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

Starforce

Banned
Personally I doubt there would be atomic bombings involved, maybe 1 or 2 but no more than that. If dozens were dropped the United States would have killed more than Hitler, and Stalin did in Seconds, thus making the public view after the war very negative and the enviromental impact from such a bombing would likely render most of Russia a nuclear wasteland, one that would forever be on America's record and tarnish it forever. What I think would happen is that the USSR would plow through much of western Europe, up until around France, maybe into Paris and down south, this is when their supply lines would run dry, and the Americans / American allies would bomb supply lines, cut off soviet troops, and invade and retake the land, while advancing through East Germany, maybe even re-arming the old Nazi Military as an ally against that of the USSR while an invasion would be launched into the Russian far east by Japan and America.

What would likely happen is a mirror image of the Eastern front or something similar to it, Russian winter could stall American troops and create a stalemate. The loss of life by going into the soviet union by conventional warfare would be hell, and invading through the rest of soviet occupied Europe, and what the soviets manages to take in Europe would already be losses much like that in ww2 (I could probably be wrong there), this is when Leningrad and Moscow could be nuked, USSR wouldn't surrender and would face a fate like that of Japan. We would see Europe completely destroyed, and communist elements completely removed and Europe would take a very long time to rebuild and possibly look alot more modern, Russia would likely be too big to handle to have a puppet state, so a democratic regime would be elected, without 50-60 years of Communism Russia would be far better off at the cost of millions of deaths.

I personally believe 50-100 nukes is a simply stupid concept, it would kill more and leave the land unavailable to use by NATO forces. Think about the debate involved in such a nuking, think about the deaths involved in 50-100 atomic weapons landing on Russian soil, it would simply never happen, and if it did, the world would be in shock and fear and the United States would forever be tarnished for what it did. Europe would be destroyed by this war, and in that being, the United States would be the sole superpower of the world and would outcompete all forms of communism and we would have a completely different world in those aspects.
 
I personally believe 50-100 nukes is a simply stupid concept, it would kill more and leave the land unavailable to use by NATO forces. Think about the debate involved in such a nuking, think about the deaths involved in 50-100 atomic weapons landing on Russian soil, it would simply never happen, and if it did, the world would be in shock and fear and the United States would forever be tarnished for what it did.

The problem is that without nukes NATO can't win. The USSR simply has a much bigger conventional army, and conventional strategic bombing would not be able to destroy the Soviet economy or retard the Soviet advance.

Later on though, the use of atomic weapons will probably become extremely controversial, probably more so than OTL's use of the bomb.
 

Starforce

Banned
The problem is that without nukes NATO can't win. The USSR simply has a much bigger conventional army, and conventional strategic bombing would not be able to destroy the Soviet economy or retard the Soviet advance.

Later on though, the use of atomic weapons will probably become extremely controversial, probably more so than OTL's use of the bomb.

50-60 nukes would be way too much though, would they still have the general effects of that of Hiroshima/Nagasaki in size? If so, would all of that be cleanable?
 
50-60 nukes would be way too much though, would they still have the general effects of that of Hiroshima/Nagasaki in size? If so, would all of that be cleanable?

The bombs during this period have relatively low yields, only destroying buildings that are within a couple of kilometers of ground zero. This means that it is possible important industrial targets might survive the bombing, whether due to the bombardier aiming incorrectly, or due to bad intelligence about where the important targets are, etc. Many cities are also spread out over a wide area. This all means that several bombs will need to be used on many cities to ensure targets are destroyed.

For example, a strike on the Kremlin still leave much of Moscow undamaged.

http://www.nuclearsecrecy.com/nukem...i=5&hob_ft=1650&casualties=1&psi=20,5,1&zm=12
 

Starforce

Banned
The bombs during this period have relatively low yields, only destroying buildings that are within a couple of kilometers of ground zero. This means that it is possible important industrial targets might survive the bombing, whether due to the bombardier aiming incorrectly, or due to bad intelligence about where the important targets are, etc. Many cities are also spread out over a wide area. This all means that several bombs will need to be used on many cities to ensure targets are destroyed.

For example, a strike on the Kremlin still leave much of Moscow undamaged.

http://www.nuclearsecrecy.com/nukem...i=5&hob_ft=1650&casualties=1&psi=20,5,1&zm=12

Ah, I seen now. Thats less than I thought actually, what is your estimations for casualties and eventual outcome of this war?
 
Ah, I seen now. Thats less than I thought actually, what is your estimations for casualties and eventual outcome of this war?

Let's assume that 100 bombs are used, and each causes 100,000 deaths. That's 10 million deaths right there. The Allies would not have a policy of starving POWs, so military deaths might be fewer than OTL. Most deaths I think, would occur after the USSR collapses, due to famine and epidemics. It'd probably be worse than World War 2, but it wouldn't be as deadly as a nuclear war in the late 1950s or later.
 

Starforce

Banned
Let's assume that 100 bombs are used, and each causes 100,000 deaths. That's 10 million deaths right there. The Allies would not have a policy of starving POWs, so military deaths might be fewer than OTL. Most deaths I think, would occur after the USSR collapses, due to famine and epidemics. It'd probably be worse than World War 2, but it wouldn't be as deadly as a nuclear war in the late 1950s or later.

That is still rather horrible, but it's alot less than I thought at least. What do you think would happen to Russia, and would NATO members approve of the United States causing 10 million deaths?
 
That is still rather horrible, but it's alot less than I thought at least. What do you think would happen to Russia, and would NATO members approve of the United States causing 10 million deaths?

The US never had any coherent idea of victory in World War 3. From what I've read though, it seems unconditional surrender would not be required. So Russia probably gets pushed back behind its 1941 or 1939 borders, and probably has to end any WMD programs it has. The Communist Party might be forced from power. But it is also possible that Russia collapses into civil war as well.

Regarding Soviet deaths, I think most would consider them a necessary evil to defeat Stalin. Later on though, there will definitely be controversy, like the controversy over OTL's atomic bombings.
 

Starforce

Banned
The US never had any coherent idea of victory in World War 3. From what I've read though, it seems unconditional surrender would not be required. So Russia probably gets pushed back behind its 1941 or 1939 borders, and probably has to end any WMD programs it has. The Communist Party might be forced from power. But it is also possible that Russia collapses into civil war as well.

Regarding Soviet deaths, I think most would consider them a necessary evil to defeat Stalin. Later on though, there will definitely be controversy, like the controversy over OTL's atomic bombings.

It would be very likely that Stalin would have died aswell as many of his elites in the government, leading the USSR unable to continue as it was. A more radical party could take power much like that of the Nazis but with radical communism instead of fascism, but such a thing would be under heavy watchful eye and under the threat of more loss of life. What I find likely is that the USSR pretty much dies because of the atomic bombings and that a pro-US or at least democratic or neutral Russia would take power and would focus inward on repairing the damage, by the time the damage is done, what is left of Russia is a very weak nation due to the effort and time needed to rebuild and clean up the radiation.
 
Personally I doubt there would be atomic bombings involved, maybe 1 or 2 but no more than that. If dozens were dropped the United States would have killed more than Hitler, and Stalin did in Seconds, thus making the public view after the war very negative and the enviromental impact from such a bombing would likely render most of Russia a nuclear wasteland, one that would forever be on America's record and tarnish it forever. What I think would happen is that the USSR would plow through much of western Europe, up until around France, maybe into Paris and down south, this is when their supply lines would run dry, and the Americans / American allies would bomb supply lines, cut off soviet troops, and invade and retake the land, while advancing through East Germany, maybe even re-arming the old Nazi Military as an ally against that of the USSR while an invasion would be launched into the Russian far east by Japan and America.

What would likely happen is a mirror image of the Eastern front or something similar to it, Russian winter could stall American troops and create a stalemate. The loss of life by going into the soviet union by conventional warfare would be hell, and invading through the rest of soviet occupied Europe, and what the soviets manages to take in Europe would already be losses much like that in ww2 (I could probably be wrong there), this is when Leningrad and Moscow could be nuked, USSR wouldn't surrender and would face a fate like that of Japan. We would see Europe completely destroyed, and communist elements completely removed and Europe would take a very long time to rebuild and possibly look alot more modern, Russia would likely be too big to handle to have a puppet state, so a democratic regime would be elected, without 50-60 years of Communism Russia would be far better off at the cost of millions of deaths.

I personally believe 50-100 nukes is a simply stupid concept, it would kill more and leave the land unavailable to use by NATO forces. Think about the debate involved in such a nuking, think about the deaths involved in 50-100 atomic weapons landing on Russian soil, it would simply never happen, and if it did, the world would be in shock and fear and the United States would forever be tarnished for what it did. Europe would be destroyed by this war, and in that being, the United States would be the sole superpower of the world and would outcompete all forms of communism and we would have a completely different world in those aspects.

As a practical exercise the devastated area can be calculated. IOW the start assumptions just might be a couple of orders of magnitude too great.

Another way to understand it is to view this map. Many of the early tests were above ground detonations. At least 400 of them...

The United States and Russia are very much alive and kicking.
 
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Since WWII there has been a lot of revisionist history concerning the atomic bombings in Japan. They caused too much death (many conventional attacks caused as many, just used more force to achieve the same end), they caused horrific injuries (conventional burns and blast injuries can be just as bad), and so on. OTOH my father (still alive) was a radar/nav on a B-29 crew and was actually flying out of Tinian when the bomb was dropped. His comment on the atomic bombings and the immediate end to the war after Nagasaki was, we all were thanking God for this because now we felt we would live to go home.

If using atomic weapons on the USSR will win the war, and reduce the number of US/Allied casualties, the vast majority of people will be OK with that. Sure, folks will regret civilian casualties, but I defy you to find a family that would say "of course I would have preferred our loved one was killed or crippled rather than the bomb being used".
 
Another thing to think about is how good was infrastructure in Eastern Germany at the time. As far as I can find out it was years before it got as good as was prewar. The railways took 10/15 years. This will hold up any build up for the Russians, plus the west would notice something like that.
Don't know if the gauge was the same in Russia as Germany.
 
Don't know if the gauge was the same in Russia as Germany.
Russia, USSR then Russian Federation used Broad Gauge rather than Standard as the rest of Europ

Areas under control of the Soviets didn't change too much, except what was East Prussia was regauged after the War to link better with the Baltics
Poland was not converted, though

from the wiki

Broad-gauge railways

LHS links southern Poland with broad gauge railways in Ukraine and other eastern countries

The network is standard gauge except for the Broad Gauge Metallurgy Line (known by its Polish abbreviation LHS) and a few short stretches near border crossings. The LHS to Sławków is the longest line, single track for almost 400 km from the Ukrainian border just east of Hrubieszów. It is the westernmost broad gauge line connected to the system of the former Soviet Union.


Neither was East Germany converted. Back to Poland- after the War, Poland changed to lines back to Standard gauge that the USSR had done in '44-45 for the drive to Germany, Don't have hard dates on when that was done.
 
Another thing to think about is how good was infrastructure in Eastern Germany at the time. As far as I can find out it was years before it got as good as was prewar. The railways took 10/15 years. This will hold up any build up for the Russians, plus the west would notice something like that.
Don't know if the gauge was the same in Russia as Germany.
The traffic infrastructure of SBZ which you mean may have been much worse than in 1939, but it was probably far better than in the Soviet republics forever and everywhere. The Bolshevik structures always were marvellous on paper, but a shame in reality. The Polit Commissar wrote a brillant report to his superior, and that did it.

But lets watch the gauge question.
It was only a question if it took a couple of hours or a couple of days to be answered conclusively.
The gauge soon being no question, because then there was no gauge at all.
Allied fighter bombers under a covering screen of P-80 plus some Gloster and deHavilland Jets would have hammered the Belorus and Polish traffic arteries to quarks, achieving as a side-effect a 25:1 claimed and 7:1 real kill rate of the Jets against the Soviet Yak-windmills, accidents already included. Ground attackers had paid their tribute against the 23mm and 40mm AA-Cannons, but heroes must die sometimes.
That is no Fata Morgana. In the last weeks of European WW II Germanys traffic system was reduced to almost zero by the strikes of fighter bombers and two-engined B-25. Excuse me mentioning a matter known by everybody. But that evident case proves that a Soviet attack on the Western allies would lasted hardly longer than 1 (one) day.
Another day, and the armoured counter attack of the Alliess would annihilate Stalins shattered elite divisions. Soviet anti aircraft abilities were remarkably poor. On the Eastern front Colonel Rudel still shot medium and heavy red tanks to scrap, flying in his antique Ju87 which even had no retractabe gear. The anti-aircraft batteries mostly hadnt got Radar and shot a gorgeous salute for the attackers.

Therefore the gauge was of no real importance.
The attacking tanks and assault guns out of fuel, ammunition and morals, WW III wouldnt have lasted more than a few days and a red progress of 100 miles (160km) if much. Than Towarischtsch had to surrender.
Marshal Konjew not because he shot himself.

Someway its funny that the Western horror-propaganda of the Dangerous CCCP could be brainwashed into the conscience of most Americans and Europeans. On account of the technical Western superiority it only was a paper tiger.
There still is a long range effect on the brains of alternate fans who seriously are calculating how many Plutonium bombs had been necessary to prevent the defeat of the USA & Cie. Fine mixture of comedy and tragedy.
Uncle Joe knew his tiger fur was of paper. He was a smart guy and never had started such a suicide experiment.

At last I have to apologize for my poor English. I tried my best.
 
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As a practical exercise the devastated area can be calculated. IOW the start assumptions just might be a couple of orders of magnitude too great.

Another way to understand it is to view this map. Many of the early tests were above ground detonations. At least 400 of them...

The United States and Russia are very much alive and kicking.

The chapter on "pet decontamination" was most interesting. Indeed, after a nuclear war your pet must be thoroughly decontaminated to be eaten safely...
 
The traffic infrastructure of SBZ which you mean may have been much worse than in 1939, but it was probably far better than in the Soviet republics forever and everywhere. The Bolshevik structures always were marvellous on paper, but a shame in reality. Th Polit Commissar wrote a brillant report to his superior, and that did it.

Let's see what the actual historical studies of Soviet railroads say:

Yet this picture sits at variance both with the extensive Soviet literature on logistics by authors such as Kumenev, Kovalev and Antipenko, and Western studies of the Soviet transportation network by economists such as Holland Hunter and Mark Harrison and students of the Soviet railways such as the former British Army officers Westwood and Garbutt. Both sets of sources tell the story of a highly successful railway system that before the war carried almost as much freight traffic as the United States and accomplished this using a rolling stock fleet and length of track only a little larger than that of the pre-war Reichsbahn.
...
Despite the uneven development of the network, the USSR had some of the most intensively used track in the world: In 1930 it had 1,738,000 ton-km per km compared to 1,608,000 for the United States. This was achieved by running the railway at a low uniform speed (29 km/hour in 1934), which eliminated delays from trains overtaking one another, reduced track wear, and allowed large numbers of trains to be run on the same stretch of track with primitive signaling. The low axle loading of engines (Э class 17 tonnes 28) and wagons (1934 — 15-tonne load for a two-axle wagon) allowed them to travel around most of the network, and their low load carrying was mitigated by using longer trains. All of these characteristics were ideal for operating railways in areas of military operations.

Looks like they say this is complete nonsense.

But lets watch the gauge question.
It was only a question if it took a couple of hours or a couple of days to be answered conclusively.
The gauge soon being no question, because then there was no gauge at all.
Allied fighter bombers under a covering screen of P-80 plus some Gloster and deHavilland Jets would have hammered the Belorus and Polish traffic arteries to quarks, achieving as a side-effect a 25:1 claimed and 7:1 real kill rate of the Jets against the Soviet Yak-windmills, accidents already included. Ground attackers had paid their tribute against the 23mm and 40mm AA-Cannons, but heroes must die sometimes.

This amounts to nothing more then wishful thinking. The USSR had more modern fighters then the combined Anglo-Americans did total aircraft globally and these aircraft, particularly in such low-level as would be here, proved. Soviet pilots achieved roughly 1:1 real kill rates against the Anglo-Americans during the accidental clashes in the late-days of WW2 and again. There are no P-80 or Gloster Jet Fighters. Only one RAF squadron, the Number 3 Squadron in at Gusterloch, had De Havilland's and a single squadron means dick all in operational-strategic terms. Literally every other air unit I could find at the time the Berlin Blockade started was outfitted with Piston-powered aircraft. The sole USAF fighter group in Europe was made up of a grand total of 75 WW2-vintage P-47s.

That is no Fata Morgana. In the last weeks of European WW II Germanys traffic system was reduced to almost zero by the strikes of fighter bombers and two-engined B-25. Excuse me mentioning a matter known by everybody. But that evident case proves that a Soviet attack on the Western allies would lasted hardly longer than 1 (one) day.

It's a total Fata Morgana. The WAllied air forces in 1948 have lost almost all the material and expertise, a process which even at their peak took months to execute and never managed to actually reduce German traffic to zero. Excuse me mentioning a matter that apparently people can't accept, but it is evident that the formidable air forces the WAllies had in 1945 no longer existed by '48 and that a Soviet attack would have chopped right through them.

Another day, and the armoured counter attack of the Alliess would annihilate Stalins shattered elite divisions.

What armored counterattacks? The West has zero armored divisions in Western Germany.

On the Eastern front Colonel Rudel still shot medium and heavy red tanks to scrap, flying in his antique Ju87 which even had no retractabe gear. The anti-aircraft batteries mostly hadnt got Radar and shot a gorgeous salute for the attackers.

Maybe if one lifts their sights further then outright Nazis propaganda and look into actual air defense studies of the post-WW2 Soviet AA forces, they'll find a force thoroughly outfitted with radar-guided AA and proximity fuses.

Someway its funny that the Western horror-propaganda of the Dangerous CCCP could be brainwashed into the conscience of most Americans and Europeans. On account of the technical Western superiority it only was a paper tiger.

It's funny that the Western triumphalist-propaganda of a paper tiger CCCP could be brainwashed into the conscience of so many people, hence presumably why they were concluding the USSR couldn't build jet aircraft, strategic bombers, or nuclear weapons up to the very moment the Soviets showed in no uncertain terms that they could. On account of it's massive military-industrial complex, it was a military superpower with all that entails.
 
The break of gauge question gives serious pause to anyone thinking about the "Soviet hordes swarming into Western Europe". Those hordes would be limited to what already is deployed forward into the Iron Curtain border countries. Second echelons etc advancing would be significantly late, and the border crossings would very likely be showered in conventional or nuclear bombs... The fact that the railways from in the Warsaw Pact satellite countries were never adjusted to match the Soviet gauge should be taken as evidence that the USSR never seriously entertained aggressive intentions, and was on the contrary deeply paranoid about undergoing yet another unprovoked attack.
 
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