Talk:Operation Unthinkable

message: "were rightly concerned that given the enormous size of Soviet forces deployed in Europe at the end of the war, and the fact that the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin was unreliable, there existed a Soviet threat to Western Europe. "
'Were rightly' and 'was unreliable' are normative/subjective judgements, no? Not NPOV. 'They were concerned', 'they considered Stalin to be unreliable' instead.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.133.120.92 (talk) 18:51, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: NPOV concerns

message: I have some complaints about the map but the main one is: can we consider Finland part of the western allies?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hoygan!! (talk • contribs) 00:53, 12 March 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Finland wasn't neutral - it had declared war on Germany, and wasn't pro-Soviet - it had fought two wars against the Soviet Union.  Certainly debatable, but any other colour would be equally misleading. Stevebritgimp (talk) 16:34, 12 March 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Another issue with the map is that Soviet armies were compatible to size to American corps, and corps to a division. It would be better if we had a map comparing American armies to Soviet fronts  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.93.25.173 (talk) 15:42, 20 June 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  The map 

message: I have no great insight into Unthinkable, but the page to which the link is given not only does not include the quote given about imposing American and British will on Russia but, indeed, undermines that entire argument suggesting, instead, that WSC's concern was that Russia would seek to impose its will on Britain and Europe. Any comments or clarification? 
Czrisher (talk) 16:35, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The right page is #1. Corrected. Take a look once again. --Fastboy (talk) 18:41, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, I still see no reference to it as "a precautionary study" nor "purely hypothetical contingency", though it is clearly both, so I do not dispute the point. More troubling is the fact that this is a report from the Joint Planning Staff. I would imagine, thus, that it was to Churchill, likely in response to questions he had raised in a memorandum, rather than from him as the article suggests. Further, the combination of the phrase about how 'Even though "the will"...may be defined as no more than a square deal for Poland' with the connotations on the latter page mentioned above suggest that the quotation is misleading and the analysis of Unthinkable is inaccurate. Perhaps we simply need more language? Czrisher (talk) 18:01, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Actual Goal 

message: This article is almost completely incomprehensible. Was the Operation Unthinkable report a plan to invade Russia (the Soviet Union)? --217.76.87.120 (talk) 16:00, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: All the pages of the report are available as separate URLs - just change the number of the page from 001 to at least 026.  I'm going to give it a read.  From the first part it would appear that the plan was a defensive one, in the event of US forces being drawn down in Europe, and Soviet forces being able to conquer Western Europe, namedly France and the Low Countries.  Stevebritgimp (talk) 04:47, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Right, I've actually done the work of expanding this article which was so obviously needed.  I'm going to remove the improvement template, in that now I think it just becomes a regular article that will need the normal level of review for POV, notability and verifiability. Stevebritgimp (talk) 06:41, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: FWIW, in my hubris I will say that Stevebritgimp's improvements have made this a valuable article. As he says, it can be refined, tightened, and improved, but we're now starting from a solid foundation.Czrisher (talk) 22:05, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

text: "conflicts were developing between capitalist and communist areas of Europe" is incorrect. The conflict was between democratic (or at least non-communist) and communist areas.  This is a frequent error, but an error nonetheless.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.197.15.138 (talk) 06:34, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: What the article does not make clear was that both the USA and UK felt that war with the Soviet Union was inevitable. One totalitarian dictatorship had been defeated, and another remained. The Soviets were never really allies, so much as so-belligerents. After all the Soviets had started the war as allies of the Nazis.  The plans were based on the notion that if was inevitable it had to be planned for. That angle is entirely missing from the article, which implies simply that Churchill wanted to invade the Soviet Union.122.59.167.152 (talk) 09:29, 29 June 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Clarification needed 

message: elegraph link doesn´t work. Best, CK.-  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.205.237.4 (talk) 16:37, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dead link 

message: Did the judgment of whether it would've been feasible to wage a successful war against the Soviets in 1945 take into account the use of atomic weapons? 24.214.230.66 (talk) 01:48, 22 May 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Feasibility of the plan 

message: C'mon guys.  Use language that everyone can understand.  You're not writing an academic treatise here.  This is supposed to be an encylopedia for the general population, including those who didn't finish high school.  Look at the number of words in this short article that send people scurrying to the dictionary:
:pars pro toto -> calling something by the name of one of its parts
:coterminous -> the same place
:commenced -> began
:unfeasible -> won't work
:projected -> expected
:protracted -> long
:an instruction by Churchill -> on Churchill's orders
:relocating -> moving
:envisaged -> believed, thought
:anticipated -> believed, thought
:proximity -> near, close
:bridgehead -> position
Although short, I nominate this as the most pompous page on Wikipedia.  In trying to prove how smart you are, you are proving how terrible you are at communicating simple concepts.  "Thinking themselves wise, they became fools."
P.S. - This complaint is written by a native English-speaker who scored in the 98th percentile in the language section of his GMAT.  I can use big words, too, but I'd rather be understood.
--68.232.66.237 (talk) 15:37, 12 June 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not an native english speaker (my native tongue is german), but I under stand everything. I understand that for some people some words are harder to unterstand but some "easyer" words have different meanings like bridgehead --> position,--Thaodan (talk) 15:12, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vocabulary 

message: The article mentions the soviets having a 4-to-1 troop advantage, and a 2-to-1 tank advantage, but fails to mention the number of air craft. Air craft became a much more important part of warfare in this war, and would EXTREMELY relevant in any war between the two powers. Mention should also be given to the existence of both British and American Jet aircraft, which would likely be the main advantage the allies had. Joesolo13 (talk) 20:57, 31 August 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree although I think the relative strength of the navies would not have been that important--airpower would have compensated for better (and more numerous) Soviet tanks and artillery (in my opinion).Historian932 (talk) 15:01, 20 February 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Aircraft numbers 

message: It might be technically true that the plans were highly secret and not disclosed until 1998, but you should mention Prime Minister Churchill's remarks to his constituents in Woodford in November 1954.  At that time, in a widely reported speech, he said that at the end of the War he had instructed Montgomery to stockpile German weapons in case the Allies had to fight the Russians with German help.  He was a bit confused (he was about to hit 80 and beginning to realize that he wasn't up to the job any more) but this was in fact an oblique reference to Operation Unthinkable. 69.119.169.59 (talk) 02:17, 26 March 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Should Mention Churchill's 1954 Disclosure 

message: This documentary: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVo6AzUI3ug (skip to 40 min in) claims the plans were given to the Russians by a soviet agent in the British military and that Soviet forces were redeployed to counter any offensive from the west. Should this be mentioned in the article? ... Seabhcan 23:58, 11 May 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Soviets knew of the plan? 

message: :I think mention of this should be included in the article. Certainly by 1946 it would have drastically improved the Allied defence. The plan continues to be mentioned to this date in the article. At least a dozen nuclear weapons of the Fat Boy design were in the Allied arsenal by 46, and Moscow would certainly have been in range by B29 and Avro Lincoln strategic bombers. Any thoughts? Irondome (talk) 02:56, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  The atom bomb 

message: In the image the wrong flag; its the one from Indonesia. The polish flag is the other way around :) ...Sicherlich  Post  22:22, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Good catch! Historian932 (talk) 15:02, 20 February 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wrong flag 

message: Since the removal of The balance of forces in Western Europe and Italy, Spring 1945 graph (due to it being cobbled together from multiple sources from different time periods) the only statistics given on this page are the known to be incorrect British/US estimates from May 1945 as anyone can see by checking the source of the chat. As such this entire page now gives the inaccurate impression that the USSR possessed a large advantage in fighter aircraft in Western Europe in July 1941. These numbers have long since been proven wrong by Soviet forces.
The issue now is that the remaining graph, without the removed balance of forces in Western Europe and Italy, is entirely out of context. I have edited it to explain that the figures are based on incorrect Allied estimates however I would recommend either removing the infographic entirely to avoid confusion and the spread of incorrect statistics or that a new graph needs to be created showing the actual disposition of forces in Europe in July 1945. Alternatively the imperfect previous graph could be added back in as at least it gave context to the incorrect US/UK figures displayed now. 2600:8805:3804:600:C593:E6C2:2077:6526 (talk) 21:11, 15 October 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  The infographic on this page is now is based entirely on incorrect US/UK estimates from May of 1945