What If Germany As Won In Russia?

Discussion in 'The Eastern Front' started by Market_Garden1982, Jul 31, 2005.

  1. jimbotosome

    jimbotosome Discharged

    I never took you that way. I think people often mistake me for saying something that seems like I am offended but I "rarely" get my feelings hurt. I am an American and as you know we have a propensity to cut to the chase and I think we tend to violate the directness protocols of a lot of cultures that gives the impression we are hostile or upset. You have no need to apologize for anything buddy, but thanks for being considerate anyway.

    Tank-o-phile, you are right, my bad. I don’t speak English very well, as I said, I am an American.

    Now, my rationale for saying you “sound” like a tank-o-phile was the recognizing what appears to be the quintessential visceral awe that tank-o-philes have when they speak of the eastern front. It reminds me of the line in the Wizard of Oz that goes “Lions and Tigers and Bears, oh my! Lions and Tigers and Bears, oh my!”. Sometimes tank-o-philes they take off their hats and put them over their heart when they speak. I understand that there were many people killed on the eastern front but then again there were a lot of British killed at Somme in WWI in a decision that made absolutely no sense what so ever. Maybe Geoff can explain that one sometime, it leaves me scratching my head. WWI taught the Allies that something needs to be done to get superiority rather than just getting into a static front and fighting to a perpetual stalemate. For the Allies, they looked to the skies and the Axis looked to the tank.

    Seems like a day doesn’t go by sometimes when you don’t hear about how many Shermans it takes to take out a Tiger or hear how a T-34-85 is a match for a Tiger. When the talk about the eastern front going at it and how bad things were compared to the western front, I want to barf. To the German soldier that was on the western front, the enemy was far more fearsome than the eastern front. On the eastern front it was starvation to fear, not enemy tactics. Germany’s lack of preparedness and bad timing for the offensive on Russia was why they failed to finish annihilating an extremely poor enemy of the Soviet Union. The winter stopped the German advance. The devastation of the non-Russian allies was what allowed Russia to mount a counter-offensive. The Russians never marauded the German’s supply line so in theory the could have never stopped them just as they didn’t before the record cold winter set in. It was the Allies that mauled their supplies by bombing their industry back into the Stone Age and fed Russia, every kind of war aid you can imagine from food to tanks to yes, "fighter/bombers". That’s what stopped the Tigers, that’s what stopped the Stukas, that’s what stopped the Blitzkrieg of Russia. NOTHING else. Russia’s strategy was to run scads of tanks at the Tigers and hopefully one or two would get destroyed just from the numbers. If Germany’s tank industry had been sustained, then they would have been able to eventually exceed Russia’s production of "cannon fodder" tanks with their own and then completely stop Russia’s production of everything. Russia chased a starving unsupplied and unprotected army back to Germany. The reason was the western front was annihilating the Luftwaffe, the production industries, the fuel industry, the supply truck industry. Too me, the eastern front was pointless, not awesome. Germany was producing fighters. They were not being sent to the eastern front. Fighters did them no good their. In fact, they often couldn't even start them in cold weather. No, make no mistake, the German fighter production was being sent to the western front to try to stop the debilitating bombing going on by Allied air. This is why the Luftwaffe could not build up in either theater. The ME-262s were used in the Western front because they knew it was the key to beating anyone including Russia. It isn't that the eastern front is disregarded as much as it is the western front is misunderstood because the losses are counted in terms of men and equipment that are destroyed on the battlefield rather than men and equipment that are destroyed period. Why is this not obvious? This is why I say tanks do nothing to stop massive production of opposing tanks or the front. It is all air power. All of it. Without supply, no equipment can survive or advance.

    Win/Lose = Supply

    Supply = Air Power

    therfore applying the "Transitive Property of Equality" we get:

    Win/Lose = air power.

    Well, I have stated often when I state this position of mine that you have to have boots on the ground. This means you need an occupying force to consolidate gains, not to produce them. It is air power alone that determines who has a gain. On the ground you are at the mercy of the sky.

    Agreed that weather does limit the ability to conduct operations in the air. But it does more so with armor. Take a look at the mud bath the Tigers died in during the spring thaws. I only need a few hundred feet below a cloud to operate in a plane. Also the devastation from the air buys you plenty of time while the enemy is licking his wounds from the clear days where you devastated him.

    Again, you are making straw man arguments. I never said you don’t need basic services. Shoes are very important in winning a war but a specific shoe is of no consequence. Same thing with a tank. This should be very clear by the fact we were using “Ronson” lighters to chase the Germans back to Germany while the Russians with the best tanks and most quantity of tanks in the war had a virtual stalemate slugging it out with Germany on the eastern front even though the Germans were being systematically stripped of their supplies and equipment by the bombing in the west.

    Woah! Hold the phone there. The Human Disregarding Idiots I was referring to were the ones that called for the Human Waves, not the poor saps forced to charge a tank with a cheesmo rifle in a human wave. These sicko lifeless dogs would shoot the soldiers that fled a hopeless situation in front only to find their own commissars shooting at them from behind. Stalin was proud of this. This is about as scumbag as humans get. The Russians as a military were a sorry bunch. There is no way to adore the strategies and tactics of the worst army in WWII. The soldiers may have been brave, but then again they may not have been, its not like they had a choice to choose to be a hero or a coward, they were dead either way. I tend to think that if they were really brave or intelligent they would have turned that rifle and taken out the commissars so that they could have saved some of the brothers in arms and have escaped to a rational tactical position where they could figure out how to attack their enemy. The Russian soldier was simply cannon fodder. You know that. I don’t fault them from being in this lose-lose situation but I certainly don’t exalt them for it either.

    At the start of the US Air assault from Britian the Germans had not only the most experienced and veteran pilots, but tremendously superior numbers. The weaknesses in German Air Force doctrine was probably not illustrated any better than by the RAF in the BoB. The British use of a handful of aircraft, some ornery pilots, and radar completely crushed the Luftwaffe confidence.

    Your comments about North Africa are also surpizing. You might ought to invest in the Rommel Papers if you don’t already have it. He seems to be in stark disagreement with you. Germany stalled in Egypt because their supplies were destroyed by a combination of the RAF, USAAF and the Royal Navy and their armor was being continuously decimated by aerial assaults by the strange new bombers called “Liberators”. When the Americans joined the fray (with new equipment and a pretty decent air force itself) then they party was over. This is when the Germans jammed those remaining massive tanks into reverse and ran full throttle, indirectly, back to Berlin with the only remaining victory coming from a small short victory at Kassarine Pass against some rookie American soldiers. It was Rommel that said that because of the air superiority that he told Hitler who admitted he was right that the war could no longer be won in 1943. Rommel was genius of a general. He was not under some illusion that it was the new Shermans that were going to dominate his new Tigers. It is not hard to understand reading the drive back across North Africa as the very reason the war was now going in the other direction.


    Artillery is good, it has a big role but it also requires a stable front and it can only be used in certain circumstances. But then again, Germany had very good artillery in Normandy and they were simply not allowed to use it because each barrage could lead to the immediate destruction of the piece that fired it. Air power erased German artillery so that in all intents and purposes it simply did not exist as a useable weapon in the western front. Again, I feel I must iterate, a tank is good against unprotected infantry and any stray truck or light armor not destroyed by the advancing air strikes. But it does not make a difference what kind of tank you use. They were simply inconsequential. Moving SCADS of tanks from the eastern front would not have changed the race across France with the exception that it would have taken a bit longer to completely annihilate those additional tanks from the air supremacy.

    Russia was a factor only in the amount of time. This was the premise lain out in the first place. You seem to have forgotten the original argument. It was argued that the Allies could not have beaten Germany if Germany had not invaded Russia. The USAAF and the RAF could have STILL bombed the German armor out of existence. More sorties? Yes. More time? Yes. A different out come? Not a chance.

    Well, again, you sort of seem to be in agreement with me but you also seemed to disagree by the straw man argument you made. I never said or implied all you need is air supremacy. I remember reading a reference by Gen Doolittle and his son who was an officer during WWII and they were together flying up to France in a transport plane when his boy looked out and saw a major traffic jam of Allied supply trucks, armor of all types etc in long columns that stretched for miles. He turned to his day and said,” no way you could get away with that if you didn’t own the sky”.

    Not sure where you are going with this. Rolling Thunder was a stupid idea that was a political strategy to bomb a trail that they could simply move to the sides of until the bombers were gone and move on. The VC moved at night. They slept during the day. LeMay thought the idea was moronic. He wanted to bomb military targets instead, dams fuel centers, aircraft assembly plants, etc but Johnson and McNamara were afraid it would escalate the war. The idea was to break their will by putting holes in the country side. Probably not the best use of air power, and certainly not the best example to use to make a point you think you have. The US was afraid to invade and crank up a full scale war in both Korea and Vietnam. The invasion of the Chinese into Korea could have been decimated by airpower as the Chinese had nothing but 270,000 foot soldiers but Mac was prevented from using his air power above the 38th parallel. Macarthur wanted to do this and/or a few other things to keep his troops from getting killed by the overwhelming numbers but Truman was missing a political backbone and many US soldiers died because of this cowardice. Mac was grossly critical of this cowardice in the press which led to his “being replaced” with Ridgeway by Truman and his “old soldiers never die” speech before congress. Air power can defeat anything accept politics. Politics when properly mixed with cowardice is even more powerful than a nuclear bomb.

    Gotthard, I don’t want to sound insulting or condescending but the arguments you made make it hard for me to take you serious. If you are joking, no problem because I like to cut up myself. But the examples you gave have nothing to do with the efficacy of air power and the expression is “that dog won’t hunt”.
     
  2. Kiwiwriter

    Kiwiwriter Very Senior Member

    In his second book, "A General's Life," Bradley is extremely hard on Patton and Montgomery. In addition, my reading on Bradley also comes from biographies of Patton, Ike, and Montgomery, including Carlo D'Este's superb books.


    You're also leaving out the point that Ike was under pressure to use the airborne forces and to do something about the V-1 and V-2 bombardments of London, which were wrecking badly-strained British morale. However, I was not discussing Market-Garden.


    As I said, Bradley is harsher on Patton in his second book, and his dislike of Patton comes out in the books on Patton I have read. They actually did not get on well, and Bradley seems to have disliked Patton for his flamboyance, harsh language, and the "slapping incident."


    That's also from D'Este and other books, including Robin Neillands and Denis Whitaker. A more important point about Falaise is that it is depicted today as a failure, but the toll the Germans paid in the pocket was immense.

    I wasn't trying to glorify Montgomery or say he was right. Montgomery's faults were pretty huge and most of them were personal manners and methods of behavior that were guaranteed to infuriate his allies. The real problem in the Sicily campaign was not as much the rivalry between Monty and Patton but the fact that it was the first major Allied campaign involving two full-strength armies from the United States and the British Commonwealth. Neither force had any practical experience at working with each other at that level. In Tunisia, the two armies were British, and the American force was a corps. Badly led at first by Lloyd Fredendall and greener than Astroturf, the US 2nd Corps did badly in its first encounters with the Germans at Kasserine. The British were angered by the American disintegration at Kasserine after their brash pre-battle pronouncements, and the Americans were infuriated by the British condescending attitude after three years of retreats and defeats. This was not a model for inter-Allied cooperation in Sicily, and the campaign pretty much proved a training ground for future joint operations, which never went well.

    As it happens, I'm working with Robin Neillands on this very subject, and the big problem was actually the two nations' competing philosophies of war and ground combat. The British saw it as a sport, the Americans as a grim all-out struggle. The British valued the art of their campaign and were desperate to avoid losing the few men they had left, the Americans saw their mass army as being civilians in uniform and that victory was achieved through the proper application of economic might and power. These divisions caused immense problems for the two nations in both World Wars.

    Gordon Corrigan points out that as early as 1918, the Americans could not understand the flip British attitudes -- an American officer assigned as a liaison to a British unit wrote a report to his boss that the British unit he was with had poor morale and was likely to break. This was because the British CO had said the Germans were about to attack the area the British were holding, "and they were bloody welcome to it."



    One of the most annoying things about war (as opposed to horrific) is that c*********t is not confined to lower-level officers, but flag rank. Often generals seem more concerned with their memoirs and postwar careers than in defeating the enemy. American Civil War generals' memoirs always save their harshest critiques for each other. If these generals hurled as much energy before the war against their opponents in battle instead of after the war against their colleagues in print, the war would have been won in a day. Rivalries, both personal and national, pettiness, personal anmiosities, jealousies, have been a staple of war since Alexander faced Greek mercenaries fighting for Darius across the field at Gaugemala. That is why so many generals who deserve to be remembered: Dempsey, Somervell, Montgomery Meigs, Quesada, Hodges, Simpson, Broadhurst, Chuikov, Yeremenko, Ramsay, McCreery, Rees, and Juin get forgotten. Generals with the ability to put themselves in the public eye (or are able to handle having it thrust upon them), get remembered.

    This is why we have seen a change in the way history is taught and warriors are remembered...prior to World War I, war memorials often honored the generals who led the battles. Increasingly since the War to End All Wars, we have seen teaching and memorialization shift away from dress-uniformed figures on horseback making decisions and arrows on a map in favor of ordinary people struggling to cope with unimaginable horrors at the front and incredible shortages and bombing at home. I was taught in high school about panzer divisions driving across France. Important, but my daughter Wallis is learning about the experiences of children in the Holocaust and families in the Blitz. We also saw that the memorial tot he Korean War shifted from being a statue of MacArthur (the original plan) to a statuary group of a Marine patrol, and a wall depicting images of other US military personnel doing their jobs, many of them not in the front line. The experience of war is replacing the strategy of war. I prefer that to the "war between the generals," which is the title of David Irving's book, which assails the entire Allied high command, for his usual purpose, rehabilitating Hitler.



    Nobody saw the Bulge was coming. But Bradley didn't make many moves to address the situation. He opposed Ike sending in the airborne divisions from the strategic reserve. As we know, those moves were vital. However, I wasn't defending Montgomery's idiotic press conference after the Bulge, which was probably his grossest personal act of what the British would call "caddishness" and the Americans bullying. I believe that press conference, more than his military work, is why Americans loathe and despise him. It's interesting that before he shoved his foot in his mouth, he paid great tribute to the qualities of the American soldier at that conference. Bradley was right to be furious over that press conference. And the problems the Americans had with the British media have little to do with the issue I'm addressing. I would point out that the British often had similar complaints about American media...they were very angry about American newspapers that reported that U.S. forces had raided Dieppe (all 50 of them), and American films that portrayed the Burma front as a war being won singlehandedly by American aviators and Errol Flynn. The "Forgotten Army" was also forgotten by its own allies.

    However, the subject of press coverage of World War II is a Master's Thesis for another day.

     
  3. jimbotosome

    jimbotosome Discharged

    (Kiwiwriter @ Dec 2 2005, 10:57 AM) [post=42456]In his second book, "A General's Life," Bradley is extremely hard on Patton and Montgomery. In addition, my reading on Bradley also comes from biographies of Patton, Ike, and Montgomery, including Carlo D'Este's superb books. [/b]
    I will reserve judgment on that because I have that book and am about to read it.

    (Kiwiwriter @ Dec 2 2005, 10:57 AM) [post=42456]You're also leaving out the point that Ike was under pressure to use the airborne forces and to do something about the V-1 and V-2 bombardments of London, which were wrecking badly-strained British morale. However, I was not discussing Market-Garden. [/b]
    Neither was I discussing Market Garden. I was using it as an illustration that Ike had favored the Brits which put Bradley in constant binds.


    (Kiwiwriter @ Dec 2 2005, 10:57 AM) [post=42456]That's also from D'Este and other books, including Robin Neillands and Denis Whitaker. A more important point about Falaise is that it is depicted today as a failure, but the toll the Germans paid in the pocket was immense. [/b]
    Bradley claimed it was negligible because all that escaped were non-essentials. But the Falaise incident is commonly blamed on Bradley who bore no guilt in it. It was not at his option to break his word and move his troops into the British/Canadian sector and potentially get his men killed by allied artillery or get his allies killed by his artillery. Bradley didn’t see the Falaise pocket as a failure.

    (Kiwiwriter @ Dec 2 2005, 10:57 AM) [post=42456]I wasn't trying to glorify Montgomery or say he was right. Montgomery's faults were pretty huge and most of them were personal manners and methods of behavior that were guaranteed to infuriate his allies. The real problem in the Sicily campaign was not as much the rivalry between Monty and Patton but the fact that it was the first major Allied campaign involving two full-strength armies from the United States and the British Commonwealth. Neither force had any practical experience at working with each other at that level. In Tunisia, the two armies were British, and the American force was a corps. Badly led at first by Lloyd Fredendall and greener than Astroturf, the US 2nd Corps did badly in its first encounters with the Germans at Kasserine. The British were angered by the American disintegration at Kasserine after their brash pre-battle pronouncements, and the Americans were infuriated by the British condescending attitude after three years of retreats and defeats. This was not a model for inter-Allied cooperation in Sicily, and the campaign pretty much proved a training ground for future joint operations, which never went well.
    [/b]
    I was addressing your statement that Bradley disliked the British, I don’t find that to have merit. When Patton took over US 2nd, he found them in a disastrous state. In his diary and letters to his wife he was appalled that Fredendall would let his troops get into such a state of low discipline. He said if you can’t have discipline in small things you can’t expect it in battle.

    (Kiwiwriter @ Dec 2 2005, 10:57 AM) [post=42456]As it happens, I'm working with Robin Neillands on this very subject, and the big problem was actually the two nations' competing philosophies of war and ground combat. The British saw it as a sport, the Americans as a grim all-out struggle. The British valued the art of their campaign and were desperate to avoid losing the few men they had left, the Americans saw their mass army as being civilians in uniform and that victory was achieved through the proper application of economic might and power. These divisions caused immense problems for the two nations in both World Wars. [/b]
    The statement you made here is something that I too had concluded all along. Not only that, but it is very profound and I am glad someone is addressing that. I have always thought that Monty’s “over-conservatism” was because he was limited in his resources. I never thought he was timid as many historians painted him. Monty viewed the battle as chess, Patton viewed it as football. I likewise believed Patton’s “over-aggressiveness” was an option to him by the fact he never had to concern himself with resources. This enabled them to fight two different types of battles. Ike said he believed in Monty and Patton he had the best of both worlds. But I am glad you said that because I have seen a lot of sniping by each side (Monty fans and Patton fans). Their contrasting styles would indeed cause conflicts and resentments. I think you have nailed that one right on the head.

    (Kiwiwriter @ Dec 2 2005, 10:57 AM) [post=42456]One of the most annoying things about war (as opposed to horrific) is that c*********t is not confined to lower-level officers, but flag rank. Often generals seem more concerned with their memoirs and postwar careers than in defeating the enemy. American Civil War generals' memoirs always save their harshest critiques for each other. If these generals hurled as much energy before the war against their opponents in battle instead of after the war against their colleagues in print, the war would have been won in a day. Rivalries, both personal and national, pettiness, personal anmiosities, jealousies, have been a staple of war since Alexander faced Greek mercenaries fighting for Darius across the field at Gaugemala. That is why so many generals who deserve to be remembered: Dempsey, Somervell, Montgomery Meigs, Quesada, Hodges, Simpson, Broadhurst, Chuikov, Yeremenko, Ramsay, McCreery, Rees, and Juin get forgotten. Generals with the ability to put themselves in the public eye (or are able to handle having it thrust upon them), get remembered. [/b]
    Perhaps it is merely the nature of the beast. Good generals are usually aggressive and aggressive people do not have “charming” personalities. When you make decisions that can cost men their lives, you are going to be paranoid. The mistakes you made are sometimes beyond your control but you will still have guilt in them. False bravado and self-aggrandizing are probably defense mechanisms to mitigate this guilt. Aggressive people tend to be highly competitive. The news media can certainly turn the whole affair into a circus as they did with Patton (in the US) and Monty (in Britain).

    Egos exist on all levels. It is just that the ones propagated are the ones on the “big guys”. I think most military men will tell you that Lts are competitive with other Lts, Captains with Captains, Colonels with Colonels. I think it might be a little narrow to somehow believe it is a characteristic of generals simply because it is visible to posterity in that group. Better said it tends to be common to all men but more visible with generals.

    (Kiwiwriter @ Dec 2 2005, 10:57 AM) [post=42456]Nobody saw the Bulge was coming. But Bradley didn't make many moves to address the situation. He opposed Ike sending in the airborne divisions from the strategic reserve. As we know, those moves were vital. However, I wasn't defending Montgomery's idiotic press conference after the Bulge, which was probably his grossest personal act of what the British would call "caddishness" and the Americans bullying. I believe that press conference, more than his military work, is why Americans loathe and despise him. It's interesting that before he shoved his foot in his mouth, he paid great tribute to the qualities of the American soldier at that conference. Bradley was right to be furious over that press conference. And the problems the Americans had with the British media have little to do with the issue I'm addressing. I would point out that the British often had similar complaints about American media...they were very angry about American newspapers that reported that U.S. forces had raided Dieppe (all 50 of them), and American films that portrayed the Burma front as a war being won singlehandedly by American aviators and Errol Flynn. The "Forgotten Army" was also forgotten by its own allies.[/b]
    Perhaps you are right about the statements after the Bulge being the most polarizing. You can see the reason that his statements would have hit so hard since the Americans were sucker-punched by the Germans, lost many men and were so surprised that it was an embarrassment. That would certainly be adding insult to injury. But when I read about it, I really think you have to give the Germans credit for the surprise. Even though it bought them nothing and cost them too much, it did hurt the Americans in loses and pride. But from what I have read by Ike, there was simply no way to distinguish build ups with information coming in from many different areas all up and down the 200+ mile huge front he had. The assembly during the poor weather was a good calculation by the Germans this prevented air reconnaissance that would have had all of the armor destroyed in the assembly area. The idea that the beaten up Germans would attack through the Ardennes which is not tank country was so absurd that they moved the inexperienced and battle weary troops in that area for protection. It just so happened that Hitler being a crazy man believed that “destiny” would intervene so all he wanted was surprise, not strategic sanity. The Ardennes was suicide even to the huge army he had left.

    (Kiwiwriter @ Dec 2 2005, 10:57 AM) [post=42456]Not really. I just don't think he was flawless. I wrapped up my presentation on him by quoting Kenneth Macksey's tribute to Bradley. And it cannot be overstated that while he and his forces suffered setbacks, disappointments, and casualties, they were not defeated, and Bradley's forces drove through powerful German opposition from Normandy to the Elbeand into Czechoslovakia.
    [/b]
    I don’t know of many people (serious people that is) that espouse that anyone is flawless or perfect, or even close. When I read about him both by him and by those that really knew him, I find they are usually harmonious in their evaluation of each other and it is the historians that have painted the picture that most people believe. I like letters and diary quotations more because I think there is much less fluff and more honesty and candor of thought. Historians on the other hand tend to blur the line between what is fact and what is opinion. I don't think it is a conspiracy to mislead, but it is rather the nature of their beast to lose the ability to distinguish between facts and their own opinion. Their view of their own opinion is so high it tends to cause the facts and that opinion to be synonymous.
     
  4. Gerard

    Gerard Seelow/Prora

    First of all I am not joking in the slightest and I am disappointed that you feel that I am not serious. I dont take offense however I am widely read on these subjects and have no problem ,given time backing up my assertions.

    HOWEVER if you are going to assume that my arguments cannot be taken seriously please note that you have made the point that the Russian Winter and Allied Bombing stopped the German Tigers, Stukas and the Blitzkrieg. Ok, first of all the Tiger was not introduced until August 1942 and was developed as a result of engagements with T-34's and KV-1's the previous year. Blitzkrieg as a form of war by the Germans finished before the Tiger came about. As for Allied Bombing stopping the Blitzkrieg, please note the start of the Allied Bombing Offensive and the finish of Blitzkrieg. You'll see a difference in Dates. Your information is not accurate on this subject and if you feel that I can't make arguments well how do you think I feel when your facts like that are wrong??

    You also state that the Russians never marauded the Germans supply lines. I'm assuming you mean by air. No they didnt launch any strategic offensive bombing of German Cities. However they did have Partisans. Before you laugh this off, please note that there were up to 142,000 partisans operating from as far north as Lake Ladoga and as far south as the Crimea. Thats a significant amount of men that the germans had to fight behind their lines. Figures released after the war state that the Partisans had destroyed 3,263 Bridges, 1,191 Tanks. 4000 lorries and up to 100,000 Germans. Now thats a sizable haul by any standards. As for Tactical Air Power well the Russians had a very powerful air force by the wars end. The IL-2 Sturmovik, one of the most successful attack aircraft ever, had a total of 36,000 aircraft produced making it one of the most produced aircraft in history. Incidentally it was used as a reference when the USAF designed the A-10 in the 1970's!!!!

    You make the point that it was the Allies and only the Allies bombing the Germans back to the Stone age and equipping the Russians that won the war in the East. Please look at production figures for the German Armaments industry up until 1944 and then please revise your statement.
    And you have said that Allied supplies made sure that Russia defeated Germany. Show me the figures that prove this. Put the number of aircraft delivered, tanks delivered up against Russian production figures and then come back to this point.

    Russia's strategy was not to run scads of tanks at the Tigers and by the way, if you truly knew anything about the Panzerwaffe, you'd know that the Mark IV was the main Battle Tank of the war, not the Tiger. The Tiger production was 1,355 as opposed to 8,200 Mark IV's and 6,500 Mark V Panther. If your posts are to be believed then the Tiger is the only Tank the Germans produced. The Russians learnt the hard way during the early years of the war but by the end of the war they were truly experts in the Air and on land, being able to launch large scale offensives and co-ordinate them as shown in Operation Bagration.

    You seem to quote Rommel quite a bit. Whilst he never fought on the Eastern Front (Even though Guderian recommended to Hitler appointing him to an eastern command after the Fall of North Africa), His subordinates notably Oberst Von Mellenthin and Oberst Von Luck did and were impressed by the Russian Army. In particular Von Mellenthin was quite complimetary about the Russians ability to Defend and their ability in exploiting bridgeheads. And this from an Acolyte of Rommels!

    In case you are wondering why I have posted this, I am telling you that when it comes to Russia, you have quoted inaccurate information and made sweeping generalisations about the Eastern Front that are just not true. You need to learn more about this conflict or indeed, get your facts right, otherwise there is no point continuing this discussion. It just makes your assertion that the Russian campaign had no effect on the outcome even more laughable.
     
  5. jimbotosome

    jimbotosome Discharged

    (Gotthard Heinrici @ Dec 2 2005, 08:41 PM) [post=42520]First of all I am not joking in the slightest and I am disappointed that you feel that I am not serious. I dont take offense however I am widely read on these subjects and have no problem ,given time backing up my assertions. [/b]
    Your conclusions on Vietnam leave a lot to be desired. In the US, kids as old as 10 realize that Vietnam was a “political” war that killed many US soldiers who should not have had to die. For you to assume that the US was so concerned about the NVA that they executed a poor strategic and tactical execution, versus US politicians being fools, is what I find very, very hard to take serious. If you are well read on Vietnam, you would never have gone there. Vietnam vets would take tremendous offense at that. I have never in my life heard anyone intimate that the reason the US “cut and ran” was that politics would not let them destroy a very, very weak enemy. Instead they had to stay in a little box and not take on this enemy they could have annihilated completely in a few months. Even the Tet Offensive that was “the last straw” politically for pulling the plug, was a mass slaughter of the NVA. It was when the NVA ran virtually their entire army at the US sacrificing them in hopes of killing enough US soldiers to cause political chaos in the US and cause them to withdraw which they were "teetering" on doing already. The news media played it as a US loss and it removed the taste for war publicly. Since Nixon was not allowed to execute the war, he decided (wisely so) to pull the plug. Remember, Vietnam was a “police action” meaning that the US never declared war on North Vietnam so the President cannot execute a full scale war. Had war been declared then Nixon would have let the bombers go into Cambodia and Laos and bomb them into rubble ending the war by virtue of lack of humans. The North Vietnamese had no air force. You made the (sorry I have to be honest) patently absurd analogy how Vietnam was an example of how air power cannot win a war for you. If you think that war was an issue of poor military decision of any kind, air or otherwise, there is no hope of me or anyone else getting through to you. This is what I find difficult to take seriously and still do. You are welcome to believe what you want, just don’t expect me to pretend like I think that is a plausible or serious contention.



    (Gotthard Heinrici @ Dec 2 2005, 08:41 PM) [post=42520]HOWEVER if you are going to assume that my arguments cannot be taken seriously please note that you have made the point that the Russian Winter and Allied Bombing stopped the German Tigers, Stukas and the Blitzkrieg. Ok, first of all the Tiger was not introduced until August 1942 and was developed as a result of engagements with T-34's and KV-1's the previous year. Blitzkrieg as a form of war by the Germans finished before the Tiger came about. As for Allied Bombing stopping the Blitzkrieg, please note the start of the Allied Bombing Offensive and the finish of Blitzkrieg. You'll see a difference in Dates. Your information is not accurate on this subject and if you feel that I can't make arguments well how do you think I feel when your facts like that are wrong?? [/b]
    You don’t read what I post very well. You are reaching some conclusions again that are straw man arguments. Perhaps it is a definition in terms in which we have a disconnect. Either that or like I said you are a “tank-o-phile” extraordinaire. Blitzkrieg has nothing to do with tanks. NOTHING. Blitzkrieg in regards to Germany is not limited to the history of using it in France like you are thinking. It is limited to any context by which the Germans may use air power to overwhelm and destroy an enemy. Blitzkrieg as you know means “lightening war”. No tank causes a “lightening war” as clearly illustrated byt the fact we see by Tigers and Panthers “running all out, full throttle” fleeing from the Shermans on the western front but slugging out like madness with better tanks (better than the Sherman) on the eastern front. The fact that the Allies removed the Luftwaffe from 1942 to mid 1944 means that Blitzkrieg and the very concept of Germany ever use it again was completely erased. The Luftwaffe must be used to keep the RAF and USAAF from destroying Rommel in North Africa. This is not “incorrect facts” but rather a miscommunication because you seem to infer that Blitzkrieg has something to do with “efficient use of tanks”. Monty in North African and Patton in Normandy BOTH executed Blitzkriegs against the Germans that made the Blitzkriegs of the Germans in France, Belgium, Denmark, Poland, etc look like a “boy scout” operations.

    (Gotthard Heinrici @ Dec 2 2005, 08:41 PM) [post=42520]You also state that the Russians never marauded the Germans supply lines. I'm assuming you mean by air. No they didnt launch any strategic offensive bombing of German Cities. However they did have Partisans. Before you laugh this off, please note that there were up to 142,000 partisans operating from as far north as Lake Ladoga and as far south as the Crimea. Thats a significant amount of men that the germans had to fight behind their lines. Figures released after the war state that the Partisans had destroyed 3,263 Bridges, 1,191 Tanks. 4000 lorries and up to 100,000 Germans. Now thats a sizable haul by any standards. As for Tactical Air Power well the Russians had a very powerful air force by the wars end. The IL-2 Sturmovik, one of the most successful attack aircraft ever, had a total of 36,000 aircraft produced making it one of the most produced aircraft in history. Incidentally it was used as a reference when the USAF designed the A-10 in the 1970's!!!! [/b]
    Well in the far north, they had the Finns that were a relatively weak nation that kicked their teeth in. This was what they did to the Germans because of “General Winter”. The Finns had the advantage being even better than Russian in the cold just as Russia was saved by the cold reversing their disadvantages against Germany. The Russians had an air force of significance only after the US supplied them. Russian Army left to itself without lend lease would have starved to death like the millions of their familes and citizens they forced to starve to death. IL-2s were a decent plane but were not Jugs or Tempests it was slow like a Stuka. But what do you expect from Russia? BTW: The A10 was NOT based on the IL-2. Where you got that I don’t know. The A-10 was based on the Thunderbolt which was not only a far superior plane to the IL-2, but was also built by Republic who built the A-10. Because of this Republic named the A-10 “Thunderbolt II”. If they had based it on the IL-2, they would have had to remove an engine to slow it down, remove the rear armor to better expose the pilot and give it wooden wings. Good thing they chose to base it on the Jug instead.

    (Gotthard Heinrici @ Dec 2 2005, 08:41 PM) [post=42520]You make the point that it was the Allies and only the Allies bombing the Germans back to the Stone age and equipping the Russians that won the war in the East. Please look at production figures for the German Armaments industry up until 1944 and then please revise your statement.
    And you have said that Allied supplies made sure that Russia defeated Germany. Show me the figures that prove this. Put the number of aircraft delivered, tanks delivered up against Russian production figures and then come back to this point. [/b]
    Gotthard, you are aware that it was not a lack of planes that caused the Luftwaffe to disappear from the skies right? It was a lack of pilots and fuel and that because of the "real" allied air forces. But as far as production goes, most produced planes were sent to the western front to where they could be quickly destroyed by the “friendly” Allies. The Americans and British bombed the German war industry and fuel industry into oblivion. I thought everybody knew this. The “scumbag” Russians would not even let the Americans land in Russia to refuel. They were a piece of crap as a nation and an army. Many believe the Allies fought the wrong scumbag in WWII. Russia was a worse ally to the “good” Allies than Italy was to Germany.

    (Gotthard Heinrici @ Dec 2 2005, 08:41 PM) [post=42520]Russia's strategy was not to run scads of tanks at the Tigers and by the way, if you truly knew anything about the Panzerwaffe, you'd know that the Mark IV was the main Battle Tank of the war, not the Tiger. The Tiger production was 1,355 as opposed to 8,200 Mark IV's and 6,500 Mark V Panther. If your posts are to be believed then the Tiger is the only Tank the Germans produced. The Russians learnt the hard way during the early years of the war but by the end of the war they were truly experts in the Air and on land, being able to launch large scale offensives and co-ordinate them as shown in Operation Bagration. [/b]
    I was just taking Otto Carius at his word and Bidermann at his too. They claimed the Russians used their tanks as sacrificial pawns. The Tiger was merely the superior tank used in WWII and my points were that it was a non-factor in the outcome of the war though even in its low numbers claimed a lot of T-34s.

    (Gotthard Heinrici @ Dec 2 2005, 08:41 PM) [post=42520]You seem to quote Rommel quite a bit. Whilst he never fought on the Eastern Front (Even though Guderian recommended to Hitler appointing him to an eastern command after the Fall of North Africa), His subordinates notably Oberst Von Mellenthin and Oberst Von Luck did and were impressed by the Russian Army. In particular Von Mellenthin was quite complimetary about the Russians ability to Defend and their ability in exploiting bridgeheads. And this from an Acolyte of Rommels! [/b]
    I quote Rommel on the principles of domination of Germany which he spoke quite openly about. I never said he referred to the eastern front, just as you could never find a reference of mine stating that. I am being overwhelmed by straw men arguments. You need to read what I am saying and determine if I am making points based on things you conclude the way you think war is won or if I make points based on my theory of war being won from the air alone. I do like Rommel. He was very sharp like Patton and very honest and humble (not so much like Patton). If you are an Acolyte of Rommels, how come you don't know how he felt about air supremacy? He spoke about it almost incessantly in "The Rommel Papers".

    (Gotthard Heinrici @ Dec 2 2005, 08:41 PM) [post=42520]In case you are wondering why I have posted this, I am telling you that when it comes to Russia, you have quoted inaccurate information and made sweeping generalisations about the Eastern Front that are just not true. You need to learn more about this conflict or indeed, get your facts right, otherwise there is no point continuing this discussion. It just makes your assertion that the Russian campaign had no effect on the outcome even more laughable.
    [/b]
    The only thing you have proven here Gotthard is that you stick to eastern front understanding of how war is won which is why I said you sound like a tank-o-phile. You think tanks are significant therefore you reject my conclusions based on me thinking the opposite. But you mistake that I base it as an air-monger (which I am) which means its basis is completely alien to your way of thinking and why you think I quoted errors. An example of this was that your definition of Blitzkrieg had to do with a specific timeframe of war (Germany’s move across France) and you think it involves tanks. In contrast my definition was much like Goering’s which involved rapid defeat of an enemy based on the speed (i.e. lightening) war of using aircraft and bringing in armor when it’s all over but the shouting. Because of this, your arguments turned into straw man arguments where you kept insisting I was saying something or concluding something that I never did. Go back and read the things I wrote carefully and you will see that my words were thought out and rational knowing the unequivocal premise of the hopelessness of even a massive tank army against air supremacy. Therefore knowing that air can wipe out any “armor” advantages as EVIDENCED by the fact that Shermans “dogged” superior German armor across North Africa at “full throttle”, same for Sicily, and same for Normandy, I can again assert and very logically so that the affect of Russia on the war was merely an academic one. The air supremacy would have destroyed every piece of equipment and every soldier Germany produced even if it was all sent to the western front and there had been no eastern front. It would have merely shifted the invasion date by about 6 months. In case you didn’t realize it, Russia was in the process of getting completely annihilated until saved by the skin of their teeth by a record cold winter and large donations of western equipment. They were not erasing German equipment to “bail” out the British in North Africa. They weren’t doing squat to Germany except donating land and equipment. It was not until the nation saving winter combined with the Lend Lease Act that the tide turned in Russia. Perhaps that same Lend Lease equipment sent instead to one of the “friendly” Allied nations would have put Germany away sooner than sending it to Russia. Who knows?
     
  6. Gerard

    Gerard Seelow/Prora

    Jimbo, there must be a definite case of crossed lines because according to what I am reading "blitzkrieg" as per your definition, has nothing to do with Tanks. NOTHING.

    Right for starters the concept of Blitzkrieg is a combined arms effort. If you disagree with this then please show me proof. Refer me to a web page or quote me a piece of writing that backs up your assertion that Blitzkrieg has nothing to do with tanks. You are so insistent on this that you must have proof that this is so. My take on Blitzkrieg is that it is a combined arms approach, an approach that utitlises the strength of Tactical Air Power with the striking power of Armor and infantry to overwhelm the enemy. You say that I make "straw man arguments". Well prove me wrong with this one. Now please do not misunderstand me. I am not advocating tanks over airpower. I am saying that they were used together, in conjunction with other services. I am a combined arms o phile. Not a Tank of phile. Also who invented "Blitzkrieg"?? Tank Men thats who. Men like Guderian, Fuller and De Gaulle. Now please be clear, my point is not "Tank was better". My point is merely to challenge your assertion that Blitzkrieg had nothing to do with Tanks. And I'm saying you are wrong. Prove me wrong. And please use some referenced material, your opinion is no more or no less valid than mine so lets use a neutral source shall we?


    Now you say the Finns kicked the Russians teeth in. And in 1940 you are right. But thats not the whole story is it??? What happened to the Finns in 1944? Did they win against the Russians? Actually they had to sue for peace having been beaten and seceded territory to the Russians. Or did you know this???

    Now I'd better make sure I understand this Jimbo because this statement might be open to misinterpretation. They were a piece of crap as a nation and as an army. I dont deny that their political system was evil abhorrent and the leadership as bad as Hitler and Nazism.

    The US didnt face the type of war the Soviets faced. Russia was going to be destroyed. the fact that its military was unprepared is not to be denied and I dont deny that to the West their value on life was appalling. For years after the war, the west was "seduced" by the memoirs of German Generals which were self-serving and ultimately distorted the truth. If you dont believe me then read "Panzer Leader" by Heinz Guderian or "Lost Victories" by Erich von Manstein. You will see what I mean

    Now read a piece of literature written by US Colonel David M Glantz of the Foreign Military Studies Office in Leavenworth. This is a US guy and his appraisal of the Russians in WWII. It differs from your opinion and you know I'm gonna go with him cause he provides evidence to back up his claims. Here is the article about it and I have included the summary at the end because it states exactly what you have been preaching about, that "General Winter" stopped the Germans. Here is the link: http://fmso.leavenworth.army.mil/documents/e-front.htm And here is the summary:

    The dominant role of German source materials in shaping American perceptions of the war on the Eastern Front and the negative perception of Soviet source materials have had an indelible impact on the American image of war on the Eastern Front. What has resulted in a series of gross judgments treated as truths regarding operations in the East and Soviet (Red) Army combat performance. The gross judgments appear repeatedly in textbooks and all types of historical works, and they are persistent in the extreme. Each lies someplace between the realm of myth and reality. In summary, a few of these judgments are as follows:

    - Weather repeatedly frustrated the fulfillment of German operational aims.

    - Soviet forces throughout the war in virtually every operation possessed significant or overwhelming numerical superiority.

    - Soviet manpower resources were inexhaustible, hence the Soviets continually ignored human losses.

    - Soviet strategic and high level operational leadership was superb. However, lower level leadership (corps and below) was uniformly dismal.

    - Soviet planning was rigid, and the execution of plans at every level was inflexible and unimaginative.

    - Wherever possible, the Soviets relied for success on mass rather than maneuver. Envelopment operations were avoided whenever possible.

    - The Soviets operated in two echelons, never cross attached units, and attacked along straight axes.

    - Lend lease was critical for Soviet victory. Without it collapse might have ensured.

    - Hitler was the cause of virtually all German defeats. Army expertise produced earlier victories (a variation of the post World War I stab in the back. legend).

    - The stereotypical Soviet soldier was capable of enduring great suffering and hardship, fatalistic, dogged in defense (in particular in bridgeheads), a master of infiltration and night fighting, but inflexible, unimaginative, emotional and prone to panic in the face of uncertainty.

    A majority of Americans probably accept these judgments as realities . In doing so they display a warped impression of the war which belittles the role played by the Red Army. As a consequence, they have a lower than justified appreciation for the Red Army as a fighting force, a tendency which extends, as well, to the postwar Soviet Army. Until the American public (and historians) perception of Soviet source material changes, this overall perception of the war in the East and the Soviet (Red) Army is likely to persist.

    In all your posts on this you have not once backed up your claims with any resourced material that backs up your claim that Russia had no effect on the outcome of the war. You will also have noticed that if I am so wrong why has no-one else hopped in to support you on this???
     
  7. mteddy

    mteddy Junior Member

    This is a deep question.......... talking to some front veterans, people that fight in tranches directly, they recognized the size of the front beeing huge, enormous, compared to european campaigns, in wide and deep, and a critical issue was supplies, on a 1200 Km front indepth - that time this is huge, even for today.
    Now someone here pointed out the fact that german army came in as opressors, and not as liberators, Hitler ideology concerning russians and slaves in general was total anhielation, according at least to Mein Kampf. Simple examples: Ukrainean general Vlasov with 2 million ukrainean kazachs offered their support as allies to Wermacht to fight against russians, and they have been refused because they haven't been ariens, PURE RACE. Plus almost 5 millions prisoners russians taken in first offensive days.
    Now if Hitler politics would have been a stalinistic type, and they would have accepted Vlasov and converted russian prisoners to allied forces, than Russia would have been history today.
    WWII was mainly a bllody confruntation in between two major players: HITLER and STALIN, quality, against quantity - cause we have to be honnest to observe the main most operations, and bloodshed have been taken place on eastern front, from Caucazian part,back to Berlin.

    Western front has to be considered different, cause it has been opened up lately in 1944, and dice have been rolled plenty of times, previously.
     
  8. jimbotosome

    jimbotosome Discharged

    (Gotthard Heinrici @ Dec 3 2005, 08:06 AM) [post=42552]Jimbo, there must be a definite case of crossed lines because according to what I am reading "blitzkrieg" as per your definition, has nothing to do with Tanks. NOTHING.

    Right for starters the concept of Blitzkrieg is a combined arms effort. If you disagree with this then please show me proof. Refer me to a web page or quote me a piece of writing that backs up your assertion that Blitzkrieg has nothing to do with tanks. You are so insistent on this that you must have proof that this is so. My take on Blitzkrieg is that it is a combined arms approach, an approach that utitlises the strength of Tactical Air Power with the striking power of Armor and infantry to overwhelm the enemy. You say that I make "straw man arguments". Well prove me wrong with this one. Now please do not misunderstand me. I am not advocating tanks over airpower. I am saying that they were used together, in conjunction with other services. I am a combined arms o phile. Not a Tank of phile. Also who invented "Blitzkrieg"?? Tank Men thats who. Men like Guderian, Fuller and De Gaulle. Now please be clear, my point is not "Tank was better". My point is merely to challenge your assertion that Blitzkrieg had nothing to do with Tanks. And I'm saying you are wrong. Prove me wrong. And please use some referenced material, your opinion is no more or no less valid than mine so lets use a neutral source shall we? [/b]
    You know, the blitzkrieg would not have been possible without clothes. Without shoes and clothes, the men would die from exposure and could never advance. But I don’t think of the clothes the Germans wore when I think of Blitzkrieg. The whole point here is what makes a Blitzkrieg and what makes a standard war where you not only move like “lightening” but also get your behind kicked? You seem to not understand why it was called Blitzkrieg. The term “lightening war” is one that indicates that because of the speed at which an advance is facilitated, it seems like a lightening strike. Tanks do not facilitate that. It is air power where the rapid advance comes from. The drive into Poland and the drive across France were the fastest ever until Patton’s “Blitzkrieg” with the mighty Ronson Lighters. I cannot seem to get the point across that Blitzkrieg was a term that specifically illustrated the result of this new warfare with aircraft. Like I said, air wins the game by destroying the enemy armor and artillery and your own armor and artillery simply allow you to consolidate the gains like your clothes keep you warm to live and see the victory. Neither tank specifics (numbers, quality, experience) nor the clothes specifics (color, style, quality, comfort) have anything to do with the ability to wage a “lightening war”. My whole premise here is that aircraft cancel the whole issue of ground forces and equipment (Rock/Paper/Scissors) and why simply having more tanks and soldiers on the western front (that would be the result of our hypothesis) would not have made a significant difference. To me that should be obvious. Tanks have no defenses against air planes. Therefore it is an “academic” point to say that more tanks would not have changed the result. It would have just taken a little longer for the planes to destroy the the additional tanks until the combinded front was back to the level of the western front and the rest would be history. I don’t understand what is so hard to understand about that.


    (Gotthard Heinrici @ Dec 3 2005, 08:06 AM) [post=42552]Now you say the Finns kicked the Russians teeth in. And in 1940 you are right. But thats not the whole story is it??? What happened to the Finns in 1944? Did they win against the Russians? Actually they had to sue for peace having been beaten and seceded territory to the Russians. Or did you know this??? [/b]
    The Finns could see that the tide was turning in Germany. Therefore a concession would be in their best interest since their ally was getting its teeth kicked in. The Finns were not enough to hold off the full Russian army because they were a tiny army, my point was that the Finns took advantage of their weather endurance to stop their own demise just as the Russians did.

    (Gotthard Heinrici @ Dec 3 2005, 08:06 AM) [post=42552]Now I'd better make sure I understand this Jimbo because this statement might be open to misinterpretation. They were a piece of crap as a nation and as an army. I dont deny that their political system was evil abhorrent and the leadership as bad as Hitler and Nazism. [/b]
    You are splitting hairs here. A scumbag is a scumbag regardless of what his flag looks like. The Russian government had killed all its experienced military leaders in the Bolshevik revolution. Their army was crap too. This is why with the record cold winter they would have been defeated in the few months it took to get into Stalingrad, Leningrad, and Moscow. Depending on incredibly harsh weather to maintain ones sovereignty is not only foolish but very uncomplimentary to the armed forces of that country.

    (Gotthard Heinrici @ Dec 3 2005, 08:06 AM) [post=42552]The US didnt face the type of war the Soviets faced. Russia was going to be destroyed. the fact that its military was unprepared is not to be denied and I dont deny that to the West their value on life was appalling. For years after the war, the west was "seduced" by the memoirs of German Generals which were self-serving and ultimately distorted the truth. If you dont believe me then read "Panzer Leader" by Heinz Guderian or "Lost Victories" by Erich von Manstein. You will see what I mean [/b]
    Russia’s problems on the eastern front was based on a poor understanding of warfare. The Soviets didn’t have a worse war because they were a better army, they had one because they were a worse army. They struggled because they were a brutal communist nation with its understanding darkened and had to steal every innovation it ever used. No matter where their future went they would always be on the trailing edge of innovation because communists are nations of slaves. I think the cold war illustrated this precisely and it was no less true in WWII. The Soviets were no ally to the true Allied nations other than we had a common enemy, possibly even the wrong one. Guderian and von Manstein would tell you that too.

    (Gotthard Heinrici @ Dec 3 2005, 08:06 AM) [post=42552]Now read a piece of literature written by US Colonel David M Glantz of the Foreign Military Studies Office in Leavenworth. This is a US guy and his appraisal of the Russians in WWII. It differs from your opinion and you know I'm gonna go with him cause he provides evidence to back up his claims. Here is the article about it and I have included the summary at the end because it states exactly what you have been preaching about, that "General Winter" stopped the Germans. Here is the link: http://fmso.leavenworth.army.mil/documents/e-front.htm And here is the summary:

    The dominant role of German source materials in shaping American perceptions of the war on the Eastern Front and the negative perception of Soviet source materials have had an indelible impact on the American image of war on the Eastern Front. What has resulted in a series of gross judgments treated as truths regarding operations in the East and Soviet (Red) Army combat performance. The gross judgments appear repeatedly in textbooks and all types of historical works, and they are persistent in the extreme. Each lies someplace between the realm of myth and reality. In summary, a few of these judgments are as follows:

    - Weather repeatedly frustrated the fulfillment of German operational aims.

    - Soviet forces throughout the war in virtually every operation possessed significant or overwhelming numerical superiority.

    - Soviet manpower resources were inexhaustible, hence the Soviets continually ignored human losses.

    - Soviet strategic and high level operational leadership was superb. However, lower level leadership (corps and below) was uniformly dismal.

    - Soviet planning was rigid, and the execution of plans at every level was inflexible and unimaginative.

    - Wherever possible, the Soviets relied for success on mass rather than maneuver. Envelopment operations were avoided whenever possible.

    - The Soviets operated in two echelons, never cross attached units, and attacked along straight axes.

    - Lend lease was critical for Soviet victory. Without it collapse might have ensured.

    - Hitler was the cause of virtually all German defeats. Army expertise produced earlier victories (a variation of the post World War I stab in the back. legend).

    - The stereotypical Soviet soldier was capable of enduring great suffering and hardship, fatalistic, dogged in defense (in particular in bridgeheads), a master of infiltration and night fighting, but inflexible, unimaginative, emotional and prone to panic in the face of uncertainty.

    A majority of Americans probably accept these judgments as realities . In doing so they display a warped impression of the war which belittles the role played by the Red Army. As a consequence, they have a lower than justified appreciation for the Red Army as a fighting force, a tendency which extends, as well, to the postwar Soviet Army. Until the American public (and historians) perception of Soviet source material changes, this overall perception of the war in the East and the Soviet (Red) Army is likely to persist.

    In all your posts on this you have not once backed up your claims with any resourced material that backs up your claim that Russia had no effect on the outcome of the war. You will also have noticed that if I am so wrong why has no-one else hopped in to support you on this???
    [/b]
    Hmmm. Strange. That man states his opinion which is in stark opposition to all other “US Colonels” and you call that a “backed” up claim. Ok, using your standard, I agree with myself so therefore my opinion is “backed up” too. Looks like Colonel Glantz and I are tied as far as being agreed with. What’s you point? There are many history books written on Patton. On how great a general he was to drive across France with Shermans faster than any other army in history because he was so “brilliant”. This is tends to be the “conventional wisdom of those you say “don’t support me”. But neither you nor those you say “don’t support me” have ever attempted to explain how one dominates a vastly superior army in such a mind bogging advance with a tank that is notorious for its vulnerability to the enemy it drives across Germany so much that it has several unflattering nicknames to illustrate this vulnerability. My premise which is my opinion is that air power is everything in a war like WWII. My opinion, unlike everyone else’s opinion including all the glorified historians, explains the possibility of how this happened. But because the historians did not have the understanding of how dominant air power was enough to center around it, you have to read it from the enemy’s literature. These men, who I say are clueless, you would say are brilliant. To me these “opposing expert opinions” are like having espoused deep theories of physics without understanding the principle of gravity that an 8 year old knows. If the blind follow the blind, the both fall in the pit, no matter how many blind believe they know how to lead.

    A while back, I was engaged in a similar debate on the statistical accomplishments of a Jug. Perhaps you remember it. I made quoted a statistic about how many tanks the Jug alone was reputed to have destroyed. This was greatly objected to by one poster who said that there were not that many tanks on the western front. But the fact is there were. It is assumed that the Shermans killed a lot of German tanks. They didn’t. This is conventional wisdom. I made the point that troops rolling up on a scene with the enemy destroyed, seeing a destroyed tank would have no idea what blew its turret off. Was it a Sherman? Was it an anti-tank gun? Was it artillery? Or was it tactical air? They could not be the wiser. Rockets, bombs and even AP rounds could all have been mistaken from one of the latter sources of destruction. So this told me that know one is really sure. The books I was reading about tactical air described their life as a flying shooting gallery where they simply had to be careful and take out the AAA before erasing everything else on the ground. There was no limit to what they could destroy. There was no piece of equipment that they could not destroy at will and nothing that could reliably stop them. To me, I started seeing a picture of WWII quite different from those you say “don’t defend me”.

    Enter Rommel. Rommel was reputed to know something about WWII though you might argue that it was very little. You say you are a Rommelite. That to me would say you have read his letters to his wife and the quotes of his son Manfred. Rommel understood tanks in battle. This means he understood air power and the impossibility of defeating it. He talks incessantly about how in North Africa they went from hunter to hunted based on the fact their supply was taken out by a combination of poor Italian reliability, the Royal Navy and "overwhelming" Allied air power. As the Americans were drawn into the war he saw the shifting sands of air superiority changing from Germany to the Allies. When taking on the British in Egypt, he remarked that he only had about a month to get to the Suez. After that it was too late. If he drove the British across the dessert at full speed, why would he make such a statement? From dominating to “I’ve only got a month left? Well, the lack of supplies slowed him down and a fantastic job of laying mine fields delayed him until he suddenly transitions the hunter to the hunted. You have to give Monty a little credit here. He did put up an excellent defense that allowed the air to take over the show. You can't just get rid of ground forces for then, how will you protect your air fields? When the British were driven across Africa, they did have coordination between ground and air forces. But one would hardly call the British retreat a blitzkrieg. It is far more than the coordination of ground and air forces, it is the domination of air forces.

    Rommel said that his time was short to take the Suez mainly because of the increasing attacks of bombing of both his tanks and his supply line which was already stretched. You have seen the pictures of the B-24s and B-25s used in North Africa with their tan paint scheme. Do you have any idea what happens when a B-24 flies above column of tanks and drops its salvos? Now, if the salvo hits directly on a tank or tanks below it, does it matter whether the tank was a Grant, a Tiger, a Tiger II, a T-34-85 or a KV1? Uh...no. All you know at that point is that you better have kept good records on who was in those tanks because you may not even find the dog tags of the crew. Now, would it have mattered whether the plane that dropped it was a B-24, B-25, a Jug, a Spitfire, a Mustang, or even a C-47 transport plane where they opened the door and merely shoved it out? Of course not. Would it have mattered if the number of tanks on the ground were “twice” as many as in the original scenario? No, in all the combinations above, the tank would have still, ceased to exist as anything except bits of metal. That is my case and point. Common sense does not need “resource material”. That is also why I have no concern whatsoever that “historians” don’t talk about this as the most dominant factor of the war to a point virtually all others pale in comparison, nor am I surprised that since historians don’t acknowledge it that few others do as well.

    As far as your thing with Russia, I don’t follow you there. I have never seen anything impressive about the country in any area of history. They are a people that are debased and corrupt. They caused hideous torments across the world by their selfish greed of being communists. No one has ever been able to trust Russia to the point we can never relax our guard. They have brought the world nothing but misery. Few innovations, copied and stole every idea over the last 100 years. Never rose up to overthrow their cruel and viscous government (unlike the French in their revolution) and so have condoned the misery it propagated throughout the world. They took Berlin in order to torment the Germans after whoring with them at the start of WWII. They refused to join the family of nations along with the rest of the Allies, sold weapons to everybody and everything that would buy them, most recently Iran, weapons the were too darkened to design without seeing it from someone else first. Just as today, so back then, they have shown me absolutely nothing. They murdered 15 million of their own people, they created the concept of the “Human wave” that made even Kamikaze pilots say “those idiots are crazy”, therefore I just don’t find anything to give them a lot of credit for. Yes, I could conceded that they did a real good job screwing over Poland. One time in WWII a group of American bombers had to divert in an emergency to Russia and landed. The Russians seized the planes and not only wouldn’t give them back but charged the US for harboring them there throughout the war despite the fact that they never paid a cent of the Lend Lease money (nor even intended to). This is the way they treat their ally. The Russian Army was like an SS group that had gone corrupt. They too should have been tried for war crimes and the abuse of allied soldiers. No, I think I have shown pretty good restraint and given them the benefit of the doubt to merely call them a piece of crap. I don’t believe in being too hard on them. I thought I was being very generous to say that Russia at least “shortened” the war by being in it. Very generous.
     
  9. Gerard

    Gerard Seelow/Prora

    Jimbo

    You wonder why you cannot get across your point. You said that Blitzkrieg had nothing to do with tanks, thats why!!! Its untrue.

    Definition of Blitzkrieg from answers.com

    A swift, sudden military offensive, usually by combined air and mobile land forces.


    The Definition of Bltzkrieg from wikipaedia:

    blitzkrieg

    Blitzkrieg relied on close cooperation between infantry and panzers (tanks). Here, infantry use a panzer for cover during attack in Ukraine during September 1941.Blitzkrieg (German for "lightning war") was an operational-level military doctrine which employed mobile forces attacking with speed and surprise to prevent an enemy from organizing a coherent defense. Originally conceived in the years after World War I, it was a new tactic developing from existing techniques of maneuver warfare and combined arms warfare. It was used by the German Wehrmacht in World War II.
    Why wont you admit that Blitzkrieg is a combined arms operation??? You keep saying that Aircraft is the only important facet of Blitzkrieg and that it has nothing to do with tanks. I have just offered 2 definitions from different sources and by the way you dont seem to have any outside sources other than your own.

    For the second time I ask you, give me proof that Blitzkrieg is nothing to do with tanks and give me some references other than your opinion.

    I thought you might be dismissive of Glantz, and fair enough. Disregard one of the American Army's most outstanding experts on the Eastern Front and Russian Forces. If you think he is that bad ask some of the others on the board about Glantz. Ask Angie or even Kiwiwriter and see what they think of him. Incidentally were have you referenced that all the other "colonels" are in disagreement with him? I await your sources on this statement. Or are you going to tell me that you just know it and that it is fact???


    Jimbo , your facts about the Russians show an absolute ignorance that borders on farce. You said " The Russian government had killed all its experienced military leaders in the Bolsehvik Revolution". Are you saying that the Tsarist Officers in 1917 were the Brains behind the Russian Army or are you referring to the Satlinist Purges of the 30's??? Cause when you refer to the "Bolshevik Revolution", you are referring to an event that happened nearly 30 years before the war and an event that is totally irrelevant. The Bolshevik Revolution took place in 1917 when the Communists deposed the Tsar and took power. The killing of the Senior Russian Officers took place in the mid 1930's. Get your facts right before you even TRY and debate on the Russians. Your ignorance is blinding.

    Depending on incredibly harsh weather to maintain ones sovereignty is not only foolish but very uncomplimentary to the armed forces of that country. Now I really want you to produce sources to back this one up. When did the Russians ever "depend" on it and use it as its only method of defence.

    The Soviets had a worse war not because they were a better army, they had one because they had a worse one. do you know why Hitler attacked Russia??? As in do you know ANYTHING about "Mein Kampf" or the Nazis views of "slavic" people???? I said Russia was going to be destroyed. Can you understand my point about this???



    Please give me references to back up your claim that the Russian Winter defeated the German Army. Seriously, go and research this and come back to this board with researched answers and stop giving YOUR TAKE on something.

    You have two major chips on your shoulder; you dont believe that Historians give enough credit to Air Power and you hate Russia and all it stands for. These completely obsess you to the point were you disagree with anything that might impinge on those viewpoints. I love your assertion that you hate Russia because they sold weapons to anyone and everyone who would buy them most recently Iran :D :D :D And you can stand there as an American and make that statement?????? Who armed Iran under the Shah???? By the way an equally oppressive regime, and tell me was it not America who helped to arm Saddam in the 1970's and 80's. What about the oppressive Pinochet Regime in Chile, an equally oppressive regime in Pakistan Yeah An American is a fine person to tell Russia off over selling arms to other countries :D :D Go ahead Jimbo, try and take the moral higher ground whilst standing in a swamp. Sorry I forgot its ok for America to do it because all they are doing is helping protect freedom
    :D :D
     
  10. jimbotosome

    jimbotosome Discharged

    (Gotthard Heinrici @ Dec 3 2005, 07:51 PM) [post=42585]Jimbo
    You wonder why you cannot get across your point. You said that Blitzkrieg had nothing to do with tanks, thats why!!! Its untrue.

    Definition of Blitzkrieg from answers.com

    A swift, sudden military offensive, usually by combined air and mobile land forces.


    The Definition of Bltzkrieg from wikipaedia:

    blitzkrieg

    Blitzkrieg relied on close cooperation between infantry and panzers (tanks). Here, infantry use a panzer for cover during attack in Ukraine during September 1941.Blitzkrieg (German for "lightning war") was an operational-level military doctrine which employed mobile forces attacking with speed and surprise to prevent an enemy from organizing a coherent defense. Originally conceived in the years after World War I, it was a new tactic developing from existing techniques of maneuver warfare and combined arms warfare. It was used by the German Wehrmacht in World War II.
    Why wont you admit that Blitzkrieg is a combined arms operation??? You keep saying that Aircraft is the only important facet of Blitzkrieg and that it has nothing to do with tanks. I have just offered 2 definitions from different sources and by the way you dont seem to have any outside sources other than your own.
    [/b]
    I really couldn’t care about arbitrary definitions of Blitzkrieg by people that know little about them as the sources you quoted did. I use it the way Goering used it. To think that you as a general can wake up one morning and decide you are going to annihilate your enemy just because you are going to use infantry with your tanks like 100% of all armies do, is proof that definitions in a dictionary are not very useful at understanding concepts. By your standard of definition, anyone that uses a tank and infantry at the same time execute a Blitzkrieg. Poland led a blitzkrieg against Germany in Warsaw because they had tanks there and infantry working with them.

    (Gotthard Heinrici @ Dec 3 2005, 07:51 PM) [post=42585]For the second time I ask you, give me proof that Blitzkrieg is nothing to do with tanks and give me some references other than your opinion. [/b]
    I saw no reason to give you a definition of Blitzkrieg because it is so grossly abused by people that think it is some kind of maneuver like your definitions. The absurdity of someone simply sitting there and saying I have tanks and I have infantry, I think I will execute a blitzkrieg and speedily defeat my enemy’s army. Well, what if the enemy doesn’t feel like letting you execute a “blitzkrieg” or refuses you permission to execute a blitzkrieg? You see Gotthard, the whole concept of blitzkrieg is that you overwhelm him and attack him fast to a point he cannot do anything about it. The only way to do that is with aircraft. Germany had many tanks and support infantry on the Western front but got “blitzkrieged” with wuss-wuss tanks called Shermans because the German armor and supplies were pre-killed by aircraft. Your first definition was at least smart enough to include air. The second one looks like it was defined by someone with the military IQ of a soap dish. But since confirmation by a third source is the only way you are satisfied, here is a reference so you can stop asking for one when someone’s traditional definition is immaterial to mine that I make to describe the ones executed in WWII and why it was “lightening fast”.
    http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/blitzkrieg.htm

    (Gotthard Heinrici @ Dec 3 2005, 07:51 PM) [post=42585]I thought you might be dismissive of Glantz, and fair enough. Disregard one of the American Army's most outstanding experts on the Eastern Front and Russian Forces. If you think he is that bad ask some of the others on the board about Glantz. Ask Angie or even Kiwiwriter and see what they think of him. Incidentally were have you referenced that all the other "colonels" are in disagreement with him? I await your sources on this statement. Or are you going to tell me that you just know it and that it is fact??? [/b]
    Well, Gotthard, what are you getting at? You post a comment were Glantz enumerates the common American beliefs about the war in the east which should tell you why I said the other Colonels disagree, since Glantz said that in your post. But he didn’t make a single counterpoint, he just said they were wrong. So what? He has proclaimed everyone is wrong. Does this make everyone wrong?

    (Gotthard Heinrici @ Dec 3 2005, 07:51 PM) [post=42585]Jimbo , your facts about the Russians show an absolute ignorance that borders on farce. You said " The Russian government had killed all its experienced military leaders in the Bolsehvik Revolution". Are you saying that the Tsarist Officers in 1917 were the Brains behind the Russian Army or are you referring to the Satlinist Purges of the 30's??? Cause when you refer to the "Bolshevik Revolution", you are referring to an event that happened nearly 30 years before the war and an event that is totally irrelevant. The Bolshevik Revolution took place in 1917 when the Communists deposed the Tsar and took power. The killing of the Senior Russian Officers took place in the mid 1930's. Get your facts right before you even TRY and debate on the Russians. Your ignorance is blinding. [/b]
    I was referring to the purges.

    (Gotthard Heinrici @ Dec 3 2005, 07:51 PM) [post=42585] Depending on incredibly harsh weather to maintain ones sovereignty is not only foolish but very uncomplimentary to the armed forces of that country. Now I really want you to produce sources to back this one up. When did the Russians ever "depend" on it and use it as its only method of defence. [/b]
    The fact that the harsh winter saved them from the Germans is proof of the fact their army was not in a position to save them, only the winter could and did. When they winter hit, they were on the verge of collapse. Surely you don’t need references to that Gotthard. You said you have read much on the eastern front. I have only read a handful of books on the eastern front and they all said the same thing.

    (Gotthard Heinrici @ Dec 3 2005, 07:51 PM) [post=42585] The Soviets had a worse war not because they were a better army, they had one because they had a worse one. do you know why Hitler attacked Russia??? As in do you know ANYTHING about "Mein Kampf" or the Nazis views of "slavic" people???? I said Russia was going to be destroyed. Can you understand my point about this??? [/b]
    Hitler attacked Russia because he hated communism and the Jews that brought the socialism to Russia that became communism.

    (Gotthard Heinrici @ Dec 3 2005, 07:51 PM) [post=42585]Please give me references to back up your claim that the Russian Winter defeated the German Army. Seriously, go and research this and come back to this board with researched answers and stop giving YOUR TAKE on something.
    [/b]
    Any reference to Stalingrad should take care of that. Germany zips across Russia without winter clothing because the war is so fast that they are sure they will be done by the end of summer. Though very very fast, they misjudge how long it takes. The cold weather hits, and their equipment stops working including cannon barrels cracking to where they were not useful and tanks that would not start. They get surrounded and are not allowed to pull back and wait for a more opportune time to finish off Russia. -44 degrees Celsius in a war where if a soldier lays on the ground, his heart will stop within minutes. You don't need a reference to the many places where people comment on the affect of the winter at Stalingrad, just look at the details and connect the dots. Draw your own conclusions, don't just be a parrot for someone else.

    (Gotthard Heinrici @ Dec 3 2005, 07:51 PM) [post=42585]You have two major chips on your shoulder; you dont believe that Historians give enough credit to Air Power and you hate Russia and all it stands for. These completely obsess you to the point were you disagree with anything that might impinge on those viewpoints. I love your assertion that you hate Russia because they sold weapons to anyone and everyone who would buy them most recently Iran :D :D :D [/b]
    No, you are simply wrong Gotthard. I am not bitter at Russia, I simply have no appreciation for them at all. They are savages and have been for over a century. The Comanche Indians were savages. I don't have an appreciation for them either but I don't have them. No, you are wrong buddy. I have nothing personal against them. If they choose to civilize and join the family of nations, I would have some degree of respect for them, but they are a people that have brought misery to so many. Just look at the misery of the Soviet Block. Just look at the way they tried to starve the Berliners to death. Russian soldiers were much like the the SS soldiers, some good but other very cruel and heartless and often seen to abuse their own allies. I could go on all day quoting anecdotes to make the point. But, the issue in my discussion was not the Russians. It was that the war in the east was not the reason Germany lost.

    (Gotthard Heinrici @ Dec 3 2005, 07:51 PM) [post=42585]And you can stand there as an American and make that statement?????? Who armed Iran under the Shah???? By the way an equally oppressive regime, and tell me was it not America who helped to arm Saddam in the 1970's and 80's. What about the oppressive Pinochet Regime in Chile, an equally oppressive regime in Pakistan Yeah An American is a fine person to tell Russia off over selling arms to other countries :D :D Go ahead Jimbo, try and take the moral higher ground whilst standing in a swamp. Sorry I forgot its ok for America to do it because all they are doing is helping protect freedom
    :D :D
    [/b]
    Sounds to me that the chip on the shoulder is with America and the shoulder is yours. America is not an expansionist nation. It had many opportunities to do so in the past. America seeks peace and stability in the world because of the lessons learned by isolationism in WWII. The US does this to the point of its own shame. Proof of this is things like the UN. To host a roundtable of nations that spit in their faces, allies that turn their backs on it just to show everyone how they can, is suckerdom to the nth degree. The US has always sought to do the right thing though it has made some “class A” blunders. If the Marshall plan does not illustrate it, I reiterate the chip on your shoulder.

    Russia on the other hand sought for decades to expand to fill the rest of the world as any socialism must be fed by taking from others. It is an insatiable monster of greed. This is consumed with its own self-interests. It does not regard human life.

    To insinuate that the US was no different than the Soviet Union means you have a lot to learn about morality and conscience. You mistake imperfection for ill will. English speaking Christian nations do not seek the misery of other nations nor of their own people. That is not a statement of how little they have screwed up over the course of history. At least the US is willing to take a chance at the risk of being slapped in the face for helping those that will gladly bite the hand that feeds them. This no longer surprises me. The only nations that I would be surprised if they stabbed the US in the back are the Commonwealth UK nations. I am not talking about snipes or comments common to any independent country but with the chips are down in the world, it is always the same set of nations that stand up to be counted. There is no ally that American wouldn’t dive in head first to defend or help, especially NATO nations. It was the Soviet Union that started NATO. Not as a member, but as an untrustworthy nations that identified the need for unity.

    You should not have gone there Gotthard. That was wasn’t right. That was simply wasn’t right.
     
  11. Gerard

    Gerard Seelow/Prora

    Right Jimbo, The time has come to end this. It is obvious that neither of us are going to change our position on each others viewpoints. I'm not in the habit of getting into these discussions and although I absolutely disagree with your position on Russia lets just agree to disagree and end this.

    I know you didnt like my last statement about the US and its selling arms to other nations and whilst I didnt mean to upset you or indeed insult you, you have to realise that we all live in different parts of the world and not everyone shares the same views as you. What you may think is black or white, others may think different.

    I myself am a great fan of the U.S. over 17 million of your population claim Irish Descent. They helped rebuild Europe twice and didnt ask for anything in return other than support. That isnt easily forgotten.

    I'm not asking you to back down. I'm asking that we (in metaphorical terms) shake hands and walk away!!!


    Now what type of Beer do you want to drink, Budweiser???? :D
     
  12. jimbotosome

    jimbotosome Discharged

    How about O’Doul’s?
     
  13. Gerard

    Gerard Seelow/Prora

    I'm more of a Guinness man meself but I'll not refuse a pint!!!!
     
  14. jimbotosome

    jimbotosome Discharged

    Lots of folks here stateside would take you up on a Guiness. The US is quite a market for that brand and for many imports for that matter (Fosters, Heinekin, Becks, Hepeweissen, etc). In fact I think most imports are preferred they are just more expensive than Bud.

    No one in the US expects the people outside it to agree with what we believe. Despite the manifold fiascos this nation has caused by exercising somewhat narrow-minded western ideas on a global scale, they have always had noble intent. Some of them have turned into bitter learning experiences. For the past 60 years or so, the US has had to walk a very fine line between projecting security around the world and meddling in the affairs of other nations, something citizens in this country have no personal interest in doing but believe had to be done. Perhaps we are naive to believe we can prevent world wars even by the maintaining of global strength. It has been a hope of many Americans that one day the EU would step up in the same role consisting of somewhat “like-minded” people and help secure the world from tyranny and oppression but since the EU is quasi-socialist, I fear that its future is not only dubious but also quite foreboding because socialism is the early stages of communism, with communism being simply a term for the governmental enforcement of socialism. Add to that the factor that it can be quite lucrative to a nation to equip tyrants with capabilities that may one day come back to bite them and you can see it goes far beyond simply harmonizing the "western" ideals of peace and freedom.

    If anyone thinks the US relishes the role of global policeman and meddling in the affairs of others, they are not only wrong but would struggle to be as wrong about any other subject in their past, present, and future lives. It is expensive, it robs us of dealing with our many of our own internal problems, it gets nauseatingly political, it is very frustrating, but worst of all, draws harsh criticism from even close allies, whose opinions we do care about and therefore stings all the more. Perhaps someday soon, the EU will experience this same thankless role and you will know what we have experienced for years. Perhaps then all the mistakes they make, whether noble in intent or not, will be automatically amplified and chalked up to her pursuit of self-interest so her citizens will know how “inherently evil” they all are for desiring peace in the world and aspiring to ensure it exists.

    Not offended Gotthard, just perplexed.
     
  15. Exxley

    Exxley Senior Member

    (jimbotosome @ Nov 30 2005, 04:07 AM) [post=42288]I am convinced personally that the one and only reason Germany lost in Russia is because of the cold. The fact that the German tanks and artillery barrels cracked from the cold and that their equipment was always freezing to where they were effectively disarmed, cut off from supplies in one of the coldest winters ever.
    [/b]

    So the Germans lost more than 700,000 men during Barbarossa because of the cold ?

    </div><div class='quotemain'>I personally believe Rommel was the best general of the entire war, strategically, tactically and in character but he won his last battle at Kassarine Pass against US troops.[/b]

    Rommel, the one that delayed the capture of Malta until it was too late ?

    </div><div class='quotemain'>If you had taken the entire German Army and Luftwaffe in the Eastern front, these two nation's air power would have still quickly destroyed it just as they did in France. [/b]

    Im not sure that destroying 20 Panzer Divisionen, not to mention the tens of Infantry divisions that were in the East, an overall force of more than 3 million men, several thousands tanks, would have been that easy.

    </div><div class='quotemain'>The entire war with Russia had a negligible effect on WWII.
    [/b]

    The Germans had around 3,000,000 KIA while fighting the Soviet Union, which amounts for 80 % of their deaths in the war so, its hardly negligible.

    </div><div class='quotemain'>but since the EU is quasi-socialist I fear that its future is not only dubious but also quite foreboding because socialism is the early stages of communism, with communism being simply a term for the governmental enforcement of socialism.[/b]

    Im sorry but do you actually know anything about the EU and the various nations that belong to it ? I really doubt it after that bogus statement.
     
  16. jimbotosome

    jimbotosome Discharged

    (Exxley @ Dec 16 2005, 09:15 AM) [post=43222]So the Germans lost more than 700,000 men during Barbarossa because of the cold ? [/b]
    I don’t know the stats but I would think it would be a large percent of them. If they laid down on the ground for a minute, their hearts would stop beating. We are not just talking about really, really cold but -44 degrees C. This is death weather.

    (Exxley @ Dec 16 2005, 09:15 AM) [post=43222]Rommel, the one that delayed the capture of Malta until it was too late ? [/b]
    That’s the one. There is a big difference between being a perfect general and being the best. Patton might fight in for top spot just from his savvy in tactics and strategy and the ability to motivate men to fight. I just like Rommel’s humility more than Patton’s.

    (Exxley @ Dec 16 2005, 09:15 AM) [post=43222]Im not sure that destroying 20 Panzer Divisionen, not to mention the tens of Infantry divisions that were in the East, an overall force of more than 3 million men, several thousands tanks, would have been that easy.[/b]
    First of all they were not there all at once. They were sent over time. In the west you had no such build up because they were being depleted at a rapid rate from the moment the Allies hit Normandy beach. Just one Fighter/Bomber group wiped out 50% of the Panzer Lahr in 80 hours. It does not take long for the allies to destroy concentrations of people and armor. Like I said, it did save a couple of months. But it had no influence on the outcome of the war. It simply drained some production of the US factories to have the Soviets use the equipment poorly. But then again, they didn’t know how to fight a war. This should have been clear with how quickly the Germans reached Stalingrad, Leningrad, and Moscow.

    (Exxley @ Dec 16 2005, 09:15 AM) [post=43222]The Germans had around 3,000,000 KIA while fighting the Soviet Union, which amounts for 80 % of their deaths in the war so, its hardly negligible. [/b]
    Russia lost 25 million but only a third of these were due to military deaths. The Soviets were pretty inefficient at killing. They got more of their own killed than they killed than the Germans. The Americans in the Pacific killed that many Japanese. Numbers mean nothing. Killing efficiency is the real issue, that means tactics and strategies. Human waves are not known to be good tactics.

    (Exxley @ Dec 16 2005, 09:15 AM) [post=43222]Im sorry but do you actually know anything about the EU and the various nations that belong to it ? I really doubt it after that bogus statement.
    [/b]
    You don’t have to be a duck to recognize one. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck…well, you know.
     
  17. Exxley

    Exxley Senior Member

    (jimbotosome @ Dec 16 2005, 07:18 PM) [post=43233](Exxley @ Dec 16 2005, 09:15 AM) [post=43222]So the Germans lost more than 700,000 men during Barbarossa because of the cold ? [/b]
    I don’t know the stats but I would think it would be a large percent of them. If they laid down on the ground for a minute, their hearts would stop beating. We are not just talking about really, really cold but -44 degrees C. This is death weather.
    [/b]
    Hardly so. Germans losses by November 1, 1941, were about 686,000 men. One third of the Wehrmach motor vehicles were worn out or damaged beyond repair. The Panzer-Divisionen were down to 35 % of their original tank strengths.
    The claim that the winter alone was responsible for the failure of Barbarossa is just another uneducated myth.

    </div><div class='quotemain'>That’s the one. There is a big difference between being a perfect general and being the best.[/b]

    I was merely referring to that claim :

    </div><div class='quotemain'>I personally believe Rommel was the best general of the entire war, strategically, tactically and in character but he won his last battle at Kassarine Pass against US troops.
    [/b]

    I wouldnt call a general that jeopardized his mid-term and long term assets such a good general.

    </div><div class='quotemain'>First of all they were not there all at once. They were sent over time.[/b]

    Wrong again. Those were the German units involved in Barbarossa. Im not even mentionning the units that were formed up to june, 6, 1944.

    </div><div class='quotemain'>Just one Fighter/Bomber group wiped out 50% of the Panzer Lahr in 80 hours.[/b]

    I'll need for sure a source for that claim.

    </div><div class='quotemain'>But it had no influence on the outcome of the war. It simply drained some production of the US factories to have the Soviets use the equipment poorly. But then again, they didn’t know how to fight a war. This should have been clear with how quickly the Germans reached Stalingrad, Leningrad, and Moscow.
    [/b]

    And the meaning of all this being ? Except for some hardly sourced anti-Soviet slander ?
    Not to mention: how many Germans reached Stalingrad and came back ?

    </div><div class='quotemain'>Russia lost 25 million but only a third of these were due to military deaths. The Soviets were pretty inefficient at killing. They got more of their own killed than they killed than the Germans. The Americans in the Pacific killed that many Japanese. Numbers mean nothing. Killing efficiency is the real issue, that means tactics and strategies. Human waves are not known to be good tactics.
    [/b]

    Good so the equivalent of 170 Germans divisions entirely destroyed in the East are supposed to mean nothing. I guess that some people do live in a different world.

    </div><div class='quotemain'>You don’t have to be a duck to recognize one. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck…well, you know[/b]

    No I dont know. Especially when most of the EU countries have right wings governments. And even the one with left wing governments are hardly what one might call socialist.
     
  18. Gestapo

    Gestapo Discharged

    I was an officer in 171 SS Devision i fight on the german side of the war im not nazi or fashist but i fight to say that the Canadian can destroy german army is a bit stuped because the german arme was the best that is a fact.Of course the german army lose for good the americans and russians fight brave and they win.Russia lose 50 milion people in this damn war they are true heroes i dont hate them i dislike them but they fight brave.And they win.Im not saying that Canada didnt help this war but only Canada cant stop such a powerfull coutry like the german.Highly trained army good comand nice weapons what more..Every single soldier of any aliace army have help to stop the thirt raich.

    sorry for my english
     
  19. mrya

    mrya Junior Member

    Well, if the Germans made capturing the oil fields in the Caucasus their main objective of Operation Blue, rather than getting caught up in Stalingrad, it would have been better for the Wehrmacht in the long run. Would it have meant victory? Fat chance.....

    Bypassing Stalingrad and besieging it would have put German troops to better use than wasting the massive amounts of men and equipment in the costly art of urban warfare. The Wehrmacht did this at Warsaw, so why not Stalingrad?

    In the big picture though, I don't think it would have changed the tide of war. Army Group North seemed to make the most progress by besieging Leningrad. Army Group Center was creamed pretty badly during the Soviet counter-offensive that floundered Operation Typhoon. Army Group South suffered similar bad fortunes.

    Overall, was victory in the U.S.S.R. possible? Yes, but not likely. OKW would have had to devote every last resource it had to the Eastern Front, and the war overall would have had to been conducted very differently; leaving the Soviet people with the option to die or fight was not good for the Germans. In addition, Hitler's micromanagement of all of his generals also would lead to bad mistakes.

    I could go on forever about this crap.... but you get the point? ;)
     
  20. Herroberst

    Herroberst Senior Member

    :wow: Yeah, I'm still dustin myself off, got this thread outta the closet huh? It's okay to start your own we don't bite...well not on Sundays.:ninja:
     

Share This Page