The combined forces of the US and UK vs USSR during WW2 results?

So without getting into too much detail about why this happens, my question is would the combined forces of the US and the UK have been able to successfully invade the USSR during the WW2 period as the Nazis attempted?

Would they have been more successful than the Germans were? by how much if so?

-edit- the planned joint invasion is to happen late 1942. This is a surprise invasion.
 
Last edited:

Saphroneth

Banned
There's several questions that need to be answered.

One of them is "Do the WAllies get surprise?"
Another is "What time period's USSR and USA/UK are we talking about?"
(Both got a LOT stronger over the course of the war - for example, the US army was almost negligible in 1941.)
My guess is no, by the way - but that's based on putting any given period's USSR versus the equivalent US+UK.
 
Given that USSR is eating US wheat, riding US trucks, flying with US aviation fuel and building tank engines out of US aluminium i'd say that they are royally screwed even if they throw US & UK to the sea.
 

Saphroneth

Banned
Given that USSR is eating US wheat, riding US trucks, flying with US aviation fuel and building tank engines out of US aluminium i'd say that they are royally screwed even if they throw US & UK to the sea.
But if they throw the US and UK back, then they don't need to eat US wheat/ride US trucks any more, because the USSR was self sufficient in those things until the Germans invaded.

Now, there's another question - from where is this invasion taking place?
I assume the German invasion hasn't happened, but unless the WAllies are replacing Germany then the only real point of contact is via Persia.
 
I understand from a practical standpoint it would be hard to get to this point.

I suppose this is just a theoretical idea on how or if the combined forces of the US/UK could have done a better job at invading the USSR than Germany.

Now both those countries could have technically invaded in 1945 at the end of the war IOTL but they would have done so against a war weary USSR not one at near full strength like Germany faced during its attempted invasion.
 
Welcome to the bizarre world that is the U-U-U bunfight :D, in the blue corner we have the unfortunately named yousuck Alliance I mean the USUK Alliance and in the red corner we have the USSR.

The rules are simple operation Barbarossa style invasion of the Soviet Union.

The ground work is rather similar by fair means or foul the USUK must secure the compliance, willing or otherwise of Poland, Hungary, Romania as launching off points for their assault. Now this is actually not all that challenging it just required extensive bribery something that the USUK are eminently to do as they have control of global trade...why they would bother already having control of global trade we shall skirt around.

In addition it may be possible to launch subsidiary assaults via other points with the relative compliance of hitherto neutral countries. Now again securing the compliance of countries like Turkey, Persia, Afghanistan or even Finland should be relatively easy for the USUK coalition massive brbery plus judicious application of military force....

It is post set up we run into problems. The USUK forces are designed to protect control over global trade, the only commodity in the world worth a damn as all the rest are merely components of it. They have supremely strong naval forces. Relatively strong air forces and land forces that can be characterised as efficient....yes efficient not large, the kind of forces you have if you would like to transport them to somewhere and drop them on the heads of someone trying to muscle in on your special interests but not really the kind of forces for a massive ground war in Europe let alone Eurasia.

To effect the invasion of the USSR would require massive changes to the spending regimes of the USUK and this distortion given that their priority is the control of global trade is chancy especially as when you already have control over global trade more territory grants you nothing but more headaches.

The Second World War was still fairly close to the kind of war that the USUK system was designed for. Fairly large mechanised armies were raised with some ninety divisions each by the US and the British Empire but essentially the bulk of logistics was handled by sea transport. To invade the Eurasian interior would require far greater allocation of resources to land transport for obvious reasons and the resources for that would have to come from somewhere. Either the home front and that would be a hard sell as going to war to make your citizens poorer is rarely popular in the first place or from naval forces as sea borne logistics would still be needed in the same amount and given that the defence of global trade rest precisely on total naval supremacy can you imagine how that will go down with the admirals?

So yes in theory the USUK could raise some 120 divisions for the assault and yes they would unlike the German plus allies of Barbarossa be largely if not entirely motorised and yes they would likely have more extensive air forces in support and yes it ought to be possible to provide more extensive logistics support to them thus avoiding the need for "special measures" against local civilians with all the complications that entailed. However none of that would be available in 1941 as the priority of the USUK was always maritime not land power.

When you already have everything it makes far more sense to hold on to what you have rather than grab for more. The downside of this, if it can be considered a downside, is that you then do not allocate resources to the conquest of large industrial states in the Eurasian interior.

Which means the USSR is going to be a hell of a lot stronger when attacked in 1942 onwards than it was when the Germans went in in 1941. Back then the USSR had vitally weakened itself in all kinds of areas not merely assassinating its own officer corps but uprooting its fixed fortifications to the new frontiers before the Red Army was rebuilt to the point it could handle a mobile defence.

This then is the perverse point of the exercise. The very strengths that make the USUK Alliance vastly more dangerous in terms of capacity to attack the USSR if they so chose to spend their resources thusly (which for obvious reasons they largely did not in OTL) actually preclude the desire to do so thus weakening their commitment to the kind of life and death struggle needed to overcome the USSR on its home soil. Unlike Germany the USSR simply cannot reach the USUK on home soil so you cannot sell your soldiers on an existential threat. Unlike Germany the USUK holds the whip hand when trading for Soviet resources, they have far more of what the Soviets want than vice versa which again was not the case for the Germans who simply could not afford to pay in any kind of long term trade.

Essentially yes in theory the USUK might be able to just about beat the USSR in its home soil but the odds are that the cost would be enormously prohibitive and would ruin the USUK economies to the point that any 'gains' would in fact be negative. Which means that at any given point in the conflict the USUK are far more likely to simply pack their bags and sail home...because they can.
 
Isn't this a wee bit too theoretical a question... They wouldn't be the way they were, say, in 1943, without the German war, and with a German war, there would be no sense in having a completely different war. The only historically meaningful question would be either pre-1939 or post-1945. And of course with pre-1939 we definitely would have a very strong Germany there. So, I guess this would be about the immediate post-war years which has been even over debated here (it's next to impossible to imagine it, but eventually the allies would win).

Anyway, purely theoretically, success follows the big guns and the big guns in the modern world mean the most powerful industrial-technological base. So, any alliance that contains the US would be the strongest alliance of that era.

Of course, in the immediate post-war era no-one had the stomach for a new world war whatever plans were made (sometimes it seems to me that regular GHQ planning is rather misunderstood - a plan in itself doesn't signify intention).
 
Any USUK invasion would be far far more subtle than the German sledgehammer. For starters lots more political action so other people do the fighting for you. In any case the USUK had already attempted back in 1919 to do something similar, have a feeling it didn't work out quite well....
 
The US and UK could cut off all of the USSR's trading partners except for China.
The US and UK could then attack the USSR's oil production via Iran. If they then invaded into Ukraine the USSR would have lost most of its oil and food.
 
Technically, only Germany had a change to have any succes in attacking the USSR, since the Reich was possitioned on the same continent as the USSR. Both UK and USA first had to get a base of operations organised on the continent, before even thinking of a full scale attack on the USSR. OK, both UK and to a lesser sence the USA ruled the waves (USA was very late in building a Multi role offensive fleet, while the UK had a defensive Multi purpose one form the start on, not an offensive one), but could not deploy a and force against the USSR on short notice and use that to attack deep inland.

To put it simply: in 1940 - 1945 the USA had no means to deploy a substantial landforce, both in quality and in quantity oversea, with no basis there to build up first. The UK faced simmilar problems unless willing to attack a neutral country first, which it would not be willing to do so politically. Thus on their own or just with eachother, no change of any succes, except a naval dominance, which was of less use, as the USSR was self sufficient enough to survive.
 

CalBear

Moderator
Donor
Monthly Donor
So without getting into too much detail about why this happens, my question is would the combined forces of the US and the UK have been able to successfully invade the USSR during the WW2 period as the Nazis attempted?

Would they have been more successful than the Germans were? by how much if so?

-edit- the planned joint invasion is to happen late 1942. This is a surprise invasion.

You can never say "don't worry about..."

The How is critical. How did the situation develop?

How did the U.S./UK forces arrive at the start line? Did the have to fight across half of the European Peninsula to get there?

When did the U.S. start to gear up production?

What was the Soviet Union doing? Have they moved their factories? Is the T-34 in full series production? Has Stalin stopped the Officer Purge that ended in mid 1941 IOTL or has he continued to kill his most capable leaders?

Why would anyone with a passing knowledge or either weather or history decide to invade the USSR IN THE WINTER?

There are so many variables that have to be addressed that the answer is "whatever you want the result to be".
 

Deleted member 1487

You can never say "don't worry about..."

The How is critical. How did the situation develop?

How did the U.S./UK forces arrive at the start line? Did the have to fight across half of the European Peninsula to get there?

When did the U.S. start to gear up production?

What was the Soviet Union doing? Have they moved their factories? Is the T-34 in full series production? Has Stalin stopped the Officer Purge that ended in mid 1941 IOTL or has he continued to kill his most capable leaders?

Why would anyone with a passing knowledge or either weather or history decide to invade the USSR IN THE WINTER?

There are so many variables that have to be addressed that the answer is "whatever you want the result to be".
I suppose you could do a rerun of the intervention against the Soviets in 1919: have the British/Americans invade at Murmansk and Crimea, while fight off the Soviets in Iran/Afghanistan while bombing Baku. In the Pacific the US can invade Vladivostok with Japanese blessing, say for the promise of Siberian territory post-war if they let the US move in and use their territory.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_intervention_in_the_Russian_Civil_War
 
Welcome to the bizarre world that is the U-U-U bunfight :D, in the blue corner we have the unfortunately named yousuck Alliance I mean the USUK Alliance and in the red corner we have the USSR.

The rules are simple operation Barbarossa style invasion of the Soviet Union.

The ground work is rather similar by fair means or foul the USUK must secure the compliance, willing or otherwise of Poland, Hungary, Romania as launching off points for their assault. Now this is actually not all that challenging it just required extensive bribery something that the USUK are eminently to do as they have control of global trade...why they would bother already having control of global trade we shall skirt around.

In addition it may be possible to launch subsidiary assaults via other points with the relative compliance of hitherto neutral countries. Now again securing the compliance of countries like Turkey, Persia, Afghanistan or even Finland should be relatively easy for the USUK coalition massive brbery plus judicious application of military force....

It is post set up we run into problems. The USUK forces are designed to protect control over global trade, the only commodity in the world worth a damn as all the rest are merely components of it. They have supremely strong naval forces. Relatively strong air forces and land forces that can be characterised as efficient....yes efficient not large, the kind of forces you have if you would like to transport them to somewhere and drop them on the heads of someone trying to muscle in on your special interests but not really the kind of forces for a massive ground war in Europe let alone Eurasia.

To effect the invasion of the USSR would require massive changes to the spending regimes of the USUK and this distortion given that their priority is the control of global trade is chancy especially as when you already have control over global trade more territory grants you nothing but more headaches.

The Second World War was still fairly close to the kind of war that the USUK system was designed for. Fairly large mechanised armies were raised with some ninety divisions each by the US and the British Empire but essentially the bulk of logistics was handled by sea transport. To invade the Eurasian interior would require far greater allocation of resources to land transport for obvious reasons and the resources for that would have to come from somewhere. Either the home front and that would be a hard sell as going to war to make your citizens poorer is rarely popular in the first place or from naval forces as sea borne logistics would still be needed in the same amount and given that the defence of global trade rest precisely on total naval supremacy can you imagine how that will go down with the admirals?

So yes in theory the USUK could raise some 120 divisions for the assault and yes they would unlike the German plus allies of Barbarossa be largely if not entirely motorised and yes they would likely have more extensive air forces in support and yes it ought to be possible to provide more extensive logistics support to them thus avoiding the need for "special measures" against local civilians with all the complications that entailed. However none of that would be available in 1941 as the priority of the USUK was always maritime not land power.

When you already have everything it makes far more sense to hold on to what you have rather than grab for more. The downside of this, if it can be considered a downside, is that you then do not allocate resources to the conquest of large industrial states in the Eurasian interior.

Which means the USSR is going to be a hell of a lot stronger when attacked in 1942 onwards than it was when the Germans went in in 1941. Back then the USSR had vitally weakened itself in all kinds of areas not merely assassinating its own officer corps but uprooting its fixed fortifications to the new frontiers before the Red Army was rebuilt to the point it could handle a mobile defence.

This then is the perverse point of the exercise. The very strengths that make the USUK Alliance vastly more dangerous in terms of capacity to attack the USSR if they so chose to spend their resources thusly (which for obvious reasons they largely did not in OTL) actually preclude the desire to do so thus weakening their commitment to the kind of life and death struggle needed to overcome the USSR on its home soil. Unlike Germany the USSR simply cannot reach the USUK on home soil so you cannot sell your soldiers on an existential threat. Unlike Germany the USUK holds the whip hand when trading for Soviet resources, they have far more of what the Soviets want than vice versa which again was not the case for the Germans who simply could not afford to pay in any kind of long term trade.

Essentially yes in theory the USUK might be able to just about beat the USSR in its home soil but the odds are that the cost would be enormously prohibitive and would ruin the USUK economies to the point that any 'gains' would in fact be negative. Which means that at any given point in the conflict the USUK are far more likely to simply pack their bags and sail home...because they can.

Wow very well written out piece. Well done.
 
Wow very well written out piece. Well done.

I basically have a problem not only with the how, but also from where?

Through Siberia? Would take a while
Through the middle east and Caucasus....Would take quite a while
China??
Himalaya??

In all of the above in 1942, are the USUK still in war with Germany/Japan? Then it would take quite a while longer.

From the west? By far the most likely, but where is Germany/Poland in this scenario?
I could see this work if the Germans indeed persuades the western powers that the Soviet Union is the bigger threat, but then its UK, US, Franc and Germany vs SU and SU will indeed lose.
 
It fails. The US Army is not fully mobilized and trained at the time. The UK may be better off, but not quite, whereas they do have a fighting force, it has not peaked its full potential until later on.
 
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