And you have to realize the Soviet Army was exhausted and really couldnt move farther west beyond outstretched supply lines. The American military was in far better shape. Don't think the Soviets could deal with our airpower.
1945 Soviets vs. the 1945 Allies. Who would have won??
- Thread starter TheGLOV
- Start date
There's a big difference between military superiority and occupying a country, so I don't think there's an easy answer without defining victory. Unconditional surrender?
And while technology and logistics are important, I believe recent post WW2 history shows they do not ensure victory.
As for all the aspersions to "cart and buggy" logistics..... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergeant_Reckless
And while technology and logistics are important, I believe recent post WW2 history shows they do not ensure victory.
As for all the aspersions to "cart and buggy" logistics..... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergeant_Reckless
You don't just have to shoot the tracks, you take out the engine on the train. Once the P51 was introduced, the P47 was freed up to lay waste to supply routes and ground targets in Europe. No heavy bombing needed; just nonstop relentless attacks. The US had some serious airpower options. They had also perfected incendiary bombing attacks. In fact the most devastating bombing attacks during the war were not A bomb attacks. Ponder that.
Some points:
Let's also add that the following western weapons were just coming on line: Gloster Meteor and F-80 (jet fighters), and the Pershing tank.
Once Japan goes down, the West gets a bonus air force - the U.S. Navy. The Hellfighter had the he highest kill ratio of any fighter in WW II.
The Soviets had a damn fine ground support aircraft in the IL-2 Sturmovik. Of course, it would not have lasted long with western planes roaming the skies.
The land between Poland and Russia is called Ukraine. Only Nazi racial policies kept Ukraine from rising up and joining the Germans. The Allies do not make that mistake.
The T-34 was superior to the Panzer - all versions of it. I think there is confusion here between the Panzer and the Panther, which also had sloped armor.
The Soviet army used a lot of lend lease equipment. The Soviet war machine slows down significantly without those supplies. Not sending supplies to the USSR frees up those supplies to go to western forces.
Let's also add that the following western weapons were just coming on line: Gloster Meteor and F-80 (jet fighters), and the Pershing tank.
Once Japan goes down, the West gets a bonus air force - the U.S. Navy. The Hellfighter had the he highest kill ratio of any fighter in WW II.
The Soviets had a damn fine ground support aircraft in the IL-2 Sturmovik. Of course, it would not have lasted long with western planes roaming the skies.
The land between Poland and Russia is called Ukraine. Only Nazi racial policies kept Ukraine from rising up and joining the Germans. The Allies do not make that mistake.
The T-34 was superior to the Panzer - all versions of it. I think there is confusion here between the Panzer and the Panther, which also had sloped armor.
The Soviet army used a lot of lend lease equipment. The Soviet war machine slows down significantly without those supplies. Not sending supplies to the USSR frees up those supplies to go to western forces.
The same F-80 that would soon be chased from the fighter-business by the revolutionary MiG15...
It would have been a bloodbath, Allies would have steamrolled through them. Soviet soldiers were under equipped and ill-trained. If I remember my courses from college correctly, 1 American soldier was the equivalent of something like 100 soviets. Stalin basically sent hundreds of thousands of normal people into the woods in the winter. A huge percentage of the soviet "soldiers" died from the elements and starvation. Many of the survivors surrendered.
Some of the comments on here are truly baffling. The Nazis knew the war was fought in the East. People need to read up what took place on the Eastern Front. Nobody had better equipment, top to bottom, than the Nazis. The Russians had a great tank and massive numbers on their side; not to mention superior logistics. At the end of the War in Europe, the Russians had a huge advantage in people, artillery, tanks and oil. The US was distracted with Japan. The first two months, all of the issues favored the Soviets.
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pnnylion vs. Jacobs for scandal information
Bushwood vs. the world on anything
21Guns vs. Fenchak for wrasslin' in Champs' parking lot
If the Allies (minus Russia) had decided to go fight the Russians, than they would have let Japan sit on their island. By that time, Japan was done. Japan had no navy left to speak of and the USA (and other Allies in the Pacific) could have just done a general blockade with medium level traditional bombing and held Japan at bay for any length of time. What did Japan have left. Let Australia, India, China, Phillipines, etc...prepare for a ground assault of Japan mainland as all of then would have loved to kill the Japanese.
For Russia, the Allies would have had to cut off the head to defeat them. Not like they would have had to do some 10,000 mile civil war Sherman like scorched earth march from Berlin through Eastern Europe, on through Russia on through Siberia to the pacific ocean. The general russian peasant, which was 95% of the Russian army was only fighting because Stalin and his communist leaders would kill anybody that didn't fight. So defeating Russia would have been driving them out of eastern Europe, bombing the major Russian cities (demoralize the population and collateral damage), disrupt the Russian rail lines from Siberia bringing in the manufactured goods (something the Allies should have been easily able to do with airpower). And then figure out a way to take out Stalin and the key figure heads in the Communist heirarchy and Russian army. Once you get rid of those guys, the Russians government folds and they are done. I don't see any reason to fight Russia through Russia like the Germans tried and the Allies knew better in trying to do that.
As for the Russian tanks. They were big with a lot of armor and a big gun. Comparing one Russian tank to a Sherman tank obviously the Russian tank would win. The point is though that the the Sherman tank was designed to be fast, maneuverable and easily manufactured & repaired such that it would be more like 3 or 4 Sherman tanks versus one Russian tank. That was the point.
For Russia, the Allies would have had to cut off the head to defeat them. Not like they would have had to do some 10,000 mile civil war Sherman like scorched earth march from Berlin through Eastern Europe, on through Russia on through Siberia to the pacific ocean. The general russian peasant, which was 95% of the Russian army was only fighting because Stalin and his communist leaders would kill anybody that didn't fight. So defeating Russia would have been driving them out of eastern Europe, bombing the major Russian cities (demoralize the population and collateral damage), disrupt the Russian rail lines from Siberia bringing in the manufactured goods (something the Allies should have been easily able to do with airpower). And then figure out a way to take out Stalin and the key figure heads in the Communist heirarchy and Russian army. Once you get rid of those guys, the Russians government folds and they are done. I don't see any reason to fight Russia through Russia like the Germans tried and the Allies knew better in trying to do that.
As for the Russian tanks. They were big with a lot of armor and a big gun. Comparing one Russian tank to a Sherman tank obviously the Russian tank would win. The point is though that the the Sherman tank was designed to be fast, maneuverable and easily manufactured & repaired such that it would be more like 3 or 4 Sherman tanks versus one Russian tank. That was the point.
Obviously the Soviets and Western Allies had just fought the same opponent. From mid-1943 to 1945 the Soviets faced far more German divisions, that were better trained and equipped than those in the West, and while doing so far out performed the Western Allies. Not sure why people who think we would shred the Red Army after struggling enormously against what amounted to a third of the German Army. German accounts of the war are very clear that the Germans regarded the Red Army as a far more formidable opponent.
Much like the Cold War the Soviets had an enormous advantage on land while the Allies clearly outclassed the Soviets in the air and on the sea. I think either the war ends with a quick Soviet victory or a stalemate. Either way the lines are pushed further west.
Much like the Cold War the Soviets had an enormous advantage on land while the Allies clearly outclassed the Soviets in the air and on the sea. I think either the war ends with a quick Soviet victory or a stalemate. Either way the lines are pushed further west.
Christ my head hurts after reading/trying to make sense of that...
Also not sure where he got we would outnumbered Soviet armor 3 or 4 to 1. Soviets out produced us in tanks by a considerable margin.
@Mudge1026 we must have read different books then. Germans were impressed with certain aspects of our army such as artillery and air support. But the Soviets had developed a concept of armored operational warfare to a high degree by the summer of 1944. Moreover the advance you allege that was unprecedented by the Allies over the summer of 1944 was surpassed by the Soviets in the summer of 1944. As well as by the Germans earlier in the war. Operation Bagration and the destruction of Army Group Center carried out by the Red Army in June and July 1944 outpaced what the Allies achieved in France during July and August 1944. Of course the original "Shock & Awe" of World War Two was Blitzkrieg.
Google "Operation Bagration" and read some books on the subject, and you'll get a better sense of what the German soldier experienced on the Eastern Front. Also unlike the Western Front the bulk of German units in the East were rated Category One through Three. Most German divisions in the West were Category Four or Category Five. However they managed to hold for two months in Normandy despite overwhelming Allied manpower and material advantages all while operating under total Allied air superiority.
Allied airpower was decisive in preventing the Germans from conducting the necessary movement to counter Allied advances on the ground when a breakthrough had been achieved. However Allied airpower could only reduce German positions to a degree before ground units achieved a breakthrough. Look at the sluggish advance of our troops through Normandy during June and July. Later the Germans were able to contain the Western Front with a motley collection of second line divisions between September 1944 and March 1945. All while under constant bombardment by Allied airpower. The German Army skillfully managed to conduct positional warfare for most of the campaign on the Western Front.
Perhaps Gen. Patton should have had less confidence in quickly overtaking the adversary that in the words of Churchill "had gutted the Wehrmacht."
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Dude, MiG15 entered service for the Soviets in 1948, right around the same time as the F-80c entered production... had we pressed eastward toward Moscow you can bet your ass we would have kicked the MiG15 bees-nest much earlier than first meeting them in the Korean Peninsula in 1950-51
I agree with you...but my concern is that the massive land having to be covered with air power would mitigate our substantial advantage. While helpful, the Soviet's massive advantage in artillery, tanks and manpower would have been a huge problem in 1945/46. The problem for Germany, and us had we attacked, is that the soviets would just move resources back to where we couldn't bomb. Then they have a matrix of RR to move them to the front.
There would have been movement all right- but toward the English Channel.
Agreed. I tend to agree with the video that the OP posted. But that video takes some liberties (could the US really disengage with the Japs and apply those resources to Europe?). I tend to think the massive advantage of the Soviets would have forced us to negotiate a settlement before the first year was out. That would result in them having even more influence than they did once they consolidated what we know as the eastern bloc.
To those who seem to think that our Navy would have been a big factor, look at a map. Once the Russians took Denmark in week one, they would have closed off the Baltic. They would have had the ability to close off the Black Sea as well. Our carrier planes would not have had range enough to threaten Moscow- and were not capable of carrying heavy bombloads anyway. The oil fields of Romania and the factories in the Urals would have been even further out of range.
The Navy would have kept Britain safe from invasion and the sea lanes open, but its role in any war in Eastern Europe would have been negligible. The Navy of 1945 was not the Navy of today.
Never fight a land war in Asia- or next door in Eastern Europe either.
The Navy would have kept Britain safe from invasion and the sea lanes open, but its role in any war in Eastern Europe would have been negligible. The Navy of 1945 was not the Navy of today.
Never fight a land war in Asia- or next door in Eastern Europe either.
Agreed. Even had the forces in the Pacific been sent to the Atlantic and Europe I doubt they would have had a substantial role in 1945.
At the time the US had 21 Army divisions and 6 Marine Divisions in the Pacific. 68 US Army divisions were in Europe. However the ground divisions in the Pacific did not have a significant armor component. All tank divisions had been allotted to Europe. Of course shipping those units across the Pacific and Atlantic would have taken a considerable amount of time.
Moreover as another poster just mentioned the Navy would have had a negligible role in conducting offensive operations against the Soviets. The Soviet Pacific coast is mostly barren with few strategic points such as Vladivostok. Once the Allies had gotten ashore a lengthy march inland would have been required to reach areas of vital Soviet production and resources. Soviets would have quickly closed the entrances to the Baltic and Black Seas.
Actual strength in Europe at the time video begins the conflict had the Allies with 95 divisions. The Soviets had a staggering 6,000,000 frontline troops, 488 divisions, and 20,000 tanks and assault guns.
Hmm.. could the USA attack the soviets from the east with those forces instead of transporting the to Europe?
Sure but the major question becomes where do those forces advance from the Soviet Pacific coast. Again the vital points in Siberia were well in the hinterland.
Agreed...but it would have been a hell of a distraction for Stalin and he may have had to sacrifice his bloc on the pacific rim for a bloc in Europe.
I never implied that an Allied push eastward would have met with success... our boys flew right into a MiG15 buzz-saw in Korea... can't deny the same would not have happened only a few years earlier in eastern Europe had we been so "bold" ...
Unlike In Japan, in Korea we learned pretty quickly that B-29's were only as good as their fighter cover, and F-86 was probably good for 300mi of combat-range, tops.
Better range with our Century Fighters was nearly ten years away, and those were times when aerial refueling was merely a theory/experiment... mid-20th century air-superiority meant something MUCHO-different than it does today, and to think it would tip the scales in favor of the Allies against the Soviets post WWII is fool's fodder
Agree...I also question how successful the B29 would have been at 30,000 feet. They'd have had to drop to bomb, accurately. That would open them up to fighter attacks.
what? Stalin fought back immediately against Hitler when Hitler attacked. And the likelihood that the Japanese army scared him? Again, look at a map.
In June 1941 the Soviets had 300 divisions. 250 were deployed in the West with 40 in Siberia. Another 10 were in the Caucasus Mountains. Of the 40 divisions in Siberia 30 had been sent West by November 1941.
Moreover the Red Army had obliterated the Japanese at Nomonhan in the summer of 1939.
Stalin held a lot in reserve because Japan was in Manchuria and they were fighting them there. Zhukov was there until 41. It wasn't the first time Russians had clashed with Japanese forces over the years, often in Japan's favor.
The Western Allies would have whipped the Red Army when all was said and done.
They were vastly superior in air power and logistics. The Red Air Force of WW2 was almost completely dependent on American supplies of aviation gasoline. The Red Army was almost completely dependent on American supplies of field radios and telephones for field communications and was largely dependent on American supplies of trucks to move infantry and supplies and artillery. The Red Army's main advantage over the Nazis after 1942 was not overwhelming numbers of men and tanks and guns and planes, it was overwhelming numbers of trucks (50,000 American trucks given to the USSR during the war) and communications equipment and modern railroad materiel (also imported from America) that allowed them to quickly shift soldiers and equipment to the best spots to break through German lines and provided the logistics capability that allowed them to sustain breakthroughs. Those communications and maneuverability and logistics capabilities were dependent on American equipment and American fuel.
If the Red Army and the Western Allies had tangled in 1945, all those supplies would have stopped immediately. A Red Army-Western Allies fight in 1945 would have been like the Battle of the Bulge on a larger scale, except the Soviets probably wouldn't have had the element of surprise. The Western Allies would have been overwhelmed in the beginning, and then Western air power and dwindling Soviet supplies would have doomed the Red Army. Ground-based anti-air defense systems and doctrine were pretty crap in WW2, the offensive technology of the planes far outstripped the defensive technology of the AA guns. If your planes couldn't beat the enemy's planes, your ground-based AA wasn't going to be able to stop their planes (or even slow them down very much) from paralyzing your units and greatly weakening them through dive bombing and fighter-bomber strafing before they even got the chance to fight the enemy's ground troops.
As long as the Western Allies didn't completely collapse and allow the Red Army to quickly reach the Atlantic (before their supplies got low and Western air power's full strength was deployed) the Soviets would have ended up losing.
The best Soviet fighters (Yak-9 and MiG-3) in 1945 were significantly slower and generally worse than the best Western fighters in 1945. There were no MiG-15s in 1945. Soviet aircraft would have been badly disadvantaged fighting P-51s, P-38s, P-47s etc., and carrier-based Hellcats and Vought Corsairs. The Soviets also didn't have the proximity fuze technology or the radar-slaved AA gun technology the Western allies had by 1945.
They were vastly superior in air power and logistics. The Red Air Force of WW2 was almost completely dependent on American supplies of aviation gasoline. The Red Army was almost completely dependent on American supplies of field radios and telephones for field communications and was largely dependent on American supplies of trucks to move infantry and supplies and artillery. The Red Army's main advantage over the Nazis after 1942 was not overwhelming numbers of men and tanks and guns and planes, it was overwhelming numbers of trucks (50,000 American trucks given to the USSR during the war) and communications equipment and modern railroad materiel (also imported from America) that allowed them to quickly shift soldiers and equipment to the best spots to break through German lines and provided the logistics capability that allowed them to sustain breakthroughs. Those communications and maneuverability and logistics capabilities were dependent on American equipment and American fuel.
If the Red Army and the Western Allies had tangled in 1945, all those supplies would have stopped immediately. A Red Army-Western Allies fight in 1945 would have been like the Battle of the Bulge on a larger scale, except the Soviets probably wouldn't have had the element of surprise. The Western Allies would have been overwhelmed in the beginning, and then Western air power and dwindling Soviet supplies would have doomed the Red Army. Ground-based anti-air defense systems and doctrine were pretty crap in WW2, the offensive technology of the planes far outstripped the defensive technology of the AA guns. If your planes couldn't beat the enemy's planes, your ground-based AA wasn't going to be able to stop their planes (or even slow them down very much) from paralyzing your units and greatly weakening them through dive bombing and fighter-bomber strafing before they even got the chance to fight the enemy's ground troops.
As long as the Western Allies didn't completely collapse and allow the Red Army to quickly reach the Atlantic (before their supplies got low and Western air power's full strength was deployed) the Soviets would have ended up losing.
The best Soviet fighters (Yak-9 and MiG-3) in 1945 were significantly slower and generally worse than the best Western fighters in 1945. There were no MiG-15s in 1945. Soviet aircraft would have been badly disadvantaged fighting P-51s, P-38s, P-47s etc., and carrier-based Hellcats and Vought Corsairs. The Soviets also didn't have the proximity fuze technology or the radar-slaved AA gun technology the Western allies had by 1945.
The Japs were 100% committed to SE Asia and stopping our island hoping advance. The war in the pacific was about the Japs stopping our air war from hitting their mainland. The intensity of those island wars was simply incredible...probably far and away more challenging than what the 101st saw in France. In the meantime, Stalin was scared to death when he could hear the artillery from the Kremlin.
Had the nazis gotten into Moscow and if he couldn't have escaped, he'd have been killed in a very unceremonial way.
Right. Stalin did not regard the Japanese as a major threat. Moreover for the reasons discussed earlier few targets in Siberia were within striking range of the Japanese Army. Just under half of the divisions sent from Siberia West were redeployed in June and July.
