Did the USSR defeat the Germans single handedly?

[helenpaul]

As usual he makes some good political and economic points as well.

[acptulsa]

"Did the Soviet Union win WWII alone?". Well, considering they never messed with Italy, and didn't even declare war against Japan until the summer if '45 (too late to fight but just in time to claim booty), no. Not even. Thanks for asking.

Did they defeat Germany alone? Gee, I don't know. When did they bomb the Messerschmitt plant?

Yeah, um, remind me to watch this some day...

[Origanalist]

I'll take things that never happened for $100.00 Alex.

[Swordsmyth]

They wouldn't have survived without all the stuff we sent them or without the Mediterranean and Western fronts.

[helenpaul]

They wouldn't have survived without all the stuff we sent them or without the Mediterranean and Western fronts.

He brings that up. Its an interesting video to watch.

[sparebulb]

I knew a Brazilian guy in kollege that said that their schools teach that Brazil's efforts turned the tide in the war.

[acptulsa]

I knew a Brazilian guy in kollege that said that their schools teach that Brazil's efforts turned the tide in the war.

There were one hell of a lot of rubber used during that war. The Allies would have been slowed down considerably if they hadn't been able to get as much of it. The first equipment used to make synthetic rubber was built during the war. A lot of supplies had to move and planes had to land before that was available in any quantity.

The war hinged on a lot of vital factors.

[helenpaul]

There were one hell of a lot of rubber used during that war. The Allies would have been slowed down considerably if they hadn't been able to get as much of it. The first equipment used to make synthetic rubber was built during the war. A lot of supplies had to move and planes had to land before that was available in any quantity.

The war hinged on a lot of vital factors.

Thats true, though lack of oil doomed the Germans.

[RJB]

My grandfather fought in WW2 and said he hated the Russians. They were armed by the U.S. He said they would use all their artillery that was supposed to last them awhile in one barrage and then immediately demand more. All the Russians were good for was sending untrained men in waves to their death with weapons and tanks that didn't work. Their communist run weapons factory were a sick joke. The most effective weapon they had was the weather.

[Todd]

My grandfather fought in WW2 and said he hated the Russians. They were armed by the U.S. He said they would use all their artillery that was supposed to last them awhile in one barrage and then immediately demand more. All the Russians were good for was sending untrained men in waves to their death with weapons and tanks that didn't work. Their communist run weapons factory were a sick joke. The most effective weapon they had was the weather.

Ever heard of the T34 Tank.

[RJB]

Ever heard of the T34 Tank.

For all it's praise for being "the finest tank in the world," at 44,900 lost during the war, it holds the record for the most tank loss ever. Not to mention all the light tanks they lost as well.

That said, although the T34 was well designed, a lot of their other equipment wasn't. The Stalin regime was obsessed with the appearance of quantity over quality. The T34 show models were probably of different quality than those that were pumped out of the communist factories. Not to mention, the lack of training of the tank crews in the rush of war.

In agriculture they consistently claimed record harvests as famine wracked their land. Their approach to war was no different. They just threw numbers, men, and equipment at a problem, and let Pravda make sense of the propaganda.

[acptulsa]

That said, although the T34 was well designed...

It certainly was, by an American named J. Walter Christie, in America, for the U.S. Army. But he was, as engineers go, a starving artist, and didn't have enough money to bribe the government to buy his design. Which was SOP at the time; just look at how much the government paid GM to develop the lackluster Allison V-1610, and at how Sloan's GM treated politicians at the time.

Desperate for cash during the Depression to survive, Christie went shopping for buyers for the design, and found one in Stalin. Perhaps the dictator was motivated by a feeling that he was stealing something from the U.S. Army. In any case, he very rarely made a better investment.

[RJB]

Another issues with factories in both Russia and Germany involved sabatage from disgruntled workers. My grandfather had a mortar round plop in the mud at his feet but didn't explode. After the war, he found out that the Germans forced Jews to work in munitions factories and would put saw dust instead of gunpowder in the shells. Many Russians saw the Germans as liberators from Stalin. Especially those in satellite states like Ukraine after the Holodomar. Those workers tend not to put out quality equipment.

[RJB]

One of my faults on this forum is I will try at any cost to back up my original statement. I'm trying to change that.

My initial instinct was to write off the T34. But I couldn't. I conceded that it was a well designed tank.

It certainly was, by an American named J. Walter Christie, in America, for the U.S. Army. But he was, as engineers go, a starving artist, and didn't have enough money to bribe the government to buy his design. Which was SOP at the time; just look at how much the government paid GM to develop the lackluster Allison V-1610, and at how Sloan's GM treated politicians at the time.

Desperate for cash during the Depression to survive, Christie went shopping for buyers for the design, and found one in Stalin. Perhaps the dictator was motivated by a feeling that he was stealing something from the U.S. Army. In any case, he very rarely made a better investment.

[acptulsa]

My initial instinct was to write off the T34. But I couldn't. I conceded that it was a well designed tank.

You're also right that build quality generally left a lot to be desired. The same can be said of the Klimov, their unlicensed copy (that's pronounced "ripoff") of the Rolls Royce Merlin.

[A Son of Liberty]

Probably more than any other element, hubris was responsible for Germany's defeat. I think it would be fair (but arguable) to say that Germany's military (aside from long range bomber capacity - their only long range bomber was the Heinkel 111, a twin engine platform that could barely make England from western Germany and back) was the most effective and deadly of the European front, with the American military probably coming in a very close second (although a good argument could be made that the American military did a far, far better job in fighting a two-front war than Germany ended up doing).

German military leadership gained a head of confidence with their sweeping early victories in Poland, Sudetenland, and especially in their devastating conquering of France in a matter of weeks, and became convinced that they couldn't be stopped. They sent the Wehrmacht into the Soviet Union in the Spring of '41 without an adequate long term plan in the event that objectives were not achieved before Winter, which in that part of the world at that time could start as early as early October. At that point, materiel foundered, soldiers froze and starved, and their fighting capacity was utterly diminished. Leadership would refuse to disengage from absolutely unwinnable engagements like Leningrad, the advance on Moscow, and particularly Stalingrad, where they lost an entire army and one of their better general officers in Von Paulus.

The Soviets threw men and equipment at the Germans in volume. They didn't outfight the Germans, they overwhelmed them. In the meantime, Germany was facing the second front of the American invasion in North Africa, which lead to the invasion of Italy, and then inevitably the D-Day invasion, which, once the beachhead was established within basically 2 days of the invasion, it was effectively all over but the crying for Germany.

The Panzer and Tiger class tanks were nearly unstoppable. Their kill to loss ratios were unreal (I don't have the numbers off the top of my head, but both platforms took a lot more than they lost). Their only weakness was that they were slow, and that is how the American Sherman tank was able to eventually defeat them - through volume AND speed. There was no defeating a German tank face to face for any Allied tank. The only chance a Sherman (or, Shermans) had was to outflank the German tank and attack the thinner armor on the backside of the tank. A Panzer or Tiger entrenched and with its flanks protected was virtually invincible. Allied tanks would have to draw them out in order to defeat them.

The Germans also innovated using AA artillery as anti-armor, and it was devastating. The 88 mm AA field cannon did a lot of damage to Allied armor.

Strategically, the German military changed the entire nature of warfare during WWII ("Blitzkrieg", or, "Lightning War" - the tactic of attacking hard and fast with light bombers like the Stuka, an initial heavy armor assault with infantry in pursuit to "mop up", developed by Heinz Guderian) and to a certain extent, the American military still uses these tactics developed by the Germans even today, at least when it comes to gaming army vs. army, 2nd generation warfare.

There is no explanation for such poor military management in my opinion other than utter hubris in their own ability to completely dominate any battlefield on which they were engaged, and their refusal to learn from their mistakes. Germany's biggest mistake was in invading the Soviet Union. It's second biggest mistake was their diplomatic failures in keeping the US out of the European front. It's third biggest mistake was attempting Operation Sea Lion (the attempted invasion of Britain).

[helenpaul]

One reason the Russians lost so many tanks, especially early in the war was because they were horrible in the way they used tanks. They used them to break thru a front and went ahead without infantry support. Had Russia collapsed in July or Aug of 1941 then the war would have basically been over.