War between the western allies and the Sovs in '45. Who wins?

[Lancer]

Assuming that we don't drop the bomb, a big assumption I agree.

The Sovs have T34s, the west has huge airforces. The Sovs have huge armies, Zhukov, and lots of arty. The west has control of the sea Patton, and industrial might.

At stake? Well we know history. Seventy years of oppression in eastern europe and elsewhere, the nuclear arms race, maybe even Korea and Vietnam. The huge expense of the cold war...

Or, a protracted war and defeat for the west? The Sovs the world's greatest empire, the map painted red...

[Gen. Atkinson]

They wipe each other out. Leaving cockroaches and cities of the dead. Then the zombies will rule.

[Qilue]

The west at the end of WW2 would have just simply bombed the USSR into submission.

[el freako]

I think the socialists would have won, but not in the way that many think.

In 1945 the west (especially europe) was war-weary and socialism was on the rise.

The massive casualties (compared to what had been suffered) that would have ensued if the west tried an invasion of the Soviet Union would probably have stoked the fires of socialist thought.

So the west would have won, but become socalist itself (although probably not to the extent of communist dictatorship)

[General Ludd]

There are no winners in war, only losers.

[Lancer]

If you guys are right, we should have demanded the Sovs retreat from europe.

[our_man]

The USSR was far more exhausted by 1945 than the Allied Powers; an Allied attack would have destroyed their armies.

Allied victory if the goal was to drive them from Eastern Europe, a bloody stalemate, perhaps eventual defeat if we were to go down Patton's route and try to advance to Moscow.

[Zulu Elephant]

I remember a quote from somewhere from an American General during the Berlin airlift. Something like "The chances of war are about one in ten. If it comes to war, they will be well and truly licked"

Interesting insight? or hubris?

[chequita guevara]

The cockroaches.

Seriously, communist guerillas in France and Italy would have made the West's life hell. Labour unseated Churchill in '45, and U.S. troops were already restless by the end of the war. The merchant marine even mutineed when ordered to lift war supplied to aid the KMT in China. They were sick of war and ready to go home. Furthermore, the Communists were still a force in the U.S. before McCarthyism. Any war would have been over quite quickly with the Soviets in Western Europe and Greece and the U.S. with Spain and Portugal its only toe holds.

[Lancer]

che, besides a very few nukes in the US, the rest of the world had none. "The cockroaches" is very dramatic, but not very realistic.

[chequita guevara]

DanS'd ya.

[Darsnan]

Re: War between the western allies and the Sovs in '45. Who wins?

Originally posted by Lancer
Assuming that we don't drop the bomb, a big assumption I agree.

The Sovs have T34s, the west has huge airforces. The Sovs have huge armies, Zhukov, and lots of arty. The west has control of the sea Patton, and industrial might.

The West "allowed" the Soviets to take Berlin. However because of the military operations necessary to accomplish this, why it took the Soviet spearheads well west of Berlin, as well as the fact thast the Nazi's inflicted heavy damage onto the attacking Soviet columns. Because of this over-extension of the Soviet front, as well as their attenuated strength due to Nazi resistance, why the Soviets were primed for an allied counterstroke, if it were so chosen: the Allied Air Force could simply bomb the Soviet's Second Echelon (i.e. the support soviet) to nothing, while circling round the forward Soviet units and cutting them off, thus effectively starving them to death of fuel and munitions. Because of the Western Allies overwhelming positions on both the Northern and Southern Europe Front, why they could very easily feint the Soviet second echelon into defending the wrong front (due to overwhelming western air power denying the Soviets good air recon).
By 1944 the Soviets had already lost 90% of their youth aged 18-20 years old. If the Western Allies then destroyed the Soviet's Western Front's pincers in early '45, and then their support soviet, why I cannot see how the USSR could have effectively carried on the struggle in a gainfull manner from there.


D

[Lancer]

Okally dokally Che. So the Sov armies drive to all the way to Spain? The only real card they held was the T34... Still, who knows? Perhaps you are right.

Nahh...

[Lancer]

Darsnan The allied airforces are a card that can't be beaten imo. The T34s would have done some damage, but they would have been hunted from the sky while strategic bombers flying from Germany took the war deep into Sov territory.

Actually, presented with an ultimatum, Stalin must have retreated.

[our_man]

Seriously, communist guerillas in France and Italy would have made the West's life hell.

Seriously, nationalist guerillas in Poland and Czechoslovakia would have made the Soviet's life hell.