# Modern US Army vs Nazi Army **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 26, 2016, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-us-army-vs-nazi-army/766957 "2016-09-26T18:55:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2016, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-us-army-vs-nazi-army/766957/61 "2016-09-27T17:50:28Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > Incidentally, what’s the _bare minimum_ of modern non-nuclear technology required to change the outcome of WWII? Seismic detectors. If the Axis had known there were massive oil fields in Libya, they would have had their own supply of oil far larger than what they got from Romania. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2016, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-us-army-vs-nazi-army/766957/62 "2016-09-27T18:09:08Z")
> [@TokyoBayer](#): > > No need to let them keep radio. We could watch their movements faster than they could make them. > > Strategic bombing was in its very infancy in WWII and it really wasn’t until the fact-finding teams when in after the war that they started to understand what should be done the next time. > > We wouldn’t need to inflict as much damage as they had to against the Nazis. First would be to cripple their oil and fuel facilities and storage and Germany would be entirely screwed. Effectively attack their transportation system and there wouldn’t be anything left to move goods or armies. What exactly do you think the strategic bombing offensive was about during WWII anyway? Those are exactly the things they went after, starting in the beginning of 1944, after learning a lot of hard lessons in the second half of 1943 trying to attack the means of production. The thing was, what ran the German economy was coal- they still mostly used coal in industry, homes, transport (trains), and for synthetic fuel production. From what I’ve read, the thing that really did them in wasn’t so much the oil campaign, or the intended effects of the transport campaign (reduce troop movements, etc…) but the unintended consequence of reducing the mobility of coal and starving the German economy in that fashion. But beyond the strategic bombing implications, the reconnaissance implications are huge; stuff like JSTARS and the various drones with FLIR capability would reveal positions relatively easily compared to methods of the time. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2016, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-us-army-vs-nazi-army/766957/63 "2016-09-27T18:54:46Z")
> [@drewder](#): > > At the very height of their power. Knowing what we do of the USSR and China, I believe we should turn the Germans around and have them keep fighting the Russians. We should some how keep Chiang Kai-shek running the store. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2016, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-us-army-vs-nazi-army/766957/64 "2016-09-27T19:05:08Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > Incidentally, what’s the _bare minimum_ of modern non-nuclear technology required to change the outcome of WWII? > > Suppose the Wehrmacht or Luftwaffe had a few AC-130 Spectres, with all the ammo and fuel always readily available for them. Would that have turned Stalingrad, Moscow, Leningrad, etc. into German victories? > > Maybe one B-52 armed with sensor-fuzed cluster skeet munitions (again, with all the ammo and fuel always readily available, constantly landing and replenishing) would have won Kursk for Germany? > > An Imperial Japanese Seawolf-class SSN might have singlehandedly won Midway, etc. IMO not really fair to hijack a thread about the modern US destroying the Nazis with a fresh counterfactual in the totally other direction about how the Nazis could’ve magically used modern tech to win against the original 1940s Allies. > [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Seismic detectors. If the Axis had known there were massive oil fields in Libya, they would have had their own supply of oil far larger than what they got from Romania. As long as they could get it back across the Med. Which might have proved challenging once the Allies had air bases elsewhere in North Africa and a surface plus submarine navy in the Med. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2016, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-us-army-vs-nazi-army/766957/65 "2016-09-27T19:08:50Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > As long as they could get it back across the Med. Which might have proved challenging once the Allies had air bases elsewhere in North Africa and a surface plus submarine navy in the Med. The Germans never committed substantial resources to the Mediterranean theater because Hitler always saw it as a side issue. But if there had been a strategic reason for controlling the Med, it was within Axis capabilities. ---
**Author:** ![Corry\_El](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecae2f/32.png) [@Corry\_El](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corry_El)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2016, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-us-army-vs-nazi-army/766957/66 "2016-09-27T19:36:05Z")
I took the question in what I think is a realistic vein, ie how effective is the modern US Army per unit of combat power v the 1944-45 US Army or the Germans at that time. The Germans were probably the more effective at the time, per unit of combat power (in land forces). Modern forces? In the more fantasy vein of the actual US Army now taking over for the WWII one, the biggest problem I see even given the fantasy is that today’s US Army has around 1mil personnel including the Reserve and NG, around half is the active Army. The 1944-45 Army had around 8mil personnel. That would be a major factor in being able to accomplish certain operations depending what further artificial assumptions you make to compensate. Consider the Seigfried Line campaign of Sep '44 to Dec 44, more like WWI continuous front fighting, and Allied forces at the end of a long frayed supply line. Not only has no miracle has occurred in quickly extending supply lines, but much smaller infantry force heavily outnumbered by the defending Germans would have had serious problems beyond those the numerically superior actual US infantry had in making progress in areas like the Huertgen Forest. Same goes for some other areas of warfare like for example submarines. The Germans had a few 100 operational subs at a given time, the WWII Allies 1,000’s of escorts of all sizes and even more numerous ASW a/c. The modern force has a few to several dozen of each, a serious challenge even if their effectiveness per unit is much greater. This could even be a problem for air forces though in that case many or most attack/bombing a/c could outrun piston fighters so easily they could operate among them heavily outnumbered with no problem. Not necessarily transports though, or AC-130’s (v. radar directed flak, and perhaps nightfighters hard for modern all weather fighters to hunt down). A modernly equipped force of the same size would have had a substantially easier time (though be enormously more expensive to equip, probably even in % of GDP terms), dramatically easier in some forms of warfare, not as dramatic in others. Again along dense front with time for the Germans to prepare defenses, M1 tanks couldn’t blithely run over antitank mines any more than M4’s could, and bounding anti-personnel mines are still a problem for infantry with body armor, as are mortar/artillery tree bursts, though wouldn’t cause as many deaths. But today’s much smaller forces against the much larger mass conscription forces of then would have other problems due to their numerical inferiority, particularly in infantry. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2016, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-us-army-vs-nazi-army/766957/67 "2016-09-27T19:37:51Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > Our spy planes would have everything the Nazis had deployed tracked down in a few days and our bombers would be able to take it all out in a few more days. Our tanks would roll through and clean out the rest. > > Well…and the Russians, and all the British intelligence, and the fact that the Nazis ultimately followed a pretty stupid war strategy. (It’s basically pretty impressive that the Germans succeeded to the extent that they did. I assume it’s largely thanks to what must have been a massive and impressive manufacturing capability. But the US contribution to the war was, at best, tertiary so far as I’ve come to understand the issue.) Stalin himself admitted they they would have collapsed without aid and a second front. The war was won by Churchill’s defiant stubbornness, by Russian manpower and by American manufacturing. Without any of those three, the Allies would have lost- or perhaps been forced into a bad draw. ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2016, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-us-army-vs-nazi-army/766957/68 "2016-09-27T20:32:34Z")
I think its still hard to say because back in WW2 we basically just rolled over the Germans with our massive industrial power. Our soldiers were mostly drafted and not eager to die whereas the Germans had their backs to the wall and were defending their homeland. A well dug in Nazi fanatic that has ammo can hold out pretty well. I am thinking of the units of Hitler Youth who did pretty good in the French hedgerows. On weapons a German once said that 1 of their Tigers could take out 10 of yours - but then you always had 11. We also totally outnumbered them in airpower and artillery. The Germans just couldnt believe how we could always call in artillery strikes and pound the hell out of them. As for leadership I heard that Rommel is still studied at US military academies. ---
**Author:** ![drachillix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/48db29/32.png) [@drachillix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drachillix)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2016, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-us-army-vs-nazi-army/766957/69 "2016-09-27T21:29:53Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > Or dealing with a tank that travels twice as fast as yours across country, is largely impervious to your main cannon and can actually fire and hit you from 2.5 miles away, while both tanks are moving at full speed. That can be airdropped behind your lines. A couple companies of abrams dropped in with the rest of the airborne units the night before D-Day would have made Hackfleisch of any reinforcements/counterattack on the beaches. ---
**Author:** ![drewder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/57b2e6/32.png) [@drewder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewder)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2016, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-us-army-vs-nazi-army/766957/70 "2016-09-27T21:47:46Z")
> [@Corry\_El](#): > > I took the question in what I think is a realistic vein, ie how effective is the modern US Army per unit of combat power v the 1944-45 US Army or the Germans at that time. The Germans were probably the more effective at the time, per unit of combat power (in land forces). Modern forces? > > In the more fantasy vein of the actual US Army now taking over for the WWII one, the biggest problem I see even given the fantasy is that today’s US Army has around 1mil personnel including the Reserve and NG, around half is the active Army. The 1944-45 Army had around 8mil personnel. That would be a major factor in being able to accomplish certain operations depending what further artificial assumptions you make to compensate. Consider the Seigfried Line campaign of Sep '44 to Dec 44, more like WWI continuous front fighting, and Allied forces at the end of a long frayed supply line. Not only has no miracle has occurred in quickly extending supply lines, but much smaller infantry force heavily outnumbered by the defending Germans would have had serious problems beyond those the numerically superior actual US infantry had in making progress in areas like the Huertgen Forest. > > Same goes for some other areas of warfare like for example submarines. The Germans had a few 100 operational subs at a given time, the WWII Allies 1,000’s of escorts of all sizes and even more numerous ASW a/c. The modern force has a few to several dozen of each, a serious challenge even if their effectiveness per unit is much greater. This could even be a problem for air forces though in that case many or most attack/bombing a/c could outrun piston fighters so easily they could operate among them heavily outnumbered with no problem. Not necessarily transports though, or AC-130’s (v. radar directed flak, and perhaps nightfighters hard for modern all weather fighters to hunt down). > > A modernly equipped force of the same size would have had a substantially easier time (though be enormously more expensive to equip, probably even in % of GDP terms), dramatically easier in some forms of warfare, not as dramatic in others. Again along dense front with time for the Germans to prepare defenses, M1 tanks couldn’t blithely run over antitank mines any more than M4’s could, and bounding anti-personnel mines are still a problem for infantry with body armor, as are mortar/artillery tree bursts, though wouldn’t cause as many deaths. But today’s much smaller forces against the much larger mass conscription forces of then would have other problems due to their numerical inferiority, particularly in infantry. So you think the military would need a massive recruiting campaign before they start off on a war against the hun? ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2016, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-us-army-vs-nazi-army/766957/71 "2016-09-27T21:52:56Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > LSLguy mentioned incinerating Berlin, but if we’re talking about the modern US military we also have to take into account modern US sensibilities. We’re not going to be doing strategic bombing of civilian center and we’re not going to use nukes. Given our casualty averseness I think our leaders would also be tempted to just put airpower into the fight and make the Brits do all the ground work. If so we’d also have modern sensibilities about US casualties. Imagine the President on HDTV, steaming video, etc., speaking to the US citizenry from the Oval office: [Quote=President ???] We must stop the evil Nazis from slaughtering any more of Europe and any more of the Jews. We must prevent the Soviet Union from occupying all of Eastern Europe. Time is of the essence. We have two choices. End the war this afternoon with the nuclear destruction of Berlin and a million or so dead Germans and zero dead Americans. Or we fight an infantry slog from the French coast to Berlin, killing almost as many Germans and at least a few thousand Americans along the way. While our air forces wreak havoc ahead of the Army spearhead, unavoidably killing thousands of innocent people and sowing the seeds of economic disaster for a decade or more to come. This is a deep and difficult moral dilemma. Many thousands of lives, both American and European weigh in the balance. I ask for your non-binding input. Go to [www.whitehouse.gov](http://www.whitehouse.gov) to register your choice. The decision is ultimately mine. And I will make it at this time tomorrow. But before I lead you through whatever path history has in store for us I’d like to have a fresh sense of the will of the American people. Good night. [/quote] (Any real President would close with some hokey crap about God’s hands, but I’m not going to write that.) By popular acclaim Berlin will be a smoking hole the next evening. > [@Corry\_El](#): > > But today’s much smaller forces against the much larger mass conscription forces of then would have other problems due to their numerical inferiority, particularly in infantry. This is really the longest pole in the invasion tent. The only way to make up for that is with massive air and artillery prep to ensure the greatest bulk of enemy forces never closes within their weapons range of our superior but much smaller force. Our army can fight and win outnumbered 2 or 3 to one. Albeit more expensively than optimally. But not 10 or 15 to one; that leads to US defeat in detail for those unlucky units. ---
**Author:** ![drewder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/57b2e6/32.png) [@drewder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewder)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2016, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-us-army-vs-nazi-army/766957/72 "2016-09-27T22:17:35Z")
See this is one reason I brought up the casualty rates in the gulf war. With a kill ratio of something like 136 to 1 I have to wonder if a numerical superiority on the nazi side would have any effect considering how out classed they are. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2016, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-us-army-vs-nazi-army/766957/73 "2016-09-28T01:51:00Z")
The numerical superiority isn’t really important. The German army’s level of professionalism and combat skill was very much greater than the Iraqi army’s, even the Republican Guard, but when you’re seventy years behind in the arms race, that just won’t bridge the gap. The most you could say about the German army (c. 1943) is that they wouldn’t collapse in a pathetic heap, the way the Iraqis did: they’d rally, try to reform, try to establish new fighting lines, etc., just as they were doing even into 1945. It wouldn’t work, but they were good enough soldiers/fighters to keep on trying. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2016, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-us-army-vs-nazi-army/766957/74 "2016-09-28T03:46:07Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > IMO not really fair to hijack a thread about the modern US destroying the Nazis with a fresh counterfactual in the totally other direction about how the Nazis could’ve magically used modern tech to win against the original 1940s Allies. > > As long as they could get it back across the Med. Which might have proved challenging once the Allies had air bases elsewhere in North Africa and a surface plus submarine navy in the Med. Sorry, you’re right - my comment was a hijack. OK, what’s the bare minimum of US military nonnuclear technology that could vastly change WWII all on its own and accelerate the Axis demise? One solitary B-2, conducting precision strikes on Berlin and Tokyo, etc.? ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2016, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-us-army-vs-nazi-army/766957/75 "2016-09-28T03:55:56Z")
Solitary B-2 would be damn nice – the electronics package alone would be fantastic! But I think, to win the war (I’ve been using 1943 as an epoch, as the war was already won by that point…just nobody was fully aware of it yet) you’d need more muscle. A full carrier group: nice! A modern armored division: sweet! Five nuclear-tipped cruise missiles: two to use, one to prove we really mean it and can do it again, one more to make that point crystal clear, and, if they really get stubborn, one more to seal the deal. From that point, we’re just bluffing, but they don’t know that! “And that was just the beginning, buster!” ---
**Author:** ![drewder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/57b2e6/32.png) [@drewder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewder)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2016, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-us-army-vs-nazi-army/766957/76 "2016-09-28T04:55:28Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > Sorry, you’re right - my comment was a hijack. > OK, what’s the bare minimum of US military nonnuclear technology that could vastly change WWII all on its own and accelerate the Axis demise? > > One solitary B-2, conducting precision strikes on Berlin and Tokyo, etc.? On Tokyo is this before or after the fire bombings? As has been mentioned above I don’t think any amount of bombing will compel either power to surrender. I used to think the A-bomb ended the war, now I’m not as convinced. Far more died from the fire bombings than by Atomic bombs. I doubt the high command would have surrendered just because a lot of people died from one bomb. I think the soviets entering the war had far more to do with it as the Japanese were hoping they would act as a mediator. ---
**Author:** ![Corry\_El](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecae2f/32.png) [@Corry\_El](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corry_El)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2016, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-us-army-vs-nazi-army/766957/77 "2016-09-28T13:17:39Z")
> [@drewder](#): > > So you think the military would need a massive recruiting campaign before they start off on a war against the hun? Equipping a force like the modern one but 8 times as large would be at least as daunting an issue as recruiting the manpower. Consider especially the relatively smaller industrial base of the US as a % of its economy now, and the probably greater difficulty of adapting still existing manufacturers to produce today’s key weapons. That would probably take many more years, to the extent possible at all, than it took in the massive US war industry conversion after ca. 1940 (there was some head start before the US entry into the war). ---
**Author:** ![Corry\_El](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecae2f/32.png) [@Corry\_El](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corry_El)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2016, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-us-army-vs-nazi-army/766957/78 "2016-09-28T15:08:44Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > The numerical superiority isn’t really important. The German army’s level of professionalism and combat skill was very much greater than the Iraqi army’s, even the Republican Guard, but when you’re seventy years behind in the arms race, that just won’t bridge the gap. Back to Dupuy, his analysis of the 1973 Mideast War found the Israeli Army 3.4 times as effective per unit of combat power than the Iraqi Army then (the Iraqi’s sent a considerable armored/mechanized force to fight on the Golan front in the later days of that war). That was a much bigger margin of superiority per his calculations than the Israeli advantage over the Syrians (2.5) Egyptians (2.0) or Jordanians (1.9). So the Iraqi’s were probably a much less qualitatively capable army than the US in 1991 _before_ taking into account differences in equipment, Dupuy’s analyses purported to make that correction. His Combat Effectiveness Value was supposed to isolate human factors (training, leadership etc), though also perhaps other non-weapon factors (comms etc), and again just one man’s study anyway. But in general I don’t see the relevance of the Iraqi’s. The WWII western front 1944-45 situation wasn’t of two armies of very different ‘CEV’ but of similar CEV, Germans somewhat superior to the Americans, 20% per Dupuy (who was a career US Army officer so we can’t immediately assume he was biased against the US, in fact Brits might assume the opposite about his conclusion that the German CEV avg’d ~30% higher than British, most Brit/CW interested in WWII IME ‘know’ that the British Empire land forces were superior man for man to the US Army, and it’s based on a lot of their historians assuming or purporting to have found so, and again I’m not saying Dupuy is the final arbiter, but he tried to quantify it and found differently). So it’s a question of numbers v equipment between two armies of relatively similar effectiveness in human factors. I think the numerical factor is more important than some posters are assuming. It would depend on the form of warfare, or IOW the stage of the 1944-45 NW Europe (and Italy) campaign, or even say if we wind back to the Western Desert (though that didn’t involve the US per se) or Tunisia. Even some of the key desert fighting was against prepared German defenses which could not practically be outflanked. Infantry was a key ingredient to make breakthroughs, and cutting infantry numbers drastically would have a big impact even with the 70 yrs of technology. And again in Huertgen Forest type of fighting, you’re just not going to make any progress with a non nuclear supported US infantry force several times smaller, even with 70 yrs of change infantry and artillery, too closed terrain for armor to have much impact. In fact some of the units badly mauled in that campaign (like the 28th Infantry Division) are going to be destroyed by the Germans if they are even somewhat smaller. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2016, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-us-army-vs-nazi-army/766957/79 "2016-09-28T15:30:57Z")
At the very least, even with a modern American aversion to casualties and “boots on the ground”, we’d liberate France, Poland, and any other Nazi-conquered countries very quickly. Lately, we’re used to fighting in territory where the locals (and hence the guerillas) are against us, but in France, the situation would be the reverse: It’d take very few targeted bombings/missiles against German strongpoints to turn the tide, and enable the French Resistance to do the mop-up work. From a standpoint of casualty-aversion, it might be best to commence liberation of France et al on Day 1, then hold the line for as long as it took for them to get themselves back on their feet, while using safe bombing raids and missiles to hamstring the German efforts with whatever targets presented themselves (like, say, reinforcements coming to the line) on the German side. Once our allies are recovered sufficiently, let them take the fight to the Germans, supported by American recon and low-risk pinpoint attacks. Of course, this slow-but-steady approach would mean that the Russians have time to make more progress, which might not be something we’d like. I don’t know what balance Americans would ultimately settle on, there. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2016, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-us-army-vs-nazi-army/766957/80 "2016-09-28T15:35:58Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Of course, this slow-but-steady approach would mean that the Russians have time to make more progress, which might not be something we’d like. I don’t know what balance Americans would ultimately settle on, there. If so minded, an American force could probably, as another poster mentioned earlier, push the Russians back to Moscow, no matter how far the Russians had advanced. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-us-army-vs-nazi-army/766957.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modern-us-army-vs-nazi-army/766957.md?page=5)