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Originally Posted by 383man
If this had happened in 1949 and the US had not demobilized then as the OP was stating the US to drop some A-bombs on Moscow to try and kill Stalin. If the US had not demobilized then yes they could have done it. Even if the USSR had 20,000 aircraft the US had over 100,000 military aircract at the end of WWII between the US army air force and the US Navy and over 65,000 of them were combat aircraft as the rest were recon , trnsport and trainers. So I dont think it would have been a big problem to have sent bombers with fighter protection into the USSR if the US had kept the largest air force of all time at that size but we know they did not. And the US army was alot larger then under 2 million at the end of WWII. Just the army was 8.3 million with 6 million ground troops and about 3 million were combat troops with just over 2 million combat troops overseas at WWII's end. The OP said this senerio in that they did not use ground forces as this is just a ...what if by him. At the wars end of course the USSR had the largest land army in the world and thats why they were such a threat to western and eastern Europe. I dont think either the US or USSR would have really wanted to attack each other after the war in the few years that followed. I mean the US had the navy to land many troops in the USSR but then you would be looking at fighting the largest land force in the world and even with the largest Navy and air force for the US the USSR still had a large air force but not much of a navy so it would make no sense for the US to attack the USSR. Then if the USSR wanted to attack the US they did not have a Navy to ship enough troops to the US and land them as the largest land force in the world wont do much good if you cant get them to the fight. So both would have been dumb for either country. But I think Stalin knew if he kept his large army he had the advantage in Europe sine the allies were demobilizing at wars end. Ron
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When I said "under 2 million", I was referring to the period after demobilization. By 1949, our army was fully demobilized from WW2 and was under 2 million. Your 8.3 million figure is skewed because many of those troops were stationed in the Pacific. On V-E Day, the U.S. only had about 2-3 million troops in Continental Europe. The Soviet Union had 12 million troops in Eastern Europe. They outnumbered us almost 6-1 in troops, and even more so in tanks. The U.S. ground forces were much weaker than the German forces that invaded in 1941, and the Soviet forces were much stronger than what the Germans faced in 1941. The idea of invading the USSR from Europe with ground troops would be a disaster. Even if the U.S. somehow expanded their troops to equal the size of the Soviets, the Soviets would likely expand further, creating a 20 million man army.
Each of the scenarios you presented are far-fetched. Please explain why the U.S. would remain mobilized into 1949? This is simply fantasy. If the U.S.S.R. invasion was such a priority, we would have invaded in late 1945, or 1946 at the latest. It would not make sense to sit on our thumbs until 1949 and maintain a large standing army in Europe.
An amphibious invasion- look at how much trouble the Allies had landing 150,000 troops in D-Day. This was going against Germany's weakest reserve forces. We would need to literally launch a multi-million man invasion just to get a beachhead. Then we'd have to fight our way from Siberia into western Russia. It just wasn't feasible.
Your assumption is that we could fly into Moscow with little resistance and bomb the Soviet Union into submission via the a-bomb without ever sending a single troop into the country, and the Soviets would just give up without a fight. First, we had a limited number of a-bombs in the 40's. Second, the Germans had already destroyed much of the Soviet Union years before. What good would dropping a-bombs on a bunch of rubble do? The Soviets proved during WW2 they would not just roll over and give up. They practically burned down the western third of their country to deprive the Germans of resources. What makes you think a few a-bombs would result in a different outcome?
The only thing you said that made sense was that the USSR did not have the capability to launch an invasion of the U.S. They did not have the Navy. This was the same problem the Germans had and why they could never hope to defeat the U.S. A potential U.S. versus USSR war in the late 40's could only happen in Europe.