The Moscow Option-1942 - Paperback

by Dale Cozort (Author)

In this alternate history scenario, Hitler makes a different choice in spring 1942. Instead of heading south toward the Caucasus, he renews the German drive on Moscow.

That's a tough choice. Moscow was the vital transportation and communications hub of the Soviet Union, as well as an important symbol of Soviet power, and while the Soviets pushed the Germans back from Moscow in their winter offensive, the Germans were still far closer to Moscow than they were to the Caucasus oil fields. On the other hand, the Soviets expected a drive on Moscow and had built up formidable defenses in front of it. Going after the Caucasus oil, if it worked, would conquer over 80 percent of Soviet oil, but getting to those oil fields meant covering huge, maybe impractical distances, wearing down German men and machines and opening up long, vulnerable flanks, as the Germans discovered at Stalingrad.

The different decision leads to alternate World War II, with ripples spreading to the Pacific even before the Germans move a single soldier, with the course of the war diverging, converging and diverging again as the fates of dozens of countries and factions throughout the world change.

The Moscow Option-1942 appeared as a serialization in The Best of Space Bats volumes 1 & 2. This volume simply brings those pieces together. It is written for history lovers and is a description of a fictional world rather than a traditional work of fiction with fictional characters and story arcs.