Who was the most powerful nation: USSR or USA?

Ah, so it was in a cult film? Then it must be true. :-?

Personally I don't think Hitler would have pulled out his armoured divisions of the offensive was going as planned or was meeting significant success. After all, German High Command was very well aware of which front was the most important in terms of land warfare. Therefore the fact that Hitler pulled some armoured divisions out of Zitadelle and sent them to Sicily would be proof that upon their failure to achieve their goals, the German commanders abandoned the operation.

 

what cult film?

Nagasaki or Hiroshima

 

To quote yourself:

 

er, maybe you folks should read the whole kosmomol.ru piece before you jump to any conclusions. Take and read the whole article in context..

The 'cult film' reference is merely part of the 'hook' to get people into it..

the rest of the piece is substancial and much more indepth than the opening. The meat is much more relevant than the teaser opening.

 

that is to say the whole topic has been a subject of many movies, books and such in the last few years..

I posted the translantor links for you to read the whole piece, unbiased by my second hand interpetation..

I am sorry you can't read and speak Russian, like I can.

Maybe I can reccomend a few books, but they would be of no use to you..

:roll:

 

maybe this will help

In 1970 in England there was a book of British historian Liddela of the Metal « History of the second world war ». It approves, that in June, 1943 Molotov and Ribbentrop have met in Kirovograd. Boundaries across Dnepr while Molotov suggested to return to pre-war borders would arrange the chapter of the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Under the version of the Metal, the meeting has been interrupted after about it it became known behind ocean - in Washington.

 

http://www.cicentre.com/guyliddell/

 

If you master the Russian language yourself, please would you be so kind as to provide us ignorant folks with an actual translation of the site or at least the essence or conclusion of it? Automatic translators do not yield readable or comprehensible text, ever.

 

I did not say that I have 'mastered' the Russki yasik, but I use the translator myself, regularly.

This article runs through it in a fairly comprehensible manner, it is adequate to say the least. I doubt that you will have any problem at all.


If there any passages that you miss let me know. I will work on it later, I am a CPA (chartered accountant) tax partner and this is my busy season.


The jist of the piece is obvious from my posts, "innit"? My last next to last post was straight off the machine.

 

Back to the more powerful..

Fat Man, Little Boy or what the Russians had, nothing (nechego) :smok:

 

I would argue that on the ground, the Soviets quite possibly had the edge.
In tactical air power - USSR, just.
In Strategic air power - USA, clear winner.
Naval - USA, clear winner.
Atomic weaponry - USA, clear winner.

Logistics, access to/use of resourses, Industrial capacity - USA, winner.

Overall, USA. But if Stalin had decided to keep going after Germany surrendered, things could have got a bit hairy...

 

and rather warm in Moscow

 

Just out of interest - I have read that around 90% of the weapons-grade material America had was used up in Little Boy / Fat Man, and that therefore they could not have built a third bomb in a hurry. Is that true, or did they have enough of a stockpile to start nuking the Soviets within days/weeks of combat starting up?

Obviously, had America had nukes, they could have delivered it with relative immunity from a B-29 (actually, given the complete lack of priority given to high-altitude fighters by the USSR it would be almost complete immunity). But would that actually stop the Soviet Army?

If Stalin has the sense he will move out of Moscow (and any other major city), and I struggle to see how America could have enough nukes to knock Russia out of the war...

Best bet, if bombing a city or three don't work, is to flatten the industrial areas. But that would mean having used 3 or more bombs, then using a load more...

 

may I suggest War' s End, by Charles Sweeney

The 4th bomb was en route and partially delivered before the 3 rd bomb was dropped.


http://www.samsloan.com/hopkins.htm

after that it was to be one every few weeks..

Moscow & Petersburg

etc

 

the first bomb was set off in New Mexico

I doubt Stalin would have gotten any warning to leave Moscow in mid 1945..

 

japanese troops

the fact that most of the japanese army was in china is irrelevant because almost every battlefield where the us and japan fought had all the japanese troops that would fit or be supported. i'm unware of anyplace where the japanese forces were short of men before the fight started because they just didn't have any to send. big armies do not fit on small fields nor that they survive at the end of long shaky supply lines

 

Thanks Stonewall, another myth cleared.

lynn1212 - had Japan had more men, could they have taken Hawaii?

(the answer is probably no - for one they did not have enough sea-lift capacity to do that as well as everything else, and for two they never planned to )

 

taken maybe

if they were willing to take the risk and use enough forces they could have taken hawaii with a little luck early in the war [say the first few months] but hold on to it never. their best shot would have been some kind of large raid aimed at doing as much damage as possible before hauling ass back home. they always had trouble gathering enough sealift for over the beach ops to the point where warships ended up carrying troops. i doubt if they were ever able to land a division at a time anywhere without several trips back to base.
i've often thought that one of their biggest problems was their idea that only big warships counted and that the only thing worth persuing was a full up fleet battle. this led to a constant shortage of logistic ships, escorts, landing ships, repair ships, and the like. even still i suspect if they had tried a landing raid on hawaii they might have gotten away with it.

 

gi joe saved the world in 44,45...there would have been no world left to save if it werent for the plucky toughness of tommy atkins and the blood and sweat of ivan uzbek and lee ho fung in 40-43..

 

well i guess i'd have to say that the USSR did more to win WWII...

alot more

i remember a casualty study i read last year; it showed of the 3.5 million German military personally who died in WWII, 3.2 million of those were killed by USSR forces, along with (if i remeber) ~80% of military resourcs

leaving only ~367,000 German military deaths to have been caused by the USA, UK, France, Poland, and all other allies combined

the USA and UK together suffered 600,000 - 700,000 military deaths, i think 150,000 of those were in Japan??

France + Poland was slightly less, and given the USSR's 10 million military deaths, the Germans have a substantially higher kill ratio to all allied and soviet forces, EVEN to the USA

when it comes down to it, whatever you say about technology tactics or supply (of which the Germans were good at all three), if those 3.2 million had been thrown against the USA's much smaller (and offshore) army, i doubt the success achieved by the USSR would have been matched


if i find it, i'll show ya,

-otherwise heres a MUCH longer version if you can be bothered deciphering it
http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat1.htm