tallthinkev
Donor
1,500 miles? Surely there will be bases and depots that are much nearer. Doesn't have to come from the USSR., as long as railways are kept going it not a big deal. There we be 10,000's of men to fix them, even at gunpoint.
If the USSR start a war in the 1947-1948 period what happens?
- Thread starter Malone
- Start date
For this to happen you need someone who isn't Stalin in charge. Stalin wanted peaceful coexistence because he was knackered and wanted to focus on domestic matters.
Operation Dropshot wasnt a thing until 1949
In 1945 the US prepared Plan Totality which they leaked as a disinformation threat, because it was a deliberate exaggeration of their nuclear capabilities. The USSR needs to see through this or the US nuclear weapons programme needs to be delayed to the point that Nukes are not used on Japan. So we are probably looking at multiple POD's.
Does anyone know how many warheads the US had OTL in 1947-1948? In 1946 they had 9. In planning Operation Dropshot they thought they needed 300 to decisively defeat the USSR.
Both sides get tired quickly and sue for peace. Neither public wants another long war and public pressure forces a relatively quick settlement. Maybe the USSR ends up with the whole of Germany, Denmark and The Middle East? Getting nuked means they prioritise their own nuclear weapons programme even more than they did OTL and get their own nukes faster.
Operation Dropshot wasnt a thing until 1949
In 1945 the US prepared Plan Totality which they leaked as a disinformation threat, because it was a deliberate exaggeration of their nuclear capabilities. The USSR needs to see through this or the US nuclear weapons programme needs to be delayed to the point that Nukes are not used on Japan. So we are probably looking at multiple POD's.
Does anyone know how many warheads the US had OTL in 1947-1948? In 1946 they had 9. In planning Operation Dropshot they thought they needed 300 to decisively defeat the USSR.
Both sides get tired quickly and sue for peace. Neither public wants another long war and public pressure forces a relatively quick settlement. Maybe the USSR ends up with the whole of Germany, Denmark and The Middle East? Getting nuked means they prioritise their own nuclear weapons programme even more than they did OTL and get their own nukes faster.
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1947: 13 nuclear bombs
1948: 50 nuclear bombs
Source:
13 the USSR can absorb. 50 would be nasty but would be nowhere near a knockout blow (at least according to those who planned Dropshot). Hopefully war-weary publics on both sides would force a quick peace before too many nuclear weapons were used.
Looking at that document the Russians got the bomb just in time and we are lucky they got it as quick as they did. In the event of no Russian Bomb by 1950 and the US has 299, I think they would have pulled the trigger.
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Lucky to avoid another very destructive war. And to have a counter weight to the US Superpower.
Dunno - it may just be me now - put it up on Chat. However, I doubt many in 1945-50 Europe wanted another war then. Or indeed at any time thereafter.
@ObssesedNuker, do you have any thoughts on the relevance of the Soviet Nuclear Programm in a typical "Long War starting over the Berlin Blockade" scenario? I am under the impression it would be essentially irrelevant, as I think of early nuclear programs as slow to gain operational usefulness and vulnerable to disruption, but I might be wrong.
Looking at day 1 is slightly deceptive, since the Soviets planned to mobilize some 5 million men just in the first month of a war. Nobody in the West had a similar system for rapid mobilization in place.
I think it’d be reach completion, but it’d be “too little, too late” sort of manner. The Anglo-Americans don’t have the intelligence to go after it or even to know where to start looking, so it’ll probably reach fruition in mid-1949, like OTL. The problem is... well, it only produced three bombs in 1949 (including the test device). A trio (or duo if the Soviets still expend a weapon in a test) of 20 kiloton devices aren’t going to make much of an impression even ignoring that after a year of conflict, British air defenses would have remobilized and would make successful delivery a struggle, especially since the Soviets only ever built 14 Tu-4 “Atomics”.
Additionally, these first Soviet bombs were carbon copies of the Mk-III, with all the difficulties that entails. So while they probably won’t be totally irrelevant, their impact on the war will probably still be low.
They did expand from 1939 onwwards, they annexed several states and puppeted others.
Also they attempted to co-opt elections in Italy, France and most notably, Czechoslovakia.
Yes, although most of the territory seized had been part of Tsarist Russia. Control of Eastern Europe was mostly as a defensive glacis against the WAllies and a revived Germany. Understandable and what both the UK and US had agreed at Yalta.
Interference in elections was a two way street. The CIA supported right wing parties in Italy, France and others with money, Black Propaganda and Dirty Tricks. Dunno if Britain was involved in these but it wouldn't be a surprise if they had.
Actually it is a huge deal, incredibly destructive to ongoing operations on either offense or defense.
The WAllies ran into significant issues within a few hundred miles of the French coast due to fuel starvation. They eventually solved the supply issues with a mainly above ground pipeline, but it wasn't really resolved until the took Antwerp and reduced the length of the tail, and that was without having any jackasses hitting their supply depots with 300 or 400 plane air attacks (with each aircraft carrying five times the bomb load of the B-17/B-24 (or about 10x if the B-36 has entered service) the WAllies also will have clouds of escorts, but late model P-51s and P-47s as well as P-80C (at least as far as Berlin), F-82, F6F, F4U, and F7F (after the initial clashes USN Air is going to be sort of at loose ends, freeing up thousands of fighter/bombers). Baku itself in within ESCORTED range of B-29s and Lincolns flying out of the Middle East/Crete/Cyprus (all of which are well out of range of Soviet air power)
Soviet forces would need to transport fuel from the VOLGA or out of Romania all the way to the front. Weapons and munitions, in large part, from the Urals. And would have to do all of that without a reliable source of spare parts for their overwhelmingly American (via Lend-Lease) trucks. Keep in mind that these are early 1940 engines, the sparkplugs and points last, if you are lucky, about 5,000 miles (God knows I changed enough of both on a 57 Chevy truck engine in my misspent youth). It is really very difficult to "fill 'er up with Champions" when the single supply point is in a shooting war with you.
Every mile of that supply line is vulnerable to WAllies air attack. Every Studebaker or Ford that gets knocked out is literally irreplaceable.
The Soviet do great right up to when reality grabs them by the vertical smile and won't let go.
My classmate whose parents escaped from Hungary (with each parent taking two of the kids separately just in case) would beg to differ. So would the population of Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, East Germany, the Baltic States, etc.
I always go back to what happened in 1989. The Warsaw Pact blew apart like a dandelion in tornado. NATO not only remained intact, but pretty much all of the Warsaw Pact nations joined NATO as quickly as they could meet the requirements.
What about captured Me.262s? Would they be used here? Along with the Comet jet? Those piston-driven planes would face the La-7, Sturmovik, and the Yak-9 series of planes which were equally capable.
For bombers, I could see the USAF restore their B-17s and B-24s for massive bombing campaigns against tactical targets while the B-29s would conduct strategic bombings deep in the iron curtain.
Eventually, those utility trucks would show their wear-and-tear. How many American trucks and jeeps continued working past the 1950s without the spares? The Soviets probably reverse-engineered them to produce those Ural trucks and GAZ/UAZ utility vehicles.
I was told the U.S. Merchant Marine continued sending supplies to the USSR until 1948, thus proving neither side was actually ready to fight a major ground war in the late 1940s.
Yes. The countries the USSR occupied to be its glacis weren't consulated and their peoples weren't treated well. Doesn't mean the USSR had plans for further expansion nor reason (in its eyes) for said glacis.
Any more than the citizens of Cuba, Nicaragua or Chile had any reason to welcome US attempts to maintain their countries within the US sphere of influence. Let alone Vietnam.