Most powerful military in history?

[privatehudson]

Rilnator:

Standards in the whole army had dropped by that point, whichever way you look at it the SS Panzer Divisions were still considered one of the better formations of the German army (if only by then because they usually got better equipment and first choice of manpower) but you could look just as easily at the number of FJ divisions in Normandy to see that not all of them were fighting the Russians. It was an example of how not all the best units were in the east after 1944, so whether they were still the same as 3 years beforehand is another issue.

On the issue of Soviets fighting with Germany the SS and Vlassov's units are just a fraction of the true number. Nafziger for example estimates that by the end of the war something like 25% of the whole German army by 1945 were former Soviet citizens. But again the number isn't the point I was making, I was pointing out that someone can belittle the Americans for not wanting to fight Hitler if millions of members of their own country's population were doing exactly the same thing.

Mrakvampire

Now that you seem to have finished amusing yourself perhaps you'd like to bother to answer my points rather than ignoring them again.

 

[Verbose]

Your second paragraph contradicts the first. You suggest that the western allies were hitting German factories hard since 42 and yet you admit that the Germans peaked production 2 years after the bombing began. The Allies are taking out the factories sucessfully and yet German production increases?????

Because German industrial output wasn't yet wholly dedicated to military production in -42.

The relevant question might be how much more the German output would have increased without the bombings.

And as an aside, the only major combatant in WWII capable of rasing million man armies and massive amounts of materiel while simultaneously increasing the standard of living of its citizens was the US.

Should it have been necessary the US had enormous reserve industrial capacity for fighting a protracted war. The SU didn't.

That kind of material advantage is what decided WWII. The premise of a lot of things said to belittle this that or the other nation in WWII tends to be that WWII is assumed to somehow be a colective national test of character. (Here someone claims the US failed it. At times it's US poster claiming France failed it.)

Well, it wasn't. Industrial, demographic and financial strength was the ticket. ("A superior mechanical force" as de Gaulle would have put it.)

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

My dear friend, since you are so uneducated in the Island Hopping Campign, I shall inform you of a few important battles.
Pearl Harbor
Guadalcanal
Midway
the Phillipine Islands
Coral Sea
Corregidor/Bataan Bay
Leyete Gulf
Iwo Jima
Okinawa
I leave it to you to educate yourself in the goings of these battles, as I have already done the research myself, and dont have the time to give all this readily available information to you on a plate.

Now i realize we arent going to come to an agreement about this, so I propose a treatise: we both agree that our grandfathers fought valiantly for what they believed, and had they not each done their duty neither of us would be where we are today.
With that i leave this thread, if you guys wish to continue this argument, by all means go ahead.

 

[Bugfatty300]

I can barely sit on my chair. US army was fighting Japan.
Where? In indonesia?
The allmighty US army could not attack Japan directly, they simply bombed civilians with nukes. How brave and noble...

Well you have proven your ignorance enough by yourself in this thread, but Im pretty bored.

Where did the US fight Japan?

Philippines 41-42
Wake
Midway
Java Sea
Burma
Guadalcanal
Bougainville
Coral Sea
Mariana
New Guinea
Attu
Philippines 44-45
Palau
Guam '41
Guam '44
Saipan
Tarawa
Iwo Jima
Okinawa

Thats just of the top of my head.

 

[Xanikk999]

I'm not communist.
And if you think about Italian operation as a full-scale... Tell me, great brilliant torch of knowledge, how many German divisions were defending Italy? How many tank were there? How many planes?
How many divisions used Allies?
And btw tell me how many Italian divisions were fighting in that war on the fronts, not being garrisoned in conquered territory?
Look, I understand, that you try to glorify Allied victories, but do not even compare such minor operations with a GREAT war on the Eastern Front.

BTW
"Fighting against Japan"
"Strategic Bombing of German factories..."

It's as striking an elephant with a needle?

I can barely sit on my chair. US army was fighting Japan.
Where? In indonesia?
The allmighty US army could not attack Japan directly, they simply bombed civilians with nukes. How brave and noble...

Really, I do appreciate that UK fought against Germany, French resistance... I know that those nations lost a lot of people in that war.
But allmighty US army...
US was just waiting when Germany will defeat Soviet Union, and when the outcome will be clear it would attack the weakest nation. Jackals.
And US attacked, when it became clear that Germany will lose.

I don't want to prove to you, zombied victim of US propaganda, anything. You may think that US army is the greatest army in world. We'll see... We'll se...

This whole post is hilarious because your accusing us of being a victim of propagand while we are stating cold hard facts. Facts cannot be propagandized.

Not to mention you seem a little biased in your views. You seem to pass as a victim of propaganda because you are dismissing our facts on the account that we have been "brainwashed".

Can you bring something to the table rather then calling us zombies?

 

[CruddyLeper]

That kind of material advantage is what decided WWII. The premise of a lot of things said to belittle this that or the other nation in WWII tends to be that WWII is assumed to somehow be a colective national test of character. (Here someone claims the US failed it. At times it's US poster claiming France failed it.)

Well, it wasn't. Industrial, demographic and financial strength was the ticket. ("A superior mechanical force" as de Gaulle would have put it.)

I disagree. Single factor determining outcome of WW2 was Hitler's decision to declare war on

a) Soviet Union June 1941.

b) USA Dec 11th 1941

I don't think any single country could have defeated Nazi Germany unaided, even with Hitler calling the shots.

Hindsight shows that, successful invasin of UK, followed by Russia, followed by USSR, then rest of world... he'd quite possibly have won. If Stalin had gone for him in 1942, Red Army would have suffered even worse losses quicker (lot esaier to defend than attack). This was Allied strategy in attacking Italy - to defeat the Axis one after the other, so they could not support each other.

I don't wish to denigrate the huge suffering Adolf Hitler or Stalin caused. But, in a sense, because they were such xenophobic persecuting maniacs, that largely determined outcome of war.

Those people who died under their respective tyrannies did not die in vain. They died for all of us to live.

 

[CruddyLeper]

Your second paragraph contradicts the first. You suggest that the western allies were hitting German factories hard since 42 and yet you admit that the Germans peaked production 2 years after the bombing began. The Allies are taking out the factories sucessfully and yet German production increases?????

Three words - "German National Effort".

2 more - "Albert Speer".

Even though production was affected, Nazis were building more factories, often out of urban areas, camouflaged, manned by slave labour.

Its a much acknowledged fact that strategic bombing very rarely hit its targets. The number one way that bombing inhibited war production was by denying the workers sleep with the round the clock raids, not by levelling factories.

Erm... No. Detailed picture much more complex than that. I would agree that strategic bombing commanders rhetoric was overblown - "Bomber Command made the troops progress a walk over" Bomber Harris is just rubbish, but if you compare the industrial output over the times when raids where mounted and when they were not, there was a measurable effect.

And the unpleasant truth is, a helluva lot of German civilian workers in the factories were killed or maimed by the raids. That's a lot more effective than denying them sleep.

It is apparent that, had Carl Spaatz efforts to concentrate effort on strategic materials been adhered to, the Nazi industrial effort would have collapsed a helluva lot quicker.

Just the ersatz petrol raids reduced production by 80% - over a three month period. Of course, this fact was only discovered long after VE day.

Even without the threat of invasion the germans would have to have maintained a certain amount of troops in occupied countries. I don't think 30 extra divisions would have made any difference at all during Kursk and Bagration

To the outcomes, probably not. To the time scales, it definitely would.

Attritional war, were who loses least the slowest wins, is greatly modified by things like supplies and reserves. Not so much the fighting units (and there is HUGE difference between field armies and occupying security forces) but the haft of the spear behind the point.

 

[LoopyLewis]

Since this trend is about the Most Powerful Military in History and since you guys seem to be focusing on ww2, I'm going to suggest that at the time the Soviet Union had by far the most powerful army in the world (1945 to about 1953)

By August 1945 (when the war ended), Soviet Russia had lost somewhere in the region of 25 million people during the war (Wikipedia puts it as 23 but I've heard estimates at nearing 30 million) and was still able to draft an astonishing 3.3 million soldiers on the Eastern Front. When the Battle of Berlin began they had amassed an astonishing 41,600 artillery pieces, 6,250 tanks, 7,500 aircraft and 95,000 motor vehicles and had fired so many shells that it caused an atmospheric disturbance! The Red Army (overall) comprised of about 13 million at the war's end.

The Soviets had taken on the bulk of the German army (75%) for most of the war and had re-conquered half of Europe alone. The Allies couldn't claim to have battled anywhere near the same number of German divisions as the Soviets did, yet they struggled enough as they did.

It should also be said that they designed the AK47 (in 1947) which is still commonly used today and the most mass produced weapon in history (well over 100 million) and they had the T34 (far superior than the Sherman)

Sure, they didn't have nukes at first, but they got them in 1949

 

[elderotter]

just saw this poll so I am voting what I think without reading the 21 pages that precede me. Rome. In their time period Rome proved that the only way to beat Rome was to use emulate them. When they ceased to emulate themselves they lost. Most of their hardest fought wars were against armies led by other Romans.
The civil wars that ended the Republic and the Wars with Italy showed this.
When the only way to beat a country is to become like them then they are the greatest of their time.

 

[Xanikk999]

Nope none of those are right.

Im taking an asian history class and i just learned that the mauryan indian empire had over 700,000 infantry, 40,000 cavalry, 7000 and war elephents.

Believe it or not this is more then romes army.

 

[Xanikk999]

And yes the indians during this time DID invade other people. Most noticibly alexanders empire and south east asia.

They forced the greeks to withdraw from persia, so whoever says the indians were pacifist there whole history is wrong.

 

[Verbose]

And yes the indians during this time DID invade other people. Most noticibly alexanders empire and south east asia.

They forced the greeks to withdraw from persia, so whoever says the indians were pacifist there whole history is wrong.

They must have messed up at some point though, as Greek rulers were around in the Punjab for the next couple of centuries.

 

[Archduke Otto]

About the 700 000 infantry: I think Herodotus gives the figure of 500 000(actually he says something like '534 887' - this is supposed to conceal that he has got not a clue about the real strength) for the Persian Army invading Greece.

These figures are obviously all completely exaggerated, whith no proof availabe for them whatsoever. So I guess: a tenth of it would be realistic.

 

[Spartan117]

part of the reason for the german's failure to take russia was the they started the attack near winter...they would have attacked earlier but no italy wanted to attack greece and couldnt take it...

they had a much better chance to take moscow etc..

 

[RickFGS]

The most powerfull of all time is Portugal, since Lusitania times till now, nobody can take us out of the picture.

Small country, medium population but just bare this in mind:

Battle of Aljubarrota: Spain and french allies deployed over 30000 men, greatly was heavy cavalry vs 6,500 men for home side (almost no heavy cavalry and worse armed infantry), battle results where massive victory for Portugal and total defeat and heavy casualties for spanish side.

Similar battles occured thoughout Portuguese history, like Viriato facing Roman legions outnumbered almost 10 to 1 and rounting the enemy on the end of the day.

 

[RickFGS]

just saw this poll so I am voting what I think without reading the 21 pages that precede me. Rome. In their time period Rome proved that the only way to beat Rome was to use emulate them. When they ceased to emulate themselves they lost. Most of their hardest fought wars were against armies led by other Romans.
The civil wars that ended the Republic and the Wars with Italy showed this.
When the only way to beat a country is to become like them then they are the greatest of their time.

Viriato always beat Rome, over and over again, and the only way powerfull Rome had to beat him was hiring 3 assassins to kill him, wich eventually did the trick, but then again only 100 years later, after all his comrades and familie was murdered.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

when was the battle of aljubarotta? i ve never heard of it. Of course, i have not studied Portuguese history, but fret not, I'll get to yet!

 

[RickFGS]

when was the battle of aljubarotta? i ve never heard of it. Of course, i have not studied Portuguese history, but fret not, I'll get to yet!

Wikipedia as a nice version in english:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Aljubarrota

Enjoy.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

enjoy i did, thank you for the insight. It seems that Portugual and England have had a longer relationship than i thought, i thought it was just a Napoleonic Wars thing. I guess i was wrong

 

[Dreadnought]

part of the reason for the german's failure to take russia was the they started the attack near winter...they would have attacked earlier but no italy wanted to attack greece and couldnt take it...

they had a much better chance to take moscow etc..

September isn't that close to winter, considering that they beat France in a few weeks