Why is Beyma wrong?

[MPHopcroft1]

I know my somewhat bizarre comment in the betatesting section may have raised an eyebrow. I thought I'd pose my question a little bit more sensibly.

The very first issue of Avalon Hill's legendary magazine The General I ever read (the featured game was Caesar, a game of the siege of Alesia), had an article called "Red Options" by an apparently respected Third reich player named Richard Beyma. In that article, Beyma proposed, quite seriously, that the best opening for the Societ Union was to invade and conquer Turkey in Fall and winter of 1939. It was such a radical position on the play of the position that the editor of the magazine went to the trouble of including a detailed rebuttal in a sidebar.

The question is; with a different economic-political system in wiF, is this as bad an idea as it seemed to the editor of the general in 3R?

[SPerdomo]

I guess that what scares me from that is the vision of the Turks holding in the mountains, while a german player decides then to finish quickly over France and come for me... however, I think that I may try this some time... my german player is usually quite predictable... this may shake things a bit .

[composer99]

The cons that spring to mind are US Entry and Nazi-Soviet pact problems. But I can see no reason why it should not ever be done.
 
There are, I think, two questions here:
 
Firstly, do the external issues (US Entry, Nazi-Soviet pact, other trade agreements, access to Iraq &c.) heavily mitigate in favour or against such a gambit, and
 
Secondly, what are the practical issues involved with such a gambit, and how do they affect its feasibility?
 
The issue that I suspect will make or break a USSR Turkish gambit is probably the Nazi-Soviet pact, but I will need to check the rules to be certain.

[Zorachus99]

Ceasar was a very fun game.  Siege of Alesia was a good time!

[Shannon V. OKeets]

Turkey has no air force or navy to speak of, but their army is significant: 8 units to start plus two reserves arriving the next turn. There is another nice motorized unit and a division available in 1940. One of the starting units is a 5-4 mountain which would be tough to take out.

The Russians can't do much in the way of an invasion in 1939, so It looks like having to hoof it through the mountains - and there are a lot of mountains, replete with Alpine hexsides and rivers. The capital is in a mountain hex, so it is not unreasonable to expect you will be attacking 20+ points. Even disorganized, those units will always be in supply and at full strength.

[Greyshaft]

If the Russian move into Turkey in 1939 gets bogged down then how would you defend against a 1940 ("Forget the French!") invasion by Germany? The downside of a failed invasion could severely outweigh the upside of success.

[jchastain]

History isn't always as neat and tidy as games. Let us not forget that the Soviets were dealing with Japan at both Bain-Tsagan and Nomanhan in the summer of 1939. Britain had just concluded a defense pact with Turkey (which was strengthened to a mutual assistance treaty with both Britain and France in October). And before he was replaced by Molotov, Litvinov suggested a 5 nation collective response in case of war with Germany, but Poland was unwilling to ally with the Soviets and Franch and Germany sided with the Poles and excluded the Soviets from the eventual agreement. Stalin was fairly isolated diplomatically and it was only then that the Soviets concluded their non-aggression treaty with the Germans. That agreement defined spheres of influence and gave Stalin several avenues for expanding his influence with minimal diplomatic risk, and we must assume that Stalin never foresaw the possibility of getting bogged down in Finland as he did. SPerdomo would be right to be worried about a German reaction to a Soviet attack against Turkey, but I am not certain Stalin had the luxery of ignoring the potential Japanese and British reactions either.

So, would an attack against Turkey instead of Finland have make more sense? Perhaps in game terms it might be an interesting experiment. But when one considers the diplomatic realities that faced Stalin, it likely wasn't a very appealing real world option.

[doctormm]

For one thing, if you're going to do this, try to convince the CW and FR player(s) to at least have a couple of units in positions to make the Turks guard the south and east. You might also consider the "Bulgarian gambit" first, but that might take too long. The up side of that is you open a second front by Istanbul.

If you can't get the west to play along with you, don't do it. You give factories to the axis, and open up both the middle east and the caucasus if you fail to take Turkey out.

[Zorachus99]

Attacking Turkey from Russia is much harder because the incoming terrain is much more foreboding.  Even invading with infantry Div doesn't compare to Germany attacking it in 40-41 with para & many mtn & possible Italian naval support.
 
I've seen Germans take Ankara many times, but never seen the allies DOW Turkey.  The units Germany could stuff Turkey with as peace-keepers is alarming.

[doctormm]

ORIGINAL: Zorachus99

I've seen Germans take Ankara many times, but never seen the allies DOW Turkey. The units Germany could stuff Turkey with as peace-keepers is alarming.

German controlled units in Turkey let Russia break the pact. They don't have to DoW, but if you're playing with just about any oil rule, the loss of resources can be very painful.

Having the CW and FR ready to use their fleet is also useful to make Italian "peacekeepers" a lot harder to deploy and supply.

[dale1066]

Well I tried a quick and dirty attack on turkey using CWif

Cons

On DOW (impulse 2) (USE die -25) lost three chits from the US entry german pool which might cramp the soviet style in other operations
Ussr cannot DOW turkey on the first move so a set up on that border may give the germans/italian some warning and ability to do something if they think its required, eg Italian DOW on USSR in impulse 2 so Italy can intervene? (USE die 7)
Early French or CW DOW on Italy to counter this might have catastrophic effect on US entry? (USE die -12)
After the first turn the weather in S/O is not always fine (pun intended) for offensives and with limitation on only ussr combined activities with those land move limits (6 units). Mind you ussr doesn't have that many available units then so maybe not such a problem.


Pros
its easy to capture a port on the north coast in the surprise impulse
quite a bit of decent TAC air to pin the turkish forces esp on surprise impulse

Conclusion not one for the faint hearted IMHO [:)]

PS using the charts from CWif

[dale1066]

Correction: 5 land moves for ussr combined ops plus if Italy gets involved then they can do a land impulse i believe which is probably a another pro

[doctormm]

ORIGINAL: dale1066

Correction: 5 land moves for ussr combined ops plus if Italy gets involved then they can do a land impulse i believe which is probably a another pro

The Chinese Communists may not like the fact that the Soviets aren't giving them any land moves. Especially with the new map scale.

[Mziln]

Scenario: Global War
Options: All except Production: Hitler’s war, Land Rules: 2D10 Land CRT, and Other Rules: Unrestricted setup

“Peace Keepers” are not an issue because the only rail line is through Bulgaria, which is neutral. If Italy is still neutral only Italians can be used as “Peace Keepers”. And only 2 units could be landed a turn. If Italy is at war do they want to risk their fleet? Either at war or peace do they have the oil to waste?


The Turkish order of battle:

PZL P.24 (FTR)
BB ~ Yuvaz; CL ~ Medjidieh and Hamidieh
Inönü INF HQ, 3 INF, 1 CAV, 1 MTN, 2 MIL, and 2 GAR


The USSR order of battle in the Black Sea area:

3 FTR (2), 1 LND (3), and 1 LND (4)
BB ~ Paris Commune; CA ~ Krasnyi Kavjaz; CL ~ Chervona Ukrina, Comintern, amd Krasni Krym; 1 TRS; 1 SUB
Timoshenko INF HQ, 1 MECH, 3 INF, 2 GAR, 1 CAV, 3 Guns, 1 ENG division, and 1 INF division


So the USSR can land up to 5 divisions (but you just need 2 divisions). This would still allow you to have:

(1) BB ~ Paris Commune and CA ~ Krasnyi Kavjaz to shore bombard.
(2) OR the TRS to land the Timoshenko INF HQ, an INF, or the MECH as reinforcements.

Use of the ENG division will negate the city modifier for one attack.

There are three good places for the USSR to land troops:

(1) Zonguldak is the shortest route to Ankara but has no rail line. So there is a supply problem.
(2) Scutari is a minor port, has a rail line, and is on the Ankara side (IMO the best choice).
(3) Istanbul is a major port, has a rail line, but is not on the Ankara side.



The Down side:

US entry option 31: USSR declares war on (Ge/It) Poland, Spain, Turkey or any American country -25

This will either:

(1) Stop the US from entering the war against Germany/Italy.
(2) Or stop any Allied (and this includes the USSR) DoW's and options. Until Germany/Italy cause more US entry points to become available. This would stop a DoW by the CW against Italy and a surprise Port Attack against the Italian fleet.


Summary:

I don't believe the USSR can complete the conquest of Turkey in "39" without a lot of luck. But, I believe it to be doable. It is not for the faint hearted or inexperienced.

[brian brian]

let's say the Russians pull this off - how do they hold it when the Germans come back? Heavy INF and Stukas could re-open the Bosporous eventually and then huge interior areas of Russia are opened up to invasion. After that the Germans liberate the Turks and have land approach routes to the Middle Eastern oil and Suez. Germany could open a war against the Soviets via a campaign through Turkey, possibly delaying entering the Russian Home Country for quite a while, killing Russian units while their multiple was still at 0.5, though they would want to get the resources in the Ukraine before too long. And for opening this can of worms the Russians get ... a couple resources and an additional production point on their low production multiple? (While costing the Germans a resource temporarily and boosting Italy's production). This is quite different in WiF where you don't get the 30 BRP's or something you would get in Third Reich.

Or for more fun the Axis could align Turkey to Japan (who would already be pretty googly-eyed over seeing a bunch of 1939 USE chits lost to the US), boost the Turks with FTR cover and a few extra ground troops, while possibly launching a simultaneous war in Siberia (with the nice Siberian INF probably already on the Turkish front I'd imagine). Putting Japan in charge would also nix any CW participation.

I just don't see any up-sides for the Allies, except one...it would not be your average WiF game, that's for sure. One of the nicest things about the computer game will be the ability to try any strategy you can dream up without the additional hours of sorting out the cardboard pieces.

[Ballista]

The computer is also less susceptible to the family cat, dog, or rampaging wife/kids (although they can be heck on it when they hose the OS) [:)]

[dale1066]

Either at war or peace do they have the oil to waste?

Not sure if it would be a waste of oil to stop turkey falling to the USSR.
Surely as long as France or CW not involved its only the transports moving plus a couple of SCS with divs say so no oil required.

Perhaps this scenario is one for the playtest team

[Snydly]

Question: If the Russians invaded Turkey in 1939 ... would their production multiple be advanced early or would it stay the same until Germany Invaded them?

[Jimm]

ORIGINAL: Snydly

Question: If the Russians invaded Turkey in 1939 ... would their production multiple be advanced early or would it stay the same until Germany Invaded them?

Assuming you are not playing option 49 "Hitlers war" (assuming Germany manages Turkey) then no would stay the same I think. However I've been playing DOD which tends to screw up your memory of how prod multiples work in the standard game!

[Mziln]

One Screenshot is worth 1k words [:D]

WIFFE-RAW-7.0

Option 49: (Hitler’s war) Replace notes (b), (d) and (e) of the Production Multiples Table with:

(b) +0.25 to China each turn;

(d) +0.25 to the USSR while Germany and the USSR are at war with each other.

Using this option, major powers no longer receive a bonus for an in supply enemy unit in their home country, and the USSR no longer receives any bonuses based on the cities they control.