Patton quote ref US advantages over Russia & why we'd beat them if we kept going

[womble]

Well it was an interesting quote and a great book but can you explain the connection to my feeble mind Womble my old friend?

Yes I know 1984 was written in 48 thats why its 1984 he reversed the numbers.  IIRC he become throughly disillusioned with both fascism and communism.  Having been both at different points.

 

Seriously though womble, my mini essay - can I have your serious opinion on it? Ive always respected your posts if though you are a sarcastic pr*ck

The quote was to suggest that your proposed scenario would have resulted in the situation seen in Orwell's masterpiece: a semi-hot war between large power blocs where they mostly just lob missiles at each other occasionally to keep their various populations under the impression that there is a real external threat.

 

Sarcastic? Moi?

[Sublime]

Ahhh i see. Ya u sarcsstic pssh neva that

[A co]

I don't think Orwell had ever been connected to fascism, though he did go from pro-communist to anti-communist over time. 

Such a continuation of the war might also have had the aspect of an almost continent-wide partisan war. Communist partisans in France and Italy, nationalist partisans in Germany, Poland and Ukraine, who would have kept fighting as long as the conventional war was not settled. 

But I think the main question for the leaders of East and West would be the will to crush such a huge enemy, and the presumed benefits you'd get for the expenditure.

[Hpt. Lisse]

I think most of these scenarios would be focused on a Stalin push West. An Allied push East was simply unthinkable at the time, Patton's enthusiasm notwithstanding. Though Churchill knew what was developing as the Red Army progressed, the Allied high command was driven by soldiers, not politicians. Neither the Yanks or the Brits would have suffered those losses on the ground, though the previously mentioned air superiority (for the Allies) would be a big factor. I don't even want to analyze the use of atomic weapons on Soviet strong points, which would have (even if outwardly subdued) created a nation of terrorists for the West to contend with.

Great read - both Overlord: D-Day and the Battle for Normandy, and then the follow-up Armageddon: The Battle for Germany 1944 - 1945, by Max Hastings. Summary for this topic would be - A) Germans had the best professional army (obvious, I know), The Soviets had a vengeful horde driven by a leader who didn't give two farts for casualty counts, and C) the Allies had soldiers who were products of basically ethical democracies. The progress of Allied troops through Europe, and especially Germany, was much slower than expected, even as resistance crumbled, driven by cautious commanders and GI's who wanted to make it home alive. Did we have manpower reserves after VE day? Yep. Were they low-value green troops? Yep. Was that already a HUGE issue with our current frontline troops? Yep.

 

A co got it - we didn't have the will to mount a war against the Soviets after VE day.

 

Nor am I saying that (in a conventional war) the Soviets would have done better against us in August of '45. Defensively, the Allies (along with every willing German POW, which would have been many) would have easily stopped Stalin in his tracks, esp. with air superiority. That's why he didn't do it.

[Rosseau]

Maybe we should ask the designers and betas of StratCom2 Patton Drives East this question.

[kevinkin]

The term destroyed for large formations is often semantic. Of course the 6th was militarily destroyed in relation to what it was in June 41 and 42. But for political and ceremonial/moral reasons nations re-build formations around remnants. This is especially true for regiments and battalions. But was also the case for the 6th Army - probably for political

reasons and home front propaganda.

Kevin

[Sublime]

Lisse while i agree with most your points id like to add a few counterpoints. First gi and commander caution at the end in Germany was largely driven by not wanting to be the last dead in a won war, this mental outlook would be different if the war was renewed completely as it were. Second while there were a great many GIs its generally been heavily acknowledged by Allied and Axis accounts the US learned quickest in the war and changed tactics and applied lessons learned very well. Combine this with the fact that in some ways green is better than overexposed to long term combat, studies on ground soldiers showing if they survived there was a combat 'sweet spot` of a few weeks where soldier experience meshed well.with morale, before that experience was too little and within a.month or two of combat exhaustion and becoming jaded set in. The US, especially in regard to the AAF trained men well by rotating veteran aircrews out instead of a fly until you die policy that say the Luftwaffe used. It hardly matters though, fundamentally we agree that the West wouldnt have attacked East without Stalin starting the war first, and that the Soviets probably would have been stopped before the channel. While the nuclear option is sticky i dont doubt.for a second Moscow and Leningrad would have been nuked nation of terrorists or not. What the use of atomic weapons wasnt understood at the time, it was considered just another weapon.

[76mm]

“The American Army as it now exists could beat the Russians with the greatest of ease, because, while the Russians have good infantry, they are lacking in artillery, air, tanks, and in the knowledge of the use of the combined arms, whereas we excel in all three of these.”

 

A whole collection of misconceptions and mistakes in one sentence...let's break down Georgie's statements:

 

"The American Army as it now exists could beat the Russians with the greatest of ease..."

Famous last words if I ever heard them...was he talking about beating a few depleted Red Army units they encountered, or a knock-down fight with the whole Red Army?  Hitler didn't do so well with the prediction that the Wehrmacht could beat the Russians "with the greatest of ease" , and I doubt that Patton's statement would have been much more accurate.

 

...while the Russians have good infantry, they are lacking in artillery, air, tanks...

Pretty nearly backwards as far as I can tell; the Russians were very short of infantry towards the end of the war.  Red Army lacking in artillery?  That's a good one!  Russian tanks were both abundant and much better than most US tanks.  Airpower is the only place I've give the US a solid advantage.

 

...lacking...in the knowledge of the use of the combined arms...

Again, pretty rich considering that the Red Army had just finished crushing the Wehrmacht after pushing them back thousands of kilometers across a huge front.  

Edited April 2, 2015 by 76mm

[Sublime]

Yeah. Georgie sounds like hitlers famous kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will crash down. Very bad to underestimate a foe especially that badly when the soviet artillery was exceptional, though then again the us had good artillery and it probably was more responsive timewise, though i could be wrong. While george was wrong about the soviet tanks i wouldnt say they were way better than the wests. Thats hard say with pershings and centurions coming afield soon, and the upgunned uparmored shermans and TDs. Against t34s and IS2s this would be a verrry interesting match up and im not sure who i.d give the advantage to..

[JonS]

... the US had good artillery and it probably was more responsive timewise, though i could be wrong.

You're not wrong. Well, a little bit wrong; The US had great artillery.

 

 

 

the soviet artillery was exceptional

Soviet artillery was plentiful, but afaict it's responsiveness was terrible. It was great for planned and orchestrated attacks (or defences) (and helped immensely by the German's* absurd defensive doctrine), but not much chop once the battle had moved to more open warfare. Bear in mind that the people describing Soviet artillery as 'excellent' were the Germans ... and they were hardly unbiased. Their own artillery was generally lamentable (due to vigourous de-centralisation and terriblelogistics), and they were eager to blame anyone and anything for their own failings. You see the same on the western front post-D-Day with the Allied airforces.

 

Jon

 

* and those absurdities consisted of way more than just Hitler's 'last man last bullet' orders.

Edited April 3, 2015 by JonS

[Sublime]

As usual Jon you make an excellent point.  I guess I should have put 2 and 2 together regardless, the Allies in the West by the end of the war had light aircraft flying over armored columns ready to call in artillery and or air support. You dont see that in the East.  My mistake lies in as you said German accounts and also as you said stubborn German resistance to being fluid and the idiocy of holding untenable positions (the festung strategy) that were clearly deathtraps, or refusing to leave useless areas (the Russians largest PoW camp - Courland ran by the Germans themselves)  When I think about it more the Soviet barrages of super intensity such as at Seelow Heights were prepared in large order well in advance and some of the East Front battles at least in the beginning seem reminiscent to WW1 with the huge amounts of preparation and maskirova etc.  Would the Western Allies have let the Soviets have the time to move such units into place?  It seems doubtful to me and Western command of the skies would make assembling such huge concentrations of artillery and shock groups of tanks much harder maskirova or not.  One of the greatest features of the combined bomber offensive really had nothing to do with the bombers themselves, it was their escorts with no more Luftwaffe to fight roving around over Germany strafing anything that moved.  It just made everything insanely chaotic and permeated an atmosphere of fear of moving in daylight.  Of course we've endlessly discussed on this board the efficieny of aircraft actually attacking say tanks or Rudel's claims which are highly overstated IMO, but the psychological impact is still there.  And the impact on softer targets such as all those lend lease trucks and trains is definitely there.  I was wondering at work today if the Soviet air force in 1945 really even had the capability to stop B-29 raids on say Warsaw, Leningrad, Moscow, etc.  The Eastern Front air battle was largely fought at much lower altitude than in the West and the Soviet air force responded accordingly.  Im sure they had AAA that could reach to 30k feet or so, but Im interested in how much they really had, or if my being so sure is actually true in 1945 at least.  Also perhaps the Soviet fighters such as Yak 9s and Mig 3s or P39s could reach such heights, but they probably would be at a disadvantage not used to fighting at that height and facing fighters such as the latest Spitfires and of course the P51D that defeated the Luftwaffe at those heights.  And as I said before in a East vs West scenario-(which as we discuss I see as increasingly unlikely to ever have happened besides say tactical engagements as the forces reached eachother and the actual dogfights that happened between American and Soviet aircraft as the Allies approached eachother from East and West) -the Soviet Union had had a huge amount of territory that had just had the greatest land war in history fought over it.  Also even in the peace that actually happened there was quite a bit of anti Soviet partisan activity in the Ukraine, Poland, and the Baltic states. This partisan activity would probably have been greatly aided and stepped up in an East/West conflict.  And shouldnt be discounted - Vatutin IIRC was killed in an ambush by partisans in the Ukraine.  The SU would be subject to strategic bombing and the B29s could and would reach the Urals from bases in say China, or the CBI theater - Iran, and Europe.  (Though to be honest Im not sure which of these would be the largest base - I dont remember the exact range of the B29 but do know that Western bases in 1945 still essentially ringed the Soviet Union..) Whilst the US would be untouchable by the Soviets for years - at least until Stalins copy of the B29 was produced 4-5 years later down to the rivets that werent supposed to be there and accidentally punched in on the model that landed in Soviet territory in 1945.

[JonS]

... if the Soviet air force in 1945 really even had the capability to stop B-29 raids on say Warsaw, Leningrad, Moscow, etc.

Well, the Germans never had the ability to stop the 8th AF and Bomber Command from striking at Berlin or the Ruhr, even though they tried to really hard and had loads of practice. The Soviets never really had to cope with a bomber offensive, so while they had some good guns and some good a/c, they didn't have an air defence system set up to cope with mass deep penetration raids, and nor did they have the infrastructure to bounce back from raids.* And they'd be up against the US and British bomber fleets at the height of their strength and capability.

 

 

The SU would be subject to strategic bombing and the B-29s could and would reach the Urals from bases in say China, or the CBI theater - Iran, and Europe.

That's about the only thing the Soviets would have going for them, but it's a fairly big thing. Russia is a fairly big country, and in the days before GPS navigation - or even satelite photo-recon coverage - it would be fairly easy to hide something even as big as a city, tucked away somewhere in the interior. The parts of western Russia reachable by B-17s, B-24s, and Lancasters flying from Germany are limited and anyway had been already been thoroughy scoured at least twice since 1941. Still, something like 1944's pre-D-Day Transportation Plan, targetting the comparatively limited rail links across Poland, Hungary, and Rumania would have made sustaining Soviet forces in Central Europe challenging. A similar approach in the far east would have been even easier to accomplish against the Trans-Siberian rail line.

Expanding the war into the Middle East - Iran and Iraq - would potentially open up the oil fields at Baku-Grozny-Maikop to air attack from the south (a'la Op PIKE), but that could easily have gone bad for the US and UK should the USSR push south towards Kuwait.

Jon

* See: Overy, the Bombing War. The Soviets weren't completely helpless against bombers, but they weren't anywhere near as organised as the Germans in 1944, or even the British in 1940.

Edited April 3, 2015 by JonS

[76mm]

While george was wrong about the soviet tanks i wouldnt say they were way better than the wests. Thats hard say with pershings and centurions coming afield soon, and the upgunned uparmored shermans and TDs. Against t34s and IS2s this would be a verrry interesting match up and im not sure who i.d give the advantage to..

Dunno, I think if you look at what was on the ground in April-May 1945, rather than "coming soon", I'd give the advantage to the Soviets; if  you quibble with that, it certainly wasn't anything like as one-sided in the US' favor as Patton seemed to think.

[Sublime]

Fair enough.  Still I'd say that honestly Sherman Fireflies and Jumbos, upgunned 76mm variants are roughly equal to T34s.  So the armor advantage can goto the Soviets.  You say quibble as if I really care who would win in this theoretical war - I just like the discussion.

[76mm]

You say quibble as if I really care who would win in this theoretical war - I just like the discussion.

Yeah, sure, understood.

[ASL Veteran]

Fair enough.  Still I'd say that honestly Sherman Fireflies and Jumbos, upgunned 76mm variants are roughly equal to T34s.  So the armor advantage can goto the Soviets.  You say quibble as if I really care who would win in this theoretical war - I just like the discussion.

And there is always the Pershing entering service as well.  I would be curious to see how it stacked up. 

[ASL Veteran]

Overall my seat of the pants expectation is that the western Allies would have the advantage, although the carnage would be terrible.  I think they would have the advantage in terms of artillery (Soviet artillery has been described as roughly equivalent in technology to British artillery at the Somme) and air power (I'm not sure any nation could stand up to the US and UK air forces in 1945 / 46).  Although both armies are large and Britain's manpower reserves were pretty much tapped out, I think America's manpower reserves were still plentiful with additional well trained formation coming on line and the Soviet manpower was strained with the overall quality perhaps questionable in some units.  Perhaps call it even there or perhaps a slight advantage to the west.  Armor ... I'm not sure.  The Soviet armored forces were pretty substantial, but western allied armored forces were pretty substantial as well.  I think they had so many tanks available in the west that they felt tanks were almost expendable and that infantry were more valuable than tanks.  I don't know the actual numbers of tanks for each side though so I don't have an opinion one way or the other.  I think western Allied formations were probably generally more mobile and those Soviet formations that were mobile were dependent to an extent on supplies from western sources - which would be awkward in this situation. 

[LukeFF]

The Soviets weren't completely helpless against bombers, but they weren't anywhere near as organised as the Germans in 1944, or even the British in 1940.

 

The thing as well is that the Soviet air force was set up to be a tactical air force fighting at medium and low altitudes. While its fighters were all good and well up to about 5000 meters, above that their performance dramatically fell off. 

[John Kettler]

Sublime,

 

Russia's own firing trials showed the US 76 mm gun and the Russian 85 mm were about on par with APCBC, but the US HVAP was dramatically better than arrowhead at all ranges (our own rexford's #4), and the 17-pdr was well past that, with performance exceeding the Panther's gun, if memory serves. Here are the pertinent Russian documents detailing the results of firing tests using a common set of penetration criteria for all weapons assessed, regardless of the user nation.  Penetration, Part 1 http://tankarchives.blogspot.com/2013/03/penetration.html Penetration, Part 2 http://tankarchives.blogspot.com/2013/05/penetration-part-2.html  Usually, things get all screwed up, precisely because the US, Germany, Britain and Russia all did things differently.

 

ASL Veteran,

 

British Royal Artillery combat gunner during WW II, Master Gunner and instructor at RMA Sandhurst Ian Hogg said the US artillery branch was the best of World War II. Nobody could top it when it came to combining hitting power, responsiveness, flexibility, communications, CB/CM, mobility, logistics, artillery spotting from the air and many other pertinent topics. Where the Russians massed tubes, in some cases practically gun trail to gun trail (Battle of Berlin, bombardment of Seelowe Heights), the US massed fires. It also had VT!  And that included VT fuzing for bombs and 5" rockets as well. Thus, Patton wasn't right in terms of gun parks, but he was absolutely right in terms of rating the US artillery as he did vs that of the Russians. 

 

Regards,

 

John Kettler

Edited April 3, 2015 by John Kettler

[ASL Veteran]

The thing as well is that the Soviet air force was set up to be a tactical air force fighting at medium and low altitudes. While its fighters were all good and well up to about 5000 meters, above that their performance dramatically fell off. 

Yes, I have read that the Soviet air force was designed as a tactical air force in similar fashion to the German, although the Soviet air force wasn't quite as good at it as the Germans.  As I recall, the reasons were a lack of radios and tactical flexibility as well as strict guidelines to keep all attacks within six miles of the front lines.  Although those limitations were addressed to some extent as the war progressed, the Soviet air force still only achieved some level of dominance in 1944 and even then Germans held local superiority in certain sectors at certain times. 

 

Just out of curiosity, does anyone know how large each respective air force was in terms of fighters, tactical and medium bombers, and heavy bombers? 

[ASL Veteran]

I would also be curious to see how each side matches up at a tactical level.  I'm pretty sure that a US infantry squad would have a firepower advantage over a Soviet squad at long to medium range because of the Garand.  The BAR is probably a lesser LMG than the DP, but the DP isn't as good as the MG 42.  All western infantry forces would have bazookas and PIATs while the Soviets might have to rely on captured stocks of Panzerfausts and Panzershreks. 

 

I think Steve has mentioned a passing interest in a 'Combat Mission: Patton's Dream' game before, but whether that translates into an actual future game or not is something else. 

[Sublime]

It.d be a great game imo. Yes kettler those Kubinka iirc trials were why i said 76mm Shermans were roughly equal to T34/85s..

[Sublime]

Or even simply a cross module though i have no clue how that.d work. Probably game in the end since the forces from two different families are matched with scenarios and maps.

[Duckman]

First of all it was not going to happen since everyone was tired of war, there was still Japan (with the a-bomb an unknown), and the Russians were still the heroes of Stalingrad to most of the Western public and politicians.

Militarily the Soviets were pretty much scraping the bottom of the manpower barrel. So were the Brits of course, but the Americans and French (who were remilitarising rapidly) still had plenty left. Western logitics and air power were vastly superior. With ground forces it's probably a tossup, with the edge going to the West because of better artillery as well as the abovementioned logistical and aerial advantages which are huge force multipliers (cf what happened to the Wehrmacht).

Consequently the Soviet spearheads would find themselves at the end of a very long logistical chain that the West could cut fairly easily. A bit like the Wehrmacht in France or Africa, you could say. In that situation things like armour thickness don't matter much.

(To the above you can also add factors like the, eh, somewhat unwilling liberated peoples in the Soviet rear.)

[Hpt. Lisse]

ASL vet - though it's hard to say what level of production they were up to in the fall of '45, the new JS III's were beastly tanks. It would be interesting to see a squad of each go at it... It certainly would have pushed the Super Pershing into mass production...

 

Agreed Sublime, no doubt Allied tatics adapted and TOE's improved. There were outstanding troops of the 82nd & 101st AB, veterans in the Big Red One, and heroic individuals everywhere. But the majority of our troops A) suffered from poor leadership at the Company & Battalion level, and wouldn't move forward without massive artillery assistance. BTW, the Brits were in the exact same boat. And I'm talking about pre-Bulge here, not after it was clear that Germany was beat.

 

Again, I found Hastings Overlord and Armageddon (which shines a focused spotlight on this topic) to be just as insightful & balanced (perhaps more so) than even Ambrose's missives.