The main strain of the war

There is the main opinion that the Russians bore the majority of onslaught by the Germans and fought most of the war on land against Germany, and I agree. I've also seen arguments that the Western Allies got the easy way out in terms of fighting the Germans.

I think the Western Allies almost had a tougher job at hand, because they had to invade the main occupied country in Europe, where the Germans had 4 years to prepare and build defenses and obstacles, an invasion that was expected, and they had to cross a sea with all the logistics involved and establish a secure presence to land more troops and supplies. I'm referring to D-Day here, but all the Allied sea landings required the most detailed planning, logistics, and training to establish the beach-head and push on. Also, the proportion of land surface area of Western Europe to Russia was proportionally a lot smaller, so you'd expect more land battle. The Western Allies had the sea and air power that made up for lack of land fighting.

 

I think the Sovjets fought harder.

The Allied landings was too help the Sovjet invasion.
Because almost the whole whermacht was at the eastern front.
But now that there are 2 fronts the germans needed to divide there troops over both fronts.

And the Sovjets had 10,000,000 casualties on their front.
The allies 3,000,000 so yeah I think the Sovjets did some more things.

 

The British faced the whole of the Wehrmacht for a significant period of time. Loosing more men doesn't mean you fought harder either.

 

Ditto.

 

I echo IWD. In fact, the British bore the brunt of the Wehrmacht for a longer period of time as well as its civilians. Once can also say, that if the OB West took those 4 years seriously to build the Atlantic Wall as well as supply it with proper fighting troops, the West would have seen even heavier and tougher land battles then already occurred. Thank goodness they didn't.

 

.......Imagine 4 Million German troops stretched from NYC to Atlanta and fighting their way to The Mississippi River for a year and a half.....then staging a fighting retreat, back over the same landscape for another year..... leaving a death toll of 10-20 Million people and the decimation of most of the cities, farms, schools, stores, factories, hospitals, fences, sewer pipes, railroads and houses.

 

And your point is?

 

All I know is, when the Russian's came a knockin, they were not happy.

Hitler, was a douche, so said LaRouche, probably, it's the internet, if he did, it's probably out there somewhere.


... When the US led the Allies fighting from the west, it was like 'you're free now'... or something...
When the USSR marched in for the Allies (being the Allies) that were fighting from the east, they were like 'you're mine now you Sons of Koovers!'.. And so, a wall was built in Berlin between the 2 ideologies.

 

I thought USSR had more deaths, per percentage also...? didn't USSR suffer more destruction?..how can you say UK suffered more/fought more, etc?

 

Simple casualties, or percentages do not necessarily indicate who fought harder or sacrificed more. Most often less capable, less proficient troops take higher numbers of casualties and higher casualty percentages.

 

I'm not saying the UK suffered or fought harder. I'm saying the Western Allies faced a tougher job and fought the better German units that were well-equipped for the most part. Hitler moved the best Waffen-SS units and crack troops to the Western Fronts each time the Allies made more landings in Italy and France, so that laid the way for Russia's massive numbers to plow through the weakened German lines. The point I'm making is the Western Allies had to invade from the sea areas which the Germans had YEARS to prepare and put up defenses and barriers and troops for an invasion they expected would come sooner or later. The logistics, planning, preparation, and numbers involved in those seaborne operations to happen and succeed, and then the aftermath of establishing a presence, building up, and breaking out. Plus the Americans and British were more forward-thinking in terms of air power and sea power.

 

Some of us choose our words carefully. I for instance didn't say the "UK suffered more/fought more". What I did say is they fought longer and for a while alone. I also mentioned that taking more casualties doesn't necessarily mean you fought harder. Certainly the Soviets suffered disproportionate losses compared to the other major combatants.

 

bore the majority of the onslaught....majority-they unquestionably did have the majority of the losses by percentage and of course straight up...by far the majority of forces fighting...
the land battle for WW2 really did not start for eight months....there's 8 months of no land fighting for the UK....fighting longer doesn't mean you fought harder
did not the US contribute more forces in Europe?
really comes down to defining the original post
I'm seeing Netherlands higher percentage of losses also
wasn't the Ostfront more brutal? Einsatsgruppen never set foot in the UK?? murdering hundreds of thousands

 

Britain was engaged in land combat vs the Axis powers pretty much continuously from the beginning of the Battle for France and certainly in naval and air combat during that period. The Soviets had pretty minimal forces involved in the naval aspect of the war and no one is questioning that they fought the majority of the Heer while they were part of the allies. As for "majority of losses by percentage Poland lost a higher percentage of their population than the USSR as did Lithuanian. If you throw in the Merchant Marine the US may have had more people in the military than the Soviets as it was there wasn't a great deal of difference in size (12.5 million to 12.34 million) although since that's peak strength and the Soviets took so many casualties they probably had more total people serve.

Did I say fighting longer meant one fought harder? No I didn't because I'm not even sure there's a good definition for that term certainly we haven't agreed on one.

It's kind of hard to say which front was more brutal. Certainly the Eastern Front was brutal but so was the Pacific and civilian casualties in the Pacific may have exceeded those in Russia . Wiki list 16 million for the USSR for instance where China had 12-18 million throw in India, the Dutch East Indies, and French Indochina and you are looking at another 5-9+ million civilian deaths which offsets the 5.6-6 million in Poland..

 

plus the wounded military and civilians?? and the millions of displaced and/ or that lost their homes?? USSR by far ..!...by far ! hundreds of thousands more than the dead of 10 million..Stalingrad, Leningrad, etc......not just the dead!
not many UK civilians in NAfrica or italy....
anyway you look at it, majority of units, etc, anything goes to Russia

 

The Allies were on a posting...the Russians were fighting for their existence...including children soldiers...id say the Russians fought harder because they thought they had too...but that isn't necessarily true...Australians fight like bastards out of pride and their mates, I don't think we could fight any harder...dumber maybe, but not harder.
And whats hard fighting anyway?

 

Or not. Chinese losses may have exceeded the Soviet ones if not they were reasonably close.

 

you can go many ways here...most military personel? most military personel by percentage? most personel per years in war? military and civilian deaths?//etc etc
CAC makes super point on fighting.....they were fighting for their homeland....
China had over 2.5 times the population of Germany, no? so, simply put, if you have a population of 50 with 10 killed.....and a population of 10 with 5 killed....which country took the biggest hit? sure, the 10 killed is higher than 5, but the 10 population has higher percentage,. that country took bigger hit.......maybe China had more losses, but a much bigger population ....I'm getting, at most, wiki says 4% killed for China, 13% for Russia, almost 1 for UK....any1 have other stats, please advise
13% vs 4%......that's over 3 times the amount...and 13 times more than the UK

 

If that's the criteria you want to use fine but the USSR isn't at the top in that one either. If you look at Wiki's world war 2 casualty page you will see, as I previously mentioned, that Lithuania lost over 14% and Poland around 17% of their respective populations.

 

for one thing, China didn't fight the Germans much, as concerns the thread......for another, you know very well Russia fielded the most troops.....yes, I saw that..and Lithuania has both German and Soviet armies included in that, mr Smarty pants.......let's be reasonable and realistic, please......
I thought your vote was for the UK? which is it now?
Poland's and Lithuania's are skewed by the population...you are comparing 2.5 million to 194 million...would you say 194 is close to 2.5? yes or no? it's like comparing short, fat men running against tall, athletic, skinny women....your analysis would be women run faster than men....wrong
Russia took the most casualties of countries fighting Germany