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Scheich
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Topic: USA vs. USSR in 1945 Posted: 29-Jul-2007 at 07:36 |
My opinion :
USSR had the most powerful landforces, but the the USA had 6 nukes. An Soviet invasion in USA would be unable, because the US-navy was stronger than the Soviet navy. USSR could shot down some bombers, but by a 1000-bomber attack(and some of them had nukes, they couldn'd knew which of them had nukes and they only could shot down some of all 1000 bombers) the USSR would be nuked. In 1948 the USA had 110 nukes and the USSR 0. USSR got his first nuke in 1949. I vote for USA.
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gcle2003
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Posted: 29-Jul-2007 at 15:51 |
No brainer.
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Paul
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Posted: 29-Jul-2007 at 16:08 |
Are you talking war or civil genocide larger than the nazis?
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Scheich
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Posted: 30-Jul-2007 at 13:46 |
It would be horrible, but why is it not allowed to speak about this szenario?
I only say that in 1945 the USA could win a war agaist the USSR, but after about 1960 there would be no winner!
Why did someone vote for USSR?
Maybe the US-population would rebell ageinst this attack!?
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Guests
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Posted: 30-Jul-2007 at 18:57 |
The USSR had a capable force, with sufficient machinery, however, in a prolonged conflict America would have won the conflict most definitely. The US navy was dominant, and controlled both the Atlantic and Pacific, in assistance with the UK navy it would have held at bay the Russian navy, while the American infantry with sufficient special forces could penetrate through the Russian lines on the Eastern front. Not to mention the nukes that America had at its disposal.
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Lmprs
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Posted: 30-Jul-2007 at 19:51 |
United States could not nuke Soviet cities randomly. It would result in a great deal of support for communism all around the globe.
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DesertHistorian
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Posted: 31-Jul-2007 at 01:26 |
Don't forget that the US had air superiority, especially with long range heavy bombers that could easily do to the Russians what it did to the Germans and Japanese. Also by 1945 the US had superior fighters aircraft with the P-38 and P-51, not to mention the Navy's Corsairs and Hellcats.
The air superiority would have easily neutralized the Russian ground forces, and without outside assistance, the USSR would not have lasted very long.
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Constantine XI
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Posted: 31-Jul-2007 at 01:51 |
Originally posted by Feanor
United States could not nuke Soviet cities randomly. It would result in a great deal of support for communism all around the globe. |
The Americans wouldn't do that, except maybe one on Moscow to throw the Soviets into disorganisation and confusion.
They would use their nukes as tactical battlefield weapons, if the Soviets get a million or so soldiers in one area then that's what the Americans would nuke.
Besides, America's allies would stay behind her even if she did nuke a Soviet city or two. No one abandoned America after Hiroshima and Nagasaki. America could afford the bad reputation if she saved a few hundred thousand American lives here and there.
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Lmprs
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Posted: 31-Jul-2007 at 03:58 |
Originally posted by Constantine XI
Besides, America's allies would stay behind her even if she did nuke a Soviet city or two. No one abandoned America after Hiroshima and Nagasaki. |
Japan was disliked. Even today, many Asians think that Japanese got less than what they asked for. I am talking about people, not governments anyway.
Soviets were considered liberators. They defeated Nazis after all, as their fatal casualties were fifty times more than American ones.
Furthermore, the West had enough of capitalistic crisises, one of which created Nazi Germany in the first place.
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Constantine XI
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Posted: 31-Jul-2007 at 04:26 |
Originally posted by Feanor
Japan was disliked. Even today, many Asians think that Japanese got less than what they asked for. I am talking about people, not governments anyway. |
True, but it didn't take long for people in the West to start hating and fearing the USSR. People hated the USSR before WWII, people loved them (or at least openly cheered their war effort) from about the Battle of Moscow onwards, and then after WWII they went back to hating and being scared of them.
Originally posted by Feanor
Soviets were considered liberators. They defeated Nazis after all, as their fatal casualties were fifty times more than American ones. |
That's right, but people in the West didn't know it was that amount. And it wouldn't be hard to convince people in the West that it was actually a small amount and that Soviet claims to the contrary were just typical Bolshevik propaganda. As far as people in Western countries were (and most still are) it was their own soldiers who were the true liberators. Whether that is right or wrong I leave to you to decide, but we are concerned with how a practical hypothetical situation would have been played out in this thread.
Originally posted by Feanor
Furthermore, the West had enough of capitalistic crisises, one of which created Nazi Germany in the first place. |
I don't think people in the West were sick of capitalism, if they were then they would have become communist. People in the West were beaming with pride at how their governments had won the war. If anything, a war with the USSR would make people more anti-communist rather than less. Also, people in the West never saw Nazism as a product of communism, Nazism was associated with fascism.
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xristar
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Posted: 31-Jul-2007 at 07:31 |
On the ground, at the time the war ended (summer 1945) the Soviets had a MUCH stronger force than the allies.
Apart from the purely numerical/materialistic view (where the Soviets were equal to the allies) the Soviets were superior in personell quality. I know most won't accept this, but is the truth: the fact that the allied soldier (especially the commonwealth one), both the infatryman and the tanker, was much inferior in morale and determination than the soviet (and of course the German).
In Hastings's book 'Armaggedon' that desrcibes the last months of the war, the author (being a brit himself) clearly refers to the complaints that the company commaders made, that while marching whenever a shot was heard the whole company whould fall on the ground, waiting the mortars to clear the enemy.
The allies needed in some cases whole weeks to clear a forest or a city from Germans, while the Soviets could wipe whole coutries clean of Germans in just a few days.
About the air superiority, I agree that the allies would be superior, but we still have to keep in mind that the Soviets possessed huge numbers of planes, that the allies never faced in the hands of Germans.
If the USSR was to be defeated, that would happen not in a coventional way. I mean that the allies would either have to bomb the USSR with nuclear bombs, or use other methods. Mainly, i'm greatly concerned if the USSR could continue waging a war in the scale of WWII without the support in raw materials (especially food) from the allies.
So the USSR could throw the allies back to the atlantic ocean, but it would lose the war to starvation.
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Defeat allows no explanation
Victory needs none.
It insults the dead when you treat life carelessly.
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Lmprs
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Posted: 31-Jul-2007 at 09:56 |
Originally posted by Constantine XI
True, but it didn't take long for people in the West to start hating and fearing the USSR. People hated the USSR before WWII |
Not Western people in general, but Western ruling classes.
Originally posted by Constantine XI
That's right, but people in the West didn't know it was that amount. |
That may be so, but people of Eastern Europe would know the truth.
Originally posted by Constantine XI
I don't think people in the West were sick of capitalism |
If that was the case, socialist ideology would never exist. Revolutionary movements were either brutally crushed or softened by the social reforms of the ruling classes.
Originally posted by Constantine XI
Also, people in the West never saw Nazism as a product of communism, Nazism was associated with fascism. |
I never implied the contrary. Nazism emerged as an alternative capitalistic theory to 'solve' the problems of Germany which were caused by capitalism itself.
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Sarmat
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Posted: 31-Jul-2007 at 10:49 |
Strange posts. How you suppose USA win a conflict with the USSR, another invasion akin to the operation Barbarossa?
How could they win that war? To draw back the Red army from Europe and then back to the gates of Moscow? How millions of American lifes would it take?
Yeah, Americans had several nukes, they would bomb the major Soviet cities, so what ?
USSR was not Japan. If had the biggest, most strongest, mechanized army in the world. With the 4 years of fighting experience against the excellent German Wermacht. Moreover, it was ready to sacrifice even more millions for the victory. Were Americans ready to do that?
Nuclear bombings would not stop the Soviet Army.
I don't understand why so many people claim that the Soviet Airpopwer was much inferior ?
Air combats in the Eastern front were much more intensvie than in the West. The best Allies aces of the war were RUSSIANS: Kozhedub and Pokryshkin not Americans.
The number of the produced American fighter aircrafts which was crucial for the air superiority didn't surprasse so much the numbers of the produced Soviet firghter aircrafts:
Fighter aircraft
- United States = 99,950
- Soviet Union = 63,087
Besides, soviet air defence artillery was more numerous and advanced than American.
Another thing the forces of USSR and USA could crush in 1945 only in Europe. There Soviets had total superiority while American forces were dispersed through out the world with the large part of airforces in Pacific.
I believe Soviet Army would win conflict in Europe. But of course the landing in the USA would be impossible for it to perform. On the other hand. I see totally unrealistic the scenario of American invasion and victory over USSR in 1945 it was simply impossible.
Edited by Sarmat12 - 31-Jul-2007 at 11:16
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Lmprs
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Posted: 31-Jul-2007 at 11:55 |
Soviets lacked a decent navy to invade United States, so this war could end in a stalemate at best for them.
American invasion of Soviet Union was equally unrealistic. Heavily mechanized Nazi troops with Blitzkrieg tactics rendered useless in concentrated battle zones.
United States was far more richer, of course, and could win a cold war... Did I just say 'could'?
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gcle2003
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Posted: 31-Jul-2007 at 15:00 |
Originally posted by Feanor
Originally posted by Constantine XI
True, but it didn't take long for people in the West to start hating and fearing the USSR. People hated the USSR before WWII | Not Western people in general, but Western ruling classes.
Originally posted by Constantine XI
That's right, but people in the West didn't know it was that amount. | That may be so, but people of Eastern Europe would know the truth.
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Those were the people who really hated the Soviets, post 1045. I'd agree in general that West Europeans were pretty neutral about the Soviets until 1947 or so. In Britain there were a couple of Communist members of Parliament in 1945-50, but after the Yangtse incident and Korea there was no way any popular Communist movement would ever get going in Britain.
Originally posted by Constantine XI
I don't think people in the West were sick of capitalism | If that was the case, socialist ideology would never exist. Revolutionary movements were either brutally crushed or softened by the social reforms of the ruling classes.
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Constantine overstates the case, at least in Western Europe. People there were indeed sick of unfettered conservative governments, which is how the Conservatives were not re-elected in 1945, in spite of Churchill leading them. Similarly, De Gaulle couldn't get elected in France.
What the people wanted, and got, was the welfare state, but without socialist regimentation.
Talking about revolutionary movements being brutally crushed at that time and place is just silly. So is viewing the creation of the welfare state as the social reforms of the ruling classes. Britain and Western Europe went through a major social revolution in 1945-56 or so, thougb I would agree there has been a tendency to refreeze the social structures, under US influence, expecially in Britain in the last 20 or so years.
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Lmprs
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Posted: 31-Jul-2007 at 15:32 |
Originally posted by gcle2003
Talking about revolutionary movements being brutally crushed at that time and place is just silly. |
I was talking about the origin of Nazism and early 1900s, not war or post - war period.
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Scheich
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Posted: 31-Jul-2007 at 16:53 |
USA could destroy the biggest cities, the main industry areas and all large concentrated armed forces in 1948! USSR had no chance to land in UK, but USSR could conquer mainland europe.
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Sarmat
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Posted: 31-Jul-2007 at 23:29 |
Make certain about what period u r talking. I thought the discussion was about 1945. USA didn't have that many nukes at that time.
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Scheich
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Posted: 01-Aug-2007 at 12:45 |
Yes, but US could protect UK and America with its large fleet and could bomb the USSR in 1948 down.
Or could USSR conquer US in 1945-1948?!
I can't understand why people vote for USSR, they all should say why!
US bomber could bomb every place in USSR.
And US had 6 nukes in december 1945.
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Sarmat
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Posted: 01-Aug-2007 at 12:58 |
If you are talking about 1945. USSR had much stronger army, with more numerous modern artillery and tanks. The only area where they could be directly confronted by USA was Europe and there USSR would most likely prevail. 6 nukes would be not enough to stop the Soviet Army.
That's why it's not surprising, that people voted for the USSR.
You can't conquer a country simply by "bombing". Germany was not defeated by "bombings" but by the Soviet land army. Don't also forget that despite total air superiority USA was unable to defeat Chinese army in Korea. And Soviet Army was far, far more advanced than Chinese.
I am actually surprised, that people vote that USA could defeat USSR in 1945. It's too unrealistic.
Edited by Sarmat12 - 01-Aug-2007 at 13:04
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