On December 28 2011 04:15 Fruscainte wrote: Under the hand of an actually no mentally handicapped leader, Germany would have and, under every category, SHOULD have won World War 2. They had better technology, a better fighting spirit, and all that jazz. It's just...ugh, Hitler made some pretty stupid fucking decisions.
Except by the end America had nukes. An absolute trump card IMO.
Better technology was only partly true and by the end of the war the allied had the better technlogy. Take for example the spitfire, it was as good if not better than the German planes.
You cannot possibly argue that the spitfire was better than Germany's first generation jet aircraft, despite their many drawbacks. Also the Panther cost only 1.5-2x what a Sherman costs and typically 1 Panther = 5 Shermans in combat
Unfortunately for them though even though the difference in costs were so little you were still far more likely to have 5 Shermans than a Panther on any given day.
Also the RAF had a jet fighter by the war's end too, the jet engine was invented in the UK.
Also, to the guy that said Nazi Germany should have won WW2, they had no chance really, just take a look at this map and consider that the allies had control of the oceans too.
Dark Green: Allies before the attack on Pearl Harbor, including colonies and occupied countries. Light Green: Allied countries that entered the war after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Blue: Axis Powers and their colonies Gray: Neutral countries during WWII Dark green dots represent countries that initially were neutral but during the war were annexed by the USSR Light green dots represent countries that later in the war changed from the Axis to the Allies Blue dots represent countries that after being conquered by the Axis Powers, became puppets of those (Vichy France and several French colonies, Croatia)
On December 29 2011 04:47 Euronyme wrote: That's atleast what I learned in my history classes. The Americans didn't really understand what trench warfare was all about, and basically charged through with massive losses, ignoring the French and British with experience.
Granted this was like the first war where cavalry and swords wern't effective, so you can cut them some slack, but calling their commands superior is stretching it a bit far I'd say.
The American's invented trench warfare and modern war in the Civil War (War Between the States).
The Americans didn't really understand what trench warfare was all about, and basically charged through with massive losses, ignoring the French and British with experience.
Not really, true, American troops were first used at the very end stages of the June Offensive to absorb the last of the German attacks and then made local counterattacks against weakened German lines. But it was more because of French and British disbelief in American ability to fight rather than an actual lack of American ability to fight.
Pershing complained to Wilson that the British and French were hogging all the glory in the Hundred Days Offensive and using American soldiers to hold the line where the French and British weren't attacking, so Wilson got Foch to agree to the St. Mihiel offensive, which pretty much went nowhere thanks to lack of adequate transportation, but we Americans had shown we could fight so they brought us along for the Meuse-Argonnne offensive.
Also, the French and Germans were very impressed at the combat skill of the Marines (particularly at Belleau Wood, and the British were of course never impressed with anything), the American Army, not so much.
Assuming Fruscainte's point, a competent German leader could have easily vanquished or at least crippled Russia by 1942, maybe early 1943. We didn't have the bomb till the 1945s. And Germany was working on their own "atomic" bombs well by the time we were.
Germany never had a serious atomic bomb program. It was never given high priority in the first place and resources were repeatedly reassigned from it to other projects until very late in the war, when it didn't matter anyway.
If Hitler hadn't ordered Army Group Center to siphon off men and supplies to Army Group North (and then changed his mind and switched them back, losing 4-6 weeks where the main German thrust was at Leningrad instead of the capital), Moscow might have fallen in October or November 1941, but the Russian counterattack was coming anyway and likely would have re-taken it. The Germans were already just beyond the capability of their supply lines and the Russians had supplies built up behind Moscow and their snowshoe advantage.
The likely result of Hitler not being a military retard would have been a Russia unable to occupy Eastern Europe after the war, but not much else different. Of course that would be a big difference.
Watching QI I was reminded of the pykrete part of Project Habakkuk for the Brits. It was an idea of using pykrete (a mix of wood pulp and ice) to build ships since steel was in short supply. It never really got off of the ground but such a cool idea.
After Marines were repeatedly urged to turn back by retreating French forces, Marine Captain Lloyd W. Williams of the 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines uttered the now-famous retort "Retreat? Hell, we just got here.
Pretty badass.
On December 30 2011 12:27 Gyro_SC2 wrote: can someone explain me why germany declared war on USA ?
Because their ally Japan had already done so and because he knew the US would be coming for them anyway so he wanted to declare war on them before they could on Germany and also because it gave him a great opportunity for a ridiculous propaganda speech.
I remember reading the myth that carrots help you see better was created by the British during World War II. The idea was to help conceal from the Germans the British's advanced radar systems, and instead claim that British spotters just had better vision than the average person, and thus were able to see the German planes from long distances.
On December 29 2011 07:24 Lemonwalrus wrote: 1. The making of the atomic bombs. (really easy to find books on it, but some advice on which ones are good would be appreciated.) 2. The fire-bombing of Dresden. (So damn hard to find books on it that aren't in German. ) 3. Memoirs of people that were on the ground during the bombings and what they went through. (Also hard to find in English.)
1) The FBI will knock on your door soon.
Not HOW to make them, something more along the lines of a narrative of the scientists working towards it.
On December 30 2011 11:54 Sofestafont wrote: ^^^^ Trench warfare was happening during the end of the American Civil War. Battle of Petersburg Battle of the Crater Battle of the Crater is an interesting event during the Siege of Petersburg.
Ahh now I even remember a few games where I played in them, but wouldn't you agree that the differences between that kind of trench warfare and the one in WW1 was relatively big(and they weren't as present)?
On December 30 2011 05:42 MasterBlasterCaster wrote:
On December 29 2011 04:47 Euronyme wrote: That's atleast what I learned in my history classes. The Americans didn't really understand what trench warfare was all about, and basically charged through with massive losses, ignoring the French and British with experience.
Granted this was like the first war where cavalry and swords wern't effective, so you can cut them some slack, but calling their commands superior is stretching it a bit far I'd say.
The American's invented trench warfare and modern war in the Civil War (War Between the States).
So your claim seems shaky to me...
You have no idea what you're talking about.
This guy seems to be on my site, and even though I don't like his tone and his post didn't really contribute anything I'd like to hear more from him(informationwise).
The Americans didn't really understand what trench warfare was all about, and basically charged through with massive losses, ignoring the French and British with experience.
Not really, true, American troops were first used at the very end stages of the June Offensive to absorb the last of the German attacks and then made local counterattacks against weakened German lines. But it was more because of French and British disbelief in American ability to fight rather than an actual lack of American ability to fight.
Pershing complained to Wilson that the British and French were hogging all the glory in the Hundred Days Offensive and using American soldiers to hold the line where the French and British weren't attacking, so Wilson got Foch to agree to the St. Mihiel offensive, which pretty much went nowhere thanks to lack of adequate transportation, but we Americans had shown we could fight so they brought us along for the Meuse-Argonnne offensive.
Also, the French and Germans were very impressed at the combat skill of the Marines (particularly at Belleau Wood, and the British were of course never impressed with anything), the American Army, not so much.
Assuming Fruscainte's point, a competent German leader could have easily vanquished or at least crippled Russia by 1942, maybe early 1943. We didn't have the bomb till the 1945s. And Germany was working on their own "atomic" bombs well by the time we were.
Germany never had a serious atomic bomb program. It was never given high priority in the first place and resources were repeatedly reassigned from it to other projects until very late in the war, when it didn't matter anyway.
If Hitler hadn't ordered Army Group Center to siphon off men and supplies to Army Group North (and then changed his mind and switched them back, losing 4-6 weeks where the main German thrust was at Leningrad instead of the capital), Moscow might have fallen in October or November 1941, but the Russian counterattack was coming anyway and likely would have re-taken it. The Germans were already just beyond the capability of their supply lines and the Russians had supplies built up behind Moscow and their snowshoe advantage.
The likely result of Hitler not being a military retard would have been a Russia unable to occupy Eastern Europe after the war, but not much else different. Of course that would be a big difference.
I watched a documentary not that long ago which basically showed that hitler's scientists were pretty damn close to a working atomic bomb already 0.o They basically found a top secret underground testing area which the american army found too, but they immedeatly closed it and destroyed many of their own documents about it. Maybe somebody else saw it too and could say what the name of the documentary or the testing complex was :/
On December 28 2011 04:15 Fruscainte wrote: Under the hand of an actually no mentally handicapped leader, Germany would have and, under every category, SHOULD have won World War 2. They had better technology, a better fighting spirit, and all that jazz. It's just...ugh, Hitler made some pretty stupid fucking decisions.
Except by the end America had nukes. An absolute trump card IMO.
Better technology was only partly true and by the end of the war the allied had the better technlogy. Take for example the spitfire, it was as good if not better than the German planes.
You cannot possibly argue that the spitfire was better than Germany's first generation jet aircraft, despite their many drawbacks. Also the Panther cost only 1.5-2x what a Sherman costs and typically 1 Panther = 5 Shermans in combat
Unfortunately for them though even though the difference in costs were so little you were still far more likely to have 5 Shermans than a Panther on any given day.
Also the RAF had a jet fighter by the war's end too, the jet engine was invented in the UK.
Also, to the guy that said Nazi Germany should have won WW2, they had no chance really, just take a look at this map and consider that the allies had control of the oceans too.
Dark Green: Allies before the attack on Pearl Harbor, including colonies and occupied countries. Light Green: Allied countries that entered the war after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Blue: Axis Powers and their colonies Gray: Neutral countries during WWII Dark green dots represent countries that initially were neutral but during the war were annexed by the USSR Light green dots represent countries that later in the war changed from the Axis to the Allies Blue dots represent countries that after being conquered by the Axis Powers, became puppets of those (Vichy France and several French colonies, Croatia)
On December 29 2011 04:47 Euronyme wrote: That's atleast what I learned in my history classes. The Americans didn't really understand what trench warfare was all about, and basically charged through with massive losses, ignoring the French and British with experience.
Granted this was like the first war where cavalry and swords wern't effective, so you can cut them some slack, but calling their commands superior is stretching it a bit far I'd say.
The American's invented trench warfare and modern war in the Civil War (War Between the States).
So your claim seems shaky to me...
This is false.
Although the Civil War was a modern war in many aspects (weaponry, rifles, dimension), most of its aspects remained those of a classical conflict. The strategy was mainly made to kill the opponent and still lacked the flexibility of modern warfare tactics (small attacks to cripple the enemy for example). Artillery only caused 5% of casualties. There was no "front". Usage of trenches occurred late in the war and its few appearances did not generate any sort of new military strategy. Even in WW1, both participants thought they could rush into battle and end the war in a few months.
Cavalry was used extensively until the appearance of new long-range rifles, swordfights were still very common before that. So yes, Americans were not very experienced with the defensive tactics that took over when rifles and artillery became that much more effective.
Edit: also, stating that Germany could've won the war and backing it up with ONE thing, whether it's an airplane, the magical end of the blockade or the UK suddenly disappearing of the map is nonsensical, at best.
Usage of trenches occurred late in the war and its few appearances did not generate any sort of new military strategy.
Use of trenches in the Civil War dates to at least the battle of Fredericksburg in 1862.
The strategy was mainly made to kill the opponent and still lacked the flexibility of modern warfare tactics (small attacks to cripple the enemy for example).
I don't see how anyone who has studied Lee's and Jackson's campaigns could believe this. They regularly split their forces before Jackson died and before Gettysburg to cut off lines of retreat, draw away or freeze enemy formations, or for flanking and envelopment tactics. Lee continued to do it into 1864 as a pure distraction tactic until Sheridan devastated the Shenandoah valley.
Also there was a hell of a lot of bushwhacking and cavalry raids against transportation hubs and routes and depots, there were lots of precursors to modern small-unit and combined-arms tactics.
On December 30 2011 11:54 Sofestafont wrote: ^^^^ Trench warfare was happening during the end of the American Civil War. Battle of Petersburg Battle of the Crater Battle of the Crater is an interesting event during the Siege of Petersburg.
Ahh now I even remember a few games where I played in them, but wouldn't you agree that the differences between that kind of trench warfare and the one in WW1 was relatively big(and they weren't as present)?
On December 30 2011 05:42 MasterBlasterCaster wrote:
On December 29 2011 04:47 Euronyme wrote: That's atleast what I learned in my history classes. The Americans didn't really understand what trench warfare was all about, and basically charged through with massive losses, ignoring the French and British with experience.
Granted this was like the first war where cavalry and swords wern't effective, so you can cut them some slack, but calling their commands superior is stretching it a bit far I'd say.
The American's invented trench warfare and modern war in the Civil War (War Between the States).
So your claim seems shaky to me...
You have no idea what you're talking about.
This guy seems to be on my site, and even though I don't like his tone and his post didn't really contribute anything I'd like to hear more from him(informationwise).
The Americans didn't really understand what trench warfare was all about, and basically charged through with massive losses, ignoring the French and British with experience.
Not really, true, American troops were first used at the very end stages of the June Offensive to absorb the last of the German attacks and then made local counterattacks against weakened German lines. But it was more because of French and British disbelief in American ability to fight rather than an actual lack of American ability to fight.
Pershing complained to Wilson that the British and French were hogging all the glory in the Hundred Days Offensive and using American soldiers to hold the line where the French and British weren't attacking, so Wilson got Foch to agree to the St. Mihiel offensive, which pretty much went nowhere thanks to lack of adequate transportation, but we Americans had shown we could fight so they brought us along for the Meuse-Argonnne offensive.
Also, the French and Germans were very impressed at the combat skill of the Marines (particularly at Belleau Wood, and the British were of course never impressed with anything), the American Army, not so much.
Assuming Fruscainte's point, a competent German leader could have easily vanquished or at least crippled Russia by 1942, maybe early 1943. We didn't have the bomb till the 1945s. And Germany was working on their own "atomic" bombs well by the time we were.
Germany never had a serious atomic bomb program. It was never given high priority in the first place and resources were repeatedly reassigned from it to other projects until very late in the war, when it didn't matter anyway.
If Hitler hadn't ordered Army Group Center to siphon off men and supplies to Army Group North (and then changed his mind and switched them back, losing 4-6 weeks where the main German thrust was at Leningrad instead of the capital), Moscow might have fallen in October or November 1941, but the Russian counterattack was coming anyway and likely would have re-taken it. The Germans were already just beyond the capability of their supply lines and the Russians had supplies built up behind Moscow and their snowshoe advantage.
The likely result of Hitler not being a military retard would have been a Russia unable to occupy Eastern Europe after the war, but not much else different. Of course that would be a big difference.
I watched a documentary not that long ago which basically showed that hitler's scientists were pretty damn close to a working atomic bomb already 0.o They basically found a top secret underground testing area which the american army found too, but they immedeatly closed it and destroyed many of their own documents about it. Maybe somebody else saw it too and could say what the name of the documentary or the testing complex was :/
On December 28 2011 04:15 Fruscainte wrote: Under the hand of an actually no mentally handicapped leader, Germany would have and, under every category, SHOULD have won World War 2. They had better technology, a better fighting spirit, and all that jazz. It's just...ugh, Hitler made some pretty stupid fucking decisions.
Except by the end America had nukes. An absolute trump card IMO.
Better technology was only partly true and by the end of the war the allied had the better technlogy. Take for example the spitfire, it was as good if not better than the German planes.
You cannot possibly argue that the spitfire was better than Germany's first generation jet aircraft, despite their many drawbacks. Also the Panther cost only 1.5-2x what a Sherman costs and typically 1 Panther = 5 Shermans in combat
Unfortunately for them though even though the difference in costs were so little you were still far more likely to have 5 Shermans than a Panther on any given day.
Also the RAF had a jet fighter by the war's end too, the jet engine was invented in the UK.
Also, to the guy that said Nazi Germany should have won WW2, they had no chance really, just take a look at this map and consider that the allies had control of the oceans too.
Dark Green: Allies before the attack on Pearl Harbor, including colonies and occupied countries. Light Green: Allied countries that entered the war after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Blue: Axis Powers and their colonies Gray: Neutral countries during WWII Dark green dots represent countries that initially were neutral but during the war were annexed by the USSR Light green dots represent countries that later in the war changed from the Axis to the Allies Blue dots represent countries that after being conquered by the Axis Powers, became puppets of those (Vichy France and several French colonies, Croatia)
Don't you think that saying that they had no chance is a bit exagerrated?
On your piece about the stealth fighter. Even if they had 1000 stealth fighters what are they going to do? There are only so many bombs, yet so many troops on the ground, aircraft in the sky, ships in the ocean. They simply couldn't hit it all hell, give them 10000 stealth bombers in the end man power alone would be able to occupy so much space that whenever one of them landed it would be taken by the allies would it not?
The strategy was mainly made to kill the opponent and still lacked the flexibility of modern warfare tactics (small attacks to cripple the enemy for example).
I don't see how anyone who has studied Lee's and Jackson's campaigns could believe this. They regularly split their forces before Jackson died and before Gettysburg to cut off lines of retreat, draw away or freeze enemy formations, or for flanking and envelopment tactics. Lee continued to do it into 1864 as a pure distraction tactic until Sheridan devastated the Shenandoah valley.
Also there was a hell of a lot of bushwhacking and cavalry raids against transportation hubs and routes and depots, there were lots of precursors to modern small-unit and combined-arms tactics.
This kind of flexibility you speak of dates back to Napoleonian wars. And as you say, they were precursors of modern tactics, not modern tactis. At all. Guerilla also happened during Napoleonian wars. Trenches were rare, nonetheless.
On December 30 2011 11:54 Sofestafont wrote: ^^^^ Trench warfare was happening during the end of the American Civil War. Battle of Petersburg Battle of the Crater Battle of the Crater is an interesting event during the Siege of Petersburg.
Ahh now I even remember a few games where I played in them, but wouldn't you agree that the differences between that kind of trench warfare and the one in WW1 was relatively big(and they weren't as present)?
EDIT:
On December 30 2011 12:22 kaisen wrote:
On December 30 2011 05:42 MasterBlasterCaster wrote:
On December 29 2011 04:47 Euronyme wrote: That's atleast what I learned in my history classes. The Americans didn't really understand what trench warfare was all about, and basically charged through with massive losses, ignoring the French and British with experience.
Granted this was like the first war where cavalry and swords wern't effective, so you can cut them some slack, but calling their commands superior is stretching it a bit far I'd say.
The American's invented trench warfare and modern war in the Civil War (War Between the States).
So your claim seems shaky to me...
You have no idea what you're talking about.
This guy seems to be on my site, and even though I don't like his tone and his post didn't really contribute anything I'd like to hear more from him(informationwise).
EDIT2:
On December 30 2011 12:23 DeepElemBlues wrote:
The Americans didn't really understand what trench warfare was all about, and basically charged through with massive losses, ignoring the French and British with experience.
Not really, true, American troops were first used at the very end stages of the June Offensive to absorb the last of the German attacks and then made local counterattacks against weakened German lines. But it was more because of French and British disbelief in American ability to fight rather than an actual lack of American ability to fight.
Pershing complained to Wilson that the British and French were hogging all the glory in the Hundred Days Offensive and using American soldiers to hold the line where the French and British weren't attacking, so Wilson got Foch to agree to the St. Mihiel offensive, which pretty much went nowhere thanks to lack of adequate transportation, but we Americans had shown we could fight so they brought us along for the Meuse-Argonnne offensive.
Also, the French and Germans were very impressed at the combat skill of the Marines (particularly at Belleau Wood, and the British were of course never impressed with anything), the American Army, not so much.
Assuming Fruscainte's point, a competent German leader could have easily vanquished or at least crippled Russia by 1942, maybe early 1943. We didn't have the bomb till the 1945s. And Germany was working on their own "atomic" bombs well by the time we were.
Germany never had a serious atomic bomb program. It was never given high priority in the first place and resources were repeatedly reassigned from it to other projects until very late in the war, when it didn't matter anyway.
If Hitler hadn't ordered Army Group Center to siphon off men and supplies to Army Group North (and then changed his mind and switched them back, losing 4-6 weeks where the main German thrust was at Leningrad instead of the capital), Moscow might have fallen in October or November 1941, but the Russian counterattack was coming anyway and likely would have re-taken it. The Germans were already just beyond the capability of their supply lines and the Russians had supplies built up behind Moscow and their snowshoe advantage.
The likely result of Hitler not being a military retard would have been a Russia unable to occupy Eastern Europe after the war, but not much else different. Of course that would be a big difference.
I watched a documentary not that long ago which basically showed that hitler's scientists were pretty damn close to a working atomic bomb already 0.o They basically found a top secret underground testing area which the american army found too, but they immedeatly closed it and destroyed many of their own documents about it. Maybe somebody else saw it too and could say what the name of the documentary or the testing complex was :/
EDIT3: Sorry, but I'm surethis is the last one
On December 30 2011 12:16 jello_biafra wrote:
On December 30 2011 12:14 Feartheguru wrote:
On December 30 2011 02:14 RvB wrote:
On December 29 2011 07:46 FecalFrown wrote:
On December 28 2011 04:15 Fruscainte wrote: Under the hand of an actually no mentally handicapped leader, Germany would have and, under every category, SHOULD have won World War 2. They had better technology, a better fighting spirit, and all that jazz. It's just...ugh, Hitler made some pretty stupid fucking decisions.
Except by the end America had nukes. An absolute trump card IMO.
Better technology was only partly true and by the end of the war the allied had the better technlogy. Take for example the spitfire, it was as good if not better than the German planes.
You cannot possibly argue that the spitfire was better than Germany's first generation jet aircraft, despite their many drawbacks. Also the Panther cost only 1.5-2x what a Sherman costs and typically 1 Panther = 5 Shermans in combat
Unfortunately for them though even though the difference in costs were so little you were still far more likely to have 5 Shermans than a Panther on any given day.
Also the RAF had a jet fighter by the war's end too, the jet engine was invented in the UK.
Also, to the guy that said Nazi Germany should have won WW2, they had no chance really, just take a look at this map and consider that the allies had control of the oceans too.
Dark Green: Allies before the attack on Pearl Harbor, including colonies and occupied countries. Light Green: Allied countries that entered the war after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Blue: Axis Powers and their colonies Gray: Neutral countries during WWII Dark green dots represent countries that initially were neutral but during the war were annexed by the USSR Light green dots represent countries that later in the war changed from the Axis to the Allies Blue dots represent countries that after being conquered by the Axis Powers, became puppets of those (Vichy France and several French colonies, Croatia)
Don't you think that saying that they had no chance is a bit exagerrated?
On your piece about the stealth fighter. Even if they had 1000 stealth fighters what are they going to do? There are only so many bombs, yet so many troops on the ground, aircraft in the sky, ships in the ocean. They simply couldn't hit it all hell, give them 10000 stealth bombers in the end man power alone would be able to occupy so much space that whenever one of them landed it would be taken by the allies would it not?
no And the awnser will stay like that as long as you insist on your opinion that they had NO chance, many mistakes were made, what if Hitler wouldn't have let the 340thousand brits flee from one battlefield during his Blitzkrieg agsint France, because he still hoped to befriend the Britons? What if Hitler would've given his Generals more power to act on their own? What if the Americans wouldn't have been pulled into the war and stayed allegedly neutral? What if the stealth-bomber would've been ready before the war was pretty much over already?
On December 30 2011 11:54 Sofestafont wrote: ^^^^ Trench warfare was happening during the end of the American Civil War. Battle of Petersburg Battle of the Crater Battle of the Crater is an interesting event during the Siege of Petersburg.
Ahh now I even remember a few games where I played in them, but wouldn't you agree that the differences between that kind of trench warfare and the one in WW1 was relatively big(and they weren't as present)?
EDIT:
On December 30 2011 12:22 kaisen wrote:
On December 30 2011 05:42 MasterBlasterCaster wrote:
On December 29 2011 04:47 Euronyme wrote: That's atleast what I learned in my history classes. The Americans didn't really understand what trench warfare was all about, and basically charged through with massive losses, ignoring the French and British with experience.
Granted this was like the first war where cavalry and swords wern't effective, so you can cut them some slack, but calling their commands superior is stretching it a bit far I'd say.
The American's invented trench warfare and modern war in the Civil War (War Between the States).
So your claim seems shaky to me...
You have no idea what you're talking about.
This guy seems to be on my site, and even though I don't like his tone and his post didn't really contribute anything I'd like to hear more from him(informationwise).
EDIT2:
On December 30 2011 12:23 DeepElemBlues wrote:
The Americans didn't really understand what trench warfare was all about, and basically charged through with massive losses, ignoring the French and British with experience.
Not really, true, American troops were first used at the very end stages of the June Offensive to absorb the last of the German attacks and then made local counterattacks against weakened German lines. But it was more because of French and British disbelief in American ability to fight rather than an actual lack of American ability to fight.
Pershing complained to Wilson that the British and French were hogging all the glory in the Hundred Days Offensive and using American soldiers to hold the line where the French and British weren't attacking, so Wilson got Foch to agree to the St. Mihiel offensive, which pretty much went nowhere thanks to lack of adequate transportation, but we Americans had shown we could fight so they brought us along for the Meuse-Argonnne offensive.
Also, the French and Germans were very impressed at the combat skill of the Marines (particularly at Belleau Wood, and the British were of course never impressed with anything), the American Army, not so much.
Assuming Fruscainte's point, a competent German leader could have easily vanquished or at least crippled Russia by 1942, maybe early 1943. We didn't have the bomb till the 1945s. And Germany was working on their own "atomic" bombs well by the time we were.
Germany never had a serious atomic bomb program. It was never given high priority in the first place and resources were repeatedly reassigned from it to other projects until very late in the war, when it didn't matter anyway.
If Hitler hadn't ordered Army Group Center to siphon off men and supplies to Army Group North (and then changed his mind and switched them back, losing 4-6 weeks where the main German thrust was at Leningrad instead of the capital), Moscow might have fallen in October or November 1941, but the Russian counterattack was coming anyway and likely would have re-taken it. The Germans were already just beyond the capability of their supply lines and the Russians had supplies built up behind Moscow and their snowshoe advantage.
The likely result of Hitler not being a military retard would have been a Russia unable to occupy Eastern Europe after the war, but not much else different. Of course that would be a big difference.
I watched a documentary not that long ago which basically showed that hitler's scientists were pretty damn close to a working atomic bomb already 0.o They basically found a top secret underground testing area which the american army found too, but they immedeatly closed it and destroyed many of their own documents about it. Maybe somebody else saw it too and could say what the name of the documentary or the testing complex was :/
EDIT3: Sorry, but I'm surethis is the last one
On December 30 2011 12:16 jello_biafra wrote:
On December 30 2011 12:14 Feartheguru wrote:
On December 30 2011 02:14 RvB wrote:
On December 29 2011 07:46 FecalFrown wrote:
On December 28 2011 04:15 Fruscainte wrote: Under the hand of an actually no mentally handicapped leader, Germany would have and, under every category, SHOULD have won World War 2. They had better technology, a better fighting spirit, and all that jazz. It's just...ugh, Hitler made some pretty stupid fucking decisions.
Except by the end America had nukes. An absolute trump card IMO.
Better technology was only partly true and by the end of the war the allied had the better technlogy. Take for example the spitfire, it was as good if not better than the German planes.
You cannot possibly argue that the spitfire was better than Germany's first generation jet aircraft, despite their many drawbacks. Also the Panther cost only 1.5-2x what a Sherman costs and typically 1 Panther = 5 Shermans in combat
Unfortunately for them though even though the difference in costs were so little you were still far more likely to have 5 Shermans than a Panther on any given day.
Also the RAF had a jet fighter by the war's end too, the jet engine was invented in the UK.
Also, to the guy that said Nazi Germany should have won WW2, they had no chance really, just take a look at this map and consider that the allies had control of the oceans too.
Dark Green: Allies before the attack on Pearl Harbor, including colonies and occupied countries. Light Green: Allied countries that entered the war after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Blue: Axis Powers and their colonies Gray: Neutral countries during WWII Dark green dots represent countries that initially were neutral but during the war were annexed by the USSR Light green dots represent countries that later in the war changed from the Axis to the Allies Blue dots represent countries that after being conquered by the Axis Powers, became puppets of those (Vichy France and several French colonies, Croatia)
Don't you think that saying that they had no chance is a bit exagerrated?
On your piece about the stealth fighter. Even if they had 1000 stealth fighters what are they going to do? There are only so many bombs, yet so many troops on the ground, aircraft in the sky, ships in the ocean. They simply couldn't hit it all hell, give them 10000 stealth bombers in the end man power alone would be able to occupy so much space that whenever one of them landed it would be taken by the allies would it not?
no And the awnser will stay like that as long as you insist on your opinion that they had NO chance, many mistakes were made, what if Hitler wouldn't have let the 340thousand brits flee from one battlefield during his Blitzkrieg agsint France, because he still hoped to befriend the Britons? What if Hitler would've given his Generals more power to act on their own? What if the Americans wouldn't have been pulled into the war and stayed allegedly neutral? What if the stealth-bomber would've been ready before the war was pretty much over already?
What if Hitler had died in WW1? Oh, extrapolating is so fun.
On December 30 2011 11:54 Sofestafont wrote: ^^^^ Trench warfare was happening during the end of the American Civil War. Battle of Petersburg Battle of the Crater Battle of the Crater is an interesting event during the Siege of Petersburg.
Ahh now I even remember a few games where I played in them, but wouldn't you agree that the differences between that kind of trench warfare and the one in WW1 was relatively big(and they weren't as present)?
EDIT:
On December 30 2011 12:22 kaisen wrote:
On December 30 2011 05:42 MasterBlasterCaster wrote:
On December 29 2011 04:47 Euronyme wrote: That's atleast what I learned in my history classes. The Americans didn't really understand what trench warfare was all about, and basically charged through with massive losses, ignoring the French and British with experience.
Granted this was like the first war where cavalry and swords wern't effective, so you can cut them some slack, but calling their commands superior is stretching it a bit far I'd say.
The American's invented trench warfare and modern war in the Civil War (War Between the States).
So your claim seems shaky to me...
You have no idea what you're talking about.
This guy seems to be on my site, and even though I don't like his tone and his post didn't really contribute anything I'd like to hear more from him(informationwise).
EDIT2:
On December 30 2011 12:23 DeepElemBlues wrote:
The Americans didn't really understand what trench warfare was all about, and basically charged through with massive losses, ignoring the French and British with experience.
Not really, true, American troops were first used at the very end stages of the June Offensive to absorb the last of the German attacks and then made local counterattacks against weakened German lines. But it was more because of French and British disbelief in American ability to fight rather than an actual lack of American ability to fight.
Pershing complained to Wilson that the British and French were hogging all the glory in the Hundred Days Offensive and using American soldiers to hold the line where the French and British weren't attacking, so Wilson got Foch to agree to the St. Mihiel offensive, which pretty much went nowhere thanks to lack of adequate transportation, but we Americans had shown we could fight so they brought us along for the Meuse-Argonnne offensive.
Also, the French and Germans were very impressed at the combat skill of the Marines (particularly at Belleau Wood, and the British were of course never impressed with anything), the American Army, not so much.
Assuming Fruscainte's point, a competent German leader could have easily vanquished or at least crippled Russia by 1942, maybe early 1943. We didn't have the bomb till the 1945s. And Germany was working on their own "atomic" bombs well by the time we were.
Germany never had a serious atomic bomb program. It was never given high priority in the first place and resources were repeatedly reassigned from it to other projects until very late in the war, when it didn't matter anyway.
If Hitler hadn't ordered Army Group Center to siphon off men and supplies to Army Group North (and then changed his mind and switched them back, losing 4-6 weeks where the main German thrust was at Leningrad instead of the capital), Moscow might have fallen in October or November 1941, but the Russian counterattack was coming anyway and likely would have re-taken it. The Germans were already just beyond the capability of their supply lines and the Russians had supplies built up behind Moscow and their snowshoe advantage.
The likely result of Hitler not being a military retard would have been a Russia unable to occupy Eastern Europe after the war, but not much else different. Of course that would be a big difference.
I watched a documentary not that long ago which basically showed that hitler's scientists were pretty damn close to a working atomic bomb already 0.o They basically found a top secret underground testing area which the american army found too, but they immedeatly closed it and destroyed many of their own documents about it. Maybe somebody else saw it too and could say what the name of the documentary or the testing complex was :/
EDIT3: Sorry, but I'm surethis is the last one
On December 30 2011 12:16 jello_biafra wrote:
On December 30 2011 12:14 Feartheguru wrote:
On December 30 2011 02:14 RvB wrote:
On December 29 2011 07:46 FecalFrown wrote:
On December 28 2011 04:15 Fruscainte wrote: Under the hand of an actually no mentally handicapped leader, Germany would have and, under every category, SHOULD have won World War 2. They had better technology, a better fighting spirit, and all that jazz. It's just...ugh, Hitler made some pretty stupid fucking decisions.
Except by the end America had nukes. An absolute trump card IMO.
Better technology was only partly true and by the end of the war the allied had the better technlogy. Take for example the spitfire, it was as good if not better than the German planes.
You cannot possibly argue that the spitfire was better than Germany's first generation jet aircraft, despite their many drawbacks. Also the Panther cost only 1.5-2x what a Sherman costs and typically 1 Panther = 5 Shermans in combat
Unfortunately for them though even though the difference in costs were so little you were still far more likely to have 5 Shermans than a Panther on any given day.
Also the RAF had a jet fighter by the war's end too, the jet engine was invented in the UK.
Also, to the guy that said Nazi Germany should have won WW2, they had no chance really, just take a look at this map and consider that the allies had control of the oceans too.
Dark Green: Allies before the attack on Pearl Harbor, including colonies and occupied countries. Light Green: Allied countries that entered the war after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Blue: Axis Powers and their colonies Gray: Neutral countries during WWII Dark green dots represent countries that initially were neutral but during the war were annexed by the USSR Light green dots represent countries that later in the war changed from the Axis to the Allies Blue dots represent countries that after being conquered by the Axis Powers, became puppets of those (Vichy France and several French colonies, Croatia)
Don't you think that saying that they had no chance is a bit exagerrated?
On your piece about the stealth fighter. Even if they had 1000 stealth fighters what are they going to do? There are only so many bombs, yet so many troops on the ground, aircraft in the sky, ships in the ocean. They simply couldn't hit it all hell, give them 10000 stealth bombers in the end man power alone would be able to occupy so much space that whenever one of them landed it would be taken by the allies would it not?
no And the awnser will stay like that as long as you insist on your opinion that they had NO chance, many mistakes were made, what if Hitler wouldn't have let the 340thousand brits flee from one battlefield during his Blitzkrieg agsint France, because he still hoped to befriend the Britons? What if Hitler would've given his Generals more power to act on their own? What if the Americans wouldn't have been pulled into the war and stayed allegedly neutral? What if the stealth-bomber would've been ready before the war was pretty much over already?
What if Hitler had died in WW1? Oh, extrapolating is so fun.
You said they had no chance, well if everything goes the way it went then of course they had no chance because we know how it ended, but if you see it like that don't talk about chances, talk about facts in the real world. Of course nobody will argue with you here if you say that germany lost the second world war, but if we only state facts here this thread is useless and shouldn't exist. And your second sentence hurt my feelings...
On December 30 2011 12:27 Gyro_SC2 wrote: can someone explain me why germany declared war on USA ?
Because their ally Japan had already done so and because he knew the US would be coming for them anyway so he wanted to declare war on them before they could on Germany and also because it gave him a great opportunity for a ridiculous propaganda speech. [/QUOTE] Also, don't forget that the whole point behind the Germany-Japan alliance was to, at some point in the future, gang up on Russia. If Japan gets either defeated or weakened in a war with the US, that plan falls apart. Germany needed to help Japan as much as possible so that they would still have an ally against Russia.
On December 31 2011 04:06 SilentchiLL wrote: You said they had no chance, well if everything goes the way it went then of course they had no chance because we know how it ended, but if you see it like that don't talk about chances, talk about facts in the real world. Of course nobody will argue with you here if you say that germany lost the second world war, but if we only state facts here this thread is useless and shouldn't exist. And your second sentence hurt my feelings...
- I never said such a thing, not about the "what ifs" anyway. - This kind of idea has little interest since all it does is imagine that one side gets a huge advantage and wins. There is a neverending list of scenarios that would change the outcome of the war. What is interesting is exploring what truly happened. Extrapolating is just like a bunch of teenage kids trying to find out who would win between a Tokugawa samurai and a Frank knight.
Its not Russia its the Soviet Union, thats a huge difference a huge amount of their troops, resources and officers came from the other nations in the union like Stalin himself but they never get any credit.
Hitler if he had any choice underestimated the red army their air force and navy werent too great but on the ground they had very good equipment in insane numbers and their soldiers knew only harsh living conditions since birth for the most part.
On the topic if the Axis could have won the war I can only say that we dont know if decisions were made because there was no other viable option or if they were simply mistakes. In hindsight and without having all the information that was or wasnt available at the time its easy to judge but its unrealistic to assume that making no mistakes in a total war lasting 6 years is at all possible but thats exactly what would have been needed for the Axis to win the war imo.
EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/0ZLlX.png)
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