U.S. nukes the Soviets before 1949
- Thread starter Bullmoose713
- Start date
Enough to know that's the information given did nothing to stop the soviets conventional military superiority to slowly dissipate over the course of the 70s and 80s. The USSR could have espionage'd its way into building six nimitz rip offs and that wouldn't change the fact that their increasingly older leadership did not know how to deal with the systems structural flaws.
McPherson
Banned
The Russians systems in place were deliberate one shot all or nothing offense oriented. If and that is a very BIG if, the US could have survived that first blow, the Russians would have been helpless.
This is why your thesis fails; a fundamental misunderstanding of how the SU was oriented to fight and what they expected. Their peak capability was not dependent on their economic progress, but on launch platforms ===> target service, which is a very Marxist theoretical pseudo-scientific and dogmatic formula driven way of thinking about things military. The inevitable fail-point is if that target servicing cannot delete enemy counterstrike capability, land-air-sea then the whole military premise falls apart.
Gorbachev admitted to Bush that the soviet military model had failed. They believed they could strike and neutralize NATO armies and air forces and even the surface fleets to win a European decision and they had ruined their economy (following the Imperial Japanese economic model) to do it., but they could not get the US subs.
Same thing that did in the Japanese, did in the Russians. They could not eliminate American counter-force on force, so... "We quit."
Since then, the Russians have "changed" their way of war. They avoid any effort at force on force preferring asymmetry. The US is in the process of responding. Interesting, but it gets too close to current topics to discuss so we have to leave it at that point.
And here we see you keep spouting off stuff that you know nothing about. Soviet military planning all the way to the end involved extreme preparations for extended war requiring multiple, consecutive, and sequential operations with extensive and extended socio-economic mobilization. It's why their economy was so militarized and so stuffed with dual-use manufacturing capability. Soviet military theory since Frunze argued that modern armies are too large and sophisticated to be destroyed in a single blow. The idea of a "one shot all or nothing offensive" was never part of their strategic planning. That kind of obsession with a singular knock-out blow was more a German thing.
McPherson
Banned
I'm seeing nothing in the link which refutes me, as it doesn't say a damn thing about Soviet doctrine being a "one shot all or nothing offense oriented" force and instead focuses wholly on Gorshkov's contributions to naval though which, interestingly, the article makes out to quite prescient. On the other hand, Frunze's eigth thesis rather leaves only little room for interpretation:
"The eighth thesis was that the objectives of both the Soviet forces and those of the enemy would not only be enemy focused (destroy and defeat armies), but also terrain and information focused (seize his logistic bases, influence his centers of power, create a fifth column). While still immature at this point, Frunze’s concept of total war meant that all levels of society would be involved in future warfare, not only the Red Army. This would be true for the Capitalists as well. Destroying the army of the Capitalists was not the main thing for Frunze; to him, those soldiers were merely exploited workers. Frunze believed that the Red Army would have to destroy the means of production to feed the Capitalist war machine. Frunze believed that as long as either side had the means of production to continue the war, the loss of a field army would not be decisive."
-Mikhail Frunze and the Unified Military Doctrine, Page 79
What about fleshing out the POD a bit? Let's say the Soviets are more aggressive post-war, and manage to install Communist puppet states in Greece and Italy, and perhaps Austria.
As a result, the US doesn't demobilize to nearly the extent they did OTL, and in particular maintains high standards of training and readiness in strategic airpower, does not turn control of atomic weapons over to the AEC, and has a larger stockpile available.
In this scenario, which doesn't actually violate the OP, could such a preemptive strike be successfully carried out?
As a result, the US doesn't demobilize to nearly the extent they did OTL, and in particular maintains high standards of training and readiness in strategic airpower, does not turn control of atomic weapons over to the AEC, and has a larger stockpile available.
In this scenario, which doesn't actually violate the OP, could such a preemptive strike be successfully carried out?
No. I don't see anything about it. I notice that for all you claim that it shows that, you are unable to dredge up a quote from it that actually says it.
Worth noting that the second link you hastily added after I made my post spends considerable time pointing out how Gorshkov is strengthening the Soviet navies capabilities at strategic defense as well as offense. Suffice to say, that neatly manages to do more then not support your assertion, but outright contradicts it. It also contradicts you when it quotes Gorshkov saying stuff like this:
Now, I'm aware the Soviet navy did have such a doctrine when it came to the tactical role of many of its vessels, but that says little about the strategic military doctrine of the Soviet armed forces as a whole.
Yeah, you very much seem like the type to look at a quote which basically says "Frunze believed that until the enemies military-economic infrastructure could be seized, military defeats were meaningless" and some how read "one shot one kill, no reloads strategy entirely based on defeating the enemy armies" from that.
It'd certainly help, but it might be a bit politically difficult to avoid demobilizing to such an extent even with a more aggressive USSR. The historical near-mutinies were pretty bad enough...
McPherson
Banned
Maybe you should take a look at the Russian Navy ON. The OBVIOUS tell is they do not have a genuine fleet train. The same defect can be seen in the SU era army. No true logistics tail.
SU air force? There you might have me. But if you don't log at sea and make no Log provisions beyond some highly vulnerable pipelines laid across Poland and East Germany (Where are the fuel bowsers in the numbers needed for the tank armies?), you just might expect a lunge to the Rhine and that's it. I would think SU air forces might not have reloads. We knew their naval frontal aviation did not have any. One shot, one kill.
So I kind of see the Frunze quote the way I see it. As Frunze may have wished, the Russians did not do. Instead they reverted to this maniac. Incidentally, Stalin, his successor, had Frunze murdered, so there is also that gasoline I pour on your fire, ON.
For what it is worth, look at who they were and what they actually wrote and actually DID?
SU air force? There you might have me. But if you don't log at sea and make no Log provisions beyond some highly vulnerable pipelines laid across Poland and East Germany (Where are the fuel bowsers in the numbers needed for the tank armies?), you just might expect a lunge to the Rhine and that's it. I would think SU air forces might not have reloads. We knew their naval frontal aviation did not have any. One shot, one kill.
So I kind of see the Frunze quote the way I see it. As Frunze may have wished, the Russians did not do. Instead they reverted to this maniac. Incidentally, Stalin, his successor, had Frunze murdered, so there is also that gasoline I pour on your fire, ON.
For what it is worth, look at who they were and what they actually wrote and actually DID?
If the U.S. launched a nuclear strike on the Soviets -- likely multiple nuclear strikes on Moscow, Leningrad, etc. -- without any justifiable warning or provocation, it would without a doubt put the United States on par with Nazi Germany as the one of the greatest evils of the 20th century, and would solidify decades of communist propaganda that the Western capitalist-imperialist powers are indistinguishable from the then-recently defeated fascist. Keep in mind, WW2 only ended four years ago, and the broad consensus among Europeans then (particularly the working-classes) was that it was the Soviet Union, not the United States or Great Britain, that played the decisive role in defeating Nazism. With the effects of the Marshall Plan not yet being felt among ordinary workers, this would almost certainly and decisively tip the political balance in Western Europe in favor of the communists.
SsgtC
Banned
Pro tip? You don't need a fleet train for the kind of warfare the Soviets planned to use their Navy for. You only need a fleet train similar to the USN's when your entire Navy is focused on Power Projection and Expeditionary Warfare. You don't need a fleet train unless you're going to spend weeks/months at a time away from your own bases. That was never the MO of the Red Fleet.
Lots of assertions, zero supporting evidence.
In the tank armies and the group-level logistical units, duh. The Cold War Soviets didn't give each of their mechanized and tank divisions 2,000 support vehicles because they looked pretty.
Well, what they did in WW2, on which they based their expectations for WW3, was wage a prolonged mobilized war that was characterized by sequential and successive operations that did not seek to destroy the Germans in a single blow but instead successively ground them down until the Red Army was seizing the Germans means of waging war.
Why, they so did not do it that they only made put him charge of the reforming and organizing their entire army and coordinating it with the industrial base and then wholesale incorporate his surviving recommendations in the five-year plans after Stalin's accession to power.
I sometimes wonder if you even actually read your links or if you just look at the title and who or what it is about and assume it supports your conclusion. Actually, I don't wonder it, I realized it was the latter answer a loooong time ago.
What is this conspiracy nonsense? Frunze died to complications in surgery to treat his ulcers well before Stalin assumed power. And sure, keep pouring gasoline on the the fire I've started. It's the Fire of Highlighting Your Historical Illiteracy, after all.
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That, and the US military really doesn't, or didn't, have the freedom of action to launch pre-emptive attacks of such a scale. If such a thing were being planned, the Soviets would have caught wind of it from the very beginning.
McPherson
Banned
Pro-tip. You need a fleet train if you plan to fight a sustained naval war even with a BASTION DEFENSE. Your floating ASW fence and forces need supply at sea. ESPECIALLY in the arctic.
And if you fight the USN, you better bring reloads.
marathag
Banned
...while conveniently overlooked that Uncle Joe was AH and Nazism biggest booster from when they together divided Poland till Barbarossa.
Till that Summer, the Useful Idiots taking cues directly from Moscow proclaiming that the French and British were Capitalist warmongers.
All while Oil and Food rolled West to feed Hitler's Warmachine.
Saying that the Glorious Motherland was mostly responsible for the defeat of the Hitlerites was also the PR from Moscow.
Given that the Soviets had nearby arctic ports all over the place to ensure there would need to be as well as an excess of ships so they could maintain a steady rotation, the fallacy of this assertion is rather transparent.
In any case, since the bastion defense doesn't become relevant until the 1970s and 80s, when the Soviet maritime fleet had become a considerably different force then it was in the late-40s. Which is the actual time period we are talking about.
Okay. And how does that at all refute the assertion?
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