US shortcommings and how did they win.

[Kat Johnston]

Was the Pershing capable of taking on the King Tiger from the front or did it use the same 90mm gun that the Jackson used?

Same gun, same barrel length AFAIK.

[sburke]

Others have answered, but another point is the fact that Tac Air was effective enough to disrupt/stop all movements during the day. In Normandy, german units only moved at night and spent the day hiding in camouflaged positions where they were difficult to spot from the air.

For the Wacht Am Rein offensive to have any kind of chance, the Panzers had to be able to move forward 24 hours a day which is why the planners wanted overcast conditions.

The other affect of allied air superiority is blinding the Germans from strategic recon. The Wehrmacht had to rely on local intelligence to form a broader picture of Allied plans and was unable to do so. It also meant when the allies broke out of Normandy, the Germans had no idea where the Allied columns were. All they could do was run and then got hammered in places like Mons when the allies using Ultra intelligence were able to get into blocking positions. In effect the Allies did to Germany, what Germany had done in 1940.

[winkelried]

Same gun, same barrel length AFAIK.

90mm gun M3 T7 - there was an improved gun the M3 T15E1 which was mounted on the Super Pershing with higher V0. But i don't think it was deployed. I remember one piece being shipped.

[Sublime]

Your statement is a little contradictory. The war wouldn't have dragged on more than a few months. As we would have nuked the Germans with or without Russia fighting. In fact, we didn't even need the Brits to survive really. With B29 we could have delivered the A bomb from Iceland or Africa.

I dont understand how that statement was contradictory at all? its very debateable whether nuclear weapons would have forced a German surrender. And yes, we could have without the Russians or Brits. Then again I never said anything about needing them though. Can you expound further what was contradictory?

[slysniper]

What if Russia had not entered the war?

I think we all should be glad they did. Personally I think each country contributed to what became the victory and if you leave any of them out. It provides time and material to the German army that was not going to change their plans or objectives. They might have made many more of their objectives

So statements like the a-bomb and stuff like that is a waste of a statement as to it being a fact as to the outcome. Who is to say if Germany does not developed some of it super weapons first and they strike out at the allies.

There are just too many variables as to what could happen if someone had not participated.

Anyway, do you think Russia would have sat back even if Germany had not attacked? Russia in all likelihoods would have attacked on their own when they saw a good opportunity to do so. So their involvement was not just a bad decision of Hitler’s, it was an event that was unavoidable and it was just a choice of who would strike first.

Personally I am an American that is grateful that the Russians bleed the German army dry of its resources and manpower. Because I really think the other fronts would have been German victories easily if they were attempted without the Russians occupying the use of most of the German resources

[womble]

On the counterfactual front, I don't think it's plausible that Hitler's Germany would not invade Russia. Lebensraum was a key factor in Hitler's philosophy of the Reich. And anyway, assuming historical levels of mobilisation for Germany without them needing to fight in the East leads to a pretty inevitable conclusion of German victory in Europe which I think it's likely the Americans could have come to terms with, making Japan's war shorter.

I think it's more interesting to consider "what if" Germany had managed to bludgeon the USSR enough to draw terms sometime in say 1943, allowing them to divert resources against the Allies in the Med and have some more reserves in NW europe. They couldn't afford to withdraw all their troops from the East, since Stalin is still a shifty bugger who Hitler (rightfully) doesn't trust as far as he can spit him. And the 'bludgeoning' could have come at great cost, though not as much as the historical 'getting beat' did.

[Bigduke6]

I think once the Germans invaded the SU it was a done deal, there could have been no terms, ever. The Germans killed too many Soviet citizens too fast, and indeed destroyed too much of the Red army too fast, for the Soviet leadership to accept any outcome except total annihilation of the Germans.

You want to think disaster scenarions, consider: What if the Hitler had come to terms with the British (meaning of course Churchill and his government is punted, which was pretty improbable but parliamentarry possible), and the Germans got a free hand in the East? This is not to restart the "could the Germans have ever beaten the Soviets?" argument, at least for me I see no way, period. Glantz says it would have taken the Soviets about 18 months more to beat the Germans on their own, without the western Allies, Overlord, Italy, Lend Lease, the whole lot. His take is the Soviets really were that dedicated, ruthless, and, ultimately, that competent.

What I mean is, what if that fight had gone to its logical conclusion, and the Soviets had overrun Germany without the moderating influence of the British and the US?

It's scary just to consider. The Reds would at minimum have killed or exiled to Siberia every single Nazi party member, every single Wehrmacht officer, and probably broken Germany up into pre-Prussian principalities. That's the mild outcome; a Genghiz Khan-style "reduce the whole place to pastureland and kill every one taller than a cart axle" would be a severe result, but to my mind well withing the Soviets' capability.

I think it's very possible to argue that the Germans actually were lucky in having a two-front war, as fighting a one front war against the Russians, which they still would have lost catastrophically (it's debatable I know, but there are plenty of historians that say so) would have been an order of magnitude worse for the Germans.

As to what would have happened if the Soviets never got involved, well, for starters what springs to my mind is the the obvious "the Germans aren't ever exposed to the T-34", which means they don't produce the Panther and the Tiger (at least, they don't feel obliged to quickly in order to maintain tactical ascendency), and so, if we want to speculate further, the great WW2 tank arms race almost has no reason to happen.

This means that a big mass of limited German resources - steel, skilled manufacturing capacity, designer brains, bright soldiers and junior officers, etc. - are not committed to things like panzerschrecks and squeeze 28mm cannon and mass-production of extremely thick face-hardened steel plate, which is all complicated.

Then there's the manpower issue. Without campaigning in Russia German manpower available in the West increases by roughly two-thirds, as that is roughly what percentage of German manpower that was lost on the East Front. That would imply a Wehrmacht, both officers and men, of extremely high quality for about as long as the western Allies would have fought them. The Wehrmacht never have been gutted by Stalingrad and Kursk

If the Germans had been intelligent in such a scenario, then a fairly obvious move would be to take the industrial and manpower capacity that historically went to tanks and AT technologies, and stick it into submarines.

Given how close the Battle of the Atlantic was historically, and how vital that lifeline was to Britain's survival, I find it pretty hard to believe that if most of those Panthers and Tigers and the support and personnel and whatever else that it took got put into u-boats, that Britain would been starved to death, of war materials and food. There was no other route for that stuff to get to England in but by sea and if Doenitz had say an average of 60 or 100 subs operating in 1941 - 42, rather than the couple of dozen it was, then a big East Front sucking capacity away from the German side of the Battle of the Atlantic seems like an extremely good thing for the British indeed.

Or maybe they could have pushed through with their own Manhatten project. Or figured out a practical antidote to nerve gas - the lack of which, as I understand it, was pretty much the only thing that prevented them from using nerve gas themselves. The Germans were pretty much the world leaders in clever science, who knows what they would have come up with if the guy in charge wasn't fixated on defeating the Red Army in battle?

But that of course is the point. That line of theorizing assumes, that had the Germans had capacity available due to the absence of giant mechanized operations on the East Front, they would necessarily have committed that capacity to u-boats or something else equally rational.

This was far from a sure bet, the actual historical Adolf Hitler would be the one making the decision. He could just have easily (or maybe more so) decided the thing to do was build up a battleship line, or maybe super-long range bombers to try and level New York, or just tens of thousands of landing craft to invade England because he wanted to conquer not starve the English out. All of which could have sucked resources away from a ground campaign against Anglo-Saxon forces, as efficiently as the Eastern Front did.

[Michael Emrys]

...he wanted to conquer not starve the English out.

But did he? All that I have read suggests that, at least as late as the summer of 1940, he wanted to keep the British Empire more or less intact and in place and friendly to Germany. Like Kaiser Wilhelm II before him, he couldn't grasp that Britain could not allow an expansionist Germany to totally dominate continental Europe. If at any point Britain had been willing to come to terms with Hitler, allowing him a free hand, at least in Eastern Europe, there is reason to believe he would have left them alone. At least for the short term. One thing that he didn't understand but the British did was that without free trade with Europe, the Empire would have quickly collapsed anyway, perhaps even faster than it did historically.

Michael

[Magpie_Oz]

I think you are drawing a very long bow there Duke, sure the Russian Front was a major investment for Germany but I cannot agree that had they not attacked the technology race would not have proceeded. I also do not see how you assume Germany was any more technically adept than anyone else, Britain never lost the technological initiative they had over Germany through out the war.

I really believe that even if the US had not entered the war Britain would have still prevailed over Germany as the Empire had manpower and resources far in excess of what Germany did.

Once recovered from the shock of the lighting victories of 1940 the British Empire would have defeated Germany just the same as they did in WW1, granted probably over a much greater time scale.

As regards staving them or invading them Hitler had good reason to believe that he had a certain degree of support within England, the royal family having strong ties to Germany and it was widely believed that Edward the VIII had Nazi sympathies.

There is nothing to suggest that the USSR would have laid waste to a conquered Germany. Why would they? Take the country and subjugate its people and then have to rebuild it all? I don't think so. Sure the USSR had a scorched earth policy but this was to stop their resources falling into German hands. Had the Soviets not destroyed the Ukrainian oil fields things might have been very different.

I think you'll find too that Soviet deaths in German captivity far out weighed German deaths in Soviet captivity. Sure sole occupation by the USSR would not have been good but I cannot see that it would have meant extinction for the German peoples.

[Erwin]

"He could just have easily (or maybe more so) decided the thing to do was build up a battleship line, or maybe super-long range bombers to try and level New York."

Hitler's naval CO's begged him not to go to war for another 3(?) years as they wanted to build more U-boats and battleships. They were not ready for the RN in 1939-40.

The entire German war strategy was based on fast victories as they knew they didn't have the economic capacity for long term war, so they emphasized short-medium range tactical attack aircraft over long range heavy bombers.

The US Lendlease destroyers were invaluable in keeping the sea lanes to GB open. IIRC Britain was within weeks of starving at one point. But, ASDIC, radar etc eventually turned the tables as the Germans could not keep up with such technology as they became obsessed with the more critical War in the East.

It has been long rumored that Hess's little vacation to Scotland in a Me110 was to make contact with sympathetic aristos and Royal Family types. Natch, not something widely discussed in the UK but, from time to time things leak out...

[Squatdog]

1. US tanks were not effective

The M4 was completely incapable of dealing with a Panther on anything remotely approaching even terms and the US forces were lumbered with a very poorly thought-out and overly optimistic armour doctrine in which dedicated tank destroyer battalions would magically teleport across miles of bocage, forest and dykes to interdict enemy tanks.

The American forces refused to follow the British led in upgrading to an equivalent to the Firefly model, even when the M4 was shown to be woefully deficient when engaging enemy tanks. The obsolete 57mm infantry anti-tank gun didn't help either.

4. US machinguns were not very good.

The big problem the US forces had at platoon level was that the BAR was a steaming turd and an evolutionary throw-back from the Great War. This made US units defensively very weak and was only marginally remedied by the Garand's relatively high rate of fire.

Flimsy 20-round magazine? Can't change the barrel? Overheats very quickly?

3) The following does not apply to certain exceptional U.S. units but to bog standard formations only. Basically Ambrose was wrong, Hastings was right. The U.S. used the infantry as a dumping ground for the less able, and the whole 'General Infantry' concept was flawed. The British regimental and the German divisional systems were streets ahead, enabling soldiers of these nations to develop more of a sense of belonging and pride in their units than the G.I.s. U.S. infantry did improve though.

This. Ambrose is notorious for his shameless cheerleading of American units and not letting inconvenient facts get in the way of a good story.

The American regular infantry were poor quality troops; well equipped but badly trained and unmotivated.

[sburke]

The American regular infantry were poor quality troops; well equipped but badly trained and unmotivated.

And yet they managed to learn and beat the crap out of the Wehrmacht. Germany is just lucky the Marines didn't land in Normandy. Right tool for the right job.

Guess we are gonna run this same debate one more time. Ahh what the heck why not? Nothing worth watching on TV anyway.

[Wodin]

There was a saying in Britian during the War....

"When a British soldier shoots the Germans duck. When a German shoots the British duck. When an American shoots everyone ducks."

Just thought I'd drop that in. It was also stated by a German General that he had never seen such poor soldiers as the Americnas at Kasserine. Yet they imporved faster than any soldiers he had seen.

[Wiggum]

The American regular infantry were poor quality troops; well equipped but badly trained and unmotivated.

Thats way to unspecific.

Sure, fun for this discussion here, so someone can throw in examples from great "American regular infantry" actions or tell you about the Airborn and the Marines...

What makes regular infantry of any country poor quality troops ?

- Insufficient training

- No combat experience (or not enough)

- Bad leadership

- Bad moral

- Bad cohesion

- Insufficient supplies of basics like food and fuel

- Insufficient supplies of ammunition and weapons

- Insufficient communication equipment

I think most of that does not apply to many US regular infantry units late in the war.

Sure there are examples of green US troops like the Battle of Kesternich where inexperience and bad leadership resulted in a bad beating for the US forces by combobulated Volksgrenadiers.

But such examples can be found for any country and late in war, the regular US infantry was way better then the scattered remains of the Wehrmacht.

[womble]

I think once the Germans invaded the SU it was a done deal, there could have been no terms, ever.

Realpolitik. There have to be conditions where wily old Joe would have accepted at least temporary terms, if only to get some breathing space (breathing space given, IRL by distance and winter and, arguably, lack of strategic focus).

You want to think disaster scenarions...

Not really, which is why I suggested that it's more interesting to think about a Germany somewhat depleted by Adventures in the Rodina eventually needing finishing off by the Allies.

...if the Soviets never got involved..."the Germans aren't ever exposed to the T-34", which means they don't produce the Panther and the Tiger...

Given Hitler's propensity for uberweapons, they'd've found something to spend that steel on. Those naval-rifle-armed landships for example.

...the great WW2 tank arms race almost has no reason to happen.

At least partly because there isn't really a war any more. Without Russian involvement, the Brits wouldn't be in N. Africa long enough to achieve a second El Alamein. So no Italy either. Where would the tanks be needed?

This means that a big mass of limited German resources...are not committed to things like panzerschrecks and squeeze 28mm cannon and mass-production of extremely thick face-hardened steel plate, which is all complicated.

No, they'd be commited to peaceable ends because the war, as far as the Germans were concerned, would be all but over.

Given how close the Battle of the Atlantic was historically...if Doenitz had say an average of 60 or 100 subs operating in 1941 - 42, rather than the couple of dozen it was, then a big East Front sucking capacity away from the German side of the Battle of the Atlantic seems like an extremely good thing for the British indeed.

Assuming the continuation of hostilities, the materiel going to Russia would also be available to scale up ASW/escort capabilities. And increasing escort density is more effective than increasing sub density.

Or maybe they could have pushed through with their own Manhatten project.

Last thing I read about the German nuke program was that it could never have produced a chain reaction; they were barking up the wrong tree.

The Germans were pretty much the world leaders in clever science...

Poppycock.

Antibiotics

Encrypytion

Jet technology

nuclear physics

radar and radio

ASW

All things the Germans got to after Allies or never got as good as. They were good, they were better at getting some things into service, but they were emphatically not broad brush 'world leaders'.

...Hitler... could just have easily (or maybe more so) decided the thing to do was build up a battleship line...

Likely, this one. Germany had always aspired to be a first-rank naval nation, and own a world empire on the same scale as the British, therefore needing naval dominance. It was one of the many bitter pills of Versailles that would almost have to be pushed into the past for the Reich to be able to shed the shame.

[Wodin]

If the Germans scientists weren't ahead of the Allies how come they snatched as many of them as they could to work on their Nuclear programme and missile tech and their space programme.

Germany always had great scientists who where streets ahead of other countries and to deny that is to deny facts and most likely is due to some anti German stance or blinded by their own countries propaganda.

It was a German who split the atom...Einstein was a German...even LSD was invented by a German!!

Actaully there is a thought. LSD was made by mistake post WW1 and just before WW2. The formula was locked away during the war. Now what if the Nazi party new about this drug and proceded to contaminate water supplies in Russia. COuld that have been a War winning stratgey.

[Squatdog]

And yet they managed to learn and beat the crap out of the Wehrmacht. Germany is just lucky the Marines didn't land in Normandy. Right tool for the right job.

Guess we are gonna run this same debate one more time. Ahh what the heck why not? Nothing worth watching on TV anyway.

Because they had a massive numerical and material superiority, with near total air supremacy against an enemy who had been worn down by several years of bitter fighting on multiple fronts and severely compromised logistics?

Thats way to unspecific.

Sure, fun for this discussion here, so someone can throw in examples from great "American regular infantry" actions or tell you about the Airborn and the Marines...

The 'great regular infantry' were a rare exception to the rule and Airborne/Marines aren't regular army infantry.

What makes regular infantry of any country poor quality troops ?

- Insufficient training

- No combat experience (or not enough)

- Bad leadership

- Bad moral

- Bad cohesion

- Insufficient supplies of basics like food and fuel

- Insufficient supplies of ammunition and weapons

- Insufficient communication equipment

I think most of that does not apply to many US regular infantry units late in the war.

Sure there are examples of green US troops like the Battle of Kesternich where inexperience and bad leadership resulted in a bad beating for the US forces by combobulated Volksgrenadiers.

But such examples can be found for any country and late in war, the regular US infantry was way better then the scattered remains of the Wehrmacht.

Insufficient training, no combat experience (or not enough), bad leadership, bad morale and bad cohesion most certainly DID apply to regular American infantry units to varying degrees.

[womble]

If the Germans scientists weren't ahead of the Allies how come they snatched as many of them as they could to work on their Nuclear programme and missile tech and their space programme.

Because there were some good German scientists, and letting them fall into the hands of the Russians would have been folly.

Germany always had great scientists who where streets ahead of other countries...

Streets ahead? Whittle had his first jet engine running before the Germans did, Meteor and Me262 went into service within 60 days of each other. The Germans never did get cryptanalysis or produce anything even close to Colossus and the rest of the Bletchley Park thing. IIRC, they only had radar because of espionage.

...and to deny that is to deny facts...

Actually, to claim it is to ignore at least as many facts.

...and most likely is due to some anti German stance or blinded by their own countries propaganda.

Or it could just be down to a better appreciation of the breadth of science in which Allied (mostly western allied) achievements equals or eclipses German achievement.

It was a German who split the atom...Einstein was a German...even LSD was invented by a German!!

Many nations have great scientists of the period. Rutherford (a Brit) realised that there was a nucleus to split. Turing was British. Fleming was British. There are so many great scientists worldwide that claiming German supremacy is, frankly, cracked.

[Steiner14]

This thread is for the sake of constructive and revealing argument

1. US tanks were not effective

2, US CAS was not effective against tanks.

3. US troops were subpar.

4. US machinguns were not very good.

5. The Garand was not very good.

6. US artillery was what won for the US

7. Supply lines too long.

I am a novice when it comes to these subjects. Those grogs who have info on these subjects are hereby petitioned to explain what happened in Normandy 44. If of course they deign to do so.

1. Look into the air (not reflected in 99% of all scenarios).

2. Look at the resource base of the USA.

3. Look at production numbers (the Lend & Lease Act only to Stalin delivered more, than the whole German war production over 6 years).

[Steiner14]

Many nations have great scientists of the period. Rutherford (a Brit) realised that there was a nucleus to split. Turing was British. Fleming was British. There are so many great scientists worldwide that claiming German supremacy is, frankly, cracked.

I guess the NASA should have some insight: in the 1980s NASA officially admitted, that without the german scientists, they wouldn't have landed on the moon even until the 1980s (paperclip).

You can clearly follow the results, too: Since the generation of German scientists had retired, the NASA didn't achieve any major goals anymore. But the Germans did not only bring the USA and the USSR into space - they even were the fathers of the European/French space program (ESA, Ariane).

Not to mention the biggest robbery of international patents and scientific papers ever. At the end of war, parts of the german industry and fundamental research was 10-15 years already ahead. Most of the achievements were not destroyed from the scientists and were robbed and it was one important part of the base, why the USA became the world's biggest superpower.

Even the official US-story about the atomic bomb leaves several important questions unanswered. And Einstein, btw, was a plagiarist.

The USA need a drain of foreign intellectual input from all over the world, because the school and educational system is very bad. Additionally the demographic base of the USA is changing rapidly, while the less intelligent groups have the highest birth rates and the intelligent ones have the fewest children. But political correctness cannot deny the laws of nature - which means in that case, that intelligence is highly heritable.

To me it is clearly visible, the USA are falling victim of their own propaganda (or their propaganda was turned against themselfes) and are destroying the fundamentals of their power rapidly themselfes. They do not preserve the productive european blood, mostly germanic, that built them up. Nothing really new, since that has been predicted from a big german politician more than 70 years ago. What is new, is that we can observe the fullfillment of the prophecy in an accelerated manner.

Ofcourse the Brits had lots of great scientists and engineers. Remember who wanted peace with the germanic Britain and admired them and who wanted to destroy Germany? The most stupid politicians have won the war (the most stupid of the stupid recognized after the war, that they had slaughtered the wrong pig) and the result for the white nations can be observed everywhere. QED.

[Magpie_Oz]

If the Germans scientists weren't ahead of the Allies how come

I actually mean Germany not Germans

But a few things in addition to Mr Womble Einstein never actually split the atom he created the theory of what might happen if you did. Enrio Fermi the Italian was probably the first to do so but it was Lise Mitner , an Austrian until they took away her citizenship because she was a Jew who actually worked out what was happening.

The German Knickebein and similar systems were defeated by British ECM as compared to the British H2S, Oboe and Gee which the Germans were never able to counter.

Also the integrated radar defence network that saved Britain as compared to the German fighter network which the British were able to confuse and attack electronically.

ASDIC later sonar which turned the tide of the Battle for the Atlantic along with the first airborne search radars, which ironically the French provided a detector for, thanks fellas

The marvellous German V2's that did pioneer rocketry were foolish enough to fall for the British counter plan of telling porkies as to where the missiles landed.

And of course the crowning achievement of all : Ultra and Colossus where the finest minds of Britain utterly ran rings around their German foes.

[Sixxkiller]

You guys are seriously arguing who has better scientists? Thats like saying the Germans were better man for man in WWII. If the Germans were such good scientists, they would have made the bomb before us and if the German soldier was so good they would have stopped us from making them run back to Germany. So go ahead and make excuses but Allies 2, Germans 0. And if you had wanted to stop us from taking your research, refer to us making you run back to Germany. Smart people dont let raving maniacs lead them into such situations....

[dpabrams]

It was a German who split the atom...Einstein was a German...even LSD was invented by a German!!

A German invented those nifty ovens too.

Germany lost because of twisted ideology and the morally apprehensible leader that so many German’s blindly followed. It was fate, they were destined to lose. No matter how many nifty tanks or great infantryman produced, they were destined to lose.

[Splinty]

I guess the NASA should have some insight: in the 1980s NASA officially admitted, that without the german scientists, they wouldn't have landed on the moon even until the 1980s (paperclip).

You can clearly follow the results, too: Since the generation of German scientists had retired, the NASA didn't achieve any major goals anymore. But the Germans did not only bring the USA and the USSR into space - they even were the fathers of the European/French space program (ESA, Ariane).

Not to mention the biggest robbery of international patents and scientific papers ever. At the end of war, parts of the german industry and fundamental research was 10-15 years already ahead. Most of the achievements were not destroyed from the scientists and were robbed and it was one important part of the base, why the USA became the world's biggest superpower.

Even the official US-story about the atomic bomb leaves several important questions unanswered. And Einstein, btw, was a plagiarist.

The USA need a drain of foreign intellectual input from all over the world, because the school and educational system is very bad. Additionally the demographic base of the USA is changing rapidly, while the less intelligent groups have the highest birth rates and the intelligent ones have the fewest children. But political correctness cannot deny the laws of nature - which means in that case, that intelligence is highly heritable.

To me it is clearly visible, the USA are falling victim of their own propaganda (or their propaganda was turned against themselfes) and are destroying the fundamentals of their power rapidly themselfes. They do not preserve the productive european blood, mostly germanic, that built them up. Nothing really new, since that has been predicted from a big german politician more than 70 years ago. What is new, is that we can observe the fullfillment of the prophecy in an accelerated manner.

Ofcourse the Brits had lots of great scientists and engineers. Remember who wanted peace with the germanic Britain and admired them and who wanted to destroy Germany? The most stupid politicians have won the war (the most stupid of the stupid recognized after the war, that they had slaughtered the wrong pig) and the result for the white nations can be observed everywhere. QED.

Dude, really?

[Wiggum]

...the level in this thread is sinking rapidly, not that anyone could see it come.

Insufficient training, no combat experience (or not enough), bad leadership, bad morale and bad cohesion most certainly DID apply to regular American infantry units to varying degrees.

[...]DID apply to regular [insert country] infantry units to varying degrees.