"Could/should we have attacked the Soviets in '45? " Topic

Could/should we have attacked the Soviets in 1945?

Advantages
- Non Nuclear Soviet Union
- Free Eastern Europe
- No cold war
- No Korean war
- No Vietnam war
- No "Reds under the beds" (either in fact or imagination)
- Many lives saved (e.g. Soviet collaborators & prisoners who were murdered later)

Patton thought so. The Patton papers are online at google books p698:

"Mr. Secretary, for God's sake, when you go home, stop this point system; stop breaking up these Armies; give us an opportunity to keep 30% of our battlewise troops home on leave if you wish, etc. – send us replacements and let us start training here, keeping our forces intact. Let's keep our boots polished, bayonets sharpened, and present a picture of force and strength to these people [the Russians]. This is the only language they understand and respect. If you fail to do this, I would say to you that we have had a victory over Germany and have disarmed them, but have lost the war."

The Secertary said "You don't realize the strength of these people."

Gen. P. said, "Yes, I have seen them. I understand the situation. Their supply system is inadequate to maintain them in a serious action such as I could put to them. They have chickens in their coops and cattle on the hoof – that's their supply system. They could probably maintain themselves in the type of fighting I could give them for five days. After that it would make no difference how many million men they have, and if you wanted Moscow, I could give it to you.

"They lived on the land coming down. There is insufficient left for them to maintain themselves going back! Let's not give them time to build up their supplies. If we do, then I repeat, we have had a victory over the Germans and disarmed them; we have failed in the liberation of Europe; we have lost the war!"

Fighting talk! The Soviets must have had badly stretched supply lines in Germany. But they had good kit and, as I understand it, good tactics – I've read about instances where they out foxed ze Germans.

What do you think? Looking back, we had a great deal to gain from fighting the Soviets.

I don't know, spy movies haven't been as good since the fall of the Soviet Union. We have a lot to lose as well.

Also without the polarization of the world between two superpowers you might have had the instability of the current world a lot sooner.

There are quite a few good responses and views in this thread from a couple of years ago on the subject,
TMP link
Robert

Your advantages imply "we" would have won.

Your advantages imply "we" would have won.

Just my bad wording. If we had won those are possible advantages.

if we had won? – we did possess the only nuclear weapons in the world at that time

weird , or what?

George Orwell, would have been pleased. We have always been at war with Eurasia.

I suppose really it comes down to whether you think it is ok to invade other countries and slaughter millions of their inhabitants because you don't like the look of them.

Who is "we" and why so late?

Politically I think the western allied goverments would have a tough time convincing their citizens that after several years of war and hardship, just when the job looked finished, they should change the objectives and go to war with someone who a few months earlier was an ally. I doubt there would have been the stomach for it in places like france, the UK or even the US.

it comes down to whether you think it is ok to invade other countries and slaughter millions of their inhabitants because you don't like the look of them.

Gulags, oppression, belligerence? How many died because the Soviets were left to get on with it?

Look at subsequent conflicts and consider where the arms (or half of them) came from. There were many reasons to attack the Soviets.

Politically it could never have happened. Anyone suggesting this course would have been killed in the press.

No.

Er..no..never invade Russia…it's a big place. Sure a military victory might have been possible, but in 'peace time' it could never have been kept under control. It would have been succesful as any other military occupation by the US…ie. not succesful.
The idea is just bloodlust and Generals up their own bottoms wanting to conquer the world and be heroes at teh expesne of their men. Just my opinion.

Politically impossible. The British had had enough. The US public would not have stomached a further European war when many originally thought Germany was not their problem. Militarily the Allies would have won easily as the Russians would have starved. Once you move into Europe proper it is narrow and constricted. Air power is all important, the Russians would have been massacred and their supplies cut off. Right of the generals to say that this next war can be won now, right of the politicians to say no, its not deliverable!

Ok, so you want to follow the man who decides the SS are not bad blokes really and we should re arm them and alongside them attack Russia, did you want the shower room blueprints and Crematoria plans from them as well?

So Russia had Gulags for politica prisoners, The USA just had a bar that stopped over 1/3rd of its population being treated equally.

Maybe Russia should have joined with Germans to attack the US for its racist policies of the 1940s. You know segregated schools, transport, lack of opportunites, third class citizens etc. And then of course there was the whispering campaign without anything actually resembling evidence that became Senate Hearings where just being named could destroy you, all without any burden of proof.

yeah I might get Dawghawsed for this.

but saying a further war at that time was needed because decides to post it here, and he can't see that most if not all of the charges he levels against the USSR can also be made against his free, equal and democratic country.

So Russia falls to the US, no Korea or Vietnam,

US falls to Russia, no overthrown elected govts in south and central America, no Juntas and Military dictatorships, no death squads and disappearing populations. Behind the Iron Curtain was bad, but so were the lands of the Monroe doctrine and the Pax Americana. More people died in one day in the US/CIA assisted rise to power of Pinochet than died in 9/11.

And the numbers of dead and missing from the various US dabblings in the region have never been counted, not least of which is numbers that high might scare the voters at home.

"So Russia had Gulags for politica prisoners, The USA just had a bar that stopped over 1/3rd of its population being treated equally."

Hmmn…equating being enslaved in Siberia and systematically starved with, er, being "unequally treated". <shakes head> Hard to take someone seriously when they make absurd statements like this.

(Not to mention the fact that the ONLY thing Communist governments seem to do well is systematically murder huge proportions of their own people).

Oh, and before railing about US racism in the 1940s, you should ask non-Russians about how well they were treated in the Russian Worker's Paradise. Come to think of it, racism seems to have been a notable feature of virtually all of the various murderous thugocracies of the Communist world.

Anyhow, I think that the Western Allies would have won due to superior airpower and logistics. However, it would have been a long and brutal fight. I think that the world would have probably been better off had that fight occurred in 1945, at least in terms of net human lives saved and net economic resources expended. But there was no way a Western politician could start that fight. In addition, the Roosevelt administration was riddled with Communist sympathizers, so it's hard to see how anything short of an overt Soviet attack would have caused a war. And Stalin just wasn't that stupid.

It also would had to happen in a relatively short time frame -- the US demobilized 87% of its forces by mid 1947.

What makes you sure that there would have been any South American entanglements if the stimulus for those problems (Communism) had been nipped in the bloom (if not the bud)?

If the allies had defeated the Soviet Union, a great deal about Soviet atrocities would have come out subsequently. For example, a few decades ago files were uncovered at a former KGB office showing that the Bolsheviks had used chemical weapons against whites. Communism would have had a terrible reputation post WW3. Think of the smear campaign the media can put together if they want to.

Don't think that just having nukes would have been decisive, the Russians had plenty of chemical weapons that would have been used if the US used Nukes.

Some of the dirt the allies had on the Soviets:

WWII massacre: Memos show US cover-up of Stalin's Katyn slaughter

The historians who spoke with the Associated Press called it "the most dramatic revelation" as it shows that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his administration were getting information early on from credible US sources illustrating it was the Soviet Union behind the massacre.

The records also contain other illuminating evidence. One of the most important messages that landed on Roosevelt's desk was an extensive and detailed report from British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Written by the British ambassador to the Polish government-in-exile in London, Owen O'Malley, the document pointed to Soviet complicity in the Katyn massacre.

In the early years after the war, a special US Congressional committee was set up to investigate Katyn. In a final report released in 1952, it declared there was no doubt of Soviet guilt. It found that Roosevelt's administration "suppressed public knowledge of the crime, but said it was out of military necessity." It also recommended the government bring charges against the Soviet Union at an international tribunal.

link

From the Wiki

From 28 December 1945 to 4 January 1946, seven servicemen of the German Wehrmacht were tried by a Soviet military court in Leningrad. One of them, Arno Diere, was charged with helping to dig the Katyn graves during the execution. Diere, who was accused of murder using machine-guns in Soviet villages, confessed to having taken part in burial (though not the execution) of 15,000 to 20,000 Polish POWs in Katyn. For this he was spared execution and was given 15 years of hard labor.

link

So keeping 1/3rd of your population in effective slavery is not as bad as enslaving some of your population. perhaps ask some who is black about 1940s America before making that distinction, and someone who is Jewish while your at it, and maybe ask someone with no political affiliations what so ever about having there life ruined because of the word of a rival.

What communism in South America, it was a democratically elected govts that were brought down by the US assisted coups, and then supported as Military Dictatorships.

Do I need to add the fact that the Concentration Camp system had been used in the US for 100 years at this point, ask a nice Native American about that treatment as well.

better grounds are needed to go to war than the rabid rantings of a coward whose political and personal views had more in common with Nazi Germany then even his own govt at home.

And yes I mean George, I will slap a private because I can Patton. he was an arrogant abject coward and the world was a better place without him.

Why a coward, well look into the penalty for hitting a superior Officer, the men he slapped had no recourse, he used his rank and position to attempt to bully them, to cover up his own fears.

And one last piece of evidence for your pipe to smoke on.

A Military Junta, invades another country that is a democratic one and one of your major allies, over a piece of ground that it the no claim either politically or otherwise, and the kneejerk reaction is to support the Junta…

And ooh the USSR used chemical weapons in that period, so did France, the USA, Britain, Germany, Austria, Italy…

In retrospect, there was a certain moral imperative to freeing Eastern Europe … however there was also the embarrassing fact that we had agreed to that occupation, and couldn't really predict that things would go as badly as they did.

Given the vast western superiority in the air and on the sea, and the fact that the western armies were relatively fresh, well supplied, and operating with short supply lines – versus an army that had been bled white and was evidently kept supplied by a rather ramshackle affair of pillaging and primitive administrative methods – the war in Eastern Europe would probably have been short and brutal. However, crossing the border into the Soviet Union itself would have deprived the west of any moral imperative and presented an enormous logistical challenge … as our new German friends would probably have been able to point out!

Rapier, you really need to calm the down and get off your high horse.

@Rapier Miniatures,

Steady, old chap. Try to keep a stiff upper one.

I don't think the American people would have stood for it. There are plenty of memoirs and interviews out there in which the GI says they know the war is rapidly coming to an end and they don't want to die in the battle of the war. How motivated are they going to be to die in the first battle of the next war with the Ruskies. These guys had done their bit and wanted to go home.

The British weren't very keen on the idea. link It's also rather Orwellian to so promptly turn on your fraternal allies. That takes a lot of explaining in Western democracies…..

Don't forget that the Communists were very popular in 1945 in Western Europe. At the very least there will be mass civil unrest & quite possibly a degree of insurrection. Who is going to unload your supply ships & run the rail network? Those long supply lines are very vulnerable to guerilla activity.

They could probably maintain themselves in the type of fighting I could give them for five days. After that it would make no difference how many million men they have, and if you wanted Moscow, I could give it to you.

That's what the Germans thought in 1941. A few days of hard fighting then motor on to Moscow.

Air power is all important, the Russians would have been massacred and their supplies cut off.

Air power tends to be much less important in the vast distances of Russia. Difficult to be strong enough everywhere along the front. The Russian tendency to open up with every available weapon rather than hitting the dirt when aircraft show up tends to lead to high losses too as the Germans found to their cost.

Rapier Miniatures--

Deaths from the Soviet gulag system are estimated to be 15-30 MILLION from 1918 to 1956. When Stalin died in 1953, there were more than 3 MILLION people enslaved in the gulag system. Compared to the Soviets, the Nazis were rank amateurs. (And, of course, let's not forget the staggering human carnage caused by other Worker's Paradises like Pol Pit's Cambodia, Mao's China, etc.)

Funny, I don't recall 15-30 MILLION Americans being murdered by the racist US government during the same time.

Are you *really* so willfully obtuse?

Practically, how easy would it have been for Britain's new Labour (ie. Socialist) Government to convince the electorate that the Russians – the people who we have been calling our friends / allies, and whose victories we have been celebrating, for the last 4 years have suddenly transformed into our bitterest enemy? Even if the American leadership had been keen to have a go, I can't see them doing it against the wishes of the UK.

I have no love for Stalin's USSR, and agree that had his regime somehow 'disappeared' in 1945, that would have been better for all concerned. But I don't see that it was a practical option for the Western Allies to attack them in 1945, unless there was some very obvious trigger which would rally Western public opinion.

Also – how many nukes did the US have? Would the West have had air superiority to ensure delivery? Would the nuking of a few Soviet towns have bothered Stalin, or would it have galvanised him (and the Russian people) to fight to the death?

As well as being doubtful for political reasons, I struggle to see that it would have been any sort of a cake walk militarily – the Soviet army and airforce were enormous and, though maybe not as good as the Wests', their equipment was far from rubbish.

I do agree, however, with those who think it is laughable for the mass murder which was committed in the Soviet Union (or its satellites) to be in any way equated to the injustices experienced in the Western World at the time.

Fred Cartwright--

Allied Air power would have been decisive because it would have obliterated Soviet supply lines (already stretched painfully thin in 1945).

The ending of Lend-Lease would have precluded replacement of soft-skinned transport. The seriously degraded Eastern European rail net would have been highly vulnerable to Allied airpower.

The Red Army would have been cut off and destroyed in Central Europe. Or, it would have had to retreat in the face of overwhelming enemy air supremacy. Think the Desert Storm "Highway of Death" many times over. In addition, by 1945, it was virtually impossible to successfully launch an attack against an enemy with air superiority.

At the tactical level, Allied airpower and vastly superior artillery fire control systems would have played havoc with Soviet forces.

Also, the US GDP in 1945 was 4-5 times that of the Soviet Union. Britan's GDP was about the same as the Soviet Union. There's just no rational reason to believe that the Soviets could have won that war, even excluding US nuclear weapons (which were very limited in number and useful primarily as strategic weapons).

No is the answer I think. It would probably have been hard to garner popular support for attacking "Uncle Joe" in '45. The terrible autrocities of Stalinism were not so well known then. But is was very tough on Poland and Czech, those guys fought like lions in our uniforms only to loose out through our 'big picture' perfidy at the end.

Based on this thread, anyone would think we took the wrong side in WWII………

The nuclear card is one you should consider, perhaps, less important in the time period. We did not have bucket fulls of the weapons. We did not simply crank these things out at a fast pace then. In 1945 we mustered up two, and we hoped Japan could be brought to heel with them.

If Fat Man and Little Boy did not do the job, we were looking at them calling our bluff. I am sure more could have been made, but it was not exactly a speedy process. It was 11 months before Alpha and Baker Tests in the Bikini Atoll. Probably more could have been made in the mean time, but how quickly is anyone's guess at this point.

In the meantime, the Soviet army was hardly the inept, poorly trained, poorly led force it was in June of 1941. They had just fought the Germans for 4 years. Their equipment was on par/better than ours. It was just as easily mass produced, if not easier.

In 1945 the Soviet army had roughly 500 Rifle divisions, and 50 tank divisions, a much MUCH larger, and better equipped force than the German's faced in the beginning of the war.

Regardless of the idea of whether we SHOULD have invaded the Soviet Union, is whether we COULD have. Nuclear weapons or not, we could have had our butts backed up to the English Channel, even, and especially in a war fought immediately or nearly after World War II was over in Europe.

James Wright --

The Soviets simply lacked the logistical capabilities (especially in the face of Allied air supremacy) to drive the Allies out of Central Europe. 500 rifle divisions are little more than an armed mob if they can't be adequately supplied.

Understand that I believe it would have been a long and costly fight. But there's just no rational reason to believe that the Soviets could have prevailed. As I said earlier, the US and UK had 5-6 times the GDP of the Soviet Union, along with overwhelming air superiority and (limited) nuclear weapons. In addition, the Soviets relied heavily on the US for soft-skinned transport, critical to keep the Red Army supplied. The Soviets would not have been able to quickly retool their production facilities to replace the high truck losses they would have suffered at the hands of Allied airpower.

But yes, it would have been a helluva fight.

So keeping 1/3rd of your population in effective slavery is not as bad as enslaving some of your population. perhaps ask some who is black about 1940s America before making that distinction, and someone who is Jewish while your at it, and maybe ask someone with no political affiliations what so ever about having there life ruined because of the word of a rival.

1/3 of the population? Who makes up this third that was in "effective slavery" in the US in th 1940s?

tbeard1999

Would the US and the UK have had 'overwhelming air superiority'? I cannot find the number of planes the Soviets had available in 1945, but what I have found so far suggests they had an enormous number. Technical advantages might well have meant that air superiority would indeed have been established, but it wouldn't have happened overnight.

I also think one should treat GDPs with caution – they cannot be directly used like this when the nations in question have massively differing standards of living and costs – what would it cost to feed, pay, equip, transport and clothe an American soldier compared to a Soviet one in 1945?
The UK has a much higher GDP than Russia today – but no one would dream of suggesting that this means the UK could invade Russia, or even defeat it in a battle over (eg) Norway or something.

Also, one should never under-estimate the advantages that Stalin's Totalitarian regime would have had over the Western democracies in any such war. No (relatively) free press to worry about, no striking dock workers, communist-sympathising union leaders etc.

Before I comment on the situation in 45 I need to make an aside to try to put decisions in context.

What our American readers need to understand is that Western Europe has a different political make up to the US. We have a long standing acceptance of politics that are far to the left of anything regarded as acceptable over your side of the pond. This is coupled with a level of acceptance by those political groups of a democratic process. (alright maybe not in the 1930's To many over this side of the Atlantic the US mainstream corporate and political stance on politics of the left (especially in the period from 1919 up to McCarthism) is difficult to properly understand. Equally it must be difficult for you to understand how we can be comfortable with having politics of the centre and far left running as part of mainstream political life. This was the case in the 1940's too.

Now back to the shoulda coulda woulda debate. On paper it could have been done with the forces at our disposal. Politically the will wasn't there in Western Europe. Britain was exhausted and the results of the 1945 General Election reflected an electorate who wanted to rebuild and create what they considered to be a more equitable world for the men and women who had risked and lost so much defeating Hitler. The actual rank and file soldiers on the ground shared this view. Morale would have probably collapsed under orders to push on East.

Shoulda? With 20:20 hindsight yes. However, remember what I said about different political world views. Many of the ordinary people over here had no axe to grind against the Soviets and would had to have been convinced of what Stalin was doing. There would have been at best confusion over why we needed to go to war with the Soviets and at worst grass roots political pressure against our joining in.

Woulda? As in woulda won? Define win. While we might have rolled back the Iron Curtain I doubt we could have destroyed the Soviet Union as a military power. At worst we might have ended up fighting an resistance movement across Eastern Europe especially if we had re-armed the SS.

What would have been the long term results? China would probably still have gone Communist. So Communism wouldn't have been wiped off the face of the planet. With no Soviet Block to counter balance the US what would US foreign policy in the mid to late 50s have looked like? One thing history teaches is that where there is one major power a second arises to balance it, or the single power has to invent a similar threat to create an impression of an external threat. The best choice for that would have been the Western European nations and the emergent EEC.

Could we have declared war on the Soviet union?

Yes – let us pre suppose that free France, Britain and her empire, USA, and remnants of the Germans, with free polish forces (any others?) could all be persuaded to ally to take the fight to a new enemy? Let us Assume that Japan has been defeated and all forces deployed to the pacific are busy controlling japan?.

Russian production levels are at a new high – and their supply lines are considerably shorter than the atlantic ocean. so the Russians can out produce the west for a short period (say only three to six months, after which shipping uninterrupted by u-boat action can make the short atlantic hop, and bombing of rail heads and factories can turn the tide?

Let us also Assume – that USA can build two or more nuclear piles – and can continue with their bomb making process to have between three and four A bombs ready for summer of 46.

After making all of these assumptions – I would say that the "Allies" could Declare war (for a completely spurious reason) and make some headway into Russia, However after three or four months the will to fight an ex ally, and with knowledge of deals done to get German soldiers fighting with us, the public back home would raise outcry.

Without the population backing a just war against the Soviet union, and with China starting to "collapse into communism" you end up with a stalemate somewhere in eastern Europe, a divided Poland instead of Germany, A communist system that can always state that you cannot trust the Americans – look what they did, a stronger and more vindicated Stalinist system, a more allied China/Russia – and lots of destabilised countries.

Russians still Develop the bomb – and China probably gets to have a proper war with India, killing millions (?) and the French Indochina war with communism is just one of many old colonial wars that where colonies throw off their previous masters to welcome communist freedoms.

No Glasnost, No Perestroika, (possibly no Iran/Iraq war either)

No Cuban missile crisis, and possibly no space race as we know it?

World of now would be communist Africa, Communist Asia, Dictatorships in South America, A divided Europe, a Militaristic Democracy in USA.

(I accept that their may be one or two outliers in Asia and Africa that retained democratic dictatorships)

So – eternal war – George Orwell would have been Proud!

It would have caused a civil war in France (a large part of the French Resistance was communist).

The USA were quite happy with the Yalta+Potsdam divide of the European cake. After 1945 the reconstruction of Western Europe was a big market for the US economy (and needed it!) so it was certainly more interesting for both parts to have peace in Europe.

And yes – Rapier calm down! – Your views are borderlining on Fezzy areas.

Might make a very good game – world war II.1

Let's table the Blue Fezz touchy-feely, your atrocity is bigger than my atrocity debate for now. The Game is the thing.
However:
1. Logistics and manpower-All supplies for all armies involved were truck-borne from bottlenecks(Antwerp/Cherbourg and a soviet railheads east of Poland?). British were breaking up a division per month just for replacements, US had Pacific commitments, Soviets were emptying Gulags and arming them with truckloads of 'PaPaSha's'. Fuel, Fuel, Fuel to sustain naval, air-ops, supplies and armor/mech formations.
2. The Greek quagmire, Yugoslavian quicksand and a de facto Ukrainian revolt.
3. German pockets that may not surrender if the Allies and Soviets have at it(depending when hostilities start).
4. The Arnies WANTED TO GO HOME! The mission was over.

Better as a Weird War What-If.

Hitler's Campaign-Case ????(someone translate that)

And what on earth does Junta have to do with it? A perfectly nice, warm-fuzzy, feel-good game…

bulldog69--

According to my notes, in late 1945 the USAAF had about 63,715 aircraft. This doesn't include US Navy or Marine Corps aircraft. I'd guess that to be another 10,000 minimum (the Navy trained 20,000 pilots in 1944 alone).

The Soviets had about 18,500 aircraft.

The British had about 9200 aircraft. I think that the Canadians had about 7000 aircraft. The Australians had about 5500 aircraft.

And the Allies had a significant qualitative edge in both aircraft and pilot quality.

So yes, given a 4-5 to 1 edge in numbers, I'd say the Allies would have quickly achieved air supremacy. And for reasons already noted, this would have led to the destruction of the Soviet logistical system. Which would have led to the defeat of the Red Army. "Amateurs study tactics; professionals study logistics…"

Allied Air power would have been decisive because it would have obliterated Soviet supply lines (already stretched painfully thin in 1945).

Much harder to maintain once you move into Russia and operating off unprepared strips and you have to move supplies over vast distances. A lot of German losses in Russia were accidents. Also the allies supply lines were exactly robust as many of the European ports were wrecked.

Britan's GDP was about the same as the Soviet Union.

Britain was bankrupt in 1945 and was running out of manpower. There is no way we could have sustained any sort of combat power for a push into Russia, quite apart form the lack of any sort of will for such a fight.

Yup – those numbers certainly support your case.

Fred Cartwright --

Your comments about supply lines being very long into Russia are well taken, but the Red Army would have been defeated in Central Europe, not deepest Russia. Even if the Red Army had suddenly changed its doctrine and tried to withdraw into Russia, it would have been savaged by Allied airpower. Strategically, such a move would have been senseless, as the only hope the Soviet had would be a quick victory. Retreating into Russia would simply give the Allies time to fully deploy their forces and supplies. (While systematically devastating Soviet industry with strategic bombing. Note that the Allies would have had the benefit of analyzing german bombing targets and would have likely dramatically improved the effectiveness of strategic bombing).

Sorry, but I think that the weight of the evidence points to an Allied victory (though at a high cost).

The RAF in May 1945 had 1,079,835 personnel, 540 squadrons and 55,469 aircraft in total.

Taken from the RAAF website:

"When the armistice with Japan was signed on 15 August 1945, the RAAF in the Pacific had a total strength of 131,662 personnel and 3,187 front line aircraft."

Rapier Miniatures on 16 May 2013 2:25 a.m. PST wrote:

So Russia had Gulags for politica prisoners, The USA just had a bar that stopped over 1/3rd of its population being treated equally.

Okay… Clarify that one for me. What 1/3 are you talking about?

VR
James Mattes

@ Rapier Minis:

1) I did not realize that America was such an awful country and that Americans were such an evil people. Thanks for educatin' me on that.

2) I can't believe that I have more stifles than you .

Ref for RAF figures. Squadron Histories of the RFC, RNAS and RAF. Peter Lewis. Putnam & Company, London, 2nd Ed. 1968