What are the top badass countries of WW2?

[GeneralPetrov]

Crete. Nothing better than shattered airborne Nazi morale.

Heh, I read an elderly Cretan man actually managed to take out a German paratrooper just with his walking stick. They literally grabbed everything they could, from pitchforks, to antique guns from the museum. Crete was the first serious armed civilian resistance the Germans met, and they were pretty badass.

 

[Scutatus]

US and UK.

Won half the war pretty easily in reality with little collateral damage.Germany and Japan both became their bitches.

As people are probably aware I am all for appreciating the efforts of the UK - but I don't think many would agree that the UK went without "collateral damage"! ( I gather you have heard of the Blitz?)For that matter, while it is true the Contintental United States mainland went without direct attack or harm, the same cannot be said for it's islands, such as Guam and Hawaii. As for whether they caused collateral damage on the enemy - well, yes, they did. Very much I'm afraid.

Calling Germany our "bitch" was a nice touch. Oh dear, just too ridiculous. The Allies managed to triumph - but it wasn't any walkover by any measure!

I do love your "Mirror Universe" version though. Very inventive.

 

[Admiral Fisker]

Free France.

 

[jcd000]

Heh, I read an elderly Cretan man actually managed to take out a German paratrooper just with his walking stick. They literally grabbed everything they could, from pitchforks, to antique guns from the museum. Crete was the first serious armed civilian resistance the Germans met, and they were pretty badass.

Cretans were and are, even today very, very militant.
In villages today mostly every house maintains a gun stash despite anti-gun laws (frequently hidden inside walls for emergencies). Those are not your common shotgun, but AKM's (had some conversations with Cretans )
Add to that, that Crete is not only an island, but very mountainous and with pretty bad infrastructure (no train, very bad roads).
Add to that some UK forces...
German paratroopers were certainly not ready for that..

 

[Count Drew]

I couldn't quite understand how The Russians could not steamroll a tiny little country with 4(?) million people. I think that underestimating the Finnish was a huge factor. David vs Goliath?

Britain was a bit of a mixture. What could compare with the raid on st Nazaire, the battle of britain, operation compass or the SAS raids in the desert. But then there were examples of incompetence like the fall of Singapore and the defence of Norway.

The country I most admire in WWII was Finland they were just like Israel. Loose one major fight and they will be wiped off the face of the earth. But they did very well against enemies that outnumbered them.

 

[Count Drew]

The Canadian contribution is quite amazing. I personally cannot see why they put their lives on the line. Their Corvettes were some of the only protection for Convoys headed to the UK and were in the early days not up to the task but the only thing available.

Canada

Raised a 1,000,000 armed forces during the war on a population of 16 million

Had the 4th largest navy at the end of the war, a large air force and deployed 5 divisions, 2 Corps HQ and a Army HQ overseas

Turned out a large amount of ordnance, from rifles to heavy bombers to ships, and almost as many soft skinned vehicles as the major Axis countries combined (and the only country that beat its output of soft skinned vehicles was the US)

 

[Loke]

Yea, Canada is one of the top nations...

 

[Karelian]

I see you are the kind of person who needs pictures to understand such complicated sentences

 

[qwertyuiop2]

Cretans were and are, even today very, very militant.
In villages today mostly every house maintains a gun stash despite anti-gun laws (frequently hidden inside walls for emergencies). Those are not your common shotgun, but AKM's (had some conversations with Cretans )
Add to that, that Crete is not only an island, but very mountainous and with pretty bad infrastructure (no train, very bad roads).
Add to that some UK forces...
German paratroopers were certainly not ready for that..

Being a Cretan myself, I find the myth of the gun-holding savage a bit exaggerating. It is true however that gun possesion in the island is more prevalent than in urban or northern Greece.
Fun fact about WW2: The German invasion found the population relatively unarmed (hence the use of archaic weapons), due to a general confiscation of weapons ordered by Metaxas regime, immediately prior to WW2. The electoral basis of the island was overwhelmingly democratic ("Liberal" party), in a direct contrast with mainland mainstream support for the royalist and reactionary "Popular" party. ~sigh~ And that's how we get to an enormous problem of Greek history that is vibrant up to date: A conservative, backwards, nationalist -almost primitive- mainland, and a cosmopolitan, warmer, liberal -while actually much wealthier- southern Aegean island complex. Anatolia and Europe combined in an absurd state that is capable for both best and worse. So no badass Greece here, to answer the original question.