Probably not much. The country's devastated, De Gaulle probably wouldn't want to help after their sidelining him, and they have a massive communist party that could cause problems if they do go in. I'd imagine some lend-lease to the minor parts of the allies to help the economy recover, but that's itHow much does liberated France factor in, terms of men and equipment?
Other than the actual Allied ground forces was maybe 60% of the overall strength based on the US Army strength in the ETO, table 7 in Appendix E
Overall strength about 3 M
Ground strength about 1.7 M
Service strength about .58 M
Air strength about .44 M
Other about .3 M
Or about 70% of the overall if air & ground is added. Yes, the Soviets would have some non-ground forces but not to the same extent as the Allies. So 70% of 4.5 M vs 75-80% of 4M is pretty much much an even battle, assuming all Allied forces participate.
By no means do the numbers yield a ‘decisive‘ advantage other than in the air especially considering the Soviets would be defending in this scenario.
So, Berlin Airlift shootdown it is. And that’s WWIII, right?
OTL, need something else.
The effect of worker strikes on Western economies will be an equalizer on the Soviet side. The Allies dominate the seas and are somewhat stronger in the air (still have to fight dearly for full control). Soviets have better land forces (greater numbers of heavy tanks designed to counter German zoo exhibits), are more numerous and experienced.
My bet is: a Red Europe minus Spain and Portugal.
Instant Sunshine is due soon. I see two possible uses for it. 1 is tactical, to hit a Soviet army or two. The other option is to END the war in Japan--at the same time letting Stalin know, "We have new toys."
If it's used to end the Pacific war, that frees how many carrier planes, strategic bombers, and more?
But--would Instant Sunshine be enough to bring Japan to the table if the USSR was fighting against the Allies?
Or a steady drumroll of more Instant Sunshine...Probably not. hears screaming American soldiers as Operation Downfall begins
36 Soviet divisions may not be larger than 23 Allied tank divisions considering Soviet divisions, on average, were smaller than Allied divisions. The wiki pages that I cited didn't have the Soviet tank counts for all 3 offensives so I couldn't make a claim on which side had more tanks.
I still think the Russians win, Not enough atom bombs to stop echelon attack or deep battle, they have a 20% margin in tanks and artillery, their LOCs are not as exposed, They are geographically deep. Their generals are better than our generals. Unified command. and they have a single front war. The allies still have to clean up the Pacific mess and the Americans are shipping 1 million combat veterans home from Europe which they will have to replace with new half trained levies.
PLUS... the Americans have picked the worst possible time to re-equip their fighter, tank and general equipment lines for the planned final showdown with Japan.
Something I don't see often brought up in Operation Unthinkable debates is the situation in India. Should the war stretch on longer than '45, the British Empire is royally screwed. Assuming the Soviet-Japanese alliance, that's like 12-15 decent Japanese divisions to be used to reinforce Home Isles, finish off China after Ichi-Go, or to revive the situation in Burma. Indian army would probably be exhausted and likely mutiny at the prospect of endless war with no independence in sight IMO. Also, the US and Uk populations are geared for war with Japan and Germany, only to now be told they are at war with their former ally in order to change an agreement already settled at Yalta, of which Churchill (The main proponent of Unthinkable) was a signatory. While from a military standpoint it's very likely the Allies could push into Central Poland with air and *maybe* armor supremacy, the soviets would have not only seen an attack coming, but also make the Allies bleed for as much as they're worth. My guess is that Stalin escalates it, at which point the West is faced with either a full-scale invasion of the Soviets (And all the risks that come with that) Or the bomb really, at which point you'd be stomaching a nuclear campaign (Two nukes aren't knocking Russia out), which really puts the Allies in a no-win scenario, especially given the massive communist populations in France and to a lesser extent Germany and Britain. So in essence, while theoretically possible for an allied "Victory" they would likely be sacrificing their empire, arming nazis (big no-no right after ww2) and abandoning Japan (Which likely collapses and becomes a pro-Soviet state.) Also, the Kuomintang army by this point has been quite thoroughly battered, and the CCP simply had such an edge with the peasants of China that a "9 year's war of resistance" Would have only ended the KMT more spectacularly.
Depends, ironically Poland would be even more devastated than OTL, likely destroyed with both Germans and Soviet scorched earth policies, could range from an irradiated Eastern Europe with a USSR revanchist state (likely with Molotov, Beria or Zhukov in charge), either 1. Communist Japan due to America not occupying Japan, but empire still collapses or 2. American occupation of Japan which is much more virulent due to a strained US and much more popular left leading to nasty guerrilla war. China still likely turns red, tho Taiwan is wildcard. Marshall plan now has to repair Poland, Czechia and maybe Hungary. France might have already fallen to Revolution. Violent collapse of British India, could go a lot of ways, tho I’d like to hope Hindu-Muslim split solved peacefully (prolly not) Malaya will be interesting. Back to Europe, Germany is united, essentially with the same government in Flensburg and with a standing army made up of actual former Wehrmacht. Looking around Europe, you got a broke and dissolutioned Britain, a revolutionary France, a quasi-Nazi Germany, democratic but broken Poland, and a battered and revanchist Russia eager to give the west a “taste of their own medicine” and send instant sunshine their way. Not very good for lasting peace now is it.So..............how bad is it post-War if I am guessing correctly?
Would those men be fighting material, or Volkssturm conscripts? Germany had practically run out of bodies to throw on the pile by 1945, even if the war happens a few years later they still wouldn't have replenished those, not by a long shot.Do the Allies get to use the equip the German military? That's a couple million more men who would probably be willing to fight hard to kick the Communists out of Germany
WAllied calculations account for the discrepancy in division strengths. More properly, the Soviets didn't actually have tank divisions: what they had were tank and mechanized corps, which were really corps in name only: organizationally and in both paper and actual strength, they fit the criteria of armored divisions. The Soviets had 36 such tank and mechanized corps, precisely the number of divisions the WAllies credited them with having. Likewise, it's pretty clear that the number of infantry divisions the western planners estimated were arrived at by counting the number of cavalry and rifle corps (6 and 174, respectively) and then amalgamating the left over Rifle Divisions together into corps-equivalents. The idea that a Soviet corps was equal to a Western division is one that is frequently held up even by modern military-historians and you'll often hear a lot of bally-hoo about how Soviet corps are only equal to WAllied divisions, but that falls apart once one realizes that the Soviets have more then two corps for each WAllied division.
Lelyushenko's comment reminds us of a central principle of blitzkrieg-that the Russian tank and mechanised formations all comprised a mixture of tanks and mechanised infantry; it was just the weighting of the two elements which was different. Tank corps (usually to the number of two or three) were an important ingredient of tank armies, as we have seen, but under enterprising leaders they were capable of acting as miniature armies in their own right, thrusting and weaving well ahead of the main body of the first echelon (wave) of the Soviet armies. This degree of independent life would have been unthinkable without the brigade of mechanised infantry being at hand to support the three brigades of tanks. A tank corps numbered approximately 1 1 ,700 troops 220 tanks 40 assault guns 152 towed artillery pieces and mortars, and eight BM-13 Katyusha multiple-rocket launchers.
Also pictured is the structure of a 1944 American armored division. This division had 10,998 officers and men and 269 tanks. In addition to the artillery and anti-tanks guns listed there, the division was armed with 111 mortars; 869 machine guns; 2,803 submachine guns; 607 anti-tank rocket launchers; 5,228 carbines; and 2,063 rifles.
The British armored division in 1944 numbered 14,964 officers and men, which made it also larger than the comparable American unit. The division had 290 tanks (as compared to the American 269) and was supported with, among other arms, 48 25-pdrs. [87mm]; 160 mortars; 22 heavy MGs; 78 anti-tank guns; and 141 anti-aircraft guns. In addition to its tanks, the division had 100 armored cars, 261 armored tracked vehicles, and 2098 trucks.
Tank Armies The main exploitation force of the Fronts was concentrated in the tank armies (Konev and Zhukov had two each in 1945). The first Soviet tank armies began to appear in May 1943, but they soon took a tremendous battering, for they were weak in artillery and the component rifle troops were not properly integrated with the armoured forces. By January 1945, however, the establishment of the individual tank armies had risen by one-third in personnel, about twice over in tanks and assault guns, and four times in towed artillery. The tank army was now a well-balanced mechanised force, which normally included two or three corps of tanks, and a single corps of mechanised infantry. This produced 35,000-50,000 troops 500 (two tank corps) or 900 (three tank corps) tanks 850 artillery pieces and mortars.
The wiki article also engages in some accounting games that make WAllied forces vs the Soviets seem bigger then it actually is, mainly by counting the sum total of WAllied manpower and equipment in Europe with no regard for whether they are part of the "operational" or "non-operational" forces. For example, it includes the nearly-four hundred thousand US personnel sitting in Britain, despite the fact that in no reasonable way these could be considered as the same as the Soviets "operational forces". A more useful figure would be the quantity of WAllied forces in Western Germany and Northeastern Italy, as these would be the equivalent to Soviet "operational forces". But I can't actually seem to pin down an actual source that breaks it down like that.
In any case, the most likely outcome for the initial offensive, assuming the alien space bats magic in enough public support to initiate and maintain the war, is a massive defeat but not a crippling one. The WAllies will likely be thrown back out of Western Germany and maybe even driven a ways into the Low Countries or France, but their industrial advantages will allow them to turn the tide and win the longer war.