If the USSR start a war in the 1947-1948 period what happens?

[Wesley_Lewt]

Lucky?

Is this really the viewpoint from a European perspective?

Yes, yes it is. At least for many.

I would say it is a Good Thing that the United States did not destroy the military-industrial capability of the USSR and so the ability of the USSR to supply its military by dropping 299 Nuclear Warheads on Russian cities. Killing heavens know how many. Then going in with a conventional invasion, using among others remobilised German Troops as per Operation Unthinkable. An invasion that could not be resisted - with the cities and factories which supplied the Soviet Army demolished, depopulated, irradiated - and imposing... whatever they wanted.

And while this would have been worst for Russia (obviously) it would also not be a good scenario for Europe as the US would no longer need European allies against Russia so could afford to treat Europe much more harshly.

Even some posh European twats who sometimes pretended to be on the left and were active anti-nuclear weapons campaigners in later life were in favour of doing this (or were naiive enough to think their suggestions wouldnt turn into this). Bertrand Russell for example:

"on 20 November 1948, in a public speech[5] at Westminster School, addressing a gathering arranged by the New Commonwealth, Russell shocked some observers with comments that seemed to suggest a preemptive nuclear strike on the Soviet Union might be justified. Russell apparently argued that the threat of war between the United States and the Soviet Union would enable the United States to force the Soviet Union to accept the Baruch Plan for international atomic energy control. (Earlier in the year he had written in the same vein to Walter W. Marseille.) Russell felt this plan "had very great merits and showed considerable generosity, when it is remembered that America still had an unbroken nuclear monopoly." (Has Man a Future?, 1961)."

Bertrand Russell's political views - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I think such a war would have been a humanitarian catastrophe and I am against such things. I reckon most Europeans these days are too. Would most Americans see this as a better scenario than what happened OTL?

 

[Wesley_Lewt]

Looking at day 1 is slightly deceptive, since the Soviets planned to mobilize some 5 million men just in the first month of a war. Nobody in the West had a similar system for rapid mobilization in place.

I think it’d be reach completion, but it’d be “too little, too late” sort of manner. The Anglo-Americans don’t have the intelligence to go after it or even to know where to start looking, so it’ll probably reach fruition in mid-1949, like OTL. The problem is... well, it only produced three bombs in 1949 (including the test device). A trio (or duo if the Soviets still expend a weapon in a test) of 20 kiloton devices aren’t going to make much of an impression even ignoring that after a year of conflict, British air defenses would have remobilized and would make successful delivery a struggle, especially since the Soviets only ever built 14 Tu-4 “Atomics”.

Additionally, these first Soviet bombs were carbon copies of the Mk-III, with all the difficulties that entails. So while they probably won’t be totally irrelevant, their impact on the war will probably still be low.

This may all be true. But once the Soviets tested a bomb the western powers could not be sure how many others they had. Which made it a deterrent to war.

 

[sdgottsch]

In order to understand why this would never have happened, we must look at the USSR causalities in WWII and the impact on their population growth as well as their infrastructure. Based on the huge number of historians who have calculated the USSR war dead (over 30 listed in wikipedia alone), the USSR just didn't have the population to do this UNLESS there was an existential threat to the USSR. They had enough to worry about in rebuilding their country (heck just fixing their railway back to USSR standard size and rebuilding their wartorn cities) than to start a war.

 

[Wesley_Lewt]

In order to understand why this would never have happened, we must look at the USSR causalities in WWII and the impact on their population growth as well as their infrastructure. Based on the huge number of historians who have calculated the USSR war dead (over 30 listed in wikipedia alone), the USSR just didn't have the population to do this UNLESS there was an existential threat to the USSR. They had enough to worry about in rebuilding their country (heck just fixing their railway back to USSR standard size and rebuilding their wartorn cities) than to start a war.

You are right. The only way this happens is if The Western Powers with their Nuclear Monopoly fire first (even if they pretend the russians started it).

Or different and delusional people are in charge of the USSR.

 

[naraic]

Let's say Stalin sensing how much western Europe is still reeling and trying to recover from WW2, decides to capture more territory in both Eastern Europe and/or the Balkans and perhaps Germany itself. In this brief time period really from 45-49 only the US has the Atomic bomb, however there's no guarantee the US would want to send forces back to Europe so soon.

Can anyone stop the USSR's expansion? Does the US attempt to threaten or outright use nuclear weapons against Russia?

Nuclear weapons will be outright used (probably in a tactical rather than strategic use).

There are a few spots where single nuclear detonation could massively mess with Soviet logistics. Its also the only way that USA and the other western powers could meaningfully resist a Soviet invasion without a multiyear build up.

 

[Garrison]

Honestly if there's anything that could get the Red Army and the oppressed Soviet citizenry to turn on Stalin it would be the idea of launching a fresh war only three years after the conclusion of the Great Patriotic War that left 20 million dead in the USSR. Thing is that won't happen because Stalin is a paranoid monster, but he knows a war, especially before the USSR has a nuclear arsenal, is a suicide mission for the USSR.

 

[CalBear]

What about captured Me.262s? Would they be used here? Along with the Comet jet? Those piston-driven planes would face the La-7, Sturmovik, and the Yak-9 series of planes which were equally capable.

For bombers, I could see the USAF restore their B-17s and B-24s for massive bombing campaigns against tactical targets while the B-29s would conduct strategic bombings deep in the iron curtain.

Eventually, those utility trucks would show their wear-and-tear. How many American trucks and jeeps continued working past the 1950s without the spares? The Soviets probably reverse-engineered them to produce those Ural trucks and GAZ/UAZ utility vehicles.

I was told the U.S. Merchant Marine continued sending supplies to the USSR until 1948, thus proving neither side was actually ready to fight a major ground war in the late 1940s.

The USAAF was actively scrapping B-17s even before the end of the war. The 8th AF had completely transitioned to the B-29 and was ready to deploy in full strength to Okinawa and Luzon when the Japanese surrendered. There may be some B-17/B-24 squadrons available in the ANGP but it is going to be B-29/50, B-45, and potentially B-47s,

Please God let the Soviets send up Sturmoviks against P-51D, F4U, or Spitfire Mk 24 much less Meteor, Vampire, FH Phantom, P-80 or FJ-1. We'll tell you when and where and we will bring the vodka. Nothing like 250mph (at 1,500 meters) attack planes vs. 400+ MPH fighters that have a 3,000 meter/10,000 foot ceiling advantage. Hartmann's total won't be in jeopardy, but the Red Baron is likely going to be passed by a few dozen American and RAF pilots

The La-7 and MiG-9 were fine aircraft, however, as was generally the case with Soviet designs, their flight envelope's sweet spot was around 6,000 meters/20K feet. That was the altitude the war on the Eastern Front effectively capped out (also why the Soviets rather adored the P-39, at 15K and below, in colder air, it was hell in a handbasket). Their performance fell off noticeably at 9,000 -10,000 meters where the B-29/B-50 and from 1948 forward B-36 lived. The MiG-3 could operate at altitude but it was vastly undergunned with only one 12.7mm and two 7.62mm guns (a pair of 12.7mm could be added in pods, one per wing, but this had a serious impact on performance, especially at altitude).

It is not really a surprise that, prior to the MiG-15, the Soviets didn't have a true heavy bomber counter. The Luftwaffe didn't really have any and the war was at 6,000 meters and below, usually WAY below.

 

[Caledon]

You are right. The only way this happens is if The Western Powers with their Nuclear Monopoly fire first (even if they pretend the russians started it).

Or different and delusional people are in charge of the USSR.

Many "What If" PODs are really really unlikely. But interesting to ponder what might have happened if things did somehow go that way.

There are a few spots where single nuclear detonation could massively mess with Soviet logistics.

Moscow springs to mind.

 

[ObssesedNuker]

Nuclear weapons will be outright used (probably in a tactical rather than strategic use).

1947/48 nuclear weapons are extroardinarily poor tactical nukes.

There are a few spots where single nuclear detonation could massively mess with Soviet logistics.

This is often claimed, but nobody's ever provided an actual example of such.

Moscow springs to mind.

How so? Even leaving aside the challenge of avoiding interception in what is the most heavily defended spot of the Soviet Union, a detonation over the Kremlin is unlikely to get Stalin, who undoubtedly would slip away to a secure bunker some ways away (if not outright outside of the city) at the first news of the oncoming air raid. A section of the Soviet bureaucracy may die, but the USSR has legions of bureaucrats across the country. The outer-railway ring that makes Moscow such a nexus for Soviet rail transport the USSR would only get a stiff breeze from a 20 kiloton blast over the Kremlin. Most of the industrial facilities are far away enough that they would suffer minimal damage at most (broken windows and the like). And all this is assuming accurate delivery, which 1948 SAC crews proved incapable of delivering.

Honestly if there's anything that could get the Red Army and the oppressed Soviet citizenry to turn on Stalin it would be the idea of launching a fresh war only three years after the conclusion of the Great Patriotic War that left 20 million dead in the USSR.

This strikes me as wishful thinking. For one thing, in any half-way realistic scenario, Stalin's responsibility for the war would not be so clear cut, particularly to the heavily propagandized citizenry of the USSR. Any war would be sold as a regrettably necessary endeavor, forced upon the motherland by her western enemies who are so cruelly threatening her with the same sort of instruments of destruction they had recently unleashed upon Japan. The whole "people overthrowing their oppressors at the slightest provocation!" may be quite popular among amateur liberal ideologues, but it has very little relationship to how actual totalitarian states function.

In order to understand why this would never have happened, we must look at the USSR causalities in WWII and the impact on their population growth as well as their infrastructure.

This is the classic fallacy: "the Soviets lost so much in WW2, so they must not have had enough in the few years afterward." Practically never do the people making such a claim actually check what the Soviets did have left and what they gained in the years after the end of the war.

The La-7 and MiG-9 were fine aircraft, however, as was generally the case with Soviet designs, their flight envelope's sweet spot was around 6,000 meters/20K feet. That was the altitude the war on the Eastern Front effectively capped out (also why the Soviets rather adored the P-39, at 15K and below, in colder air, it was hell in a handbasket).

Leaving aside the inaccuracy surrounding the MiG-9 (which was a high-altitude interceptor), this is also liable to be the altitude which dominates the Soviet invasion of Western Europe. If the USAF/RAF fighters wish to intercept Soviet tactical bombers, they're going to have to come down and fight in the mud to defend their forces. Which will be a tall order given that they are outnumbered at least 5:1. Deep penetration strategic bombers meanwhile would be flying, by SACs own admission, without escorts.

It is not really a surprise that, prior to the MiG-15, the Soviets didn't have a true heavy bomber counter. The Luftwaffe didn't really have any and the war was at 6,000 meters and below, usually WAY below.

Well, besides MiG-9s, YaK-15s, and the Spitfire Mk IXs that made up the bulk of the PVO's high-altitude intercept force prior to the MiG-15.

 

[CalBear]

1947/48 nuclear weapons are extroardinarily poor tactical nukes.

This is often claimed, but nobody's ever provided an actual example of such.

This strikes me as wishful thinking. For one thing, in any half-way realistic scenario, Stalin's responsibility for the war would not be so clear cut, particularly to the heavily propagandized citizenry of the USSR. Any war would be sold as a regrettably necessary endeavor, forced upon the motherland by her western enemies who are so cruelly threatening her with the same sort of instruments of destruction they had recently unleashed upon Japan. The whole "people overthrowing their oppressors!" may be quite popular among liberal ideologues, but it has very little relationship to how actual totalitarian states function.


Leaving aside the inaccuracy surrounding the MiG-9 (which was a high-altitude interceptor), this is also liable to be the altitude which dominates the Soviet invasion of Western Europe. If the USAF/RAF fighters wish to intercept Soviet tactical bombers, they're going to have to come down and fight in the mud to defend their forces. Which will be a tall order given that they are outnumbered at least 5:1. Deep penetration strategic bombers meanwhile would be flying, by SACs own admission, without escorts.

Well, besides MiG-9s, YaK-15s, and the Spitfire Mk IXs that made up the bulk of the PVO's high-altitude intercept force prior to the MiG-15.

I mentioned the MiG-3 in some detail since it was the high altitude MiG design. It had the altitude, but was very poorly armed, especially against a B-san or Mustang/Twin Mustang/Shooting Star. USAAF/USAF strikes against MOSCOW would have been unescorted. Against targets in Germany, France or Poland? Escorts in and out.

The MiG-9 was actual an error on my part I meant to address the YaK-9.

The MiG-9 was just a PoS . Nothing says Soviet Aviation like a fighter that flames out if it fires its guns at altitude (with a solution being a fin that disinergrates and can be ingested into the engine). It would also be too late for the scenario, at least in squadron service. If we include it the F-86 is also on the table., along with the F-84, F-89, and Banshee.

It would take some time, probably 9 months to a year, but the Soviet air defenses are going to get ground up.

As far as fighting at lower altitude, the P-38, P-47, Spitfires, Tempest MK.5, F6F, F4U, F8F, and Sea Fury will be along presently.

 

[Caledon]

Moscow springs to mind.

How so? Even leaving aside the challenge of avoiding interception in what is the most heavily defended spot of the Soviet Union, a detonation over the Kremlin is unlikely to get Stalin, who undoubtedly would slip away to a secure bunker some ways away (if not outright outside of the city) at the first news of the oncoming air raid. A section of the Soviet bureaucracy may die, but the USSR has legions of bureaucrats across the country. The outer-railway ring that makes Moscow such a nexus for Soviet rail transport the USSR would only get a stiff breeze from a 20 kiloton blast over the Kremlin. Most of the industrial facilities are far away enough that they would suffer minimal damage at most (broken windows and the like). And all this is assuming accurate delivery, which 1948 SAC crews proved incapable of delivering.

I wasn't terribly serious. Obviously, getting a nuke onto Moscow would not be easy. And I agree that it wouldn't be some sort of instant knockout blow to win the war. But, although it wouldn't destroy all the railroads, it would inflict some horrific number of casualties, and quite likely lead to at least a few difficulties keeping the trains running.

 

[ObssesedNuker]

I mentioned the MiG-3 in some detail since it was the high altitude MiG design.

You mentioned the MiG-9 though?

USAAF/USAF strikes against MOSCOW would have been unescorted. Against targets in Germany, France or Poland? Escorts in and out.

Again, the USAF contradicts this. Escort arrangements between SAC and the tactical air groups (well, group: there was only a wing of F-47s available) in Western Europe had simply not been done.

The MiG-9 was actual an error on my part I meant to address the YaK-9.

Ah, that would explain it. Although it is worth pointing out there were variants of the YaK-9 which could perform quite respectably at the higher altitudes.

The MiG-9 was just a PoS . Nothing says Soviet Aviation like a fighter that flames out if it fires its guns at altitude (with a solution being a fin that disinergrates and can be ingested into the engine).

It was largely a carbon copy of the Me-262, which had already proven lethally effective enough against US bombers despite their defects.

It would also be too late for the scenario, at least in squadron service.

No? It entered squadron service in 1946. A couple of months back, I managed to track down two regiments which had been equipped with MiG-9s and were deployed around Koenigsberg at the time of the Berlin Crisis. Suffice to say, it would not remotely be "too late" for this scenario.

It would take some time, probably 9 months to a year, but the Soviet air defenses are going to get ground up.

That's extraordinarily optimistic, given how low a starting point the USAF is starting from and the actual history of extended air combat.

As far as fighting at lower altitude, the P-38, P-47, Spitfires, Tempest MK.5, F6F, F4U, F8F, and Sea Fury will be along presently.

I really get the impression you aren't grasping the scale of the number differential. The 15th Air Army, which is the immediate force available to the Soviets in East Germany, has (without any reinforcement) had somewhere in the range of 2,500-3,000 aircraft - which is more aircraft than the entire RAF possessed globally in 1948 - and the US and British estimated the Soviets would be able to double that number within about a month. The available tactical air force for the west to contest the skies at the start of hostilities is less than 300 aircraft and there were no expectations to be able to mount any reinforcements to that for 2 months.

 

[Sam R.]

The countries the USSR occupied to be its glacis weren't consulated

It’s complicated.

Did Arrow Cross represent Hungary? Then they lost the right to consultation by being engaged in a genocidal programme aimed at ending the Soviet Union and much of its population.

Did Horthy represent Hungary? As above with reluctant enthusiasm and not particularly believing in killing the population.

When do states lose their right to consultation: when they lose wars.

How does a nation get consulted anyway. Assume for one moment that your ideological position on governance in bourgeois economies is not correct. I do in these conversations. Because at the end of the day the determination of how nations consent, what nations are, and what consent is…is determined by violence between states.

Central Europe had just seen massive violence between states. One state existed with potence to impose its view of how nations consent. And it spent *a lot of time* ensuring that nations did consent according to its ideas of consent.

The Soviet Union banned “former parties” being fascist parties, and authorised a fused workers party of communists and socialists; an urban bourgeois party; a rurally oriented petits bourgeois party; and a rural oriented labourers party. The Soviet elite viewed this (minus fascism of course) to be the real constitution of a nation. (Prior to 1939 many socialist parties had had communists inside them for legal tactical and solidarity reasons.). The Soviet elite really viewed this to be a way to gauge the consent of a nation.

they then of course went on to manipulate the shit out of this. Coercive consent was viewed by the Soviet elite as consent. Like some fedora wearing 21 year old with Lenin’s insights on party life in a cult faction as his PUA manual.

But they believed what they were doing to be a real representation of democracy.

* * *

In relation to thousands of Refugees from, for example, Hungary. Australia had two waves of Hungarian refugees 10 years apart. They wouldn’t speak to each other. And the second wave had members of all four parties (including both branches of the workers party). I take this as evidence that the process of coercive consent worked: in 56 no non-fascist group opposed the general course of Hungarian society, and most revolutionary groups were irritated at the Soviet Union blocking developments that were ostensibly more socialist, or requiring pissant restrictions based on Russian national chauvanism (engineers wanted to read English German and French language papers *as well* as Russian).

So while there was a big national element in formal early protest against Russian chauvanism, it tended to be structured as “you’re alright, but we’d like to look at other cultures,”

If revolt and revolution against Soviet domination is considered in the context of how do you poll a national sentiment, the 1956 examples in Poland and Hungary indicate that people took armed action en masse requiring corps plus interventions to stop on the general theme of fuck the nomenklatura and we want language courses other than Russian. In genera defensive alliances with the Soviet Union were accepted but the terms were desired to change. In general trade preference was accepted, but the terms to change.

this was less so in 1947. But as soon as we accept party destabilisation and election manipulation as illegitimate states like Italy, Greece or France start looking less like nations and more like a glacis. Why is why I suggest everyone put their ideology of how it should work away and concentrate on how it did work and how people at the time believed it should and did work. Our American friends earnestly believed that in Italy they were saving democracy by subverting it. Or in Greece saving it by destroying it. Their earnest beliefs and actions were real.

 

[Finbarr the Fair]

Did Arrow Cross represent Hungary? Then they lost the right to consultation by being engaged in a genocidal programme aimed at ending the Soviet Union and much of its population.

Did Horthy represent Hungary? As above with reluctant enthusiasm and not particularly believing in killing the population.

When do states lose their right to consultation: when they lose wars.

How does a nation get consulted anyway. Assume for one moment that your ideological position on governance in bourgeois economies is not correct.

Not exactly my position but I see your points and to an extent agree.

If revolt and revolution against Soviet domination is considered in the context of how do you poll a national sentiment, the 1956 examples in Poland and Hungary indicate that people took armed action en masse requiring corps plus interventions to stop on the general theme of fuck the nomenklatura and we want language courses other
this was less so in 1947. But as soon as we accept party destabilisation and election manipulation as illegitimate states like Italy, Greece or France start looking less like nations and more like a glacis. Why is why I suggest everyone put their ideology of how it should work away and concentrate on how it did work and how people at the time believed it should and did work. Our American friends earnestly believed that in Italy they were saving democracy by subverting it. Or in Greece saving it by destroying it. Their earnest beliefs and actions were real.

Yes, which is sort of my POV. Both the US/UK and USSR felt they needed to keep a glacis of "friendly" or at least controlled states between them and a potential enemy. And rather than being open about calling them Protectorates (or Princely States, Crown Dependency or other) as Imperial States like Britain in its prime did, had to justify it by ideology.

 

[Wesley_Lewt]

When do states lose their right to consultation: when they lose wars.

When they commit Genocide and other War Crimes on a massive scale.

Poland excepted every state occupied by the USSR had not only engaged in a war of aggression against the USSR they had followed no code of war, committed countless War Crimes and killed 30 million Soviet citizens.

I do not believe that there is any society in history which would have allowed those who did this to them to have independent foreign policies. Especially if there was a new military alliance (NATO) formed and directed at them itching for another go. Any society in history, put in the place of the USSR, would have done whatever they felt it took to prevent former Axis powers joining NATO. And any society in history would have been driven PTSD paranoid if they had experienced what the Axis did to the USSR.

Most societies in history would have been far less lenient.

I am not going to comment on whether I think the USSR was morally right or wrong to keep former Axis states on a short leash. The only point I intend to make is that No One Ever would have chosen not to do so after they had been through what the USSR had at the hands of the Axis.

 

[Sam R.]

Poland excepted

The Czechs are also usually viewed as an innocent who wound up at the wrong dance hall. But the first Czechoslovakian election is normally viewed to be as fair as the French at best or the Italian at worst. The first. More telling for me with Czechoslovakia is the mass political demands in 1968 on the ongoing theme: fuck the nomenklatura and less Russian chauvanism. But all of these “mass” analyses totalise the nation, wipe out local stories and minority positions, and are part of that very party structure of state coercion.

 

[robeson]

When they commit Genocide and other War Crimes on a massive scale.

Poland excepted every state occupied by the USSR had not only engaged in a war of aggression against the USSR they had followed no code of war, committed countless War Crimes and killed 30 million Soviet citizens.

I do not believe that there is any society in history which would have allowed those who did this to them to have independent foreign policies. Especially if there was a new military alliance (NATO) formed and directed at them itching for another go. Any society in history, put in the place of the USSR, would have done whatever they felt it took to prevent former Axis powers joining NATO. And any society in history would have been driven PTSD paranoid if they had experienced what the Axis did to the USSR.

Most societies in history would have been far less lenient.

I am not going to comment on whether I think the USSR was morally right or wrong to keep former Axis states on a short leash. The only point I intend to make is that No One Ever would have chosen not to do so after they had been through what the USSR had at the hands of the Axis.

Romania, Hungary, Italy, Slovakia and Croatia participated in the German invasion of the Soviet Union.

But other countries, like Bulgaria, did not. Finland was a co-belligerent who was not a member of the Axis.

 

[Insane Ranter]

Or he just has a less severe stroke a few years earlier that messes with his head. No ASB needed, just less luck in the health department.

You will still have to have someone in his inner circle or guards outside the bedroom jump quickly and save him. A small stroke will still get Stalin removed from power?

 

[Insane Ranter]

Dunno - it may just be me now - put it up on Chat. However, I doubt many in 1945-50 Europe wanted another war then. Or indeed at any time thereafter.

Churchill was punding that drum wasn't he?

 

[Sam R.]

A small stroke will still get Stalin removed from power?

Emeritus status. Nominally telephoned for the general course of developing socialism. Actually never telegrammed or consulted on committee decisions. Subtlety made aware that if he telephones anyone about active committee decisions that the next stoke will be worse, but not fatal. Oh no not fatal. Not that quick.

Promoted beyond having to attend to matters.