Are AT guns too fragile?

[SimpleSimon]

On 9/4/2018 at 11:00 AM, danfrodo said:

Hear, Hear DougPhresh.  Well said.  Yes, Tigers are great fun.  But they are expensive, unreliable, slow, guzzle insane amounts of precious fuel, and bog easily.  They can't cross most bridges (why does the T34 85 have relatively light armor? -- because at ~30 tons it could cross most bridges, not bog, etc).  Otto Carius' book has him spending half his time trying to unbog his precious tiger.   In a CM battle, the Tigers are already there, have fuel and ammo, and are running.  Which is quite nice when I am the German side, I must say. 

On the other hand the Tiger could ford many of the rivers in Eastern Europe. In the context of heavy tanks the Tiger wasn't much worse about breakdowns than the IS-2 even. Weight isn't everything after all, the T-26 and L3 were notoriously unreliable tanks but they weighed a lot less than the war-average 25 ton tanks. The L3 weighs less than some American trucks. A lot of the Tiger's issues are overblown I feel. All tanks guzzle gas and bog easily. Issue is the Germans only built around 1,000 of them. Take that number and spread it over 3 years between all those Heavy Panzer formations and suddenly one realizes the chances of the average Vassily actually encountering one were around the same odds as getting struck by lightning. The Tiger's low population in a war characterized by battlefields stretching over continents and million man Armies makes it pretty clear that it was statistically irrelevant. No wonder Guderian fought tooth and nail to stop Panzer IV production from ending, or why the Panzer III was around for so long. There were enough of them to have a tangible impact on the war's strategy. 

[DerKommissar]

22 hours ago, SimpleSimon said:

On the other hand the Tiger could ford many of the rivers in Eastern Europe. In the context of heavy tanks the Tiger wasn't much worse about breakdowns than the IS-2 even. Weight isn't everything after all, the T-26 and L3 were notoriously unreliable tanks but they weighed a lot less than the war-average 25 ton tanks. The L3 weighs less than some American trucks. A lot of the Tiger's issues are overblown I feel. All tanks guzzle gas and bog easily. Issue is the Germans only built around 1,000 of them. Take that number and spread it over 3 years between all those Heavy Panzer formations and suddenly one realizes the chances of the average Vassily actually encountering one were around the same odds as getting struck by lightning. The Tiger's low population in a war characterized by battlefields stretching over continents and million man Armies makes it pretty clear that it was statistically irrelevant. No wonder Guderian fought tooth and nail to stop Panzer IV production from ending, or why the Panzer III was around for so long. There were enough of them to have a tangible impact on the war's strategy. 

The Tiger is a text book case of over-engineering. Take the suspension for example, it's more complex than ordinary torsion bar and works well on paper. Too bad the interleaved wheels get jammed with mud and snow. Tiger also had a long and hectic development, too. The Porsche version actually went into production, albeit very briefly -- which was MORE expensive, complicated and unnecissary.

The Tiger was designed with expensive parts, and took a lot of time to manufacture. From my brief look in the manual, it looks like the maintenance was involved. How/were would one find parts to fix it? The T-26 was a budget tank from the start. Soviet doctrine being that tanks are meant to be replaced, not repaired.

The worst part is that they weren't really necessary for most of the war. That's why the production was low and its successor only came in `44 -- when they became necessary. Tiger II production began in 43. If the Tiger was such a good design, why begin replacing it after less than a year?

Funny enough, the Tiger II had worse reliability and many of them broke down before they ended up on the Eastern Front. Why not continue building Tiger Is? I always saw heavy tanks as the rockstars of tanks. They're larger than life,really cool in concept, great propaganda, yet unnecessary and sickly in practice.

How many designs did the Soviets go through before reaching the IS-2? How soon would they have replaced it with the IS-3? 

[A Canadian Cat]

43 minutes ago, DerKommissar said:

yet unnecessary and sickly in practice

LOL I first read that as "yet unnecessarily sticky in certain places" - which can work for rock stars too

[Erwin]

56 minutes ago, DerKommissar said:

The Tiger was designed with expensive parts, and took a lot of time to manufacture. From my brief look in the manual, it looks like the maintenance was involved. How/were would one find parts to fix it? The ... was a budget tank from the start. Soviet doctrine being that tanks are meant to be replaced, not repaired.

Replace "Tiger" with most modern weapons systems and one sees much the same doctrine still in place.  

[DerKommissar]

41 minutes ago, Erwin said:

Replace "Tiger" with most modern weapons systems and one sees much the same doctrine still in place.  

Panther started development in '38, the Tiger in '37. Panther entered service in '43, and Tiger in '42. Tiger started being replaced in '44 and the Panther needed to be overhauled (as half of them broke down on the way to Kursk).

The T-34 started development in '37 and entered service in '40. Sherman started development in '40 and entered service in '42. The USA picked the simplest of all competitors. Both serving well into the 50s. Churchill tank was designed in '40 and entered service in '41. 

It seems Hitler was a perfectionist with tanks, much to their detriment. He would famously demand tanks to be better both better armoured and weigh less. In reality, the workhorses were still the STuG and P. 4. 

Now, think F-35, or the Comanche. This is a typical problem in any development cycle, not exclusive to military hardware. This is what happens when requirements are constantly updated, and often contradictory. By the time it's "ready" for prime-time, its fundamental purpose is already obsolete. 

As for AT guns... CM doesn't have horses. Even lighter ones are impractical to be pushed by soldiers. Trucks often can't get where the AT gun is/needs to go. So, hopefully you deploy them in the right place.

[SimpleSimon]

On 9/6/2018 at 3:51 PM, DerKommissar said:

The Tiger is a text book case of over-engineering. Take the suspension for example, it's more complex than ordinary torsion bar and works well on paper.

Tanks are text book cases of over-engineering in general. You kind of expect that to come with any vehicle that weighs around 30-60 tons. The Tiger's suspension was complex, but interleaved road wheels were the only way you were going to achieve a vehicle that had both low ground pressure and acceptable dimensions in size.

The Tiger's sustainable off-road speed (16mph) was higher than the Panzer IV (10mph), a vehicle that weighed half as much as it did, and very important in the Russia the Land of no Roads. Additional perks were that the Tiger was less likely to throw tracks trying to pivot on uneven ground, and the Tiger's small dimensions relative to other heavy tanks made it easier to transport by rail. All in all for a vehicle that weighed 57 tons it still managed a power/weight ratio of around 12hp/ton. The IS-2 which weighed around 45 tons was only a little better. The Churchill only 9hp/ton and it weighed less than both of them! 

On 9/6/2018 at 3:51 PM, DerKommissar said:

Too bad the interleaved wheels get jammed with mud and snow. Tiger also had a long and hectic development, too. The Porsche version actually went into production, albeit very briefly -- which was MORE expensive, complicated and unnecissary.

Yes but that was a well known issue with the infantry's half tracks like the Hanomag, which used interleaved road wheels for years in Russia prior to the Tiger's development. If interleaved road wheels were really as bad as western sources always claim they were, then there's just no way that feedback wouldn't have reached Henschel and Sohn.  Their pros outweighed the cons in the circumstances. In fact it seems that the Panzer III's Christie suspension had much greater problems in the bad country of the East as it went extinct with that vehicle. The Americans didn't even use it on the infamously reliable (by the standard of other tanks) Sherman. 

Anyway, the idea here is not to describe the Tiger as a good idea, just that the arguments frequently made against it by western authors are not adequately contextualized. The vehicle wasn't that irrational in ways, and many of its peers were worse in some respects. The Tiger was about the best you could make of having so many design demands fall upon a single chassis. You could argue that it was expensive and complicated and yes all those things are true but then when it comes to blunders nothing Germany did will probably ever beat invading Russia. Emergency situations usually force people to discern between bad choices and worse ones so *shrug*. 

On 9/6/2018 at 3:51 PM, DerKommissar said:

The Tiger was designed with expensive parts, and took a lot of time to manufacture. From my brief look in the manual, it looks like the maintenance was involved. How/were would one find parts to fix it? The T-26 was a budget tank from the start. Soviet doctrine being that tanks are meant to be replaced, not repaired.

More or less. All of those awful Vickers 6-ton knockoffs of the 1930s were budget designs. You couldn't present any world leader with the invoice for building  lots of a tank that was really modern and not have them balk at it. Except maybe Hitler. 

On 9/6/2018 at 3:51 PM, DerKommissar said:

The worst part is that they weren't really necessary for most of the war. That's why the production was low and its successor only came in `44 -- when they became necessary. Tiger II production began in 43. If the Tiger was such a good design, why begin replacing it after less than a year?

It was apparent where trends in armor, weight, and firepower in the war were going. 

On 9/6/2018 at 3:51 PM, DerKommissar said:

Funny enough, the Tiger II had worse reliability and many of them broke down before they ended up on the Eastern Front. Why not continue building Tiger Is? I always saw heavy tanks as the rockstars of tanks. They're larger than life,really cool in concept, great propaganda, yet unnecessary and sickly in practice.

Yeah but so much of war is about morale and perception. In practice no they didn't really work but skittish G.I.s calling everything from the Kubelwagen to the Panzer II a "Tiger" was happening for a reason. The Russians began the development of a new series of heavy tank after they closely examined a captured Tiger. For a vehicle that was all bark and no bite it seems to have had a certain tangibility that simply wasn't was anyone thought it might be. 

 

[sburke]

11 minutes ago, SimpleSimon said:

You could argue that it was expensive and complicated and yes all those things are true but then when it comes to blunders nothing Germany did will probably ever beat invading Russia.

Lol man that certainly puts things in perspective. 

[DerKommissar]

On 9/7/2018 at 5:54 PM, SimpleSimon said:

Tanks are text book cases of over-engineering in general. You kind of expect that to come with any vehicle that weighs around 30-60 tons. The Tiger's suspension was complex, but interleaved road wheels were the only way you were going to achieve a vehicle that had both low ground pressure and acceptable dimensions in size.

The Tiger, as far as tanks go, wasn't a bad implementation of unrealistic requirements. The problem lies in that the niche the tank was set to fill was imaginary. Any original vision for it was lost during its long development. Germany ended up with another tank family that was difficult to manufacture and maintain, which was especially critical in the year they came in service.

In '44 and '43, there's 7 different chassis of vehicles being manufactured. Notice that in 1944, Tiger I production dropped -- while P. 4 and P. 3 production increased significantly. It is also important to note for how many years the first 5 vehicles were manufactured. If you had an issue with your P.4, StuG or Marder -- you had the option of spare parts. If your Tiger broke down, you're gonna have to call Berlin to send you a replacement part. 

What is the Elefant doing there? Why were 90 Porsche hulls even produced? Those were terrible, even-more-over-engineered, designs (hybrids?) that were rejected. Who was overseeing this Tiger I program that didn't notice 90 expensive beasts being built that weren't asked to be built? Another symptom of the large problem of unrealistic requirements and troubled development of armoured vehicles during a very time-sensitive period.

I'll admit that the blame on the interleaved suspension may not be founded. It's a nice concept. Why did no one else use it? Why were many of the tanks it was used on not successful? Like I said, it could just be bad luck. A lot of innovations the Germans put in their tanks were successful, but often not worth their price tag. The Allies would carefully watch them and try to make them practical.

On 9/7/2018 at 5:54 PM, SimpleSimon said:

It was apparent where trends in armor, weight, and firepower in the war were going. 

A lot of things seemed apparent to the Germans during WW2, it seems that the majority of them didn't materialize. With unrealistic forecasts, you get unrealistic requirements, with unrealistic requirements you get unrealistic designs. They predicted they could afford excess during a time when they were on a lean budget. After the early successes of the war, they thought they could afford these crazy last 4 designs. 

The Allies didn't try to jump over their heads. They saw what worked and improved on it. They had less families of tanks in production, for longer. Especially when their manufacturing was not yet at its peak, they stuck to very modern and simple designs. Simplicity was the goal, as opposed to making a dragon of a tank. At the end of the day, it's the difference of ideology. Germany was overly-ambitious to a very destructive effect.

On 9/7/2018 at 5:54 PM, SimpleSimon said:

Yeah but so much of war is about morale and perception. In practice no they didn't really work but skittish G.I.s calling everything from the Kubelwagen to the Panzer II a "Tiger" was happening for a reason. The Russians began the development of a new series of heavy tank after they closely examined a captured Tiger. For a vehicle that was all bark and no bite it seems to have had a certain tangibility that simply wasn't was anyone thought it might be. 

This is absolutely true. Heavy tanks were always the rockstars of AFVs. They carry massive propaganda value, from the Mark VIII to the Char 2b to the T-35. They're big, imposing and very happy to be put in newspapers. The ideological war was also being waged, not just the military war. Stalin put his name on this new heavy tank that would beat the Tiger, a tank that Hitler had sent to Kursk under personal supervision. Churchill is also a good example.

It's also why these tanks remain symbols of all AFVs, to this day -- even if they did the least amount of work. A lot of the requirements for these designs were political. I think especially during the Tiger production, any practical requirements for the tank were overshadowed by the overbearing political requirements during its lengthy development period. The Tiger did rock the world, but not with its impressive performance -- but with its image of German superiority.

[Erwin]

54 minutes ago, DerKommissar said:

It's also why these ****** remain symbols of ****** to this day -- even if they did the least amount of work.

So true for some people I have known.

Was surprised that the obsolete Pz 2 had so much production in 42 and 43 and the Pz38 in 44.  

[SimpleSimon]

1 hour ago, DerKommissar said:

The Tiger, as far as tanks go, wasn't a bad implementation of unrealistic requirements. The problem lies in that the niche the tank was set to fill was imaginary. Any original vision for it was lost during its long development. Germany ended up with another tank family that was difficult to manufacture and maintain, which was especially critical in the year they came in service.

One hundred percent. The concept of a "breakthrough vehicle" was strategically sound...for 1941. By 1943 the German Army could not hope to defeat their enemy, even if they rolled up whole Armies like in France in 1940. Germany no longer had the strategic reserves necessary to fully exploit those breakthroughs. After Kursk it became the norm for Panzer Divisions to achieve local breakthroughs in their sector, which the Germans would then fortify the **** out of and force the Allies to reduce them. This was just a delaying measure though, the actions were too small and too local and were designed to force delays in Allied plans over the minimum possible expenditure of casualties for it. They had no hope in reversing the war's direction. 

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What is the Elefant doing there? Why were 90 Porsche hulls even produced? Those were terrible, even-more-over-engineered, designs (hybrids?) that were rejected. Who was overseeing this Tiger I program that didn't notice 90 expensive beasts being built that weren't asked to be built? Another symptom of the large problem of unrealistic requirements and troubled development of armoured vehicles during a very time-sensitive period.

Because the tooling was available and the designs were already far enough along to escape the bean counters.  Nazi politics, desperation and "not made here" thinking were a major reason many designs were in production though I am not entirely sure of the nuance of. I'm bet quite a bit it came from the nature of Nazi party officials to just trust German industrialists to be working toward the Reich's interest and not for their own profit or to defeating competitors. 

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I'll admit that the blame on the interleaved suspension may not be founded. It's a nice concept. Why did no one else use it? Why were many of the tanks it was used on not successful? Like I said, it could just be bad luck. A lot of innovations the Germans put in their tanks were successful, but often not worth their price tag. The Allies would carefully watch them and try to make them practical.

War measures required a system of suspension that met "all of the above" requirements and was easy-enough to manufacture to keep overall vehicle cost down. You've got to build thousands of these things after all. The Tiger emerged from early war studies and by the time it was available the nature of the war had changed and its role was no longer prominent. Designing the plans and setting aside the factory space and making tooling for a production series is a major undertaking after all and it's not easy to change your mind if it turns out you made a bad choice. Everyone had this problem but for the Allies in 1941 and later the Nazis in 1943 it was a particularly acute issue. In the case of the Germans it seems to have been made worse by lack of oversight for the arms industry and Nazi incompetence, hence as you say, why Porsche made 90 hulls of a vehicle the Army did not end up wanting anyway. 

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A lot of things seemed apparent to the Germans during WW2, it seems that the majority of them didn't materialize. With unrealistic forecasts, you get unrealistic requirements, with unrealistic requirements you get unrealistic designs. They predicted they could afford excess during a time when they were on a lean budget. After the early successes of the war, they thought they could afford these crazy last 4 designs. 

The peculiar industrial controls of Nazi leaders combined with a dangerous sense of invulnerability after France to convince Nazi leaders their most urgent task was to balance the Army's and Industry's demands for manpower with each other (instead of making contingency plans if Barbarossa fails). I don't think the Nazis ever got around to their planned reductions in arms procurement, or to disbanding any formations before it became apparent Barbarossa had failed and a long war was on the backfoot.  I do believe a certain "complacency" set into parts of the armaments industry and the Organization Todt before Barbarossa. It is only my own personal theory that this was the time of the infamous "dabling" of many arms manufacturers in experimental ideas and weapons, which Nazi Party Leadership seized upon later for the infamous Wunderwaffe miracle weapons. 

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The Allies didn't try to jump over their heads. They saw what worked and improved on it. They had less families of tanks in production, for longer. Especially when their manufacturing was not yet at its peak, they stuck to very modern and simple designs. Simplicity was the goal, as opposed to making a dragon of a tank. At the end of the day, it's the difference of ideology. Germany was overly-ambitious to a very destructive effect.

Not at first though. In 1940 the Allies had a zoo of vehicles themselves, many of them of pre-war vintage that were now sharing space with more modern designs which were generally coming online from the various rearmament programs that were taking place in their countries. Desperation kept a lot of these vehicles in production, yes well after they were obsolete but the lesson of 1940 was a bad tank is better than no tank at all which explains things like the Grant, Churchill, Elefant, T-70, or Matilda II. This here FT-17 is not a good tank, but it's a tank none the less and 95% of what it's likely to run into at the front can't do jack **** to it. 

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This is absolutely true. Heavy tanks were always the rockstars of AFVs. They carry massive propaganda value, from the Mark VIII to the Char 2b to the T-35. They're big, imposing and very happy to be put in newspapers. The ideological war was also being waged, not just the military war. Stalin put his name on this new heavy tank that would beat the Tiger, a tank that Hitler had sent to Kursk under personal supervision. Churchill is also a good example.

It's also why these tanks remain symbols of all AFVs, to this day -- even if they did the least amount of work. A lot of the requirements for these designs were political. I think especially during the Tiger production, any practical requirements for the tank were overshadowed by the overbearing political requirements during its lengthy development period. The Tiger did rock the world, but not with its impressive performance -- but with its image of German superiority.

Indeed. 

Edited September 11, 2018 by SimpleSimon

[Erwin]

2 hours ago, SimpleSimon said:

their most urgent task was to balance the Army's and Industry's demands for manpower with each other (instead of making contingency plans if Barbarossa fails)

To be fair to High Command. it's understandable since all plans were based on a lightning war that would be over b4 winter.   No point in new systems if it takes a year to gear up.

[SimpleSimon]

23 hours ago, Erwin said:

Was surprised that the obsolete Pz 2 had so much production in 42 and 43 and the Pz38 in 44.  

I think in both cases only the chassis was still in production for their various derivative vehicles like the Wespe, Luchs, Hetzer, etc. 

I am personally surprised the Germans managed to squeeze out a little over 4,000 of the Panther in 1944 alone. It does not appear to have been as expensive as I thought it was. Then again that figure might also be Panther chassis stuff like the Jagdpanther, armored recovery vehicles, etc. 

Edited September 12, 2018 by SimpleSimon

[DerKommissar]

23 hours ago, SimpleSimon said:

Not at first though. In 1940 the Allies had a zoo of vehicles themselves, many of them of pre-war vintage that were now sharing space with more modern designs which were generally coming online from the various rearmament programs that were taking place in their countries. Desperation kept a lot of these vehicles in production, yes well after they were obsolete but the lesson of 1940 was a bad tank is better than no tank at all which explains things like the Grant, Churchill, Elefant, T-70, or Matilda II.

Absolutely. While the Allies tried to standardize, the Germans diversified. The Japanese tanks were absolute garbage, but preformed well when pitted against colonial forces and militias that had no tanks/little AT. Too bad they started bumping into more and more rank-and-file Allied troops.

On 9/11/2018 at 11:43 AM, Erwin said:

Was surprised that the obsolete Pz 2 had so much production in 42 and 43 and the Pz38 in 44.  

Yeah, I think this was the case of the right hand not knowing what the left hand was doing. The factories in Czechoslovakia were tooled for the 38(t). So they started making various support vehicles based on the chassis, including the controversial Hetzer.

Thousands of Marders served, on every front, well liked by troops, as they were mobile Paks. They were made of P. 2s, 38(t)s and french chassis'. Speaking of which, those statistics didn't mention French chassis-based vehicles. Which were also used, adding to the menagerie.

Not enough resources/manpower/time to turn all factories to the most modern chassis. Especially when the most modern chassis changed yearly, and became increasingly more complicated, production-wise. Meanwhile somebody in the Reich was cranking out Elefants...

[Michael Emrys]

On 9/4/2018 at 5:41 AM, DougPhresh said:

I think the problem with wargames using the flashiest and biggest is that it contributes to this Axis-biased hardware-obsessed type of amateur history that skews away from an accurate depiction of the second world war. The frontal armour and main guns of Axis AFVs meant very little in the scheme of strategic, operational, or tactical warfare.

Worth quoting with a hearty "Amen"!

Michael

[Warts 'n' all]

Even with my napper removed from my body, by the foul Charlie Stewart x 2.  I can agree with Doug and ME.

[DerKommissar]

I've always been curious regarding AT rifles in WW2.

How effective or ineffective were they?

[Erwin]

Must have been effective at the start of the war when armor wasn't that thick.  But in game terms, they tend to be ineffective as one generally only gets one or two in a scenario.  In RL they would be deployed in large numbers.  Imagine your early war tank being hit by half a dozen at the same time.

[Michael Emrys]

6 hours ago, DerKommissar said:

How effective or ineffective were they?

Depends on what you needed them to do. During the period covered in CM games they were not going to penetrate the armor of tanks and similar vehicles, but they could do some serious damage to lighter armored vehicles like halftracks and Panzer Jägers. And even for tanks, sights, periscopes and similarly vulnerable components, like tracks could be damaged. And if the shooter had good aim and got lucky he might put a bullet through a viewing port with possibly serious consequences for equipment or whomever was behind it. Any softskinned vehicle foolish enough to wander within range of one or more was most likely going to become dead meat right soon.

Michael

[MikeyD]

Its hard to imagine the volume of fire laid down by anti-tank rifles because that's not how people usually employ them in CM. I recall reading of a Tiger I AAR report that said drum cupolas returned from the front looking like a dog had chewed on them from all the antitank rifle strikes trying to hit the vision slits. That was one of the reasons why they switched to the low profile cupola with periscopes.

[SimpleSimon]

I think it's less volume of fire and more frequency of encountering them, which was probably very high. The PTRD was very simple to manufacture and much more rugged than a rocket launcher. It was literally the reason the Germans adopted schurzen kits on all those late war Panzers. 

[Bulletpoint]

On 9/7/2018 at 11:54 PM, SimpleSimon said:

when it comes to blunders nothing Germany did will probably ever beat invading Russia

We only think it was a blunder because they lost. That's hindsight. Back then, the way it looked was that they might well win.

The real blunder is that they declared war on the US.

 

About the tanks, it's funny how we hear so much about how the Tigers were slow, heavy, unreliable etc. What about the Soviet heavy tanks? Did they not have many of the same problems?

If the Soviets had lost, we'd be all clever about how their strategy was foolish, their technology bad, etc. Obviously they were going to lose after taking such a beating.

Edited October 29, 2018 by Bulletpoint

[A Canadian Cat]

6 hours ago, Bulletpoint said:

The real blunder is that they declared war on the US. 

We only think it was a blunder because they lost. That's hindsight.

The real blunder... Oh wait...

[SimpleSimon]

9 hours ago, Bulletpoint said:

We only think it was a blunder because they lost. That's hindsight. Back then, the way it looked was that they might well win.

The real blunder is that they declared war on the US.

Certainly. In fact Hitler was far from alone in believing that the USSR was both decadent and weak and that Stalin's regime was just going to collapse. Russia is not unbeatable, it was soundly defeated in 1917 and the Soviets had made utter buffoons of themselves in Poland and Finland before 1940. It was apparent that the USSR was a century behind the world in agriculture and infrastructure and that a lot of people living inside and outside of it were still very salty about the whole Revolution thing. 

On the other hand Hitler was violating Bismarckian rules, like fighting on two fronts and engaging in "pre-emptive" wars. He was also ignorant to the reality that Germany had beaten Russia before, in 1917, and the Ukrainian "bread basket" had proven a total disappointment back then too. Japan came off Khalkhin Gol very badly, and got a nasty foretaste of what a competently managed Soviet Army confidently running a Deep Battle could do. Overall the facts indeed make the invasion a much murkier decision than some members of the milhistory community like to say. In the end, I think it was a bad idea because it was wrong. It was absolutely and completely a monstrous decision grounded in the kind of moral bankruptcy only the Nazis were capable of. Unfortunately as many of us know now, Nazi depravity was only just beginning. 

9 hours ago, Bulletpoint said:

If the Soviets had lost, we'd be all clever about how their strategy was foolish, their technology bad, etc. 

TBH people already say those things even though they won. 

[Bulletpoint]

3 hours ago, IanL said:

10 hours ago, Bulletpoint said:

The real blunder is that they declared war on the US. 

We only think it was a blunder because they lost. That's hindsight.

The real blunder... Oh wait...



Well, the way I see it is that there's a fundamental difference between taking risks and making mistakes. Invading the Soviet Union was taking a massive risk. Declaring war on the US was a massive mistake.

19 minutes ago, SimpleSimon said:

In the end, I think it was a bad idea because it was wrong. It was absolutely and completely a monstrous decision grounded in the kind of moral bankruptcy only the Nazis were capable of.

I'd like to think everyone here can agree to that

[ASL Veteran]

You can't get to America from Europe without a boat in 1941 so declaring war upon the US when you don't have a navy and you live in Europe is bound to fail.  That's especially true if you can't even muster the naval capacity to take out that pesky island nation just across the English Channel.  Granted, American lend lease help was probably rather annoying and whose to say whether the US wouldn't have ended up fighting Germany anyway, but if there was a way to avoid adding millions of American soldiers to enemy's side of the scales it would probably be prudent.  I'm going to make the assumption that Hitler thought the Japanese would attack the Soviets from the east, but they never declared war on the Soviet Union so there you go.