Nazi's & Western Allies Combine Forces Against Russia

Until the Soviets resort to their classic burn and retreat method and the Allied forces who are less prepared than the Germans were encounter the Russian winter just like Napoleon, Charles XII, and Hitler did.

Plus I think the idea that the Soviets would invade the west is the classic Western misconception of the Russians (and I mean Russians). The purpose of westward expansion has always been to create a buffer between the Russians and the West. If nothing else, the Russians are a paranoid people.

 

I have to say Roddoss, ( with all due respect ) this " what if " falls under the same premise as saying " What if " the aliens came down and fought with the Russians against the planet. The reason I say this is because there was no reason for the Soviet Union to attack Europe.... NONE. It was Europe and the United States which felt threatend by the SU and communism and history proves this with the wars in both Korea and Vietnam which were started by the US only to prevent the MYTH of the communist expansion domino theory.

But lets play this game, SU invades Western Europe, why would Japan and China ever consider attacking the SU for?

 

If anything the Nationalist Chinese attacking the SU would probably spark civil war. Japan at this time is crushed and exhausted from 18 years of war.
And the Allied forces in the Pacific were not geared to a major land assault, but a series of smaller disconnected island battles. The hopes of a Kamchatka front would be nil. As for allied forces in the West, and logistics were already stretched thin. Patton's desired run on Berlin was denied because SHAFE needed the fuel supplies so the British forces could keep pace.

 

By mid-1945, the Soviet Union's main strategic goal, beyond the complete destruction of Nazi Germany, was to develop an extended 'buffer zone' as far to the West as possible so that it would be somewhat insulated from any possible future invasion from that direction AGAIN. After invasions by Napoleon and Hitler, and outsider involvement in the civil war between 1919-1921, no wonder the paranoia.

 

Holy shit, this film was made in 1966. Haven't you evolved even a little bit since then? "Its a plot to make the world die laughing!"

 

No argument there.... You are absolutely correct, but can you blame them? As you said they have been attacked before by enemies which at the time of the attacks were stronger then Russia was. Russia did not want to keep falling victim to this...

:spar1::spar2: anic:

 

Don't blame the Soviets at all, actually in complete agreement. Just wish the so-called experts and movers & shakers in the US state department post WW2 would of had a better understanding of this aspect of Russian history, then perhaps the cold war would have been less intense.

 

And I agree again

Damn it, now its just getting too mushy with all of this agreeing

 

Just prior to the surrender would be a bad time to do it. Because it's a comunications hub they still need to take Berlin and that consumed a lot of men and resources. They are also in minimal contact with the West so a lot of the element of surprise will have been lost. As for the West they are still fighting the Japanese so there is no way they would ally with them. I'm not sure that allying with the Germans would be a good idea either. Certainly they would have wanted to make use of their expertise but one of the big advantages the West would have had in such a conflict especially once they assumed the offensive is that they were not the Nazi's (who were thoroughly identified with the Germans). A Western force without Nazi's would have been able to minimize the resistance in occupied territories and in many gain considerable support. There is a good chance this would also start having an effect on the motivation of the Soviet armies. It's not at all clear by the way that they were the most motivated by that point in the war and even if they were that they would maintain thier motivation in an offensive war against the West. The Soviets were also starting to have manpower problems by the end of the war (as were the British). The US and most other western forces were not in nearly as bad of shape. The Soviets had also become dependent on Lend Lease for a lot of their logistics and military supplies, for instance the US supplied a considerable amount of explosives and precursers so that much of the explosives made in the Soviet Union had lend lease components. Dislocations due to shortages and converting factories to different uses would have caused considerable problems during the initial phase. Stalin did have a reason the Atlantic is a pretty good buffer he just understood it wasn't worth it.

As for a civil war in China it was already underway. Chinese communist and nationalist forces had been fighting to greater or lesser extent throughout the war and continued afterward.

 

Really? Please tell me, what could be more motivating then the absolute destruction of any enemy followed by walking into this enemies capital which 4 years earlier invaded your country and almost walked into yours?

It was now the soldiers and the people of the Soviet Union which felt invincible after all wouldnt you feel the same way after over coming such odds? So now tell me, who do you think would have been more motivated if not the Soviets?

US soldiers under the leadership of Patton perhaps?

Your are correct, im sure that an additional 30-40 million men which would have been available just would not have been enough.

Interesting, "dependent on Lend Lease"... So now your implying that the Soviets which fought pretty much by themselves in the first 2 years against numerous enemies and started winning got spoiled by the 10% help which they received in late 43' til 45'?

 

What could be more demotivating than looseing hugh numbers of troops continuously over the years. Or living off of limited rations for extended periods. Or having leaders that were willing to sacrafice huge numbers of troops as the price for tier victory. Or finally defeating a very tough foe only to find the war continueing vs a former ally. Especially when you are probably wearing shoes made by that ally, eating rations supplied by him, that are delivered in vehicles made by that ally.

I could go on but you made the statement you prove it.

Where were they going to come from? These numbers just don't make sence given what I've read of Soviet demographics. Care to explain them?

Did you miss the point I mentioned about logistics? Here are some numbers to reinforce the point.
From:

note the bit about explosives it's of particular interest because of the following

So not only 53% of their explosives are supplied via LL but a good percentage of domestic production of explosives is also LL dependent.

So yes they were dependent on LL.

 

Note that there seams to be a disperity in the two quotes concerning aviation fuel. I suspect the first and higher percentage is for high octane aviation fuel.

 

At the time of hanging the Soviet flag over the Reichstag, it was victory that they were thinking of and not how much they ate while achieving it.

How much is " too many lives sacrificed " when fighting an enemy which has invaded your country, raped, pillaged and destroyed so much?

Also you are avoiding my question. Who would have been more motivated then the Red Army in 1945?

Sure..... In January of 1946 the Soviet Union had a population of 170,548,000. How many of them do you think might have been eligible for combat duty? And what numbers do you have?

Do you deny that the Lend Lease amounted to a total of 8-12% most of which came at the end of 1943'?

Hear read this discussion

http://www.ww2f.com/russia-war/13649-importance-lend-lease-soviet-war-effort.html

One more thing, how is that the Soviet Union started winning the war not only against Germany but also against Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Austria, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungry, Finland, Italy and Spanish troops, without this crucial LL that you are referring to??

The truth of the matter is yes, while the LL was helpful and made fighting and advance easier( especially the Trucks and Jeeps ) it was not the deciding factor in the victory for SU, so to claim that the SU was dependent on LL in order to win or keep fighting is extremely misleading.

 

Lend Lease may not have been the decisive factor in the Soviets winning in the East but this does not diminish the absolute need the Soviets had for this material to win.
Just looking at a few items on the above list:

88% of all radios (actually, communications equipment). Without this Lend-Lease input modern artillery fire control would have been impossible. An early warning system for air defense would have been impossible. Mechanized operations spread over a large battlefield would have been impossible.

A near total dependence on Lend Lease for rubber? Again a crippling loss if alternate sources cannot be found. Vehicle tires and tubing made of rubber would quickly become scarce and then unavailable. Literally, a near complete lack of rubber means a loss of mechanziation within just a few months if not replaced.

Trucks and locomotives are critical to modern war too. A loss of these two items would have reduced Soviet logistics ruiniously within a year.

The loss of 100 octane avgas and its replacement by say 87 octane would reduce aircraft performance by as much as 5% or more. This drops many competitive late war Soviet fighters to inferiority..... Dropping a 400 mph fighter to 380 mph max and likewise reducing its climb rate and endurance (yes, lower octane will reduce range by increasing fuel use or reducing cruising speeds) is a significant drop in performance.
Basically, just removing this one, single, item from the list is near crippling to the Soviets being able to conduct large scale mobile ground and air operations.

So, while Lend-Lease was not quanitatively on the whole a big portion of the Soviet economy it was on the micro scale in certain, and often critical, segiments absolutely vital.

 

That ellation at defeating the Germans does not necessarily translate in to general motivation or motivation to fight their former allies.

1 if it's unnecessary. The history of large losses does not inspire confidence when you are moving into a new conflict especially if it's an offensive one.

Your trying to get me to make the same mistake you did. Talk of moral and motivation without discussing the circumstances is arguing with opinion instead of fact.

Ok lets use those (the numbers I've seen are similar). You've got to figure that at least 30 and perhaps as many as 50% of those are not productive ie too young, too old, infirm, or disabled) given the privations and losses of the previous years it would likely tend to the larger number. But lets take the smaller number and say 120,000,000 are productive. Preindustrial agriculture required about 10 farmers to support 1 man at arms. Due to the battles fought over most of the European Soviet Union including a lot of the best agricultural land and attendant loss of horses, machinery, and misc animals they probably aren't going to be a whole lot better off but let's assume that it takes 1 farmer to support each soldier and non farm worker. (We'll ignore the fact that half of the 120,000,000 are women). Now you are down to a labor pool of 60,000,000 but from this labor pool you have to provide your industiral workers, your transportation workers, and all the other necessary labor as well as soldiers. According to Wikiopedia (I'll take better sources if you have them) the REd army had a strength of around 20,000,000 at the end of WWII (with almost 2,000,000 still held by Germans at the end). That means they'd have to strip thier industiral and transportation sectors almost completely to come up with another 30-40M. The effective strength of many Soviet divisions at the end of the war is a clear indicator of this.

Yes. Best number I've seen is about 8%. But that's really a soft number because it's comparing the US dollar price of goods to some nominal Soviet value translated into dollars (or US dollars translated into rubles) which is shaky at best. I suspect there is a wording problem with your statement about most of it coming at the end of 43 since it was spread over over 3 and a half years.

Looked at it. Seamed to be long on oppion and short on fact.

Indeed the Soviet army stopped the Axis prior to LL providing much support. I do note that you are if not exaggerating at least heavily shading the facts in your list of opponents. Why didn't you add Ukranian troops to the list? However there is a difference between winning defensive battles and winning sustained offensive ones.

Subtract the LL trucks, locomotives, rail cars, rails, fuel, explosives, explosive precursors, and other munitions components and it is far from clear that the Soviets would have reached Berlin and even if they had it would have been much later (or the Western allies would have reached it first). Without LL the Soviets stopped the Nazis and without it they would have had a decent chance of pushing them out of most of the Soviet Union. How much else is an open question.

 

T.A. you are correct and I do not despute what you are saying.

Yes lend lease was very helpful and the Russians till this day are very thankful, in fact even during communist times, the Russians never deminished the amount of help they received from the US. According to soldiers the Jeeps and trucks were the most significant.

However, as helpful as it was, it was not the winning factor in the war and battles like Moscow, Stalingrad the failed siege of Leningrad and Kursk were won with out this help.

With all said and done, im sure that you will agree that rubber, cans of food and trucks etc. is a small price to pay in comparison with blood spilled by 30 million people.

For this reason Stalin refused to pay for the Lend Lease when asked to do so by the US... His response was " We paid for it with our blood "

 

Russian tanks verse Shermans and a few Pershings.. maybe a hand full of Panzers? I'll give that to Russians. But the Western Allies have I assume better air capabilities. It would be a matter of time that the Russians would be over extended themselves from there early gains. I would say the Western allies would eventually succeed due to the Manpower reserves and resources. Even though all nations are morally wounded from the lack of morale. I think if America could some how knock out Japan with a cease fire or the classical nuke love . And eventually could bomb the East and West. With small bombers attacking via interdiction(?) and the larger more long range bombers like the B-29 or maybe '17 to hit the industrial hearts or ammo deposits.

 

I have heard otherwise. It may very much depend on who and when one talks to.

They were perhaps the most visible to the troops. The explosives, fuel, and rail road equipment were probably of roughly equal value.

Clearly it was inconsequential during the battle of Moscow. I suspect by Stalingrad it was having some effect. As far as Leningrad goes the effects would be indirect and moral only. By Kursk the logistics impacts were certainly no longer inconsequential. Especially given the level of effort there.

You'll get no argument from me on this part.

On the other hand he was quite scrupulous about living up to the letter of the agreements. A lot of lend lease equipment was either given back to the US or demilled when he could have just told the US "tough". I suspect the "unpaid for" equipment was shipped under the understanding "we'll settle up for it later getting it to the front is the most important thing right now". Given the damage the Soviet Union suffered not just in dead but in wounded, displaced, sick, damaged property, etc I can not fault him at all.

 

You are absoluetly correct and I agree with you....

Wait, we are talking about Iraq right?

You can talk to me, I speak, read and write both languages.. I have read school books in Russian written during communist times and have never stumbled upon what you have claimed as lend lease has always been mentioned.

I can however make the same claim you made about the school books in the US as I had the privilege reading them while at my studies.

 

I wish I could read Russian.