German Wehrmacht vs. the Allies Military WW ll

Very interesting thread, with great posts. Excellent reading. Very good, gentlemen.

If I hadn't already submitted a "thread of the month"...

 

The "Blitzkrieg Myth" ???

Are you referring to John Mosier's book, "The Blitzkrieg Myth: How Hitler and the Allies Misread the Strategic Realities of World War II " ? -> http://www.amazon.com/Blitzkrieg-Myth-Misread-Strategic-Realities/dp/0060009772
I've already read it.


Or Colonel Robert Doughty's "The Myth of Blitzkrieg" ?

 

No, as in the Blitzkrieg literally didn't exist. Germans didn't train in it. Didn't plan with it in mind. Didn't sit around theorising about it. Quite a number of high ranking German officers, including Hitler, found the term both hilarious and wrong. They did whatever they wanted with whatever they had laying around. Germans were trained to improvise, not go by the book.

 

That's what I and many others are saying.

The following isn't a reliable source but the more reliable sources aren't on the internet yet.

 

I saw a talk by a historian and he said the only reason he puts it in the title of his books is because they won't sell without it but then he'll mention in the book how it didn't actually exist.

 

From the introductory post ::

and all the rest is in the same strain.

Gentlemen, tell me what is it all about here on six pages,why no one here has a simple thought : how did the Germans manage to lose the war in this case ?

Idiots usually claim that it was because of the great superiority of the Russians in manpower. But you are not idiots,gentlemen, you know well the fact that during the war in the USSR were called to arms 34,476 million men,in Germany 21 107 000,ie the ballance is only 1,6 vs 1 in favor of the Russians.

So why, gentlemen ?

 

If you had two books in front of you on the history of using helicopters in war which one would you pick up ?

"History of Vertical Envelopment"

or

"History of the Air Assault"

 

The first.

 

Germany didn't fight a total war until it was to late.

(Corporal) Hitler micromanaged the war.

The OP source is using U.S. Army War College studies of the quality and combat effectiveness of the individual rifleman or infantryman.

There were a number of studies conducted and all came to the same conclusion.

First when you compare something you have to have something else to compare it too.

The U.S. Army chose the British infantryman to compare all other infantrymen too. The British infantryman was given a rating of 5.
The American infantryman was rated a 5. equal to the British infantryman.
The individual Wehrmacht infantryman earned a rating of 5.2
The individual Soviet infantryman earned a 3.5 or a 3.7 (I forget the exact rating but it was around that rating.)

There was a footnote in all of the studies. Elite fighting forces were not included into the equation. Like U.S. Army Rangers, Royal Marines Commandos, British Gurkhas, Wehrmacht or Soviet elite combat units or the U.S. Marine Corps rifleman since the U.S. Marine Corps is an elite fighting force all by itself.

One of the things that was studied, was if the individual infantryman could still continue to fight and close in with the enemy and engage and kill the enemy if his officers and NCO were all killed ?

Individual rifle marksmanship was studied and physical endurance of the individual infantryman. The confidence of the individual infantryman was studied.

Morons don't make good infantrymen.

Who are your best combat effective infantryman ? A male from a warrior ethnicity background of 26 to 28 years of age with two years of college education under his belt.

- - - Updated - - -

So would I.

 

Even Germany's "total war" footing was half arsed. Women still worked in factories. They still pulled soldiers off the front line so they could be in propaganda films.

Factories were still producing luxury goods right up until the end.

 

Total war meaning that the war had to also be fought on the homefront. The UK and the USA initiated heavy rarioning on just about everything from meat, dairy products to gas and those tires on your car on Dec. 7th 1941 better last you for the entire war because there were no more tires being sold for civilian cars.

The German people instead still wanted to eat their brats, drink their beer and smoke cigarettes and eat Swiss chocolate and buy a new wool suit every year.

 

Many terrible German arms decisions. The jet fighter was ready for a year, but not put into production for a year trying to make them a bomber. If put into service they would have seriously challenged the Allies air campaign. The Germans never had a long range or heavy bomber, making Russian factories in the East invulnerable. All the efforts on rocketry was a total waste and diversion as was attacking British civilians a wrongheaded mistake, just like a mistake for Allied to attack German civilians in bombing. The timing on attacking Russia was absurd as was Hitler's tactics in Germany, plus not accepting offers of Russian units to switch sides particularly in the Ukraine.

The Tiger tank was a terrible decision. They were too complex to be reliable. Took overwhelmingly too many man-hours to built. Too difficult to transport.

 

Know why American tanks were so small and light like the Sherman ?

They had to be able to be transported from ship to shore usually in a LCM (Mile Boat)

In fact just about every weapon and vehicle was designed to fit on a ship and be able to be moved from ship to shore on a landing craft.

 

The Sherman gets unfairly attacked.

Due to its sloped armour it actually had quite decent frontal protection. The quality of the steel meant that non penetrating hits didn't crack and shatter the armour (like what happened on German tanks). The 75mm gun was good enough in the beginning to take on enemy armour and the 76mm could penetrate the frontal armour of a Tiger tank out to about 500 yards. Even the 75mm could kill a Tiger from the front if the crews managed to steal some HVAP rounds that were meant to go to the TDs.

It also actually burned at a lower rate than German tanks (it was actually German tanks that tended to explode into fireballs when hit) and when hit had the highest crew survival rate of any tank in the war.

 

The Sherman tank was called the "Ronson Lighter" for a reason. A gasoline engine.

Most tanks have a diesel engine. Diesel fumes aren't explosive like gasoline fumes.

It's why the U.S. Navy stopped flying the best CAS aircraft ever to fly, the Douglas A-1 Skyraider and gave them to the USAF during the Vietnam war. The Navy wanted high octane avgas of their aircraft carriers.

The advantage that the Sherman had over other tanks was it's gas engine, during the winter when it's below freezing diesel engines are hard to start. Also when it gets close to zero degrees f. diesel fuel jells. The Germans like all armies who had diesel engines had to start the engines every 30 minutes to one hour and run them for 15 minutes to keep the engine blocks warm during the winter.

To be fair, some say the Sherman being the Ronson Lighter is a myth. -> http://tanksandafv.blogspot.com/2014/04/the-m4-sherman-ronson-lights-first.html

I would say that WW ll tankers should have the final say. I wonder how many are still around today ?

 

Your figures are in conflict with each other. This figures proclaim the balance of superiority 1,5 vs.1 in favor of the Germans (5.2 vs 3.5)

and this

proclaim more than sevenfold German superiority.

This discrepancy clearly shows that the figures were picked out of nose.

It's funny to read that Soviet soldier was worse even than British and American. It is well known that the allies started to fight at the end of the war and even in 1945 Churchill asked Stalin for help ,not vice versa : The battle in the West is very heavy and, at any time, large decisions may be called for from the Supreme Command....I shall be grateful if you can tell me whether we can count on a major Russian offensive on the Vistula front, or elsewhere, during January, with any other points you may care to mention.

 

The Ronson thing only appears from the 1950s onwards which is when they started using their little jingle that everyone says was used in WW2. Soviets used diesel. The Germans used gasoline and their tanks had something like an 80% burn rate because they tended to also store ammo in the sides of the tanks and in the turret.

 

You're correct, the German's Panthers and Tigers had gas engines.

Why would they go with gas instead of diesel ?

You can use coal dust to fuel a diesel. Germany had a whole lot of coal.

 

Your argument isn't with me, it's with the U.S. Army War College.

Please submit all complaints too -> http://www.usawc.org/

BTW:
Can you explain this for everyone ? -> Understanding deaths of World War 2 -> http://www.politicalforum.com/warfa...erstanding-deaths-world-war-2-fine-video.html

 

This does not change the main thing : the discrepancy shows manipulation.

What must I explain? German military losses 5 300 000,Soviet military losses 8 866 400.https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Потери_во_Второй_мировой_войне So what?

 

Kill ratio.

German have an excellent track record of keeping accurate records. The Soviets/Russian don't.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_casualties_in_World_War_II

 

Coal dust cant be used

Dr. Disel thought it can. Than his lab exploded.
He had some concerns but continued the experiments, the lab exploded again wounding some personal.
Dr. Disel made adjustments and renewed the experiments. After third explosion he realized where the mistake was and said that only Disel Fuel should be used, no coal powder, no gunpowder, only Disel fuel

Germans produced a lot of synthetic petrol out of coal due to lack of oil reserves.
Disel fuel out of local oil was for Kriegsmarine. All other, wear supposed to run on synthetic petrol.

 

Indeed. It was also great at assaulting fortified positions, with some thicker armor on the front and sides on some models designed for such assaults, and it als fared very well against the T-34's and other Soviet tanks in Korea, in the few engagements known from that war. Even the Israelis made good use of them in the '56 war and some other small engagements. They did great in the African campaign, which is why the decision was made in '43 to keep building them, though by '44 the new German tanks were better than what the Shermans went against in North Africa. But given the combined arms and Patton's use of air support they were good enough for the drives out of Normandy an on to the Rhine. A better gun would have been better but a look at the timelines makes it obvious the war would be over before any significant numbers of upgrades would be available in the field made it a moot issue by the end of '44, against an army already on the defensive since Jan.-Feb. of '43, after all. The Pershings came along too late to matter re WW II.

Yes.

 

Well Mr. Diesel was well over a hundred years ago.

Not my department but coal dust ? Why not a liquid form of coal fuel ?

 

I had the opportunity to ride in a restored M4 Sherman tank in a veteran's day parade. The tank is used by the 2nd Ranger Infantry Btn of St. Louis, a group of WW2 enthusiasts who recreate battles.

Not me in the photo, but that's the tank alright; I don't know the variant of this particular Sherman.

.