How Comparable Was the Soviet Union's Military Strength To The U.S.'s After WWII?
Was the comparable pertinacity of these two nations based mostly on nuclear weapons or were the soviets comparable in strength by conventional means, as well?
After their extremely costly war with the Axis during Superb War II, I would think the soviet military would have been completely devastated and it would have taken decades for them to rebuild into any sort of truly powerful force. However, we did have the whole insensitive war thing, so how did they compete with us, exactly?
Instantaneously following the war, neither country was nuclear-armed... we'd used our three weapons, and they hadn't yet stolen the secrets.
By personnel, the Soviets had savagely 11.3 million men under arms at the end of the war, while US had roughly 12 million men under arms. Of course, both sides did an immediate demobilization following the war, bringing the Soviets to 3 million, and the US to 2 million.
I would say the Soviets had the best clothes GROUND forces... in sheer numbers as well as the quality of their tanks and artillery. They had also gotten many pieces of US mat through Lend-Lease, and what technology they didn't get, they STOLE !! The Soviets kept several B-29 Superfortresses stilted down in Russia after bombing missions against Japan and reverse-engineered them.
The Soviets weren't devastated after the war... they WON !! A successful Army, even if depleted is in pretty good shape. Also remember that they "obtained" East Germany, the Baltic-States, and Poland... influential sources of food, men, and material. AS well as getting German scientists.
Once the Soviets had the bomb... it becomes an issue of utterance systems... the Soviets made it into space first and had the first ICBM.
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