Was there any point during the Cold War where the Soviets could've beaten the U.S. in a conventional war?

I'd argue that the Soviets held conventional superiority from 1945-1982-ish, with the tail end of the Vietnam War years being the nadir of the U.S. military. 1972 would have been the Soviet Union's best shot at knocking the Americans off the continent

> Soviet strategy was actually pretty sophisticated

> Soviet troops were actually better than the west claims

> Soviet equipment is underrated

If all these are true, why did they take such massive casualties?

they were not as great at the start of their involvement in the war

A disregard for casualties was the primary factor. Sure, generals cared a little when huge swarms of men died. But to them, getting in good with Stalin was worth the cost.

Helps that Stalin himself was baiting this sort of behaviour to keep the Red Army under control

It's also convenient when your entire collection of nations doesn't give two shits how many men die for the sake of defeating their greatest enemy. The Soviet propaganda machine played a huge part in this narrative of "sacrifice must be made to smash the fascists and free our people"

How do zou mean they took so much casualties?
The USSR had an advantage until 1970.
1961 Biggest nuclear bomb ever tested(By USSR) Tsar Bomba. The initial three-stage design was capable of yielding approximately 100 Mt, but it would have caused too much nuclear fallout and the plane delivering the bomb would not have had enough time to escape the explosion.The mushroom cloud was about 64 km (40 mi) high (over seven times the height of Mount Everest). For me Ussr were military stronger than the U.S , but the U.S had a bigger economic power(budget).Massive casualties? WWII Stalin didnt want do believe that Hitler was ploting against him. Operation Barbarossa was in 22 June 1941 , a suprise attack. USSR Civilian killed and casulties 180 mil , military 10 mil. While german Civ=70 mil , military=5.5 mil. USSR had such big civ casualties because Stalin took all the food and left the civilian to die , but because of Stalin we won the war... Hitler had 192 divisions in USSR , 10 in france ,15 in africa. Just think about if hitler didnt went for Stalin - There wouldnt be D day, Britain would fall, then africa and soo on.

100 mt tsar bomba was very unfeasible
Even the downscaled version is conventionally unusable

>Britain would fall, then africa and soo on.

>If all these are true, why did they take such massive casualties?
several reasons
>because the eastern front in size and scale was like three or four times the scale of the western front
>because stalin had purged a lot of officers and generals before the war and thus the army struggled with no leadership
>because whether or not the russians knew the war was coming their forces were caught completely off guard by the initial german attacks

As several people have correctly pointed out, for most of the Cold War, the USSR would have been able to flatten Western Europe pretty quickly. After that point both sides would have largely stalled out - the USSR certainly didn't have the capabilities to invade the US, and once they'd lost their foothold on the continent, the US really couldn't have mounted an invasion of the Eastern Bloc either.

Truth is, if we're magically taking nukes off the table, neither side posed an existential threat to the other (militarily, anyway), although they certainly could have made life very unpleasant for each other. But ultimately the logistics would have just been too challenging and the distances and geographical barriers too great.

Not really. We had the Soviets semi-surrounded. We had forces in Western Europe, Japan, South Korea, Alaska, Greece/Turkey, we had indirect control of Iran for a while, etc.

Because it was a massive fucking war.

they had numerical superiority in the european theater.

but a conventional war could never have succeeded against the might of the United States in our post second world war build up's height

Ima leave this here. [spoiler] not shilling [/spoiler]

youtube.com/watch?v=nU8VcEw3Zno

How large were western european armies during the cold war? Were they totally fucked without the american army?

>we

If you magically removed all the nukes, and then magically teleported all the forces to a desert somewhere - yes, throughout most of the cold war that was the case.

The Soviets, however, never had the strike capability of the US, and the Soviet's Naval fleet was much smaller and trapped in ice for more than half the year. They only had one major access route to warm water, and that put them through NATO allied Turkey (which is why we've always been so friendly with them). Through most of the cold war, even the British fleet was more impressive than the Soviet's, even if they had few submarines.

This has become an increasing problem for Russia, all throughout its history - and why NATO wanted the Ukraine and Crimea so badly:
globalsecurity.org/military/world/russia/warm-water-port.htm
(And Syria was well - containing one of Russia's few warm water naval bases.)

So, in the case of a magic wand coming out and whisking away all the nuclear weapons, but otherwise leaving everything alone, resulting in an all-out conventional war with the USSR, particularly in the late 80's with the advent of cruise missiles, the US would dominate, or at the very least, the USSR would be restricted to an almost entirely defensive war.

Granted, Russia is pretty good at entirely defensive wars, historically speaking - but with the nuclear threat gone, the US might just settle for bombing them into the stone age, as it wouldn't be like World War II, where flight strike range was such a limitation. (Though, oddly, this would be one of those rare times you really would prefer to invade Russia in Winter, rather than Summer.)

Yeah, that's the first person plural pronoun in English in the nominative case. We (the English-speaking world) had the Soviets semi-surrounded.

I'm honestly confused how you got from "had no ability to invade the United States" to "would be restricted to an almost entirely defensive war." I mean, those two things really aren't equivalent at all.

Unless you mean "an almost entirely defensive war after the Soviets crushed and occupied Western Europe, and probably much of the Middle East and northern China as well."

Attacking both Europe, the Middle East, *and* China, all while being bombed by NATO from every direction seems a bit of stretch. ("Only the heir to the throne of the kingdom of idiots...")

Though, yes, they probably would steam roll most of Europe and force the US to concentrate a lot of their efforts on that front. So, entirely defensive as it pertains as to a war between the US and the USSR, but with a whole lotta allied casualties.

what did he mean by this

If you remove nukes from the equation, then the Soviets would easily win because their close proximity to Europe would make it very easy for them to invade and swallow up the entire continent. Only the constant threat of nuclear war prevented them from doing this. It is said that the USSR possessed more tanks than God.

yes, at all points

If Khrushchev hadn't fucked over Mao and they kept their alliance and Khrushchev helped Mao properly industrialize instead of backyard furnaces then they would have beat the west hands down.

That said...

Nuclear weapons.

I read a Tankaboo alternative history book about the Soviets invading during Carter administration into West Germany and NATO folded so quick that they couldn't use nuclear weapons without killing off West Germany.

Imagine if the Russian Empire didn't sell Alaska and it was owned by the USSR.

I think that's what he meant.

Alaska would still not be part of the USSR because the US and British navies would never permit the Reds to cross the Bering Strait and attack it, and any local Bolshevik uprisings would be put down by international forces.

It would probably end up being an independent state run by White holdouts like Taiwan.

That'd be pretty neat, too.

Then Russia would likely have lost Alaska to Britain. The two countries hated each other, and Britain's position in Canada was infinitely stronger than Russia's in Alaska. On skuffle in Afghanistan between the two, and Britain would just annex Alaska.

russia was literally incapable of defending it and would have lost it to the eternal anglo
selling it to their burgerland friends was really the only smart move

Soviet to German military losses were barely 2:1