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

Not to mention Russia was still in poor shape from WW2 and probably wouldn't be able to sustain a war for long.
 
Well, that’s the rub isn’t it? Hypothetically, maybe dropping their first couple of atom bombs on British cities would compel the British to surrender... but not only is the precedent for such terror tactics having the desired effect poor but one can question whether the barely-existant Soviet atomic forces could successfully deliver the weapons through the ever-strengthening British air defenses. They can make the attempt, people have claimed the Tu-4A wasn’t in service in 1951 but I have found no evidence to substantiate that and no reason why some of the first production run Tu-4s in ‘49 couldn’t have been made into Tu-4As, but success doesn’t seem likely. Beyond that, Soviet options are bad. Conventional air raids would likely work out no better then the German blitz at best. And obviously Soviet naval and amphib assets will be able to mount a amphib attack against Britain in the face of combined might of the Royal Navy and USN when hell freezes over. A indirect campaign in the Middle East or Southeast Asia (using Communist China as a conduit) also offers no prospect of actually forcing the British to come to the table, not so long as the Americans are in the war.
Sending B-29 copies against the British unescorted is suicide, so to have any chance of success they'd have to slog through mainland Europe.

Stalin would undoubtedly retreat to the Soviet interior or a bunker complex at the first sign of a American atomic raid on Moscow. American intelligence was simply not good enough to reliably direct the nascent US atomic air arm such leadership targets... hell, it’s still a struggle even today.
Fair enough. Mind you, Moscow is also a major rail junction, so it'd be a valid target anyway.

The bombers would actually have to reach Moscow, intact, to do that. This also assumes Stalin is stupid enough not to have some sort of bunker.
More likely that Soviet nukes reaching London. And maybe Moscow is off the list, but Leningrad isn't necessarily, though it does depend on Sweden siding with the allies.
 
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As it was, with LeMay overhauling maintenance and training in 1949 and then the Korean War prompting vastly increased defense spending and procurement of material and personnel, it took years for the USAF to develop to the point it was able to deliver a nuclear knock-out punch to the Soviet. Official USAF history identified 1952 as the year when all the elements came together. So based on that, it’ll take 2-3 years before SACs. Of course, the Soviets can delay that if they knock out Britain (and, if applicable, Egypt).

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Presumably in an actual shooting war with the Soviets the USAF could have / would have made the needed changes much more quickly and or cut some corners vs what was required in peace time. In any event I suspect the supply of deliverable nuclear weapons is going to be a bigger constraint than air crews and air frames. That being said I do expect that the USAF in a "war emergency" setting could have effectively used the nuclear weapons they had in matter of months not years.

Edit to add: presumably the best / most competent / combat proven air crews / ground crews etc from world war 2 could simply have been drafted back into service in a war emergency setting.
 
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Remember it was Stalin who said "the death of a single man is a tragedy, the death of a million is a statistic". While the death of "innocent civilians" in war is tragic, this has been going on for a very long time and is not just a feature of modern/nuclear warfare although starvation, being raped to death, death as a slave, death through epidemics tended to be the mode of death for civilians up until relatively recently. The deaths of the civilians of Dresden and Hiroshima were not on the Allied politicians/military leaders who ordered those strikes. They were on the leaders of Germany and Japan who started the war, and who had no compunction about using these sorts of tactics to begin with. If there is a shootout during a crime and, in the course of this, innocent bystanders are killed, their deaths are charged to the criminals who began the whole episode. No attack on Poland, no Dresden; no Pearl Harbor, no Hiroshima. On the "micro" scale international law is clear, if party "A" uses civilians as a shield during an assault, and in resisting said assault party "B" causes civilian casualties, it is "A" who has committed a war crime not "B".

So they started it, now we can commit any kind of horrible inhuman deed, because now they are responsible and we are not. Thats your logic there. It reminds me of a kid saying: "But he started it!"

I strongly disagree about the part about responsibility. IMO especially a leader of man or nations should always be responsible for the decisions he makes. Especially if those are about life and death. Because if he doesnt think he is responsible, he can commit everything. Actually I think thats the best way to turn man into monster - convince them that they are not responsible for their deeds.

I will also have to state here that I consider myself an idealist but I believe we need higher standards and not absolve monsters just because they have won. So IMO Dresden and Hiroshima in WWII were crimes and a big part of the blame is on the allied politicans/military leaders who gave the orders - this doesnt absolve the german or japanese leaders. But I wont further argue this because in my exparience this would be an endless debate about morals.

And more on this particular case: Yes the soviets started it by attacking the american plane. However they did not declare war and did not proceed with an attack. It was not negotiations or demands, an ultimatum that followed but a DOW by the USA. Its understandable but the USA too made a decision. They decided that keeping west Berlin out of Soviet hands is worth WWIII. I agree that they had to draw a line somewhere but they too bear responsibility. And im pretty sure that they would have made the decision about war with the knowledge what this war would be like: the nuking of the soviets cities and the death of millions - and not american millions mind you. And with the expectation of winning it.
 
And more on this particular case: Yes the soviets started it by attacking the american plane. However they did not declare war and did not proceed with an attack. It was not negotiations or demands, an ultimatum that followed but a DOW by the USA. Its understandable but the USA too made a decision. They decided that keeping west Berlin out of Soviet hands is worth WWIII. I agree that they had to draw a line somewhere but they too bear responsibility. And im pretty sure that they would have made the decision about war with the knowledge what this war would be like: the nuking of the soviets cities and the death of millions - and not american millions mind you. And with the expectation of winning it.
Actually, since pretty much all the aircraft going in were American or British military, attacking them was, de facto, an act of war.
 
Actually, since pretty much all the aircraft going in were American or British military, attacking them was, de facto, an act of war.

As was when the Russian fleet attacked british fisherman in the dogger bank incident in 1904. Than war has been awoided.
Im not saying that the soviets arent bearing the much bigger share of the blame just that the americans too had made a decision that turned the incident to WWIII.
 
Apart from the radars, aircraft and missiles...
Presumably they had overlapping the networks of frequency diverse microwave radars (to complicate likely jamming) very high power ground to air radio transmitters using klystron tube amplifiers IIRC (to be able to direct the interceptors to their targets despite jamming) early warning radars to give a few hours of warning along with separate Ground control intercept radars near the target areas etc..

It only took the RCAF / USAF a decade or so to get this more or less in place and I have my doubts the Soviets had a comparable system in the 1940's. Sorry I just don't see typical WW2 era technology being good enough to deal with the tactics and technology the US used in ww2.

I'm not saying the Soviet air defences would have been useless, but I doubt they would have stopped a reasonably competently planned and executed USAF attack from getting enough bombers over their targets to deliver a number of nuclear weapons.
 
Bombing cities in the USSR is quite doable, if using the right aircraft, B-29, B-39 escorted by F-82 there is nothing that can touch them. A service ceiling of over 5,000 over the La-9. What is, maybe more important is the bombing of the troops moving into Western Europe. There were a hell of a lot of medium bombers, and trained flight crews about at the time, Not everything was scrapped ASAP and the flight crews would only need a few flight to get fit with the aircraft they would have flown maybe less than 18 months before.
 
As was when the Russian fleet attacked british fisherman in the dogger bank incident in 1904. Than war has been awoided.
Im not saying that the soviets arent bearing the much bigger share of the blame just that the americans too had made a decision that turned the incident to WWIII.
Except there was no reason to shoot down an aircraft, the air corridor had been guaranteed in an international agreement, shooting down an aircraft would have been breaking said agreement. The Americans and British worked strictly within the framework of legality agreed to by the Soviets, so for the Soviets to then break said agreements would be an unconscionable act.
 
Except there was no reason to shoot down an aircraft, the air corridor had been guaranteed in an international agreement, shooting down an aircraft would have been breaking said agreement. The Americans and British worked strictly within the framework of legality agreed to by the Soviets, so for the Soviets to then break said agreements would be an unconscionable act.

True enough, however if Stalin did order it, once seeing the reaction, would not just blame a low ranking pilot for not following orders?
 
Stalin might not necessarily order it for it to happen. IIRC, there were a number of incidents where Soviet fighters buzzed the transport craft inside the corridor. Say one of these misjudged after losing his wingman in low cloud, and a collision sends a transport plane down in flames. Pilot gets out a message saying he was attacked by soviet fighters, and us fighters respond, taking out the rest of the soviet flight. Last soviet fighter gets out a message about “unprovoked us attack”, things snowball from there.
 
Except there was no reason to shoot down an aircraft, the air corridor had been guaranteed in an international agreement, shooting down an aircraft would have been breaking said agreement. The Americans and British worked strictly within the framework of legality agreed to by the Soviets, so for the Soviets to then break said agreements would be an unconscionable act.

As others pointed out, the incident was not necesserily ordered by Stalin. Knowing how cautious he was I simply cant see him starting a war he cant hope to win - actually i cant see him start any war he doesnt believe he is sure to win.

And even if the americans have the right of it, they too decided that west Berlin is worth to start WWIII over. Even if they have good cause and every right to start a war, it was still their decision. OP didnt specify any subsequent soviet offensive or air strike or agressive moves. This indicantes the soviets, even if they planned the incident werent planning to begin WWIII with it.

This indicates the soviet position at the onset of the conflict was at worst that they want to take west Berlin even using force - but no more at the moment. But it could be that the americans turned an on the soviet part unintentional incident to WWIII.
 
not even close,even assuming they actually succesfully deliver the vast majority of them (which they wouldn't).
Given the poor state of Soviet air defenses against high altitude bombers like the B-59, B-50 and B-36 I'd expect few losses to MiG-9 and Yak-15's, especially given the poor state of Soviet RADAR systems and the small numbers of high-performance interceptors (and their short ranges and loiter times).

Initially I'd expect strikes at operational targets in Eastern Europe, paralysing Soviet logistics and command structures and forcing them to avoid concentrating forces and resources. Them a switch to more important tactical targets as Western/US forces moved East and strategic strikes against industrial cites, railheads et cetera in the Western USSR.
 
Sending B-29 copies against the British unescorted is suicide, so to have any chance of success they'd have to slog through mainland Europe.

Well that wouldn't be much of an issue. The conventional power of balance in Europe at the start of this war is such that American war plans observed that mainland Europe would be all in Soviet hands within the first three months. Post-Cold War scholars, with full access to Soviet and American sources, are even more pessimistic: they project that the Soviets would have been at the Atlantic within weeks.

though it does depend on Sweden siding with the allies.

Well, siding with the Allies and surviving the Soviet invasion long enough for the US to establish forward airbases.

Presumably in an actual shooting war with the Soviets the USAF could have / would have made the needed changes much more quickly and or cut some corners vs what was required in peace time. In any event I suspect the supply of deliverable nuclear weapons is going to be a bigger constraint than air crews and air frames. That being said I do expect that the USAF in a "war emergency" setting could have effectively used the nuclear weapons they had in matter of months not years.

Yeah, this isn't supportable by history at all. Even in WW2, it took the US a year-and-a-half from full-mobilization before it was able to mount a sustained bombing campaign against the Germans and that was with a pre-war partial mobilization of another half-year to act as a launch pad. That's three years of mobilization total. Here, the US is starting from a state of total demobilization. While I can see the changes being implemented sooner, I don't see them taking effect any more rapidly and cutting corners in a system which is already struggling is liable to get people killed rather then improve effectiveness more rapidly.

Your also forgetting another bottleneck: the AEC. The bombs were not kept under military control: they were under control of the civilian Atomic Energy Commission and were only to be released to military control after the bombs had been transported to the airbases and assembled by AEC bomb teams. Just assembling bombs for the testing programs of Crossroads and Sandstone maxed out their capabilities.Eeven the bomb teams they did have were found to be woefully inadequate at assembling their weapons. The issue was so bad that the Atomic Energy Commission privately admitted that they were unable to assemble any of the bombs under wartime conditions. What's worse, the AEC was not on talking grounds with the military: the head of the AEC, David Lilienthal, was deeply suspicious of military personnel and vigorously opposed military influence in atomic decision-making. As a result coordination and communication between the AEC and the military was practically nonexistent. It wasn't until 1949 that the AEC finally got enough trained teams to be regarded as sufficient and 1950 that control of the weapons was moved from AEC to military hands.

Edit to add: presumably the best / most competent / combat proven air crews / ground crews etc from world war 2 could simply have been drafted back into service in a war emergency setting.

They'd still need to be retrained in their roles. Military skills are extremely perishable.

Apart from the radars, aircraft and missiles...

Yes, yes, we know. You are completely unaware that the Soviets in 1948 have aircraft and radars for their air defense systems and think their the sort of untermenschen Nazi propaganda made them out to be, presumably imagining the Russians to still be pounding rocks together in caves or something. Meanwhile, actual scholars who have bothered to examine Soviet air defenses in this period have found them to be a effective and organized system with the aircraft and radar systems to match as one would expect of a military superpower.

Given the poor state of Soviet air defenses against high altitude bombers like the B-59, B-50 and B-36 I'd expect few losses to MiG-9 and Yak-15's, especially given the poor state of Soviet RADAR systems and the small numbers of high-performance interceptors (and their short ranges and loiter times).

The B-29/50 are eminently interceptable by Soviet systems of the day and not only would the B-36 not be available until 1949 (by which point the Soviets have the MiG-15), but it was something of a white elephant: the 1949-50 variants were maintenance nightmares and their airfield requirements were so high that there were only three airfields in the world capable of supporting them, all three of which were in the Continental US.
 
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@ObssesedNuker do you have any sources to support your assertations? Your statements go against what I’ve read in the past, so would like to learn more.

Also paging our resident strategic bombing expert @Sbiper; I request your opinion as I’ve seen the depth and breadth of your research. Just how capable were Bomber Command and SAC of waging strategic warfare (both conventional and nuclear) against Soviet forces? In particular I’m curious about Soviet night fighter capabilities.
 
@ObssesedNuker do you have any sources to support your assertations? Your statements go against what I’ve read in the past, so would like to learn more.

Bigger Bombs for a Brighter Tomorrow by John M. Curatola goes into exquisite detail, without sacrificing readibility, on just how ineffective the US strategic air arm in general and nuclear arsenal in particular was in the 1946-50 period. Curatola also goes into some detail about Soviet air defense forces, although he doesn't spend as much time on them as his focus is mainly on SAC. Here's a choice quote of particular relevance to the discussion:

"The issues regarding the small pool of skilled weapons assembly teams and atomic competence were highlighted during the SANDSTONE atomic test held in April and May 1 948 as the Berlin Blockade crisis emerged. At the end of March, in a meeting at Forrestal’s office with the service chiefs, Secretaries Royall and Symington, and retired General Dwight Eisenhower, the issue of atomic capability came to the fore. Eisenhower inquired about American atomic capability given the growing tensions around the German capital. The response to Eisenhower’s question was an alarming one. Nichols answered that the United States could not prepare or assemble any bombs for delivery at the time because all the qualified personnel were at Eniwetok preparing for the SANDSTONE tests. In subsequent meetings the issue was raised of returning some of the assembly personnel back to Sandia in case the atomic bomb was required during the early part of the crisis, but the idea of returning the teams was eventually nixed by the AEC." - Pg 47
 
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GLORIOUS UNITED STATES OF AMERICA WIN OVER DIRTY EASTERN EUROPEANS. HAIL LADY LIBERTY.

now that we got that out of chests.

How many nukes USA got with the way Soviets are willing to disregard human losses ?
 
The RAF lacked nukes so conventional only - they were equipped with the Avro Lincoln, an outgrowth of the wartime Lanc and frankly obsolete in the face of any serious air defence.

It lacked the range to reach Soviet targets from the UK. As to post war BC doctrine it was a bit of a mish-mash of WW2 experinceand the usual pie in the sky nonsense that only a war knocks out of you.

The US had now strategic capability, its crews were poorly trained, its equipment was lacking and it would take a few days for it to ready itself for a nuke strike.

The US had only a handful of nukes available, and they were far from 'wooden rounds and needed complex preparation and arming.

The USSAF was however committed to city smashing, arguing with some considerable disengenuiness on their part that the 'strategic targets that they wanted to hit were mostly located inside cities.
 
Tibi is spot on. It is not an easy decision to start chucking nuclear bombs around.

In an actual shooting war, we should maybe also look at where the bombers would start from?

If they should be stored in Germany, it would take a few conventional raids to bomb the airfields and set of a few nukes (I believe that PAL was not exactly prevalent in 1948 vintage bombs).

If from the UK, it would be interesting to see how France would react to a few bombers getting shot down over French territory and killing some hundreds of thousands?

Even a few accidents could happen.

So, with a bit of luck, because of a few transports getting shot down, USA would be willing to take the risk of devastating West Germany and France?

Let us see if we can get this one right?

The 'new' Lancaster gets downed over Ruhr. Smack in Dortmund. That takes care of some 300,000 Germans (whom we are here to protect from the communist masses). Ruhr not going to be back in operation for another 100 years due to radiation.

Sneaking up on Ukraine would take a bomber through France. ah well, nobody liked the bloody Eifel Tower anyway. Sorry about Mona Lisa though.

Accident on UK air base?

… lest we forget one thing. As much as the bombs could be falling on Soviet cities, Red Army did have a few tanks and crews. If those are invading into West Germany, who is then going to order a nuclear strike and take out some of our patriotic German allies?

Even if red Army rapidly goes through East Germany: Of course Adenaur would be delighted to see US bombs killing Germans by the millions. Unified in radiation sickness.

Tibi: Just taking it a bit further.

Tibi is right. It is easy to talk about chucking bombs, but reality might just be something slightly different.

Just a damper on the 'mushroom clouds'

Ivan
 
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