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

[curtsibling]

Hard to say.

The Sovs had crushed the most formidable land army in the history of Europe.

We had technology, and massed air forces, but the reds had
numbers, fanatical hate and a stomach for casualties that we
could not match. It would have been the ultimate battle, and
most likely left us with a planet of the dead.

.

[Lefty Scaevola]

The Red Army was exhuasted and bleeding dry by wars end. It had been shriking steadily since spring of 1944. The USA was only partly mobilized, with much mapower left at home that had been supplying the Soviets. The svoiets would have been sweep from the air, and from the Baltic sea in short order, and would have have a very difficult time maintaining LOC to their front.

[Ned]

A few of points:

1) The US and Britain had an overwhelming airpower advantage. No modern army has ever won against an oponent that had air superiority.

2) German armies would have joined the Allied side if we needed them.

3) The US was fielding modern tanks in '45, equal or better than Tigers.

4) The peoples of Eastern Europe would have supported the Allies, provided that we did not employ the Germans.

The net, Allied victory was inevitable.

[Fake Boris]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
i will go with the stalemate side. US airpower just about offsetting Soviet ground forces. War exhaustion on both sides.

Why does everyone keep saying that Allied air power "stalls" the Soviets? It didn't even come close to do that to the Germans in 44-45, and the Soviet air force in 45 was better than the German one.

[Fake Boris]

Oh, and another argument I keep hearing is that the Soviet manpower was depleted. This argument in itself does not make sense, you have to look at the number of men available, not the losses taken.

I couldn't find the exact figures, but IIRC there would have been 250 Soviet divisions against 100 Allied ones.

[axi]

But guys, what about war aims? What could be the stated war aims, for both sides, in such a war? World domination?

We all know it would be impossible for the allies to go all the way to Moscow. Setting the mark for the 1939 Soviet border would be more plausible but still very difficult. Trying to win a limited war over the core German territory would be feasible.

As for Stalin, he was capable of anything, but, he had to say somethimg to the masses. What would that be? Spread the revolution worldwide? That wouldn't be him, but the partisans all over Europe would not have expected less.

[JohnT]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara


With thirteen divisions in Kyushu (our invasion force only had 12 divisions) and 5,000 combat aircraft, they weren't going to be a pushover.

But the Japanese had no fuel. That's why they were reduced to Kamikaze attacks in the first place. By the spring of 1945 they were reduced to attempting to make jet fuel out of pine tree roots.

[Carolus Rex]

Qilue, Vesayen, and Oerdin...

You guys are clearly not (well-trained) economists... The man said that nukes are out by assumption...

This one would go to the Allies for reasons already mentioned... Air superiority, ok. Manpower, maybe. But most importantly, IMHO, the US had a full-fledged modern industrial economy backing up the war effort...

Taking into account that the Soviets had already suffered during the war (their land, industries and people ravaged by the Germans and the previous war effort), whereas the USA itself was unscathed (spelling?)...

Had it been a fight to the end with no political solutions at hand (ruled out by assumption? ) it could only have gone one way, but at a terrible cost in lives...

Carolus

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by JohnT
But the Japanese had no fuel. That's why they were reduced to Kamikaze attacks in the first place. By the spring of 1945 they were reduced to attempting to make jet fuel out of pine tree roots.

Kamakazis were quite effective. IIRC they killed ten thousand Americans and sank dozens of ships. They also demoralized the hell out of the people facing them.

[JohnT]

Che, any time you're destroying your capital equipment you're playing a losing game.

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara


Kamakazis were quite effective. IIRC they killed ten thousand Americans and sank dozens of ships. They also demoralized the hell out of the people facing them.

There's pretty good evidence that the Japanese were already trying to surrender in July of 1945. They weren't going to out last August anyway.

If the Soviets attack in the west in the summer of 1945 they probably would not have transferred enough troops to the eastern provinces to invade Manchuria. I still say that the emporer would have seen the handwriting on the wall after the two nuclear bombs were dropped.

[Carolus Rex]

I would think that the loss of pilots would be worse than the planes themselves, no?

Perhaps not for the Japanese, which did not have the same industrial capacity as the US...

Carolus

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by JohnT
Che, any time you're destroying your capital equipment you're playing a losing game.

Maybe so, but the idea was to try and make the Americans think that an invasion of Japan was just too damn costly, and to negotiate an end to the war that didn't involve a Japanese surrender. With the Japanese meatgrinder in full swing, I doubt many Americans would be in favor of a war with our former ally.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove
I still say that the emporer would have seen the handwriting on the wall after the two nuclear bombs were dropped.

Probably, but what could he do about it? The military wanted to keep fighting, and the Emperor had to explain that it was the Soviets handing them their ass in Manchuria that made surrender necessary. Even then, there was a coup attempt. More likely was a general uprising of the Japanese people, and the government was very worried about this, even if the military wasn't. The military seems to have been off in its own fantasy world where it thought it wasn't defeated.

[BlackCat]

Industrial power etc isn't the crucial point if there had been incidents starting a war between Soviet and the rest of the allies. At least not the first. The real question is if the English/Americn/French forces would be able to prevent the soviet forces thowing them into tha atlantic. If that doesn't succed, then there are no serious chance of another D-day.

If that is done, then we can talk about introducing newer and stronger panzer etc, but it will take months before they arrive at the battlefield.

Attacking the core of soviet through the baltic ocean is not an option - no sane admiral would ever try to go into that area through the belts or øresund -. that would be suicide.