@CWO:
A few comments:
On the part about the US using on Russia the same techniques it used on Japan, note that Japan is a tiny in size, and is an island nation that sits in the Pacific Ocean,
Sure I agree that Japan was much smaller. However Japanese were much more reluctant to surrender than Russians. In Iwo Jimma out of 23,000 defenders, 22,000 died defending and only ~1,000 surrendered. Russians on the other hand were known to surrender by hundreds of thousands.
Now if you are referring to Japan being smaller than Russia, know this that Japan was much more industrialized than Russia. They might have been a smaller nation but they were very powerful smaller nation.
@CWO:
The overwhelming proportion of its industry is far inland, completely out of range of any coastal bombardment.
Thats true. Russia is a huge land mass, yet B24 Liberator had a range of 3,000 miles. Given that USA would invade coastal cities around Russia, they would be able to lunch bombing missions anywhere in the country and knock out whatever industry they still had going.
@CWO:
On the part about “U.S. could repeat Pearl Harbor but this time with Russians as offenders”, this seems to imply that it was the US rather than Japan which arranged the attack on Pearl Harbor. I assume this is a reference to the old Roosevelt-wanted-the-Japanese-to-attack conspiracy theory which has been floating around for decades.
Yes. This is perhaps a discussion for another topic. But the way US lined up their fighters and ships nicely in a row and ready to be bombarded was either a complete idiocy or
they simply needed a good reason to convince public to go to war with Japan.
Even country like Poland in August 29th-30th 1939 did not line up their fighters on airfields. Contrary to popular believe most of the Polish fighters were relocated to smaller and hidden airfields and survived initial Blitzkrieg.
@CWO:
As for the part about enlisting the Chinese, I would simply point out that the Chinese spent most of the period from 1937 to 1945 on the losing end of a war with Japan…a country which, when it took on the Russians in the border incident wars of 1938 and 1939 achieved stalemates at best and got trounced at worst.
That’s okay that Chinese were not very good fighters. Their only purpose would be to open 2nd front which would forces Russians to divert resources from Europe.
So in the end this would be my plan for invading Russia in 1945:
A well coordinated invasion of Russia from Eastern Europe, Asia and Pacific led by veteran U.S. troops from Normandy and Italian Campaign. German elite army would have been used as initial strike forces supported by U.S. air force. As the US/German forces would be hitting from the East, the Norwegians would engage in another Winter war. Chinese would hit the Russians in Asia along with U.S. Pacific forces capturing key port cities and lunching bombing raids deep inside Russia. The point would have been to attack Russian on as many fronts as possible. An element of surprise could have been achieved by invading during winter when Russians would least expect. There would be actually an element of advantage for the invading forces since air force is less crippled by cold weather than ground forces. A prolonged bombing raids during winter would cripple Russian supply chain and cause mass starvation of their armies.
To sum it up, the goal of such invasion would have been:
- Paton knocks out Moscow
- German army bypass Stalingrad and goes after Oil Fields
- U.S. airforce initially criples Russian supply chain
- U.S. airforce supplies Paton army and German army with supplies via air
On Pacific Front - U.S. invades costal cities and lunching bombing missions deep into Russia
- Chinese open yet another front
Yes the downside of invading a large land mass is that it is hard to control. Nevertheless, winter could have been used to allied advantage, along with it’s powerful airforce and the fact that a large land mass when invaded from multiple locations would have been impossible for Russians to defend.