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US shortcommings and how did they win.


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Each nation was/is a world leader IN CERTAIN AREAS. So maybe the Nazis were ahead with missile/rocket tech. But the Allies were ahead in many other areas. This is not an "all or nothing" thing guys.

Arguably, the only reason the US was ahead in so many areas, was that the Brits sent over all their research and many scientists during WW2. And after WW2 I recall the national scandal of the Brit "brain drain" where the cream of Brit researchers were lured to the US cos of more money. So, what does it all prove...?

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About who was more technologically advanced, I don't think you would have wanted to have been a wounded German soldier. Thier antibiotics regime was rudimentary, their blood transfusion technology was downright medaeval. To put it bluntly, Hitler either murdered or chased away most of his brightest medical specialists. The ones who got away populated Americas top hospitals and universities. There's a reason why the stereotypical college professor in old movies was given a thick German accent.

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Steiner14 - you sound very much like either A. a National Socialist (Nazi..) or B. a Troll or C. a Nazi Troll. Either way - I usually dont flame or whatever, but I'll make an exception. You're a moron. Do you live in the US? Have you visited the US? Where do you get your amazing insight about America thats complete nonsense?

Oh and that certain german politician that predicted the US's downfall from racial mixing, etc? That was Hitler. And we all know what a political genius he was. And he sure did know a lot about America himself - after all he predicted we didnt have the stomach to fight, that we, the brits and russians would never be able to cooperate to defeat germany etc etc.

And if your German, you should know that Hitler would think that you have no right to be alive. IIRC in April 1945 in one of his rages he claimed the German people had failed HIM and deserved their defeat.

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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.

And OMFG we actually have a BLACK president, it is Sodom and Gomorrah all over again!!!! Run before we all get turned into pillars of salt!!

Too bad that what "made Germany great" was a lot of contribution from many cultures especially .....wait for it...... the Jewish people. Darn that sucks, you want greatness, but ya gotta try to wipe out some of the folks who have contributed so much to your society. Damn it must suck to be a nazi.

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Well, one area where Germany was definitely and undeniably world leader was: propaganda. Hitler & Göbbels were masters in this art. Quite unfortunately since they were idiots everywhere else.

This propaganda still works in the brains of some of my countrymen and others all over the world.

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Well, one area where Germany was definitely and undeniably world leader was: propaganda. Hitler & Göbbels were masters in this art. Quite unfortunately since they were idiots everywhere else.

This propaganda still works in the brains of some of my countrymen and others all over the world.

We have no shortage of morons who suck up to that over here, so it certainly isn't a national issue. I suspect it is just a matter of in X amount of people you have Y amount of brainless morons. What is really sad is they come out of the woodwork when times are difficult and stressful, basically the times when you can least afford to listen to their s**t.

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I think its great that Germany is once again thinking about helping out Greece. Isn't that wonderful. :D

It goes to show that the magnificent German people are not only great with technology but can be competent with human relations as well. Displaying some heart to go with that wonderfully elite brain displays a psychological sound and well rounded people capable of tolerance, compassion and empathy.

:)

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Well as we have seen the technology thing is debatable. Me, I am impressed by the German and their guided munitions, their continued armored tactic edge, jet fighters, small arms, etc. etc.

As to the Soviets in Germany, I'm going on a gut feeling. The animal desire for revenge was huge in the real deal, and a year and half more of fighting with all the Soviet loss that would have entailed, AND a Soviet occupation of not part but all Germany ... I think the only thing the Soviets would have accepted would be the total obliteration of Germany as a nation-state. Considering what Stalin did to his own people it is scary to think what he would have done to the Germans if he had nothing to restrain him, and the Soviet populace I think would have been all for it.

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.

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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?

What's contradictory is you confirm the A Bomb was meant for Germany then you say the war could have dragged on for years. Do you really think they would have carried on with one or two major cities being erased every month? Even the fanatically suicidal Japanese threw in the towel after two bombs. I doubt the Germans would have lasted much longer. Not only that they had nothing close to fight back with or a way to deliver it to the US. Even if they carried on eventually there wouldn't have been any Germans left to fight and zero industry to build weapons.

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Its always stuck me as odd that despite the massive mobilization that Germany didn't go to 'total war' mode til several years into the game. Fully half the population - the women - weren't utilized as workers, instead they relied of the dubious quality of imported slave laborers. What was that line from Schindler's list? That every utensil he manufactured for the German army was purposefully designed to break? A fair proportion of those Jadjtiger überweapons broke down after travelling just a few miles, apparently due to some heroic slave laborer clandestinely clogging the radiators with solder.

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May I recommend David Edgerton's "The British war Machine" as an excellent bromide to the, German scientific/technological superiority brigade. Two many gems to mention, but the Allies really had quite a few aces up their sleave, especially in the field of electronics, check out the ECM/ECCM suite of an RAF heavy and compare it to the rudimentary Germany equipment. Or look at how Allied night-fighters stalked their German counterparts, who were burdened with out dated sets that played havoc with their flight characteristics.

Finally, don't miss out OR, which allowed the British to make the most of out of their resources, whilst the Germans either wasted resources of conducted OR but only on an ad-hoc basis. The German army was really a Potemkin village, it had to win quick otherwise all its internal contradictions and weaknesses would doom it, that's why they lost.

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I think, if anything, this thread proves that our educators (on all sides) are not keeping up with the myths out there.

Your average lad/lass won't be taught anything about what has been discussed and will pick up snippets from TV, movies and a few mentions (normally around an important anniversary year) from the press.

I applaud the OP on sticking his head above the parapet and asking the questions - and for getting to the stage where he realised there's something not quite right about tales of exploding Shermans, GI's trying to make a buck out of the war and shirking combat at all times and ineffective command stacked up against, Uber German Infantry/Tanks/Aircrafts/Generals but still doing a more impressive Blitzkrieg than that of 1940. Something doesn't add up does it?

And Kudos to those community members that have answered in the spirit of the original question. Not everybody has parents/kin/friends who have a grasp of the whys and wherefores of 1939-1945 (depending on which mob you are rooting for). Mind you - from some of the replies, the Battlefront Community still have some odd ideas.

As a non-American, it's funny to see how the treatment of the Pacific theatre differs in the media from the European theatre. No Dirty Dozen, Kelly's Hero's or anti-war films in the Pacific (although you did get a musical). Perhaps the USMC is just to saintly?:D

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What's contradictory is you confirm the A Bomb was meant for Germany then you say the war could have dragged on for years. Do you really think they would have carried on with one or two major cities being erased every month? Even the fanatically suicidal Japanese threw in the towel after two bombs. I doubt the Germans would have lasted much longer. Not only that they had nothing close to fight back with or a way to deliver it to the US. Even if they carried on eventually there wouldn't have been any Germans left to fight and zero industry to build weapons.

Maybe. But the thing is that we didnt have the atomic weapons the or even a few years later to wipe out a few cities a month. In fact we expended almost all of our nukes with the Trinity experiment and the Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Of course we would have made more etc etc. And of course, chances are, the Germans wouldnt have known we only had a few initialy. Of course if we're entertaining this fantasy, we have to take other factors into account. Comparing Japans surrender following the nukings to what if we nuked Germany is apples and oranges. Japan had been firebombed extremely effectively because the composition and building materials of most of their cities (paper and wood). We strangled their suppy lines through the ocean with our submarine and naval campaigns (Japan is an island) and their biggest ally, Nazi Germany, had been out of the fight for months. Before the nukes it was well documentated that the Japanese were divided whether to surrender or not. Theres really no way to tell.

Added Post edit -

Also I disagree with the statement that even if the war had dragged on, there would have been no German war industry. First a disclaimer - in this hypothetical scenario, theres no guarantee that Speer would have ended up in charge of the armaments industry, and he's widely accepted as the architect of the saviour of German arms production mid to end war. However, the capability to not only survive heavy night and day strategic bombing, but actually increase production to never before reached levels was there. It was proven by just this being doing, 1944 had the highest German production levels of the war. True - cities nuked would have everything destroyed. But again I reiterate that we (the US) didnt have many atomic weapons at the end of WW2, or indeed for a few years after the war.

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Yes, SOME of their war production increased. BUT, it was impossible to disperse oil production. Without gas there is no mechanized warfare and no air warfare. If You do want to carry this further we would have begun bombing them with mass B-29 strikes (four times the bomb weight) at some point. Really the Germans were pretty finished by Spring 45 no matter how you look at it. Had they kept fighting nukes would have changed the war from a battle of nations to the genocide of the German people. Most of the population would have been killed in a few months for no gain. I just dont see your scenario happening. The US was capable of building three A Bombs per month in 1945. Three bombs were planned of September 1945 and three more in October.

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I think if the ETO had dragged on the SS/Gestapo goons would have hung so many of their soldiers we could have just walked in. Oh, nearly forgot, they would have got so many of their schoolkids killed they would have blighted a generation, though killing off the pensioners would have saved on retirement bills!

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I think, if anything, this thread proves that our educators (on all sides) are not keeping up with the myths out there.

Your average lad/lass won't be taught anything about what has been discussed and will pick up snippets from TV, movies and a few mentions (normally around an important anniversary year) from the press.

I applaud the OP on sticking his head above the parapet and asking the questions - and for getting to the stage where he realised there's something not quite right about tales of exploding Shermans, GI's trying to make a buck out of the war and shirking combat at all times and ineffective command stacked up against, Uber German Infantry/Tanks/Aircrafts/Generals but still doing a more impressive Blitzkrieg than that of 1940. Something doesn't add up does it?

And Kudos to those community members that have answered in the spirit of the original question. Not everybody has parents/kin/friends who have a grasp of the whys and wherefores of 1939-1945 (depending on which mob you are rooting for). Mind you - from some of the replies, the Battlefront Community still have some odd ideas.

As a non-American, it's funny to see how the treatment of the Pacific theatre differs in the media from the European theatre. No Dirty Dozen, Kelly's Hero's or anti-war films in the Pacific (although you did get a musical). Perhaps the USMC is just to saintly?:D

My intention when I started this thread was to elicit exactly the types of responses that have happened. There is a huge amount of real knowledge on this forum as well as, especially in my case, a lot of myths about what happened in the Normandy campaign. Myths about the involved soldiers as well as their equipment and vehicles. Some of these myths hopefully will be cleared up and some of the real knowledge will be shared. It seems that BF has gained some different knowledge and or better capabilities and it has changed the way that the Normandy battles are presented in the game as opposed to the way they were depicted in CMBO and from my stantpoint they make CMBN more believable and fun to play than CMBO.:)

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...[speer's] widely accepted as the architect of the saviour of German arms production mid to end war.

But you should see what Tooze has to say about that. According to him, the growth in production was mainly due to changes that had been set in train well before Speer took over.

True - cities nuked would have everything destroyed.

Not necessarily the case. Nagasaki was not totally destroyed. Also, Japanese industries had not been dispersed to underground factories as many German war industries had.

I suspect that the major effect of nuclear weapons on Germany after the middle of 1945 would have been to increase civilian casualties to insupportable levels. A-bombs might also have been used—or at any rate threatened to be used—against tactical targets such as troop concentrations, communication bottlenecks, etc.

Michael

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