The Role of Air Power in pre-1950 NATO-Soviet War

[MBaker224]

(EDIT: I just realized after posting this that NATO wasn't a thing until 1949. Woops.)

I imagine a lot of ink has been spilled on the topic of Operation Unthinkable, but I'm not very active on these forums so I'm not sick of this topic yet. If there are some notable threads that have already tread this ground, feel free to point me in that direction.

A while back I commented on AlternateHistoryHub's Unthinkable video that his characterization of an early Cold-War-Gone-Hot scenario was overly reductive, and I wound up having a pretty interesting discussion in the YouTube comments.

The main idea of Alternate History Hub's video was that the Allies would have a disadvantage on the ground, but would just start nuking Soviet cities until the Soviets capitulated. This seems to be the common wisdom for what would have happened had the Soviets and Allies gone to war shortly after World War II.

But while the allies would have had a nuclear advantage in these early years, without strategic ICBMs they would have had to deliver their bombs via bombers. The Soviets had an air force, and air defenses. So in addition to a ground war, there would be a massive air battle over Europe to defend against and clear the way for nuclear bombers. It would hardly be an easy task for the Allies to nuke Moscow.

People responded by saying the Soviet Air Forces were largely tactical planes, and while they had been effective against the Luftwaffe, they would be poorly equipped (both technologically and doctrinally) to take down high altitude Allied bombers. This makes a lot of sense in broad strokes and I don't disagree, but I'm still unsatisfied with this answer.

The Soviets just got through steamrolling Nazi Germany, they weren't about to just lay down and get pummelled by the Allies just because their doctrine would require change for a new enemy. And what about lend-lease allied craft? I understand that lend-lease aircraft saw little use in the Soviet Union against the Luftwaffe, but would allied Bombers have to face Soviet P-51s over Russia?

(For the sake of argument let's say the war starts in 1947.)

We also went on a bit of tangent about how having to press WWII era craft into a new war might affect the development of air power for the next couple decades. We might see propeller driven aircraft stay in service longer just because it's easier to tweak existing designs in war time than it is to design new aircraft from the ground up. If anyone with more an aerospace engineering background could comment on this, I'd be really interested.

 

[Aber]

But while the allies would have had a nuclear advantage in these early years, without strategic ICBMs they would have had to deliver their bombs via bombers. The Soviets had an air force, and air defenses. So in addition to a ground war, there would be a massive air battle over Europe to defend against and clear the way for nuclear bombers. It would hardly be an easy task for the Allies to nuke Moscow.

The Soviet Union had massive weaknesses in:
- night fighters
- high altitude fighters ( lack of engine superchargers)

Leningrad, Baku and other peripheral cities are toast.

 

[MBaker224]

The Soviet Union had massive weaknesses in:
- night fighters
- high altitude fighters ( lack of engine superchargers)

Leningrad, Baku and other peripheral cities are toast.

Flying High Altitude reduces operational range, would that be a factor? At High Altitude he B-29 could carry 2,000 kg a radius of about 2,500 km if I remember right. The early nukes were heavier than that, weren't they?

 

[ennobee]

how practical/widespread was in-air refueling in 1947? With the Soviets controlling everything east of Berlin, the bombers would have to take off from England or Alaska. With only one tank filling, can a B-36 even reach Moscow? What about the new factory towns that the Soviets just built east of the Ural in 1942? Would they still be in range? Or would it be enough to just relocate the government to Stalingrad?

 

[Crowbar Six]

how practical/widespread was in-air refueling in 1947? With the Soviets controlling everything east of Berlin, the bombers would have to take off from England or Alaska. With only one tank filling, can a B-36 even reach Moscow? What about the new factory towns that the Soviets just built east of the Ural in 1942? Would they still be in range? Or would it be enough to just relocate the government to Stalingrad?

The US would have had access to UK bases in the Middle East including Iraq and Akrotiri that would have allowed them to reach a lot of targets in the Southern/Central USSR.

 

[MBaker224]

how practical/widespread was in-air refueling in 1947? With the Soviets controlling everything east of Berlin, the bombers would have to take off from England or Alaska. With only one tank filling, can a B-36 even reach Moscow? What about the new factory towns that the Soviets just built east of the Ural in 1942? Would they still be in range? Or would it be enough to just relocate the government to Stalingrad?

Aerial Refueling was in its infancy, but the Allies intended to field test it in World War II against Japan shortly before Japan Surrendered, so it's not outside the realm of possibility that aerial refueling might be used in an ATL World War III.

That said, Aerial Refueling in possibly contested airspace would make any Airman pretty nervous.

 

[ObssesedNuker]

(For the sake of argument let's say the war starts in 1947.)

​

1947? The WAllies get crushed, brutally, in the air as well as on the ground. In tactical air power, the demobilized WAllied forces are operating at a 3:1 numerical disadvantage while much of their supporting personnel and material have been demobilized. Anti-aircraft defenses had also been demobbed, with the equipment either junked or in storage and their crews returned home to the US or Britain, so airbases would be vulnerable to Soviet counter-air strikes. On the ground, the most favorable estimates for the WAllies show a 5:1 Soviet superiority in Europe across the board.

As for strategic air power, I highly recommend John M. Curatola's “Bigger Bombs for a Better Tomorrow”, which goes into exquisite detail, without sacrificing readibility, on just how ineffective the US strategic air arm in general and nuclear arsenal in particular was in the 1946-50 period. All the information I'm posting here is pulled from there. His assessments tended to be echoed by books like Steven Ross's "American War Plans, 1945-1950" or Raymond Ojserkis's "Beginnings of the Cold War Arms Race", although the latter does not directly focus very much on the state of the nuclear arsenal.

So, first: the arsenal. The earliest tentative USAAC/USAAF estimates drafted in 1945 said that to inflict a crippling blow on the Soviet Union they would need a minimum stockpile of 123 weapons and a ideal one of 466, a figure that would only grow with time. By the end of 1947, total US stockpile of bomb components (not full-on bombs, more on this in a moment) was 13, and further production was being bottlenecked by technical issues with the reactors needed to produce plutonium. The first generation of nuclear bombs, and their associated aircraft, were crude and unwieldy devices that took considerable time and preparation before usage. Yet the problem of assembling these early bombs took a host of specially trained teams that after the war the US had a critical shortage of. And even the bomb teams they did have were found to be woefully inadequate at assembling their weapons. The issue was so bad that the Atomic Energy Commission privately admitted that they were unable to assemble any of the bombs under wartime conditions. Just assembling bombs for the testing programs of Crossroads and Sandstone maxed out their capabilities. What's worse, the bombs were not under military control: they were under control of the civilian Atomic Energy Commission and were only to be released to military control after the bombs had been transported to the airbases and assembled by the aforementioned AEC teams. But the AEC was not on talking grounds with the military: the head of the AEC, David Lilienthal, was deeply suspicious of military personnel and vigorously opposed military influence in atomic decision-making. As a result coordination and communication between the AEC and the military was practically nonexistent. So not enough weapons which the people in charge of assembling the weapons, who aren't coordinating with the people in charge of delivering the weapons, can't be relied upon to put together. We're off to a great start!

So that's the bomb situation, how about aircraft? The number of atomic-capable aircraft available to the air force in 1947 was... 18 and these were all described as "well worn and beginning to show their age". But that's the total number. When one takes into account that 56 percent of US aircraft were out of commission at any given time by 1950 and this was a radical improvement over the earlier years as a result of a overhaul in maintenance practices in 1949, you're probably looking at somewhere below 1/3rd that number actually being available to fly. Never mind those which would be lost attempting to bomb their targets with their inadequately trained crews.

Speaking of which, there was a even grosser shortage of aircrews: during this time, the US only had 12 crews fully certified to fly nuclear strike missions. Yet even the certified crews training left something to be desired: they did not train for navigation over the East European and Russian landmass, they were trained in daylight when they were expected to deliver the weapons at night so as to minimize detection, and their practice with RADAR bombsights was basically as handheld as it get with the practice targets being outfitted with reflectors and the like. When Curtis LeMay took over SAC in late-1948, he proceeded to ask his crews them to perform a practice run in early-1949 against Dayton Ohio under realistic conditions. The results were a total fiasco: not one of the bombers achieved accuracy close enough to the target to even damage it, much less destroy it, with atomic bombs. A number had to abort or never even found the city at all! No wonder LeMay subsequently remarked that not one of his air crews were capable of doing a professional job. What's worse, they'd basically be flying blind: intelligence on what to target was execrable, relying on spotty interviews with German returnees and maps that were outdated when the Tsar was around. About 20% of the planned targets were simply out of range. And then there was the infrastructure problem. Most of the British and all of the Middle Eastern bases that the bombers were supposed to base out of had runways that were too short to support a B-29/50 carrying an atomic bomb, no facilities for the storage and assembly of atomic munition, the aforementioned paltry air defenses which made them vulnerable targets for Soviet counter-air strikes, and so-on. What's more, there was uncertainty whether the Middle Eastern bases could even be held against the expected Soviet ground assault into the Middle East.

And of course, they’ll face resistance. The USSR had established all-weather, 24-hour local air defense of all critical installations and facilities following the wars end and by 1947 the air defense system had grown to a national scale, a point emphasized just a year later when it was removed from the Soviet Artillery Directorate and made a independent branch of the armed forces. US ELINT was badly done (something which even the US itself recognized) and as a result underestimated Soviet radar capabilities in this period in both size and quality, a problem compounded by the fact that shortages of jammers, chaff, chaff dispensers, and electronic maintenance personnel rendered SAC's ECM capabilities only 35-percent effective from requirements. Conversely, the Soviets demonstrated the capability in jamming American navigation aids during the Berlin airlift, which would greatly compound navigation and accuracy issues for American crews already badly trained in such matters. Soviet radar operators were capable of vectoring Soviet fighters so as to achieve intercept at a distance of 70 miles from any given air defense station. Estimates on expected losses to enemy resistance at the time run gamut from 15 to 50%, even the lower ones would be crippling given the limited numbers of aircraft, bombs, and aircrews available. And given the poor training and support outlined above as well as the strength of Soviet air defense forces, it’s liable to be on the higher end as the lower-estimates tended to assume adequately-trained crews operating in sufficient numbers with sufficient support... all of which, as I've established, did not exist. This is without taking into account aircraft which go down or have to abort due to equipment failures: numbers forthere usually hover in the 20-25% range.

Given these deficiencies in the US's nuclear arsenal (not enough bombs, lack of crews for all tasks, lack of aircraft, inadequately trained crews, inadequate intelligence, unprepared forward bases), it's no wonder in that Curatola delivers the following judgement in his book: "In all, the ways in which the United States sought to defeat the Soviets by an atomic aerial offensive were poorly funded, ill-conceived, speciously planned, badly organized, and yet relentlessely optimistic." -Pg 134.

The US would be better off refraining from conducting any immediate atomic offensive and instead spend several years building up, retraining, re-equipping, and expanding the nuclear delivery force so as to overwhelm Soviet defenses. If it did attempt an immediate atomic offensive, which unfortunately is what the war plans of the era called for, the US nuclear delivery force's tiny size means even the most optimistic loss estimates would see it functionally destroyed and the US would have to rebuild it from scratch, an even longer process even with American economic power.

Here's a video lecture for those interested in learning more but not willing to shell out for the book:

 

[Broek]

For one thing a 1947 version of Operation Pike will be enacted leaving the USSR dangerously low on petroleum, oil and lubricants.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Pike#Germany_captures_Allied_plans

A 1947 war means a soviet union ravaged by the 1946 famine and all the material OTL used in Manchuria will have to be redeployed west again.
That said the west allies are will in a bad position, but i doubt the 1947 USSR has the resources for another war and smack down as
@ObssesedNuker suggests.

OTL the USSR also sent a lot of military home in 1945 and with the country still in shambles from the war i sincerely doubt that launch a successful invasion of western Europe.

 

[ObssesedNuker]

For one thing a 1947 version of Operation Pike will be enacted leaving the USSR dangerously low on petroleum, oil and lubricants.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Pike#Germany_captures_Allied_plans

With what bombers? What airfields? Supported by what infrastructure? How are they protected against Counter-air strikes or seizure by Soviet ground assault. Nothing’s in place to do anything like that and the Soviets have set-up new oil production installations in their interior by this point, with the Trans-Volga fields gaining the nickname “the Second Baku”. Pike’s generally regarded as militarily infeasible as well as strategically unsound.

A 1947 war means a soviet union ravaged by the 1946 famine and all the material OTL used in Manchuria will have to be redeployed west again.

The ‘46-‘47 famine, caused by issues in food distribution, killed people on the margins of Soviet society, but it didn’t do anything to the Soviets actual warfighting capabilities or even the reconstruction of Soviet industry. As for the odd claim about Manchuria... are you serious? It’s been two years since the war. Anglo-American demobilization left the Soviets with crushing conventional superiority in Central Europe by 1947 as it was.

OTL the USSR also sent a lot of military home in 1945 and with the country still in shambles from the war i sincerely doubt that launch a successful invasion of western Europe.

Oh, it could successfully invade Western Europe. There is zero doubt about that. Inside of three months was the common estimate bandied about by the American warplans in the ‘46-‘50 period. The real issue isn’t whether the Soviets could take Western Europe... it’s whether they could hold onto it in a protracted war.

 

[Broek]

With what bombers? What airfields? Supported by what infrastructure? How are they protected against Counter-air strikes or seizure by Soviet ground assault. Nothing’s in place to do anything like that and the Soviets have set-up new oil production installations in their interior by this point, with the Trans-Volga fields gaining the nickname “the Second Baku”. Pike’s generally regarded as militarily infeasible as well as strategically unsound.



The ‘46-‘47 famine, caused by issues in food distribution, killed people on the margins of Soviet society, but it didn’t do anything to the Soviets actual warfighting capabilities or even the reconstruction of Soviet industry. As for the odd claim about Manchuria... are you serious? It’s been two years since the war. Anglo-American demobilization left the Soviets with crushing conventional superiority in Central Europe by 1947 as it was.



Oh, it could successfully invade Western Europe. There is zero doubt about that. Inside of three months was the common estimate bandied about by the American warplans in the ‘46-‘50 period. The real issue isn’t whether the Soviets could take Western Europe... it’s whether they could hold onto it in a protracted war.

By the same account, what does the USSR have in place to stop any bombing of Baku.
Have to leave for work in a bit, but I'll gather more info on the available allied strategic resources in the Mediterranean and Greece when i get home.

 

[marathag]

and further production was being bottlenecked by technical issues with the reactors needed to produce plutonium.

Which is why after 1947, US used composite cores, both Pu and HEU

Uranium production was ramping up very quickly after the War

From the wiki
At that time, plutonium-239 supply was scarce. To lower its amount needed for a pit, a composite core was developed, where a hollow shell of plutonium was surrounded with an outer shell of then more plentiful highly enriched uranium. The composite cores were available for Mark 3 nuclear bombs by the end of 1947.[8] For example, a composite core for a US Mark 4 bomb, the 49-LCC-C core was made of 2.5 kg of plutonium and 5 kg of uranium. Its explosion releases only 35% of energy of the plutonium and 25% of the uranium, so it is not highly efficient, but the weight saving of plutonium is significant.[9]

Another factor for considering different pit materials is the different behavior of plutonium and uranium. Plutonium fissions faster and produces more neutrons, but it was then more expensive to produce, and scarce due to limitations of the available reactors. Uranium is slower to fission, so it can be assembled into a more supercritical mass, allowing higher yield of the weapon. A composite core was considered as early as of July 1945, and composite cores became available in 1946. The priority for Los Alamos then was the design of an all-uranium pit. The new pit designs were tested by the Operation Sandstone.

The plutonium-only core, with its high background neutron rate, had a high probability of predetonation, with reduced yield. Minimizing this probability required smaller mass of plutonium, which limited the achievable yield to about 10 kt, or using highly pure plutonium-239 with impractically low level of plutonium-240 contamination. The advantage of the composite core was the possibility to maintain higher yields while keeping predetonation risk low, and to utilize both available fissile materials. The yield limitation was rendered irrelevant in mid-1950s with the advent of fusion boosting, and later with using of fusion weapons.[10]
...
The pit can be composed of plutonium-239, plutonium-239/uranium-235 composite, or uranium-235 only. Plutonium is the most common choice, but e.g. the Violet Club bomb and Orange Herald warhead used massive hollow pits, consisting of 87 and 117 kg (98 and 125 kg according to other sources) of highly enriched uranium. The Green Grass fission core consisted of a sphere of highly enriched uranium, with inner diameter of 560 mm, wall thickness of 3.6 mm and mass of 70–86 kg; the pit was completely supported by the surrounding natural uranium tamper. Such massive pits, consisting of more than one critical mass of fissile material, present a significant safety risk, as even an asymmetrical detonation of the implosion shell may cause a kiloton-range explosion.[12] The largest-yield pure-fission weapon, the 500-kiloton Mark 18 nuclear bomb, used a hollow pit composed of more than 60 kg of highly enriched uranium, about four critical masses; the safing was done with an aluminium–boron chain inserted in the pit.

 

[marathag]

The USSR had established all-weather, 24-hour local air defense of all critical installations and facilities following the wars end and by 1947 the air defense system had grown to a national scale, a point emphasized just a year later when it was removed from the Soviet Artillery Directorate and made a independent branch of the armed forces.

The Radars the Soviets were using before the Korean War were not impressive

The P-3 was a 150km Radar, and the Korean War P-8 was 250km, and there was issues producing the number of P-3s

Chain Home in 1936 was doing 130km

 

[GDIS Pathe]

IIRC the main problem was with the Red Air Force was that it was optimized for low-level ops due to the general situation of air warfare on the Eastern front generally taking place at altitudes below 20,000ft which is one of the reasons why the P39 was so successful other the hand the RAF and USAAF generall fought at altitudes above 20,00ft due to the fact the CBO was basically forcing the LW to fight. Soviet aircraft were IIRC generally hell on wheels below 15k ft and kittens on a stick above 20k so there is the stickler by the time the Red Airforce developed a plane that could overcome that well the Jet Age had arrived in full.

And considering the date unless the Wallies did some rapid mobilization they're fucked by the fact that the Red Army would roll them out to the sea due to the post-war demob

 

[Aber]

And considering the date unless the Wallies did some rapid mobilization they're fucked by the fact that the Red Army would roll them out to the sea due to the post-war demob

Strangely enough the Red Army also demobilised.

One of the difficulties of discussing this time period is US intelligence (and the war plans based on them) massively overstated the strength of Soviet forces, and there is limited information available from the Soviet side on the true position.

 

[ObssesedNuker]

By the same account, what does the USSR have in place to stop any bombing of Baku.

Multiple fighter regiments and anti-aircraft guns as well as a network of air defense stations for their coordination.

Have to leave for work in a bit, but I'll gather more info on the available allied strategic resources in the Mediterranean and Greece when i get home.

There aren't any. The vulnerability of Greece and the European side of the Mediterranean caused the US to write it off. The intended bases for strategic bombing runs against the southern USSR were in the Egyptian-Suez region were unprepared and might even have been unavailable if Egypt declares neutrality (and the Soviets respect it).

Which is why after 1947, US used composite cores, both Pu and HEU

Uranium production was ramping up very quickly after the War

I like how your chart contradicts your claim. While it shows U-235 production increasing to ~1,500 kilograms by 1946, it then stays there (give or take a few hundred) for the next five years... it doesn't ramp up further until 1952. This fits with a remark by Edward Teller who observed "In the period between 1945 and 1949 we didn't get anywhere in our atomic production program in any direction. We didn't expand our production of uranium very much. We didn't really get going on any reactor program." Curatola observes that composite cores in this period allowed the US to stretch their stockpile of plutonium but did not full compensate for the shortage. Nor does it do anything for the issue of inadequate numbers of bomb assembly teams with inadequate training. Having bomb components means nothing if they can't be assembled into actual bombs.

IIRC the main problem was with the Red Air Force was that it was optimized for low-level ops due to the general situation of air warfare on the Eastern front generally taking place at altitudes below 20,000ft which is one of the reasons why the P39 was so successful other the hand the RAF and USAAF generall fought at altitudes above 20,00ft due to the fact the CBO was basically forcing the LW to fight. Soviet aircraft were IIRC generally hell on wheels below 15k ft and kittens on a stick above 20k so there is the stickler by the time the Red Airforce developed a plane that could overcome that well the Jet Age had arrived in full.

By 1947, the Soviets have multiple planes in the inventory capable of more then adequate high-altitude interception of the unescorted bombers the US would be throwing at them.

The Radars the Soviets were using before the Korean War were not impressive

They could do the job in the face of what the Americans can do. That’s all that matters.

Strangely enough the Red Army also demobilised.

One of the difficulties of discussing this time period is US intelligence (and the war plans based on them) massively overstated the strength of Soviet forces, and there is limited information available from the Soviet side on the true position.

Despite demobilization, the Red Army retained much of it's wartime power. Multiple authors have commented that the qualitative improvements to the armed forces in the immediate aftermath of the war offset, rendering the 175 division strong Red Army as powerful as the 500-division strong wartime Red Army. The information I used in my post is based on post-Cold War studies, not period US intelligence, using information from the Soviet side which have generally confirmed the Soviets overwhelming superiority in forces. I've read a (translated) Russian study about military power ("Soviet military plans and actions during the first Berlin crisis, 1948–49") during the Berlin airlift which observed much the same. Some select quotes from that:

As far as the capabilities and potential of the GSOVG [Group of Soviet Forces Germany] during the Berlin Blockade is concerned, analysis indicates that the Group's forces were more than sufficient to perform the tasks assigned to them. A lasting tradition predominated in the Soviet Armed Forces and the Soviet Union as a whole throughout the postwar years and right up to the final months of the Soviet Union's existence. That tradition demanded that the finest forces, personnel (officers and enlisted men), combat and logistical equipment, resources, and materiel be assigned to the GSOVG. This was justified by GSOVG's critical strategic location (in the heart of central Europe) and the forces' strategic and political significance. As Marshal of the Soviet Union Bulganin, the Soviet Minister of Defense, said in 1948, 'The GSOVG is the advance guard of the Soviet Armed Forces employed for service far from the borders of the Motherland, in circumstances of direct contact with American, British and [other] foreign forces.'
…
Some material exists regarding the strength of the GSOVG and the organization and functioning of its headquarters and staff during the Berlin crisis and thereafter. According to General Ivanov, the overall strength of the GSOVG fluctuated from 500,000 to one million soldiers and officers between the end of the 1940s and the early 1980s, not counting the large number of enlisted men who were demobilized during the first few years after the end of the war. Later, in the mid-1980s, the Group's total strength decreased to around 370,000 men. In addition, another 15,000 servicemen (military and civilian) were assigned to the Soviet Military Administration in Germany (SVAG).

The quality of the GSOVG's headquarters and staff in 1948 and 1949 was rather high. The mass demobilization process had been completed early in the post-war period. Older age soldiers and the wounded and sick had been retired and returned to their homes in the Soviet Union. On the other hand, there were many young veterans of World War II in Soviet forces who had been called up for service during the final period of the war and who possessed considerable combat experience. The GSOVG's officer cadre was of high quality since almost all of them had extensive combat experience. Only the lieutenants and senior lieutenants who had graduated from military schools during 1944 and 1945 had not taken part in wartime operations. Marshal Sokolovsky, Marshal V. I. Chuikov (the hero of Stalingrad and Sokolovsky's successor in the post of GSOVG commander-in-chief), Colonel General S. P. Ivanov (hero of the Far East in 1945), and other senior leaders in the GSOVG belonged among the elite command cadre of the Soviet Armed Forces. In addition, most field exercises and combat training in GSOVG were conducted on the basis of World War II combat experience. In the post-war years this training was starkly realistic.
...
Even a brief comparison of these opposing strengths leads to the conclusion that Soviet conventional forces in Germany, and in Europe as a whole, were considerably superior in terms of overall strength, firepower, combat potential, and combat capabilities to opposing Western forces stationed in the region during the Berlin blockade.

 

[Aber]

By 1947, the Soviets have multiple planes in the inventory capable of more then adequate high-altitude interception of the unescorted bombers the US would be throwing at them.

Name them, especially the ones that would be operating at night

Despite demobilization, the Red Army retained much of it's wartime power. Multiple authors have commented that the qualitative improvements to the armed forces in the immediate aftermath of the war offset, rendering the 175 division strong Red Army as powerful as the 500-division strong wartime Red Army. The information I used in my post is based on post-Cold War studies, not period US intelligence, using information from the Soviet side which have generally confirmed the Soviets overwhelming superiority in forces. I've read a (translated) Russian study about military power ("Soviet military plans and actions during the first Berlin crisis, 1948–49") during the Berlin airlift which observed much the same. Some select quotes from that:

You're quoting a Soviet study about how awesome they are.

A more realistic estimate of Soviet strength in 1948:
Full strength 60
Partial-strength 58
Cadre 57
(with a full strength division of less than 12000 men, and a division slice of less than 15000).

of which no more than 30 are deployed in Eastern Europe. The Soviet deployment of forces also appears to have been defensive in orientation.

 

[ObssesedNuker]

Name them, especially the ones that would be operating at night

High-altitude variants of the La-7, YaK-9, and La-9 all existed in this time period and could, with coordination from air defense stations, operate at night. The MiG-9, a jet fighter, had been in service for a year at this point and also had good high-altitude performance and could operate at night.

But let's flip this question around: how are the American atomic bomber pilots supposed to successfully operate at night given that their training in this period was exclusively daytime, they were not trained in long-range navigation (especially at night), and they lacked the requisite navigation aids?

You're quoting a Soviet study about how awesome they are.

I like how you tried to claim that strength of the Russians is exaggerated because no Russian sources back them up yet when I cite a Russian source which does analyze their own strength relative to that of the Americans and backs up the overall strength of Soviet power you try to dismiss it on the basis that it's a Russian source. Nicely dishonest of you.

A more realistic estimate of Soviet strength in 1948:
Full strength 60
Partial-strength 58
Cadre 57
(with a full strength division of less than 12000 men, and a division slice of less than 15000).

What this leaves out is (A) the timespan with which the partial and cadre strengths would be up to full strength and (B) the opposition they'd be expected to face. I'll get to the former in a moment, but the latter would be 10 and 20 days, respectively. Also your divisional slice figure is rather inaccurate.

of which no more than 30 are deployed in Eastern Europe. The Soviet deployment of forces also appears to have been defensive in orientation.

Of course all 30 of those divisions are full strength ones. Now let's look at the other side of the equation. Total number of American divisions worldwide in 1945-1950 were 14 divisions, of which only 1 was deemed full strength and it was deployed in the CONUS. The Americans had a single division in Germany which was only at half-combat readiness. The evidence is clear: in divisional terms, the Americans are outweighed 30:1 even before the unreadiness of the American division is factored in. And since the OP is positing the Soviets attacking, obviously their deployments would have shifted to match.

 

[History Learner]

Deficiency in U.S. nuclear capabilities are spot on but in 1947 the Soviets are just now introducing effective domestic high altitude fighters and lack the AV Gas as well as spare parts to maintain them. The Soviet economy and military was also simply unable at this time to conduct a war, no matter what advantages they possessed on paper:

Beginnings of the Cold War Arms Race: The Truman Administration and the U.S. Arms Build-Up by Raymond P. Ojserkis

"There was evidence indicating that the Soviet economy was weak. Even the Soviet government's published statistics, which were thought to be generally exaggerated, revealed an economy far behind the west. Soviet diplomatic actions in the immediate post-war period, whether in the form of attempts to gain more favorable conditions for Lend-Lease payments, Soviet lobbying for a large German reparations payment, Soviet demands to gain Austrian oil, or the transportation of basic infrastructure from conquered eastern Europe to the Soviet Union all indicated economic deficiencies. General Walter Bedell Smith, a future head of the Central Intelligence Agency, estimated that it would be another 10 to 15 years before the Soviets had recovered from the last war. The CIA's Office of Research and Estimates (ORE) tried to appraise the Soviet Union in terms of war potential, looking at the industrial strength, technology, and possible bottlenecks to increased production. The ORE concluded that Soviet economic weaknesses gravely limited the ability of Moscow to fight a prolonged war with the North Atlantic Treaty nations."

"In particular, American analysts felt that the Soviet petroleum industry would find it difficult to produce enough high octane fuel, the Soviet machine tool industry did not produce enough spare parts, there was insufficient rolling stock to handle war time needs in the USSR, and the Soviets had perennial shortages of certain non-ferrous metals and certain types of finished steel. Complicating these problems, and, to an extent, causing them, were the Soviet deficiencies in properly trained technological personnel and managers."

The West does not need to enforce a major campaign of nuclear bombings to defeat the USSR, it only needs to bomb Baku and then three targets in Poland:

 

[ObssesedNuker]

Deficiency in U.S. nuclear capabilities are spot on but in 1947 the Soviets are just now introducing effective domestic high altitude fighters

I have already extensively outlined Soviet air defense capabilities in the late-40's.

and lack the AV Gas

The Soviets would certainly be producing more then enough avgas to meet their airforces demands by '47. The Siberian Plant alone would be able to do that.

Beginnings of the Cold War Arms Race: The Truman Administration and the U.S. Arms Build-Up by Raymond P. Ojserkis

That's from a section labelled "The Truman Administration's Perceptions of Soviet Military Capabilities" and focuses purely on the economics of the matter. It comes after a section where Ojserski directly contradicts your claim that the Soviet military wasn't ready for war. Then later on, he has a section labelled "The Accuracy of the Truman Administration's Perceptions of Soviet Military Capabilities":

There are two questions that must be answered in order to judge the accuracy of the Truman administration's perceptions of the Soviets: Were Soviet conventional military forces much stronger than those of the West between 1946 and 1950? Was the Soviet leadership considering military action in Central Europe in the near-future? The answer to the first question is yes, and to the second is no." -Pg 35

He also extensively highlights the inaccuracy of CIA reports, spending most of two pages (pg 33-34) pointing out their flaws and notes that military intelligence services were little better. He further notes that American economic advantages while real would not lead to an rapid-about turn in the fortunes of war, but rather it would lead to a gradual turning of the tide in favor of the US. An analogy can be found in Nazis Germany, whose economy was also not ready for a protracted war describes Nazi Germany's economy in 1939 just as well and that did not prevent the Germans from overrunning Europe and then engaging in another five years of protracted war that left tens of millions dead, with the overall turning of the tide taking about two-and-a-half years to occur, even if they were ultimately defeated.

The West does not need to enforce a major campaign of nuclear bombings to defeat the USSR, it only needs to bomb Baku and then three targets in Poland:

I'm not seeing what three targets there are that would sever the rail net to a degree that would effectively sever Soviet logistical lines. All those side-lines give the Soviets plenty of capacity to switch between the main lines even if the big centers are nuked... that's why such sidelines exist. Nor am I to understand how the Americans are to suddenly successfully bomb them given their deficiencies and Soviet air defense efforts. In any case, the idea that the West would not need a major atomic bombing campaign to defeat the USSR is something that both American and Soviet strategists at the time disagreed with. In fact, given that both sides had a reasonably good knowledge of Americans nuclear weakness, both sides even frankly admitted that a major atomic bombing campaign would not by itself be adequate to win the war.

 

[Broek]

Multiple fighter regiments and anti-aircraft guns as well as a network of air defense stations for their coordination.

There aren't any. The vulnerability of Greece and the European side of the Mediterranean caused the US to write it off. The intended bases for strategic bombing runs against the southern USSR were in the Egyptian-Suez region were unprepared and might even have been unavailable if Egypt declares neutrality (and the Soviets respect it).

The overall effectiveness of soviet radar coverage and ability during and shortly after the second world war remains a point of debate to this day.
There is honestly a severe lack of unbiased data on the subject. What we do know is that the soviet air force had absolutely 0 (zero) experience in dealing with strategic bombing because they never experienced it during the second world war.

What we do know is that the US had B-29 on rotation through Europe from 1946 onward.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unite...#Rotation_of_strategic_bombers_through_Europe

Considering just how easy a target the Baku oilfields are the odds of the soviets stopping or even blunting an operation Pike style assault are remote.
It's not to say that the soviet air force had not made significant gains during the second world war, but they were simply unprepared for the task at hand if they would have had to counter strategic bombing.

Remember that in 1947 jet fighters were still in their infancy and short ranged. Soviet fighter aircraft during WW2 never had faced high flying bomber formations and the few experiments into high flying interceptors were never put into production.

In the 1950's it was a whole different ballgame, but in 1947 the soviet air force was simply lacking against high flying bombers.