Which we in many cases did-for example by cozying up to (Communist) China after the Sino-Soviet split. But my point is that both sides were using ideology as a vehicle to increase power and influence unlike say what the major powers were doing before World War I.
How many decades did it take us to figure this out? And what other opportunities did we miss because of our ideological blinkers? We’d have been better off if we had just ignored the fact that people like Mao or Ho or Castro were communists and appealed to their national interests. They might have been communist regimes but they could have been neutral ones like Tito’s Yugoslavia rather than Soviet allies (or they might even have been American allies). Sure they were dictatorships - but we worked with plenty of other dictatorships during the cold war.
That’s no reason to hand the other side victories. The reason every communist became a de facto Soviet ally was because we treated them that way. The Soviets didn’t make that mistake - they were willing to make deals with non-communist regimes like India, Egypt, Syria, and Iraq. We should have done the same thing and tried to win communist regimes away from Soviet influence.
No, he was not. Stalin’s foreign minister was Jewish, for crying out loud! Stalin was opposed to “backward” religious movements, so he sought to reform the Jewish people’s culture, but he was not “a rabid Jew-hater.”
As for why the USA didn’t like to deal peacefully with ideological communists in the Cold War era, consider the expansionist business position of the American “private sector.” Communist governments want the fruits of industry for the people, not some investor in the West. They were natural enemies.
Maybe not a rabid Jew-hater but Stalin did target Jews for purges. He believed there were Jewish conspiracies that could threaten his regime and Stalin didn’t tolerate any possible threat. That said, he wasn’t focused on the Jews the way Hitler was - to Stalin, the Jews were just another group that he didn’t trust.
It was eleven years ago. We were a hotheaded young messageboard back then and we let our emotions run away with us.
The OSS actually worked with the Brits and put out a White Paper called something along the lines of “The Case for Operation: Unthinkable”.
In this paper is a detailed description of known Soviet Assets in theater, known Allied assets in theater and the general consensus was that an Allied attack against the Soviets would lead to the Allies getting pushed out of Germany, and quite possibly quite a ways through France before enough men and materiel could be brought to bear on the front. The Allies say that air superiority would be spotty, but generally in the allies favor at will, and that long range bombers would be a HUGE asset.
The summary is that it would be a winnable war, but at terrible cost, and generally not worth the effort.
Note: It also involved recreating the German Army, and supplying same. That was far to many battle tested veterans to leave on the sidelines.
Man, this is an OLD thread. I’ve only skimmed it so far, but it seems that the zombie revival has taken, as Mods haven’t closed it and asked folks to start a new thread on the subject.
I suppose it depends on what ‘won’ means. Basically, I can’t think of any combination of factors that would have caused the US to declare war on Russia as soon as Germany finally folded, but if we pretend that we would do something like that, I see initially the Russians being totally thrown back. Russia had gone into Germany on the end of a fairly tenuous logistics line, and had basically bulled their way into Germany at ruinous cost (they lost more men and equipment going into Germany than the US lost during the entire war, IIRC). They were spent at that point, at least for their forces in theater, and it took them months to reorganize those forces and resupply everything they needed…all at the end of that rather long and tenuous supply line. So, a US bent on attacking the Russians would merely have to use it’s huge strategic air arm (something the Germans always lacked) to attack those supply lines and cut off the beaten up army in Germany and Eastern Europe. We should have local air superiority in that region, so could use our devastating tactical air component to good effect as well. I figure with some brutal but most likely short attacks we could probably have thrown out or destroyed/forced to surrender a large part of Russia’s best trained and most veteran military forces and pushed them back to Russia itself.
After that, it’s the battle of the competing logistics, as the US’s logistics were also rather long and tenuous, but much less vulnerable to a Russia that wasn’t doing a lot of the strategic air part of the war, and had concentrated mainly on tactical air. At the point were we toss the Russians out of Germany and Eastern Europe, however, it would get ugly. I figure for the US to ‘win’, we’d need to continue with the tactic of indiscriminate conventional bombing of civilian population centers (I’m pretty sure that though Germany couldn’t hit a lot of the major supply hubs in Northern Russia or a lot of the factors in the Urals, that the US could from German bases) punctuated periodically with the use of nuclear weapons on key military and logistics centers (maybe one early raid to try and drop a nuke on Stalin if we could figure out where he was). If we are talking about staying totally conventional though, I’m not sure if we could ‘win’, because I’m not sure we’d be willing to pay the price that this sort of victory would require. It would be long, costly and brutal fighting to try and attack into Russia, even with the fact that their army had been beat to crap and that their logistics were more vulnerable to our kind of air force than the one the Germans had and what they had designed theirs for.
The study was a lot bleaker than that, bolding mine.
It wasn’t considered a winnable war at all; any early offensive successes against the Soviets would be due to surprise, which is a very fleeting advantage. Once the affects of surprise passed, the reality of being outnumbered by 3-1 would make offensive operations entirely unfeasible. The expectation wasn’t to then be driven out of Germany and possibly some of France; it was to be driven off the continent entirely.
This is simply not true. There was nothing tenuous about Soviet logistics going into Germany; they did not ‘bully’ their way into Germany and it wasn’t at ruinous cost. They were in no way a spent force; it didn’t take them months to reorganize and resupply and they were not at the end of a supply line that was in any way tenuous. The railheads were right behind the front lines with fleets of hundreds of thousands of trucks, largely the ubiquitous deuce and a half courtesy of lend-lease to bring supplies from there to combat units.
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This is simply not true. There was nothing tenuous about Soviet logistics going into Germany; they did not ‘bully’ their way into Germany and it wasn’t at ruinous cost. They were in no way a spent force; it didn’t take them months to reorganize and resupply and they were not at the end of a supply line that was in any way tenuous. The railheads were right behind the front lines with fleets of hundreds of thousands of trucks, largely the ubiquitous deuce and a half courtesy of lend-lease to bring supplies from there to combat units.
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I’m sorry, but it’s you that’s wrong. Their logistics were strapped and relied heavily on rail roads to provide the bulk of their transport to their central hubs, then trucks (which we provided by and large) to get the stuff to the front…a front that was miles or even hundreds of miles from those logistic hub areas. That’s pretty much the definition of ‘tenuous’…just as OUR logistics were ‘tenuous’, since it relied on ship transport, to hubs, relying on local transport (rail and such) and then trucks to get it to the front build up logistic sites to then get it to the fighters. The Germans weren’t able to do much about that, since they simply didn’t have the air assets to interdict Russia’s logistical operations, but that wouldn’t be true in a fantasy US verse USSR scenario. Seriously, did you think that the major supply hubs for Russia were all along the Southern Russian border or in Eastern Europe??
As for the rest, seriously? Have you actually looked at the Soviet causality figures for their campaign through Eastern Europe and, especially into Germany and their final assault on Berlin?? The Soviets lost over 300,000 men (killed and wounded…nearly 100k killed outright), nearly 2000 tanks and 1000 planes…and this was JUST TAKING BERLIN. It doesn’t count the huge losses they took going through Eastern Europe or through Germany to GET to Berlin.
No army can take those sorts of losses and not have to spend some time reorganizing, resupplying and getting their shit back together. That it ONLY took a few months to do that, by and large, and that they were already building up for what they thought was their part in the invasion of Japan says a lot about the Soviets ability to be resilient.
And, btw, I didn’t say ‘bully’, I said ‘bulled’…as in they were strong, like bull. And that is absolutely what they did. It was a full on, head against the wall Soviet style offensive through Eastern Europe and Germany and into Berlin. There wasn’t a lot of fancy maneuver, it was standard Soviet set piece battle tactics…hammer them with artillery, pound them with tactical air, then push through a huge mass of tanks and infantry to back them up and keep hammering until something breaks. That’s bulling through in my book. It’s not got anything to do with being a ‘bully’, however. 
Fix my ignorance. If this is what they were doing, then why is Zukhov considered one of the best, if not the best, general of WWII? Winning all your battles, but leaving too many soldiers dead is not good generalship in my opinion.
You’re not a 1945 Soviet. To people like Stalin and Zhukov, soldiers were just another resource, like bullets or fuel, that you spent in battle. You didn’t worry how much you used up, as long as you didn’t run out and as long as you won the battle.
Pretty much what Little Nemo said. Consider…would you rather have a high body count and lose, or have a high body count and win? Zukhov won battles. The costs? Piffle…individual Russian soldier, or even larger groups were like bullets or other expendables…they were expendable, with no more thought about it than throwing away the can that your C-Rations came in after it served its purpose. The important thing was, did you win the battle and smack the Germans around like a hound? You did? Well, don’t bother me with body counts (except let me know just how many of those damn Fascist German Pigs you whacked).
Zukhov was a great general…one of the seminal generals not just on the Russian side, but of the war…if your focus was on winning battles, and not on minimizing your own casualties. He probably wouldn’t have been acceptable (using the standard Soviet tactics…which also wouldn’t have been accepted, obviously) as an American or British general…or even a German general. Maybe he’d have done ok as a Japanese general.
I see Zhukov as a lot like US Grant. Not a lot of maneuver and style, just relentlessly pushing, knowing that he can afford the losses and his opposition can’t. Grant also took a lot of criticism for very high casualties (compared to his predecessors) from everyone except Lincoln, because he got the necessary results.
Again, this is simply untrue. Everyone relied heavily on railroads to provide the bulk of the transport, this wasn’t something unique to the Soviets or something that the Western Allies didn’t do as well. The only time the Western Allies didn’t do this was in the breakout across France, where the famous Redball express was set up. Notably, the result was the inability to provide enough supplies to everyone; strict limits were set on the daily expenditure of artillery ammunition for example. See THE ORDNANCE DEPARTMENT: ON BEACHHEAD AND BATTLEFRONT Chapter XV The Race Across France. Soviet railheads weren’t hundreds of miles behind the front.
That’s not the definition of a tenuous supply line; and if it were it would be a meaningless word as it would apply to all supply lines. A tenuous supply line is one that is weak, thin or overstretched. None of those apply to either the Soviets or the Western Allies at the fall of Germany.
The ability of air forces to seriously interdict supply movement wasn’t that great during WWII, see the effects of Operation Strangle during the Italian campaign when the Allies had complete air supremacy and the target being a relatively narrow peninsula with lateral rivers every few miles where bridges could be bombed. You’re clearly not taking the size of the Red Air Force into account either; it took years of grinding down the Luftwaffe’s fighter strength at a terrible cost before the degree of complete air supremacy that was enjoyed was possible. The Red Air Force had over 22,000combat aircraft in deployed units at the end of the war in Europe. It was going to take a long, long time before the West could manage complete air superiority, much less air supremacy.
Yes, I’m very familiar with the history of the Eastern Front during WW2. I don’t see the point you’re trying to make; city fighting is costly, and fall of Berlin was the Götterdämmerung of Nazism. German losses during the fall of Berlin were higher than that by the way, 92,000–100,000 killed, 220,000 wounded and 480,000 POWs. There’s a reason Eisenhower wasn’t in favor of trying to race the Soviets to Berlin. Those losses in no way made the Soviet Army combat incapable for as much as a day when the war ended, much less a month. The sheer scale of the size of the forces committed to taking Berlin gives lie to the idea that the Soviets were only tenuously able to supply their forces; in the attack to encircle Berlin artillery was massed at 250 guns per km of the front, a gun every 13 feet. Casualties of this scale were common during battles on the Eastern Front, and didn’t leave either side combat incapable as a result.
My apologies on misreading what you wrote. There was fancy maneuvering though; it wasn’t simply hey-diddle-diddle, straight down the middle charging head on at the Germans. The Soviets encircled the city before reducing it. In reducing the city there was a great deal of head on attacks, but that is simply unavoidable in heavy city fighting; there isn’t really any room or opportunity for fancy maneuvering.
Grant was a genius of warfare and did not just “relentlessly push.” The notion that he suffered highler casualties than other generals is simply not borne out by the facts.
He took a lot of criticism because
- That’s simply the way it worked back then; the papers ripped on generals, and
- Grant wasn’t into PR, and
- He was the commanding general at Shiloh, which was the first really, really awful battle of the war, and shocked a lot of people. It was far surprassed by later, even more awful battles, but it was the first really bad one and the shock was much played up in the press. And nobody remembers his opponent, A.S. Johnston, since Johnston unfortunately died in the battle.
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Again, this is simply untrue. Everyone relied heavily on railroads to provide the bulk of the transport, this wasn’t something unique to the Soviets or something that the Western Allies didn’t do as well. The only time the Western Allies didn’t do this was in the breakout across France, where the famous Redball express was set up. Notably, the result was the inability to provide enough supplies to everyone; strict limits were set on the daily expenditure of artillery ammunition for example. See THE ORDNANCE DEPARTMENT: ON BEACHHEAD AND BATTLEFRONT Chapter XV The Race Across France. Soviet railheads weren’t hundreds of miles behind the front.
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Again, you are wrong. The Soviets weren’t unique because they relied on rail transport, what made their rail transport particularly vulnerable was A) a lack of a built up road infrastructure, and B) the miserable weather, especially in the spring. Yes, everyone used rail for hauling large cargoes, but the Soviets had much of their manufacturing and logistics centers far to the north and had to rely on it more than many other combatants to move large amounts of materials into staging areas where it could be moved to the front. And we are talking about in Russia here, not once they started to move into Eastern Europe and through Germany, where a lot of the infrastructure was torn up pretty badly. It didn’t stay like this forever, of course, and the Soviets were constantly working on it…but that’s without a large, full scale air interdiction effort hammering them both tactically and strategically. Remember that by '44 much of the flower of the Luftwaffe was hammered, the best pilots either dead or burned out, and without a large scale effort to use them to form training cadre the new pilots were green as grass…while the old hands flew until killed.
They certainly apply to both, since they could be cut…IF an enemy possessed the assets to do so. The Soviets were particularly tenuous, but the Allies supplies could have been cut as well if the Germans had the means to do so, since they relied on constant shipments of large amounts of material to keep their offensive operations going.
Again, this just isn’t true. Look at the invasion of Normandy and the Allies offensive in Western Europe for how it would work in reality. Tactical air basically made it nearly impossible for the Germans to move even combat forces, let alone have large logistic dumps necessary for serious offensive operations. The Germans had to resort to trying to hide their supplies, or only move at night or in bad weather, and even then they were being strangled.
Yes, the Soviets had a lot of air craft…so did the other western allies, especially the US. The key was that the Soviets would have been operating far inside the allies air envelope, and far outside of their ability to logistically support large scale operations, whereas the US would have been operating from, presumably, friendly (and hugely built up logistically) areas such as France. Or, to put it another way, the Soviets didn’t have ‘22,000 combat aircraft’ IN GERMANY…or even in Eastern Europe. From memory, they had about 6000 air craft for their final assault on Germany…and over a 1000 were destroyed in the assault. Same goes for the tanks. But, even if they were all there in Germany, it doesn’t matter unless the Soviets could support them…which they couldn’t do, not in the face of air interdiction from the US and the other allies.
Now, as I said earlier, once they got back to Russia and were able to shorten their logistics picture, and also use those vast reserves you are talking about…well, that’s another matter. Of course, assuming the US has the bomb and is willing to use it to slaughter millions (plus, I suppose, drive through the nasty areas that have been bombed), then having those built up areas would potentially be a negative to the Soviets, especially early on before they learned to really hide stuff (which, granted, the Soviets were masters of that sort of deception…there is a Russian word for it in fact, mask-a something).
The point was obviously to underline why the Russians were a ‘spent force’ in the immediate aftermath of their final assault on Berlin and Germany, and why they were vulnerable at that time. Their losses were over 10% (and in tanks it was more like 25%) of the force they had available IN THE REGION, and their ability to resupply and fix their losses was constrained by the logistics picture they were looking at during that time frame.
BTW, the losses during the final assault were particularly heavy, so it wasn’t something they were taking ever battle. That’s just incorrect. The final assault mauled the Soviet force pretty badly…but it was the final battle for them, the last push…plus Zhukov was really pushing his generals hard and taking chances at the end, and probably pushed them to take more casualties than they would have otherwise.
What fancy maneuvers are you talking about? It was pretty straight forward from the time they entered Germany until the encirclement and final push into Berlin. Sure, there was some maneuvering, but fancy? Give me an example of what you consider a fancy maneuver in the final push into Germany or, especially, in the final assault on Berlin.
Antisemitism was officially illegal in the Soviet Union at the time. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t practiced clandestinely, by individuals, of course. But it wasn’t legal, official doctrine like in Nazi Germany.
What does any of this have to do with supplying troops already in Central Europe? The lack of road infrastructure made tactical movement near impossible during the rasputitsa, but did nothing to stop rail traffic. Their railroads weren’t particularly more vulnerable than anyone else’s.
I assume you mean east rather than north; but again what does this have to do with anything, particularly supplies in Central Europe? They did not have to rely on rail traffic more than other combatants. Everyone uses railroads because they are the most effective way of hauling freight on land. These railroads, even if they were somehow more vulnerable than railroads anywhere else and more important to the Soviets than anyone else, were in the USSR, beyond the effective range of strategic bombers, much less tactical bombers. This is of course again ignoring the 22,000 aircraft the Red Air Force was fielding.
This being a problem for supplying the Soviet Army is belied by the fact that they had just pushed the Germans out of it with the largest army in history and had no problems supplying it.
I don’t have to remember; as I said it took years of painful attrition grinding down the Luftwaffe fighter force before the Western Allies were able to enjoy air supremacy. The Western Allies would no longer be enjoying total domination of the skies; they would be facing an air force with front line strength of 22,000 planes. All of the really useful strategic bombing targets would also be out of range in Russia, with a large part of it, the production facilities east of the Urals extremely out of range.
Utter nonsense. Tactical airpower didn’t make it anything like nearly impossible for the Germans to move even combat forces. For example, there was only one panzer division in Normandy on June 6, the 21st Pz. By D+21 there were 9 panzer divisions in action in Normandy. The inability of the Germans to conduct serious offensive operations would be quite a shock to hear from those who fought in the Mortain counteroffensive. Mind you, this is after three months of the French rail lines being pounded at will by the tactical and strategic bombers of the Western Allies in preparation for the landings at Normandy. If you haven’t taken a look at the link on Operation Strangle yet, I suggest giving it a read. It’s hard to imagine more ideal conditions to try cutting supply lines by air, but it was a task beyond the ability of air forces in WWII. As you noted, supplies could always be moved at night, when airpower was impotent to do anything about it. All of this is academic of course, as it ignores those 22,000 aircraft the Russians would have, unlike the Germans.
I hate to say it, but cite? What makes you believe the USSR would have logistical problems in Germany and the US wouldn’t? Again, the fact that they had just logistically supported the large scale combat operations belies your belief that they were somehow ‘far outside’ the range of their ability to conduct major operations. If you had looked at the cite provided, the Soviets had 22,621 operational combat aircraft assigned to combat units on 1 Jan 45; this number does not include combat aircraft in reserve to replace losses. You’re pulling numbers out of a hat saying they only had 6,000 and 1,000 of them were destroyed.
Wow. I suggest you take a look at the casualty figures for battles on the Eastern Front before telling me I’m incorrect. Battles with 300,000 casualties weren’t exactly rare on the Eastern Front. Just in deaths:
Encircling the city before reducing it rather than bashing straight at it? Something that for example, the Germans failed to do or even seriously attempt to do at Stalingrad. What do you consider fancy maneuvering to be? Was the encirclement and destruction of the Ruhr pocketfancy maneuverings? If so was it only because we did it rather than the Russians?
My apologies, I hadn’t looked at the Wiki link, and it seems some fresh analysis of the white paper have been done. I should have refreshed my memories before posting.