German vs. Russian infantry

What is your opinion on the quality of there troops? The Russians were better armed, just not prepared or ready but they had better tactics that the Germans POST Stalingrad, the Germans were better equipped at the start of the war than the Russians. so it depends on the time of the war so basically this is how it went down


Russians: better once they were mobilized [were terrible until they adopted better tactics]

Germans: better when they had the element of surprise

 

Germans: idiocy in picking a fight with the wrong guy who shoved quality up their a$$es.

Speaking of quality, how about a tank that mounted a 122mm gun, had 120mm front armour (inclined), 100mm mantlet armour (round), and wighed 44 tons, rather less than a Tiger I or 2? And was able to be built at the steady rate of 250 a month, instead of said Tigers that had much smaller building runs? Or the T-34 or KV-1, that when they were bumped into it in 1941 took a year to put in place a decent anti-tank gun to deal with them? If this isn't quality then I don't know what is.

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"Look Ma, isn't that the Brandenburg Gate? What are we doing here, shouldn't we have been the ones who lost the war?"​

Get real! We've been over the post-Goebbels propaganda in this forum many moons ago. Too late to make the Germans win the war now, so get over this pointless fascination.

 

Why do people always go on about Russian numbers but never their ability to perform excellent combined arms attacks on a grand strategic scale that makes German operations look like tiddlers...

...and had bugger all ammo storage.

 

For your first paragraph see my recent post in the Kursk thread.

Ammo storage? Systems are made of compromises so to keep the weight down you can't exaggerate on ammo capacity, which entails volume which entails weight. And anyway with that kind of firepower you don't need that many rounds to perform a break through (which was the purpose for the JS-II)

 

Za Rodinu, i hate to start somthing but you think i that i needed to get over somthing? I dont understand.

 

Because the German military and weapons "are freaking sweet!" LOL . It the unwillingness of some to admit that the Soviets situation as regards to tactics and weapons,Ect were improving every year while the Germans were not.

 

ok , with the negitive comments and reputiation i have gotten i must need to make somthing clear, on YouTube they had people saying"russians are the best we beat those Germans so easy they didnt know what hit'em" ect. ect.
And i just wanted to know what you all thought.

 

No... But you need plenty of rounds to cope with poor Soviet optics.

Its a good tank alright... But I wouldnt wanna be in one. Not that I would wanna be in any other either for that matter!


Discussion on who is best is a moot point. Wars are not fought on an individual basis so whether one German is better than his Soviet counterpart matters little.

Also the idea of a superior trained German soldier is kinda dead by late 1944 for certain. Losses had been so high it was all about plugging the gaps with what was available. The notion that the German army ended the war with the same quality troops that it started the war with (and Im not convinced all of them were that great anyway in 1939) is utter tosh.

So the quality varies over each year and is not a static line of quality/experience.

Thats a few reasons why its a little pointless to say one is best and the other isnt.



But at the end of the day... Only one side one.

 

thanks for not taking this thead the way Za Rodinu did.

 

The problems with the Soviet Military at the beginig of Barbarossa where mosly with a lack of communication preventing coordinated counter-attacks, supplies, and inexperianced officers. The average Soviet corps commander was 12 years younger than the average German division commander(aprox 3 divisions = 1 corp), and 75 percent of Soviet officers held there posts for less than 1 year at the time of Barbarrossa. The front was about 1800 miles in length. Regardless of how many Soviet divisions are protecting all 1800 miles the German advance was only in small sections and not along the enirty of the front, thus impossible to defend initially. As to the better equipment, that too is not entirly correct. The Soviets still had 1861 Tanks of the T-34 and KV-1 models.(other sources place the number closer to 1500)

 

i mean small arms, too.

 

this is different from what you have here:

These are two separate questions.
Hmm. Whats better? a PPSh 41 or a MP-40? I guess it doesn't matter if only the Germans have ammunition.

I posted my thoughts on the troops overall, along with countering another statement which was not entirely true. Now you want to change the question to who's weapons where better?

Troops - equal
Command - Germans, but only initially.

The Germans overshot there culminating point and where never able to recover. Plain and simple. The Soviets never reached theirs

 

But small arms dont make the blindest bit of difference to a war!!!! If it fires, it works.

All the crap you read on Wiki about muzzle velocity this and 'effective range' is a pile of poop. Give a bloke who cant hit a barn a crap rifle, he wont hit a barn... Give him a great rifle and he will still miss. Small arms are irrelevant in the outcome of the war and all are much the same at the end of the day. To think otherwise is to delude ones self with techincal lab data and not real events.

But why bring in small arms in your thread about which soldier is best? That makes no difference.


If you really want an answer... Then the truth is there isnt one.

Your own perception and bias colours which one you choose and no matter what people say you will always believe yourself to be right.

Their is no real way to quantify an ever changing variable such as troop quality. You need to compare it on a yearly, if not bi-annually basis.

You need to consider both sides training and idoctrination methods, operational effectiveness of infantry formations, infantry ability to act in combined arms operations, military doctrine and other random factors such as weather of various days, terrain, specialist combat training, troop rations and diet, morale and countless other factors.

In short you would need years of indepth research to truly answer that question, to do anything else is is to make an answer based on conjecture and bias, which is a poor exercise...




...and quite frankly I aint got the time.

 

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As for the 'best' soldier I tend to agree. It's hard to define which country had the better soldiers. Some times they preformed admirably, sometimes not so much.


Yours,

Bill

 

:deadhorse: LOL

 

LOL at the above by Mr. Falkenbeger.

Yours,

Bill

 

Besides, the greatest PBI killer in WW2 was artillery, so what's the point?

 

Maybe there are snipers who used artilley pieces? LOL

 

For a source on my statement above please take the trouble to read Medical Dept, USArmy, Wound Ballistics

Picking up one table (summarised) from page 445, on US 938 KIA in Italy, cause distribution is:

Casualties with single wounds
HE.....................129
Small Fragments....99
Small Arms...........81

Casualties with multiple wounds
HE.....................342
Small Fragments...283
Small Arms............26

More, at Cassino, page 541

Shell
..Artillery........42
..Mortar.........31
..either...........3
Landmine.......13
Hand Grenade..9
Bullet
..MG..............1
..rifle.............1

As Frederich the Great said,

 

Apropos of nothing, but as Artillery sniping's been mentioned, I thought of this snippet from the Field Artillery Journal of July '44:​

Cheers,
Adam.​