[quote]usmccds423 wrote:
[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
[quote]usmccds423 wrote:
[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
[quote]usmccds423 wrote:
He would of gotten crushed by the U.S.
[/quote]
No offense, but I doubt the US public would have had the will to stomach the losses necessary to even contemplate defeating the Russians. There were far too many poor Russian peasants with a ruthless leader more than willing to sacrifice millions of soldiers. If he’d attacked, about the only hope the allies would have had would be an uprising from within the Russian ranks or a generous application of atomic weapons.
As painful as it is to admit, it was the Russians who defeated the Germans in WW2 with some support from the other allies who mostly just kept the western front open enough to tie up some German troops and contributed to the demoralization of the German population through bombing.
Things like D day are small scale in comparison to battles on the eastern front. And that was only even possible because 80% of the German military was on the other side of the continent
While this doesn’t diminish the courage and valor of the individual soldiers in these battles, most people vastly over estimate US military power back then. We generally even overestimate the importance of our manufacturing in winning the war which was really late to the fight and contributed only a little to the eastern front where the vast majority of the fighting was done. I also don’t mean to claim glory for the Russian armies who’s tactics were abominable, but their leaders were far more willing to do anything necessary to win. Things not available to the commander of a free people.
The Russians could have absolutely stomped the rest of the allies as the armies stood at the end of the war. [/quote]
No offense taken. The U.S. public had already accepted huge losses in Europe and the Pacific. I’m sure the greatest generation would of handled a war against Russia.
I think you are vastly underestimating the U.S. military during WWII. Half our forces were in the Pacific as it were. [/quote]
Yeah, the battles the US fought counted casualties in the thousands and sometimes tens of thousands (like D-day). The Russian/German individual battles were sometimes in the millions. It’s almost not even comparable. Could the US have converted the majority of it’s industry to war production, and drafted to triple the size of it’s military while achieving political will to accept 8 or 10 million dead US soldiers (80 to 100 times the number we lost)? I guess it’s possible if vastly improbable. But regardless, Russian conventional forces at the end of the war were vastly superior to anything else in existence at the time by shear volume.
I’m not sure how you think we could possibly have even really put up much resistance, much less win. I think you should do some more reading about the eastern front and things like the battle of Stalingrad where the Russians killed more Nazis than died in the entire western front.
Even in the Pacific, it’s the poor Chinese peasant who’d done the majority of the fighting and dieing against Japan, not us. Nor would the inclusion of those forces in Europe made a conflict with Russia any less lopsided.[/quote]
The fact that the Russians lost millions is part of my point. You don’t replace millions of trained experienced soldiers over night. It’s impossible. Further I can’t image after sustaining such huge losses Russian citizens would have the moral fortitude to attack the U.S. or the logistical capabilities to reach the U.S. without considerable effort.
[/quote]
Stalin actually did exactly that several times in the war. A number of times he basically lost his whole army and created another one. and even with 8 or 10 million in military casualties, their army was still far larger than ours at the end of the war.
And it wasn’t moral fortitude with the Russians who literally fought with machine guns aimed at their backs as well as their fronts.
[quote]
Perhaps we are looking at this from two different perspectives. I don’t believe the U.S. would of crushed the Russian’s had we decided to invade their home land. I’m talking about defending against Russian aggression in Western Europe or in America.
Again, like I said earlier, had the Russians/Soviet Union had the capabilities to take the U.S. they would of. [/quote]
I’ll just say, it’s a good thing we had a trump card to conventional forces we’d just demonstrated.