A window of opportunity 1905

To round out 1940 -

Navies of 1940
Italy had lost the Yugoslavian War and as a consequence of change of political leadership as well as bad economy overshadowing everything decided to keep the Battleships Andrea Doria and Duilio in reserve but really writing them off the ship list.
The two Battleships undergoing refit Conte Di Cavour and Guilio Cesare had had their refits finished by mid 1938.
During the Yugoslavian War a couple of old Protected Cruiser and a Light Cruiser as well as two Destroyers had been lost. These losses hadn't been replaced by new builds due to the economic situation of Italy's. A number of Submarines and old Torpedoboats had been sold off to lessen the economic burden with most going to China.
To keep warfs alive new costumers had been searched for and the Sovietunion had ordered four Light Cruisers to be delivered within three years; the deal had seen quite some negotiating as the Soviets had little hard currency and the Italians not wanting to give too much credit though needing to keep its warfs in action to avoid public unrest. As the ships would be delivered to the Black Sea Navy at Odessa the Italians would mainly be paid in Donbas coal.
Generally the Italian Navy lingered on under heavy fiscal restrictions.

France had been the hammer of the Yugoslavian War and the experience of working with the Royal Navy in the Med had brought home a wish for a stronger Naval Air Arm and preferably with a larger Carrier element. The wishes of the Marine Nationale as well as the want of French Government and Parliament of a visible strong France met in the project of a couple of Aircraft Carriers each able to carry an airgroup of at least 45 aircraft prefeably 50. Talks had been initiated during 1936 with Britain to evaluate British designs for the future French Carriers which had led to a 25,000 tons design not unlike the HMS Ark Royal.
France also began building a new Richelieu-class of fast Battleships to replace the old Danton class.

Japan was still building Battleships and Aircraft Carriers in excess of Washington Agreement and London Treaty prompting US building of new ships of both types.
Britain was building its new Dreadnoughts of the King George V class with 15” main battery and was also building an Aircraft Carrier supportship to supply other Aircraft Carrier operations as the Japanese seemed the possible threat in the Far East and such a supportship seemed the solution to the huge distances in the Theatre.

The Sovietunion kept working on improving their old Dreadnoughts – two in the Baltic and one in the Black Sea. None in the Pacific so far as the Japanese Surface Fleet was too close for comfort and the Submarines had really proven themselves.

Manchuria
Everybodys eyes were set on Nonni River and Lungkiang city. Zhukov wanted to act as fast as possible as new artillery and tanks were on its way to Japan. The Japanese however would need time to familiarize themselves with the new hardware; time Zhukov would use to the utmost to prepare for his offensive across the Nonni.

Since 1938 a large part of Gulag inmates had been transported south to build new marshalling yards in as many cities and towns of the Trans-Siberian Railroad as possible but also new ammunition factories and various Military repair facilities in Siberia. The longer term goal was to link up the various becoming short duallines of Trans-Siberian Railroad to have a true dualline all the way from Moscow to Vladivostok.

At Vladivostok the Soviet Pacific Flotilla were receiving new Submarines shuttled across Siberia by train as was about everything else to supply the war effort that wasn't still procurable in Siberia itself or in quantity.
Arriving at Vladivostok the Submarine reinforcements along their warhardened Comrades soon proved themselves adept at sinking Japanese merchantmen carrying supplies from Japan to Korea. The IJN proved itself still rather inept to counter this.

By early February Zhukov felt ready to move; much to the surprise of everybody, except the Japanese on the Nonni where pontoonbridge sections had been assembled on the western bank, the attack came south of the Amur at Chenqing and from the defensive complex in front of Vladivostok and Lake Khanka.
At Chenqing Zhukov had built up a new Mechanized Division that moved south towards Suihua north of Harbin which would bring the Soviets northern prong into the back of the defences of Lungkiang. Still Zhukov had to rely on large Cavalry formations out of necessity due to a lack of trucks to maintain links to his forward troops. In essence those Cavalry being modern Dragoons/mounted Infantry.
Seeing the success of the new Soviet mechanized thrust south the Japanese decided to abandon the Nonni River and fall back on Harbin than wait for the Soviets to use their pontoonbridges to cross it. Zhukov hurriedly threw the pontoonbridges across the Nonni and soon his Mechanized Divisions were racing towards Suihua and Harbin.
Due to the lack of communications lines in Manchuria Zhukovs troops soon overran Army Airfields and depots along the Northwestern Railway leading to Harbin.
As the Japanese Western Desert Force that had held the Nonni Line withered away in the west the Kwantung Army was feaverishly building a defensive line on the Sungari River passing the north and west suburbs of Harbin.
Japan had tried moving an Infantry Division across the strait to Korea but a large number of the merchantmen had been sunk by Soviet Submarines operating in the area. Had the Soviets had a better operational control of its Submarines it could have sunk the majority of the Division. As it was it was bad enough.
Come Spring Zhukovs troops were on the Sungari having advanced the 300 km's from the Nonni and once again waiting for logistics to catch up with the forward elements.
Zhukov's mounted Infantry had suffered serious losses during the advance due to the Japanese well knowing its lack of heavy support weapons due to lack of trucks to move such. Horsedrawn artillery were of course available but not in the numbers wanted and as with everything else logistics being the Achillesheel of the Soviet Far Eastern Special Army. As the Japanese was just as badly off logisticswise they never was able to deal the blows to the Soviet mounted Infantry they needed to cut off the Tank spearheads and they were badly off due to the T-34's armour.

Now being in farmlands the Japanese could make more efficient use of their largely Infantry Army; the Soviet Tank tactics were not suited for the more closed terrain and the Infantry still on the march.
Zhukov had a bad time during Spring until the Soviet Infantry caught up with his Mechanized Divisions on the Sungari and to the south of it.

A very much all-out Soviet-Japanese War by now with the Northwest of Machuria have been occupied by the Soviets.

Well a all out war will mean more focus of Japan towards the Hokushin-ron, a OTL a pre-World War II political doctrine of the Empire of Japan instead of what they went with OTL which was the Nanshin-ron ("Southern Expansion Doctrine" or "Southern Road"), which regarded Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands as Japan's political and economic sphere of influence.

(Partly inspired by raharris1973 thread on ATL-development of Nuclear Weapons)

Scandinavia
The war in the Far East was very far away. The intelligence services of the Scandinavians did notice that their local Communists were still loudly agitating but they seemed to have lost some steam of the previous years; perhaps the gold coffer in Moscow was drying up. Procuring was is a costly business and this one seemed very costly to the Soviets though the Italian contract of trading new Cruisers for Donbas coal indicated they would be ready to use their resources.
There had been Soviet contacts to Scandinavian shipbuilders alike the Italian deal however the Scandinavians would buy their coal in Britain or Germany or Poland and had sufficient steel themselves as well as agricultural produce.
Sovietunion had also tried for an arms deal of various Scandinavian arms designs and ammunition but this had been rejected with the ongoing war in mind. No need to hand over anything as long as Communist agitation were ongoing.

Denmark had reminded the Soviets that they were essentially utilizing the Madsen Arms Factory of Kovrov in Vladimir Oblast though not paying any licence fees and not having done so since the establishment of the factory by 1916; payment of that might be seen as a friendly gesture and a possibility of opening negotiations in areas of interest to the Sovietunion.
No reply would be forthcoming and the issue wasn't brought up again.
Instead Denmark would bring up the issue with the Nordic Brothers; Sweden agreed that it was an important issue and Finland seemed unsure it would be able to defend its borders against the Soviet Juggernaught that had shown its capabilities in Manchouko against a large – if Asian – Power.
The PM's would listen to Professor Niels Bohr and his musings on the shared Atomic Bomb programme; Bohr was confident that the building of the Bomb could be done though the economic cost was horrendous. Bohr was also sure that his team mainly Danish and Swedish scientist's had the theoretical layout for the production of the bomb and subsequent testing of a prototype more or less finalized. Bohr couldn't draw up a time line as there was still the issue of Uranium; the Alunshales of Bornholm and the West Götaland source at Billingen should be able to produce the required amounts but it would need mining something that wasn't ongoing and would be expensive to set up mainly in Denmark that had little experience in mining – except on Bornholm.
Bohr also related that a possible source of income to finance the project at least from the Danish perspective would be the Cryolite mining in southern Greenland a remark that earned him a “sheesh” glance from Danish PM Stauning. Bohr however persevered as he had be told by the Danish Geologists he had worked with on the Uranium prospecting project that war in the Far East had increased the demand for Cryolite somewhat.
At this Stauning told Bohr this to be a political aspect and continue on the science to which Bohr replied that funding the Atombomb project was a political apect too. Stauning then took the scene asking the other PM's of their opinion and willingness to opt into such a huge endeavour.
The answer wasn't clear; the Norwegians wanted to develop their country and was building hydro-electric powerplants to do such in order to electrify the railways to cut down fuel imports which would also open the way to the North of the country. Finland was still struggling industrializing and had a competitor in Norwegian and Swedish logging industries though the Petsamo Mines delivered much needed foreign currency. Denmark still floated upon the waves of the four due to the huge agricultural exports mainly to Britain and Germany but also the other Nordics and its shipbuilding capacity which was in large part a shared enterprise with Norway. Sweden still held sway as the mining and heavy industry of Scandinavia providing Britain and Germany with quality iron ore.
Some economic uplift was needed to be able to really fund the Atombomb programme the Nordics actually wanted as a deterrent to the Sovietunion schemes.

Commercial air transport had been in the works for quite some time but still being for transport and the very wealthy.
This year the Scandinavian Air Transport Firms discuss setting up a joint venture to eliminate double servicing of routes around Europe which is a deficit to all but also to discuss transatlantic flights to get into the much more lucrative US market.
Even if a lot have been achived by the Scandinavians since the turn of the Century and more since the 1905 War with sharing production to avoid money lost on common projects the private ventures isn't really ready for such and Governments are still feeling the effect of the previous decades economic hardship and not prone to support it the negotiations are shelved.
The aircraft able to make the transatlantic transport is on the market but hugely expensive and then there is the question of land or flying boat planes with the respective infrastructure to develop to consider.

Norway also have a wish for developing the communications in the north of the country where a large part of its fishing industry is situated but doesn't have the economic base for realizing such and ships and ferries are relied upon even if a railway line would promise much revenue.
None of the other countries have the same interest not even Denmark and its Northatlantic fishermen in Faeroe Islands and Iceland who also want to attain independence which in the case of Iceland would be determined by referendum by 1944. No need to hand over too much to a stepchild just waiting to run off the premises.

Well not really because Chiang foiled the Soviet attempt at taking over Xinkiang 1939. The Soviet-Chinese relationship is very cool also due to the Soviets not wanting to turn over conquered Manchurian territory to China.