Which WW2 battle was more instrumental in defeating Germany?

You pretending American efforts won the war is laughable. The Germans would have lost to the Soviets if the fight was theirs alone, as it was for some time. American efforts helped Soviet balances, which in war, aren't all that important.

Their technology and imports, not that important either. Soviet numbers won it.

 

Are you trolling or just being dense?

(The US got squat from Australia...the contrary, many Australians were fed, clothed, and equipped by American insudtry.)

 

Australians were fed and clothed by the US? Laughable, totally laughable.

Most of what Australia used was of British origin.

Fail.

 

Never claimed they did...the US sent over their own aircraft. (Offhand, the Soviets loved the P-39 Airacobra.) The Soviets could (and did) build the war machines, it was logistics they had problems with...especially with so much of their farmland overrun in 1941.

6 years ago, I could have gived you two pages of them from the term paper I did. Unfortunately, I don't have that anymore.

The pipeline was flowing long before that...the first PQ convoy sailed in September of 1941. Things really went into high gear with the US in the war, with the industrial might and large merchant marine.

 

American aid only shortened the war, the funny thing is that American aircraft for example were so terrible that the Soviets wouldn't even use them! America only provided trucks and rations in a significant quantity and thereby only shortened the war, America did not and could not win it on it's own!

 

About 5,000 P-39s were shipped to Russia through Britain.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_P-39_Airacobra.

Versus 100,000 attack/fighter aircraft produced by the SU.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_production_during_World_War_II

That represents 5% of aircraft production by the SU.

That is not a particularly persuasive response to back up your claims.

My understanding is that deliveries ramped up in the later years ('43-45) but were relatively smaller in prior years, when the SU stopped the Germans at Moscow, Leningrad and Stalingrad.

 

I'm extremely surprised that the fact that the Soviet Union won WWII (which is for us Great Patriotic War) is actually supported by some people in the US. We are taught that history is greatly distorted in American sources. I do not in the least underestimate the role of all the allies. But to understand what for Russian people and many people of the former USSR republics this war meant, one should look at it and read about it not as WWII, but as Great Patriotic War (especially, true Russian sources, if it’s possible). I’m sure you’ll discover much.

It is ridiculous to think this way. Studebaker was of great help in transporting Katushas. But the war was won BY PEOPLE. You look at it from the point of view that was put in your mind by those, who are charmed by figures. It’s hard for me to explain everything, my English does not allow me. And the problem is mostly not in the language. It is in the soul, in the memory. The USA, thanks God, have never faced such a war on its territory. Words are weak, so are mere figures and dry facts.

 

No, actually, the view "put into my mind" was essentially yours, planted there by a history teacher who was also a hard-core leftist. I did a HS research paper on this expecting that would be proven correct...but what I found was the opposite. I say again: the industrial might of the United States won WW2. I'm not alone in that view: no less a Russian patriot then General Zhukov flatly stated that the USSR could not have beaten Germany without Lend-Lease. And, of course: "Without American production the United Nations could never have won the war." That was directly from the mouth of no less than Josef Vissarionovich Stalin.

The USSR also recieved 2000 locomotives (they produced only 92), 11,000 railcars, between 18,500 and 19,000 aircraft (about 14% of their production) and hundreds of thousands of trucks...by 1945, more than 60% (I recall several sources saying 75%) of the Red Army's trucks were US-built...and the American trucks (Willys jeeps, Studebaker 2.5 tons, and Dodge 1-tons) were far and away the best trucks available on the Eastern Front, head and shoulders superior to anything the Soviets or Germans built.

 

Germany could not even control the area, which already got occupied, how should it have worked to control an even bigger area over longer time?

Getting to oil sources would have made Germany stronger, more weapons would have made Germany stronger, but the number of soldiers was limited.

 

D-Day of course! Without D-Day, Americans might not have time for the sharing of Europe.

 

I would say rather that most American histories of WWII tend to look at it from an American perspective.

Yes, the US was far and away the largest manufacturer of war materiel during the war, and yes, we sent the SU a lot of stuff to help them fight. There's no real way to know for sure what the effect would have been if we hadn't sent them the trucks etc., but IMO the SU would still have beaten Germany. Why?

Numbers, geography, and bad German policy decisions. There were an estimated 50 million deaths worldwide from the direct and indirect effects of WWII. 20 million of those were Russians. Regardless of what we sent over there, by late 1943 the Russians were building their own tanks and aircraft faster than the Germans were destroying them, and the stuff they were building was significantly better than what we were sending them.

Geographically, the Soviet industrial capacity was unreachable by German aircraft, the German supply lines were over-extended, and in hostile territory. The German policies regarding the treatment of civilians ensured that this hostility would continue and grow throughout the war. In some ways the Germans were their own worst enemy, and IMO, the Germans never stood a chance of beating the Russians, with or without the help of the Allies.

 

The death count for WW2 is up to 62 to 70 million now with 70 million seen as possibly conservative.

 

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but General Zhukhov and General Seceretary Stalin both disagree with you!

 

Yes, I read where you posted their opinions previously. I stand by my opinion, thanks. IMO, their opinion isn't supported by the facts.

Before you jump in with accusations of arrogance on my part, you provided no context for the statements you mentioned. It wouldn't surprise me at all if those statements contained some very diplomatic language. I'd also point out that Stalin also referred to a particular Soviet aircraft (the Il-2) as being more important than "bread and air" in winning the war...I suspect he was exaggerating a bit.

 

No mention of the Battle of the Bulge?

Folks forget that the U.S. was fighting in two theaters,
Europe and the Pacific.

 

Yes, in the beginning there were people in Ukraine and other regions, who tended to see the Germans not as a possible ally. The way Germans treated the people there, they usually quickly changed their minds.

Even if Germany would have reached some of their goals like marching into Moscow and reaching the oil fields in the South, the population was so mad at what Germans did, that resistance would not have stopped. A long term occupation would have led to even bigger problems for the German side.

 

I completely agree. Hitler's decision to instruct his soldiers that the war in Russia was a "war of extermination", was a very bad decision. I think all you have to do is examine this policy decision, and look at the pre-war population disparity between Russia and Germany (~170 million Russians vs. ~70 million Germans), and the conclusion that Germany was trying to win an un-winnable war is inescapable.

Seeing as how you're from Germany, and my family has German ancestry, I feel compelled to say something nice about Germany during WWII. You guys definitely had the coolest uniforms.

 

When I served in the eightees, I had almost the same uniform. My pictures from this time look like pictures of my grandpa, the symbols were different, but the uniform was mainly the same. It's not this way anymore with German uniforms today.

 

The battle of the bulge wasn't much of a threat, as for the US fighting a two theatre war the campaign against Japan is laughable and it was never in doubt that America would win. The Japs were a pushover and the Americans only fought a small % of their army.

 

You need to review your history.
The Japanese were the 2nd largest global naval power in 1935.

Did the Soviets contribute more to defeating the Third Reich than the allies...
probably in terms of a percentage...but also at great expense in terms of casualties.
10-12 million KIA.

In addition at the time of the battle of Kursk the allies landed at Southern Italy.
Many German troops were withdrawn from the Eastern Front and relocated to Italy.
The Germans had the edge at the beginning of the battle and the expansion
of the Western Front swung the pendulum in the Soviets favor.

Hey if the Ruskies want to think they did it all...I really don't care.
They suffered enormous military and civilian casualites and lost 13 - 15% of their total population
in order to defeat the Germans...that's what it took. They were an inferior
fighting force compared to the Germans, and it took sheer numbers combined
with harsh winters to defeat them. 3 times the military losses as compared to Germany.

1939 - 1945: Imagine 1 in 10 Russians from the total population....dead.

 

Well, factually, they won the War, and everything else was a sideshow. Stalingrad was decisive.

 

How many? Grossly? More than a dozen soldiers or less? Someone at all?

It's because their leaders did not care a lot about losses. They knew, they could afford it.

 

This post proves-conclusively-that you have absolutely no CLUE.

 

It is a myth.In Germany during the war was mobilized 21,107 millions,in the USSR about 34,5 millions.As we can see,a ratio is only about of 1,5:1 in favor of the USSR.Add the number of German allied forces and you'll see that the total the number of the Soviet and the Nazi armed forces was more or less identical.Even just only for this reason Soviet leaders couldn't not to care about losses

 

People aren't looking at this strategically. Yes, the USSR did the lionshare of the fighting and dying on the ground against Germany. However, just the threat of a U.S./U.K. invasion combined with fighting in North Africa/Italy pulled several million men and their equipment from the Eastern front. The allied air campaign also did quite a number on German industry (rail lines and certain specific industries). Although total German industry slowly increased over the war, this is mainly because Germany didn't fully mobilize into a wartime economy untill 1944. When you consider just how close the Germans did come to taking Moscow I think you have to conclude that by themselves the Soviets wouldn't have won. However, Stalingrad would have to rank as the most important battle of the European theatre.

I think the most important battle in an overall sense would be Pearl Harbor though. Had the U.S. not been dragged into the war things could have turned out quite differently. I'm not implying that the U.S. won the war themselves, but rather that they were what ultimately tipped the scale in the Allies favor.