http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homep..._AV_SSD80.html

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

__________________
"Stand by to pull me out of the seat if I get hit" - Guy Gibson

wow, thats a neat pic martin

__________________
"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

yea thats pretty cool

__________________
The war against Russia will be such that it cannot be conducted in a knightly fashion. This struggle is one of ideologies and racial differences and will have to be conducted with unprecedented, unmerciful and unrelenting harshness. -Adolf Hitler

T. A. Gardner mentioned.........

__________________________________________________ ___________________________________

'Hitler's best course of action was following the fall of France to simply quit. Just wait out England, keep the US out of the war, and sit on the spoils already obtained.'
__________________________________________________ ___________________________________


That would be the most sensible thing to do, and a far superior statesman like Bismarck would no doubt have tried to end the war at that point, or probably earlier, after annexing Checkoslovakia, and not risk bringing Britain into the war by attacking Poland.

But the Corporal was no Bismarck.

The war in the West was just a hindrance to Hitler, he'd been planning to attack East since 1923 as he quotes in Mien Kampf, and nothing would deter him from his longed for campaign of genocide against the so called 'sub human' Slavs and his woolly headed notions of lieberstrum in the East.

But the Nazi economy had not prepared for a long war, and although the Heer was the best army in the world, the Wehrmacht as a whole, had many fatal flaws.

[ 14. September 2006, 10:13 PM: Message edited by: ANZAC ]

Anzac

a lot of scholars also say that attacking Stalin was his altimate mistake europe might of been his if he hadnt done that. But its easy to say this now that we know that outcome of the war, back then Germany seemed invincible.

__________________
The war against Russia will be such that it cannot be conducted in a knightly fashion. This struggle is one of ideologies and racial differences and will have to be conducted with unprecedented, unmerciful and unrelenting harshness. -Adolf Hitler

but eventually all that gets to your head, and you fall...

__________________
"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

Well, I'll be blowed - just 24 hours after I posted the above link to the image of 'Operation Big Ben', it's been announced that Raymond Baxter died today at the age of 84. [img]graemlins/poppy.gif[/img]

__________________
"Stand by to pull me out of the seat if I get hit" - Guy Gibson

Martin, what did you do?

__________________

wow thats pretty creapy

__________________
The war against Russia will be such that it cannot be conducted in a knightly fashion. This struggle is one of ideologies and racial differences and will have to be conducted with unprecedented, unmerciful and unrelenting harshness. -Adolf Hitler

Well I be, even I mention Raymond Baxter in one of my threads.

Farewell Raymond Baxter [img]graemlins/poppy.gif[/img]

__________________
Man of the Year 1942

Regards, Richard

After having read the "Spitfire MK V in action" and a mention on anti Big Ben patrols anyone read:

Operation Big Ben: The Dive-bombing Spitfire Missions by Baxter et co

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Operation-Bi.../dp/1862272514

Recommend?

__________________

Could the Germans have defeated the British, Russians, and the USA?

Very possibly, if they were do thing little differently. They simply had to be more patient.

According to my old WWII History professor, there were a series of meetings aoung the German strategic planners during 1935-36. These meeting were to plan the various elements for the future war, such as industrial production planning. It was decided that production would be for the war to start in 1943.

This would have meant another four years of Naval production, especially U-boat production, and the lack of this production proved critical.

German started the war in 1939 with a funtional U-boat fleet of only some 30 boats. Oh, they had more, but Karl Donetz operated under the notion that at any one time, one third of thefleet would be on station, one third in transit to or from the areas of operation, and oe third would be resting and refitting. That effectively meant about 30 boats.

Had the war begun in 1943 the naval production of U-boats would have been accomplish, meaning the fleet would have complised of some 300-400 boats, maning 100+ operation boats.

The British were almost starved into surrender when the Germans had only 30 boats. had they had 100 operational boats... well it is only speculation

With regard to the German - Soviet war. I would speculate that if and this is a big if, the Germans managed to keep the US from giving lend-lease to the Soviets and could manage to largely blockade or intercept British aid that left on their own the Soviets would have had to negotiate a peace at some point with the Germans on unfavorable terms.
That is, the Germans would have gotten what Hitler wanted: A big chunk of land in former Soviet territory.
Keeping the US from doing this might be managed by concentrating U-boat efforts closer to England to prevent either German or US provocation of a war through sinkings of shipping outside what could be clearly defined as a war zone.
This is a somewhat slim chance, but it is possible that a repeat of the Russian collapse in 1917 is possible if the Soviets have no outside support.

T.A.

Respectfully I must disagree with you on this one.

When the war started Stalin was terrified. He could not imagine that Hitler had double crossed him. Germans biggest chance with on peace with Russia ( on German terms ) might only have been possible before the defeat at Moscow. After the Germans failed to take Moscow, surrender for Russians was OUT OF THE QUESTION.

I forgot who it was that said " at battle of Moscow the Russians knew thew could stop the Germans, Stalingrad proved that they could win a major battle, kursk meant that they would win the war " ( I think it was Kai )

Also, it is argued that Lend Lease amounted to only 10% of what Russia actually needed and most of the 10% came after 1943 by which time the fait of the Third Reich had already been sealed.

__________________
The war against Russia will be such that it cannot be conducted in a knightly fashion. This struggle is one of ideologies and racial differences and will have to be conducted with unprecedented, unmerciful and unrelenting harshness. -Adolf Hitler

Regarding the war materials which reached the Soviet Union through Lend-Lease -- I read somplace a long time ago that the single most valuable item which was recieved in the USSR was the trucks for the movement of general items. And there were problems with many items shipped to Russia. One shipment of British Spitfires was shipped with the wrong component (generator?) which kept them gounded for additional months.

I read the same and agree. The trucks sent by the US made the logistics of a huge army much much easier and more moble. It gave the Red Army the mobility to keep ahead of the Wehrmacht and no matter how much the Russians downplay the assistance they received, this is a fact.

__________________

American by birth, TEXAN by the grace of GOD!

I'm not so sure, from some info I've been looking at recently it looks like lend lease didn't begin to help until the tide had been turned. The RKKA truck park in 1941 stood at 272k, by the end of the year with vehicles taken out of the civilian sector, new production and despite losses this had risen to 318k with 0.4% being imported models.

One year later on 1 January 1943 it was just short of 405k, non-domestic production (captured and Lend Lease represented just 6.1% of the total)

It was after that date that LL trucks started to flood in. Domestic production simply kept pace with losses while all growth came from captured and Lend Lease types so by 01/01/45 of the 621k trucks in the truck park 395k were domestic production, 191k were imported and 35k were captured.

All this info and more can be found at:

http://www.1jma.dk/articles/1jmaarticlelendlease.htm

Clearly since the bulk of lend lease production arrived after Stalingrad it didn't 'save' the USSR though of course it helped in the last years. Looks to me like another case of 'the victory would have taken longer.' USSR would still have won though.

Historian #6: Keep in mind that whilst Germany was in a period of military build up, so was the USSR. Soviet production was higher than that of Germany, reserves of manpower were greater, Stalin knew a war was coming, he just didn't believe Hitler would start it at that point. Seriously, if Germany had started the war in 1943 the outcome would have been just the same, Germany may have been able to defeat Britain at sea but at the end of the day Russia is a big place and would have been doggedly defended, I can't see Germany winning.

__________________
There's no honorable way to kill, no gentle way to destroy. There is nothing good in war. Except its ending.

But numbers alone offer no advantage for example 10 mg42s vs 100 footsoldiers.Mg42s win ok on open level ground

Even thogh Germany was highly outnumbered Germany did some pretty serious damage to the Soviets dispite being outnumbered.

Russia is
a big country true but the vast amount of land tht Germany captured in the first month of campagin makes up a decent percentage of the total area captured in the whole war with Russia.

There are so many of possible outcomes on how the Russian campaign could of gone, it only takes a change in the weather to mess things up.

(if Germany had started the war in 1943 the outcome would have been just the same}
The thing is no one could say that for sure.There could be a great German discovery on a new weapon and tht new weapon massed produced to have a advantage over the Russian campagin or vice versa for the Soviets.This is just one of a near endless list of possible things tht COULD of happend.

Actually the Russians have never downplayed this fact. In fact even in the video that Za had provided us of the 1945 Soviet victory parade in front of Stalin, U.S. trucks were present and were carrying Katyusha rockets along with other weapons. Till this day when a WW2 movie is made the viewer can always see American trucks and jeeps carrying Soviet troops to and from the front. Russia has never denied or downplayed the mobile transportation that they received. On the contrary they till this day are very thankful!!

__________________
The war against Russia will be such that it cannot be conducted in a knightly fashion. This struggle is one of ideologies and racial differences and will have to be conducted with unprecedented, unmerciful and unrelenting harshness. -Adolf Hitler

Rifleman1987,

Yes, Germany did some very serious damage however most were civilian. In fact if you look at the figures of military casualties, the Germans lost more. Soviets lost slightly more then 8 million, Germans lost a little more then 10 million on the Eastern Front. So the argument of Germany causing more damge while being outnumbered is only valid if you include the Soviet civilian population.

Oh and I have to agree with Stefan when he said that the weather as an excuse, is becoming rather old. Russians suffered just as bad as the Germans did. Please keep in mind that at the outbreak of the war, the "IVAN" was not only caught by surprise but was also outmanned and outgunned not to mention facing a much more sophisticated, modern and experienced military under complete protection of the Luftwaffe. Meanwhile the " Ivan " had to share a rifle between 2 men( this ofcourse changed as the war progressed ). Also some of the worst setbacks for the Germans happend in the summer not the winter ( Kursk ) [img]graemlins/hsu.gif[/img]

__________________
The war against Russia will be such that it cannot be conducted in a knightly fashion. This struggle is one of ideologies and racial differences and will have to be conducted with unprecedented, unmerciful and unrelenting harshness. -Adolf Hitler