How the Steel Was Tempered

Gerald Sato,How the Steel Was Tempered: The Making of the Victorious Red Army(Yerba Buena: California University Bay Area Press, 1991)*

1942

…As we saw in the previous excursus on industrial war economy, despite the loss of considerable territory over the course of the year, conditions in the Soviet strategic footing had not only stabilized, great strides were made in key military strategic sectors. Despite the choking of convoy traffic, the materiel situation improved. War production increased every month for the whole year in every sector except petroleum products. Evacuated factories had put down more permanent roots in the Urals, and significant strides were made in matters of quality control.

The very high grade ferrous ores in the Ural region, coupled with modern industrial techniques, allowed the Soviet steel industry to recover from the disastrous loss of major coal and iron sources in Ukraine and West Russia. Total steel production in 1942 reached 27.1 million tonnes, nearly the pre-war maximum. Similar strides were made in coal, cement, aluminum, and electricity.

Beyond crude raw materials, production was now rationalized and streamlined. The domestic automotive industry had been largely turned over almost entirely to the production of armored fighting vehicles, relying on the superior productivity of the American automotive industry to produce the trucks and locomotives that would serve as the logistical backbone…

The combination of Axis triumphs over the rest of the European subcontinent with the opening of the Pacific War are conventionally seen as a sort of “darkest hour” in the global antifascist war, but our re-examination of the historical record reveals some surprising truths. The global situation freed the Combined Stavka from the political pressure of conducting costly offensive campaigns. Digging in to defend existing territory gave Marshal Frunze the free hand needed to conduct badly needed reforms in the organization, training and leadership of the Soviet sections of the Joint Red Army.

At the 14 March 1942 meeting of the Joint Staff, new organizational regulations that had been debated since 1940 were finally adopted in their final form. The most immediately obvious part of these regulations came with unit numbering. Henceforth, there would be no duplication of unit numbers for any unit larger than a regiment. While the division of unit numbers became its own sort of byzantine system, in theory any sufficiently well informed individual would know the flag of any division based on its number.

Command level integration down to the field army and even corps level was strengthened, and corps could now be shifted between parent armies, assuring that lines of communication would be maintained. Rear services were further integrated between the two national armies.

This reorganization came simultaneously with a Soviet Army steadily rebuilding itself and its capabilities. With a growing body of battle tested officers and NCOs, basic training time was further lengthened. Newly raised units spent more time drilling in more advanced battlefield tactics and maneuvers.

A 1942 pattern Soviet rifle division’s order of battle was expanded closer to its pre-war theoretic ideal, expanding from six battalions back to nine, and each of its infantry regiments gaining an organic cannon company, and the divisional artillery regiment gaining an additional artillery battalion. The infantry anti-tank role shifted away from anti-tank rifles to more dedicated anti-tank artillery companies, and the line infantry themselves gained a locally produced copy of the American “bazooka” dynamic reaction cannon.

[…]

The most dramatic shifts in the stature of the Soviet Army came in the tank and mechanised forces. With the T-34-76 obr. 1942 in mass production at the complexes in Chelyabinsk, Nizhny Tagil and Omsk, and mean failure times reduced now to acceptable levels, Soviet tankists had equipment capable of sustaining complex mechanised operations. Existing BT-7 light tanks were uparmored with applique kits, enough to ensure frontal protection from weapons weaker than the German 7.5cm Pak 40.

Starting in January 1942, basic tank training was extended to six months. The now venerable Kazan and Chelyabinsk Higher Tank Command Schools were founded, providing Soviet officers with a hands-on curriculum for the command of mechanised forces.

The structure of Soviet tank forces changed dramatically. Rather than dispersed into separate brigades for predominantly infantry support, or combined into ad hoc “brigade bucket” corps, they would now be restructured to support true deep operations. With Stavka Order No. 191, most existing tank and mechanised brigades were expanded into full divisions. The reformed tank divisions consisted of six tank battalions supported by three mechanised battalions, while mechanised divisions had nine mechanised battalions, supported by a mixed regiment of 1-2 each of tank and assault gun battalions.

With the old 76.2mm divisional field guns phased out of production for the 90mm ZiS-4 universal platform, the spare hulls of the SU-76 assault guns were repurposed as the BTR-42 armored personnel carrier. The full-tracked infantry carrier performed well enough that some were requisitioned for use by WFRA mechanised units until a suitable model could be put into production.

The 90mm ZiS-4 itself became the workhorse of the Soviet Army. Derived from the American 90mm RI39, and sharing both ammunition as well as recoil and breech assemblies, variants of the ZiS-4 would serve as heavy AA guns, divisional artillery, anti-tank and tank guns. In 1942, it was best known for arming the SU-90 assault guns, deployed in corps-level assault gun regiments to support the infantry as well as counter the heavy Nashorn tank, later finding its way into the mechanised divisions.

Starting in October of 1942, as battle was joined in Stalingrad proper, the reformed tank and mechanised divisions were first grouped into three division strong mechanised corps, with several of these corps forming into mechanised armies in preparation for counteroffensive operations around Stalingrad. Due to equipment shortages, the slack for mobile operations was still being taken up by mixed cavalry/mechanised corps, which grouped horse cavalry with tank and motorised troops.

These reforms came simultaneous with General Triandfafillov’s promotion to the newly formed GABTU (Glavnoye Avtobronetankovoye Upravleniye, roughly “Main Automotive-Armored Directorate”), and cemented the ascension of “Unified Military Doctrine clique” (derisively, the Frunze clique) in the Soviet Army. Through the trials of fire and privation, the two revolutionary giants had achieved synchronicity on how best to prosecute the war to its final conclusion.

With all eyes now turned towards the beleaguered city of Stalingrad, the war would soon be at its fulcrum.

[…]

Following the eruption of the Soviet-Japanese Border Conflict, the largest supply pipeline to the Soviet Union, by ship to Vladivostok, was suspended. The American Revolutionary Military Council halted further transfers of units to the Soviet front. Soviet and American forces under the command of Far Eastern Front commander Marshal Tukhachevsky(1) would clash for nearly six months with no satisfactory conclusion before an armistice was called, and negotiations began for a neutrality and non-aggression treaty between the Soviet Union and Imperial Japan.

At the conclusion of this process, shipping could continue to Vladivostok, but only under Soviet flagged vessels, and the deployment of forces from any nations belligerent to Japan beyond 115 grad E, roughly the city Irkutsk. This would not open the Pacific shipping route until the beginning of 1943.

While the reduction in American men and materiel to the front sorely hurt the war effort for 1942, Stavka elected to make the most of a bad situation. Troops slated for deployment gained an additional year for training, and several large scale exercises further ironed out organizational problems.

Now expecting to lose far fewer to attrition and enemy fire, the WFRA now had a surfeit of tanks, artillery and small arms. This largesse was spent in several ways, both reinforcing the Southern Cone theater as well as opening new theaters such as the liberation of Somalia, and the joint operation to secure the then Belgian Congo from the official neutral Nazi collaboration state in Belgium.

In May 1942, the Stavka further decided to wind-down production of a number of existing armored fighting vehicles, putting the 90mm armed T-9 “John Brown” medium tank in production along with its chassis derivatives at the Chumamji(2) Machine Works. The T-9, known with little exaggeration as the “tank that won the war”, would earn its chief designer Eric L. Burford personal citations in the Order of the Red Banner 1st Grade and the Hero of the Soviet Union.

Chumamji Machine Works alone would produce 6,207 T-9s in 1942, 25% above quota, resulting in a collective citation for the Order of the October Revolution. Similar feats of production were enabled, even with the extraordinarily high mobilisation of manpower for service in the Red Army and Navy, by a mass emigration program throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. This mirror to the Franco-British Bracero Program resulted in an inflow of nearly a million workers and their families per year for the duration of the war. Despite racial tensions, the migrants were afforded the full benefits of native workers in both agriculture, transport and industry, and nearly half opted to exercise the citizenship rights guaranteed to toilers under the Basic Law.

[…]

After the results of naval battles at Unimak, Wake Island, Java, Ceylon and the Westfjords, the Naval Operations Commission recommended to the War Cabinet that further orders for battleships and supercruisers be canceled. After some debate and contention among the admirals and senior civilian leadership, the Central Committee canceled all construction orders that were less than ten percent complete, ordering their immediate conversion to additional orders of Enragés and Vanguard -class fleet carriers.

Modern naval airpower, revolutionized in no small part by the WFRN itself, had pushed the great ships-of-the-line into a subordinate role. Now able to challenge land-based airpower on near even terms, the naval air arms of the IJN and the WFRN would fight for the control of the Pacific, with most battles being decided before anyone could close into gun range.

With the flood of new resources into naval aviation, the floundering projects for new carrier-borne aircraft could finally overcome their engineering hurdles. With a grant of $3 million dollars, the Grumman design bureau entered the contest for the Navy’s new consolidated torpedo, dive and level bomber project. Designed, prototyped and flown in record time, the resulting BTF “Mauler” aircraft, powered by the Wasp-Major radial engine, could outrun older A6M Reisen fighters in second line IJN service.

Similarly, the year was a major pivot point for the Army Air Forces. Major reorganisations began in the Main Command. Air Defense Command was slashed in priority, and orders for further high altitude air defense fighters were cut, with research and procurement shifting towards the newly formed Long Range Aviation service.

Amalgamating the Army Air Forces Coastal Aviation, Reconnaissance, and Interdiction commands, Long Range Aviation would make the first conscious forays into true strategic air power. With great reluctance, the direct aerial bombardment of the enemy’s industrial centres–and the proletariat that dwelled there–was finally contemplated. Earlier attempts at the interdiction of lines of communication had proven less effective than hoped. With the severe constraints of deployment to the Soviet front, and the challenging geography of the Pacific War, long-range bombardment and reconnaissance became a major priority.

Red Star North American would be able to rapidly move in this, having already developed with Tupelov the prototype of the VVS’s Tu-4. Substituting the already natively produced Parsippany R-54.9 M23 “Duplex Cyclone”(3) into the airframe proved workable.

This necessitated the development of a long-range escort fighter capable of screening deep penetrations into the enemy rear areas. The high-altitude turbo-superchargers were already a mature technology for the direct-injected Stutz V-28.0 series of V12 engines, but their existing platform, the F-34, did not have the range for the mission. While Frontal Aviation command was ordering new models of the plane with simpler mechanical superchargers optimized for action at or below 6000 m, Red Star was once again able to pull a rabbit out of its hat, replacing the superchargers in their F-41 fighter-bomber design with the turbochargers, transforming the disappointing fighter-bomber into a superb escort fighter.

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1. This is a minor retcon, one that really doesn’t contradict the TL as written. Tukhachevsky is still tortured and put in front of the Military Collegium in a secret trial, but escapes the death penalty thanks to diplomatic pressure. Post ‘exoneration’, he is assigned as military attaché to the UASR, taking him out of domestic politics until the war.
2. Another minor retcon; In 1937, the city of Birmingham in the Negro Soviet Republic is renamed to Chumamji, Swahili for ‘iron city’. Swahili was the most thoroughly attested African language, and thus had an outsized influence in African diaspora movements, like their use in the OTL Kwanzaa celebrations by African-Americans.
3. OTL, the US Army Air Corps had standardized aircraft engine nomenclature, with models referred to by their configuration and displacement in cubic inches. We’ve been inconsistent about it, but TTL, the system uses displacement in litres instead.

*[WPA]: Works Progress Administration *[NBI]: National Bureau of Investigation