Could the USSR of with stood a bombing campain like the Western Allies did in WWII

How long would the USSR of lasted it they were attacked with Bombers like the Axis Powers were . Which of there Aircraft would they of used to go after the bombers . Remember the USSR air force was organized as a tactical Air force during WWII .
 
How long would the USSR of lasted it they were attacked with Bombers like the Axis Powers were . Which of there Aircraft would they of used to go after the bombers . Remember the USSR air force was organized as a tactical Air force during WWII .

Assuming we're talking world war 2 aircraft, a strategic bombing campaign against Russia is going to be near impossible, just by the sheer size of Russia.

Even assuming airbases in China, Japan, along with western europe, the middle east, and India, you're not going to put a dent in Russian industrial output. It's far too spread out, and even with all the previously listed air bases you wouldn't even be able to reach them all.

There's a reason the majority of the Russian airforce was dedicated to tactical support. the Red Army was a juggernaut that would be unleashed to crush the allies if they tried to wage this kind of campaign.
 
I think it would be quite possible to hurt the Soviet Union's military-industrial complex. Think about it this way: for the Soviets to defend their cities, their fighters will have to be spread out across their whole nation. The Germans got away with point defense because their nation was smaller. The Soviets will have a much harder time trying to efficiently defend their industry.

Assuming, of course, that the Red Army doesn't capture/obliterate the airbases that are being used against the USSR.
 
Assuming we're talking world war 2 aircraft, a strategic bombing campaign against Russia is going to be near impossible, just by the sheer size of Russia.

Even assuming airbases in China, Japan, along with western europe, the middle east, and India, you're not going to put a dent in Russian industrial output. It's far too spread out, and even with all the previously listed air bases you wouldn't even be able to reach them all.

There's a reason the majority of the Russian airforce was dedicated to tactical support. the Red Army was a juggernaut that would be unleashed to crush the allies if they tried to wage this kind of campaign.

Actually World War II Soviet factories were huge, concentrated targets--extremely efficient because of their gigantic size, but also vulnerable because of it. The big obstacles to a western strategic bombing campaign against the Soviet Union during the World War II time-frame, which I assume is what we're talking here, is distance from potential Allied bases.

Scenario one: Germany and USSR go from being tacit allies to actual ones rather than going to war with one another. Unlikely given the distrust and the megalomaniac personalities running the two countries, but not impossible I guess. Getting the the USSR's industries would mean going over German-occupied France, Germany, Poland, and a lot of Soviet farmland. Not feasible without footholds on the continent until you get to something like the B36, and I'm not sure even that would do it. I suppose you could come over from Iraq, but the Soviets would probably come through Iran after bases there.

Scenario two: Germany folds. Soviets and Allies go after one another. You still have to go across East German and Poland. There the B36 might get to at least some of the targets. Not sure off the top of my head. I would have to plot ranges and look at where the key industries are.
 
What might the effects be of a successful Japanese bombing campaign against the Russian cities in the Far East?
 
They had the bombers, both JAAF and JNAF. The Japanese could've hit ever city on the Trans-Siberian RR from Chita on east. The only problem was that the JAAF bombers didn't carry much more than a ton of bombs, and the JNAF bombers not much more than that. The JNAF did have a four-engined heavy bomber, the G8N Rita, but only two were produced before the war ended.

The other issue re: Western Allies v. the USSR is that target locations in the USSR East of the Urals were unknown in many instances. There would have had to be recon flights with RB-29s or RB-36s to penetrate East of the Urals to find targets before unleashing the B-29s and B-36s (bases in Pakistan, the Middle East, as well as the Far East were needed in this scenario). Indeed, some targets weren't found out until the U-2 overflights, and others weren't precisely located until the first photo-recon satellites in the early '60s.
 
Why do people use "could of" when they mean "could have"? :confused:

Why do people use the word "there" when they really mean "their"?

Why do they use the word "and" instead of "an"?

Why do they use "a" instead of "an" when an "an" is required?

Because they are ill-educated and unable to express themselves properly. Oh, and they are human beings who make mistakes - some because of poor or bad education, some merely because they are ignorant. They should be tolerated. They are merely products of a modern education system which has given up education as its raison de'entre' in lieu of child-minding and "social consciousness raising".

However, what really get's my goat is mispellings in an age of spell checkers. :rolleyes:
 
Why do people use the word "there" when they really mean "their"?

Why do they use the word "and" instead of "an"?

Why do they use "a" instead of "an" when an "an" is required?

Because they are ill-educated and unable to express themselves properly. Oh, and they are human beings who make mistakes - some because of poor or bad education, some merely because they are ignorant. They should be tolerated. They are merely products of a modern education system which has given up education as its raison de'entre' in lieu of child-minding and "social consciousness raising".

However, what really get's my goat is mispellings in an age of spell checkers. :rolleyes:

Misspellings - especially systematic ones - are annoying. Especially to detail sticklers like me.

However, I hope very much that the two misspellings in your last line are intentional:rolleyes:
 
Depends on the timeframe due to 1) different bombers available at different times, 2) different airbases available ditto

In general, Britain and France would have bases in Syria and Iraq, and the ability to use those in Persia, so Soviet infrastructure in the Caucasus and maybe (depending on when) Turkmenistan could be brought within range. I don't really see the Red Army being able to roll into those.

Later, of course, the USN has carrier battlefleets, so in theory bases in the Arctic would be in range - eg Molotovsk, Archangelsk

The centre of the USSR would be the main problem, well over and above the fact that whilst much of the rest would be within range one way or another, it would be quite some feat to amass the fleets and aircraft to hit them all at the same time

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
Misspellings - especially systematic ones - are annoying. Especially to detail sticklers like me.

However, I hope very much that the two misspellings in your last line are intentional:rolleyes:

Probably not, even I missspell things on occasion.:D Notice Rickshaw's post doesn't say anything about the wrong apostraphes.
 
Why do people use the word "there" when they really mean "their"?

Why do they use the word "and" instead of "an"?

Why do they use "a" instead of "an" when an "an" is required?

Because they are ill-educated and unable to express themselves properly. Oh, and they are human beings who make mistakes - some because of poor or bad education, some merely because they are ignorant. They should be tolerated. They are merely products of a modern education system which has given up education as its raison de'entre' in lieu of child-minding and "social consciousness raising".

However, what really get's my goat is mispellings in an age of spell checkers. :rolleyes:


Just think of an alot...

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Anyway, back on topic. One must consider the mentalities and intentions of the parties involved would be. A conflict between the Western Allies and the Soviets would not be the same as what happened during WWII IOTL. As such the military strategies adopted would be different.

Stalin, or whoever would be running the show in the Kremlin most likely wouldn't be so insane as to fight to the very end, and an unconditional surrender would probably not be on the table. As such, the Western Allies would most likely not be trying to conquer the USSR as it wouldn't be necessary, they would just need to get the Soviets to call it quits, which probably could have been done by simply taking some of the western part of Russia proper.

As such a strategic bombing campaign wouldn't need to completely cripple the Soviet industrial base, just keep them from being able to maintain offensives into Europe. Now a late 40's WWIII situation is right out due to the presence of nukes, so let's assume a Red Alert type scenario where Germany doesn't go Nazi.

Let's say that the Soviets start to go on the offensive some time in the late 30's, maybe it starts as a Soviet-Polish conflict that quickly expands, or maybe something like the Winter War. You'd probably get a rather large European Coalition involving most of europe all the way from Poland to France. Let's assume that while the US isn't a direct combatant, it is supplying the Allies with weapons and equipment. So, you'll probably have a rather large inventory of long range multi-engine bombers.

The Soviets at the time were behind the western powers in terms or aircraft, so the air war is most likely going to go in the Allies favor. I suppose that this means that the Allies will have free reign over Russia by the second or third year of the war. At this point the Allies don't need to wipe out Soviet industrial capacity, they just need to prevent it from being used effectively to supply Red Army offensives into Europe. So I would imagine constant bombing of Baku in the Caucuses, as well as constant bombing of railroad lines(moscow will get considerable attention for obvious reasons).
 
Er......German aircraft *did* bomb Soviet cities in that style, particularly in 1941-3 when they had virtual air superiority. This was partially why factories were moved to the Urals, where the USSR would have had to be pushing up daisies for the Germans to reach. The results of that terror-bombing of Soviet cities can be seen in that the Soviets won the war and the German bombings of Leningrad and Moscow and other Soviet cities are all but forgotten in the West.
 
Well in a scenario where the Allies are attacking Russia (I have to assume this is the case because I think that it is highly improbable for the Allies to reach Russia if the Russians attack first, they would definitely get at least to Germany and have the Polish buffer before they were stopped) it would heavily depend on the Russian response and how many airbases they could take.

Scenario 1: The Allies wish to strategically bomb Russia before a ground offensive. The Russians attack in an attempt to take the airbases, Allies mount defensive stance on a campaign to hold the line as bombers start damaging Russian industry. Three of so years of this and we'll assume Russian factories and rail lines have been damaged enough that it gives the Allies a significant enough material edge and the Russians have depleted their forces in fruitless ground attacks so the Allies move in at a good pace. Russia sues for peace and must demilitarize.

Scenario 2: The Allies launch a full scale air and ground attack. Russians may be inferior in aircraft quality but not quantity. Russian armored forces smash allied spear heads and push them back while the bombing campaign is a strategic failure as it does not affect the Russian industry widely enough to seriously slow down their military momentum and Russian sheer numbers swamp the Allied armies.
 
Well in a scenario where the Allies are attacking Russia (I have to assume this is the case because I think that it is highly improbable for the Allies to reach Russia if the Russians attack first, they would definitely get at least to Germany and have the Polish buffer before they were stopped) it would heavily depend on the Russian response and how many airbases they could take.

Scenario 1: The Allies wish to strategically bomb Russia before a ground offensive. The Russians attack in an attempt to take the airbases, Allies mount defensive stance on a campaign to hold the line as bombers start damaging Russian industry. Three of so years of this and we'll assume Russian factories and rail lines have been damaged enough that it gives the Allies a significant enough material edge and the Russians have depleted their forces in fruitless ground attacks so the Allies move in at a good pace. Russia sues for peace and must demilitarize.

Scenario 2: The Allies launch a full scale air and ground attack. Russians may be inferior in aircraft quality but not quantity. Russian armored forces smash allied spear heads and push them back while the bombing campaign is a strategic failure as it does not affect the Russian industry widely enough to seriously slow down their military momentum and Russian sheer numbers swamp the Allied armies.

You forget that the Red army only became the steamroller that it did following the disasters of the Soviet Polish conflict, Winter war, and early months of Barbarossa. This TL would have to have the war happen without those experiences beforehand(post WWII has nukes which throws this scenario completely out the window).
 
The move East put some or much industry out of reach, but there was still plenty which was overrun, and more which was bombed or threatened.

Assuming the Germans had a significant (300+) heavy and semi-independent bomber force available in 1941 then it would have given significant assistance to the overall campaign against the USSR. From starting position it could have bombed places like Minsk, Leningrad and Kiev and from advanced railheads it could have bombed beyond Moscow and the Caucus. This wouldn't do the Soviets any favours at a time when their armies were reeling in massive defeats. I don't know if it would be enough to get the Wehrmacht into Moscow or whatever, but if the force existed it would be a serious problem for the Soviets, if only because it would make it difficult to control the population in rear areas.
 
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