US/UK vs USSR in the aftermath of WWII

[WHM]

The way this topic is running reminds me of a question I posed on another forum, that being the Soviets needing the Western Allies to win their part of WWII. What prompted this was all the Soviet apologists/admirers saying it was the USSR that pulled the chestnuts out of the fire for the west. Need was a two way street.

Some of the points being that the USSR WAS bled white. At the end of the war they were using a lot more young boys and old men. This was noticed by the Germans. I also believe the historian John Mosier also points this out. Plus take all those 88s shooting down American and British bombers and let them plink T34s. Luftwaffe dosen't need to defend the Reich, USSR has to use part of its industrial base to build the wheeled transport they got from the US, that means less JSs and T43s. Lend lease supplied 10% of their tanks. All those Germans sitting in Normandy now in Belarussia or Poland, manpower released from CD to front line service, etc. etc.

Don't know if they would have won or even cause a stalemate, but the road to Berlin would have gotten a lot longer and a lot more expensive.

[Bob2000]

With the end of the lend-lease help from the allies, with the possibility of being in the receiving eng of a few A-Bomb ( the Russian had no way to know for sure or many were ready or could be built) and all the damages they have sustained, things will not have look good for the soviets...

The US can easily have left the japaneese starve to death in their island. They had total control of the seas and must of Japan merchant navy and warships were roting in the sea beds.

The soviet had nothing available who can possibily hurt the US/Canada main land or even the British Islands. They had no navy to speak of and no long range strategic air force.

Tanks are useless if you dont have petrol (diesel for the soviets) and spare parts. Without the lend-lease help, the soviet will have to sacrifice building tanks to make trucks and all the goodies previously shipped by the US. And their long railroad tracks were vulnerable to air attacks. Without the US truck, and all the railroad equipment shipped by the States, supplying their armies in 45-46 will be really difficult.

And I am sure that the allies will not have slaugthered the Russian civies as they advance as the German in the name of their crazy ideology. In the beginning of the campain, many russian first saw the germans as liberators. They quickly changed their minds. Many other sovier occupied contries will have turn against them and support the allies (like the poles).

[tstockton]

Paul,

... the outcome of any of these "what if" scenarios depends as much on the "what are we fighting for" as the period of the conflict...

Gotta agree with you on this one! If the US/UK/whomever's ("the Allies") objective was to push the Soviets out of Western (and maybe some of Eastern) Europe, I think they could have done that. Completely conquering the USSR? That's another story... It seems to me that troops of any nationality fight harder when they are fighting on their home soil -- probably often aided by the civilians they are fighting for.

I have no doubt that "the Allies" would have far outstripped the USSR materially; in 1945, the US GNP was greater than every other country in the world combined! (See http://www.combinedfleet.com/economic.htm -- at the end of the section "Overview" for my source. Fascinating article, by the way...) So "The Arsenal of Democracy" would have continued to "crank out" the materiel, and would no longer be supplying Lend-Lease hardware to the Soviets. Add in the "nuclear card", and take away the gains that the Soviets were able to glean from capturing some German scientists, and I think" the Allies" would have had the technological edge needed -- at least to "reclaim" Europe.

Another "two cents worth"...

Regards,
Tom Stockton

[DrBig]

Could the Western allies have held off the Red army with the technology and military strength they had on hand at the time? Could US M4's and M26's and British Fireflys' and Challengers have taken on Soviet T34/85's and JS II's? Would American p51's and p47's ruled the skies or would Soviet Sturmovics and Yak 9's decimated Brit tank columns? Would superior American NCO's have made enough of a difference against the massive amounts of battle hardened infantry the Russians could throw in?

The JS2 would not have been invulverable to the allied guns. The coms weren't the Red Steamroller. The Germans had a wasted army in 44-45, and gave the Soviets hell, even with all those Sturmovics roaming around. Technically the Tiger 1 was outclassed by the JS2, but still ran circles around them. Remember, if Hitler hadn't aided the Russians all along with his stupidity, things would have been quite different.

As for airpower, let me say again that Stalin had 900 Soviet piloted Mig15's in Mig alley, many of them their best aces. US F86's, never more than 150 at any given time, an inferior aircraft to the Mig, still had a 3:1 kill ratio. That's quite remarkable, and the statistics are valid.

One reasonable scenario is the Monty drive on Berlin. Churchill & Patton wanted it, only Ike disagreed. Suppose he hadn't & Monty got there first. Stalin, with his armies all primed on the Oder, just might have attacked. Then you have UK, US, Germany against USSR overnight.

[cbovill]

Assuming the Allies have successfully answered the political question: "What are we fighting for?" then I see the following:

Economically: US stops sending massive aid to USSR, this changes the whole dynamic of Soviet military production. Any factory producing light tanks or tank destroyers must now stop, retool and build trucks. Air defence is now a huge concern not only at the front, but now also deep behind the lines - Soviets are not prepared for this and will lose much productive capacity at least in the short term. US had been so successful in building the arms of war that we had actually cut production due to having too much. So the ability to increase the size of the army materially is not a concern - just training that many more soldiers and quickly. The ability to augment US armor deficiencies by continuing production of key German vehicles such as the Tiger II at the Henschel works (near the western border) and some Panther production, may help in dealing with the hords of Soviet armor.

Militarily: I see the best strategy for the US being to adopt a Manstein-esque back-hand blow against a penetrating Soviet offensive, cutting it off and letting it die. Then pushing the Soviets out of Germany and Poland. The ability of Soviet formations to regroup and re-equip will be crippled by the USAAF, so it may be similar to Falaise Gap and the race to the Rhine only on a much grander scale. Once we get beyond the old frontier, it is really hard to say as motivation and will will decrease.

Chris

[thetourist]

I think it's plain that the longer the hypothetical conflict goes, the bigger the advantage the US holds gets. Namely production, the political will to fight, and technological superiority. But in the short term, I don't see the West being able to stop the Red Army form continuing their drive to the French Border. Their advantages in numbers would be too great.

And lets not forget, those German officers that were so quick to dismiss the russian army had been retreating from early war gains for years and were humiliated.

[Mk 1]

I think the issue of time is the biggest question mark in the scenario.

How much time to we allow to pass, before we ask "Who is winning / has won?"

That question becomes one of political will on the part of the US, and one of economic reality on the part of the UK and the Soviet Union.

The assertion that the US automatically has the political will to continue the struggle is a chimera at best. The US was desperately tired of war, the UK more so. And it is fundamentally harder to turn a democracy with any degree of free-press over from "he is your friend" to "he is your enemy", no matter how hard the government tries. Let us not forget that FDR didn't even have a consensus to go to war against Germany in 1941. If Hitler had not been so obliging as to declare war against us, FDR would have been in a pickle. Now you are asking Truman, a political nobody, to convince the whole country that "Uncle Joe", to whom we had shipped all those tanks and trucks and locomotives and boots, was actually our mortal enemy? Ooh, tough sell.

But we can assume anything in a scenario. So how much time we allow is the key variable, to my mind.

- IF we limit our scenario to a near-term horizon, say 6 to 12 months, I see the Soviets winning. They take almost anything they want.

Even at the peak of the Western allies' campaigning, we were facing only the minority portion of the Wehrmacht and Waffen SS. In most points about 20-25%, though as much as 40% at peak times. Note how big the Battle of the Bulge looms in American memory. Battles of that size took place on the Eastern front multiple times every year, and since mid-war the Soviets had enjoyed an unbroken series of successes, not even suffered any temporary setbacks (like the US did in December of '44).

The US Army never faced an opponant with powerful artillery. I don't suggest that Soviet artillery was better than the US or UK -- it wasn't. The US and UK drove C&C to a new height, and US artillery practices were more responsive ... faster concentrate, faster to fire, and with better accuracy. But by the time we got into it with the Germans, they were always under severe rationing on artillery shoots. The Soviets practiced artillery fires on a scale that the US military could not imagine. By 1944/1945 NO field defenses in the world would withstand the start of a Soviet offensive. The Germans learned this, and so by late 1944 had learned to shadow their true main line of defenses behind outposts, pickets, and dummy positions. The US had no such notion.

Soviet offensives also focused on maneuver to a much greater extent than most Western campaigns. The US in that time had a few strong practitioners of the art of mechnized maneuver, but true operational-level maneuvering was the exception rather than the rule. US military history buffs still make a big deal about Patton's 90 degree turn of an engaged force, and subsiquent attack towards Bastogne, as some form of miracle. But Rybalko did 90 degree turns as a matter of course, and managed THREE 90 degree turns in a single campaign in late 1944. We all tend to apply images of today's US Army onto the force in being in 1945, but that model does not fit. for the most part the army was focused on attritional warfare on an industrial scale. The long and heavy tail, the extraordinary logistics, and the 8-week wonder in a foxhole with rapid-fire weapons and unlimited ammo ... one can understand the US Army of 1945 by thinking of an assembly line designed to drop firepower on top of the enemy's head.

The Soviets would have put three, maybe four "Ardennes-scale" offensives on the Western Allies within the first year. The openings of those offensives would have sliced through US front lines like a hot knife through butter. Whole regiments, maybe even divisions, would have dissappeared from the US OOB within the first barrage. Then multi-corps tank armies would have swept through and into that big, heavy logistical tail, with the lead elements advancing 60, 80, or even 100km per day, turning and shifting from one vector to another. The US Army in 1945 had NO doctrine for a "fighting withdrawal". There was no body of tactical theory, and it was never practiced on maneuvers. We may applaud the heroism of many small units in the Ardennes, but looking at the operational behavior the forces involved, it was a cluster-fnck of the first order. Facing a finely honed Red Army, whole divisions and corps would have been encircling and reduced where they stood on frontlines congratulating themselves for their brave defenses against fixing-forces running demonstrations, while the Army's logistical infrastructure was being pillaged to a grievous extent.

Fully fueled Soviet tanks could operate for two days (or one day and one night). US tanks needed to refuel after about 6 hours of operation. Once the Soviets were in the US tail, US frontline formations would loose every time.

The Soviet offensives would only have slowed when their pre-attack logistical build-ups had been consumed. The US Army would have been shocked and awed.

All of this would have been done with the help of 400,000 US made trucks that had already been delivered (as well as locomotives and rolling stock). Cutting off the lend-lease spigot would not have impinged on Soviet logistical capabilities for at least 3 or 4 Bulge-sized operations.

The US Army would also have been shocked by the grief the Red Airforce was giving them. Not since Tunisia did the US Army face anything like an active body of ground-attack aircraft. If/when the balloon went up with the Soviets, it would have been a very different story. On the opening of the Soviet offensive operations, Shturmovics with cluster-bombs, light bombers (including a fair number of A-20g's) and rocket-firing fighters would have fallen upon any troop movements or concentrations in droves. 80% of Soviet aviation resources were focussed on "frontal aviation", compared with only about 30% of the US resources. Soviet aircraft were very capable down low. The Yak-3 matched the Mustang on horsepower, thrust, and aerodynamics, all at 2/3rds the weight. So it accelerated, climbed, and turned notably better.

By 1945 the US Army no-longer worried too much about anti-air defense, except around fixed installations. AA units were disbanded as unnecessary throughout 1945, and the troops were re-assigned to other duties (most winding up as expensive and inexperienced riflemen). The ground-pounders would not have been happy.

But all of this would have come at a grievous cost for the Soviets, too. As good as their aircraft were, the US outproduced them two-to-one in both the number of planes, and the number of competent (-to-good) pilots. Also, the US Air Force had by 1945 a very aggressive aerial superiority doctrine. While the Soviets were busy shooting up the trenches and trucks, the American fly-boys would have been shooting up their airfields. By the third or fourth offensive, the Red Air Force frontal aviation would have probably shot their wad. Maybe well before that, as the Soviets were getting almost all of their high-octane aviation gas through lend-lease. Also, US Air Force doctrine placed about 20-30% of its resources into deep interdiction. Attacks on the transportation infrastructure were among notable successes in 1944, and a "road and rail" campaign would have been likely within a few months of the opening of hostilities with the Soviets. But that campaign, the actual one in 1944 or the hypothetical one some time after mid-45, would have taken 6 months to make a meaningful impact. That is 6 months after the units are in place on the airfield. So the Soviets would probably have had 9 to 12 months before it became really hard to run a successful offensive.

One recalls the cold-war era cartoon of two Soviet tankers sitting in a side-walk cafe in Paris, sipping their cafe-au-lait and musing "Tell me, comrade, who DID win the air war, anyways?"

- But IF we extend our scenario out past about 12 months, the Soviets are in real trouble.

I discount the likelyhood of a substantial bombing campaign launched from the UK against the USSR. Even with the range to make the trip, the B-29s would have had to fly over 1,000 miles of hostile territory, both out and back. We're not talking about the Pacific Ocean, with a few enemy-held islands and USN Subs on rescue-picket. The density of enemy airfields would have been very high, and the planes would have been under observation the whole way. Most of those thousands of shiny new P-63 KingCobras we had sent the Soviets would have been deployed in this area. They were good altitude performers, and packed quite a punch. They would have been pretty dangerous foes for limited flights of B-29s.

I say limited, because there was no infrastructure in the UK to handle more. Very few airbases had the kinds of runways and facilities needed for that particular bomber. That is the primary reason that no B-29 squadrons were deployed to the UK during the war -- there was no way so support them on the infrastructure created for B-17s and B-24s.

But after about 3 or 4 months of combat, the US Air Force would have started building new airfields. I doubt they would have built them in the UK. Rather in areas the Soviets are not charging across/towards, like in Italy, or Palestine, or Norway, or India, or wherever. After another 3 or 4 months, supplies would have started flowing in. (It would have taken about that long to build-up the road/rail/port infrastructures.) So 7 or 8 months into it, the B-29s would have started appearing over the motherland. Then bad things start to happen.

The build-up would probably have been painfully slow. Initial operations would have involved lots of recon, as the US didn't have any strategic surveys of the Soviet homeland in place. Even locating Magnetogorsk or Tankograd would have been tough. Its a big country.

During this time it is unlikely that the US would have used more than one or two nukes. Targets would have been too uncertain, and the risk of a plane falling into enemy hands too high. So the initial attacks would have been mostly conventional. MAYBE one or two "demonstration" atomic bombing attacks, which may or may not have vaporized a city center. Very unlikely to have made it to Moscow, though.

The Soviet Air Defense Forces would probably have been unable to counter incursions anywhere except around Moscow, or those that transited over the front. While the Soviets did have several capable high-altitude interceptors in prototype form, none of them had been placed into any kind of volume production since the MiG-3. There was just never really a need after 1942. So the best the Soviets would have had were the US supplied P-63 KingCobras. But those were initially deployed mostly to the VVS (Frontal Aviation Forces), and I believe the only PVO-Strany (Air Defence Forces) regiments to get them were around Moscow. It would have taken time to recall the KingCobra units from the VVS and put them up for a 30,000+ foot high defense, and they would have become precious and rare commodities as the supply of replacements and spares was cut. And there is always the question of AvGas, which becomes even more critical when we speak of chasing B-29s at 35,000 feet.

With these limitations, and their perception of their own recent successes, the US Air Forcewould probably have focused on the southern flank and gone after Soviet oil production. But Soviet facilities were not like Ploesti -- there were oild fields and refineries spread over many locations. And US air raids never really shut off the Germans' supply of Romanian oil anyways. But with B-29s flying largely un-molested for a while, the oil would have started to become a problem. And if the US hit on the idea of using nukes there, the Caucasus oil might well have gotten shut off over a period of a few months. (It would have taken a fair number of nukes, and the lines could only build them so fast.)

Ploesti was also in Soviet hands. So maybe that would have had to get shut off, too. Takes another month or two to get the nukes for that. Tough on the Romains. From that point the Soviets are mostly living on reserves, which were unlikely to be more than 6 months or so.

Throughout all of this time and activity, Soviet military industrial production is below wartime peaks. It has to be. They have no lend-lease inflow, not only of finished goods but of important components (like copper wire, or raw steel). And with no canned foods coming in, they simply MUST put more people into food production, or they can't feed their army and their workers, even at starvation rations.

In the same time, there are no limitations on US production. It continues at the same levels it achieved during the war. And a greater proportion of that production gets through, as the Soviets have no ocean-going navy to interdict the shipping.

As all of the military blows fall, another problem will emerge. But this one cuts both ways. All of Europe faced the prospect of famine in the winter of 1945/46. The following years were near-run too. The number of refugees/displaced persons was enormous, and they needed to be fed, but didn't produce anything. Re-start all the disruptions of war, and there would have been millions of starving people all over Europe. They couldn't feed themselves. The Soviets couldn't feed them (they were struggling to feed themselves). As/if the Soviets took more territory by way of their offensives, their problem on this issue grows. Even if you view their leadership as completely cold-hearted and deaf to the problem, it would have lead to untold struggles with the armies of refugees. Pestilence follows close on the heels of famine, and that affects the occupier as well as the occupied. But I prefer not to delve into these non-military aspects. I just don't know how it would have played-out.

So, in the end, I say the Soviets would have run rampant for a little while. 6 months, 12 months, 18 months? I don't know. But the initial ground operations would have shown their strong suit. After the US geared up their war effort, things would have tipped back. In the first week the US would have found out just how terribly strong the Soviets really were. But from that point on the US would have gained in strength every day, while the Soviets would have been consuming their own strength with each successive operation.

Could they have used that time to acheive enough of their goals to reach a stable, or even settled, result? I leave that issue un-answered. Again, it is outside of the realm of military discussions.

At least, that's MY take on it.

[DrBig]

Doesn't Seelow Heights debunk the Steamroller Theory?

[Mk 1]

DrBig pondered:
Doesn't Seelow Heights debunk the Steamroller Theory?

Seelowe Heights might be seen as a desperate punch-drunk brawl, or an interesting engagement. I guess it depends on how you look at it.

As I understand it, the Germans, by that point, had figured out the "defense in depth" idea pretty well. They had come to understand some of the tenets of the Soviet method of attacking in echelons, and so put up their picket lines and focussed on sighting their main line of resistance at the outer limit of the Soviet assault echelon's depth, and also off-axis to the front line, in effect forcing the assault echelon to shift the axis of its attack when it was at the limits of its administrative reach.

All in all, a very well conceived tactical response to the Soviet assault methodology. It worked pretty well. It cost the Soviets terribly. And yet, the Germans lost. And the Soviets won. As they always did, from July 1943 on. In every campaign, every operational-level action.

Yes the Soviets won at a terrible cost. A cost that would shock a Western nation down to its core, today. A cost that would have been accepted, with a shudder perhaps, by a Western nation 30 years earlier.

And while all that nastiness was going on at Seelowe Heights, Konev's front broke through far to the south, ran westward beyond Berlin, and then turned northeast and, against token resistance, drove a tank army from the SouthWest into the capital that all those stolid and clever soldaten were off in the East defending from Seelowe Heights.

Not exactly that this was some master plan. Far from it. But it was a very interesting demonstration of basic tenets of Soviet methodology, with its emphasis on masking rapid concentrations of forces to attack at multiple points, re-inforcing success, rapidly passing the maneuver echelon through the assualting echelon, and deep and rapid maneuver once the breakout had been achieved. It also showed the flexibility that the Soviet high command and field commanders could demonstrate by that time, exploiting an unforseen opportunity to achieve a strategic result. All of these were unthinkable in the Soviet Army of 1942, and readily in evidence in 1945.

Just imagine how the US Army would have responded if, even as they ground down the panzers in the Ardennes, a second panzer army had suddenly come crashing through the lines near the seam between the the 3rd and the 7th Army AO's near Saarebourg on December 20, 1944, driving 150km West into territory abandoned by Patton's march to Bastogne, before turning North on the 22nd, and so enveloping the 3rd Army as it moved North.

That would have been more in the style of the German Army of 1940/41, or the Soviet Army of 1944/45. It would have been something the US Army had never experienced, and was institutionally unprepared for.

[av8rmongo]

Mk1,

I think we are all in violent agreement that the Soviets of 45-46 were the best in the world at the Operational level of war. In my opinion however what is equally clear is that they were hopelessly outclassed at the truly Strategic level of war. Their Operational supremacy would certainly cause the armies of the US and UK etc. grave problems in Europe - that is not the only place we would be fighting them. With Japan defeated (or at a minimum contained) those soldiers, sailors, ships and airplanes would be a second front for the Soviets to contend with.

Allied with China, and operating from bases there or Korea or the Aleutians or even Japan itself, we would have a golden opportunity to penetrate the eastern provinces and sever the supplies of mineral resources found there. At a minimum the Soviets would have to respond to the incursion. And the truth is the Soviets in the East were not the same caliber as those in Europe - never have been from the time of Peter the Great on. While the story on the Allied side is much different. The troops are seasoned, they have had four years to practice supplying large ground forces over long disatnces - the difference now is that the Soviets would have no real possibility of interdicting that flow of material.

Bottom line is I think you're right the Soviets can run amuck in Europe for a while - right up until Allied boots hit the ground in the East then its all over - just a matter of time.

Other quibbles:
Quote:
"I say limited, because there was no infrastructure in the UK to handle more. Very few airbases had the kinds of runways and facilities needed for that particular bomber. That is the primary reason that no B-29 squadrons were deployed to the UK during the war -- there was no way so support them on the infrastructure created for B-17s and B-24s."

The B-29 was not sent to Europe because it was designed for the range requirements of the war in the Pacific not because the UK couldn't handle it. There was no need for it in Erope ATT, the B-24's, B-17s, Lancasters etc. were sufficient. If they wanted to operate it in Europe it would be easy. Runways are cheap and easy to construct. Operations in the Pacific show just how quickly an spot of ground can be made ready to handle aircraft. Any airfield that can operate B-24s and B-17s can be made ready for B-29s in 24-48 hrs as far as the runways, taxiways and aprons are concerned.

Quote:
"But after about 3 or 4 months of combat, the US Air Force would have started building new airfields. I doubt they would have built them in the UK. Rather in areas the Soviets are not charging across/towards, like in Italy, or Palestine, or Norway, or India, or wherever. After another 3 or 4 months, supplies would have started flowing in. (It would have taken about that long to build-up the road/rail/port infrastructures.) So 7 or 8 months into it, the B-29s would have started appearing over the motherland. Then bad things start to happen."

While I agree that the early to mid-War experience in China trying to build an adequate infrastructure for an air campaign against Japan supports your numbers - that's not the reality on the ground in Europe. Basing in Italy is a great idea - there are several excellent airfields surrounding Naples and Salerno - both in turn are excellent ports. It wouldn't have taken anything like 3 or 4 months for supplies or even 3 or 4 months to build an airfield. With the range capability of the B-29 and the Soviets inability to interdict supplies by sea you can build an airstrip in any one of the countries you mentioned within 30nm of a usable port (the closer the better) and you're in business in weeks not months.

The key is multiple fronts, multiple axes of approach and a continuous stream of supplies.

Paul

[DrBig]

I still think you guys are giving the Soviets too much credit. Bagration happened after DDAY when all those Panzer Troops were in the West. And then, Hitler never sent quality replacements to the East, yet the Germans still managed to hold them (temporarily) on the Vistula, then Oder, then Seelow Heights. Hitler's stupidity became so predictable to the Russians, that of course they could eventually turn their flank, etc. After VE-Day, the Russians would have to make BIG preparations for an offense against the Allies, which surely would be detected because we would have been doing photo recon over our Soviet brothers in arms, & I 'm sure suspicions would have been aroused when the Stalin started chasing our recons away.

After DDAY until the end, it was the Western Allies who faced the best of the Wehrmacht in both quality & quantity, & we did pretty well against them. I mean, take a look at the pathetic units that the Russians blew through in Bagration. And then all the way onto Berlin. The only quality unit I can recall is the GD Panzerkorps in Prussia.

[GMills]

I agree with chriskrum. But how about a rogue attack? Say...Patton gets an unofficial go-ahed from Churchill to secure Berlin. Patton then moves to grab Berlin and the Soviets decide to stop him. Limited objectives, allies possible but not a given, a short- sharp conflict come-as-you-are. Probably no JS2's at first. Hmmmm....

[Scott Washburn]

On the subject of a USSR-vs-Western Allies war Post VE day, there is a fascinating website http://www.history.neu.edu/PRO2/ which has copies of a study done by the British Joint Chiefs in mid-1945. It's called "Operation Unthinkable" and it addresses all the issues that have been discussed here (except the atomic bomb since that was still a secret). If war did break out against the Russians, here is what the people who would have had to fight it thought about the subject.

Bottom Line: Not a Good Idea!

[kgpanzer]

would not been a good idea is mildly put...the war has lasted so long with so much cost in life and a effects it had on economies. One reason why we never had a war with russia...and they did not start one either. yes some close calls over the years did happen that <might> could of started a war. But it didnt so all we can go on is a what if.....and if is a very big word.
Ar

[Mickel]

Fortunately "what if" is an entirely reasonable basis for a conversation in the realm in which we are dealing. I often shudder to think about what if having become a reality

My two cents:
It probably wouldn't have taken too long to get a foot hold in the far east. The round trip is pretty short compared to supporting the island hopping campaign.

What would the effect have been to virtually open access to the North Cape in the spring of '46? A landing probably wouldn't have been supportable in the long term (like by the winter of '46/'47), but the threat of one could have tied a few troops down. Any industrial targets within 15 or 20 miles of the coast wouldn't be around for long. Ditto all along the Baltic coast, although this would have required a firm grasp of the air - probably not unachieveable. Nigh on impossible to hide the build up, but that would serve it's own purpose too.