US led invasion of USSR

The problem with the WW2 in 1946 scenario is one thing: Everyone is Tired. They already fought a war, their cities were burning, their resources invested, and their men having done their share of fighting and dying.

Everyone was tired except the Americans. WW2 is perhaps the one outlier where the public really didn't have much opposition to the war. Granted we only fought for 4 years but I think we could sustain the war effort for at least another two years. At which point the USSR is a pile of radioactive dust.
 
Everyone was tired except the Americans. WW2 is perhaps the one outlier where the public really didn't have much opposition to the war. Granted we only fought for 4 years but I think we could sustain the war effort for at least another two years. At which point the USSR is a pile of radioactive dust.

Pretty much. It would have been much cheaper than the Cold War, too.
 
Fun fact. An Army intelligence report stated that a Soviet infantry division had twice as much firepower as an American.

I would like to see a reference for that. If it is true it neglects the fact that much of the firepower of the American division was in attached or supporting units. American units had a much easier and more flexible structure to call for firesupport from other units (especially artillery support)
 
Just looking over this thread and it seems to neglect one fact - There was still a war going on in the Pacific! Plans foor transferring units to the pacific for the final push on Japan started before V-E day. There was also a large fear of 'Werewolf' operations in Europe so there was a major effort to gather in the remaining German units and stragglers and collect weapons.

The U.S. Army in Europe even by July of 1945 wasn't the force that had advanced across Europe. There was very little unit cohesion as high points troops were being detached from any units remaining and their place being taken by low points troops from units that were being sent back to the states for reassignment to the Pacific.

If you wait till September after the Japanese surrender the above problem mis even worse and you are preparing for a European winter and supporting all the ravaged economies in Europe.

Strategic Airpower isn't going to be very useful. Even if you move the bases forward from England to eastern France and western Germany there arent going to be many useful targets in range. Everything west of Moscow is in ruins already. The real targets are in the Urals and beyond in asia and that is at the limits or beyond the range of most of tehwests bomber force.

And as many others have already mentioned the U.S. public wants the troops to come home.
 

Inhato

Banned
Having a great navy does little in confrontation with USSR, it's a land based power.

Also even if the Soviet soldiers are tired, if Allies would use Nazi troops(as was planned) to fight, would energize them pretty well.
An average Soviet citizen who fought all these years against genocide of his people will stand and fight again to avoid repetition of that(even if this is imagined).
Poland would likely have divided loyalties as well.
 
If they cared that much about Eastern Europe, Munich would not have happened, nor would the invasion of Poland have received such a lukewarm response.
I just listed a potential benefit of such a war. That the westerners did not value it very much is proven enough by history.

bsmart111 said:
Just looking over this thread and it seems to neglect one fact - There was still a war going on in the Pacific! Plans foor transferring units to the pacific for the final push on Japan started before V-E day.
This thread is still young. The topic of Japan was discussed in some detail in the other thread (the one with the Soviet invasion).

Inhato said:
Also even if the Soviet soldiers are tired, if Allies would use Nazi troops(as was planned) to fight, would energize them pretty well.
Poland would likely have divided loyalties as well.
Very good points that are rarely mentioned
 
The disagreement came from the Soviets going back on their side of the deal and not allowing democratic elections, which the Allies should have seen coming. If they did they could have strong armed the Soviets into backing down, as I said above.

Much as I hate to promote Churchill, it seems there were some who saw it coming.....


From ‘Warlords, the heart of conflict 1939 – 1945’ by Simon Berthon and Joanna Potts.

Page 131

But as the war ground on, Churchill began to see a new threat to Europe – the man who had become the third ally in the fight against Hitler, Joseph Stalin. In late 1942 he told Anthony Eden: ‘It would be a measureless disaster if Russian barbarianism overlaid the ancient state of Europe.’

Roosevelt thought otherwise. As far as he was concerned, the cause of war in the first place was the in fighting between Europe’s ancient, imperialist nations and he began to see in Stalin someone who would help him in his great cause of freeing the world of that Imperialism. Also in 1942, in a conversation with the Roman Catholic Archbishop of New York, he remarked: ‘The European people will simply have to endure Russian domination in the hope that – in ten or 20 years – the European influence will bring the Russians to become less barbarous.’


This is taken from ‘The Roosevelt Letters: Being the Personnel Correspondence of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Vol.3: 1928 – 1945.
 
The SU has a bloody large army but its dependent on US trucks to keep it going and what's the possible production rate for additional atom bombs if they are needed...a lot of the production facilities were shut down after Japan surrendered....Stalin may get Western Europe but home is going to be a mess.
 
About using former German divisions, how many men could they seriously muster for this? I can't imagine more than a million at the most. Both Britain and he US had about 1.4 million German prisoners in total spread across North America mostly (I'm imagining not all of them would be combat worthy or willing). German units IN Germany itself well shit you'd be lucky to get together 50,000 combat worthy German soldiers, most of the men are dead, wounded or MIA and made up of Teenagers and Grandfathers. I don't think they make much of a difference and 4 years of anti-Nazi propaganda isn't just going to go away like that, Allied troops are going to greatly resent German soldiers after the death camps were broken open so there is going to be issues there.

Another thing is people put a lot of faith into the Atomic bomb, if I recall correctly, the US in 1945 didn't have more than ten which could be deployed within the next nine months (someone correct me if you can I'm not sure on this one) so they would be used sparingly. Remember they are also not of the biggest yield, enough to flatten a small city and damage the surrounding area. Most of Eastern Europe is a wasteland anyway, using nukes would just be burning down the rubble and Russian war capacity would be moved East of the Urals and mostly out of range (logistically difficult but not impossible, people tend to move fast when nuclear fire is threatening to burn their arse). Stalin wasn't stupid, if that war broke out, he would be moving production out of range of Allied Bombers.

Also dropping Atomic bombs on entrenched Russian armies is going to present problems whether Allied command knows it or not. Shit, the allies thought atomic sites were safe 48 hours after the bomb went off. Radiation was something that was only beginning to rear it's ugly green head and was not understood. Allied armies would be marching over and near these blast sites and would start suffering from some serious radiation poisoning. It would be a horrific learning experience as thousands of Allies troops move over these sites, they would start dying in droves at worst, at best they would be vomiting their lungs out of their mouths. Depending on windshifts etc. fallout might be raining across Western Europe too and that ain;t going to please France and Britain. Morale breaker!

In short this war is going to be a fucking nightmare. The US might "win" (Whatever that means when you have a devastated Europe, tens of millions of casualties, probably the prelude for WWIV, a crashed, stagnant economy from years of War, riots in the streets of the US from the families of those who's boys were committed to the meat grinder that would be the Eastern front) but it will be at such a high cost globally that the term Pyrrhic victory will be replaced with the term American victory. This ain't gonna be an Ameri-wank, it's gonna be a Global-screw.
 
Edit: I had the idea of USSR allying with Imperial Japan or at lelast providing assistance to them if it happens before Japan surrenders....

Having a great navy does little in confrontation with USSR, it's a land based power.

Also even if the Soviet soldiers are tired, if Allies would use Nazi troops(as was planned) to fight, would energize them pretty well.
An average Soviet citizen who fought all these years against genocide of his people will stand and fight again to avoid repetition of that(even if this is imagined).
Poland would likely have divided loyalties as well.

Shit...that would make 'Operation Unthinkable' VERY unpalatable. I'm sure the US units would be steamrolle over/surrender quickly while the British get kicked back to the channel.....That'd also make the British perception very odd in this case, with their 'enforce a square deal for Poland' thing.
 
Roosevelt thought otherwise. As far as he was concerned, the cause of war in the first place was the in fighting between Europe’s ancient, imperialist nations and he began to see in Stalin someone who would help him in his great cause of freeing the world of that Imperialism. Also in 1942, in a conversation with the Roman Catholic Archbishop of New York, he remarked: ‘The European people will simply have to endure Russian domination in the hope that – in ten or 20 years – the European influence will bring the Russians to become less barbarous.’


This is taken from ‘The Roosevelt Letters: Being the Personnel Correspondence of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Vol.3: 1928 – 1945.

Good old Roosevelt.

Firstly he sends millions abroad to fight and die in the name of freedom but believes that many of those under Nazi occupation should have to put up with 20 odd years of Soviet occupation. He then bows out by calling his Russian allies barbarians.

Then look at the pictures of the smug man sitting next to Stalin at Tehran and Yalta and try not to throw up.
 
Yet more jingoistic nonsense from some posters here, who seem to think wars are fought with chess-pieces not men. The fact is that a high number of Anglo-American troops on the ‘’front-line’’ will point-blank refuse to attack the Red Army. So the offensive will be a shambles with whole divisions at best refusing to move, others will be in such turmoil as to be rendered combat-ineffective and the ones that do attack will be quickly contained & driven back once the Soviets recover from the initial shock. The Red Army had dealt will surpise Wehrmact offensives nothing the Allies try will faze them, particularly given the fact that the Anglo-American armies were much less ruthless at pressing an attack than the Germans.

Whatever many here think the Red Army was man-for-man better than the Anglo-American armies. Whatever you may think of them morally, the Soviets had shown far more impressive fighting ability & generalship over four years fighting against the Axis than the Anglo-Americans. That is a simple fact, that anyone with the most rudimentary knowledge of the Eastern Front admit. The Red Airforce will also challenge Allied Air-superiority denying the Allies the total dominance of the skies they had enjoyed against the Germans for over two years.

Of course the Allied attack will quickly peter out anyway. As there would be mass public outrage at this act of folly, heads would roll in London & Washington D.C. Because there was absolutely no appetite in Britain for starting WW3 ditto the USA. The Soviet morale on the other hand is likely to be running high after their victory over the Germans and the fury caused by the Anglo-American betrayal would compensate for their war-wearyness..

The main change ITTL will be the absolute poisoning of Soviet-US/British relations. The USA & Britain’s reputation will also suffer massively after this squalid spectacle. The Soviets would also have a near-endless propaganda goldmine to exploit for both domestic & foreign consumption.
 
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