If the Japanese could take down a handful of B-29s with lightly armed sub-par fighters and poorly trained pilots, you could be sure the Soviets could've shot down hundreds of them. The Soviets also had something like 300 divisions under arms at the end of the war; I'd be surprised if the Western Allies had even half that. The Soviets also spent the last year or two of the war building the largest submarine fleet on the planet (although overall the Soviet fleet was a fraction of the size of the US Navy, which had more war ships and tonnage than every other nation on earth combined in 1945).

Genghis is right. Had there been a war in 1945 or 1946, Chuikov would've been popping Champagne corks in Paris within a month. A handful of primitive atomic bombs would not have changed a thing.

@ Tolstoy Your full of bull. Soviet prodution of subs was a joke, little more than fifty for the entire war and they could not come close to the Germans in quality, the US and the UK would have destroyed them in a week if they were foolish enoff to put to sea. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_production_during_World_War_II As far as Soviet aircraft they had good ground support planes Their low to medium altitude fighters were not bad. But high altitude performace aircraft they lacked. The few that could reach the cruising altitude of the B-29s would have been at their max ceiling, meaning they would perform sluggishly making them easy targets. Also the P-51 with drop tanks would have escorted them the entire distance. As for the hits they had over Japan most were mechanical malfuntions in the early models, a couple of luckey AA hits, and a midair collision. Soviets did not have proximity fuses so hits with AA would be blind luck at that altitude.

As for the ground war US and UK airforces would have superiority in a week or two. That means Soviet tanks trucks and logistic would have been open to air attacks at will. Ask the Germans what happens when anything that moves stands a good chance of getting hit.

Soviets get their asses kicked at the end of ww2 end of story.

To elaborate upon warsprite. Where the hell are the soviets going to get their supplies?

Oil, trucks, jeeps, food, etc.

As for the tanks them selves the Sherman M4 was not a bad tank as Hollywood and others portray, many models could match the T-34. When they met in Korea the Shermans had the higher kill ratio over the T-34 as shown in the report by Operations Research Office for the US Army, "Tank v Tank Combat in Korea" compiled in 1954 gave following stats:

"Total of T-34-85 (the way the Russians write it, as opposed to T-34/85, FWIW) destroyed or possibly destroyed by US tanks was 119. US tanks knocked out by T-34's (includes categories of abandoned but repairable) was 38. The specific ratio's were:
M24 10:4 *
M4: 59:20
M26: 38:6
M46: 12:8
*yes, even M24's were credited with more T-34's than they lost, per this report, but it mentions that some of those cases were trick shots, like setting fire to T-34's driven into straw huts for camouflage, with WP rounds.

So all the US tank types did alright. Some of the variation is probably statistical noise, but putting together similarly armored and gunned M26 and M46, their combined ratio was not greatly different than that of the M4. In most KW tank engagements (besides M24) both sides could penetrate the opposing tank at the typically short ranges. Whoever shot first accurately tended to win, and that was usually the US tankers.

The total of tank types deployed to Korea for the war was:
M24: 138
M4: 679
M26: 309
M46: 200

The total of NK T-34's was estimated at a little over 400, almost all of which had been destroyed or captured by November 1950. The fact that the Sherman could match the T-34 is also confirmed by reports from Soviet soldiers that operated the Shermans that the US gave them in Lend Lease, such as this one. http://www.iremember.ru/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=85&Itemid=19

Than the Lend Lease would no longer be suppling the Soviet war machine.
Below is the amount of war materiel shipped to the Soviet Union through the Lend-Lease program from the beginning of it in November 1 1941 until September 30 1945.

Aircraft.............................14,795
Tanks.................................7,056 Jeeps................................51,503 Trucks..............................375,883 Motorcycles..........................35,170 Tractors..............................8,071 Guns..................................8,218 Machineguns........................131,633 Explosives..........................345,735 tons Building equipment valued.......$10,910,000 Railroad freight cars................11,155 Locomotives...........................1,981 Cargo ships..............................90 Submarine hunters.......................105 Torpedo boats...........................197 Ship engines..........................7,784 Food supplies.....................4,478,000 tons Machines and equipment.......$1,078,965,000 Non-ferrous metals..................802,000 tons Petroleum products................2,670,000 tons Chemicals...........................842,000 tons Cotton..........................106,893,000 tons Leather..............................49,860 tons Tires.............................3,786,000 Army boots.......................15,417,000 pairs

If you do not believe Lend Lease was important to the Soviets than you dis agree with Marshal Quoting Zhukov:
"Speaking about our readiness for war from the point of view of the economy and
economics, one cannot be silent about such a factor as the subsequent help from
the Allies. First of all, certainly, from the American side, because in that
respect the English helped us minimally. In an analysis of all facets of the
war, one must not leave this out of one's reckoning. We would have been in a
serious condition without American gunpowder, and could not have turned out the
quantity of ammunition which we needed. Without American `Studebekkers' [sic],
we could have dragged our artillery nowhere. Yes, in general, to a considerable
degree they provided ourfront transport. The output of special steel, necessary
for the most diverse necessities of war, were also connected to a series of
American deliveries."

Moreover, Zhukov underscored that `we entered war while still continuing to be a
backward country in an industrial sense in comparison with Germany. Simonov's
truthful recounting of these meetings with Zhukov, which took place in 1965 and
1966, are corraborated by the utterances of G. Zhukov, recorded as a result of
eavesdropping by security organs in 1963:
"It is now said that the Allies never helped us . . . However, one cannot deny
that the Americans gave us so much material, without which we could not have
formed our reserves and ***could not have continued the war*** . . . we had no
explosives and powder. There was none to equip rifle bullets. The Americans
actually came to our assistance with powder and explosives. And how much sheet
steel did they give us. We really could not have quickly put right our
production of tanks if the Americans had not helped with steel. And today it
seems as though we had all this ourselves in abundance."


Most important contribution US did for USSR is selling Soviets factories in 1930's.
All large Soviet tank factories were designed and built with American help in 1930's These are the percentages of the total available to the Soviet military and industry that were supplied by America:

80% of all canned meat.
92% of all railroad locomotives, rolling stock and rails.
57% of all aviation fuel.
53% of all explosives.
74% of all truck transport.
88% of all radio equipment.
53% of all copper.
56% of all aluminum.
60+% of all automotive fuel.
74% of all vehicle tires.
12% of all armored vehicles.
14% of all combat aircraft.
The list includes a high percentage of the high grade steel, communications
cable, canned foods of all types, medical supplies, and virtually every modern
machine tool used by Soviet industry. Not to mention the "know-how required to
use and maintain this equipment.

so back to the iran nuke thing...

@invictus : the point is that a very small minority of very hawkish and not very fact-oriented individuals in the U.S. and Israel are the only ones who think that bombing Iran will be a good decision. thats what it comes down to. and if you want to side with Bolton and Goldberg... that says more about you, your politics, and your lack of interest in facts than it says about Iran or nukes.

@Warspite: The comparison between the T-34 and US tanks based on performance in Korea is not as clear as you suggest. Remember that the T-34's in Korea were crewed by local forces who often lacked the level of experience and training the Red Army's tank crews had by 1945, whereas the US tanks were crewed by experienced US personnel, many of whom were veterans of WWII.

@warsprite

I am not denying that the Western Allies supplied the hell out of the Soviets during WWII. However, by 1945, the Soviet factory cities east of the Urals were cranking out materiel; part of the reason the Soviets needed so much supply assistance from the west was because essentially half of their industrial base fell to the Nazis or was destroyed in 1941. Given the scenario we're talking about, war in 1946, Soviet industry had done a whole lot of recovery from its 1942 nadir. As to getting supplies to the front, the Soviets didn't have air superiority over the Nazis until late 1943-early 1944, and yet they still managed to figure out a way to conduct successful offensive operations. I also don't concede that the Sovs would have been decisively defeated in the air war within a week.

All of that said, I think a war between the Sovs and Americans in 1946 would have been a grinding bloodbath, combining the worst features of WWI and WWII (as an aside, WWI should really be referred to as WWII, and WWII as WWIII; the Seven Years War was considerably more global in scope than WWI at least), so it's probably a good thing we had the cold war instead of a hot one.

@ Jamiett99uk That's a myth that most soldiers in Korea were WW2 Vets. Yes the senior NCOs, and Officers, as well many of the fighter pilots were. But most of the average soldiers, were green poorly trained, out of shape, poorly equiped, and poorly supplied. The military morale was not unlike the post Vietnam era.
AMERICAN MILITARY HISTORY ARMY HISTORICAL SERIES OFFICE OF THE CHIEF OF MILITARY HISTORY UNITED STATES ARMY. "Moreover, Kim Il Sung, the North Korean Premier, could be confident that his army, a modest force of 135,000, was superior to that of South Korea. Koreans who had served in Chinese and Soviet World War II armies made up a large part of his force. He had 8 full divisions, each including a regiment of artillery; 2 divisions at half strength; 2 separate regiments; an armored brigade with Soviet T34 medium tanks; and 5 border constabulary brigades. He also had 180 Soviet aircraft, mostly fighters and attack bombers, and a few naval patrol craft." "Ground forces available to MacArthur included the 1st Cavalry Division and the 7th, 24th, and 25th Infantry Divisions, all under the Eighth U.S. Army in Japan, and the 28th Regimental Combat Team on Okinawa. All the postwar depreciations had affected them. Their maneuverability and firepower were sharply reduced by a shortage of organic units and by a general understrength among existing units. Some weapons, medium tanks in particular, could scarcely be found in the Far East, and ammunition reserves amounted to only a 4s-day supply. By any measurement, MacArthur's ground forces were unprepared for battle. His air arm, Far East Air Forces (FEAF), moreover, was organized for air defense, not tactical air support. Most FEAF planes were short-range jet interceptors not meant to be flown at low altitudes in support of ground operations. Some F-51's in storage in Japan and more of these World War II planes in the United States would prove instrumental in meeting close air support needs. Naval Forces, Far East, MacArthur's sea arm, controlled only five combat ships and a skeleton amphibious force, although reinforcement was near in the Seventh Fleet."

@ Bob Did they grow rubber trees in Siberia? Inspite increased production by Russia facturies they still did not produce enoff to operate such an large military, or produce the raw materal. Other factors also include are, a large chunk of Soviet forces were now in the east, 16yr to 15yr olds were being inducted to fight by 44, while four years of war while creates veterns it also causes exaustion. But you are correct about onething it would have very bloody. But it would have ended with Russia bleed dry and radioactive.

@Bob Also note about German air power in the East. The proportions of their air power was just the opposite of the land forces. The most of it was in the west, along with their newest and best aircraft. Their eastern air forces were covering an area many times larger with the fraction of the units. Add to it, that they never had a good long range bomber, it's no wonder the Soviets got by without control of the air.