USSR VS.USA

Suppose we did what Patton wanted"knock out Russia" at the end of the war.Mass production vs mass production.Shermans vs T34's.For discussion purposes we'll leave "the bomb" out of it but still fighting Japan.In '45 we could'nt bomb Russian cities at will like we did Germany.How good would Patton's "pet" Sherman stand up against T34's.Any opinions? FramerT.

 

Two words: Nuclear bombs. But, to claim that in 1945 the US (and Britain) couldn't conventionally bomb Russian cities is absurd. The B-29 could fly roughly 2,000 miles to a target at about 275 - 300 mph at 30,000 to 35,000 feet hauling about 8,000 - 12,000 lbs of bombs. The B-17 and 24 could carry about half that almost as far.
The Soviets really didn't even have any aircraft in 1945 capable of intercepting these aircraft easily. In the case of the B-29 there were as ill-off as the Japanese in high altitude interceptors.
On the ground the US was receiving in large numbers the M-26 and M-24 tanks. The Sherman was almost exclusively 76mm armed and HVAP shot (capable of allowing that gun to riddle a JS II at 500 yards) was also regularly available. The only advantage the Soviets would really possess was sheer numbers and those were on their last legs too.
With the US having vastly superior communications systems and fire controls for artillery the Soviets would have been on the receiving end of more than one TOT (Time On Target) barrage unlike anything they ever got from the Germans. The Western Allies would have walked all over them in armored combat. It is interesting to note that in the postwar world Soviet style armor using Soviet tactics and training never won a major tank engagement against a Western equipped and trained army.
It's a good thing for the Soviets that Patton didn't get his way.

 

Yes a walk-over for the US. In fact the same walk-over the Germans assumed when they tried it on in 1941. Russia on its last legs? Would that be after they ripped the heart out of the German Army? You know the best and most effective Western Army of its day.

 

Well, the Germans were fighting on multiple fronts (Whereas the Allies would be attacking from multiple fronts), and let's not forget how crucial US supply was to the Soviets. Yes, they manufactured a huge number of tanks from their Siberian factories, but their doctrines of the time called heavily for the use of lots and lots of trucks to move infantry in to exploit the breakthrough made by tanks, and Soviet industry could only build either a huge number of tanks or trucks. During the war with Germany the Soviet Army rode forward on Dodge trucks (US supplied trucks), if they went to war with the West, the supply would have obviously stopped, and once they started losing their trucks in great numbers, they lose a LOT of their efficiency, it's not exactly the same as the war with Germany, it's the Soviets alone without Western help.... against the West. I would most definetely put my money on the West, massive Air Superiority, and Naval Dominance, plus manufacturing abilities puts them way ahead of the Soviet numbers.

 

Yes I forgot. Allied trucks, boots and tinned spam was critical for the defeat of Germany. All the sacrafices by the Russian people was as nothing compared to the casualties inflicted by these trucks. Multiple fronts against Russia? So we would have attacked from China as well. The Navy would also have been useful for cutting Russia off from her overseas supply of trucks.
Exactly how many Divisions did the feeble Russians have in Europe in 1945?

 

Well, without boots and food those soldiers can't march, so yeah, trucks boots and tinned spam were entirely critical to Germany losing the war. Without trucks, exactly how are the Infantry supposed to rush to the point of breakthrough those wonderful tanks create? And how are supplies supposed to get from the Soviet Union to East Germany, contrary to popular belief, Tinker bell was never in the Red Army.

Multiple fronts, attacked from china, OF COURSE! They have a quite substantial force sitting there themselves, and the West has a huge force sitting in the Pacific as well, why the hell not attack the Soviets from the east. Ok, maybe not from China, exactly, but the Pacific and India is what I was referring too.

And I never said the sacrifices of Russia were no big deal, who else would've destroyed a huge chunk (I've heard it was 80-90% of the German Army, no sources though) of the Germany Army, the West certainly would have had a hard time getting through that. And the horrendous casualties the Soviets suffered are no joke either. But that doesn't mean the war was won by the Soviets anymore then it was won by the West (Who destroyed the majority of the Luftwaffe, which could've made a major difference in the East, and took on Japan with the minor exception of the Soviet attack in Manchuria in the final stage of the war, all by themselves).

Naval dominance means something big if the Soviets overrun Western Europe, the Atlantic is quite deep. But in the context that the West is on the offensive, it doesn't mean a whole lot except in the Far East, places like Vladivostok, the whole multiple front thing. Other then that, it is negligible.

And I have no definite source for the exact number of divisions the Soviets had in Europe in 1945 (though they had a large force in Manchuria as well). But my point was those divisions lose a lot of their efficiency in the even of a war in 1945/46, becuase they now cannot replace a lot of things critical to them until Soviet industry can be re-tooled, a difficult thing to do when under bombardment (which most industry would be within range of Western bases in Japan, India, and Western Europe).

[ 31. December 2003, 04:54 AM: Message edited by: Vanguard ]

 

How many Japanese soldiers were tied down in this 'minor exception' in Manchuria, Was it not 1,000,0000. This 'minor exception' was the largest single Japanese defeat in WW2
Trucks don't win wars,but soldiers certainly do. How would the Russians have advanced without 66% of their transport? More slowly I suppose,the same way the Germans did.

 

Yes this minor exception, what were those troops tied down from doing? A large chunk was Manchurian troops, decidedly lower in quality then Japanese Regulars, and the Japanese in the area were ill-equipped and no were near as prepared to fight any enemy, let alone the battle-hardened Soviet juggernaut that was thrown at them. These soldiers couldn't be transported back to Japan, the seas in between were crawling with US subs, most of the transports available to Japan were gone, sunk by the United States and Royal Navies, these troops could do little in there present place to make any change on the outcome of the war.

And this is a serious question, exactly what do you consider the other 33% of the Soviet transport, tanks aren't used for infantry transport..... so what? So yes, without their trucks, the Soviets are crippled, they cannot use their offensive tactics to the maximum they could have against the Germans, they are facing a better equipped enemy, with Air superiority. And the Germans advanced so quickly mostly becuase they acheived utter surprise, against France and the Soviets they were using entirely new tactics and the enemy defenses entirely evaporated, but those tactics became common later in the war, and you don't see any repeats of the early German successes, so it is unlikely the Soviets could reproduce this, especially since they operate under different tactics.

And soldiers don't win wars by themselves, ok, so a soldier under optimal conditions, leaves for the front with 3 days supply of food, and several pounds of ammo the basics for right now. Great, so this Soviet soldier fights for a day, defends some hill from the allies, but now he's running very low on ammo, no matter how much he conserves, he NEEDS to be re-supplied by something, but nope, as you said, it's soldiers that win wars, apparently munitions mean nothing. So now he's defending this hill with whatever he can, rocks, dirt, his hands, and by some miracle he holds out against armed soldiers, but now it's day 4, he is out of food and water, he can only go so far no matter how courageous he is before he collapses from exhuastion, though it is more likely on Day 2 he is shot down by a well-supplied Western soldier.

The French though their Elan Vitale, or the spirit of their soldiers would lead them to victory in August 1914, they were horridly mistaken, no matter how much spirit and courage a soldier has he can't do a damn thing without the proper supplies, so yes, supplies mean just as much as the soldier does. And those supplies cannot simply be marched from a railhead, sure the Germans didn't exclusively use trucks for supply, in fact they used in large quantities horses, as opposed to the motorized (that means trucks) supply of the Allies, and I'd hate to spoil the end of the war for you, but Germany loses.

[ 31. December 2003, 06:15 AM: Message edited by: Vanguard ]

 

Missing the point. Russia took the trucks because they were on offer. They could have produced their own but didn't need to. So they could have cut down on tank production to make more trucks. Then they would have had the trucks anyway and maybe only 75,000 tanks/afv's produced 1942-1945 (instead of 112,000) Germany made 18,000 tanks in the same period as opposed to 62,000 T-34's alone. Russia also made 8,000 KV/IS heavy tanks 1942-45. Germany made only 1,100 heavy tanks. Tanks and Infantry are decisive but lorries are not

 

And what good were Russian tanks and infantry during the Berlin airlift?


Regards,
Gordon

 

Switching from building tanks to trucks is not quite that easy for an industry like say the Soviet Union. At this point, most of it's industry in Siberia is closing down, moving back west where it is devestated (Hence one of the cheif reasons Stalin put the conquered states as his puppets, to rape them to rebuild his own nation). And even if they don't move their industry in the east, where most of their tanks come from, their factories are not built the same way as for example US Factories, which proved very adept at switching from cars to tanks. The Soviets could either produce a lot of tanks, or a lot of trucks, and they needed both in large numbers to continue any war.

But let's factor in other things, first, the Soviets are going to HAVE to devote a lot of their industry to be tooled up to build an Air Force, the Air Superiority the Allies will enjoy could be very decisive in the opening battles, and I don't think the Soviets will simply sit back with their current levels of Aerial production. Also, they face a dilemma of advancing US forces from the Pacific coming dangerously close to the industry that was safe from Germany, not too mention US bombing of major industrial areas. I'm not sure if they had the ability to rebuild destroyed industry as fast as Germany did, but it is still a major annoyance anyway, especially considering the major lack of railroads to transport made goods to the west, the Allied Air Force can simply destroy these few routes and be content that soviet equipment will sit in railyards, very far away from Western Europe.

Also, the US Suppplies a lot more then trucks to the Soviet War effort, at one time I had numbers, but I have since lost them and can't find a reliable source, but it was significant. Also the US sent the Soviet Union a huge amount of grain, Soviet farmlands had been destroyed by the war with Germany, Stalin had to disband a huge portion of his precious army shortly after 1945 becuase the US stopped offering it for free and he couldn't keep his population from starving and his troops fed, during war he can't afford this and the US is obviously not providing it for free anymore, so Stalin is facing a mass starvation of his manpower pool.

Also, you seem to be missing the point, trucks are just as valuable as a tank to the Soviet operational doctrine (It's called Deep Operation something or other, Doctrine I think), it involves a massive armored spearhead attack to break enemy defense lines, and then a huge number of trucks rush infantry to the gap to exploit it and widen it, and even more trucks to keep the infantry and armor in supply, and even more to keep general supply open, now if they are running low on trucks, the Armor breaks through, but the infantry has to march to the gap, and now enemy reserves are being brought up to strengthen the line, the Soviet infantry runs into a prepared enemy and has to retreat with heavy losses, and their armor force is now cutoff behind enemy lines, and armor doesn't last long without fuel.

 

Another thing going against the Soviets is that the US is far more capable in engineering than the Germans. There is no reasonable comparison here. The US would have built paved roads, railroads, pipelines and, anything else needed to support their troops as they advanced into the Soviet Union. In 1945 there were over 250,000 seebees alone in service. A single seebee 1000 + man battalion could have produced more finished work than 6 or 7 thousand Organization Todt or German construction engineers could simply by virtue of the mass of mechanization they possessed.
The US Army built the Alaskan Highway using just over 3,000 men in less than 14 months. Unlike the Germans, the US would have found the weather not a crippling factor in fighting in Russia. If anything, the Soviets would have been at a disadvantage.

 

Pray tell me what the Russian Divisions in Europe would be doing as all this went on. Sitting idly by watching it or sunning themselves on the streets of Paris? Great when you think of all the harm you can inflict on them but........ horror! what if they fight back? Give me some idea of the casualties they would have inflicted and then remember how the Allies had to split combat divisions up to get reinforcements for other Units.

 

I think by spring 1945 Churchill was quite frightened by the fact the the US were taking their troops out of Europe and putting their main force against Japan. That left Europe in situation Churchill vs Stalin....It would take a nice time sending the troops back in Europe.

Of course there was the atom bomb but how many were left in storage after the bombing of Japan? One? How soon could they get more? And I´d be thinking of the Russian spies all over the system....Could they bring down the system before more A-bombs could be made or would the US have to give up because the Russian spies would sabotage the system? Frankly I was surprised by the % of spy infiltration; check the "spies liek us" section"...

No3: Would the US be interested in Europe situation ? Taking part in another war -again- might not be that interesting after awhile. So what the Russians can have the continent...

 

This is getting silly.

Firstly, the lend-lease trucks. Yes the Allies lend-lease assisted the Soviet war effort. In particular the use of trucks allowed a greater flexibility and manoeuvrability during the mid war years when Soviet industry was not yet up to speed.

However, the question is what happens if the US and the USSR go to war in 1945. Those trucks are already there, and the US does not have the ability to unship them retroactively, so lets just ignore that issue.

I'm sorry, but some of you have an absurdly dismissive view of the Soviet army in 1945, supported by no facts at all. The Red army in 1945 was the most powerful war machine on the planet. They, like the allies, had learned how to fight a modern war by learning from the Germans, and the Soviets had learned well. They had excellent tanks in the oft-mentioned t-34/85, not to mention the excellent tanks which were now being mass produced, such as the T-44 and the IS line, all of which were better than their western counterparts. They also had massive numbers on their side, as well as numbers and co-ordination of artillery and rocket artillery. The USSR did not have an effective strategic bombing wing, but their tactical aircraft were superb, better than their western counterparts. The Soviets did not have the communication capacity of the West it is true, but they had worked around that for a long time, and it was improving. The Soviet aircraft was producing better and better designs, and their first jet aircraft was in trial stages by the end of the war. The B-29 did operate above normal ceilings of most soviet aircraft, but 1) Japan demonstrated that bombing from extremely high altitudes was all but worthless and 2) one has to assume that faced with this possibility, high altitude fighters would not be long in the offing. The B-29 still had to be deployed in numbers and fly across most of Russia to hit anything significant.

On the ground, the reality is the Red Army would likely have crushed its US counterparts through number and quality of arms. This is by no means an insult to the strength of the US force in Europe in 1945, but they could not compete with the massive Red Army which had just rolled over the Wehrmacht.

Now of course, the USSR faced the same problem that Japan did, it had no effective way to strike against US home soil. Its fleet was small and could not challenge the US Navy offshore.

 

As I stated earlier: It is interesting to note that in the postwar world Soviet style armor using Soviet tactics and training never won a major tank engagement against a Western equipped and trained army. Why is this true if their tanks were better, their training and tactics better, they had more experiance, ad infinitum as suggested?
The Germans almost beat them with a fraction of the economy and resources that are available to the US. That the Germans did this (and might have won) has endlessly been debated on boards like this one. But, the US is derided as somehow far less capable which is definitely not the case, especially by 1945.

 

I was meaning to say that those trucks would likely suffer the same outcome a lot of battlefield equipment does, break down, get destroyed, but further to the point cannot be easily replaced until the late 40's, and that was without war.

The Red Army was indeed the largest force in Europe, much bigger then the 4 million strong Allied Force, but the west enjoys several advantages. They do have better C3I control, allowing them to respond much quicker, and call in support. Soviet Artillery had greater numbers, but western artillery was far more accurate and could serve the soldiers far better due to better communications. The Soviets due hold a slight advantage in tanks, especially when the numbers are factored in, the West wasn't using the M4 of Normandy anymore either though.

The Air Force though is a major difference, the Soviet air personell training was just on par with that of near-end war Germany, so any pilots the Soviets lose can in truth not be replaced, whereas the West would enjoy an able pilot training program that had been setup during 4 years of war (6 for some). Those Soviet pilots racing to meet the Western onslaught are facing a well-trained and very experienced enemy. The Western Air Forces generally had a less stunning record at tactical bombing becuase they covered an entire front, usually it was all done at a Strategic level, whereas the Soviets tended to mass a large percentage of their Air Force at one point where a breakthrough is made. This is almost suicide to try against the west, who have the majority of their air-to-air fighters within range of Soviet planes, unlike the Luftwaffe (The majority of which was destroyed by the west).

And as shown by this war, aerial superiority is a decisive factor, so that is what happens to all those Soviet divisions, in all likelyhood they will push the Allies back, but they will suffer huge losses at the hands of ably serving artillery, Allied air superiority, and at some points, Naval artillery. Eventually Soviet industry will be re-geared to fit the needs presented without the lend-lease yes, however it will severely cut into other production, and not come close to the Western industry. And the Soviets do have a slight problem keeping the supply routes from their factories open under an Allied air attack.

The only way I can see the Soviets being able to defeat the West is to get very very lucky and eject the Allies from Western Europe, and with some more luck on their side the Indians will be sick of hearing the British telling them they will grant their independence, after this war, and rise up, ejecting the British. Under these conditions, the only hope the Allies have is an operation that would dwarf D-day, becuase wherever they land they need to land a large force, as the Soviets will move a lot faster and have more soldiers then the Germans ever did. On the other hand, the Soviets can't win this either, even moreso as the Allies always have the Uber-Normandy to cling too (I can't say with any definite thought that something like this would never happen, after all, that's what Hitler thought and look what happened). But the Soviets cannot invade either the US or the UK, they simply lack any form of major transport to get across any ocean, and in the face of the Western naval dominance, the only way to break the deadlock is some kind of peace treaty.

So the Soviets can win by a peace treaty after overrunning Western Europe, and the West can win by holding the line in the first few opening battles, after that it is just a matter of time before the Soviets lose, General Winter will not save them as it had from the Germans, the West as mentioned before had a much better system of engineers, had a motorized supply system, and probably the best supply system in the world, and Soviet numbers will eventually be evened out, and it is likely many of the Eastern European countries they overran would continue partisan actions to get the Soviets out, aided by the Allies these have a serious chance of succeeding (Didn't the polish Free Army defeat the Soviets in at least one battle).

 

The Germans almost beat them? Almost, nearly ,could have ect, ect, ect. Well they didn't and they were absolutely and completely crushed by the Russian reply. Russian tanks were, in total, superior to the comparative Allied models and that is beyond dispute. It does not matter how you defeat your enemy, only that you do defeat him.

 

Well of course if the Soviet war machine was so superior in 1945:
1) Why didn't they just steamroller over western Europe?
A) Because they knew better, and were too busy crushing "dissidents" in one of the Asian Soviet Republics-forget which one.
2) Why did they stand idly by during the Berlin airlift?
(see a) above.)
3) Why did they agree to withdraw from Austria?
A) Because despite propaganda (which some people apparently STILL believe), they weren't in a position to take the west on in a prolonged conflict.Even Mother Russia couldn't afford another 20 million casualties.
The outbreak of the Korean War would have been the perfect opportunity for Russia to advance westwards while the UN was focussed on Korea...except the strength of the west's response probably scared them back to reality.

Regards,
Gordon

[ 31. December 2003, 05:30 PM: Message edited by: The_Historian ]

 

One more time: If Soviet tanks and tank tactics are so superior why did they fail to win even a single major tank engagement against Western armor and tactics since the end of WW II in 1945? Could it be that their equipment and tactics were actually inferior? Almost 60 years of history says that's the case.