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Like I said, the P-51 was the combination of a certain frame with a certain engine. The frame had been developed by the US for quite some time, but the US engine in it couldn't handle higher altitudes so they adopted the engine already in the Spitfire which allowed it to go to higher altitudes which made it an effective as hell fighter.

There were differences in British and US bombing tactics, the british favored night time carpet bombing while the US preferred day time raids against specific targets. Then there was a raid carried out by the army that had the sole purpose of drawing the Luftwaffe into the air.

They launched a small bomber raid into a heavily defended area and sacrificed the bombers in order to let the P-51s take out the Luftwaffe fighters. The results were about a 90% mortality rate for the allied bombers used in order to remove 2/3 of the Luftwaffe.

I don't remember the name of the attack/operation, but I saw it on the Military channel so I hold it a bit higher than anything on the history channel. I will try to find it.

I think it might've been "Big Week" but I'm not too sure.

Manstein wrote:Only thing I advance that, when playing the "what if" history game, everything is possible. Perhaps Hitler didn't need to land in England, perhaps a loss in the air would have forced out the Conservative Churchill government and return of a peace wanting labor party negotiated a peace....perhaps, highly doubtful... but perhaps. I can't stress enough how arguing in absolutes, or near absolutes, on most of these subjects is a completely and totally laughable subject to serious historians.

Oh sure, a complete defeat of the RAF could theoretically have caused the British to negotiate a peace. That's a plausible option.

My point was that the theoretical possibility of the Germans following up on the defeat of the RAF with a seaborne invasion, let alone one effected within a year of the defeat of France, to be absolutely laughable. These are what-ifs, but somethings remain ludicrous.

Very true, which is why all this atom bomb foolishness should be put to rest. Its all a bunch of conjecture whipped up by History Channel shows looking to draw in High School kids, I should know, I used to be one of those kids before I really began to study history.

I guess "the Germans failed to capitalise on early victories against the Soviets, the advance stagnated and was eventually dealt decisive defeats in 1942, with significantly greater production in all areas, and the allies began a long, hard but inevitable drive on all fronts towards Berlin and victory" just isn't as exciting as a story about the Nazis being months away from some supertech or another. I'm beginning to understand that a lot of the nonsense people believe is because it makes for a world that is more flattering to themselves, easier to understand, or just plain more exciting. Against that, reality is most unwelcome.

Actually, I do, if I didn't I would be out on the street and wouldn't be studying this subject at the German military archives in Freiburg... right now. Regardless, and I apologize if that last bit sounded a little edgy (love ya Sebster ), you are correct to imply that Soviet industrial production had far outstripped German production by.... ehh, I want to say late 43 or early 44.

The figures I've seen say Soviet production in 1942 was greater than German production. Of course, it depends how you weight different elements of production (finished units vs total resource production, for instance). Not that that matters if, as you're arguing, capture of Stalingrad was enough to inflict a military defeat of the Soviet Union by itself, regardless of military production.

I wish I had my old notes and resources on all this, I would be happy to scan them and put them up. Times like this make me wish the Reicharchives had all their junk on the internet.

Interesting, and I'd love to see your notes. Personally, I've read enough 'if only they'd done that one last thing' to be very wary. I've seen countless 'if only they'd done that one last thing' to begin to suspect there's never just one last thing. If Stalingrad had been taken then the Soviets would have suffered significant supply disruptions and Germans would have been able to push into the oil regions with more security... but they'd still have so much more to achieve before final victory.

There is significant historical evidence, stuff that is still.... slowly... being released by the Russians, between top level Soviet generals and politicos that an early victory at Stalingrad, or more likely Moscow, COULD (remember, what if history) have broken the USSR's back.

True, and there's an adage that I've repeated a lot in my life and likely failed to follow in this thread 'they will say it is impossible until someone does it, and then they will say it was inevitable'. With that in mind perhaps German defeat wasn't inevitable, and they if multiple other things had gone their way then maybe the Soviet Union might have collapsed.

I'd be interested in any notes you have on Soviets believing they were that close to collapse.

As I mentioned in my earlier post, the inability of the Germans to acquire any of their three lynchpins was based on the fact that Hitler, specifically Hitler, didn't trust his soldier from birth virtual Spartan military High Command.

To be fair, many of them were plotting to kill him, and culturally they were very different. I'm not sure how much I would have trusted them, either.

To reiterate, a more focused attack against Moscow or Stalingrad, could have handed the Germans a victory.

Maybe, I'm not sure how many more resources than the entirety of the 6th army you could have piled into Stalingrad in order to secure that victory.


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halonachos wrote:Like I said, the P-51 was the combination of a certain frame with a certain engine. The frame had been developed by the US for quite some time, but the US engine in it couldn't handle higher altitudes so they adopted the engine already in the Spitfire which allowed it to go to higher altitudes which made it an effective as hell fighter.

There were differences in British and US bombing tactics, the british favored night time carpet bombing while the US preferred day time raids against specific targets. Then there was a raid carried out by the army that had the sole purpose of drawing the Luftwaffe into the air.

They launched a small bomber raid into a heavily defended area and sacrificed the bombers in order to let the P-51s take out the Luftwaffe fighters. The results were about a 90% mortality rate for the allied bombers used in order to remove 2/3 of the Luftwaffe.

I don't remember the name of the attack/operation, but I saw it on the Military channel so I hold it a bit higher than anything on the history channel. I will try to find it.

I think it might've been "Big Week" but I'm not too sure.

The point is not the quality of the P-51, that's undisputed - it was a great aircraft. The point is that that one piece of tech didn't do anything in particular to decide the war. It wasn't in the war in serious numbers until the end of 1944 - at which point the war was over.

It also underscored my point that the war wasn't decided by exclusive access to elite technology, what mattered was recognising which technologies would help fight the war (being the first war in which large numbers of troops and tanks could move across ground rapidly, it was a new envronment that was barely understood by anyone in 1940). Anyone could have utilised Christie suspension, but the Russians were the ones that saw how high quality suspension could greatly increase the ability of tanks to penetrate deep into enemy terrain. Anyone could have put together a radar network, but the British were the ones who saw how important command and control could be to an air campaign. The P-51 could have been flying in large numbers in 1941 - if the Americans had realised how important fighter escort would be for their bomber wings, but they only realised this in early 1944.

The P51 was produced to a UK specification in a short period. It wasn't pre-existing US technology though obviously it was designed by US engineers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_P-51_Mustang

I'm just correcting a point of fact. It was a great aircraft. There were many other great aircraft on both sides.

The reasons why the Allies achieved air supremacy were:

Good enough or better designs of aircraft and guns
Industry to manufacture them in larger quantities
A larger population base on which to draw for crew, and a better organised training programme. (E.g. British use of female pilots for ferry duty.)
A safe area in which to train crew (the US and Canada)
Plenty of fuel to allow more crew training and operational sorties
Better systems of air traffic control, starting from the UK use of radar
Gyro gunsight

All of the above came to the peak in 1944 and rapidly ground down the Axis forces.

It was broadly the same story in the Pacific War, with the addition of more attention to crew survival and rescue compared to the Japanese.

Kilkrazy wrote:The P51 was produced to a UK specification in a short period. It wasn't pre-existing US technology though obviously it was designed by US engineers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_P-51_Mustang

The P-51 chassis was flying around in military service in 1942. When the US realised they needed an aircraft to escort their bombers, they put the Merlin engine into the chassis. It was all pre-existing tech, in military service in other forms, that was put into the P-51D once the US realised they had a new military need.

The reasons why the Allies achieved air supremacy were:

Good enough or better designs of aircraft and guns
Industry to manufacture them in larger quantities
A larger population base on which to draw for crew, and a better organised training programme. (E.g. British use of female pilots for ferry duty.)
A safe area in which to train crew (the US and Canada)
Plenty of fuel to allow more crew training and operational sorties
Better systems of air traffic control, starting from the UK use of radar
Gyro gunsight

Industry, industry, industry, industry, and also some other things.

Just look at the production of aircraft by the various powers. Everything else is secondary at best.

sebster wrote:
Industry, industry, industry, industry, and also some other things.

Just look at the production of aircraft by the various powers. Everything else is secondary at best.

That;s right, just look comparison between German Tiger and US Sherman. 1:10 0_0.

Brother Coa wrote:
That;s right, just look comparison between German Tiger and US Sherman. 1:10 0_0.

Its more like 20 Shermans to every Tiger, of any designation.

Brother Coa wrote:That;s right, just look comparison between German Tiger and US Sherman. 1:10 0_0.

Why would you be comparing a specialist heavy tank, of which there were 1,300 produced during the war, with an all purpose medium tank, of which just under 50,000 were produced?

That makes no sense.

sebster wrote:

Brother Coa wrote:That;s right, just look comparison between German Tiger and US Sherman. 1:10 0_0.

Why would you be comparing a specialist heavy tank, of which there were 1,300 produced during the war, with an all purpose medium tank, of which just under 50,000 were produced?

That makes no sense.

It makes perfect sense, like you said industry, industry, industry, industry, industry....

We can also compare German and American planes if you want, or Soviet and German airpower. In the end, like I said, Allies win because they overwhelm Germans with sheer numbers of everything. And it was not an easy victory for them.

Brother Coa wrote:It makes perfect sense, like you said industry, industry, industry, industry, industry....

We can also compare German and American planes if you want, or Soviet and German airpower. In the end, like I said, Allies win because they overwhelm Germans with sheer numbers of everything. And it was not an easy victory for them.

Oh, sorry I misread you, thought you were saying it wasn't aout industry, because Tigers were so good. Text based medium, intent, and all that.

Thing is, once you start looking at industrial production, you'll see the Soviets outproduced the Germans by themselves. Lend lease certainly helped and gave the Soviets equipment they probably would have had to have done without otherwise (especially trucks), but even if you take that out Soviet industry was superior to the Germans.

Kilkrazy wrote:
The reasons why the Allies achieved air supremacy were:

Better systems of air traffic control, starting from the UK use of radar

Key point. If the Germans would have recognized the value of the RADAR towers the air war over England would have been alot different. Heck, it was so effective the RAF would scramble to shoot down V1s and V2s! Again, another blunder in NAZI tactics.

@ Sebster, the Merlin engine, that's what it was called. I kept thinking Marlin engine for some reason.


Anywho, the Christie suspension was offered to the US government seeing as though the engineer who designed it was an American. However the american generals at the time favored the Sherman and its design due to the fact that it could push over trees and other obstacles and focused on the force it could bring compared to speed.

The Christie suspension was mostly about speed and could also switch between road tires and a track, however the Russians didn't have the rubber supplies necessary to utilize road tires for most of the war.

The british also used the Christie suspension in their challengers IIRC.

The americans didn't really use fighter escorts because their previous raids against lightly defended targets were successful. The british utilized night raids instead of a lot of fighters and both sides believed that their way was better. Until the Dresden fire bombing when the british decided that maybe carpet bombing civilian areas to destroy moral wasn't really working. The americans would blow up bridges and other small targets and until they needed to hit the bigger targets they really didn't need fighter escort.

The Sherman was outclassed in every way except in quantity against the Germans, but then again the same was also true for almost every other country compared to Germany.

The other issue with the V2 programs is that they utilized slave labor in making the components of the rocket. Which is fine until the slaves decide to urinate on control mechanisms and sabotage them in other ways.

Closer to the end of the war the germans got really desperate and they decided to use suicide pilots against enemy planes in hopes of reducing allied pilot moral and a stunt pilot said that the V2's needed human pilots.

If Hitler had let his commanders actually command(during Stalingrad Hitler had said the battle was won and refused to send reinforcements lest he look foolish) and if he didn't try to eliminate the Jews he probably would've been on better footing.

Fortunately/unfortunately he did.

Then you have to look at the fanaticism on all fronts. The german elite forces were on the Eastern Front fighting the communist Soviet Russia while their average forces were focused on the west. The most fanatical troops were to the east and Russia had to respond in kind with its own fervor and willingness to fight for the cause. There's a reason the best pilot of the war was on the Eastern Front.

There was also the fact that the Soviets were dicks, they told the Polish Resistance that they would support them if they rose up to fight the Germans. The polish did and the Russians waited until most of the Polish Resistance had been wiped out before moving in and finishing off the the Germans. After that the Russians arrested the Polish Resistance as capitalist sympathizers and sent them off for execution or for life in a gulag.

Yes, contrary to the original post, Britain was most certainly not on its knees. As others have pointed out, we had achieved aerial superiority and weren't doing badly in North Africa either. Hitler was busy running himself into the ground in Russia and fast running out of resources on all fronts.

If anything, I think the best Germany could have achieved was a stalemate. But I think Germany's population would have wised up eventually that they were on the wrong side and overthrown the nutcase.

halonachos wrote:@ Sebster, the Merlin engine, that's what it was called. I kept thinking Marlin engine for some reason.


Anywho, the Christie suspension was offered to the US government seeing as though the engineer who designed it was an American. However the american generals at the time favored the Sherman and its design due to the fact that it could push over trees and other obstacles and focused on the force it could bring compared to speed.

The Christie suspension was mostly about speed and could also switch between road tires and a track, however the Russians didn't have the rubber supplies necessary to utilize road tires for most of the war.

The british also used the Christie suspension in their challengers IIRC.

The americans didn't really use fighter escorts because their previous raids against lightly defended targets were successful. The british utilized night raids instead of a lot of fighters and both sides believed that their way was better. Until the Dresden fire bombing when the british decided that maybe carpet bombing civilian areas to destroy moral wasn't really working. The americans would blow up bridges and other small targets and until they needed to hit the bigger targets they really didn't need fighter escort.

The Sherman was outclassed in every way except in quantity against the Germans, but then again the same was also true for almost every other country compared to Germany.

The other issue with the V2 programs is that they utilized slave labor in making the components of the rocket. Which is fine until the slaves decide to urinate on control mechanisms and sabotage them in other ways.

Closer to the end of the war the germans got really desperate and they decided to use suicide pilots against enemy planes in hopes of reducing allied pilot moral and a stunt pilot said that the V2's needed human pilots.

If Hitler had let his commanders actually command(during Stalingrad Hitler had said the battle was won and refused to send reinforcements lest he look foolish) and if he didn't try to eliminate the Jews he probably would've been on better footing.

Fortunately/unfortunately he did.

Then you have to look at the fanaticism on all fronts. The german elite forces were on the Eastern Front fighting the communist Soviet Russia while their average forces were focused on the west. The most fanatical troops were to the east and Russia had to respond in kind with its own fervor and willingness to fight for the cause. There's a reason the best pilot of the war was on the Eastern Front.

There was also the fact that the Soviets were dicks, they told the Polish Resistance that they would support them if they rose up to fight the Germans. The polish did and the Russians waited until most of the Polish Resistance had been wiped out before moving in and finishing off the the Germans. After that the Russians arrested the Polish Resistance as capitalist sympathizers and sent them off for execution or for life in a gulag.

I think its so funny that the Christie suspension is getting so much attention here.

Along thing I want to say is that the bolded area is factually incorrect. A good number of the German garrison in France was composed of foreign service branches of the Wehrmacht, but the Germans also had several "crack" or "elite" forces.... on the division level. To those not familiar with standard military force denominations, a division is the sub unit that lays below Corps and Army level, so it consists of many thousands of troops.

Off the top of my head I can name a few examples: 17th SS, the 12th Panzer SS, and I know the 2nd Panzer SS got into the fight pretty quickly. There are a great deal more examples but I don't really care to search for them at the moment. The point is, the Germans did have several battle hardened divisions in France, some of the best troops in the Wehrmacht actually. Their biggest problem though stemmed from a solid lack of NCOs, most of which had been KIA / wounded in Russia.... as well as all the other factors of Allied air superiority, less production capacity, ect. ect. ect.

O.. and yeah... I find it really weird that you guys are tapping into this myth of the Sherman basically only being good at ganging up on German tanks; that's not true. There seems to be this idea that, although fewer in number, the Germans had these invincible tanks that were only destroyed due to massive Allied numbers. I think this might be a "legend" sort of myth that is meant to make our victory sound all the better.

The fact of the matter is that the Sherman's 75mm cannon had more than enough power to pierce the side armormant of the Panther MBT at ranges of... hmmm, I won't lie, I can't dig the meters out of my head but at a decent, not close, but decent range they could dependably pierce armor. There are several accounts of this.... MANY accounts, of both American and British armored columns engaging German Panthers and being able to dependably put them down. Of course, we are talking about Panthers. Most of the Wehrmacht's armored force at the time was made up of the Panzer IV, a rough equal to the Sherman on many levels.

The true terror that tanks such as the Panther and Tiger brought to the battlefield was their long range guns and heavy frontal armor. If you managed to engage them at a fairly close range or come up on their flanks, you were doing well.

Lesson of the Day: History Channel isn't, for the most part, real history... rather one that is presented in such a way as to be generally, and eagerly, consumed.

I usually watch the Military channel now, its a lot better at talking about battles and the weapons of war. Like the fact that german tank crews had to wait for the tank to be on fire before bailing out.

The Battle of the Bulge was covered as well and it said there was a Sherman tank that was in a village that received fire from Panther tanks only to have the first shot ricochet off of the Sherman's front armor and dent the barrel of the Sherman, when the Sherman fired it blew a hole in the barrel of the Sherman. The Sherman is still in the village IIRC.

And as I said, most but not all of the elite(the reason why the Americans had a policy of executing SS troops was because of the slaughter of American troops by SS soldiers).

The major aspect of the Tiger Tanks was the fact that it was scary as hell, its a giant hunk of tank and until we started using Firefly's we didn't have too much that could meet the panthers at a far range.

The Sherman had thin armor and they were more or less drivable ovens according to the actual crews.

Short answer: No, the Soviets would likely have still won.

However, Japan is different.

Mike Noble wrote:Short answer: No, the Soviets would likely have still won.

+1

Ahtman wrote:How do you read tone? You were wrong then and wrong now about the popularity of the Nazi party (not in the pop star sense of the word), thus, you might want to do more reading on the pre-war period where there were Nazi support groups in different parts of the world. You seem to be giving a revisionist history that assumes everyone knew everything that we do now about the group when they didn't. There were some people that saw them for what they were but most were either favorable of them or indifferent. The internal politics of Germany doesn't represent how the average British or American citizen felt about them pre-War. people were so wanting them to turn the country around and be successful that the first response to their aggression was appeasement. We wanted them to be good guys that were out to help their people. It wasn't understood at that point what that truly meant and wouldn't know fully till we had been at war for awhile. Pretending they were generally disliked from the beginning is just not true.

No that would be necessary for them to be the shorthand for evil that they are now, an overly powerful expansionist Germany is enough of a reason to be wary. The Nazi's intentions were very unpopular in Czechoslovakia, Poland and Italy (specifically the Anschluss) as well as neutral Norway before the war. The presence of support groups changes nothing as groups opposed to them are just as common. Linking appeasement directly to popularity and sympathy is an incredibly simplistic viewpoint.

"We wanted them to be good guys" Who's 'we', the US? That makes more sense the shifting of a few borders in some countries nobody knows the name of may not be an issue in Washington, in Danzig or Prague it's a much bigger deal. Not everyone's primary goal was turning a dollar selling things to the Germans.

Dude, Germany had a atom bomb in 1945, several months before America tested theirs. If the Germany had faced each for individually they would won the war. They lost because they fought against 3 superpowers ( Britain, USA, USSR ) in the same time, and sheer number of solders, tanks, artillery and aircraft just overwhelm them. They would only have trouble with USA because US are hard to be attacked even today.

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Kilkrazy wrote:How do you define a German victory in WW2?

It's impossible to make an estimation of their chances without defining that point.

For the Germans to win - defeat every other world power.
My statement is that Germans would won if they only defeat their enemies one by one ( If they attacked Britain in 1942, defeated it and then attack USSR in 1943-44 then defeat it and finally attack USA in 1946-47 and defeated it ).

Quoted for truth

Yak9UT wrote:
Dude, Germany had a atom bomb in 1945, several months before America tested theirs.

dogma wrote:No, no they didn't.

Thiers evidence to show that the Germans may have developed a atomic bomb and tested it during WW2.

Its a little coincidental that Nazi German Scientist were exstradited to USA and helped devolope the Atomic bomb.
(not to get confused with the German Scientist who fleed Nazi Germany)

Its may seem contravorstial but Germany could have possibly made an Atomic or dirty bomb and tested it succesfully as thier was signs of radioactive activie at the supposed test area.

Yak9UT wrote:
Thiers evidence to show that the Germans may have developed a atomic bomb and tested it during WW2.

Its a little coincidental that Nazi German Scientist were exstradited to USA and helped devolope the Atomic bomb.
(not to get confused with the German Scientist who fleed Nazi Germany)

Its may seem contravorstial but Germany could have possibly made an Atomic or dirty bomb and tested it succesfully as thier was signs of radioactive activie at the supposed test area.

Evidence which suggests that something may have happened is not evidence which proves that it did happen.

Additionally, there is no coincidence involved with the removal of German scientists to aid in development of the bomb. The Manhattan Project drew talent from wherever it could, that one source of talent was Germany, a key region for physics research before the war, is not surprising.

Byte wrote:

Mike Noble wrote:Short answer: No, the Soviets would likely have still won.

+1

If the Japanese didn't need to fight off the US then there's a lot of history that changes in the Pacific Front. First of all, no Flying Tigers, you know the American pilots that taught the Chinese how to be competent fighter pilots. It also potentially means no embargo of oil on the Japanese which means they can be more mobile. If the Japanese never lost their naval forces to the American fleet they would've been able to focus on China, Indochina, and Russia which means that Russia would also be split between an Eastern and Western Front. So that means Russia would also be weakened by the fact that they would have to fight the Japanese to the farther east.

I think it would've been a stalemate, but Germany would not have won.

halonachos wrote:

Byte wrote:

Mike Noble wrote:Short answer: No, the Soviets would likely have still won.

+1

If the Japanese didn't need to fight off the US then there's a lot of history that changes in the Pacific Front. First of all, no Flying Tigers, you know the American pilots that taught the Chinese how to be competent fighter pilots. It also potentially means no embargo of oil on the Japanese which means they can be more mobile. If the Japanese never lost their naval forces to the American fleet they would've been able to focus on China, Indochina, and Russia which means that Russia would also be split between an Eastern and Western Front. So that means Russia would also be weakened by the fact that they would have to fight the Japanese to the farther east.

I think it would've been a stalemate, but Germany would not have won.

The "planes for hire" Flying Tigers were recruited and discharged from US armed forces and "in theater" before Pearl Harbor and subsequently the US declaring war. Just saying. Additionally, the US already had an oil and metal ore embargo on Japan(pissed Japan off) before Pearl Harbor as a result of Japan's actions in China and such.

Yes, but it was part of us being involved in the war effort. For us to be completely 100% out of the war effort, Japan would still be getting materials from us, England wouldn't be getting older ships from us, we wouldn't be aiding the Chinese in fighting the Japanese, etc.

Russia would still be fighting the Japanese more seeing as though we destroyed their carriers and a lot of their naval capability. If they didn't need to fight us then the islands they garrisoned would also require less troops seeing as though Australia and some of the British colonies would be the only opposing forces on the islands able to put up some resistance.

Byte wrote:Key point. If the Germans would have recognized the value of the RADAR towers the air war over England would have been alot different. Heck, it was so effective the RAF would scramble to shoot down V1s and V2s! Again, another blunder in NAZI tactics.

While it was possible to track V2s by radar, on descent they moved so quickly that the plan to shoot them down with AA or fighters was quickly abandoned, as the allies realised they would do more damage with expended rounds falling back to earth than the V2 would do.

The only instance of a V2 being shot down was when one was launched just as an American bomber was passing by, allowing a particularly skillful bomber gunner to shoot it down.

halonachos wrote:Anywho, the Christie suspension was offered to the US government seeing as though the engineer who designed it was an American. However the american generals at the time favored the Sherman and its design due to the fact that it could push over trees and other obstacles and focused on the force it could bring compared to speed.

Yes, it was offered to the US. That's my point - the US could have accessed the technology, as could several other powers the US actually had weapon sale agreements with, but they passed on it, because they didn't envision the role for tanks that the Soviets did. There were plenty of technologies out there that could have been used by all sides, so the issue was never about having access to high end tech, but to realising which tech was most important in the strange new world of modernised warfare that was 1940.

The british also used the Christie suspension in their challengers IIRC.

Yes, and the system served them very well. Unfortunately the British continued to use underpowered engines, resulting in tanks that were far too slow for their weight class. This was only corrected with the Meteor engine put into the Comet tanks. This is, again, the frustrating result of the allied military not applying existing technology, as the UK was producing a range of quality engines, they were just using them in fighter aircraft and not fitting them to tanks.

The americans didn't really use fighter escorts because their previous raids against lightly defended targets were successful.

Which was, again, my point. The introduction of the P-51 was the result of the US realising it had a military need, and then casting about for pre-existing tech to fill that need.

The Sherman was outclassed in every way except in quantity against the Germans, but then again the same was also true for almost every other country compared to Germany.

Only if you look at the high profile German designs like the Panther and the Tiger, and ignore that these were produced in very small numbers because they were specialist designs (there was about 6,000 and about 1,300 produced, respectively). The real heavy lifting of the German military was performed by the far more modest Mk III and Mk IV tanks, of which there were about 6,000 and about 9,000 produced, after which you can add in another 3,000 odd Mk I and Mk IIs. Then you look at the massive number of self propelled guns the German produced - more than 9,000 StuG IIIs, another 1,000 odd StuG IVs, 3,000 hetzers. Then you add in all the funny designs like the Marders, and it becomes clear that the core of German tanks weren't in the very famous Panthers and Tigers, but in the workhorse designs same as everyone else. And the German workhorse designs were not any better than anyone else's.

It's also very odd that you'd claim everyone's tanks were outmatched by the Germans. The Russians had no shortage of very glamorous, very powerful and very big tanks of their own, partcularly in the JS series, as well as far superior medium tanks, and a wide range of self propelled guns (ranging up to IS-152, which demonstrated as much ludicrous overkill as any of the late war crazytech German tanks, but was actually produced in large numbers).

Then you consider how many more of each of these the Soviets produced over and above the Germans, and well, the relative power of the two militaries should become pretty clear.

The other issue with the V2 programs is that they utilized slave labor in making the components of the rocket. Which is fine until the slaves decide to urinate on control mechanisms and sabotage them in other ways.

All of which is great, but the primary issue with the V2 was always that it was a precision rocket carrying a negligible payload.

If Hitler had let his commanders actually command(during Stalingrad Hitler had said the battle was won and refused to send reinforcements lest he look foolish) and if he didn't try to eliminate the Jews he probably would've been on better footing.

Piling more troops into Stalingrad would have only gotten more troops trapped in the eventual Soviet encirclement. What was needed was better quality and better equipped troops in the surrounding Romanian, Italian and Hungarian units. Except all that equipment was being piled into the meatgrinder in Stalingrad, so when the Soviets countered with armour, there was little the Axis troops could have done to stop the Soviet tanks.

While there were some arguments being made to better protect the areas around Stalingrad, no-one was arguing for reinforcements there on a scale that would have stopped Operation Uranus, because the Germans had no idea the Soviets were capable of such a build up of forces.

Fortunately/unfortunately he did.

This idea that Hitler cost the Germans the war is utter tosh. Ther Germans failed to organise their operations on multiple occasions, long before Hitler ever came to interfere. Even if they had capitalised on those errors, they were still the smaller country with acute resource limitations, and would have needed a whole lot mor go their way to triumph.

By the time Hitler was directly overriding the commands of his senior generals (about the time of Kursk) the war was pretty much lost, we were just waiting for the decisive battle that made it clear to everyone involved.

Then you have to look at the fanaticism on all fronts. The german elite forces were on the Eastern Front fighting the communist Soviet Russia while their average forces were focused on the west. The most fanatical troops were to the east and Russia had to respond in kind with its own fervor and willingness to fight for the cause. There's a reason the best pilot of the war was on the Eastern Front.

This isn't particularly true, and also basically irrelevant to everything being discussed here.

There was also the fact that the Soviets were dicks, they told the Polish Resistance that they would support them if they rose up to fight the Germans. The polish did and the Russians waited until most of the Polish Resistance had been wiped out before moving in and finishing off the the Germans. After that the Russians arrested the Polish Resistance as capitalist sympathizers and sent them off for execution or for life in a gulag.

Yeah, the Soviets were complete dicks, but I'm not sure what that has to do with anything being discussed here.

Manstein wrote:I think its so funny that the Christie suspension is getting so much attention here.

It was cited an example of Soviet military limitation, because they didn't invent it, they just used it extensively. I pointed out that it was actually an example of what really mattered - identifying what tech would actually help your nation fight the new style of war made possible in 1940. Actually accessing that tech was secondary, at best.

Off the top of my head I can name a few examples: 17th SS, the 12th Panzer SS, and I know the 2nd Panzer SS got into the fight pretty quickly. There are a great deal more examples but I don't really care to search for them at the moment. The point is, the Germans did have several battle hardened divisions in France, some of the best troops in the Wehrmacht actually. Their biggest problem though stemmed from a solid lack of NCOs, most of which had been KIA / wounded in Russia.... as well as all the other factors of Allied air superiority, less production capacity, ect. ect. ect.

Yeah, the problem was really the lack of resources needed to launch and sustain an offensive

O.. and yeah... I find it really weird that you guys are tapping into this myth of the Sherman basically only being good at ganging up on German tanks; that's not true. There seems to be this idea that, although fewer in number, the Germans had these invincible tanks that were only destroyed due to massive Allied numbers. I think this might be a "legend" sort of myth that is meant to make our victory sound all the better.

This isn't the first thread I've tried to dissuade people away from the myth of German wundertanks, and I doubt it'll be the last.

I'm not sure why people have bought into that myth. Thing is, it isn't just the power of German tanks that they exaggerate, it's everything right down to the quality of individual troops. I think you're right in part, Grandad was much more heroic if you had to battle against indestructible wundertanks, but I think the bigger part of it is that most people who argue about this stuff are nerds first and foremost, and nerds will latch onto a handful of numbers and begin to imagine how things must of been, rather than actually listen to anyone tell them how things actually were.

So they look at front armour stats, and penetration at range stats, and conclude the Panther with it's heavy front armour and long barrelled 75mm gun will destroy all opponents. They don't take the time to understand how a tank might operate in an actual wartime environment, fail to consider how a non-penetrating hit might still knock the turret off its mount, or cause it throw a track, or how the less prestigious AT gun or bazooka team might inflict a heavy toll on tanks, or how the tanks might be destroyed by artillery or bombing.

Nah, they'd rather just talk about tanks fighting tanks.


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halonachos wrote:And as I said, most but not all of the elite(the reason why the Americans had a policy of executing SS troops was because of the slaughter of American troops by SS soldiers).

There was no formal policy of executing SS troops - that would have been a warcrime and the US should be rightly proud of it's record of avoiding such atrocities.

I think you're thinking of a specific incident during the Battle of the Bulge, in which captured US soldiers were shot. This was called the Malmedy Massacre, and after the war the officer who

The major aspect of the Tiger Tanks was the fact that it was scary as hell, its a giant hunk of tank and until we started using Firefly's we didn't have too much that could meet the panthers at a far range.

There were plenty of ways to take out Panthers, it's just that few of them called for meeting Panthers head on with your own tanks. Bombing, AT guns, tank destroyers... even bazooka attacks from concealed infantry on the flanks and rear of the tanks were more than capable of taking a Panther out of the fighting.

There's this odd idea that armoured warfare consists of taking on the enemy tanks head on at full range and seeing everything decided by armour and penetration at range measures... as if war was some kind of showdown at noon like in a Gary Cooper movie. It doesn't work like that, and a tank can be very useful even when it can't match the best performing enemy tanks.

The Sherman had thin armor and they were more or less drivable ovens according to the actual crews.

The Shermans were not particularly less armoured than other medium battle tanks. They weren't a match for the German heavy tanks, but they weren't meant to be. Different tanks, different roles, different results.

Ultimately the value of large number of small and medium tanks with good mobility proved a far more successful strategy than the German approach to pile increasingly more resources into increasing bigger tanks.

sebster wrote:

Byte wrote:Key point. If the Germans would have recognized the value of the RADAR towers the air war over England would have been alot different. Heck, it was so effective the RAF would scramble to shoot down V1s and V2s! Again, another blunder in NAZI tactics.

While it was possible to track V2s by radar, on descent they moved so quickly that the plan to shoot them down with AA or fighters was quickly abandoned, as the allies realised they would do more damage with expended rounds falling back to earth than the V2 would do.

The only instance of a V2 being shot down was when one was launched just as an American bomber was passing by, allowing a particularly skillful bomber gunner to shoot it down.

Aye, V1's were intercepted by aircraft. V2s were not.

Byte wrote:Aye, V1's were intercepted by aircraft. V2s were not.

Yep.

The SS part was bad wording on my part. It wasn't an official policy, but more of unofficial actions after the Malmedy Massacre. This lead to the Dachau Massacre, Chenogne Massacre, and the orders that no SS troops were to be taken alive. This was later repealed saying that the US needed information from them. The germans also had a nasty habit of feigning surrender, another anecdote was when a Sherman tank drove down an alley to avoid a Panther and a young German soldier stood there in surrender, shortyl after two officers popped up with a Panzershrek and fired only to miss the sherman that then used the main gun to blow them away.



This sherman was knocked out in the Ardennes, and the reason the barrel is blown out like that is because a shell from a Panther tank ricocheted off of the front armor of the tank and messed up the barrel.

It wasn't always a killing shot and of course they did miss and then there's a lot of factors. Statistically they should've been better than other tanks of the same caliber. Didn't always play out that way though seeing as though they weren't as mobile as some of the other tanks.

At the Stalingrad issue, he didn't want to send more troops because the Russians had been pushed back to about 1/3 of the city and he had already said the battle was won. Because he was so stubborn in the idea of victory he wouldn't allow the German forces in Stalingrad to retreat. By the time he decided to do something he had been completely surrounded and his men so far gone that a breakout was impossible. Again, Hitler imposed upon his men a death sentence.

The Sherman tank was developed for industry and its chassis was used for just about any kind of turret.

Again, we couldn't match the Panthers at range but that doesn't mean a bazooka crew could pop out behind it and give it a good whack.

halonachos wrote:The SS part was bad wording on my part. It wasn't an official policy, but more of unofficial actions after the Malmedy Massacre. This lead to the Dachau Massacre, Chenogne Massacre, and the orders that no SS troops were to be taken alive. This was later repealed saying that the US needed information from them.

I've never heard any policy, official or otherwise, that ordered such. In the wake of the Malmedy massacre one individual unit said it wouldn't take any SS troops prisoner, and this might explain in part why a seperate US unit decided to massacre German troops. It's worth noting the German troops massacred weren't SS, if I recall correctly.

The massacre at Dachau was less to do with the guards being SS troops and more to do with the piles of bodies around the camp.

At the Stalingrad issue, he didn't want to send more troops because the Russians had been pushed back to about 1/3 of the city and he had already said the battle was won.

When Operation Uranus was launched the Germans controlled 90% of the city. In terms of the city itself, he was right, more or less. The problem was that while the Germans had been slowly grinding forward the Russians had been amassing immense forces for an encirclement, which they proceded to achieve with brtual efficiency. The Germans had no reserves to fight through the encirclement, and the sixth army lacked the strength and provisions to fight it's way out and be confident of maintaining good order.

Hitler's order for the sixth to await relief doomed them, but the alternative was for the sixth to fight it's own way out, and likely collapse into route in the process. An ugly choice, either way, where the real mistake was already made, in failing to properly protect the flanks of the sixth, and see the Soviet counter coming.

I've also read a lot of accounts that Hitler's refusal to allow troops to retreat might have had merit. German morale was terrible at the time, and tactical retreats would likely have spread to route, and loss of much material.

But more than anything, I have to repeat that by this time the war was lost, the Germans had failed to take Stalingrad, and failed to take Moscow, and as the failed counter-offensive at Kursk would show, they were not going to be able to launch another meaningful offensive in the war. Hitler had barely interfered by this point, but the war was already over.

The Sherman tank was developed for industry and its chassis was used for just about any kind of turret.

Again, we couldn't match the Panthers at range but that doesn't mean a bazooka crew could pop out behind it and give it a good whack.

Yeah, but as I've said a few times, the Sherman wasn't built to blow up Panthers at range. The main role of a medium tank is to achieve breakthroughs of the enemy position and disrupt their logistic supply.

To actually defeat German tanks on the ground the US had dedicated tank destroyer batallions. Now, you can talk about the Wolverines and Hellcats being undergunned for their role of taking out Panthers, and you'd be right, as only the high velocity 90mm gun on the Jackson could threaten the Panther at range.

Not that any of that really mattered, by the time the US deployed into Europe the Germans were barely capable of amassing for armoured breakthroughs, and the only sustained effort they attempted, at the battle of the bulge, was defeated by their own supply difficulties and the overwhelming power of allied aircraft.


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halonachos wrote:Russia would still be fighting the Japanese more seeing as though we destroyed their carriers and a lot of their naval capability. If they didn't need to fight us then the islands they garrisoned would also require less troops seeing as though Australia and some of the British colonies would be the only opposing forces on the islands able to put up some resistance.

The Japanese abandoned any thought of open war with the Russians after they were utterly trounced at Khalkhin Gol in 1938. While the Japanese navy was modern and quite impressive, the army (though well disciplined and tactically skillful) lacked logistical support of the major world powers. The result was 30,000 dead Japanese soldiers and a clear answer that the Japanese could not match the Soviets in open war.

This led to the Japanese decision to secure oil and other resources from the south and not from Soviet territory. If anything, removing the US from the war would have only committed Japanese forces into the Philipines and Indonesia, and left the Russians with even less concern over their eastern border.