"A US-Soviet War in 1946/47" Topic

@Rocky and my entire counter is that those factories will be out of range of a lot of "Big bomb load" mission profiles, and that there will be a lot more interdiction/losses and fewer bombs on target etc so it will be less effective (in the short to medium term) than you believe.

I agree there is probably a wargame to be played about "control of the air", but I'm not interested in playing it, so my simplifying assumptions would be:

1. Overall the historic evidence points to strategic bombing not being a short/medium term winner anyway, so I am minded to ignore it from the POV of a short, sharp 6 month campaign.

2. Also, I think for simplicity one can assume that no air superiority is gained by either side in the tactical war in the short/medium term.

3.For simplicity I think we must also assume the Soviets and Allies are quite capable of supplying their forces in action, as they were in 1945. And both sides will be trying to mess up the others' supplies as well, so inthe short to medium term assume equal degradation.

Thus we are left with the war on the ground, and tank on tank action (or more accurately by this stage, tank on anti-tank action ) :-)

@Martin thanks re kill ratio, a 2:1 suprority vs a defender not quite prepared looks like a close run thing….

@Bulldodg alternate history scenarios always suffer from the "it didn't happen, so it couldn't have" argument.

My Point of Departure would be based on (i) Suvorov's conjecture that Soviet war aims were to allow the west to exhaust itself and then pick up the spoils, (ii) The very long standing Russin desire for warmwater ports outside teh Black sea/Baltic sea bottlenecks, and (iii) A "Now or Never" feeling – maybe Uncle Joe'staff push him into it with the flush of victory in theur veins, maybe he has too much Vodka one night, maybe an overambitious Front Commander decides to go for glory….or all the above.

Like you, I think it was a tinderbox!

freecloud

Yup – and surely the whole point of Alternative History is that things turn out different than reality! Obviously, i don't think this should be ridiculous, but there are options to explore.

Many seem to think Stalin was too clever to have started any such war with the west – though he did plunge the USSR into the disasterous Winter War with Finland. But if he is the main stumbling block, perhaps we can consider what might have happened if Stalin had been bumped off? He had several million enemies and the party apparatchiks might have decided he was too powerful? Or maybe his plane just crashed. Either way, it is not ridiculous to remove him from the post-war scene and explore what might have happened in the resultant power vaccuum / scramble for succession that would have followed.

There are some fascinating (though probably completely barmy) conspiracy theories out there. Aside from the Patton one, I have read one that claims the Soviets were seeking a justification for snatch the Dardanelles off the Turks – would America and the UK fight to defend Turkey?

Who knows, but during the First Gulf War, Turkey (a NATO member) was attacked by Iraq. NATO, however, twisted themselves in knots to explain why this didn't mean that the alliance was now at war with Iraq. As a result, I recall the Turkish premier questioning whether or not NATO – and especially Germany – would have come to their aid in the event of a Soviet attack, or whether his country would have been used as a bargaining chip. I can't remember all the details, but the thrust of his argument was that the Europeans might have traded his country for peace – as they considered Turkey expendable to an extent.

Is this something we've overlooked – we have focused a lot on whether or not Stalin would have risked a shooting war – but are we sure the West would have? And where would their line in the sand have been?

"a 2:1 suprority vs a defender not quite prepared looks like a close run thing…."

Bear in mind that is a theatre superiority, not a tactical one. The Sovs were very adept at turning a theatre superiority of 2:1 into a tactical superiority of 10:1.

Turkey is a greater prize for the Sovs than Greece, but an even better prize for the allies if it is in their camp.

Although grabbing the Dardenelles is not difficult from Sov start lines, Turkish airbases would be a valuable prize for the allies, and the country is not a place for dazzling armoured attacks.

I think that the allies line in the sand was pretty much the iron curtain. It is hard to see any adventurism on the Soviet union's part being acceptable. They may have been war weary, but they had all been given a recent lesson in the price of appeasment.

Now, if we drop Stalin out of the picture, the most likely scenarios are:

1. Military coup – most unlikely to support adventurism;
2. Natural death or otherwise, successors probably the Troika of 1953;
3. NKVD coup, Beria is first runner.

Of all the possible replacements, the only one who is likely to provide any basis for further adventurism is Molotov. His star was declining through 1945, so it is credible that, if he could get support, he might have seen a coup as a do or die excercise.

Problem is that Molotov was an astute man and, even if he could see value in adventurism, he would not have been able to risk a rift with the military whilst he was consolidating his position. Still dont buy it.

What happens in the USA if Roosvelt dies before the 1944 elections? Who is the US president and how does this reflect on US attitudes.

I dont buy the US being kicked out of Europe, this isnt the 1980's. A school full of Belgium children is hardly a change in roundoff errors in child mortality in Belgium for the 1940's. Nor any objections in Germany. Only a few months earlier they had been giving medals for shooting Germans, they werent about to be interested in their public opinion.

Hi

I am amused at the quibble that the russians going from ZERO interference from the air to not as good as maximum as being a distinction of merit.

As for losses, again, your tank info might be good, but the air component is just wrong. Again, you will grant that the Mossie was not intercept-able by the germans, but the 29 flying higher and faster was? Doesn't make sense.

Lesser bomb loads for long range on the B29 does not change the immediate equation, really. not the "war winning" issue, but the "advance is no loner possible" as rail becomes problematical.

One of the side issues is going forward to the 70s and doing analysis. We were studying them, they were studying us, and the short version is that both sides felt that the Soviet army wasn't capable of operations beyond the first two weeks. That was after rebuilding for 25 years

I think the issue is more useless with what stalin wants. When you consider that 25,000,000 russians were dead, that alone leaves me aghast at the idea of their wanting to continue the fight. The whole issue of the "cold war" was a reflection of this as well as other things.

If you want fantasy, try the old SF ploy that bored aliens snatch up a Russian division and a british division on the lines ca 1946 and tell them that the winner gets to go home!

No air, no sea, no logistics, just a straight up fight.

Rocky

I like Bulldog's idea of an accidental war -- a low-level incident that touches off bigger and bigger reactions until it is out of hand. Could even have happened when Soviet units met Allied units before Germany surrendered. Suppose Eisenhower had decided to go all-out to take Berlin before the Soviets. Could have led to some over-eager junior officers on each side deciding to go for their objectives even if it mean rolling over their supposed allies.

I think a genuine mistake is going to result in punishment and apologies – both sides are exhausted. As a ruse de guerre, a mistake is one way of engineering an incident which can be expanded on in order to achieve an objective.

Rocky has the right of it, if you want to fight Russkies vs the west on the tabletop you dont need to be Turtledove to make it happen.

But if you are trying to create alternative history, nations dont go to war without having a strategy to win. The most certain way of preventing post war bickering between the US, UK, and France was to attack them.

What would USA and UK had done if the Sovs had said "We fought for Berlin its ours, keep out" in June 1945?

Here's a guy who would have been in the front lines – Atlee doesnt seem to have been overly conciliatory over middle eastern oil.

link

Kyote – you know that was being used to take recce pix of Adolf's moonbase!

Let's see here: The face of the Ural mountains (ie, the location of factories that Stalin moved away from the Germans during WW2) are at roughly 54E. Given London is at 0E, this gives us 3240 nm from London to the factories… except that we're more than 45N, so less than half the distance in a straight line.

This puts those factories within heavy-load B29 range from London. Oh, and Chengdu is 30N104E, so you could also do Chengdu-and-back raids at full payload (20,000lbs for B29s, 40k for B29C/B50).

Ouch. Try to keep a factory going when the rubble is bouncing.

Couple that with forward basing the B17s and B24s, you don't have any logistics elements keeping your army going.

No logistics, no army.

Now, if you want to play "Patton was right" scenarios (they are pretty fun!), I'm sure there were many times that Western forces traded shots with the Russians, up to battalion scale or more. I just can't see how to escalate from those small skirmishes to a full-blown war.

Or there's Korea.

Try to keep a factory going when the rubble is bouncing.

Something Germany did in 1944-45.
Production only ceased when the factories were overun by advancing infantry.

Why would it be different for the Russians?

For all the overblown fly-boy rhetoric about bombing Germany had 6,700 tanks/Stug on the books as of April 14 1945.
This compares to the 5,000 total at the time of Kursk & 8,100 in June 1944.
The peak was 8,300 in Jan 45.

Factories are pretty resiliant!

One can only wonder why the super efficient war winning bombing offensive did not bring Germany to her knees and why a land invasion was needed.

I mean given the claims made here for 'aircraft' she should have been a wasteland in 1944…………

Bomber Command was fairly effective by war's end – unfortunately, there weren't many suitable area targets left. I guess an eastward extension would have permitted further trials on wooden urban areas and concrete things, but they had pretty much sorted out how to burn and smash stuff.
Just how good were the Soviet night air defences? They would need to have been consideraably better than the Germans' but they never faced the threat the Germans did (and failed to cope with).

Grizzlymc

'nations dont go to war without having a strategy to win'

I honestly don't think that history is as clinical and mathematical as you suggest. Many nations have started wars which saw them get a sound thrashing, and which – in hindsight – seem utterly illogical.
A few examples include the French in 1870, the Confederates in the ACW, the Boers attacking Natal in 1899, the Japanese attacking the USA in 1941, Germany invading the USSR, Napolean invading Russia, Saddam Hussein grabbing Kuwait in 1990 and the Argentinians invading the Falklands in 1982.
All had 'reasons' and 'extenuating circumstances', or were gambles that didn't pay off, or were based on faulty analysis of how other nations would react – but all of them happened and none proved to be a wise decision. If these were alternative history suggestions rather than historical fact, I'm sure there would be plenty who would say: 'no way – there's no chance they would have done something so stupid!'

Also, countries do not have all the information available at the time of going towar that we have "after the fact".

In the main, they tend to overestimate their chances (combination of reasons, but no one usually gets rewarded for tlling senior people things they don't want to hear!)

And going to war is not always a "what's best for the counry" decision – it can be driven by the political/economic/personalagenda of some vigorous minority

The recent Gulf war debacle shows we haven't eradicated these problesm yet….

Grizzlymc

Really enjoyed the link – very interesting indeed – but noticed that this chap mis-spelt 'Gurkha' and, unusually for a Rotherham man, used the 'American-English' words 'truck' and 'tire'.
It would be a shame if the memories of these old boys are edited / inaccurately recorded – rather loses the point of having first hand accounts.

Germany increased production because, unlike the British and Russians, they didn't put their economy on a total war footing until quite late in the war.

This meant that they had spare capacity so could increase production.

If they'd been on a total war footing from the start then earlier production totals would have been much higher.

I thought that was common knowledge.

Ascent

I agree with you, but I think the point some are making is that they will still ABLE to increase their production to such an extent, given that they were being endlessly pummelled from the air.
How much MORE they would have been able to produce had the RAF and USAF not hammered them is another issue, but the fact remains that Nazi Germany was able to continue to produce armanents of high quality and in large and increasing numbers after several years of relentless bombardment.

On a similar-ish point, what are people's thoughts on why the Americans only managed to force a Japanese surrender by using atomic weapons? Could this have been done the massive conventional bombing instead? And if so, why hadn't it been?
Or, given that conventional bombing raids also killed tens of thousands of people, was the dropping of the A-Bomb as much of a psychological blow to the Japanese as a physical one?

Ascent understands the issue.

If you plot production versus tonnes dropped and assume that these are the only variables you might come to the conclusion that Germany should have been flying all the bombers they could to Britain as the more bombs dropped the better German war production. However, despite Speer's economic miracle, German war production did not double or treble, it increased marginally.

By the end of the war, the German rail system was unreliable and slow, their aircraft were only able to make an impression on the Russian front, the country was operating substantially below where their GDP would suggest. Aleshauser in Harrison makes the point that Speers rationalisation of the German economy was still going on at the point of surrender and that many of the policies he had initiated would be the basis for German post war economic recovery.

Bulldog

According to the Japanese section of the Strategic Bombing Survey, Japan would have had to surrender in a few months anyway. 15kt looks like a big bang if you are undreneath it, but a conventional heavy bomber raid could deliver half the yield, spread out, probably having a similar net result. The bluff was, "what if we hit 10 of your towns a nitght for a month with these things?"; not surprisingly it worked.

I would never doubt that after a couple of years of strategic bombing the Sovs would still be producing arms, but there was no slack to be taken up as per germany and the Soviet way of war requires a lot of weaponry.

As to rational decision making, in 1945 the world had seen two examples of the fate of a weaker agressor who could not limit their war to a campaign. Neither of them lost a province with no hard feelings; both were totally smashed. I do not see any candidate for Stalin's replacement who would have played that sort of game.

Bulldog

I agree that simply sitting down with a recorder and getting veterans to talk would be a useful way to spend lottery funds in the UK, but absent such enlightenment, things are left to amateurs, whose humble efforts are valuable. It may have been a poorly configured spell checker, or an over zealous internationalist, but the account is still valuble.

From memory it is on a site devoted to Britains 30 years of small wars post WWII. You still get a whole lot of Paddy Griffith type snippets – like his terror at being under fire for the first time; the Gurkha's apparent lack of hesitation in shooting to kill; a good idea of what a truck convoy can be like etc. Better poorly preserved than not at all.

I think a genuine mistake is going to result in punishment and apologies …

Could well be true -- but meanwhile, you have had your battle and your game!

Hi

Much of German production was used within walking distance of the factory. Again, Russia brags about the distances involved when it serves to save them, but in this case, the issue is what happens when things get bombed on the factory floor, but then have all sorts of issues getting to the fight. If you think the german rail was poor, just look at any map of russian rail.

If you want to discuss the japanese bombing… in fact the short version was that the japanese were done militarily and what we were left with is killing civilians attacking with sticks. THE BOMB was a dramatic gesture. This is very "Tsun Tsu" in that in the minds of the japanese military, they could NOT quit just because of their having nothing to fight with.

As an example, the japanese in 44 were sending out carriers to draw fire who had no aircraft! Sending out warships without ammo. Versus, even now, we still have 1million rounds of ammo for the Jersey class in storage.

Strat bombing didn't win the war. It made the axis winning impossible. That is the real issue. Similarly, the A-Bomb did not win the war, it created the winning condition in the japanese high command's mind. Even then, it was a close run thing where some officers were willing to kill superiors including the emperor if he tried.

A truly sad period.

Rocky

I mean given the claims made here for 'aircraft' she should have been a wasteland in 1944

I don't know about Germany, but Japan *was* a wasteland in 1945. Japan was still devastated in 1958. It took until about 1965 before Japan's economy had recovered to where they had been in 1928.

Strategic bombing, as I have said before, doesn't win the war for the Americans, but it makes the war unwinnable for the Russians.

If you look at the numbers, it seems the more you are bombed the more you produce :-)

In all seriousness though, the strategic bombing is a medium to long term thing, whereas the land/tactical air campaign is going to be short to medium term land grab and then a negotiation after a cease fire.

I am rather intrigued by the idea of a grab for the Dardanelles / Turkish Europe along with a general Balkans play. How do we think that might play out?

Put yourself in the position of the Russian leader who would invite this on your cities.
picture
picture
picture
link
link

Freecloud

Negotiations take two parties. What you are proposing is the continental equivalent to the Japanese war aims. Kick everyone in the cobblers and then say "ooops sorry, lets be friends again". I cannot imagine a point in human history at which this is less likely.

And yet German production figures remained high right to the end………….

And it sat at the railheads…….

Then you will have no trouble linking me to an article or pictures of the 6000 tank/Stug sat waiting and lined up, brand spanking new, at these 'railheads'

I don't do links…..

Because you don't have the evidence to back your claims I presume.

Well I will give you the benefit of my experience. In all the years I have been involved in this area I have never seen reports or photos of large numbers of finished tanks/stug stuck at collection or distribution areas.
In April 1945 some 6,600 of these vehicles were with units.
Not all units got the vehicles they should have (Tiger II Units were given Jagdtiger etc) but they still were being issued vehicles.

Well, when you don't have to drive from the factory to the battle lines, it's not hard to make the deliveries.

I am rather intrigued by the idea of a grab for the Dardanelles / Turkish Europe along with a general Balkans play. How do we think that might play out?

It's pretty lousy tank country, with lots of 88s left over from the Germans.

As the Soviets (man, it's hard to thing 'Soviets' when they've been Russians for more than half my life!), you have multiple mountain ranges between you and your goals. The Allies have total control of the ocean in that area for resupply, AND are fighting a defensive battle in terrain that favors the defender.

Not a quick victory, which is what you need so that the Americans don't make a couple more nukes and deliver them to Moscow!

I think a campaign which sees a Soviet attempt to snatch the Dardenelles would be most interesting.

The Soviets already had forces in Bulgaria and on the Asiatic side of Turkey, plus complete control of the Black Sea. Turkey had not joined the Allies during the war, so its not unreasonable to assume there would be an element of opinion in the West who would say: 'serves them right'. Link this to what I was saying earlier about NATO twisting themselves in knots not to be at war with Iraq when Turkey was attacked in 1991. Call it Euro-centracism / racism / whatever, but I suggest there would have been an element in Europe who would have thought – 'that's fine – let the Commies mess about in Turkey, it keeps them from messing about in Europe'. (as in, what they think of as 'proper' Europe).
There is an interesting conspiracy theory over the mysterious loss of the Novorossiysk – some suggested that the Soviets blew this up themselves to give a reason to blame Turkey and sieze the Dardenelles. Like most such theories, I don't suppose there's a shred of evidence to support this, but it's not like the trick hasn't been used before…

As for poor tank country – its a very short drive from the Bulgarian border to Istanbul. I have worked in that part of the world and it is by no means poor terrain. Check it out on Google Maps. The bulk of Turkey (ie. the Asiatic part) is a mountainous tank grave-yard, but if we are talking a Soviet gamble aimed at grabbing (eg) the Dardanelles and Thessalonika (the latter to support a communist up-rising with a view to creating 'East-Greece') I can't see that being beyond the abilities of the Red Army.

As for what the Western Response would be… well, who knows? Is it possible that the British (who were always sympathetic to the Greeks) would intervene to save Greece whereas the Americans would refuse for whatever reason? I'm just wondering if there's a chance of the Western Allies not acting as one – rather like in the Suez crisis just a few years later. If nothing else, this explains why the Soviets wouldn't get nuked… maybe they'd even made a deal with the Americans behind the scenes or something? A swap of territory elsewhere or the handing over of German scientist prisoners / US PoWs in return to an 'understanding' over a revision of spheres of influence in the Balkans?

OK – quick correction before the pedants emerge!

Turkey did actually join the allies just before the end of WW2, but no one could say they played a major role in defeating Nazi Germany.

No, but no one in their right minds would ever let the Russians grab the bosphorous. It would be like giving away Gibralter or suez ….. oh well worse really. Turkey is going to get help and Turkey is going to provide airbases.They wont be kicking the sovs out any time soon, but in time GDP will count.

Okay, so Stalin attacks towards the Dardanelles. Logic move really – far enough away from Western Europe to avoid provoking a all out war, close enough to be mount an effective offensive.

"Alright chaps, warm up the Centurions."

About the only places where Stalin can get such an ironclad certainty of war are: Tsushima, Gibralter, Singapore, Denmark.

Hi

Not a tank guy, but I do have books full of aircaft that never left the factory doors which has to be a lot easier to get to someone than a tank.

No gas.

No rail.

If I was a tank guy, I suppose I would have those photos.

Rocky

and Panama

You HAVE heard of the Truman Doctrine, haven't you?

From Wikipedia:

"The Truman Doctrine was a policy set forth by U.S. President Harry S. Truman on March 12, 1947 stating that the U.S. would support Greece and Turkey with economic and military aid to prevent their falling into the Soviet sphere.

"Truman stated the Doctrine would be "the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures." Truman reasoned, because these "totalitarian regimes" coerced "free peoples," they represented a threat to international peace and the national security of the United States. Truman made the plea amid the crisis of the Greek Civil War (1946–1949). He argued that if Greece and Turkey did not receive the aid that they urgently needed, they would inevitably fall to communism with grave consequences throughout the region.

"For years Britain had supported Greece, but was now near bankruptcy and was forced to radically reduce its involvement. In February 1947, Great Britain formally requested the United States take over its role in supporting the Greek government.

"The policy won the support of Republicans who controlled Congress and involved sending $400 USD million in American money, but no military forces, to the region. The effect was to end the Communist threat, and in 1952 both countries joined NATO, a military alliance that guaranteed their protection.

"The Doctrine was informally extended to become the basis of American Cold War policy throughout Europe and around the world.[4] It shifted American foreign policy toward the Soviet Union from dιtente (friendship) to, as George F. Kennan phrased it, a policy of containment of Soviet expansion. Historians often use its announcement to mark the starting date of the Cold War."

If the USSR had struck prior to that announcement, however, who knows?

donlowry

I was not aware of this doctrine, no – so many thanks for the info.
As you say, however, it only was enacted (is that the right word?) in 1947… and there must have been a reason why it was put in place… did the Americans get wind of Soviet moves in that direction? There was obviously a fear that, if the Brits pulled out, these nations would fall into the Soviet sphere?

(apologies for the delay in replying – I have been in the Ethiopian highlands recoving a 10-ton tracked compressor unit… only one track was working, so to get it going in the right direction, we had to use an iron bar to jam the other one, and had to move it several miles in this stop-start-backwards-forwards fashion… certainly gave me lots of ideas for improvised anti-tank methods in skirmish games)

Trigger was the Brits were pulling their 2 divisions out of Greece. Local politics means that looking after Greece might have pushed Turkey into Sov hands. So, cash and assurances for both. No war. At the time I doubt that Stalin thought that the Balkans were worth the life of one Sov grenadier.

I believe there were some Communist guerrillas in Greece at least; not sure about Turkey.

That's what the two divs of Brits were doing there, supporting the Greeks, dont think that the Turks had an insurgency problem, beyond Kurds, assorted arabs and probably some Armenians.

Atlee knew Britain was broke and wanted out, but he was reluctant to leave the Greeks in the lurch. Stalin gave the greek communists no support. Some pages back we touched on the question of Stalin turning them into a sort of VC but it didnt get far.

With a permanent GDP hit of about 10% and 15% of their population dead, my guess is that Stalin had war up to his neck and wanted no more. He didnt give Mao a lot of help either.

But the very fact that the withdrawal of the British divisions made the US feel the need to announce this doctrine must suggest there was a worry about Soviet interest in the region.

There were indeed huge numbers of Greek communists – indeed, Greece is still has a large minority who support Communism. When British troops deployed to the former Yugoslavia in the '90s, Thessalonika (a designated NATO port) was used. There were huge protests against NATO forces by Greek Communists, up to and including rioting and petrol bombs etc. I remember reading about British squaddies being utterly bewildered at the venom and hatred felt towards them when they were travelling through a NATO ally.

As for Stalin not feeling the Balkans to be worth the life of a single Soviet Grenadier… when did Stalin ever care about a one, one hundred thousand, or even one million of his own men's lives?

However, Grizzymc makes some excellent points and I agree that it would have taken something remarkable for the war to re-start after a period of peace. So is it worth exploring a Soviet grab while the war was still on-going?

The map herewith is very interesting:
link
The green area shows that part of Greece occupied by the Bulgarians – might the Soviets have taken a gamble and siezed this part of Greece while they were annexing Bulgaria? It is also intersting to note that the Bulgarians were origninally welcomed by the largely Slavic population of that part of Greece. The post-war squabble might then have been about the West demanding they withdraw from it. Stalin could (quite plausibly) point out that if his men pull back, his Greek Communist supporters will suffer retribution etc.

But would the West have the desire to drive the Soviet forces out?