How far west could the Soviets have invaded...

[Incodcito]

3 per month in August/September actually, and likely to be scaled up as more reactors come online. I cited the report from General Groves in one of the threads in this forum. Moscow wouldn't be a very good target though, if it comes to victory through atomic power, too big and spread out. It's those gigantic factory complexes in the Urals and the Baku oil refineries that are pretty much optimal targets for nukes.

How would you nuke either those complexes or the Baku oil refineries? The Soviet Union wasn't Japan. The Nukes would be better used against big Soviet concentrations in Germany. Perhaps take out Chiukov and Zhukov in the deal. Soviet Commanders did tend to stay closer then the allied counterparts.

Use massed air-raids against the Baku oil refineries. Yea, I know, the Ploiesti air raids were considered a failure... but, hey, maybe they could have used B-29's with incendiary bombs instead.

 

[Lord Baal]

Air raids against the Baku oil fields could take off from Allied bases in the Middle East or Turkey. It's more possible than attacking the Urals.

 

[xchen08]

How would you nuke either those complexes or the Baku oil refineries? The Soviet Union wasn't Japan. The Nukes would be better used against big Soviet concentrations in Germany. Perhaps take out Chiukov and Zhukov in the deal. Soviet Commanders did tend to stay closer then the allied counterparts.

Use massed air-raids against the Baku oil refineries. Yea, I know, the Ploiesti air raids were considered a failure... but, hey, maybe they could have used B-29's with incendiary bombs instead.

Eh? What's the bolded supposed to mean? In any case, yeah the Ural complexes are not really open to attack due to range issues without bases in Germany, and if the Allies had held on East of the Rhine, the war is pretty much already won. I was just pointing out what would be optimal targets, not what would be immediately subject to attack.

Why do you think nuking Baku would be difficult or impossible? It's well within range for bases in the MiddleEast.

 

[Incodcito]

Eh? What's the bolded supposed to mean? In any case, yeah the Ural complexes are not really open to attack due to range issues without bases in Germany, and if the Allies had held on East of the Rhine, the war is pretty much already won. I was just pointing out what would be optimal targets, not what would be immediately subject to attack.

Why do you think nuking Baku would be difficult or impossible? It's well within range for bases in the MiddleEast.

The USSR didn't have helpless air defense networks like the Japanese. The plane carrying the bomb might get shot down trying to bomb Baku.

As for having regular flying missions with the B-29's that don't drop bombs(like in Japan), well, I don't really think the Russians would turn down downing B-29's flying overhead such an important area.

 

[SnowlyWhite]

The ocean I'd dare say; bar nukes - with nukes, no clue, guess it depends on the speed of manufacturing and here I have no clue(with a 4-5, could wreak havoc given how packed they were back then if you're smart in using them tactically).

without nukes - best tank(by a longshot and in an age when tank was king - best in a cost effectiveness way), ability to throw wave after wave, best artillery(again, by a longshot) and a ton more men/material on the frontline when it starts(and it'd move fast given that most defense was just torn apart). Air was obviously pretty crappy, but not that bad.

 

[Cutlass]

What was the service ceiling of the best Soviet fighters? As I recall the Zero had to really stretch to get high enough to attack a B-29.

 

[pi-r8]

Even if the allies didn't have an army at all, would the soviets have had enough supply trucks to supply an army in France? Seems like during WW2 they were pretty reliant on the allies to help them with logistics.

 

[xchen08]

What was the service ceiling of the best Soviet fighters? As I recall the Zero had to really stretch to get high enough to attack a B-29.

No Soviet fighter was capable of intercepting the B-29 until jets. The post-war La-11 was actually deployed in Korea to hunt B-29s and found they simply couldn't do it, and actual wartime models with greatly inferior performance sure as hell can't.

The issue isn't ceiling. A B-29 with full bomb load only has a service ceiling of around 30k feet (note that's defining service ceiling as the altitude where the plane can climb at 100 ft/s, most numbers floating around the internet use much looser definitions), and cruise at 25k and most soviet fighters with 2-stage superchargers (ie only a small percentage, but not because they couldn't make them) could hit that. The issue is critical altitude. The B-29 had absolutely absurdly good turbos, giving it a critical altitude of 31,500 feet at maximum power. With the whole reduced air resistance thing, a B-29B carrying a 10,000 pound Mk III bomb has a combat speed of 360 knots (414 mph!) at 31k feet. Soviet 2-stage superchargers on the other hand, start losing power over 13k feet. In practical terms, the B-29 goes faster the higher it goes, while Soviet fighters are faster the lower they go. A B-29 at its ceiling is faster (or not slower in the case of the A variant that kept its turrets and gunners) than any of the Soviet fighters at that altitude and can simply outrun them, or force them into a slow stern chase where they are sitting ducks to the tail gunner.

The USSR didn't have helpless air defense networks like the Japanese. The plane carrying the bomb might get shot down trying to bomb Baku.

As for having regular flying missions with the B-29's that don't drop bombs(like in Japan), well, I don't really think the Russians would turn down downing B-29's flying overhead such an important area.

As mentioned above, that's really not an issue. Not that the USSR had an air defense network in 1945, they hadn't really needed one when air warfare on the East was more or less entirely tactical, it was all developed post war.

Even if the allies didn't have an army at all, would the soviets have had enough supply trucks to supply an army in France? Seems like during WW2 they were pretty reliant on the allies to help them with logistics.

The answer to that is yes, as long as the Allies don't knock out the VVS quickly and blow up the supply convoys. Sure, the Soviets were dependent on Allied help to build up all their motorized formations, but in 1945, they are already built up. If war breaks out, the Allies can hardly go to Stalin and ask for all their trucks back.

 

[Theige]

I think the issue would have been moral among troops and population, which side would have been more willing to withstand another costly war.

That would be the allies hands down...

 

[ParkCungHee]

What was the service ceiling of the best Soviet fighters? As I recall the Zero had to really stretch to get high enough to attack a B-29.

The Zero had to be stripped of all ammunition to attack a B-29. Of course, the Zero wasn't an interceptor and was never intended to be.

 

[SnowlyWhite]

but in 1945, they are already built up. If war breaks out, the Allies can hardly go to Stalin and ask for all their trucks back.

kinda my assumption too. In '45, allies already built the red army.

 

[say1988]

best tank(by a longshot and in an age when tank was king - best in a cost effectiveness way)

Really? The T-34 is highly overrated and the 85 is comparable to the 76mm Shemans. With Pershings ariving in quantity shortly into the war to back them up.

What you say adds up to a short term advantage at the beginning of a war. And you miss the terrible logistical situation the Russians were facing. They were stretched to the limit in 1945 and as any war with the west dragged on this would get critical, especially as most of the trucks and trains are basically irreplaceable, assuming they don't slace production of weapons.

Within a year (assuming the west has the will to fight), the Soviets would be stopped cold as Soviet industry dries up and logistical situation collapses while the US resumes full scale arms production. But the big wildcard would be the will to fight of the armies and civilian populations which is very hard to guess and would vary based on teh exact circumstances around the war.

 

[r16]

the thread title is some question and ı doubt it would be easy to answer conclusively . Though the general tone already posted seems to be quite appropriate . A surprise Russian offensive could have caused massive dislocation on the Allies , but it would run out of steam somewhere and the war would have turned into one of attrition . Who would have won that depends entirely on the question that whether a leopard could change its spots . Russian military successes depended on too much sacrifice of the initial contact troops to allow operational successes . They would have to improve tactically on a massive scale , re-orient their industry and achieve certain breakthroughs that needed lots of espionage in real life Cold War period .

western military skills are underestimated by many of those would have favoured the Red Army , by the common foibles of the Allies against Wehrmacht . It seems when Hitler learned Paris had fallen he ordered an immediate attack to recapture the city and 800 , yeah eight hundred , Germans went onto the offensive and they claim they actually made headway , even entering the suburbs . Yet by 1945 everybody had seen enough war , prewar careerism had lost its all splendour and hence its poison on all aspects of Allied tactics was sorta removed . And of course everybody in the Allied camp would have tasted the charms of Paris and the like , a confusing reference to the Germans right in this paragraph .

as such even the vaunted Russian tanks would have a hard time . One can even mention the fact the heavies would have been wrongly armed for the conflict ahead . German industrial problems meant they were using low quality armour on their tanks . Which led to a concious Russian decision to arm the JS series with 122mm HE-oriented guns which made short work of panzers and infantry alike , in a mount that matched Panther (the German medium) in mobility with an armour scheme that easily overmatched Tiger I (the common German heavy) . The Russians would need the T-54 , numbering hundreds not less , and immediately not in 1947-55 timeframe .

and of course it would have been surprisingly ( and one can say immediately ) discovered the Germans were peace loving people infamously wronged by Communist cells in media and similar perception shaping mechanisms . The reputation of the Fascist Animal was something Moscow was planning to use to advantage in and a justification of their forthcoming prolonged "liberation" of Eastern Europe . A Russian sneak attack on the Allies would have been hell for them in the end and they knew they were bound to fail .

 

[r16]

this Russian admission was probably the reason Patton was so full of it . An old school careerist , he knew he was dealt a poor hand when one of his PR offensives was handled rather uncooperatively . The one where he sent a task force to rescue his son-in-law from a prison camp in Hammelburg . The one reported in 1970 to be the only case where US Army faced " Krauts [making] a good coordinated attack with artillery cover and tanks backing up the infantry the way they should" in ETO . You know the one which wags explained not with the penetration Task Force Baum did made into Germany deeper than anybody else but the supposed charges that the Americans lined up German Army nurses and shot them ( see the next post . )The very one American tanks took positions in front of the prison camp to shell the Serbians ! From a distance of 500 to 800 metres , from 1700 hours -when German machine gun fire stopped them - until 2000 hours . Colonel Waters , the POW son-in-law went out to take control of the situation and had the misfortune to "step on " a character who promptly shot him . Some guy in a strange uniform , of the kind the Serbians and the American had never seen . Some surprise as Hammelburg also happened to be an infantry training center and one would have expected that the latest in German Army houte-couture of the passerby to be visible to the POWs . And naturally Germans claim the paratrooper / sniper was an American . Really . Pesky Razvedky , what can one say .

though the end of Patton also proves the Allies had also misgivings about a general war so soon . When Patton visited another POW camp he first met the Russians , a contingent of whom marched out with ... "bearing , precision , staying power and discipline."

When Patton saw them , he said , "That's it .The Russian infantry .Hard to beat ." His eyes gleamed."But it can be done and that is undoubtedly just what we shall have to do . It was one of the first of his anti-Russian statements which were soon to get him into serious trouble. The General was removed ...And ı would doubt it to be the work of Communist cells .

 

[r16]

the one source ı have in English says it was a confused night action inside the town of Lohr where US tanks shot up a convoy of 12 trucks and in one were women soldiers , "Grey Mice" as Parisiennes would call them . Unmentionable others have it that it was somewhere between Lohr and Gemunden when Ernst Langendorf , an American soldier in a propaganda outfit that was to support Task Force Baum gave a ten minute speech to Germans around and got 300 prisoners with the mention of American cigarettes waiting for them . And he got the "video". He went back alone , claiming he had failed to meet the task force and was not aware that his 3 men team had gone 35 miles behind the German lines .

the ranking German officer in the area , General von Obstfelder dispatched a Feldpolizei on a motorcycle .He was commanding the two divisions massing in the area , one was detraining on the morning action took place . Task Force Baum's call for air-attacks on the Gemunden marshalling yards were ignored by the all conquering Allied air arms .

the English language book shows all signs of the post-Vietnam civilian belittleling of the military and it becomes annoying to read the descriptions of the German armour . ı can understand Ferdinand and Jagdpanter confused , as they were both well protected assault guns with 88 / 71 cannon , and the author makes specific mention of the 88 mm as the most feared German artillery weapon . Yet he has the German vehicles equipped with 90 mm with multiple references ! Which didn't happen until Germans were in NATO ... Enough to discredit anything related to video charges , ya know . And of course Wikipedia makes the vehicles those puny Hetzers , nothing to see here move on ya all !

nor he does full justice to how SS officer cadets descended onto Hessdorf and shot elderly people for they had surrendered to tanks that passed through the village . The liberation of Graefendorf POW camp , and entrusting the Russians with handling of the 200 German prisoners collected by a raiding party that was supposed to rush ahead with rocks on the accelerator pedals is also mentioned with a breeze . Any relationship with the 300 mentioned above , those Germans becoming really dejected to hear there were no cigarettes for them and released by Langendorf ,according to the book ? Germans Russian POWs chased with naked bayonets ?

worst of all the choice of Abraham Baum of Bronx for command fails the attention it deserves . As the Allies were discovering what the Germans were fully up to with this Final Solution thing and it would have been a good copy for a Jew to save American officers who had faced misfortune in their great crusade to eliminate the menace of Nazism . The good war which was also saving all those incarcerated in concentration camps . Eisenhower's bid for presidency sometime in the future is mentioned as foretold by Patton ; yet no correlation can be established with that Captain Baum would have been too junior an officer to command the 3000 strong Combat Command US Army HQ authorised , that's why only 300 or so were sent . And the whole thing becomes one tyrant , namely Patton , sending young Americans to certain death on a whim , covering his tracks afterwards through lies in concert with absolute remorselessness And it handily misses how Patton came to see it that a war with Commies was of paramount importance .

as ı understand it the Hammelburg camp was where Vassily Stalin was shot dead by the guards after a fist-fight with a British officer .

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

I dont know about Stalin but on Allies side it was U.S. general Patton who was eager to kick some russian ass... (he wanted to rebuild the german army for that purpose)

 

[RedRalph]

People are, I think, underestimating the fact that the red army had the most hardened veterans on Earth at that point, and a lot more experience in land war than the allies. Nonetheless, I doubt this would have ended well for them if they had tried it (though I don't think they had any intention of doing so).

 

[jtb1127]

People are, I think, underestimating the fact that the US of A had the largest bomb in the world and was the only country that had it, and had a lot more experience in using it that the other allies. Nonetheless, I doubt the Soviet Union would have made it far before Moscow would be nuked to smithereens.

 

[red_elk]

In brief, in case of attack from Western Allies in Spring 1945, the Soviets would be stopped by Atlantic ocean. The attack from Soviet side in that conditions would be unthinkable, unless Stalin went mad, attacking an enemy whose mainland was impossible to reach (and btw, after 4 years of total war on attrition, suffering more than 20 mln. casualties)

An attempt to launch Churchill's operation "Unthinkable" would be more probable, but considering Soviet overwhelming advantage in ground forces and also unfinished war with Japan that was also not very likely to happen, fortunately.

 

[jtb1127]

I feel that the allies were more likely to invade the USSR then the other way around. I think this is more realistic scenario and it should be discussed. This is a quote from Patton, who was in favor (anyone who has seen the movie would know, not saying that a film adaptation holds much merit though) of an invasion of the Soviet Union.

"I understand the situation. Their (the Soviet) supply system is inadequate to maintain them in a serious action such as I could put to them. They have chickens in the coop and cattle on the hoof -- that's their supply system. They could probably maintain themselves in the type of fighting I could give them for rive days. After that it would make no difference how many million men they have, and if you wanted Moscow I could give it to you. They lived on the land coming down. There is insufficient left for them to maintain themselves going back. Let's not give them time to build up their supplies. If we do, then . . . we have had a victory over the Germans and disarmed them, but we have failed in the liberation of Europe; we have lost the war!"

He also said,

"I have never seen in any army at any time, including the German Imperial Army of 1912, as severe discipline as exists in the Russian army. The officers, with few exceptions, give the appearance of recently civilized Mongolian bandits."

And

"In my opinion, the American Army as it now exists could beat the Russians with the greatest of ease, because, while the Russians have good infantry, they are lacking in artillery, air, tanks, and in the knowledge of the use of the combined arms, whereas we excel in all three of these. If it should be necessary to right the Russians, the sooner we do it the better."

I'm wondering how many others supported this war with the Soviets whether it was just him or other supporters. I know he is not the most reliable source in the world when it comes to a description of the soviet union (he is severely biased) but if more people shared this then an invasion could have been likely.