Well. I was going to carry on....but what's the point?.......

Regards,
Gordon

[ 01. January 2004, 06:59 PM: Message edited by: The_Historian ]

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Regards,

Gordon
History Vault Bookshop
FortressScotland-http://s2.photobucket.com/albums/y20/Historian/

Yes It must be very frustrating when others can't see that which is so obvious to you. Why this desire to make me change my view? Is it not acceptable to for me to have a different opinion? Getting personal and making pointed remarks about sources does not add to the discussion

Getting personal? This from the member who accused me of "being a prisoner of propaganda", "myopic", and "accepting other people's prejudices"?

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Regards,

Gordon
History Vault Bookshop
FortressScotland-http://s2.photobucket.com/albums/y20/Historian/

Mkenny, It seems a bit odd your the one wondering why people are trying to change other peoples opinions. I still haven't seen your own one, in fact all you've done is criticize other peoples opinions pointing out what you see as faults, so doesn't that make you a bit of a hypocrite? You are after all trying to get those of us here who see the West winning to accept some kind of Soviet steamroll.

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- Your freindly neighborhood cynic

Really? All I remember saying is the Soviet War Machine was so huge and battle-tested that it seems odd to ignore this fact when considering if it would be easy to stop it. I also get tired of people tring to take away this Russian success by bringing in things like 'it was Lend-lease that won the war for them'. So far I've heard that Russian weapons were inferior and their soldiers poorly trained without a single fact to back these claims up. I put the other side and get castigated for it. If my reliance on the Russian track record irks some well I am sorry. The overwhelming Russian victory over Germany still seems to get under the skin with certain members but that is not my problem.

Russian track record?! As they say in financial circles, past performance is no guarantee of future success!

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Regards,

Gordon
History Vault Bookshop
FortressScotland-http://s2.photobucket.com/albums/y20/Historian/

But in horse racing 'form' is 'track record' and I think bookies know what they are talking about!
Is it the contention that the Russians overnight lost the ability to win battles? Suddenly they are no match for the well-trained and lavishly engineer equiped war winning Allied war machine? The Western Allies struggled to deal with the small number of German Divisions in the West. How would they have dealt with 200+!
In any confrontation (which I will remind you was Pattons mad dream) the Allies would be steamrolled out of the way. Hard and bloody fighting with losses on either side but inevitably numbers would prevail.

But we're not talking about horse-racing, are we?
Are you contending the Allies lost the ability to win battles overnight? I wonder if Sapper Brian agrees that he "struggled" to beat German divisions in the west?
As I said previously, towards the end of the war Stalin suddenly decided the people of one of the Asiatic Republics were "enemies of the state" and purged them. ALL soldiers from this republic were imprisoned; the Red Army was sent to purge the civilians in this republic. Given Stalin's propensity to turn on his own kind at a minute's notice, I doubt the Red Army would win any kind of encounter against the west, battle-hardened or not.

[ 02. January 2004, 06:21 AM: Message edited by: The_Historian ]

__________________
Regards,

Gordon
History Vault Bookshop
FortressScotland-http://s2.photobucket.com/albums/y20/Historian/

Quote:
"I wonder if Sapper Brian agrees that he "struggled" to beat German divisions in the west"?

Well I am not talking to him but you so why try and get him involved?

Quote:
"towards the end of the war Stalin suddenly decided the people of one of the Asiatic Republics were "enemies of the state" and purged them. ALL soldiers from this republic were imprisoned; the Red Army was sent to purge the civilians in this republic"

Pretty vague statement. Republic, dates, numbers involved and civilian numbers please. Also what 'purge the civilians' means.

Republic=Kazakhstan (?)
Date=late 1945
Numbers purged (ie shot)=thousands
Property destroyed=thousands
Veterans imprisoned/accused of treason=unknown, but very substantial.
Source=History Channel: also book (author unknown right now).
Once again, someone's provided you with facts, but it seems to be a one-way process.

__________________
Regards,

Gordon
History Vault Bookshop
FortressScotland-http://s2.photobucket.com/albums/y20/Historian/

I am sorry but the information is far from 'fact' Please be good enough to supply some checkable information and NUMBERS.
History Channel as a source? Please...........!!!!

Quote:
"Once again, someone's provided you with facts, but it seems to be a one-way process"

It must be comforting to know you have a special grasp of 'the facts' when other can't seem to see that which is obvious to you.

Instead of trying to make this a personal issue can we concentrate on the subject in hand?

In terms of a east vs west war in 1945 then the outcome is far from unclear. The Soviet forces would have been at breaking point due to losses and the Allies would have been under the strain of many years at war. Certainly the Germans expertise in fighting the Soviets would have been needed but there are many communist sympathetic groups in Europe. What would have happened in soviet occupied areas if a west vs east war broke out? would we see Polish partisans attacking the Soviets? What would be the response of other European Allies such as France? It seems possible that a war would have been initially to favour the west but would soon become a bogged down attrional war similar to some sectors of the Eastern Front and possibly like WW1 as the weariness of war creeps into the armies and brings them to a standstill. It would seem at best a stalemate situation unless the west was willing to deploy atomic weapons in the struggle.

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"Watch that Fu*ker, he'll 'ave someones eye out!" King Harold at Hastings 1066.

To those of you underestimating the Russians, think about this: The very same mistake was made by General McArthur in the Koren War with the Chinese...!

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If someone tries to remove the speck in your right eye, will you turn to him the other also?

And to take the heat out of this thread I don't go too much into 'what if's' and am basing my belief on the performance of the Red Army in WWII. They had the dubious pleasure of being on the recieving end of the best the German Armed Forces could offer and they rode the punches, recovered, got back up and delivered a knockout blow in return. No Western Nation could have taken that punishment and survived. I don't care about Communism or Capitalism. Stalin may have been as evil as Hitler but the performance of the Russian soldier in WWII was magnificent.

Was it "mad"?Patton's idea that is.According to some here it would have been a cake walk.Track records? NO ONE has invaded Russia and won! NO ONE.The Air force might level Russia but troops still have to go in.Did the allies have the stomach for storming the cities?Remember we let the Russian's storm Berlin so they'd rack up the casualties.France?They'd fold like a bad poker hand as always,even today!M Kenny,you have some good arguments but remember Germany had us bombing and invading from the west[2 fronts].Something the allies face now in my "what if".Remember we'd have to still invade Japan[no nukes]and they don't surrender!Probably stalemate. FramerT.

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Let me take this question in another direction, particularly for m kenny. I an operational level battle given each (the US and Soviet) army's doctrine, orgainzation and, equipment as it stood in say, September 1945 how would a Soviet offensive US defensive or, the reverse situation say division on division (corps for the then current Soviet orgainzation) or corps on corps (army for the Soviets)(eg., roughly "equal" sized units) fall out?
I would contend that given roughly equal material odds the US units would crush their Soviet opponets. Without extreme mass (and resulting horrendous casualities) as the Soviets used against the Germans they would fail to win in combat against the US (or West) on an operational level. I would also contend that in 1945 the Soviets could no longer sustain such casualities in a long term (year or more) war.

Quote:
"I would contend that given roughly equal material odds the US units would crush their Soviet opponets".

could be .........

quote:
"Without extreme mass (and resulting horrendous casualities) as the Soviets used against the Germans they would fail to win in combat against the US (or West) on an operational level".

But in 1945 they had all the advantages you say they needed to succeed. You also say the US could stand the resulting losses...arguable but it is known the Russians could take that level of loss. Manpower was extremely short for all Nations in 1945. Both the US and Britain had severe shortages of combat troops starting in mid 1944. It would not be a Russian problem alone.

No one has called it a cake walk, I would imagine the war would last well into the '50's, but still, I think the West would win. As for no one invading Russia and winning, well, no one has invaded the United States and won either, or the modern United Kingdom (since 1066). And there is no evidence we didn't take Berlin becuase we were unwilling to face the casualties, I think it is widely agreed we simply decided to not suffer the casualties becuase the occupied zones had already been decided on, and Eisenhower and the politicians didn't want to waste troops lives to liberate regions of Germany that the Soviets would get just to get to Berlin.

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- Your freindly neighborhood cynic

And of course no one has invaded Canada and won! Not a valid comparison though is it? Russia has been invaded several times in her past and the the invader always suffered the same fate. The sheer number of Soviet troops in Europe in 1945 meant they would have been able to continue the offensive west quite easily and though they would take casualties they proved they could live with that. Patton also tried to blindly charge into the Falaise bottleneck because he thought he could handle it there as well but wiser men than him realised he would be trampled and refused him permission. His dash to the German border did not turn out the way he planned either did it?

The Mongols did it in the 13th Century. They overran virtually all of what eventually became the Soviet Union.

But there is a major difference between invasion and conquest. It would be out of the US ablity to invade and then hold the territory, the reason no-one wins is that the country is too vast to police properly. The more likely result would be a stalemate somewhere in eastern europe followed by a korean war style peace brokering.

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"Watch that Fu*ker, he'll 'ave someones eye out!" King Harold at Hastings 1066.

Well, cannot be sure if Ike was the guy who could decide for all that on his own but I think it was a very good call that he did not fall for Patton´s and Monty´s