Soviet surface and submarine forces at time were technologically and tactically less competent than late war IJN/KM forces which USN had beat handily.

While I'm unfamiliar with the development of the Soviet submarine fleets tactical doctrine in the late-1940s, this is flat out wrong in terms of technology. By 1950, the Soviet sub fleet was very much technologically superior to that of the IJN/KM forces fielding numerous diesel-electric designs. USN analysis of the Soviet Pacific submarine fleet in 1951 concluded that, assuming competent handling, they could have very much cut the sealane supply routes to South Korea on at least a temporary basis which would have been catastrophic for the ground forces in Korea. Of course, the flipside to that is such an overt intervention of Soviet naval forces would be a gross escalation and risk a greater war the Soviets were more interested in avoiding.
 
While I'm unfamiliar with the development of the Soviet submarine fleets tactical doctrine in the late-1940s, this is flat out wrong in terms of technology. By 1950, the Soviet sub fleet was very much technologically superior to that of the IJN/KM forces fielding numerous diesel-electric designs. USN analysis of the Soviet Pacific submarine fleet in 1951 concluded that, assuming competent handling, they could have very much cut the sealane supply routes to South Korea on at least a temporary basis which would have been catastrophic for the ground forces in Korea. Of course, the flipside to that is such an overt intervention of Soviet naval forces would be a gross escalation and risk a greater war the Soviets were more interested in avoiding.

No, in 1951 the most advanced Soviet subs were 7 "K" class submarines of 1930's design (1500 tons surfaced), test depth 100m; and 25 S-class subs, test depth 100m, of early 30's German design. Of course these were split between various fleets. Then there were Sch and M-class subs of 1920's design, most built prewar. The US had access to German (and possibly Finnish, too) ASW experience from WW II against Soviet submarine fleet and thus knew (or should be expected to know) characteristics, strengths and weaknesses of these sub classes.

Assuming Soviets could cut Japanese-Korean SLOC would have required active USN co-operation.

Whisky-class, a new class which was development of S, not XXI equivalent ("Zulu" was the rough one) came online from 1952 onwards. They did not even have snorkels until 1960's. Due to mass production of these boats these naturally presented a possible future threat which could materialize later in the 1950's. For USN and allied navies this naturally meant that there had to be R&D to counter these boats.
 
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No, in 1951 the most advanced Soviet subs were 7 "K" class submarines of 1930's design (1500 tons surfaced)

Incorrect. In 1951 the most advanced Soviet subs were repurposed German Type-XXI designs built in Soviet shipyards using machinery captured from the main shipyards and component plants at Danzig. By mid-1948, the Soviets had built around 60 of these. The USN in 1951 pegged Soviet Pacific Fleet Submarine strength at 85 vessels and the Joint Chiefs reported to Congress that their intervention would mean the US would have "a hard time supplying our troops in Korea and would even, under certain circumstances, have difficulty evacuating them".
 
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Incorrect. In 1951 the most advanced Soviet subs were repurposed German Type-XXI designs built in Soviet shipyards using machinery captured from the main shipyards and component plants at Danzig. By mid-1948, the Soviets had built around 60 of these. The USN in 1951 pegged Soviet Pacific Fleet Submarine strength at 85 vessels and the Joint Chiefs reported to testimony that their intervention would mean the US would have "a hard time supplying our troops in Korea and would even, under certain circumstances, have difficulty evacuating them".

The Soviets had four Type XXI subs which were operated as test pieces, although they were (somwhat purposefully, I guess) believed to continue the mass production of Type XXI's. What you're quoting are intelligence reports of the time which were naturally somewhat alarmist in order to demand more resources for navies. In reality, all Soviet fleets seem to have been pretty well covered by various intelligence methods. And if Germans could not make the Type XXI production work, how on earth could they believe Soviets could have made it work?

In area of bombers their number was more difficult to assume due to natural ability of airfields which can be constructed, well, pretty much everywhere.
 
The Soviets had four Type XXI subs which were operated as test pieces, although they were (somwhat purposefully, I guess) believed to continue the mass production of Type XXI's. What you're quoting are intelligence reports of the time which were naturally somewhat alarmist in order to demand more resources for navies. In reality, all Soviet fleets seem to have been pretty well covered by various intelligence methods.

The Soviets had four Type-XXI turned over to them in 1945, when the war ended. Your assertion that Soviet fleets were well covered by intelligence makes the reports they built more and were operating them credible.

And if Germans could not make the Type XXI production work, how on earth could they believe Soviets could have made it work?

Leaving aside the racist implications in there that the Soviets couldn't do it, despite having far more time and resources then the Germans ever did, this assertion raises the question: if the German's Type-XXI production did not work then where did those 118 completed Type-XXIs the Germans had by the end of the war come from?
 
A avoided, or later Korean War may just be the doomed of Taiwan and the KMT. Mao and the PRC leadership was fully willing to suffer high casualties to take Taiwan and bring the Nationalists to heel, all or nothing. Difficult but not impossible. At the same time, Truman and the Government was umm... lukewarm at best on Taiwan, the KMT, and Chiang. (To the point we serious thought about a Anti-Chiang coup to get rid of the peanut head and give the KMT better leadership when the Korean War came knocking, or that they was just outright doom and there was noting to save them.) We just couldn't understand why the Nationalists was losing so badly against Mao and the Reds.

We may just be willing to throw Chiang and the KMT under the bus when the Mainland shows up.

A Republican as conservative as Taft and as isolationist will have a very hard time getting into office. We either still see Ike, Thomas Dewey, or even Truman win out.

Yugoslavia: The Red Army would get its ass torn apart by the Yugoslavian Partisans. Chances are a Soviet intervention in Yugoslavia would have been unsuccessful, it's an enormous amount of land and the Yugoslavs have a strong core of experienced partisan fighters who they can call up to make the Red Army's life miserable. And then there NATO/West aid and support showing up sooner, or later. Substantive military aid would be on the way.
 
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Jukra wrote:
WWII small arms, artillery, signals equipment etc. were perfectly good in Korea and far beyond. Only item requiring upgrades were tanks and anti-tank equipment. By 1960's there was more need for upgrades which were taken incrementally in OTL.

They were adequate not perfectly good and they lacked common upgrades that were being done by the rest of the world military. Most of it was either worn out or brand new with little in between and a LOT of required maintenance and work needed. And yes tank and anti-tank equipment was totally inadequate and obsolete and this was a known problem but as noted there was no ‘fix’ in the works due to budget cuts.

Soviet surface and submarine forces at time were technologically and tactically less competent than late war IJN/KM forces which USN had beat handily.

The force that had beaten the IJN/KM no longer existed by 1950. Neither in ships, personnel or systems. That was the entire point and it was NOT a directly military decision but Administrative policy along with Johnson specifically aiming to reduce the Navy and Army.

Their force levels were also quite low and their bases far away.

The US situation was as bad if not worse. Force levels were continuing to drop and most port and base facilities outside of Europe were minimum at best. And the “Plan” was to reduce them even more after 1948.

USN and Allies historically relied on WWII ships right into 1980's, after rebuilds, sure.

Very few and very far between actually as the majority of WWII ships were falling apart by 1960 let alone later. The majority of the smaller more usable ASW ships were having to rely on cannibalized parts and systems from even older decommissioned or mothballed ships and there was neither the budget nor will to do any significant rebuilds till the late 50s and even then building new was vastly cheaper and more efficient.

Of course, when, for budgetary reasons, the idea is to fight a war lasting years you need to take account possibilities of the Soviet Union supposedly mass constructing surface ships and submarines under atomic bombardment...

Which was the logic trap the US found itself in at the start of the Korean war. The US wasn’t going to be constructing anything significant after 1949 because it was assumed both they are the USSR would use strategic air power to deliver a rain of nuclear weapons. It simply reinforced the idea that no one would be using ‘conventional’ forces when nuclear weapons were available. It seemed the only nation to believe in that policy was in fact the US since they were at the time the only nation so drastically cutting such forces in favor of those nuclear forces. OTL Korea showed this doctrine to be a false hope and unsupportable but it was still very much official policy right up until Kennedy/Johnson.

By 1960's the Soviet force levels were higher, but by then US nuclear forces were plenty enough to permit elimination of any naval threat in quick order.

And so too could the Soviets ‘eliminate’ an NATO or US naval threat using nuclear weapons. But it was quite clear by that point that doing so would escalate the general conflict hence the need to build up and maintain a more conventional capability.

You continually quote incorrect and misleading information and assert the US "could" do many things which they obviously didn't and capabilities that they had allowed to decay because of the limited budget allowed. No they could not in fact 'develop' new ASW systems as the money was not there to do so nor could they maintain the capability they had. Yes the reports of the US ability to supply and support forces in Korea were alarmist because the conditions they were reporting ON were alarming to the extreme. The US had allowed it's conventional capabilities to deteriorate due to a dependence on nuclear weapons and strategic bomber capability that in fact did not exist at the time.

Intelligence on Soviet intentions and capabilities were specifically low-balled, (which the administration and DoD leadership accepted because it supported their continued de-militarization policy) from low credibility sources or overblown by service intelligence assets to try and stem the cuts which were dismissed by the administration and DoD leadership when in fact they were closer to accurate and from more credible sources. In truth none of the allies intelligence agencies were very well penetrated into the Communist block at the time and the smart way to go was to choose a middle ground and spend/build accordingly. That was what Dewey planned to do and what Truman ran on promising to do but once elected continued to cut defense spending and capability. Even after NSC-68 pointed out the numerous and dangerous short-comings of this policy Truman and Johnson fully intended to continue cutting the DoD budget by at least 1 billion per year for the foreseeable future. Had Taft run against Truman in 1952 as originally planned with no Korean war having happened it is likely that Truman would have won again and continued down that path with all that implies. In such a case by 1953 the US Navy would have no major combatant forces in the Pacific and only some submarines and obsolete ASW destroyers available to attempt to 'support' South Korea in any conflict. The US Army would have only reduced garrison forces in Japan having pulled completely out of Korea in 1952 and the US Air Force would have almost no tactical air forces and no bomber or transport aircraft in theater. All of this would be only equipped with obsolete and/ or WWII surplus equipment which had little maintenance or operational funding provided for almost a decades by this point and the Soviet Pacific assets would have outmatched anything the US could muster at that point. (The RN, French and Australian forces might have given them pause but realistically Korea was a US defensive issue and far less likely to draw an Allied response given the US circumstances and defense policy at the time)

Randy
 
Fasqudron wrote:
Did the US have any submarines in the area though? My memory is they had one assigned to that region when the Communists won the civil war and that submarine was planned to be withdrawn by the time the planned invasion of Taiwan would happen. Mind you, I don't remember the source for that, other than it being a book on the Korean war. It's possible my memory is seriously garbling things.

IIRC we had “one” assigned to China/Taiwan area which had initially been planned to be based out of Taiwan but was instead withdrawn to Japan where we had a couple of others ‘stationed’ but were actually at Pearl Harbor. IRRC we had a couple in the Philippines as well and the “plan” was to move more assets to Japan and/or the Philippines once indications of an invasion were seen. It is questionable if the intelligence assets in the area were good enough to actually make that call* so it was being discussed to bring at least the subs forward sooner.

*-Intel assets were in fact so focused on China and trying to see what was going on there that they totally missed the North Korean build up prior to the invasion.

The thing was the ability of Communist China to invade Taiwan was marginal at best and the ‘threat’ of the single US carrier in the region was enough to pretty much preclude its success. Once that was pulled which was to happen in 1950/51 the US submarine presence was still too much of a threat. As bad as the overall Far East Air Force situation was with most of the working assets having been pulled back to either Japan or the Philippians it was still possible to stage land based assets through Taiwan itself if need be which was why Truman/Johnson were looking to pull Naval assets out of the area.

Would it have been enough if it came down to it? Unlikely but Mao didn’t know that for sure and was generally unwilling to take that chance.

And keep in mind the British presence in Hong Kong as a factor as well.

Now give it a couple more years to settle things down and get a better read on US preparedness and strategy and Mao might have been more prepared and confident. Especially if the US is looking at Korea…

Randy
 

DougM

Donor
On a more personal note a later Korean War means one less person posting on this forum. And means my father would not have spent a cold winter on Heartbreak Ridge. Without his time in the Army my father would not have bought his new car and without said new car would most likely not have been cruising on Woodward and thus would not have met my mom at a drive in restaurant and so I woul not be posting here.

So sometimes butterflies can be much smaller and more personal and don’t always have to be earth changing.
 

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
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Monthly Donor
Thanks to Dave T for the link since I can't find mine, Kiplinger's Magazine special "What Dewey Will Do" as per his expected policy and statements:
https://books.google.com/books?id=3wUEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA10#v=onepage&q&f=false
(found here: https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/wi-dewey-did-defeat-truman.452919/#post-17667185)



Again, point of fact was that the Truman administration itself was supposedly "worried" over the state of the US military preparedness so they instigated a comprehensive report to be undertaken in 1949. The resulting report, (NSC-68) was ready by early 1950 and it was scathing and frank about the inability of the US military to carry out ANY of it's assigned goals due to manpower, material, resources and funding shortfalls. Now mind you SoD Johnson was vehemently opposed to doing the report in the first place, more so when the State Department was added to the authority as he felt they had no business in US Defense policy...
When presented with the NSC-68's findings neither Truman nor Johnson accepted it and sent it back to the authors without comment, (but required that the results undergo "further analysis" and be resubmitted) and did nothing to address the report concerns. Neither wanted to address or consider the large increases in military spending the report required. OTL the start of the Korean war allowed the general results of the study to be made public and the outcry and backlash led to...



No he got scapegoated for the failure of the US to do well in Korea and his outspoken support for Truman's defense cuts and military reductions meant he could, (in theory) "take the fall" for the President which he did.

Now give Truman and Johnson another couple of years of cuts and down-sizing, (the FY1950 budget initial proposal was the lowest yet with 13.5 billion total 'requested' but less than 13.3 billion actually authorized) and the planned "minimum savings" from the DoD budget of "1 billion" a year, (so that by 1953 under this plan the total DoD budget would be less than 10 billion) you can see the problem.

Randy


Interesting, I will have to look at the Kiplinger piece in detail. Research I had done earlier seemed to show Dewey's proposed build-up was not the direction Congressional Republicans were favoring, and that they favored maximal reliance on the strategic air force rather than ground forces:

Taft did score a partial victory around the same time in the spring of 1948. The Truman Administration had proposed the Universal Military Training (UMT) program to provide a vast number of reserves for the armed forces. It was meant primarily to demonstrate American resolve to defend its overseas commitments. The Administration also insisted it needed to continue Selective Service for five more years to maintain adequate occupation forces and ready reserves until the benefits of UMT could be realized. Both measures were unpopular. Taft vigorously opposed UMT. He was assisted by liberal isolationist Senators William Langer and Glenn Taylor, who staged a filibuster against the measure. Vandenberg did not push for UMT and his silence gave Taft room to maneuver and rally the Republicans. On the Selective Service, Taft did vote for a two-year draft, which passed instead of the five-year version. This put the Administration in the awkward position of having to request a draft again in the spring of 1950, during the midterm election campaign.(Eden,Ch. 7)

Taft’s penchant for developing substitutes for Administration policies helped him in this case. He successfully campaigned to fund a far larger Air Force build-up than Truman wanted. The bill to procure sufficient aircraft for seventy air groups, fifteen more than the Administration wanted, was passed before the defeat of UMT and helped guarantee that result. The enlarged Air Force meshed well with Taft’s philosophy, because these forces were more suitable to deter an attack on the continental United States than for political intervention abroad. The emphasis on airpower also appealed to Taft because it left America maximum freedom of action, because aircraft, unlike ground troops, could have a military impact abroad even while based on American territory. After passing seventy air group air force appropriation, the collective opinion of Congress was that they had just demonstrated resolve by increasing American nuclear delivery capacity and had spent enough on defense for the year. (Eden, Ch.7)

This victory, spearheaded by Taft and the isolationists, had real impact on American strategy. The Administration succeeded in expanding overseas commitments, while Congressional Republicans denied funding for sufficient conventional forces to support these commitments and increased US atomic striking power. (Eden, Ch.7) The synthesis of these two factors was an alliance structure bolstered by nuclear threat, thus presaging the Eisenhower Administration’s policy of Massive Retaliation.
 
Interesting, I will have to look at the Kiplinger piece in detail. Research I had done earlier seemed to show Dewey's proposed build-up was not the direction Congressional Republicans were favoring, and that they favored maximal reliance on the strategic air force rather than ground forces:

Taft did score a partial victory around the same time in the spring of 1948. The Truman Administration had proposed the Universal Military Training (UMT) program to provide a vast number of reserves for the armed forces. It was meant primarily to demonstrate American resolve to defend its overseas commitments. The Administration also insisted it needed to continue Selective Service for five more years to maintain adequate occupation forces and ready reserves until the benefits of UMT could be realized. Both measures were unpopular. Taft vigorously opposed UMT. He was assisted by liberal isolationist Senators William Langer and Glenn Taylor, who staged a filibuster against the measure. Vandenberg did not push for UMT and his silence gave Taft room to maneuver and rally the Republicans. On the Selective Service, Taft did vote for a two-year draft, which passed instead of the five-year version. This put the Administration in the awkward position of having to request a draft again in the spring of 1950, during the midterm election campaign.(Eden,Ch. 7)

Taft’s penchant for developing substitutes for Administration policies helped him in this case. He successfully campaigned to fund a far larger Air Force build-up than Truman wanted. The bill to procure sufficient aircraft for seventy air groups, fifteen more than the Administration wanted, was passed before the defeat of UMT and helped guarantee that result. The enlarged Air Force meshed well with Taft’s philosophy, because these forces were more suitable to deter an attack on the continental United States than for political intervention abroad. The emphasis on airpower also appealed to Taft because it left America maximum freedom of action, because aircraft, unlike ground troops, could have a military impact abroad even while based on American territory. After passing seventy air group air force appropriation, the collective opinion of Congress was that they had just demonstrated resolve by increasing American nuclear delivery capacity and had spent enough on defense for the year. (Eden, Ch.7)

This victory, spearheaded by Taft and the isolationists, had real impact on American strategy. The Administration succeeded in expanding overseas commitments, while Congressional Republicans denied funding for sufficient conventional forces to support these commitments and increased US atomic striking power. (Eden, Ch.7) The synthesis of these two factors was an alliance structure bolstered by nuclear threat, thus presaging the Eisenhower Administration’s policy of Massive Retaliation.

Well that is VERY interesting. May I ask who you are quoting there?

fasquardon
 

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
Donor
Monthly Donor
Well that is VERY interesting. May I ask who you are quoting there?

fasquardon


The text and the interpretations are my own, from a class I took in grad school in 1996-1997. The specific data on the votes for UMT versus air force came from an unpublished dissertation I was citing by a Lynn Eden, whom I didn't know anything about. I since googled the name and think I found the author, who wrote about more arcane aspects of nuclear weapons eventually: https://cisac.fsi.stanford.edu/people/lynn_eden
 
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