if the United States and Soviet Union actually went to war with one another for real and not just engaged in proxy wars who would have won?

if the United States and Soviet Union actually went to war with one another for real and not just engaged in proxy wars who would have won?

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  1. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Twinkies and wienerroaches

  2. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Probably America, by the late 80s the u.s was already dwarfing the soviet union in military spending

  3. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Gonna need a time period for this, this question is worthless without it.

    It would be the US no matter what, of course.

  4. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >in the 50s
    The USSR but only in Europe, the US was not having a fun time post WW2 and was putting a lot of work unfricking the various domestic issues the war created; but there's no chance the USSR would have gotten over to the US.
    >in the 70s
    The USSR might be able to actually get to the lower 48 by this point but it would be rough as hell. They definitely wouldn't be able to occupy the whole thing and even a sizeable chunk is a tall order.
    >the 80s or later
    US by a wide margin, institutional rot in the USSR was reaching enough of a breaking point that getting here would probably cause enough stress to fracture the system.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Realistic assessment although early 1980s it's still a tossup.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >>in the 50s
      >The USSR but only in Europe, the US was not having a fun time post WW2 and was putting a lot of work unfricking the various domestic issues the war created; but there's no chance the USSR would have gotten over to the US.
      In the 50s USSR military production was barely matching that of postwar America, considering the initial advantage of remaining material present in europe, they wouldn't be able to achieve anything with that. Before Khruschev's cutbacks soviet economy was also already running at wartime power and would be unable to expand any further if the need arised. Also, nukes were very much on the table and were most likely of all the periods to be used.

      I think if the Soviets pushed after they won WW2, they could have taken all of Europe quite easily with exception of islands like Britain.

      see pic related

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >the US was not having a fun time post WW2
      >literally called the postwar economic miracle
      Look I get that I've probably jumped timelines a couple times but I think this time you're the one who got displaced bud.

  5. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Imagine Desert Storm but 50 times more glorious

  6. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    assuming no nukes the US wins by economic victory

  7. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    The israelites

  8. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Nobody or everybody depending on how misanthropic you are.

  9. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    It would have been 1984 USSR has continental Europe America has the UK plus a bunch of other stuff.

  10. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Most likely the United States. tl;dr is that there was a massive financial incentive for defense contractors to exaggerate the capabilities of the USSR. The estimates were known to be faulty even at that time and reviewing them today makes it very obvious that they were putting a finger on the scale when weighing the conventional forces of the USSR.

    An actual war between them would most likely cause large parts of the USSR to immediately attempt to break away and join NATO / United States as soon as they made contact or received orders to prepare for an offensive. Loyalist or solely Russian units would be destroyed in such a fashion that the Night of the Long Knives would look like an evening stroll.

    One has to remember that the Russians had to invade almost all of the constituent members of the USSR to quell uprisings at least once. The odds that Poland or East Germany, who would be the most militarily capable non-Russian members, would be willing to die for Russian ambitions is extremely low. Similarly it took almost a decade to root out guerilla actions in the Ukraine after WW2 and they are obviously no great fans of their occupiers. Without the grain fields around Odessa the Soviet Union, already a net importer of food, would have an extreme shortage even without accounting for fighting a war. Losing the Czechs to even peaceful non-cooperation would be a huge toll on the industrial capabilities of the USSR. The same goes for the DDR, even without accounting them as absolutely necessary frontline troops any significant refusal to work would be crippling.

    I have not gotten into any details of the actual potential battles because the war would be decided before it even got to that point. The Russians would be forced to re-invade and occupy the entirety of their constituent states before they could even mount a serious offensive.

  11. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    I think if the Soviets pushed after they won WW2, they could have taken all of Europe quite easily with exception of islands like Britain.

  12. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    When?

  13. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Let's start with several assumptions here. First of all, the only military theater we're talking about is the war in Europe since soviets never had power projection to go anywhere beyond the immediate land connection. That's also where most of their ambition lied. Some other theaters like middle east or distant asia would be much more stagnant and less relevant.

    Second, if nukes are on the table then for half of the cold war US had an ability to utterly annihilate USSR with basically no reprecussions. Before 1956 soviets had 0 credible ability to deliver a nuke to US mainland, by any means and after that it was incredibly limited. Only after they started making ICBMs did they gain such ability, and this only happened after US had their own operational. US nukes also vastly outnumbered soviet ones up to the end of the 60s and until 1967 US could send 2 warheads per russian silo just from the mainland, without touching their SLBM or bomber arsenal, which would defeat poorly protected missiles with high certainty. Only in 1970 did the soviets finally catch up numerically, and it'd take them many more years to achieve anything remotely like technological parity. US also had a robust early warning system ready pretty much as soon as soviets finished their missile, meanwhile soviets only set up their unreliable radar arrays in 1971 which had very spotty coverage and offered no warning against most SLBM attacks as well as ICBM attacks on their asian territories, primarily covering Moscow and the european segment. Note that US weren't fully aware of this and constantly overestimated soviet capabilities, resuting in suboptimal strategic decisions and policies.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      From year 1975 onwards soviets had plenty of ICBMs and their first meaningful SLBMs which coupled with underwhelming NATO intel made a decapitating strike not feasible, leading to a stalemate based on the MAD doctrine. Note that soviets pushed for it much sooner so as to deter US from trying to strike them or to gain a further advantage in their strategic forces and went a long way by planting myths like nuclear winter and funding disarmament "pacifist" groups that protested, infiltrated and outright sabotaged various programs within US and Europe. But by that point while the soviets could never credibly threaten even US land based arsenal(they never could, not until the end of the cold war) the states couldn't defeat the soviets without getting hit back either.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        With that said, in a conventional conflict the soviets stood little chance as they always relied on a numerical advantage and always had poor performance per unit/solder so during the 50s they never really stood a chance against a wholly superior opponent, both technologically, numerically and motivationally, as

        https://i.imgur.com/9g2sm8i.png

        >>in the 50s
        >The USSR but only in Europe, the US was not having a fun time post WW2 and was putting a lot of work unfricking the various domestic issues the war created; but there's no chance the USSR would have gotten over to the US.
        In the 50s USSR military production was barely matching that of postwar America, considering the initial advantage of remaining material present in europe, they wouldn't be able to achieve anything with that. Before Khruschev's cutbacks soviet economy was also already running at wartime power and would be unable to expand any further if the need arised. Also, nukes were very much on the table and were most likely of all the periods to be used.

        [...]
        see pic related

        pointed out.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          Now in the 60s it gets interesting, as the aforementioned guy named Khruschev had a very acute obsession with rocketry, which not only lead the soviets to their inital successes in the space race and their massive ICBM programs but also to cutbacks to the overall military in the 50s and the retirement of all the tube artillery, from mortars to howitzers, and replacement of it with rocket artillery like the Grad. He also cut down all the development programs as well. The problem with that is the fact that rocket artillery is not only significantly less accurate than tube artillery which would require spending more ordinance per target(soviets would fire tubes just as inaccurately in all honesty) but rockets also have a significantly higher logistical and manufacturing burden, so even if they produced the rockets by the millions they notoriously poor soviet logistics would struggle delivering them to the front, leaving soviet army out of steam after the initial barrages. This would result in a situation that's worse than the one that russian army is experiencing now. Now, despite the cutdowns the buildup of soviet forces continued and during this time soviet forces gained numerical advantage in Europe, but with basically no technological advantages and the issue with artillery there just wasn't enough for them to do anything but bet on some lucky limited zerg rush where they get the jump on NATO forces, do a small land grab and then freeze the conflict without being nuked, possibly by threatening wuth nukes themselves. As i stated, this would be unlikely to work since they had 1:8 overall disadvantage in the number of nuclear weapons, NATO was ready and prepared for the attack and would not be willing to let the conflict be over once the soviets started it, especially once they inevitably botched the land grab and met resistance from within that could be fueled as the regular forces take time to arrive.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            In the late 60s Khruschev got booted and new leadership came in, which continued the military buildup and among other things reinstated the tube artillery development. For now they still only had rusty ww2 vintage taken out of storage and some outdated early 50s production lines restarted, obviously in low numbers as well.

            In the early 70s the rise in oil prices due to middle eastern conflicts lead to increases in soviet budgets, which were quickly put to expanding their military presence and especially feeding their bloated MIC which regularly ran muliple comparable programs that would get fielded simultaneously for little reason other than leadership's inability or unwillingness to cut either down, being held hostage or even blackmailed by the industry leaders, whom losing their jobs amidst the secrecy and closed soviet society would be very threatening. By mid 70s the soviet presence in Europe would reach its relative peak, with 3:1 advantage in regards to the number of tanks, 2:1 advantage in terms of manpower and a large amount of various artillery amassed all not too far from the military theater.

            Late 70s were also marked with soviets fielding more advanced military technology - a result of earlier increases in military spending, including new fairly modern artillery systems and the deployment of the then formidable T-64 tanks to Germany after the much troubled development history and issued with production and deployment. It would take well into the 80s until these would really displace the massive amount of built up materiel that soviets collected over the years earlier, especially coupled with their unwillingness to dispose of outdated or obsolete equipment.

            • 1 year ago
              Anonymous

              Now in the 60s it gets interesting, as the aforementioned guy named Khruschev had a very acute obsession with rocketry, which not only lead the soviets to their inital successes in the space race and their massive ICBM programs but also to cutbacks to the overall military in the 50s and the retirement of all the tube artillery, from mortars to howitzers, and replacement of it with rocket artillery like the Grad. He also cut down all the development programs as well. The problem with that is the fact that rocket artillery is not only significantly less accurate than tube artillery which would require spending more ordinance per target(soviets would fire tubes just as inaccurately in all honesty) but rockets also have a significantly higher logistical and manufacturing burden, so even if they produced the rockets by the millions they notoriously poor soviet logistics would struggle delivering them to the front, leaving soviet army out of steam after the initial barrages. This would result in a situation that's worse than the one that russian army is experiencing now. Now, despite the cutdowns the buildup of soviet forces continued and during this time soviet forces gained numerical advantage in Europe, but with basically no technological advantages and the issue with artillery there just wasn't enough for them to do anything but bet on some lucky limited zerg rush where they get the jump on NATO forces, do a small land grab and then freeze the conflict without being nuked, possibly by threatening wuth nukes themselves. As i stated, this would be unlikely to work since they had 1:8 overall disadvantage in the number of nuclear weapons, NATO was ready and prepared for the attack and would not be willing to let the conflict be over once the soviets started it, especially once they inevitably botched the land grab and met resistance from within that could be fueled as the regular forces take time to arrive.

              From year 1975 onwards soviets had plenty of ICBMs and their first meaningful SLBMs which coupled with underwhelming NATO intel made a decapitating strike not feasible, leading to a stalemate based on the MAD doctrine. Note that soviets pushed for it much sooner so as to deter US from trying to strike them or to gain a further advantage in their strategic forces and went a long way by planting myths like nuclear winter and funding disarmament "pacifist" groups that protested, infiltrated and outright sabotaged various programs within US and Europe. But by that point while the soviets could never credibly threaten even US land based arsenal(they never could, not until the end of the cold war) the states couldn't defeat the soviets without getting hit back either.

              i love you, based effortposter
              could you give me soem sources on all of this? i cant find any that serious discuss sovier capabilities in the CW

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                I can't offer more than the source i used for the numbers - the released NATO documents and estimations from their website. The rest was me individually studying military equipment and developments of that era and putting the two together.

                I have a link to an excellent website dedicated to the topic of naval weapons and technology that touches the topics in great detail, although it's fairly limited in scope.

                Here's an article about one of the largest showcases of NATO military technology directly against the soviet weapons at the time and the importance and the scale of pressure they exerted on the soviet side using them.
                https://www.navalgazing.net/The-Reagan-Maritime-Strategy

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                IIRC there was a PDF floting around about a group of NATO and former soviet generals coming together and wargaming it out on how it would go

                spoiler: warsaw pact gets raped

            • 1 year ago
              Anonymous

              By that point, however, the soviets would face an insourmountable problem. The digital revolution that occured in the west and the US was in full swing and even despite the post vietnam cutbacks it finally reached its outburst - 1976 is the year when soviet hopes of a conventional overtake of Europe died. In the late 70s NATO had also taken note of the soviet buildup and started amassing forces to counter it, narrowing the emerged gap every year. In 1976 US introduced several new military weapons, namely the F-15, AH-1S modernized Cobra, cheapened Paveway II guided bombs and various updated missiles. Every year from that point of new weapons would be introduced, each of them alone capable of wrecking havoc on the soviet forces, massively disrupting their operations, culminating in the early 80s which saw the introduction of key systems that would be the key to the triumph of military success of the following wars, totally neating most any soviet developments of their own, despite them developing some pretty menacing systems as well by the early 80s. Soviets were also tied up and burdened by the war in Afghanistan at that point as well as a full blown internal crisis caused by that war, technological inability to catch up, political instability and several public blunders that together brought down the soviet union as a system.

  14. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    What are we assuming in Europe? Maybe the Soviets if it's immediately post WW2, but of course they could never go beyond that as they had no real navy.

  15. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    just read red storm rising

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      In hindsight he got so much right, and I used to make fun of his tech obsession.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        >western attack begins with a massive and coordinated air assault suing stealth aircraft targeted at logistics and staging points
        >soviet style command structure paralized and unable to quickly respond to threats
        he predicted Desert storm half a decade before it happened

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          In hindsight he got so much right, and I used to make fun of his tech obsession.

          https://i.imgur.com/uBhF17L.jpg

          just read red storm rising

          can you imagine how hard he'd be cumming if he were alive to watch today's war?

  16. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    What's the time period? How does the war start? Who has surprise? Why are they fighting? What are the objectives? How liberal are they with WMDS? How bad was the institutional rot in the Soviet army? How long would it last? Whose allies would be willing to fight?

    There's too many questions to give a solid answer. But a blanket or general answer says that as time went on, things got worse and worse for the Soviets.

  17. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Soviet doctrine was to kick off the offensive with tactical nukes in every theater. So it just goes straight to nuclear exchanges. China wins.

  18. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Based off the 80s and 90s.
    >Shit Status: Pushed In.

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