dragon2fire

I totaly agree with you

sailor

Yeah. Ignoring the atomic bomb, I dont think we could have won a war with Russia. Dont forget that we were still fighting a war on two fronts, and that unlike the American public (and Army), the Russians were willing to accept stupendous losses. They were also our equal in manufacturing (THAT is what won that war, we outproduced everyone else), and would have been able to match us tank-for-tank, gun-for-gun, plane-for-plane. It would have degenerated into a static war of attrition that the American (and British) public would not accept.

Not to mention that the Russian T-34 tank was far superior to anything we had, but thats another story.

One also has to keep in mind that while Patton was pretty damn good, he could never run the show on his own. He was too brash, too aggressive, and the brass knew this. He would have needed to serve under someone--be it Eisenhower, Bradley, or someone else.

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losthellhound

I give it to the Russians..

The Red Army wasn't beaten, and by the end of the war they were racing towards Berlin just as fast as Patton's armor...

Forget air power.. Any planes would be shredded by Red Army AA guns.. Forget Patton's tanks, they would be stuck defending itself from the Red Army, the conscripts Russia picked up liberating Eastern Europe (Eastern Europe at that time had about as much trust for North Americans then they did for Germans.. Russia was still the liberator at that point) and from pockets of Waffen and regular German units..

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Dilbert1234567

the soviets were very close to the atomic bomb at the end, we had exosted our suply of nuclear material, by the time we had our next round of nukes, they would have theirs as well.

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Dwarf020

one point made early on in this decusion was that the US had run out of it's 2 atomic weapons already, and making more wasnt easy for us. this is a good point. another good point is, japan gave up after 2 hits, and we didnt have to prove would could hit them some more if we wanted, it was implied to the whole world that we had as many of these things as we needed and we were showing restraint by now using more then 2.

with atomic weapons, you can bluff pretty hard. also, you wouldnt be bluffing forever, it wasnt yet an exact science (making atomic fuel) but we could do it, given a little time, and it'd take a little time to get ready for the invasion.

on the other hand, i think it's never a good idea to invade russia, it's never worked before.

Easytiger

You know what? It wasn't the atomic bombs that made the Japanese surrender- it was the conventional bombing of Tokyo that did it. Hiroshima was a small city of no particular significance and Nagasaki was one of many ports. Granted, the use of atomic weapons was intended to shock the Japanese into surrendering rather than destroy vital infrastructure, but it was regular air power that forced the Japanese to surrender.

EleqTrizi'T

I absolutely, postively agree.

The Russian people are some of the toughest SOB's in history. Let's say for a moment that we won a war, there is no way in hell we'd of been able to occupy and keep such a large country, with all her proud citizens, under control for any period of time. There's just no way.

The only way to defeat a country like Russia would be complete annihilitation of it's citizenry. I think the same goes for countries like China and the US itself.

DrJekyll

From a friend of mine...

This was actually war-gamed out by some institute in the 80's. Sorry that I can't find a link for it, but I read the results in a book on strategy back then, and the end result was Allied (U.S.,U.K.,China and Eastern European) victory, mostly due to:

1) Atomic weapons and the B-29 delivery system. Stalin possessed very few aircraft that could have successfully intercepted an inbound B-29 strike, especially one supported by our long-range fighters. The Soviet aircraft were mostly designed to destroy the German medium bombers, and for tactical work in support of their troops.

2) Without lend-lease, the Red army would have withered away for lack of supplies. Even the meager rations of the average soldier would have been reduced by more than half when the allied aid was cut off.

3) Superior equipment- The Soviet T-34 was the best mass produced medium tank of the war. Having said that, the Allies would have access to captured German equipment, factories, personnel, and technology, and were in much better shape to begin production of advanced equipment such as the Panther, Panther II, Go229, Me262, Sturmgewher 44, Type XXI and XXIII U-boats, and the V-1 & V-2 programs.

4) Manpower- The Chinese were still imperial at the time, and with US/UK support, the premise was that Mao failed in his bid for power since the aid from the USSR was curtailed, therefore putting the Chinese troops into the equation. Stalin would have been put into a two-front war, with all his manufacturing facilities within bombing range, whereas the Germans were never able to get bombers into the Urals.

5) Stalin Himself-- The man was a Communist version of Hitler, and goes down in history as the most prolific mass-murder of all times. His populace, including his General, feared him, and his oppression of the people showed when the first villages that the Germans overran welcomed the Wehrmacht as liberators, and happily took up arms against Communist party officials.

OzOz

Something else that has not been mentioned is that Russia was running out of military manpower. Yes, the Russian Army was huge. However, their losses had been so enormous that they were starting to scrape the bottom of the barrel for new recruits - prisons etc. They would have had a hard time maintaining their armed forces at their May, 1945 levels. I've heard reports that of males born in the USSR in 1922 or 1923, NOT ONE survived the war. Also that the Russian death toll, long believed to have been a bit over twenty million, was more like forty million, including civilians. Stalingrad alone cost them a full million dead.

Also, at the end of the war, the US was the only major power whose economy was not on the brink of collapse.

If you're just talking about Patton - and Patton only - vs the USSR though, I think I'd put my money on the USSR.

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Easytiger

I think your friend forgot that half of Germany, including Berlin, was in Russian hands at the conclusion of the Second World War. It wouldn't have been the Western partners of the Allies who had access to German technology. The Go229, Me262 and V-1/V-2 were experimental weapons at the time- I can't argue that they were templates for the weapons to come, but their practical uses were limited in 1945.

jake789

By the end of the war the U.S had a tank destroyer that could fight the german tanks and this to the fact that German tankers alwas out shot the russians even thought the russians had more tanks with better amour i think they would have been destroyed by U.S tankes. Also the Amercians would ahve been able to to control the skys. Alllie planes could fly circle around the russians. They then would ahve been able cut off suplies to the russians. On the ground a amercian solder was better fed, better trained, and better supllied then there russian counter parts. Even in the last month of the war russians would destert to the german side just to get fed. Also at the time the U.S armed force had 7 million men while the russians had 9 million so not that out numbered. Russian commanders launched attacks that could be compared to the jap bannzi attacks which would have lead to the death of millions of men. Also most german tech was in the west not the east. The amercians were able to devlope a missle before the russians. American bombers could have hit russian factorys behind hind ural MTs. The russians were able to make a A-bomb till 1949 which during war would have been impossible also with the amercian people on watch russian spys would have been found. The russian people were tired of war they had fought so hard against the nazis becasue they would have wiped out the russian people. The U.S would have installed a decmorcy in russian which i bet the people wanted. Almost all russian trucks came from the U.S. Last if these two country would have gone to war russia would have stared it and the americna people would have fought. In the the end tho millions wold die on both sides and would have been a sad part of world histroy.

Lindy

Why is this thread in Tilted Knowledge and How-To???

Or, maybe this is the right place for Alt History conjectures. I don't know. It just doesn't seem to fit in very well with snooze buttons, installing mirrors, and leaking water heaters.

Lindy

yournamehere

I'm not sure, but geez, Jake - that was one helluva 6-1/2 year bump! I was going to reply to some of the comments, then caught myself, thinking "You really want to argue with something written in 2003?"

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Tusko

incorrect.
the T34 was roughly on par with the M4.
The russians won the "tank" game with numbers.
Both sides employed a similar tank doctrine (masses of tanks to punch through, supported by tank destroyers)

Anti Tank ability goes to the Sherman, often because of ammunition type and doctrine, but it slightly edges out the t34 as far as penetration goes. With the upgunned 76mm, shermans definitely beat the late war T34s.

The British Sherman firefly was superior to both of these in terms of penetration.

Similarly, while American tanks were build just as simply and easily maintained as Soviet tanks, they benefitted from generally superior weapons firing and optical technology. (Firing on the move)

When these two fought each other in the Korean War, Shermans took the majority of kills.

The Sherman was also considerably more versatile than the T34 with numerous readily adaptable variants including up-gunning, support fire, anti personnel roles, hedge clearing etc. Trumps the T34 in this category.

AND, the fact that the west was boasted successful tanks such as The M10, and the Perhsing who could punch holes through anything, fielded by any side.
Even the British Comet was scoring Panther and Tiger kills with ease, and it was low-slung and quick.

So, stop watching the History Channel with its constant bemoaning of the Sherman.
Western Air Power comprised 2 prongs: strategic and tactical while russian air power was mostly tactical.

While russia boasted an awful lot of AA defenses, they would be unable to deal with the two-pronged attack of Night Time bombing, 4-engine hight altitude bombing, combined with Night Time ground attack and regular ground attack.


i like to keep nukes out of this argument. it's less fun.
but point 2 is huge.


But, as for #3, look at my earlier post.
Late war T34s would fall to late war Shermans, and the allies produced much better supporting vehicles.

The western allies trumped the russians in air power, naval power and tank power.

Russian infantry units were a prime example of combined arms and were better armed at the end of the war than your standard American infantry unit. I believe heavy weapons were available more readily as well. (Americans liked to deploy machine guns on a platoon level as well i believe) But the russians had whole units of sub-machine gun units. That's alot of fire.

Russians also had an incredible amount of artillery.

---------- Post added at 12:26 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:22 AM ----------

i would say that russian infantry was the superior attacking force, this combined with their artillery power would mean a very fast and crushing advance.

But, the western allies had an awful lot of supply in reserve and i think could exploit russian attacks by falling back, digging in and pinching them at their nerves.
No way they'd advance right into moscow, but they'd hold off any russian assault for some time.

Strange Famous

Who would have won? King Death.

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ASU2003

I had never thought about this. It is kind of interesting.

Would China of been on the US side? Would we have been able to bomb St. Petersburg from Finland or Northern Germany? What would the US have done had we taken over the country?

Strange Famous

There seems to be an assumption that any of the USA's allies would have taken part in an attack on Russia in some of the above.

I couldnt have imagined that the US could have carried anyone but maybe some forces pulled out of the former allies of Germany (Romania, Hungary, etc)...

Would the US have used atomic bombs against Russia (a former ally who had taken far more of the pain of defeating Germany than anyone else?)

If they did, what would be the reaction of the rest of the world, and the American people itself? At best complete isolation of America... at worst an almost universal declaration of war against it/revolution?

_

America did not have the manpower to conquer Russia in any conventional sense. But its own geography protects it from couterattack.

I think the whole scenario is simply unthinkable in any case. There is nothing to suggest that anyone in power in America in 1945 had any leanings towards such an act of treachery. After the US had provided so much aid at such a cost to itself to France and UK, how could it be possible to then committ actions that would place France and UK in war with America? Its just unthinkable.

The latter part of WWII marked America's emergence as a superpower, and also a real and material sacrifice in a war that was fundamentally not theirs.

To propose that a nation who had thought so strongly against the evil's of Nazism would be capable of committing an act of treachory on a level with anything the Nazi's did (short of the camps and murder squads)... such a thing is simply beyond belief.

_

On the level of "who would win if vikings though Mongols"... there could be a purely tactical discussion

Politically though this is an impossible situation and although I am not some kind of blind admirer of America and its foriegn policy, it simply without basis to accuse them of being capable or prepared to launch an attack against a battered and tortured alley who had lost 20 million men to defeat a common enemy.

Whatever the foibles of some general might be, it isnt something that would happen.

There is also a difference between the American troops and the German ones - there is not the same culture of authoritarianism. I would have seriously expected huge scale desertions if American soldiers were sent into battle against a friend.

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chinese crested

I thought on invading Russia, the winter wins. The Russian peoples know how to endure it. Supply lines in a russian winter - Napolean couldnt beat the winter. Guess its like taking on a tsunami - mother nature - eventualy she recovers from and obliterates the attrocities committed by man. Roots entwine the bones of the fallen, and the land recovers - look at Chernobyl - there is life there. Look at the beaches of Dunkirk, look at any old battle field. Nature would win, its down to who would survive her.
If Russia stopped paying their arms loans, how would America have managed financialy?

The_Jazz

Chernobyl's not in Russia, it's in the Ukraine. The Mongols, the Swedes and the Poles all successfully invaded Russia. Modern Russia is an arms manufacturer, not a purchaser.

I think you have some facts wrong, CC.

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Strange Famous

Ukraine is still a part of the Russian sphere of influence.

It is independent in the same way Hawaii is independent of America

__

The answer to the original question is (imo) the US could not have won a conventional victory over Russia in terms of an invasion. The rest of the world would have declared war on the US if they had done it. The US would never have done such a thing. There is a lot of anti American feeling these days, but America's conduct in WWII was honourable. It is very disrespectul to those Americans who died in a European war they could have easily stood back from to start talking abiut stupid scernarios like this.

Yes, there was tension in the Cold War and a lot of rubbish spoken on both sides, but to compare this economic and political competotion to the Nazi philosphy in unbelieavbaly offensive to me..

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without being uncovered."

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The_Jazz

Uh, SF, Hawaii is a State. Like California or New York. Maybe Ukraine is like Canada, but the Ukraine is not to Russia as Wales is to the UK. The Ukrainians are definitely dependent on Russia and take Russian concerns very seriously, but until 2008, Russia wasn't going to even contribute to the Chernobyl clean-up effort. You've made glaringly inaccurate analogy there.

As for the OP, the UK suggested fighting the Soviets several times. Churchill is on record as having discussed it personally with Roosevelt. The French might or might not have gone along, but there was no one else in the world to declare war on the US if they'd gone to war against the Soviets. The Spanish were still recovering from their civil war (and wouldn't have been a big factor regardless), the Italians were out, the Turks had no interest, the Chinese were busy throwing the Japanese out and fighting amongst themselves, the Indians were part of the UK, and the South American countries couldn't have fielded a fighting force, let alone a navy to get them there. So who, exactly, was left to declare war against the US?

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Lindy

Pretty much what I was going to say. In 1945 there was neither the external hostility nor the internal self-loathing of the USA that is prevalent today.

The USA was the fair haired boy/God's gift to the world that had saved it from Hitler. In 1945 the US had its shit together better than any time before or since, and was at the height of its strength militarily, economically and spiritually. The USSR had a very strong army, good tactical air arm, but no strategic air force, no navy to speak of, and was a disaster economically.
The USA had the atomic bomb, which at that time was considered just another weapon with a bigger bang. No one can know if the USA would have won, but if Truman had the moral will to prosecute the war with the Soviets vigorously, the USA certainly could have won it.

Lindy

And again I ask: