PC: US invasion of Russia (1950s)

Successful US invasion of USSR (1950s)

  • militarily plausible

    Votes: 25 41.0%
  • militarily implausible

    Votes: 36 59.0%

  • Total voters
    61
colliers_10_27_1951_cvr.jpg


One of the many popular tropes of 1950s pulp fiction was the discussion of the possible WW3 scenarios between the US & USSR, with much campiness to go along with it.
One of my favorites, that I admit to have only recently discovered, is Collier's magazine 1951 classic...

Preview of the War We Don't Want

The basic premise is that with TTL's assassination of Tito in 1952 by Stalinist agents and the entrance of Red Army forces into Yugoslavia, the US via the UN ends up declaring war on the USSR.

PRINCIPAL EVENTS OF WORLD WAR III

1952

Assassination attempt on Marshal Tito's life, May 10th, precipitates Cominform-planned uprising in Yugoslavia. Troops from satellite nationsof Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary, backed by the Red Army, cross borders. Truman terms agression "Kremlin inspired."; Reds call it "an internal matter."

Third World War begins when Moscow, still insisting that uprising is "the will of the Yugoslav people," refuses to withdraw Red Army units. Stalin miscalculates risk: had believed U.S. would neither back Tito nor fight alone. U.S. is joined by principal UN nations in declaration of war.


And as you can see by the photo, after several major atomic exchanges to go along with massive conventional advances in Asian and European theatre, the conflict ends with UN forces marching deep into Russia.

So to my plausibility question...
How likely or unlikely is this type of military outcome circa early 1950s, if such a war were to happen in our timeline?
Could US/UN forces legitimately have a shot at successfully invading Russia in the advent of 1950s war?
 
I'd recommend researching War Plan DROPSHOT & the related war planning. & please avoid the Wiki version.
Second this. The 1950s were the height of US nuclear supremacy over the USSR. I think you'd see an extended air campaign over Eastern Europe and Western Russia followed by ground troops mopping up the survivors. So, plausible, but not in the conventional sense.
 

cpip

Gone Fishin'
I'd recommend researching War Plan DROPSHOT & the related war planning. & please avoid the Wiki version.

As I recall, DROPSHOT was of the Red Scare planning period when it was believed that the Russians would steamroll all of Europe with remarkable ease -- the UN/NATO forces were expected to draw a line not at the Rhine but the Pyrenees!

I'd be interested to find Russian/WARPAC plans for the same period.
 
DROPSHOT plans originated with the Berlin crisis in 1948 & were rewritten multiple times after. I dont know when the name was last applied to war plans. One of the key concepts, of attacking the USSR from the south, seems to have still been in place in the mid 1960s. When i was in high school, circa 1970 a US Army officer who lived next door had some recent non classified literature describing some of the problems of advancing a stratigic front north into Eurasia from the Indian Ocean region. The focus seemed to be between the Black Sea & Afganistan, with the western flank in Turkey or the Balkans. My memory is not clear on the details after 47 years.
 

Deleted member 9338

Is this when the US Army changed to the Pentomic Division structure. Could be fun to run a wargame on.
 
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