Ok, i deserved that one, it was very humourous and i liked what you said about my signature, and yes my quote was misplaced and unkind and i want to appologise and i need to grow up.

Regards

Roddoss72

Hmm, I got it wrong. Austria like Germany was partitioned into 4 zones (USA, USSR, UK, Fr.) and occupied for 10 years with growing autonomy.

By the way: "Much of the benign treatment of civilians in Vienna and Austria by Russian soldiers was due to them being told that they were liberating Austria rather than occupying Germany itself. "
Ernest's story : Life under the Russian occupation
The Allied occupation of Austria

Roddoss, apologies accepted. Just please be careful with your words as you may be offending people you know nothing about for no reason at all, and you will be the one to lose by that. This is a pretty cohesive group, we all get along famously well as these forums go, so it doesn't help to piss against the wind. Besides it will be yourself who will get wet.

Sloniksp is a born Russian so it's obviously natural he'll defend his country. I'm not, but I have this interest in all Soviet matters, military, political, social, economical, etc. That is my entire right, same as for a guy wiyh an interest in Nazi Germany even if never having set foot there, and I deserve getting as much respect for that as any other member of this forum does. So if you want people to respect your opinions, you have to respect other people's.

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This was not my intension at all. Yes while the BOMB was a devastating weapon and advantage that the allies possesed, it was still as stated earlier in its preliminary stages ( which is with out a doubt better then what Russia had at the time. ) Deployment of this weapon was the biggest problem that the US had. Afterall, its not like a sole B-29 is just going to fly unchallenged into an undefended Moscow and drop it.

I should have been more clear, my apologies.

How do you propose this might have happend? Afterall this would not have exactly been the same quiet flight over Hiroshima or Nagasaki

Actually, ( I forgot the date ) but a meeting took place between Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin. Roosevelt hinted to Stalin that he had a secret weapon which the US was working on and was more devastating then anything man had ever seen. Stalin shrugged this of and the two leaders thought that he was just crazy, little did they know that Stalin knew very well what they were talking about becasue he himself was working on the same weapon.
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The war against Russia will be such that it cannot be conducted in a knightly fashion. This struggle is one of ideologies and racial differences and will have to be conducted with unprecedented, unmerciful and unrelenting harshness. -Adolf Hitler

My friend it is not the former Soviet regime that I admire or support but the people and country.

I myself am far from a communist

But all said and done, apology accepted

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The war against Russia will be such that it cannot be conducted in a knightly fashion. This struggle is one of ideologies and racial differences and will have to be conducted with unprecedented, unmerciful and unrelenting harshness. -Adolf Hitler

What I meant was that Stalin didn't know how many bombs the US had.

This very well might have been the case..... However just having a bomb is useless, unless you can deliver it to its target. How would you suppose that might have happend?

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The war against Russia will be such that it cannot be conducted in a knightly fashion. This struggle is one of ideologies and racial differences and will have to be conducted with unprecedented, unmerciful and unrelenting harshness. -Adolf Hitler

germany had a formidable army directed by a madman instead of leaving his generals do their job as good military leaders although it was germanybiggest mistake in attacking russia instead of using the soviet pact of 1938

I'm gonna throw this out just for the halibut; it isn't an endorsement.

From Hannover or Frankfurt, B-29's could hit all of Byelorussia and Ukraine and most of Eastern Russia, with P-51 escort almost to Moscow. If the B-29 are flying at their highest service ceiling, the only Soviet fighter that can reach them and P-51s would be the MiG-3, which had a higher ceiling than the B-29, but not he P-51. If the US Navy wanted to risk it, they could put carriers in the Baltic and have Hellcats and Bearcats provide escort along a Northerly route.

I do not know at what altitudes The Bomb could be dropped, but the Hiroshima bomb was dropped from 32,000 ft. If the B-32 could also delvier The Bomb, it's service ceiling is 2000 feet higher than the 29,

If we're going to carry this scenerio on out and have the US hell-bent on nuking the SU, then open negotiations with Finland to operate out of there. If they agree, then that would put P-51's well within range of Gorki and beyond. I guess it all depends on how pissed off they were for the Winter and Continuation Wars.

It is possible, I don't see it happening, but it is possible.

I repeat, this is not an endorsement, just an observation from over in the corner.

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Best Regards,
JW

I think you are getting two lines of discussion confused. The comments about what Stalin knew was in response to whether the bomb was an adequate bargaining point.

Separately I was discussing a hypothetical about how the death of Stalin (let's ignore the atomic bomb part) in 1944 would have effect the eastern front.

Totally understand, Jeff and a good point......

But you very well know that I will have to come back and counter it dont you?

It was not only the Mig-3 that the B-29 might worry about but also the LA-5 which had a service ceiling of 36k feet, surpassing both the B-29 and the B-32.

Also it is not only the mig's and LA's that the bombers and escorts would be worried about, but also hundreds of thousands of flak and possibly missiles ( depending on how long the hostilities last )

Also how many B-29's or B-32's would be equipped with the bomb? What might there chances be of getting through all of these air defenses, considering that they would be encountered by such defenses that would make the German and Japanese defenses combined just look like a drop in the bucket. Not mention all of the veteran pilots which would be involved in intercepting them?

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The war against Russia will be such that it cannot be conducted in a knightly fashion. This struggle is one of ideologies and racial differences and will have to be conducted with unprecedented, unmerciful and unrelenting harshness. -Adolf Hitler

I am going to say that it would have been a very good bargaining chip
This is also the argument as to one of the reasons why the US dropped the bombs on Japan, as to show the SU the "New Weapon."

Cant imagine a difference, I would suppose maybe the same affect that the death of Roosevelt had on the Americans?

By this time there was nothing Germany could have done

I think we have now officially gotten off topic....

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The war against Russia will be such that it cannot be conducted in a knightly fashion. This struggle is one of ideologies and racial differences and will have to be conducted with unprecedented, unmerciful and unrelenting harshness. -Adolf Hitler

The US has a well-defined succession and a long history of peaceful successions. While the SU did not. There were conflicts after Lenin and Stalin died. Plus the SU was very much Stalin in the 1940s.

And I think this is still on topic, because what I am asking is assume that the Allies kill Stalin somehow in the early stages of a continuation war. Would the SU's resistance collapse leading to a quick resolution. Say a reversion to the 1918 borders.

" A history of peacefull successions?" How about the American civil war?
Yes millions died during Lenin's revolution, but what does this have to do with "post Stalin" I am not awar of any battles breaking out after his death?

It seems that you are confusing a regime, with the people's resilience and love for THEIR country. If SU was attacked as it was on june 22nd 1941... It would not matter who ran the country and who agreed with the regime. Problems would be set aside to deal with a common enemy, which was invading their country.

The republicans and democrats dont share the same views but wouldnt they come together if the US was attacked??

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The war against Russia will be such that it cannot be conducted in a knightly fashion. This struggle is one of ideologies and racial differences and will have to be conducted with unprecedented, unmerciful and unrelenting harshness. -Adolf Hitler

Edit: Cross-posted with the above 2 posts, sorry.


Off topic?
I'd say the topic was finally being properly chewed at.

The Bomb & Stalin's death sound like two central possibilities in this particular bit of 'what-iffing'.

Roosevelt died in a stable democracy with a firmly established and well precedented 'form' for his well briefed and prepared replacement to smoothly take over the reins.
The removal of Stalin from a dictatorship like the 1945 Soviet, particularly during the stresses of a continuation war, really could open the pandora's box of rivalries, bad blood, & old scores that his completely dominant personality had held together (and, of course, helped create) for the last 25 years. A violent death in 1945 could have far more possibility for chaos, or even catastrophe, than his eventual demise in '53.
Imagine trying to run a serious war while also unravelling Stalin's byzantine machiavellian traces.

........................................ .......

Cheers,
Adam.

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It's only the Internet.

Fair enough, I would imagine that the only way that Stalin's life would have ended was with a bomb then no?

Was this a possibility? in a "what if" anything is possible

Was it probable? probably not... This would all depend on whether an Atomic bomb would have been dropped on Moscow and if Stalin was present. What might the chances of Stalin being present at Moscow knowing fully well that war with the Allies would make Moscow the primary target with such a weapon as the one which was used on Japan? Not mention it ever reaching the capital?

Also how long might it take to find out as to what Stalin really did? After all its been over 50 years and we still dont know everything, surely all wouldnt have been unraveled in a year or so.... Communism was afterall was still alive in Russia. And who is to say that the same leaders would not have taken place after Stalin's death..

Going this route just seems leave too many variables open. What if a soviet agent poisoned Truman? what then?

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The war against Russia will be such that it cannot be conducted in a knightly fashion. This struggle is one of ideologies and racial differences and will have to be conducted with unprecedented, unmerciful and unrelenting harshness. -Adolf Hitler

Now see here, Slava, you made me go look up the LA-5, as I did not know much about it. I quit looking for interceptors after seeing that the MiG-3 had the altitude to reach the heavens as they existed in 1945.

I have no idea how many bombers would be nuclear armed I don't know what method they would use to get to the target, but I am sure that by 1945, the USAAF understood Douhet's air bombardment theories needed a reappraisal. The capability existed to reach a large number of Soviet cities, and as some say here in the south, you drive what you brung to the racetrack.

In regards to the AAA, are there any records to indicate the effectiveness of Soviet AAA? Germany never really conducted a strategic bombing campaign against the SU, so is there a way to gauge the effectiveness of ground to air defenses? The US spent an inordinate amount of resources to build up a huge AAA contingent, only to disband a large portion of it to fill out infantry losses late in war. How effective were they? We don't really know.

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Best Regards,
JW