An incident would not have been needed-Pearl Harbour still would have happened, just without Hitler declaring war on the US. The Battle Of The Atlantic would still have been won by the Allies, it just would have taken longer without the US fully committing to it. US participation would still have increased though, and if Germany did not declare war (which they should not, to make this scenario more likely), the US would have declared war on Germany in 1943. It might have been a different situation with a truce though.
The Winter War's Effect 1940
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Its been said the Red Army’s shortcomings in the Winter War with Finland helped the Soviet Union reorganize before the German Attack the following year. I have read that some believe had the Soviet Army been in its 1940 conditions on June of 1941 the Red Army would collapse.
What is your thoughts?
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Well certainly it would have gone worse, that year also saw many upgrades to Soviet equipment as their prediction of Germany getting into a long war with France and being bled white by UK and France didn’t happen. Germany could not be ready by 1940 for such an undertaking. She should have waited longer to even start the war, which would have built up full production of aircraft and tanks while comparatively, her adversaries would have built less units. Once the war started, Allied totals of equipment outpaced Germany from the getgo.
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One of the major improvements to the Soviet armed forces that came out of the Winter War was the replacement of Kliment Voroshilov by Semyon Timoshenko as People’s Commissar for Defence. Voroshilov had helped Stalin carry out the Great Purge by denouncing some of his military colleagues, and (as I recall) he reversed some of the army reforms that his predecessors had carried out. He also bungled the opening phases of the Winter War, and was eventually turfed out in favour of the more competent Timoshenko. After the Soviets won in Finland, Timoshenko set about modernizing the Red Army.
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