What if soviets attacked Western Europe right after WWII?

Thoughts?? Was it logistically possible?

probably but i don't think it would have went anywhere. the western soviet union was pretty badly trashed by the fighting and the US was in full steam ahead mode. i don't think they had the industrial base or people to sustain the fighting for very long.

Sure it was possible. Would it have worked? No way of knowing, but it scared Winston Churchill enough that the British government developed a plan for such a measure called Operation Unthinkable.

You also had Plan Totality which was a disinfo campaign to prevent the soviets from attempting.

Its impossible to know for sure, but military thinkers of the time certainly thought if Russia actually committed to an invasion of Western Europe, nothing could stop them, particularly if the United States withdrew from the continent.

But what if history is pretty useless because there are too many variables. Counterfactual historiography is pure bunk, and yet I always get those dreadful "What if?!" questions at work.

Without the creation of the nuclear bomb I would dare to say the soviet union would have pushed towards france/italy without stopping after berlin, they were in their prime state as far as forces go.

But with the bomb? Not a chance to get annihilated after what happened to japan.

Define right after WWII?
Is it late 1945 or later dates like 1950s?

USA + Western Europe has a small edge merely due to possession of the A-bomb. Only until 1952 when the Soviet Union got their own operational.

But do note that The Red Army outclassed the US Army in 1945. France, Italy and Germany had virtually no cohesive armed forces anymore nor any competent industrial base to equip them as they laid in ruins; and the British are terrible at waging land wars in Europe.

I doubt the USA could financially and logistically afford to fund all of Western Europe on top of fighting the Red Army themselves. Also remember that the USA has to load the supplies & armament in the USA's East Coast, ship everything across the Atlantic and unload it at European ports, creating an extra logistical bottleneck whereas the Soviets can use rail or road infrastructure, making the logistical burden more manageable.

Then it goes downhill for us.
Starting from the mid 1950s, the Soviets had conventional superiority and nuclear weapons superiority over NATO until the very late 1980s/early 1990s.

Define right after WWII?
Is it late 1945 or later dates like 1950s?

USA + Western Europe has a small edge merely due to possession of the A-bomb. Only until 1952 when the Soviet Union got their own operational.

But do note that The Red Army outclassed US Armed Forces in 1945. France, Italy and Germany had virtually no cohesive armed forces anymore nor any competent industrial base to equip them as they laid in ruins; and the British are terrible at waging land wars in Europe.

I doubt the USA could financially and logistically afford to fund all of Western Europe on top of fighting the Red Army themselves. Also remember that the USA has to load the supplies & armament in the USA's East Coast, ship everything across the Atlantic and unload it at European ports, creating an extra logistical bottleneck whereas the Soviets can use rail or road infrastructure, making the logistical burden more manageable.

Then it goes downhill for us.
Starting from the mid 1950s, the Soviets had conventional superiority and nuclear weapons superiority over NATO until the very late 1980s/early 1990s.

Directly after the soviets captured Berlin,so April/may 1945.

Lets just asssume they slapped hitler in the face, and then got orders from stalin to "Kill every non Soviet you find! Take the rest of the continent comrades! They cannot kill you all!!"\
~~~~
But regarding Western technology vs Soviet technology,Its a big what-if.

How would Jacksons/Pershings/Centurions fare against T54s,IS3s,and SU100s? How would soviet YAKs and IL2s vs P51s and Typhoons... Its just so interesting to me all of the sudden

Well, counterfactuals. They are somewhat frowned upon in mainstream historiography for good reason. Still, as far as this goes, it is fairly straightforward.
In a conventional, attritional conflict, the Western powers would have doubtlessly prevailed in 1945. There were two main reasons for this, and they are essentially analogous to why the German war effort vis-à-vis the Allies was doomed to fail:
A: Manpower. The Soviets were actually facing a manpower crisis whereas the manpower reservoir of the United States was largely untapped.
B: Industrial potential: The industrial potential of the United States and her Allies greatly exceeded that of the Soviet Union in every conceivable metric, not to mention that the Soviet Union had little to no access to high octane fuel and other crucial enablers of modern mechanised warfare. Heck, most of their trucks, rolling stock etc. was at that time supplied by none other than lend-lease.

In terms of operational expertise and relative combat power, the Western Allies had come a long way, and while their style of fighting was lacking in tempo and aggressiveness it was far more refined, sustainable and overall cost-effective than the Soviet modus operandi.

If my Hearts of Iron game is anything to go by, the Western Allies get absolutely shat on by 10,000,000 super strong Stalinium steel Soviet Motorized divisons, until I drop 10 Airborne divisions on Moscow and win the war.

but then new york gets invaded by soviet marines

Also basically what LeYawn said. The US still had millions and millions of people left to throw into the fight, and their navy and air forces were only getting bigger and increasing in tempo. Plus, had they thrown the defeated Wehrmacht in with them, I have no doubt that Western Allied industrial might and technological advances would have beaten the Soviets. (A-Bomb withstanding, they didn't have quite enough of those to win the hypothetical conflict simply by nuking a bunch of Russian cities, although firebombing them ala Japan from bases in Western Germany and Austria would have done immense damage)

What if soviets attacked Western Europe right after WWII?

More people would die, half of Europe of would not be livable to this date, and we may or may not have killed ourselves by then.
this world right now would have no computers or smartphones.
and everyone would still be living in fear to date due to the amount of catastrophes that'd have been happened to major populated areas.
as during that war there would be no distinguished border between soldier and civilian, as well as nukes would fly all over the damned place on both sides.

i can go on but honestly if you thought that things were difficult after WW2 it gets worse as wars go on.

I really don't buy the untapped USA's manpower reservoir theory.
Let's not forget that they are a democracy on another distant continent and they were already bitching about the toll of the war effort by 1945. Why do you think they nuked Japan instead of invading it?!

Anglo-saxons are notoriously wimpy when it comes to human losses on foreign battlefields.
Public opinion would have surely negatively affected a war against the Soviet Union in 1945, thus the USA would not have been able to use it's manpower card effectively against the Red Army.

The superior Western Navies are a bit ineffectual against the Soviets + their allies, you can't really blockade the entirety of Eurasia...

Moreover it's a coin toss to know which side France, with a large and incredibly well organized communist faction would have backed, also Charles de Gaulle met Stalin in December 1944 in Moscow. Maybe France would just try to stay on the periphery through "active neutrality" like the Scandinavians did during WW2. At worst it would have resulted in another french civil war.

In any case, I bet that a 1945 Cold War gone hot would have resulted in a status quo ante bellum.

Lastly people need to stop drinking the Soviet Gear is crap Kool-Aid. This is the product of Cold War propaganda designed to smear it. I think that in 1945 we were on equal footing, but Soviet armament was superior to Western by the very late 50s (With the exception of naval armament and strategic bombers).
Nato won the Cold War specifically by avoiding a conventional conflict with the USSR, as the Soviets sank considerably more ressources into their armed forces than us. Massive Armed forces that bankrupted them and that they never got to use; because due to the traumatism of WW2 the Soviet Politburo would never initiate the hostilities but only counterattack. This is what led to the economic collapse of the USSR.

Anglo-saxons are notoriously wimpy when it comes to human losses on foreign battlefields.

See French mutinies in WW1 and French surrender in WW2 for guidance on how all true Frenchmen win their war!

The United States could of beat the Russians, but Frencho is correct. The US was sick and tired of fighting a European war which was cutting into their profits. What's more war time austerity was becoming a huge problem, from the position they were in, with such superiority over the soviets, they just thought "if they become a problem we'll deal with them later".

The Soviets knew they'd loose, the US wouldn't allow WW2 to be fought for nothing. The US would be able to strategically bomb Russia and the Soviet logistical lines from London with their bombers and if they believed they could, would deploy atomic weapons on Soviet strong points. The US would of won, the Soviets didn't have the strength, they needed to rebuild. That would be impossible with B-17/29's flying overhead. Especially when those bombers could reach the places where the Soviets moved their factories to.

What's more the West could of attacked from Iran, Siberia, the Baltic even Turkey who would definitely side with the west. The West would show on many occasions it preferred a flanking move on the Strategic scale to battling it out. The Soviets mould of either pushed into western Europe and starved to death or would of retreated into Russia once more. Whether the west would pursue into Russia is hard to tell. But it'd most likely end up with a status quo on the Russian border or atomic destruction of major Russian cities... or at least the rubble piles.

Off Topic: Also the notion that Soviet equipment is crap is rather hilarious. Soviet equipment isn't crap it's utilitarian, it get's the job done. The reason why we think of Soviet equipment as crap isn't western propaganda. Look at some US Army training films on the T-72, they were panicing over that tank. We think of soviet gear as crap because people still use it today, a testament to it's robust qualities. The West had a tendency to be re-active to Soviet measures. What's more the soviets constantly shifted their designs forwards having at least 12 different T series tanks to the US's 3 primary designs.

Until the late 80's NATO needed everything it had to stand up to the USSR. It was only in the late 80's that America's defence budget started to increase to meet the soviet one. The Soviets couldn't keep up mainly because of internal problems.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKlnjwzT1IruAZFb0EA-5pQ

In our current timeline/history, the United States had a stockpile of 50 nuclear weapons by late 1948...a full 8-10 months before the Soviets detonated their 1st Nuke.

http://www.radiochemistry.org/history/nuclear_timeline/40s.html

IMHO, it's not unreasonable to assume a United States at war with a powerful Soviet Union during that time period wouldn't have hesitated to produce just as many and probably more Nukes. And given the fact the United States didn't hesitate to use them vs. Japan it seems reasonable to believe they would have used them in order to win against Stalin and his regime if they had dared to push on and attack the Western Powers.

and the British are terrible at waging land wars in Europe.

Wrong. 1918 never forget.



In 1945 the Soviets still had serious problems economically. Their military was essentially capitalised by the US and they received substantial food from foreign sources. They had also taken staggeringly high casualties, whereas the US had not. On the other hand they possessed substantial forces in Europe itself, especially relative to the US.

re: US manpower. The US restrained itself to 100 divisions intentionally to maintain manpower for its workforce. Fewer casualties meant experience was retained for longer and the original green US army was pretty much a mean fighting machine by 1945, but otoh a lot of soldiers simply wanted to go home.

Engaging in counter-factuals is a bit silly though.

See French mutinies in WW1 and French surrender in WW2 for guidance on how all true Frenchmen win their war!

Don't take it personally, but it's a fact when you compare them with any other Warrior Nations. You need to grow a thicker skin. Frenchmen are used to smearing campaigns and stupid surrender jokes.
But well anglo-saxons are blindly jingoistic these days.
Yet when it comes to withstanding long deadly conflicts in our homelands, Russians, French, Germans and Eastern europeans have nothing to prove in that department, Anglo saxons don't know what it is to lose millions and keep fighting against overwhelming odds. The USA has never fought any respectable war on its soil besides their singular Civil War, but it's a lot different when you are getting invaded by foreigners (Often by coalitions)while your lands are razed and your population exposed to all sorts of cruelty. Neither has Australia nor New Zealand. The British are actually the ones that show the most grit as they have fought several civil wars and fended off a few invasions, but nowhere close to the grit of Eurasians (We lack islands and huge oceans to cower behind).

I mostly agree with you on the rest. But I don't see it ending on a resounding USA + Allies victory, it could be a pyrrhic one at best.

I wonder how would atomic bomber runs would fare against an enemy with an actual air force and good ground anti-air unlike the crippled and exhausted japanese of 1945? They would surely require a huge number fighter escorts squadrons, and those had terrible ferry range. A bomber on it's own is a sitting duck.

I wonder how would atomic bomber runs would fare against an enemy with an actual air force and good ground anti-air unlike the crippled and exhausted japanese of 1945? They would surely require a huge number fighter escorts squadrons, and those had terrible ferry range. A bomber on it's own is a sitting duck.

The Red Air Force, while reasonable by 1945, absolutely would never have stood up to the USAAF and RAF of mid-late 1945. The Bombers wouldn't have too much trouble getting INTO Soviet Airspace. Ground anti-air is definitely a reasonable point, but, I'm not sure it would have stopped bombing campaigns or helped the Soviets to establish air superiority. Certainly would have slowed things down, though, for the West.

Also the US and Royal Navies would likely have plopped a bunch of aircraft carriers in the Baltic Sea, which would have given them a massive advantage. Leningrad would have disappeared very quickly. The Western Allies owned both the Atlantic and Pacific by this point, so, gives them a lot of options to make use of their rather large and by this point very experienced navies.

Wrong. 1918 never forget.

Should be never forget 1915, Battle of the Somme and Battle of Gallipoli

No it would not have been possible for the soviets to attack for a multiple of military reasons that LeYawn points out.

But more importantly and a thing many people, even at high levels seems to forget, is that there was absolutely no political will either from the Soviets to attack the West nor for the West to attack the Soviets.
Simply put the Soviet political leadership would face serious problems at home. Getting people to work 12-16 hour shift 365 days a year from 1941 against an enemy that is fighting a war of aggression and a war of annihilation at that is one thing.
Getting them to immediately afterwards attack the West because...... Why exactly? Would be hard to sell.



Should such a war have taken place (which it couldn't), either Operation Unthinkable a Soviet analogy: Neither side could conceivably win IMHO.
The western Allies could bomb and nuke the Soviets, maybe even as far as the heartland. But I seriously doubt this would have threatened the political existence of the USSR to such a degree they would have capitulated, and even if the case was such it would not threaten the, at the time very stable, political rule of the Communists.
Deposing the political leaders would require a ground invasion. Doing a ground invasion of the USSR, considering the lessons the Soviets learned in partisan warfare and taking into account the political makeup of the country in 1945 would, well require some serious manpower and some incredibly heavy losses.

A soviet invasion of the west lacks everything, they struggled with manpower, their logistical lines ran from the Urals to Berlin and where thin as it was (even without them being nuked.) And most importantly (again) there was no political will from either the people, the military nor the political leadership to invade western Europe.

The Red Air Force, while reasonable by 1945, absolutely would never have stood up to the USAAF and RAF of mid-late 1945. The Bombers wouldn't have too much trouble getting INTO Soviet Airspace. Ground anti-air is definitely a reasonable point, but, I'm not sure it would have stopped bombing campaigns or helped the Soviets to establish air superiority. Certainly would have slowed things down, though, for the West.

Also the US and Royal Navies would likely have plopped a bunch of aircraft carriers in the Baltic Sea, which would have given them a massive advantage. Leningrad would have disappeared very quickly. The Western Allies owned both the Atlantic and Pacific by this point, so, gives them a lot of options to make use of their rather large and by this point very experienced navies.

Interesting point about basing carrier fleets on the Baltic.
But I'm pretty sure strategic bombers such as the B-29 could not take off from aircraft carriers back then, right?
Still carriers on the baltic would at least solve the operational range limitations of the fighter escorts.

Snip

Agreed, there really wasn't any political will to start a new war.
http://ww2history.com/videos/Eastern/Yalta
http://ww2history.com/videos/Eastern/Yalta

So far we're all suggesting a long protracted high intensity conflict. But Maybe due to the lack of political will, it might have resulted in a short war where each side would cut their losses for minimal gains and concessions or even a status quo ante bellum if it started to drag too long.

Even worse such a scenario would plant the seeds for an even stronger resentment and revanchism that would surely resulted in a fully fledged WW3 (and likely nuclear holocaust) by mid the 1960s. Just as if we had learnt nothing from the lessons of WW1 and WW2.

Don't take it personally, but it's a fact when you compare them with any other Warrior Nations. You need to grow a thicker skin. Frenchmen are used to smearing campaigns and stupid surrender jokes.
But well anglo-saxons are blindly jingoistic these days.
Yet when it comes to withstanding long deadly conflicts in our homelands, Russians, French, Germans and Eastern europeans have nothing to prove in that department, Anglo saxons don't know what it is to lose millions and keep fighting against overwhelming odds. The USA has never fought any respectable war on its soil besides their singular Civil War, but it's a lot different when you are getting invaded by foreigners (Often by coalitions)while your lands are razed and your population exposed to all sorts of cruelty. Neither has Australia nor New Zealand. The British are actually the ones that show the most grit as they have fought several civil wars and fended off a few invasions, but nowhere close to the grit of Eurasians (We lack islands and huge oceans to cower behind).

I mostly agree with you on the rest. But I don't see it ending on a resounding USA + Allies victory, it could be a pyrrhic one at best.

I wonder how would atomic bomber runs would fare against an enemy with an actual air force and good ground anti-air unlike the crippled and exhausted japanese of 1945? They would surely require a huge number fighter escorts squadrons, and those had terrible ferry range. A bomber on it's own is a sitting duck.

Sorry, I think you misinterpreted I meant to add a (i.e. It was a friendly Joke.)

Someone's probably gotta tone down the foreign hate/paranoia and have a few good laughs mate.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKlnjwzT1IruAZFb0EA-5pQ