eidted, too much of a pointless ramble. And... compliments returned with condescending... bleh.


[ 26. January 2006, 09:31 AM: Message edited by: CrazyD ]

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Seriously, all today is missing is free cotton candy and the annual Bay State Hooker Parade to make it any better.

first and foremost get yourself a German dictionary and teach yourself. you said it.......you need first had war diaries at your finger tips to get the overall consenus of the operation. If not then all you can do is generalize. Besides learning the German language or any language is fun. doesn't it get rather tedious to read the same B.S. materails published year after year without anything up and coming new, such as new first person accounts.
time is getting short and the veterans are leaving us so broaden your horizons.

as to Tank kills from any side even with upkept records as they are we will never fully know the truth. too many log books have been lost, captured and thrown into the burn piles or vaporized during operations. It is the same in any military field you wish to encounter and study. and in the case of Germanic studies that much harder

Personally I see the ostfront after Kursk : The Russian juggernaut winning whatever you do.The Big tank losses only slowed down the Red Army. The main reason why the Russians did not move ahead faster after the previous offensive halted was the supply problem. It could take up to 6 months before a new offensive could be started.

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Has anyone bothered in mentioning that even if the 'mighty' Germans were 'always' the masters of the tiny battlefields (destroying five Soviet tanks for every German and so on… something completely false when talking about infantry fighting), winning so many tactical engagements, they ALWAYS miserably lost at strategical level?

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"War is less costly than servitude, the choice is always between Verdun and Dachau." - Jean Dutourd, French veteran of both world wars

"A mon fils: depuis que tes yeux sont fermes les miens n’ont cessé de pleurir." - Mère française, Verdun

Erich, can you put up a couple of quotes, then?

I certainly don't want to turn this into a "It is! It is not!" sort of a fight. I respect you too much for this, and this is the wrong forum for this sort of behaviour

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haha

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"Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning." -Winston Churchill

Fortune are you padding your posting count by your one-liners ? please start making an effort to add to the discussions in an intelligent and informative manner please

E

oh, my mistake, i got it all settled with martin sorry for causing the discrepancies...i wasnt trying to pad just to make feedback...

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"Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning." -Winston Churchill

(long post, apologies... )

I distinctly recall- when I first started posting here- very much liking the way Fried thinks.
Still do.
There's no doubt that the logistical issues Kai mentions deserve noting. I've noted them many times myself.
But it's a good thing Friedrich threw his post in here.

We read over and over again about how great the german soldiers were, how superb they were in all their engagements, how they were such great soldiers, and so on.
And then we hear excuse after excuse about why they lost the war, always pinning the blame on something they did wrong, something they ignored.

We rarely hear about how the other combatants might have simply fought better, planned better, and hence won.


I've heard much the same thing from fans of the NY Yankees for many years- and in both situations, unbiased examination shows a more accurate picture, in my opinion.

In short- VERY well said, Friedrich.


(ok, to hell with avoiding any little debate)
No, one could not put up some quotes to back up that whole "idea of historiography", as I'll very loosley call it.

The idea seems to me very clearly to be "first hand accounts are the only viable source, everything else is repeated garbage".
First hand accounts that are 60 years removed from the event.
First hand accounts that have no way of taking in any aspects other than their own first hand point of view.
First hand accounts that are subject to all the same fallibilities as each of us have.

We should take those accounts as 100% truth, and the whole time- dismiss any work not soley based on said accounts, as it must just be "generalize"d or "same B.S. materails published year after year".

Now, why can't any "quotes" justify this?
Because any quotes that contradict said first-hand account will simply and without afterthought be labeled false.
And if 95% of the history written about WW2 is "generalized B.S"- well, then we are left unable to back up anything at all.

Studying history is about taking in all the information you have access to-including veteran accounts- and forming as best and most-informed a picture as you can.
History is *NOT* about close-minded insistence on a single unforgiving view of how everyone has to do things.

I don't see Erich advocating everyone to go out and learn Russian, to read the Russian unit historys dealing with armored combat on the eastern front.

Hm, interesting. One would think that searching for info on armored combat between german and russian forces would involve german and russian sources.

But again, seriously- if you want to get the real gist of what I'm saying in a shorter version- see again Friedrich's post above.
And damn, I *REALLY* hope I didn't mis-interpret said post!!

[img]graemlins/salute.gif[/img]

[ 30. January 2006, 02:19 PM: Message edited by: CrazyD ]

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Seriously, all today is missing is free cotton candy and the annual Bay State Hooker Parade to make it any better.

I just finished reading a book published in 1990. It is called 'Vi dro mot Nord' (We went north.) It is built on the personal diaries of soldiers and officers of the 196div and naturally the divisional war diary.

In addition there is an account of the experiences of the Norwegian and British army plus the civillian population.

A funny thing is that no story is the same. The experiences recorded in the official diaries are different from the men fighting the battle. IN PARTICULAR regarding the FIGHTING. Private Silla had no objections to say it straight that they got their noses bloody in this and that engagement, but the Div records the event in a favorable light: probing attack and then halting for the night, rather than beeing stopped dead in their tracks.

One must remember that the Regiments official documents will stand for ever, upholding proud tradition and regimental honour.
And who would record for all eternity their shortcomings and failiures, when it is so much easier to tout the highlights??

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'We march. The enemy is retreating in transport. We follow on foot.' Lt.Neil McCallum 5/7 Gordons 19th November 1942

I hope the Russian side one day tells the "truth"...

CrazyD,

must say that more or less the Russian books on this are plain lies, starting with the "fact" that autumn 1941 was a huge success of surprise withdrawal that was Great Stalin´s plan all the way. Stalin created the cold winter that killed all the Germans. The Great and Mighty Red Army never lost grip of the situation. All the losses were planned. It was already planned by Stalin in 1939 that Red Army would win in Berlin in May 1945.

Unfortunately most of the Russian books are very affected by the communistic view which I am personally totally fed up with. I hope we´ll hear more later on and this time the truth. I mean I am also a victim of the Great Kursk battle where T-34´s rammed Tigers all day long.... What a nice bed time story.

Also I have read on cold war years recently and I find it quite interesting that the USSR taught in schools and I´d believe internationally claimed that the Allied were all murderers who kept on bombing in WW2 women and children even when the Russians told them not to. Now you know why everybody knows it....

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Kai I have to agree with you though the Russians are not the only people to revise history during the cold war, As the western allies won the war with Nazi Germany with a "little" bit of help from the east.

The German production focusing on less variety and more numerical production changing the way the war went is an interesting question.

In my opinion it doesn't matter what you produce, no matter how superior it is, if you cannot support it in the field. The German war machine could focus not only upon less variety and more production, but also would have had to focus on all-out production from the very onset of their effort. Even if they did this they couldn't produce enough materials compared to the people that they decided to fight. Even with an 8:1 ratio required to beat a Panther in the field the Russians and the Americans could still win. German production couldn't keep up.

It also doesn't matter what you put into the field if the units are not allowed to maneuver as the situation requires. Allied doctrine evolved beyond the blitzkrieg. Hitler's doctrine continued to believe that the same thing would keep working. (A strong enough blow will make your opponent give up.)

In my opinion it was the way that they were employed and supplied that doomed to operators of whatever weapons the Third Reich fielded to failure. Could the changes you mention have lengthened the war? They would have made a difference on a local tactical level, certainly. Would they have raised the allied body count? It would have taken more lives to overcome better equipment. The conflict might have lasted longer, but why?

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PEOPLE SLEEP PEACEABLY IN THEIR BEDS AT NIGHT ONLY BECAUSE ROUGH MEN STAND READY TO DO VIOLENCE ON THEIR BEHALF. GEORGE ORWELL

The thing that really irritates me is the 5:1 8:1 10:1 ratios that was needed for a sherman to knock out a german tank. This is nonsence.

I have spoken to veteran tankers and such conditions never occured in their experience. The biggest threat was dug in AT guns. Wether it was AT guns or tanks the standard procedure was to call 'Limejuice', fire red smoke on the target and get a hull down position.

There are plenty of books out there written by Allied tankers that simply put these ratios to shame.

So why do these ratios keep cropping up? Fact is that the Allies were doing the attacking '43 onwards. And offensive warfare is more costly than defending (no matter what equipment, training or Tactics)

Then there is Villers Bocage. An incident that never reoccured. The 3rd County of London Yeomanry outran their infantry in Villers Bocage. To make matters worse the commander did not bother to organise in case of an attack, and was jumped by Michael Wittman. The really bad thing is that this horrible incident is recorded as what will happen if cromwells/shermans are faced with the Tiger tank. Arrgh!

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'We march. The enemy is retreating in transport. We follow on foot.' Lt.Neil McCallum 5/7 Gordons 19th November 1942

Drifting away a bit but definitely German Army also suffered from the Hitler´s masterful idea of always building up new divisions etc from the new tanks and vehicles. The Army "looked bigger" but the end result was definitely weaker than if the original worn out divisions had been supplied and raised the soldier number to its normal unit level. The problem was that you have loads of "fake unit" flags on the map and even if the Germans had the units numbered by their fighting capability Hitler seems to have been totally lost what he really got in the battle field.

For instance for the battle of Berlin I remember having read that if Hitler had all the units in Germany area normally manned he would have had millions of men in arms, don´t know how many tanks. In one book the number of men was mentioned even as high as 10 million if the units were as powerful as the flags on the map would indicate....

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Kai- in regards to those russian sources you mention- clearly, many of the sources coming from russia at the time WERE very far off the mark, and completely unreliable. I'm sure there are a few tidbits of accurate info to find in some of them, but few and far between.

In the theater of studying the Russian/German conflict, russian primary sources would be of doubtful value. But more recent history works- perfect examples being The Road to Stalingrad and The Road to Berlin by John Erickson- certinaly can't be ignored, correct? And I'd wager there are TONS of other works out there that have researched this theater, and come up with quality work.

But some would apparenly rather discount all of that work - which would seem to me to be foolish at best.

And Jaeger "slams it home" with a PERFECT example of what I'm talking about.
If we just read the German accounts, you'd think a Tiger tank was essentially invincible, and every Tiger lost was due to lack of fuel, mechanical difficulty, etc.
But wait- the accounts of American and British vets paint quite a different picture- so they must be completely unreliable sources, right?

Or we could assume that NEITHER set of sources is 100% accurate, and a truer picture would come from comparing and researching all those primary sources, plus the vast amount of work done since then.

To answer "So why do these ratios keep cropping up?"- I'd say to some extent, because of the exact problem I've been pointing at- poor historiography. These ratios keep popping up because many historians who highly favor the qualities of the German soldiers in WW2 keep putting them out there, ignoring information like Jaeger cited.
And over time, the ratios and numbers- without continued questioning and detective work- become an almost completely unreliable cliche.

I mean, as great a source as, say, Schneider is for Tiger tanks, are we really going to believe- without question- that in general, less than 10% of Tiger losses were due to enemy action??

Either some of those numbers are a bit off, or the Tiger I was basically the most horribly unrelaible piece of equipment ever produced. Period. 90% mechanical failure rate??

And, back to the other topic in the thread...

Another aspect to throw in here that bears mentioning- the German economy as a whole during the war. I'd have to check some sources to be sure, but from what I recall the german economy wasn't even put on "wartime status" until 1943!! So until then, there was little to no rationing, and no huge priority given to military production. Civilian luxuries were still being produced right along with war material, both using many of the same resources.

So maybe as part and parcel of this "What If"- we add in that the Germans (Hitler mainly) placed their economy on more of a wartime schedule at a much earlier date, say 1939 at minimum. This would open up much more potential for the production of war material, wether it be more heavy tanks or anythiing else.

This might have a relatively significant effect on "In my opinion it doesn't matter what you produce, no matter how superior it is, if you cannot support it in the field.".
With an earlier wartime economy, would the germans be better able to support their war effort?
'Cause otherwise, bigiceman winds up being right on in the end... more advanced equipment early on would at best extend the war slightly.

[img]graemlins/salute.gif[/img]

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Seriously, all today is missing is free cotton candy and the annual Bay State Hooker Parade to make it any better.

but the important thing IS that Schneider is correct, the TG 1 and TG 2's were maintenance nightmares, crap as anyone would put it but the German crews felt very safe fighting on the advance and a definate in the defence in them ........

funny how in many captions during the Ardenne that so and so from a AT unit knocked out a King or one was popped by a bazooka round. Good ol US propaganda at it's finest and never questioned in the slightest, and why should it be, the Allies won ! ........ slightly off topic but the US bomber gunners claims and they are claims are never questioned even now and accepted as fact over attacking Luftw. fighters. surely the Luftw sources must be wrong and covering up huge losses multiples in the thousands ........ ah nope

The point here, and I think we all agree in is that yes, there was Erich Hartmann, with his 352 kills, and many, many more German aces that might suggest the Red Air Force main occupation was taking off just to be shot to pieces. BUT there were also Iván Kozhiedub and Lidia Lítviakh, who shot down some of those aces and dozens of German planes.

The truth is that the USSR was fielding lots of fighters and bombers with their pilots, fuel, ammunition and ground crews (which might not have been the top of excellence) and never ceased to fight, regardless of the losses. By doing this, at the end, it turned the tide on the air, even if, in the general balance, we can say the Luftwaffe fought better than the Red Air Force.

But let's remember too that 100 Soviet snipers killed the equivalent to one entire German infantry division.

The general picture is clearer now, right?

And what about if we consider that German generals, aware of Germany's inferiority in man power in comparisson to the Soviet Union, decided to launch 'Barbarossa' because they were going to fight Soviet men with German guns and tanks. But the Prussian generals, drunk in their obsession with Clausewitzian brute force and gigantic annihilation battles, didn't take into account that the USSR was out-producing Germany (and matching her in quality) from the very beginning of the war. Therefore, they got sucked into a war where they didn't have the slightiest posibility to support their strategical thought (weaponry vs. men) for long. On the contrary, they soon faced a situation where they had to pour more and more men in to fight with the methods and in the situations the Soviet battlefields and enemy recquired. In 1943, not only there were German guns and tanks fighting 10 guns and 5 tanks each, but men were fighting men AND guns AND tanks.

In 1941 there might have been Germans shooting 88s at un-armed Soviet men. In 1944 there were German soldiers throwing handgrenades and using bayonets against Soviet soldiers and T-34s.

Why do we always remember that the Tigers were doing very well at Prokhórovka, destroying hundreds of Soviet tanks, and forget about the fact that the OKW and OKH were doing exactly what Stavka wanted them to do? The Wehrmacht was bleeding itself against the thoughest defence lines of WWII whilst thousands of well-hidden Soviet men, guns and tanks were ready to smash its flanks? Who, despite of the shining uniforms and the new and marvellous (filthy!) Panthers, Ferdinands and Tigers, had the battle lost before-hand, I wonder?

Why don't we remember German officers throwing whole battalions against destroyed buildings in Stalingrad, where a f ive-menSoviet machinegun squad halted them for days and caused them 50% casualties? Why don't we remember the mighty Luftwaffe, in daylight and with absolute air superiority, being unable to cut the enemy supply line across the Volga or destroying Chuikov's battery on the eastern side (that smashed any German troop concentration before an attack)? Why, instead, we forget about a 10.000-men Siberian division and 17 T-34s halting the attack of three of Paulus 60.000-men Army Corps in just 24 hours?

Also, why do we always forget that, no matter what the Germans did, they were part of a totalitarian (anti-utilitarian) State whose prime objective was not victory, but the annihilation of whole races?

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"War is less costly than servitude, the choice is always between Verdun and Dachau." - Jean Dutourd, French veteran of both world wars

"A mon fils: depuis que tes yeux sont fermes les miens n’ont cessé de pleurir." - Mère française, Verdun

young man your point is unclear as this is a WHAT-IF.

fUNNY HOW WE ALL GET SIDETRACKED AND MISSED THE WHOLE IdEA BEHIND THIS VERY THREAD TOPIC, geez........panther and fw 190.

maybe we should split hairs and go back and tear this thread to pieces and selct points known and unknown of the Ost front war, I've made some declarations and so have you

v/r E