 |
 | Home | Contact Us | FAQ | Search & Site Map | Link to Us |
 | Sign In | Join | Other 45 Sites in Network |
History Forum / General / What If / March 2007WI: Shallower Ploesti Oil-Fields?
In the spirit of trying to revive some old shwi traditions, I'm trying to produce a few one-off WI threads to (hopefully) generate some discussion. These should also be a lot easier to keep track of and make contributions without needing to read through the whole of 100+ post timelines... First, a bit of background for those who are unfamiliar with Ploesti. The Ploesti oil fields in Romania have been exploited for quite some time. The tar they produced was used as far back as Roman times, and during the nineteenth century Ploesti was the site of some of the pioneering development of oil refining techniques. By the late 1930s, thanks to Ploesti and its neighbouring oil fields, Romania had become the seventh-largest producer of oil in the world, and the second largest European producer after the Soviet Union. During the Second World War, Ploesti is well-known for being the single largest source of oil for Germany, until a series of Allied bombing raids produced some disruptions to supply. The Red Army captured Ploesti in August 1944, putting a severe crimp in the already bad German fuel situation. I've read conflicting figures for exactly what percentage of the German oil supply came from Ploesti - anywhere from 25% to 60% - but in any case, losing it hurt. Now, the Ploesti oil fields are part of a broader band of oil deposts found in the flysch formations which run along the edge of the Carpathians and through to the Sub-Carpathians. So, for the basis of this what-if, I'm suggesting that due to slightly different geological movements in the past, these Romanian oil deposits are a _lot_ shallower than they were in OTL. They aren't gone entirely, but once Romania starts to tap the oil, it's going to run out a lot faster. The usual caveats apply about butterflies being caged for a while. Assume that the changed geological movements are just different enough to produce shallower oil deposits, but that this doesn't start to make a difference to history until at least 1915. The early refining history of Ploesti is more or less unchanged. But where oil production in Ploesti ramped up seriously during the first half of the twentieth century, here the oil supply starts to dwindle. This doesn't stop Romanian efforts at extracting what's left, along with frantic efforts to find fresh deposits elsewhere in Romania. These efforts are unsuccessful - the shallowness of the oil deposits applies across Romania. Ploesti oil production continues to dwindle, and after 1930 it plummets. By 1934, it has become abundantly clear that Ploesti is about to run out of oil. It hasn't gone entirely; there will be a trickle of oil production until 1940 at least. But nothing, nothing like what it was in OTL. Where in OTL Ploesti turned out millions of barrels of oil a year, by *1930 it's down to a half a million barrels of oil. By *1934, it's down to a couple of hundred thousand barrels of oil a year. The decline of oil production is going to have _some_ effects on the world. It will hurt Romania, in particular. The loss of oil revenue will hurt, especially during a time of general economic meltdown. The United States, as the world's largest oil exporter, is probably in a marginally better position. But, all in all, the world doesn't change that much before 1934. World War One ends on schedule, the 1920s are effectively the same as OTL, with the rise of first fascist Italy and then Hitler seizing power in Germany. Most of the rest of the world is likely unaffected. But now, Europe has just lost its second-biggest source of oil, and there's no obvious alternative. This is going to have some effects. The most obvious one is the severe crimp this puts in German oil supplies, right from the beginning of the Third Reich's history. Germany already had substantial oil supply problems, but with Ploesti gone, any German leader who's halfway sane will have to realise that there's _nowhere_ they can get enough oil to reliably supply a war effort, except perhaps the Soviet Union. (Oil being shipped in is difficult if the Royal Navy is in the way). Given that the current German Fuhrer was hiding behind the door when sanity pills were being handed out, that may not necessarily stop him from being intent on war, regardless. But the military leadership have to be aware of the supply problems. Germany may have some potential other fuel options, most obviously expanding production of synthetic fuels via the Fischer-Tropsch process. But this will be slow, expensive, and still deprive Germany of a large proportion of the fuel reserves it had in OTL, particularly during the early stages of WW2 (assuming it still breaks out, of course). Or Germany may try to find a way to stay in the good books of the Soviet Union, who can supply oil, for a price. So, with Ploesti gone, does Germany still drift into the Second World War? If so, how well does its war effort go with such a critical shortage of fuel for tanks, planes and automobiles? And, aside from the potential effects on *World War Two, are there any other changes on world history post-1934, with Ploesti's oil nearly exhausted? [snip Peak Ploesti] Interesting WI! Geologically, I'm not sure such a well makes much sense -- if it were that "shallow", the difference would be apparent before 1915. But let that bide. The first 20 months of WWII can still go as iOTL. There were some other European sources besides Romania -- Hungary, most notably -- and then, of course, Hitler could get oil from the USSR. Also, he could stockpile. He didn't do this much iOTL, but the Japanese did, and very well, too. (They had enough oil to run the first two years of their war. They were running short by 1944, but then by 1944 they had some other problems.) Things jump the tracks in 1941. A Barbarossa really isn't plausible without a Ploesti. Even with a lot of stockpiling, I can't see Hitler having more than a few months of supply on hand. Of course, we could imagine him saying, hey! Kick the door in, it's all over in eight weeks. In which case Barbarossa stalls in autumn '41, and by 1942 the Soviets are rolling the Wehrmacht back and back. Hm. Doug M. Assuming that the Germans stockpile frantically & they ramp up synthetic oil as much as possible before 1939. WI Barbarossa goes off but the generals convince Hitler that the first target has to be the Baku oil fields. German attacks towards Leningrad and Moscow are much more limited, let us assume that Leningrad is not beseiged but the Germans advance enough to take the baltic countries and bottle up the Soviet Baltic Fleet to a degree similar to OTL. Soviet manpower and equipment losses on the Leningrad and Moscow fronts are somewhat smaller than OTL, however since so much was close to the border the difference is not a world beater. Can the Germans get to Baku, and hopefully find fields that are not too badly wwrecked? Since the "prize" is Baku, it could be that Hitleris willing to listen to the generals and leave Stalingrad be, simply put a blocking force there and cross the Volga further south. while the conditions adn weather enroute to the southern oil fields are not wonderful, the campaigning season is longer there than on the approaches to Leningrad & Moscow. Can the Germans get there by the end of the campaign season in 1941? If they do wil they be able to repair damage and get production, and will they be able to ship it back to Germany? If successful Germany has a more defensible start point in spring 1942 for "holding the line" or advancing having not over extended themsleves in the north or center, in the south ??? Also, because the north & center have not been battered as badly, and Soviet losses overall may be smaller - does that negate the german postional advantage and get the steamroller moving sooner? If stalin loses the southern oil fields, whether due to scorched earth tactics or the Germans holding them, how badly wil that affect the red army's ability to move anywhere but by rail. > Can the Germans get to Baku, and hopefully find fields that are not > too badly wwrecked? And if they do get to Baku -- unlikely -- and find the oil fields in working order -- very unlikely -- how then do they get the oil back to Germany? Think about this carefully; it's not a trick question. You may want to look at a map of the Caucasus. It's not easy. Doug M. >> Can the Germans get to Baku, and hopefully find fields that are not >> too badly wwrecked? [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] >Think about this carefully; it's not a trick question. You may want >to look at a map of the Caucasus. 1) They don't have to get to Baku. There's oil in the Cis-Caucasus (Maikop, Grozny). 2) It's not that far to the lower Don and Black Sea. 3) There's a rail line through Cis-Caucasia and along the Caspian to Baku. Not a wide-open tap, but surely of some use. | He had a shorter, more scraggly, and even less | | flattering beard than Yassir Arafat, and Escalante | | never conceived that such a thing was possible. | | -- William Goldman, _Heat_ | Doug M.:"Geologically, I'm not sure such a well makes much sense" Do you mean it couldn't happen or as you say it would be apparent long before 1915? On Mar 10, 12:53 am, Rich Rostrom <rrostrom.21stcent...@rcn.com> wrote: > >Think about this carefully; it's not a trick question. You may want > >to look at a map of the Caucasus. > > 1) They don't have to get to Baku. There's oil in the Cis-Caucasus > (Maikop, Grozny). ...this is actually farther from the Black Sea ports than Baku is. > 2) It's not that far to the lower Don and Black Sea. We may be working on different definitions of "not that far". The nearest Black Sea port, in Abkhazia, is just over 450 km due west of Baku. Unfortunately, there are some rather large mountains in the way; there is no rail line, nor any roads worthy of the name. >From Grozny to the Don by rail is about 700 km. > 3) There's a rail line through Cis-Caucasia and along > the Caspian to Baku. True enough. So, the Germans have to 1) Reach Grozny, deep in the Caucasus, which OTL they never managed to do. Note that Grozny is a very long way from Germany, and that any push to Grozny leaves a rather large exposed northern flank. But let's say they roll triple sixes and arrive at Grozny sometime in late 1941. 2) Note that since the Germans have diverted their main attack to the south, they'll be significantly weaker in the north. They'll probably never get near Moscow and Leningrad. Note that this puts the Soviets in a better position economically, because the lands immediately to the west of these cities were much more economically developed than the north Caucasus. So, fewer Russian factories being shipped to Siberia, and faster Russian recovery of production. This will be partially counterbalanced by the loss of the Grozny oil, but it's still a net gain for the Soviets -- they had plenty of oil production in Siberia. 3) Having reached Grozny, the Germans must now fix the oil fields, which the Russians will have certainly sabotaged. Based on experiences elsewhere (Ploesti 1916, Indonesia 1941), a properly destroyed oil field will take 18-24 months to restore to full capacity. Let us assume that German engineering works wonders and they are able to halve this time. So, they'll have oil coming online in mid-'42 and full capacity by early '43. 4) But wait! The Grozny fields were quite vulnerable to air attack. The Germans managed to reduce production there by 50% with strategic bombing. Russian bombers could presumably do as well; by 1942 they'd have planes just as good as the Luftwaffe's, and their bases would be a lot closer. 5) OTL, Grozny's output was somewhat less than Ploesti's. (It was the third most productive field in Europe; Ploesti was the second, and Baku was the first.) So, the Germans are going to a lot of effort to get a strategically vulnerable oil field that isn't even as good as what they had OTL. Going to Baku gets a lot more oil, but multiplies various of other headaches. For now let's stick with Grozny. 6) How do they get the oil back? It's 700 km to the Don. From there they can either carry on by rail another 2200 km to the borders of Grossdeutschland, or float it down the Don to the Black Sea, over to Romania and then up the Danube. Both routes have nontrivial problems, but never mind that now... it's that first 700 km that will be the kicker. There are no pipelines. The Soviet had a large pipeline network in the Caucasus, but from Grozny it ran in two directions: south to Baku and then west to Batumi (for export), or north to Astrakhan and then into the interior (for domestic use). So, the pipeline system is useless. There is a rail line. But, 6a, it's not a wonderful rail line. It's single-tracked and not designed for heavy loads. The big industrial lines in the Caucasus run up and down along the coasts. The cis-Caucasus is a Czarist-era line that hasn't seen heavy use since the Civil War, and which has not yet been double-tracked or upgraded. 6b, the Russians will probably not have considerately left a lot of tank cars lying around. Nor too many locomotives, either. 6c, the Russians may also have committed indignities upon the rail line. I might even call this likely. Fixing this will take some time. 6d, the cis-Caucasus runs through some rather nasty terrain. Basically it traverses the northern front of the Caucasus mountains. Rivers descend from these mountains, flowing north and east to the Volga, and north and west to the Don. So the rail line goes over more than a hundred bridges. There are also some very impressive inclines and tunnels; even though the rail stays out of the mountains proper, it must go around, and sometimes through, their foothills. One suspects that these bridges and tunnels may not survive the Soviet retreat in perfect working order. But even if they do, keeping them open will be no small task, because 6e, this nasty terrain is home to some nasty people. 6e1, Grozny itself is home to the Chechens, a group with a well- deserved reputation for hospitality. OTL the Chechens were violently anti-Russian; they rose up against the Soviets in 1943, were defeated in a bloody little war, and deported to Siberia. Chechen Russophobia means that the Germans may be greeted with flowers... at first. However, the German track record elsewhere in the USSR suggests that this will not last long. The Germans will start using the Chechen _untermenschen_ as slave labor and shooting anyone who resists. The Chechen revolt of 1943 will then take place on schedule, but against the Germans instead of the Russians. This will have nontrivial effects on the German's ability to extract oil. 6e2, Let us handwave and say that the Germans are uncharacteristically nice and manage to avoid pissing off the Chechens. They still have to deal with all the groups to the north and west along that rail line, including Ingushetians, Ossetians, and Cherkasses. Even if the Germans are kind and sweet to everyone -- which is, I think we can agree, unlikely -- it will be impossible to make friends with all of these groups, because they're traditional rivals. And they're all nearly as savage and warlike as the Chechens. So we're looking at multiple ethnic wars and uprisings, all threatening that one slender rail line. 6e3, as you move further north and west along that rail line, you also have large numbers of ethnic Russians and Ukrainians, including a lot of Cossacks who settled there in the previous century. Unlike Ukrainians further west, though, these guys tend to be pretty loyal to Moscow. (Because Moscow gave them the land, after first disposing of inconvenient local inhabitants, and then sent the troops to protect them from the Ingushetians, Cherkasses, Chechens et al.) So, the usual Soviet partisan activity -- except worse, because we're in a region that's much more rugged and suitable to partisan work. The closest comparandum to the north Caucasus is probably Yugoslavia. How many Axis divisions did Yugoslavia absorb? Okay, well, the Caucasus would be that bad or worse. Let's be generous and say that partisan activity, ethnic revolts, and air attacks only add another 90 days to the repair and shipping schedules. So, now we have the first trickle of oil getting back to Germany in the autumn of 1942 and the tap opening wide in the summer of '43. I think this is /rather/ generous -- hands waving so hard we're almost leaving the ground -- but let's go with it. So the Wehrmacht has to hold this vastly extended strategic bulge into the Caucasus until 1943, _just to reach a level of oil somewhat lower than they had OTL_. The fuel-starved Germans,-- without enough oil to run their tanks and planes! -- have to spend more than a year defending a 3,000 km front against a Red Army that is actually a bit stronger than OTL. I dunno. What do /you/ think? Doug M. On Mar 10, 11:08 am, sigidu...@yahoo.com wrote: > 6d, the cis-Caucasus runs through some rather nasty terrain. > Basically it traverses the northern front of the Caucasus mountains. [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > and tunnels; even though the rail stays out of the mountains proper, > it must go around, and sometimes through, their foothills. A bit more on that. The cis-Caucasus, more commonly known as the North Caucasus railway, was built in the late 19th century to nail down Russia's dominion over the interior of the Caucasus. It had taken three generations of near-constant warfare to establish Russian supremacy there, and the tsarist government was taking nothing for granted. Hence the railway; and hence also the location of the railway. They could have had an easier time if they'd moved the line 50 to 100 kilometers north. It would have run over perfectly flat steppe then, not over rugged foothills. Cheaper to build; easier to maintain. But the Russians already owned that steppe. They wanted a line right along the frontier, where troops could be moved quickly against the difficult peoples of the hills. So they built the line under the shadow of the mountains, accepting the additional difficulty and expense in return for greater security. Strategic interests trumped cost. Two other relevant bits of information. One, the Grozny oil fields got trashed in the Russian Civil War -- the Bolsheviks destroyed them to keep the Whites from getting them, then the Whites (who hadn't finished repairing them) destroyed them again in the following year. They didn't recover until well into the 1920s. So the techniques of destruction were very well known. Two, the Germans OTL were aware of the difficulties with the railroad. So they had plans to build a pipeline! They got as far as constructing some pipeline sections and shipping them to the east in summer 1942; they're mentioned in a couple of discussions of Operation Edelweiss, the German invasion of the northern Caucasus. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find out much more -- how many of the pipeline sections were already complete, how long construction was expected to take, and where it would run. Assuming it would go to Rostov, the Germans would have the same choice given above: they could run it along the existing rail line of the North Caucasus (which would be cheaper; all bridges and tunnels built already) or they could run it north along the steppe (easier construction, but the line would be hugely tempting target... easy to bomb, unless the Germans put it underground, and vulnerable to a breakthrough by the Red Army in the north. I should add that I think getting to Grozny is perfectly plausible -- the Germans came within 150 km of it OTL in 1942, and they weren't even trying hard. (They actually marched over some of the outermost oil fields; pictures of wehrmacht soldiers among oil rigs were big in Germany that fall.) If half the resources poured into Stalingrad had been given to Edelweiss instead, the Germans would have easily swept all the north Caucasus and much of the south too. In the west, they'd have taken coastal Georgia and shaken hands with the Turks; in the east, theyd pour through Chechnya, east into Daghestan, hit the Caspian, and then turn south towards Baku. Where they'd meet some very fierce resistance -- OTL the Soviets put massive fortifications around the Baku fields, and the approach from the north is a Thermopylae-like narrow coastal plain under mountains. That'd be their big fight, and IMO it could go either way. But let's say they win. At that point Soviet military operations in the region start to get very wobbily. They may hang on to a toehold in the south Caucasus in Armenia and Karabakh, with a tenuous supply line through Persia. But otherwise, except for some small formations supported by the British, plus some irregulars like Armenian Dashnaks, the Soviet military pretty much disappears for a while. And the Caucasus, except for some odds and ends, is Germany's. They have the oil now. It's just getting it out that's hard. It gets contingent. If Hitler can scoop up the whole Caucasus, he can do what the Soviets did: run the pipeline system to drain oil down to Batumi, on the southeast coast.This gets gnarly. The Soviets will destroy the pipelines, of course, but pipelines can be rebuilt -- given time. Hardening the pipes against attack will be much harder. Still, if the Germans can pull it off, the Black Sea is an Axis lake now, so the tankers can just sail across and chug up the Danube to lovely central Europe. So, reach the oilfields, sure. FIix the oil fields, probably. But getting the oil out, in quantity, to where it needs to go... there's the rub. With time working against them, chip chip chip day by day. I have my doubts. Too many unlikely things would have to go right, one after the other. The odds are long. It isn't quite Sea Lion, but the odds are very long. (But what a story!) Doug M. On 10 maalis, 09:08, sigidu...@yahoo.com wrote: > OTL the Chechens were violently anti-Russian; they rose up against the Soviets > in 1943, were defeated in a bloody little war, and deported to Siberia. Chechen > Russophobia means that the Germans may be greeted with flowers... at first. > However, the German track record elsewhere in the USSR suggests that this will > not last long. I don't think that this is a matter of debate. The German track record on other minority regions in the USSR - including what little track record they ended up having with Chechens - would suggest that the Chechen collaboration will be both substantial and welcomed, and that it will last on indefinitely. > The Germans will start using the Chechen _untermenschen_ as slave labor and > shooting anyone who resists. Huh? Any particular reason why the Chechens would even be categorized as "subhumans" in the first place? Bosniaks, Azeris, Kalmuks and several other people weren't. These people were not Germanic; on the other hand, neither were they Jewish nor Slavic, so in the Nazi racial hierarchy, they belonged to that category of humanity which, in spite of their non-Germanic origins, was deemed suitable for coexistence. Just like the Finns. Sorry, the suggestion above just doesn't fit the actual history. Chechens are likely to volunteer _en masse_ for German military, police, civil guard and Waffen-SS units as soon as the opportunity presents itself. And the Germans will accept them, just as they did with the local population in the Baltic states. Labour services would pretty much be guaranteed; the worst-case scenario is that those Chechens who will not collaborate would be shot by those Chechens who _will_ collaborate. And the latter group would form the absolute majority. The Baltic states are a useful comparison also because the Baltic littoral was designed as an integral part of the future _Lebensraum_, and Germans had a background as the dominating nationality in the region. Yet even still, they took advantage of the collaboration of the local population quite extensively, and in spite of the long-term plans of German colonization on the Baltic, they never managed to significantly alienate the local population. Establishing a modus vivendi with Chechens would be even easier, because their homeland was not part of the future "Greater Germanic Reich". Who the hell would have wanted to live in the mountains of Caucasus, anyway? And in Rosenberg's plans, the oil was supposed to be acquired through proxies. > The Chechen revolt of 1943 will then take place on schedule, but against the > Germans instead of the Russians. Eeeh, no. Sorry, unless you can substantiate this with something from our timeline, I have to say that this is really from outer space. At worst, the Chechens would end up divided in a manner suggested above. The option 6e2 is more likely, although "multiple ethnic wars and uprisings" would be mitigated by the fact that most of the able-bodied men eager for battle would end up being enrolled to the German military formations and be directing their frustration at the Soviet Russian civilian population on other frontlines. > 6e3, as you move further north and west along that rail line, you also have large > numbers of ethnic Russians and Ukrainians, including a lot of Cossacks who > settled there in the previous century. Unlike Ukrainians further west, though, > these guys tend to be pretty loyal to Moscow. Uh, both Terek and Kuban cossacks formed volunteer units to fight on the German side in our timeline. So, a case of a population divided in opinion and action once again. On the other points of why the Caucasus oil would be unexploitable, I'd probably agree. Apart from the oil, I'd also add that "The entire Caucasia under full German occupation r?gime" would be a scenario worth exploring, with serious potential for all sorts of interesting knock-on-effects in the post-war era. By the way, I'm not a geologist, but I'd think that a shallower Ploesti would also implicate that the oil deposits in Boryslaw would run out equally fast, or perhaps even be completely unexploitable? So, a small effect on the economics of the old Austria-Hungary and the inter-war Poland. Cheers, Jalonen On Mar 11, 4:24 pm, jussi.jalo...@faf.mil.fi wrote: > The German track record > on other minority regions in the USSR - including what little track > record they ended up having with Chechens - would suggest that the > Chechen collaboration will be both substantial and welcomed, and that > it will last on indefinitely. By 1942 the most important Chechen rebel leader was a former Bolshevik, Mairbek Sharipov. While some Chechens welcomed the Germans, Sharipov was much less enthusiastic -- he had broken with Boshevism, but still embraced a Marxist view of history in which the Germans were certain of defeat. Of course, he wasn't the sole leader of the Chechens -- they didn't have one. Still, it speaks against "substantial", never mind "indefinitely". > Bosniaks, Azeris, Kalmuks and several other people weren't. These > people were not Germanic; on the other hand, neither were they Jewish > nor Slavic, Bosniaks weren't Slavs? Anyhow, the Nazi racial hierarchy was pretty flexible (except WRT Jews, of course). Slovenes and Croats got adopted as honorary Aryans, while Greeks and Albanians were demoted to subhuman status once they started resisting. > Sorry, the suggestion above just doesn't fit the actual history. Fair enough; I was oversimplifying, and the cartoonish description of wicked Nazis probably would not be close to the more complex reality. Other hand, I think you're doing much the same in the other direction. The Caucasus was painfully complicated -- still is -- and the Baltic experience doesn't map very well to this very different region. In the specific case of the Chechens, it's very difficult to overstate the Chechens' nationalism, their political fissiparity, or their truculence. Ottomans and Persians both wisely left them alone, not even asking for tribute. The Russians and Soviets had to repeatedly use extreme measures, even by their own standards, to keep them down. I have trouble seeing them slotting smoothly into a new German order that would be, frankly, colonialistic (even if less immediately oppressive than Stalin). The oil would also be a complicating factor. There's not a close OTL analogy, but I note that the Ploesti oilfields were the subject of continuous diplomatic pressure from 1938 to 1944. The Germans bullied hell out of King Carol, then put heavy pressure on Antonescu. In both cases, the German-Romanian relationship got seriously strained sometimes. The Chechens are not going to sit by smiling while the Germans pump their oil; they will, at a minimum, want some recompense. Just deciding how much gets paid, how, and to whom, will be a fertile ground for disagreement. In the more general case of the Caucasus, the region is fractally complex and divided by rival nationalisms. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" does not begin to describe it. (1) Standard German policy was to encourage local small-power imperialism. This would be explosive in the Caucasus, where the ethnicities are even more commingled than the Balkans. A puppet Nazi Greater Georgia (for instance) would instantly make enemies of the Ossetians, Abaz, Abkhaz, et al. A Greater Armenia would be entirely incompatible with a Greater Azerbaijan, and vice versa. So I think the Yugoslav model is apposite: you'd have some groups being more pro-German (but with exceptions), other groups being pro- Soviet (but with exceptions), and a great deal of partisan warfare, massacre, and ethnic cleansing. All this against a background of an overriding German need to protect the oil fields and the pipeline/rail line... which would make things even worse than in Yugoslavia, where German economic interests were relatively modest. > On the other points of why the Caucasus oil would be unexploitable, > I'd probably agree. Apart from the oil, I'd also add that "The entire > Caucasia under full German occupation r?gime" would be a scenario > worth exploring, with serious potential for all sorts of interesting > knock-on-effects in the post-war era. I think that a stronger *Edelweiss is plausible, and could lead to at least the northern Caucasus staying under German occupation for a year or so. (2)Agreed, this would have interesting effects on the region postwar. Doug M. (1) For some reason this makes me think of this: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2007/03/05 (2) The Caucasus Mountains split the isthmus into a northern and southern half. Getting through them is pretty much impossible. Getting around them to the east is difficult -- as noted upthread, there's a narrow coastal plain. Getting around them to the west, through Georgia, is easier, but leads to something of a strategic dead end -- Turkey and the Armenian highlands. >The Chechens are not going to sit by smiling while the >Germans pump their oil; they will, at a minimum, want some >recompense. The Germans can afford to pay off the Chechens in power and goods. The cost would be a fraction of the cost of the campaign to get there, ISTM. | He had a shorter, more scraggly, and even less | | flattering beard than Yassir Arafat, and Escalante | | never conceived that such a thing was possible. | | -- William Goldman, _Heat_ | > [snip Peak Ploesti] > [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > stockpile. He didn't do this much iOTL, but the Japanese did, and > very well, too. Especially since Hitler's known about it since 1934, which gives plenty of time to stockpile. It shouldn't be that expensive, or enough to make more than marginal difference to the economics up to that point. Although, one thought occurs. Would the desire to avoid excessive fuel consumption reduce the German willingness to get involved in sideshows like Africa or Norway, even before Barbarossa? (Not that either of those was a complete sideshow, but they diverted resources from Hitler's main goal of the Soviet Union.) > Things jump the tracks in 1941. A Barbarossa really isn't plausible > without a Ploesti. Even with a lot of stockpiling, I can't see Hitler > having more than a few months of supply on hand. Very much so. The German fuel shortage was already bad enough that they needed to use horses for parts of their supply net as it was. With even more limited fuel reserves, a few months is the best they'll manage. > Of course, we could imagine him saying, hey! Kick the door in, it's > all over in eight weeks. I can certainly see Hitler trying that. "The corrupt, rickety edifice of Bolshevism" and all that. And given how central Lebensraum was to his ideology long before 1934, the temptation would be almost unavoidable. I can't see him waiting another year, so he's still likely to try for the same campaign season as soon as the spring mud becomes passable, i.e. Barbarossa on or around the same time as OTL. > In which case Barbarossa stalls in autumn '41, and by 1942 the Soviets > are rolling the Wehrmacht back and back. > > Hm. A couple of thoughts. While I have no doubt that Barbarossa would still go ahead, what would be the primary strategic target? Would it still be political, i.e. Moscow and Leningrad, or a drive for the oil of the Caucasus, i.e. Baku and the smaller oil-fields further west? Tough question. I suspect that Hitler would still be thinking along political lines, viz, take Moscow and Leningrad and the Soviet Union surrenders, in which case things run pretty much as OTL in 1941except that the invasion may stall even before Moscow, and still be vulnerable to Zhukov's counter-offensive. In which case, 1942 may be TTL's "Year of Ten Victories" for the Soviets... On the other hand, if the Wermarcht concentrates on a drive to the Caucasus oil-fields (as Docbear suggested downthread), could they first of all reach the oil-fields before they run out of fuel? I suspect that they could push as far as Maikop, at least. But with the Soviets following similar scorched-earth tactics, the Germans would arrive to find everything demolished. They'd have to push on to Grozny, if they can reach it, and I'm not sure that they could. If they did... no easily extractable oil left at Grozny, either, just a lot of smoke and destroyed buildings. I don't recall if there were any other oilfields operating during this time in the Caucasus, but they'd likely suffer the same fate. Now, if the Germans reached Baku, that would be another matter. They'd still likely find ruination there, but Baku supplied most of the Soviet oil, and losing it would hurt the Soviet economy (especially agriculture) and war effort an awful lot. Still, I can see a Zhukov winter counter-offensive pushing the Germans back from Baku even if they reach it, since the Germans would have a very long exposed flank by then. Come 1942, the Soviets have started to repair Baku, Grozny and Maikop, and are in a position to push the Germans back, albeit more slowly than as per the first option. On a related question, what effect, if any, would all of this have on Japan's decision to go to war with the Western Allies? I suspect that the Japanese motivations for war were mostly independent and unlikely to be affected. On the one hand, the American embargo is still going to go ahead. On the other hand, if Germany has stalled for want of oil and been driven back by the Soviet Union, does it still look as if it can do a suitable job of keeping Britain and the United States occupied in case of war? > The first 20 months of WWII can still go as iOTL. There were some > other European sources besides Romania -- Hungary, most notably -- and > then, of course, Hitler could get oil from the USSR. After France, Hitler got his hands on the French Strategic reserve. A lot of that went on fuelling Barberossa. If Hitler still invades the Soviet Union the initial objectives may be different maybe the Crimea instead of Moscow. Ken Young |
Reply to this Message |
 Sign In
 Join
 My Latest Posts My Monitored Threads My Blog My Photo Gallery My Profile My Homepage Start New Thread Enable EMail Alerts Rate this Thread
|
©2012 Advenet LLC Privacy Policy - Terms of Use
This website includes both content owned or controlled by Advenet as well as content owned or controlled by third parties.