1945 Soviets vs. the 1945 Allies. Who would have won??
- Thread starter TheGLOV
- Start date
Advantage on the ground to the Russians; ruthless and relentless tank and infantry attackers.
Advantage in the air to the Allies
If the fight went on long enough, US armed forces could be moved from the Pacific or launch attacks through Asia; and perhaps the atomic bomb or threat of it would come into play.
Advantage in the air to the Allies
If the fight went on long enough, US armed forces could be moved from the Pacific or launch attacks through Asia; and perhaps the atomic bomb or threat of it would come into play.
Have to go with the good guys every time. The Allies, but this is like asking who would win in their prime, Rocky Marciano or Mohammed Ali?
we had the a-bomb, no one else did....we win
The US had a MASSIVE military presence in the Pacific. With our large contingent in Europe, led by Patton's experienced force, we had the Soviet Union on both sides, East and West. Plus, we had the A-bomb operational. Like the film showed, our bombers would have won this war by bombing the living HELL out of the USSR. Patton may have been right. We should have kept on going!
The Soviets had 400 divisions in western Europe in 1945, we had about 85.
France wasn't going to fight, "The Allies" were us and an exhausted Britain. Soviet tanks were better than German tanks- and WAY better than ours. Our population was done with war, theirs did as they were told.
We had more air power, but they had a lot. Our navy would not have been a factor, other than keeping the sea lanes open. And most of it, along with the entire Marine Corps, and a lot of Army units were in a fight in the Pacific.
Nobody in Washington gave a shit about Eastern Europe- nobody.
Unless you actually think that the US was going to use nukes on white Europeans, there was no way for the Allies to win that fight.
France wasn't going to fight, "The Allies" were us and an exhausted Britain. Soviet tanks were better than German tanks- and WAY better than ours. Our population was done with war, theirs did as they were told.
We had more air power, but they had a lot. Our navy would not have been a factor, other than keeping the sea lanes open. And most of it, along with the entire Marine Corps, and a lot of Army units were in a fight in the Pacific.
Nobody in Washington gave a shit about Eastern Europe- nobody.
Unless you actually think that the US was going to use nukes on white Europeans, there was no way for the Allies to win that fight.
What if Lee commanded the CSA in a war against
I'm thinking the Penguins !!! win again !!!
I'm thinking the Penguins !!! win again !!!
They had the infantry numbers but EVENTUALLY the massive industrialization of the United States would have slowly overwhelmed Russia.
You realize we dropped the only A-bombs we had at that time, right? (Though I heard Paul Tibbets once claim there was a second Fat Man, at least components of one, in Utah... had we needed a third drop )
At the end if 1945... we were all the way up to two in the warehouse...
Besides, was Eisenhower supposed to put it in a bus and drive it to Moscow?
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Weren't the soviet troops, despite their numbers, a bunch of cold, hungry, demoralized guys by the end?
I tend to agree with this. With around 20 million+ troops and civilians killed already I see the Soviets as stretched about as far as they could go. At this point in the war they were about maxed out while the relatively unscathed USA was just finding its stride.
Exactly how long were the Soviets expected to have enough supplies without the US constantly resupplying them? No US supplies and the Soviet army grinds to a halt quickly. The US army was a heck of a lot better supplied than the Germans who the Soviets struggled mightily to defeat. When it comes to logistics, and war really is heavily weighted towards it, the US had a massive, massive advantage.
The average Soviet soldier didn't exactly like their government, they just hated and feared the Germans even more. When the Germans first invaded they were viewed as akin to liberators. The Germans quickly squandered that potential.
When it comes to geography, the US again has the massive advantage. All of its industrial might was out of reach of the Soviets. On the other hand, the war would be fought almost exclusively on Soviet territory with all of its industrial factories in range of US bombers.
As others have mentioned, the A bomb. Even if you don't use it on a city, you can still attack the marshalling and storage areas and utterly devastate an army.
All of that and we haven't even gotten to the qualitative and in some cases numerical superiority of the armies, leadership, or air and naval power.
The average Soviet soldier didn't exactly like their government, they just hated and feared the Germans even more. When the Germans first invaded they were viewed as akin to liberators. The Germans quickly squandered that potential.
When it comes to geography, the US again has the massive advantage. All of its industrial might was out of reach of the Soviets. On the other hand, the war would be fought almost exclusively on Soviet territory with all of its industrial factories in range of US bombers.
As others have mentioned, the A bomb. Even if you don't use it on a city, you can still attack the marshalling and storage areas and utterly devastate an army.
All of that and we haven't even gotten to the qualitative and in some cases numerical superiority of the armies, leadership, or air and naval power.
Well it was May, so they weren't cold.
They had gone from victory to victory for at least the final year- probably good for morale-they kicked the crap out of the Germans
And they were in control of all of Eastern Europe, so I think they were eating better than they did at home
All those Russian divisions exited because the industrial power of the west equipped them. That spigot would be turned off and the Allies would win such a war.
The US had one huge advantage the Germans failed to develop. Long range bombers. The US would have been able to bomb the industrial plants in western Russia. The Russian Air Force was largely a joke during WWII. US would have carpet bombed the crap outta Stalin.
This.....Russians had no air force. USA had perfected bombing and were starting to understand joint operations of Land/Sea/Air. USA (and Britian) would have just bombed all major Russian cities and easily could have destroyed the rail lines that brought the Siberian products to the Russian army. Russia would have run out of supplies very quickly. Eastern Europe hated the Russians so that territory would had would have been rife with underground disruption further disrupting any chance the Russians had of re-supplying. And by that time in the Pacific, Japan did not have much left. Japan was pretty much trapped on their island relying on kamikaze bomb runs as their last resort. So the USA probably would have just kept a naval force their (which would not have been able to do much against Russia anyway) and just kept Japan on the island and pivoted to a land war against Russia from the South and West.
With the proviso that we didn't have enough nuke raw material to make more nukes, I'd bet on the Russians. Why?
- First and foremost, they have way too much territory to cover. Part of the Nazi's problem was that they couldn't hold land taken because the Russians were just an ongoing unstoppable hoard of people hurling their bodies into the front. Nazi's had way superior logistics, equipment and training. Soviets just won on sheer numbers.
- Russians had the best tanks in the war. The T34. It was better than the Panzer, equal to the Tiger...but with substantially more oil, the T-34 wiped the slate of Tigers and it was all over but the shouting in early 1942.
- I just don't see how the US could have handled the entire country. The Soviet Union is twice the physical size of the US and much better rail coverage.
- without a fatal blow early (talking nukes here), the Soviets would have simply outlasted the western allies. France and England were spent. It would have come down to the US vs USSR. Way too much logistics to overcome.
- My guess is that we would have had to negotiate a settlement. I don't think the Soviets could have projected power into the USA so the war would have been fought in eastern Europe. We may have contained their agression in what used to be called the "Soviet Bloc", but we wouldn't have conquered the USSR and we would have lost hundreds of thousands of men.
I have to disagree. Just too much territory to cover. we would have gotten very little from England and France. France was still dealing with so many Vichy, England was spent. Most of Eastern Europe was a ruins. Everything from Poland to the Caucasus was toast. Talk about having no railway to move logistics, how would you get oil to the front?
OMG no contest. The US military by mid-1945 was dominant. They had fighters that could dramatically outperform Soviet planes (just for example, Soviet fighters at that point couldn't fly at nearly the altitude of Allied fighters so they would have lost every dogfight). The U.S. could also produce planes and pilots at 10 times the rate of the Soviets. They would have shredded the Soviet air force in a matter of weeks.
Soviet tanks were excellent by the end of the war, but the U.S. could outproduce them, but regardless, air superiority is going to defeat tanks every time. The US had carriers, they had radar, they had radar-guided bombs, they had sonar and submarines, they had amazing (for the time) technology like proximity fuses.
People forget, the USSR was no superpower then. They had no navy to speak of, a ragtag airforce, and really poor overall leadership because Stalin was insane. And Russia had been devastated by the war and spent everything they had to defeat Hitler. The U.S. on the other hand could have kept fighting indefinitely.
Soviet tanks were excellent by the end of the war, but the U.S. could outproduce them, but regardless, air superiority is going to defeat tanks every time. The US had carriers, they had radar, they had radar-guided bombs, they had sonar and submarines, they had amazing (for the time) technology like proximity fuses.
People forget, the USSR was no superpower then. They had no navy to speak of, a ragtag airforce, and really poor overall leadership because Stalin was insane. And Russia had been devastated by the war and spent everything they had to defeat Hitler. The U.S. on the other hand could have kept fighting indefinitely.
I think you way under estimate the Soviets. By the end of the war, the Soviets had a fighter plane that was the equal of the Messerschmitt 109, which was slightly inferior to the US P-51 Mustangs. But we assume the Soviets didn't have anything on the drawing boards. Don't forget, we gave them a ton of equipment and they are masters at stealing intellectual property. They had the blueprints so that superiority wouldn't have lasted long.
The Soviet Union had a very powerful army and would fight women and children without thinking about it. The USA, to project power, would have not had those resources. Nor would the Soviets have any problem with oil (I disagree with the video from the OP on this front, certainly they'd have more than the Allies).
The US would certainly have air superiority, both in fighters and bombers, but they'd have far too much geography to cover.
The OP's movie also has a big assumption that the Japanese negotiate a settlement and we move all of our weaponry to Europe. Without the bomb, I doubt that.
Very interesting thread. IIRC, General George Patton and others wanted to take on the Soviets, but Ike wanted no part of it. We needed to focus on Japan after Germany surrendered, and an invasion of Japan would have cost us at least a million casualties (my father was in a Sea Bee battalion and they were told they'd take 40% losses.) No one knew that the A bomb would finish Japan.
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Yup. My father in law was in the English Army. He said the Red Army attacked the Germans in four waves and the third and fourth waves did not carry weapons-they picked up the weapons of the dead soldiers in the first two waves.
Nobody really defined what "win" means. If you define "win" as the U.S. invading Russia and having to take Moscow, Leningrad and Stalingrad in house to house fighting, yes I suppose the U.S. would have been defeated just like Napoleon and Hitler.
I was merely pointing that Soviet and American militaries were not comparable at the end of 1945. The USSR really was not a superpower at that time. Yes of course the Russians had scientists just like the U.S., they mad the makings of a great military that would be fearsome by the late 1950s.
But in 1945 it would have been no contest, mainly because Allied air force and Navy would have completely overwhelmed the Soviets. Heck, the Soviets didn't even have a defense for high-altitude bombers -- they wouldn't have been able to stop B-29s. Yes they had great fighters on the board but in 1945 they would have had no answer for the gigantic waves of Mustangs the U.S. could have put into the air -- they didn't have a fighter IN PRODUCTION that could fly as high or as fast as the P-51.But even if they did, the U.S. could have built Mustangs 10 times as fast.
Thanks for that. I used to believe Patton but after watching the documentary on Amazon regarding the Eastern Front, I changed my mind.
The Germans, when they attacked the Soviets, were by far and away the most powerful army on the planet. Their plan was to take Moscow but had to divert to the Caucasus to get oil to keep their massive tanks rolling. That set up the turning point of the entire war (Stalingrad) and then the route, by the Soviets, at Kirkuk. (hastened by a drugged out Hitler refusing to retreat ended up with hundreds of thousands of germans taken prisoner by the Soviets "pincher" tactics and tank superiority). The western war was all over after Kirkuk, it was just a matter of time.
Had the US attacked the Soviets, we'd had suffered the same fate (assuming we didn't have a dozen or more nukes).
Respectfully disagree. Soviets had the best tank (the "go to weapon of WW2) and a very good fighter plane. They also had massive numbers advantages in the region and oil.
But that is what makes these discussions fun. We can agree to disagree.
Comparatively speaking, so was everybody else. There really wasn't an European army as everyone but the brits was effectively wiped out. At the end of 1944, both the Allied and Soviets had an all out land grab in Germany. That led to the Berlin Air Lift as the Soviets controlled Berlin and a couple hundred kilometers to the west.
So, yeah, the Russians were exhausted. But who wasn't? The US was diverting forces to the Pacific rim as Okinawa fell the same month as VE Day and that was the last island before mainland invasion.
Love a good WWII debate. The average American thinks the US defeated the Nazis because that's what they've been taught. Germanys fate was already determined by June 1944.
Fate might have been sealed, but we definitely accelerated it. Maybe that was the key because if they stayed in the game longer who knows if they could have began producing enough jets to stem the tide, or have developed their own nuclear bomb.
Well, the US deserves credit for North Africa and Italy. The Soviets and Germans fought to a stalemate. Kursk, when the Germans were routed by the Soviets, was in 1943. In 1943, the Brits and US were fighting in North Africa, then Italy.
I think the invasion of Normandy is "romantically" considered to be the beginning of the end of WW2. Reality is that the Germans were toast and the invasion just further depleted Germany's resources. Reality is that once the Germans were kicked out of northern France, and fended off Operation Market Garden, they fought little so that they could just defend one front on the west. Their last western effort was the Bulge.
In the end, IMHO:
- The "Eastern Front" was where the European war was won and lost.
- North Africa and Italy were the secondary fronts that eroded the Germans ability to fight on the eastern front.
- The US was also efforting massively in the South Pacific, so we were stretched thin.
- Normandy was an effort to shorten the war, not win it. It was already won by June 1944.
