WWIII in 1949 over the Berlin Blockade - possible?

[Thande]

What the title says. Could the Berlin Blockade and Airlift have escalated into an early WW3, one in which nuclear weapons would probably not have played a major role? Or would one side or the other have inevitably backed down?

[Amerigo Vespucci]

You'd have to posit a scenario in which events spiral out of the control of the leaders involved. But at that point, there wasn't the system of automatic escalation that was in place at later stages of the cold war.

I've seen plenty of historical analyses that stated Stalin believed it would be easy to force the Allies out of Berlin with the blockade, but when it didn't work, he didn't press the issue because they had nuclear weapons and he did not. The Soviet atomic bomb was exploded later that year.

In the event of any war, the U.S. strategy was to deploy nuclear weapons on the 200 largest Soviet cities in order to decapitate the Soviet war effort, then keep using nuclear weapons as they rolled off the assembly line. There was no strategy for a non-nuclear war, because the U.S. had almost no soldiers in Europe -- the Korean War buildup hadn't happened yet. In the event of war, it'll go nuclear pretty much from Day 1 -- that was the plan, at least.

[Thande]

Originally Posted by Amerigo Vespucci

You'd have to posit a scenario in which events spiral out of the control of the leaders involved. But at that point, there wasn't the system of automatic escalation that was in place at later stages of the cold war.

I've seen plenty of historical analyses that stated Stalin believed it would be easy to force the Allies out of Berlin with the blockade, but when it didn't work, he didn't press the issue because they had nuclear weapons and he did not. The Soviet atomic bomb was exploded later that year.

In the event of any war, the U.S. strategy was to deploy nuclear weapons on the 200 largest Soviet cities in order to decapitate the Soviet war effort, then keep using nuclear weapons as they rolled off the assembly line. There was no strategy for a non-nuclear war, because the U.S. had almost no soldiers in Europe -- the Korean War buildup hadn't happened yet. In the event of war, it'll go nuclear pretty much from Day 1 -- that was the plan, at least.

I'm guessing you'd have to have a situation where, for example, the Soviets shadow American transport planes on the edge of the corridor to intimidate them, there's a mistake, it goes hot, planes get shot down, it escalates...

What was Soviet AA like in their cities at this point? I know their AA directed at nuclear bombers was considered very good in the 50s, but had that been deployed by this point?

[Blue Max]

Originally Posted by Thande

What the title says. Could the Berlin Blockade and Airlift have escalated into an early WW3, one in which nuclear weapons would probably not have played a major role? Or would one side or the other have inevitably backed down?

Well; there is always the possibility of Curtis LeMay's idea of throwing a convoy into East Germany and daring the Soviets to Act. Such a scenario could easily turn into at least a skirmish.

However, the Soviets are in a really rotten position--they have no nuclear weapons, their manpower for such a conflict will still be diminished owing to WW2 Casualties and the United States would almost certainly cut a deal with Germany and anyone else they can find to deal with the Reds.

Stalin may have been assassinated in OTL, and I'd think his removal would probably lead to a negotiated peace--one that would lead to either an icier cold war or one that might see the Soviets in no position to challenge the United States.

[Thande]

Originally Posted by Blue Max

Stalin may have been assassinated in OTL, and I'd think his removal would probably lead to a negotiated peace--one that would lead to either an icier cold war or one that might see the Soviets in no position to challenge the United States.

That would be interesting in itself. Given the choice, I wonder if the U.S. would prefer to kick the Soviets out of Eastern Europe or to force them to agree not to develop nuclear weapons.

(In the latter case, obviously they'd still do it anyway in secrecy, but it still hurts them because they can't use them as a deterrent in their rhetroic).

[JN1]

Originally Posted by Thande

What was Soviet AA like in their cities at this point? I know their AA directed at nuclear bombers was considered very good in the 50s, but had that been deployed by this point?

The first B-36s are in service by that point and they can fly high enough to avoid pretty much any defences that the Soviet have. The B-29s that make up the majority of SAC are more vulnerable, but the command still has the ability to seriously hurt the USSR while the Soviets can't hit back at all.

[Father Maryland]

Hmm I would expect the end result of this to be a nuclear massacre of russia. By today I would expect communism to be more or less dead and a general fear of the US to be in place. A nation willing to use three hundred nuclear devices over a city is not a nation to be trifled with.

[JN1]

I think it would be a case of the TBO scenario (http://www.tboverse.us/) with Nazi Germany replaced with the USSR.

[CalBear]

Possible?

Sure.

Not likely.

If it had happened it would have been really ugly. Red Army would have punched through the Allied armies in Europe like they weren't there, while the U.S. would have nuked the USSR into a dead zone.

[King Thomas]

Russia gets nuked and at least partly curbstomped.

[terence]

Originally Posted by Thande

I'm guessing you'd have to have a situation where, for example, the Soviets shadow American transport planes on the edge of the corridor to intimidate them, there's a mistake, it goes hot, planes get shot down, it escalates...

What was Soviet AA like in their cities at this point? I know their AA directed at nuclear bombers was considered very good in the 50s, but had that been deployed by this point?

FYI There was an operation called Project Robin in the mid 1950s. RAF Canberras ( before the CIAs U2 went into service) flew photo reconnasiance missions over Soviet Territory. The Russian defences identified the planes but the AA command and control was too slow to react and by the time the guns opened up, the Canberra was gone. The last RAF flights took place when the Russians introduced a new technique of just blasting off every AA gun that they had simultaneously along the track of the detected aircraft.

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Thanks for the story, terence. I looked it up and found this site, which appears to cover the incident pretty well.

Soviet air defenses didn't start to get really formidable until the mid-1960s, when widespread deployment of SAMs and the completion of Soviet air defense radar networks got things moving in a big way.

[HJ Tulp]

Originally Posted by CalBear

Possible?

Sure.

Not likely.

If it had happened it would have been really ugly. Red Army would have punched through the Allied armies in Europe like they weren't there, while the U.S. would have nuked the USSR into a dead zone.

Some Allied armies were in fact not there at all. The Dutch Army was at this point still fighting in the East Indies and the French (and possibly the British as well) were also embroilled in the colonies.

[Tuhachevskey]

Ok. i can give next reasons for Allies:
1) They had a lot of nukes
2) They had a lot of B-29\36
3) They experienced landeing operations like Overlord.
4) They aren't so exhausted after Ww2 as we.
For USSR:
1) We had a lot of troops in Europe- we can easily occupy it
2) Our troops and commanders experienced great offencive operations, like
Vistula- Oder offencive
3) We'll had nukes soon
4) We had MiGs-15\Mig-15bis\MiG-17---they could protect Soviet Sky from USAF.

[MacCaulay]

Originally Posted by Thande

I'm guessing you'd have to have a situation where, for example, the Soviets shadow American transport planes on the edge of the corridor to intimidate them, there's a mistake, it goes hot, planes get shot down, it escalates...

The Soviets actually freaked out at one point when an Il-somethingorother that was taking runs at a British transport plane going into Templehof collided with it.

I think What If? 2 mentions the collision, but I don't know if it makes any attempt to go into butterflies with it.

[Thande]

Originally Posted by MacCaulay

The Soviets actually freaked out at one point when an Il-somethingorother that was taking runs at a British transport plane going into Templehof collided with it.

I think What If? 2 mentions the collision, but I don't know if it makes any attempt to go into butterflies with it.

You know, I suspected you or one of the other military buffs were going to say that. The more I get into AH, the more it seems that everything possible actually happened in OTL, it's just that nothing came of 97% of it.

[MacCaulay]

Originally Posted by Thande

You know, I suspected you or one of the other military buffs were going to say that. The more I get into AH, the more it seems that everything possible actually happened in OTL, it's just that nothing came of 97% of it.

Someone should make an AH-wiki article about it. Call it the OTL Simpsons Rule.

From What If? 2 ed. by Robert Cowley:

The airlift option that was eventually selected may have made more sense than Clay's convoy, but it was hardly without its own risks. There was considerable concern that the Russians might try to shoot down the Allied planes or obstruct the lift in some other provocative way. Such concerns took on added urgency when, before the full lift was even operation, a Soviet fighter buzzed and then smashed into a British transport plane approaching Gatow airfield in the British sector. Both aircraft crashed, killing the Soviet pilot and fourteen passengers and crew on the British plane.

The "Clay's convoy" idea that is referred to is a plan put forward by US General Clay to send an armed convoy from western Germany by land to Berlin, though the Soviet sector.
General Bradley was on record as being against, remarking that "the Russians could stop an armed convoy without openning fire on it. Roads could be closed for repair or a bridge could go up just ahead of you and then another bridge behind you and you'd be in a hell of a fix."

[sloreck]

While the Red Army could start moving forward, once the USSR began to take nuke hits there would be serious problems. Also, in 1949 there were still large numbers of Poles who would jump at the chance to sabotage rail lines if encouraged to do so, and still some anti-communist partisan groups in the Ukraine. Western airpower would be a problem for the USSR, as it advanced the MiG-15's it may have had in East Germany were short-ranged, and it would take time to deploy them forward as the Sovs advanced.

In the end, you might have a large Soviet military force perhaps straddling the Rhine, but now cut off and with a homeland that glowed where it counted. Their choices would be surrender for the best terms they could get or keep fighting until ammo ran out & live off the land, and expect to shot if captured.