Profile of coh2player

^^^^

I can see the confusion here. It was your comment on German 'strategic genius' that caused me to comment. "Strategic" in military terms is not at the fighting division's level. It is at the political & economic plus Hitler/OKW/OKH,AGS, AGC, AGN, level.

You mean tactical, it seems.

After Kursk the German situation was very fragile, the fact that the war progressed two more years until the capitulation is remarkable, in my opinion of course.

For reasons already stated, I didn't find it remarkable- it is expected given the circumstances. Defending without surprise was usually much cheaper than attacking. The Soviets had a economical formation just for this purpose: It was called 'Fortified region' and it was low on manpower, had low offensive capability, and based on support weapons. It was used to hold areas with minimal production cost, much like what most of the Wehrmacht was doing.

With the Wehrmacht's units, I find that it was the most tactically/operationally effective in 41 and 42, and much less so afterwards.

Besides recurring training/tactical leadership defects in 44-45', the Soviet tactical command culture was a bizarre weakness, as it tended to force units to be overly aggressive without encouraging creativity, and forced them to attack the same dangerous place over and over with the resultant losses.

IMO, It is interesting that as a whole by 43, Soviet Front and Army commanders were effective but the same cannot be said for corps commanders (outside of exceptions) or division commanders as a whole.

In contrast, the German division commanders were mostly effective or outstanding with the Army commanders getting hammered.

The Germans did not possess "strategic genius" in 43-45..It was a drawn-out series of blunders and disasters. The Soviet command was largely more consistent from the STAVKA/Front level at this point. The Germans declined in all levels but remained somewhat competent at Army, corps and divisional level for the most part. (operational, tactical level). It was in the strategic area that they failed badly (Top leadership, Army Group, economic management).

The Germans were tough in the defense because their military system was heavily focused around troop training and divisional organizational development. They were much less impressive in offensive operations come 1943, as their attack methods were getting countered more and more readily.

The big difference operationally is the serious decline in their infantry divisions. They were shrinking in size and capability, and were no longer able to hold the front. The Panzer divisions did not decline as fast, and the numerous small tactical victories their counter-operations accomplished delayed the inevitable.

It took strategic genius, tactical creativity and zeal to keep the German line from entirely collapsing after Kursk. The fact that they lasted that long on what little was available is frankly astounding, even their adversaries and foreign historians have to concede.

The fact that they lasted that long on what little was available is frankly astounding, even their adversaries and foreign historians have to concede. No amount of "force multipliers" accounts for the relatively slow advance of the Red Army westwards.

The Red Army 'advanced in thrusts' mainly due to two things:

1. Logistics and pauses to rebuild/replenish forces
2. Military immaturity- they lacked confidence to perform dramatic encirclements to get the really high reward moves until 1944. This lack of confidence was due to their well-placed fear against counter operations by mobile forces. The Red Army 'matured' in 1944, but not without some internal flaws (their troop training was never at a great level).

^^
Hah. I checked youtube and the MG-42 looks like a beast. The MG-34 was already OP, but this one looks even more so.

Thanks for the info, guys!

I saw the fight scenes only (through cam). The movie's war fighting scenes are short and aren't very good, but due to the novelty value (ww2 tanks) they are worth seeing. The movie is doing well at the box office and I hope to see bigger tank battle movies in the future.

The movie was made with limited funds. Minus the marketing budget (half of it these days, it's not a lot). They only had 1 tiger and 4 shermans (the tiger vs shermans fight is very short) as combat vehicles in the movie. There is only one tank to tank fight, and the youtube link shows most of it.

In the final fight Show Spoiler

The equipment and uniforms of the film, however are good. But the tactics are off, and it just looks wrong even to somebody who isn't an experienced reader of WW2 combat. SPR was far better, even with the oddities and all.