Hello / his /

Hello / his /
Was there a point in history where the Soviets could win the Cold War?

>Restrictions

>No Full scale nuclear war
>US and UK do not need to be conquered.

The other Way around:
Could the US / NATO win the Cold War earlier?

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>Was there a point in history where the Soviets could win the Cold War?
No.

>Could the US / NATO win the Cold War earlier?
Yes, if they did it right after WW2 when they had nukes and the Soviets didn't.

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>Was there a point in history where the Soviets could win the Cold War?
Probably not. There was really no point when they weren't vastly outperformed economically by the United States. The nuclear balance was about the only thing that kept them from being openly swept away.

>Could the US / NATO win the Cold War earlier?
Probably not, definitely not without a nuclear war. About the only chance you'd "realistically" have is right after World War 2 ends, but even that is almost certain to fail due to popular resistance against a new fucking massive war right as the last one ended, even if the militaries and industries are capable of outperforming the Soviets.

posting this because fuck it

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> our total of zero ready nukes in 1945 would have decisively ended the war even though the enemy had more than twice as many men, tanks, and planes

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>total of zero ready nukes in 1945

Bruh, after Nagasaki we were making three of them a month.

There was a lot of sabotage by western powers they struggled to manufacture working light bulbs.

A nuke every 10 days is pretty damn decisive user.

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1967-1982 Soviet easy victory in Europe with medium casualties, before and after this time period it looks like parity/NATO victory. But anyways at some point this conflict gonna turning into nuclear boogaloo and most of Europe becomes nuclear wasteland (especially Germany and Poland)

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>>Restrictions
>>No Full scale nuclear war
wtf kind of restriction is this, without nukes there never would have been a cold war to begin with

No not really The USSr like Germany couldn't have landed and forced the UK to surrneder

The US could have launched the war prior to any war with the USSR . They'd have driven to the Atlantic but lost when US heavy fleets and air corps would be smashing them up from North Africa/ Arabia/ etc.

The Soviets could have snarled and smashed up Europe but they couldn't have chased the Western powers across and into North Africa or Arabia and there would be super massive air fields of bombers and fighters fucking them to death

Following the US and western forces losing eveyrthing up to Spain after fighting the US would have been able to send long rang bombers into the heart of the USSr and atom bomb them again and again, with the spies the USSR took 5 years to develop the bomb, under atom bomb raids a few every month thye'd break

USA untill early 1950 were not capable to drop bombs on soviet cities. In theory you can drop bomb on enemy forces, but this would be not effective.

>1945
>Long range bomber

>USA untill early 1950 were not capable to drop bombs on soviet cities.
How the hell do you figure that?

The liberator has a long enough range to drop nukes on moscow from airfields in germany.

After reading "Three Minutes to Doomsday" I'm convinced that the Soviets would have won if they'd gone balls out and invaded western Europe in 1990 instead of accepting collapse. The author makes a convincing argument that the Soviets had enough information on American-West German war plans during that time that if they'd decided to act on it, they almost assuredly would have won.

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Not him, but I don't think that's quite right. If you launched from say, Hannover, it's a bit under 2,000 km. While within extreme range for a B-24, they could only carry about 1,200 kg of explosives. Fat Man and Little Boy both weighed over 4,400 kg.

Besides, the atomic weapons would be carried by B-29s, not B-24s.

Dude, the b-29 had a longer range than the liberator.

only if this is the one way ticket, also without fighters support. So even for big group of bombers this mission is literally suicide, especially when soviet army steamrolling you right to the Rhine.

>only if this is the one way ticket
that quite literally was the plan. Read yeager's biography, he goes into quite a bit of detail about it.

Yes, which is why an atomic weapon is going to go on a B-29 and not a B-24. It's not only longer ranged, it flies higher, has better defensive armament, and can absorb more punishment. I have no idea why brought up liberators.

>only without fighter support
mustangs with drop tanks have an operational range of 2600km, thats enough to accompany the bombers for at least most of the trip when you count fuel that would be burned in dogfights.

Liftoff from Yarmouth UK in b-29s you could smash Moscow with less than half the range of the bomber. The soviets didn't have enough manpower of supplies to have air superiorty and resistance over the whole of Europe.

Imagine bombers from Northern Norway or from Persia , India, occupied Japan, etc etc

The Rajistani army for instance could march into the guts of the USSR. Bombers and fighters would ring the USSR and with US bombing they wouldn't be manufacturing enough , sever the lines E-W and then nuke thier army groups in the west they done.

Jesus, imagine what that would do for morale. You declare war and literally the next day half your cities have been reduced to a radioactive wasteland.

I would agree but the country was crippled economically and I'm positive that after the massive casualties they acquired over WW2 that no one within the country was exactly clamoring to invade Europe or the US even with the propaganda and threats.
>fight for us and we won't kill your family
>tfw family is already dead and/or dying because no food and WW2 took every man in your family except you

Even with the time between the end of WW2 they wouldn't have been a large enough force to fight a fully functioning US and European Army

*and 1990

Soviets were on a pretty solid ground during 50s.

> Red Army undoubtedly the strongest land force on earth
> West Germany not a member of NATO until halfway through
> China still allied to USSR
> String of Western failures in first Indochina War, Chinese Civil War, Korean War, Suez Crisis, the failure of Brits in re-establishing a presence in Burma and India and French troubles in Algeria highlighted how Western powers constantly lost power and prestige until the Cuban Missile Crisis

One problem USSR faced in the Western Europe was how local communist movements were essentially ostracized from day to day politics of highest tier and how local movements in Greece, Finland, Albania, France and Italy despite their notable size failed to gain a dominant position.

Well even if it's not half, with the whole of the Soviet force storming to the sea imagine their reaction when Leningrad or Stalingrad evaportate.

Moscow where they heroicly stood off the German Reich is gone the next day.

Next month it's vladivostok or rostov and kiev

thats not video games discussion, to do something you need to understand many various factors as France and Italy turning red after first strikes and soviet ground forces superiority. Also "nuke their army groups" that's would have almost 0 real effect,

Nuke of the era were still essentially condensed fire bombing raids. US still had its massive fleet of strategic bombers from WW2, and grinding Soviet cities to nothing as had happened in Japan before the bombs dropped would have accomplished the same thing, only in marginally longer time.

>france and italy turning red after first strikes
no
>nuke their army groups
not their army groups, nigga, their industrial towns. Imagine the bombing campaign that brought japan to its knees condensed to a week or two.

>essentially the same thing
Reducing industrial output by over 50%? That seems pretty damn useful to me, senpai

Not the guy you're responding to, but:

>thats not video games discussion, to do something you need to understand many various factors as France and Italy turning red after first strikes
Simply a non-possibility in France what with De-Gaulle spending most of the time between D-Day and V-E day purging communists in the resistance from any sort of influence. I'm less sure about Italy, but somehow I doubt they'll be able to overthrow the million or so troops the Allies have down there. Between the two rounds of Fascist governments (Mussolini and then the German occupation after he was deposed), the commies were pretty well battered there too.

> and soviet ground forces superiority.
While extant, this is greatly overstated. Soviet advance rate in 1945 against the Germans was on the order of an average of 175 kilometers a month. Against the Western Allies, who are colossally stronger than the shattered remains of the Wehrmacht at that point, how much worse do you think they'll do? Half? A quarter? A tenth? It'll take them months just to secure Germany, nevermind go farther.

>Also "nuke their army groups" that's would have almost 0 real effect,
This is true. But if say, LeMay gets his way and the nukes fly to Baku, things get real bad for the Soviets real fast.

USSR essentially had five of its six largest cities reduced to piecemeal in the first half year of Great Patriotic War. And USSR was only around 35% urbanized in mid 40s.

They also managed to move most of their manufacturing away from the action, something they won't be able to replicate since a fully loaded B-29 can theoretically reach any part of the soviet union.

Nato and Warsaw Pact had about the same population in mid to late 80s. USSR was about 290 million, US 255 million, Western Europe 175 million and Eastern Europe around 140 million.

There's a difference between most of the largest cities being cut down over the course of a year, and most of your cities going up in flames within 48 hours of hostilities starting.

lol no

Also Italian Communists and French Communists won't stop resistance groups and armies matter for jack when they get rained on by the air corps all day.

Stalin going up in the mushroom cloud along with factories as well as every soviet city including those who had previously survived going up in smoke would break them.

The only reason that the USSR didn't lash out in the end was because a relatively liberal-minded (in the context of the Soviet system) man like Gorbachev happened to be in charge when everything started crumbling down. A man like Stalin or Brezhnev would not have accepted collapse gracefully like Gorbachev did. They would have lashed out against the United States, Britain, France, and West Germany with the full power of the Soviet war machine.

>hey everything's going to shit, our entire country is crumbling around us
>you know what would be a good idea right about now? A big fucking war with the west
The russians are lucky gorbachev went and did pizza hut commercials instead of starting world war three

Mid-60's would have been a Warsaw Pact curbstomp.

The entire world is lucky. If the Soviets had different leadership from 1985-1991, there could have been a war, with a strong probability of a nuclear exchange occurring. It's not hard at all to imagine some sort of communist hardliner becoming general secretary instead of Gorbachev, and deciding that it would be better to risk everything on an all-or-nothing push into western Europe than to just sit back and watch everything fall apart. Thousands of Russian tanks would roll through the Fulda Gap, and allied soldiers in West Germany would soon find themselves overwhelmed. Attempts to contain the Soviets by conventional means would quickly be proven futile. As the situation worsens, the temptation to use nuclear weapons would eventually become irresistible.

Soviets could have won a conventional war in Europe any time.

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No. Russia's economy is smaller than Italy's.

The only reason they appeared to swing above their weight is because of material aid during ww2, democratic distaste for risking war to get them to back out of Eastern Europe, stealing tech for nuclear weapons and rocketry from the west and Germany and the proliferation of small arms in the undeveloped world under the pretenses of world revolution.

American kino portrayed them as a ruthlessly efficient technologically advanced state a la 1984, in reality they were lethargic and demoralized. Their economy as a whole was incredibly inefficient and stagnant, even the military suffered from supply shortages, only a few showy projects like sputnik and new fighter jets received the proper amount of attention and funding.

>No. Russia's economy is smaller than Italy's.

in 2017 maybe, but certainly not during the cold war, why even posting if you can't grasp the historical context ?

>Their economy as a whole was incredibly inefficient and stagnant

Only the case past 75

Fire Bombing raids destroyed around 90% of their target cities, whereas Hiroshima and Nagasaki around 85%.

USSR Economy grew about the same pace as Western European economy did between 45 and 75.

>No. Russia's economy is smaller than Italy's.

when this meme born?

>Was there a point in history where the Soviets could win the Cold War?

The time between the 1968 Tet Offensive and the election Reagan in 1980 was their best chance.

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Eh occupying Europe might have been an option immediately after ww2, but really no, the USA and UK could probably do a second Normandy and failing that they have nukes.

I think he means win in a way that doesn't lead to nuclear war.

They prolly wouldn't have even made it that far. They probably wouldn't even have been able to cross the Rhine at the rate the US was pumping out equiment. We weren't even fully mobalized and had full control of the airspace. Without Lend Lease the Soviets would begin to starve and not be able to maintain the long supply chains that would be constantly being bombed by allied forces. The Soviets were also completely drained of reserves in 1945 too. Basically, unthinkable would have ended in an allied victory but it would have probably unironically doubled the total casualties of ww2.

Yes if the jews did not bankrupt USSR
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/russian_oligarchs
then click on every one of them and go to section - "Early Life"
>Jewish

Didn't the Red army almost roll into Moscow in 1991 and try to retake the government but stand down last moment? It seems like a second Russian Civil war would have been more likely, cept this time with Nukes which would mostly be directed at opposition forces within Russia. They would have nuked themselves into oblivion.

>tfw when Americans were too scared to actually fight the USSR
embarrassing.

It's the case, but it became true only after 2014 and EU/US sanctions following the annexation of Crimea

The Russian economy during the cold war was in second place.

There was no scenario where NATO wouldn't rely on nuclear weapons to stop the soviets.

No nukes = Western Europe falls in each case.

you are retarded

>start clicking
>Vagit Alekperov
>Vladimir Potanin
>not Jewish

Eh, nice try though.

I mean is economy really works in that way? GDP PPP better shows real economy size.

Not exactly

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