"Overland distance over that very terrain is what screwed Napoleon and Hitler and is what would have destroyed the Red Army."
So, you're saying that the overland distances that did NOT destroy the Russian Army in 1812 or a SEVERELY mauled Red Army in 1941-42 somehow would have destroyed a reconstituted, capably led, battle hardened, well-supplied Red Army in 1945?
You've really got to explain how that works.
"Carrier aircraft would be handy taking Sevastopol."
Have you looked at a map?
First off, Sevatsopol is essentially 2/3rds surrounded by Soviet occupied territory. A surgical insertion into Sevastopol by US forces supported by carriers would be pincered out of existence in very short order, with the liklihood of the Soviets invading not only Turkey through Georgia and Azerbajan but pushing right on through into the oil-rich areas of the Middle East.
On the other side the Soviets would push out of Hungary and Romania right through into Greece and very possibly Italy.
You'd lose not only the Eastern Mediterrean Sea, you'd lose access to the Suez Canal.
So, insert carriers into the Black Sea. Once again, surrounded by Soviet held territory and virtually ZERO room to maneuver. It would be shocking if they could even make it through the Dardenelles. Ask Winston Churchill about naval operations in that area (and he was attempting it in a time before the rise of the aircraft as an offensive weapon).
So, stay out in the Eastern Med and send carrier aircraft in from there.
From Izmir to Sevastopol it's nearly 600 miles as the crow flies. You can get carrier aircraft of the day there, with moderate loads, but you can't get them back. If you want to get them back, *and just barely* you can't give them a resonable arms package.
Not even Patton would have proposed trying to take Sevastopol from the Black Sea side supported by carriers.
Even if you do manage to, as you propose, "[take] airfields around Sevastopol would host AAF fighters and bombers. Move them forward along with the advance." once again they would be facing a technologically comparable and numerically significantly superior foe. Given the capabilities of the Red Airforce in 1945, it's simply not a viable, actionable plan.
"Not overly impressed with Soviet numbers, especially when the numbers are not where they need them. The Germans held them at bay for years despite a huge disparity in numbers."
And, as previously explained, the Red Army in 1941-42 and the Red Army in 1945 have virtually nothing in common. It wasn't the Germans holding the Red Army at bay, either. You have that backwards. The Soviets held the Germans at bay -- Moscow, Leningrad, Stalingrad -- and that was a Russian Army that had been badly mauled repeatedly by the advancing Germans.
Once the Germans lost the offensive advantage in 1942-1943, they were never able to hold the Soviets at bay for more than a week or two here or there for the rest of the war. By 1944 the Soviets were pretty much able to advance at will.
Regarding Soviet numbers... Hitler thought that way, too. Figured that the Soviets couldn't move men and material around the interior in time to made a bit of difference.
Until Zhukov moved 20 divisions from the Far East that had been holding the line against Japan over 3,000 miles in less than 2 months and used them to force the Germans from an offensive to defensive footing, denying them Moscow.
Sorry, Roo, but the scenarios you're proposing simply aren't based in the reality of the situation as it was in 1945.
I know it's easy to hoist the flag and say "'Cuse we're Mhuricans!" as an "explanation" as to why the United States supposedly could defeat the Soviet Union in 1945.
That "explanation" simply doesn't cover a multitude of inconvenient facts and truths and the scenarios that spring from them.
Here's a few other likely scenarios that would have developed had the US foolishly gone to war with the Soviet s in 1945.
They would have done so without Allies. Neither the French nor the British would have gone in on such an adventure, literally neither was capable.
With both the French and British tapped out, their ports and territories become out of bounds as staging grounds for military operations. Without forward bases, you're forced into conducting a war that is staged from the United States, which in a pre-jet, largely pre-nuclear age is a flat out impossibility.
