US/British vs Soviet forces May 1945

[jager506]

I've read with great interest the numerous posts pertaining to the above. I know I may repeat
some of the points already broached but here's IMHO what would occur if the Soviets launched a
full-scale assault on the US/British forces in western Europe after the German surrender, i.e.
around mid-May 1945.

The eventual result would be a stalemate, more or less, BUT with the Allies (US and British)
pushing the Red Army out of (at least) Germany and possibly Czechoslovakia and Poland. Here's
why:

1) The Allies would gain air superiority (not complete supremacy) within 2 or 3 weeks at most.
The RAF and USAAF combined could field some 23-24,000 aircraft vs about 12,000 Soviet planes.
The latest Allied piston-engined fighters - Spitfires, P-47s and P-51s were markedly superior to
the best soviet Lavochkins and Yak planes, plus Allied pilots were also better, in terms of
training hours, experience and tactical doctrine. Soviet pilots were often thrown into battle
with minimal or just cursory training. It was the western Allies which shot the Luftwaffe out
of the skies and forced the Germans to deploy most of their aircraft in the West and over the
Reich. So, outnumbered 2 to 1, with inferior planes and pilots, I think we can concede air
superiority to the Allies. Losses would be heavy of course.

2) HAving gained air superiority, the Allies would then capitalize on their very seasoned teams
of tank-busting fighter-bombers (Typhoons, P-47s etc) to smash up the Soviet tank columns. Note
that the Luftwaffe, in early 1945, was still able to destroy (with obsolete Stukas I might add)
hundreds of Soviet tanks from the air. Hans Rudel, the Stuka ace, was flying on of these
missions when his leg got blown off. Surely if the Luftwaffe could manage such a feat in its
dying days, the Allies, who brought air-ground cooperation to new heights, do much worse?

3) The Soviet superiority in ground forces, slightly more than 2 to 1 in troops, tanks and about
3 to 1 in artillery was not as great as imagined, and this is against experienced, cool-headed
Allied commanders not subject to stand fast and die orders by a Hitler-like leader. Certainly
they would have given ground in the initial Russian onrush, but when the Soviet offensive,
pounded constantly from the air, begins to run out of steam, count on Manstein-like counterblows
to materialize.

4) No argument that the best Soviet tanks, the IS-IIs and some IS-IIIs were better than the best
Allied vehicles, BUT at this stage, they were relatively few in number. The most numerous AFV
was the T-34/85, which the latest Shermans and Fireflys could fight on more or less even
footing. The Allies too had their newer AFVs, the British Comet and US Pershing, the latter
which had better mobility than the Panther with roughly the same armor/firepower.

5) Lastly, as has been mentioned, the Allies enjoyed absolute naval supremacy. The Americans
were free to bring additional reinforcements unimpeded from anywhere they wished. By May 1945,
they could have even withdrawn their main Pacific theater land forces - the Japanese were close
to starvation anyways, just keeping the subs and some planes there would have sufficed to
strangle Japan eventually.

The reason I say it will end the battle would end in stalemate is because it would have next to
impossible for British and US leaders to sanction a drive on Moscow even if Stalin had attacked
first, and everyone knows the Russian soldier fights best when defending the Rodina (homeland)
rather than in foreign incursions. Allied losses would have been too heavy to justify to the
populace.

That about sums it up.

For the record, I'm neither American nor Russian! Just a friendly 'neutral'.

[Grisha]

Actually, if anyone would have launched an attack after Germany's capitulation, it would have been the western Allies. They had already invaded Russia once during their Civil War. Thank Eisenhower for canning Patton for even suggesting such an action. Talk about obsessive aggression.

------------------
Best regards,
Greg Leon Guerrero

[Mist]

Good points except you missed that there was Pattons idea to launch offensive onto russians. I can't argue that Soviet offensive would face hard times, and russian soldier was fighting better for his motherland, but you missed that allies were already about to begin major demobilization.
I agree with everything you said except above points and time periods. How on the earth do you guys calculate the time needed to gain air superiority? Is there any formula? What does it take into account? Number of opperative planes,ammount of fuel, durability of planes, their ability to be repaired, their reliability, pilots experience, their will to fight their former ally. If it would be so easy, then wars were resolved with a pen and paper. Do not forget, that there always were a lot of predictors before any war and even more analythics after any war which explained why did all things happen in this and only this way. So, I imagine after-war book of Patton(would he be alive) in which he blames high command in its fatal mistake to turn [chose_direction] and clearly explains why.


[This message has been edited by Mist (edited February 26, 2001).]

[John W Cochran]

A couple points:

I do not believe the West, and I know for sure the US, invadeded Russia during the Revolution. I do know for sure that there was substantial (though not enough IMHO)US and Western aide for the 'White Russians' fighting the Reds.

Also, I can not imagine Stalin not invading the West if he thought he could win. He had no compulsions against swallowing up Eastern Europe, and I doubt he held any great love for the peoples of Luxembourg and Denmark, for example, that would have kept him from using the army he found himself in possesion of in '45.

The Soviet Union may not have been an Evil Empire, but Stalin was most certainly an Evil Emperor.

The only thing that kept Stalin out of Western Europe, especially after the West began demobilization, was the vaporization of thousands of Japanese.

And on that point, I don't think Stalin was so much worried about losing Kiev, Minsk, or even Moscow/Stalingrad/Leningrad -- but rather was worried about what atomic bombs would do to his tank columns.

After all, he had killed millions of Russian/Georgians/et al., so what matter if the USAAF kill a few million more if it got him beach front property on the Bay of Biscayne (sp)?

[RickyB]

Originally posted by John W Cochran:
A couple points:

I do not believe the West, and I know for sure the US, invadeded Russia during the Revolution. I do know for sure that there was substantial (though not enough IMHO)US and Western aide for the 'White Russians' fighting the Reds.
...

Actually, American soldiers were involved in actions against the Red Army, or its predecessor, in 1919, in the Vladivostok region, I believe. This force ended up losing something around 50% of the men landed in killed, wounded and sick (I believe more in sick/dead of sickness than combat-the influenza epidimic hit them hard). The official word was they were just protecting US supplies that had been sent to Russia, but there was combat. There were around 5000 Americans involved. A book that discusses it in detail is called When Hell Froze Over.


------------------
Rick Bancroft
Semper Fi

[Yogi Yohan]

Originally posted by John W Cochran:
A couple points:

I do not believe the West, and I know for sure the US, invadeded Russia during the Revolution. I do know for sure that there was substantial (though not enough IMHO)US and Western aide for the 'White Russians' fighting the Reds.

It all depends on how you define the word "invade". British, French, American, Polish and even German forces fought the Bolsheviks during the Russian civil war. Is that an invasion? The west did not think so, and they were certainly welcomed by the White Russian forces. On the other hand, when the Soviet Union intervened in Afghanistan, invited by the Communist government, the West did brand this an invasion.

So as usual with history, it all depends on your point of view. The only fact we can establish is that western forces fought in Russia during the 1919-1921 civil war.

[This message has been edited by Yogi Yohan (edited February 26, 2001).]

[Grisha]

Well, when forces land by ship upon foreign shores, that is indeed an invasion. This is what western Allied forces did in Russia during the Russian Civil War. When the Soviets later referred to the western powers as "interventionists" this was why the term was used, not because of Korea, Bay of Pigs, or Vietnam. And, yes, the Soviets did invaded Afghanistan.

Please, let's keep ideological illusions and cold-war propaganda to a minimum. The truth is rarely black and white, and more often shades of grey.

------------------
Best regards,
Greg Leon Guerrero

[Yogi Yohan]

Originally posted by Grisha:
Well, when forces land by ship upon foreign shores, that is indeed an invasion.

I'm afraid it's not as simple as that. Take the case of the Vietnam war. Not even those who belive the US involvement in Vietnam was completely wrong would say that the US invaded South Vietnam. For me, invasion means that you're fighiting against the forces of an existing national government. So I would not label Afghanistan an "invasion" either since the Soviets were invited by their puppets in Kabul. That does not mean I belive it was justified, quite the contrary.

Since there was no single government in Russia in 1919 (that's why it's called civil war), it's debatable if the Western action can be called an invasion. If so, you'd have to say that Germany, Italy and the Soviet Union invaded Spain during the Spanish Civil War.

My point is, the choice of words does not say anything about the righteousness of the action. An intervention can be wrong (like Afghanistan) and an invasion can be justified (like the Gulf War). Choosing the right words is the best way to avoid falling into progandistic rethorics.

Originally posted by Grisha:
Please, let's keep ideological illusions and cold-war propaganda to a minimum.

I think I did just that, by calling things by their proper names.

[NEON DEON]

Oh no this thread is starting to polarize just like the last one!!!

[Grisha]

Y.Yohan,
Your statement is fair enough. I'll retract my use of the word 'invasion'. It was basically an intervention on the White Russians' behalf.

------------------
Best regards,
Greg Leon Guerrero

[jager506]

Yeah, there wuz an Allied intervention into Russia shortly after end of WWI, but it was relatively minor compared to what just might have occurred after WWII. I think it's quite academic and a moot point to really DEFINE what constitutes an "invasion". Take Hitler's annexation of Austria, for example. It wasn't really an invasion per se, since Austrian Nazis practically welcomed the Germans in.

Mist, I'm sorry if the 2 to 3 week timeframe I gave for the Allies to gain air superiority upsets you in any way. No, I don't have any formula to calculate it. It was based on how long it took the Luftwaffe to gain a general air superiority in early weeks of Barbarossa, and the UK/US air forces would do much better because of reasons stated above.

Yeah, I know Patton wanted to continue the war, even suggested re-equipping the defeated Germans to help fight the Soviets, but no way Truman and Churchill could've convinced their respective governments to do so. Consider too that the British had pretty much exhausted their manpower reserves by this stage, and the Americans of course had plenty left, but the call in May 1945 was "bring our boys home". Plus the atomic bomb was not quite a reality yet. Besides, it still took Truman some deliberation to drop the bomb on Japan, and they were the aggressors. To attack the Russians, AND drop nukes on them would have been a little too much to ask for the western democracies. Until perhaps early 1946, the Russians were still seen as valiant allies helping stem the fascist tide, not as cold war enemies yet.

Forgot to mention that if the Allied-Soviet clash had occurred, the Allies had a formidable strategic bomber force (the Russian air force was primarily, like the Luftwaffe, used to support the ground troops) which, by basing in Persia or Iraq, perhaps even Turkey, all either Allied-occupied or friendly towards them, could have largely smashed up the Soviet oil production centers in the Caucasus (Grozny, Baku, Tbilisi etc). The region produced over two-thirds of Russian oil. This would have crippled the economy, and the tanks and planes would have ground to a halt.

I read in another post about a German-Soviet alliance against the west. It MIGHT have happened if both countries were not headed by Hitler and Stalin. Two rational, level-headed leaders might have decided to ally for such a "worthy endeavor", and put aside their ideological differences for the duration.

While such an alliance would give the German-Soviet (let's call them Axis) powers a huge edge on the ground - they would still have been outclassed in the air and completely outmatched at sea. With US help, the RAF and Royal NAvy would have kept Britain in the war as an unsinkable aircraft carrier from which to pound Germany. Plus US and British industry were safe from Axis attack due to geography, but the Axis factories were not.
In this case, the US might have to eventually resort to the atomic bomb, especially if Japan joins the Axis as she did historically.

[John W Cochran]

As I read these posts I prepared to aknowledge that I was mistaken, that indeed the US did invade Russia -- but after reading all the posts, I now find that there is no need.

This is very similar to the one time I actually made a mistake. Back in the summer of '85 I thought I was wrong, but as it turns out, I was mistaken.



[This message has been edited by John W Cochran (edited February 27, 2001).]

[Ed Cogburn]

Originally posted by jager506:
Mist, I'm sorry if the 2 to 3 week timeframe I gave for the Allies to gain air superiority upsets you in any way. No, I don't have any formula to calculate it. It was based on how long it took the Luftwaffe to gain a general air superiority in early weeks of Barbarossa, and the UK/US air forces would do much better because of reasons stated above.

And the Soviet air forces would do better because now, instead of at the start of Barbarossa, they had good aircraft, a lot of experienced flyers, they outnumbered us significantly, and they had just fought a 5 year war against a very good Air Force, and won. The Red Air Force on 6/45 was nothing like the Red Air Force on 6/41.

[frank1970]

Jager506:
I do not believe that the Allies would have had a big advantage in air and sea forces against a SU-German-alliance:
Germany would not have had to build large numbers of tanks or artillery to fight the SU, they would have built airplanes and subs, all with material support from the SU (just think about the hundreds of XXI subs under construction in 1945, they would have been built in 1942/43, what would the Allies have done against them?). Additional there would not have been the losses (wether on Soviet nor on German side), giving the "new Axis" a very big amount of very experienced fighterpilots, tankers or what ever.
The change of alliances would have changed the direction of research and production.

[Yogi Yohan]

Originally posted by Ed Cogburn:

And the Soviet air forces would do better because now, instead of at the start of Barbarossa, they had good aircraft, a lot of experienced flyers, they outnumbered us significantly, and they had just fought a 5 year war against a very good Air Force, and won. The Red Air Force on 6/45 was nothing like the Red Air Force on 6/41.

Agree completely. Look at how long it took the West to win air superiority against the Luftwaffe, and the Luftwaffe had to fight the air war on western terms, i.e. at high altitude attacking strategic bombers. To deal with Soviet ground-pounders, the Mustangs would have had to fly low and at lower speeds, thus cancelling a great deal of their advantage.

Apart from whatever the effect of those few German super-aces, there's no reason to belive the West would fare any better against the Red Air Force than against the Luftwaffe. Remember, the USAF and RAF outnumbered the Luftwaffe significantly. With the Red Air Force it was the other way around, according to the Operation Unthinkable study.

Finally, a note on the feasability of a western strategic bombing campaign. Iran would fall in no time to Soviet forces, in fact the norhtern half was already Soviet occupied at VE-day, so it could not be used as a base. China has also been mentioned, but again the Red Army could easily take any bases in China. The Japanese managed major advances against China as late as 1944-45, so imagine what the Red Army could have done (especially allied to the Japanese). Only the Caucasian oil fields look vulnerable to western bombing from Syria, Palestine or Egypt - provided that Turkey cooperates and allows overflying. A big if.

[NEON DEON]

The Russian Air Force cannot afford to concentrate on one spot.


Virtually all of the Russians oil resources are in one area and Well within striking distance of British Airbases In Iraq. RAF bomber command alone could take out the caucasses. In fact, Churchill Came close to doing that in 1941 in order to stop the Germans from getting hold of the caucasses oil fields. Also violating Turkish airspace didn’t bother the Brits in 41. See link: http://www.thehistorynet.com/MHQ/articles/2000/winter00_text.htm
Then there are the Russian cities like Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev. Looks like the Russian air forces are going to be spread out.


Everywhere a US GI put his boot in the ETO/MTO he had air superiority. 1942/43 North Africa,43/44/45 Italy, 44,45 Europe.


I think air superiority and air supremacy are often confused.
Air superiority is control of the sky. Air supremacy is total domination of the sky.
Since soviet attack aircraft and fighters are short ranged their air bases have to be positioned
Well forward. The destruction of these bases would deprive the USSR of offensive capability quite rapidly. Now the USSR goes into defensive mode. Its hide and go seek time.
The Russian fighters spread out and start hiding in barns. Coordination of defensive efforts against allied tactical air is now reduced. Allied tactical air sortie with fighter escort.
Russian fighters respond but not in large numbers due to the fact they are spread out. Outnumbered and inferior Russian fighters flying at low altitude in an effort to stop allied tac air
Are jumped from above by superior allied fighters. The dog fight forces the Russians to fight while tac air proceeds to its targets. Inferior logistics combined with allied air interdiction of
Supply reduce the number of air craft available to meet the next Allied sortie. The scenario is repeated over and over again until a week later the Russians are still responding but in numbers too small to make a difference. The Allies have control of the sky over the BATTLE FIELD thus
Achieving air superiority.



Also in 43 the US stopped painting her fighter aircraft. Instead the all aluminum body of the mustang was a nice shiny silver very easy to see from the ground. The purpose to draw the Luftwaffe into battle. The reason to change air superiority into air supremacy.


I never said land combat would not take a long time. It would.

All my responses have been tied in some way to air power and its effects both strategically and
Tactically. Air power off sets numerical advantage on the ground. The argument that the soviet union has twice as many divisions as the allies therefore it would sweep them off the continent in short order is ill conceived at best as this excerpt from the US Italian campaign demonstrates.

“Under strategic priorities decided upon by the CCS (Quebec Conference, August 1943) the forces non in the Mediterranean were not to be strengthened further; in fact, seven of the best Allied divisions (four U.S. and three British) were withdrawn to the United Kingdom for the cross-Channel operation. Shipping limitations, in any case, forbade any large-scale reinforcement of the Mediterranean except at the expense of the buildup of American forces in the United Kingdom. By October 1943 the U.S. Fifth and British Eighth Armies together had only 11 divisions, but this force was able to tie down some 20-odd German divisions throughout the long campaign. The mountainous terrain and the restrictions on maneuver imposed by the narrowness of the peninsula favored the German defenders, but the Allied force continued to press northward until the end of the war.”


Also to say that the Russians and Germans were fanatical and did not care about loses unlike the US is to discount the fact the Americans fought the most fanatical well trained soldier on earth, the Japanese infantryman. Americans incurred heavy loses taking Iwo Jima, Guadalcanal, Tarwa, and Okinawa.

Further, the idea that the American pilot was a better pilot just because he was American is just as incorrect as to argue the Russian pilot was better cause he was Russian. You cant say either that because you have a P51 and the opponent has an La7 you would win based solely on the performance of the aircraft. You can, however say that you can win if you have a P51, ammo, gas, spare parts and the logistics in place to train a better pilot. The USAAF had the best combat ratio in WWII because it had the planes, the manpower, the time and logistics to do it. On may 1st 1945 the USAAF stood at 2,300,000 men of which 78,000 were pilots. The US had also retired some 7,500 veteran fighter pilots because they had completed their tour of duty.

[Ed Cogburn]

Originally posted by Yogi Yohan:
Finally, a note on the feasability of a western strategic bombing campaign. Iran would fall in no time to Soviet forces, in fact the norhtern half was already Soviet occupied at VE-day, so it could not be used as a base. China has also been mentioned, but again the Red Army could easily take any bases in China. The Japanese managed major advances against China as late as 1944-45, so imagine what the Red Army could have done (especially allied to the Japanese). Only the Caucasian oil fields look vulnerable to western bombing from Syria, Palestine or Egypt - provided that Turkey cooperates and allows overflying. A big if.

Agreed, and lets add to this issue of strategic bombing. The Red Air Force was still part of the Army, and it was largely structured to providing the Army air support. That doesn't mean its incapable of defending against strategic bombing, what it does mean is the attack of the Red Army against the Western powers in continental Europe will have the full weight of the Red Air Force (except for interceptors guarding important locations) supporting them. So while the strategic bombers of the West are attacking strategic targets, the Red Army is mauling the Western forces. The Allied air forces will have no choice but to concentrate their fighters to contest air superiority and try to protect the ground forces that are being overrun. The bombers therefore will not have escorts, which means they won't be as effective.

This whole issue also ignores the reality that strategic bombing in WWII was never particulary effective, especially in short timeframes. German industry grew during '44, including increasing production of tanks and planes, despite the heavy strategic bombing campaign carried out in that year. There is the very real possibility that the Red Army could effectively destroy Western forces in continental Europe before a strategic bombing campaign could have any substantial effect.

The argument comes right back to the situation in the air over the battlefields. Can the allied air forces stop the Red Air Force from providing air support to its attacking Army? Can their air support missions get through the Soviet interceptors? Can Western air forces get air superiority before the damage done on the ground becomes fatal?

[jager506]

The Allied strategic bomber offensive against Germany wreaked havoc - German armaments production grew during 1944 primarily because its economy was only put on a 'total war' footing early in 1943, meaning the real effect kicked in only towards end-1943, and the Allied bomber offensive really gained momentum round about the same time, i.e. after the introduction of the superb P-51 escort fighter.

German production also grew because of Albert Speer's extremely efficient management by dispersing the production centers, construction underground sites, etc, and also because even larger numbers of 'slave labor' were used in 1944 in cruel, inhumane conditions I might add. But if the Allies had NOT tried to bomb Germany flat during 1944, the Germans, with most of Europe's resources at their disposal, would have easily produced at least twice what they actually turned out, with serious implications for the Allies.

As pointed out earlier, the Soviets had by May 1945, sustained at least 12 million casualties, and they had about 6 million men under arms, which means they've reached the 1-in-10 theoretical limit of their 180 million population. Granted they could have certainly mobilized at least another couple million or so, perhaps even more, but at the cost of wrecking the Soviet economy and enlisting increasing numbers of young boys and older men. British manpower reserves were exhausted, but America had suffered a mere dent (just over 500,000 casualties from all causes)

So the Soviet preponderance on the ground and their advantage in tanks is not as great as is normally assumed. Certainly their ability to replace further losses from May 1945 onward would not be a far cry from what they were able to do in 1941-2.

I have great respect for both the Allied soldier AND the Russian soldier - God knows what the latter endured during the 1941-5 war. Perhaps the hell they had to go thru' was only matched by the German forces in Russia, who also went thru a hell of their own making, and by the Japanese in the Pacific. The Allied fighting man had in easier in that he had much better logistic support, and their leaders were much less profligate with using their troops like so many cattle to be slaughtered. Zhukov, for example, couldn't be bothered to clear enemy minefields the traditional way - he just told his men to CHARGE over it as though it didn't exist. The Japanese would have done that, some over-zealous SS unit might have, but try getting a British or American soldier to do that.

The Allied soldier may not have been as fanatical as all that, but that's because they believed in using massed steel/firepower to minimize human loss. It's just a fundamentally different approach to fighting a war, and IMHO, a better way. Let the enemy bleed himself to death if he wants to, I got better things to do.

[NEON DEON]

Russia only had a 180 million people?

I thought the US had 180 million in 45.

[NEON DEON]

OOPS.

The US had 140 million in 45.

It is to find US stats for 1945.
Russian stats arent so easy.