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Special Forces in WW2: were they worth the time, money, and effort?
Yes 82% [ 32 ]
No 8% [ 3 ]
Don't know 10% [ 4 ]
Total Votes : 39
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The Dread Evil Lord Varlak





 Vulcan wrote:
Not Online!!! wrote:
 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Stand in the way of what, though? Even if they won in China the war against Japan ends with mushroom clouds. Japan and Germany combined just cannot out-Navy the US and as Japan is an island...


I personally doubt that if the UK colapses that it would lead to an intact navy.
And with the big navy out of the water and probably a now lot more legitimate Vichy regime (another big navy) and a UK puppet, because let's face it direct controll the germans will not implement, the case isn't as clear cut anymore.


What makes you think the U.K. would outright collapse to the point where a collaborationist government would take control? At worst the U.K. would be in a state of economic depression and sue for peace. They SURE wouldn't let Germany come in and take over. The U.K. may become neutral, but I can't see any path short of outright invasion that leads to the U.K. under German control.

And so long as the Fleet exists, Germany cannot invade.


Food, shortages also losing the Nimbus.
Colonies might get engouraged to leave, etc.

That is a collapse imo.
I am not talking about utter societal destruction but if you look at Vichy france and the petainists which belived that they needed to get strong again with fascism it would not be too far fetched that the crisis which would inevitable follow such a defeat, would lead to a totalitarian ideology taking over.
   
Made in us
Fixture of Dakka





 Kilkrazy wrote:
 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Where does Iceland go in this hypothetical situation? Wouldn't the US be able to base escort DDs there and continue the Murmansk convoys?

I think a bigger game changer would be that Germany wouldn't be getting bombed 24/7 because there's nowhere for the US to fly from.


Imagine the logistical effort needed for the US to put a major base on Iceland when the Atlantic has already been conquered by the U Boats and you've got no air cover for most of it because the UK is gone. Plus the Germans would be able to deploy their surface raiders, as no Royal Navy to stop them.

And you're absolutely right about the bomber campaign.


What do you mean, NO air cover? America still has PBYs and B-17s and several carriers. Escort carriers will be coming down the ways in job lots by 1943; possibly even faster than in our timeline because of the change in situation. Bases in Canada cover the building of bases in Greenland; the bases in Greenland cover the building of bases in Iceland.

And bear in mind, the U.S. put major bases in quite a few out-of-the-way places in the Pacific. Guam, Saipan, Guadalcanal, and the Aleutians all come to mind...

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 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
I think a bigger game changer would be that Germany wouldn't be getting bombed 24/7 because there's nowhere for the US to fly from.



There is no such thing as a hobby without politics. "Leave politics at the door" is itself a political statement, an endorsement of the status quo and an attempt to silence dissenting voices. 
   
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The Shire(s)

 Vulcan wrote:
 Kilkrazy wrote:
 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Where does Iceland go in this hypothetical situation? Wouldn't the US be able to base escort DDs there and continue the Murmansk convoys?

I think a bigger game changer would be that Germany wouldn't be getting bombed 24/7 because there's nowhere for the US to fly from.


Imagine the logistical effort needed for the US to put a major base on Iceland when the Atlantic has already been conquered by the U Boats and you've got no air cover for most of it because the UK is gone. Plus the Germans would be able to deploy their surface raiders, as no Royal Navy to stop them.

And you're absolutely right about the bomber campaign.


What do you mean, NO air cover? America still has PBYs and B-17s and several carriers. Escort carriers will be coming down the ways in job lots by 1943; possibly even faster than in our timeline because of the change in situation. Bases in Canada cover the building of bases in Greenland; the bases in Greenland cover the building of bases in Iceland.

And bear in mind, the U.S. put major bases in quite a few out-of-the-way places in the Pacific. Guam, Saipan, Guadalcanal, and the Aleutians all come to mind...

The key difference between a hypothetical US-only involvement in the Atlantic against Germany and how the US operated in the Pacific against Japan, is that Japan deliberately did not target logistics with naval assets. Germany built their whole naval doctrine around targeting logistics. That would make supporting far-flung bases in the Atlantic more difficult, although probably not insurmountable.

Yes, Japan really did make some very idiotic strategic decisions in WWII... They had a pretty good submarine force relegated to supporting the surface fleet against combat vessels, with no strategy to attack commercial shipping.

 ChargerIIC wrote:
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Any attempt to wargame a scenario where the British 'fall' to Germany in any meaningful sense might as well be discussing the martians landing to invade Germany. It was impractical and never going to happen on any rational level.

The most plausible scenario would be the British negotiating a separate peace agreement after the fall of France; leaving the Nazis clear to invade the Soviet Union without worrying about British interference. Consequently, it makes more sense to query if that had happened; whether or not the Nazis could have steamrollered the USSR into the ground 1v1 from the word go with no British or American support?

An interesting corollary of that development would be whether or not the Japanese would have been able to enjoy even a fraction of the success they did in the far East if the British had been able to station substantial forces there and had no other immediate commitments on their resource in Europe and Africa.

Furthermore, had Britain been squabbling with Japan, would Hitler have even felt the need for an alliance with Japan; or would he have attempted to use the British/Japanese hostilities to browbeat the British into a closer relationship with Nazi Germany instead? He certainly preferred the British to the Japanese on a racial level as partners (or even as free trading neutrals - I doubt we'd ever see British troops on the Eastern Front, as it were).

By 1943, you could well still see a neutral USA (or maybe not, I'm no specialist on pre-WW2 USA/Japan relations), Great Britain and Japan grappling for naval control of the Far East, and Hitlerite Germany slugging it out with the USSR.

This message was edited 5 times. Last update was at 2019/04/10 00:31:05



 
   
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USA

 Ketara wrote:
By 1943, you could well still see a neutral USA (or maybe not, I'm no specialist on pre-WW2 USA/Japan relations), Great Britain and Japan grappling for naval control of the Far East, and Hitlerite Germany slugging it out with the USSR.


Do I feel informed enough to make the claim to be an expert here... Eh w/e I'll give a shot.

US/Japan relations were pretty bad by WWII. The military leaders in both countries were seeing war as a very real possibility even before Germany started looking at Poland.

Really, I think the issue comes down to two things: first, the US would have to back of on the issue of the Second-Sino Japanese War. Some people advocate WWII started in 1937, not 1939, when Japan started the war with China and the US retaliated with trade embargoes on precious war materials including oil and steel. The moment that happened the US and Japan, independent of events in Europe, became unavoidable geopolitical rivals in the Pacific.

War maybe still could have been avoided, but only if the Japanese invasion of Soviet Russia didn't result in the utterly disastrous Battle of Khalkhin Gol. Japan generally saw two paths to expansion of its Empire in the early 20th century. The Northern Plan, and the Southern Plan. Both plans ultimately revolved around securing vital strategic resources and conquest of China. Prior to Khalkhin Gol, the Northern Plan (primarily supported by the Imperial Army) was favored, but the disastrous outcome of that battle made it abundantly clear even to the incredibly stubborn Imperial Army that successfully invading the Soviet Union was infeasible. From then on, grand strategy shifted to the Southern Plan, which was primarily about attacking Dutch and British possessions in the South Pacific and South-East Asia.

The problem then becomes that Japanese strategy makers saw that entire plan as making war with the United States inevitable (debatable in actuality, but that's how they saw it). When they adopted that plan, they chose to preemptively attack the United States. Maybe there's a version where they didn't but that would require Japanese planners to have a completely different outlook than the one they had. I'm unaware of any point where planners didn't consider war with the US inevitable if they expanded southward.

Really I think it's more likely that Europe and the Pacific end up as separate conflicts. Maybe, without Britian warring against him and at peace, Hitler feels little need to declare war on the US just to honor his alliance with a power on the other side of the world (Japan certainly felt this way, forming neutrality pacts with the USSR in 1940 and holding to them until the Soviets invaded). The US itself was far more ambivalent at large about war in Europe than war in the Pacific, and maybe would have been content solely fighting that war while leaving Europe to be curtained by the USSR.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2019/04/10 04:39:15


   
Made in us
Douglas Bader






And to add to that the US saw war with Japan as inevitable. The surprise of Pearl Harbor wasn't being at war with Japan, it was the precise date that the war started and the fact that carrier strikes proved to be far more of a threat than anyone else had anticipated. I mean, why do you think those battleships were there in the first place?

There is no such thing as a hobby without politics. "Leave politics at the door" is itself a political statement, an endorsement of the status quo and an attempt to silence dissenting voices. 
   
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USA

It's actually kind of ironic. I can't spell his name off the top of my head, but the guy who pushed the Kwuatung Army to invade the Soviet Union (without prior warning to or approval from Tokyo) and set up that utter defeat of a campaign, was coincidentally afterward did a 180 and started supporting the Southern plan.

Traditionally that plan was the baby of the Imperial Navy (guess why lol), but in terms of governance the Army typically held primacy over the Navy in Imperial Japan.

This guy basically made the Imperial Army look like a joke, and then turned around and said "I told you we should have just gone after the Dutch East Indies." Literally no one bought the act.

EDIT: Oh, and adding to the irony, the general who led Soviet Troops at Khalkhin Gol? Georgy Zhukov. He was one of the only Soviet generals to actually have any battle experience at a general level after the purges of the Red Army in 1941, and the Japanese gave it to him XD

This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2019/04/10 04:35:59


   
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 LordofHats wrote:

The problem then becomes that Japanese strategy makers saw that entire plan as making war with the United States inevitable (debatable in actuality, but that's how they saw it). When they adopted that plan, they chose to preemptively attack the United States. Maybe there's a version where they didn't but that would require Japanese planners to have a completely different outlook than the one they had. I'm unaware of any point where planners didn't consider war with the US inevitable if they expanded southward.


I suppose the question then is whether or not the Japanese would have felt capable of declaring a war against both Britain and America in a period where the British Navy, still the largest and most advanced in the world, has no commitments anywhere else. It's very easy to look at a wobbling empire exerting its resources and manpower to the maximum in a different part of the world; and assume that you can handle any third rate assets that get dispatched in your direction. Again, I'm no expert on pre-war Japanese planning here, and perhaps that didn't factor into their thinking at all; but I'd be surprised to learn the stationing of the larger part of the Fleet in the Far-East would have made no difference to Japanese planning.

Given that Britain was substantially rearming from the mid-1930's onwards and naval production was literally being strained to its maximum, combined with the massive flow of orders even a short war with Hitler would have spiked, you would have been looking at a Britain with a Navy capable of utterly smashing Japan from 1941 onwards after all. To consider opposing that plus America at the same time? Japan would have had more luck at invading the Soviets whilst embroiled in war with the Nazis, quite frankly.

Really I think it's more likely that Europe and the Pacific end up as separate conflicts. Maybe, without Britian warring against him and at peace, Hitler feels little need to declare war on the US just to honor his alliance with a power on the other side of the world (Japan certainly felt this way, forming neutrality pacts with the USSR in 1940 and holding to them until the Soviets invaded). The US itself was far more ambivalent at large about war in Europe than war in the Pacific, and maybe would have been content solely fighting that war while leaving Europe to be curtained by the USSR.

I think this likely. With no Britain (and thus no America) in the conflict against the USSR, why would Hitler bother declaring war on them for Japan?

Thinking it over, if what you're saying about Japanese planning is the case, it seems far more likely that the Japanese would have rearmed and attempted to attack the Soviets from the belly up whilst they were distracted with their European counterpart. Which then leads to the automatic counter-question- without Zhukov being in a position to leave the East with his forces, does Hitler take Moscow?

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2019/04/10 09:58:51



 
   
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 Ketara wrote:
 LordofHats wrote:

The problem then becomes that Japanese strategy makers saw that entire plan as making war with the United States inevitable (debatable in actuality, but that's how they saw it). When they adopted that plan, they chose to preemptively attack the United States. Maybe there's a version where they didn't but that would require Japanese planners to have a completely different outlook than the one they had. I'm unaware of any point where planners didn't consider war with the US inevitable if they expanded southward.


I suppose the question then is whether or not the Japanese would have felt capable of declaring a war against both Britain and America in a period where the British Navy, still the largest and most advanced in the world, has no commitments anywhere else. It's very easy to look at a wobbling empire exerting its resources and manpower to the maximum in a different part of the world; and assume that you can handle any third rate assets that get dispatched in your direction. Again, I'm no expert on pre-war Japanese planning here, and perhaps that didn't factor into their thinking at all; but I'd be surprised to learn the stationing of the larger part of the Fleet in the Far-East would have made no difference to Japanese planning.

Given that Britain was substantially rearming from the mid-1930's onwards and naval production was literally being strained to its maximum, combined with the massive flow of orders even a short war with Hitler would have spiked, you would have been looking at a Britain with a Navy capable of utterly smashing Japan from 1941 onwards after all. To consider opposing that plus America at the same time? Japan would have had more luck at invading the Soviets whilst embroiled in war with the Nazis, quite frankly.

Really I think it's more likely that Europe and the Pacific end up as separate conflicts. Maybe, without Britian warring against him and at peace, Hitler feels little need to declare war on the US just to honor his alliance with a power on the other side of the world (Japan certainly felt this way, forming neutrality pacts with the USSR in 1940 and holding to them until the Soviets invaded). The US itself was far more ambivalent at large about war in Europe than war in the Pacific, and maybe would have been content solely fighting that war while leaving Europe to be curtained by the USSR.

I think this likely. With no Britain (and thus no America) in the conflict against the USSR, why would Hitler bother declaring war on them for Japan?

Thinking it over, if what you're saying about Japanese planning is the case, it seems far more likely that the Japanese would have rearmed and attempted to attack the Soviets from the belly up whilst they were distracted with their European counterpart. Which then leads to the automatic counter-question- without Zhukov being in a position to leave the East with his forces, does Hitler take Moscow?


A better coordniation between the Japanese and the Germans is not possible, mainly due to the war with china, simply put Japan needs oil, japan can't get oil due to war with China, Japan can maybee seize the pacific and close the americans out, japan makes the gamble and loses.

The only option really would've been for Japan to not start the conflict in China and beeing content with helping either a warlord to the victory or the nationalists., that would've however lead to the problem off Pu Yi, which would've been solveable but alas would also lead to a claimlessness for the occupation of manchuria.
Japan would have to basically atleast turn 90 degree in it's empire building policy. Atleast.

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Sweden

 Peregrine wrote:
 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
I think a bigger game changer would be that Germany wouldn't be getting bombed 24/7 because there's nowhere for the US to fly from.




Not operational in 1942 and might not come online in time to save the Soviets. If you look through thre rest of the thread I have no doubts at all that the US could and would completely defecate all over the Axis even on their own, but the question was whether Germany could defeat the Soviet Union with Britain out of the picture. The US victory might not come soon enough to prevent the Soviet Union from collapsing, at which point why is the US fighting Germany exactly?

Japan is fethed though. Their only remote chance was a complete destruction of the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor followed by a swift negotiated settlement, and even then all that does is more or less ensure that the US comes knocking a few years down the line with a vengeance.

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Hamilton, ON

Oh look, Americans who think America could have won it all by themselves.

Shocking stuff.

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 Excommunicatus wrote:
Oh look, Americans who think America could have won it all by themselves.

Shocking stuff.


Oh look, someone who doesn't understand the sheer disparity in manpower and industrial capacity between the US and Germany/Japan.

There is no such thing as a hobby without politics. "Leave politics at the door" is itself a political statement, an endorsement of the status quo and an attempt to silence dissenting voices. 
   
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Hamilton, ON

Yeah, that's it. Abstract concepts always win wars, especially when you have no non-fantastical method of bringing them to bear on your enemy.

The GIs being brash, overconfident and getting their arses handed to them in Western Europe didn't happen though and wouldn't matter if it did happen, 'cause 'Murica. They'd have just gone on and taken Berlin.

Facts and logic be damned.

To oversimplify, WWII was won by British Intelligence (with a capital 'I'), Soviet blood and American money. Remove any of those three things and we'd very likely be looking at a very different world.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/04/10 14:09:28


The Fall of Kronstaat IV
Война Народная | Voyna Narodnaya | The People's War - 2,765pts painted (updated 06/05/20)
Волшебная Сказка | Volshebnaya Skazka | A Fairy Tale (updated 29/12/19, ep10 - And All That Could Have Been)
Kabal of The Violet Heart (updated 02/02/2020)

All 'crimes' should be treasured if they bring you pleasure somehow. 
   
Made in se
Ferocious Black Templar Castellan






Sweden

...I'm American now? Howdy!

Again, the US could (and did!) out-navy the entire Axis combined without any problems. Once the US gets atomic bombs (and demonstrate what they do on the Japanese) the war is over. The question is whether Germany can kill the Soviet Union off and achieve a truce with the US before the US gains the capacity to remove German cities from the map at will. The US can hurt Germany; Germany can't hurt the US.

Like, look at how many ships the US built during the war. It's not even a contest.

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Hamilton, ON

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
...I'm American now? Howdy!
.


If you're not American, my comment wasn't aimed at you. Your flag had previously been noted.

Germany doesn't need to hurt the U.S. to win the war. It just needs to make an invasion too costly to attempt. EDIT - I seriously doubt that the U.S. drops atomic bombs on continental Europe.

Depending on when Britain is supposed to collapse in this increasingly skazka-esque scenario we're indulging, it's possible that Yugoslavia doesn't revolt, Barbarossa isn't delayed and the Germans take Moscow before winter falls. It's also possible that the loss of Moscow isn't per se fatal to the CCCP, but Moscow was the crossroads of the CCCP and the Germans holding it makes defending the rest of the Soyuz a much harder task than the one previously facing the Red Army in 1941. Needless to say, they failed that task pretty spectacularly in 1941 so expecting them to suddenly hold back a Wehrmacht that holds all the major road and rail junctions seems far-fetched.

Do svidanya, CCCP.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/04/10 14:27:09


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Kabal of The Violet Heart (updated 02/02/2020)

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The Great State of Texas

 Excommunicatus wrote:
Oh look, Americans who think America could have won it all by themselves.

Shocking stuff.


Hey it wasn't the Russians who took out the Nazi Moon base in 1969. It was Neil "Buzzsaw" Armstrong and his elite astronaut strike team.



Also, er...what does any of this have to do with Special Forces in WW2?

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/04/10 14:30:46


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Sweden

 Excommunicatus wrote:
 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
...I'm American now? Howdy!
.


If you're not American, my comment wasn't aimed at you. Your flag had previously been noted.



AmericanS, plural, would imply that there's more than one American arguing the line. As far as I can see, Peregrine and I are the two people arguing that the US could win the war on their own (which they damn well COULD, it'd just be bloodier and nastier by a lot).

 Excommunicatus wrote:

Germany doesn't need to hurt the U.S. to win the war. It just needs to make an invasion too costly to attempt. EDIT - I seriously doubt that the U.S. drops atomic bombs on continental Europe.


I don't.

Now what?

EDIT: I agree about WW2 being won through British Intelligence (or stubborness, I've seen a few variations), American money/industry and Soviet blood, but the fact that this is how it played out historically doesn't mean that it's the only way the Allies could win.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2019/04/10 14:34:22


For thirteen years I had a dog with fur the darkest black. For thirteen years he was my friend, oh how I want him back. 
   
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 Excommunicatus wrote:
Yeah, that's it. Abstract concepts always win wars, especially when you have no non-fantastical method of bringing them to bear on your enemy.


The US is fully capable of delivering its industrial and manpower advantages. Remember, they were already building the B-36 to bomb Germany into rubble directly from bases in the US, and built naval forces faster than Germany could sink them. And once the US gets nukes for those bombers...


The GIs being brash, overconfident and getting their arses handed to them in Western Europe didn't happen though and wouldn't matter if it did happen, 'cause 'Murica. They'd have just gone on and taken Berlin.


The nice thing about the US position is that, like the Soviets, they can afford losses and a war of attrition. Overconfidence won't save Germany when the US can lose an army, shrug, and be back next month with another one and Germany can't.

PS: at no point was the war in Europe even close to in doubt. Germany won momentary tactical victories but got their s kicked from D-Day to Berlin. The only question was exactly how long victory would take and how much it would cost.

To oversimplify, WWII was won by British Intelligence (with a capital 'I'), Soviet blood and American money. Remove any of those three things and we'd very likely be looking at a very different world.


To correctly simplify: the US or Russia alone kick the out of Germany, and the UK probably wins too. Hitler declared war on all three simultaneously.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2019/04/10 15:48:14


There is no such thing as a hobby without politics. "Leave politics at the door" is itself a political statement, an endorsement of the status quo and an attempt to silence dissenting voices. 
   
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Fixture of Dakka





 Ketara wrote:
Any attempt to wargame a scenario where the British 'fall' to Germany in any meaningful sense might as well be discussing the martians landing to invade Germany. It was impractical and never going to happen on any rational level.

The most plausible scenario would be the British negotiating a separate peace agreement after the fall of France; leaving the Nazis clear to invade the Soviet Union without worrying about British interference. Consequently, it makes more sense to query if that had happened; whether or not the Nazis could have steamrollered the USSR into the ground 1v1 from the word go with no British or American support?

An interesting corollary of that development would be whether or not the Japanese would have been able to enjoy even a fraction of the success they did in the far East if the British had been able to station substantial forces there and had no other immediate commitments on their resource in Europe and Africa.

Furthermore, had Britain been squabbling with Japan, would Hitler have even felt the need for an alliance with Japan; or would he have attempted to use the British/Japanese hostilities to browbeat the British into a closer relationship with Nazi Germany instead? He certainly preferred the British to the Japanese on a racial level as partners (or even as free trading neutrals - I doubt we'd ever see British troops on the Eastern Front, as it were).

By 1943, you could well still see a neutral USA (or maybe not, I'm no specialist on pre-WW2 USA/Japan relations), Great Britain and Japan grappling for naval control of the Far East, and Hitlerite Germany slugging it out with the USSR.


Rather than continue to derail this thread, I'm going to start a new thread to respond to this and other posts.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/04/10 16:26:07


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-

C'mon folks, let's keep this on topic before a Mod puts their boot up our rears.

As fascinating as pre-WW2 USA/Japan relations are, I fail to see what they have to do with Special Forces in WW2!

I'm happy to discuss them in another thread.

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Or, to put it in 40k terms: Germany showed up to a 2000 point game with a 500 point army and, through skill and amazing dice luck, managed to last until turn 3 before being tabled. You can talk "what if"s all you want, but in the end it's still 500vs2000 and you're just nitpicking the details of how Germany loses.

There is no such thing as a hobby without politics. "Leave politics at the door" is itself a political statement, an endorsement of the status quo and an attempt to silence dissenting voices. 
   
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Secret Force Behind the Rise of the Tau




USA

Moving to the other thread.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2019/04/10 18:58:14


   
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Junior Officer with Laspistol





The Shire(s)

 LordofHats wrote:

I'm not sure what your point is. In most regards the Eastern Front bleed Germany white. By the time Western Allied troops started pushing into Mainland Europe the war was already won. It was simply a matter of who would liberate conquered countries and who would take Berlin.

It also bled the USSR dry- they were really scraping the barrel for men by the end of the war. The Soviets won, but it cost a hell of a lot of blood.


Debatable. British Intelligence had about as many disasters as successes, but then that's basically intelligence work period full stop. Americans certainly inflate their own sense of self worth when it comes to the Western Front, but honestly everyone in the Western Allies does. The Western Allies never at any point in time after the Fall of France faced the bulk of the German military. 75-85% of the Wehrmacht and the SS were on the Eastern Front, fighting a constant retreat.

Whether or not the Soviets needed any help whatsoever in ultimately winning the Great Patriotic War is an ongoing debate, and that debate is really less about "if" and more about "how long and how costly."

Eh? The Western Allies didn't face the bulk of the Heer, but they absolutely faced the majority of the Luftwaffe and almost the entiriety of the Kriegsmarine. This didn't constitute many men overall, but it was an enormous material cost on Nazi Germany considering the increased logistical needs of those two branches compared to the army.

Anyway, we are still off-topic. I think I had the last post on actual special forces somewhere in the last page where I discussed the impact of the threat of special forces being worthwhile for tying down troops and resources.

 ChargerIIC wrote:
If algae farm paste with a little bit of your grandfather in it isn't Grimdark I don't know what is.
 
   
 
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