General Patton's quotes on Russia and the Russians

I liked this thread. Anything America vs Russia, whether its hockey or war. Something about beating and killing Commies just feels right.

 

Where exactly do you get your information from. The prewar front line fighter for the Soviets I-16 could get up to 30,000 feet. The I-16 was easily the equal to BF109 and used to shoot them down with gay abandon

 

Conventional incendiary and high explosive bombs would do the job destroying their means to wage war....

In 1945,

1 in 10 Russians was dead.

The Reich decimated the population as it is...they were reeling on the brink of defeat....if not for Lend Lease.

I have no idea why you appeasers think the Soviet war machine was invincible...the Finns managed to route them on two occasions with a force 1/10th of the Soviets....they are not the strategic and tactical genius that was the Reich...they fight by brute force and the willingness to die for Mother Russia. The only reason the Germans lost was a colder than normal Winter, spreading the war on two fronts and a constant barrage of bombing runs over Germany.

The Soviets had no such capability to thwart the American war machine that was already in high gear...

America and the UK could have defeated the Soviets and driven them back to their borders.

 

Are you kidding me? The German aircraft engineers would have sided with the allies to defeat the Soviets all the rocket and jet technology developed by the Germans...now available to the Allies

Even without them, the P-80 was well on it's way to operational status....

Instead...we allow the Soviets access to this engineering and in short order they have nuclear, rocket and jet technology...most of it stolen...not actually developed.

 

^_- as far as military capacity, Patton was about right, apart from the exaggeration. The Red Army won with human wave tactics - which is why even today you hear Soviet apologists say they deserved land because of how many lives they lost - it's their own dumb fault.

And no, American forces would have walloped the Russians. We had vast naval superiority and would have blockaded Russian seas entirely, esp. With the Brits to help. Going overland we had millions upon millions of fresh troops, we'll supplied (so well supplied our troops were issued nearly 5000 calories daily rations, really as a show of logistical strength - even Americans couldn't eat that much. But, anyway, we had such an imposing air force Russia's slow tanks would be negated - esp. With Japan out. We had a bunch of Shermans because they were cheap - but we also had T28s.

The key is supplies. The Soviets didn't have the supplies to continue a drawn effort. More to the point, in the direct fight, they didn't have any real air force or anti-aircraft capabilities. In the battle of Stalingrad, since they had no air force and no real AA-capabilities, the Soviets moved their battles lines to within talking distance of the Germans, so that the German bombers couldn't hit the Russian front lines. In other battles, when they couldn't use the urban setting to nullify German bombers, they actually had infantry lay on their backs on a hill and fire bolt-action rifles at German planes. Really.

It wouldn't have been smart to try to march to Moscow, but to liberate satellites? Very doable, and actually pretty smart.

 

Why are you avoiding the point I responded to? -

 

Not when Russia's Army is already in place in Europe prepared to carry the war tothe Pyrenees. You think for a second the British or American people are going to let their governments fire bomb or nuke Russian cities when hundreds of thousands of their citizens (and probably displaced French, Poles, Dutch, etc) are human shields in those cities? Especially when the war at this point would be one of Allied aggression based on the Allies violating treaties.

 

What makes you think the Soviet air force was inferior to the US

And what 'slow' Soviet tanks are you talking about?

 

I think the Russkies would have played rope-a-dope with us just like they did with Napoleon and Hitler. The little bastids just don't surrender. We'd eventually be surrounded and marched to Siberia. We've had technical superiority over everybody we've fought since WWII and have managed to come away with wins over only Panama and Grenada.

 

Yeah, no idea how the P-38 Lightning or P-40 Warhawk could deal with the Polikarpovs.

But really, Soviet planes were by far inferior. Their most commonly produced Il-2, which made up something like a third of their air force at the end of the war, was designed for ground attacks. It was not a capable fighter plane, and would have been shredded by American planes. The Americans had more planes, they had better planes, [far] better pilots, and better equipped and trained ground crews.

The Soviet T-34 wasn't significantly better than the M4 Sherman, though it was better. The main reason why their tanks would have outperformed ours isn't the difference in tank equipment, but in crew skills. A skilled M4 crew could easily beat out a trained T-34 crew, but the American tanks didn't have as much experience. The main advantage the Soviets had was in their heavy tanks - that's what initially rebuffed the Germans at some points, but they were slow. Tanks like the KV-1.

And my points kind of go together. When the Germans attacked, the Russians actually had superior combat tanks - but they were slower, and Germans were easily able to outmanuever the Russians with halftracks, fast tanks, and their air force. And where the German tanks were outgunned, the German air force made up for the difference.

 

By the end of WW2, the preeminent fighter of the entire war was the P-51D.
I don't know what sort of Soviet propaganda you've been reading to think they could match it.

Escorted B-29s would not have encountered any viable threats on the level of what the B-17 endured.

The Soviets had no long range bombers until of course they reverse engineered the B-29....Russian spies stole nuclear secrets, rocket and jet technology also...heck the Allies gave them almost half of Germany...we managed to spare parts of Berlin by out-smartinig Stalin with an airlift to bypass the road blocks. America and the UK knew Stalin was a murderer, they knew the Red Army was really no less brutal than the Reich...yet they appeased them. Patton wanted to take it to them now, rather than later. Granted, America was war weary and still had the Pacific Theater to contend with, the decison to appease the Soviets was predictable.

Yet Russia will eventually show it's true colors...we will never be allies with them in any way, shape, or form other than a mutual recognition of the dangers of Islamic extremism. We are now allied with Germany and Japan...defeated former enemies. We had a rare opportunity to turn back the Red tide, Patton saw it, and in hindsight, perhaps Patton was right. In 50 -100 years as energy reserves are depleting...I foresee China and Russia uniting as the new Axis. It's inevitable, we will fight them one day...perhaps the children of your children's children...but we will go to war eventually.

 

No nation can withstand unfettered nuclear bombing.

 

"Unfettered" nuclear bombing was not possible in 1945. We only had 3 devices on VE Day, none had ever been tested, we only had available nuclear material for a couple more, and after that it would be months between bombings.

When you factor in that the NKVD had so successfully infiltrated Western intelligence/planning groups and the Manhattan Project, Stalin would know exactly what targets were going to be hit before the President's signature even dried on the document ordering those strikes. They would be able to mass their defense and severely limit the ability of the US to successfully strike their targets.

 

No more than many other countries- just that Russia has more resources than most. Russia isn't even attempting to build a force that can compete with the United States globally. Russia is our second largest rival- and more than willing to act in its own interest.

No- and no.

Eisenhower was right. Patton was wrong.

America may have been able to defeat the Soviets, perhaps even destroy the Soviet Union, but it would have been ruinous to us. Would have cost over a million lives, when history shows we could just wait 40 years and the Soviets would implode.

 

And all of our B-29's were positioned in the Pacific.

We still had a war going on out there.

 

The Silverplates were in America on VE Day. Also, it wouldn't be that hard to fly them to Europe.

 

It's is assumed any escalation of the conflict against the Soviets would be occurring post-VJ day.

Logistically it is not much of an endeavor to move elements of the 10th Army Air Force with their B-29 squadrons to Europe...it's a 3 leg journey on a bad week. The logistical supply chain in Europe was already in place. We had divisions of men, supplies and equipment already in Germany. Germany would have cooperated with the Americans to remove the Soviets. In their minds, we were the lesser of two enemies...We wanted Germany to surrender, the Soviets wanted them annihilated as revenge.

It's a moot point anyway...the Russian Bear was not controlled when it could have been...Eastern Europe fell under control of the Kremlin and has not been the same since even after the collapse of the former USSR. The head of the snake was never cut off.

 

The Russians would know that we intended to invade them after V-J Day. Their intelligence network was that good. Do you really think they are going to sit by and do nothing and let us build up in Western Europe for 4 months?

 

Your dishonesty is noted - Why did you not post a photo of the actual aircraft?

Here is a real I-16

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Polikarpov_I-16-Spain_(clipped).jpg


Here is a YAK-1

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Yakovlev,_Yak-1.jpg - They had 8700 of these

The Yak 3 considered better than both the P51 and Spitfire - only 4500 of these

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Yu_Yak-3.jpg

The Yak 9 considered comparable to the BF109 G and Wolf 190 - even bagged a couple of ME 262 - Only 16000 of these

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Yak_9_1.jpg

So yes that begs the question why did you feel the need to post an image of the plane you did?

 

Perhaps you should ask yourself the same question. If Russian aircraft were so bad - Who blew the Luftwaffe out of the sky in the East?

 

Lets talk 1945- only 1945. First of all, I am a great admirer of the American Air Force in Europe- the P-51 was the finest long range fighter in the war. Americans certainly had quantity and quality.

But you seem determined to ignore what the Soviets did bring to the table. The American air forces would have I am sure ultimately secured air superiority but it would have been a huge cost. The Soviets had large amounts of modern planes with experienced pilots in 1945, along with lots of AA. Air Superiority would have been the only edge Americans would have had.

Perhaps you are thinking of the T-34/76- which was 'marginally better' than a Sherman- but a T-34/85 was superior by almost any measure- it was more mobile, better armored and had a better cannon. A T-34/85 could take out a Sherman from the front- the Sherman's 76 would have bounced off.

The Americans fielded(everywhere) in 1945 47,000 Shermans produced
The Soviets had produced 57,000 T-34s

The KV-1 was as fast as a Tiger 1. Faster than a Tiger 2. And obsolete and essentially no longer used in 1945. Lets compare heavy tanks
U.S.- M-26 (90 mm- 25 mph)- 2,000 produced in 1945 operationally only a small amount were on active duty in Europe by VE day.
USSR- IS2 (122 mm- 23 mph)- 3800 produced by 1945- another 350 IS3 were produced in 1945.

Assuming for the moment that they were equally good- the Soviets had twice as many of them. Soviet tanks had their own issues- the turrets tended to be too small, and they didn't have radio's in every tank like Americans did. But their tanks were all fairly reliable, and their tank crews generally very experienced.

Oh and then there were the Soviet assault guns- some 4,700 hundred of them- Su-152's and ISU-122's- they were capable monsters- much more powerful than American M-10's and M-36's.

By 1945, the Soviet Armored forces were the finest in the world- qualitatively and quantitatively. American Air power could have ultimately- probably- overcome that but air power was subject to weather, and until America gained air superiority, Soviet tanks would have swept through American armor.

You need to think 1945- not 1941 or 1942.

It would have been a blood bath for both sides- I think a million Americans would have died in such a confrontation.

For what? To protect East Germany? Fast forward 40 years- the Soviets implode without any need for a million American casualties.

And we still had a war with Japan to finish up.

 

I won't argue with you that getting the B-29's there was possible- you know that the actual positioning of B-29's from the Western Pacific to Europe operationally would have been far more challenging.

We had been shipping troops to the Pacific for months by that time. Germany- the Germany under American control would have cooperated- but they were starving- look at the records of Germany during that era- we were hard pressed just to keep Germans fed.

And the Soviets already had consolidated control over most of Eastern Europe by then. The Germans in Eastern Germany weren't going to be doing much other than pray they survived- Soviets were brutal.

Poland and Hungary would disagree with you. They know there is a marked difference between now and 1985.

It is moot- the Soviets collapsed under their own weight. Americans didn't suffer a huge amount of casualties for a war that Americans didn't want.

 

Also the MiG-1, MiG-3, La-7, La-9, and the LaGG-3. The Su-9 was in development (a reverse engineered Me-262) as well as the La-150.

The only reason I can assume that Herk posted a picture of an obviously obsolete biplane when there were plenty of state of the art single winged monoplanes available to the Soviets was because he wanted to be deliberately dishonest.

 

Ultimately I think it would have come down to production. At the best Soviet war production was only ever about 50% that of the US. Pretty much everything else cancels itself out aside from a slight advantage to the US in command and control structure.

The reality of this whole thread is Patton's nose was out of joint over the deal to allow the Soviets to take Berlin

 

I have not posted any photos on this thread, if anyone is dishonest, it is you.

Despite the obvious Bolshevik "fan boys" in here..."Merica haters"
how about a reality check.

The premiere all around fighter in all of WW2 PTO & ETO
was the P-51D, but I digress.

Equipment losses during WW2

Tanks:
Soviet Union: Between 96,500 to 100,000 tanks
UK : Around 20,000 tanks
USA: Around 20,000 tanks

Air:
Soviet Union: 88,300 combat type losses
USA:18,418 operational losses in Europe
UK: 22,010 combat losses in Europe (fighers and bombers)

You've bought into a lot of Soviet propaganda...by the end of WW2, they were not in a position
to extend a sustained fight against an Allied force.

22 to 28 million Soviets died between 1939 and 1945.
1 out of every 10 of the total Soviet population at the start of the war, was dead by the end of it.

America lost less than 3/10ths of 1% of the population during the entirety of the war, both theaters.

If there is one thing the Soviets are actually good at during a war...it's dying.
At that, they are the undisputed World Champions.