Best equipment?

[Leopard_2]

Originally posted by Stalin's Organ:

Can't agree with this - the Sherman pretty much out-performed any T34 built at hte same time.

Erm...

I'll just say I read the technical data a bit differently. Petrol engine, less horsepower / ton, less vertical obstacle / fording / trench crossing, armor I'd call "comparable" except in the "easy eight" variant (when you take e.g. the thinner turret armor into account)... I'd agree if you'd prefer to call it a draw, but I don't see "out-performing" there.

[Soddball]

Not all the Shermans were petrol, and what do you define as 'comparable'? Which units are you comparing?

Do you consider the T-34's 2-man turret to be 'comparable'? What about the minor point that few early T34s had radios?

I can't wait to try a British/American vs Russian matchup in CMx2.

[Macphail]

"I vote for the Sturmgewehr 44"

perhaps he meant that 'not' inventing it sooner gave the allies a serious advantage, and that was the the contribution factor.

or maybe the original author is just still drunk from a new years eve party, and does not know what he is saying.

[Ace Pilot]

Originally posted by Skolman:

My Englisch isn´t that good so can you tell me what "pox and measles" are ?

Sorry,

The Skolman

Pox (short for small pox) and measles were diseases/sicknesses that tended to kill large numbers of people prior to the development of vaccinations.

[GSX]

I cannot agree that Strategic bombing were like the pox and measles. How much of germanys war effort went into countering the strategic bombing threat? Quite a lot. It was total war and called for any measure to win. In fact Strategic bombing would have won the war if the germans had survived through to August as the US would have used to Atomic bomb. Most effective weapon of WW2 would then have to be the A Bomb in my opinion, worked every time and achieved the desired result.

[Michael Emrys]

The Bomb was good at flattening cities, but the Allies had been doing that for a couple of years before the Bomb came along. It was certainly impressive that it could do it all in one blast rather than taking hundreds or even thousands. But then, the reverse of that is that it would have required the Germans to only shoot down one plane per raid.

The Germans were already dispersing their industries and putting them under ground, which would make them hard to kill even with A-bombs. Plus, the rate of production was only about a half a dozen a month at first. This gives the Germans a lot of time to come up with counter-weapons and tactics.

Not saying the A-bomb wasn't a powerful weapon. But strategic bombing would not have won the war all by itself.

Michael

[Leopard_2]

Berlichtingen wrote:

You have a truly Victorian view of war.

Required if you start discussing which was the "best equipment" used in killing one another, right?

GSX wrote:

I cannot agree that Strategic bombing were like the pox and measles. How much of germanys war effort went into countering the strategic bombing threat?

How many soldiers and settlers lived because Colonel Henry Bouquet gave blankets carrying pox to the Indians?

The goal of 1943-45 city bombing, the A-bombs and the pox blankets was the same: Weaken the enemy by killing as many of them as you could, making no distinction between soldier or newborn child. If enough are killed, they will stop fighting as a nation, either because there aren't enough left, or because they can no longer stand the terror and overthrow those in power so they can surrender to an unmerciful butcher of an opponent.

The end does not justify the means. Targetting civilians, or accepting thousands to die as "collateral damage", is something I despise so much that I don't count the means as "best equipment" contenders.

Get me right. I do not doubt for a second that, if the Luftwaffe had the means, London would have faced a better fate than Hamburg or Dresden. I do not unilaterally blame the Allies for the tactics they could employ because of the tide of that total war. And I do not think that war is something honorable (as my signature should prove).

But I would just as well refuse to even consider any German strategic bomber as "best equipment of the war" contender.

[Leopard_2]

Originally posted by Michael Emrys:

Plus, the rate of production was only about a half a dozen a month at first. This gives the Germans a lot of time to come up with counter-weapons and tactics.

Really that high? I seem to remember that the US ability to produce the necessary Uranium / Plutonium was very, very low at that point, but I couldn't find any ressource on that ad hoc.

[Lars]

Originally posted by Michael Emrys:

The Bomb was good at flattening cities, but the Allies had been doing that for a couple of years before the Bomb came along. It was certainly impressive that it could do it all in one blast rather than taking hundreds or even thousands. But then, the reverse of that is that it would have required the Germans to only shoot down one plane per raid.

The Germans were already dispersing their industries and putting them under ground, which would make them hard to kill even with A-bombs. Plus, the rate of production was only about a half a dozen a month at first. This gives the Germans a lot of time to come up with counter-weapons and tactics.

Not saying the A-bomb wasn't a powerful weapon. But strategic bombing would not have won the war all by itself.

Michael

It would have with the A-bomb.

Doesn't matter how deep or dispersed you put the factories if all the workers are dead.

So the bomb gets my vote for efficiency. Not as grog porny as a tank or gun or ship, but waaaaaay more effective for the money.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Macphail:

"I vote for the Sturmgewehr 44"

perhaps he meant that 'not' inventing it sooner gave the allies a serious advantage, and that was the the contribution factor.

or maybe the original author is just still drunk from a new years eve party, and does not know what he is saying.

<font size=99>

W

T

F

</font> I had schnitzel for breakfast and there is a statue of Hermann Goering on my mother's night table....didn't they win?

Actually my comment was an ironic commentary on a thoroughly silly thread on small arms and someone's proposition that the Sturmgewehr could have won the war.

Bah.

This thread is just a popularity contest; every piece of equipment mentioned was good in the right hands and right conditions. And none of them were "war winners" in their own right since WW II was far too large an enterprise to be dependent on any one or two pieces of impedementa....

[Leopard_2]

You are aware that Germany had an A-bomb program of their own that might have been ready by fall 1945, too, with a bit of a better tide of the war? (Including means to deliver to, say, New York.)

I don't even want to think about the possibilities. What kept the USA and the Soviet Union from blasting each other sky-high during the cold war was the overkill: None could have survived a first strike.

In 1945 / 46, there wouldn't have been the potential for overkill. In a way, mankind bombing itself back into the stone age was more likely then than it is today.

Weapons of mass destruction are no means to achieve your goal. Ever. I think it's woeful that so many countries (with the US at the front of it) have apparently still not learned that lesson, and are still working on them.

But I see that you don't see it, and probably never will, so I withdraw from this argument. I shouldn't have returned for the new year in the first place.

[Sirocco]

How about the Merlin engine?

[Agua Perdido]

Originally posted by Leopard_2:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Michael Emrys:

Plus, the rate of production was only about a half a dozen a month at first. This gives the Germans a lot of time to come up with counter-weapons and tactics.

Really that high? I seem to remember that the US ability to produce the necessary Uranium / Plutonium was very, very low at that point, but I couldn't find any ressource on that ad hoc. </font>

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Leopard_2:

You are aware that Germany had an A-bomb program of their own that might have been ready by fall 1945, too, with a bit of a better tide of the war? (Including means to deliver to, say, New York.)

I don't even want to think about the possibilities. What kept the USA and the Soviet Union from blasting each other sky-high during the cold war was the overkill: None could have survived a first strike.

In 1945 / 46, there wouldn't have been the potential for overkill. In a way, mankind bombing itself back into the stone age was more likely then than it is today.

Weapons of mass destruction are no means to achieve your goal. Ever. I think it's woeful that so many countries (with the US at the front of it) have apparently still not learned that lesson, and are still working on them.

But I see that you don't see it, and probably never will, so I withdraw from this argument. I shouldn't have returned for the new year in the first place.

The US only had enough material for two A-Bombs, and that was after how many years of research....I don't see any of the major combatants bombing each other back into the stone age at any time in 1945, frankly, nor do I think that possession of the A Bomb was anything but the final straw for Japan - it certainly didn't change the outcome.

[Agua Perdido]

Originally posted by Leopard_2:

You are aware that Germany had an A-bomb program of their own that might have been ready by fall 1945, too, with a bit of a better tide of the war? (Including means to deliver to, say, New York.)

Not so much. The Germans made serious theoterical errors in the early going, and they were still fumbling to create a working reactor design, much less a bomb, by the war's end. Not to mention they tied their reactor designs to heavy water, and Norwegian commandos destroyed both the production facility and the stockpile of heavy water in a pair of daring raids.

With more funding, their program might have done better, but it's unlikely that they would have beat the US to the bomb--their "team" had much less depth than the gang of brilliant emigres at Los Alamos. (Heck, it took the USSR--no slouches, themselves--four years to get the Bomb, and they essentially had the blueprints to everything from espionage).

Agua Perdido

[Lars]

Originally posted by Agua Perdido:

Of course, the question of "efficiency" as a weapon is a tricky one. It cost something like $22B (in 1996 dollars) to build the first four a-bombs, compared to the $32B the US spent on all other bombs, mines, grenades, etc, during WWII. How efficient is that? You can argue that the uniqueness of the Bomb makes it worth the cost, but that's an issue of some debate (to put it mildly).

You really should add the development costs for all those regular old HE bombs, mines, and grenades (and fuses! the most important part!) if you want a fair comparison.

[Agua Perdido]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

The US only had enough material for two A-Bombs, and that was after how many years of research....I don't see any of the major combatants bombing each other back into the stone age at any time in 1945, frankly, nor do I think that possession of the A Bomb was anything but the final straw for Japan - it certainly didn't change the outcome.

Four a-bombs, actually--there was one left after the two attacks on Japan and the Trinity test. And, as per my earlier post, material production was 1.5-2 bombs/month. That's after roughly 4.5 years of effort (starting with Fermi's effort to build a reactor in Chicago).

It certain that Japan would have fallen without the bomb, and probably without a US invasion. It's worth noting that the invasion would likely have been very hard--Japanese deployments corresponded almost exactly to the US attack plan, and the invasion fleet would have been hit by a major typhoon. This would be small consolation to Northern Japan (Sakhalin and Hokkaido), which had been stripped to defend southern Japan--the USSR would have rolled right over them in the absence of the Japanese Navy (already destroyed by the US). Assuming a casualty rate comparable to Manchuria, that would have added another 400,000 Japanese dead. A few more months of war would have allowed the USAAF to finish destroying the Japanese railway infrastructure, all but guaranteeing that the poor rice harvest of 1945 would become a disastrous famine in 1946 (which it very nearly was anyway--the ability to shift food supplies between northern and southern Japan by rail was crucial to staving off widespread starvation in early 1946). Hundreds of thousand more deaths could have resulted from starvation and disease.

The moral? The Bomb was bad, and the alternative was also bad. War sucks.

Agua Perdido

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by Leopard_2:

You are aware that Germany had an A-bomb program of their own that might have been ready by fall 1945, too, with a bit of a better tide of the war?

Are you aware that by 1942 Germany had completely given up on producing an atomic bomb? The German nuclear program was concentrated on building a reactor for power production and they weren't doing too well with that either.

Michael

[Michael Emrys]

np

[ January 04, 2005, 09:56 AM: Message edited by: Michael Emrys ]

[Dandelion]

Originally posted by Europa:

What was in your oppinion the single most important equipment during the war on any side?

Money.

Cheers

Dandelion

[GSX]

I dont get Leopard 2 on this issue at all. War is not clean. I mean we all obviously enjoy playing the CM games where there are no civilian casualties and everything is rosey. All weapons are designed to kill, civilians were deliberately targetted by ground troops whether in Russia or Germany or elsewhere. Next time you play this little game on the eastern front and start blowing up houses think about what would be in there.

[General Bolt]

Originally posted by Stalin's Organ:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Leopard_2:

Tanks

The Sherman was a decisive factor because it could be mass-produced in previously unknown quantities, but I wouldn't dream of calling it a good piece of equipment compared to its peers on the tank battlefield (where I'd look at the T-34 and the Panther).

Can't agree with this - the Sherman pretty much out-performed any T34 built at hte same time. It had better layout, better equipment (radio, sights, etc), a gun that was at least as good (75 vs 76, 76 vs 85) for most purposes (the 85 prolly had a better HE round than the 76), and it's armour was at least as good too IIRC - remmber the T34's went with 45-47mm front hull armour for the whole war - significantly less than any mark of Sherman!

The Panther was, of course, better than both! </font>

[Europa]

Originally posted by GSX:

I dont get Leopard 2 on this issue at all. War is not clean. I mean we all obviously enjoy playing the CM games where there are no civilian casualties and everything is rosey. All weapons are designed to kill, civilians were deliberately targetted by ground troops whether in Russia or Germany or elsewhere. Next time you play this little game on the eastern front and start blowing up houses think about what would be in there.

Civilians are allways properly evacuated in good time before any CM scenario is loaded...

Part of the engine...

[Europa]

Originally posted by General Colt:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Stalin's Organ:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Leopard_2:

Tanks

The Sherman was a decisive factor because it could be mass-produced in previously unknown quantities, but I wouldn't dream of calling it a good piece of equipment compared to its peers on the tank battlefield (where I'd look at the T-34 and the Panther).

Can't agree with this - the Sherman pretty much out-performed any T34 built at hte same time. It had better layout, better equipment (radio, sights, etc), a gun that was at least as good (75 vs 76, 76 vs 85) for most purposes (the 85 prolly had a better HE round than the 76), and it's armour was at least as good too IIRC - remmber the T34's went with 45-47mm front hull armour for the whole war - significantly less than any mark of Sherman!

The Panther was, of course, better than both! </font>

[Lars]

I want to switch my vote to the Russian uterus.