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sebster wrote:

thegrav wrote:Um.. Well then... Watch: Saving Private Ryan, Band Of Brothers, Battle of the Bulge, Patton, this list can get longer... and I am sure Dakkaites will help me here..

Umm, watching American war movies will not improve anyone's understanding of WWII.

The US, the UK and the rest of the allied forces all have a lot to be proud of, but ultimately Germany was defeated by the Russians. You just need to look at the overwhelming proportion of German soldiers lost on the Eastern Front and it becomes fairly clear.

Tim the Biovore wrote:You sure about that? The Siege of Stalingrad showed the Russians surviving due to their numbers, half of which had no guns. Then again, they did halt the German's advance.

The thing about the Russians being deployed without guns is a myth - I guess you've watched Enemy at the Gates? Anyhow, the myth comes from real events in WWI, but nothing of the sort occurred in WWII.

And the Germans weren't just stopped at Stalingrad. The Russian counter attack encircled the German troops in the city, and the entire 6th army was lost. This was then followed by the German defeat at Kursk in the largest tank battle in history. In each case the Russians demonstrated a use of combined arms that is a long, long way from the myth of troops coming into battle with one rifle between two men.

jp400 wrote:Vlad.... Yeah, the Russians may have eventually due to throwing sheer numbers at the Germans.... if the US wouldn't have lend leased anything to them, they would have done FAR wose then what they did.

Lend lease was effective program, but didn't fundamentally change the situation. Trucks and bazookas are nice, but they weren't the defining elements of the war. In fact, Lend Lease would almost certainly have ended if the US had ever realised the actual fighting strength of the Soviets, Stalin put a lot of effort into convincing the US the Red Army was constantly on a state of collapse. When Operation Uranus was launched the Americans were stunned, they had no idea the Russians had those kinds of reserves.

The idea of a massive but ineffectual Russian army is also not supported by a closer look at the facts. At the start of Barbarossa the Germans and their allies actually had more numbers than the Russians. You're right that the Russians lost a lot of troops over the war, but that was basically their method, churn through conscripts and keep replacing them, build robust tanks with crude finishing and keep replacing them. The Germans invested a lot more time in their troops and equipment. As a result, despite taking considerably more casualties the Russians were able to replace their losses, the Germans were not.

So the what?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
WWII isn't Germany. It wasn't Germany that attacked the US.

We obliterated the Japanese.
The UK and Britain ended the Italians.
The Brits fought the germans longer than the USSR and USA.
The USA fought Germany.

To deny the sacrifices the UK and the USA made in the war is asinine and insulting to the millions who served.

Frazzled wrote:
Don't leave aout Australia. Only an Aussie can go toe to toe with a Cajun or a Texan.

Pff... Cajuns and Texans cant fight.

Middlesbroanians... Middlesbrites...

People from Middlesbrough are the toughest.

You send over your toughest fighter and he can fight my mam. Here is a pic from my family album.

mattyrm wrote:

Frazzled wrote:
Don't leave aout Australia. Only an Aussie can go toe to toe with a Cajun or a Texan.

Pff... Cajuns and Texans cant fight.

Middlesbroanians... Middlesbrites...

People from Middlesbrough are the toughest.

You send over your toughest fighter and he can fight my mam. Here is a pic from my family album.

Just like a Brit. Bring fists to a gunfight.

Frazzled wrote:
To deny the sacrifices the UK and the USA made in the war is asinine and insulting to the millions who served.

You have no room to talk about something being asinine when the quote below directly countermands your ridiculous accusation. Read before you post.

sebster wrote:
The US, the UK and the rest of the allied forces all have a lot to be proud of, but ultimately Germany was defeated by the Russians.

Wow, Frazzled took offense to something simply to be an ass?

I'm shocked!

Polonius wrote:Wow, Frazzled took offense to something simply to be an ass?

I'm shocked!

Bullt

You and I both know I don't have to take offense to something to be an ass. Its a natural state. Like most lawyers.

No, not really. All joking aside, I find your posting style to be deeply unpleasant and unnecessarily aggressive. Most lawyers I know treat people with a certain amount of dignity, and don't abuse every pathetic scrap of power they have.

/popcorn

Denny Crane!

Tim the Biovore wrote:

Vladsimpaler wrote:

thegrav wrote:Hitler was not defeated by the Russians and British...They had a "little" help... You need to review your history there.

Nah, it was pretty much the Russians. I know you're referring to the US as the help but realistically the Russkies would've steamrolled the Krauts just fine without our 'little' help.

You sure about that? The Siege of Stalingrad showed the Russians surviving due to their numbers, half of which had no guns. Then again, they did halt the German's advance.

Anyway, I'm Australian, so I'll just leave now....

Someone watched Enemy at the Gates... and believed it :-/


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Frazzled wrote:

sebster wrote:

thegrav wrote:Um.. Well then... Watch: Saving Private Ryan, Band Of Brothers, Battle of the Bulge, Patton, this list can get longer... and I am sure Dakkaites will help me here..

Umm, watching American war movies will not improve anyone's understanding of WWII.

The US, the UK and the rest of the allied forces all have a lot to be proud of, but ultimately Germany was defeated by the Russians. You just need to look at the overwhelming proportion of German soldiers lost on the Eastern Front and it becomes fairly clear.

Tim the Biovore wrote:You sure about that? The Siege of Stalingrad showed the Russians surviving due to their numbers, half of which had no guns. Then again, they did halt the German's advance.

The thing about the Russians being deployed without guns is a myth - I guess you've watched Enemy at the Gates? Anyhow, the myth comes from real events in WWI, but nothing of the sort occurred in WWII.

And the Germans weren't just stopped at Stalingrad. The Russian counter attack encircled the German troops in the city, and the entire 6th army was lost. This was then followed by the German defeat at Kursk in the largest tank battle in history. In each case the Russians demonstrated a use of combined arms that is a long, long way from the myth of troops coming into battle with one rifle between two men.

jp400 wrote:Vlad.... Yeah, the Russians may have eventually due to throwing sheer numbers at the Germans.... if the US wouldn't have lend leased anything to them, they would have done FAR wose then what they did.

Lend lease was effective program, but didn't fundamentally change the situation. Trucks and bazookas are nice, but they weren't the defining elements of the war. In fact, Lend Lease would almost certainly have ended if the US had ever realised the actual fighting strength of the Soviets, Stalin put a lot of effort into convincing the US the Red Army was constantly on a state of collapse. When Operation Uranus was launched the Americans were stunned, they had no idea the Russians had those kinds of reserves.

The idea of a massive but ineffectual Russian army is also not supported by a closer look at the facts. At the start of Barbarossa the Germans and their allies actually had more numbers than the Russians. You're right that the Russians lost a lot of troops over the war, but that was basically their method, churn through conscripts and keep replacing them, build robust tanks with crude finishing and keep replacing them. The Germans invested a lot more time in their troops and equipment. As a result, despite taking considerably more casualties the Russians were able to replace their losses, the Germans were not.

So the what?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
WWII isn't Germany. It wasn't Germany that attacked the US.

We obliterated the Japanese.
The UK and Britain ended the Italians.
The Brits fought the germans longer than the USSR and USA.
The USA fought Germany.

To deny the sacrifices the UK and the USA made in the war is asinine and insulting to the millions who served.

You can't deny them, but you can put them to the appropriate scale.

Though I'd give the US a lot more credit than most Brits seem willing to...

If we play the game of "What if", then I would probably sit on the block that would state the Russians still could have won, but one can't deny the importance of the French and Italian fronts (however late the former did arrive...).

What is silly is how we keep on trying to throwback to this conflict for the sheer purpose of glorification: In the USA's case it's just the last time they fought a just war (arguably excluding Afghanistan, of course)... I think this video review by Yahtzee carries the right message

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/12-MOH-Airborne

America's real accomplishment in WW2 wasn't stopping the Nazis, it was stopping the Soviets. Things could have gotten bad if they kept rolling along by themselves...

We also beat Japan of course.

thegrav wrote:@sebster: I am not suggesting movies are then end all or be all, I am suggesting that if you get the vast majority of your knowledge from TV/Movies, you may want to watch the big ones that talk about the United States involvement in the European Theater. The statement I was replying to suggested that the US had NO involvement in the European Theater, and was ONLY involved in the Pacific Theater.

Fair enough, the suggestion that the US focussed on the Pacific theatre was a bit WTF?!

As for Russia being able to win WWII given enough time..

No, not 'given enough time'. They did it in the time the war took. Had there been no front with the UK and US then the war would have gone a few more months, but no longer than that.

I am not sure if I am ready to jump on that bandwagon, that is simply not how history is taught in the states. We learn about Russia's Overwhelming amount of causalities, and how many troops Hitler lost when he marched into Russia in the dead of winter. However, we are also taught that D-Day and some of the other Joint US/British actions were "Turning Points" that brought about a resolution to the European Theater, and put an early end to a war that the Nazis were losing but would cost European dearly in the end.

Yeah, when there's a chance for politics to get involved you really can't take what they teach you in school at face value. Russia was enemy #1 up until quite recently, and it still shows in the history books. Between the bias to downplay the military achievements of an enemy and the bias towards overstating your own achievements, you end up with a very skewed view of history.

It's really this simle - 75 to 80% of German casualties were suffered on the Eastern Front. Looking purely at infantry, it was probably close to 9 in 10. Everything else was a sideshow.

The impression I was left with, was that Russia may have "won", but their 2 million plus causalities as of 1944, may well have doubled. Thats like saying You won a game of Warhammer cause Your HQ Squad is the last thing on the board, sure it's a "win" by the games rules, but it looks a bit more like survival to the bitter end.

Alright, say you're playing a game of Apocalypse, there's you and three mates vs one guy with as much stuff as all you guys combined. You're late and miss the first turn, meanwhile two of your mates get attacked, one of them is wiped out and the other turtles up in the far corner. Your opponent then turns all his attention on your remaining ally, who takes a beating for a bit but holds, then counterattacks and destroys large numbers of the enemy. You arrive, and along with the survivor of the first attack you being a successful counter attack.

Your ally keeps rolling forward, losing more stuff but killing a pile more as he goes. The game ends, and you're victorious. You look at your ally and say 'we all did very well, especially me, because I didn't lose anywhere near as much as you' and he replies 'I killed 4/5 of the enemy, and I took his capital, what the hell are you talking about?'

Also when talking about WWII, we must not forget the Pacific Theater, Germany and Japan were Allies after all, if Russia had won in Europe, or Stalemated (What we are taught was happening here in the states) how long would it have taken for Japan to roll over Russia from the other side? The US was the Major Player in the Defeat of Japan, and of actions taking place in the Pacific Theater.

It works that way in Axis and Allies, but not in real life. Japan was trapped in an incredibly brutal and resource sapping war in China, and would have been unlikely to have resources to commit to Eastern expansion. Even if they did, their military was simply not capable of matching with one of the great powers in open war. Now, the Japanese did have a very skilled navy, and an army that was effective for defensive operations on small islands, but put into an environment were manouvre was an option they were greatly out of their depth.

When the Russians turned their attention to Japan, they smashed the Japanese in Manchuria incredibly quickly, and then proceeded to advance as quickly as logistics would allow - the large numbers of Japanese troops on the mainland offered little resistance. You know why North Korea and South Korea were originally divided along the 38th parallel? Because that's far as the Russians had advanced - and they did this in a matter of months.

Basically, the Japanese threat to Russia didn't exist.

However at the end of the day, I don't see what any of this has to do with the 4th of July. I think in the future when someone says something like :"Congrats on <Insert Country> <Insert event>" we shouldn't turn it into the failings or misgivings of that country as it applies to war.

It's a tangent, they happen.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Frazzled wrote:To deny the sacrifices the UK and the USA made in the war is asinine and insulting to the millions who served.

As I said earlier;

"The US, the UK and the rest of the allied forces all have a lot to be proud of, but ultimately Germany was defeated by the Russians."

Please read the thread in future.

Actually, I think that is the western front didn't exist9as well as the campaign in Africa) I believe that Germany would've put more forces in the east and perhaps could've taken the fight to Russia before the tundra began to thaw.

That was a MAJOR issue with german armor, it was heavier than Rosie O' Donnel after an all you can eat buffet. They managed to start the attack, but Russian weather will beat most armies on its own and just lets the Russian people take the credit. The german tanks were vastly superior in terms of armor and weaponry, but if they were stuck in the mud they weren't too useful. This is why the germans would capture T-34's and use them as recovery vehicles.

The T-34's were light and fast little buggers(thanks to the tank's suspension design which came from an american engineer) and could be manufactured quickly, and with mobile factories the russians could build and field T-34's on the front lines if they wanted to.

As to the amount of manpower, yes the russians had it, in terms of production yes the russians had it. However we could note the destruction of key manufacturing locations in the west by US/UK forces as being a reason for loss of production.

As to the costly war with China. You do realize that america cut off its oil supply to Japan(causing a loss of resources) and also let's not forget the "Flying Tigers" who fought the war for the US before the actual war began.

We could play the "if" game all day long, but in the end I would dare say that russia would not have won the war all by itself. Sure they had the manpower, but when 1 tank can knock out 15 of yours that's a bad sign.

No, these guys aren't relaxing, they're the anti-air system.

halonachos wrote:Actually, I think that is the western front didn't exist9as well as the campaign in Africa) I believe that Germany would've put more forces in the east and perhaps could've taken the fight to Russia before the tundra began to thaw.

Africa was a sideshow, at best. The Western Front was a bigger issue, but ultimately, you can’t get away from that casualty ratio, between 75 and 80% of casualty figures were suffered by the Germans on the Eastern Front.

That was a MAJOR issue with german armor, it was heavier than Rosie O' Donnel after an all you can eat buffet. They managed to start the attack, but Russian weather will beat most armies on its own and just lets the Russian people take the credit. The german tanks were vastly superior in terms of armor and weaponry, but if they were stuck in the mud they weren't too useful.

No, German armour was not universally heavier, nor were the German heavy designs a factor in any of their greatest successes against the Russians. At the start of Barbarossa, the Germans relied predominantly on the lacklustre Mk III tank, which was too light and entirely outclassed by the T-34. The Mk IV, which was still lighter than the T-34, less well armoured, slower and without as long a range was more of a match, but still an inferior tank. The only heavy tank deployed by either side at the start of the war was the KV series deployed by the Russians.

Despite all of that the Germans utterly smashed the Soviets, going to show that the individual superiority of a tank is not going to matter if you have a lot else going for you. In time, as the Russians recovered and built organisational capability, the superiority of their tanks began to show. Read about Operation Uranus, for an example of operational level warfare facilitated by highly mobile tanks.

In time the Germans deployed Tigers and Panthers into the field, the first time they deployed in force was at Kursk, where the Germans were smashed in the greatest tank battle of all time. The Russians simply had more tanks, and co-ordinated their use more effectively on the operational level (helped in large part due the superior range and mobility of their tanks compared to their German counterparts).

This is why the germans would capture T-34's and use them as recovery vehicles.

Actually, significant numbers of T-34s were put into service as fighting vehicles, and the Russians did the same with captured German tanks. This is due to open and mobile nature of warfare on the Eastern front, tanks were constantly isolated from their lines and captured.

The T-34's were light and fast little buggers(thanks to the tank's suspension design which came from an american engineer) and could be manufactured quickly, and with mobile factories the russians could build and field T-34's on the front lines if they wanted to.

As I explained above, the T-34 was a full ton heavier than the largest tank deployed by the Germans at the start of the war, and it’s armour was superior to it’s German equivalents. It was also more mobile, although it lacked as effective a main gun.

The Panther was rushed through production, adapting multiple design features from the T-34, and was basically built as a special purpose T-34 killer. Because the Germans recognised the quality and importance of the T-34.

As to the amount of manpower, yes the russians had it, in terms of production yes the russians had it. However we could note the destruction of key manufacturing locations in the west by US/UK forces as being a reason for loss of production.

Yes, the targeted bombing campaign of the Western Allies was effective, up until they moved focus to cities, which was basically a waste of lives on both sides.

As to the costly war with China. You do realize that america cut off its oil supply to Japan(causing a loss of resources) and also let's not forget the "Flying Tigers" who fought the war for the US before the actual war began.

Yes, oil was cut off from early in the war. That impacted the Japanese navy considerably, but was far less of an effect on their troops in China (the issue there was an effective communist resistance). The flying tigers really aren’t significant in terms of the total war.

It is true that that the US submarines did have an utterly brutal effect on the Japanese shipping. But the slightest reading of the Manchuria campaign will show how far short the Japanese were from the other powers of WWII in a conventional land battle. They simply lacked the logistic and combined arms capabilities of the other countries – the only reason they were able to compete with the US was the unique nature of defending small islands.

We could play the "if" game all day long, but in the end I would dare say that russia would not have won the war all by itself. Sure they had the manpower, but when 1 tank can knock out 15 of yours that's a bad sign.

Again, at the start of Barbarossa the Russians had bigger, superior tanks. They got smashed. By the time the the Tigers and Panthers arrived on the field, the Germans went from losing to losing real bad.

There are multiple incidents of Tigers taking out large numbers of Shermans. This was, in fact, a significantly greater problem for the Western allies, as they lacked heavy tank designs of their own, while the Russians had their own heavy tanks, such as the IS-2.

You seem to have formed some kind of idea that military superiority can be established by considering the heavy tanks of one side vs the medium tanks of the other in some kind of duel by sunset. It’s junk. Tanks, like every other part of the war machine, need to fit and perform a role as part of the overall unit. In WWII a tank was not there to fight other tanks, it needed to be capable when that role arose, but the primary strategic value of a tank was in driving through enemy weakpoints, cutting off the lines of supply and encircling the enemy.

The T-34 was extremely good at this. The heavy tanks of the Germans were extremely good as heavy tanks, but that’s a role of minor strategic importance. The medium tanks of Germany were not as capable of penetrating the enemy’s main lines.

No, these guys aren't relaxing, they're the anti-air system.

You realise that every armed force was trained to return fire at German stukkas? And that the Russian 85mm AA was an excellent design.

halonachos wrote:The german tanks were vastly superior in terms of armor and weaponry, but if they were stuck in the mud they weren't too useful. This is why the germans would capture T-34's and use them as recovery vehicles.

Actually, the majority of German tanks were inferior to the T-34 in every way. The Panzer III, the most numerous tank on the Eastern Front, was slower, lacking firepower, possessed of insufficient armor, and had about 2/5 the operational range. The Panzer IV, the second most numerous tank, was a better match for the T-34, but was still far slower, possessed less effective armor, less firepower, and about half the operational range. In fact, the only German tank which can be considered a match for the T-34 is the Panzer V, and even that was more than 33% heavier, and had about 2/3 the operational range. Even then, the Panther was only a match for the standard T-34. The T-34/85 was a better tank.

Also, you should know that winter wasn't the cause of the slow German advance. Hitler's summer pause slowed the German advance on Moscow, and the poor operational range of German armor made it impossible for his generals to make up for the lost time. The winter was primarily a factor in the retreat from Russia; slowing progress and causing many casualties.

Polonius wrote:No, not really. All joking aside, I find your posting style to be deeply unpleasant and unnecessarily aggressive.

Wow, another personal attack. On the positive I find your opinion worth less than nothing.
Ditto baby, Ditto.

Surprised this topic hasn't been locked for irrelevance to the OT (but hey, I'm enjoying it...)

I think anyone suggesting that the US focussed on the Pacific is a bit of a nub, I'm not going to pretend to be some kind of expert so I can't name every event, but I do believe Roosevelt made it clear from the outgoing that the Western Front was to be prioritised: Hence why a lot of American equipment in the Pacific was outdated.

@Halanachos

You do realise Germany had numerical superiority in '41 anyway, right? And they bulldozed the Soviets... but that advantage isn't a helluva lot of use when winter sets in.

They also weren't helped by the fact that Hitler kept moving their tanks...

I demand my "gay" thread is reopened! We didnt throw half as many personal attacks about as you guys did, in fact, i didnt throw any and i was just lining up my coup de grace!

mattyrm wrote:I demand my "gay" thread is reopened! We didnt throw half as many personal attacks about as you guys did, in fact, i didnt throw any and i was just lining up my coup de grace!

See the problem you have matty is that this thread contains pics of patriotic Americans that are..easy on the eyes. That was your mistake. That and that whole haggis thing...

Hey my thread didnt even have any pictures..

Dont you like my horse?

mattyrm wrote:Hey my thread didnt even have any pictures..

Dont you like my horse?

Thats my point, your thread didn't have pics of patriotic beauties.

And the horse explains the haggis. Dear God not the HAGGIS!!!

Frazzled wrote:See the problem you have matty is that this thread contains pics of patriotic Americans that are..easy on the eyes. That was your mistake. That and that whole haggis thing...

Do I guarantee that the thread'll stay open nawe?

That horrible fething man... take it away!

Frazzled wrote:Wow, another personal attack. On the positive I find your opinion worth less than nothing.
Ditto baby, Ditto.

So you'll come back into the thread to complain about a personal attack slung at you, but won't make retract or even comment on your groundless complaint against me.

Good show.

Frazzled wrote:

Polonius wrote:No, not really. All joking aside, I find your posting style to be deeply unpleasant and unnecessarily aggressive.

Wow, another personal attack. On the positive I find your opinion worth less than nothing.
Ditto baby, Ditto.

Its not a personal attack to state one's feelings with respect to the actions of another insofar as those feelings are clearly qualified.

Unless you just responded to a personal attack with a personal attack.

PATRIOTIC!

COWBOY HAT!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
A note to all involved. I think the discussion on history has been amazing and I enjoy seeing many points of view. I also think that the mud-slinging gets in the way, so when the words personal and attack come out I will continue to post silly pictures.

Hate to extort and run...

Henners91 wrote:Surprised this topic hasn't been locked for irrelevance to the OT (but hey, I'm enjoying it...)

I think anyone suggesting that the US focussed on the Pacific is a bit of a nub, I'm not going to pretend to be some kind of expert so I can't name every event, but I do believe Roosevelt made it clear from the outgoing that the Western Front was to be prioritised: Hence why a lot of American equipment in the Pacific was outdated.

You are correct on that. At the beginning of the war we adopted a "Europe First" policy so we focused mainly on the european theater and didn't see too much focus on figthing the japs. As I said before about the Flying Tigers, we had people working against them we just didn't focus on them as much.

Henners91 wrote:

@Halanachos

You do realise Germany had numerical superiority in '41 anyway, right? And they bulldozed the Soviets... but that advantage isn't a helluva lot of use when winter sets in.

They also weren't helped by the fact that Hitler kept moving their tanks...

Like I said, the russian weather will defeat any army, the russian peoplejust steal the glory. The main issue was with weight and also the track system. The design used by the T-34(as well as some british tanks) had two modes that allowed high speeds. I think it was established as 60mph when in wheel mode. The Christie design was also simple enough to easily repair and allowed use in muddy terrain unlike the engineering of the german tanks.

Hitler was a horrible strategist. Had his officers told him to be quiet when the adults are talking, their military may have won the war.

But, that 1-15 ratio actually comes from a Tiger2(German Heavy) vs JS2(Russian Heavy). The Tiger2 that accomplished this didn't take too much damage from JS2 fire, it actually got stuck in the mud and could no longer move. So I am not comparing Heavy vs Light, that was a Heavy vs Heavy match.

hey happy 4th of july! Can we stop making every one of these threads a childish display of "my country is better, no my country is better!" followed by an inevitable display of sword fighting?

Kilkrazy wrote:Flags






Parades




Drink

So let me get this right. America is defined by (in order):

Jinogism, porn, goosestepping, wild historical innaccuracy and imports?

In that order to.