WW2 Documents, Myths and Facts

The article is " excuse my language " shit. It says it debunks myths but gives no proof. According to the numbers the axis/allied ratio for tanks was around 1:3 .

So the Germans did something right. And before you say something is debunked you first need to explain the reason why the allies suffer a 1:3 ratio.

Except that it does give proof FailFish

The article is " excuse my language " shit. It says it debunks myths but gives no proof. According to the numbers the axis/allied ratio for tanks was around 1:3 .

So the Germans did something right. And before you say something is debunked you first need to explain the reason why the allies suffer a 1:3 ratio.

Um English please? You talk about proof and then go on to throw out a number without your own proof? LEL btw if the Ratio was 1:3 (Axis/Allies) why do you continue on with allies suffer 1:3? You clearly initially stated Axis Tank (1) to Allies Tanks (3). No suffering there mate. Nothing against you just trying to understand what your going on about.

Operational art is accomplishing what you can with the resources at hand.
...
This extends past the issue to supply and into the asset utilization of the combat forces along with the nature of the command cadre.

It is possible you are quite right... But if I am an infantryman and have the choice of fighting under a Prussian who studies fine use of minimal necessary materials in an artistic duel or the American logistician who believes in massing a huge punch that you land after blowing up everything on the other side.... And then winding up for another big punch, I would rather be on the side of the US and let the historians disparage the way I won.

So again, if you are an allied commander you hit hard, and if you end up having to stop there isn't a reason to risk a strategic overreach if you can just wait a bit and wind up the next punch.

(If I hear you correctly this is part of the argument that the Germans were not at their best in the West yet they still managed to hold off the Allies because... they were so good? And to an American, to say "you only won because you hit us with much more than you needed to" will often probably only get the response "yeah.... so what's your point?")

Barbarossa and Case Blue was also made in phases and with great logistical problems. However, the advances were more impressive, as well as the operational victories. The Germany army in the West was very much a third-rate force- the Wehr had no operational capability of real substance in WW2 since July. 1943.

Case Blue is in part the counter argument to the whole "encirclement" argument. By Case Blue there just weren't the kind of successful massed encirclements of Soviets. The Soviets had a few more months of experience under them and were much more successful at avoiding that kind of devastation. Likewise the Germans were aware of the dangers, having done it so many times to others. They fought tooth and nail to unplug the Poles who were threatening to close the Falaise pocket and hold it open long enough to allow at least the troops if not the material to escape.

I should add that I am a person who is all in favor of having won the war more quickly.

Given my lineage I would much rather fewer of my people were exterminated. A shorter war would have accomplished that.

Um English please? You talk about proof and then go on to throw out a number without your own proof? LEL btw if the Ratio was 1:3 (Axis/Allies) why do you continue on with allies suffer 1:3? You clearly initially stated Axis Tank (1) to Allies Tanks (3). No suffering there mate. Nothing against you just trying to understand what your going on about.

Sry i was in a hurry. My source is the red army handbook. according to this book [which is written by Russians btw] the soviets lost, give or take, nearly 100 k tracked vehicles to 30 k for the Germans.

Now their are only 3 explanations for this either

1: the Russians where incredibly incompetent which i reject since the red army through leaderless in the early days was still a well trained professional force
2: the Germans had Superhuman abilities . Which i reject as well. They had more experience and better leaders at first but it still shouldn't explain the 1:3 ratio
3: or their was something wrong with the soviet tanks.

I believe number 3 is the most logical conclusion. But their is nothing wrong with the armour or gun of the soviet tanks. so the problem is likely the very poor ergonomics of the soviet tanks. German tankers repeatability have said that soviet tanks where slow to fire and acquire targets. The red army handbook also has a section where soviet tank commanders compared the p4 ausf F with the t-34/85 and came to the conclusion they where equal.

Sry i was in a hurry. My source is the red army handbook. according to this book [which is written by Russians btw] the soviets lost, give or take, nearly 100 k tracked vehicles to 30 k for the Germans.

Now their are only 3 explanations for this either

1: the Russians where incredibly incompetent which i reject since the red army through leaderless in the early days was still a well trained professional force
2: the Germans had Superhuman abilities . Which i reject as well. They had more experience and better leaders at first but it still shouldn't explain the 1:3 ratio
3: or their was something wrong with the soviet tanks.

I believe number 3 is the most logical conclusion. But their is nothing wrong with the armour or gun of the soviet tanks. so the problem is likely the very poor ergonomics of the soviet tanks. German tankers repeatability have said that soviet tanks where slow to fire and acquire targets. The red army handbook also has a section where soviet tank commanders compared the p4 ausf F with the t-34/85 and came to the conclusion they where equal.

Okay, well just an fyi sources like that are still highly regarded as unreliable and often bloated numbers.

Now their are only 3 explanations for this either

1: the Russians where incredibly incompetent which i reject since the red army through leaderless in the early days was still a well trained professional force
2: the Germans had Superhuman abilities . Which i reject as well. They had more experience and better leaders at first but it still shouldn't explain the 1:3 ratio
3: or their was something wrong with the soviet tanks.

4: Lack of training for the crews.
5: Lack of infantry support in the early tank brigades.
6: Poor composition in tank brigades 1941-42. (When T-70, T-26s, T-34 and KVs all belonged to the same unit.)
7. Complete breakdown in command and control 1941.
8. Lack of reconnaissance, didn't become better until 1943.
9. Tanks lacking proper vision for commanders, fixed in T-34 with late model 1943 turrets.
10. Commanders acting as gunners on the most common tank.
11. Not having any hope of air superiority until summer of '43.
12. Poor operational art and poor tactics.
13. Mistakes, ooh all the mistakes. Mitigated quite a lot when they learnt how to fight. (3rd phase of the war in Soviet historiography.)
14. Difference in what counts as a lost tank. - (Cannot stress this enough. A German tank sent to factory for complete overhaul is repaired. A soviet tank sent to the factory for overhaul is lost and then produced again.)
15.All of the above. (ok maybe not #2. )


Also Turtle I think he means this book: The Red Army handbook It isn't a book by the Red army, but a study of the Red Army by Zaloga.

with the previous discussion of logistics. it made me ponder what extent the efforts of the RAF and USAF had on logistics and infrastructure during the european theater and if a large impact, to what extent it may've hampered the long term invasion logistics.

with the previous discussion of logistics. it made me ponder what extent the efforts of the RAF and USAF had on logistics and infrastructure during the european theater and if a large impact, to what extent it may've hampered the long term invasion logistics.

I lifted your question in its own thread. We should perhaps do the same more often, this was more or less a troll thread from the start and discussion has moved far away from the original topic already.


More threads for the library!

I lifted your question in its own thread. We should perhaps do the same more often, this was more or less a troll thread from the start and discussion has moved far away from the original topic already.


More threads for the library!

I am not in favor of this practice. It makes it more likely that threads and topics will be lost. There are some history buffs here but not enough to make a dynamic thread on every topic.

I say let us grognards discuss the war freely in any thread that seems to be alive. There aren't a whole lot of children involved in these discussions and things that go too far afield can be policed.

Also Turtle I think he means this book: The Red Army handbook It isn't a book by the Red army, but a study of the Red Army by Zaloga.

Still my opinion stands. To get an acurate number There should be a compilation of atleast 10 sources and the average of those numbers taken

I am not in favor of this practice. It makes it more likely that threads and topics will be lost. There are some history buffs here but not enough to make a dynamic thread on every topic.

I say let us grognards discuss the war freely in any thread that seems to be alive. There aren't a whole lot of children involved in these discussions and things that go too far afield can be policed.

Not sure Sir. Bloodnok will approve of such a thing. He likes his forums neat

with the previous discussion of logistics. it made me ponder what extent the efforts of the RAF and USAF had on logistics and infrastructure during the european theater and if a large impact, to what extent it may've hampered the long term invasion logistics.

A complicated question with a lot of moving parts. At the time they overestimated the success of the bombing campaigns so it is quite likely that resources could have gone to better uses, but you don't really know those things except with 20/20 hindsight.

Certainly they did a lot of damage to industry and infrastructure. Moving production from large scale factories to (essentially) a cottage industry will certainly impede efficiency as well as quality, inventory control, etc. Damaging the road and rail networks, impeding daytime travel, all have the effect of degrading your enemy.

Then there is the question of where else you would be using those materials and resources. I am not sure where all the aluminum would be used, and certainly the use of car factories for the production of planes didn't limit the US making a ton of cars, trucks, ships or anything else. In fact the Avenger torpedo bomber got picked up by GM because they needed things to do in their now shut car factories.

There also doesn't seem to be a shortage of fuel. While the Allies in France stalled do to fuel shortages at the front this was mostly because of transportation and supply limitations within France. There were stockpiles of stuff in Cherbourg and off the the beaches. (Though had supply been even better they might have found out they were using those stockpiles quicker than they could be replenished, and possibly found that fuel in England was in short supply because of use for aviation gas. It is all about the bottlenecks.)

Then there are the men. Certainly bomber and fighter crews were better than average, but I don't know that the numbers of those qualify as huge. A 1,000 US bomber raid means only 10,000 men, less than a US division, and many of them are "just" gunners. There were already 30 divisions in France in the beginning of fall, '44. Not just that, but as I stated above, though not as effective as first thought, the air forces didn't have NO effect.

Then there are outliers like the Mosquito fighter/bomber. It was designed from the outset to use skills and resources for which there was a surplus in England (wood and skilled woodworkers & cabinet makers). They designed it to be made in an already existing cottage industry and ended up with a superlative plane that on its maiden flight was 20 mph faster than a Spitfire and with the range of a bomber. Almost 8,000 were made during the war. I don't think there was a role for planes that it wasn't used for (including fighter).

While using all those resources for the invasion might have made it materially possible to invade sooner, I don't think it would have been a year sooner, and it just wasn't likely that anyone would attempt an invasion across the English channel except in more clement weather (so May, June, July, or August). And they probably would not have been ready in August of '43 as the US had only been at war 1 1/2 years at that point.

Not sure Sir. Bloodnok will approve of such a thing. He likes his forums neat

Uh oh. We have someone with OCD policing a gamers forum, and an off-topic section of it?!

I really do not mind how you get to grips with this. I lobbied for your Library (i wanted you to have your own Mods) ...now it's up to you.

I'll go back to swigging my medicine

Still my opinion stands. To get an acurate number There should be a compilation of atleast 10 sources and the average of those numbers taken

I have to disagree with that notion. A source is either good or it isn't, either accurate or not. If 9 are wrong and one is correct getting the average of all ten will give you a wrong number.


A jigh quality source(s) is what you want to look for. (True I never do care for numbers other than a ballpark figure.) If the study is well made and the eventual figure is what seems to be the consensus of most experts on the subject that is probably closest to the truth, (Not the same as THE TRUTH, you won't find that without a time machine) and will give you a good estimation of whatever it was the numbers tell you.

I hate when people go 10-15 thousand if they have one source saying 10 and another saying 15. Well one or both are wrong. Someone counted and came up with 10 thousand, another one counted in another way or using different material and came up with 15. Nobody made a study and came up with 13 thousand.

I am not in favor of this practice. It makes it more likely that threads and topics will be lost. There are some history buffs here but not enough to make a dynamic thread on every topic.

I say let us grognards discuss the war freely in any thread that seems to be alive. There aren't a whole lot of children involved in these discussions and things that go too far afield can be policed.

Well it isn't about policing. Whilst just having a single thread is easier for the guys who write here. (You me, coh2player, DoomTurtle and LeYawn for the most part. ) It isn't easy for people who wants to read but do not post.

Somebody is wondering something and (for unexplained reasons look here) start a new thread because they cannot find a thread about what they are looking for. I can see it now, somebody asking about the actions of the 62nd at Stalingrad and one of us refering them to page 4 on a thread called "Battlefleet operations in the Pacific"

But sure Im ok with posting in one big thread, just thought it would be easier for readers.

I have to disagree with that notion. A source is either good or it isn't, either accurate or not. If 9 are wrong and one is correct getting the average of all ten will give you a wrong number.


A jigh quality source(s) is what you want to look for. (True I never do care for numbers other than a ballpark figure.) If the study is well made and the eventual figure is what seems to be the consensus of most experts on the subject that is probably closest to the truth, (Not the same as THE TRUTH, you won't find that without a time machine) and will give you a good estimation of whatever it was the numbers tell you.

I hate when people go 10-15 thousand if they have one source saying 10 and another saying 15. Well one or both are wrong. Someone counted and came up with 10 thousand, another one counted in another way or using different material and came up with 15. Nobody made a study and came up with 13 thousand.

I understand your point but look at it from mathematical prospective. While 1 number could be right and another wrong the chance between right and wrong is a % chance. Now if you take the average your chance of being "closer" to the right answer is now higher. I have formula for this somewhere from back in my college math days but while no answer can be 100% correct we can still mathematically find a number with the % that is the closest to 100 with an average. (An average of realistic numbers lol, cant take an average of crap and get closer to crap and call it a flower). I hope my rambling make some logical sense.

I understand your point but look at it from mathematical prospective. While 1 number could be right and another wrong the chance between right and wrong is a % chance. Now if you take the average your chance of being "closer" to the right answer is now higher. I have formula for this somewhere from back in my college math days but while no answer can be 100% correct we can still mathematically find a number with the % that is the closest to 100 with an average. (An average of realistic numbers lol, cant take an average of crap and get closer to crap and call it a flower). I hope my rambling make some logical sense.

I do understand what you are saying. But still I don't agree with the notion that right or wrong in history should be considered a matter of chance.

The room for error for any study should always be included, as well as the reason why this room of error exists and why it is of that specific side.

I think you are seeing it as a football game a bit. The whole German war was a giant gamble against a superior coalition that fell apart in 1941', and the rest was just them trying to figure out how to avoid total defeat. (which was pretty damn interesting in its own right)

True, the German military weakness was a tendency to be hyperaggressive and execute operations on a razor edge. You can see this from the small unit up to the grand strategic level. It's madness. But it was also a double edged sword.

Case Blue actually had many encirclements- just nothing compared to Barbarossa or Typhoon phase I. The biggest one was the encirclement at Kalach (up to 75,000)and the early ones in the caucasus. The real effect was the rapid gain of territory with the panzer drives, which caused the soviet armies to retreat and lose much of their stores and equipment making them much less effective in future ops. The irony is that the pre-Case Blue encirclements (up to 230,000) and surgical ops were more successful at reducing the soviet oob.

American/British complaints of logistics problems and the British manpower crisis actually pale compared to German problems in 41' and 42'. As early late august 1941, the German mobile forces could only get their strength up to 50-75% maximum in all categories provided a two week refitting period. Their actual strength was around 50% in armor and vehicles operable. By mid-Oct 1941, for instance, the Germans had only 13% of their vehicle fleet still running and were typically getting only 40-60% of the minimum supplies they needed to sustain the offensive. And they were just starting Operation Typhoon!! Then in two weeks, the Vyzama/Bryansk pockets are closed with over a million into the prisoner hauls or dead.

Wars are won at the Strategic level. The allies and the soviets were on the ball on this one. However, other things points out to operational art at the tactical and operational levels- basically the W.Allied armies aren't aggressive, effective, or ambitious enough. Basically the West Front armies and airpower may have needed a different configuration and doctrine other than variations of 'methodical' battle. It would be an attempt to replicate blitzkrieg, although in West. Allied terms. In 1940 you have Rommel's 7.Pz taking 94,000 British and French prisoners before the armistice using german methods. The others did nearly as good in France and in Russia 41'.

It is possible you are quite right... But if I am an infantryman and have the choice of fighting under a Prussian who studies fine use of minimal necessary materials in an artistic duel or the American logistician who believes in massing a huge punch that you land after blowing up everything on the other side.... And then winding up for another big punch, I would rather be on the side of the US and let the historians disparage the way I won.

So again, if you are an allied commander you hit hard, and if you end up having to stop there isn't a reason to risk a strategic overreach if you can just wait a bit and wind up the next punch.

(If I hear you correctly this is part of the argument that the Germans were not at their best in the West yet they still managed to hold off the Allies because... they were so good? And to an American, to say "you only won because you hit us with much more than you needed to" will often probably only get the response "yeah.... so what's your point?")

Case Blue is in part the counter argument to the whole "encirclement" argument. By Case Blue there just weren't the kind of successful massed encirclements of Soviets. The Soviets had a few more months of experience under them and were much more successful at avoiding that kind of devastation. Likewise the Germans were aware of the dangers, having done it so many times to others. They fought tooth and nail to unplug the Poles who were threatening to close the Falaise pocket and hold it open long enough to allow at least the troops if not the material to escape.

I do understand what you are saying. But still I don't agree with the notion that right or wrong in history should be considered a matter of chance.

The room for error for any study should always be included, as well as the reason why this room of error exists and why it is of that specific side.

Sadly history's right/wrong has always been a choice of manipulation. The victors often write history (as cliche as it sounds is almost always true). History is to be looked at from as many angles as possible because of this factor and from my personal history studies/degree I have learned that the same must be done for numerical data thus why I tend to take the average. While never 100% accurate it most closely resembles a plausible and more precise value. But because we are talking about history any method that is persuade is totally up to the researcher and also since it contains a degree of perspective relativity no way is considered wrong or right