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Choose Your Army In 1945 And 1990


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The strength return of the USARMy ground and service was about 6 million and 2.3 million in the AAF in 1945 for the sake of argument. But we'll leave the AAF out of it.

 

Um, no, and why?

 

As of 31 March 1945 AGF was 2.502-million, ASF was 1.097-million, AAF was 1.945-million, and other was 1.422-million. Do you have the same breakdown for the Soviet forces so that you can do a comparison?

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Strictly amateur musing on my part, but how many atomic bombs did the U.S. have in late 1945?

Just one in real life as they shut down the production line. They expected to produce them at a rate of three per month if they had not shut it down with seven devices expected to be available by 1 November 1945 for the invasion of Japan.

I presume there was an airfield that a B29 could reach Moscow from

The distance from England to Moscow is about the same from Tinian to Japan about 1550 miles.

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IIRC, Soviets started to have serious manpower shortages late in WW II and quality of replacements was often "abysmal" (at least by some anecdotal evidence).

 

USA could probably downsize USN quite a lot and use that manpower as replacements, if absolutely necessary.

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Um, no, and why?

 

As of 31 March 1945 AGF was 2.502-million, ASF was 1.097-million, AAF was 1.945-million, and other was 1.422-million.

 

I always thought the non-AAF part of the USArmy reached about 5.9 million. In the initial post I said to not count their respective Air Forces.

http://www.history.army.mil/books/agf/AGF004/Table1.htm

http://www.history.army.mil/books/agf/AGF003/ch05.htm

 

http://www.history.army.mil/books/agf/AGF003/ch04.htm

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Strictly amateur musing on my part, but how many atomic bombs did the U.S. have in late 1945?
Just one in real life as they shut down the production line. They expected to produce them at a rate of three per month if they had not shut it down with seven devices expected to be available by 1 November 1945 for the invasion of Japan.
I presume there was an airfield that a B29 could reach Moscow from
The distance from England to Moscow is about the same from Tinian to Japan about 1550 miles.

 

Didn't know about the A-bomb stuff thanks but the U.S. dropped two A-bombs. Did they just make two, then shut down the production line?

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IIRC, Soviets started to have serious manpower shortages late in WW II and quality of replacements was often "abysmal" (at least by some anecdotal evidence). USA could probably downsize USN quite a lot and use that manpower as replacements, if absolutely necessary.

 

Was thinking the same thing about the U.S.N. Didn't know about the serious Soviet manpower shortage/

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Strictly amateur musing on my part, but how many atomic bombs did the U.S. have in late 1945?
Just one in real life as they shut down the production line. They expected to produce them at a rate of three per month if they had not shut it down with seven devices expected to be available by 1 November 1945 for the invasion of Japan.
I presume there was an airfield that a B29 could reach Moscow from
The distance from England to Moscow is about the same from Tinian to Japan about 1550 miles.

 

Didn't know about the A-bomb stuff thanks but the U.S. dropped two A-bombs. Did they just make two, then shut down the production line?

 

I understand they had a third near ready but it would be months (1946) before any more would be ready.

 

In May of '45 the U.S. army had at least 12-14 divs. still actively engaging the Japs in the P.I.s and Okinawa .

I believe the army had 21 divs. in the Pacific and about 46 in the ETO and only one left in the states to deploy overseas.

 

As to the Russians they did have manpower shortages but that army that hit the Japs in Manchuria in August was of good quality .

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In 1945, Soviets were often relying to replacements from areas that had been occupied by Germans for 4 years. As result of this, replacement troops were often suffering from malnutrition etc. and thus were physically in bad condition. Of course, majority of troops were experienced and battle-hardened, but replacing casualties was getting more difficult.

Edited by Sardaukar
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Thoughts on how the two Air Forces would do? My gut feeling is the U.S.A.A.F. without much effort at high and much, but successfull effort down low. Soviet pilots/planes vs U.S. Navy of the same?

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Didn't know about the A-bomb stuff thanks but the U.S. dropped two A-bombs. Did they just make two, then shut down the production line?

They had made two with a third awaiting final assembly. It would have been ready for use August 17 or 18. In addition there was the TRINITY test device.

 

It seems production continued at a low rate with two available by the end of 1945. By the end of 1946 there were nine The 1945 figure obviously does not include th three devices used that year so the 1946 figure may not include the two used at the ABLE and BAKER tests at Bikini Atoll..

 

http://www.alternatewars.com/BBOW/ABC_Weapons/DOE_Fact_Stockpile_1994.htm

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I always thought the non-AAF part of the USArmy reached about 5.9 million. In the initial post I said to not count their respective Air Forces. http://www.history.army.mil/books/agf/AGF004/Table1.htm

 

Ugh! Okay, problems here, some my fault. The figures I quoted were the "actual" (i.e. they actually counted all the individual bodies) enlisted strength of the Army as of 31 March 1945. The figure you quote is the authorized troop basis strength (i.e. what they wanted to have) of all personnel. The "aggregate" (i.e. a count of all the bodies assigned to units) strength was 7,813,319. The "actual" strength then for officers and men (warrants, NCO, and enlisted) was 8,157,386. Are we all confused yet? I was, since I missed that I was quoting the enlisted strength only.

 

The problem remains though, why cut out the USAAF when you have no idea what part of the Soviet strength you need to cut out for the VVS and PVO? Worse, the inactive part of the Soviet forces was potentially huge, by 1 January 1945, there were 6,750,149 operational, 431,838 in STAVKA reserve, and 4,226,376 non-operational. What did that mean? How many were Red Army? VVS? PVO? I have seen figures for the Red Navy, but that's it. Fundamentally, as I said before, you have two different militaries of similar size, but different distribution bewteen services.

 

Cheers!

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http://www.cartage.org.lb/en/themes/Sciences/Chemistry/NuclearChemistry/NuclearWeapons/FirstChainReaction/FirstNuclWeapons/AdditionalBombs.htm

 

Production estimates given to Sec. Stimson in July 1945 projected a second plutonium bomb would be ready by Aug. 24, that 3 bombs should be available in September, and more each month - reaching 7 or more in December. Improvements in bomb design being prepared at the end of the war would have permitted one bomb to be produced for every 5 kg of plutonium or 12 kg of uranium in output. These improvements were apparently taken into account in this estimate. Assuming these bomb improvements were used, the October capacity would have permitted up to 6 bombs a month. Note that with the peak monthly plutonium and HEU production figures (19.4 kg and 69 kg respectively), production of close to 10 bombs a month was possible.
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http://www.cartage.o...tionalBombs.htm

 

Production estimates given to Sec. Stimson in July 1945 projected a second plutonium bomb would be ready by Aug. 24, that 3 bombs should be available in September, and more each month - reaching 7 or more in December. Improvements in bomb design being prepared at the end of the war would have permitted one bomb to be produced for every 5 kg of plutonium or 12 kg of uranium in output. These improvements were apparently taken into account in this estimate. Assuming these bomb improvements were used, the October capacity would have permitted up to 6 bombs a month. Note that with the peak monthly plutonium and HEU production figures (19.4 kg and 69 kg respectively), production of close to 10 bombs a month was possible.

 

But it seems that point is moot since in this odd version of reality air forces are not allowed to exist. ;) :P :D

 

Cheers!

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Rich

 

 

As of 31 March 1945 AGF was 2.502-million, ASF was 1.097-million, AAF was 1.945-million, and other was 1.422-million. Do you have the same breakdown for the Soviet forces so that you can do a comparison?

Do you know what the number includes? In the website below there are plenty of statistics, but not data on overall manpower for VVS and PVO. The only similar thing I found was the number of qualified personnel in VVS on June 1941. Note that this only includes crews, engineers and technicians.

 

http://www.rkka.es/Estadisticas/VVS_stat/05/05_01.htm

 

I have asked the administrator to give me an overall number, let's hope he can provide an answer.

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Do you know what the number includes?

 

The exact number as given by the USAAF Statistical Digest was 1,939,926 enlisted, broken into specialty:

 

359,865 Aircraft Maintenance

165,942 Aerial Gunner

46,473 Other Aircrew

96,464 Armament

154,495 Communications

39,513 Radar

37,526 Medical

88,668 Supply

60,116 Utility and Construction

184,693 Automotive

245,929 Administrative

169,152 Other Specialists

291,090 Other Non-Specialists

 

By Arm of Service it was:

 

1,521,589 Air Corps

10,976 Chemical

111,051 Engineer

7,704 Finance

57,990 Medical

17,494 Military Police

59,403 Ordnance

55,757 Quartermaster

97,630 Signal

332 Other

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Data for 22/6/1641

 

VVS KA personnel: 475.656

Trained crews: 12.313

Combat aircraft: 15.986 (13.650 operational)

Other aircraft: 4.824 (4.158 operational)

Total aircraft: 20.810 (17.808 operational)

 

Data for 1945 should be about 500.000

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Data for 22/6/1641

 

VVS KA personnel: 475.656

Trained crews: 12.313

Combat aircraft: 15.986 (13.650 operational)

Other aircraft: 4.824 (4.158 operational)

Total aircraft: 20.810 (17.808 operational)

 

Data for 1945 should be over 500.000

post-2999-0-05990500-1339752521_thumb.gif

Edited by alejandro_
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