Norway did), which can be done through both general strengthening of their economy and direct supply of material (Assuming Finland is allied, providing them with guns and ammunition shouldn't be hard) and/or diplomatic agreements to the tune of military alliances (Or just a non-agression pact along with USSR guaranteeing finnish sovereighty).

First bit we likely can do, as we have a VSNKh head who was heavily involved in foreign trade. Second part is harder but we can influence it too, through secondary effects of trade - though it would depend on what Stalin's orders are to the foreign ministry as well.
It would be hardest to make sure no hotheads upset the arrangement come WWII. Fortunately, Mikoyan is a compatriot of Stalin and has at least some influence in the Party, so this might be possible to do as well.

It a bit of a long shot, but it is possible. It's not like Poland, where to avert the Polish Campaign we have to do the impossible and make sure WWII as we know it doesn't happen.
 
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Dwergar said:
I'm not confused. I just think that it might be possible for us to proactively affect that, should we both make sure it's in Finland's best interest to remain our allies/satellites - trade in particular being available as opposed to diplomatic and ideological avenues of influence that aren't available to Mikoyan - and if we make sure that Finland cannot be walked over (And really, how a certain someone in Central Europe is supposed to invade Finland? They'd have to cross the Baltics, and, assuming at least a degree of competence on part of Finns and Soviets, it shouldn't turn out like Norway did), which can be done through both general strengthening of their economy and direct supply of material (Assuming Finland is allied, providing them with guns and ammunition shouldn't be hard) and/or diplomatic agreements to the tune of military alliances (Or just a non-agression pact along with USSR guaranteeing finnish sovereighty).

First bit we likely can do, as we have a VSNKh head who was heavily involved in foreign trade. Second part is harder but we can influence it too, through secondary effects of trade - though it would depend on what Stalin's orders are to the foreign ministry as well.
It would be hardest to make sure no hotheads upset the arrangement come WWII. Fortunately, Mikoyan is a compatriot of Stalin and has at least some influence in the Party, so this might be possible to do as well.

It a bit of a long shot, but it is possible. It's not like Poland, where to avert the Polish Campaign we have to do the impossible and make sure WWII as we know it doesn't happen.
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I don't want to derail this, but it sure sounds like you are confused. For example, are you unaware that Finland and USSR did have a nonaggression treaty (signed in 1932, extended in 1934), supposedly valid all the way to 1945?
And that Finnish economy at the time was at a booming trend before cut short by the war?
And that many in Finland were quite leery of having any stronger ties with USSR after they provided support to the Finnish Reds in the independence war (and the reds lost, meaning the non-communists are the ones in power), and most of those reds who fled Finland in the aftermath got executed by Stalin for being the wrong brand of communist (which didn't improve Finnish relations one bit), so convincing them of a closer alliance runs into some pretty hard walls?

And all this idea of just providing materials to Finland (who might not be wanting to buy at the quantity we'd be selling - we're talking of a nation with a population only slightly greater than the city of Leningrad mind you!), runs into the counter of USSR leadership (including Stalin), who could just as well use that same material to arm more homegrown troops and then march those over the border to take 100% control of the Finnish economy. And if we provide sufficient material to make them a possible threat to a proper modern army? They can just as quickly become a blade aimed back at USSR.

Essentially, you'd have to divert material from the Red Army to Finnish hands, and convince Finland that territorial demands that render their defenses against their perceived (and historically greatest) threat irrelevant is in fact not a prelude to an annexation (because they were quite independently minded), and convince Stalin and USSR high leadership to not violate the very much OTL nonaggression treaty to just take it all instead of bother with all this, and convince them that a stronger Finland will never become a threat aimed back at USSR.... Sure, we can try I guess? We just have to convince Stalin to not Stalin.

As for the central european thing, it wouldn't need much to make for an amphibious landing along the very long coast, or just directly into the capital itself (defended by an obsolete fort). Or just seizing the islands and bloacking all of the Gulf of Finland, cutting Leningrad and all of northern Estonia from all sea traffic. But more than that, it doesn't even have to be that realistic - all it requires is for Stalin to believe it plausible.
 
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[X]Aleksandr Vasilevsky

Guess Klim the PI fountain have no traction. Ah well school man is ok too.
 
[X]Aleksandr Vasilevsky
[X] 35% GNP: Through the re-direction of additional party funds towards the plan of industrialization and military production, it may be possible to far accelerate the pace of acceleration. This quantity is the maximum VSNKh economists believe can be utilized before major problems occur. (435 Resources per turn) (-15 Party Influence)

With maximum optimal funding we'll be able to rush the radios with spare capacity to trial a modern army. And if we build up the officer cadre, surely Stalin can't purge em' all, right?
 
SakSak said:
I don't want to derail this, but it sure sounds like you are confused. For example, are you unaware that Finland and USSR did have a nonaggression treaty (signed in 1934), supposedly valid all the way to 1944?
And that Finnish economy at the time was at a booming trend before cut short by the war?
And that many in Finland were quite leery of having any stronger ties with USSR after they provided support to the Finnish Reds in the independence war (and the reds lost, meaning the non-communists are the ones in power), and most of those reds who fled Finland in the aftermath got executed by Stalin for being the wrong brand of communist (which didn't improve Finnish relations one bit), so convincing them of a closer alliance runs into some pretty hard walls?

And all this idea of just providing materials to Finland (who might not be wanting to buy at the quantity we'd be selling - we're talking of a nation with a population only slightly greater than the city of Leningrad mind you!), runs into the counter of USSR leadership (including Stalin), who could just as well use that same material to arm more homegrown troops and then march those over the border to take 100% control of the Finnish economy. And if we provide sufficient material to make them a possible threat to a proper modern army? They can just as quickly become a blade aimed back at USSR.

Essentially, you'd have to divert material from the Red Army to Finnish hands, and convince Finland that territorial demands that render their defenses against their perceived (and historically greatest) threat irrelevant is in fact not a prelude to an annexation (because they were quite independently minded), and convince Stalin and USSR high leadership to not violate the very much OTL nonaggression treaty to just take it all instead of bother with all this, and convince them that a stronger Finland will never become a threat aimed back at USSR.... Sure, we can try I guess? We just have to convince Stalin to not Stalin.

As for the central european thing, it wouldn't need much to make for an amphibious landing along the very long coast, or just directly into the capital itself (defended by an obsolete fort). Or just seizing the islands and blocking all of the Gulf of Finland, cutting Leningrad and all of northern Estonia from all sea traffic. But more than that, it doesn't even have to be that realistic - all it requires is for Stalin to believe it plausible.
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Well, convincing Stalin to not Stalin on this particular issue is a single and straightforward task. With Mikoyan being his compatriot, it's possible that we can accomplish it.

As for the central european thing... Conquering all the way from coasts to Leningrad wouldn't be instant, even if it's just finns. But in this scenario, where finns and USSR are presumed allies (or at least have cordial relations) and invasion of Finland can only be seen as a prelude to an attack on USSR itself... I'd assume that soviets would get involved rapidly, and then it's not so sure a thing.
While blockade of the gulf of Finland would be bad, for USSR it would certainly be better than Siege of Leningrad. For finns too, probably - a naval blockade is not a meatgrinder of a city siege.

And for a dumb idea, would it be possible to buy out production of all the swedish ores assuming we end up in Molotov-Ribbentrop pact anyway?
 
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Dwergar said:
And for a dumb idea, would it be possible to buy out production of all the swedish ores assuming we end up in Molotov-Ribbentrop pact anyway?
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Not going to derail further, so I'm just going to comment on this one ^

That is actually an interesting proposal, although it may be below our level of abstraction, and it may just convince Germany to invade Sweden (which they were much OTL were prepared to do, if something happened to all those metal shipments).

Instead, I'd say that if we get the option, l think we should spread our industry more behind the Ural mountains, if we're worried about the events of 1940s. That way, we can maybe hopefully avoid the massive urgent translocation.
 
SakSak said:
That is actually an interesting proposal, although it may be below our level of abstraction, and it may just convince Germany to invade Sweden (which they were much OTL were prepared to do, if something happened to all those metal shipments).

Instead, I'd say that if we get the option, l think we should spread our industry more behind the Ural mountains, if we're worried about the events of 1940s. That way, we can maybe hopefully avoid the massive urgent translocation.
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Why not both?

And would Germany attacking and possibly conquering Sweden be a net boon or a net loss for Soviet Union? On one hand, Germans have a bit more to loot and don't have to pay for ores anymore. On another hand, it's losses and forces tied up policing Sweden instead of attacking USSR, and another campaign to wage before attack on USSR itself, which could mean several months more to prepare...
 
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