The Unthinkable

(Also referred to as “The Melted Iron Curtain” and “World War 2.5”)

Current Year: January, 1946 On July 1stof 1945, Winston Churchill’s plan for “Operation Unthinkable” is launched into action in this universe.

Two months after VE Day, a coalition of British and American forces launch a multi-stage surprise-attack on Red Army forces occupying various cities in Germany, Poland and several other countries in Eastern Europe in an attempt to reverse Soviet westward expansion and potentially remove the threat of the Soviet Union entirely.

10,000 Nazi troops and 6,000 Italian troops are rearmed and redirected at Soviet forces under the command of the Allies, backed by the Anglo-American forces in even larger numbers, who are also backed by reserve troops from France, Poland and Finland (included among them is the legendary Finnish sniper Simo Häyhä). After a successful campaign of driving weakened Red Army occupation out of Germany and overtaking half of Poland, Soviet resistance increases and Allied progression grinds to a halt as combative forces become more equal.

On July 21st, 1945, more than a month before the deployment of nuclear weapons in the Pacific Theater in our universe, a 21 kiloton plutonium-based nuclear bomb (the same caliber of the weapon deployed on the city of Nagasaki on August 9th, 1945 in our universe) is dropped on Moscow. The unprepared city is completely obliterated, with Joseph Stalin himself and a major portion of Soviet leadership that were residing in the Kremlin at the time being included in the casualties which ultimately total 65,000 people. Additional nuclear weapons of varying power are deployed on Gyumri (targeting the Russian 102nd Military Base), Khabarovsk Kai (targeting Dzemgi Airport), Saratov (targeting the Engels-2 Strategic Airbase), Tula (targeting the Tula Arms Plant) and Nizhny Tagil (targeting the Uralvagonzavod Complex).

In the Current Year of January in 1946, the Imperial Japanese government has surrendered under the threat of receiving the same atomic retaliation they saw in the European theater,bypassing the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki that occurred in our universe. War on the European front continues between an outnumbered forces of the Allies and the numerous but rapidly collapsing forces of the Soviet Union, with the final outcome of the conflict potentially defining the rest of the 20thcentury.