AV 1/3 Aureus ND 18mm./1.74g.

Cool history everyone...and V-K's link is the first I've ever heard of that particular event...

My father was in the Pacific and fought in New Guinea, eventually advancing towards the Philippines....He often told us that they asked him if he could swim and after answering in the affirmative assigned him to 'amphibious'.... being a poor Brooklyn, NY kid who had to quit school at age nine, after the death of his parents, had to look up the meaning of the word to understand what they assigned him to. LOL. He 'piloted' the troops ashore from an LST and then joined an outfit advancing inland.....He always wondered if he was assigned to the Pacific because of his German ancestry, but I think he was just joking about that.

 

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Throughout the remainder of my father's life, he was adamant that we should have finished the job and gone to Moscow. He remained in Vienna for nearly 2 years as part of the occupying forces. His contact with the Russian forces gave him a very bad taste for Russians. He said they were uneducated, undisciplined and hateful.

 

Here are the figures I found regarding Operation Unthinkable.
The Soviets had 11 million men on the Western front at the time, with 6.7 million on the German border.
"The Soviet numerical superiority in relation to the Western Allies was roughly 4:1 in men and 2:1 in tanks at the end of hostilities in Europe"
Here is a map of Allied army divisions at the end of the war.
I don't know about you guys but I see a lot of red!

 

Well, I respect what your father has done, but invading Russia would've been a catastrophe.

 

My father was perhaps the smartest man I've ever known, but he too was uneducated having only completed a third grade education. He was a corporal during the war so he was in no position to be in the know. However, from his standpoint and being a commonsense kind of guy, he knew we would be dealing with the Russians either then or in the future. As far as I can tell, we still are.

 

I was always in the Patton camp on this train of thought.

 

I think a "counteroffensive" vs the Soviets would have succeeded in 1945. US airpower, esp. long range B-29s could have hit factories/ targets as far as the Urals. Germany had the most advanced jet fighters like the Me-262/ new Horten slealth fighter, these could have been mass produced in America/ KingTiger tanks produced on mass, to spearhead advances into Red territory. Then there were millions of POWS that could have joined the Allied effort vs the hated Stalinist regime. Also, Latvians/Finns/Estonians/Ukrainians would have loved to free their homelands from the Soviet yoke, also Poles....Stalin had 35000 Polish officers shot at Katyn.

 

I also agree that the Western Allies with support from others would have been able to bring the USSR to its knees, but it probably would have been one hell of a fight, not easy at all.

 

I disagree, Americas mindset of war is different. America doesn't think they have to fighting a war of attrition, the Soviets have experience with wars of attrition. A war with the soviet union at the time would result in tens of millions of both Americans, and soviets dead, and the war would last longer than a decade probably. Stalin had the population brainwashed, its not like soviet soldiers would disband, and join Americas side, America would at most win a costly, useless victory.

 

I think "One hell of a fight" is a understatement. Bring it to its knees? Not that far, or at least without bringing itself to its knees as well.

 

Well, we'll never know, will we. We can only imagine what might have been.

 

I deeply resent the Soviet Union but I'm with noname here. The Soviets' simply had too many men compared to the Americans and British.
As for the 100,000 German pow's, I highly doubt that they would want to be sent back to the eastern front for a second time, desertion would probably be very high.
This is war so I suppose any thing could have happened.
Thank god that that the US and UK high command weren't stupid enough to actually implement that plan though, that would have made WW2 look like a cakewalk!

 

How about nuclear bombs? USA had them in 1945. Soviets didn't. Wouldn't that have helped turn the tide?

 

Yeah, I didn't factor that in, but even with nukes, guerrilla warfare would make conquering and occupying the soviet union hell.

 

Here is a well made video that factors in nukes.