Would Stalin attack the West? Operation Unthinkable 1945
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- Опубліковано 26 чер 2022
- Operation Unthinkable was planned in the April and May of 1945 when British Prime Minister Winston Churchill still wanted to rescue Poland from the Soviet Union. What were the plans? Would Stalin attack the west? Let's find out.
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ABOUT TIK 📝
History isn’t as boring as some people think, and my goal is to get people talking about it. I also want to dispel the myths and distortions that ruin our perception of the past by asking a simple question - “But is this really the case?”. I have a 2:1 Degree in History and a passion for early 20th Century conflicts (mainly WW2). I’m therefore approaching this like I would an academic essay. Lots of sources, quotes, references and so on. Only the truth will do.
This video is discussing events or concepts that are academic, educational and historical in nature. This video is for informational purposes and was created so we may better understand the past and learn from the mistakes others have made.
Churchill overestimated the British Empire before the war. He still dreamed Britain could still keep the entire Empire long-term.
Maybe but he was the one who signed it away.
Before the war Churchill wasn't in power, but by 1943/44 the British (Churchill, Monty, Brooke) were well-aware of British manpower shortages and Churchill himself was very pessimistic on D-Day.
@@macoooos9204 I don't think any colonies left when Churchill was in power. Atlee was PM in 1947 and the Gold Coast was under Eden's tenure.
he was quite dilussional if I am being honest, he wanted to defeat the turks in their homeground, then wanted to keep india a colony forever and many other blunders, he wasnt smart, he was stubborn and a zealot, he was a racist in all sense of the word , operation unthinkbale should have been named stubborn drunk fat man's fantasy
Isn't it quite normal for governments to make plans for a whole host of likely and unlikely scenarios?
Yeah. It's their job to know the cost of peace and the prize of war. In fact, until WWI the US maintained up to date plans for war with Britain that all amounted to "take Canada before the British fleet arrives and uses Canada as a base."
Definitely should, though it is difficult to knowledgeably speak of the secret. Constant planning practice requires attending to even the improbable as in the "could we do this, could we handle that?" scenarios. Keeps them in practice and keeps them busy, and, who knows, some of them may come up.
@@samsonsoturian6013 War Plan Crimson survived into WW2 and I don't think it was ever officially rescinded, just left to gather dust after 1942.
They're always planing what if scenarios. I bet you right now there's war plans for going to war with just about every country in the world...both conventional, and nuclear...'cause you never know for sure, and we're just such a peace loving country...that trusts everyone....😉I bet you we have war plans for what if The Queen goes mad, and presses the nuclear button and launches rockets our way... betcha we got a plan ready to go for that too 😘
There is of course a difference between drawing up war plans for a potential war and planning for an actual war to happen. Unthinkable was not just a couple of staff officers drawing up potential war scenarios. It's not an actual plan for an actual war either, as the D-Day planning, or the German war plan for Barbarossa. It seems to be in between. And let us not forget that Churchill ordered it, the only man in WW2 to rival Mad Man Hitler in coming up and ordering his generals to come up with crazy plans and who more often then not had to talked out of them by those same generals.
It sounds to me that the Operation Unthinkable planning was 'Historical Due Diligence' on Churchill's part. He had exhausted all the diplomatic and political options in securing a Free Poland, and had to at least have a record for history that showed the military option was not feasible. Everything you said about this planning study shows that from the start the Chiefs knew there was no way they could pull it off. I think Churchill wanted something future historians could read that showed he (and Britain) had left no option off the table.
Yep, simplest explanation for the planning exercise. The military likes to have contingency plans for _everything_.
Even at the height of the Cold War, no one I served with believed that the USSR would invade Western Europe. The belief was that the small NATO commitment relative to the Warsaw Pact commitment was enough deterrence. In fact, it was really only during the Premiership of Khrushchev that the US Army really believed that any real threat existed. The fact that no moves were made during Korea seems to support this.
That said, much of the political perspective from 1945 right up until 1991 was focused on ensuring that any tensions with the USSR did not lead to a situation in which the USSR felt that they had nothing to lose. This is likely the real reason that the focus was on strategic weapons treaties vice land component treaties.
Frankly, the USSR was never really in a position to invade west between 1945 and 1960 economically, and never after 1980 militarily. The decade long rebuilding of US land component power from 1979-1988 was just one key. The window of the Brezhnev regime was largely filled with internal problems for the USSR in their economy and wrt foreign disasters that kept them grounded.
I mean, "no one believed the X would invade" is about as reliable as a wet paper tissue. The Allies said the same in 1938 about Germany. Ukraine said the same this year a few months before Russia invaded. etc.
That said the West were indeed scared of the Red Army, hence the large investment in strategic weapons as their ace in the hole to deter Russia. The large nuclear weapon program also had the double benefit in allowing NATO to not needing a large, expensive conscription army on the border with Russia. But you are right that realistically a Russian invasion for most of the cold war era was not feasible.
I do think though that the Soviets might have had a chance in 83 if they really decided to do a pre-emptive strike (assuming they were even more paranoid about able archer) but we won't know.
Ultimately, all wars start because of a miscalculation by one or both sides. Nobody starts a war they think will be difficult with a high probability of losing. One or both sides either think that the war will be a cakewalk (over by Christmas) or they believe that the consequences of not going to war will be even more disastrous than the risk of defeat. It is a credit I suppose to both sides of the Cold War that neither ever made such a disastrous miscalculation, though it did require quite a bit of investment into maintaining a balance of power.
I think you're right to look to nuclear weapons as major factor. It's much more straightforward to calculate the likely end result of a thermonuclear exchange than an conventional total war in the style of WWII. I doubt Hitler would've gambled on an attack on and rapid collapse of the Soviet Union if both he and Stalin were sitting on thousands of rapidly deliverable nuclear warheads. The end result of such a conflict would be obvious and could in no way result in an improvement of position for the initiator.
I also think you're correct to point to that 1960-1980 timeframe as having the greatest risk for initiation of open hostilities, particularly the 60s before the advent of Detente and the opening of China under Nixon, which--leaving aside the risk of nuclear Armageddon--raised the specter of a potential nightmare scenario for Soviet planners of a massive two-front war if hostilities kicked off in Europe.
The Cuban Missile Crisis paired with the contemporaneous tensions in Berlin are the most prominent of the times that brought us to the brink of war, but the late 60s may have been even more dangerous, as the USSR by that point had finally acquired a reasonably credible nuclear deterrent, and the US military was neck deep in blood in SE Asia.
I could see a Politburo with different attitudes and/or in slightly different internal circumstances gambling on the possibility of a conventional invasion of Western Europe that the US would have been too worn down to quickly respond to conventionally and too hesitant to initiate Mutually Assured Destruction for the sake of Western Europe to respond by nuking Central and Eastern Europe.
Warsaw pact was best
Better than power hungry NATO
During his time that nato wasn't that scared of soviet invasion, more of out right nuclear war, chess political games, and maybe small tactical nukes. But idk about full scale invasion as both seemed to stare at each other for ever in Germany.
Brezhnev was a different story, was an significant supporter of communism in Africa, the Middle East and in Cuba, and believed in supporting all of them militarily which stagnated the soviet economy to the point of bankruptcy.
As a Pole, I find this topic particularly interesting as there were numerous resistance fighters who didn't end their fight following Soviet 'liberation' of Poland (nowadays those fighters are commonly called 'Żołnierze wyklęci' - 'Cursed soldiers' or 'Żołnierze niezłomni' - 'Indomitable soldiers'), who were a cause of quite a headache for fresh Polish communist regime, especially in eastern Poland and partially even for the Soviets in Polish pre-war territory now annexed by the Soviet Union (modern day western Ukraine, Belarus and parts of Lithuania), with the very last one of them being caught (and killed) only in 1963. I've heard a lot about using German troops for potential Operation Unthinkable, but were those Polish resistance fighters also taken into account in this plan?
Yes, Polish resistance was thought to be on the side of the West, but the line that the British hoped to have gotten too (which would have been a miracle) didn't even include Warsaw. This was because it wasn't realistic for the west to fight the Soviets in 1945, as the planners quickly realized.
I am not sure if this is what polish history class teach but every Pole I talk to seems to favour the argument that Churchil was the big bad guy who sold Poland out, and that Britian was an imperialistic power that does not care about Poland. Was this an argument made in Polish history class?
It's a subject widely understudied in the western world simply because at the time we knew nothing of them.
@@mdtrw Not really. From my personal experience (I've recently finished liceum [Polish equivalent of high school, I think]), the one who got blamed the most was FDR, with Churchill far often being called the most sane Western politician, who wasn't blinded by the fasade of the Soviet regime, but was powerless to stop spread of communism, though the feeling of this 'Western Betrayal' or 'Yalta', as it's quite often named, includes the British just as much as the rest of the West
@@pulchnyhistorykfilozoficzn5155 I see, very interesting.
This is the reason I like Churchill, he actually tried to honour the British alliance to Poland. While the French were the first to accept the communist government...
Who else laughed when Fidel Castro's son made an appearance 24:30
nice one Tik 😂
I don't get the joke? Can someone explain?
@@corentinrobin3513 It's a common gag on the Right in the West, because Trudeau bears a lot of resemblance from Castro's younger days (when you see pictures of Younger Fidel without a beard, you'll see it) + Trudeau's mother used to hang out with Castro a few times (because Trudeau's father was also a Prime Minister of Canada, so they had a tons of chances to meet).
@@guestimator121 Less of a joke, more of a likely reality
@@guestimator121 Ah, okay, thanks!
@@guestimator121 his mum and dad had a 2nd honeymoon in Caribbean. Big media coverage due to position and media stardom.
They visited islands together, then had separate time. Her travels in the area were never disclosed. It was 9 mths before Justin was borne. The Trudeau's were good friends of Castro. There's pictures of Castro holding baby Justin next to his mum, with Pierre a few steps away.
Great topic! Top notch and intriguing. Thank you for the time and research you put into your work. I’m sure the vast majority of viewers like myself genuinely appreciate your channel.
Tik forgot one thing though. USA had nuclear weapons in Aug. 1945. They could have used one on Japan and keep the other one for Moscow so this plan could have been postponed few months or reactivated after USA dropped the first nuke on Japan. Soviet didn't had their nuclear weapons yet. Just imagine how world would look like today if Soviet Union surrended late 1945. No cold war. No Soviet occupation of several european countries. No Vietnam war! China would probably not be where they are today without help from Soviet in the post war days and there would be no South/North Korea and other pro Soviet countries would have developed differently...
@@relaxinggameplay6471 What makes you think the Soviets would have surrendered after a nuclear strike on Moscow? They had survived a Nazi invasion that killed 20 million , why give in after a bomb strike? What is so special about Moscow, Napoleon occupied it and the Russians burned it to the ground. The Russians for all their faults have the virtue of staying in the fight no matterwhat is thrown at them. they are not like Americans who are notorious for not staying the course.
@@harryr52 Atom bomb at that time was something very new. A super weapon. Japan and Soviet didn't knew how many of those USA had.I think there was a third bomb ready to drop if those first two would not make Japan to surrender. Moscow because Stalin was there and it had symbolic value. Or it could have been dropped in strategic place to wipe out as many troops as possible.
The dude seems to be working overtime right now
I like when Tik gets haters and he shuts them down the most. If reddit thinks you’re an idiot, then you are doing something correctly
Very good. Very good indeed.
Next episode:
Operation Downfall.
The 1946 US attack on mainland Japan.
A landing like Normandy but now on a massive scale!
Go to 24:30 if you want a good laugh.
Great work, TIK! Love your videos. Always well-sourced, well-narrated, and well put together. The visual aids are excellent; your insight into geopolitics, logistics, and economics are second to none. I'm always looking forward to your next video; you're like a well-oiled machine when it comes to this channel, so lucky for me I never have to wait very long. As the Brits would say, cheers! Happy to see that your channel is getting the attention it deserves, although it arguably deserves more. But I'm sure that you'll get more and more viewers/subscribers as time goes on, considering the quality of your work. :)
Wonderful, interesting vid. Thx. Keep them coming, plz. Love your varied topics ( even when they don't include tanks! )
As for Churchill, love him or hate him, let's give him some credit. He asked his staff "Can we do this?", got answered "No." , and dropped it. I suspect he was grasping at straws and knew it.
Only just starting the video. Even assuming the Allies had the men, material, and will to immediately attack the Soviet Union, just imagining the sheer logistical nightmare trying to support such an invasion gives me headaches.
especially though a wide swath of territory almost devoid of logistical capacity.
and the fact that the former ally is ready to attack the USSR, which has already lost 20 million lives by this moment, which has destroyed cities and villages, which has carried the brunt of the war, which has fulfilled all allied duty, does this not plunge you into horror?
the Russians always fulfilled all the agreements, the West each time found a loophole to betray. nothing changes.
@@jamesharms748 kinda like the Pacific?
There's no way the American's could have helped in the attack as they were removing forces from Europe to attack Japan, and were facing a demobilization manpower crunch. In order to go to war with the USSR, Truman (or Roosevelt) would have had to sell the American public on a renewed war with the USSR, which would've been politically unpopular.
It's exceptionally unlikely the western Allies could've successfully carried forward a campaign for more than half a year.
I think first of the continuing costs of these USA shifting their Pacific to Europe, or, they would have the choice of sending their Marines and Army into the USSR from the Japan theater. Siberia, at that time, had little of value, and the invading armies would have to transit huge and difficult tracts of land before finally bringing the Russian forces to bear.
I can't see it as practicable from the USA 1945 point of view.
Tik every video you release is so Interesting, as a history student your videos have given me many points to use in debates.
He misses the actual Truth to what exactly occurred between 10917-48. To establish exactly what that Truth entails. Please check out A C Sutton- The Historian who had the greatest access to the archive records. eg Even has the bank slips of the Nazis and Hitler-which convey are wholly different reality to what we are told. For the Russia- Andrei Furzov their Historian to also had the greatest access to their archival records in the 1990-00s.
I really appreciate the excellent subtitles work, thanks TIK!
No problem!
The idea that spheres of influence was a concept alien to the Americans is just silly. Monroe doctrine anyone?
Yes the duped populations of the west are not supposed to realise that today's world troubles are a DIRECT result of spreading US hegemony.
Roosevelt thought the British Empire mediævil, but the Soviet Empire was thoroughly modern, so that's alright then.
"The railway gauge was also different from the standard western gauge which would cause major delays in an advance beyond the Oder River, so ..."..
In 1945, there was a single Russian gauge rail line from the Soviet Union to Berlin (later built back). All other lines of Eastern Europe were standard gauge.
Just because Stalin knew he couldn't conquer Europe, doesn't necessarily mean he didn't want to. He was just practical enough not to try it.
Great analysis. Keep up the great work. Many appreciate your diligent efforts on assessing historical events!
👍
The West should NOT help the USSR at all not even land lease and should have let Nazis and Soviets bleed each other to death, 1v1 after which only then the west should step in to pick up whatever scraps remains of both Soviets and Nazis. Point is to let the Soviets do 100% of the fighting without helping out either side and let both sides kill each other.
I liked this video before I even started watching it because I knew it would be great, but it was even better than I expected: one of your best videos yet! I'd love to see you dig into some more post-War/early Cold War topics in the future, as it definitely ties in very closely with the events of WWII, and the Cold War could benefit from your analytical "revisionist" exposition at least as much as WWII.
Suggest you understand what Alan dulles was doing around this time. To get a fair assessment on events after the war.
I request Battlestorm Wonju!
Absolutely fascinating. I'd never heard of this before. Operation "Unthinkable" - what a brilliant name for it. Thank you for doing the research and bringing this story to us.
For me the most important reason why Stalin would not consider an all out attack on western Europe is because he was a calculating leader who for all his other flaws would quickly have come to the same conclusion as the brittish planners of Operation Unthinkable.
In fact it was his calculating mindset that caught him off-guard when Germany launched Operation Barbarossa, he assumed that Hitler and his Generals would have concluded that a two-front war was not in their interest and thus would not attack the USSR as long as Britain remained in the war.
It that "caught him off-guard", then could you kindly explain the magic qualities of woods of Sibírj known to you as «Siberia»: why there we could see spontaneous grown of founfations for factiories and placements of new railroad lines?
@@worldoftancraft It is true that Stalin was not caught off guard and he thought he was prepared. Luckily, he had US Lend-Lease, allies doing the heavy lifting in the west, Ukrainians doing the heavy lifting for the USSR, allied bombing of German industry making the arms and ammo to fight USSR and Japan not honoring their deal with Hitler to declare war on any nation that declared war on Germany even after Germany declared war on the US to support Japan, post Pearl Harbor.
@@danwilliams4096 so, today, the material part of "We won" rather than not including the USSR in its entirety does say that it was Ukrajina that helped us win. Interesting.
Crazy how so few can de decide upon the destiny of hundreds of millions
@@worldoftancraftI bet he's a nafo type
Patton would be proud if he heard of this secret plan
3 videos in last 7 days, you are on the roll 👍
Interesting AND facinating, TIK! I do wonder if Churchill knew about Operation Downfall, though. The US was going to commit the majority of their troops to the final invasion of Japan, so there was no way Roosevelt/Truman would have agreed to an attack on the USSR that would have not only left their current troops in Europe but would have required more troops (likely from the Pacific) for a long drawn out war. Japan was too important a priority for the US.
An absolutely brilliant video, yet again. Testimony to the time and effort you put In as well as the passion you have for work. It genuinely is inspiring! I know this question isn’t related to operation unthinkable but I feel as tho it needs addressing.
Why did the allies choose not to intervene against Germany during the re occupation of the Rhineland?
Appeasement began in 35 with the re introduction of conscription and so could’ve been overhauled by 36. Furthermore I believe this to be the point at which the war became inevitable. As such, why did the allies do nothing when the French army alone could’ve wiped Germany off the map at this point? It just doesn’t add up in my opinion. Thanks tik! Keep up the amazing work!
Cheers Tik - first class work as always.
Excellent! I learned a lot more about Operation Unthinkable that I didn’t know before.
As a Canadian, I would like to thank you for the Easter egg (LOL- too true for my liking).
Really enjoy all your videos.Tthank you and take care!
Germany: Epically fails preemptive invasion of the Soviet Union.
Churchill: "...I'm going to ignore that"
tbh Germany preemtive strike was a sucess
To be fair, Churchill pretty clearly recognized that the idea was a doomed venture. Even naming it "Operation Unthinkable" is pretty meaningful beyond the obvious, and British operational names were always nondescript and meaningless for operational security. Deviating from that practice showed that Churchill clearly knew it was totally nonviable.
tbf the only reason the USSR won was because of Western Aid. Without it they would have lost and would lose against the wallies.
@@johncarter449 No it wasn't. The strategic aim of the barb was to knock the soviet Union out before the autumn or lose. This was acknowledged by the logistics core. Barb may have been a operational success but it was an epic strategic fail which destroyed the german offensive strength before the gates of Moscow. If the russian had been more conservative with their strategic aims for the Moscow counteroffenseive they would have achieved a stalingrad encircled and would have ended the war in 1943.
@@bassamalfayeed1384 I mean Barb was a resounding success. It *devastated* the pre-war Red Army to the point of almost total annihilation. What the Germans did not expect was the Soviets to entirely replace that army within two months.
The Germans then almost totally destroyed that Army in Operation Typhoon. Two massive strategic victories.
It was the Soviet ability to replace losses that they under estimated.
Great video once again TIK
Love this channel!
Seems unlikely that the Soviets even had the manpower to fight of the western allies by this time. US and British casualties are basically nothing compared the the USSR. Also by August the world knew that the United States was the only country armed with nuclear weapons. Another obvious reason not to go to war.
After WW2 the Soviet Union was in no shape for another war in the immediate future and Stalin knew this more than almost anyone. Stalin was a communist despot not an idiot. The Red Army and Air force were huge but also war weary much like all of the military personal of all militaries in the world were. I'm sure if British and Commonwealth troops had been ordered to attack the Red Army they wouldn't have been very enthusiastic about it. Possibly even mutinied. The Red Army soldiers wouldn't have been enthusiastic being ordered to attack either but defending themselves from another attack is a whole other matter all together. The average Red Army soldier would have looked at it as the worst kind of betrayal and I think Stalin could have capitalized on that. The US would probably have tried to stay the hell out of the mess or negotiate a truce. The US government would not have been able to justify American involvement in a British war of aggression. The American public weren't very enthusiastic about US involvement in Europe to begin with and wanted to focus on Japan as they were the nation that brought them into the war from the very moment the US declared war on Japan.
Plus the US would've seen this as a British power grab. They might've condemned it, just like the Suez Crisis
Thw west always hated Russia, op unthinkable was the materialization of that hate, just like the Nazi-Holocaust apologysts that say: StaLIn Was wOrsE tHAN HitLer
Stalin WAS worse than Hitler just off of his body count, but that doesn't make either one of them good. Monsters are monsters no matter who they are or what country they are from. Both of them were more than willing to kill anyone they thought needed killed for their sick ideology. Classic case of what about ism in your statement. I'm no holocaust denier but I won't ignore the crimes of Stalin and his thugs either.
@@maiqtheliar789 "Stalin WAS worse than Hitler just off of his body count" That's a lie, those numbers have been infated by western propaganda over the years (just check wikipedia, it's that easy). The Holocaust alone killed more people than Lenin, Stalin and Krushev together.
"Classic case of what about ism in your statement" No, you are, you are giving excuses as an apologyst of Nazi crimes.
In the end, the Nazis were not that bad, THEY WERE JUST MURDERING JEWS AND COMNUNISTS.... I want to puke.
Stalin was indeed a criminal, but blame where it's due. To compare or equal him or the USSR to Nazi germany is a sick wet dream of western Russophobes.
@@maiqtheliar789 They must've shadowbanned the dude you replied to. What'd he say?
This is one of these channels where reading long comments really worth it.
TIK, I just watched this video for the second time - it was that enjoyable and fascinating. Thinking about the “What ifs” of history continues to be a wonderful way to look from outside the actual vents. Thanks again. PS - I did read the book you suggested for the topic - a fascinating review of a what if of history.
In 1945 , the British referred to soviets as ' Russians ' . Most recently , a British newspaper , 'Telegraph' I think , referred to Russians as ' soviets.
It seems as nothing has changed since 1945 .
Btw , loved that picture of 'western communist ' :) .
With the exception of master&owners of Lyfe there and other insignificant affairs, but your one knows better as we read.
History is rich and there's still loads of interesting stories about WW 2 to cover. Keep it up. :D
The cold war and different conflicts around the world in the years after WW 2 is interesting and deserve some attention and maybe some explaining. Watching your videos is more my style, than digging through a few tons of books, so pretty please ....
"History is rich."
It's Rentier Class isn't.
agree. look into Allan Dulles and what A C Sutton has researched.
Thank god it is Monday. Thanks again for this insight, TIK.
Another great topic!
I think this is also a reason the vold war never went hot.
Even when removing nukes from the equation, both alliances were too big and any war would have become a slow atrttion war that would devastate the economies of both sides.
Quoting Stalin and believing what Stalin said at the time is a very dubious start to this episode.
Thanks for the videos. I’ve learned so much
Brilliant as always TIK
I think this is the first time I've ever heard any commentator on second world war history actually acknowledge how obviously fickle the US "friendship" to the UK was (and always has been). It's not as much a case of being the one to hamstring their ally; but more a case of visiting their hamstrung friend while they're in hospital, undoing their stitches, digging a finger in - all the while talking sweet with a plastic smile on their face. Oh and then going home to your friend's woman and spending the next several decades appropriating their family and writing books about your adventurers; making sure to...put them in their place as the good, docile dog they are :^)
The first years of the war were basically the US charging as much as they could possibly get away with for substandard equipment that Britain needed.
Very much so!
WW2 was such a disaster for Britain that we've basically made up myths to make it seem that it wasn't too bad. "special relationship", "allies", "victory" etc.
Not many "victorious" countries get occupied by millions of foreign soldiers and in financial servitude to them.
As an American taught in schools in the 60s and 70s and being an active duty USN through the late 80s through the mid-90s, I was never taught nor permitted by the leadership around me to short the contribution by all parties of the Allies. Anyone who said otherwise was quickly jumped on but was seldom heard of except as being quickly identified as being of the obnoxious few who are always there if one looks for them.
@@Arkantos117 That narrative is false. During Operation Torch, the U.S. 1st Armored Division used M3 tanks because the newer Shermans had been sent to the British.
I think morale would’ve been everything here. An attacking Allied force would be severely demoralized and not have their “heart” in endless war. The Soviet reversal would’ve had high morale.
Same with the inverse. Stalin ordering a war of aggression against former allies would severely impact the morale of his troops, who were high morale because they were defending their homeland and wiping out the aggressors.
Amazgin job as usual TIK.
During the entire video, I was playing Command and Conquer: Red Alert in my mind. Thank you for another great video TIK.
Minor point of order: the B-29 was the Superfortress and entirely deployed vs Japan. the Flying Fortress was the B-17. Otherwise, as excellent a video as ever
but who can say how they would be deployed in this scenario.
...it's an aircraft. Y'know, a flying machine? B-29s could have been transferred to the European theatre of operations in a matter of days. The B-17 was obsolete by 1945 and probably wouldn't have been deployed much against the Soviets, as it would take too many losses from the numerous Soviet fighters and AA guns. In contrast, the Soviets lack of good high-altitude fighters would've made it extremely difficult for them to intercept B-29s. The B-29 was just too fast and flew at too high an altitude for the Soviets to really do anything about them. The only way to intercept B-29s would have been for the Soviets to have a flight of LA-7s (the only decent high altitude fighter they had) loitering at high altitude directly in the path of the bombers, which would be hugely expensive for the Soviets to maintain in precious aviation fuel.
It really can't be overstated how much of a problem a lack of good long-range bombers would have been for the circa-1945 Red Army in a war against the western allies. They had no way to stop the momentum of an allied offensive by disrupting their supply lines, so as soon as the allies achieved a major breakthrough, the situation would just get worse and worse for the Soviets with no way to turn it around. Their only hope was that their defense in depth (which was, indeed, very doctrinally sophisticated by the standards of the time) would prevent the allies from achieving a breakthrough in the first place.
@@dark7element and those La-7's would have to deal with p51s and late model spitfires.
@@bobdole6768 That's part of it, but a lot of Soviet industry was very far from U.S. airbases in France and British airbases in Iraq, so B-29s would have had to fly a lot of missions un-escorted or partly escorted.
It would have made it even harder to protect Soviet forward supply bases and railway depots, though. The La-7 was the only thing they had that would even be able to put up a fight against a P-51 - the P-51 was better, but not so much better that the U.S. wouldn't be taking losses.
The silver lining for the Soviets would've been that their more numerous Yak-9s were excellent low-altitude dogfighters. Likewise, their IL-10 was a good low-altitude bomber. Until the Soviets started running low on aviation fuel, allied troops would've been under constant air attack while their own close air support would be far less available. This would've been a real shock to their morale since they weren't used to the other side having access to air support. Their anti-air tactics were pretty lackluster (even the Germans, with their shitty bomber force, managed to inflict significant losses on them a few times). But the Soviet airbases would be destroyed within a few months so the impact of Soviet aviation would quickly dwindle.
Once nuclear, the Royal Air Force was equipped with 87 B-29s in 1950, but in the late 40s would have used the Avro Lincoln (+ Lancasters).
@TIKhistory I suspect the British planners assumed that both Allied ground and air forces would have been considerably reduced by the hypothetical 1 July date. Historically at the end of the war there were in NW Europe alone:
- 18 British/Commonwealth divisions (including 6 armoured and 1 airborne, and this excluding the the 1st Airborne Division)
- 1 Polish armored division
- 61 American divisions (including 15 armored and 4 airborne, 2 of which - 2nd and 3rd armored - were "heavy" divisions with 6 tank battalions vs 3)
- 13 French divisions (including 3 armored)
- Total 94 divisions (including 25 armored and 5 airborne). These were actual divisions, not equivalents, and didn't even count forces in the Mediterranean.
Subdivisional units included 7 armoured brigades and at least one infantry brigade (the 214th) in 21st Army Group, while the Americans had 31 separate tank and 52 tank destroyer battalions in NW Europe on 1 January 1945, with 6 more tank and 4 more TD battalions en route. There was also 13 Mechanized Cavalry Groups (regiment equivalent), 7 Separate Infantry Regiments, a Parachute Infantry Regiment (517th), the 117th Cavalry Squadron, and about 3 independent battalions.
Meanwhile in Italy 15th Army Group had:
- 9 British/Commonwealth divisions (2 armoured) and 4 armoured brigades
- 7 American divisions (1 armored)
- 2 Polish divisions and 1 armored brigade
- 1 Brazilian division
- 1 Greek brigade
- Total 19 divisions (3 armoured) and 6 brigades (5 armoured), plus the Jewish brigade and miscellaneous Free French and Italian troops.
Subdivisional units in the Med totaled 6 US separate tank battalions and 4 tank destroyer battalions, the 91st Cavalry Squadron, and 2 infantry regiments (including the 442nd).
Total Allied ground forces in both theaters came to 113 divisions, including 28 armored divisions, and at least 14 brigades (of which 12 were armoured) plus a slew of American tank and TD battalions. Combined the USAAF and RAF had 28,000 planes, evenly split between them. Allied artillery was also generally more effective than the Soviets'. I think that combined with their advantage in the air and backed by American industry these ground forces would have been more than a match for the Soviets.
Yes, in march 1945, usaaf had 5248 p-51, p-47 fighters and raf had 1803 spitfires, early jet fighters and hoker thypoons.
But, in this scnario, british officers thinks that they would have only 6048 tactical aircrafts 😅
Great video !!!
Another well reasoned analysis by TIK.
Had Operation Unthinkable been carried out and/or Stalin attacked the western Allies in mid-1945, would future historians have regarded the events that followed as a continuation of the Second World War or would the Soviet vs. Allies conflict have been regarded as a Third World War?
It would have been called 'Command and conquer, Red Alert'.
Interesting thought... I think a distinction would have to be made between the traditional "Second World War" and a Soviet vs. Allied Powers war because the participants/belligerents have switched sides
Obviously a continuation, no different than Japan joining in 1941 and prolonging the war well after Germany’s (who started the war) defeat
@@klown463 but to be pedantic, some people say Japan started WW2 years before when they invaded China.
Anyway. I think an argument could be made that the nature of the hypothetical conflict would warrant a distinction from the Axis vs Alllies war. Think about it. World War 2 could then be viewed as being started by Japan in 1937, escalated by Germany in 1939, then continued on with the USSR in 1945 effectively 'replacing' Germany as a belligerent (esp. If we consider that USSR may ally with Japan in an Unthinkable scenario). Sure you could say it's all a continuation of 1 war, but at that rate you may as well argue WW1 is just a mere continuation of WW2, the logic isn't that far off tangent IMHO.
@@logangustavson "ith the USSR in 1945 effectively 'replacing' Germany as a belligerent" That was the wet dream of some of the most russophobic politicians of the west.
The last comment on the operation just not being worth it is incredibly true. I was just thinking what would the average Brit think after they won the new Soviet war seeing the allies likely would've suffered hundreds of thousands of casualties plus countless civilian deaths. All so that some Eastern European countries could have a different leader. No one is signing off on that plan.
Great content as always. I love these discussions.
Exactly, it was a stupid idea from the get go. Not to mention that he'd have to convince a people that was largely sympathetic to the USSR to all of a sudden wage war against it, add to that a very strong labour party, strong unions and an army made up of warweary working class people and good old Winston might just as well have found himself fighting an insurgency at home rather than am offensive in the east.
The affect of the next phase in the would bring brief but tremendous suffering to Europe. Mass starvation, gulags, terror bombing, and possibly the use of nuclear weapons on even more cities than in our time, makes even an Allied victory seem it would have caused more suffering as the next 45 years of authoritarism in Europe did
@@jackphillips6742 "as the next 45 years of authoritarism in Europe" The Post war USSR has been demonized by western propaganda like there is no tomorrow. Certain powewr spheres of the WEST always hated Russia, and they still do nowadays, what was the reasoning for op unthinkable? We want the soviets submited to OUR WILL. That says it all..... Op unthinkable showed that the UK was ideologically (when referring to the USSR) the same scum as Nazi germany.
Absolutely fascinating!
Great topic 👍
I noticed you said the Russians had no equivalent to the B-29, but I remembered they copied it as the Tu-4 Bull, and looked it up to see that the first flight was in ‘47, so later than the scope of this video. Very informative!
They literally copied the Boeing logo on the control foot petals. They copied some b29s that made emergency landings after bombing Japan. They ceased the aircraft, and they even put the pilots in pow camps. If I remember correctly, some of the pilots didn't make it back till after the war.
Love the photo of Trudeau lol
It's not just Nazis who claim the UK stabbed Poland in the back. I have talked to a number of Poles who hate Nazis but still view what happened during WW2 in this light.
The u.k. Did not “ stab Poland in the back” that is nonsense, it would have been better for the British to not have gone to war with Germany after Poland was invaded, the brittish government absolutely put polish sovereignty ahead of its own interests
Lol that Trudeau reference was amazing
It was unthinkable for the west but expected in Eastern Europe. Many resistance fighters were waiting for the americans and fought against the communists for years.
"but expected in Eastern Europe" Eastern europe was always a russophobic pro nazi region.
In my opinion, the Soviets had taken such huge losses during the war that they would be ill-prepared for another gigantic conflict.
Britain and the US had taken less casualties but their populations were very tired of war. So it would be politically impossible for both sides to start anything.
I think there was absolutely a limit to how much further both sides could have pushed their respective war-weary populations into keeping a hot war running.
This might have pushed the two sides into taking "shortcuts": the US clearly had a shortcut it was able and willing to take in the atomic bomb, and no doubt the Soviets would have looked for something similar it might have been able to use to escalate the war to a faster conclusion at its advantage, and deployed it if they could.
But, after a certain point, internal security for both sides was going to have to be a bigger problem than the war effort: the Soviets were struggling to feed their population even through the Cold War, the west was riddled through with communist sympathizers.
And, I think it's useful to note that the Cold War holding pattern suggests a pretty clear model for how both sides would have conducted a hot war: the USA were settling into a Containment Policy that regarded the Soviets as a limited local problem that needed to be kept bottled up within a certain acceptable territory, while the Soviet Russians were and, in the post-Soviet era continue to be laboring under a couple long-time Russian obsessions: to obtain a warm-water sea port, and to build a "buffer zone" that would insulate their territory from the West.
Any hot war between the two sides would have focused a lot - maybe entirely - on those goals, with the West being content to keep the Soviets tied down within their borders long enough to recover from the war and decide what to do about the Soviet Problem, and the Soviets being content to gain and keep the limited territory needed to build their buffer zone and open a warm-water port to solidify their longer-term goals for achieving World Communism, with a Cold War playing out over the longer term, one way or another, with the main question being whether a hot war happens first, and whether the hot war could have gained the Soviets enough of an advantage to have changed the eventual conclusion of the Soviet Union in any significant way other than prolonging their eventual collapse..
Great analysis
One of your best videos.
This is a very interesting vid Tik, well done!
Have you done a piece on the "steady diet of pro-Soviet propaganda" you mentioned, by the way? It's something I'd be interested in reading about/listening to.
I would say that the Soviets had experience in conducting a “large front war”, the allies had only ever fought the germans in limited sectors, the largest action the allies commenced liberation of France was against B rate german units who abandoned the area rather quickly. Even if the allies would have done well in pushing the soviets out of Germany, I doubt their effectiveness in the vast eastern european fields where the Germans themselves had struggled against a much weaker Soviet Union. I’d image the logistics would be nightmarish.
German on the western front had better air power and mechanization. Not B rated at all. African Korp was completely mechanized, with the best equipment
@ German units on the western front was made up of old vets and anyone not suited to serve on the eastern front. That's why France was so quickly lost. The heavy tanks were all concentrated in the Eastern front while Americans kept confusing panzer 4s for tigers. And about the Afrika corps, again it was a small front with very few troops with very limited supply. The allied side had vast superiority of supply, Naval power, and Training. Though they lacked manpower and resources in the beginning.
@ although yea Germany concentrated good mechanised units on the western front after loosing france
@@panzerofthelake506 Nonsense. The greatest German concentration of armor anywhere was squarely opposite the British and Canadians around Caen. Those forces were then ground down and used up until their entire western front collapsed.
@@panzerofthelake506 Not really most elite german divisions 1st,2nd,9th,10th,12th and 17th SS divsions, with fully equiped Panzer Lehr,2nd Panzer with 9th,21st Panzer were all in France some of the best equiped and led Divsions Germans had to offer were stationed in Normandy. The Soviets would also have been crawling their way to Berlin without Alliied raw materials,food and trucks
This is brilliant stuff.
Best part of Monday right here
Quick question. Does your number of planes for the Allies include all of the planes that the Americans had in the war against Japan? Also just the amount of ships that the Americans had cranked out for the war in the east would have been much more than the Soviets could have handled. That seems pretty unimportant though because the Soviets were trapped behind the Dardanelles and England's Navy would have sufficed to destroy the Soviets.
...and the fact trhat America was still geared up to continue production, severial aircrafrt carriers, including 3 BIG armored jobs, [ Midway, Coral Sea, and Roosevelt ] laid down during the war were just finishing up about this time...Severial Exxex class had been started but cancelled about this time, and so on..
It's amazing we had any kind of peace post WW2, let alone that what we had lasted as long as it did.
Another great video. Don't know if you have noticed but there a lot of anti Churchill vids online complaining about his "part" in the 43 Bengal famine. Could you do a video about this I wonder ?
Extremely well done as usual, Tik- I am of the opinion that you are one of the very best at what you do. I have only one very minor point to make on the 'present tense hypothetical' grammatical construction of the title, 'Would Stalin attack the West?...' . It occurs to me that this work, which otherwise patently represents not simply a 'good', but actually a 'superb' standard of achievement, deserves to adhere to to the grammatical rules of what I can only assume was intended to be a 'past hypothetical' question, properly posed as such: 'Would Stalin have attacked the West...?
Sorry to be so pernickety, Tik- I know I should not take for granted these marvels of the history documentary genre.
A better title would've been "Would Churchill have attacked the Soviet Union?"
Yes, absolutely, that would have been a better title- to a different video.
@@kiwitrainguy
Speaking of Russia attacking the West. Do you think they had an expansionist foreign policy during the Cold War as it it commonly believed? And do they have one today regarding the current events?
Their expansionism never faded in the Cold War, but they switched from conventional to subversive methods to avoid the costs of another world war. Today's Russia is not the same animal.
If Stalin didn’t want to overrun the West do you think this also applied to the ice breaker theory? Or is that different because Germany was squeezed between the Allies and the Soviets and the USSR wasn’t yet exhausted by war?
The USSR was more interested in consolidating its new buffer zone and making some type of recovery effort. The US, which never wanted heavy investment in the ETO in the first place, was planning on moving as many desperately needed infantry divisions west to fight Japan. The 16 US Armored divisions would be left in place temporarily while a decision was made on their future.
Very interesting TIK.
Fast forward to 2022 and how are the odds now?
Good video.
Gotta love the Trudeau bit at 24:28 lmao
I agree with your deduction, as someone living in Britain I stand by Churchill as our leader against Germany but you can see that the entire idea of throwing everything away for Poland is insane 😂
Churchill was an awful man and should be despised.
Except for his being exactly what was needed from Britain and the world in 1940. His critical role in those specific, extreme, circumstances override all his problems.
@@88porpoise May I ask why you think he should be despised?
@@TAM1906He was a racist, warmonger, mysogenistic, imperialistic attention whore who got many thousands of people killed with his blunders in WWI and was all for using poison gas against the local populations.
Outside of his WWII service he should be despised. But what he did for the world in WWII is why I don't actually despise him.
@@TAM1906 His opinions about the people in the colonies.
"racist" would be putting it a bit lightly.
@@knightlypoleaxe2501 While racism is frowned upon today, it wasn't back then. I don't accept this as an argument to suggest he was bad. You can't tell me that a man who saved millions of lives is bad because he was of his time.
Nice job sneaking in a pic of our fearless Prime Minister. I was so proud for 0.256 seconds, then threw up in my mouth a little (ok, alot).
Well done Sir!
It's a pity that Justin never got to meat his father.
Another big reason as to why FDR probably didn’t support such an operation was because he seemed to be very sympathetic to communism. Historians often describe him as a “Liberal Internationalist” and he advocated for things like the UN and the founding of a world government or “global governance” via multilateral organizations. He had supported such organizations like this since the 1920s with the League of Nations and was of course on board with the United Nations.
Not to mention that he was a Freemason, during the war, the military launched a secret operation to uncover potential communists and spies in the US as part of Operation Venona and identified many people in the government such as Cordell Hull, Henry Wallace, Henry Morgenthau, Frank Murphy, Alger Hiss, and even FDR himself as being potential communists,
Henry Wallace was often accused of being a communist several times and was eventually fired by Truman for having soviet sympathies, not to mention he was once allegedly endorsed by the American Communist Party.
Cordell Hull was less suspicious but the venona project found some of his staff were, many of whom turned out to be spies.
Henry Morgenthau greatly supported and organized the Soviet lend lease program, created the Morgenthau plan.
Alger Hiss worked for Hull as ‘Special Advisor on Eastern Affairs.’ He also supported dividing Europe between east and west, he was later imprisoned in 1951 for being accused of being a communist.
To conclude, many of the people who were in charge of the post war global-economic and diplomatic policy with the USSR in the FDR administration were communists or suspected of being spies. So considering how we was willing to negotiate with the Soviets so easily and surrender this much land to them makes it very suspicious. It’d be cool if you could make a video on this though.
Yes, TIK please make a video about the communist infiltration of the US Gov't in the FDR years, if not earlier, and the suspected impacts it had on geopolitical events (including Chinese Civil War).
The idea that FDR was a communist is ridiculous. He was sympathetic to the Soviets but did not share their ideology at all. He was a social democrat and believed in many leftwing policies, but he did not think the economy should be centrally planned or controlled by the state, he did not believe in workers owning the means of production or abolishing capitalism.
“I am fighting Communism. I want to save our system, the capitalist system." -Roosevelt, 1935.
He is generally regarded poorly by communists, as the politician that saved capitalism (from itself) in America, rather than destroy and replace it. People mistake his belief in economic interventionism as socialist but it wasn't.
I doubt many of the higher level people were communists either. The most likely person would've been Wallace but even then he did not express much support for soviet style economics. Lower level people was more believable. It's also worth noting a lot of communist "spies" in the 40s weren't spies, but rather Americans who turned over secrets (especially in the atomic program) because they believed they needed to prevent a war with the soviets. There were also some sellouts who weren't motivated by ideology at all.
@@pax6833 I’m not saying he was a communist but he was certainly sympathetic to them and his beliefs influenced much of the post war world.
@@pax6833 the more important question is who around him was and what influence did they have? I dont believe FDR was a communist but there are enough suspicions on enough people around him that it warrants a deep dive.
@@pax6833 He wasn't a communist, but he was pretty sympathetic. He was a weird and calculating president, it does make me wonder about his advisors
The simple fact is neither could side had the ability to launch a successful invasions of the other.
Britain was at the limit of its manpower and economic resulting in constant reductions of British commitments and increasing proportions of Americans (from roughly equal in Normandy to the US having about three quarters of the forces in Germany). France was starting to rebuild and as much as Nazi Germany's leaders talked about allying with the West against the Soviets, their economy was in ruins and their army dismantled and I seriously doubt the general German soldiers had any interest in it in large enough numbers to be decisive in the short term.
And the British public clearly demonstrated that they would not accept more war when they decisively voted Churchill out of office.
Even the US was reaching its limits by 1945, cutting back various manpower plans and facing pressure to demobilize units in Europe in May 1945.
And the Soviets were also in terrible shape.
In the end, the defender in such a war would have a huge advantage in overcoming their war weariness while the other would seriously risk the public rising up against such a war, especially after years of propaganda about how awesome the enemy was. After all, it is much easier to rally the people to the cause against an invader. Along with general advantages of the defender it seems clear to me that any offensive war in Europe from 1945-50 would be a disaster.
The US of A did not reach its stride until the last year of the war with 40 % of GDP towards the war effort. The other two big allied powers were at some 60 percent of GDP towards their war effort. I would concur that Operation Unthinkable was ill advised, immoral, and simply insane.
@Shaun Young -very good. That the British might want to start little wars again reeks of a misunderstanding of total war. Even the US totally isolated from almost all of the horrors of WW2 was ready to set back and enjoy the peace. A British plan to fight again over possessions is reminiscent of the dynastic wars of Europe in the previous centuries, those were fought by relatively small professional armies not the modern Total War, the modern total war took all the resources of the involved countries.
@@craiglarge5925 The problems for he US are more war weariness and manpower as a result. Telling people in mid-1945 that not only would their family members stay overseas for years longer but millions more would join them to fight the juggernaut that destroyed most of the Nazi war machine would not have been very popular. Oh, and starting another war with your ally while still not defeating the country that attacked you (no way does Downfall happen with the US fighting the Soviets).
Economically they still could easily keep going and they still had a manpower reserve, but people were already expecting their family members to come home from Europe and there was already difficulties with redeploying troops to the Pacific.
@@88porpoise Actually, I don't think you can say that "economically" they could easily keep going. In the sense of having enough resources and industrial capacity? Sure, but what about in terms of actually paying for it? The U.S. had relied heavily on selling war bonds to fund the war effort, and the willingness of the public to keep buying those was already drying up in 1945. Compared to the other nations involved, the U.S. way of funding the war was pretty much the 1940s equivalent of a "Kickstarter" campaign. Even the business leaders who were most inclined to be anti-communist would have revolted if the U.S. started heavy-handedly nationalizing industries or inflating the currency.
Are you kidding me? The United States was just warming up. Industrial production way up over the Soviets. Once Lend Lease was cut off, critical supplies in war materials would no longer be available to the Soviets. Allied Air superiority would be achieved in short order. The Soviets were bled white by 1945...the United States didn't even lose a half million military combatants yet. The list goes on and on. It would have taken 2 to 3 years for the allies to bring the Soviets to an end. Having said that....the Western Allies lack the will power to ever see this theoretical continuation of the war.
Where did you obtain the image of the GI's at 21:07? I would like to have it.
Hey TIK, long-time big fan, I have a question that I think would be interesting to discuss. I am currently in the U.S army, we have something called a M.O.S(military occupational specialty) much like many other modern western armies. This is essentially one specific job within the military system, this can be anything from a cook or mechanic, all the way to mortarman or tanker, etc. While the army gives basic combat/rifle training to all soldiers, there is an obvious disparity in skill between those who are infantrymen by profession and those who belong to support or what you might call "Rear echelon" type role/position. My big question is how did the German Army organize their soldiers between frontline/combat type troops and support or rear echelon soldiers? Was it any different to that of the Soviets and western allies? And furthermore, since in the modern age, most western nations no longer practice conscription and mandatory service for male members of society, we have the benefit of choosing which job we want when we enlist in the military, for those members of the german society who were drafted/conscripted, how did the german army fill the needs of their divisions using the conscripts? Were those who had a technical specialty given special jobs/commissions such as engineers, mechanics, doctors, and other jobs? Thank you so much if you manage to receive this comment. Keep up the great work!
Adding on to this, there is something called a tooth to tail ratio, essentially the number of combat troops, compared to the support staff that enable their operations. In the modern us army I believe it is somewhere around 3:1, that being 3 support staff for every 1 combat soldier. In the past it was smaller (during ww1 it was about 1:1 for the us army) what was this ratio for the Whermact and perhaps other armies during the Second World War?
The Soviet skew on tanks is mostly a matter of relative pricing and tactics. First their one vsst open terrain that favors tanks and mobile offensive weapons. Second they got lots of steel but not so much high grade aviation fluid and not so many big industrial cities pushing out trainloads of cars.
"Second they got lots of steel but not so much high grade aviation fluid and not so many big industrial cities pushing out trainloads of cars." That's what the Nazis thought and yet......
Good video. Britain was as incapable of helping Poland in 1945 as it was in 1939, which begs the question, why did we even promise to protect Poland in the first place?
I can remember seeing a Glanz video years ago when he said he found documents in the Soviet archives, that suggested the Soviets were holding 2 Tank Armies in reserve in Eastern Europe just in case the west decided to attack them. I doubt that they figured in the Unthinkable document.
I think Poland to Britain & France was a "line in the sand", step over it and it'll be war.
Hitler had taken The Saarland, The Rhineland, The Sudeten Land, Czechoslovakia, Austria so they decided that enough was enough.
They didn't "promise to protect Poland".
They said they would declare war on Hitler if he attacked it, which isn't the same thing.
The Guarantee was not directed against The Soviet Union at any time.
Very interesting subject and I loved the JT photobomb lol.
I remember reading in a book a while back on the Korean War that Stalin had planned an invasion of Alaska and Khrushchev’s son had said that 100,000 troops were camped in Siberia across from the Alaska standing by for the order but I don’t know if this is true or has been confirmed. Apparently it was cancelled upon stalin’s death in 1953 but the book also talked about how there were multiple plans for a preemptive strike he had devised which were abandoned upon his death.
Especially given that the Soviets had no means of sending 100,000 troops to Alaska to invade I think it would be silly to have them just hanging out in one of the most inhospitable environments in the world. Then again I wouldn't put it past the brilliant minds of communists to think that revolutionary fervor alone would suffice to overcome the Bering Strait once peacetime settled back in.
I really like how you pointed out about Roosevelt being a Soviet sympathizer, although I felt that The Politically Incorrect Guide of History was quite biased towards a certain type of American conservative idealism, knowing that fact alone really puts a lot of US policies within that period in perspective. Keep being awesome, TIK.
Soviet sympathizer is putting it mildly.
Complete crap. "Realistic" is not the same as "sympathiser". This is just the traditional McCarthyite smear. Guys, the Cold War is long over.
@@kenoliver8913 it's not meant to be an insult, you gotta keep it in the perspective of someone who just saw the Soviet Union form and by the outside it looked like it was doing quite alright. Remember, during the Great Depression the USSR was the only country to LOOK LIKE they were left unscathed, plus a lot of the reports coming back from Russia (made by American Marxist journalists no less) kept praising their economic system and conveniently left out famine and authoritarian methods. Far from me to say that the entirety of the Soviet Union was irredeemable, too, I am just seeing Roosevelt's views as a product of his time.
Roosevelt's administration also had over 300 Soviet spies (including his VP from 1940-1944!) who influenced policy, implementation, and stole secrets to keep the Soviets technologically advanced. Even after Roosevelt died, they continued to ensure the west made unilateral concessions to the Soviets at every turn, leading to the loss of China and Soviet Hegemony in Eurasia.
@@michaelmccabe3079 China was still going to fall off US sphere of influence anyhow. It's more impressive to see how much the Soviets managed to sour relationships with the Chinese despite having all the right cards to play.
three uploads in the same week tik? i think you're doing the unthinkable instead
Well, it's over two weeks. One last Monday, one on Friday, and one today (Monday again)
I think you missed the most important factor here. Erich von Manstein, praise be, was still alive. And whichever side he chose would surely win WW3.
Again, you seem to hold the same opinion as I. I believe exactly what you’ve said and had done so for a few years now. I’m glad someone else has the means to tell people. I argue till I’m blue in the face about this topic but it never seems fruitful. This really helps my moral on this and gives me a set of references to use and share. I greatly appreciate this video and all the work you do.
I imagine the soviets which were on their last legs economically and in manpower terms, would have if they attempted it, simply been overwhelmed by the fresh relatively west, which didn’t lose many men
Plus the West on the defensive would inflict unspeakable casualties on the Soviets.
Re Army was he'll of a good at fighting by then.
Would have been long and horrible.
USA had most of it's forces in Asia, so if they used them in Europe, plus Australians, British Far East forces, plus all nations that were still in exile... And an atomic bomb, which Soviets didn't have at that point. Soviets maybe thought about it but they didn't have manpower and material to fight on. And it wasn't Stalin's style anyway, he would rather manipulate and play behind the scenes, like before.
The soviets had 750 divisions and counting. The only thing that would have stopped them was nukes.
If it had happened, maybe Russia would have been targeted with first A-bombs instead of Japan.
Thank you for correcting my views about how Britain treated the Poles. FDR may have hung them out to dry, but at least Churchill tried
As a scale model builder, this sounds way more interesting a counterfactual than the typical "Luft 46" concept
Great video man as always!! This cleared up a lot of my misconceptions about unthinkable. I have a scenario for you. What if the Americans were able to convince Japan to switch sides and right Russia? I know this sounds crazy lol but let’s just say the us gives Japan whatever peace they want and in turn they have to join the war against Russia. And this scenario has the Americans fully participating in unthinkable.
Its easy for Japanese to join soviets than US because back then Japan is a sovereign country and not Puppet like they are today.
I'm reading a book about Potsdam and the events leading up to it and I didn't know that Churchill was voted out of office right in the middle of the conference and Truman was pretty much in the dark going in to the conference because FDR or nobody else kept him up to speed on things and naturally Stalin and Molotov and other Soviet officials thought that was the dumbest thing they'd ever saw, and I agree with the Bolsheviks on that and naturally Stalin had his way pretty much, but yeah they were pretty much on friendly terms
Churchill was voted out because he was a war hawk and the British people wanted peace. The same was true of Americans. Everyone was very tired of war. There is no way that the British or American public would've been behind a war with the Soviets, something TIK could've covered. In fact, war exhaustion was a large reason why Truman decided to use the bombs, because the government was well aware they could not maintain a multi year naval blockade and the invasion of Japan would've been so costly that it might have been forced into a negotiated peace.
@@pax6833 yeah, that's what I'm saying, I agree
IS-3 was really a paper tiger with numerous problems which were only partially fixed when you get to IS-3M. I'd argue the T-34/85 would be the primary soviet tank still with T-44 getting a much larger production run & IS-2 would be the main Soviet heavy tank. The SU-100 would of been quite an obstacle as well. The US would need to field 90mm & 76MM HVAP & M4A3(76) would be the main US tank which did show it could dominate T-34. Maybe M23 gets built in numbers if needed but M26 probably takes over as medium with a production run of one of the experimental heavies would be a thing, probably T32 tbh.
As for aircraft, the Soviet AF wasn't setup at all to intercept high flying B-29s in 45 as all of their fighters were built for low to mid altitude fighting. They're very much geared more to battlefield support/CAS than strategic bombing.
Forget the 29's theyd have difficulty with 17's. 5 of the top 10 Soviet aces flew p39's. Some Soviet shit box vs a P47N, P51H or a Spitfire Mk18 good luck being anything mkre than target practice
@yo yo glad you brought you up the P63, I have a soft spot for thr 39/63. The Soviet didnt have enought of them, enough spare parts, 37mm ammo or high octane fuel to keep them running long term and even if they did the US and UK had several next gen prop fighters like the XP 72 in the pipeline (1st gen jets didn't really have the endurance to be long range escorts) to deal with them.
The one big assumption in this video that I disagree with TIK on is Japan allying with the Soviet Union. I find it possiable that Japan would take advantage of the situation and try for some sort of face saving peace with the Allies (given that they were getting being soundly defeated in practically every encounter by late 44, and had no love of the Soviet Union) which the Allies would've been more likely to grant them (for the short term at least.) Having free, uncontested movement in the Pacific would've changed the equation a fair bit.
@yo yo Because apparently the Red Army Air Defense Forces were all on their extended vacation and lunchbreak that day. Lmfao. Like the Reds would allow any plane near Moscow after they saw Japan.
@@ivanthemadvandal8435 you read my mind.tempest late spits ect would bitch slap them
Why no mention of the centurion?
It's expected that a country's military devise plans for possible conflicts, even if they seem outlandish in hindsight. The USA had war plans to fight Great Britain (War Plan Red), France (WP Gold), Canada (WP Crimson), Mexico (WP Green) and many other countries including, of course, Germany and Japan. I imagine Operation Unthinkable was a similar British military study, and it's nothing unusual...there were all kinds of plans floating around during those years. But it's fun to talk about and an interesting topic to delve into...very good video!
Ok Tik, when that pic of Trudeau showed up on the screen I burst out laughing! Cheers, Dan.