Best Generals of ww2 and their role in this game

[Zinegata]

Both the Caucasus and the Middle East were producing more than what the Germans were getting from Romania. Taking Egypt gives you the supply route to get the materials out into the oil fields, anyway.

No it doesn't. No proper railroad from Alexandria to Arabia. Oil from the Middle East goes to Alexandria through ships.

The tons of supplies holed up in Tripoli were Italian supplies that were incompatible with German equipment. This is the thing; the Supremo Commando largely ignored what Rommel and his Italian counterpart were asking for when it came to the supply shipments, and that includes petrol. Again, there were hundreds of vehicles waiting to get on the supply ships to Africa. The simple truth of the matter was that the Italian merchant marine was never properly mobilized until it was far too late, i.e. Tunis. If the Italians had gone through the same effort that the Germans were going through when it came to the war effort, ample supplies could have been landed at their requested ports. This isn't even counterfactual–this is exactly what happened when the Italians realized that losing Africa might actually happen.

You're again missing the point. None of this matters because the key issue is "port capacity". Which is the amount of supplies a port can unload. You comprehend this exceedingly simple logistical concept, yes?

Again, how exactly is the Commando Supremo going to unload all those supposed vehicles when the port capacity of Tobruk is maybe 200 tons per day and they already need that just to keep the 15th and 21st Panzer Division, 90th Light, Ariete, Trieste, and four Italian infantry Divisions fed? You realize one German Division on its own needs like 300 tons a day in combat, yes?

Sending more merchant ships doesn't help, at all, because the merchant ships will just pile up around the port waiting for the first ones to arrive to unload. All the while they're in range of British bombers. The Italian Navy had good reason not to send more ships - because they would only get sunk along with their supplies while waiting for logjam at the port to clear up. But hey, I'm sure that Rommel can totally make ships unload faster using just the handful of primitive cranes they had at Tobruk by invoking his Desert Fox legend by making his troops lift multi-ton crates by hand over the side of the ships.

Heck, you realize that the Italians don't even have enough trucks to supply the armies they sent to Russia that were promised but were never equipped with German trucks; so I really have no idea where you're getting this nonsensical claim the Italians had vehicles ready to send to Rommel.

The simple reality is that Rommel is completely clueless about logistics and all of his compaints about the Italians were meant to cover up the fact that he made a mistake - he should not have fought a battle at El Alamein. He in fact attenuated his supply line to the breaking point and no amount of excuse making about the Italian Merchant Marine was going to change that. Again, that you think that the Italians could have done more when the port capacity was at its limit and there were no more trucks to be had shows that you have as little comprehension about the logistic realities of the North African campaign as Rommel.

Regarding port construction, I disagree it would have taken months to properly build up Tobruk as the main supply port. And this is why you're about as clueless as Rommel is about logistics.

You can disagree but your opinion is worth nothing when it is so far from reality.

You do realize that Tobruk was originally an Italian-constructed port in the pre-war period, yes? You do realize it took them months to build it, yes? And you do realize that Americans, with mountains of supplies and a blank check, still took about six months to improve the Iranian ports and railways so that they could ship Lend-Lease supplies through that route? The assertion that it wouldn't take months is asinine; especially when the exact same ports are already FULLY utilized just to keep the Afrika Korps from starving to death. Sending more Italian merchant ships wouldn't matter - they'd just pile up for days outside of the port (in range of British bombers; fantastic idea!) waiting for the earlier arrivals who hadn't finished unloading yet.

It is very easy to say "we can improve a port" and yet not do the most basic research of how many months it took to build the original Tobruk port in the first place. Made worse by the complete lack of realization that the Afrika Korps was in fact in a catch 22 situation - you either supply the Afrika Korps to keep it fighting or you stop fighting and try to improve Tobruk while 8th Army gathered up strength and prepared for a counter-attack. Either way, Rommel was screwed.

The railway was never completed because the Italians, who exclaimed that they alone would be able to complete it on schedule, failed to do so. This was not only a lack of supplies (which wasn't that lacking in the railroad department), but mainly a lack of initiative.

Which wasn't lacking in supplies? They hadn't even shipped all the needed tracks yet and you think they could have built the railroad?

That's just nonsensical attempts to shift the blame on the Italians when the reality is that you're telling them to build 1,000 kilometers of track; at a time when the German army itself is having difficulty restoring a few hundred kilometers of track in Russia. The simple reality is there was no way either the German or Italian army could build the railway and certainly not for many months. And while they're doing it the Afrika Korps has to stop fighting because you're shipping railroad tracks instead of ammunition.

I mean, seriously, do you have ANY idea what it takes to build a railroad? Do you even realize that the conditions are worse in the desert because most locomotives of the period were still steam-powered and thus needed regular watering stations (not that they didn't need them in Russia - lack of watering stations was the real reason why the much smaller German trains found it difficult to use Russian railroads that used much larger locomotives) that simply couldn't spring out of nowhere in the desert?

Rommel was a complete idiot when it came to logistics and knew none of these things; he asked the Italians for the impossible while remaining completely clueless about the logistic requirements of what he asked, and yet the apologists choose to blame the Italians for failing to do the impossible.

But hey, this is Erwin "It's your problem" Rommel - the same idiot of a logistician who asked Halder for three additional Panzer Divisions and didn't realize he had to strip Army Group North of all of its trucks to supply them 1,000 kilometers over the desert. But let's not stop these delusional "oil offensives" from being carried out even though the Brits would have blown the oil fields if the Germans got anywhere close and the Germans had absolutely no capability of bringing them back online as demonstrated by the dazzling 10 barrels of oil per day they produced at Maikop.

 

[Zinegata]

You should write a book about how incompetent Manstein was. It might become a bestseller, after all it would be the first of its kind.
I'd be extremely interested in reading the chapters about the Sichelschnitt, the capture of Sevastopol and the "backhand blow" when he showed his brilliant elastic defence and reverted Stalingrad by destroying several Russian armies in early 1943.
Thank god, Hitler denied Manstein operational freedom and held him on a tight leash. Otherwise the Wehrmacht might have lost the war and suffered several disastrous defeats... oh wait, nevermind.

And some Wiki about Kursk and the following battles:


Even the great Soviet victories of 1943 were only caused by the sheer endless manpower. The Soviets knew every detail of Operation Citadel (this time their intelligence worked perfectly). They had months to prepare defensive positions. They outnumbered the attackers in every field. Simultaneously the Allies landed in Italy, diverting German forces away from the Soviet front. Hitler denying the most capable leaders any sort of operational freedom. Vast L&L shipments in favour of the Soviets and on forth.
And yet, the Soviets lost 10 times (I believe it was more like 7:1 though) more men than Germany in July and August???

Considering all these factors, the Wehrmacht did an incredible job.

Soviet losses were never that bad; that's just SS fanfiction because they kept trying to convince Hitler they were really winning the war.

The heaviest Soviet losses were only in the early war, and by 1943 1.5-1 loss ratios were the norm. The bottomless well of Soviet manpower is in a word, a myth. The Soviets at most had twice the number of soldiers as the Wermacht. This is why any figure that claims Soviet permanent losses higher than 15 million (vs the 10 million permanent losses of the Axis) is quite simply somewhere between "unlikely" and "Aryan supermen fanfiction". Any higher and the Germans would have won because the Soviets would have run out of men.

And again, only Call-of-Duty kill streak chasers are very impressed by kill rates, because it's an asinine measure of combat performance. Again, if we're gonna use kill rate as a measure, then the most elite army ever were the European contingents armed with bolt-action rifles facing over 10:1 odds against Machu bannermen with composite bows in the Boxer Rebellion.

 

[Zinegata]

Montgomery too, took a beaten army in North Africa and by visiting troops became popular with the men. He said they would not take another step backwards. He raised their morale. From then on, they were not defeated again.
Yes, he may have been a defensive general, but, why is this so bad ? It was a perfect counterpoint to the dash of Rommel. Monty did build his strength up. He did take precautions. He did think about his men !
This is not so bad a thing in war. It is very easy to throw your men to death and another to try to plan an operation that does not result in many dead.
It is also very easy to love the extravagance and the brilliance of the early blitzkreig, but calling Montgomery only competent does not do him Justice. He was also a major input into D Day, the biggest seaborne landings operation in history.

I don't even understand where this "Monty is a defensive general" myth comes from. Monty was actually on the attack for the most part; 2nd El Alamein for instance was purely a British offensive from start to finish.

Moreover Monty was actually a very good general on the attack too; it's just that his skill revolves around the set-piece offensive - grinding attritional battles where his mastery of logistics and support coordination made taking the objectives a matter of "when" rather than "if". He was only poor on the offensive when it came to fast-moving tank exploitation; but that was happening less and less often later in the war as both sides had realized it was more of a gimmick than a commonplace occurence.

 

[Zinegata]

As in: "how to completely screw up time and time again but then write memoirs of how it it was always someone else's fault".

Manstein's memoirs are self-serving, as are most German General's memoirs.

That said, it's kinda hard to top Third Kharkov.

 

[scroggin]

Montgomery too, took a beaten army in North Africa and by visiting troops became popular with the men. He said they would not take another step backwards. He raised their morale. From then on, they were not defeated again.
Yes, he may have been a defensive general, but, why is this so bad ? It was a perfect counterpoint to the dash of Rommel. Monty did build his strength up. He did take precautions. He did think about his men !
This is not so bad a thing in war. It is very easy to throw your men to death and another to try to plan an operation that does not result in many dead.
It is also very easy to love the extravagance and the brilliance of the early blitzkreig, but calling Montgomery only competent does not do him Justice. He was also a major input into D Day, the biggest seaborne landings operation in history.

I Agree with you on Monty He bet Rommel every time they fought. He took an Army that had lost nearly every battle against the Germans and made them into an army that won. Sure his style was more defensive than offensive, but it worked. His success in defending Egypt at Alamain and his success in Normandy were the most crucial successes for the allies in the west.

I you want to Look at divisional Level Generals Freyberg Was one of the best http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Freyberg,_1st_Baron_Freyberg
His success wasn't in tactical or strategical leadership. His success was in the example of courage he set for his men, the standards of training , competence and fitness he developed in his division. He really was an inspiration to his men.

In My opinion the two best Generals of WWII were Guderian and Von Manstein

 

[PlacidDragon]

Soviet losses were never that bad; that's just SS fanfiction because they kept trying to convince Hitler they were really winning the war.

The heaviest Soviet losses were only in the early war, and by 1943 1.5-1 loss ratios were the norm.

I wonder if you've heard of a small battle called Kursk ? (where the defending Russians held every advantage, including 300 km deep defensive lines chock full of mines, anti tank gun emplacements, had twice as many men, tanks, etc etc).

The battle of Prochorovka in particular, just to point out a famous battle.

Kill ratio's during that battle was 10 to 1 in favor of Germany. Most of these were T-34's. Nor did the Germans have any "wunderwaffe", between the 3 SS divisions, they had a total of 15 Tigers between them, and zero Panthers. No Elefants / Ferdinands, as they were all deployed with the Northern pincer.

For Operation Citadel as a whole, even while defending in extremely well prepared deep defenses, the Soviets took 3 - 4 times as many casualties as the Germans, and between 5 and 10 times as many armor losses. The thing of course was that the Soviets could absorb such losses, Germany couldn't.

Manstein's memoirs are self-serving, as are most German General's memoirs.

This isn't taken from Wikipedia....

Its a study of the daily tank strength reports and combat records of II SS Panzer Corps–available on microfilm at the National Archives in Washington, D.C, as well as "a history of the Fifth Guards Tank Army" written by Rotmistrov (the commanding General during Kursk) himself.

You can for example read up on it here.

 

[Zinegata]

I wonder if you've heard of a small battle called Kursk ? (where the defending Russians held every advantage, including 300 km deep defensive lines chock full of mines, anti tank gun emplacements, had twice as many men, tanks, etc etc).

The battle of Prochorovka in particular, just to point out a famous battle.

Kill ratio's during that battle was 10 to 1 in favor of Germany. Most of these were T-34's. Nor did the Germans have any "wunderwaffe", between the 3 SS divisions, they had a total of 15 Tigers between them, and zero Panthers. No Elefants / Ferdinands, as they were all deployed with the Northern pincer.

I'm actually quite aware of Kursk, as well as all of the SS fanfiction written about it by Call-of-Duty kill streak chasers who can't tell the difference between "reality" and "fanfiction".

You claim there were 0 Panthers are Prokorovka? Good! Very factual!

Because while there were zero operational Panthers left by Prokorovka they still somehow claim to have killed 180 Soviet tanks (see Zetterling's Citadelle). Which is really par on course for the way the Germans counted their "kills" - where non-existent or non-operational German tanks somehow were still killing Soviet tanks with a 10:1 kill ratio. It's the repetition of these tall tales that caused Otto Carius - ace of aces - in an interview in 2012, to say straight-out that his kill count was inflated by the Nazi Information Ministry along with Knispel's (that sheer falshood of the kill rates of SS bozos like Korner who claim to have killed 100+ tanks in a period 1/4 as long as Carius' career shouldn't need any further elaboration)

In reality, while Soviet losses remained mostly the same in 1943, the German loss rate for tanks doubled from 3,000 annually to 6,000. Cherry-picking select engagements like Prokorovka - where it's now well-known that the Soviets in fact suffered a heavy defeat - doesn't change the fact that the Germans in fact suffered much worse over the entire Zitadelle campaign. In reality, the German fanboys only count German losses up to the end of the Wermacht's own offensive operations; and completely fail to take into account the massive Soviet counter-attack which flipped the loss column backwards for the the rest of 1943 and why they started losing 6,000 tanks a year in the East instead of 3,000.

Even worse, the 6,000 German tanks lost per year figure? That's cherry-picked too because the Germans very dishonestly counted only total losses and undercounted them; whereas the Soviets counted operational losses which resulted in damaged tanks being considered "lost" two or three times. But sure, let's believe in a loss rate that would have left the Soviets with a negative balance of tanks by 1945 while the Germans still have 25,000 operational.

Its a study of the daily tank strength reports and combat records of II SS Panzer Corps–available on microfilm at the National Archives in Washington, D.C, as well as "a history of the Fifth Guards Tank Army" written by Rotmistrov (the commanding General during Kursk) himself.

You might want to check on both of your sources, because they're both crap. SS records were full of fanfiction, while Romistrov was found by Glantz to be lying through his teeth in his Kursk retelling. Essentially, yes, the Soviet 5th Guards Tank Army suffered a tactical loss at Prokorovka - but that was largely because Romistrov lemming'd his Tank Army at the SS; a basic mistake that almost got him shot by Stalin. Only Zhukov's intervention saved him from execution, and he got to write a very delusional account of Kursk post-war which is why we have these stories of T-34s ramming Tigers that never happened.

So, you wanna try this "I'm so smart about Kursk" tact you were trying to pull earlier on me again? Because really, it should be fun picking apart someone so outdated he's still quoting Romistrov when it's already well-known his entire account was a lie and it was almost entirely his damn fault that the 5th Guards Tank Army got shot to pieces.

Edit: I also have to note the utter idiocy of your article claiming that Romistrov claimed the Soviets had 400 tanks that were in "repairable" condition as proof that there were more losses elsewhere; which screams "Ancient Aliens" level of research to me.

Anyone even familiar with Soviet loss-counting methods know that this is synonymous with "operational" losses - the only kind of losses the Soviets ever counted; which is basically "any tank that is damaged enough to need to be sent to the factory or written off". Just more typical bad SS fanfiction loss-counting.

 

[PlacidDragon]

You claim there were 0 Panthers are Prokorovka? Good! Very factual!

No, i am saying that the 3 SS Panzer Grenadier divisions there didn't have any. There were around 200 Panthers at Kursk, in Panther Abteilung 51 and 52, under the 4th Panzer Army (which also had the SS Panzer Korps attached).

.....doesn't change the fact that the Germans in fact suffered much worse over the entire Zitadelle campaign

You seem to have missed that i also wrote down the losses for Operation Citadel (battle of Kursk) as a whole. Going by Wikipedia as i am in a hurry, it lists 4:1 in Soldiers, 8:1 or so in armor, and 3:1 in aircraft for the entire operation.

Cherry-picking select engagements like Prokorovka - where it's now well-known that the Soviets in fact suffered a heavy defeat

It is ? Thats news to me. I hear much more about how it being the place where the Germans were whipped, but maybe i hang out with the wrong crowd

In reality, the German fanboys only count German losses up to the end of the Wermacht's own offensive operations; and completely fail to take into account the massive Soviet counter-attack which flipped the loss column backwards for the the rest of 1943 and why they started losing 6,000 tanks a year in the East instead of 3,000.

Maybe because that was a different operation ?

Operation Citadel spawned 2 Soviet counter offensives. Again going by Wikipedia :

Operation Kutuzov :

5:1 in soldier losses (in favor of Germany).
Unknown armor loss, although the Germans started with 625 tanks, and destroyed 2500 Soviet ones..even if annihilated, thats again 5:1.
At least 5:1 in Aircraft.

Operation Polkovodets Rumyantsev :

7:1 soldier losses (in favor of Germany).
8:1 armor losses.

This is where material and manpower differences start getting very disproportionate, and its not at all uncommon to see 200k Germans against 1 - 1.5 million Soviets.
I'll just repeat what i said initially. These were losses the Soviets could absorb. The Germans could not.

Even worse, the 6,000 German tanks lost per year figure?

What are these numbers supposed to have to do with me ? When have i ever mentioned either 3000 or 6000 or whatever number of yearly German losses ? Easy answer, i haven't.

SS records were full of fanfiction

So reports from regiments to their commanding officer in division/army were fictional because they wanted to fool themselves ? These documents were used primarily within division / army group, so that their commanders would have a clue. Its not a propped up propaganda leaflet for old Adolf.

while Romistrov was found by Glantz to be lying through his teeth in his Kursk retelling

Yes, he lied. He massively overestimated the number of Panzers he destroyed, etc. None of his lies invalidates what i have said, unless you suggest that he OVERestimated his own losses.. he said he lost 400 tanks to repairable damage.. but no.. im sure it was actually 200, he just needed it to sound more gritty and have a greater chance to get visited by the NKVD on behalf of an already quite angry Stalin

So, you wanna try this "I'm so smart about Kursk" tact you were trying to pull earlier on me again? Because really, it should be fun picking apart someone so outdated he's still quoting Romistrov when it's already well-known his entire account was a lie and it was almost entirely his damn fault that the 5th Guards Tank Army got shot to pieces.

How does Romistrov "being an idiot" or not have any bearing on the facts ? Yes, his 5th Guards Tank Army got shot to pieces, thats exactly what i have been saying all the time. The one saying the opposite all this time is you

 

[Zinegata]

No, i am saying that the 3 SS Panzer Grenadier divisions there didn't have any. There were around 200 Panthers at Kursk, in Panther Abteilung 51 and 52, under the 4th Panzer Army (which also had the SS Panzer Korps attached).

Of which 85% were out of action by the first day and yet they were still reporting hundreds of kills. Really, again, who believes this kind of nonsense?

You seem to have missed that i also wrote down the losses for Operation Citadel (battle of Kursk) as a whole. Going by Wikipedia as i am in a hurry, it lists 4:1 in Soldiers, 8:1 or so in armor, and 3:1 in aircraft for the entire operation.

Since you seem to like Wikipedia as a source, let's take a look at this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_armored_fighting_vehicle_production_during_World_War_II
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_combat_vehicle_production_during_World_War_II

German total AFV production of the war vs Soviet AFV production is...

Germans: 50,000 total
Soviets: 105,000 total

... So, assuming every single Soviet tank was destroyed (which didn't happen), and every German vehicle was destroyed (which did happen) the most the kill ratio can ever reach is 2:1. German losses in the West you whine? No more than 10,000 and still leaves the kill ratio at 100:40 at worst.

So where the hell is your supposed 10:1 kill ratio? Even if every single Soviet tank was destroyed (which again never happened) the kill rate would be barely above 2:1!

Besides, your wikipedia article?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_kursk

Does not say that the Soviets suffered a 10-1 loss ratio. Here's what it actually says about the losses for the Soviets

Soviet: 6,064 tanks and assault guns destroyed or damaged
German: Estimate 760 tanks and assault guns destroyed

Hence, in your world a Soviet tank "damaged" is equal to a German tank "destroyed". Are you even aware that 90% of German vehicles tend to be in the repair yard after any major offensive due to "damage"? Apples-to-oranges comparisons, as usual. Dishonest accounting, as usual. This is how you get to a world where "damaged" = "destroyed".

====

So, again, for emphasis:

How willfully ignorant do you have to get in order to keep claiming that the Germans were consistently capable of 10:1 kill ratios?

If that were true the Soviets would have run out of tanks long ago because they only outproduced German tanks 2-to-1.

That you have to quote destroyed AND damaged tanks versus destroyed German tanks only demonstrates what kind of dishonest accounting is necessary to arrive at a 10:1 kill rate; and how irrelevant it is to the actual war.

But really, I don't expect you to address these facts because anyone who has to resort to this level of dishonest accounting can never be relied upon to say anything accurate or true; only to try and pretend this data does not exist in yet another display of intellectual dishonesty.

So reports from regiments to their commanding officer in division/army were fictional because they wanted to fool themselves ? These documents were used primarily within division / army group, so that their commanders would have a clue. Its not a propped up propaganda leaflet for old Adolf.

Absolutely. The SS was a political organization meant to make Himmler look good.

What, you think they were actually good soldiers? That they had an actual military purpose other than to serve as a pointless redundancy of the German army whose only acquired "skill" was pointless massacre of civilians?

The good SS is just a myth and most SS units that actually performed well were actually manned by people stolen from the regular army after the SS retardedly got all of their fanatics killed thanks to such wonderfully advanced tactics like "frontal assault". In reality, the vast majority of SS units were Volkstrum quality whose records were a litany of "massacred civilians", "military incompetence" and in one case "mutinied and shot its own officers". Heck, they had to inflate the kill score of their most famous ace - Wittman - threefold because the Heer kept making fun of them for their cruddy performance.

Besides, people lie to themselves all the time. The fact that you're undoubtedly going to continue lying to yourself and pretend that the Soviet-German tank kill ratio wasn't at most 2:1 (because any higher and the Soviets run out of tanks) should really show what extent people are capable of lying to themselves; just as how the SS delusionally kept telling themselves they were totally winning and massacring all those civilians was totally a good thing.

But who knows, maybe you'll disappoint me for once and finally wise up the fact that 10:1 loss ratio was unsustainable for the Red Army. They literally run out of men and tanks at higher than 2:1.

 

[misterbean]

Interesting discussion. While I don't know nearly enough about the Soviet generals to offer any kind of opinion, keep in mind that Soviet losses should not be a measure of how good any given Soviet general was. That was just part of their doctrine: throw men at a problem until the problem goes away.
What I can say, is that Bagration was Zhukov's baby, and that victory enabled the Soviets to reach the Polish border again. It destroyed Army Group Center. It encircled (or nearly encircled, I'm not sure) almost half of Army Group North. It allowed the Soviets to choose where to go next. They could have gone South, for the Romanian and Hungarian oil.
In terms of Deep Battle Doctrine, Bagration was a masterpiece.

For the most part, it all depends on what a general is asked to do. Paulus, by all accounts, was a brilliant staff general. Giving him army command was a big mistake.
Monty was a master of the set-piece battle. There was one before the 2nd Battle of El Alamein, where he send Rommel packing by careful placement of his AT-units. Getting him to do stuff Patton did, was not his strength.

 

[SirDraco]

Going to have to disagree with you on the Churchill thing. I think he was a brilliant leader and exactly what was needed at the time. He was willing to make the hard calls and not worry about who would be blamed later. It is like Truman's famous sign, "The Buck stops here", or Teddy Roosevelt's quote, "In any moment of decision, the best thing to do is the right thing. Second best is the wrong thing. The worst thing to do is nothing."

Whatever you may think of some of Churchill's decisions, you have to admit that he was decisive. A wishy washy PM in 1940 might have easily translated into more of us speaking German today.

Like many Leaders, Churchill had his pro's and con's. His pro's were outstanding, like mentioned, he was the Leader we needed at the time, he could inspire moral etc and without him the UK would have probably lost the will to fight. His con's could be disastrous though, if kept unchecked. This is where his appointment of Alan Brooke to Chief of the Imperial General Staff was one of Churchill's best decisions, in my opinion. He was one of the few people who could successfully stand up against Churchill. To quote Churchill, “When I thump the table and push my face towards him what does he do? Thumps the table harder and glares back at me. I know these Brookes – stiff-necked Ulstermen and there's no one worse to deal with than that!"

Without this pairing, then I believe, the war would have been lost.

 

[DarkCruor]

"Bill Slim was a born leader of soldiers. When he became chief of the Imperial General Staff in 1948 it was said of him that he had never forgotten the smell of soldiers' feet. Everything he did was based on ensuring that his men came first. His soldiers knew and loved him because of this.

He fought in Burma and India in a very different way to that of most other British Generals of the Second World War and indeed of most other British Generals of all time.

He tried to outwit the enemy and dislocate him mentally, rather than trying to overcome him by force alone. To do this he took huge logistical and operational risks, he attacked the enemy where the enemy was weakest rather than at his strongest point, he surprised the enemy and he sought to use subtlety and guile in a very powerful and new way.

This method certainly surprised the Japanese and it defeated them at Imphal and Kohima in India in 1944 and again at Mandalay and Meiktila in Burma in 1945. It also surprised his bosses in New Delhi and London, who were taken aback at the remarkable success of this remarkable man."

Robert Lyman, a former army officer, is a military historian and biographer of Bill Slim.

Oh, how anything in Burma is overlooked.

The thing is, those battles only happened because effectively the Japanese replaced Patton with Mark Clark because he was friends with Tojo.

 

[PlacidDragon]

Of which 85% were out of action by the first day and yet they were still reporting hundreds of kills. Really, again, who believes this kind of nonsense?

"By the start of Operation Citadel these two detachments had 96 Panthers each, and the Germans had great hopes for them. The Panther did not live up to expectations. Fifteen broke down before even reaching the front. After three days 40 tanks were still in front line service, and three days later, on 10 July, that figure had been reduced to only 10! Very few of the missing 182 tanks had actually been written off (23 had been destroyed by enemy action and 2 by engine fires). Nearly 160 tanks were under repair at the time, with enemy action and mechanical failure responsible for roughly equal numbers of losses."

I have no problem believing that the ones that did make it to the front inflicted some damage. They "only" claimed 250'ish or so tanks destroyed over the course of the entire campaign, which is not an astronomical number.

Since you seem to like Wikipedia as a source, let's take a look at this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_armored_fighting_vehicle_production_during_World_War_II
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_combat_vehicle_production_during_World_War_II

German total AFV production of the war vs Soviet AFV production is...

Germans: 50,000 total
Soviets: 105,000 total

... So, assuming every single Soviet tank was destroyed (which didn't happen), and every German vehicle was destroyed (which did happen) the most the kill ratio can ever reach is 2:1. German losses in the West you whine? No more than 10,000 and still leaves the kill ratio at 100:40 at worst.

So where the hell is your supposed 10:1 kill ratio? Even if every single Soviet tank was destroyed (which again never happened) the kill rate would be barely above 2:1!

Thats fine. Lets just ignore armor losses, air losses, etc, and just focus on infantry losses. Maybe they were just rebuilt behind the frontlines as well ?

Besides, your wikipedia article?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_kursk

Does not say that the Soviets suffered a 10-1 loss ratio. Here's what it actually says about the losses for the Soviets

Soviet: 6,064 tanks and assault guns destroyed or damaged
German: Estimate 760 tanks and assault guns destroyed

Hence, in your world a Soviet tank "damaged" is equal to a German tank "destroyed". Are you even aware that 90% of German vehicles tend to be in the repair yard after any major offensive due to "damage"? Apples-to-oranges comparisons, as usual. Dishonest accounting, as usual. This is how you get to a world where "damaged" = "destroyed".

Again, fine, i just refer you to my previous answer.

====

So, again, for emphasis:

How willfully ignorant do you have to get in order to keep claiming that the Germans were consistently capable of 10:1 kill ratios?

If that were true the Soviets would have run out of tanks long ago because they only outproduced German tanks 2-to-1.

That you have to quote destroyed AND damaged tanks versus destroyed German tanks only demonstrates what kind of dishonest accounting is necessary to arrive at a 10:1 kill rate; and how irrelevant it is to the actual war.

But really, I don't expect you to address these facts because anyone who has to resort to this level of dishonest accounting can never be relied upon to say anything accurate or true; only to try and pretend this data does not exist in yet another display of intellectual dishonesty.

I address them as that because that is the way it was reported by the respective armies. As i am lacking a time machine (and working knowledge of German and Russian), i sort of have a problem checking it out first hand.

Absolutely. The SS was a political organization meant to make Himmler look good.

So in order to make Himmler look good, they lie to Gen. Hausser and make him do stupid things ? Yes.. im sure thats how it worked

What, you think they were actually good soldiers? That they had an actual military purpose other than to serve as a pointless redundancy of the German army whose only acquired "skill" was pointless massacre of civilians?

The SS in the early war were very good soldiers, yes, but came with the added baggage of their ideology, etc. Later in the war, not so much.

But who knows, maybe you'll disappoint me for once and finally wise up the fact that 10:1 loss ratio was unsustainable for the Red Army

The biggest difference between early and late war was simply that the Germans were retreating. Hence, if something got knocked out, or if something threw a track, engine cut out, whatever.. that tank was generally lost forever due to the steady Russian advance. Early in the war, the Germans controlled the battlefield after the battle, and could repair their vehicles at their leisure.. late in the war, the Soviets could. Like Romistrov said in his book, he lost 400 tanks to repairable damage.

Repairable damage could mean anything from a thrown track to a penetrating hit killing the entire crew (but leaving the vital parts of the tank like tracks, engine, weaponry, etc intact). I've seen interviews (i cannot recall where, so i cannot give a source) of Sherman crews saying that the repair crews literally hosed down the interior of the tank to remove the blood from its previous crew, patch up the shell hole, and hand it over as a "new" tank.

Im sure all armed forces did exactly that, it was just a matter of controlling the battlefield after the battle was over.

 

[seattle]

#stats
Isn't it funny how only the evil Germans are accused of pimping their stats? Every other nation is of course highly accurate in their reports.
One should also mention that Wikipedia usually cites stats from different sources. When I quote Wiki and there are several sources, I take the average.

Like many Leaders, Churchill had his pro's and con's. His pro's were outstanding, like mentioned, he was the Leader we needed at the time, he could inspire moral etc and without him the UK would have probably lost the will to fight. His con's could be disastrous though, if kept unchecked.

Churchill was much like Abe Lincoln. Ugly, yet incredibly charismatic. Brilliant speaker who could persuade anyone in doubt. Both achieved pyrrhic victories. One divided a nation only to "unite" it again via bloodshed and causing generation long hatred.
The other fought a war to the bitter end in which Britain had little to gain. A peace treaty in 1940 would've been easy to achieve because Hitler didn't want war with Britain. Instead Churchill opted to continue and all but bankrupted Britain, effectively ending her state as a super power.
Think about it, the USA was the biggest winner of the war. The nation came out twice as rich, gained lots of naval bases and controlled pretty much everything. Britain had to pay her American ally all of her gold reserves and dozens of naval bases. The war was a disaster for Britain. As a result, the nation entered a severe recession and by 1970 became a third rate country. Had not Thatcher turned Britain upside down, the nation would today be on Italy's level.

But hey, the colonial power and monarchy had to fight for democracy in continental Europe. That makes sense...
Churchill could sell it though. It's incredible what a great speaker can achieve. I'm usually skeptical of Obama, but everytime I listen to his speeches he fools me for a while. Same with Churchill. Brilliant man!

PS: Don't get me wrong, I blame most of Europe's downfall on Wilhelm II. and Hitler, but it's not like nobody else contributed to it. It's such a pity that London is no longer the capitol of the world. Still my favourite city in the world, but it lost a lot importance as did Europe in general. Oh well, gotta play some Vicky 2 now for my nostalgic needs. Rule Britannia!

 

[SirDraco]

Churchill was much like Abe Lincoln. Ugly, yet incredibly charismatic. Brilliant speaker who could persuade anyone in doubt. Both achieved pyrrhic victories. One divided a nation only to "unite" it again via bloodshed and causing generation long hatred.
The other fought a war to the bitter end in which Britain had little to gain. A peace treaty in 1940 would've been easy to achieve because Hitler didn't want war with Britain. Instead Churchill opted to continue and all but bankrupted Britain, effectively ending her state as a super power.
Think about it, the USA was the biggest winner of the war. The nation came out twice as rich, gained lots of naval bases and controlled pretty much everything. Britain had to pay her American ally all of her gold reserves and dozens of naval bases. The war was a disaster for Britain. As a result, the nation entered a severe recession and by 1970 became a third rate country. Had not Thatcher turned Britain upside down, the nation would today be on Italy's level.

But hey, the colonial power and monarchy had to fight for democracy in continental Europe. That makes sense...
Churchill could sell it though. It's incredible what a great speaker can achieve. I'm usually skeptical of Obama, but everytime I listen to his speeches he fools me for a while. Same with Churchill. Brilliant man!

It's easy with hindsight to say that the UK came out poorly from World War II and might still have some of its former power if they had made peace early, but back then it wasn't so easy. Hitler had proven he couldn't be trusted, the British would have kept most of their power but still have to worry about Hitler back stabbing them. The Cold War would have been mainly between the UK and Germany. I believe that Churchill did the right thing by being stubborn, I'd rather lose Super Power status than have grown up with a unified Nazi Europe on my doorstep.

 

[seattle]

It's easy with hindsight to say that the UK came out poorly from World War II and might still have some of its former power if they had made peace early, but back then it wasn't so easy. Hitler had proven he couldn't be trusted, the British would have kept most of their power but still have to worry about Hitler back stabbing them. The Cold War would have been mainly between the UK and Germany. I believe that Churchill did the right thing by being stubborn, I'd rather lose Super Power status than have grown up with a unified Nazi Europe on my doorstep.

Hitler wasn't a master of subterfuge. He was more of a barking buffoon. He pretty much lined out exactly what he was going to do in "Mein Kampf". War with Britain was never on his agenda. He assessed correctly, that only the non-European powers would benefit from such war. He offered Britain to relinquish all German colonial claims and even offered Britain assistance in colonial wars should the need occur.
IMHO a peace treaty in 1940 would've been best for both Germany and Britain. Both would have emerged as victors. And that was fairly obvious even back then.
I mean, for Britain it was clear that the war would last many years to come. It was not clear that Britain would emerge victorious. It was clear though that a continuation would bleed Britain dry, not necessarily in terms of manpower (British losses were rather moderate), but in terms of resources and influence.
I think the question should be allowed, what was Britain hoping to get out of a continued war? Britain could not play the democracy card (think about the oppressive occupation of India amongst many others).

 

[Dalwin]

Hitler wasn't a master of subterfuge. He was more of a barking buffoon. He pretty much lined out exactly what he was going to do in "Mein Kampf". War with Britain was never on his agenda. He assessed correctly, that only the non-European powers would benefit from such war. He offered Britain to relinquish all German colonial claims and even offered Britain assistance in colonial wars should the need occur.
IMHO a peace treaty in 1940 would've been best for both Germany and Britain. Both would have emerged as victors. And that was fairly obvious even back then.
I mean, for Britain it was clear that the war would last many years to come. It was not clear that Britain would emerge victorious. It was clear though that a continuation would bleed Britain dry, not necessarily in terms of manpower (British losses were rather moderate), but in terms of resources and influence.
I think the question should be allowed, what was Britain hoping to get out of a continued war? Britain could not play the democracy card (think about the oppressive occupation of India amongst many others).

Britain certainly could play the democracy card. Don't confuse democracy with egalitarian.

The first half of the 20th century was full of double standards, especially along racial and ethnic lines.

 

[seattle]

Britain certainly could play the democracy card. Don't confuse democracy with egalitarian.
The first half of the 20th century was full of double standards, especially along racial and ethnic lines.

Democracy by today's standards might have been somewhat achieved in England, but certainly not in her colonies. In the US the black population still didn't have equal right, France and the Benelux nations were colonial powers. We don't even need to touch the Soviets. It's quite amusing actually that the war is sold as the good guys vs. the bad guys. More like the bad guys vs. the worse guys.

PS: The US could probably be considered the most democratic and liberal nation of the Allied majors. After all, the Indian wars and all the unspeakable atrocities involved were long gone...
Then again, the "Manifest Destiny" and "Lebensraum" ideas were not that different.

 

[John_D]

German total AFV production of the war vs Soviet AFV production is...

Germans: 50,000 total
Soviets: 105,000 total

... So, assuming every single Soviet tank was destroyed (which didn't happen), and every German vehicle was destroyed (which did happen) the most the kill ratio can ever reach is 2:1. German losses in the West you whine? No more than 10,000 and still leaves the kill ratio at 100:40 at worst.

You dont take in account of where they were at a certain datum.
2:1 overall, is not the same on a certain datum.

Btw, if the 'secret' tape is true, when Hitler spoke with that Finnish General, he mentioned 35000 tanks of what he seemed to be afraid. So probably the ratio was at the beginning much worse.

 

[Porkman]

The thing is, those battles only happened because effectively the Japanese replaced Patton with Mark Clark because he was friends with Tojo.

Explain this?