Comments by "Colonel K" (@Paladin1873) on "The Cold War"
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I think he considered size when he said "equivalent". The Soviets had somewhere on the order of 400 divisions in total, which would equate to about 200 western divisions in size, so 120 -150 western equivalent divisions in Europe would have been about right. The quality of these units varied greatly, with the Guards units being rated equal to their western counterparts. At the tactical level, Soviet weaknesses would include inferior aviation fuel, electronics, air-ground coordination, and artillery fire control. At the operational level their lack of an effective Navy and advanced heavy bombers would have put littoral regions and key industry at severe risk. An even greater problem for Soviet forces was their logistical pipeline, which was overstretched and quite vulnerable. The greatest potential threat they faced, and one for which they had absolutely no defense or counter-capability, was atomic bombs. Their mere existence created a strategic problem for Stalin that would only be solved in 1949 when his scientists developed a Soviet bomb. The Soviets were well aware of this problem in 1942, which is why they developed such an effective spy apparatus in the USA and Great Britain. It successfully penetrated the Manhattan Project and saved the USSR years of research and development. What's particularly maddening is our own counterintelligence services knew about much of this but were hamstrung in trying to stop the penetrations. The resulting cold war, proxy wars, and Red Scare became hallmarks of the 1950s and 60s.
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@Algebrodadio Soviet forces in 1941 were larger than German forces and had much better tanks, including the T-34 and KV1. But there is much more to an Army than its basic armament and size. When it came to training, leadership, and command and control, the Germans proved to be vastly superior to the Soviets. As a result, they crushed them in the first six months of the war. The Soviets responded by trading land for time. Eventually they got their act together, but it took a year or more before they could launch truly effective counteroffensives. By this point the Germans were way overextended on all fronts and beginning to fracture. When the war ended it was now the Soviets who were way overextended. I presume your statement that western forces in 1945 were smaller than the German forces in 1941 is predicated on the number of "boots on the ground" in Europe, because the US military alone in 1945 numbered exceeded 12 million men, dwarfing the German military at its zenith. The majority of them were not serving in Europe, and it is true that the total number of Allied troops immediately available there was certainly less than the number of Soviet forces present. However, all factors must be considered when planning a campaign. The Soviets had no adequate counter to Allied air and naval capabilities. Their focus was entirely on army and army air support operations (frontal aviation). This placed a premium on huge tank formations, massed artillery, ground attack aircraft, and wave infantry assault formations. Over half their soldiers were armed with submachine guns instead of rifles because of their emphasis on close assault. This lack of flexibility could be exploited by the west, especially since their logistics train was very long and difficult to maintain. Most Soviet equipment was inferior to American and British equipment, and the Soviet forces did not have sufficient forward basing of support and maintenance elements to keep their equipment running. Soviet tanks might have looked impressive with their heavy armor and large caliber guns, but our antitank capabilities could effectively neutralize it. Western Europe is not the plains of Russia, making massed armored assaults much more difficult to execute. The Soviets had another problem to contend with that the western countries did not. They were not seen as liberators by the nations they overran, meaning they had to devote much of their resources to internal security. Had the west attacked them in 1945 (as Patton wanted to do), the Soviets would have retreated quickly. The only question is how far they would retreat. Putting them back inside their own borders would have been sufficient. Going any further would have been a mistake unless we were willing to go nuclear. But the political reality of the day was that we had no desire to do this, nor did the American or British public want to drag the war on for another year. That's why we had the cold war for 44 years. It was not an ideal solution, but its the hand that history dealt us. All the rest is mere speculation.
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@historiand9473 If size alone assured victory in battle, then world history would be far different than it is. Over 30 million Soviets did serve throughout the war, but never all at once. When you count the dead, MIA, captured, wounded, and those released from active service, the total Soviet forces available in 1945 was about 16 million. This still constituted the largest conventional military force in the world, but it was one which was highly imbalanced and focused almost exclusively on massive armored formations. The Soviet Air Force concentrated on close air support of the Army. The Soviet Navy was small and ineffectual. These forces were spread out over vast territories that were populated by people hostile to the Soviet regime. The Soviet supply system was barely able to sustain them. These were weaknesses the west could easily exploit through air and sea power.
By the end of the war all military forces were seasoned and battle hardened, so this factor is a wash. As for the estimated 2.2 - 4.4 million Axis battle deaths, western Allies accounted for 400,000 of these, and the Soviets were responsible for all the rest, between 80% - 90% of total Axis loses through death. The western Allies accounted for the vast majority of Axis forces captured during the war, around eight million, while the Soviets captured about three million (some sources say closer to six million, but half died in captivity). The likely reasons for this imbalance include the Soviet penchant for shooting or starving POWs and the Axis soldier's desire not to be captured by them, therefore traveling great distances to surrender to western forces.
The attrition rate between Soviet and Axis forces was 4 to 1. Based upon this figure alone, the USSR would need four times as many men as the western Allies in order to defeat them on land. They held at most a 2:1 advantage in the west in 1945 (without counting former Axis forces), and these soldiers were at the end of a very tenuous supply line.
You mentioned that the west supplied only 10% of Soviet supplies but failed to note just how critical many of these supplies were to them. Among the most critical were aviation fuel additives and advanced electronics. With these supplies cut off, Soviet aviation and command and control would suffer greatly.
Regarding civilian deaths, the American-British air campaign resulted in 350 - 500 thousand German deaths. During that same period Soviet forces killed an unknown number of civilians. Estimates run into the millions, but it is impossible to determine how many were the result of partisan executions, accidents, starvation, disease, or NKVD action. It is known that the NKVD executed 135,000 Soviet soldiers during the war.
It's all academically moot because only the USA had nuclear weapons in 1945, and there is no way Stalin could have countered their use and he knew it. The USSR would have retreated without our need to fire a single shot if we had threatened him with them. We did not, and eastern Europe suffered under a 44 year reign of Soviet domination.
Regarding North Korea, we did capture it, then China intervened. MacArthur had asked for permission to use nuclear weapons to attack Chinese airbases and staging areas. This was denied, making the war one of attrition. The Chinese rotated over half their military through Korea during the war and suffered higher casualty rates than in WWII. Chinese losses were 400,000. North Korean losses were estimated to be about 200,000. We lost 38,00 men in three years of fighting. Total UN loses were 200,000. Civilian deaths were 600,00 in North and a million in the South. In the end the old boundary line along the 38th Parallel was restored.
Before you poke fun at history, try studying it more deeply.
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@Hero.Lone-Wolf I have little doubt the Soviets were planning both defensive and offensive operations against the west in 1945. This would have been expected. We had plans before WWII to attack and capture Canada in case the UK surrendered (something that many people thought likely). The whole purpose of a plan is to determine what is and is not feasible. The fact that the plan was labeled "Unthinkable" indicates there was no real desire to execute it, but we weren't entirely sure what Soviet intentions would be after the fall of Germany, so having a plan is a wise move.
When you say "no one can defeat Soviet Union" you need to be more specific. There were four conventional ways to counter the USSR in 1945. They included holding the line where it stood, pushing the Soviets out of eastern Europe, invading the western part of Russia, or occupying all of Russia. There would have been no reason to occupy all of Russia, and it would not have been feasible. Occupying western Russia would have been feasible but undesirable because it would have led to an unending war of attrition as Russia rightfully tried to recapture its sovereign territory. Pushing the Soviets out of eastern Europe was militarily quite feasible but had no political support in the US or UK. This would have happened only if the Soviets had tried to take all of Europe. In such a scenario there would have been very strong political will to stop them. We very likely would have rearmed Germany and turned them into an ally to defend western Europe, but I doubt we would have allowed them to accompany us as we pushed east in a counter-thrust to end the Soviet domination of eastern Europe. The fact that we alone had the ability to build more A-bombs, and were doing that, would have convinced Stalin that the prudent move would be to retreat to his own borders rather than fight. The Soviet Union was at the zenith of its conventional power, but it had been terribly mauled by four years of combat with the Axis. The lands retaken were scorched and in ruins. The Soviets wasted no time stripping Germany of its industry and shipping it back east to offset its many losses. By comparison, the USA had been virtually untouched and was continuing to produce ever greater quantities of war materiel.
In the Battle of the Bulge the American forces were caught by surprise in what was supposed to be a quiet sector of the front. Typical of a surprise, this led to instances when some troops panicked. They were green and had not seen any combat. But this situation quickly remedied itself when wiser heads took charge. From the start the Germans faced stiff resistance in the north and were not able to achieve their initial goals there. The rumor of the massacre of American PoWs at the Malmedy crossroads on 17 December, spread like wildfire and stiffened the spines of many soldiers who then decided to stand and fight where they were. Within a week the situation had stabilized and by Christmas it was reversed and the Germans began their retreat. There was concern by American generals that the Germans might reach Antwerp, and a rumor was started by a captured German officer that Eisenhower and Montgomery were being targeted by Otto Skorzeny's commandos for assassination or capture. This rumor was take seriously because Skorzeny was the man considered responsible for liberating Mussolini from his captors in 1943 (actually it was German paratroopers, but the SS hogged all the glory). As a result, Ike was forced to spend a few days around Christmas under heavy security. He was so angered by it that he finally said to hell with it, if the Germans wanted to kill him, let them try. When Montgomery learned of the rumor, he boldly went forward to the American sector in his staff car, only to be arrested by US soldiers who did not recognize him. It has been reported that Eisenhower was quite amused by the incident, saying it was the best thing Skorzeny was ever responsible for. This must be the loose bowels you were talking about, except it isn't true. Bu contrast, how many times during 1941 and 42 did mass panic and surrender take place among Soviet forces? How many millions of Soviet soldiers died or were captured as a result?
France fell in 1940 because the French were still fighting the last war and dismissed the notion the Germans could go around their fixed fortifications. Unlike Russia, they could not trade land for time to regroup after realizing their massive mistake. Their presumed superiority in arms was a lie. Technically, they had more tanks than the Germans, but a huge number of these were of WWI vintage. The French had poured everything into the Maginot Line, and realized after Poland was quickly captured that they lacked enough modern armor and modern aircraft to effectively counter the Germans. They tried to rapidly modernize their ground and air forces in 1939, but it was too little, too late. They had squandered a window of opportunity to attack the Germans while they were preoccupied with Poland, but the French suffered from divided leadership and their will was lacking. When the French surrendered in 1940, only a portion of the country was occupied. The whole of France would not be occupied until 1942, as a response to the Allied invasion of Tunisia. If you want to poke fun at the French, be my guest. I take the position of Patton when he said, " I'd rather have a German division in front of me than a French division behind me."
The Soviet invasion of Manchuria was something Stalin had agreed to earlier in the war, once Germany was defeated. It was not necessary for a US victory over Japan because by that point the Japs had no way of bringing their forces home from China and Manchuria. They were bottle up there and we had the waters around Japan completely saturated with ships and subs. There is little doubt the Japanese feared the coming invasion by all Allied forces, but they were preparing for it. The whole nation was ready to die for the Emperor. The idea that they would fight to the death against American invaders but were afraid of Soviet invaders makes no sense. The A-bomb showed them the absolute futility of fighting on. We no longer had to invade them. We could continue to systematically destroy their cites with fire bombs or A-bombs. The invasion, if it came, would still be a bloodbath. The timing of the A-bomb attacks and the Soviet capture of Manchuria collectively formed a one-two punch that convinced Japan to supersede unconditionally.
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@josephahner3031 Joseph, if your read all my comments you would see that I addressed some of the deficiencies of Soviet armor in 1941, which had more to do with poor training, poor leadership, and poor logistics than with the shortcomings of Soviet tanks during that period. Most of the German armor was made up of light tanks on par with Soviet light tanks, so I see that as a wash. German medium armor in 1941 had great difficulty dealing with the Soviet medium and heavy tanks it encountered, but German artillery and wheeled antitank guns proved quite effective in stopping them. Perhaps more importantly, the Germans fought as a team and had both excellent leadership and skilled soldiers who were quite resourceful. Soviet leadership from Colonel on up had been eviscerated and replaced by politically trustworthy but inept officers and commissars thanks to Stalin's paranoid purges. Regarding the size of the Soviet Army, it was close to eight million men in 1941. The bulk of them were in the east when the war started, which is fortuitous, given the shambles of the first six months of the war, but as history has shown, those troops could be transferred, and they were once the lines stabilized and the Soviet winter counteroffensive commenced. The Germans kept wondering where all the fresh troops were coming from.
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