USSR VS.USA

Seeing that none of the members arguing with you are either British or Australian, could you kindly explain why you decided to have a go at us

 

Red,
It gets back to my comment about the thread being more concerned with personal politics than actual history. National pride seems to be involved now too!
And anyway, Prince of Wales and Repulse were both sunk by Japanese aircraft on 10th December 1941; so much for taking care of the Jap Navy.


Regards,
Gordon

[ 12. January 2004, 07:03 AM: Message edited by: The_Historian ]

 

The first question is whether or not this next war is perceived as WW3 or continuation of the conflict in Western Europe.

No disrespect to the original poster but the Soviets did not have the A-bomb until 1949, and the Soviet Economy produced specific weapon systems in large quantities. It was neither as large, diverse or as self sufficient as the US economy. Mass economy vs. Mass economy is not a true statement.

The Russian economic strength, manpower advantage, and Geographic advantage vs. Germany; and its ability to concentrate on a single front would be lost vs. Allies in a WW3 scenario.

Any chance of Soviet victory vs. the Allies would have to be secured in Western Europe before mid-1946, with the hopes that the Allies would capitulate and not broaden the length or dimensions of the conflict.

 

Ok, to clear up a few things.

First, I wasn't swiping at the British or Australians, I was aiming at other commenters who appeared to be saying the Americans were not soldiers, and would run in the face of an equal enemy. It was not aimed at the British or Australians, it was at the other commenters. Secondly, that is the point of the sarcasm, that the Repulse and Prince of Whales were both destroyed by Japanese aircraft, eliminated the British in the Pacific for quite some time.

But now on to my own little spiel. My previous post was totally uncalled for, I took a rather edgy tone that had no precedent or need for. The Historian is right when he mentions national pride getting in the way, if you can't tell from my location I'm an American, and the comments that Americans could not stand up to equal strength opponents, and that they relied on the British and Commonwealth to fight the harder enemies, seriously dented my own national pride and of my nation having been part of this crusade, this multi-national crusade against oppression.

At any rate I should never have allowed it to spill into my comment, I sincerely apologize for it, especially those who it was directed at, it only served to weaken my argument.

And my comments on the Russians during Barborossa was my own little way of saying you shouldn't compare US GI's during the Ardennes offensive to the normal GI in a war, drawing similarities between that and Barborossa, in which case the Germans were facing a completely stunned enemy.

And again, I shall not allow my own national pride sneak it's way into my posts.

 

Vanguard,
That's the trouble with Britain and the US...two nations divided by a common language!

Regards,
Gordon

[ 12. January 2004, 03:24 PM: Message edited by: The_Historian ]

 

This quote is used for Germany and Austria, too.

 

It have always thought that, given the United States' superiorty in our Navy and Air Force, that we could not have hoped to compete with, let alone defeat, Soviet armor...while the Red's were constantly "up-gunning" their tanks, America would be stuck in the 90MM main armament phase until the 60's? Does this compute???

 

Having air superiority with superior planes does go a long way. The Germans also out gunned the allies in western europe. The question would be, would it make the same dent against a higher number of superior tanks. I would say it could sway either way.

 

Another question, is this scenario assuming that Japan has been defeated or not. And if so, how? By use of the Atomic Bomb or has Operation Downfall gone through?

It has a very decisive role in this scenario, as a huge number of Western forces are going to be tied up in the Pacific for the first few decisive months of the war, in which is the only time in the war I believe the Soviet have any hope of winning. If they can get moving fast enough the Soviets do have a hope of pushing the West out of western Europe, then sit down for a negotiated peace, which may come, or may not depending on the Wests' willingness to invade occupied Europe or make a push in through somewhere else.

This is the only way the Soviets can hope to win, as while the West has a foothold in Europe (Britain, and most other Imperial holdings), the Soviets enjoy no such luck. They cannot hope to invade North America, the West has utter Naval dominance, an invasion across the Berints you say? Well, it's cold up there, the Soviets showed they worked quite well in the cold.

But Alaska is far far different then the winter areas the Soviets operated in, which even after the war passed through them were still somewhat developed. Alaska on the other hand is very inhospitable, it's as different from Winter European Russia as is WER from the the Sahara. And beyond that there is no real place for them to launch an invasion across the Berints, along with no transports to get them across (It is still water), and the very close proximity of the Allied Pacific Fleets makes it impossible.

 

With the hindsight we now have into Soviet postwar and WW II armor, one can see that for all of the outward appearances that those vehicles gave they were in many critical ways far inferior to Western armor.
Visibility from Soviet tanks like the IS 3 or T-34/85 is far worse than Western tanks when buttoned up. The Soviet doctrine by the by, was to fight buttoned up.
Reliability was far worse as well. Maintenance was more difficult as not nearly as much thought went into designs that made maintenance a priority. Most authors chalk this up to a Soviet belief the tank wouldn't last long enough in combat to warrant substancial easy maintenance.
Post war, the US, in particular, began to take substancial interest in long range gunnery. Optical rangefinders were the norm.
Crew ergonomics was also higher on Western tank designs. The T-34/85 and IS series tanks forced the loader to load left handed for example. The tank commander had no way to designate targets like in the M-4 or Patton tanks where he had a set of turret controls and rudementary sights for selecting a target while another was engaged.
This results in engagement times for US or British vehicles on the order of 15 - 20 seconds, about half the time for a Soviet tank. An M-48 also had about double the rate of fire with a decent crew that a T-55 had for example. It is worse for the IS series as they load seperate (two piece) ammunition.
The bottom line here is that there is more to consider than simply whose tank has the biggest gun, thickest armor or, most speed. Tanks are integrated weapons systems. The Soviets seemed more bent on getting the most on paper out of their tanks with actual performance being secondary. This is why they performed so poorly in Vietnam, Korea, Pakistan, the Middle East, to name but a few post war locations against Western armor.

 

Also to mention is a way inferior downward angle of the gun (please can you tell me how to phrase this correctly)?, which is a big disadvantage if you use the tank in defilade.

However, it is open to speculation what would have happened if the Soviets themselves had engaged Western armor. For Egypt, Syria, North Korea, you also have to take a lack of crew training into account.

Btw: What is per definition the "Middle East"? Arabian Peninsula, Asia Minor, Caucasus? Do Iran and Afghanistan belong to it? What about Kazakhstan, Pakistan...?

 

Knight,
Think it's referred to as depressing the barrel.

Regards,
Gordon

 

Yes , Mr.Gardner is right. Soviet tanks had many disadvantages. Optics, electronics,radio systems,crew ergonomics were worse than NATO analogs. I can't agree with his opinion about reliability.
But what about final ballance of advantages and disadvantages ?

"Post war, the US, in particular, began to take substancial interest in long range gunnery."

Yes, M'47 and M'48 had good firing controls and very accurate stereoscopic binocular rangefinders. But "flying the geese" process was too difficult and slow for average tank commanders. So, these rangefinders were changed with easy coinsidence , which were much less accurate. US engineers were so "interested in long range gunnery" that failed to invent something better than 90 mm cannons (I don't mention about powerful 115 mm soviet guns) and finaly accepted splendid British 105 gun.
By the way,
1.famous "Abrams" consists of British armour and German gun.
2.soviet T-64,T-72,T-80 have no loaders at all.

Mr. Gardner, please don't compare Arabs with Russians and Jews with Americans.
If you don't know, Arabs said that T-54 were bad just because Arabs are bad warriors themselves, while Jews used captured soviet tanks with a great pleasure.
And indeed yes, soviet tanks , planes and AA rockets performed so poorly in Vietnam that Americans had no option but to fly away from the ambassy roof.
In addition US also helped Iraq during Iran-Iraq war, but Iraqi army performed too poorly.

 

I think this is a somewhat unjustified insult of the Arabs, however brave horseriders do not instantly make good tank drivers.
Of course the Jews their captured tanks, but they upgraded them in many ways, including a new gun, new fire controls and air condition.

However, I agree that T. A. might be wrong about the reliability - with small countries still having many T-54/55 and even T-34 in service, this does not indicate Soviet tanks not to be reliable.

 

I suppose I should have been more specific by saying that, regardless of how vehichles compared between the two powers, U.S. having to first 'get over there' would probably not have been able to (know I'll get railed here) outproduce Soviet armor even though their economy was already operating at max potential...with that in mind isn't this one of the main factors, besides manpower, that Soviets were able to beat German armor? Their being prone to 'button-up' during an engagement was in stark contrast with their German enemies, who opted instead to command from an open hatch when tactically feasible...one of the many reasons the kill ratio was much higher for German panzers aginst red armor...

 

No offense intended but many middle eastern countries are not technologically advanced because they live in a closed society. this is the reason why they have foreign workers providing technological suppport to their infrastructure. it is not a case of cowardice but self inflicted ignorance. Their military equipment may be top notch but they do not know the need for preventive maintenance and care of sensitive weaponry. I do not think offense was intended

 

Hi

ALthough I am new to these forums, I just wanted to point out that the USA was far from being tapped out for manpower. Infact, in 1944, US induction of men was slowing as it was decided there was no need for additional manpower for the armed forces.

It seems that we could do much better than the mere 16 million we actually had...and far more than the 12 million of the USSR.

As for the Soviets continuing the war, this time against the Allies. It would be a poor choice. They would face a devastating onslaught of massed airpower, the likes of which they had never seen, and could not survive.

The massed Soviet armor would face relentless attack from the air. Their supply lines would be smashed by the tactical and strategic bomber forces of the RAF and USAAF, thus rendering the Soviet Red Army immobile.

While the massed bomber formations were continuing their professions for which they were so well trained for, the combined RAF and USAAF fighters would have engaged the Red Airforce and dispatched it, rendering the Red Army without aircover.

Once the Red Army was incapable of movement, the real ground war would begin. The now static Red Army, isolated and without its aircover, would likely be the victim of encirclement and massive artillary barrages. At that point, mass desertion and surrender would be the order of the day for much of the former victorious reds.

One could theorize that much of the Soviet infantry would retreat to the cities of Europe in hopes of urban defensive combat. I would hope that the Allies would rather conduct seige warfare and starve the Soviets into submission at this point.

As for additional manpower for this seige warfare, its not hard to discover a huge, available cache of trained soldiers, eager for such duty. One would merely need to re-equip the Wehrmacht, and you would have a well motivated source to assist in these activities.

The Soviet homeland would be the subject of intense strategic bombing which would specifically target the industrial complexes east of the Urals, which the Luftwaffe was incapable of hitting.

Soviet rail hubs, transportation systems, supply lines and even cities would fall under scrutiny. The Soviet armed forces couldnt hope to be resupplied, and then it becomes a war of attrition after all.

With this in mind, the Soviets now discover themselves trapped in a contest with the most formidible industial machine the world has ever known. A power that not only has superiour technology, but can resupply at will with numbers they can not match even in the best of times, and these are not the best of times.

It is conceivable, that with the passing of Soviet forces into captivity in the west, Stalin , himself may have been over thrown.

Who knows...perhaps with just such a scenario, the real winners would have been the German people as they would have been rid not only of Hitler, but of Stalin as well.

 

Hello all, new to the board, big time WW2 buff (not an expert by any means!)

Had to login to chime in on this.

Ahh, USA vs Russia in 1945, interesting opinions stated by all, here is mine.

I am assuming that this is strictly the USA vs Russia with no allies on either side, so no Britain, no china, no Western Europe etc. Oh yeah and no nukes either correct? Here we go.

Advantages

USA: Morale, Pride, Production, LOGISTICS, combination of cultures of the world in the science and strategy department, support of NAZI germany (Tis true, they wanted our support to defeat the Russians) untapped man power, economy.

Russia: Numbers in the front, fear of failure, territory, WINTER, quality of first run tanks in the conflict, location.

Weaknesses:
USA: Armor not in the same class as the russians, no knowledge of Russian terrain, smaller amounts of troops, inferior guns.

Russia: Civil unrest, Raw materials, Troop morale, inferior military strategist (IE No regard for life) Airforce in terms of quality of planes (they were wooden for Christ's sake) and severe shortage of quality pilots. Navy is terrible.

Okay, that said, here is what I (keyword, I) think goes down.


Russia immediatly conquers the majority of Land Locked Europe,no contest, the US pulls back troops to Western France and Norway to protect the atlantic seaboardl and and digs in. With daily reinforcements of troops and supplies the US can and will hold Western France and the seaboard for as long as it takes to gain air superiority.

The US airforce starts to wear down the Russian Airforce (no contest), the US Navy Controls the seas(again, no contest).Utilizing technology from the captured (er freed..) German industrial Engineers, the US begins to build far better tanks and far more powerful engines for their equipment.

Russia, already downtrodden from the intense war with the Germans, also tried to expand their technology utilizing West Berlin "Slaves" think the borg, star trek, and now begins to bring in reinforcements to the western front.

This is a bloody battle no doubt, but as customary, the Russians lose 3 troops to every 1 American man killed, the numbers start to hurt, they can't continue the constant assaults and are forced to dig in around germany and Austria, hoping to hold out long enough to get support from the motherland.


By now, six months in, the United states starts sending in long range bombers from the Asian theatre, hitting not the cities, but the bridges,mines, and factories of the Russians, this begins ineffectively as the USA does not have accurate information as to where said interests are located.

After one year of blockade and constant bombing by and unchalleged US airforce, Morale is low in Russia, the people grow weery of losing son after son, daughter after daughter. Seeing this as a sign of weakness, the USA begins propoganda, agents infiltrate large cities, spouting freedom and riches, real lives of choice, something foreign to this marxist wet dream.

To be continued.....

 

Being an avid fan of ww2 statistics i thought i might clear up a few of the statistcs which are being thrown around here.
ive used credible sources from books so they cant be unreliabible like internet sites etc.

ok, first off:

Actually alexanderr isnt that far off the mark even if those figures do sound incredibly high. -

According to ' 'Russia's war' - by Richard Overy, p236

The 3.1 Million axis soldiers in the east faced almost 6.4 million of the enemy; the 3000 German aircraft were vastly outnumbered by the 13 400 they opposed; their 2300 tanks could not match the 5800 soviet machines. During 1944 the gap continued to widen"

other books also state similar figures. for example in 'The Road to Berlin' - by John Erickson, p.429 -

"Soviet strength in the field climed to over six and a half million men, supported by more than 100 000 guns and mortars, 13 000 tanks and SP guns, over 15 000 aircraft and no less than 500 rifle divisions being prepared for the final apocalyptic battle" (this being at the end of november 1944)

i know it sounds incredible, but many incredible things were done during world war 2 and these sources support the statistics.

like mentioned in the above sources, even in november 1944 they numbered over 6 million.

to the original discussion, i think both sides have made very good points and very strong arguements but i would still have to side with the USSR defeating the USA in a confrontation in 1945.

[ 27. May 2004, 10:21 PM: Message edited by: Kaiser Heer ]

 

IMO i think that it would of been a bloody battle but the allied's would of won (with no A bomb invented) after a total war against USSR as i read in a book the USSR during the post war spent 40% of GDP to 9% of the US on the war.
As for USA lossing the vietnam war many people in asian belive USA won as they stoped the advance of the NVA to the lower lands ie indonisia.
USA beat the NVA three times and they had to retreat and regroup (with soviet armour and supplys) i must find the webpage with full statsics on the Vietnam war and you will be amazed.