Solving the US gun violence problem

[MobBoss]

Again, virtually all of Germany's top units were deployed to the Eastern Front where the "well-trained troops and armoured divisions" were defeated by the Soviets. With few exceptions, the only German troops in Europe in 1944 were reserves.

Ah...no. While some were indeed reserves, certainly not all of them were, unless you think units like SS Panzer divisions were reserve units (which they werent).

Sigh, Form, when will you ever learn?

Do you have a source for all this? By the summer of 1944, there was near total allied air dominance in western Europe. And there were two German Panzer divisions that I know about, the second and the ninth.

The 1st SS Panzer division and 17th SS Panzer division, and the Panzer Lehr Division were also in the West and listed as part of the German order of battle for D-Day Form.

Its always the part you dont know about that bites you isnt it?

 

[Flying Pig]

Mobby has it. The divisions in the west were the expensive ones - that is, the Germans literally did not have the industrial capacity to churn out lots of fully-equipped SS Panzer divisions. I mentioned earlier that the Germans had to halve the strength of their armoured divisions to invade Russia - why did they not just commission more divisions? It wasn't a shortage of manpower; German factories simply could not afford to make that many tanks of that quality. The Tiger tank, although its prevalence and importance has often been overstated, was a match for maybe six 'normal' tanks in combat - the corollary to that was that every Tiger-equipped division lost in battle was an equivalent blow to the Germans as the loss of six armoured divisions to the Western Allies.

Interestingly, Form's opinion that Europe* was manned only by reserve units was once the professional opinion on the subject - but that was in September 1944, shortly before the 1st Airborne jumped into Arnhem and found out the true picture!

*Alright, exaggeration for comic effect.

You mean the absurd "bridge too far" campaign which was merely a strategic blunder on the part of the Allies instead of any sort of indication of the true strength of the German military?

What utter nonsense.

I think it's telling that you chose to address the joke at the end of my post rather than the post itself!

 

[Formaldehyde]

You mean the absurd "bridge too far" campaign which was merely a strategic blunder on the part of the Allies, instead of any sort of indication of the true strength of the German military? What utter nonsense.

But why are we continuing to derail the OP here? If you wish to discuss your quite imaginative personal views of WWII, you should start a thread about them. It is hardly relevant to the topic at hand.

 

[MobBoss]

You finally waving the white flag there Form? Had enough buffeting around the head via things military by those who know?

 

[Formaldehyde]

Leave it up to someone who clearly knows little about the military history of his own country, much less the rest of the world, to not even understand what a "white flag" is.

Fortunately, those who serve in the military don't actually have to be military historians since so few would apparently even qualify. They just have to be able to get through boot school where they learn to obey orders.

 

[Flying Pig]

I was about to suggest we bracket this off into a WH thread, but I think it's just about run its course.

 

[MobBoss]

Leave it up to someone who clearly knows little about the history of his own country, much less the rest of the world, to not even understand a "white flag".

Form, you've been completely blown out of the water in this short discussion about WWII. You utterly havent been able to justify your comment that the US's role in WWII was minor for the simple reason such a comment is unsupportable factually. It doesnt hold up at all in just reviewing a few of the facts surrounding the war.

Your response to all of the facts being presented to you has continued to be 'but, but, but...the Eastern Front....' and FP and I have pointed out why the Russians had so much success against the Germans in the East was because the Germans couldnt sustain logistics to their units in the East. Why? Because of the US/UK bombing campaigns being conducted against German war material plants, and support routes. The Soviets were further aided by lend-lease which gave them the prime movers that allowed them to utilize all their manpower to use against the Germans. Without all the trucks and other material we gave them via lend-lease (again, logistics) the Soviets have a much, much harder time in the East than they did.

I've given you nothing but facts and figures from the war disproving your point. Your claim that I dont know the history of my country is just flaccid. Powerless. Not effective at all. You, on the other hand, have once again proven without a shadow of a doubt how truly ignorant you are in regards to issues military. Watching you discuss things military is like watching someone get into a car wreck, get out of that car, get into another one, wreck that one, and do it all over again. Over and over again. If it werent so funny, it'd be painful.

Here's a few words for you to memorize in regards to this exchange Form.

Mobby has it.

Thanks FP.

 

[Flying Pig]

Your response to all of the facts being presented to you has continued to be 'but, but, but...the Eastern Front....' and FP and I have pointed out why the Russians had so much success against the Germans in the East was because the Germans couldnt sustain logistics to their units in the East. Why? Because of the US/UK bombing campaigns being conducted against German war material plants, and support routes.

I haven't actually seen any figures for the damage done to German industry by bombing, but am intuitively inclined to believe that it wasn't crippled by it, in the same way that British industry survived the Blitz relatively comfortably. The real reason why Russia had a material superiority in the East was that the USSR, put simply, was really, really big - not to mention that the lines of supply were markedly shorter from the Russian industrial core (although Stalin actually had many factories moved as the Germans advanced through what had been the Russian economic heartland) than they were from the German. It's 1,100 miles from Berlin to Moscow, which is one hell of a distance to supply an army by road!

Also, dont discount the moral cost of having your cities bombed day and night by the allies. A big part of Germanys success hinged upon their perceived invincibility on the battlefield. You might be able to propagandize failure on a battlefield thousands of miles away - you cant really propagandize away the daily bombing of your cities.

The British rather did just that! Even then, the German propaganda machine was strong enough that defeats were largely ignored, hushed up or turned into Thermopylaes (how on earth does one pluralise that?) for public opinion - the infamous headline Stalingrad Gefallen springs to mind. In the end, bear in mind, the Germans didn't lose through a lack of will: what was remarkable, compared with the Great War, was that the Germans fought until they could fight no more. There could be no Dolchstoss myth for the Second World War because the war only ended when Soviet troops hoisted the hammer and sickle over the Reichstag. It's also important to realise just how fanatical a large proportion of the German population were: there's an anecdote that in the last days of Berlin, one of the opera houses put on a production of Goetterdaemmerung, and the Hitler Youth were on hand at the doors as the audience filed out, holding baskets of cyanide capsules. Certainly, reservists (the desperate Volkssturm, which provides a chilling example of what might have been had the Home Guard been pressed into battle) and Hitler Youth (who were no more than the army cadets I lead on a Friday night, and sometimes take paintballing or to the cinema) manned guns in the streets until the very end in Berlin. As such, I'm unconvinced that moral factors really had much to do with the German defeat.

 

[MobBoss]

I haven't actually seen any figures for the damage done to German industry by bombing, but am intuitively inclined to believe that it wasn't crippled by it, in the same way that British industry survived the Blitz relatively comfortably. The real reason why Russia had a material superiority in the East was that the USSR, put simply, was really, really big - not to mention that the lines of supply were markedly shorter from the Russian industrial core (although Stalin actually had many factories moved as the Germans advanced through what had been the Russian economic heartland) than they were from the German. It's 1,100 miles from Berlin to Moscow, which is one hell of a distance to supply an army by road!

Also, dont discount the moral cost of having your cities bombed day and night by the allies. A big part of Germanys success hinged upon their perceived invincibility on the battlefield. You might be able to propagandize failure on a battlefield thousands of miles away - you cant really propagandize away the daily bombing of your cities.

As to the effectiveness of the bombing campaigns, its going to be up for debate, sure. It is true that German production remained fairly constant all during the war, so its probably accurate to portray the allied bombing effort as a slowing of the German production capability enough for them to not keep up with the demand of the war, all the while the allies war production continued to grow unhindered.

 

[Agent327]

Actually, Axis war production couldn't even hope to match the USSR's. Which is why the whole Blitzkrieg concept was developed. I'm surprised you are unaware of such basic military background, MB.

Increasing German production was hampered not so much by Allied bombing (as shown below), but rather by the their insistence on quality over quantity, something which the Soviets surrendered immediately after their huge losses in 1941. Nazi Germany never learned this lesson, and possibly never could, because of their unproductive state organization. To top this, the Axis lost air superiority - which obviously is decisive in ground action.

Does nothing to disprove my point regarding the war in the pacific. But lets debunk your offer of proof: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe_first

Interesting. You're quoting a source for my point to disprove.. what exactly?

As I said, your point does nothing to disprove mine. At all.

No need. You just did that yourself.

Was Vietnam of the scale/scope of WWII? Nice try, no logic.

I'm sorry to see you can't follow a simple analogy: bombing North Vietnam 'back to the Stone Age' did nothing to win the war. On the contrary.

Actually, my military mind tells me the most produced tank of WWII was the Russian T-34 (56,000 produced) followed closely by the Sherman (50,000 produced).
[/QUOTE]

My bad, I meant the T-34. But... most of those Shermans only arrived in Europe after 1942. And 1942-43 was the key year in Europe, as I will show below.

They didnt decline to use it.

Actually, that's precisely what they did: they tested it and found it inferior to their T-34.

My lord...you're worse than Form on military history. And thats saying something.

Proving my point you can't play ball. Because otherwise there's no point here.

And what made that possible? Do you not think the continuous day/night allied bombling of German military production (munitions/ballbearings/oil) didnt affect the Germans ability to fight the Soviets in the East?

What I think is irrelevant. You claim something, so you're in need of providing proof for that claim. Which you haven't so far.

But I shall offer some facts instead:

- strategic bombing of Germany only peaked in 1943-44. By the end of 1943 the Soviets had already recovered most of their territorial losses.

- the anti-U-boat campaign peaked after 1941, the year in which some 8,245,000 tons worth of allied shipping was sunk (which wasn't covered by the newly built production of 5,339,000 tons worth of ships). Again, by 1943 some 3,611,000 tons of shipping was sunk, but production had now risen to 12,384,000 tons of new ships.

Yeah, you're just as myopic as Form is, if not worse.

And there's the new word MB learned. I shall ignore the rest on reason of irrelevance.

 

[MobBoss]

Actually, Axis war production couldn't even hope to match the USSR's. Which is why the whole Blitzkrieg concept was developed. I'm surprised you are unaware of such basic military background, MB.

Uh..no simply no. The Blitzkrieg concept had its roots all the way back to WW 1 with the Scheflin Plan, and was modified for WW 2 as the Manstein Plan (after Guderian convinced Manstein that the main advancing flanks could be protected by counterattack).

How the plan came to be, and the roots of it arent basic military background stuff either, but slightly more advanced plans and ops type of study. Which is why you made your error just now. It didnt have anything to do originally with Russia, who was a presumed non-factor at the time (ala the agreement that split up Poland) the blitz was used to attack France.

But thats ok, I am more than happy to educate you. No charge of course.

Interesting. You're quoting a source for my point to disprove.. what exactly?

That your bringing up the Europe First thing really didnt counter my point at all. As the link plainly shows the effort by the USA on both fronts was still practically even despite the 'Europe First' policy due to the efforts of men like MacArthur. It was simply another error you made in your assumptions.

I'm sorry to see you can't follow a simple analogy: bombing North Vietnam 'back to the Stone Age' did nothing to win the war. On the contrary.

Well, the comparison, for lack of a better word, is just stupid. The Viet Cong used jungle paths for resupply that back then were not readily or easily targeted like German factories could be. We also were not allowed to bomb the actual sources of that material: communist China, but in WWII no such limitations existed.

Apples and oranges Jeleen. Similar in many ways, but still decidedly different.

My bad, I meant the T-34.

Then you should have said the T-34.

But... most of those Shermans only arrived in Europe after 1942. And 1942-43 was the key year in Europe, as I will show below.

You also said the Sherman wasnt used by the Soviets, but I proved otherwise.

Actually, that's precisely what they did: they tested it and found it inferior to their T-34.

I just gave you a link where it was considered an improvement over some Soviet tanks and outfitted to Soviet units as a preference. Yes, its true that the main gun was upgraded on some of the Shermans delivered, but to say it wasnt used, as you alleged, was simply wrong.

And there's the new word MB learned. I shall ignore the rest on reason of irrelevance.

I suggest you do a forum search on that. I've been using it for quite awhile to describe those short sighted on issues military like yourself.

 

[Patroklos]

Mobby has it. The divisions in the west were the expensive ones - that is, the Germans literally did not have the industrial capacity to churn out lots of fully-equipped SS Panzer divisions. I mentioned earlier that the Germans had to halve the strength of their armoured divisions to invade Russia - why did they not just commission more divisions? It wasn't a shortage of manpower; German factories simply could not afford to make that many tanks of that quality. The Tiger tank, although its prevalence and importance has often been overstated, was a match for maybe six 'normal' tanks in combat - the corollary to that was that every Tiger-equipped division lost in battle was an equivalent blow to the Germans as the loss of six armoured divisions to the Western Allies.

Not quite. The 1940 divisional reorganization was more to do with recognizing that smaller units would give the Germans more adaptability and efficiency in utilization than the previous larger ones. Basically in mobile warfare you generally need pressure on more places at once than one place in strength one you get moving. It is considered a good move historically.

The latter divisions were based more on material and making ghost armies to make the Fuehrer's maps look pretty.

 

[MobBoss]

Take a look the last page or two Pat. Since you are a logistics officer, give us your opinion over what was discussed.

Do you think the USA played only a minor role in WWII?

 

[Flying Pig]

Not quite. The 1940 divisional reorganization was more to do with recognizing that smaller units would give the Germans more adaptability and efficiency in utilization than the previous larger ones. Basically in mobile warfare you generally need pressure on more places at once than one place in strength one you get moving. It is considered a good move historically..

Good point - it still creating the 'blurring effect' for later historians trying to guage the strength of the German forces, though.

 

[Patroklos]

Take a look the last page or two Pat. Since you are a logistics officer, give us your opinion over what was discussed.

Do you think the USA played only a minor role in WWII?

I agree broadly. Strategic bombing being such a general tool its hard to trace specific German shortcomings to it but rather it leads to a general degradation of efficiency and effectiveness broadly.

Its not impossible though. We know for a fact that new German tank designs showed up on the front months late due to delays due to bombing. U-boat production suffered similar setbacks. Fuel is probably the most specific example.

Most people fall into a trap when discussing this by noting German production went up during the war. What they fail to realize is that while it may have gone up when you compare German production increases to other countries under the same total war conditions German increases are not competitive. Some of this can be blamed on inefficiencies in German industry, interference by non experts (ie Nazi leaders) and a focus on overly complicated products.

Despite that there is nothing so horrendously flawed about the German system that would prevent them from being relatively competitive against the likes of its enemies. Additionally, nations like the Soviet Union had to deal with such things like the destruction of their industrial core and the need to relocate entire industries.

And while the Germans had their inefficiencies, they also had the booty of military and industrial material from dozens of defeated armies and countries not to mention in many case the actual industries captured intact. Throw in slave labor and exploiting captured territory Germany had at its disposal the resources of nearly all of Europe at its disposal (granted with the reduced effectiveness compared to domestic utilization) and still had very very modest increases in production.

The reason for that failure to compete is strategic bombing and to a lesser extent being cut off from the rest of the world.

Good point - it still creating the 'blurring effect' for later historians trying to guage the strength of the German forces, though.

A problem German officers at the time lamented as well, and Hitler appreciated.

 

[Berzerker]

somebody shot down the rising sun

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Christ, why does every time an international forum mentions WW2 it turns into an geriatric dickswinging contest about which nation was most responsible for winning the thing?

 

[WindFish]

Christ, why does every time an international forum mentions WW2 it turns into an geriatric dickswinging contest about which nation was most responsible for winning the thing?

Because the Yankees think they won the war when it was the British and the Yankees can't accept it?

 

[MobBoss]

Christ, why does every time an international forum mentions WW2 it turns into an geriatric dickswinging contest about which nation was most responsible for winning the thing?

Geriatric?

Dont make me find you.

Because the Yankees think they won the war when it was the British and the Yankees can't accept it?

Brits refer to us as Yanks, not Yankees. Yankee is what the South calls Northerners.

And if it makes you feel good to think the Brits won the war solo then go for it. Nothing wrong with indulging in fantasy to boost ones attitude.

 

[WindFish]

Brits refer to us as Yanks, not Yankees. Yankee is what the South calls Northerners.

And if it makes you feel good to think the Brits won the war solo then go for it. Nothing wrong with indulging in fantasy to boost ones attitude.

You'd be the master of that wouldn't you McMobby