Alternative Soviet Union & Warsaw Pact (Revisited)

Yeah...like so many times before with my own AU ideas I fell into my own "adjusting it to the death" trap which eventually have kept me posting AU stuff for nearly a year.

It all started from my decision to incorporate my both ideas into same universe which first led me to reviving the old Novgorod AU as a Finland AU. As my Byzantine/Komintern project didn't quite fit into same universe as AU Finland which demanded more and more land from Russia, I decided to abandon the Komintern AU in favor of AU Soviet Union. Well this is the third attempt to prodcast it to the public.

First one didn't leave the drawing board as I abandoned it and returned to Komintern even before I managed to post it in anywhere and started to draw the ships which some will eventually be seen here. I got from small frigates into destroyers (all designs since 1945) until I returned to the AU Soviet Union and decided to put the actual thread up. That was about a year ago. Well I started turning the ships into soviet versions and came up with lengthy historic. I was still messing around with the Byzantium as its core but it soon turned out to be unworkable. Well like you might guess I abandoned it and turned back on Komintern. I managed to 'sovietize' all the ships I drew before the previous turn-around when I did this last turn around...Will I ever get to the damn carriers?

...so which one I was now? Yes Komintern. Well I started working again on the history, this time ditching the Byzantium (tough geographical area remains the same) and working the history around 'Great Bulgaria' -concept. It worked a lot better and I begun to returning the ships back to Komintern mode. Despite the success in the historical background, some problems arose with the actual ships and then the AU Finland started knocking on my head again. So naturally once I was almost finish with returning the ships to Komintern colors the whole thing fell apart again. Back in the USSR...

So this is where we are now. Couple months ago I started the fourth revision on the ships and now I'm ready. All small and medium surface combatants are done. AU Finland is still shaping up but before I change my mind again I will start posting the actual drawings. This time I wont bore you with wall of texts of history but will keep the focus on the actual ships.

Introduction of the concept of this AU

This AU thread/project is as someone might already know based on the idea of giving life to the never-where and almost where warship projects of Soviet Union and Russia. With Komintern and Novgorod AUs I used those designs in a foreign fleet in order to create a "soviet-ish' feel on them. This time I'm toying around with the concept of replacing all OTL designs with never-where and preliminary/alternative designs. With actual ships the repertuar is so covering that I actually had to leave stuff out but with weapons and other systems there just isn't enough AU designs to replace everything. In my earlier AU's I've used to fill the gaps with my own mind but in this time I simply adopted OTL systems.

Naturally I've used a lot of artists freedom to adjusting and reinventing purposes to some systems and ship designs in order them to "fit the plan" better.

I've drew all stuff myself but a big credit goes to A.N. Sokolov and Atrinaflot site team for illustrating so many Soviet never-where project which worked as a inspiration and reference for this AU.

A short background story for the country
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Like seen in the map, I haven't abandon the Mediterranean Sea access but the historical nation behind this is no longer Byzantium but Russia. My 'magic hand' to mess around the history begins with Kievan Rus's attack on Bulgaria in 960's. Like in OTL, Kievan Rus Grand Duke Sviatoslav manages to win the Bulgarians but unlike in OTL, they also won the Byzantine which tried to evict the Russians away. This marked the increase of Russian presence and power in the Balkans and marked the date of Byzantium decline to arrive. Sviatoslav's realm steadily expands to control vast amount of land in eastern Europe from Baltic's to the Greece hills. The Russian rule over Bulgaria is in this AU the replacement of the arrival of Seljuk Turks into Anatolia as a acceleration of Byzantine decline.

Next big wave of the magic vond comes with Yaroslav Murdy, which together with his other improvements introduces a primogeniture inheritant law which reduces the instability and rivalry between the nobility and ruling families in the Kievan Rus. So in the eve of Mongolian invasion Kievan rus is rather stable and powerfull nation where as Byzantium has fallen after the fourth crusade. Mongol invasion naturally strikes the Kievan Rus badly and the old realm disintegrates into series of small duchies which most are paying tribute to the Horde. Mongolian invasion hits also Anatolia where the struggling ofsprings of the Byzantine empire fell under the Tatar Yoke as well.

Unlike in OTL, the new rise of Russian nation begins again in Kiev which by paying tribute to the mongols and even allying with them against the other principalities manages to accumulate more and more power in the region during the 14th century where as the Mongolian power is declining. By absorbing Bulgaria into the realm, Kiev's power rises and eventually it annexes the remains of Byzantium in Constantinople and Russian Empire is born in 1453. The new empire begins to expand into the north and the last remaining Russian princedom Moscow is incorporated to the empire in 1503. In meanwhile Novgorod has fallen into Finnish rule and from here the great expansion of both nations into east. Russians are moving trough the steppes and Finns in the north. Russian expansionism is focusing on Anatolia and from there to Central Asia where as Finns are moving all the way east into the Pacific Ocean.

The remains are following pretty much down the lines of the last thread. Russians moves all the way down south trough Persia into Indian ocean and in the 19th Century the goal is set even further beyond the seas into Far East. This and the close proximity of British India starts the Great Game which leads series of conflicts between the two empire. The last intrusion from Russia is the Middle East into where Russia attacks in 1877 (Against some sort of Big Arabian empire which I haven't invented theraly just yet. Its acting as substitute for the Ottoman Empire) in order to cede the Suez Canal before Great Britain gets there. Russians invade Sinai but settles the affair with the British so that both parties can use it.

Revolution strikes mostly as in OTL but I haven't worked up the details of the history in the Soviet days yet. I'm too eager to get to the ships so I will return it later. We can do sort of FAQ thing here, if there is something you want to know about the history, ask it and I'll invent it.

This looks really excellent! I'm very interested in how Russian manages to control the Greeks, Turks, and Persians so long, three groups who in RL have been extreme rivals at times in history (yes I know that Greece vs the Persian empire was in ancient times). Not saying tis not plausible, more thats it very unique and intriguing

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Well in this scenario there actually isen't Turks as the Seljuk Turk invasion to Anatolia didn't take place. More prominent slavic presence in Balkans however occured and nowadays the greek people are minority in the area, mostly populating on the islands. (No offence to Greeks, it's just inconvinience for the sake of this AU) Russian expansion to these areas took place over 1000 years ago so cultural assimilation have done its deeds.

Anyways I will start posting the ships later today, I orginally planned to do introduction and description of the Naval history after WWII but it would end up just another wall of text before I would get to the ships.

Looks very interesting, and I can't wait to see the ships (I love Your Eastern-Bloc AU/NW ships).

Well, I have one question: how did You (or rather Your state) get Sinai peninsula - and most importantly: how did it managed to keep it, together with half of the Suez Canal.
I can imagine that Sinai was taken during medieval era or something like that, and Your country was, say, a initial shareholder/co-investor in Suez Canal, so getting Sinai and one bank of the canal seems plausible. But if there was a Revolution then it seems possible that there was a foreign intervention as well, and in such case Brits would be all too happy to grab the Sinai and establish their complete control over the Canal (or even without intervention in the core territories - they'd be happy to stage there some local "uprising" and declare their protectorate, in a kind of 1918-ish Kosovo style).

P.S. Perhaps if I may suggest something - take the whole Egypt, Palestine and Syria - perhaps as a result of a crusade (it would be 8th, although there are some other classifications) or something like that. Btw. that would be generally actually consistent with real-world policies of Imperial Russia that wanted, esp. in XIXth century to re-assert itself as a heir to Byzantine Empire also in geographical terms.

Also you seem not to have much stake in Siberia or other parts of Russian/Soviet land which would strike me as odd unless someone else took that land first.

As for Sinai, The orgings of that lies in the 1877 war when Russia attacked the Arab empire and managed to gain Syria, Lebanon, Palestine and Northern Iraq as well as Sinai. The Suez Canal was being built at that time and Russia was trying to seize it before it would be falling into British hands (which were trying to get more and more influence over Egypt, a vassal of the Arab Empire at that time). Brits threaten to intervene and thus an agreement was settled where both Russia and Britain would be able to use the canal.

In Brets-Litovsk peace treaty Russia was forced to give up all Middle East holdings aside Sinai as Germans didn't want the entire canal to fall into British control. Brittish soon intervented on the newly created and short lived German puppet states in middle east, and even launched a capaing against Sinai in 1919 but Soviets were able to rebel it. The new Soviet government knew the value of Sinai and it was heavily defended. During 1920's and 1930's Soviets build a new canal on the other side of the Sinai known as "Stalins Canal" (taking the name of the white-sea canal now in Finnish hand in this AU)

And to APDAF, if you read the introduction you'll note that it was Finland who expanded all the way to the Pacific Ocean in the north.

I have to say I can't really see what you'd gain from a second channel compared to the expenses involved in making it.
Assuming it starts at Rafah on the current Egypt-Israel border and cuts south east to Taba in the Gulf of Aqaba, it'll be at least sixty km longer since you don't have any bitter lakes to take advantage of, the terrain is rocky and you've got some serious cliffs to scale which means you'll need locks. As a result the channel will be much more expensive to build, have less capacity, take longer to transit and be much more expensive to maintain. I simply can't see how you'd defend such a huge expenditure when there's already an existing channel.

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Well one could claim the same over the White Sea canal. OTL Soviet Union wasn't exactly famous of doing rational and cost-effective solutions either. In this AU the reasoning for the second canal was quite obvious: controlling your own ship route to Asia which was during the 30's the most important area where Soviets tried to expand their ideology or in other words just plainly continuing the imperialistic expansionism of the Russian Empire.

Anyways here we go, starting up with some sheets:

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Alternative Soviet Union & Warsaw Pact (Revisited)

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