Patton vs Zhukov, USA vs USSR after 1945, who would have won?

[Keke]

Originally posted by Andreas:

In Spring 1944 1st Ukrainian Front hammered at 4.Panzerarmee, and encircled Tarnopol (which had been named a Fester Platz) and three German armoured divisions at Kamenets-Podolsk.

Did 1st Ukrainian Front have any Guard Tank Armies solely equipped with Shermans there?

Edited to add that with "solely equipped" I naturally mean only their tank bns and regts.

[ October 19, 2003, 09:29 AM: Message edited by: Keke ]

[Andreas]

Probably - why?

[Keke]

Originally posted by Andreas:

Probably - why?

Just to remind you about the effects of Lend-Lease.

[Andreas]

Originally posted by Keke:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Andreas:

Probably - why?

Just to remind you about the effects of Lend-Lease. </font>

[Ruthless]

Ok, there is way too much here to answer, and--I'll remind everyone--we are all still speculating, including you, Andreas; so I will just hit some highlights.

Ok, Grisha, my mistake; the S.U. was modernized by WWII. As for Korea, however, I believe that the N. Koreans fought very similarly to how the Russians would have fought. To whomever criticized the US performance in early Korean War, perhaps they should remember that Korea was considered an afterthought as far as American policy was concerned (even though the US made lots of promises to watch out for Korea, very little was done to equip and train the Koreans for their own defense.) However, once the US put their full effort (and it wasn't even really a full effort as China was left untouched), the N Koreans were routed--badly.

As I said before, every nation in the war had their successes and failures. The Russians towards the end of the war did spectacularly push back the Germans. Of course, this was after having to retreat for a few years and allow the Germans to roll over them and then they attrited the Germans considerably.

I've still seen nothing that makes me think that the Russians could easily roll over the W.A. in western Europe. And you guys are still discounting the rather massive effect the atomic bomb would have if the Russians were not totally victorious in a very short war against the W.A.

You guys can dig up examples of Red Army successes and W.A. failures as well as statistics 'til you are blue in the face. It still is meaningless, as far as I'm concerned. The two sides never fought and I don't agree that the Soviets could have easily rolled over the W.A., not with the war in the Pacific wrapping up and many nations opposing them, the WA developing the A-bomb, the WA complete naval advantage, etc.

That link I posted, if you read it carefully, notes how after WWII, the lend-lease contributions effects on the war effort were minimized by the east. Sound familiar to anyone?

I'll highlight an excerpt from the excerpt I posted:

"[lend-lease] aircraft amounted to 18% of all aircraft in the Soviet air forces, 20% of all bombers, and 16-23% of all fighters (numbers vary depending on calculation methods), and 29% of all naval aircraft. In some AF commands and fronts the proportion of Lend-Lease aircraft was even higher: of the 9.888 fighters delivered to the air defense (PVO) fighter units in 1941-45 6.953 (or over 70%!) were British or American. In the AF of the Karelian front lend-lease aircraft amounted to about two-thirds of all combat aircraft in 1942-43, practically all torpedo bombers of the naval air forces were A-20G Bostons in 1944-45 etc."

That sounds significant to me.

[Andreas]

Originally posted by Ruthless:

Ok, there is way too much here to answer, and--I'll remind everyone--we are all still speculating, including you, Andreas; so I will just hit some highlights.

Well crikey, there was I thinking we also talked about stuff that actually happened, like, uh, Bagration or the Vistula-Oder operation, or the 'Swan' across northern France . But maybe it is you who is doing all the speculating, and other people who try to bring in some relevant facts?

Originally posted by Ruthless:

Ok, Grisha, my mistake; the S.U. was modernized by WWII. As for Korea, however, I believe that the N. Koreans fought very similarly to how the Russians would have fought.

The Romanians were trained by the Germans. I leave it up to you with your in-depth study of matters to assess the significance of this statement.

Originally posted by Ruthless:

To whomever criticized the US performance in early Korean War, perhaps they should remember that Korea was considered an afterthought as far as American policy was concerned (even though the US made lots of promises to watch out for Korea, very little was done to equip and train the Koreans for their own defense.) However, once the US put their full effort (and it wasn't even really a full effort as China was left untouched), the N Koreans were routed--badly.

Yep, and previously the boot was on the other foot. Was all 'whoever' (me) was saying. The problem of the North Koreans was that they had a one-shot army. Since they did not succeed in the first instance, they lost. But they came bloody close to succeeding.

Originally posted by Ruthless:

As I said before, every nation in the war had their successes and failures. The Russians towards the end of the war did spectacularly push back the Germans. Of course, this was after having to retreat for a few years and allow the Germans to roll over them and then they attrited the Germans considerably.

As I said before: irrelevant, but I am happy to repeat that until you get it. See it as a friendly gesture.

Originally posted by Ruthless:

I've still seen nothing that makes me think that the Russians could easily roll over the W.A. in western Europe. And you guys are still discounting the rather massive effect the atomic bomb would have if the Russians were not totally victorious in a very short war against the W.A.

All those non-existing bombs would have made a huge difference.

But apart from that, I don't think I said that the Soviets would have rolled over the W.A. - all I think I was saying is that certainly the W.A. would not roll over the Soviets, and as I said before, I think a stalemate would have been the bet possible outcome for the W.A. - and also quite likely.

BTW - Does it take you long to build up those strawmen, or is that a hidden talent?

Originally posted by Ruthless:

You guys can dig up examples of Red Army successes and W.A. failures as well as statistics 'til you are blue in the face. It still is meaningless, as far as I'm concerned.

Until here this reminded me of the old 'My mind is made up, please stop confusing me with facts.'

Originally posted by Ruthless:

The two sides never fought and I don't agree that the Soviets could have easily rolled over the W.A., not with the war in the Pacific wrapping up and many nations opposing them, the WA developing the A-bomb, the WA complete naval advantage, etc.

Here it stopped reminding me of that, but that maybe because in German we don't have a word for 'strawman argument'.

Neither do Grisha or I agree with the idea that the Soviets would have rolled over the W.A..

Originally posted by Ruthless:

That link I posted, if you read it carefully, notes how after WWII, the lend-lease contributions effects on the war effort were minimized by the east. Sound familiar to anyone?

No - should it?

Originally posted by Ruthless:

I'll highlight an excerpt from the excerpt I posted:

"[lend-lease] aircraft amounted to 18% of all aircraft in the Soviet air forces, 20% of all bombers, and 16-23% of all fighters (numbers vary depending on calculation methods), and 29% of all naval aircraft. In some AF commands and fronts the proportion of Lend-Lease aircraft was even higher: of the 9.888 fighters delivered to the air defense (PVO) fighter units in 1941-45 6.953 (or over 70%!) were British or American. In the AF of the Karelian front lend-lease aircraft amounted to about two-thirds of all combat aircraft in 1942-43, practically all torpedo bombers of the naval air forces were A-20G Bostons in 1944-45 etc."

That sounds significant to me.

Well, gee. Reading it like that it sounds significant to me to, unfortunately I have no idea how significant. What is your point? The Karelian front was a backwater from July 1941, and torpedo bombing was hardly a prime activity of the Red Army air force. The Karelian Front was also the one covering Murmansk, where all those western planes were unloaded. So why not leave them there? Not sure about the PVO, but is that not the strategic air defense?

[Grisha]

Ruthless,

It's fine that we must inevitably agree to disagree. Such is life. I felt it was important to offer a counterpoint to some of your posts, so that those reading these posts would have two positions from which to make their own conclusions. The dialectical approach is a great method for furthering the advancement of knowledge for all concerned.

As a final parting post, I should like to examine this quote:

of the 9.888 fighters delivered to the air defense (PVO) fighter units in 1941-45 6.953 (or over 70%!) were British or American.

PVO fighter units were specifically tasked with protecting cities and other important geographical locations from bomber attack, in particular high altitude massed bombing. PVO fighter units were limited to defense within specific zones and they did not venture onto the front except possibly when the front intersected the assigned boundaries for air defense. Because PVO fighters were largely assigned to high altitude defense of rear area cities they saw little combat (though PVO units were used in the defense of Stalingrad). Much of the lend lease fighter aircraft were rated for high altitude (notable exception being the P-39), so by equipping PVO fighter units with mainly lend lease aircraft, the Soviets were killing two birds with one stone: the PVO fighter units get a good hi alt fighter, while the factories can continue to churn out lo alt fighters for the front. Were these lend lease fighters vital to Soviet victory? Not really. Did they facilitate the Soviet war effort? Of course.

Sure, it's one isolated example among sheets of materials, but there are other examples. Do I honestly feel that the Soviet Union would've lost the war without lend lease? No! But, was western allied participation in the war against Germany vital to Soviet victory? Yes! Every bit helped. When I consider a Soviet-German War without North Africa, Italy, Normandy, and the allied bombing campaign it's difficult to see a plausible path to Soviet victory. But, to turn the tables, would allied victory in Europe have been possible with a German victory on the Russian front?

As a final gesture of fairness I will point out that:</font>

• of the top 7 Soviet air aces who scored 50+ air victories, four of them scored either all or most of their kills in a P-39.</font>
• 3 of the 9 Guards Mech Corps, the premier Soviet armor unit of WWII, were equipped with Shermans - in at least in one unit's case, by request.</font>

[Spook]

I didn't expect to interject again in this thread, but I am compelled to do so because there is still a bit of "talking past each other" in regards to the hypothetical situation of a new war between the Soviets and the WA after Germany's defeat.

Part of that, inevitably, is due to never really pinning down WHEN such a war would start, or WHAT would be the causus belli, applied by who. That alone throws in wide variations to available forces, combat effectiveness of same, and relative states of alert. AEB did make one such attempt on this much earlier on, but that hasn't been used in earnest to establish operational & strategic probabilities in the more recent discussion.

I will post a follow-up later tonight. But for now, I will declare that the typical scenario I presume in here will be that of a Soviet attack happening within 4-12 months after Germany's surrender, where some "event" or another encouraged Stalin to go for broke. That needn't be the only case, only just a modicum more probable IMO than of Atlee (UK) & Truman (US)wanting to pick a fight in Germany & Europe so soon again after WWII's end.

[Ruthless]

Originally posted by Andreas:

{ Increasingly insulting rant snipped}

Andreas:

You are, IMO, only looking at facts which support your case, and minimizing any facts which support mine. You are also extremely certain (or at least you seem so) that the Soviets would have been victorious over the WA, whereas all I've been arguing is that I am skeptical of that claim. This makes me assume that you are biased since you can't seem to even acknowledge the possibility that the Russians would have been repulsed in such an adventure. In fact, rather than just admitting we are all just speculating, you simply accused me of being the only one speculating. Sorry, but that is academically poor, and you should know better.

Additionally, as it seems to be a Russian(?) and a German arguing with me, I am not highly impressed by your attempts to prove something which is unproveable, particularly in light of European/Russian revisionist history that has gone on for quite some time now.

(The line about down-playing the effects of lend-lease was in direct response to it being downplayed on the previous pages of this thread, for those who missed it.)

Now, as I am finding this nationalistic baloney increasingly frustrating and I may not be able to be as civil as I am (which perhaps is not much anyway) for much longer, I will depart this thread and allow you to carry on with your Russia-worshipping.

-------------------

Grisha, I have no problem with that. I agree that you and Andreas might be correct that the Russians may have easily rolled through Europe blasting the WA to the moon on the way. Of course, the opposite is also a possibility. I doubt either one is true and most likely it would have been a grinding stalemate for both sides, but that's just my opinion.

However, it seems like some here think that the Russians were supersoldiers or something or that their superiority in some way would obviously mean that they could beat their opponents, and that's just silly. No one knows how a war will turn out until it's fought. In 1941, I'm sure the world thought that Russia would fall to the Germans. That didn't happen. It's easy to say now that the Germans had no chance, but how do you know that in 1941? And thus, how do you know the WA would have fallen to the Russians in 1944/45?

--------------------

Ok, enough animosity and nationalistic hooey for/from me for one day. I give up on this thread.

[Spook]

Originally posted by Ruthless:

Now, as I am finding this nationalistic baloney increasingly frustrating and I may not be able to be as civil as I am (which perhaps is not much anyway) for much longer, I will depart this thread and allow you to carry on with your Russia-worshipping.

(snip)

--------------------

Ok, enough animosity and nationalistic hooey for/from me for one day. I give up on this thread.

Ruthless.....

If you think as that continued posting from you is going to kick up shared animosity, then perhaps you're indeed doing best to bow out.

But I think that the various disagreements are but a matter of degrees in many (not all) cases.

And I must affirm in turn that I don't regard Andreas as a "nationalist" Russia-worshiper. Why it seems so to you is because Andreas has made the study of East Front operations one such focal subject in recent times, thus why it is of no surprise to me that he cites the examples as he does.

We all have our focal subjects. From my end, I'm prepared to go bare-knuckled, knock-down drag-out if anyone wanted to debate with me on details about some IJN destroyers in WWII or the Battle of Gettysburg as a couple of examples. In regards to the former, someone can link over to the recent self-authored article for the Wargamer if so inclined:

Pacific Lancers

Now....

If Andreas was a nationalist per se, he'd probably be more inclined to argue that the two greatest commanders of WWII were von Manstein and Montgomery, than argue that Soviet leadership eventually got the measure (and then some) of their German counterparts in most late-war cases.

To be continued......

[ October 19, 2003, 08:31 PM: Message edited by: Spook ]

[Tripps]

Can someone explain to me just how, W.A. Naval superiority would have made such a huge difference to a W.E. conflict?

[Spook]

Originally posted by Tripps:

Can someone explain to me just how, W.A. Naval superiority would have made such a huge difference to a W.E. conflict?

It would have made a difference in the main as that if a new war kicked off in WE close on the heels of WWII, then it would not have remained a war constrained only in the WE theater by any realistic projection. It would have reached also into the Baltic (if in only a limited scope), the North Sea, the Barents, the Black Sea, the west Pacific, and so forth.

The consequences of this have been touched on earlier by others, and will likely come up again later.

[Ruthless]

Andreas, Grisha:

I'm not going to read any posts here, because it would likely make me mad again, but I just wanted to say I'm sorry for snapping at you, in particular Andreas.

Between this thread and the one on the General forum, I felt like I had 4 separate individuals that I was arguing with this weekend who refused to even acknowledge the other person's view, but still I shouldn't have lost my temper.

I think I'll be in lurker mode for awhile or perhaps just leave the forums for awhile altogether as it has frustrated me as of late.

[Spook]

Well, the more recent arguments seemed to have polarized on these extreme (with due recognition of views in-between):

A) The Soviet knowledge of operational art, in concert with its available sum forces and capabilities in Europe, would have brought a massive defeat of the WA armies that likely would’ve opposed the Soviet army and its satellites.

The preponderance of the WA’s forces in sum naval and air power instead would have portended any Soviet assault further into WE to have been ultimately a disaster.

Let’s try a factor-by-factor basis. The first I will explore is of relative leadership abilities between the likely commanders on both sides in an initial battle.

Soviet WWII-era operational art, cited alone, is only citing principles and doctrines. What ultimately was required to make it work in an assault against the WA was the mettle of the likely Soviet commanders; their past experience, their proficiencies, AND their ability to read what their opposition in the WA leadership would do to react. It is that last note which will likely remain the most speculative and not be easily resolved in this discussion.

Regardless, the “crop” of proficient Soviet leaders in deep operations – Zhukov, Rokossovsky, Konev, Yeremenko, and Vasilevsky to name a few (or also Vatutin & Cherniakhovsky if they had survived WWII) – do give me pause to think as that the Soviet leadership did at least have a VERY compelling poker hand. If they were to lead in an offensive against the WA, they certainly had amongst them the past experience of successful large-scale operations, and lessons learned from those less so.

Would the likely WA commanders, in a defensive stance, had the sum abilities to understand Soviet deep operations and the proficiencies to adapt against same. Possibly so. But in regards to past experience and demonstrated abilities, as a matter of personal opinion, I’m really just not that overly confident, not even it were Montgomery leading all the British forces to the north. My review of D’Este’s “Decision at Normandy” helped me to appreciate some of Monty’s qualities and achievements as that are not often discussed (or fogged by controversies), but the sum read of the book still suggested to me that if Monty suddenly was hit with a full-up Soviet combined arms deep operation and threatened with multiple encirclements, he LIKELY would have been more than a little listless to deal with it. Zhukov or Rokossovsky just would not have obliged to provide a “tidy” set-piece battle, IF in their means not to.

As one such example. I’m just as uncertain, if not more so, how someone like Gen. Omar Bradley would have coped.

Or then again, maybe WA generalship might have prevailed in the crunch. For one thing, the Soviets were experienced with German operational methods AND the effect of Hitler in interfering in same; comparing this directly to the WA leadership of the 1945 timeframe would be fallacious. Perhaps what the better WA commanders had learned by 1945, while advancing into Germany, would have developed sufficient sum efficiency and flexibility to adapt to sudden, violent, concentrated encirclement assaults. Again, it wasn't a case here of Hitler micromanaging with his "stand-fasts" as in 1944.

What we have to go on is what was demonstrated in history, and extending this to a USSR-WA conflict always is loaded with speculation. But in historically demonstrated capabilities, my own odds go to saying that the Soviets would likely had pushed out the WA from the rest of Germany in the initial assaults.

(to be continued)

[Spook]

Originally posted by Ruthless:

Andreas, Grisha:

I'm not going to read any posts here, because it would likely make me mad again, but I just wanted to say I'm sorry for snapping at you, in particular Andreas.

Between this thread and the one on the General forum, I felt like I had 4 separate individuals that I was arguing with this weekend who refused to even acknowledge the other person's view, but still I shouldn't have lost my temper.

I think I'll be in lurker mode for awhile or perhaps just leave the forums for awhile altogether as it has frustrated me as of late.

I regret if the forums have gotten too burdensome for you to stay with, Ruthless. It does seem to get that way for me sometimes too, now & then.

But the above is all the same a very manful extending of an olive branch, well done. There's quite a few other posters in these various BF forums who I wish would resort to comparable maturity more often.

[Tripps]

Originally posted by Spook:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Tripps:

Can someone explain to me just how, W.A. Naval superiority would have made such a huge difference to a W.E. conflict?

It would have made a difference in the main as that if a new war kicked off in WE close on the heels of WWII, then it would not have remained a war constrained only in the WE theater by any realistic projection. It would have reached also into the Baltic (if in only a limited scope), the North Sea, the Barents, the Black Sea, the west Pacific, and so forth.

The consequences of this have been touched on earlier by others, and will likely come up again later. </font>

[Quintusarrius]

Wow... one hell of an interesting thread.

The W.A. vs USSR thing does really depend on "Who started it and why".

For example, were the Soviets to kick off against the allies out of a desire to liberate the whole of Europe for Marxist Leninism, then I would imagine that the Western Allies would fight back both hard and dirty.

The scarcity of atom bombs has been mentioned but I am wondering how squeamish the Allies would have been about use of chemical weapons?

Churchill was willing to countenence the use of chemicals in the event of an invasion in 1940. Ironically, Hitler was squeamish about gas weapons on the battlefield after being on the receiving end in WW-I.

Germany and the Allies had nerve agents in active development but I believe that Russia lagged behind until she acquired German scientists post war.

Lacking long range delivery systems like the B-29, I suspect Russia would have been at something of a disadvantage had that particular evil genie got out of the bottle.

[Spook]

Originally posted by Tripps:

Save various operations on the north coast of Germany, but otherwise, yes, I would not expect for direct influence of naval power for the inland fighting in WE.

Of course. But the potential fallacy to avoid here is presuming as that the WA had only a given frame of time to be engaged in war with the USSR.

Only if presuming as that the required end result was to launch an amphibious assault in one of the noted "far reach" regions.

Alternately, the sum naval power might not have been used for much more than to blockade the Russian ports and shut down Russian shipping from the west Pacific, the Barents, the Baltic, the Black Sea, and so forth.

Where the anticipated counter argument is "Okay, but so what?". The "so what" is that the strategic impact of the USSR not being able to use the oceans, as well as ensure that forces are also deployed to watch all POSSIBLE points of seaborne attack, has not even been close to being discussed in this thread in earnest.

The RN blockade of Germany in WWI, while not directly comparable to the hypothetical scenario of a post-WWII new war between the USSR and WA, regardless had far-reaching strategic impact in causing the German populace to crack in 1918. I wouldn't presume for the USSR to have similar vulnerabilities to self-substinence in the hypothetical war (as far as what the Ukraine and East Europe could be foraged for), but again, the loss of freedom of the seas as what it would've done to the strategic AND economic standing of the USSR in the long haul has just not been grappled with in a compelling way within this topic thread.

[Sivodsi]

To launch something like D-Day in Vladivstok or Magadan would have involved a lot of planning, and massive logistics, and for limited gain, its a lot (glancing at a map here) further to the Industrial/Political center of Russia from the far east than W.E. And needless to say not much in the way of roads...

Though of course, the Americans had been gearing up to invade Japan - they had all the landing craft and assault equipment they needed already in that theatre of operations.

Still, its a touch far from Vladivostok to Moscow, though I suppose you would cut the Russians off from their supply of fish.

What else is there around Vladivostok? :confused:

[Andreas]

Originally posted by Ruthless:

Andreas, Grisha:

I'm not going to read any posts here, because it would likely make me mad again, but I just wanted to say I'm sorry for snapping at you, in particular Andreas.

Between this thread and the one on the General forum, I felt like I had 4 separate individuals that I was arguing with this weekend who refused to even acknowledge the other person's view, but still I shouldn't have lost my temper.

I think I'll be in lurker mode for awhile or perhaps just leave the forums for awhile altogether as it has frustrated me as of late.

Ruthless, in case you are reading this (and since you don't supply an email addy in the profile), my apologies for the last post. That was uncalled for. We have really been talking past each other more than anything else.

[Andreas]

Spook - thanks for summing up.

Just to get back to basics. My own assumption would be that any such conflict would have come shortly after the surrender of Germany. 4-12 months sounds about right. Any later than that, and atrophication along the demarcation line would have set in, making large operations more difficult. Also the unpredictable effect of nuclear weapons would have made the decision to go to war quite difficult.

This is the speculation bit

In the end, I would assume that a very bloody stalemate would ensue, but with the Soviets controlling a larger part of Germany, up to the North Sea coast at least, Austria, and a good part of north-eastern Italy.

The most likely event would have been a well-concealed sudden deep operation. The W.A. had already shown in the Ardennes (or indeed again in Korea) that their intel work was not really up to the standards required, so I see no reason to presume that they would be able to detect the build-up sufficiently in advance. Such an operation would have created severe shock in Allied HQs, as indeed the Ardennes offensive did. With the logistical support, force structure, and experience available to them the Red Army could probably have broken through deep into the W.A. rear before any organised response could have taken place. So far it would have looked like a typical deep operation against the Germans. But then other factors would have mitigated against further exploitation.

1) The W.A. would probably have been able to adopt a more flexible defense, if only (I share Spook's concerns about the comparative levels of generalship) because they are fully mechanised.

2) Air superiority could be achieved by the W.A. (albeit not as easily as against the Germans) and Soviet logistics could be harmed, especially in small break-through corridors.

3) A new frontline is established further west, strong enough to hold any further advance now that the 1st class of Soviet troops have been used.

This would likely have checked much deeper advances on the scale seen in Eastern Europe in 1944/5.

Then negotiation starts - and the W.A. have to think how many of their soldiers they want to have killed to retake the newly occupied German areas from the Soviets. The answer is probably - very few, if any. So the territories are written off, and the Berlin garrison chaps are ransomed. Scandinavia as a whole, not just Finland will enter the Soviet sphere of influence. The Soviets have grabbed some more land and now have an ice-free harbour in Hamburg that is not restricted to narrow approaches. The W.A. have shown they can stand up to the Soviet juggernaut, and will be better prepared next time round. Bunch of medals all round. Everyone's a winner, except the ones killed in battle, and the additional batch of Germans who are now facing up to years of government by Ulbricht and Honecker and others who otherwise would have had the privilege of living in the free world.

This is where total speculation ends

How is that for some alternative history?

[argie]

Very plausible.

But I think USA military, and USA people, would kept the resolve to continue the fight. Not anymore in Europe, but maybe like a blockade against USSR and European countries, helped by UK and a increasing effort from South America and other world areas to which USSR influence didn't reach.

Of course, this may have meant a more clever USA foreign affairs politics regarding de-colonization, to prevent native forces to become communist, or negotiate with such forces from a non-ideological point of view, but in desperate times, wisdom may appear.

[ October 20, 2003, 11:42 AM: Message edited by: Ariel ]

[Keke]

Originally posted by Andreas:

Scandinavia as a whole, not just Finland will enter the Soviet sphere of influence.

How come? :confused:

[Andreas]

Originally posted by Keke:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Andreas:

Scandinavia as a whole, not just Finland will enter the Soviet sphere of influence.

How come? :confused: </font>

[Tripps]

Originally posted by Spook:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Tripps:

Of course. But the potential fallacy to avoid here is presuming as that the WA had only a given frame of time to be engaged in war with the USSR.

[/QB]</font>

Yes but i'm in the camp that the longer the conflict goes on (say more than a year - starting summer of 45) that a stalemate, and probable withdrawal to 1945 lines, of Russian forces.

I have no doubts about W.A. economic power, i'm really asking how W.A. Naval power would have had any direct influence in any European conflict, as some people here seem to think that it would have a decided effect.