He just used a sock puppet account to argue about his banning. Obviously it didn't go very well. Regards.
World War III breaks out in 1948-Stalin expels the Western Allies from mainland Europe, and then offers peace negotiations from a position of strength
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I believe in prior threads it has been well established that the USSR had a radar system in 1948 (at least in the Moscow area). In prior threads there was some debate about how effective it might have been, how ECM (if it was actually available to the attackers) might have effected it etc.. All that said some form of radar warning and perhaps GCI control seems plausible to me. I believe the US also provided the Soviets with at least some radar directors for AA guns but I may be mis remembering that.
I would be interested in seeing details on Soviet night fighters with actual radar with performance at least as good as the US P61 that were in service in the USSR in 1948. (The adequacy of the P61 vis a vis the B29 has been debated in prior threads but it at least existed, wasn't an ex German piece of war booty that was some how kept in squadron service post WW2, was in actual service in the time period we are discussing and serves in my view as a reasonable baseline for comparison. )
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48 hours to assemble a full bomb from it’s components at the forward bass, yes. But first you have to transport the components to the forward base. You also have to organize and rebase the strike groups to the forward base. Oh and if the forward base isn’t prepared, then you have to add the time to construct the specialized installations for the storage and assembly of atomic bombs and bomb components. Note that no forward base was prepared in mid-1948.
Actually a straw man. Nobody has argued the West is completely surprised.
An argument by assertion. In reality, the Soviets equipment worked and it worked well. They had just utilized it in a vast drive across Eastern Europe and had made sure too carefully preserve and maintain it over the following years. Or to quote the academics:
"The Soviets also had the arms and equipment necessary to implement their mobilization plan. Although both the West and the Soviets demobilized many of their troops after the end of World War II in Europe, they followed very different policies regarding demobilization of equipment. The Western powers scrapped and ceased production of many of their weapons after World War II. Practically all of the equipment of the European armies was lost or destroyed and, in contrast to the Russians, little attempt was made to replace it until after the Berlin blockade of 1948.
The Soviets, on the other hand, kept most of their equipment and reorganized their entire force structure around it. First, they reduced their tank and mechanized corps to divisions without much reducing the amount of arms and equipment. They used surplus arms to convert their cavalry to tank divisions and their rifle to mechanized divisions. In this way, the peacetime Soviet military structure of 175 divisions kept and made use of much of the armament that had formerly supplied a 500-division wartime force."-The United States, NATO, and the Soviet Threat to Western Europe: Military Estimates and Policy Options, 1945-1963
"The 1st and 2d Mechanized Armies, which comprised the Group's second operational echelon, were positioned so that, in the event of war, they could conduct offensive operations deep into the enemy rear area. The GSOVG possessed enormous quantities of combat materiel, weaponry, various types of equipment, gasoline, black oil, and other fuels and lubricants in both combat units and in extensive storage areas. As a matter of fact, in sharp contrast with the withdrawal of combat troops from the Soviet Zone, which took place soon after the end of World War II, the vast materiel stocks were not withdrawn from eastern Germany. The GSOVG numbered thousands of modern tanks, including the finest World War II vintage tanks, the medium T-34 and the heavy IS-2 models, SAU122 and SAU-152 medium and heavy self-propelled artillery systems, ISU152 tank destroyers, various types of guns and howitzers, mortars, Guards rocket artillery systems [the Katuusha multiple rocket launchers], and so on. There were also many hundreds of combat aircraft (bombers, fighters, and assault planes), and reconnaissance and transport aircraft assigned to 16th Air Army. The air army's bomber, fighter, and assault aviation divisions covered the territory of East Germany with a dense network of airfields." -Soviet military plans and actions during the first Berlin crisis, 1948–49
Again, an argument by assertion. There is considerable evidence has been provided by scholarly sources that Soviet soldiers in mid-‘48 were up to snuff.
"The quality of the GSOVG's headquarters and staff in 1948 and 1949 was rather high. The mass demobilization process had been completed early in the post-war period. Older age soldiers and the wounded and sick had been retired and returned to their homes in the Soviet Union. On the other hand, there were many young veterans of World War II in Soviet forces who had been called up for service during the final period of the war and who possessed considerable combat experience. The GSOVG's officer cadre was of high quality since almost all of them had extensive combat experience. Only the lieutenants and senior lieutenants who had graduated from military schools during 1944 and 1945 had not taken part in wartime operations. Marshal Sokolovsky, Marshal V. I. Chuikov (the hero of Stalingrad and Sokolovsky's successor in the post of GSOVG commander-in-chief), Colonel General S. P. Ivanov (hero of the Far East in 1945), and other senior leaders in the GSOVG belonged among the elite command cadre of the Soviet Armed Forces. In addition, most field exercises and combat training in GSOVG were conducted on the basis of World War II combat experience. In the post-war years this training was starkly realistic." -Soviet military plans and actions during the first Berlin crisis, 1948–49, Victor Gobarev.
Meanwhile, if we want to talk about whose soldiers are not "up to snuff", lets look over at the Americans:
"A memorandum which reflected the views of the Pacific and European Commanders was then prepared for the Army Chief of Staff. This communication revealed the swift and disintegrating effects of World War II demobilization as of 15 November 1945. The European Commander further estimated that in an offensive his troops, ground (including service) and air "could operate in an emergency for a limited period at something less than 50 % normal wartime efficiency." European ground troops could operate somewhat better in a defensive situation but this was not true of air units. General Eisenhower's Chief of Staff was reported as having said that "This estimate is frankly optimistic, based on assumptions themselves optimistic, and does not consider morale and fighting spirit, which he . . . [believed to be] lacking." General MacArthur's Pacific ground forces (including four Marine divisions) were estimated as being able to operate both offensively and defensively "at something more than 50% normal wartime efficiency except in amphibious operations." Supporting air elements "could operate at something less than 50% efficiency."
...
Thus the United States Army which had been one of the world's finest had by 30 June 1947 dwindled to a state of near-impotency. This military disintegration coupled with the rapid demobilization of the United States Navy weakened the prestige of our national policy and seriously endangered the security of the Nation." -The US History of Personnel Demobilization, John C. Sparrow
Those arguing otherwise have provided nothing.
These are strawmen that do not address the actual arguments put forth.
Again, more straw man that either ignore or misrepresent the actual points being made.
Only Homelander ever even attempted to argue for this and he backed off pretty quickly when everyone (rightfully) ganged up on him for how absurd it is. Not that it matters since he’s banned now. So again, arguimg against a strawman.
More straw men that do not actually understand the arguments being put forward.
In reality, it’s one side offering sourced evidence to substantiate their arguements whereas the other side can do nothing but offer strawman, arguments from assertion, and canards. Claiming that Ferdi254 in any way in particular reveals some sort of problem with these threads is amusing, given his blatant cheerleading for the WAllies. He made his bias totally transparent when he first claimed that the Soviets never made an advance of more than 450 kilometers in a single-bound. I proceeded to give no less than three examples that showed otherwise. He ignores them and simply repeats the claim. Eventually, someone else calls him out on his behavior. His response is basically a total non-sequitor. This is rather typical behavior in this thread from those claiming that the Soviets can't reach the Atlantic.
And as can be seen from examples like in this very post, my posts are filled with real evidence of the capabilities of Warsaw Pact forces and not mere "assumptions". The basic reality (the "forest" that the trees indicate) is that we have one force which is already at high-levels of preparedness and can mobilize very rapidly compared to the other. The results of that point one way.
The sense I'm getting is that the denialism over this is fundamentally a result of nationalistic sentiment of the "American Exceptionalism" variety, except applied to the western world more generally. It's not enough that the west would win such a war. It also has to win painlessly and effortlessly because for it to be otherwise means the west isn't as Exceptional as their world view holds it to be. For the case of a late-1940s WW3, that requires an idealization of SAC's (if not the western militaries as a whole) capabilities which tries to pretend the myriad of issues that were afflicting it don't matter and a downplaying of the USSR's capabilities to the point that it comes off as less of the military superpower it actually was and more a cartoonish strawman.
And when someone comes along and points out that, hey, issues like a lack of training, maintenance, and preparation for mobilization actually matter and hey, here are sources which say the Soviets have extensive readiness and the ability to mobilize very rapidly... well, that offends them because they view it not as an analysis of reality, but an attack on their world view. So when all their attempts at dismissal are debunked by actual analysis, they start resorting to the sort of fallacies we see DougM and Ferdi has been resorting too. Ironically, it's an attitude very close to that of the conservatives Ferdi keeps decrying.
Turns out he was a sock puppet? Ah well, he did seriously overestimate the Soviets long-term chances, as well as a number of other details.
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marathag
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If you want to drag thru all the old posts I've made on the '48 scenario, all should note that the majority of Soviet radars in 1948 were very similar to what the UK had with Chain Home for the main border line, and then units based on, or actual US and UK LL Radar sets.
That the Germans never seriously attempted strategic bombing the way the US and UK did, means the Soviets didn't need to defend against that sort of attack, but was set to defend areas on a tactical level from the Luftwaffe
Air Defense Networks aren't easy to whip up.
On Soviet post-war air defence:
"The Soviet High Command understood, on the basis of British and American strategy in World War II, that:
In July 1948 the National Air Defense Forces were converted into a separate service, on an equal footing with the Air Forces, the ground forces, and the Navy. The country was divided for the purposes of air defense into a frontier zone and a zone of the interior. Responsibility for air defense in the frontier zone was given to the commanders of the military districts and to the Navy. Defense of the interior was the responsibility of the National Air Defense Forces. Early-warning radars were first deployed to cover the approaches from the Baltic and Eastern Europe; by 1950 the radar net had been extended to the Pacific Ocean, and to the Caspian and Black Seas. Moscow was the most important target to defend, and the Moscow Air Defense District was the first to receive new equipment. The National Air Defense Forces tried to provide defense in depth, so that enemy planes could be intercepted long before reaching their targets. Fighter aviation was deployed in echelons, so that successive attacks could be made on incoming bombers, and antiaircraft batteries were similarly deployed at various distances from the installations they were defending." -Stalin and the Bomb, Page 236-237
In terms of capabilities:
"After the war, illustrating its growing importance in Soviet national defense, in 1948 the PVO was removed from the Directorate of Artillery and became its own separate branch of the military. Understanding that one bomber with an atomic weapon could cause considerable damage to military capability, the Soviets focused on trying to prevent incoming aircraft from reaching its intended target. While air defense was initially a tactical application for the Red Army, the Soviets began to build a larger nationwide strategic air defense capability. Immediately after the war, the Russians established all-weather, 24-hour local air defense of their critical installations and facilities and grew the capability on a national scale. Utilizing many late-model, Western-designed radars given to them by Allied lend-lease during the war, PVO Strany also began to build its own radars and incorporated them into a larger IAD structure.
[Snip some technical stuff on AAA and jet fighters.]
By the time of the Korean War, the Soviets had established an effective and integrated command and control system that operated 24 hours per day. Soviet ground radar operators were capable of vectoring interceptor aircraft to within two to five miles of the incoming SAC bombers. Additionally, Soviet radars were capable of conducting this operation from ranges up to 70 miles. Eventually, the radars could also direct an increasingly capable AAA inventory that had the ability to range incoming bombers at higher altitudes." - Bigger Bombs for a Brighter Tomorrow, Page 129-130
The Soviets were also experimenting a bunch with various domestically-designed airborne radars (mostly adapted variants of naval radars) in 1948 shoved into various single, double, and jet engine designs, but don’t seem to have settled on anything historically. ATL, the sudden rapid onset of war may inspire them to push some of those into service, but that’s more speculative. The experience in Korea suggests that their night fighters mainly adopted Wild Boar tactics: fighters would be guided to the general vicinity of the bombers by GCI crews, then the bombers would be illuminated by radar guided searchlights allowing the fighter to make the attack run.
"The Soviet High Command understood, on the basis of British and American strategy in World War II, that:
A meeting of senior air defense officers was held from February 27 to March 10, 1947 to discuss the problem of defending the interior of the country against air attack. This meeting resulted in a volume which analyzed the principles of air defense. In July of the same year an exercise was held in which all elements of the Air Defense Forces, interceptors, antiair guns, radar, and early warning troops, took part.
In July 1948 the National Air Defense Forces were converted into a separate service, on an equal footing with the Air Forces, the ground forces, and the Navy. The country was divided for the purposes of air defense into a frontier zone and a zone of the interior. Responsibility for air defense in the frontier zone was given to the commanders of the military districts and to the Navy. Defense of the interior was the responsibility of the National Air Defense Forces. Early-warning radars were first deployed to cover the approaches from the Baltic and Eastern Europe; by 1950 the radar net had been extended to the Pacific Ocean, and to the Caspian and Black Seas. Moscow was the most important target to defend, and the Moscow Air Defense District was the first to receive new equipment. The National Air Defense Forces tried to provide defense in depth, so that enemy planes could be intercepted long before reaching their targets. Fighter aviation was deployed in echelons, so that successive attacks could be made on incoming bombers, and antiaircraft batteries were similarly deployed at various distances from the installations they were defending." -Stalin and the Bomb, Page 236-237
In terms of capabilities:
"After the war, illustrating its growing importance in Soviet national defense, in 1948 the PVO was removed from the Directorate of Artillery and became its own separate branch of the military. Understanding that one bomber with an atomic weapon could cause considerable damage to military capability, the Soviets focused on trying to prevent incoming aircraft from reaching its intended target. While air defense was initially a tactical application for the Red Army, the Soviets began to build a larger nationwide strategic air defense capability. Immediately after the war, the Russians established all-weather, 24-hour local air defense of their critical installations and facilities and grew the capability on a national scale. Utilizing many late-model, Western-designed radars given to them by Allied lend-lease during the war, PVO Strany also began to build its own radars and incorporated them into a larger IAD structure.
[Snip some technical stuff on AAA and jet fighters.]
By the time of the Korean War, the Soviets had established an effective and integrated command and control system that operated 24 hours per day. Soviet ground radar operators were capable of vectoring interceptor aircraft to within two to five miles of the incoming SAC bombers. Additionally, Soviet radars were capable of conducting this operation from ranges up to 70 miles. Eventually, the radars could also direct an increasingly capable AAA inventory that had the ability to range incoming bombers at higher altitudes." - Bigger Bombs for a Brighter Tomorrow, Page 129-130
The Soviets were also experimenting a bunch with various domestically-designed airborne radars (mostly adapted variants of naval radars) in 1948 shoved into various single, double, and jet engine designs, but don’t seem to have settled on anything historically. ATL, the sudden rapid onset of war may inspire them to push some of those into service, but that’s more speculative. The experience in Korea suggests that their night fighters mainly adopted Wild Boar tactics: fighters would be guided to the general vicinity of the bombers by GCI crews, then the bombers would be illuminated by radar guided searchlights allowing the fighter to make the attack run.
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Thanks for sharing.
Do you have any insight regarding how effective the Soviets expected these systems to be ?
In 1953 the US was only expecting to kill 20 percent of the incoming bombers using the various air defense systems they had assembled over the years. Presumably the performance in 1948 would have been worse. I'd be curious in knowing how well the Soviets expected to do with theirs.
From everything posted here I have little doubt that the Soviets could if they had wanted to Is swept through Western Europe. I doubt it would have been easy but it could have been done. Out of curiosity does anyone have information on the state of the French military at this time? Also if the soviets decided to push that far, would they go for Spain/Portugal as well? After all francoist Spain was no friend to communism and could be used as a base for an eventual reclamation of Europe. Could a defensive line be drawn at the Pyrenees if to hold/ delay the soviets if that were the case?
Ojserkis touches on them a bit in "Beginnings of the Cold War Arms Race: The Truman Administration and the US Arms Build-Up". Most of the professional troops were overseas fighting guerrilla wars in the colonies, most notably French Southeast Asia. Most of the troops left back home were lightly armed conscripts who were regarded as undertrained and poorly motivated. The lone armored division in the French occupation zone in West Germany was reasonably equipped and trained by all accounts, but it's just one division. Little surprise that the French governments own assessment of their defenses at the start of the Berlin Crisis was "We are virtually defenseless." It's a similar story for the Low Countries
Undoubtedly, the French government would have retreated to the colonies in North Africa and continued the fight from there as a government-in-exile. Also undoubtedly, the Soviets would have attempted to set the French PCF up as a puppet government, although this government would likely enjoy even less legitimacy than Vichy did. Talk of the Western European civilian population providing a significant impediment to the initial Soviet assault is total persiflage: nobody in Western Europe was considering organizing a civilian militia to attempt to take onto Soviet armored spearheads and for good reason. One merely has to look what happened to the one-sided butchery the Soviets inflicted on Volkssturm units to see how that would turn out. Later resistance organization in the vein of the WW2 French and Low Countries is more than plausible, but as in WW2 their main contributions would be low-level sabotage and reconnaissance on the behalf of their Anglo-American patrons, with armed uprisings being totally infeasible until the Anglo-Americans can fight their way back onto the continent... again, as was the case with the Germans.
Discussed here.
Well, it's not totally impossible if Stalin offers a generous enough peace deal (not an entirely Soviet-aligned Germany, but an expanded East Germany maybe), but ultimately it does not strike me as very likely. And that's the ultimate problem for the Soviets: whatever they can manage to do in the initial months of the war, it just isn't enough to prevent the WAllies from buckling down for a multi-year war. And it's in a multi-year war that the Soviets are truly screwed.
This part is particularly interesting to me. Thanks for posting.
Yeah in the context of this thread, some form of rushed into service radar equipped night fighter seems within the relm of the possible for the Soviets. If the performance was on par with top of the line contemporary day fighters such an aircraft would likely complicate the use of B29's. IOTL the US and Canada both put a lot of effort into such projects to counter Tu4's. I'm not saying this would be easy or even likely for the Soviets to do.
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This has generally been my understanding of this sort of scenario. The Soviets will take over continental Europe.... But what Then? They are unlikely to be able to successfully invade England, and lack any meaningful way to stop the industry of the US from pumping out strategic bombers day after day, and the idea of the Red Navy trying to take on the RN, let alone brave the all consuming maw of the USN in 1948 in a straight fight is... darkly amusing, to say the least. They could try conducting peripheral operations in the Middle East, or Asia... but must keep sizable formations in Europe to prevent the Allies from just walking back in when they feel ready, as well as keep their newly established European "Fraternal" Socialist States in check, can't have the newly established Colonies and their native inhabitants get any uppity ideas about anything, after all. And this is three years after the end of an absolutely horrifying war that saw the destruction of large parts of the homeland and the deaths of approximately 27 million people.
Furthermore, in a war that Stalin definitively started, ASB as that might be... well he's going to have an awful lot of trouble trying to convince anyone he can be trusted to keep to whatever peace terms he proposes. As I've said, the Allies remember Hitler well, and Stalin's checking off an awful lot of the same boxes if they look at it from the right angle.
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Yeah.. Maybe if the Soviets occupy some more of Germany but leave the West with a defensible border (maybe the Western Sector of Germany includes both sides of the Rhine and the entire North Sea / Channel Coast line ?) there might be some reluctance on the part of the US / UK to engage in WW3 to recover the territory of a former enemy (especially given the overall state of the Western Forces at the time), but even if the West doesn't see this as the start of WW3 I would still expect a massive change in mind set on the part of the West that will likely be counter productive for the Soviets in the long run.
Expecting the West in 1948 to accept anything more than some minor border adjustments in Germany (and even that is probably an un realistic expectation) without kicking off WW3 seems unlikely to me. WW3 might have a bit of a phony war period at the start but it would still be WW3.
Stalin has already kicked off WW3, by attacking Allied forces. Now he has to end it without becoming a Hiroshima shadow or a victim of his own gulags, or Defendant #1 of the Sochi Trials. And honestly, I don't think he can, not without negating every gain of WW3 and most of the ones of WW2. The Allies will, at the very least, insist on 1939 borders and the surrender of any Soviet influence on Eastern Europe.
I have found a pretty decent French source on the context in 46-48: La puissance française en question 1945-1949 by Robert Frank.
The main themes that one can extract from the book:
- The state of the economy was so dire that France was just straight up unable to deliver new war material. Priority was to rebuilding.
- American equipment left in France or given over the years was too limited in numbers to allow proper reserves (which begs the question of wtf was the US doing, sitting over a mountain of modern equipment but not using it for itself nor her allies!)
- the non-metropolitan territories of the new French Union were absolutely essential to maintain power. A lot of capital was invested in North Africa in particular for industrial expansion. Fighting from the colonies was expected.
- The meagre forces in Germany were to sacrifice themselves to save as much time as possible.
- In case of war in 1948, the Metropole was expected to be invaded within 15 to 20 days from the start of hostilities, and its ports to operate for 10 to 15 days (more pessimistic estimate). As much as possible should be moved to the colonies.
France only had 8 divisions and planned to mobilise 860k men tops with the Plan R of 1948, with 200k men having to be moved first to the colonies to train the forces there (colonial troops are included in that 860k). 110k were in the Metropole in peacetime. AFAIK peacetime forces sustained by the budget were between 400-540k people. Note this is only the land component, not the air force or navy.
Morale was poor due to lack of funding, the lingering shock of 1940 and the civilian attitude towards the army, which was believed to concentrate money that should be spent on rebuilding.
Thanks for the source
At this point, I can only agree about a quick collapse of France but I am unsure if soviets will be able to take all the metropolitan france so easily.
1) Allied aren't stupid and won't probably let Soviets doing a second "1940 Blitzkrieg", most of railways and roads are destroyed and unfit for a massive logistic effort (at that point, did Soviets would have a good logistic system? I guess no)
2) Brittany and Atlantic West coast harbors could be allied strongholds/
3) I am sure Spain would be reluctant to support french reistance or amy stranded in Pyrénées.
4) Corsica obviously would be (again) a massive issue for any country occuping France.
5) Italy?
Oh, nice. I'll have to see if there's an English version of that.
That's the rub: they weren't. Most of the WW2 equipment was scrapped: chopped up in junkyards and recycled for materials. Those that weren't were inadequately maintained: Major General Henry S. Aurand, commander of the Army Logistics Inventory reported in September 1948 that of the 15.5 thousand tanks and self-propelled guns[1] officially in the armies global inventory, only 1.7K were serviceable[2]. The rest had basically rusted away. The American forces in Europe were basically well-equipped and trained enough to put down a civilian uprising, but little else.
[1]A figure itself which was down from the 1945 of some 22,000.
[2]By comparison, the Soviet inventory of serviceable armor was still 35,000, 5,000 of which were actually in active duty in East Germany, and most of it had undergone not just routine maintenance, but even factory rebuilds with the T-34 Model 1944s and Model 1945s modernized into the Model 1946s, along with the addition of new models like the T-44 and post-war IS-series.
That's the long-and-short of it yeah. Soviet short-term strength is ultimately countered by long-term western strength. The only way to deny western long-term strength is to create a political situation where the onus of starting the war rests on the western powers. And the OPs scenario has denied just such a possibility.
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Likely. Although some posters would probably say that they'd eventually be invaded by the Übermensch Soviets with their apparent infinite manpower and logistics while NATO is busy shooting themselves in the face. 🤷♂️
Don't see why not. Don't know how much it would contribute. Guess some units wind-up in Southeast Asia to help defend against Sino-Vietminh forces, supported by a light Soviet expeditionary force?
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