Leopard_2

I found the ATi 9550 VIVO to be better in 2D desktop display than my GeForce 5200 FX, just as well supported under Linux, with a higher frame rate in the odd game I'm playing, and sporting video-in for an unbeatable price. I thing the existing issues didn't weight up the advantages. Meaning to say, I'm not "out of my right mind" just because I no longer have fog in my CM games.

Similar could be said for the British 2-pounder or, to a lesser extend, the US Sherman tank (or the Bf-109). They remained in production despite being much inferior to available alternatives, because you could produce so many of them.

I would be interested in hearing JasonC's take on how the Soviet situation in 1941 - "stand and fight" orders, reserves withheld by the rear instead of tapped into by the front, officers cashiered for perceived cowardness, etc. etc. - compares to the German situation from 1943 onward. My perception is that Hitler and his staff overextended their not-fully-mobilized war economy in 1942, and when the tide swung against them, lost their daring, flexible strategy / tactics, and started the very same follies (giving stupid, unrealistic orders like "stand and fight", and chashiering smart officers because they were unable to make them into successes) that enabled their early successes - with the same disastrous results.

I've seen tank-riding infantry on pictures from North Africa just as well, both British and German. Of course a forward turret makes it more comfortable for infantry to hitch a ride, but since Soviet doctrine forbade infantry to do so, I'd assume it hadn't been a "design choice". No infantry, when given a choice, choses walking over riding.

Very interesting read. Bottom line is, the Germans lost the war because, while being prepared to start it, they weren't prepared to endure it beyond 1941/42. Fits in together with other things I read about (like, not focussing on mass-producability of the tanks they designed, halting development past Pz IV and Bf109, stuff like that).

You mean Manhattan Project or Virus House? As for Soviets capturing equipment... it's standard drill to render your equipment useless before you are captured.

The distance between factory and frontline gets longer. True. The road situation between supply depot and front units improves. Also true. This could have been an interesting thread if it hadn't become personal...

And I repeat, taking operational freedom away from German units and issuing "hold the line" orders did help in Soviet successes, too.

Erm... wasn't Paulus ordered to hold out, so to bind enemy forces that otherwise would have been free to hunt Heeresgruppe Süd? (Just from memory right here, but this thread is the first time I read about Paulus deciding to stay put!)

Because you're taking a very one-sided point of view, which is hard to agree on? You're basically claiming that the Soviets had learned so much so fast that they were vastly superior to the Germans even if they hadn't had superior numbers. That's just as biased as claiming that only superior numbers defeated Germany. Objectively is the keyword. ...

I second that. Look at the US, they basically won because of logistics. Not superior tactical / strategical skill of generals, not superior training of the troops, not even superior material. But lots of everything, whereever needed.

Wrong. As long as the Russians lacked combat experience at the tactical and operationional level to meet the Germans on their own terms, the Germans possessed a powerful advantages in combined arms fighting and tactical flexibility. However, round 'about late 1942-43 the Red Army was approaching a rough parity with the German army on the operational level. One year later the Soviets were dictacting the terms of combat on the operational and strategic level, and by mid 1944 the Soviets were superior on a tactical level. And there wasn't much the Germans could do about it. It wasn't like they weren't trying. It was improving Soviet combat capacity that denied the Wehrmacht the ability of fighting true mobile operations in the latter half of the war. Not Hitler. </font>

Hoping your opponent gets hit by friendly fire.

You are correct - partially. The Wehrmacht did distinguish infantry (white) and armored infantry (green). Today, all infantry is green, and white is - get this - the music corps. :-D But my little tale was about the paras of today, which wear green stripes.

One day. From http://www.raf.mod.uk/dday/timeline_june.html :

Regarding the Zeros, check out this thread in the General Discussion forum. The trend seemed to be that the Zero would've been toasted in the European theater. (Although the thread quickly switched to the "was Sealion doable" road, somewhat of a twin of this one really. )

IIRC, the UK army was crippled for lack of competitive AT assets well into the North Africa campaign (like, having lots of 2pdr equivalents of the "Heeresanklopfgerät" but little to really punch holes). Do I remember correctly? Yes, you could, but ask the crew of German 8.8 flaks used in AT role: when shooting at a plane it's quite OK to sit on a gun with such a high profile and without crew protection to speak of, but when required to use the same gun against tanks... I really don't have hard numbers. What was the quality of UK AT assets at that time?

That's the point. Hitler thought he could annect Austria and Czechia (sp?), "neutralize" France and Poland, and "seize" Russia without having to fight an all-out war against Britain (which would be mortally threatened by a Germany so large and warlike). Probably his biggest mistake ever.

Some stuff I'd like to throw in, brainstorming style: * what about paras taking an airfield, and Bf109 flown over to protect the landing / beachhead from Britain soil? Removes several of the shortcomings they had during BoB (range, bailing pilots being lost). * I don't know Cornwall geography, but is it really worse than the Ardennes, which the French considered impenetrable by a tank force, too? * most important what-if in such scenarios, consider not Hitler and his sycophants being in charge, but real Generals - not sharing Hitler's dream of befriending Britain, anticipating the need to build up a real threat to Britain before the Blitzsieg in France (instead of an afterthought, as Hitler did), and pushing Sealion as primary instead of secondary option. That might have resulted in a couple of capable landing craft being build beforehand, instead of the haphazard collection put together in reality... Just throwing in my 0.02€... [ February 09, 2005, 12:15 AM: Message edited by: Leopard_2 ]

Try the Combat Mission Database, http://users.erols.com/chare/cm/. Edit: Is it just me, or are those excel tables empty? I have the tables right here, as printout, but I seem to be unable to find them on the 'web anymore... [ February 07, 2005, 02:24 AM: Message edited by: Leopard_2 ]

Many interesting points here (if horrendously off-topic, but as long as everyone enjoys it... ) Correct, Hitler declared war on the US to "back up our fascist allies in Japan" - one of his monumental mistakes. IIRC, the US were rather reluctant about getting directly involved in the European theater; what if they'd have stayed out of the war for a while longer? Possibly, but not with Hitler in the lead. His whole reason for going to war against Poland was "Lebensraum", winning space and ressources - oil not being the least important! - for a Germany that couldn't sustain itself. (How true that latter point is was shown very nicely during WWII. Oil, tungsten, chrome, ...) After Hitler attacked just about every neighbour Germany had (well, except for Switzerland), being attacked could have strengthened his diplomatic position. Not that he and his men were very skilled at playing that card. (As their ridiculous, blunt attempt at winning British neutrality shows. Who could ever consider Ribbentrop a diplomat?) Yes. They did a number of tricks to avoid short-term inflation, but with things as they did them during the 1930ies, in the long run they "needed" a war. ---- Regarding a German / US standoff and nuclear weapons... if you look at the B-36 and Manhattan Project, you also have to take into account that a winning Germany could actually have carried through one of its "America Bomber" projects. There was the Ho XVIIIB, the Ar 555, Me 1107/1108, Ju 132... and the "Virus House" nuclear device. Whether "Virus House" would actually have exploded, or simply sprayed the area with high radioactives ("dirty bomb", anyone?) doesn't really matter in my book. To the contrary - I could perfectly imagine a public opinion "preferring" a large-scale contamination weapon over a "city-buster" killing a hundred thousand outright. Perhaps a winning - and less repressive - Germany could have kept some of the bright heads of nuclear physics in the land and give the Manhattan project a run for their money. And while we're at the completely hypothetical anyway, let's for a second ignore the a-bomb issue: A Germany that has conquered the USSR would have all the raw materials it would need to push those projects that in our real history struggled due to severe shortages: oil for the tanks and planes, rare ores to build jet engines that haven't to be replaced every 10 flight hours, tungsten for the tanks... and all that being build by an industry that is reasonably safe from strategic bombing, so you don't have to disperse it all across the country... But then... the Maginot line was invincible, Eben Emael was able to hold up an army for weeks, battleships were the decisive factor at sea, and building a bomb many thousand times stronger than any conventional explosive was just science fiction. How can we believe we could figure out alternative histories with any degree of accuracy? Perhaps the Germans really would have made the "Glocke" project a success and build anti-gravity devices - no more "impossible" than the a-bomb seemed to the people of 1930. (And just as an aside, wouldn't a "Maus" with an AG device and running 50 km/h cross-country be a sight? :-D )

The glory is not in the color of the stripes on your shoulder, the glory is in your deeds and the scars to prove it. PS: Just in case it's vastly different in US/UK/Australia, German Bundeswehr signifies what kind of soldier you are by colored stripes below your rank insignia. PPS: That reminds me... the lowest of the grunt infantry today are the Panzergrenadiere, which are customarily made fun of. (Kein Mensch, kein Tier, ein Panzergrenadier...) They wear green stripes, to indicate "infantry", and green barets with an insignia of an ATV over crossed rifles. Paratroopers, on the other hand, wear the same green "infantry" stripes, only with bordeaux-red barets, stooping eagle clutching lightning bolts, to differentiate them. Which lead to some nasty incidents when people made Panzergrenadier jokes at them at some indoor disco etc. - barets are not worn indoors, and paratroopers customarily take offense at being mistaken for "grunts".

@ Bigduke: Ah, linguistics. @ Michael Dorosh: > Wire cutting shells were used to great effect > (Vimy Ridge being the classic example)... Hm... then again, the Somme offensive had some of the most intense arty preparation until that point of the war, and it still failed to make a significant impact on the wire defenses... http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/2354/somme.html http://www.1914-1918.net/BATTLES/bat15_somme/bombardment.htm

Re Maus: Whether the two prototypes actually saw battle is still disputed, but highly unlikely. Re remote mini-tanks: They were called "Goliath".

Wehrmacht, preferrably Fallschirmpioniere, with all the usual disclaimers about blissfully ignoring the dark side of the war and judging only by "style", and the guts it took to pull off stunts like Eben Emael, making a real difference.