relates to post until last time ı was here , meaning Monday
ah yes , time to dig up Brute Force again . Now that the value of a book can be gauged by the critics that have lend their names to the bookjacket , assuming one knows them . Like this Field Marshal Lord Carver who says "a masterpiece of its kind" or a book that's "heartily recommended to specialist and general reader alike" as mentioned by the Journal of the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst . Bracketed by these two ı would be ready to believe this guy named Norman Stone of the Sunday Times , but then ı have no need , finishing the book like a dozen times in the two and a half decades ı have had the volume and am in total agreement with what he says , but let's have him supply the verdict as a native English speaker : "John Ellis's well documented and briskly written book...crackles with irritation. Ellis tells a melancholy story, but tells it well."
that the Germans had no right to achieve as much as they did in WW II but their enemies were bigger fools . One can even develop some sense of pity for the Japanese as they were ground to dust . Get that book -if available- if you are halfway interested in numbers of war and the ways they apply . ı think ı read the back jacket with 100% interest only now in 2017 .
though since our knowledge is a combination of what we have learned over the years ı was a bit heartbroken that you have to read it all over again to make up tables of equipment and it might not cover the whole bases anyhow . But sure enough it references that the French might have distributed so many hundreds of tanks into penny packets to support Infantry , but their concentrated forces were almost an equal of the Panzer Divisions in their entirity .
let me allow to follow the posts above as a guideline to avoid the typical r16 scatter . As for Alternative history stuff there is a certain comic series ongoing that delves into how some alien deity broke up the D-Day with a storm and will possibly bring Adolf from the afterlife after he got outed or something earlier in the war ... This being proof that a German victory being almost impossible however you twist the facts . Although ı should read the link first to judge whether it's overblown or not , am really partial to the importance of the PzKw 38(t) . Maybe not the "mainstay" but it was good enough to be present , numbering 772 for the invasion of the Soviet Union , contrasting to 965 IIIs and 439 IVs . All short 75s for the IVs and only 44 of the IIIs with long 50 mm guns that undisputably make the latter superior to the Czechs for anti-tank work . Lovely fact that the Dictator of Germany ordered long guns for his Panzers to kill Commies and all the German Army did was doing nothing , maximizing profits possibly . Until found out by the said Dictator ... Germans certainly had no trouble with the 38 , basing 25% of their tank park on it , despite its 2 man turret . 3 man turrets being a so important part of the German superiority early in the war ... 38 stopped being a gun tank only because it was too small to carry a cannon big enough to kill KVs , just like the III was . But chassis became an assault gun and 38 was still better , with production of IIIs either ending or planned to end by 1945 and nothing of the sort for the Czech thing .
the superior operational capability of Germans is undisputed , but it can also be argued the thicker armour of the Allied tanks would begin to tell if the fighting got slower . Not in my locked thread and ı would have to really look for them but ı have these posts in this forum that argue Germans avoided tank to tank and used anti-tank guns instead . As already mentioned in this thread . Fast moving panzer formations engaged isolated Allied units in series , massively superior in each engagement , overwhelming the opposition by all means possible and attacking the next with similar advantages . Each German victory emboldening them and doing the exact opposite on their enemies . Afterall there is a reason why nobody pays much attention to June 1940 fighting in France , after Dunquerke with cowardly French having a stable front and a full understanding of the German methods and could have even won if they had not lost so much in May . Not 100% sure , perhaps but within bounds of reason . Nobody wants it known or something that Germans were not gods on earth that could only be defeated at Al Alamein , or by American prowess awesomely shown by Patton off the Bocage , or by the Red Army steamrolling all the way from Stalingrad . Yeah , the French have one forward and 5 rear gears on their tanks .
the trouble with the T-34/KV combination is that they were so new that their crews had almost no idea of what to do with them . Am not going to start a rant of what the Germans might have done with them , now that the Russians obviously lost a thousand of them straight away and had Germans had half the brains they are supposed to have they would have 100s of them running , before the winter set in . Next year they looked real hard to get some KVs to be used in the planned invasion of Malta . Not 34/85s or JS-2 , but they would have done quite good . Even as mere basis for conversion to assault guns . So what ? ı think the Russians were converting captured IIIs into assault guns of their own even in 1944 . Newer narratives no doubt will insist on forgetting that Guderian himself asked for a straight T-34 copy , but the German industry lacked expertise (and aluminium ?) for the diesel engine and they had to wait for the Panther . Until 1943 and a month or two in delaying the Battle of Kursk .
as for Evil making Germans stronger while the Allies avoided operations that might lead to extensive casualties the Brute Force is really recommended . ı don't think any officer in the now extinct Turkish Military could like a book that talked negatively about its Marshals , but just check the reviewers in the beginning . Yeah , Montgomery with careful calculations and never suffering a reverse , but he might have destroyed Rommel half a dozen times before he ran all the way to Tunus or might have been bolder in Italy or Normandy . The Russians might have made it to the North Sea and yet create a Peoples Republic of Danemark while Montgomery was doin' his thing citing the opposition was too great for him to cross Elbe during late April 1945 . Eisenhower sent up some American troops and "When the 82nd [Airborne Division] crossed it, it advanced 36 miles on the first day and captured 100,000 prisoners." And you know this is the guy who allowed something like Market Garden , because a fast success there would allow him to command the Nothern Thrust all the way to Berlin and did practically nothing as the British troops were written off , while he could . Once again , Ellis ; one really has to read that 540 pages , discounting the extra 100 of references . Allies' penchant for attrition battles that they could not lose weakened their ability to grasp opportunities in maneouvre and they had this incredible knack of running into deservedly famous Pakfronts whenever they could not avoid the feeling that they should "move" . Leads one to almost believe that they all hated the troops under their command , wanted all of them dead .
also on some unlocked thread about the notion that the Sicklecut was intentional , Germans planning to encircle the Anglo French Armies rushing into Belgium and the like . Thinking they could cross the Ardennes while it was no tank country . That they would be never spotted doing all that with so little aerial reconnaissance by the Allies . With the opening post here kinda surprised that the Netherlands fell without Panzers . Within certain caveats , if that's the word , these are kinda wrong . Germans know they can't beat the Allies , so they repeat the Schilieffen Plan . Really . Not for Paris , but to provide an outer defensive screen for Ruhr . Netherlands invaded not only for the radar stations to check on RAF but as an hostage of sorts . To provide oil from Balikpapan and the rest in case a ceasefire can be achieved with the West and Nazism can return to its very function of killing Commies , Lebensraum , all that jazz . With the Royal Family of the Dutch to be captured by paratroops with their entire Goverment structure . Paratroops unmasked by the campaign in Norway and the Dutch pointing all those sticks skywards whereever applicable . With only one Panzer Division , the 9th ı believe , assigned to that theater , because of the immense defensibility of the Dutch terrain and the entire Sedan operation as a massive feint , to attract all the attention with the stinging memory of 1870 pushing the French to deploy to defend their country , instead of driving into Belgium . You see , the Germans gotta have Belgium as well and everybody fears Spitfires , advance to be complete by the time RAF discovers how to fight Spits , and the thing that they can escort ground attack planes that might wreak havoc with German convoys of trucks and horse carts . Because a belt for Ruhr means a victory for Nazism leading to a temporary peace , ceasefire meaning a two front war with Allies sure to stab in the back just as Wehrmacht makes it Moscow , the German Army has its secret plans go missing , Hitler outraged and Manstein comes up with what's up . Standart r16 fare , you don't have to believe it . Actually , better if you don't ...
charles de Gaulle took the command of that division fully expecting to be the saviour of France as all the others were in Belgium and the mass of German Armour was there elsewhere . He was the pick of the politicians , in case you are wondering if they knew where the Germans would strike . There was no retreat on those days . Germans arrived on the Meuse on the 3 or 4th day while they should have done by the 10th or even later . This figure was calculated by both the French and the Germans and de Gaulle would have engaged a few armoured car companies , instead whole corps and thus saved France . And got reinforced by all those French Armies , too . Just like Kemal and Gallipoli , but nobody likes Turks . Might still have happened but for the rumours that the Germans had crossed the river on the first night after Germans arrived and that's what broke the French morale . This sentence really assumes that the French could reinforce airfields nearby and do something about the Stukas . Losing the river line was a terrible thing or something .
tunisgrad is not comparable to Stalingrad in terms of German losses , but equally terrible for what happened to Luftwaffe's transport fleets . Ellis to the rescue : "What's surprising, perhaps, are the extravagant claims made about the significance of the victory, both at the time and since. Some particularly unperceptive English and American propagandists sought to compare the victory in Tunisia with that of the Stalingrad, and some fairly meaningless sets of figures were bandied about. The favourite comparison was between the 290,000 Axis troops killed or captured in 'Tunisgrad' and the 250,000 or so similarly accounted for at Stalingrad. A more meaningful comparison, however, is that between the numbers of German divisions destroyed in each battle. The records show that in North Africa the Germans lost [3 and one third] panzer divisions, 3 light divisions, one infantry division and some paratroopers. In the Stalingrad pocket were lost 3 panzer divisions, 3 motorized divisions, 1 Jaeger and thirteen infantry." The book has German divisions and thirteen in italics . You see , this guy wrote books before , one on the Monte Cassino and was about to do the usual salute to the heroism of the Allied troops against the murderously effective Germans and discovered the Allies were led nowhere at the level they could have been , a whole new lions and donkeys argument ending up as the Brute Force .
but of course this is where the thread turns into the discussion of planes . There's no need for Allied planes to attack Germans on the ground , the fear of Spitfires escorting Shturmoviks is a German fear , based on the simple fact that they would do so , if they could . Not that Il-2 exists at that moment , you see ... But then the poor Battle might have gone the same way , with leading to Firefly , a nifty useful plane even if it was for carrier duty where one is rather limited for space . Armour instead of speed , but there can be many to argue for the Typhoon way with smaller fuselage , more power and more speed . Anyhow . All the Allied pilots have to do is going after a medal and shooting as many German planes as possible . There's so much talk of Allies developing the air-ground cooperation in Tunus , but the massacre of the Ju-52s over the Med required none of that staff work and fancy words . Apparently only 343 Germans came back after being sent to Africa for duty there . True dat in France of 1940 there's no reporting system , Radar and Observer Corps and hundred of miles of telephone lines to conduct them all , but whenever a German assault is taking place there's bound to be a gaggle of Luftwaffe planes around . Which do a lot for successful conclusion of an attack or defence . Stall the German operations and wait for the shipments from America to arrive and yet another bloodbath in France that will attrite both the "Frogs" and "Huns" . Or a ceasefire . Just don't forget to stab your newfound Nazi friends in the back as soon as they have captured Leningrad . You need an evocative place to re-introduce your White pals .
