I think we have to define what winning the war with Russia would be. I see two answers.
Kicking Russia out of eastern Europe so they are unable to set up the iron curtain.
Defeating Russia in the same manor as Germany was defeated. Their whole country being occupied by enemy troops and the government stripped of power and replaced with something more to our liking.
2 was totally not possible. Russia is huge I think that one of the main lessons from WWII is that you cannot bomb a country into submission you must occupy the country. It did not work with Germany against Briton it did not work for the allies against Germany. I don’t think you can really say it worked against Japan but I probably won’t argue the point.
I think the idea of using German troops to help conquer Russia is also ludicrous. How could we trust them? Why would they fight? How could they trust us?
This is without even considering political will to fight Russia. They were just our ally in defeating Germany. We still had to win the war against Japan and now we want to get into another war? I don’t think that this could have been sold to the American public or our Allies.
Doesn’t this answer the question? Russia is a huge country - being able to draw upon those numbers to defend their homeland against invaders seems to me to be able to ensure a successful resistance.
You heard wrong. While civilians ran on very short rations, by 1945 the Russian Army was eating regularly.
Maybe in old Ronald Reagan speeches. But Soviet agricultural production varied, quite a bit from year to year. And in post Soviet Russia, it still does, even without collective farms.
By 45, Soviet railroads were largely back in business. Your objection is also comprimised by the fact that horse transport was one of Russia’s primary logistical tools, & not because of any truck shortages, either. Good roads were all but unknown in many parts of Eastern Europe, so horses & trains were a must for an army in the field. as proved by German use of horses in Barbarossa, and their attempts to keep Russian railroads in use for their own purposes.
But, what were the Russians using for rubber before the war began? After all, most of the world had trade embargos in place against the USSR, because of Stalin. Weren’t they using some form of alternative material?
The IL-2 wasn’t the only plane in the Russian order of battle. I recall reading about a prototype aircraft brought into production 3 days before VE day. It was a fighter that used something very similar to a propjet engine. Dropped in favor of true jets, it would have been a nasty suprise for US pilots. 4- machine guns, 2- 23[sub]mm[/sub] autocannons, & a speed aprox. 500mph. OUCH!
No. Not even Patton would have advocated starting an attack on Russia while Japan was still in the fight. It’s just bad strategy.
Maybe from bases in Allied Iran?
The above point is my primary worry. And quite well justified, too I might add.
Seapower is all but useless against an enemy with little need for outside raw materials & few ports. Most Russian ports are closed due to ice for 9 months out of the year.
What are you gonna do, send the sailors walking over the ice to throw snowballs at them? :rolleyes:
And don’t try going through the Black Sea. Turkey was neutral in WW2, so they won’t let you pass through from the Med.
The Russian control their own landmass quite well, thank you. I strongly disagree with you. It would have as much chance of success as the Children’s Crusade. You underrate the Russian resolve. Badly.
Nobody was going to take Russia in those days. The Bomb itself might not have been enough. The old equation of trading space for time is a big advantage.
And, tell me Danimal– just how were we supposted to control the area we seized? The huge area that Russia occupies–the Russian peasant partisans–where do we get the manpower? The Locals, rendered paranoid by German excesses would not flock to our hands like friendly children. They’d cut our throats by night, & slip rat poison in our stew. Not a pretty picture.
Wars are won by controlling territory. There is no way we could have controlled the enormous Russian landmass.
The Russians might not win, but we couldn’t win.
It is possible for both sides to lose in a war. Remember that.
Well it looks like I’ll have to dig up sources Bosda so have patience while I prepare to respond.
In the meantime, I agree that America could not have occupied all (or even most) of the Soviet or Russian landmass. What I said was that America could, theoretically, have defeated the Red Army given the national determination to do so, which determination did not exist. Having defeated the Red Army, America would have had to pick a relatively small portion of the USSR to control, probably the Ukraine.
You’re kidding right? Are you suggesting that the Soviet’s national determination would have been any less under those circumstances. Their whole reason for holding the Eastern European territories was to buffer themselves against any foreigners ever attacking their home territories again.
They would have fought with every man woman and child against any army that dared to invade them.
On top of that I would have to say by the end of the War the Soviets Armour and artillery were far superior to the United States, as well as their tactics. They were able to create their own version of the Blitzkrieg against the German Armies in the last year of the War.
It’s a common misconception that Russia won by sheer numbers alone, they did have to use those numbers properly to win that War. For the first two years when the Germans were defeating them they had well over 5 million in their ranks against an army of 3 million.
You read me wrong there, kingpengvin. America did not have the national determination to beat the Soviet Union. The Russians’ determination would have been unchanged. That’s why I believe America would indeed have lost.
I already stated that the Soviet armor was indeed superior to the American armor; no need for an argument on that score. As for artillery I’m not so sure; did the Soviets have the time-on-target barrage, or a communication system to match the Americans’? The only artillery advantage the Russians had that I’m aware of is the Katyusha rocket launcher.
The Russians were already there and had shorter supply lines, i very much doubt the brits,french etc. would accept a war against such a major power who had just been fighting the germans.
I think that everyone thought that after the war the USSR would warm the west ( remember, no one really knew what stalin had been doing ) and we would all be best buddies.
Anyway, what did happen was much better - less lives lost and now the USSR is no more.
Why fight and lose all those lives when you can just invent some ‘star wars’ thing and watch the USSR go bust.
Nope…this is not a misconception. Certainly not a misconception at the beginning of the war. Stalin had done a thorough job of blasting his officer corp before war ever began. At the beginning of the war Russia had precious little in the way of good generals (I’ll admit that by the end of the war they finally had a few worthy of the title).
You only have to look at the casualty figures to see the truth of this. Early on in Operation Barbarossa Germany was occasionally racking up kill ratios of 10:1 (10 dead Russians for one dead German) and that was despite the fact that Germany was the aggressor at that point (usually defenders have the advantage against the attacker). These are NOT numbers that equate to Russia using their military well.
However, as someone in another post recently pointed out to me, numbers have a quality all their own. If you have the people to spare and the willingness to accept their wholesale slaughter then attrition tactics can be viable. Russia and Stalin clearly had both of these requirements and they used it.
As to the OP and whether America could have defeated Russia you have to define better what defeated means. If you mean could the US have invaded and occupied Russia for any length of time then I think the answer is a definitive no. However, if defeating Russia means tossing Stalin and the communists out on their ear and getting a democracy installed to replace it then I think maybe the US could have won. I agree with other posts that, given the political climate of the time, there is no way the US could have reasonably gone down that road. However, for the sake of the OP I will assume that by some miracle the US is able to get the will of the people behind a full blown, no-holds barred boxing match with Russia.
I’m surprised at the lack of strategic finesse displayed so far. Except for one or two posts everyone seems to think the only route into Russia is through eastern Europe. Given that Russia at that point had virtually their entire in eastern Europe this is not an ideal place for an attack.
How about coming at Russia through Iraq and Iran? Capture the oil rich Caucusus and you’ve just put a major dent in Russia’s war effort. We bombed Ploesti (in Romania) out from under the Germans and we could do it again to the Russians. No oil from their either.
How about coming in on Russia’s east coast? Again, barely defended and with the US already having a huge presence in the Pacific not too much trouble for the US to pull off. If there is one thing the US is clearly best at in warfare it is logistics. Moving huge amounts of supplies and materials around is something the US is very good at and it could easily maintain a supply line even that long (especially given that there is no way Russia could do anything to stop our supply lines in the Pacific). In this case getting an army across Russia would still be hard but airbases could be stationed there to go after factories that had been moved east to stay out of range of German planes.
Russia is now faced with a three front war (their west, south and east). Since defending is easier the US doesn’t need massive armies to defend these places. You have also turned one of Russia’s advantages (a freakin huge country) against them. Now they have to come to you exposing them to American air superiority (which the Americans would definitely have). Americans could now trade land for time as its air power pummeled advancing Russian columns. Deprived of their industry and raw materials Russia would have little left but a LOT of men. Those men are certainly still something to consider and still make actually defeating all of Russia nearly impossible but neither can they be an effective force to attack and get back what they had lost either (an attacking army has to be mobile which in this case they’d no longer be…a defending army just has to sit and wait for you to come to them).
In the face of this the US could almost certainly get all of Eastern Europe back from Russia (as they pull troops out to defend more central Soviet interests). After that this is where things might stall. Does Stalin still maintain power under these circumstances or does someone kick him out and agree to a negotiated peace with the US (a peace that includes a democratic government)? I don’t know but I’d bet Stalin would somehow hang on to power (just as Saddam Hussein has managed to do…ruthless bastards both of them).
Democratic or not Russians are probably not going to be happy with the US for a LONG time to come after that so it is likely that Russia would still be a hostile country to US interests. Given that I’m not sure what the US would have stood to gain in this scenario although I suppose some Eastern European countries would have been pleased.
As far as numbers go, I’d think that although the Russians had more manpower to rely on, at the time, the Red Army had far less training than the Allied forces. Danimal quoted 50 US divisions compared to 200 Russian divisions, but, and correct me if I’m wrong, these were mostly made up of very green troops that were either extremely young or very old. Most of the experienced fighting men in Russia were killed off by the earlier German offensive.
An aside: did the Russian army during WW2 use the same method of selecting non-coms that they did during the Cold War, i.e. one soldier out of ten was randomly made a sergeant? If so, their numerical advantage would be negated by their lack of veteran soldiers and non-coms.
Ludicrous? Maybe. However several German officers including Himmler and Goering hoped it would happen. Most Germans where absolutely terrified of the Soviets. I don’t think its a terribly huge stretch to think that they would have fought under allied command if asked (or ordered by their own officers) to do so.
Using soldiers from your ‘enemies’ was commonplace during the war. German forces on the Eastern Front were bolstered by vast numbers of Hiwis, Russian labourers and (as the Red Army started to overwhelm the German units) troops. After the capture of Stalingrad, captured German officers seriously proposed the formation of a German airborne corps from PoWs to spearhead an invasion of Berlin. The Russian military seriously considered it, until Stalin decided he couldn’t trust the officers in question.
Admittedly, I doubt the Western Allies would have been happy fighting with Germans, but I imagine the Russians couldn’t have pictured it in 1941 either.
Our troops were a lot greener than the Soviets’. The Soviet army of 1945 was battle-hardened from four years of continuous warfare. Most of our men had only been fighting since 1944, no more than one army having been seasoned in North Africa or Sicily, plus a handful transferred in from the Pacific theater. The Soviets had lost a lot of men, but the survivors were some of the ablest troops in the world; the German landswehrs held an almost superstitious respect for “Ivan’s” fighting prowess, and the landswehrs were no pushovers, as we learned in Normandy.
I don’t know how they chose their noncoms, but the Soviets had no lack of veterans.
But the US also a great part of their army in western europe
How good were the communication and supply lines through Iran and Irak?
And crossing the whole Siberia (how many thousand of kilometres?)in order to reach strategically significant regions (factories could have been moved, but not that far). With the pleasant siberian climate and its excellent road system for supply?
And so are the US…
I believed the US were the attacker…
I can’t see in what way. It would always be the US armies which would have to cross the russian territory…
Why would they, as long as the US armies wouldn’t have advanced enough? They could let the US armies camp in the siberian toundra for quite a long time
Deprived of what, exactly? The only real threat would be the seizure of the oil fields. I seem to remember that it’s exactly what the germans tried to do…Can’t remember they had a lot of success…
Also, perhaps the russian consider attacking in western europe with the armies which were massed there, as you pointed out,and benefiting from good commucation ways, while most of the US armies are making a touristic trip in the middle east and asia? Or do you believe they would just sit down and wait until the US would have taken the oil fields and made their way from Vladivostok to Moscow?
BTW, whoever suggested coming through the Caucasus-the Caucasian mountains feature some VERY steep and rough terrain-try getting your tanks over THAT. Besides, I doubt the locals there would be pleased.
Danimal, it would be difficult to say that you had understated things since you have made a very strong case.
Not to forget, however, that the VERY experienced Red Army had just recently surrounded and virtually annhilated the entire German Sixth Army (Paulus). The Red Army, at the time the OP was talking about, was all-but-walking-in against the remains of the German Army (and Air Force), which was increasingly composed of those normally considered exempt from military duty.
[Patton’s Third Army was also, of course, “all but walking in”. IIRC (and it’s been several years since I’ve read up on this subject), one of the biggest, underlying reasons that Patton was “held back” was that the Canadian, British (Monty), U.S. First (Hodges), and maybe even the U.S. Fifth (Clark) Armies would have been reduced to a consolidation role (“mop up”) behind the U.S. Third Army (Patton). Political considerations won, at the cost of a fair number of soldiers’ lives.]
As to the comment (by Demise) that the Soviets chose their non-coms through a random process: The U.S.S.R., (as did and do we, at least in law, if not in fact, and as does Switzerland), had, until recent times, mandatory (organized) militia duty for all citizens. When grabbing ten citizens and telling them that they are now a squad, choosing one of them at random and appointing him as squad-leader makes a certain amount of good sense.
(I used the words “in law”: I haven’t read Title 10 in many years but the last time I did, one of the very first things was a declaration that every [loosely: “able-bodied”] male citizen of the United States was a member of the Militia of the United States. Here in Florida, the Constitution [1971] does the same for the Florida Militia but stipulates both male and female citizens. [Again, as with the US Code {Annotated}: I haven’t read the Florida Constitution in many years.] )
Surely in 1944-45, as in any war, the field officers of the Red Army were chosen by their previously proven combat competence. (No cite, sorry. Just logic. )
Having lots of veterans cuts both ways. Does anyone remember the handwringing over the invasion of Iraq? A lot of commentators were claiming that the coalition troops would be slaughtered because the Iraquis were ‘battle hardened’ and our troops were green. Didn’t work out that way. Sometimes ‘battle hardened’ means ‘exhausted and ready to quit’.
The Soviets fought valiantly in WWII, but they were fighting the hated Germans, who had a habit of rounding people up and shooting them if they were captured. That’s gotta be pretty good for the ole’ motivation. It’s not clear that they would have been as willing to fight to the last man if the invading army had been a little more humane.
I still don’t have hard, solid sources, but I have a lead from a World War II buff named Philip MacGregor. Take a look at his post here.
Among the highlights:
Mr. MacGregor lists as his source The Soviet Home Front, 1941-45 by John Barber and Mark Harrison (Longmans, UK, 1991). I will see if I can run this book down and find out if it bears out Mr. MacGregor’s assertions.
If he is even close to being right, then I stand by my assertion that the cutoff of aid from the United States, plus a naval blockade to prevent the Soviets from making their losses good from other sources, would have very seriously impaired the Soviet war machine.
I’ve always wondered what the world would be like today if Hitler hadn’t been such a rabid anti-Semite. What if he had concentrated his hatred on Russia and Communism and left the Jews alone. Germany lost thousands of great minds (Einstein, for one) when Jews fled to escape the Holocaust. What if all that brainpower and manpower had stayed in Germany to help with the war effort? Stalin was a rabid Jew-hater as well. Maybe the world’s efforts could have been focused on him rather than Hitler? Would it have been in our best interests to team up with Hitler and the British and destroy Russia before they could spread Communism everywhere? Would the world be a better place today? Interested in everybody’s comments
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