Russia supposedly having better infantry made me rise an eyebrow. But then, I'm not exactly a WWII historian. Would be interesting to hear about some tangible examples though.
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Ahistorical Balance - I'd like to see it change
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You're quite correct in that the difference is far more stark in a civilian economy. This is why HoI4 looks like it can model this far better than in previous games, since there are civilian factories and military factories. One thing I would add is that free market economies aren't deficient when it comes to wartime production. Though they aren't free market during the war itself, it's fairly east for factories to transition as long as the product is still similar, and even at times when it isn't. I mean, look at the simply enormous US production numbers during the war. So it's not like either one is more knowledgeable in that sense.
The differences are certainly more stark in peacetime, however, you are correct.
It's exceedingly hard to generalize about such large groups, so I raised an eyebrow as well. You can certainly compare individual units (say the German Panzer Lehr vs the British 7th Armored), and individual pieces of equipment (the Panzer IVF vs. the T-34 '41), but to say "X had better Y" is usually going to be incorrect once you start to really look at it.
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I am not going to quote everything you said it if you don't mind.
And alright, sorry if i am insulted you, for that i apologise.
About Rossokovsky I only use him as an example because he is one of the few Soviet generals i even know, the only 2 other being Vatutin and Zhukov. Neither Vatutin or Rossokovsky are 5 skill in hoi3. I think Vatutin is 3 and Rossokovsky is 4.
About Hitler, i'm fairly confident most of the spins was made by his minister of propaganda Joseph Goebbels. And i never said anything about elite troops so i don't know why you bring that up.
About:
1. Don't be paranoid, just because someone doesn't agree with you doesn't mean they are anti american.
2. Let's be honest about bias. Americans are generally not the biggest fans of Russians for various reasons, just like Russians aren't the biggest fans of Americans for various reasons. Doesn't mean all are like that naturally.
3. From my point of view you're attempting to overplay American capabilities in 1941, and what you actually said to me has nothing to do with what i said to you, and is just a deflection as you didn't actually address anything. I said: You want want all of the historical strengths of the US and none of the historical weaknesses. In reality US didn't have a giant army and was able to invade in anybody in 1941. Saying it's historical that they can and saying i want them ahistorically nerfed is just plain lieing.
It's not an insult to say you didn't understand what i said. I get to decide wether or not you got my point and i clearly see you didn't.
As for metrics, I'd go by death from military actions. Way more people were killed in combat on these fronts that's pretty simple i feel like. Also if you read my first post, you'd notice i quite spesifically said i based my views on Glantz and House who are historians, so why are you asking this question? What historians do you base your view on btw since that's important to you, and what metrics do you use?
Also you were not reasonable, nor civil, if you had been those things you wouldn't strawman me, deflect, pretend like i am anti american for not agreeing with you, actually read. You said i mentioned only 2 countries, because you were so into your own narrative you ignored the blatantly-obvious-in-large-font 5 countries i mentioned. Next to the "Soviet STRONK/Allies worthless" are the exact same vocal group of "America STRONK/Soviet worthless" I hope you're not one of them, but tread carefully lest you be mistaken for one of those people who adamanetly defends their own nation while trying to imply a bias with other people. Let's make it absolutely clear that i am Danish and i am not trying to assert my own nations acheivements in world war 2, but you are.
I started my OP with general, gameplay things which in my opinion would be more historical, i linked a video specifically for the eastern front, and said this is what i base most of my views on that on. Then I took some very specific examples from hoi3, and explained why i disliked them.
As far as I can see, hkrommel, you've made some giant sweeping generalisations and claims, then assumed they were fact, so insted of attacking what you say or asserting what i say i will try to question some things you said.
- You claim Soviets imported large amount of western machine tools in 1942, if so: How much compared to their own, what was the difference and how come the western machine tools that they got earlier somehow became inferior?
- You claim are very well documented problems with central controlled economies, then i'd like to see the documentation. And i'd like to also know if there aren't equivilant problems with free market war production.
- All your claims about the Soviet Invasion of Manchuria that i asked for a source for, you still didn't provide, am i to assume you just don't have one?
- You claim that there is a lot more going on than where most people fought and died, which is China and the Eastern front. I am fully aware of that, and never said there wasn't other things, but since you're so adament about this point, why don't you go on and actually show the distribution of major events, battles, movements etc. How ever you like it, you're just saying something extremely vague about "Many things happened" okay that's cool, then make a comparison between the other things and the 2 fronts that i believe were the most important.
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Well, standard infantry for most countries in the entire world war 2, were pretty much the same with bolt action rifles being their main weapon. The only country that succeeded in having the general infantry better equipped to a large scale was the US having the Garand as the standard weapon for much of the war.
That being said, several countries had concentrations of weapons to make some pretty good fighting formations outside the regular bolt action carrying infantry guy. Everyone is probably very familiar with the STG-44 being carried by German troops later in the war.
The Russian infantry excelled in some other areas, like the amount of submachine guns a russian infantry formation could have. The soviets produced more than 8 million smgs of which 6 million were PPsh-41 models, and around 2 million were PPS-43. I comparison 2 million thompsons 4.6 million sten guns, and around 1.1 million MP40s were produced.
So you could say for assault infantry the Russians probably had the better infantry if for no other reason, then for the simple fact that they were able to equip so many people with SMGs for close quater fighting.
Another example could be that the Russians developed body armour for their assault engineers, which i think were the most elite of the Russian infantry. I don't know to how big an extend they actually managed to produce it, but it was enough to gift 1000 peices to the new Polish army in 1944.
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[hnmkl
I suppose you mean "better armed infantry" as I doubt the Russian assault infantry was better trained than say regular American or German troops or am I wrong?
(Wheres my link to the source... none... so these are my own thoughts.... yes...)
I suppose you mean "better armed infantry" as I doubt the Russian assault infantry was better trained than say regular American or German troops or am I wrong?
(Wheres my link to the source... none... so these are my own thoughts.... yes...)
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Yes i mean better armed infantry. But armament can be a big deal.
As for training, the war time training for the German and Soviet troops were probably about equal. In the beginning of operation barbarossa, Germany had a veteran and experienced army, and about 300,000 reserves who were also well trained. The problem for Germans was that after the first 6 months of their war with the Soviet Union, they had lost more people than they had reserves, and so all their reserves were used up, after that point Germany had to quickly train troops to replace losses. The Soviets on the other hand, started operation barbarossa with basically no experienced soldiers except a tiny amount of veterans from the spanish civil war, and a lack of veteran officers, however the Soviets had a long term draft that required most males to serve in the army for i think up to 3 years. So while they lost millions of people in the first 6 months, they could replace them with reserves that was already trained, the Soviet reserves that replaced losses probably had considerably longer training than the quickly trained troops that countries with no large reserve force had to make do with.
So in short, the earlier in the war the better the german troops were in terms of training probably, and the later the worse.
By the way if this interests you, the video i linked in the original post has a part where the historian David House goes into some pretty interesting detail and examples on this particular subject.
As for the americans well its complicated, but again it depends on when in the war. Early american infantry training is described as "unrealistic" by the US army.
But if you want you can read all about the US training here http://www.history.army.mil/html/books/002/2-2/CMH_Pub_2-2.pdf
Provided you can chuck yourself through 717 pages of it
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The Soviets only needed to outwit the higher echelons of yea-sayers surrounding hitler at the time. There was no shortage of credible reports of a Soviet buildup, correctly identified by Busch's staff that was largely ignored.
Not that it would've mattered. The strategic situation due to the disposition of forces and choice of front-line on the Eastern Front at the time of Bagration was untenable for the Axis, especially for Busch (who basically became the scapegoat and replaced by Model 6 days into the action). All decisions to ignore or downplay subordinate commanders opinions were always motivated by OKW or the top German brass by explanations referring to the strategic situation not privy to said unit commanders. Even if the situation had been correctly identified the disposition and position of AG Center was fundamentally exposed to the Soviet offensive.
A sane human player playing with anything even resembling a will to win rather than historicity in mind would've made sure that there was no armygroup in that position once the attack happened.
The only way to emulate historical stuff like that (wanton misjudgment of operational situations) is if future expansions of the game enacts the original ideas for Battle-plans being decipherable, stealable, identified and also fake ones being possible.
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Busch knew about operation bagration and warned people about it correctly? Where did you get that from?
Apology accepted
You directly stated that "fanaticism" should affect the morale of troops. So, what does that actually mean? That's why I brought up the best example of that being put into play (the SS) and the actual difference it made. I was simply drawing your assertion to the logical conclusion, and showing why a morale boost is not really very historical in any sort of measurable sense.
Enough people are on this forum (especially on threads related to USSR capabilities) that I'm naturally cautious. For the record, I'm not anti-Russian, I'm just anti-anti-American
Notice that you give a hard and fast date: 1941. That's where your problem lies. History ends when the game unpauses in 1936. If I'm a US player and I start building a land army in 1936, your scenario is already gone. Not to mention that the US having a tiny army even in 1936 is a myth if you include NG divisions and OR divisions (which you should). Whether or not those are represented in-game (and honestly with the way the US organizes those it would need a different mechanic so I doubt it) remains to be seen, but either way the best Paradox can do historically is to properly represent what's going in in 1936 and the repercussions of that, which they do through NF trees.
And I never said they should be able to invade anybody, simply that the situation in-game in 1941 will always be different from the historical one.
I thought that was the job of the laws of reason but I guess not.
Firstly, deaths is not a way to measure combat. I honestly don't have a better metric but that's because none exists. Just to dismantle that metric, the US was involved in far more "combat" (that is, military engagements) by both quantity and intensity in World War II than, say, the American Civil War. However far more Americans died in the ACW. Does that mean the intensity and quantity of engagements in the ACW was comparable to WWII? No. Like I said, there's no better way to measure it, but there's no good way in general.
Having read both Glantz and House (not all of their work, but a decent portion) I fail to recall either of them saying that the Eastern Front contained 75% of combat in the war, or anything to that effect. I recall Glantz mentioning land equipment losses mostly happening on that front, but historians tend to make sure they use precise language. They don't make broad claims about "combat" but rather precise claims about losses and strategic impacts. They don't make prescriptive claims beyond these ones either, they don't assert that 75% of the war was fought on one front, because that assertion is absurd.
That's why I said that I was perfectly civil in my original post before you were rude and accused me of national bias (thus I responded in-kind in my second post), but you already apologized so let's move on, shall we?
Off the top of my head Robert Weeks and Alexander Hill both examine the Soviet archives regarding the British machine tools and equipment that were shipped to the USSR in 1941, and how they were crucial to Soviet industry getting up and running in 1942. You can read about it on your own but other than a few instances (the Soviets used a specialized type of welding the Brits did nor IIRC), British and American manufacturing techniques better than Soviet ones. Their equipment was far better developed (having a longer history as industrialized nations). The Soviets had some of these tools earlier but the never recieve them in such quantities until LL, thus they made a much larger impact.
I know it's wikipedia but it has multiple sources at the bottom. Enjoy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet-type_economic_planning#Disadvantages
And no, there aren't the same problems with Free-Market production because if you look at the causes of the problems with command production, those areas are not present in free markets.
Again this is waaay OT so I'm not going to continue here, but google is a wonderful thing
Yet you claim to have read Glantz...
http://usacac.army.mil/cac2/cgsc/ca...ticalAndOperationalCombatInManchuria_1945.pdf
Only 6 of the Kwantung Army's divisions existed prior to 1945, none of the Kwantung Army's formations were considered combat-ready, some less than 15%, etc. This is a pretty well-known historical fact.
Well there was the South Pacific and CBI theaters in the East, which were critical to draining Japanese resources. The Italian Front in WWII was largely responsible for the success of the Soviet Operation Uranus, since the Axis mobile reserves were redeployed in anticipation of the invasion. The threat of Allied invasion alone kept hundreds of thousands of German troops stuck in Norway. The Battle of Britain decimated the Luftwaffe and dealt them a blow from which they never recovered. The Battle of the Atlantic took up a ton of resources (submarines are way more expensive than tanks), and resulted in Enigma being cracked (which in turn resulted in the Soviets having great intelligence during Stalingrad, Kursk, and other operations. North Africa kept the Germans out of the Middle East, kept Turkey out of the war, kept the Tehran LL route open. I'm not going to take hours of my time to detail all this for you, but do some of your own research. I'm not making the claim that any one front was the most important, because if you change any of the factors regarding other fronts and that "most important" front may have gone much differently, or had been reduced in importance. In the Pacific, for example, the South Pacific front would have taken precedence in terms of importance if the IJN had sent the forces that were historically lost at Midway to the south instead.
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It's not like plans were leaked no but the offensive seemed quite evident given the reports from army staff of the opposing german formations at the time. Even though Busch's staff provided credible intel Busch himself was basically powerless after the stern meeting with hitler in April. Possibly the power buildup that early was not big enough to make the request to withdraw justifiable and Busch was pretty much handcuffed from then on. Maybe he thought he could escape the inevitable accusations of responsibility by changing foot and started strictly obeying orders (though that didn't work out either).
The warnings were numerous already in May with Gen Jordan's staff of 9th army providing pretty good intel on the situation and the forces arrayed against AGC. Even Krebs of all people (then chief of staff to Zeitzler) warned of the evident double pronged offensive but OKH not wanting to oppose hitler chose to ignore it (as did the GRÖFAZ himself), much like what had happened with Operation Uran two years prior.
That the threat was clear for the formations arrayed against it is evident from the precautions made by the various subordinate commands that were later affected (though with little actual effect in the end due to the strategic nature of the collapse). The higher leadership chose to ignore the warnings didn't make the operation less of a surprise for the units facing it.
Not that it mattered at that stage because OKH and hitler still denied every request to remedy the situation with Busch and Jordan both getting sacked, Jordan being held responsible despite being the most outspoken about the coming Soviet offensive.
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Yeah the same thing happened with Halder during Fall Blau, and a couple other officers IIRC.
It's a video game, and a small 5% morale boost is a perfectly reasonable bonus for a leader.
Enough people are on this forum (especially on threads related to USSR capabilities) that I'm naturally cautious. For the record, I'm not anti-Russian, I'm just anti-anti-American
I just am anti-stereo types. Like different systems being inferior. By default most people in the western world is probably don't have a favourable view of eastern culture, not just Russia but also chinese and others. So in general i like to see real evidence of negative things said about them, probably from a long list of experiences with things said about eastern culture/history not actually being true.
I never said it shouldn't be different from the historical one, my problem was that it was different from the historical one in that US rofl stomped everyone. US can focus and do operations however they want, within the realm of plausibility, and it was completely unfeasable for the US to invade mainland japan in 1941, no matter what they did. I'm simply saying that it's too easy to mobilize the US economy in hoi3 and maybe hoi4 aswell, considering this actually took several years.
The historical deviation should come from how you use your resources, not by giving them more resources and capabilities than they actually had.
Yes it isn't the laws of reason, as the only person in the world who knows what i am thinking, i am the only one who can accurately judge if people understand me. I don't know why that would be an arcane concept.
I disagree.
Compared to how many people who lived during the american civil war, i'd say it's very obvious that the us civil war actually was a much higher intensity conflict for the US. And i'd say so for more reasons than just death count.
I made that claim, based on casualties which i thought i made clear but maybe not. But we can also go by troop distribution, for example where did germany send their forces, how many battles were fought, how much territory was fought over, how many natural resources were captured etc. We can count by any way you wish, the result will still be the same most things that had a direct impact on the war still happened here.
If you gonna make these claims you're gonna have to do better than random name dropping, also your sources are so obscure and unheard of that googling their name alone yields basically nothing. And i am not gonna go out of my way to find some unnamed alleged source of obscure historians that no one has heard of.
I believe i have a PDF somewhere around here of US analysis of Soviet production in ww2, and it is of course not a simple as you make it out, the lower quality for the 1941 and 1942 produced things are attributed to well, you know the entire german invasion thing that british and american factories didn't have to deal with. The auther also notes that while American tanks are extremely finely cast, welded and cut, the corners are of the steel is smooth etc. that it has no impact on performance, and that a walker bulldog took significantly longer to produce than equivilant soviet tanks for no performance gain, it is true that many soviet things were crude in the areas that you could see, but their precision engineering was fine, they just didn't apply it at all times unless they had to, something the americans were apparently impressed by. I'll look for this document if you'd like to read the entire report yourself.
I know it's wikipedia but it has multiple sources at the bottom. Enjoy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet-type_economic_planning#Disadvantages
And no, there aren't the same problems with Free-Market production because if you look at the causes of the problems with command production, those areas are not present in free markets.
Again this is waaay OT so I'm not going to continue here, but google is a wonderful thing
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism#Criticism
Turns out wikipedia also has a page about capitalism, probably one about free market too, and that it has different problems.
And if you don't wanna continue the insults i suggest you try to contain you condersending tone, google is a great thing indeed, but it doesn't work like you posting a list of random sources you did not check, do not understand, and present out of context while misrepresenting my arguement. Doing those things aren't civil hkrommel, and i'd like you attempt again if you want to press this as an issue, as strawmanning yet again, while being condersending is not going to convince me even the slightest.
Both systems has flaws, and i am not going to point out the ones about capitalism, because i don't want this to be an economic arguement, but a gameplay one, but i suggest you don't use it as a reason, for this is not what i ever wanted to talk about.
I have read a bunch of Glants, being a normal functional human, i cannot however remember the text of every page of every book he has ever written. Who knew?
If you wanna use a 200+ article for a single point, you're gonna have to make a page reference.
And finally, no divisional strength of japanese divisions in 1945 is not common knowledge. If that is what you mean with well known.
Also i find it very disapointing that you read a 200 page report on Soviet preperations and all you get out of it is that the japanese had understrength divisions. Not being full strength doesn't mean you don't have weapons. You claim was they were not armed. and you didn't provide a source for it so you still have to do that.
Right well, you see you didn't make any concrete comparisons, you just voiced your opinions and proved nothing. Other than the fact there was combat other places in the world, this little paragraph doesn't enlighten me as to the scale or amount of combat anywhere, and is just your opinion.
Which is not what i asked for.
You don't have to take hours, i am sure there are researchers who have done that already, i'd just like to see the real comparisons.
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Personnel losses that include prisoners (you talked of "deaths" only) should actually be quite a good metric. People are something that while being producible by untrained and uneducated workforce, is slow to produce and very vital to war effort as a soldiers and a workforce in industries that support the war. It just must be used subjectively to address some particular nation in some particular war. How much of it's war fit people did Germany lose on eastern front? How much did USSR? Of course equipment is important, especially in modern warfare where smaller numbers with superior firepower can actually exist, but I would guess that equipment losses and personnel losses go pretty much hand in hand. This is of course more about how much warring nation in question lost of it's capabilities rather than quantifying something abstract as combat.
And wasn't this particular part of the conversation originally about US being able to raise, arm and field doomstacks in every front of the war by 1941? Of course that should be possible if player starts preparing for war at the very start with his mystical knowledge of another Great War starting in a few years. Senate and the people and whatever of course should not know this and they must be somehow persuaded. I think the national focus system was made up for things like that: New Deal being revitalization of economy by expansion of military industry for Roosevelt's planned invasion of Canada or something. Payback of this would be, naturally, missing out the New Deal that happened in real life and all the consequences. Likewise choosing real life New Deal would close out the the path of militant unification of all Americas or at least delay it. There are and should be as many alternate histories in the focus trees as Paradox (and modders) care to make with reality being just one of the many.
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This is a really important point most people don't think about or even understand.
The two major fronts in WW2, were China and Japan and Germany and the USSR.
While the US Japanese conflict was the turning point of the Sino-Japanese front, the vast majority of all Japanese military force was arrayed against China, NOT the United States. Certainly the IJN was defeated in detail by the USN, but I believe that out of around 173 divisions in the Imperial Japanese Army, the United States dealt with 11 of them. The rest were in China, other occupied areas or on the home islands with the bulk of those forces on the home islands or in china.
I think one of the great travesties of WW2 history is the almost complete omission of the Sino-Japanese front in the widely accepted WW2 narrative.
People don't talk about it. They don't understand it, and they don't give any credit or credence to it.
Imagine Eastern Front, if Germany had like 95% of all its land based force outside of the Eastern Front. That's what we're talking about when we talk about the Pacific Theater. The United States smashed the Japanese Navy, but it barely even fought the Japanese army which was, forgive the term, balls deep in China.
Also, I imagine you're referring to me as one of those USSR stronk, allies weak, types. That simply isn't true. I know we've debated the Eastern Front in multiple threads, several times.
If that is the impression you get of me, then let me say this to you. My impression of you is that you belittle the Soviet Union and what it did to emphasize the US role. That is the impression I get, but that is not what I think, you think.
My point in those debates isn't to say the allies were not strong, far from it. The USA was almost unquestionably the most powerful country in the war, though I doubt it could have held off the USSR in Europe had WW2 continued as a Soviet vs Western conflict.
The point is that despite the strength of the western allies, the USSR would have almost certainly won on its own without any assistance. That it got assistance almost certainly did not change the outcome, but rather how that outcome was reached.
That debate is a very narrow area of discussion over the entire war, and the very real and very interesting intricacies of the other fronts and other AOs. There is no doubt the Eastern front was the most important front in Europe, there is no doubt that the other Fronts were largely inconsequential to the ultimate German defeat, but that doesn't mean that they didn't figure into how things went down.
It seems like a contradiction to say the following, "they wouldn't change the outcome, but they changed the outcome", because we're talking about two different things. The eventual and inevitable, I would argue, defeat of Germany, and HOW Germany was defeated.
We can talk about what would happen in a pure Soviet vs German war, but that isn't what happened. I can argue that the USSR would have almost certainly won alone, but it didn't have to fight alone. The issue is, I think, that people often trump up the role of the western allies and dismiss the Soviet Union in the war. Either because of national bias, or because of lack of education. My efforts to highlight the war and suggest the USSR would have won it with or without help isn't trying to diminish the role the western allies played, but to highlight just how much of the load the Soviet Union carried. Hopefully to illuminate people who are open to learning more about the war, and to get them to think critically about the war.
To suggest that the USSR survived only by the graces of Britain and the USA is simply put, stolen valor, and I am not saying you do this, but many people on these very forums do. To deny that as truth doesn't say the USA or Britain and her commonwealth was weak, it's just stating the truth, that our role (yes I am both a Canadian and US citizen) was not war defining. Not that we were weak, and not that would couldn't have done more. We certainly were capable (the western allies) of defeating Germany, but Germany went and got herself defeated before it came to that. I would suggest we should be thankful for that. How many of us wouldn't be here today if it came down to the USA, Britain and the commonwealth to take on Germany alone?
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Sure, but it should IMHO be one of the lesser leaders on the cabinet. For example, pick a propaganda guy and get a bonus.
Hold up. So all systems are equal? I'm sorry but some systems are inferior. Look at Mongol civilization vs. Western Latin civilization. Claiming otherwise is just absurd or the result of historical ignorance. I don't know if that's what you're claiming, and I don't want to straw man you, but that's what you look like you're saying here. And when did I make any claims about Russian civilization anyways?
HoI 3 is notorious for modeling the Pacific theater horribly, I agree. However that's not because the US is unrealistically strong, it's just that the AI can't handle amphibious and naval campaigns. They actually had to make a tech to transport garrisons via ships that the AI wouldn't research because the AI would leave islands undefended altogether. As for HoI4, it's still in development so I'm withholding judgement. As for historical plausibility, Operation Torch was launched mostly from across the entire Atlantic, so it's possible to stage an invasion across an ocean. A successful invasion is another thing altogether.
Since when was that the case in HoI 3? @Secret Master played a game testing the "US was buffed/nerfed" myth and found that wasn't the case.
Seriously? So a conflict where they'd fight for a few days then go regroup, with a bit of raiding on the side, is more intense than 24/7 mass bombing, naval operations, and land combat on a massive scale? I'm sorry but that's ridiculous.
Maybe it's because what you think and what you say may deviate. All I can see and respond to is what you say.
Are you serious? Pilots and sailors are more expensive than riflemen. Planes and submarines are more expensive than tanks. You seem to be counting out two of the three branches of warfare here. Sure, the majority of land combat took place on the eastern front, but if you include the CBI theater (which was seeing land combat 4 years before the German army set foot in Soviet territory) it's not by the margin you claim. Again, how are you measuring this? By losses? There's no way to quantify how much a rifleman lost in Stalingrad is "worth" compared to a bomber pilot lost over the English Channel, but it's not a 1:1 ratio. Like I said, I've yet to encounter a serious historian who speaks in such generalities and makes such claims as you do.
Because that's how you measure whether someone's right or wrong...please don't make me laugh anymore, I've already fallen out of my chair.
Alexander Hill
Albert Weeks (Robert Weeks was an autocorrect typo)
Because I wasn't referencing pre-war production as well
And we all know tanks are the only thing you use to measure production quality, lol
Look, you're the one who doesn't have English as a first language, so take it from someone who has been speaking English his whole life, that was perfectly civil. If you didn't get that from the winking face (common internet denotation of poking fun), I don't know how I'll get through to you.
You can do your own research then. It's fairly well-known among those who frequently discuss things on this forum that the IJA had light equipment, most of their planes were obsolete, and their equipment likewise. The best equipment and men had been diverted against the Americans for years.
As for my claim being that the were not armed, that's a little thing called hyperbole.
Same for you.
You can look at this to start researching naval actions.
Air
Land (notice that German AFV losses were only 2:1 in favor of the Eastern Front)
Manpower is spread out over several sources since each theater is calculated individually, but sources aren't hard to find. I use the median estimates where multiple sources conflict (example Italian mainland campaign casualties pre-armistice range from 336,650 to 580,630, these numbers average to 458,640). All numbers are rounded to the nearest thousand where applicable. KIA/MIA totals are included wherever possible, and non-combat related injuries and deaths excluded where possible. Civilian casualties not included because of forum rules and irrelevance to discussion. My major source for Pacific losses is here:
Pacific (not including Manchuria 1945)
Australia: 46,000
China: 8,000,000
India: 100,000
Japan (incl. navy): 2,000,000
Philippines: 57,000
Taiwan (owned by Japan): 30,000
Korea (owned by Japan): 22,000
Netherlands: 37,000
United Kingdom: 68,000
United States (army and marines): 278,000
New Zealand: 12,000
Thailand: 6,000
Burma: 3,000
Total Pacific (All Pacific including CBI, and note that wiki only gives KIA, this is total casualties):
10,659,000
North Africa
United Kingdom (incl. Commonwealth): 220,000
Free French: 16,000
United States: 18,000
Italy: 366,000
Germany: 152,000
Vichy France: 3,000
Total North Africa:
775,000
Italian Front (Sicily and Italy)
Total Allied: 338,000
Total Axis: 1,687,000
Total Italy:
2,025,000
Western Front:
Total Allied: 2,966,000
Total Axis: 5,374,000 (plus an unknown number of wounded)
Total Western Front:
8,340,000 + unknown Axis wounded
Sea Losses (those unaccounted for thus far):
Italy: 31,000
United States: 106,000 (includes Coast Guard)
Germany: 138,000
United Kingdom: 74,000
I couldn't find reliable figures for France, and Japan is already accounted for
Total:
349,000
Other Fronts (Balkans, Norway, Poland, Denmark, Greece, Winter War, Ethiopia):
Germany:95,000
Italy: 340,000
Poland: 200,000
Yugoslavia (incl partisan campaigns): 1,629,000
Finland: 70,000
Norway: 3,000
USSR: 354,000
Greece: 57,000
United Kingdom: 23,000
Total Axis (Crete): 6,000
Total Allied (Crete): 21,000 + unknown number wounded
South Africa: 12,000
Albania: 30,000
Ethiopia: 775,000
Total
3,415,000
Total Non-Eastern Front: 25,997,000
Eastern Front:
NOTE: Soviet casualty counts are far different from other nations, particularly when they include sickness. Poor records exist for the 1941-1942 period, and records really aren't great for the rest of the war on either side (same for German Western Front figures, note the missing wounded count). I'm using Krivosheev's analysis for the USSR, Overman's analysis for the Axis, combat deaths only plus wounded, MIA, and captured. Krivosheev puts the KIA/MIA (irrecoverable losses) at 8,700,000, however not all of these are combat deaths. A note about wounded: I've decided to exclude wounded numbers since German wounded are already excluded on the Western Front. Soviet and German records are extremely sketchy, and in some cases include soldiers being counted multiple times for different wounds, non-combat-prohibitive wounds, etc.
Totals:
Soviet Union: 11,800,000 (total operational losses listed at 11,444,000)
Poland: 24,000
Romania: 678,000
Bulgaria: 22,000
Finland: 88,000
Slovakia: 40,000
Hungary: 600,000
Italy: 102,000
Germany: 7,300,000
Soviet Defectors: 1,215,000
Total:
21,867,000
Now, since wounded numbers are so bad but entirely necessary, let's roughly double Soviet casualties and add that to the total (net change of x3). We will do the same for Germany, but this will be applied to both West and East.
Eastern Front Total: 52,767,000
Other Fronts: 36,745,000
That's a 1.4:1 ratio.
Obviously those numbers could be different depending on who/what you look at. The Soviets had about 556,000 noncombat deaths, 940,000 were MIA but later returned, etc. Soviet record keeping combined with the chaos of war makes analysis difficult. Either way, when reliable wounded numbers were available I included them. When they were not I made adjustment calculations, which you can see above.
Even if you include non-combat deaths all wounded and sick for the Eastern Front, you still only get 56,015,000 (this still requires adjustment calculation for the Germans). That's a 1.52:1 ratio.
So the grand total comes to 92,830,000. Even taking Krivosheev's maximum numbers you only get 60.3% of losses on the Eastern Front.
Taking out non-combat deaths and adjusting for wounded estimates the total comes to 89,514,000. That's 58.9% of combat losses.
So by tonnage of equipment, far more was lost in other theaters (obviously, because naval combat). Losses are roughly 60% on the Eastern Front, so that's 15% away from your assessment. Combine the two factors (equipment tonnage loss and casualties), add in some other factors such as the strategic bombing campaigns, and you'll find the Eastern Front is not the majority of the war by any stretch of the imagination. It may be a plurality, sure, but not the majority.
If you want to do an analysis of your own, be my guest. Sorting through all those sources to see what was actually included/not included was a nightmare.
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Apologies for the double post but the other one is quite long enough. For the record, I don't think you're one of the Soviet Stronk types. We disagree on the impact of lend-lease but you're quite correct in that it's a very narrow topic. Where I think our issue lies is in what "winning" looks like for the USSR sans-Allies. Assuming Japan stays out of the USSR, I think that the USSR will likely win, but only if they play their cards exactly right in the crucial timeframe of late 1941-late 1942. I think that the war would be much more difficult, and that they could not have achieved nearly the material superiority they did without western aid. Combine this with the Axis focusing their full attention on the Soviets, and you get a situation where the Soviets probably won't roll back the Germans very far. I doubt they make it to Minsk by the time they reach a peace settlement. If the Germans blunder significantly (which is likely) I see the Soviets making it back to Poland, but again without the Western Allies to consider the Germans can focus a considerably greater amount of force on the Soviets.
But yeah either way we're arguing fine details.
Sure, but it should IMHO be one of the lesser leaders on the cabinet. For example, pick a propaganda guy and get a bonus.
Hold up. So all systems are equal? I'm sorry but some systems are inferior. Look at Mongol civilization vs. Western Latin civilization. Claiming otherwise is just absurd or the result of historical ignorance. I don't know if that's what you're claiming, and I don't want to straw man you, but that's what you look like you're saying here. And when did I make any claims about Russian civilization anyways?
HoI 3 is notorious for modeling the Pacific theater horribly, I agree. However that's not because the US is unrealistically strong, it's just that the AI can't handle amphibious and naval campaigns. They actually had to make a tech to transport garrisons via ships that the AI wouldn't research because the AI would leave islands undefended altogether. As for HoI4, it's still in development so I'm withholding judgement. As for historical plausibility, Operation Torch was launched mostly from across the entire Atlantic, so it's possible to stage an invasion across an ocean. A successful invasion is another thing altogether.
Since when was that the case in HoI 3? @Secret Master played a game testing the "US was buffed/nerfed" myth and found that wasn't the case.
Seriously? So a conflict where they'd fight for a few days then go regroup, with a bit of raiding on the side, is more intense than 24/7 mass bombing, naval operations, and land combat on a massive scale? I'm sorry but that's ridiculous.
Maybe it's because what you think and what you say may deviate. All I can see and respond to is what you say.
Are you serious? Pilots and sailors are more expensive than riflemen. Planes and submarines are more expensive than tanks. You seem to be counting out two of the three branches of warfare here. Sure, the majority of land combat took place on the eastern front, but if you include the CBI theater (which was seeing land combat 4 years before the German army set foot in Soviet territory) it's not by the margin you claim. Again, how are you measuring this? By losses? There's no way to quantify how much a rifleman lost in Stalingrad is "worth" compared to a bomber pilot lost over the English Channel, but it's not a 1:1 ratio. Like I said, I've yet to encounter a serious historian who speaks in such generalities and makes such claims as you do.
Because that's how you measure whether someone's right or wrong...please don't make me laugh anymore, I've already fallen out of my chair.
Alexander Hill
Albert Weeks (Robert Weeks was an autocorrect typo)
Because I wasn't referencing pre-war production as well
And we all know tanks are the only thing you use to measure production quality, lol
Look, you're the one who doesn't have English as a first language, so take it from someone who has been speaking English his whole life, that was perfectly civil. If you didn't get that from the winking face (common internet denotation of poking fun), I don't know how I'll get through to you.
You can do your own research then. It's fairly well-known among those who frequently discuss things on this forum that the IJA had light equipment, most of their planes were obsolete, and their equipment likewise. The best equipment and men had been diverted against the Americans for years.
As for my claim being that the were not armed, that's a little thing called hyperbole.
Same for you.
You can look at this to start researching naval actions.
Air
Land (notice that German AFV losses were only 2:1 in favor of the Eastern Front)
Manpower is spread out over several sources since each theater is calculated individually, but sources aren't hard to find. I use the median estimates where multiple sources conflict (example Italian mainland campaign casualties pre-armistice range from 336,650 to 580,630, these numbers average to 458,640). All numbers are rounded to the nearest thousand where applicable. KIA/MIA totals are included wherever possible, and non-combat related injuries and deaths excluded where possible. Civilian casualties not included because of forum rules and irrelevance to discussion. My major source for Pacific losses is here:
Pacific (not including Manchuria 1945)
Australia: 46,000
China: 8,000,000
India: 100,000
Japan (incl. navy): 2,000,000
Philippines: 57,000
Taiwan (owned by Japan): 30,000
Korea (owned by Japan): 22,000
Netherlands: 37,000
United Kingdom: 68,000
United States (army and marines): 278,000
New Zealand: 12,000
Thailand: 6,000
Burma: 3,000
Total Pacific (All Pacific including CBI, and note that wiki only gives KIA, this is total casualties):
10,659,000
North Africa
United Kingdom (incl. Commonwealth): 220,000
Free French: 16,000
United States: 18,000
Italy: 366,000
Germany: 152,000
Vichy France: 3,000
Total North Africa:
775,000
Italian Front (Sicily and Italy)
Total Allied: 338,000
Total Axis: 1,687,000
Total Italy:
2,025,000
Western Front:
Total Allied: 2,966,000
Total Axis: 5,374,000 (plus an unknown number of wounded)
Total Western Front:
8,340,000 + unknown Axis wounded
Sea Losses (those unaccounted for thus far):
Italy: 31,000
United States: 106,000 (includes Coast Guard)
Germany: 138,000
United Kingdom: 74,000
I couldn't find reliable figures for France, and Japan is already accounted for
Total:
349,000
Other Fronts (Balkans, Norway, Poland, Denmark, Greece, Winter War, Ethiopia):
Germany:95,000
Italy: 340,000
Poland: 200,000
Yugoslavia (incl partisan campaigns): 1,629,000
Finland: 70,000
Norway: 3,000
USSR: 354,000
Greece: 57,000
United Kingdom: 23,000
Total Axis (Crete): 6,000
Total Allied (Crete): 21,000 + unknown number wounded
South Africa: 12,000
Albania: 30,000
Ethiopia: 775,000
Total
3,415,000
Total Non-Eastern Front: 25,997,000
Eastern Front:
NOTE: Soviet casualty counts are far different from other nations, particularly when they include sickness. Poor records exist for the 1941-1942 period, and records really aren't great for the rest of the war on either side (same for German Western Front figures, note the missing wounded count). I'm using Krivosheev's analysis for the USSR, Overman's analysis for the Axis, combat deaths only plus wounded, MIA, and captured. Krivosheev puts the KIA/MIA (irrecoverable losses) at 8,700,000, however not all of these are combat deaths. A note about wounded: I've decided to exclude wounded numbers since German wounded are already excluded on the Western Front. Soviet and German records are extremely sketchy, and in some cases include soldiers being counted multiple times for different wounds, non-combat-prohibitive wounds, etc.
Totals:
Soviet Union: 11,800,000 (total operational losses listed at 11,444,000)
Poland: 24,000
Romania: 678,000
Bulgaria: 22,000
Finland: 88,000
Slovakia: 40,000
Hungary: 600,000
Italy: 102,000
Germany: 7,300,000
Soviet Defectors: 1,215,000
Total:
21,867,000
Now, since wounded numbers are so bad but entirely necessary, let's roughly double Soviet casualties and add that to the total (net change of x3). We will do the same for Germany, but this will be applied to both West and East.
Eastern Front Total: 52,767,000
Other Fronts: 36,745,000
That's a 1.4:1 ratio.
Obviously those numbers could be different depending on who/what you look at. The Soviets had about 556,000 noncombat deaths, 940,000 were MIA but later returned, etc. Soviet record keeping combined with the chaos of war makes analysis difficult. Either way, when reliable wounded numbers were available I included them. When they were not I made adjustment calculations, which you can see above.
Even if you include non-combat deaths all wounded and sick for the Eastern Front, you still only get 56,015,000 (this still requires adjustment calculation for the Germans). That's a 1.52:1 ratio.
So the grand total comes to 92,830,000. Even taking Krivosheev's maximum numbers you only get 60.3% of losses on the Eastern Front.
Taking out non-combat deaths and adjusting for wounded estimates the total comes to 89,514,000. That's 58.9% of combat losses.
So by tonnage of equipment, far more was lost in other theaters (obviously, because naval combat). Losses are roughly 60% on the Eastern Front, so that's 15% away from your assessment. Combine the two factors (equipment tonnage loss and casualties), add in some other factors such as the strategic bombing campaigns, and you'll find the Eastern Front is not the majority of the war by any stretch of the imagination. It may be a plurality, sure, but not the majority.
I think the problem with this analysis is that we're treating the entire conflict as one singular global conflict, when in reality it was 2 massive conflicts that that occurred in the same time frame.
You really had a European War, which included non-European areas like Africa and the Middle-East, and you had a Pacific War, which was Asia and SEA.
I think for the purpose of your argument you should really treat them individually, and if you want to tabulate the contribution of actors that were involved in both, Australia, Britain, US etc, then amalgamate their numbers for a total contribution, but also note the individual theater contributions.
Using Pacific figures with European figures muddies the water, when the two conflicts were fought individually of each other, and had almost no strategic impact on each other. Germany didn't fight in the Pacific, Japan didn't fight in Europe. China didn't fight in Europe, the USSR didn't fight in the Pacific until Germany was handled. What does 8 million Chinese deaths against Japan have to do with casualty figures in Europe? Nothing. They were separate wars unified in spirit, but not in reality.
The Western Allies fought in both, and thus had to use significant resources on both fronts. Japanese involvement against the Western Allies and China kept their focus away from the USSR. I think they're a bit more connected, and it's only because of the Western Allies that they stayed as disconnected as they did.
This is a what if scenario and I disagree - I do not think Russia would have won without the Allies, Im not even sure if a "Germany alone vs Russia alone" would have turned out with Russia on top.
* Germany would have been able to concentrate its forces towards Russia and not have to place several hundred thousands of troops and tanks in France, Holland, Belgium, Norway, Denmark and so on, same goes for Italy as no African front would have existed. Luftwaffes/Regia Aeronautica all assets would have been used in Russia instead of guarding/fighting western/southern Europe.
Russia had prevoíusly lost several wars during the 1900's.
* Japan won over Russia
* Germany won over Russia
* Poland won over Russia
Russia did not impress the world during the Winter War.
Now some people do claim that it is a difference whois running the show in Moscow(Tsar, President or the General Secretary) and I agree it is a small difference but only to some extent. The people are the same and the resources are the same, as are the abilities, knowledge, technical level, industry and so on. Just because you name a place, person or state differently from one day to another it does not magically become something completely different.
*The most important fact of it all would be the Lend and Lease Russia got from the US and without it the Russian army would have lost alot of its mobility and making it a more of a WWI type of army.
We all know how important mobility was during WWII.
The Russian army would not have had the mobility as it would have lacked the 427 284 trucks, 13 303 armoured vehicles, 35 170 motorcycles, 2,328 ordnance service vehicles, 1,900 steam locomotives, 66 Diesel locomotives, 9,920 flat cars, 1,000 dump cars, 120 tank cars, and 35 heavy machinery cars delievered by the US alone. We can make this list alot longer by including UK and other nations who contributed directly or indirectly...
*The lack of railroad/transportation production is another important issue, Russian soldiers would have had to walk to the front, now how many boots did Russia recieve from the allies again?
I think that Russia alone would have lost to the Axis.
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