AdrianE, thanks for the tit bit on LW airfields, it's yet another thing I was not aware of. As for 6000 T34 and KV-1, you might have a good chunk of those 6000 replaced by T-34M (a complete redesign) and KV-3+. The switch over to T-34M (scheduled Aug-Sep '41) might have imposed a reduction in overall production, but still there would have been very good numbers of superior tanks, likely more 76+mm armed tanks than the whole German armour pool available for a '42 Barbarossa.
The modernisation of the Red Airforces (VVS and PVO) is often overlooked by us ground pounding players. Like the Italians, the Soviets suffered from a half generation design lead in the '30s. IE for most of the '30s they were fairly far ahead with excellent designs like the I-15, I-15bis and I-16. By '40 their newest bulk service design was the I-153, a biplane. I suppose one way to look at it is to take a peacetime aircraft generation as 10 years, so in the '30s they were 5+ years ahead but by '40 they were 5- years behind.
Aircraft going into service in '41.
MiG-3: An excellent high altitude interceptor, unfortunately not suited to the low level combat that was the hallmark of historical EF air combat.
LaGG-3: Not too bad but dogged by bad build quality and weight creep. It had the advantage in using non strategic materials (wood) for much of it's airframe. By '43 it was to be dropped but the replacement of the inline M-105 engine by the M-82 radial led to the La-5 and LA-7 which were very competitive to war's end. The original LaGG-3 might be considered equivalent to a Hurricane or P-40, the later La-5/7 to a Fw-190.
Yak-1: Competitive from the start and led to the Yak-7, Yak-9 and finally the Yak-3 which I consider the best low to medium altitude dog fighter of WW2.
IL-2: What else can I say, a nightmare for any ground convoys.
Overall, I whole heartedly agree that though the Germans would have made some gains (simple momentum), a German '42 invasion would have been far, far worse for them than the historical
Barbarossa.
What the Nazis needed was a Japanese attack/two front war for the Russians. That would have meant operation Typhoon could have held its gains.
A few years ago in another thread I outlined my views in
http://www.gamesquad.com/forums/index.php?threads/t-34-the-best-tank-of-the-war.118625/page-6#post-1697711, rather than me cutting and pasting and taking up Don's disk space have a look there. Other than rereading the forces held in the Soviet Far East and upping the numbers from 0.5-1.0 M to 1.0-1.5 M, bigger than I remembered at the time I posted, my views remain unchanged.
As a general aside, the Germans seemed to lack a coherent high level strategic vision. Before and for quite a time after
Barbarossa, the Germans could not agree on something even as basic as "To Moscow or not to Moscow". Everything seemed to be decided on the fly, on the cheap, "It'll be allright on the night". As
AdrianE said "victory disease". They just simply never seemed to think things fully through.