Russian or western allies air force?

[Jamusio EMP]

I am asking for help via this poll, to anyone with an opinion.

After the surrender of Nazi Germany, would the Western Allies air force been able to defeat the Red Air force?

 

[Awilla the Hun]

On second thoughts, I probably should have voted no, because the air forces can't defeat each other if their political masters aren't in a state of peace. Which they will be, unless you get a real idiot into power. None of the allied leaders just after the Nazi surrender were that stupid.

 

[Easterling]

At the end of WW2, the Red Air Force is larger than the combined air forces of the western powers (and probably more experienced too). So if on day 1 of a hypothetical ww3, they soviets are allmost certain to have battlefield air superiority. After that, things get complicated. For start, the soviet airforce is optimized for tactical support and for combat at low and mid altitude (as was the custom on the Ostfront). They don't have any more highl level interceptors, and very few strategic bombers. The western allies posess a very powerfull strategic airforce to which the Soviets have no answer in the short term. If the Allies decide to use their strategic forces to hit Soviet airbases, they can atrite Soviet airpower this way. The Soviets need to get some interceptors into service quickly, preferably jet powered. To make matters worse, the Allies have several advanced designs of their own ready for deployment, and with no more technology transfer, from the west, they are in great danger of lagging behind, so the westerners might aquire a quantitative advantage in the long run.
In summary, the soviets have a clear advantage at the start, but the allies have very good chances of making a comeback. Of course, there are other factors, that can affect the war in the air in the long run, including the performance of soviet ground forces if the initial advantage does allow them to make a breakthrough and overrun some allied airbases

 

[Jamusio EMP]

Brilliant. Thanks for that info on their air force capabilities. Really helps.

 

[TxCoatl1970]

Sorry to burst some bubbles here

I vote the WAllies would make mincemeat of the Red Air Force after six weeks and a pasting of the Baku oil complex b/c Soviet avgas refinery capacity was next to non-existent in 1945. Without fuel planes are pretty heavily-armed lawn ornaments. The Soviets were totally dependent on Lend-Lease for avgas and aluminum. Trying to set it off with the quartermaster of your war machine who can reach out and touch 80% of your country is suicidal. Stalin knew this!
Don't get me wrong, WAllied losses would be horrendous (10K+) planes lost and 200-250K troops casualties until they accomplished that, and would still lose a lot of fighters to AAA in the pushback campaign, but then the strategic initiative passes to the West.
Soviet Army forces wither on the vine without fuel, ammo resupply, or reinforcements, and get cut to ribbons in leapfrogging encirclement campaigns (Bagration in reverse)with an Inchon-landing say in Gdansk. Stalin's brains decorate a wall for needlessly risking the Rodina. The war ends after a negotiated Soviet surrender as WAllied forces push up to the Vistula w/o needing mushroom clouds to bloom over any Soviet cities twelve to fifteen weeks later.


This isn't to say the Soviets couldn't or wouldn't fight well, they just had severe logistical weaknesses Stalin and his crew were richly aware of and tried to make as much progress on the ground as possible so they could occupy wherever their flag flew when the Nazis surrendered, then bluff and bluster as much as possible at Potsdam for more.
The Soviet leadership counted on sympathy and war-weariness from the West and weren't far off the mark. They knew they were a corpse in armour at the bitter end of their rope in manpower and materiel that could pull off one last victory and stand pat from there if they had any sense, which to their credit, they did.
When the WAllies snarled loud enough, the Sovs backed off in Austria and Czechoslovakia. They knew they had a shit hand and figured they could regain whatever ground politically later which they did with the rigged plebiscites in 1948 in Poland, CS, and elsewhere.

IMNSHO, any Soviet offensive in 1945 or 1946 was ASB for the above reasons. We love big battles with badass armies, but politically, there was little point in doing so. The Sovs wanted a buffer zone in Eastern Europe and got it. The US, UK, and other nations wanted to make sure Germany was de-nazified and get 95% of the troops home. Mission Accomplished.
It took a few years before the Cold War solidified into policy as the mutual distrust and ideological power struggle began in earnest.
In AH, it's tempting to fast-forward to the 1960's where the Soviets weren't so far behind the eight-ball economically,and had their ducks in a row to roll NATO back to the Rhine in a strictly conventional tussle, but on 1945, they were in no shape to do so.

 

[The Dean]

The question was Air Forces rather than combined forces and the fighter force of the Western Allies would certainly have prevailed and as others have pointed out the Soviet Union had no strategic bomber force at that time.

 

[Easterling]

The Soviets were totally dependent on Lend-Lease for avgas and aluminum. Trying to set it off with the quartermaster of your war machine who can reach out and touch 80% of your country is suicidal.

Whoa! Are you sure about this? I knew about the other Soviet weaknesses but this is new for me. It is almost unbelievable that the Soviets would be so dependant on the western allies for such essential war-making materials. And I didn't even know he allies even had the transport capacity to ship so much avgas into russia. 80% of the VVS fuel consumption must have been enormous.

 

[HeavyWeaponsGuy]

USAF versus Soviet air force alone is a hell of a challenge for both sides, especially the Soviet one, add the British RAF and everyone else and the Soviets are donezo.

 

[galveston bay]

Whoa! Are you sure about this? I knew about the other Soviet weaknesses but this is new for me. It is almost unbelievable that the Soviets would be so dependant on the western allies for such essential war-making materials. And I didn't even know he allies even had the transport capacity to ship so much avgas into russia. 80% of the VVS fuel consumption must have been enormous.

it isn't the avgas, its the additives. The Allied Air Forces fought most of World War II with 100% Octane gasoline, while the Axis had to make do with 87% octane (with rare exceptions). Vast amounts of additives were sent to the Soviet Union, as well as even vaster amounts of aluminum. A staggering amount of other material, such as canned food, uniforms, gold braid, signals equipment (field radios and telephone wire in massive quantities) and synthetic rubber as well. This allowed the Soviets to concentrate on building weapons and a major factor in their outproducing the Germans in tanks, aircraft, and artillery pieces.

 

[Mad Missouri]

it isn't the avgas, its the additives. The Allied Air Forces fought most of World War II with 100% Octane gasoline, while the Axis had to make do with 87% octane (with rare exceptions). Vast amounts of additives were sent to the Soviet Union, as well as even vaster amounts of aluminum. A staggering amount of other material, such as canned food, uniforms, gold braid, signals equipment (field radios and telephone wire in massive quantities) and synthetic rubber as well. This allowed the Soviets to concentrate on building weapons and a major factor in their outproducing the Germans in tanks, aircraft, and artillery pieces.

And as people on this site have pointed out again and again the Soviets didn't need any of those lend-lease supplies to beat the Germans. They had already started driving the Germans back before the even the first convoys arrived.

 

[RGB]

it isn't the avgas, its the additives. The Allied Air Forces fought most of World War II with 100% Octane gasoline, while the Axis had to make do with 87% octane (with rare exceptions).

Russian production was mostly -78, I kid you not. They added the -99 they got through LL to have higher octane fuel and flew on that. By volume it was about 18-19%, but by impact Sokolov's (extremely pro-allied, and tacitly pro-Suvorov/Rezun) study that people (including western news agencies) generally quote as a source estimates the effective impact to be a tad over 50% - 57-58, of total effective aircraft fuel. So that's the absolute most ever highest number you can count on.

A special case were LL airplanes like the aerocobras, those could not consume Soviet fuel and required LL deliveries. They made up 17-19% of all combat aircraft.

 

[galveston bay]

And as people on this site have pointed out again and again the Soviets didn't need any of those lend-lease supplies to beat the Germans. They had already started driving the Germans back before the even the first convoys arrived.

those people are right if they say that the Soviets do not need Lend Lease to defeat Barbarossa in 1941, and the case can be made for Stalingrad as well. But to launch any kind of Liberation campaign to restore the Soviet borders to the 1939 (much less 1941) positions they absolutely did need those Lend Lease supplies. Deliveries of Allied Lend Lease were a trickle in 1941 (mostly symbolic only), and still very limited in 1942, but a flood in 1943 and after.

do 'those people' ever quote sources? Because there are a plethora of sources out there that list in detail the quantities of what was delivered and when, as well as Soviet production figures. The book "Brute Force" is an excellent single source reference on Allied vs Axis production for the entire war...but there are plenty of others

 

[Jamusio EMP]

Well, from what I have heard, the Russians had more air force, but no high altitude interceptors or strategic bombers. So in my timeline, I will say that the Russian weight of numbers overwhelms the Allies, gaining air superiority, but the strategic bombers aren't met by any interceptors due to their higher ceiling. These bombers destroy Russian oil fields, and within a few weeks, the allies attack with a new air force, and gain air superiority over what remains of the oil starved Red air force. But by that point, the Russians are deep into France...

Thanks everybody!

 

[Riain]

The WAllies would drill the Red AF in pretty short order. The Red AF mounted something like 95% of its combat sorties within 30 miles of forward line of troops, and 80% of those within 5 miles of the flot. In reality it was an air arm of the Red Army. In addition Red AF servicability was pretty ordinary well into the war, in 1942 they outnumbered the Luftwaffe 5 to 1 but the Luftwaffe could mount twice the sorties in a day.

In contrast the WAllies had genuine Air Forces, which operated to the full depth of the theatre on a variety of missions. As such it had aircraft like the Mustang and heavy bombers which could be used to destroy the Red AF reserves before they could be bought forward. Over the demarcation line planes like the Tempest, Thunderbolt, Spitfire, Meteor would be able to take on larger numbers of Red AF planes due to better performance, better communications and better control. In addition the WAllies could operate very effectively at night, they could mount intruder missions with planes as good as the Mosquito that the Red AF wouldn't have a hope of countering.

 

[Ward]

The soviets have some fine aircraft in the Yak -9 and the La -5 and LA-7 .

Guys just because the soviets were a tactical air force dose not mean they could not do bombing raids . They had some of the best med bombers out there in the Tu-2 ,Ilyushin IL-4 . For in 1944 the Soviets were doing 750 strong bombing raids on the eastern front .

 

[phx1138]

Seems to me there's an overriding element to consider. Couldn't B-29s based in (launched from) Germany reach Kuibishev? One nuke there turns it into a parking lot & knocks out (IIRC) about 75% Sov power production... Do you really think Stalin would risk revolution when his people are freezing in the dark?

 

[Simon]

IIRC aren't the Allies starting to get AEW/AWACS capable aeroplanes by the end of the war? If the western air forces can use this effectively then it should be a major advantage.

 

[phx1138]

IIRC aren't the Allies starting to get AEW/AWACS capable aeroplanes by the end of the war? If the western air forces can use this effectively then it should be a major advantage.

Not AFAIK. Air defense had become a fine art in the West by this point, so intercepting Sov city bombers would've been pretty effective. Intercepting low-altitude CAS, not.

OTOH, intruder ops against enemy bases had become pretty common, so it's not like the Sov bases would've been immune, & AFAIK, Sov AD wasn't near as good as the Allies'.

 

[jkay]

After big, long wars, people and leaderships are tired of war. I believe Stalin would've been purged if he'd tried to go to war soon after. No Western leader wanted war, either.

And, you've gotta keep in mind that the war ended with an American nuclear explosion, yet another reason a Soviet leader'd be purged.

 

[CalBear]

Whoa! Are you sure about this? I knew about the other Soviet weaknesses but this is new for me. It is almost unbelievable that the Soviets would be so dependant on the western allies for such essential war-making materials. And I didn't even know he allies even had the transport capacity to ship so much avgas into russia. 80% of the VVS fuel consumption must have been enormous.

Why would this be any sort of a surprise? The U.S. provided 4 out of every five trucks the Red Army uses (467,000 total, including 104K 6x6 2 1/2 ton Studebakers), 900,000 TONS of explosives,9 MILLION artillery and tank rounds, 34 million uniforms, two MILLION sets of long johns, 14 MILLION shoes/boots, 2,8 million belts, 34 million K rations, 12 million POUNDS of D rations, 257 MILLION buttons, 103 million pounds of leather, 68 million outer/inner soles, 23 million pounds of webbing for gear, 166 million square yards of cloth, 4 million pounds of white phorsphous, 3 million pounds of acetone, 26 million pounte of ethylene gylcol, 56 million pounds of methanol, 36 million pounds of phenol, 680,000 feet (128 miles) of telephone wire, 618,000 telephones, 10 million vacuum tubes, 4,800,000 feet (910 miles) of misc. wire.

Oh, and gasoline? 3,000,000 tons. The U.S. was the world's main exporters of oil pre WW II and just about the ONLY source of 86+ octane gasoline.