Discussion on the invasion of mother Russia (hypothetical)

[Raptor1]

Originally Posted by August

The 1945 Red Army was indeed huge and highly experienced, but so was the US Army, AND we had the Bomb, with none of the modern inhibitions about using it.

Also while the Soviets did have good tanks we were already gearing up production of the Pershing. In addition to that our Air Force was head and shoulders above theirs so any advantage in ground forces equipment would have been countered.

Finally we had another huge and experienced military force already in the Pacific. With the Chinese nationalists still in power we would have been able to invade all along their shared border. The Russians would have had to fight a two front war which they weren't experienced at.

True, but the Pershing, as far as heavy tanks go, didn't really compare to the IS-3, which was already into mass production. As pointed out earlier, the Allied air force might have been slightly superior in a few areas, but not by so much that the Allies could rely on it to offset the Soviet ground superiority.

China in 1945 was devastated from the war, and was gearing up for civil war again, so there was no guarantee they would have stayed with the Allies if another war broke out with the Soviets. The Soviets also still had over a million men in the area from their invasion of Manchuria.

The Atomic bomb is a good point, but it most likely wouldn't have worked the same way on the Soviets as it did on the Japanese. Japan in 1945 was doomed to lose, and it's government was severely divided on whether to surrender, the nuclear bombs are what pushed them over the edge. On the other hand, the Soviets in 1945 were still very much able to fight and win against the Allies. The Soviets have also shown that the more devastation is brought to their land, the more they are willing to fight and destroy the enemy.

Another point is that the Allies might not have sent over a nuclear bomb in the first place. Unlike Japan, a nuclear-armed bomber would have to travel many hundreds of miles to reach any target of strategic importance (Most of which, as stated before, were beyond the effective range of Allied bombers), I would assume the Allied leaders would think it over very carefully before launching the attack, because there would a very real danger of the bomber being shot down and the bomb falling into Soviet hands.