Should we have followed Gen. Patton to Moscow?

[elvis]

Many criticize the US for not getting involved in World War II earlier to help save people from Hitler, a mass murderer. So, I will take this opportunity to ask them, should we have followed General Patton and gone on to Moscow to rescue Eastern Europe and Russia from Stalin? If not, why not?

 

[del]

Many criticize the US for not getting involved in World War II earlier to help save people from Hitler, a mass murderer. So, I will take this opportunity to ask them, should we have followed General Patton and gone on to Moscow to rescue Eastern Europe and Russia from Stalin? If not, why not?

it's easy to criticize in hindsight; i've never been one of those but here's my opinion.

no. we would have lost. ussr had 120 fully mobilized divisions in eastern europe alone. the us had less than 100 total spread across the european and pacific theaters.

their lines of communication would have been much shorter than ours and i doubt the brits and french would have gone along with it amking resupply even more difficult.the soviets would have been fighting for their homes. we would have been smoked, IMO.

 

[Gunny]

it's easy to criticize in hindsight; i've never been one of those but here's my opinion.

no. we would have lost. ussr had 120 fully mobilized divisions in eastern europe alone. the us had less than 100 total spread across the european and pacific theaters.

their lines of communication would have been much shorter than ours and i doubt the brits and french would have gone along with it amking resupply even more difficult.the soviets would have been fighting for their homes. we would have been smoked, IMO.

Churchill would have gone along with it. Who cares what the French would have done? At that point they had nothing more than what we gave them.

The US would easily have controlled the air, but Russia is vast and the battlefield perfect for tank battles on mass scale as they proved against Germany. Russia had a tank that was superior to the Sherman. We only beat the Germans by sheer quantity in tank battles. It usually cost 2-3 Shermans to get the one up behind the Tiger and shoot it in the ass.

We'd have had to nuke them to win. We had THAT technological superiority in 1945.

 

[del]

Churchill would have gone along with it. Who cares what the French would have done? At that point they had nothing more than what we gave them.

The US would easily have controlled the air, but Russia is vast and the battlefield perfect for tank battles on mass scale as they proved against Germany. Russia had a tank that was superior to the Sherman. We only beat the Germans by sheer quantity in tank battles. It usually cost 2-3 Shermans to get the one up behind the Tiger and shoot it in the ass.

We'd have had to nuke them to win. We had THAT technological superiority in 1945.

you're right about churchill, but he was about to be kicked to the curb and extending the war may have hastened the process. there was a fairly large portion of the population in england that thought communism was just swell.

you're definitely right about the french.

the T-34 was superior to the sherman, and uncle joe, zhukov et al wasn't the least bit squeamish about sacrificing troops, unlike the us commanders.

nuking them would have been the only viable option ; in a conventional war, a draw would be the best we could hope for.

 

[mightypeon]

Actually, Zhukov was quite frugal with expending the lifes of his troops, even if they were Mongolian auxillaries or something. This was especially true after 1942. In 44 and 45 the Russians were very keen on not getting killed without a good reason.
He got into quit a mess with Stalin for using non static way of defense, and only evaded cranial 9mm lead poisoning due to Stalin having a depression at that time.
Besides, the T34 was not all the Russians had at that time, the JS series was even worse.
Besides, Russia had fairly good air defenses, bad air defenses do not survive against the Luftwaffe.

 

[elvis]

Patton had the idea of recruiting captured German soldiers to help the US invade Russia. "They hate the bastards anyway." he said.

 

[elvis]

Actually, Zhukov was quite frugal with expending the lifes of his troops, even if they were Mongolian auxillaries or something. This was especially true after 1942. In 44 and 45 the Russians were very keen on not getting killed without a good reason.
He got into quit a mess with Stalin for using non static way of defense, and only evaded cranial 9mm lead poisoning due to Stalin having a depression at that time.
Besides, the T34 was not all the Russians had at that time, the JS series was even worse.
Besides, Russia had fairly good air defenses, bad air defenses do not survive against the Luftwaffe.

Didn't Stalin sacrifice over 100000 Russians so he could be the one who reached Berlin first? so he could say he "conquered Hitler?"

 

[mightypeon]

Yes, as you noted it was Stalin not Zhukov.
Besides, he did not do it to say "he conquered Hitler", he did do it to gain control over the very valuable German core lands. The later East German republic was the 2nd strongest industrial power of the East Block and number 7 worldwide. (more manufactured goods than italy f.e.).

conceding the recuitment of captured Germans: It may have worked but would have had some very severe PR reprecursions, the actual success may have dependet on the number of Germans still active.

 

[DiamondDave]

it's easy to criticize in hindsight; i've never been one of those but here's my opinion.

no. we would have lost. ussr had 120 fully mobilized divisions in eastern europe alone. the us had less than 100 total spread across the european and pacific theaters.

their lines of communication would have been much shorter than ours and i doubt the brits and french would have gone along with it amking resupply even more difficult.the soviets would have been fighting for their homes. we would have been smoked, IMO.

The USSR was spread thin... their troops, while huge in number, were poorly trained...

And please don't forget that we had 'next generation' weaponry, ordinance, and vehicles ready to go to the battlefield as well... and we did have the nuke, though it would have been a while to create another one... remember that we were really hoping that the Japanese would cower after the Nagasaki bomb, because we did not have another one ready to add another exclamation point...

The objective was to push the commie bastards back... not to invade and take over the USSR... I believe Patton should have been given the green light to push the Soviet bastards back to show them that just because we defeated 1 tyrant and were happy that the war was 'over', we were not going to sit back and watch another take control over a huge chuck of Europe as well.. .unfortunately we let the iron curtain fall and the horrible period of Soviet rule caused misery for decades

 

[Cecilie1200]

Many criticize the US for not getting involved in World War II earlier to help save people from Hitler, a mass murderer. So, I will take this opportunity to ask them, should we have followed General Patton and gone on to Moscow to rescue Eastern Europe and Russia from Stalin? If not, why not?

Well, I have some doubts as to whether or not we'd have had the strength and the will to continue on like that, which I believe was, in fact, the reason that we DIDN'T.

On the other hand, it would have saved millions of lives and saved us the hassle of decades of Cold War.

 

[mightypeon]

Their troops of 1945 were NOT poorly trained.
Feel free to ask the Japanese on the receiving end of August Storm about it, or if you dont speak Japanese, ask US military historicans like this one:
Leavenworth Papers No. 7 (August Storm: The Soviet 1945 Strategic Offensive in Manchuria)

The Soviet army of 1945 was NOT about mass attacks where every second soldier has a rifle, they were HIGHLY professional and well equipped, their commanders were skilled and pragmatic.
I do not get why you would assume they were spread thin, they were a lot more concentrated then the US iirc.

 

[USViking]

Many criticize the US for not getting involved in World War II earlier to help save people from Hitler, a mass murderer. So, I will take this opportunity to ask them, should we have followed General Patton and gone on to Moscow to rescue Eastern Europe and Russia from Stalin? If not, why not?

Patton, great fighting general though he was, was ignorant
if he thought he could put a dent in the 1945 Red Army.

And where did he say anything about taking Moscow?

He and the rest of the Western armies were 500 miles
from the Russian border, and Moscow was 1000 miles away!

Anybody here ever look at a friggen map before they post?

Churchill would have gone along with it...

You're right about churchill...

Baloney.

Where did you get this from?

Either you made it up or someone else made it up.

Anyway, Churchill was voted out of office in 7/45
(did you know that?) so so whatever his inclinations
were, they were irrelevant after then.

The US would easily have controlled the air...

Wrong.

It would have been a tough go against thousands
of veteran USSR fighter pilots.

Even if the West won, by the time it did the Red Army
would have inflicted significant meatgrinder operations
on the Western ground forces, certainly driving the West back.

It would not have been a pretty sight for us, and no doubt
Churchill and Truman realized it. More importantly no doubt
Eisenhower realized it, forget Patton.

... Russia had a tank that was superior to the Sherman. We only beat the Germans by sheer quantity in tank battles. It usually cost 2-3 Shermans to get the one up behind the Tiger and shoot it in the ass.

And while we were slugging it out against the Red AF
the Red Army would be sending a lot more tanks and
men against us than the Nazis ever did.

The US deployed a handful of M-26 "Pershing" tanks
which were about as good as any at the time. A handful
of the handful were at Remagen bridge in a vital role.
(I wonder if we could have taken that bridge with Shermans)

We sure as hell had nothing to stem the tide of God knows
how many USSR T-34s, and the USSR had 100 IS heavies
ready to go for each one of our Pershings.

We'd have had to nuke them to win. We had THAT technological superiority in 1945.

We had ZERO inventory at the time "Fat Man" detonated,
by when the Red Army and AF had had three months to
consolidate in Europe.

We had one about a week from delivery. We might have had
10 or so by the end of the year, but the Russian winter weather
is about as bad as it gets for AF operations, so that means
the RA and Red AF would have had have several more months
to consolidate before we could use any nuclear weapons on the USSR.

And even if we had 100 of the goddam things using them
would have cost us 100s thousand of our men shot up
had the RA launched all-out against us in response.

So the benefit to moving against the USSR by any means
in 1945 is the stuff of moonbeams.

We should thank our lucky stars that those in position
of most reponsibility realized it. Most of us would never
have been born otherwise, and I am thankful for my life.

 

[elvis]

I know where Moscow is in relation to Germany. I don't necessarily agree with going all the way to Moscow. It was Patton's idea. He didn't want to have to "deal" with them later. The whole point of my post is many say America should have gotten involved in the war earlier to prevent all the murders of Hitler....

but how often do you hear how we should have at least challenged Stalin's positions at Yalta and Potsdam? It seems Truman and Churchill gave "old Joe" whatever he wanted.

 

[Epsilon Delta]

Hmmm... From what I understand, it would've been pretty much impossible to go through with it. I mean, even if there had been the political will to do it, and even if there had been the military means to do it, I can't imagine that after 4 solid years of massive propaganda in support of the Russians, after 4 years of being unshakable allies and selling Uncle Joe to the American and British public, and after they effectively killed the boogeyman, that the political leadership could've just said "Whoopsidaisy, sorry public, there's another six years of total war in store, and no intermissions this time!" I dunno if people would've gone along with it. Definitely not in Europe, but in the US? Well, I don't know. Would've been pretty hard.

 

[editec]

Many criticize the US for not getting involved in World War II earlier to help save people from Hitler, a mass murderer. So, I will take this opportunity to ask them, should we have followed General Patton and gone on to Moscow to rescue Eastern Europe and Russia from Stalin? If not, why not?

Probably because we were sick of war and had we attempted to move East, we'd have gotten our asses kicked.

The Soviets had 2.5 million combat hardened troops on German soil in 1945.

Their arsenal of tanks and artillary was enormous.

 

[editec]

Churchill would have gone along with it. Who cares what the French would have done? At that point they had nothing more than what we gave them.

The US would easily have controlled the air,

You sure? I'm not

see: Soviet Air Forces Order of Battle 1 May 1945 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

but Russia is vast and the battlefield perfect for tank battles on mass scale as they proved against Germany. Russia had a tank that was superior to the Sherman. We only beat the Germans by sheer quantity in tank battles. It usually cost 2-3 Shermans to get the one up behind the Tiger and shoot it in the ass.

We'd have had to nuke them to win. We had THAT technological superiority in 1945.

We had TWO bombs, Gunny.

We could use the on Japan, or we could have used them on Russia.

I think that your chuavinism is showing here.

Had we attmpted to get into a land war with the Soviets in 1945 we'd have gotten our asses kicked off the continent.

 

[del]

Probably because we were sick of war and had we attempted to move East, we'd have gotten our asses kicked.

The Soviets had 2.5 million combat hardened troops on German soil in 1945.

Their arsenal of tanks and artillary was enormous.

there was also a little fracas going on in the pacific that needed tending to.

 

[Schneijr]

I'm going to disagree with some points mentioned earlier, and them I'm going to bring up the most important, undeniable reason that Russia would have lost to the United States, France and England if we'd chosen to go to war at the end. I'm surprised nobody has brought it up yet, and you will all be shocked you didn't think of it.

One of the first points brought up was that the U.S. had just 100 divisions spread across the European and Pacific theaters. Two things must be pointed out: First of all, in addition to American divisions in Europe were English, French, and British divisions. Secondly, American divisions are approximately twice the size of traditional European divisions, which are what I assume the Soviets used. Between these two points, The French, English and Americans (henceforth "The Allies") probably had close to as many men in Europe as the Russians.

Brought up in the same post is the idea that lines of communication and supply would be far shorter for the Russians than the Allies. As the allies pushed into Russian territory this could be a problem, but early on during conflict in Germany both sides supply and communication lines would be approximately the same length. The Allies, however, would have the option of resupply by sea, neutralizing a lot of supply line issues until they pushed beyond the Balkans.

The author also brings up the fact that the Russians would be fighting for their homes. What he doesn't bring up is the great hatred common Russians at the time felt for their government. The Russian peasantry greeted the Nazi soldiers as liberators until the brutality of the Germans convinced them that they were no better than the Communists. The Americans, who would have really been liberators, would have been greeted in the same manner but would not have disappointed the Russian masses.

For the next few posts Russia's superior tanks were mentioned: The T-34 and the IS-1/2. These were compared to the Sherman. This is like comparing apples and oranges--the Sherman was an infantry support tank, forced to combat German tanks simply because it's what the Americans had at the time. The T-34 or IS-1/2 could easily take on a Sherman and win, at least at the beginning of the invasion of Europe. By the end of the end of the invasion, however, nearly every Sherman had be re-equipped with the 76mm gun, capable of penetrating a Panther's frontal plate at 1000 yards, making it an effective anti-tank vehicle. With this weapon the T-34 or IS-1/2 would not be very superior to the Sherman in combat. In addition, the U.S. had the heavy M-26 (in the class of a Panther or a Tiger I) that would have been more than a match for these two Russian tanks if they'd been sent to Europe in large numbers (as they would have been in any conflict with Russia).

I'm not going to take up claims about Soviet troops being well equipped and trained at the end of the war. If this claim is false, then the Russians are in a bad situation. If it is true, then at best they are simply on equal footing to Allied soldiers.

Somebody said that the U.S. would not have gained control of the air. This is simply not true. The United States had a superior air force in Europe when compared to the Russians. The Soviet Air forces were impressive on paper but in fighters inferior to American models, who were piloted by superiorly trained individuals with plenty of experience fighting the Reich above the skies of Germany. They were better led than the Russians as well. In addition, superior models of aircraft were ready for flight (including the first American Jet fighter, the F-80) while the Russians had nothing comparable ready to go. They would not get jet technology until after the war. American air superiority would have been a reality, allowing swarms of bombers and attack aircraft to decimate the Russian tanks mentioned above.

I'm not going to waste time talking about nukes. We had them, they didn't. If we went to war, we would have dropped nukes and there's not much the Russians could have done about it. We could only manufacture a few per year, but a few per year is all we would need.

In the third to last post Editec says that "The Soviets had 2.5 million combat hardened troops on German soil in 1945." I don't know the exact number, but it was quite a few. But let's go with that number. 2.5 million battle hardened, trained, well armed, and hungry troops.

That's right. Hungry. An army travels on it's stomach. So where did the Russians get all this food? They got it from the United States, who sent it over in ships to the Russians. From Germany to Moscow huge swaths of Russian territory, formerly fertile farmland, was not wasted ruin. Shipping it from the far east of the Soviet Union was expensive, difficult (due to an undeveloped rail infrastructure) and disrupted the flow of raw materials, making the Russians in the region dependent on the flow of American supplies. Russia could have had all the fancy tanks, artillery and aircraft in the world but with starving pilots they wouldn't have done a bit of good. This is why the United States would have won any confrontation with Russia, regardless of other factors.

Let's not forget another thing: The United States won WWII, with the Russians serving as meatshields. If the United States hadn't sent Russian huge quantities of arms, munitions, and equipment Hitler wouldn't have been stopped 50 miles from Moscow. He wouldn't have been stopped at Stalingrad. In the long term, American industrial might would have won the day. The Soviets for all their impressive military hardware and soldiers, were not an industrial power at the time. They were a third world nation. Farmers still used plows up through the sixties in the Soviet Union. It would have been no contest.

So why didn't we go "On to Moscow"? We would have won the conflict, but there is another factor: because of public opinion. As someone pointed out earlier, "Uncle Joe" had been America's buddy for the past five years. It would be hard to turn him into an enemy in American's minds after portraying Russia as an ally. In addition, the American public was tired of war. The the though of invading Japan was already decimating popular support of WWII after the German Surrender, which is one of the primary reasons the atomic bomb was used. Do you think they were ready for a war with Russia? A war that would have cost as many allied lives as the potential invasion of Japan would have (for the uninformed, the low estimates were above one million lives).

 

[Old Rocks]

By 1945 the Soviet soldier was not only battle hardened, he knew why he was fighting the Germans. What the German soldiers did in the Soviet Union created a deep hatred of all things German, and distrust of the West. Attacking Russia, after they had absorbed the most brutal land battles of the war would have created a determination in every Russian to make sure that such would never happen again. That would have meant that they would not have stopped attacking, even if they overran all of Europe. No, Patton was dead wrong.

 

[Xenophon]

Actually, Zhukov was quite frugal with expending the lifes of his troops, even if they were Mongolian auxillaries or something.

Hmmmmmm, no.

A good example of him planting lots of Russians was the battle for the Seelowe Hieghts where he manages to wipe out a large part of his command in order to beat konev to berlin.