Patton leads German troops against USSR?

[jamespowers]

So I have always assumed that it would take a few atom bombs well behind Russian lines to usher in a quick peace if the US/Britain forces took on the Soviets … but then what? The Soviets were both highly motivated and politicized and, as the West is discovering with ISIS, it's hard to defeat an ideology - it takes ground forces - and as both Napoleon and Hitler found out, Russia is so massive, it's a logistical impossibility. I believe it would have just led to a big and unsettled radioactive mess. We'll never know - and perhaps that's a good thing.

The difference being ISIS is an ideology without a nation---no borders. There is not specific nation, homeland or uniformed troops to bomb. By the end of the war they were more tired than everyone else. If we were to strike that would have been the time. We had the bomb and no one else did.
I would have given it two weeks---maybe a month before they would have capitulated. Four or five A-bombs over Moscow and other cities and they would have been waving the white flag. Being bombed back the stone age is pretty persuasive.
Russian materiel of that age is sketchy at best. We now know that their tanks were designed to last only 1500 hours as that is what their designers calculated would be how long it would last in battle conditions. They made tons of them but fit, finish and durability was not great. This was the same across the board with all of their guns and artillery. It was all quantity over quality. When pressed it would fall apart and they would just be throwing men into a meat grinder.

 

[Two Types]

There's something about it. Today it's called "binge-drinking" and 70% of intake in British Emergency departments are alcohol-related at the weekends.

Interestingly, the binge drinking culture seems to be subsiding as far as I can tell. Me and my wife have discussed this with our friends and noticed that our teenagers don't seem to drink as much as we did. Of course, that's not exactly scientific, but even walking about in the evenings there isn't so much sign of extreme drinking as there was a few years back.

 

[Stanley Doble]

I used to know an Irishman who served in the British army in WW2. He told me "by the end they were taking guys with one lung". Whether this was literally true or not I don't know but by all accounts Britain was exhausted and starving.

The Cold War was a big enough waste. The world is lucky Patton never got the chance he craved.

 

[Edward]

that's a really good point. These days there seems to be a sort of rose-tinted Daily Mail reader view of why troops fought in WW2. I can't say I've met that many out and out patriots when I've interviewed veterans. I once asked a bloke if he'd fought for 'King and Country' - he said 'no, I was fighting for Yorkshire'.

There's a worrying fetishisation of WW2 around. Maybe it's Sixties war movies, or the Churchill Myth writ large, or Airfix caused it, I don't know, but it's as dangerous as letting the revisionists at the Great War. It genuinely fisturbs me when I see people who really seem to believe it was all a jolly jape, and who come out with mindless nonsense like "oh, lovely spirit of community during the war. Would do us good to have one again" and the likes. Very Daily Mail. Which is possibly ironic, given their record in the thirties....

 

[Two Types]

I used to know an Irishman who served in the British army in WW2. He told me "by the end they were taking guys with one lung". Whether this was literally true or not I don't know but by all accounts Britain was exhausted and starving.

Sounds like an exaggeration, but not much of one. I once interviewed a bloke who got in aged sixteen after the army overlooked his only having one kidney (his operation scars having showed up during the medical). I also interviewed a chap who was born in the USA but brought up in the UK. When he reached military age in 1943 he tried to join the US Army but was rejected for not having enough teeth. No such problems with the British Army, they didn't give a damn! You don't need teeth to fire a rifle.

 

[Two Types]

It genuinely fisturbs me ..

I don't want to picture you being "fisturbed" ....

 

[Big J]

I just want to thank everybody for thier kind comments. I'm still reading and digesting them all.

 

[Metatron]

I don't want to picture you being "fisturbed" ....

lol

I don't have the reference at the moment, but didn't the German command in 1945, fast running out of options, hope that the Western allies would join them against the Soviets as a sort of deus ex machina? Not sure how the German soldier would feel about this, however I have a number of sources that show that even right up to the collapse there were hopes among the Germans to defeat the Soviets, the western allies being a secondary consideration.

 

[Edward]

I don't want to picture you being "fisturbed" ....

:lol: Sausage fingers!

 

[Stearmen]

lol

I don't have the reference at the moment, but didn't the German command in 1945, fast running out of options, hope that the Western allies would join them against the Soviets as a sort of deus ex machina? Not sure how the German soldier would feel about this, however I have a number of sources that show that even right up to the collapse there were hopes among the Germans to defeat the Soviets, the western allies being a secondary consideration.

We in the west tend to forget, for every one German in the west, there were three in the east. So they threw every thing they had a the Russians! I am sure they kept thinking, there is no way that any army in the world could win against that many of the finest Aryans.

 

[Stearmen]

:lol: Sausage fingers!

Don't sweat it Edward, I find my self, for the lack of a better word, "fisturbed" a lot these days!

 

[Two Types]

On the subject of Patton, does anyone know of a well-balanced, well-written appraisal of his abilities? There tends to be so much crap written about him that it would be interesting to get a very level-headed appraisal.

 

[GHT]

On the subject of Patton, does anyone know of a well-balanced, well-written appraisal of his abilities? There tends to be so much crap written about him that it would be interesting to get a very level-headed appraisal.

There's only one book that I have ever read about him, it was titled Patton, A Biography, by Alan Axelrod. The book, I remember, was well written, but as I said, I can't compare to anything. I only read it because we were at The War & Peace show, when it was held in the previous showground, and the skies just opened up. Amusingly, I read it, sitting in the main marquee, alongside Monty's Roller, that had been lovingly rstored.

 

[LizzieMaine]

We in the west tend to forget, for every one German in the west, there were three in the east. So they threw every thing they had a the Russians! I am sure they kept thinking, there is no way that any army in the world could win against that many of the finest Aryans.

Especially since they didn't even consider the Russians to be human beings. Nazi racial beliefs counted Russians as subhuman -- "untermensch." And the Russian people knew this -- which is why they fought so savagely. They weren't just fighting for an ideology or a flag -- they were fighting for their physical survival as a people.

 

[Stearmen]

On the subject of Patton, does anyone know of a well-balanced, well-written appraisal of his abilities? There tends to be so much crap written about him that it would be interesting to get a very level-headed appraisal.

By most accounts, this is one of the best: Patton: A Genius For War, By Carlo D'Este, 1995. He talked to as many people as he could, including, Patton's reclusive daughter, Ruth Ellen Patton Totten, before her death. It has a lot about his early life, and his ancestors that shaped him!

 

[Stand By]

The difference being ISIS is an ideology without a nation---no borders. There is not specific nation, homeland or uniformed troops to bomb. By the end of the war they were more tired than everyone else. If we were to strike that would have been the time. We had the bomb and no one else did.
I would have given it two weeks---maybe a month before they would have capitulated. Four or five A-bombs over Moscow and other cities and they would have been waving the white flag. Being bombed back the stone age is pretty persuasive.
Russian materiel of that age is sketchy at best. We now know that their tanks were designed to last only 1500 hours as that is what their designers calculated would be how long it would last in battle conditions. They made tons of them but fit, finish and durability was not great. This was the same across the board with all of their guns and artillery. It was all quantity over quality. When pressed it would fall apart and they would just be throwing men into a meat grinder.

Ah, but the US had no more nuclear fission material at the end of the war - the two bombs used on Japan used all that they had. So following up with a double-whammy again wasn't a timely option - time was needed to garner more.
And I can't believe that there was any appetite amongst the public for another war - after all, Churchill himself was ousted from Downing Street having been proven right as the lone voice of reason in Parliament with all his pre-war words of caution, then saved the country by not capitulating and standing alone when the rest of Europe was defeated/neutral and led it to ultimate victory - but the British people were sick and tired of the regimentation that went with 6 years of war and voted him out straight away! There was zero appetite for the old former Sea Lord and the privations that people associated with him and war… so launching a whole new offensive on our former allies for an entirely new war with another uncertain outcome? No chance.
And I'm sure the US public was ready for peace too …

And quantity over quality works in conventional terms (not nuclear) - on average it took 6 US Sherman tanks to take the Tiger I down and the US had them, so they did - and plenty of piston-engine fighters to take out the very modern Luftwaffe jets (that had the first JATO rockets, ejector seats, pressurized cockpits etc) and the Germans developed the fore-runner to the AK-47 and night vision and so many other staples of modern warfare - all no match for the overwhelming numbers of allied troops. Numbers count - and Stalin didn't care a jot for how many of his people would have died in a new Patriotic War. He was a sociopathic monster with not a care in the world for sentimental things like that.

I feel sorry for Poland and the Polish to this day - they were invaded by Germany and the war was started over them - and when it ended, they were still occupied by a brutal regime; only the colour of the uniform was different and there was no saving them again.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Ah, but the US had no more nuclear fission material at the end of the war - the two bombs used on Japan used all that they had. So following up with a double-whammy again wasn't a timely option - time was needed to garner more.
And I can't believe that there was any appetite amongst the public for another war - after all, Churchill himself was ousted from Downing Street having been proven right as the lone voice of reason in Parliament with all his pre-war words of caution, then saved the country by not capitulating and standing alone when the rest of Europe was defeated/neutral and led it to ultimate victory - but the British people were sick and tired of the regimentation that went with 6 years of war and voted him out straight away! There was zero appetite for the old former Sea Lord and the privations that people associated with him and war… so launching a whole new offensive on our former allies for an entirely new war with another uncertain outcome? No chance.
And I'm sure the US public was ready for peace too …

Even the hardest-line hawks in the Truman Administration opposed the idea of a first strike against the Soviets. The conclusion of the NSC's report was that such an attack -- especially with the use of nuclear weapons -- would completely forfeit any claim by the United States to any sort of moral high ground, and would end up causing more political harm than good.

 

[Stand By]

Even the hardest-line hawks in the Truman Administration opposed the idea of a first strike against the Soviets. The conclusion of the NSC's report was that such an attack -- especially with the use of nuclear weapons -- would completely forfeit any claim by the United States to any sort of moral high ground, and would end up causing more political harm than good.

Exactly. And I can't speak for the mood in the US, but in Britain, there was actually some benign feeling for the Soviets and what they'd endured, and the socialist cause had garnered a swell of support in the Labour Party which swept the election against Churchill's conservative party - so any endeavour against the Soviets would not have included Britain and the US would have had to go it alone.
I think it's easy to judge this hypothetical scenario with the benefit of hindsight - as back then, Stalin's best atrocities were yet ahead of him.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Armchair generals never have to answer to governments.

 

[ChiTownScion]

Armchair generals never have to answer to governments.

Let alone write a letter to the next of kin of a fallen subordinate.