The Berlin Blockade leads to World War III. Who wins?

The cockroaches.

Not yet, there's no H-Bombs and only the US has the bomb.

The Soviets make initial progress due to superior numbers but US/UK air power and supply line problems stop them before they can get to the Channel or the Pyrenees. Atomic weapons are used against Soviet troop concentrations and unfortunately a lot of Western soldiers will be exposed to radiation along the way as they march through the gaps in Soviet lines.

Over the next two years the USSR is slooowly pushed back and its newly acquired satellites revolt. This goes on until either a peace deal is made with the Soviets basically back to 1939ish borders and their influence in Eastern Europe gone, or the USSR straight-up collapses and the "UN" (but mostly the US) ends up occupying a chaotic former USSR. This probably causes all sorts of resentment and problems later on, but maybe the US will be able to rebuild Russia et al. the way Germany and Japan were rebuilt. I doubt it though.

If the Communist Chinese leadership is smart they will quietly take over Nationalist China while the world is distracted, but not get involved in the war.

Alternatively someone in the Politburo sees the writing on the wall early on, puts together a coup and tries to make peace with the West on the best terms possible. Given the cost of WWIII the West is probably good with this.

However it turns out there's probably even more accelerated decolonization as Western Europe is even more blown up and bankrupt, and probably a lot of pacifist sentiment around the world. I mean, a third world war just 3 years after the second? It's horrifying.
 
If the Communist Chinese leadership is smart they will quietly take over Nationalist China while the world is distracted, but not get involved in the war.

What? Mao go for a policy that would result in millions of deaths of their own Chinese citizens?

Nah, that could never happen
:rolleyes:
 
I'm probably wasting the time it takes to type this, but US/UN efforts against logistics during the Korean War were pretty effective.

Communist supply throughput during the war steadily increased and by 1953 was beginning to approach American levels of supply in things like ammunition. That’s the opposite of effective. And due to restraint on behalf of the Russians, the US interdiction campaign was never threatened with serious failure which would not be the case against a unrestrained VVS/VPO.

If the "best" the US and allied air forces can do is restrict supplies to the Soviet forces the same way they did to the DPRK forces and the Chinese, that will do quite nicely.

Given that, unlike in Korea, the Soviets enjoy numerical superiority in aircraft as well as rough technical parity and vastly greater logistical resources, for the USAF to achieve even the same level of interdiction as in the first year of the war is far-fetched.

Neither the American nor Commonwealth publics are going to be terribly enthusiastic about spending hundreds of thousands lives to liberate Europe AGAIN for the second time in less than a decade - not when they have a plausible alternative thanks to nuclear physics.

Give Lemay, say, 12-18 months at wartime tempo to build up even a modest version of his "Sunday Punch" at SAC, and it's going to get used. The harder question is just who would be left to negotiate a surrender (or Tacitean peace) with. It might be multiple somebodies.

But all this underlines why Stalin was so careful not to let the Berlin Crisis escalate into something a lot hotter.

The problem is that nuking the USSR doesn’t automatically do anything to the Red Army forces which are already in place in Europe and sitting atop all the built-up stockpiles that have been shipped in. So if the atom bombing isn’t enough to collapse the USSR politically, a costly and massive land campaign would still be a necessity. It would just be less costly then without the bomb.

I also think that 12-18 months might be optimistic, because LeMay’s build-up will have to be done under the pressure of Soviet counter-airbase strikes, at least until Anglo-American air defenses are built up to the point such campaigns become cost-prohibitive, and then face the Soviets sophisticated IADS net enhanced by the harnessing of West European resources and which, by ‘49, would include large numbers of MiG-15s. Those could inflict enough losses to render the attacks mounted at the 12-18 month period more of a stagger then a knock-out blow. But regardless of whether it takes one year or two or three, I do agree that the eventual hammering the USSR would get would knock out it's war economy and this was enough of a deterrent for Stalin.
 
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What? Mao go for a policy that would result in millions of deaths of their own Chinese citizens?

Nah, that could never happen
:rolleyes:

Well, sure. But I don't think Mao would want to get involved in a big war outside China to help out a bunch of Russians who have been only half-heartedly supporting him anyway. He was too much of a nationalist for that.
 
Well, sure. But I don't think Mao would want to get involved in a big war outside China to help out a bunch of Russians who have been only half-heartedly supporting him anyway. He was too much of a nationalist for that.

China's a real wild card in this war. Mao and Stalin were never as buddy buddy as they pretended to be at times but the US tended to think they were, so they might attack Mao and drive him into Stalin's arms anyways. In the context of a full-scale war between the USSR and USA, Stalin would have little problem in providing as much assistance as the USSR can afford to ship to the Chinese (as opposed to the OTL Korean War, when Stalin was limited by his fears of escalating things) to try and stretch American resources by engaging in a campaign against European colonies in Southeast Asia. Then again, in the first-phase of a war of the USSR, American military resources would be stretched thin as the country starts to mobilize up so the Americans might decide to write China off as a problem for later and then recognize as Mao acts passive to leave him alone.
 
China's a real wild card in this war. Mao and Stalin were never as buddy buddy as they pretended to be at times but the US tended to think they were, so they might attack Mao and drive him into Stalin's arms anyways. In the context of a full-scale war between the USSR and USA, Stalin would have little problem in providing as much assistance as the USSR can afford to ship to the Chinese (as opposed to the OTL Korean War, when Stalin was limited by his fears of escalating things) to try and stretch American resources by engaging in a campaign against European colonies in Southeast Asia.
in June 1948, the Nationalists had not yet been run out of Mongolia. I would put forth that the USAF would want forward bases there
 
in June 1948, the Nationalists had not yet been run out of Mongolia. I would put forth that the USAF would want forward bases there

Wait, what? Mongolia in 1948 is a Soviet client state. It's in the war on the Soviet side by default. Are you sure your not getting it confused with Xinjiang? If so, then the Nationalists are going to be swiftly chased out by the Red Army once it becomes obvious the US is establishing bomber bases there: the nationalists are already in a state of total collapse by this point against the PLA, they won't be able to offer any resistance against the Red Army. I imagine Chiang Kai Shek, who would be fully aware of this, would refuse permission for the US because of it.
 
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Chiang is in no position to say no to the USA. If the Soviets "win" he is screwed and the communists will take over between the successes of Mao and a more "helpful" USSR. This is whether or not he helps the USA. OTOH if the USSR is defeated if he has refused assistance to the USA he won't be getting the sort of support he needs to defeat the communists, who in that situation won't be getting any Russian support. If the USSR loses, and Chiang has provided basing and other assistance he will have a call on significant assistance to stomp Mao. The only way Chiang does any better than OTL (retreating to Taiwan) is if he helps the USA and the USA wins, the other three options don't work for him.

I also wonder how many axes of assault the USSR can maintain here. Can they attack in to Xinjiang as well as towards the Channel, and possibly south to the Straits or Iran/Iraq (the allies will sooner or later be flying out of Iraq/Iran), especially given the poor infrastructure to support an attack on that axis.
 
I imagine Chiang Kai Shek, who would be fully aware of this, would refuse permission for the US because of it.

It's possible that he could hedge his bets: quietly allow some basing, while refusing to admit it, or even deny it outright, publicly.

The truth is, Chiang isn't likely to have much that is going to be of real help to the U.S. anyway. How many airfields (still under his control) would he have had at that point with runways long enough to handle a B-36?
 
(^^^) No. The Russians have enough lift and supply for 1 push. That is it. They will concentrate on the north German plain where it is RTL concentrated. OTL, postwar, they played defense in Asia. M/E the terrain and infrastructure is also a nonstarter.
 
There were USAAF bases in China during WW2, but I have no idea what condition they were in by 1948. In any event, they were not equipped to launch atomic attacks or B36s.
 
My Mistake, Manchuria. Were still holding Hsinking and Mukden

That's pure insanity. Those cities may have been "still holding" but they were under siege, trying to airlift American troops to prop up the defense would automatically align the Chinese communists with the Soviets, and with the surrounding countryside in Chinese Communist hands there would be nothing from preventing the Soviets from having a handful of their ~30 Far Eastern Forces divisions (which by the time the US could spare any forces to send that way would undoubtedly all be fully mobilized up) crush these hold outs, as well as any conceivable airlifted forces, at a stroke.

In any case, US warplans in the late-40s specifically abandoned any efforts to establish air bases on the East/South Asian mainland after Indian independence in '47. As I already observed the US didn't even plan to try and defend Korea, much less seek to establish bases in Manchuria.
 
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Democrat Harry Byrd of Virginia asked Omar Bradley about Russian strength in the vicinity of Manchuria and North Korea. Bradley responded forthrightly, “There are 35 Russian divisions in the Far East. Nine of them are in the Vladivostok area; four in the Port Arthur-Dairen area; three in Sakhalin; two in the Kurile Islands; one near Kamchatka; and 16 others scattered along the railway from Lake Baikal on east.”

“About 500,000 in all?” asked Byrd.

“Thirty-five divisions, plus supporting troops, run probably something like 500,000 or more,” Bradley replied.

Bradley’s comments were deleted when the transcript was released.

Another category of excisions revealed American vulnerabilities in a larger war. Byrd asked what would happen if those 500,000 troops were “thrown into action with enemy submarine attacks to prevent the evacuation of our troops should they be badly outnumbered and have to evacuate?”

Bradley answered: “Should Russia come in with this army strength, her naval strength, which is quite strong in submarines, and her air power, which is quite strong in the Far East—if she should come in with all of those, we might have a hard time supplying our troops in Korea and would even, under certain circumstances, have difficulty evacuating them.”

How many submarines did the Russians have in the vicinity of Korea? asked Byrd.

“Approximately 85,” Bradley said.

“If they went into action, could we then still evacuate our troops?”

“Yes, to a certain extent because we have considerable naval forces there who could help us.”

But it wouldn’t be easy, Byrd sensed. “It would be a very serious situation?”

“It would be a very serious situation,” Bradley confirmed.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/hist...ns-why-general-macarthur-was-fired-180960622/

This is from 1951, but I don't think Soviet military deployments would have been significantly less. But they still would have been able to seize Manchuria and Korea.
 
Democrat Harry Byrd of Virginia asked Omar Bradley about Russian strength in the vicinity of Manchuria and North Korea. Bradley responded forthrightly, “There are 35 Russian divisions in the Far East. Nine of them are in the Vladivostok area; four in the Port Arthur-Dairen area; three in Sakhalin; two in the Kurile Islands; one near Kamchatka; and 16 others scattered along the railway from Lake Baikal on east.”

“About 500,000 in all?” asked Byrd.

“Thirty-five divisions, plus supporting troops, run probably something like 500,000 or more,” Bradley replied.

Bradley’s comments were deleted when the transcript was released.

Another category of excisions revealed American vulnerabilities in a larger war. Byrd asked what would happen if those 500,000 troops were “thrown into action with enemy submarine attacks to prevent the evacuation of our troops should they be badly outnumbered and have to evacuate?”

Bradley answered: “Should Russia come in with this army strength, her naval strength, which is quite strong in submarines, and her air power, which is quite strong in the Far East—if she should come in with all of those, we might have a hard time supplying our troops in Korea and would even, under certain circumstances, have difficulty evacuating them.”

How many submarines did the Russians have in the vicinity of Korea? asked Byrd.

“Approximately 85,” Bradley said.

“If they went into action, could we then still evacuate our troops?”

“Yes, to a certain extent because we have considerable naval forces there who could help us.”

But it wouldn’t be easy, Byrd sensed. “It would be a very serious situation?”

“It would be a very serious situation,” Bradley confirmed.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/hist...ns-why-general-macarthur-was-fired-180960622/

This is from 1951, but I don't think Soviet military deployments would have been significantly less. But they still would have been able to seize Manchuria and Korea.

They would have to sustain across Chinese territory. Chances are very iffy they can. They could not even manage Korea very well at that time.
 
This is from 1951, but I don't think Soviet military deployments would have been significantly less. But they still would have been able to seize Manchuria and Korea.

US warplans in 1948 projected that the Soviets, with assistance of the Chinese communists, could get as far south as the Yellow River. Given the subsequent Chinese Communist victory in 1949 went even further south then that, one can easily argue it's a underestimate. Ultimately, Communist China entering into the Soviet side will see the war expand into Indochina.

They would have to sustain across Chinese territory. Chances are very iffy they can. They could not even manage Korea very well at that time.

The Soviets deployed and sustained forces in both Manchuria and Northern Korea in 1945-46 quite handily and those forces weren't even fully allied at the time they did so like they would be in the scenario being considered.
 
They had help from the US. They needed it, desperately in the form of lift and organization, so don't trot out that example, please. This time in 48 they will not have that help and it will stop them cold. It did in Korea where they could not get transport organized in the face of limited airpower. Posting troops in barracks close to Vladivostok and subs in port is a lot different from moving across Manchuria without trucks or logisticians who know what they are doing or deploying badly designed subs manned by total incompetents against the then deadliest navy on Earth.
 
They had help from the US. They needed it, desperately in the form of lift and organization, so don't trot out that example, please.

The US shipments were needed to start in August, but as I pointed out the last time you tried to bring this up supply throughput via the Trans-Siberian would have given them that much by September anyways and they received no assistance in form of organization. Given that in this scenario they'll be facing weaker opposition (the nationalist armies in 1948 and the minute numbers of American light infantry which can be lifted in are a joke compared to the Kwangtung Army even in 1945) and can count on the help of the Chinese communists who already control much of the region meaning they'll be moving and can even use the Manchurian raillines, the logistical task is much easier.

This time in 48 they will not have that help and it will stop them cold. It did in Korea where they could not get transport organized in the face of limited airpower. Posting troops in barracks close to Vladivostok and subs in port is a lot different from moving across Manchuria without trucks or logisticians who know what they are doing or deploying badly designed subs manned by total incompetents against the then deadliest navy on Earth.

Unsubstantiated claims without a whit of actual relation to actual history. The Soviets weren't directly involved in transport organized for the communists in the Korean War, that was a Chinese and Korean show*, and their logisticians proved perfectly up to the task of supporting the overrunning of Manchuria in August Storm as well as the subsequent occupation in which the Americans were not involved outside of supplying a portion of the material used. IATL, with the bulk of the Manchurian railnet already in communist hands, they could rail their divisions and the supplies as far south as the communist siege lines at Hsinking.

*For their part, the Chinese and Koreans performed marvelously, especially given their logistical resources were a fraction of those of the Soviets, after mid-'51, steadily increasing supply throughput despite American air interdiction efforts.
 
You did not prove it then and you fail to prove it now. I suppose those T-34 tanks and those mortars and artillery pieces were made out of wishes and fishes? I suppose the supply failures the Chinese complained about (see earlier citations) was a figment of Peking's imagination, or the Russians excuses likewise?

We've also gone the unsubstantiated claim route. The Russians did not navally challenge, because they knew they could not. RTL is your guide in all things.

QED.
 
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