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

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Saxony isn't as far from East Anglia as Germany is from the Urals. Bases in Persia might reach the Urals, but the Soviets have a good chance of taking Persia.

I seem to recall the Soviets being a little busy trying to rebuild parts of European Russia by the way.

In fact, they were so desperate, they used building materials from Germany. I really don't see the Soviet Union taking on the Allies, I'm afraid- if it were just France and Great Britain, possibly, but the U.S. was hardly damaged at all, and manufacturing output was still increasing. In any case, the British were also in Iraq, and Cyprus and Greece, and I think you're exaggerating the effects of the Communist partisans.

[Fake Boris]

Originally posted by JohnT
Any consideration of this question must take into account that the Soviet military would've lost it's biggest arms manufacturer - the United States!

These numbers might look impressive, but they only amount to a relatively unimportant fraction of the Soviets' total production capacity.

[BeBMan]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Not in the 1940s.

I really didn't know when I asked, but I just checked wikipedia, it says first tries were made in the 1920ies, a break-through method was developed 1935. Of course, I have no idea how common it was during the late 40ies (esp. if you think about massive use of that for refueling lots of aircraft during one mission), but there's at least a pic of a RAF Lancaster tanker aircraft refueling a Meteor jetfighter in 1949

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerial_refueling

[chequita guevara]

Well, Lancer's premise is that the U.S. attacks the U.S.S.R. The political situation would be exceedingly detrimental to the U.S., since France was in no position to aid the U.S., and the British government would fall if Churchill tried to join in, and I'm sure he'd try. That leaves the U.S. alone against the U.S.S.R.

While the French partisans weren't sufficient to tie down large numbers of Nazis, the onls in Italy, Greece, and Yugoslavia were able to liberate their countries (Northern Italy was liberated by the partisans, not the Allies).

[Qilue]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
2. With the USSR at war with the US, why do you think Japan would surrender?

Did you even read my posts? Granted they are only supposition, but the reality of poor Japanese/Russian relations makes such a scenario possible.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Qilue
Did you even read my posts?

I did, but you didn't provide enough backing for your argument. Japan had bad relations before 1945, but didn't surrender. Why should they now?

Japan surrendered for two reasons. #1 the atomic bombs. #2, the Soviet invasion of Manchuria. They felt they could surive one or the other, but not both. Even with both, junior officers in the military attempted a coup against the surrender. The government knew it couldn't defend against repeated atomic bombings, but the army wouldn't accept surrender until it was defeated in Manchuria.

If the U.S. attacks the USSR, there is no Soviet invasion of Manchuria, and Japan refuses to surrender. They were trying to negotiate a settlement, but the U.S. demanded unconditional surrender. Without the Soviets, the U.S. is gonna have to negotiate. Do you think the American people would be happy with a government that put off defeating the Japanese in order to attack an ally?

[Qilue]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara


I did, but you didn't provide enough backing for your argument. Japan had bad relations before 1945, but didn't surrender. Why should they now?

Sorry, I assumed you would have understood that negotiated peace != surrender.

[Dr Strangelove]

Why should the premise be the US attacking the SU? The US agreed to allow the SU free reign over eastern Europe and eastern Gerrmany, so I see no reason why the US would have attacked the SU. It was the SU which had the certifiable psychopath in charge, not the US.

Yeah maybe Patton might have been tempted to do something, but he didn't have the kind of hold over his officers that Hitler did. If he had ordered an attack I well imagine that he would have been slapped into the brig.

[Pekka]

Reminds me of an interesting situation... Larry Thorne (Lauri Törni) fought even when war between us and SU was over. He went to Germany to fight the commies more. He just had a good old fashioned commie hater inside him. The US troops however, captured him. SU troops demanded him very hard, because they knew who he was, and his head was worth a lot in earlier wars as well, so he was very well wanted. What did the US troops do? They didn't give him over to the SU, who had a legit claim to get him. After all, Thorne was in a way fighting illegally there to begin with, and aside Germans.

Then of course he moved into the US, became a captain (or major?) in SF, and went on doing some missions in Iran, and later on fought in Vietnam, because yes, he hated commies!

So that's just an example, that many US troopers did have some sort of sense of justice in a way that they would even go aroudn the rules to not let SU have its ways all the time in some things. And let's not forget when they dropped food and stuff to Berlin, when glorious motherland protectors starved Berlin to death almost and had sex with everyone.

[Sandman]

The Western Allies win. Their manufacturing output and manpower gives them an unsurpassable edge.

[Dr Strangelove]

I'm not sure that the people of Britain, France, and Italy were really as gung -ho Bolshevik as some people here think. Stalin's cruelty had become legend in the West long before the beginning of WW2 and most socialist / communist movements in the west had already distanced themsleves from him. Let us presume that for some reason the SU, not the US, initaites hostilities. I imagine that Britain would give some support to the US, at least ion the form of troops already available on the continent and also giving usage of facilities. No other western power was in a position to give significant material aid, though France could at least allow use of its ports and roads.

I think that the Russians would have had severe supply problems. If they had to attack in 1945 they would have had to make do with what they had on hand at the front. That might not be enough to overwhelm the western allies in one push. If the western allies rolled with the first punch and minimized thei initial losses then the Soviets might have found themselves at a severe disadvantage, with a huge unsupplied army dangling hundreds of miles out in front of existing supply lines facing a smaller but well supplied and very angry enemy force.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
The effect of Allied airpower is highly overrated. The U.S. Strategic Bombing Assessment condicted after the war found that the only usefull effect strategic bombing had during the war was the bombing of the Ploesti oil fields, which cut of the Nazis oil supplies. Unless the Allies could bomb Baku, that's not going to be a factors.

Why wouldn't we be able to?

[Fake Boris]

Originally posted by Sandman
The Western Allies win. Their manufacturing output and manpower gives them an unsurpassable edge.

Manufacturing output also has to be considered wrt real-word conditions.

The Allies took approximately two years and a half to amass the material necessary to land in France... where it took them one month to take Caen against 10% of the Werhmacht...

Despite their superior economy, there's no way the Allies could have conducted an Overlord against an enemy controlling the whole of Europe and not having to worry about a second front.

So the real question becomes: can the Soviets drive back the Allies to the shore? if so, there's no coming back in the mainland.

[Sandman]

It would take the Soviets years to push the allies to the shore. Forcing them out of Italy would be nigh impossible, in particular.

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
The effect of Allied airpower is highly overrated. The U.S. Strategic Bombing Assessment condicted after the war found that the only usefull effect strategic bombing had during the war was the bombing of the Ploesti oil fields, which cut of the Nazis oil supplies. Unless the Allies could bomb Baku, that's not going to be a factors.

Forget strategic bombing. As I've said time and time again the best tank of the war was...............the P-51. Allied fighter bombers wreaked havoc on German troop movements and supply convoys. They would have done the same to the Russians.

Technology wasn't a significant factor. Nazi tanks were better than Allied tanks, though Soviet tanks were superior to Nazi tanks. Both the Allies and the Soviets practiced meatgrinder tactics, overwhelm the enemy with men and material. The Soviets had superiority in tank tech, and unlike the Nazis, had them in sufficient numbers to make a difference.

By 1945 the US had begun producing the Pershing tank in numbers. We can only guess as to how it would have fared against the T-34, but then with P-51s and P-48s ruling the skies they wouldn't have had to face amny of them.

Allied logistics would be hampered by Communist Partisans.

Wasn't France still firmly in the grip of DeGaulle? Were red partisans a big faction in the Netherlands and Belgium? IIRC in the last 6 months of the war most supplies to the allied armies came from Belgian and Dutch ports.

The Brits wouldn't be in the war, so it would be the U.S. alone, unless they wanted to start using Nazi troops, which would almost certainly bring down the American government.

The question posed in the first post doesn't specify who started the hypothetical war. If the SU started it then probably the Brits would be in it.