[Glock Glockler]

I was thinking about Operation Keelhaul and all sorts of other bullocks that went on to play nice with the Soviets, and it made me angry, as well as betraying what our country is supposed to stand for. From a foreign policy standpoint, it would have been possible to tell the Soviets to retreat to their pre-war borders or we let Patton loose on him?

Did they have enough resources left to tango with us? If so, for how long before they would have dried up?

What about the possibility of nuking them while they didn't have the bomb yet?

Thanks

[Wildalaska]

They would have kicked our ???.....

Politically it was impossible by the time we could have kicked theirs...

WildrealsticAlaska

[Sir Galahad]

During this time period, there were only three nuclear bombs. One was tested at the Trinity site, one was used at Hiroshima and one used on Nagasaki. There may have been a fourth bomb, but that wasn't clear. What was clear was we didn't have nuclear bombs to use on the Soviets and the lead time to make more would have been quite some time. At the time, the atomic bomb was seen as a way to end the war. The thought of maintaining an arsenal of nuclear weapons did not become thinkable until the Cold War began in earnest, which was not until 1947 really. Underestimating the Soviets was the big German blunder. The Russian desire to defend the Rodina goes well beyond their political aims and ideals. Sure, the Ukranians, Latvians, Estonians, and Lithuanians threw in with the Germans, but they figured it was a way to get paid for killing Jews. The Soviets had just as many men under arms as we did, lots more in fact, and women as well. By the end of the war and the Soviet advance into Germany, they had captured scores of strategic centers of industry, arms factories, regions of raw materials such as steel and coal, cash, gold, manpower, vehicles, foodstuffs and farmland, and weapons technology. Don't forget, they captured just as much V2 rocket technicians and equipment as we did. The war was a gold mine for the Soviets in terms of new technlogy and access to materials and wealth. The Soviet Army commanders had lists of vital industrial centers and arms factories that were to be dismantled and shipped East to the Soviet interior. They rolled up the railroad rails behind the trains headed East. The Soviet push for Berlin was not to end the war. They could have fought on another three years if they had to. The push was to capture the technology and arms of the Axis. The Soviets were never real interested in fighting the Japanese until Stalin thought about the land, but by then, it was too late to make too much of it. But the whole of Eastern Europe was ripe for plucking and Stalin, like Hitler, saw the wealth in his grasp. This is why Hitler wanted Czechoslovakia so bad. For the arms factories, for example. And Poland for the coal and steel. We did not "capture" France, Belgium, and Holland. Besides, it's hard to fight a war dropping beaujolais and burgandy on the Soviet positions. We were simply not equipped to fight the Bear on his own turf, nor were we ever. That's why the defense of Western Europe was dependant upon the use of theater nuclear weapons like the Pershing well up until the collapse of the Soviet Union. This is why the big nuclear war thought imminent in the 1980s was predicted to begin with an unstoppable Soviet/Warsaw Pact armored advance into Western Europe with the U.S. falling back on the Pershings and escalating the conflict into a nuclear one. The Soviets never could figure out how to get around that nuclear question we posed, so they never did invade. Hey, the Cold War was fun while it lasted. Conelrad, Civil Defense, fallout shelters, dosimeters, Nike-Ajax sites...

[abaddon]

Keep in mind that Japan was not totally out of the picture at this point. The Soviets never declared war on Japan until the very end of the war and if we had kept fighting in Europe they would have been likely to ally with Japan and possibly extend WWII a few more years. With an ally in Asia (and the air bases in Siberia) who knows what the Japanese would have been able to pull off in the Pacific. Had we done that WWII could have easily lasted over a decade and we wouldn't necessarily be on top in the end.

Jeff

[amprecon]

Our airpower was superior, their armor was superior. Their masses in numbers of troops and armor would've been overwhelming as they were in full gear for advance. But our high number of efficient air-to-ground would probably have slowed them down.

I think that after fighting the Germans, tactically speaking, the Russians would've been easier to fight, it was just the shear numbers that we'd have issue with.

Also, there wasn't a clear reason to justify our efforts, in that I mean Russia never attacked us nor declared war against us. So we might not of had the will power to continue in a protracted engagement with them.

I believe where a true opportunity was missed was in China, where we were capable of detering the communist threat to the friendly government, but failed to either recognize it or it was deemed not sufficient enough of a threat to take further action.

[Mike Irwin]

That's a scenario I really don't even want to think about.

A full-scale war against the Soviets in 1945?

Jesus.

Victory would have been possible, but it would have made the casualty totals from the first 4 years of the war seem pale by comparison.

At the end of the war it's estimated that the Soviets had between 30,000 and 40,000 tanks in actual service, with at that point in time capability to make another 500 a MONTH.

Soviet armor, and armor tactics, were superior to US. The Sherman couldn't come close to matching the T-34/85 or the KV-1. The M-48 (?) could have, but getting it to Europe in sufficient numbers would have been a really tough thing.

The wildcard in the armor argument? The JS tanks. The United States didn't have anything to match the JS series of tanks until almost 1960.

Similar situation with aircraft, HUGE numbers of Soviet aircraft. Technologically a bit inferior to those of the US, but not so much that the different would have been decisive. The late model Migs, LaaGs, and other fighters were very close to Allied fighter performance, and some of the aircraft that were on the Soviet drawing boards would have keep them apace of US aircraft coming into the fray.

Manpower would have been a big problem, too. At the end of the war the United States was starting to hit the limits of its draft-age men, while during the war the Soviets had between 30 and 50 ready divisions doing nothing but sitting on the Manchurian border waiting for the Japanese to do something.

I wouldn't say that the US couldn't win, but it would not have been a sure thing at all.

The best hope for a rapid win?

Do what the Germans didn't do, and turn the Soviet people against the government.

But, at the end of the Great Patriotic War, that would have been a VERY tough thing to do.

[CZ-100]

My grandfathers made it through the war, if it went on longer they may not have and I would not be here. :what:

We should all be glad it did not happen. If it did, Many of US would not be here today. :(

[Glock Glockler]

We should all be glad it did not happen. If it did, Many of US would not be here today

Perhaps, but we also wouldn't have had to fight the Cold War, so how many people are not here today if we didn't fight Korea, Vietnam, etc? How much better a place woul world be if the Soviet Union didn't spread it's poison throughout the world? Ideally we would have strangled that govt in the cradle, we tried but didn't pull it off for some reason.

Keep in mind that we could have rearmed the Germans when fighting Ivan, maybe even cut a deal with some high ranking Nazis that if they killed or handed over Hitler we could have made a little peace treaty and joined to fight the Soviets together. In that situation Ivan probably wouldn't have gotten a hold of all that groovy German stuff if we did it early enough, and we would have gotten it instead.

Didn't the Czechs have most of the world's Uranium in their country? Throw in a V-2 rocket and you could make dirty bombs all day in Moscow, yes?

[abaddon]

We didn't know at the time that radiation could be that dangerous. Odds are the idea of a dirty bomb wouldn't have even occurred to us.

Jeff

[Sam Adams]

I believe that we would've defeated the Soviets, though with high casualties. Let's look at some facts:

The Soviets had just lost 26-27 million people (this was thought to be 20 million for a long time, until the USSR imploded and the truth came out). The Germans bled them white. We lost 1/2 the number of people in the WHOLE WAR that they lost in the siege of Leningrad.

Yes, they had lots of tanks and could make lots more. To slightly correct Mike Irwin, they couldn't make 500/month. The actual figure was about 40/DAY, or 1200/month (I just saw this last week on a show about the T-34). And the T-34/85 was an awesome machine. The Pershings were capable of knocking them out, however, and were a bit more mobile - we just didn't have very many, but the auto industry would've cranked them out pretty quickly, just as we did with the Shermans. Two things to consider about the tanks - first, they require lots of fuel to run - and I'd bet dollars to donuts that we'd have used B-29's to knock out the Grozny oilfields. Where the Germans lacked in airpower to do this, we could've. Second, we also knew where the tanks were built and, again unlike the Krauts, had the means to send in bombers to destroy the factories.

Our Air Force (AAF, actually) was the largest in the world - we had 80,000 planes in early 1945 before we basically shut down production. We would've had complete control of the air fairly early on, and that alone would've led to victory.

We had an absolutely unparalleled Navy. There were about 25 big carriers and 75-80 smaller ones, and a total fleet of nearly 5,000 ships. We could've invaded anywhere along the Russian coastline that we wanted to, and the Navy would've faced little opposition to the drop off of 1,000,000 Marines. Imagine Task Force 58 from the Pacific (itself larger than any navy then in existence) landing 10 divisions of Marines on the Black Sea coast near the Caucasus mountains, from which they'd have plowed through to the Grozny oil fields, thus starving the Russkies of oil.

Remember, we were untouched by the war and they were devastated. They depended heavily on the existence of the US and UK threat (and later, actual combat forces) to tie down Germans, they relied for a long while on US and UK supplies. And, most important of all, we'd have fought this war on their territory, with all heavy damage accruing against them.

Also counting against the Russians was the command structure. As we've seen since WW2, Western armed forces have regularly kicked @ss on Soviet-style command-and-control. Whereas a Patton or a MacArthur could seize any opportunity that presented itself, a Zhukov or Rokossovsky had to get permission from Uncle Joe to do something, because Joe didn't trust them.

The Soviet logistics system also sucked. Yeah, they'd have put up a truly vicious fight - until their front line armies ran out of ammo or gas.

I know that we would've been smarter than the Nazis and treated the occupied people well in order to win their hearts and minds, sort of like we're currently doing with the Iraqis.

As far as Japan is concerned, by April/May of 1945 it was no longer a threat to us or anyone else. Its navy and air force was destroyed, its only significant army was the Kwantung Army in Manchuria, which the Soviets chopped to shreds in 23 days in August of '45 - I question how effective it would've been against us, and I KNOW that Stalin wouldn't have trusted them with any kind of then-modern Soviet weapons or generous supplies. We'd have bottled up Japan with little effort, and used the remainder of our Pacific forces against the Russians.

In short, we'd have beaten them fairly decisively and within 2-3 years at most. We had superior geostrategic position, the largest navy in the world (and battle-hardened, at that) compared to a coastal defense force, the largest and most advanced air force (and lots of long range bombers, of which the Soviets had few or none), a million VERY battle hardened Marines that our badass navy could've landed anywhere, better command doctrine, and an untouched industrial base. No contest, folks. Heavy casualties for us, to be sure, but it would've been more like the 3rd Punic War than anything else - the Soviet Union would've ceased to exist, just as Carthage did (although I don't know about us salting 1/6 of the Earth's surface - maybe just Moscow and immediate environs :D ).

And none of the above depends on the A-bomb. If necessary, we'd have probably cranked out 10-20 by 1947 and eliminated a bunch of their cities. That would've taken a bit of the fight out of them.

All of this is moot, however, and not just because it didn't happen: there was no stomach here for fighting more, let alone a recent ally, let alone one that possessed the resources of the USSR. We'd have had riots in the streets here, unless someone like Patton could have pulled off an incident that really made the Soviets look bad ("You tell Ike to give me the go ahead, and I'll start a war with them sons'a'bitches in 10 days and make it look like their fault. I'll kick their Mongol asses back into Russia where they belong!!!)

[SkunkApe]

This is great reading. I'm incredibly impressed at the writing skills and knowledge of history exhibited here.

Thanks, guys.

[bad_dad_brad]

The world wanted peace.

We made pacts with Stalin that we had to honor.

Took awhile but we finally won anyway.

Patton was a great war general, but after the war, he was, as he called himself, an anachronism. A man out of time.

Still, I love that "what if" aspect of history and history gaming. It's fun. Even historians play in that sandbox.

[Destructo6]

The thought of maintaining an arsenal of nuclear weapons did not become thinkable until the Cold War began in earnest, which was not until 1947 really.
At the Potsdam Conference, Truman hardened his position against the Soviets practically the moment he heard about the successful test. Dr Hasegawa is working on a book that says that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were as much of a demonstration for the Soviets as it was a way to end the war quickly. Truman really didn't like communism.

[Mike Irwin]

"had the means to send in bombers to destroy the factories."

Sam,

At the end of the war, are you sure that B-29s were capable of reaching the major Soviet tank factories? I'm not so certain that they were, even from Northern Japan.


"we had 80,000 planes in early 1945 before we basically shut down production. We would've had complete control of the air fairly early on, and that alone would've led to victory."

I'm not so sure that I agree with that one at all. The Soviet Air Force was closely pushing the American Air Force in numbers at the end of the war, but more importantly, also in quality.

Also, a large number of those aircraft would have been carrier aircraft, which would be of somewhat limited value in a war against the Soviet Union at that time.

The Navy is another consideration. A war against the Soviet Union would have been primarily a ground war, not a sea war.


"Imagine Task Force 58 from the Pacific (itself larger than any navy then in existence) landing 10 divisions of Marines on the Black Sea coast near the Caucasus mountains, from which they'd have plowed through to the Grozny oil fields, thus starving the Russkies of oil."

And, of course, the Soviets are doing absolutely nothing in response to that? As I noted, the Soviets had between 30 to 50 ready reserve divisions in addition to the something like 350 regular divisions of all types.

As the Soviets proved against the Germans from 1941 through 1943, facing a superior military that vastly outnumbers you in both quantity and quality is no guarantee of victory.

The Soviets had proven themselves more than willing to retreat into Mother Russia, take tremendous casualties, and fight a very expensive countering defensive.

Sorry, Sam, I do not see a clearcut victory in a potential US-Soviet war at that time.

[Iain]

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were as much of a demonstration for the Soviets as it was a way to end the war quickly. Truman really didn't like communism.

Other authors (whose name would be ground into the mud by some ''open minded'' people around here) have been suggesting that for years. The suggestion is that the Americans had decoded the Japanese transmissions going to Moscow. The Japanese were apparently looking to open negotiations with Moscow about a possible surrender. The US didn't like this.

Besides what better way to demonstrate the vast and destructive power of the atom bomb than by dropping a couple?

Why do you even want to think about the possibility of a US/USSR war? Vast casualties, probable use of atomic weapons, the war might well only have ended by the end of the 20th century due to there being nothing left to destroy.

Besides, who has managed to invade Russia successfully? Some of the greater European powers tried, one of the greatest military minds of all time tried (Napoleon), they failed.

And as for this

How much better a place woul world be if the Soviet Union didn't spread it's poison throughout the world?

I would like to point that much spreading of much ''poison'' (i.e a political ideology) was done during the Cold War. Don't forget some of the things that were done in order to ''stem communism''. Not nice and bloody things. No-one is in the right over the Cold War.

[SkunkApe]

No-one is in the right over the Cold War. - St. Johns

I can't let that go unchallenged. On one side, we had a constitutionally-protected government that celebrated the rights of the individual, and on the other, a totalitarian government based on the greatest evil the world has ever seen; communism.

OF COURSE someone was in the right over the cold war. It was us.

[HBK]

I was going to add something to this thread, but I'm so impressed with the knowledge and writing skills exhibited here I think I'll just soak that up and try to learn something.

And I'll agree with Skunkape, WE were in the right in the cold war. Communism...Socialism or whatever you want to call it, is freaking evil.

[Iain]

People died, governments got overthrown and it was all a bit silly.

Morals went out of the window. A communist could make the reverse argument to me about their ''rightness'on this issue and I wouldn't accept it any more than I accept your argument.

I can't let that go unchallenged. On one side, we had a constitutionally-protected government that celebrated the rights of the individual, and on the other, a totalitarian government based on the greatest evil the world has ever seen; communism.

That's your ideology, fine. Bear in mind that some people see the world from the totally reverse angle. Who is right? That is a far too complex question to answer with - ''we are.''

[Byron Quick]

Did Soviet Communism not teach that anything was moral if it advanced the spread of communism? If this is a fact (and it is) exactly how are the communists on an equal moral footing with the West?

A continuation of war at the end of WWII with the Soviets would have been a meatgrinder. The casualties we took in Korea and Vietnam would pale by comparison. Compare our casualties in WWII with our casualties in Korea and Vietnam. A war with the Soviets even before they got the atomic bomb would have been a lot worse.

One of the most stupid things we've ever done is not to help the Russians build up their economy after the Soviet Union collapsed. Seems we'd have learned something from the post WWI situation in Germany. But it appears that we didn't.

[Iain]

Did Soviet Communism not teach that anything was moral if it advanced the spread of communism? If this is a fact (and it is) exactly how are the communists on an equal moral footing with the West?

That's pretty morally degenerate. Was installing fascist dictators in Central American countries any better?

My point is that neither can claim moral superiority, both were paranoid and behaved stupidly.

[Hkmp5sd]

Another thing to consider is that a great many of the German leaders wanted to join forces with the Allies and attack the USSR. This included Hitler. He had little desire to fight the west and was actually surprised when Britain and France declared war on Germany in 1939.

If the bomb plot in 1944 had killed Hitler and the Germans had then combined with the US and Britain to launch an assault against the USSR before the USSR had advanced so deep into Europe, it is quite possible the USSR would have been destroyed or at least ejected from Europe.

The problem with this scenario is that at that time, while the US thought they could defeat Japan, they also expected a great many casualties having to invade the Japanese home islands (the atom bomb was still an unknown). That is why they kept trying to get the USSR to fight the Japanese. A combined force of Germany/USA/England attacking the USSR may have caused them to join forces with Japan (something the Japanese had been begging to happen for years), giving the Japanese some of the USSR's material and personnel resources.

As mentioned earlier, by August, 1945, it is very doubtful that an attack into the USSR would have been successful.

[Sir Galahad]

Yes, it's true. We did things like assassinate Allende. We egged on Eastern European revolts and then left them high and dry. It was a dirty Cold War.

But, boy, we'll never see enemies like them again! Al Quaida and Iraq can't hold a candle to Kruschev banging his shoe on the table and promising to bury us. They had class in a macabre sort of way. At least you knew where you stood with the Soviets. Now, we've got Middle Eastern "allies" like the Saudis who probably funnel more money to Al Quaida than Saddam ever did. With the Soviets, they were all about hoisting that red flag and you knew where to look for that Soviet Union label. We made a lot of technological advances just trying to stay a couple steps ahead of them. Boy, back in the 1980s, they had at least two TV news specials a month about nuclear war or the Soviet military juggernaut in Europe. "This has been a test of the Emergency Broadcast System, or Conelrad. Had this been an actual emergency or attack, you would have been directed where to go in your area..." Duck and cover, duck and cover...

[Mike Irwin]

I would like to toss one more thing out about a possible US/USSR conflict in 1945.

When Germany attacked the Soviet Union, the Soviets were likely at the very bottom of their capabilities. The military had been shattered and stripped of experienced and capable leaders, the industrial economy, while showing sparks of being an economic juggernaut, was still reeling from the negative effects of Stalin's 5-year plans, the agricultural superstructure was in almost absolute chaos, still staggering under low yields from Stalin's forced collectivization, and the people were in virtual revolt in many of the outlying areas.

Into Russia the Germans poured over 1.5 million battle tested troops, the core of what was, at the time, likely the most sophisticated military structure of the day, VERY capably led, and possessing weapons and tactics that were light years ahead of those contemplated by the Soviets.

And yet the Germans failed.

In 1945, the United States was the most powerful military force on the planet, with some of the most technologically advanced weapons, proven tactics, and battle hardened troops.

Had the United States decided to push into the Soviet Union, they would have done so against a Soviet military that was very capably led, whose troops were well armed and solidly battle hardened, and who possessed weapons that, while perhaps not to the same level and those of the Americans, were held on vast scales. Not to mention that their military is also roughly 1.5 to possibly 2 times the size of that of the United States.

The Germans failed with a military force that was vastly superior to that possessed by the Soviets in 1941, and now we're proposing defeating, in the same time frame, a Soviet army whose capabilities and technologies are tested and proven, in a nation whose people are united in a common purpose against any invader.

Sorry, guys, I'm just not seeing it.

[Iain]

That post was strangely nostalgic.

Saddam funnelling money to al-Quaeda? He was pretty much hated by OBL. He funnelled money to suicide bombers in Palestine. There was a British journalist who was almost got by an intelligence operation to link one of the 9/11 hijackers to the Iraqi embassy in Prague. Was all proven to be false.

That is why they kept trying to get the USSR to fight the Japanese. A combined force of Germany/USA/England attacking the USSR may have caused them to join forces with Japan (something the Japanese had been begging to happen for years), giving the Japanese some of the USSR's material and personnel resources.

We also reneged on a promise to open up a new front (S.E Europe I believe) to help relieve the pressure on the Soviets. They didn't forgive us for that too easily. Was quite clear then, to some, the way the allies were headed. I think people were predicting war by 1950 at the latest, thank god it never happened.

[Sir Galahad]

Remember these:

1.) Fallout shelter signs on larger buildings. They were in the basements. Had big tin boxes of graham crackers and hard candy with the Civil Defense logo on them. Cans of water in the old steel soda type cans. First aid kits and dosimeters and cradboard toilets. All this stuff was packed inside the place.

2.) Civil Defense films in high school. Showed you how to live inside that fallout shelter. Remember the turtle with the white Civil Defense helmet? "Duck and cover!"

3.) Nike Ajax and Bomarc sites on East and West coasts. There were a buttload of them around Los Angeles.

4.) Strategic Air Command. Looking Glass. B-52 rapid take-off drills.

5.) The Civil Defense logo on the TV during the Conelrad tests.

6.) Survivalists.

7.) Cheyenne Mountain.

8.) The hullabaloo over the MX missile.


Now we plink with all that Soviet ammo they were stocking up to shoot us with.

[Hkmp5sd]

We also reneged on a promise to open up a new front (S.E Europe I believe) to help relieve the pressure on the Soviets.

Not really. In Aug. '41, the battle at Leningrad began and the following July, the battle at Stalingrad began. The Russians were crying for a second front to draw off pressure. He wanted an invasion of France but was appeased with the invasion of North Africa that occured at the end of 1942 and the promise of an invasion of Europe in 1943.

The invasion of North Africa did pull some of the heat from the eastern front but the Allies realized they would not have enough men and equipment for a cross-channel invasion in 1943. Churchill wanted to attack the "soft underbelly" of the Germans with what was available, but Eisenhower knew that if that occured, it would drain men and equipment having to fight their way through all of the smaller countries and it would probably cancel the Normandy invasion they were shooting for in 1944.

The Allies did take North Africa and Sicily in 1943, which continued to appease Stalin. By the end of 1943, the USSR had retaken Stalingrad, Kursk, Kharkov and were well on their way toward Germany. At this point, Stalin somewhat changed his mind and preferred the western Allies not land on the continent. He wanted the Iron Curtain to be stretched along the French coast. This so worried the Allies that they had made special plans to haul butt toward Germany should the Germans collapse and stop the Russians as far east as possible.

[Byron Quick]

We also reneged on a promise to open up a new front (S.E Europe I believe) to help relieve the pressure on the Soviets. They didn't forgive us for that too easily. Was quite clear then, to some, the way the allies were headed. I think people were predicting war by 1950 at the latest, thank god it never happened.

Please give citations for the above. This is not true according to Churchill.
We did agree to open a second front as soon as militarily feasible. Churchill certainly tried to hold Greece to no avail. Both the US and Britain certainly tried to get Turkey to join the war on the side of the Allies. We did open a second front in North Africa. There were sound strategic reasons for doing so. Just as there were sound strategic reasons for staying the hell away from Europe at that time. Air force squadrons were offered for the southeastern Soviet front. They were refused. The Soviets would not agree to the conditions...such as the Soviet commissars would have no power over the British and Americans. In other words, they couldn't shoot them at will as they did their own officers.

By the way, yes, the US did support and install dictators...to our eternal shame. But, tell me, what's the body count of those dictators? Compare it to the body count of the communist governments. Maintain, with a straight face, that the two are equivalent.

[Destructo6]

The Japanese were apparently looking to open negotiations with Moscow about a possible surrender.
That's totally opposite the conclusion that Hasegawa came to. His assertion is that the Japanese surrendered when they did to prevent any occupation of Japan by the Soviets. In fact, Stalin went into a state of dispair, clearing his busy schedule completely, when he received the news of the dropping of the A-bomb.
That's your ideology, fine. Bear in mind that some people see the world from the totally reverse angle. Who is right? That is a far too complex question to answer with - ''we are.''
Actually, it's not. What the United States and allies did in the Cold War pales in comparison to what the ComBloc did. The pervasive oppression is astounding. Read Timothy Garton Ash's The File or Vaclav Havel's Disturbing the Peace. While you're at it check out the Prague Spring, the Polish uprising, and the Hungarian uprising.

[Sir Galahad]

Hmmmmm......but perhaps the Soviets having France for a few decades might not have been such a bad thing.:evil:

[Malone LaVeigh]

After '47 we would have been fighting against Kalishnikovs. With M-1s.

[priv8ter]

I agree with everyone else...the knowledge I have gained from this is impressive.

Here is my small input...

Militarily, I think we could have won a bloody victory against the Soviets. If something had happened to give us an excuse. I mean, looking back and seeing what would become of Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia, it's easy to think that a continuation of the War would have been better than the Cold War. But at the time, the Soviet's were our Allies. That might not have been how Patton saw it, but according to my grandparents, it's how most American's saw it. I'm not sure we had the heart to attack the Soviets.

That being said, I think we could have driven them out of Europe, and taken some of the Southern Republics, but moving into Russia itself would have been a mistake.

Plus...

Call me un-patriotic, but I'm kind of scared to think what would have happened for the last 50 years without the USSR to keep us occupied. I'll freely admit that while our way of doing stuff is not perfect, it is currently the best way of doing things.

Would we have kept Eastern Europe? Become the Empire builders that everyone else in the world is accusing us of becomming? These are other things to look at.

[Oleg Volk]

One of the most stupid things we've ever done is not to help the Russians build up their economy after the Soviet Union collapsed.

IMO, pulling lend-lease program in early '45 would have slowed the Soviet advance a great deal. Much of the resources USSR used came from the US.

After '47 we would have been fighting against Kalishnikovs. With M-1s.

1954 would have been more like it. In '47, USSR used mostly PPSh submachine guns, M44 carbines and a few SKS rifles. AK47 wasn't truly fielded till much later.

[Byron Quick]

IMO, pulling lend-lease program in early '45 would have slowed the Soviet advance a great deal. Much of the resources USSR used came from the US.

Oleg,
Undoubtedly you are correct. But the help I was talking about was for 1990 not 1945.
____________________________________________________________


l had a neighbor who was a captain in military intelligence back during the mid 70's. He said some interesting things about the Soviet Union. Moscow's population claims for example. He said that an analysis of the rail traffic, river traffice, and highway traffic into Moscow would, at most, support a population of about half of the official claim. And that this was found to be true throughout the Soviet Union in every city...the published population statistics were WAY off. Same thing with steel production...once you listed everything they were making with steel and subtracted it from claimed steel production-only two possible outcomes:1) the Soviets were vastly overstating steel production or 2) somewhere in the Soviet Union was the world's biggest pile of rusting steel.

[Mike Irwin]

"IMO, pulling lend-lease program in early '45 would have slowed the Soviet advance a great deal. Much of the resources USSR used came from the US."

By 1945 not nearly as much as you would think.

By that time the Soviets had received huge amounts of American equipment, that is true, but at the same time had augmented that equipment with absolutely ENORMOUS amounts of equipment of their own of all types.

Had the United States really wanted to slow the Soviets down, the easiest way would have been in 1942-43 by cutting off supplies of transport vehicles, most specifically the GMC made 2 1/4 ton trucks that went to the Soviets in such huge numbers.

[Destructo6]

One of the most stupid things we've ever done is not to help the Russians build up their economy after the Soviet Union collapsed.
What do you mean? The US has sent vast amount of money to the Russian Federation. $16.34 Billion as of September 1995.

http://www.afpc.org/issues/dos2.htm

[Sam Adams]

I still think that the US would have defeated the USSR in an all-out war that started in 1945. The casualties would've been enormous, but we'd have prevailed.

What you said about the German/Russian balance in '41 vs. the US/USSR in '45 or '46 was partially true. Yes, the Germans were battle-hardened - but that was against Poles, Belgians, Dutch, Norwegians, a bunch of English that ran away, French (need I say more) and - lest we forget - the fierce Luxembourgers. In other words, they were good, but no match in the "battle-hardened" catagory for us in 1945. We had fought the Krauts and Japanese which counts for something. Yes, the disparity between the Germans and USSR in '41 was greater than US vs. USSR in '45, but not as much as you think. Also, even at the end of the war the Germans were still taking out Russians at pretty good ratios (take a look at the Battle of Berlin). Germany invaded with all of 3,000 tanks, after having produced only 1,000 in the year since the fall of Frogland (Hitler still had some kind of inferiority complex that forced him to revert a bit to civilian production, so that he'd be popular). We had tens of thousands, and an untouched industrial base to make more. Some of the German commanders were the best going, but they were handicapped by their political superiors. I don't think that this would have handicapped the US. Also, the Germans didn't field a tank equal to the T-34 until 1943 (the Panther), and then only in relatively small numbers. We were beginning to field the Pershing at the end of the war, and could've produced it in huge numbers (that untouched industrial base is a handy thing). The superior M-48 came along not too long after that, and without the threat of immediate war, so we'd have had even better stuff than the Pershing available pretty quickly. In conclusion on this point, we were more relatively superior to the USSR at the end of WW2 than you seem to think, though not nearly in the same way as the Germans were vs. the USSR in '41.

Regarding the AAF - it ALONE was 80,000 strong (though some were, like any air force, only trainers or obsolete aircraft). Remember, everyone thought Roosevelt was crazy to call for the production of 50,000 planes a year in 1941, but in 1944 alone we made 120,000! Nothing the Soviets had could come close to the P-51s and the B-29's - Hell, they barely had a bomber the equal of the B-17, a mid-1930's US design. The Navy's aircraft were separate from those of the AAF.

About the B-29's: The range on them was about 3,200 with 5,000 lbs. of bombs at high altitudes and a full load of machine guns and ammo. Strip some of the air defense and increase the range and/or bombload. Still, by itself this would not have been enough to reach the Urals and return from US stopping points in Europe. But what about all of those unemployed ships, Marines and Army in the Pacific (at least 80% of what we had there, whether the other 20% was garrisoning Japan or merely putting it under siege)? A landing near Vladavostock (sp.?) and another one a few hundred miles north would have cut off the Kamchatka peninsula in a matter of weeks. Then they'd push inland not too far north of the Manchurian/Chinese border, and set up bases hundreds or even a thousand miles or more inland, to the EAST of the Urals. We might even have been able to stage B-29's and/or land operations from China, as our ally the Nationalists controlled a bunch of territory there. Yes, the Soviets might possibly have used their reserve divisions to respond, but they didn't generally react too quickly compared to the offensive operations of a Patton or MacArthur (nor did the Krauts or Japs) - and besides, the B-29's could've easily blasted the relatively few roads and rail lines out there for 1,500 miles forward of the American front lines. Not being able to easily reinforce the Siberian front, the Soviets would've lost there. Take over a large chunk of Siberia (in the Spring, of course - we wouldn't have made the same stupid mistake that the Germans did), and you would've done several things: win a propaganda victory, cut off (for later destruction or surrender) any Soviet forces behind the lines, deny the mineral resources of the area to the Soviets, and move the footprint of destruction or denial of use for the Soviets much closer to the Urals. By the way, if you combine a Siberian operation with a massive landing in the Black Sea area and/or an offensive from British-controlled Mideast, you'd have pinched off the Soviets' oil AND forced them to split their forces, thereby reducing the effectiveness of resistance. With insufficient oil, it would've made little difference if the Soviets had 10,000, 40,000, or 200,000 T-34/85s armed and ready to go - there'd be no "go" there. Remember, they were strategically a lot less mobile than we, especially because of our naval strength, so we could've probably pulled off 2 major operations like this (just as we were able to fight a 2 front war in WW2). The Soviets would have been in a world of hurt.

Oh, and don't count out the Germans. No, I DON'T mean as combat forces - I don't think that this was realistic in a political sense. I mean their higher-level commanders (those that survived that we captured) who'd have told us everything that they knew about Soviet weapons, tactics, etc. The Soviets would've had no equivalent.

Again, we'd have suffered massive casualties, much more than in WW2, but we'd have prevailed if the political will was there. The Soviets were exhausted by war and their economy was in tatters after years of devoting 60% of GNP to the military. Our industrial base was untouched, our manpower was near full capacity (500,000 dead vs. 27,000,000), we had access to unlimited oil and mineral resources from numerous sources, our commanders and general philosophy was more attuned to a rapid war with extensive use of combined arms operations, and WE HAD THE BOMB. All of these advantages point to an American victory - at great cost, no doubt - but a victory nonetheless. American tanks would've paraded in Red Square by 1949, assuming that it wasn't a radioactive crater.

All of this, of course, presupposes that WE hit first. Do it the other way around and the Soviets would've been sunning themselves on the Pas de Calaise in 1946. We'd have kept them out of England, but that war would've continued until we had sufficient ultra-long range BUFFs or ICBM's to lay waste to the USSR.

Of course, as all of us recognize, the entire world was exhausted by war and only wanted peace, so this is all a bunch of (rather interesting) mental Onanism.

BTW, does anyone know of a good computerized wargame of this scenario? It would be interesting to see how it was designed.

[Destructo6]

The modernity of the German armed forces was a thin veneer at the outbreak of WWII. Omer Bartov wrote, Hitler's Army: Soldiers, Nazis, and War in the Third Reich where in the first chapter he lists the numbers of tanks and other modern equipment weilded by the German military. The Allies had more guns, more plane, pretty much more and usually better of everything. What they didn't have was Blitzkrieg and massed armor to defend against it. The thrust of this first chapter is the demodernization of the German army on the Eastern Front.

[Mike Irwin]

"The Allies had more guns, more plane, pretty much more and usually better of everything."

I have to take offense at that...

No, the German army certainly wasn't the ubermechanized colossus that some make it out to be. The most common means of transportation was still the horse.

The fact remains that in 1939 the German Air Force was the most modern in the world. It could only hope to be, given that it was largely created from scratch. Allied superiority in numbers really didn't mean much, when most of those aircraft were early 1930s designs that were still soldiering on in the wake of the "War to end all wars" mentality.

Most of the Allied nations had severely neglected their airforces, relying on stocks of old, obsolete aircraft. It was only through herculean efforts that Reginald Mitchell was allowed to continue development on the Spitfire in the face of governmental opposition. The same was true with with other British aircraft.

The Italians had probalby the most advanced designs next to the Germans and British, but had a horrifically inefficient manufacturing infrastructure.

The French also had some decent airframes, but insisted on making their aircraft in runs of tens, instead of hundreds, and installing engines that were hardly capable of powering a paper airplane.

As for armor, the Soviet armored force greatly outnumbered the Germans. But the overall quality and leadership sucked pond water.

The British looked at tanks largely as an extension of infantry, so didn't have the numbers or the tactics to meet the Germans head on.

The French had EXCELLENT overall designs, such as the Somua, but they were too few, had fatal flaws in which they expected the tank commander to also serve as radio operator, gunner AND loader, and were poorly led.

The fact remains that the German army that marched into Russia in 1941 was, at the time, the single best military force on the face of the planet.

If that force couldn't break and defeat one of the most unorganized and technologically challenged militaries in the world, I believe that says a lot for the chances of the United States garnering a relatively easy victory.

[Mike Irwin]

"What you said about the German/Russian balance in '41 vs. the US/USSR in '45 or '46 was partially true. Yes, the Germans were battle-hardened - but that was against Poles, Belgians, Dutch, Norwegians, a bunch of English that ran away, French (need I say more) and - lest we forget - the fierce Luxembourgers."

Sam,

Your analogy is so deeply flawed that I'm not sure where to start.

Remember that the Germans were attacking an nation that had no military experience to speak of, no cohesive leadership since Stalin's purges in the 1930s, no real core of modern weapons (but with some significant designs on the drawing boards).

It seems to be that you're saying that relatively speaking, the Soviet army was less experienced in fighting the Germans than the United States by 1945. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

By 1945, the Soviets had been fighting the Germans for almost two years LONGER than the United States had (the United States military saw no cohesive action against the Germans until almost 1943), and against which the Germans poured roughly 2/3rs of its total military effort until VE day.

It would be easy to say that the Soviets gained battle hardening against the Finns in the Great Winter War, but losses against the Finns were so horrific that there really wasn't a significant nucleus of battle tested troops that could be spread around the rest of the Soviet army.

"Yes, the disparity between the Germans and USSR in '41 was greater than US vs. USSR in '45, but not as much as you think."

Actually, if anything, it was greater, Sam. In virtually every important category except raw manpower the Soviets were lagging behind the invading Germans. Artillery was the one bright spot in the Soviet arsenal, but in the first year of campaigning the Germans captured nearly 40 percent of the Soviet's artillery, so much, in fact, that at least one type of Soviet gun was adopted into the Germany army as a standard weapon.

"Also, even at the end of the war the Germans were still taking out Russians at pretty good ratios (take a look at the Battle of Berlin)."

There's a very good reason for that, as well -- the Soviet style of attack. Essentially massed infantry tactics that stressed advance over all else. The Soviets presented the Germans time and time again with target rich environments, and even so, the Germans were unable to stem that tide.

"Germany invaded with all of 3,000 tanks, after having produced only 1,000 in the year since the fall of Frogland (Hitler still had some kind of inferiority complex that forced him to revert a bit to civilian production, so that he'd be popular). We had tens of thousands, and an untouched industrial base to make more."

As you yourself noted above, the Soviets were turning out 1,000 tanks a month by 1945, or more, of a type and quality that put Allied tanks to shame. The United States had no tank that could stand one on one with a T-34 in any numbers.

The Pershing likely could have, but it couldn't have touched a JS-1 or a JS-2, and in reality the T-34/85 wasn't inferior when compared to the Pershing, but on par.

The great fly in the ointment for the Pershing was the fact that it had to be sea carted to the battlefield, where as Soviet tanks could either be delivered by train, or as the battlefield gets closer, simply driven to the front.

As for the M-48, it wasn't highly superior to the JS-2s or JS-3s, either, but again, on par.

American armor techniques against the Germans were predicated on the fact that a large number of Allied tanks can destroy a lesser number of German tanks of greater capability, but only if the Allied tanks are willing to accept losses.

Those tactics simply wouldn't have worked with the Soviets, because they also had tens of thousands of tanks. And, given their experience in tank warfare on the Steppes at battles such as Kursk and Kharkov, Soviet armor doctrin was, if anything, superior to that of the United States in 1945.

It's true that the United States had an untouched industrial infrastructure, but it's also interesting to note that Soviet military production in many critical categories almost virtually mirrored that of the United States, and that was done while part of the nation was at war.

It's also true that a large part of the Soviet military production capability had never been touched by the war, either, having been either moved out of reached of the Germans and reassembled, or simply build from scratch.

Much has been made of the swing to military production in the US during WW II, but not nearly enough has been made about the phenomonal feat by the Soviets to simply CREATE a massive military industrial infrastructure while it was at war.

"Nothing the Soviets had could come close to the P-51s and the B-29's"

No, the Soviets had no heavy strategic bombing capabilities. But you're incorrect regarding the assessment of the Soviet fighter capabilities.

Late Marks of the Yak-3, La-11, and the little-known Mig-7 were all very capable fighters, on par with American late-war offerings.

And remember, too, that the Soviets were no slouch when it came to aircraft production -- over 40,000 Yaks of all marks alone, including nearly 14,000 in 1943 alone, when the outcome of the Eastern front was still questionable.

Add to that over 42,000 Stormoviks, nearly 20,000 Pe-2/3s, another 10,000 TU-2s (ostentatiously the Pe-2/3s replacement), and tens of thousands of other aircraft.

In your scenario of invasion into the heart of Siberia, you're neglecting one important thing -- the same lack of roads and railroads that supposedly hammers the Soviet response also hampers the American invasion.

Also, EAST of the Urals is a relative term. Much of the Soviet industry that was established West of the Urals was in the region between the Urals and with a western boundary of Novosbirsk in the south to Noril'sk in the North.

You do realize that that's almost 4,000 miles?

One way?

Also, don't for a moment count on British assistance, or even Chinese staging areas. The British under Clement Atlee would have very neatly said "no way" to supporting an American push against the Soviet Union, and the Chinese very quickly afte the fall of Japan went right back to fighting among themselves. Chiang essentially expelled the American military presence in China for refusal to assist in the war against Mao. There's really no way he would have been interested in supporting a war against the Soviet Union.


"I mean their higher-level commanders (those that survived that we captured) who'd have told us everything that they knew about Soviet weapons, tactics, etc. The Soviets would've had no equivalent."

Actually, we already had much of that information, and what the Germans could provide to us would have been of limited "fleshing out" value. Remember, as allies, the Soviets and the United States didn't stick strictly to a few high-level conferences with no military co-ordination.

Finally, you keep coming back to the supposition that the Soviet Union was exhausted.

Here's a hideous fact. In 1945, the United States was beginning to have serious manpower problems in developing new military combat units.

In 1945, the Soviet Union was still creating an average of 20 to 30 combat ready divisions a year.

It's largely a fallacy that the Soviet Union was exhausted in a military and manpower sense in 1945. Yes, the nation had undergone serious privations. But it still wielded immense power.

Many of the dead during the War were of non military importance, to put it crudely -- the young and old, or those least able to defend/make do for themselves in a time of war.

The Soviet Union's population at the beginning of the war (1939) was roughly 200 million. At the same time, the US population was roughly 140 million.

Even removing those killed in the war, the Soviets still have a roughly 40 million population surplus.

To add to that, there's the final wildcard in the Soviet military structure... Their willingness to use women in combat roles. Not in support roles, but in direct combat roles.

Ugh, lord, I've been researching, and working on, this response for almost 2 hours. My how time does fly!

Anyway.

One final thought on a general land war against the Soviet Union.

From the 1950s through the 1960s, and even beyond, most of the strategic planners in the US military considered a ground based conventional war (based on the MAD principal) to be...

Unwinnable, and actual invasion of the Soviet Union a recipe for disaster.

American doctine, even up to the 1980 in Europe, was one of "deep war," which stressed slowing the Soviet forces, throwing them out of their timetables, and pinning them down and taking away the maneuver ability that was the entire basis for Soviet scenarios in Europe.

Tom Clancy's "Red Storm Rising" is a pretty good look at the concept of "deep war" fighting in Europe, based largely on NATO scenarios.

[Camel]

You have to consider the thing that stopped Napolean and Hitler. Russia is absolutely HUGE. They could afford to fight all the way to the Pacific, stretching supply lines very thin. Can you imagine convoys trying to make it accross Siberia? Then count in the winter and imagine trekking accross Siberia when its -60 degrees. A large part of Russia is a vast expanse of nothing but frozen tundra thats not even suitavle to dig a foxhole in. After are troops got a good distance into this wasteland the Russians could just wait for winter to cut the supply lines and starve them out.

[agricola]

some comments:

i) the abilities of Allied air-to-ground tactics can be overestimated when compared with the Soviets. Remember that they had the finest air-to-ground platform in the world at the time - the Il-2 and its successors - in huge numbers and they were experienced from four years of the most brutal war in existance.

ii) the differences in armour have been noted and are true enough - except that the way the Allies handled armour then was much worse than the way the Soviets did. One forgets that the revolution that was the ALB within the US military at the turn of the 1980's was fundamentally based on mainly Soviet and German theory and practice. Plus the late-war Red Army was pretty much the class of the world in terms of the armoured offensive

iii) the limitations of the Soviet dependence on oil is true enough, but the Allies were dependent on PLUTO and oil shipping into war-devastated port facilities.

[greyhound]

1.) Fallout shelter signs on larger buildings

Downtown Baltimore still has those signs on many buildings. I find myself staring at them a lot.

Also, great info here, folks!

[Glock Glockler]

After '47 we would have been fighting against Kalishnikovs. With M-1s

And as allies to the new post-Hitler Germany we could have had Stg-44s and all the other nifty stuff those efficient Germans could come up with.

Another thing to keep in mind is that it would not have been America v. the USSR, we would have had the Germans with us. The whole idea was to expand on Patton's fantasy of rearming the Germans on take on Ivan, so pehaps there would have been American pilots flying ME-262s and Americans in Tiger and Panther tanks.

For that matter, would it even have been feasable to cut a deal with certain ambitous Nazis for the heads of the govt (Hilter, Himler, Goering, Goebells, etc) in exchange for a high position in the American controlled German puppet govt?

That being said, my sincere thanks to all who participated in this thread, you guys have made this very entertaining and extremely educational

[Mike Irwin]

"Another thing to keep in mind is that it would not have been America v. the USSR, we would have had the Germans with us."

Glocker,

Sorry, but that's also a fantasy, in my opinion.

What logical reason would the defeated Germans have for attacking the Soviet Union with the United States?

Remember, anti-Communism was Hitler's rallying cry. With Hitler gone and Germany handed one of the truly monumental arse kickings in history, what conceivable reason would the Germans have of wanting to play round two of that particular game?

National pride? The nation was gone, and all that was left was a heap of rubble.

Had America been foolish enough to try this, there's absolutely NO doubt in my mind that we would have had to have gone it alone.

As for cutting a deal with highly placed Nazis. Again, the chances of that happening are nil, in my estimation. The United States and its allies had demanded and won unconditional surrender. Allowing either the, or even a, Nazi to remain in a position of high power would have been unthinkable.

Remember the amount of flack that Patton caught when it became publically known that he had mid-level Nazis in positions of control.

Finally, and here's a killer...

The United States heads into a war with the Soviets in 1945.

How do you explain that to the American people?

The SAME nation that for nearly 5 years has been a recipient of millions of dollars in American war aid against the common foe, the same nation that has been portrayed heroically as defending its freedom and identity against the godless unhuman evil Nazi agressors.

Just how do you make that temporal leap, from close friend, ally, and partner in saving the world from Nazi tyrany to enemy of the United States, virtually overnight?

The simple fact of the matter is, you don't, and you can't.



Agricola,

"except that the way the Allies handled armour then was much worse than the way the Soviets did."

I'm not certain I'd say much worse, but I would say MUCH differently. Remember, both Britain and the United States viewed the tank as an adjunct of infantry operations, not a separate force arm all its own.

In a way, given the terrain of Western Europe, that does make some sense. There are very few places in Western Europe where an armored free-for-all even half the size of Kursk could have occurred.

American and Western European armored tactical doctrin did begin to change dramatically as the lessons of the war were examined in greater detail, but NATO's tank doctine never did match that of the Soviets for a very simple reason -- NATO strategy wasn't based on a thrust into the Soviet Union, it was based on expectation of a Soviet invasion into Western Europe.

In the 1970s and 1980s the tactical doctine did begin to change again, but for very good reason -- there was a shift from an expected Soviet invasion into Western Europe to an invasion into the deserts and oil fields of the Middle East.

[moa]

Something else to consider is that in 1945 there were probably many more Soviet spies in the White House and State Department then there were American or Allied spies in the Kremlin.

Solid espionage can overcome the best efforts of the greatest militaries.

It was a Soviet spy in Toyko that probably began the defeat of Hitler at Stalingrad in 1943. It was other Soviet spies in Germany that probably led to the defeat of Hitler at Kursk in 1943.

Knowing the enemies plans and intentions beforehand is a hugh advantage.

[Destructo6]

Remember, anti-Communism was Hitler's rallying cry. With Hitler gone and Germany handed one of the truly monumental arse kickings in history, what conceivable reason would the Germans have of wanting to play round two of that particular game?
Hate and fear. Not exactly logical, but a good motivator.

[Mike Irwin]

Hitler had already played the hate and fear card for the Germans, back when they were at the top of their ballgame.

Playing the hate and fear card when your subjects are completely demoralized and about as low as they can go in every conceivable sense can take years to build people up to the level that they're willing to act out.

For example... Hitler.

He started in 1923 with his rhetoric. In the early days he had a small core of followers. As the German economic situation waxed and waned, he was able to gather more people around him.

But if you had asked the average German in 1925 if they would go to war against the Jews or Soviets, he probably would have just looked at you as if you were a leper.

Given the proper amount of conditioning, however, the contrivance of enough "scapegoat" situations, the people will come around to do what you want of them.

No, in 1945 there was a lot of hate and fear in the German population, but it wasn't of a type that could be channeled usefully into a war against the Soviets.

It was unfocused, and undeveloped.

[Hkmp5sd]

No, in 1945 there was a lot of hate and fear in the German population, but it wasn't of a type that could be channeled usefully into a war against the Soviets.

A good example of the fear was the wholesale exodus toward the Allied lines so the soldiers could escape the Russian retribution and the women could escape the systematic rape the Russian soldiers were performing. By this time, the fear outweighed everything else and the only thing the Germans wanted was distance between themselves and the Russians.