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

[curtsibling]

Chegitz - Don't pretend at being ignorant.
You know Stalin's nature, that of a total war-addict.

Stalin had the plan all drawn up - The tyrant's death
was the only thing that thwarted the onset of WWIII.

There are rumours that point to this planned war being
a prime reason for the soviet beast's 'untimely death'...

[chequita guevara]

Cuz Stalin was just invadin' all over the place during his thirty year reign. He was a regular Saddam Hussein.

One country repeatedly threatened the other one with war. One country surrounded the other with military bases. One country launched seven times the number of invasions in the post war period as the other. It wasn't the USSR. For all of the U.S.'s claims about Soviet world domination aims, the U.S. was the far more aggressive country.

If there was going to be a war, it's because the U.S. would have attacked.

Soviet invasion plans were based on the notion that if war was inevitable then the war should be fought on the other side's soil, and not their own. They'd already been invaded three times in thirty years.

[Ned]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Cuz Stalin was just invadin' all over the place during his thirty year reign. He was a regular Saddam Hussein.

One country repeatedly threatened the other one with war. One country surrounded the other with military bases. One country launched seven times the number of invasions in the post war period as the other. It wasn't the USSR. For all of the U.S.'s claims about Soviet world domination aims, the U.S. was the far more aggressive country.

If there was going to be a war, it's because the U.S. would have attacked.

Soviet invasion plans were based on the notion that if war was inevitable then the war should be fought on the other side's soil, and not their own. They'd already been invaded three times in thirty years.

The US was generally reacting to communist invasions/insurrections or to Saddam. In contrast, Stalin invaded neighbors for the purpose of conquest.

But back to this thread. What was it about the two "Empires" that made their clash inevitable?

[chequita guevara]

You enjoying that crack, Ned?

[Ned]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
You enjoying that crack, Ned?

No, it's called "coke."

[chequita guevara]

Now I'm thirsty.

[Fake Boris]

Originally posted by Patroklos


Perhaps Boris is having technical difficulties.

Not that any of those sources mentions Warsaw, but Warsaw was indeed part of the Vistula Offensive.

Look at a map, my friend. The "Vistula offensive" as you call it, was much larger in scale and duration than the battle of the Bulge. At this rate, you might as well call the whole war an "offensive"...

That's not even considering that my initial argument was responding to someone who said "look at how many troops they lost taking Warsaw"...

If the casualties for taking Wasaw were indeed 100,000, then the Soviets showed they were similar to the Allies.

And just so you know Seelow was only the first tenth of the entire Oder Offensive, and that alone yeilded three times the casualties of the Ardennes in only 4 days. Not to mention more tank losses on just the Soviet side than both the Germans and the Americans combined in the Battle of the Bulge (thats true for men too).

Get up to academic standards. The linked text is not signed by the author, offers no cites. It "quotes" Konev's diary without mentioning any source... :rolleye:

I'm willing to debate in goodwill - that implies reliable numbers and sources. If you can indeed prove that the battle for Berlin claimed the lives of 650,000 men, you might have a point.

But that would be a highly improbable number; in most operations, the number of deaths was approximately 1/8 of the total casualties.

Then suppose the battle for Berlin was very ferocious, and that no prisoners were taken. That would leave us a very prudent ratio of 1/4 - which would mean that from January to May '45 the Soviets lost at least 2,000,000 men on the Berlin offensive alone, which is just an insanely improbable figure.

So if you yourself claim only a part of the Vistula Offensive produced 100,000 casualties, and the Ardennes only 9,000, how is it the are the same?

That's a funny little double standard you're showing here. The term "casualties" in standard historical terminology include the dead, the wounded, the captured and the missing. However when you talk about the Soviets, you assume the number of casualties to be the number of deaths, while you downplay American numbers by saying there were only 9,000 KIA.

And if you add the British numbers, yes, the Ardennes cost the Allies a bit over 100,000 men, in "casualties".

[Propaganda]

Stop scaremongering people with your GULAG stories.

GULAG is a euphemism for what in the US would be known as "Department of Prisons," a beaurocratic organ of the state.

Just because certain census' published state a drop in assumed population growth, doesn't mean ****, obviously. If a person in 1937 died of disease, whether of dyssentary, pneumonia, flu, etc, by our (logical) assumptions, I don't think it should count as murder. People in the USSR at that time were even dying "premature deaths" in their 40s and 50s, due to MORTALITY. This wasn't 1977, afterall.

Come on, people, get a clue.

[Patroklos]

What I said

And lets not forget the losses the Russians took during the the Vistula and Oder Offensives. The Russians were going for end game. They suffered 100,000s of casualties OF THEIR BEST TROOPS. On the other hand, the Allies had been slowely moving through their half of Germany hardly fighting, resting reequiping and resupplying.

What you replied

BS, the Americans suffered similar casualties in the battle of the Bulge.

I was talking about the Vistula and Oder Offensives losses with the aim of showing the horrible beating the Soviets just took. You brought up the Ardennes, and you compared it to both the Vistula and Oder offensives combined. And you said that the Americans suffered "similar" casulaties.

So when you try and cover your retreat with;

Look at a map, my friend. The "Vistula offensive" as you call it, was much larger in scale and duration than the battle of the Bulge. At this rate, you might as well call the whole war an "offensive"...

You obviously should expect to be called out on it. It was a comparison of your choosing. Admitting your wrong is the only option open too you.

If the casualties for taking Wasaw were indeed 100,000, then the Soviets showed they were similar to the Allies.

interresting, since the combined the Western Allies only took 80,000 casualties in the Ardennes.

Get up to academic standards. The linked text is not signed by the author, offers no cites. It "quotes" Konev's diary without mentioning any source

Konev's Diary perhaps?

I'm willing to debate in goodwill - that implies reliable numbers and sources. If you can indeed prove that the battle for Berlin claimed the lives of 650,000 men, you might have a point.

These numbers are generally accpted, and though I find nothing wrong with my links (one is Wikipedia for Christ's sake), it is your resposibility as the person who has yet to even try and provide a source to find one contrary and in better standing than my own.

But that would be a highly improbable number; in most operations, the number of deaths was approximately 1/8 of the total casualties.

Care to support that bald faced and false assumption with anything. I bet you the casualty to death ratio in Iraq is something closer to 1/100.

Then suppose the battle for Berlin was very ferocious, and that no prisoners were taken. That would leave us a very prudent ratio of 1/4 - which would mean that from January to May '45 the Soviets lost at least 2,000,000 men on the Berlin offensive alone, which is just an insanely improbable figure.

That is probobly right for casualties, but certaintly not for deaths. And the character of the fighting matters not to the state of the Soviet Army that would be facing the Allies OP. If the Soviets took a million casualties, then they took a million casualties.

That's a funny little double standard you're showing here. The term "casualties" in standard historical terminology include the dead, the wounded, the captured and the missing. However when you talk about the Soviets, you assume the number of casualties to be the number of deaths, while you downplay American numbers by saying there were only 9,000 KIA.

Funny thing is in every instance I have quoted numbers I have been talking about soley KIAs, so you are just putting up a smoke screen to hide your already outrageous comparison.

Again I said...

That is 630,000 dead ALONE! The casualties were in the millions, thouusands and thousands of tanks lost. And this was just Berlin, add in Breslau, Waraw, East Prussia... The Americans suffered no where near these casualties at the Battle of the Bulge.

I bring attention to where I say "dead ALONE" in refereance to the 630,000 number and then say "casualties in the millions" for dead/MIA/POW/wounded. Perhaps you should READ before you respond.

And as for Warsaw, I did fail to see where you answered my comments concerning KIAs alone with something concerning casualties. Nice deflect on your part, though simultaineously making your answer irrelivant to the debate. but as stated total Allied casualties at the Battle of the Bulge were 80,000 (rounded up to give you a break) versus the Soviet 100,000.

Match.

[Propaganda]

Just to get some misconceptions out of the way about me.

I'm a "Stalinist"(read: Marxist-Leninist) in historical materialist terms. In Stalin's epoch, the totalitarian era, authoritarianism was the answer to all problems, especially for backward states, with feudal relations.
To this day, I can agree with Stalin's politics and (especially) economics, just not the political system created under his tenure(but only in hindsight).

This doesn't make me a Trotskyist, by any means, however. I can agree to disagree with them on all fronts, however.

[techumseh]

Originally posted by curtsibling
Chegitz - Don't pretend at being ignorant.
You know Stalin's nature, that of a total war-addict.

Stalin had the plan all drawn up - The tyrant's death
was the only thing that thwarted the onset of WWIII.

There are rumours that point to this planned war being
a prime reason for the soviet beast's 'untimely death'...

Oh Curt, please.

[curtsibling]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Cuz Stalin was just invadin' all over the place during his thirty year reign. He was a regular Saddam Hussein.

One country repeatedly threatened the other one with war. One country surrounded the other with military bases. One country launched seven times the number of invasions in the post war period as the other. It wasn't the USSR. For all of the U.S.'s claims about Soviet world domination aims, the U.S. was the far more aggressive country.

If there was going to be a war, it's because the U.S. would have attacked.

Soviet invasion plans were based on the notion that if war was inevitable then the war should be fought on the other side's soil, and not their own. They'd already been invaded three times in thirty years.

Amusing.
Poor little superpower USSR, being threatened by
monsters like Finland and Estonia! Give me a break!

If you are somehow trying to accuse Truman or FDR's USA of being more
hostile than Stalin's Russia, you are really in communist cuckooland...!



Hmmmmm....How many millions of domestic Americans did the US
government have put to death in famines and gulags, again?

My memory is a bit shaky in that regard!

[Alexander's Horse]

The myth of Soviet invincibility is still very powerful - but the Soviet archives are showing otherwise.

One problem for the Western allies would have been they demobilised or redeployed to the Pacific war very rapidly after the end of the European war whereas the Red Army kept up its strength in Europe.

By 1946 there was already a major disparity between forces on the ground, which led to a major panic in 1948 when the Berlin crisis broke out. That in turn led to national service or the draft being introduced in most of Western Europe. But the disparity in troops remained for the whole cold war.

That is why Nato declared a first use policy on nukes - they knew would need to use tactical nukes to stop a major invasion and make up for the disparity of forces.

[Patroklos]

I was assuming the OP was talking about hostilities immediately after the fall of Berlin and the end of the war. The reason troop levels in Europe were alowed to wain was because such a conflict was deemed not to be an immediate threat.

Though you are right about troop level, after 45 the character of any Soviet/Western war would have been the Soviets on the offensive and the West defensive. Fighting on our own terrain defensively makes up for alot of the troop disparity, and our airforces in Europe remained quite potent for awhile too.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by curtsibling
Poor little superpower USSR, being threatened by
monsters like Finland and Estonia! Give me a break!

If the Nazis had based troops in the Finland and Estonia (which was likely), it would have been a very serious threat to the USSR indeed. We might all (well, those of still alive ayway) be speaking German today if they hadn't.