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I'm currently in the process of brainstorming plots for a novel, and that novel will include a third world war between Russia and the US. I've got a few questions:

What weapons did those two specific countries use during late WWII? What did the normal infantry use, what did the higher ranked people use?

Are there any weapons that could deal a large amount of damage on a city, excluding nuclear, biological and chemical attacks? Kinetic Bombardment won't work.

Finally, how would a country react if the entire government was killed, and the army disbanded?

For Russia in WWII, they used the Mosin Nagant, PPSH, and SVT-40. Pistol for officers was the nagant pistol. For mass damage they usex katushya rockets. (Spelling? )

M1 garand and M1 carbine were the most common small arms for infantry, although BARs, M3s and Thompsons were also carried.

US and UK bombing with Lancasters B17 and B24s using incendiaries vaporized the city of Dresden, causing probably 100,000 deaths, although the number will likely never be known. Later B29s pulled the same routine on Tokyo, with about the same death toll. So regular incendiary bombing could easily kill more people and destroy more property than a nuclear strike.

For Russia, loosing Stalin and the Politburo is a knockout blow, and would remove them from the war. Hitler failed to realized this during Barbarrossa, fortunately. If he had listened to the general staff and concentrated the attack on Moscow, the offensive would likely have been a success and Germany would have conquered all of Europe before American industrial superiority could really be brought to bear.

America is a horse of a different color as wholesale slaughter of the government doesn't really change much. There is nothing exceptional about senators and representatives and they are easily replaced. FDR was rather incompetent, militarily, and was heavily sympathetic to the communists, so removing him might actually be a positive thing in terms of a US-Russo war. Dissolving the American military isn't really a problem either, as that was sort of SOP after American wars before WW2. Previously after a war, all the American military would just sort of go home and the peacetime military was incredibly tiny. For example, 2 months before Pearl Harbor there were considerably more policemen in the NYPD than marines in the entire USMC. It seems crazy to people now because America has been a military hegemon for about as long as anyone can remember, but there was a better time before when America's standing army was hardly enough guys to keep all the horses for the cavalry fed. We used to only pump up before a war, now we have an enormous military 24/7. That was one of the later, but more damning failures of the American experiment.

 MWHistorian wrote:
For Russia in WWII, they used the Mosin Nagant, PPSH, and SVT-40. Pistol for officers was the nagant pistol. For mass damage they usex katushya rockets. (Spelling? )

Remember though that if you go post-ww2, the AK-47 was introduced in 1949. The standard rifle during ww2 was the SVT-40, before ww2 it was the Mosin-Nagant (which was also the main rifle used in ww2 after SVT stocks ran out) and the SKS was introduced in 1945 and became the main rifle after ww2.
Also, the most common pistol issued to officers was the Tokarev TT-33, altough some preferred the old Nagant revolver.
So, in the period just after WW2 the Red Army would be using the following main weapons:
Pistols: Nagant M1895, Tokarev TT-33
Rifles: Mosin-Nagant, SVT-40, SKS
Submachine guns: PPSh, PPS, PPD
Machine guns: DShK, Degtyaryov DP-28

The Soviets preferred to use massed artillery and rocket launchers rather than bombers to destroy cities.


Russia (and the USSR even more) needs a very strong leader to keep the country together, because it is so huge and diverse. With Stalin and other senior leaders gone, the USSR would have broken apart in civil war as different political and ethnic groups would seek to get into power and carve out their own territory.

Well none of the armies would have disbanded if either factions leadership was killed. The USSR would likely collapse though as surviving factions vie for power.

Excluding nuclear, bio, and chemical weaponry there are no single conventional weapons that could lay waste to a city. A bunch of bombers are the closest you'll get. Unless either side decides to build some Schwere Gustaves.

 Matthew wrote:
What weapons did those two specific countries use during late WWII? What did the normal infantry use, what did the higher ranked people use?

if you can rely on the web for anything, it's gun nuts and WWII buffs.

Are there any weapons that could deal a large amount of damage on a city, excluding nuclear, biological and chemical attacks? Kinetic Bombardment won't work.

Not really.

Finally, how would a country react if the entire government was killed, and the army disbanded?

Hudson can tell you;




Democracy, Communism, Fascism. It doesn't matter. If your leadership is killed and your army collapses, you've lost. Time to either start La Resistance or decide you like the new overlord more than the last one. They mostly come out at night. Mostly.

If you're researching a third world war, between the Russians and the US, why research the weapons of WW2 and not modern arms? Would this happen immediately after WW2?

Because you'd have to assume we'd nuke Moscow pretty quickly, right? We had a couple more devices queued up after Nagasaki, as I recall.

I think he's assuming it happens pretty quickly after WW2. otherwise he'd be asking about cold war weaponry. But it is silly that nukes are off the table, and at the time we had them and they didn't.

Maybe in his universe we never invented the nukes and had to beat Japan the hard way

 Grey Templar wrote:
I think he's assuming it happens pretty quickly after WW2. otherwise he'd be asking about cold war weaponry. But it is silly that nukes are off the table, and at the time we had them and they didn't.

yeah, that's the thing - 1945 to 1950 would be a very short, very one-sided war, and 1950+ would be a cold war, so no conventional weapons.

I think we need to know more backstory about this.

Alright, thanks for the answers. I'm just trying to think up a WWIII scenario. I want to write around 2-3 civilians caught in the middle of it. It'll be an alternate timeline where no one has started researching nukes. The US and Russia both invade and conquer Japan, and split it in 2. Soon, a civil war between the two parts lead to a WWIII.

 Ouze wrote:
Because you'd have to assume we'd nuke Moscow pretty quickly, right? We had a couple more devices queued up after Nagasaki, as I recall.

The trouble would have been in dropping them, considering Soviet air superiority and effective air defense (unlike the Japanese, whose aa was almost non-existent).

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 Ouze wrote:
Because you'd have to assume we'd nuke Moscow pretty quickly, right? We had a couple more devices queued up after Nagasaki, as I recall.

The trouble would have been in dropping them, considering Soviet air superiority and effective air defense (unlike the Japanese, whose aa was almost non-existent).

I freely confess to not knowing enough about WW2 to speak on that in any way.

How would the Soviets have air superiority? Late war US fighters trash anything the Russians have and flak in 1945 is useless against B-29s, which deliver the atom bombs. Late war US Mustangs and Thunderbolts are nasty, nasty fighters flown by extremely good, veteran pilots. I'm not a huge USAAC fan, but I have to give credit where credit is due, they trashed the Luftwaffe in about 6 months after the fighter sweeps were authorized. Soviet air never came close to anything like that.

Especially if we are talking about defending against high-altitude attacks, since most Soviet doctrine and airframes were optimized around low-level flying. Below 10k feet Soviet chances in an air battle against US fighter command are really bad, above 10k feet, they are non-existent.

The big issue would be that we were just out of A-bombs, and they aren't actually that destructive. Conventional bombing on 100+ ship raids typically did more damage than atom bombs. Plus, we had spent all but 1 of our atom bombs in the Trinity tests and over Japan and it wasn't until 1947 that we actually had a reasonable stockpile of nuclear arms. After Nagasaki and Hiroshima, US atomic bombs were actually off the table, and the entire threat of nuclear annihilation to Japan was really a bluff. It would be months until even one more bomb was completed.

And we were running daily bombing missions into the heart of Germany during the last two years of the war. Yeah, AA over Japan wasn't great but you are overlooking that the forces that would be deployed against the Russians were tested against German AA, which was fantastic.

Iron is probably right. Lacking the development of ballistic missiles, I think the chances of the US successfully flying a plane into Russia and dropping the bomb on a target of significance are... Low. We would first have needed air superiority, which against the Russians would have been a very bloody and long affair.

Luftwaffe in about 6 months after the fighter sweeps were authorized. Soviet air never came close to anything like that.

The Soviets did far more the trash the Luftwaffe than we did.

Guys, guys, please stay on topic.

 LordofHats wrote:
Iron is probably right. Lacking the development of ballistic missiles, I think the chances of the US successfully flying a plane into Russia and dropping the bomb on a target of significance are... Low. We would first have needed air superiority, which against the Russians would have been a very bloody and long affair.

Luftwaffe in about 6 months after the fighter sweeps were authorized. Soviet air never came close to anything like that.

The Soviets did far more the trash the Luftwaffe than we did.

Not correct. If they were doing so much against the luftwaffe then why were the wunderwaffen developed to fight the US Air Force and not Russian air power? Why did Herman Goring, (a somewhat important Luftwaffe figure) say that 'The day they unleashed the US fighters on us, was the day we lost"?

Also-- you keep using that word 'air superiority' like it is relevant. It's not. It's an Air RAID. RAID. You don't need air supremacy, or even air superiority to launch a successful air raid. Otherwise, basically all bomber doctrine of the last 100 years would be totally incoherent.

What planes did the Russians have that could effectively engage a B-29 formation? None. They had no high-altitude fighter with heavy enough armarment to have a chance against a B-29 stream until the development of the MiG-17, many years later. We know this because of a little thing called the Korean war, where B-29s did whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted, until the Mig-17s showed up in theater. It's 1945. Russia doesn't have Mig-17s. Game, Set, Match.

Flak is not able to reach B-29 cruising altitude, so it's irrelevant.

What aircraft did the Russians have that could match a P-51 or P-47 above 10k feet? None. Name one-- you aren't supporting your argument at all, you're just making statements you don't back up. Russia could at best tie the P-51 or P-47 below 10k AT BEST and guess what, we wouldn't engage below 10k feet because they are pulling escort duty on bombers flying at 25k feet and bombing Moscow into rubble, then into smaller rubble.

Hell, one of the most common fighters in Russia was the Airacobra which we just gave them, gratis, because it was such junk compared to our main-line shooters.

What mechanism do you propose the Russians countering a B-29 strike with? The flak that can't reach them? Or the fighters that can barely match their speed at that altitude, and are vastly inferior to the US escorts? What magical solution do you propose?

 Matthew wrote:

Are there any weapons that could deal a large amount of damage on a city, excluding nuclear, biological and chemical attacks? Kinetic Bombardment won't work.

Incendiary. The fire boming of Tokyo caused more casualties in one raid than both atom bombs.

The RAF mastered this one. You need a mixture of waves of bombers with explosive bombs of different sizes and incendiary bombs. IIRC you sfirst send in a wave with large bombs to cause concussion damage, then bombers filled with smaller bombs that caused fragmentation damage and the third wave carried incendiary rounds to set for to the exposed mass of wood. When all three waves hit the target, the result was fairly comperable to a nuclear strike.

As you are talking alternate world and therefore fantasy you could include fuel air bombs or napalm. Napalm was first used in 1944 but was not extensively used, and it was reserved for tactical bombing. You could change that.
The US had a lot of heavy bombers sitting around in late 1945. If war with th Soviet union happened and napalm,m was used strategically, or imagine one of the RAF thousand bomber raids, with napalm. You have your 'nuke' right there.

 Silverthorne wrote:


The big issue would be that we were just out of A-bombs, and they aren't actually that destructive. Conventional bombing on 100+ ship raids typically did more damage than atom bombs. Plus, we had spent all but 1 of our atom bombs in the Trinity tests and over Japan and it wasn't until 1947 that we actually had a reasonable stockpile of nuclear arms. After Nagasaki and Hiroshima, US atomic bombs were actually off the table, and the entire threat of nuclear annihilation to Japan was really a bluff. It would be months until even one more bomb was completed.

There were actually another 7 bombs being worked on when the war ended, one was to be completed in august 45, 3 more in september, and the last 3 in october.

also an important note, earlier in your post you referenced the USAAC (US Army Air Corps for those of you unfamiliar), that is incorrect. The AAC ceased to exist in the summer of 1941 and was replaced by the USAAF (US Army Air Forces), which had considerably more autonomy than its predecessor. The AAF can be thought of as similar to the modern day USMC organizationally/administratively. While they were organized as part of the Army (specifically under the Army led Department of War), they were for all intents and purposes an independent branch of service.

Another sidenote, American weapons were fairly common in Soviet arsenals throughout the war (and for sometime after) as a result of lend-lease. After the war this also became somewhat true of captured German equipment.

As for your wunderwaffen, as others stated nothing existed. The closest thing might be an "earthquake bomb", British grand slam bombs and american t-14s could produce a crater about 30m deep and 50m across which would be big enough tonswallow a considerable amount of real estate. The US built the T-12 at the end of the war which was about twice as large (in terms of explosive yield, not necessarily in results)

 Silverthorne wrote:
Not correct. If they were doing so much against the luftwaffe then why were the wunderwaffen developed to fight the US Air Force and not Russian air power?

Because we were the ones launching a strategic bombing campaign into German. Russia... Sort of tried but they hadn't developed aircraft on par with the B17 just yet.

Herman Goring

Because he was an idiot.

Also-- you keep using that word 'air superiority' like it is relevant.

Because it is relevant. Russia had much better Radar than Germany did, and more distance to be traveled to reach targets of relevance. Air superiority was achieved devastatingly against Germany, but we were bombing them harshly even before we had it thanks to proximity. We would have no such advantage against Russia.

basically all bomber doctrine of the last 100 years would be totally incoherent.

That's a little overly generous. Last 50 years tops.

You horrible underestimate the quality of Russian aircraft. The Yak-3 is arguably the best single prop engine fighter of the war in terms of performance, and its short range (it's biggest issue) would not be a draw back in a defensive situation. The LA-7 was just as good if not better and in 1945 both plans were already up to be scrapped for new variations that were being tested at 25k (the replacement for the Yak-3 solved the range problem).

None. Name one-- you aren't supporting your argument at all, you're just making statements you don't back up.

I don't think naming off a bunch of planes and saying 10k over and over again qualifies as a supported argument. It's also the wrong number for the tired (very tired) argument your making. The number you're looking for is 13k. I've heard this silly argument before and it's always been silly. The Soviets were not short sighted. You're not the first to run around proclaiming that they made plans for low altitude while ignore that just because the the air combat on the EF was lower than in the WF doesn't mean the Soviets weren't looking ahead and preparing for the Cold War they knew was coming. It's a tired and trite argument. They didn't even pass a prototype for production if it couldn't fly at 20k and that was in 1943 (that whole snaffu with the Yak-1 taught them a few things ).

Hell, one of the most common fighters in Russia was the Airacobra which we just gave them, gratis, because it was such junk compared to our main-line shooters.

And now the tired old lend lease argument.

9,588 Aircobras were produced from 1940 to 1944.

In that same period, the Soviets built 8700 Yak-1s, 6400 Yak-7s, over 16,000 Yak-9s, and nearly 5000, Yak-3s. And that's just the Yak series of aircraft. Less than 10k doesn't even come close to most and that's the wild assumption we gave the Soviets all the Aircobras (we only sent them half, we kept the other half just because that name is awesome even if the plane was meh).

What magical solution do you propose?

The Soviets were already building Jet aircraft by 1944 and the Yak-3 and LA7 were being quickly phased out in 1945 for new planes. The end of the war is the only thing that halted the rapid advancement the Red Air Force had been on for 5 years. Depending on when this hypothetical WWIII starts, there could be a 0 lull time for this cooling off, meaning the Russians never stopped the advancement. It's perfectly within the realm of possibility that bombing Russia would not have been achievable. Not like we did against Germany.

To be honest if you don't know much about the weapons of ww2 its not a great idea to write this novel in the first place.

 Da krimson barun wrote:
To be honest if you don't know much about the weapons of ww2 its not a great idea to write this novel in the first place.

How many authors know that much about what they write about before they do research?
If you're trying to write alternate history it's important to get the facts correct but you can only do that through proper research.
Dakka probably isn't the best place but at least he's trying.

Well, at least he does try to do research. Most 13 year olds I know that get the idea of writing something do no research at all.
But I agree with purplefood, for questions on WW2 technology you can better go to a WW2 forum than to Dakka.

 MWHistorian wrote:
katushya rockets. (Spelling? )

Katyusha or Katusha. "Little Katya" - alternative diminutive form of "Katharine", similar to "Katie".

Quick realistic analysis of the "air situation": Yak-3 was a very capable fighter, some believe it superior to the P-51 and Spitfire. Red Air Force was fsirly massive and very concentrated, mostly focused on the ground attack mission. At the immediate end of the war there wasnt much defense in depth. If you could break through the front it wouldnt be a very harrowing journey to Moscow, not like say a bombing run on Germany where allied formations were pounded by everything the Germans could throw at the sky as soon as they came within a couple of miles of mainland europe, all the way to their target, and then all the way back out again. But again, youd have to penetrate the front, and you probably wouldnt get very many chances at it. The bigger issue still is that in May of 1945, we werent winning the ground war. The Soviets had a lot of very experienced men backed up with a lot of well built armored vehicles which combined some of the best features of both American and German designs, the US and Britain simply did not have sufficient numbers of heavy tanks to counter them, and Shermans just wouldnt cut it. Most potential launch sites for a mission on moscow, or really any bomber mission in general would probably have to originate from mainland europe, and that, simply put, wouldnt be likely to happen before the red army overran those positions. While I doubt the Soviets could pull off a successful invasion across the channel, or the bering straight, or across an ocean in general (the Soviet Navy wouldnt handle the British and American fleets too well), Id say continental europe would basically be lost, north africa would be an open contest again, and youd see pretty fierce fighting across the middle east and in india, china and korea.

In that situation we would have bombed the front itself. Create a radioactive no-mans land that the russians couldn't cross.

We even developed a man portable launch platform for the purpose. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davy_Crockett_%28nuclear_device%29

chaos0xomega wrote:
The bigger issue still is that in May of 1945, we werent winning the ground war. The Soviets had a lot of very experienced men backed up with a lot of well built armored vehicles which combined some of the best features of both American and German designs, the US and Britain simply did not have sufficient numbers of heavy tanks to counter them, and Shermans just wouldnt cut it. Most potential launch sites for a mission on moscow, or really any bomber mission in general would probably have to originate from mainland europe, and that, simply put, wouldnt be likely to happen before the red army overran those positions.

Ever heard of Operation Unthinkable?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Unthinkable

Churchill asked the generals to evaluate a surprise attack on the Soviets. With 4 to 1 men and 2 to 1 tanks in favor of the USSR it was deemed too risky. Basically just what you said. :-)

chaos0xomega wrote:
Most potential launch sites for a mission on moscow, or really any bomber mission in general would probably have to originate from mainland europe

In 1945 in the actual timeline, maybe. The US had the B-36 almost ready for production by the end of WWII, and it was intended to bomb Germany from across the ocean (a scenario that turned out to be irrelevant). In a hypothetical WWIII scenario the US probably would have made it a higher priority, which takes all of the US bomber bases out of range of Soviet attacks.

Oh, and that Yak-3? It can't even match the B-36's altitude.

Think about what year (roughly) you would want the conflict to start

Head over to the miniatures page and looking in their modern/ world war 2 section lots of information and very knowledgeable guys over there

Just remeber, when it doupt, any scary looking gun is an assault rifle