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"the American and British armies would have been no match for the Soviet Red Army". U.S. , Britain, Canada and France had millions of battle hardened troops, t

"the American and British armies would have been no match for the Soviet Red Army". U.S. , Britain, Canada and France had millions of battle hardened troops, too ... and air and sea supremacy.

kragen 5y ago
I see people touting the amazing prowess of the American and British armies in WWII a lot, and I have to wonder if those people are mystified about how Stalin ended up with half of Europe. How do they fit it into their worldview? About a third of the total casualties of World War II were in Operation Barbarossa, 25 million out of 75 million, about 14% of the Soviet population, mostly within a few months in 01941. The battle hardened troops of the US and even France could mostly go back home to their families, barring Jody; the Soviet troops had, in many cases, had their families killed or starved to death by the Germans. And, when it came to land combat, the Soviets were enormously outproducing not only Germany, though not the US; in 01944, the last full year of war, they produced some 17000 tanks, and nearly 20000 in 01943. (The US numbers were 37000 in 01944 and 27000 in 01943.) However, Russian tanks had a significant advantage over US tanks for combat in Europe: they were in Europe. And so were the farms that fed their crews. So, I'm not sure if they "would have been no match for the Soviet Red Army", but I'm sure glad they didn't have to find out.
- jbay808 5y ago
  I think the wide availability of US and British war stories, tales, and legends, relative to those of other countries, is probably due to them being in English. I'm sure every side has their stories of cunning tricks they pulled, daring midnight raids, undercover operations, ingenious hardware, extreme training, victory against all odds, and everything else. But we hear our stories from our grandparents, books, and the English internet. It's less common to look across to the other sides and learn about how they saw things. That's one of the reasons this article is very important.
- cmrdporcupine 5y ago
  Not only this, but a significant number of the resistance movements against the Nazi occupation or Fascist governance in France, Italy, etc were organized by Communists or sympathetic to them. The Communist Parties maintained popularity for decades after WWII partially as a result of the role they played in resisting the Nazis, organizing resistance, etc. Remember that the rest of western Europe and North America stood by and let Franco overrun Spain while the communist movement (small c and big-C) actively tried to fight him. So there were in fact forces on the ground in many parts of Europe that would not have seen potential Red Army invasion forces as the same kind of invasion force as the Germans. At least for a period of time.
  - kragen 5y ago
    Yes, this is a good point: the Nazis got much of their public support from being opposed to socialism, and so the European resistance was largely run by Communists. People in the US mostly don't know this and tend to respond by shooting the messenger, which I guess is why your comment is downvoted like a dirty spammer.
  - drocer88 5y ago
    "while the communist movement actively tried to fight". They also allied with them : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pac... Remember this stuff also : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_French_Communist_Party#Before_Operation_Barbarossa_(1939_%E2%80%93_June_1941) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_French_Communis...
    - cmrdporcupine 5y ago
      The history is complicated. The Ribbentrop pact was within the Communist parties seen as necessary to bide time, since the USSR knew Germany was going to invade them. But I would agree, it's inexcusable in retrospect. I am not an apologist for Stalinism, I am not saying any of this was a good thing. I am mostly accused of being a Trotskyist, or whatever. But the role of the Communist movement in resisting Nazism in Europe is something not widely understood in the Anglo-American sphere. To the point where some on the right in the US have now started to conflate the two. Which is... nonsense. Anglo-American post-war triumphalism is/was ridiculous. My father grew up in the rubble of the end of the war. There were no winners, it was tragedy all around.
- drocer88 5y ago
  "Russian tanks had a significant advantage over US tanks". This is much debated by WWII historians. When the U.S. tanks finally did square off against the Soviet tanks, U.S. tanks won : https://www.quora.com/How-did-the-Sherman-tank-compare-to-the-T-34-during-the-Korean-War https://www.quora.com/How-did-the-Sherman-tank-compare-to-th... . U.S. reliability and logistics made up for any discrepancies in the specifications.
  - kragen 5y ago
    I'm not sure who you're quoting when you say, "Russian tanks had a significant advantage over US tanks," but I don't have any reason to think your quote is true. In case you intend that as a paraphrase of what I was saying, let me correct that misreading. I was making no claims about the relative quality of the tanks; by all reports, Soviet tanks were vastly inferior to German tanks as well. Rather, my primary tank-related claim was that the USSR was producing enormous quantities of war materiel, as exemplified by tanks; in 01943 they outproduced Germany almost 2:1 in quantity of tanks, and even in 01944 when Germany was catching up, they still outproduced them. The quality of that materiel was merely adequate, but it still would have represented a very significant military threat to the US's position in Europe, as it had to Germany's. My second claim was that the USSR was in a better logistical situation with respect to Europe than the US was. I don't think that's controversial, since Moscow is in Europe, and so was most Soviet farmland and much Soviet arms production.
    - drocer88 5y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_production_during_World_War_II#Gross_domestic_product https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_production_during_Wor... U.S. + British + France GDP was 7 times bigger than Russia at end of the war. Western allied air supremacy ( including a nuclear monopoly ) would have obliterated Soviet logistics. The West had the upper hand and Stalin knew it.
      - kragen 5y ago
        How, then, is it that an iron curtain fell across Europe? I wonder if those GDP numbers capture everything relevant to military advantage. The USSR produced as many tanks in a year and a half as Britain did throughout the whole war, despite having the same GDP. Certainly it is true that with the nuclear monopoly the US had the upper hand; what we're discussing here is what Stalin would have believed if the bomb had remained secret, or perhaps only been demonstrated on uninhabited Pacific atolls, so the nuclear monopoly would not have figured into his calculations, or been a more theoretical factor. Or, more precisely, what Truman believed Stalin would have believed.
Someone 5y ago
Not having sea supremacy would mean the overseas countries wouldn’t stand a chance preventing the USSR from taking over Western Europe, but I don’t see how having it counts for much as a defense against a soviet occupation of Europe. I also think, but can’t find hard numbers, that the USSR had more soldiers than the other allies combined (some strategists thought the allies would need the remains of the German army to help fight the Russians, if it were to come to that) What they may not have had enough was technology. The USA provide them with lots of material (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lend-Lease https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lend-Lease) I think there is some truth in saying World War Two in Europe was won with American materiel and Russian blood. That could have been their weak point. The western powers might have been able to hold of the larger USSR army by gaining air superiority. I’m not sure of that, though, as the time the USSR really needed US tech to survive was gone in 1945.

"the American and British armies would have been no match for the Soviet Red Army". U.S. , Britain, Canada and France had millions of battle hardened troops, too ... and air and sea supremacy.

kragen 5y ago

I see people touting the amazing prowess of the American and British armies in WWII a lot, and I have to wonder if those people are mystified about how Stalin ended up with half of Europe. How do they fit it into their worldview? About a third of the total casualties of World War II were in Operation Barbarossa, 25 million out of 75 million, about 14% of the Soviet population, mostly within a few months in 01941. The battle hardened troops of the US and even France could mostly go back home to their families, barring Jody; the Soviet troops had, in many cases, had their families killed or starved to death by the Germans. And, when it came to land combat, the Soviets were enormously outproducing not only Germany, though not the US; in 01944, the last full year of war, they produced some 17000 tanks, and nearly 20000 in 01943. (The US numbers were 37000 in 01944 and 27000 in 01943.) However, Russian tanks had a significant advantage over US tanks for combat in Europe: they were in Europe. And so were the farms that fed their crews. So, I'm not sure if they "would have been no match for the Soviet Red Army", but I'm sure glad they didn't have to find out.

jbay808 5y ago
I think the wide availability of US and British war stories, tales, and legends, relative to those of other countries, is probably due to them being in English. I'm sure every side has their stories of cunning tricks they pulled, daring midnight raids, undercover operations, ingenious hardware, extreme training, victory against all odds, and everything else. But we hear our stories from our grandparents, books, and the English internet. It's less common to look across to the other sides and learn about how they saw things. That's one of the reasons this article is very important.
cmrdporcupine 5y ago
Not only this, but a significant number of the resistance movements against the Nazi occupation or Fascist governance in France, Italy, etc were organized by Communists or sympathetic to them. The Communist Parties maintained popularity for decades after WWII partially as a result of the role they played in resisting the Nazis, organizing resistance, etc. Remember that the rest of western Europe and North America stood by and let Franco overrun Spain while the communist movement (small c and big-C) actively tried to fight him. So there were in fact forces on the ground in many parts of Europe that would not have seen potential Red Army invasion forces as the same kind of invasion force as the Germans. At least for a period of time.
- kragen 5y ago
  Yes, this is a good point: the Nazis got much of their public support from being opposed to socialism, and so the European resistance was largely run by Communists. People in the US mostly don't know this and tend to respond by shooting the messenger, which I guess is why your comment is downvoted like a dirty spammer.
- drocer88 5y ago
  "while the communist movement actively tried to fight". They also allied with them : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pac... Remember this stuff also : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_French_Communist_Party#Before_Operation_Barbarossa_(1939_%E2%80%93_June_1941) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_French_Communis...
  - cmrdporcupine 5y ago
    The history is complicated. The Ribbentrop pact was within the Communist parties seen as necessary to bide time, since the USSR knew Germany was going to invade them. But I would agree, it's inexcusable in retrospect. I am not an apologist for Stalinism, I am not saying any of this was a good thing. I am mostly accused of being a Trotskyist, or whatever. But the role of the Communist movement in resisting Nazism in Europe is something not widely understood in the Anglo-American sphere. To the point where some on the right in the US have now started to conflate the two. Which is... nonsense. Anglo-American post-war triumphalism is/was ridiculous. My father grew up in the rubble of the end of the war. There were no winners, it was tragedy all around.
drocer88 5y ago
"Russian tanks had a significant advantage over US tanks". This is much debated by WWII historians. When the U.S. tanks finally did square off against the Soviet tanks, U.S. tanks won : https://www.quora.com/How-did-the-Sherman-tank-compare-to-the-T-34-during-the-Korean-War https://www.quora.com/How-did-the-Sherman-tank-compare-to-th... . U.S. reliability and logistics made up for any discrepancies in the specifications.
- kragen 5y ago
  I'm not sure who you're quoting when you say, "Russian tanks had a significant advantage over US tanks," but I don't have any reason to think your quote is true. In case you intend that as a paraphrase of what I was saying, let me correct that misreading. I was making no claims about the relative quality of the tanks; by all reports, Soviet tanks were vastly inferior to German tanks as well. Rather, my primary tank-related claim was that the USSR was producing enormous quantities of war materiel, as exemplified by tanks; in 01943 they outproduced Germany almost 2:1 in quantity of tanks, and even in 01944 when Germany was catching up, they still outproduced them. The quality of that materiel was merely adequate, but it still would have represented a very significant military threat to the US's position in Europe, as it had to Germany's. My second claim was that the USSR was in a better logistical situation with respect to Europe than the US was. I don't think that's controversial, since Moscow is in Europe, and so was most Soviet farmland and much Soviet arms production.
  - drocer88 5y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_production_during_World_War_II#Gross_domestic_product https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_production_during_Wor... U.S. + British + France GDP was 7 times bigger than Russia at end of the war. Western allied air supremacy ( including a nuclear monopoly ) would have obliterated Soviet logistics. The West had the upper hand and Stalin knew it.
    - kragen 5y ago
      How, then, is it that an iron curtain fell across Europe? I wonder if those GDP numbers capture everything relevant to military advantage. The USSR produced as many tanks in a year and a half as Britain did throughout the whole war, despite having the same GDP. Certainly it is true that with the nuclear monopoly the US had the upper hand; what we're discussing here is what Stalin would have believed if the bomb had remained secret, or perhaps only been demonstrated on uninhabited Pacific atolls, so the nuclear monopoly would not have figured into his calculations, or been a more theoretical factor. Or, more precisely, what Truman believed Stalin would have believed.

Someone 5y ago

Not having sea supremacy would mean the overseas countries wouldn’t stand a chance preventing the USSR from taking over Western Europe, but I don’t see how having it counts for much as a defense against a soviet occupation of Europe. I also think, but can’t find hard numbers, that the USSR had more soldiers than the other allies combined (some strategists thought the allies would need the remains of the German army to help fight the Russians, if it were to come to that) What they may not have had enough was technology. The USA provide them with lots of material (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lend-Lease https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lend-Lease) I think there is some truth in saying World War Two in Europe was won with American materiel and Russian blood. That could have been their weak point. The western powers might have been able to hold of the larger USSR army by gaining air superiority. I’m not sure of that, though, as the time the USSR really needed US tech to survive was gone in 1945.