One of the major improvements to the Soviet armed forces that came out of the Winter War was the replacement of Kliment Voroshilov by Semyon Timoshenko as People’s Commissar for Defence. Voroshilov had helped Stalin carry out the Great Purge by denouncing some of his military colleagues, and (as I recall) he reversed some of the army reforms that his predecessors had carried out. He also bungled the opening phases of the Winter War, and was eventually turfed out in favour of the more competent Timoshenko. After the Soviets won in Finland, Timoshenko set about modernizing the Red Army.
What if U.S. invaded Soviet Union?
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Oh Hollywood is a communist enough name itself. Believe me.
But…
Los Archangelsk
Seattleostok
Colovrado
Euguineorov
Portlandolesk
San Fransicovik
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Maybe Stalinfrancisco is better… ?
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In Virginia we could have the Kremlin District, so instead of Washington DC we could have Lenin KD
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Chicagogorsk
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@CWO:
A few comments:
On the part about the US using on Russia the same techniques it used on Japan, note that Japan is a tiny in size, and is an island nation that sits in the Pacific Ocean,
Sure I agree that Japan was much smaller. However Japanese were much more reluctant to surrender than Russians. In Iwo Jimma out of 23,000 defenders, 22,000 died defending and only ~1,000 surrendered. Russians on the other hand were known to surrender by hundreds of thousands.
Now if you are referring to Japan being smaller than Russia, know this that Japan was much more industrialized than Russia. They might have been a smaller nation but they were very powerful smaller nation.
@CWO:
The overwhelming proportion of its industry is far inland, completely out of range of any coastal bombardment.
Thats true. Russia is a huge land mass, yet B24 Liberator had a range of 3,000 miles. Given that USA would invade coastal cities around Russia, they would be able to lunch bombing missions anywhere in the country and knock out whatever industry they still had going.
@CWO:
On the part about “U.S. could repeat Pearl Harbor but this time with Russians as offenders”, this seems to imply that it was the US rather than Japan which arranged the attack on Pearl Harbor. I assume this is a reference to the old Roosevelt-wanted-the-Japanese-to-attack conspiracy theory which has been floating around for decades.
Yes. This is perhaps a discussion for another topic. But the way US lined up their fighters and ships nicely in a row and ready to be bombarded was either a complete idiocy or
they simply needed a good reason to convince public to go to war with Japan.
Even country like Poland in August 29th-30th 1939 did not line up their fighters on airfields. Contrary to popular believe most of the Polish fighters were relocated to smaller and hidden airfields and survived initial Blitzkrieg.@CWO:
As for the part about enlisting the Chinese, I would simply point out that the Chinese spent most of the period from 1937 to 1945 on the losing end of a war with Japan…a country which, when it took on the Russians in the border incident wars of 1938 and 1939 achieved stalemates at best and got trounced at worst.
That’s okay that Chinese were not very good fighters. Their only purpose would be to open 2nd front which would forces Russians to divert resources from Europe.
So in the end this would be my plan for invading Russia in 1945:
A well coordinated invasion of Russia from Eastern Europe, Asia and Pacific led by veteran U.S. troops from Normandy and Italian Campaign. German elite army would have been used as initial strike forces supported by U.S. air force. As the US/German forces would be hitting from the East, the Norwegians would engage in another Winter war. Chinese would hit the Russians in Asia along with U.S. Pacific forces capturing key port cities and lunching bombing raids deep inside Russia. The point would have been to attack Russian on as many fronts as possible. An element of surprise could have been achieved by invading during winter when Russians would least expect. There would be actually an element of advantage for the invading forces since air force is less crippled by cold weather than ground forces. A prolonged bombing raids during winter would cripple Russian supply chain and cause mass starvation of their armies.To sum it up, the goal of such invasion would have been:
- Paton knocks out Moscow
- German army bypass Stalingrad and goes after Oil Fields
- U.S. airforce initially criples Russian supply chain
- U.S. airforce supplies Paton army and German army with supplies via air
On Pacific Front - U.S. invades costal cities and lunching bombing missions deep into Russia
- Chinese open yet another front
Yes the downside of invading a large land mass is that it is hard to control. Nevertheless, winter could have been used to allied advantage, along with it’s powerful airforce and the fact that a large land mass when invaded from multiple locations would have been impossible for Russians to defend.
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I hope I am not the only one getting off on this!
I like how you put the Germans in the front line. A sort of: you started the damn war! -
And remember the Red Baron never died!
He should be worth at least a Russian Armoured Division. -
Now if you are referring to Japan being smaller than Russia, know this that Japan was much more industrialized than Russia. They might have been a smaller nation but they were very powerful smaller nation.
This is not true, the Soviet Union was actually vastly more industrialized and technologically advanced when it came to warfare then Japan. The Japanese learned in 1939 after their defeat at Khalkhin-gol that the Soviet had superior armour and artillery designs to Japans and were able to deliver accurate firepower on a scale that dwarfed Japans. Also, Soviet logistics (the real deciding factor in war) far out paced their own. The Soviet had shown that they were able to transport and operate large mechanized forces over 600km from a railroad head but they had used over 6,000 trucks to support their forces at Khalkhin-gol, while Japan had only 9,000 motor vehicles of all types in Manchuria at that time. Also, in 1940 Japan produced only 573 tanks as opposed to 3,000 in the Soviet union and even though in 1941 Japan was able to double their numbers from the previous year, all types were vastly inferior to the ones the Soviets had.
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Czar Peter spent a lot of time bringing the Russians up to European snuff. This was later reflected by their Navy (and St. Petersburg of course.) It allowed the Russians to fight the Chrimean wars. Even though they lost, it proved to the world that Russia could take on the major European empires (France won in particular here, but it was not the only one on the allied side fighting.)
One of the reasons Russia was treated as an honorable ally was their industrial power. Were they an actual ally in world war 2? I’d argue they were not, but we digress.
I point these out because I do not think America would have faired any better invading Arkhangelsk in the 1950s than they did invading Arkhangelsk in the 1920s. Russia is vast, industrialized, hardened after many battles and harsh living conditions, and as fiercly patriotic as many Americans. IMNSHO.
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You know… the trick would be to do what hitler didn’t.
Arrive as a “Liberator”.
Any powerful commanders who defect, become part of a new provisional democratic government. Let the people rule themselves - the states they had just conquered. Maybe then, the Russians could have defeated themselves.
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You know… the trick would be to do what hitler didn’t.
Arrive as a “Liberator”.
Any powerful commanders who defect, become part of a new provisional democratic government. Let the people rule themselves - the states they had just conquered. Maybe then, the Russians could have defeated themselves.And make sure that the operation receives good paratrooper support:
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You know… the trick would be to do what hitler didn’t.
Arrive as a “Liberator”.
Any powerful commanders who defect, become part of a new provisional democratic government. Let the people rule themselves - the states they had just conquered. Maybe then, the Russians could have defeated themselves.
Agreed. “Friendly” US troops arriving with plenty of good tobacco and quality foodstuffs may have been welcomed.
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Tobacco and food is nice, Dan Carlin tells of his step dad’s idea of dropping Playboys and blue jeans into the Soviet Union. He feels this would have had more effect on the cold war than actual bombs.
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New Yorkisk
Sek Diesk
Sacromesko
Dallask
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The Statue of Leningrad…
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The Statue of Leningrad…
It would be amusing to see a Photoshopped picture of New York City in which the Statue of Liberty was replaced by the famous “Motherland” statue at the site of the Battle of Stalingrad (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Motherland_Calls).
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Mount Russiamore.
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The Soviet Empire State Building
Revolution Square (Times Square)
Kapital Street (Wall Street)
etc… -
In front of the REDHOUSE were the Russian Pres would be sit, is the Kremwalk wich you are not allowed to cross or land a small airplane on it… :-D
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