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Warfare has ALWAYS been about Speed and Violence of Action. The Germans did not invent this; they merely were the first to use Combined Arms Doctrine in doing so. But they were undoubtably superior in their human material: 1) Officer Corps: Simply the best 2) NCOs: Given power, responsibility and TRUST 3) Men: They WANTED to fight and had leadership second to none The German Army was a meritocracy, and the troops were adaptable and tenacious. They would stand and fight till they dropped. They were ALWAYS outnumbered, in every battle they fought. Forget all the propoganda about the Germans being rigid and highly structured, run from top down. That was US! |
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Every time I see our colledge student part time worker show up in shorts,flip flops,and an IPOD!!!
I think about the German army heading off into the Russan winter!!! Bob |
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They weren't unstoppable when they came up against an enemy that worth a shit. The Russians stopped them and they couldn't stop us from invading Europe.
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If Hitler had taken the advice of his officers we would all be speaking german right now. We won won because of our spies and his stupidity. |
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+1
Guderian wasn't too liked by the German High Command, they were a very jealous lot and most did not understand Armored warfare. Much of his failure to sieze Moscow can be put at the High Command forcing him to stop/slow down. Von Manstein was another General who was of Guderian's caliber, his Generalship around the retreat from Stalingrad was brilliant. Both Von Manstein and Guderian told Hitler that Kursk was a trap but Hitler insisted on marching into Zhukov's trap. |
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They read up on the Tactics from the British.... John Fuller, was born in Chichester in 1878. After Sandhurst College, Fuller was commissioned in the Oxfordshire & Buckinghamshire Light Infantry in 1898 and the following year took part in the Boer War. This was followed by service in India (1903-06). While adjutant with the Middlesex Regiment he began writing about military tactics and weapon training. In the first two years of the First World War Fuller was mainly involved in training officers. This included the creation of an Officers' School for the Third Army and the BEF Senior Officers Course. In December, 1916, he became the first Chief General Staff Officer of the Royal Tank Corps. Initially, Fuller was not a great supporter of tanks, however, he soon grasped their significance for modern warfare. Aware of the tank's early problems, Fuller argued that they should only be deployed when the terrain was appropriate. At Amiens (late 1918) he managed to persuade General Henry Rawlinson to use 412 tanks followed by soldiers and supported by over 1,000 aircraft. The strategy worked and the Allies managed to breakthrough the German frontline. Fuller was disappointed with the way tanks were used during the war and afterwards he produced Plan 1919. The plan called for long-range mass tank attacks with strong air, motorized and artillery support. The plan was ignored by the British Army but was studied in Germany and became the blueprint for what became known as blitzkrieg tactics. Fuller retired in 1933 and became known for his military writings, including Reformation of War (1923), Foundation of the Science of War (1926) and Memoirs of an Unconventional Soldier (1936). Fuller developed extreme right-wing opinions and joined anti-Semitic organizations such as The Link and the Nordic League. In April 1939 travelled to Nazi Germany with Duke of Beccleuch and Lord Brocket to celebrate the fiftieth birthday of Adolf Hitler. Sir John Fuller died in 1966. http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/FWWfuller.htm |
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fixed it for ya. |
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Discipline .............. training ............... deep seated belief in superiority................and the ability to capitalize on captured manufacturing ability and infrastructure. |
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Two things:
1. The Germans were good. 2. Everyone else sucked (ETA: until we saved their asses) |
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3. Then everyone learned from their mistakes. 4. Then the Germans got PoWn3d |
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What really made combined arms strategy possible was improved command and control. Smaller, more portable radios that used less power instead of the telegraph and phone cables. This allowed coordinated, highly trained forces to mass effects at a decisive point. |
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don't forget the incredible advantage we had with the ULTRA intercepts. We knew virtually every move the germans made. Look at a few of the affects of this:
- the british strangled Rommel in africa by sinking most of his supplies in 1942 prior to alamein - we knew the germans reaction to our normandy invasion - we knew the germans counter-attack at mortain as we were breaking out of normandy - we knew a lot of the submarine plans in the atlantic When the Germans didn't use their wireless communications - like for the ardennes offensive - they achieved surprise. Early on I think it's a very open question if the russinas could hve held on without our lend-lease support. And if they didn't have a 2 front war - very iffy for the russians. IIRC we, and the british, sent the russians more tanks and trucks/jeeps than the germans produced for the entire war. This kept them in the fight until 1944 when their re-located industry and new designs for tanks and planes really started to show up. There are many what-ifs that are intriguing, like: - the luftwafffe had the RAF on the ropes by bombing their airfields - then switched to cities in ratalaition for raids on berlin. With the RAF destroyed, would they have tried a cross channel attack? - in july 1941 in russia the way to moscow was wide open after the smolensk battles, but hitler diverted the panzers to encircle the ukraine. Hence the drive to moscow was delayed until october when mud and eventually the worst winter in 40 years hit early and hard. the russians were given that extra time to relocate their government and a lot of industry to the urals. - in north africa 1942, what if the planned invasion of malta had taken place after Rommel took tobruk and defeated the 8th army. Instead Rommel diverted these resouces to his pursuit to alamein where he stalled and eventually was defeated. Malta's resurgence crippled his supply line for fuel then for the 3 months prior to alamein - what if hitler hadn't declared war on the US thsu insuring an eventual full scale 2nd front |
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+1 How soon we forget. German scientists used an early form of cloning to take blood from the Lance of Longinus and created an army of zombie Jesus. We all remember the hell that this army wraught upon London. |
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One of the main reasons the Germans were stopped was the HUGE production capacity in the US that was safe from bombing. No army could have withstood a committed US with our almost limitless capability to quickly produce aircraft, ships, weapons etc.
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Read about Heinz Guderian and/or the books that he wrote.
He explains about the situation he was in and what he did to improve it. One of my favourites is Panzer Leader. |
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Hmmmm..... The Luftwaffe never had Fighter Comand on the ropes... The best the Luftwaffe achieved was to temporarily disable a few front line airfields on the coast. RAF Fighter Command never lost air supriority, it even retained it over the beachead at Dunkirk. 80% of Britain and RAF airfields was outside of the range of Luftwaffe fighters. The RAF always had the option of falling back to the Thames/Portsmouth line and declining combat except on it's own terms. During the entire period of the Battle of Britain, fighter production was never curtailed, in fact, their was always more planes than pilots. This is covered in greater depth in this book; Strategy for Defeat, highly recommend reading. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/9997393481/103-9822342-3547024?v=glance&n=283155 Which brings me on to another point.... The RAF was never short of pilots, it was however short of trainee pilots, but only because a decision was made in mid 1941 to keep back a strategic reserve of combat exprerienced pilots in case of an Invasion. At the higth of the Battle of Britain the RAF had 1,200 pilots with 100+ hours of combat flying held back in reserve. The majority of the fighting was done by Hurricanes with new aircrews, Spitfires were plentiful but most were being kept back. The Luftwaffe never closed the Channel to the Royal Navy at any time. Even in September, the RN was sending heavy surface units, including a Battleship on a number of occassions, into the Channel at night to bombard German invasion barges in France. An invasion was an impossibility for the Germans even if they had destroyed the RAF. The Kriegesmarine had 10 destroyers and two cruisers in 1940 to support Sea Lion. The RN had earmarked approxiamately 150 Sloops, Destroyers and Cruisers all within 3 hours sailing time of the likely invasion beaches to counter them, not including the entire Home Fleet with it's Battleships and Aircraft carriers within 24 hours saling time. The Russian utterly defeated the Germans at the Battle of Stalingrad in 1942. They had received no Lend-Lease aid at that point. Winter did not save the Russian in 1941. The Japanese decision not to attack Russia did. The Russian knew from their spy Richard Sorge that the Japanese were not going to attack the Russian Forces ijn Manchuria in Dec 1941. This allowed the STAVKA to transfer Zhukov and his battle hardened Siberian Army to to defence of Moscow. Hitler had ruled out any further Airborne Operations after the huge losses the FalschmirJeager suffered in Crete. The airborne operation against Malta was stillborne from that date. Even if Hitler had not declared war on the US, the US would have declared war on him. It had already been agreed upon by Roosevelt and Churchill that Hitler was the great threat and US policy throughout late 1941 had been heading towards open conflict as soon as a suitable casus beli had presented itself. Andy |
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I think a lot of it was about not having any real spine. Germany kept having cease fires and promissing not to attack and going against their word. It was aggression based on trickery and disseat followed by fast moving all out attack.
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The Germans were so good at the start of WWII due to their "shoot-n-move" combined arms approach and the full understanding of their enemy. The Germans knew exactly how their enemy was going to try and defend against invasion. Plus, the Germans knew exactly how to make use of each branch of their invasion force (air, armor, infantry) to the fullest so they accented each other.
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Innovative tactics
Superior equipment Outstanding leadership Effective training |
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Oh, jeez, I forgot about that. Yeah, when the inferior German tanks invaded France, one of the reasons they won was that every German tank had a radio in it. Most French and British tanks did not. |
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They were the first to USE mechanized combined arms tactics in the offense. They had some quick, early success but they were unable to maintain a defense. Their offensive short comings included the lack of heavy bombers and aircraft carriers. The Stg-44 should have been pushed up, as well.
Had the Germans eliminated England, aircraft carrier battle groups could have secured the Mediterranian while Germany pushed into Russia, fueled by African oil. Their biggest mistakes were failing to conquer Britain, which cost them Africa, and opening the Russian Front before the West was secure. |
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Russia barely had the manpower to take Berlin at the end of the war. Without US aid they'd have folded. Patton had the right idea, rearm the regular German divisions and finish the Soviets... they were so bled out from fighting the German rearguard into Berlin they wouldn't have lasted long. |
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Yeah, "bled out" Russians still had something like 200 divisions, with 10 million men. What did the Western Allies have on "the continent?" Re-arming what was left of the German military with M4 Shermans and M1 Garands................. vs T34-85's and IL-2's would have been a stellar idea. |
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Germman tanks were used "en masse", other countries spread their tanks out so that they were deployed in groups of 2-3, supporting infantry. Very easy to overrun, or outflank those very small tank groups. Germans were good at directing "support" artillery, air power, or MG fire. Other countries used artillery and airpower for more "strategic" targets, not tactical. German soldiers were well equipped, trained, and led............ luckily they often didn't have that much ammo or food. |
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Well, that and Hitler started the war in '39. After telling his staff that it would start in the mid 40's. At that point they would've had jets, aircraft carriers, and more u-boats then you could shake a stick at. |
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overwhelming ruthlessness to countries who wanted to play fair or didn't want to play at all...
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No that is backwards… a combined arms strategy made German tanks more effective. German tanks at the start of the War were not particularly better than anybodies else’s and there were periods early in the War when German tanks were at a distinct disadvantage. It was not the quality of German tanks but their use en mass to hit specific points with combined arms strategy including air power and artillery that made them effective. |
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Thank you Vito113 and OlyM4gery,
I was going to rebut but you have done so quite nicely and accurately. |
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I would add that I am skeptical of official Russian casualty numbers. I have read and heard 250,000-500,000 Russian casualties for the Battle of Berlin. They had LOTS of soldiers, and were willing to tak far more losses than the Western Allies would've been. |
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It's been said before-German JO's led from the front. I've seen stats showing that the average German company commander billet was filled 9 times due to high KIA/WIA rates.
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Suuuure they did. You mean the troops in the east? That he'd already called into battle? 200 divisions and 10 million men... funny. |
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Official Russian histories and troop strength numbers have never been remotely accurate. Believe what you like, though. As long as the hive mind marches in step alles ist schon. |
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One of the main things they did was to concetrate moblie, powerful forces on a single point and make a breakthrough. Once in the rear it is usually over.
The French tanks forces were larger and the individual tanks were better. But they were stretched all along the front. Just a few to a battalion. The Germans put a whole panzer division into an area covered by a regiment and broke through. Then it is just rolling the line up. |
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Deciding not to stop them when they were most vulnerable to being stopped. |
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US and British Air power would have crippled them. The Soviets would have tried it if they thought they could have succeeded. But the US and Britain were not going to be able to invade the USSR proper… Being able to stop a Soviet advance is not the same thing as being able to take the offensive. |
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Notice I did say 'to the Rhine'. There really wasn't much to stop them in May 1945. We had relatively few forces over the Rhine and the majority of Tac Air was operating from rough fields. If the Russians had stuck out for the Rhine it would have taken them little more than a few days to reach it. Agreed, we would have been pissed as hell, but Ivan would be sitting on his side of the Big River and we'd be back on the other. The Russian were not going to be a sitting duck for our Tac Air like the Germans were who were down to a handful of fighters in 1945. They had enormous numbers of quite good high performance fighters to support them and carry out counter air operations. Although we had a huge advantage in Heavy Bombers, pretty much the entire area of Eastern Europe was out of reach. Western Poland was as far as B-24's and Lancasters could reach. The Russian rear echelon would have been able to feed in men and materiel unmolested. And remember, Nukes were still 4 months away. ANdy |
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A 'rebuttal' with zero facts or figures to support your case hardly counts.... wishful revisonist German history is not a substitue for facts. ANdy |
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I don't know if I mentioned it, but note that the German build up for war and training of personnell began in 1933. The Brits started in 38/39 and the US in 1940. We had what, 100,000 soldiers in 1940? To 15 million by '45? That is impressive, but they are still draftees, not long time professional soldiers.
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yes, if we could hold out for 4 months, the first nukes would have been used against the USSR instead of japan, which was largely contained by that point. and the soviets would have had little choice but to surrender when their divisions started disappearing under mushroom clouds. |
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The problem was that it would have ended 15 weeks previously. ANdy |
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Hitler wasn't a military mastermind. It was his generals who really developed the blitzkrieg attacks, strategies, campaigns, etc. All European countries were weakened by WW I. France was also hoping Germany wasn't strong militarily as the Germans were under an agreement not to arm themselves as a part of the Treaty of Versailles. As Hitler rose in power, he secretly defied parts of the treaty in order to prepare for... raise pinky to edge of mouth... "total world domination". On the other hand, their campaign on the Eastern Front didn't go exactly as planned. The Nazis were successful in their early attacks as the Soviet military was not prepared. Things changed as they attempted to take over Moscow. I would suggest going to the library and getting books on WW II. |
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