Here Dwells God - A Jewish Poland AAR, Part Four

[Tommy4ever]

1949 – The Destroyer of Worlds​

In the six weeks after their declaration of war, the Serbs achieved huge successes against the Eurasian League – pouring across lightly defended borders and benefiting from the support of American air power. In Asia Minor, they moved to occupy the territories of Crusader Anatolia while supporting Allied offensives towards the Caucuses. In the Balkans they swarmed into Moldavia and were only halted at the key port of Odessa, where the Russians were able to scramble reinforcements to hold them back. In Pannonia, they captured Budapest and brought the long-time Russian satrapy to the brink of defeat. However, even during this period of general advance there were some setbacks. In their Balkan heartland, the Greeks held firm and resisted all attempts to push into their territory, while in west Russian tanks were already pushing past the pre-war boundary and were able to prevent the fall of Pannonia.

On the western front, the redeployment of troops to other frontiers made any Russian offensive operations in the spring of 1949 completely untenable. The momentum the Eurasian League had built up in the region over the preceding months was quickly sucked away and put into reverse. Over the course of April and May 1949 the Russians engaged in an orderly retreat from the Low Countries, the key Italian cities of Turin and Milan were lost after bitter battles and the Allies conducted a successful landing in northern Jutland to force a further redistribution of forces. Defeats in Europe concerned the Russian leadership far more than its reverses in other sectors, its military strategists having staked everything on achieving victory on this most important of battlefields. With this in mind, Feodor Golikov approved the deployment of Russia’s greatest secret weapon.

Since conducting the very first atomic bomb test in January 1947, the Russian regime had been considering the best way to harness the new power they had uncovered. With the military situation worsening on every frontier in spring 1949, it was decided that they could wait no longer. On the 28th of May 1949 Russian aircraft dropped a nuclear bomb over the city of Stuttgart, a strong point in the Allied line in Western Europe and a key industrial centre for German military production. This single bomb destroyed the city and wiped out tens of thousands of lives in an instant, bringing the world into a new and terrifying age of nuclear warfare.

The destruction of Stuttgart horrified millions around the world and hardened a growing anti-Russian international consensus. Indeed, the United States took the bold step of announcing that henceforth, it would reject any possibility of a negotiated peace with Russia – only unconditional surrender, the destruction of the Radical regime and dismantlement of its empire would be acceptable.

Nonetheless, nuclear warfare proved to be a tremendous military success. Having been on the back foot for the previous two months, the Russians regained the initiative and began to reverse Allied gains and push deeper into enemy territory – making use of nuclear strikes on two further occasion at Fulda and the Ruhr industrial hub of Essen to buttress their advance. Although they were able to secure key victories, and bring the German contingent of the Allied coalition in particular to the brink of breaking, their gains were somewhat underwhelming, with the Eurasians yet to cross the Rhine by October.

More rapid success was to be found in Eastern Europe. After the Serb invasion, the Russians had redirected many of their fastest moving and most effective units to counter their opponents. While the Serbs were able to make gains in the first weeks of their entry into the war, once these units reached the lines they quickly showed their superiority and began to roll back the Serbian invasion and drive deeply into their home territory. The situation was only worsened by the terror caused by the nuclear attacks in Germany – which shook civilian morale and military morale alike to the point of breaking and led to the Americans withdrawing the bulk of their aerial support in an effort to protect Western Europe from the threat of further nuclear attacks. Belgrade fell in mid June and Constantinople followed at the end of July with the Serbian empire surrendering in August.

Serbia was not the first country to be knocked out of the war in the aftermath of Stuttgart. In the Far East, Korea’s initial successes in pushing into Manchuria at the end of 1948 had very quickly become bogged down once Russian forces arrived to buttress their local allies in the region. Although they had failed to make the short work of the Koreans that they had expected, nonetheless through the first half of 1949 they made gradual progress – first recapturing their lost territory and then crossing into Korean Transamur. Confidence in Seoul was already buckling even before the Russian unleashed hellfire over Germany and within days a couple weeks of the destruction of Stuttgart the Koreans offered Russia a white peace, a deal Kiev quickly accepted.

Indeed, the Far East had emerged as a serious quagmire for the Eurasian League as Russia found China to be a formidable foe and its allied Khanates in the region utterly incapable of defending themselves from concerted attack. Although the Russians had celebrated their defence of Beijing through the autumn of 1948, the city fell in December that, proving to be a harbinger of a longer period of Russian retreat. On every part of the vast frontier between China and the Eurasian League, the Chinese held a decided numerical advantage. Invariably, the superior organisation and firepower of the Russians would allow them to initially repel attacks and hold the line, often for weeks and months, yet they lacked the resources to even contemplate offensive operations and were forced to consistently give up land – with the Chinese achieving particularly significant gains in Tibet and central Mongolia. The Russians could only hope that the fall of Korea would allow them to redeploy enough troops to stop the bleeding.

Back in Europe, the troublesome Northern and Middle Eastern fronts were consolidated through 1949. In the North, the arrival of reinforcements stopped the Allied advance in its tracks in early summer before counteroffensives in July and August recaptured Archangel and pushed the Allies all the way back to a stable front line in northern Finland and Karelia that held for several months. Indeed, by November 1949 the Eurasians were in a position to go on the offensive, with almost half a million soldiers concentrated on the Front they had achieved a clear numerical advantage.

To the south, Russian defeats in the Middle East, and Persian entry into the war, had led to a retreat towards a formidable Caucasian defensive line stretching from Baku to the Black Sea through Yerevan and Kars. This had proven impenetrable to the Allies for months, repulsing all attacks with ease and securing Russia from invasion from the south. After the defeat of the Serbian empire in August, both Russian and Allied forces had swarmed into the vacuum in Anatolia – dividing the territory between a Russian north and Allied south, with few major engagements between either side before the end of the year as both focussed on a battle of manoeuvre.

 

[Tommy4ever]

May God bless Poland for being utterly smashed by the forces of the free world.

Nuclear weapons have somewhat rebalanced the conflict after a period when things were getting hairy. But this thing remains on a knifeedge, and the longer the war goes on the more the West's industrial and China's manpower advantage will start to tell.

I'm delighted to see Russia is losing, but that last sentence has me terrified that the war is about to turn nuclear.

And you had every right to be terrified !

This is most concerning… Jewish freedom and future hangs in the balance.

Indeed, the entire fate of the world at this point basically depends on whether the Western European armies can hold out on the Western Front under the brunt of a nuclear-backed Eurasian attack. If they fall, then there is surely little standing between Golikov and complete domination of everything between the Atlantic and the Pacific.

Russia's chickens have come home to roost, but I have a feeling that the worst is only yet to come -- and judging by that foreshadowing, it's going to come by its leadership's own hand.

Radical Russia seems determined to make itself as much of an international pariah as OTL 1940s Germany. No matter the outcome of this war, post-war Germany is going to be some sort of irradiated hellscape, while two entire generations of young men across Russia and Europe will be dead after an entire decade of total war.

I started getting more and more excited as I read on. I have a suspicion I'm not the only one excited to see Makarov losing.

Great to have this back!

I'm not sure we've seen anyone actually rooting for Russia in this part of the AAR! Glad to be back

I smell Golikov deciding it's time to pull no punches anymore and using the nuclear option to bring the Allies to the negotiating table or worse, bring them down with him if he loses. Both are absolutely terrifying to think about.

You certainly called that correctly. In game I was holding back the nukes to try to win the war conventionally, but my the spring of 1949 it had become clear that wasn't going to be possible. At this stage, nuclear weapons are still very much experimental and production of them is painfully slow. But they sure pack a hell of a punch.

I like that you allow country controlled by you to lose. That's interesting.

Hardly anyone playing EU4 or similar Paradox games hardly likes to lose, yet you're allowing yours to lose. Is there a specific reason for that?

I have usually tried my darndest to win any given war - and this one in particular I gave my all. I did deliberately create a very difficult starting position here - giving time for the Western European states to rebuild their armies after the defeat of the International, and not expanding my army during the brief interwar period (instead building more infrastructure and industry in a simulation of a reconstruction). Even some of the betrayals of India and Serbia (and Korea's brief invasion) were not actually of my making but came from in game events. The truth is I'm no pro-gamer, and the odds here are very much stacked against Russia as we face down America, the Papacy, Skotland, China and Western Europe.

As many have noted, that last line is truly terrifying. The war has not yet reached the Russian heartlands, so Golikov would 'only' be visiting nuclear horrors upon occupied lands.

The question is how well Golikov thinks his enemies have figured out the state of the atomic arsenal. At this point, it cannot be extensive enough to genuinely win a war ons o many fronts (setting aside how bastardised a victory it would be to turn half of Europe and the Asian steppe into nuclear wasteland). If they know his nuclear resources are limited, then Escalate to Deescalate has no chance to work; it only delays the inevitable and ensures further that the victorious powers will wipe off the face of the earth a nation that was inhuman enough to use such a strategy.

Not that such a thing matters to Golikov, who will be dead anyway. Therefore, he is absolutely going to try it.

Happy to have you back!

You're right that the nuclear arsenal is very limited. Those three bombs dropped on Western Germany amount to everything we had in reserve. They might have turned the tide of the battle in that theatre, but they have been far from a knock out blow - with it taking months of hard fighting even with these bombs to advanced a relatively short distance. And now Russia faces the blowback from using the most terrifying weapons of mass destruction in human history. Its all or nothing now, any chance of a negotiated peace is gone for good.

 

[TheButterflyComposer]

Europe is going to go through a nuke age having actually been nuked. Suspect this may well fuel greater anti nuke stuff...if the future actually exists and they don't wipe everyone out.

 

[BigBadBob]

I suppose the question is how much manpower was lost in the three crimes, and whether the subsequent advance destroyed any under-manned units. If it didn't achieve the latter, then it's a matter of reinforcement, and thus a matter of time. I very much hope it is.

This whole rotten state needs to be torn down and remade. The Poles need it almost as much as their enemies, because the increasing moral degradation of the Radical Republic is surely hollowing out the nation's very soul.

 

[InvisibleBison]

The Poles need it almost as much as their enemies, because the increasing moral degradation of the Radical Republic is surely hollowing out the nation's very soul.

Yeah, the narrative hasn't really gone into it much but I can't help but wonder what the people of Poland are thinking about recent events, especially the use of nuclear weapons. Although their perspective on nukes is probably very different than ours.

 

[Nikolai]

Heavens, gains en masse, although less than Golikov hoped for I'm sure, but what a steep price.

 

[HIMDogson]

Yeah, the narrative hasn't really gone into it much but I can't help but wonder what the people of Poland are thinking about recent events, especially the use of nuclear weapons. Although their perspective on nukes is probably very different than ours.

"Yes sir, Mr. MGB officer, I fully support the destruction of the Turkish-Protestant-Capitalist-Monarchist conspiracy against the glorious Republic of the Master Race by any means necessary. All those who disagree are race traitors! In a completely unrelated request could you take the gun from the head of my daughter?"

 

[Idhrendur]

This is shaping up to be quite the horrid post-war world, no matter how it ends.

 

[RV-Ye]

I'm not sure we've seen anyone actually rooting for Russia in this part of the AAR! Glad to be back

Here am I to fulfill that petition then, gonna root for them even though it's highly likely Russo-Poland will lose this massive war, I feel that only through stalemate-nukes victory will be achieved, but by the point you are in game the nukes still take some time to get ready... So, wondering how this war will end up.
It's nice to see this AAR again.

 

[eoncommander]

How far behind are the Allied powers in their own nuclear programs? Will we see retaliation in kind within a few years or do the Western governments now consider these weapons to be beyond the pale?

 

[TheButterflyComposer]

How far behind are the Allied powers in their own nuclear programs? Will we see retaliation in kind within a few years or do the Western governments now consider these weapons to be beyond the pale?

Problem with nuke war is escalation. Once someone has done it, if that strike has not ended the conflict, everyone will now have to do it at least once.

Which of course means retaliation with a bigger bomb or a more important target. Etc etc.

We were quite lucky in our timeline to only use them twice, the two weakest bombs ever produced, that ended a war immediately. And by the time it came round to maybe using them again, no one really could, because it would mean everyone everywhere dying.

MAD was mad, but this timeliness escalation war might be worse in the long run...

 

[eoncommander]

Problem with nuke war is escalation. Once someone has done it, if that strike has not ended the conflict, everyone will now have to do it at least once.

Which of course means retaliation with a bigger bomb or a more important target. Etc etc.

We were quite lucky in our timeline to only use them twice, the two weakest bombs ever produced, that ended a war immediately. And by the time it came round to maybe using them again, no one really could, because it would mean everyone everywhere dying.

MAD was mad, but this timeliness escalation war might be worse in the long run...

The West didn't retaliate (in a timely fashion), though, perhaps because they lacked the means (our narrator hasn't commented on that yet). I don't know how the political calculus changes if the Allies don't have their own bombs for a few more years. What about if they are already winning the war with conventional means? What about if there is an anti-nuclear movement with real teeth in the liberal democracies? I don't know the answer to these questions. I suspect escalation over the medium term is more likely than not, especially if the military-industrial complex developed in a remotely similar to OTL, so that total war is more of a technical than a political exercise. But it's been a while since we've had an update on the Allied strategic or political situation.

On the other hand, the circumstances in TTL are probably most similar to a war that breaks out in OTL over Berlin in '48, and I think that war would have seen significant and escalatory nuclear exchanges, so... yeah, I suppose your analysis is correct.

 

[Specialist290]

Pandora's Box has been well and truly opened. It's only a matter of time before the Allies develop and deploy their own nuclear weapons, and once that happens... Well, past a certain point, the idea of this war having a winner becomes somewhat academic.

 

[Brisingr]

I didn't realize there were a bunch of updates left for me to catch up on, I didn't even know Makarov had died! I know I've said this before, but I'm on the edge of my seat right now. Will the fascists be struck down, or will their iron fist rule the world forever?

 

[Viden]

Pandora's box is now open, when will we see the first A-bomb falling over Poland?

 

[DensleyBlair]

Great to have this back, Tommy – although it is perturbing to see that the Radicals have managed to outdo themselves in sheer maniacal behaviour. Anything intelligent that I might have been able to contribute to the discussion escapes me at this point in the bank holiday, but I can offer this fitting soundtrack for the end of days.

 

[Theaxofwar]

Somehow I missed this part of the Mega Campaign starting, but now I’m all caught up. Hoping those plucky Americans pull off a victory against both Russia and border gore.

 

[Ebanu8]

If we're going to ever remake the State, we need to first win victory in this war.

 

[Tommy4ever]

1949-1950 – Rocketman

With the troublesome Northern and Caucasian fronts having been calmed by the autumn of 1949, Russia’s energies turned back to the crucial Western Front over the course of the following six months. Although progress remained painfully slow, the armies of the Eurasian League made substantial gains through the cold winter months – pushing well beyond the Rhine into rich German, Dutch and French industrial territory. Importantly, these advances were made without the support of the tactical nuclear strikes that had buttressed their progress in the spring and summer of 1949, with the losses of the previous year having clearly taken their toll on the Allied armies and their continental European contingent in particular. The possibility of a Russian victory once again appeared to be a viable prospect.

Despite encouraging reports from the frontlines, on the home front the Russian Republic was creaking towards catastrophe. Completely isolated from global markets by war and blockade, the Eurasian League was dependent only what it could produce itself. Creaking under the strain of a decade total war, there shortages were a growing problem – of fuel, food, raw materials and, after millions of deaths and with a war machine demanding millions more, labour. These shortages contributed to an underwhelming harvest in 1949 that led to a winter of hardship over 1949-50. Indeed, by the spring of 1950 the average calorie intake of an ethnic Russian had fallen by between a fifth and a quarter from its pre-war level, while less favour groups – above all the Tatars – had seen their average calorie intake drop by a third. With an anxious and hungry populous, murmurings of widespread discontent with the government were growing into a greater concern.

From the spring of 1950 Russia’s progress on the Western Front was once again halted after key defeats in the siege of Amsterdam and a battle high in the mountains around Bern – the last redoubts of the Dutch and German states respectively, and therefore of tremendous importance in keeping their forces in the field of battle. In an effort to plug the gaps being created by the staggering death toll for Western European forces, the United States had been steadily increasing its contingent in this theatre for most of the preceding year, holding back the Russians from the decisive breakthrough they had long sought and steadying morale. Indeed, following the failed Eurasian assaults on Bern and Amsterdam, the Western Front fell into a state of almost complete stasis with neither side capable of breaking down the other’s defences despite long and terrible battles of attrition.

The exception to this was a breakthrough for the Allies in June 1950 spearheaded by American armour that saw them punch through Eurasian lines in Liguria and drive into Tuscany, coming within a dozen miles of Rome. Ultimately the Russians successfully counterattacked, cutting the Allied off in Tuscany and capturing a total of 8 divisions. An impressive victory, but one that failed to alter the balance of the conflict in any meaningful way.

While the Eurasians and Allies fought one another to a standstill in Europe, the western powers made significant progress in the Caucuses and Anatolia. In the aftermath of the collapse of the Serbian empire the late summer of 1949, Russian forces and occupied a substantial part of Anatolia. Fighting between Allied and Russian troops in the region only began in earnest in the last weeks of the year, but very quickly the superior numbers of the Papal and American forces on land and in the air sent the Russians into a hasty retreat back across the Bosporus – their last footholds in Asia Minor having been relinquished by February 1950.

The Caucuses were a different story. Here, the Russians had deployed a large army of around half a million men, and held an imposing defensive line across the mountain passes of the South Caucuses. To an even greater extent that the Western Front, the Caucasian Front would become the site of a slow moving battle of attrition – but one with great consequence towards the outcome of the war. Having been repeatedly repulsed along the Russian mountain line for months on end, in April 1950 the Allies began one of the bloodiest battles of the war at Baku. The area had incredible strategic importance to Kiev, not only as an important city and key choke point in its defensive, but above all as the home to the Eurasian League’s most established and productive oil producing province. Both sides were therefore willing to pour endless resources into the battle for Baku that would last through the end of May and claim 150,000 lives on both sides before the Russians were ultimately forced to beat a retreat northwards. While the Eurasian League was still home to a number centres of oil production, henceforth their war machine would never again benefit from guaranteed fuel security – with civilian rationing having to be implemented later in 1950 to ensure that the military was kept in supply. Meanwhile, defeat in Baku did not lead to an immediate Russian collapse in the region, but nonetheless the Allies followed up their victory with a series of similarly costly but successful offensives across Armenia and Georgia to claim most of the Southern Caucuses by the end of the year. With the Allies within striking distance of the Tatar lands, restive nationalist movements within Russia’s own borders would become increasingly emboldened in the months ahead, growing once more from a nuisance to a serious security threat.

Nowhere was Russia’s situation more dire that in Asia. Having been put on the back foot within the first year of the conflict, from mid-1949 the Chinese war machine palpably clicked into gear – making significant gains over the course of the following year. The Russians were pushed to the fringes of Manchuria, defeated in Burma, forced to the other side of the Gobi Desert and Hindu Kush – even losing territory in the Indus Valley to the Chinese. Most damagingly of all, as the swept across the Mongol land, the Chinese had captured large parts of Central Siberia – cutting off the Russian army in the Far East entirely and coming disconcertingly close to the crucial industrial and resource producing territories of Western Siberia that were crucial to Kiev’s war effort. Despite the vastness of the terrain being fought over, and the arrival of dozens of Russian divisions from Europe over the course of 1950, the Chinese were coming close to the sort of decisive victories that would risk a critical blow.

Once again, Kiev looked to its cutting-edge ‘wonder weapons’ for salvation. Rockets had been a major facet of Russia’s military arsenal since the early 1940s. After borrowing the technology from their socialist enemies during the previous war, Russia had used Rockets to attack military and civilian targets in Europe in both the Second and Third World Wars. As scientists constantly worked to improve the range and accuracy of these weapons, by 1950 Russian scientists believed they had developed a rocket that could strike at a distance of thousands, not hundreds, of miles away and deliver a nuclear, rather than conventional, payload.

Between October 1950 and January 1951 Russia would use these new long range missiles to launch their first two nuclear strikes against major Chinese cities in Shanghai and Chongqing, while rockets with more conventional ordinance rained down on other population centres – inflicting hundreds of thousands of causalities and causing chaos on the Chinese home front. Simultaneously, a major new ground offensive began pushing out of Western Siberia, aiming to retake the lands lost over the previous year and finding immediate success against the overstretched Chinese army.

 

[Tommy4ever]

Europe is going to go through a nuke age having actually been nuked. Suspect this may well fuel greater anti nuke stuff...if the future actually exists and they don't wipe everyone out.

Indeed, and, in an odd way, the experience of being victims of nuclear weapons is more global and unifying than OTL, with both Europe and Asia, the democratic West and authoritarian Asia, being victims of Russian nuclear attacks. All sides will now have a memory of their terrible impacts. We've already seen 5 nuclear attacks in this war, with no end in sight, more than twice as many as OTL - we shall see how that shapes the world to come.

I suppose the question is how much manpower was lost in the three crimes, and whether the subsequent advance destroyed any under-manned units. If it didn't achieve the latter, then it's a matter of reinforcement, and thus a matter of time. I very much hope it is.

This whole rotten state needs to be torn down and remade. The Poles need it almost as much as their enemies, because the increasing moral degradation of the Radical Republic is surely hollowing out the nation's very soul.

In game, the nuclear attacks were incredibly devastating on the West European armies, coupled with battlefield losses, the Germans and French have seen dozens of divisions completely wiped out in 1949-51, while dozens more are hanging on in a heavily depleted state. Yet, we have never had the strength for that one last push to break through them, and the Americans keep sending in more men to plug the gaps.

In terms of Polish society, we shall have to see whether Russia ends up losing this or not. Either way, it will be fascinating to explore how the country comes to terms with the horrors of recent decades going into a, hopefully more peaceful, future.

Yeah, the narrative hasn't really gone into it much but I can't help but wonder what the people of Poland are thinking about recent events, especially the use of nuclear weapons. Although their perspective on nukes is probably very different than ours.

Internally, the reporting of the nuclear attacks would likely be more of a celebration of Russian power and martial brilliance, rather than looking into the horrors or ethical concerns. Given the narrative of this being an existential struggle, and a long period of militarist totalitarianism seeping into everyone's minds, the truth is most ordinary Russians will probably be happy to go along with that narrative as far as they take note of the significance of these new weapons (which might not be as immediately obvious if they aren't shown the horrific effects on the victims).

Heavens, gains en masse, although less than Golikov hoped for I'm sure, but what a steep price.

Indeed, things seem to be turning in Russia's direction at the moment, the big question is whether this is enough to win. We really are on a bit of a time limit here given the longterm advantages of our enemies and their liklihood that our nuclear monopoly won't last forever.

"Yes sir, Mr. MGB officer, I fully support the destruction of the Turkish-Protestant-Capitalist-Monarchist conspiracy against the glorious Republic of the Master Race by any means necessary. All those who disagree are race traitors! In a completely unrelated request could you take the gun from the head of my daughter?"

XD. This more or less .

This is shaping up to be quite the horrid post-war world, no matter how it ends.

The destruction alone is eyewatering - much of Europe has been at war for twenty years at this point, and the rest of the world for a decade or more. We have had the equivalent of 3 world wards mashed together: the International conquest of Europe in the early 1930s, their war with Russian and America in the early to mid 1940s, and now the present war stretching from the late 1940s into the early 1950s.

Here am I to fulfill that petition then, gonna root for them even though it's highly likely Russo-Poland will lose this massive war, I feel that only through stalemate-nukes victory will be achieved, but by the point you are in game the nukes still take some time to get ready... So, wondering how this war will end up.
It's nice to see this AAR again.

At least there is one to balance things out!

Yeah, the production of nukes is painfully slow at this stage, so we're not able to just blanket bomb the enemy into submission. But they can sure turn things around in any given theatre. Having so many fronts is turning into a big problem in that respect. If I had ignored the Chinese and concentrated the nuclear weapons in the West, I might have been able to make a decisive breakthrough. The problem was that the Chinese had reached the Siberian territories where a very large chunk of my IC was concentrated that I couldn't afford to lose. So we pushed them back, but lost the chance to push deeper into Europe.

Problem with nuke war is escalation. Once someone has done it, if that strike has not ended the conflict, everyone will now have to do it at least once.

Which of course means retaliation with a bigger bomb or a more important target. Etc etc.

We were quite lucky in our timeline to only use them twice, the two weakest bombs ever produced, that ended a war immediately. And by the time it came round to maybe using them again, no one really could, because it would mean everyone everywhere dying.

MAD was mad, but this timeliness escalation war might be worse in the long run...

Indeed, Russia basically doesn't have the capacity to destroy the entire world with its nukes, production is too slow and we are still in A-bomb territory rather than something more destructive, but the absence of a counter while they hold the nuclear monopoly gives them not incentive not to use them. Even after this war is over, there will be a question whether the widespread use of nukes in this conflict makes the taboo over them different in this timeline. Will it make more people recoil from their use having seen their effects in practise? Or make it more imaginable for the red button to be pressed, even as their power to actually destroy the world grows?

How far behind are the Allied powers in their own nuclear programs? Will we see retaliation in kind within a few years or do the Western governments now consider these weapons to be beyond the pale?

The West didn't retaliate (in a timely fashion), though, perhaps because they lacked the means (our narrator hasn't commented on that yet). I don't know how the political calculus changes if the Allies don't have their own bombs for a few more years. What about if they are already winning the war with conventional means? What about if there is an anti-nuclear movement with real teeth in the liberal democracies? I don't know the answer to these questions. I suspect escalation over the medium term is more likely than not, especially if the military-industrial complex developed in a remotely similar to OTL, so that total war is more of a technical than a political exercise. But it's been a while since we've had an update on the Allied strategic or political situation.

On the other hand, the circumstances in TTL are probably most similar to a war that breaks out in OTL over Berlin in '48, and I think that war would have seen significant and escalatory nuclear exchanges, so... yeah, I suppose your analysis is correct.

The West are someway behind in their nuclear programme - having not been aware that nuclear power had even been weaponised until the Russians destroyed Stuttgart in 1949. Nonetheless, they will have been pouring every resource into it since then, and won't leave Russia with a nuclear monopoly much longer.

The question of a taboo over using the nukes for the democratic powers is another question. On the one hand, Russia's use of the weapons can be painted as a uniquely barbaric act, while also normalising it. Should the Americans ready their bomb with the war still in the balance, they may need to way up the cons of a reputational black mark against the pros of the military benefit (not to mention the geopolitical flex involved in showing the world that you too are a nuclear power). Considering the way in which Russia is viewed as the ultimate evil (in America, with its Muslim population, especially), its easy to see how an moral exception could be made.

Pandora's Box has been well and truly opened. It's only a matter of time before the Allies develop and deploy their own nuclear weapons, and once that happens... Well, past a certain point, the idea of this war having a winner becomes somewhat academic.

The only positive from this perspective is that we aren't in a position of OTL circa 1960 when both sides have arsenals large enough to destroy the entire world, with Russia able to produce perhaps a couple nukes a year and the Allies still desperately trying to catch up and get their first nuke ready for use. However, if both sides are able to get in on the act, production ramps up and we move to increasingly deadly bombs ... things could get ugly.

I didn't realize there were a bunch of updates left for me to catch up on, I didn't even know Makarov had died! I know I've said this before, but I'm on the edge of my seat right now. Will the fascists be struck down, or will their iron fist rule the world forever?

Glad you are enjoying the story! This war was great fun to play because it was really unclear to me until a pretty late stage which way it was going to go. Every time when I thought I was getting somewhere on an important front, something would have to go wrong elsewhere - I'd do a little firefighting, but that would mean losing momentum and we remained on a knife edge.

Pandora's box is now open, when will we see the first A-bomb falling over Poland?

And that will be the great fear. Russia has a monopoly on nuclear weapons for now, but that is unlikely to be permanent - and, if it appears necessary, the West is unlikely to hold their punches against a state willing to use its nuclear weapons without thinking twice.

Great to have this back, Tommy – although it is perturbing to see that the Radicals have managed to outdo themselves in sheer maniacal behaviour. Anything intelligent that I might have been able to contribute to the discussion escapes me at this point in the bank holiday, but I can offer this fitting soundtrack for the end of days.

Whenever you think the Radicals have scraped the bottom of the barrel, they always seem able to find another depth to plunge into. We will see whether or not it works though.

Somehow I missed this part of the Mega Campaign starting, but now I’m all caught up. Hoping those plucky Americans pull off a victory against both Russia and border gore.

Regardless of who wins, I promise to work to tidy up some of the border gore in our post-war peace deals .

If we're going to ever remake the State, we need to first win victory in this war.

For certain, if Russia loses this then the empire we have seen build up over hundreds of years has no hope of being held together.