USA and Soviet Union - initial defence

>In my opinion, Europe would have been russian by now if the Americans hadn't shown up in '44. While respectable, the American war effort was a lot less than the Russian.


They should have stopped the Germans at Minsk in 1941, everything between then and Minsk July 44 did nothing to 'win' the war. They were only cleaning up for their earlier incompetence.

Ja nyet govorite por Russki

I don't speak for Russians.. Just my opinion..

Get your map and measure the distance from Normandy to the Elbe and compare the distance from Minsk to the Elbe.

Did ya' every notice how small East Germany was compared to West Germany?

 

yep, even after Germany declared war on the USA, many Americans saw no reason to go bail Europe out again...

Hitler and Stalin were business partners in the rape of Poland...

>While respectable, the American war effort was a lot less than the Russian.

Losing millions in unarmed attracks contributed nothing, kinda like Russia fianally declaring war on Japan after the bomb was dropped...

 

Jeffrey wrote:

And what brought the Soviets into the war, altruism and concern for Poland and France being attacked or being attacked themselves?
I think we know the answer to that.

You are aware that when Britain and France declared war on Germany in 1939 that the Netherlands remained neutral? They remained neutral until invaded by Germany.

 

Can't really agreee with that.
So you think Stalingrad, Kursk, the fact that Germany lost millions of troops in 1941-1944 in Russia did nothing to contribute to allied victory?
I am really not a fan of Stalin and communism, but shouldn't one give honour where honour is due....
By reasoning like that, one could also say that the US did nothing to beat Japan till 1945, but were also cleaning up for their earlier incompetence.

I checked and actually the distance from Minsk to the Elbe is longer than from Normandy to the Elbe....

[/quote]

If one adds the territories of Silesia, Pomerania and Eastern Prussia(Which were not part of Germany after 1945 anymore), the parts of Germany conquered by the red army are larger tough.

 

Yeah because we where very naief/stupid, because we aren't attacked by Germany in the first WW we didn't expect them to attack us in the second WW...how stupid

But Grieg, do I have to remind you that The Netherlands at that time couldn't do anything to help, we didn't even have tanks at that time...

 

Just a note,

can we please not descend into a 'what my country did better than yours' scenario.

I know that the topic does allow some nationalism, but there have been some nicely international entries too!

Ta,

Ricky

 

>By reasoning like that, one could also say that the US did nothing to beat Japan till 1945, but were also cleaning up for their earlier incompetence.


Naaaaah, I don't remember the US surrendering a thousand km of territotry


Only six months after Pearl Harbor, Midway, was the last Japanese chance for victory in battle.

I seriously can't remember any Japanese victories after Midway...


So what is the comparison- defeat after defeat versus -victory after victory?

The Japanese never got to the gates of Washington DC, like the Germans got to Moscow. What part of American soil would you compare to Stalingrad?



It took them years to get back to Minsk...


Like Churchill said after Dunkirk, evacuations contribute nothing to winning a war.

 

I am torn...

Do I follow my Moderator instincts & point out that I have asked people NOT to descend into a 'what my country did better than yours' scenario.

OR

Do I follow my mischievous instincts & point out that America actually retreated across more that 1,000 miles (what is the distance from the Phillipeans etc to Hawaii?)

Nope, I will be sensible, and refer you to:

 

Philippines, great areas of the pacific....

And it took the americans years to get back to the Philippines....and retake what the japanese had taken in several months in 1942.(profiting from the surprise effect)

The first major pre war japanese territory to be conquered was Okinawa in june-july 1945.

But what's the point, war is not only about conquering ennemy territory, it's also about destroying ennemy armed forces.
Both the US in the Pacific and the SU in Europe did that, even tough they were not figthing on japanese/german ground, and the victories of Stalingrad, Midway, Kursk or Guadalcanal were important steps towards allied victory, even tough they were achieved in areas far away from Berlin or Tokio.

 

Mc Carthur wanted the Phillipines, the rest of America and its leaders could have cared less- it was irrelevant, it was granted independence less than a year after the war. Which was delayed by the war.

It is not like surrendering your whole country, like France in 1940.

It is more like France surrendering Tahiti, Martinque or Guadaloupe.

Did the surrender of Paris contribute anything to the allied victory. I feel the same about Russia surrendering much of its homeland territory.

Many British colonies were occupied, but did it really affect London?

Naaah- there is simply no comparison to Hong Kong being occupied for the British to Paris being occupied.

Or MILLIONS of sq km of Russia being occupied.

>Philippines, great areas of the pacific....


I did not even know the whole pacific was "America"..


try again

 

The time lines:

Pearl Harbrbor
Manilla falls
Midway (1/2 year after Pearl)

There was never a significant Japanese victory after their loss at Midway.


Minsk Falls 1941
Stalingrad- 1943 (First major Russian victory)


I cannot even consider explaining how the surrender of Corregidor conributed to the US victory in the Pacific. (NOT)


There was no industrial capacity or military significance to worry about losing in the Phillipines either.

So...It mattered not...It could have been skipped...

But the road to Berlin from Moscow is a little different.



Your examples just are not the same and the time lines are not comparable either.


Dnieppe or Dunkirk contributed nothing either..


That would be like a staff person losing a client and trying to explain that it adds to my bottom line.

--"In war there is no substitute for victory".

 

France did not surrender there whole country in 1940 at all Stonewall.

Your examples are not comparable either, you compare the initial rush of Japanese victories with their first defeat, then compare the initial rush of Barbarossa with the defeat of the Sixth Army at Stalingrad, which was certainly not the Soviet's first major victory, that came at the Battle for Moscow (Winter 1941).

 

>France did not surrender there whole country in 1940 at all Stonewall.


technically, I suppose so...

form over substance- or substance over form, effectively- yes

They surrendered the capital, the army , the navy and the lions share.




Russia

As far as Moscow, hmmm- General winter slowed the Germans and they went south for oil.

The war did not turn around from general defeat to offense untill the 1943 Stalingrad victory..

Months after the battle of Moscow, Stalin summarized the situation like this..

http://www.mishalov.com/Stalin_28July42.html


Our troops, having defence of defiled Motherland as their mission, do not have this discipline and thus suffer defeat.

(The 'not one step back order'..)


So...

 

One question to Stonewall -

How would the USA have fared if Germany had been able to invade it in 1941 instead of Russia?


Heck, how would they have fared if Japan had been able to invade in 1941?

America's situation is slightly different, owing to a little thing that I like to call the sea. Heck, 22 miles of water (narrowest point) saved Britain from Germany, so 3,000 miles of Altantic Ocean (and however big the Pacific is...) is gonna do well.

America never had to parcel up her factories and send them by train out of reach of the enemy. America never had the vast bulk of her trained men & equipment destroyed almost immediately by enemy invasion, and the bulk of her resources (human & material) captured.

If you are going to disparage the record of any country, please make valid comparisons.

 

my thoughts exactly...well said!

 

well...


>How would the USA have fared if Germany had been able to invade it in 1941 instead of Russia?


>Heck, how would they have fared if Japan had been able to invade in 1941





to answer your question...

BIG "IF' HUH!


Check out who had the worlds largest and most powerful Navy in 1941.. (USA)

So I guess we did what WE needed to do to protect ourselves, and others did not..

That "if" couldn't happen.

Humbly yours,

Stonewall
dismounted


The tone of your remarks suggests I should get off my high horse...

OK

Hey at least I started a nice Stalingrad thread..

POKA Droog

(Bye friend)

 

>America never had the vast bulk of her trained men & equipment destroyed almost immediately by enemy invasion, and the bulk of her resources (human & material) captured.


Yeah, maybe we should have been stupid enough to have arrested, imprisoned and executed the cream of our Naval officer corps..

Then the situation would have been 'more' comparable.

I believe Russia had more tanks than Germany in June 1941.

 

You can't accuse the Soviet Union of failing to defend itself against the Wehrmacht while praising the US for succeding to defend itself against the IJN. The two campaigns are completely incomparable.

First, the US had been industrialized for decades when WW2 started and it had all the infrastructure required to build and transport massive defensive equipment. The SU on the other hand had barely finished its own major wave of industrialization when the Germans attacked them, and the emphasis on steel and coal production figures was such that the factories that did exist were not based on quality but merely on quantity. This means that while the US would in any case have been perfectly able to defend itself in modern warfare, for the SU the odds were quite different. Add to this fact the need to relocate pretty much the entire heavy industry overnight and you get two countries that are pretty far from equal.

Second, while we're discussing industrial potential, it's almost impossible to compare Japan in 1941 with Germany in 1941 in terms of production levels and available resources for such production. Even at the height of their might the Japanese high command realized it could never beat the US in a fair fight; Germany on the other hand came frighteningly close through the power of their war and industrial machine.

Third, defence against naval attack is something vastly different from being assaulted on the ground. The Soviets failed to defend themselves in the first few months simply because the number, the training and the tactics of the Germans ovewhelmed them completely. Such an effect could never have been achieved by the IJN since fleets simply can't form a front on an ocean like ground troops can form one on land. There is also the fact that while the US navy was built to defend the coasts against possible enemies, the Russian armies were rather trained to attack, and were at a loss when so suddenly forced to defend themselves.

 

I appreciate your very well written and well thought out response...

I am not sure about your last sentence, in light of the Russo finnish war however.

I have an appointment...here is somethioing to chew on....


Stalin's Blindness
He deceived himself about Hitler, and it cost millions of Russian lives.
by Andrew Nagorski
06/27/2005, Volume 010, Issue 39





What Stalin Knew
The Enigma of Barbarossa
by David E. Murphy
Yale, 340 pp., $30

WHAT WAS JOSEPH STALIN THINKING when he allied himself with Adolf Hitler for nearly two years at the beginning of World War II? What did Stalin know about Hitler's intentions to turn on him, and when did he know it?

Historians have grappled with these questions ever since foreign ministers Joachim von Ribbentrop and Vyacheslav Molotov signed the infamous Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact on August 23, 1939, and the subsequent German attack on the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941. Operation Barbarossa, as the German invasion was called, blindsided Stalin and came closer than most people realize to achieving its aim of inflicting a swift, mortal blow to his country. In What Stalin Knew, David E. Murphy, a former CIA agent who was in charge of Soviet operations, provides the most thorough answers to date. His systematic examination of the "product" of Soviet intelligence during the critical 22 months of the pact, and of how Stalin angrily rejected most of the reports of his spies, is an absorbing account on several levels--tactical, psychological, and moral. The result is a devastating indictment of the Soviet tyrant on all those grounds.

Stalin's apologists have always maintained that he had no choice but to agree to the pact with Hitler, since he needed to buy time to prepare for war. Britain and France's appeasement at Munich a year earlier, and their lack of serious interest in forging an alliance with Russia, left Stalin with no choice, they claimed. In fact, Murphy points out, the Soviet leader was much more than Hitler's reluctant partner. He was enthusiastic about dividing the spoils of Poland, which he attacked from the east 16 days after Hitler's armies attacked from the west, and seizing control of the Baltic states. And, most tellingly, he slipped quite comfortably into the role of defending Germany and vilifying the British and the French.

So comfortably that the case can be made that Stalin may have wondered what kind of outcome he really wanted from the war he helped unleash. In the most controversial part of his book, Murphy offers the first English translation of a speech Stalin allegedly made on August 19, 1939, right before formalizing his agreement with Hitler. In it, he argued that if the West defeated Germany in a long war, that country would be ripe for Sovietization; but if Germany won in a long war, it would be too exhausted to threaten the Soviet Union, and a Communist takeover would be likely in France. Hence a win-win situation for the Soviet Union, and his conclusion that "one must do everything to ensure that the war lasts as long as possible in order to exhaust both sides."

The speech was first reported by the French news agency Havas in late 1939, and Stalin promptly branded it a fabrication. But in his denial, he insisted "it was not Germany that attacked France and Britain but France and Britain that attacked Germany, thereby taking on themselves responsibility for the present war." Murphy is convinced that Stalin did make this speech; but even if he didn't, the Soviet leader's protests were almost as revealing as the contested transcript. Besides, Stalin let slip similar comments on September 7, 1939, in the presence of several of his top aides. Discussing the war "between two groups of capitalist countries," as he characterized the Western powers and Germany, he asserted: "We see nothing wrong in their having a good fight and weakening each other."

The problem was that Hitler, who had all along believed that subjugating Russia was a key part of his life's mission, quickly became frustrated with his inability to bomb Britain into submission or mount Operation Sea Lion, the invasion of that island nation. Instead, he convinced himself that if he knocked Russia out first, this would leave Britain more isolated and vulnerable than ever. The fact that history (to wit, Napoleon's disaster in 1812) and common sense flew in the face of that reasoning meant little to Hitler. But Stalin refused to believe it--as he refused to believe the steady stream of reports flowing from Soviet agents abroad.

Murphy provides details that prove "beyond any reasonable doubt," as he puts it, that the Soviet services filed alarming reports about German intentions early and often. From Berlin, a source code-named Ariets reported on September 29, 1940, that Hitler intended to "resolve problems in the east in the spring of next year." Maj. Gen. Vasily Tupikov, the Soviet military attaché in Berlin, backed up his source and later confirmed the redeployment of large numbers of German troops from the western to the eastern front. From Bucharest, the Soviet military mission reported on March 26, 1941: "The Romanian general staff has precise information that in two or three months Germany will attack the Ukraine. The Germans will attack the Baltic states at the same time . . . "

Stalin reacted by ridding himself of Ivan Proskurov, the head of military intelligence who had consistently refused to buckle to his pressure to deliver better news. His replacement, Filipp Golikov, began relying on reports from his officers who picked up German disinformation, which dismissed all talk of an invasion of Russia as "English propaganda." When Golikov felt obliged to pass along a report from his Prague station that the Germans would attack in the second half of June, it landed back on his desk with Stalin's note in red ink: "English provocation! Investigate!"

In keeping with that sentiment, Stalin was determined to honor his trade commitments with Germany, and his country provided huge amounts of oil, wood, copper, manganese ore, rubber, grain, and other resources to keep the German military machine well stocked. He seemed genuinely to believe that he could convince Hitler of his good intentions by such craven behavior. In the words of Nikita Khrushchev: "So while those sparrows were chirping, 'Look out for Hitler! Look out for Hitler!' Stalin was punctually sending the Germans trainload after trainload of grain and petroleum."

As Murphy spells out, Stalin also ignored reports directly from the border regions of large German troop concentrations, and ordered his soldiers not to open fire on German aircraft that were routinely violating Soviet airspace to stage brazen reconnaissance missions. On April 5, 1941, border troops received the order that, in the case of any confrontation, they should "strictly see to it that bullets do not fall on German territory." Instead of recognizing all the signs of German preparations for what they were, Stalin--convinced that he couldn't trust anyone, especially his spies who must have been doing someone else's bidding--closed himself off more and more, and refused to allow his generals to put their troops on a war footing. He was also happy to keep arresting anyone who questioned his policies, dispatching them to his legions of executioners and torturers.

Murphy's book should put to rest the myth that Stalin was a great tactician, the brilliant savior of his country. Before he saved it, he almost destroyed it, when he had every opportunity to prepare his troops for the worst and at least limit their losses. In the end, 27 million Soviet citizens perished during "The Great Patriotic War." Of those, there's no telling how many could have been saved if the country had been led by someone who was willing to listen to the "sparrows," and to renounce the use of terror against his own people--at least for the duration of their epic struggle.



Andrew Nagorski, a senior editor at Newsweek International, is writing a book about the battle for Moscow during World War II.

 

simply put, he screwed the British, the French and his own people.

I have no respect for him...

Many died for his stupidity and nothing was gained by it.

nothing