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Originally Posted by August
I said "launch an offensive from China (and Mongolia)" not "have the Chinese launch an offensive".
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That's not the point. It all goes back to the supply problem, if you have a mass of ever-growing communist partisans and army behind your lines, you are going to have problems supplying and reinforcing your lines. Trains will blown up, convoys ambushed, and it will all be a huge mess.
Quote:
Originally Posted by August
You mean "interior lines"? I'd say that Russias very size and lack of transportation infrastructure would mitigate that advantage until long after enough of the country had been overrun that the wouldn't be able to produce their own fuel and food to supply their armies.
Yes, I think you have a point in general. Allied supply lines would indeed be very lengthy, but its not like they would have had to be created from scratch either. By 1945 our military transportation system was already in place. A well oiled and practiced operation that spanned the entire globe, all leading back to that huge, never before seen "Arsenal of Democracy" which was itself running at it's peak of wartime production capability.
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Well, the Soviets managed to launch the Manchurian offensive in slightly less than 3 months following the end of the fighting in Europe. In that time, the Soviets moved 49 divisions and numerous independent formations, over a million men and thousands of tanks, guns and vehicles, from Eastern Europe to Mongolia and Siberia using 126,000 rail cars and prepared everything for the attack (A not inconsiderable task, considering the scale). So, if there was an infrastructure problem, it certainly did not stop the Soviets from being able to redeploy masses of men and equipment from one side to another in a reasonable amount of time, certainly not in any more time than the Allies would need to move their forces across the ocean.
That's still ignoring the problems inherent with invading Siberia, such as the terrain and weather, that would have made any successful invasion impossible to achieve until mid-1946 and probably made it impossible in any case.