Tinkerpeach
Member
Any war is devastating to those close to it
Could Germany have won the war?
- Thread starter Tinkerpeach
- Start date
Any war is devastating to those close to it
Dutch Uncle
* Tertia Optio * Defend the Constitution
Not to the victors in small conflicts. LOL
Most are like the bloodthirsty Republican Yankees who murdered 2% of the total population.
Mason Michaels
Verified User
Russia's most effective weapon that broke the back of the German invader,was Russian winter!
T. A. Gardner
Thread Killer
There were nearly a quarter million SVT 38 and 40 rifles available to the Red Army in 1940. It wasn't in universal service, but it was in widespread use. Once the war started, production continued, and about 1.6 million SVT were produced. Enough were in service that the Wehrmacht assigned numbers to them as the SW 258(r) and SW 259(r) for use as captured equipment.
The PPSh 41 started production in Sept 1940 and was a highly reliable submachinegun. By the time Germany invaded nearly a quarter million had been produced. The Germans thought highly enough of it to remanufacture the weapon as the MP 41(r) in 9mm parabellum to allow it to use German ammunition. Over 5 million were eventually produced.
This is utter bullshit. The T-34 started out as the A-32 in early 1939. The design was based on experience with the BT series tanks and combat experience with those against the Finns and Japanese. This prototype became the T-34 with additional improvements and production of the T-34 started in early 1941 with about 400 in service when Germany invaded the Soviet Union.
https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/russia/t-34-dev.htm
Your numbers are wrong. Just over 100 MiG 1's were manufactured, while 3400 MiG 3 were built. The MiG 5 never advanced beyond prototype, and the next significant MiG aircraft was the MiG 13 using a motor jet engine. (note that Wiki doesn't even list that one)
https://wwiiafterwwii.wordpress.com/2017/08/20/the-forgotten-mig-13/
No, but you are an idiot trying to argue with me on military history.
That's also a "No." On the other hand, I give the Soviets their due.
Lightbringer
Loves Me Some Souls
Yes, they easily could have done it.
Into the Night
Verified User
No. Hitler was outgunned and outnumbered and simply could not marshal enough resources to complete such a war.
Lightbringer
Loves Me Some Souls
You're a fucking moron.
Into the Night
Verified User
How?
Lightbringer
Loves Me Some Souls
Why are you and ptif always online at the same time? Are you "two" working to harm America? If I want you dangling from the end of a rope that is exactly what will happen. Fuck you and your high school grammar...I think it's time for you to move on.
When looking at military history, I always find myself thinking everything is possible. That being said, it seems more possible that Hitler could have won less. Hitler was lucky to get as far as he did.
They often enter the Battle of France into military computer gaming systems. These are the gaming systems that real generals use to sharpen their strategies. Modern generals always do far better than France did, and when opposing modern generals leading France, do far worse than Hitler did. If France had modern generals, they (with some help from the British) could have won WWII in the first months of the war. I do not blame the French generals for not being modern generals. Modern generals learned from watching the French generals fail.
French and Polish generals were OLD. There was no concept of retirement in either country's military, and there was strict seniority. That meant that many of the generals were 80+ years old, and some were 90+ years old. These are generals who were too old to see combat in WWI. They had a pre-WWI view of combat. USA, UK, Germany, and Russia all had one way or another of getting rid of old generals. US retired them. Russia killed them. US General Pershing lived through WWII, happily retired.
Russia was big enough that they could learn from their mistakes. While France was wiped out within 6 weeks, Russia could hold out for years. It was just about area and distance from Germany. The Germans were not going to make it to the Pacific quickly. This gave the Russian generals time to learn how to be modern generals. Even before the war, they had Deep Operation, which was a more complete modern strategy than Blitzkrieg. With time, that was generally accepted, and they started winning the war.
On the other side of the world, the USA far from Europe also had time to learn modern strategy. The Germany's lead in strategy had completely vanished by the end of the war.
One of the most remarkable thing NFL coaches do is throw away their playbooks before the Super Bowl. Think about it, they have great strategies, that got them to the pinnacle of their league. They are one of the top two teams, because of that playbook... But everyone knows those plays by now, and they need an all new playbook. So they have to throw out what has worked for them so well.
The Allies lost at first, which caused them to be constantly improving their strategies. Hitler won at first, and was an arrogant bastard anyway. It was alien to him to improve what he thought was perfect strategies.
Putin believes his strategies are perfect, and sees no reason to make major changes. trump does not believe he has ever lost an election, so why on Earth would he change his strategies.
The Allies lost at first, which caused them to be constantly improving their strategies. Hitler won at first, and was an arrogant bastard anyway. It was alien to him to improve what he thought was perfect strategies.
Putin believes his strategies are perfect, and sees no reason to make major changes. trump does not believe he has ever lost an election, so why on Earth would he change his strategies.
I notice a lot of Jewish names among the developers of the nuclear bomb. Many were also German names, and would have been in Greater Germany had Hitler not persecuted the Jews.
Dutch Uncle
* Tertia Optio * Defend the Constitution
Authoritarians typically attack the academics, the teachers and the intelligentsia. They use populism to appeal to the ignorant and stupid.
This happened with Germany, it happened after the Russian Revolution, it happened under Pol Pot and it happened under the Party of Trump.
Yakuda
Verified User
And if Hitler had actually listened to his military staff instead of thinking he knew better the war would have had a much different outcome. We're lucky he was more devoted to his ideals than to winning the war.
Hitler ran out of time for attacking Moscow. Winter came, and when Spring returned, Moscow was too fortified. That is why they turned South.
If Hitler had not invaded Greece, he would have started out of Moscow earlier, and may have taken Moscow... But that would not have defeated Russia. Russia would have continued to fight, and Greece would have been left on Hitler's flank to allow allied troops to attack through it.
Hitler had no plan to win. He wanted to drive to the Arkhangelsk–Astrakhan line, but the USSR had already evacuated most of their heavy industry to far beyond that line. They could have continued the fight even after being pushed that far. There was no thought of making it all the way to the Pacific.
I almost completely agree, but...
I feel the need to point out that the USSR increase literacy a huge amount. They took a country that was only about half literate, and much less proficient at reading, and turned it into a country that could send cosmonauts into space.
Dutch Uncle
* Tertia Optio * Defend the Constitution
A fair point, but it was a low bar. Hard to manipulate a population with propaganda if they are illiterate.
It took Nazi scientists to build the rockets. It was also Nazi engineers that helped build factories inside the USSR for Germany prior to the war.
Which is why I said that the only means Hitler had of victory was to Crush Stalin in 5 months or less. Because he was fighting two fronts, he had no chance of pulling it off.
T. A. Gardner
Thread Killer
In fighting France, the easiest way to envision the 1940 German offensive is this:
You have a chess game between Germany and France. Both have the same pieces, but Germany gets to make 2 moves to every one France makes. The result is obvious. As in late WW 1 with the Kaiser offensives, France in particular, and Britain to an extent, were not prepared to operate intellectually at the OODA loop speed the Germans were operating at. It wasn't superior technology or equipment that won for the Germans. It was being more flexible and able to think and react far, far faster than their opponents could that was getting them wins.
France stood no chance. Poland was simply overwhelmed. Britain hung on through tenacity but proved largely unable to pull out any sort of serious victories on their own.
You fight like you train. France's military doctrine in 1940 was called "Methodical Battle." It was a heavily orchestrated, micromanaged, system of top-down decision making. That inflexibility and rigid adherence to chain of command ensured that the Germans ran circles around the French. With the Germans, their tactics were simply an extension of their highly successful WW 1 Strosstruppen ones that decentralized command and control relying on leadership at all levels seeing what needed doing and carrying out a shared, flexible, plan of operations. Against militaries with poor levels of communication and rigid adherence to chains of command with top-down leadership, it was devastating.