Why didn't Russia help Allies in Pacific War?

[ww2admin]

Okay, I admit I can't remember why, but why did Russia not help the Allies fight Japan in the Pacific Campaign?

[Panzerknacker]

Perhaps because was facing the menace to be destroyed by the most powerful army in Europe in the other extreme of his geography.

[jacobtowne]

The Soviets helped near the end in August.

PART I


Note:
Most histories of the Second World War, with their Eurocentric emphases, begin on 1 September 1939, and date the entrance of the United States and Japan into the war on 7 December 1941 with the attack on Pearl Harbor. In fact, the Pacific war began in June, 1937, when Imperial Japanese forces launched a massive invasion of China.
By 1938 it was clear to any Americans serving in the Far East that there would be war between Japan and the U.S. What was not known was where and when it would begin.

Factor in the capitulation of Japan

Usually given short shrift in accounts of the Pacific war is the Soviet invasion of China and North Korea in early August of 1945, and its importance in convincing the Japanese to surrender. Indeed, some historians have viewed the loss of Manchuria - and the implicit threat of a total collapse of Japanese power in China as a whole - as a decisive factor in the Japanese surrender, perhaps more important than the atomic bombings. In particular, it is said that the Japanese were eager to surrender to the United States before they were occupied by the Soviet Union.
As the following excerpts from Lt. Col. Glantz’s work show, in terms of men and equipment, this brilliant surprise attack, codenamed Operation August Storm, was one of the largest campaigns of World War II. The operation was carried out as a classic double pincer envelopment over an area the size of Western Europe.
In brief, the Soviet Order of Battle comprised three Fronts (Army Groups); the Trans-Baikaal Front, the 1st Far Eastern Front, and the 2nd Far Eastern Front. These Army Groups included ten armies, one mechanized corps, one cavalry-mechanized corps, and one detached rifle corps.

Soviet Union
1,577,225 men,
26,137 artillery,
1,852 sup. artillery,
3,704 tanks,
5,368 aircraft

Japan
1,040,000 men,
6,700 artillery,
1,000 tanks,
1,800 aircraft,
1,215 vehicles


August Storm: The Soviet Strategic
Offensive in Manchuria


Lt. Col. David M. Glantz

Leavenworth Papers
Combat Studies Institute
U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas
1983.



Preface

Westerners have concluded that little worthy of meaningful study occurred in the Asian theaters of war. These impressions reflect a distinct German bias in the analyses of operations on the eastern front and an anti-Asian front bias concerning World War II in general. Both impressions are false. Yet, over the decades since World War II, they have perpetuated an inaccurate view of the war, particularly of Soviet performance in that war.

Our view of the war in the east derives from the German experiences of 1941 and 1942, when blitzkrieg exploited the benefits of surprise against a desperate and crudely fashioned Soviet defense. It is the view of a Guderian, a Mellenthin, a Balck, and a Manstein, all heroes of Western military history, but heroes whose operational and tactical successes partially blinded them to strategic realities.
This imbalanced view of German operations in the east imparts a reassuring, though inaccurate, image of the Soviets. We have gazed in awe at the exploits of those Germans who later wrote their personal apologies, and in doing so we have forgotten the larger truth: their nation lost the war - and lost it primarily in the east against what they portrayed as the "artless" Soviets.
Our second bias, so conspicuous in our historical neglect of the Pacific Theater of World War II, has combined with our acceptance of the German interpretation of the eastern front so as to blind us to what was the pre-eminent Soviet military effort in World War II - the Soviet strategic offensive of 1945 in Manchuria.
For the Soviets, the Manchurian offensive was the logical by-product of their war experience, a surgically conducted offensive with almost predestined results. The fact that Japan was a seriously weakened nation by the summer of 1945 was clear. What was not clear was the prospect of an immediate Japanese surrender. The likelihood of a Japanese Götterdämmerung on the scale of Germany's loomed large in the eyes of American and Soviet planners. The potential cost in Allied manpower of reducing Japan could be deduced from the fanatical Japanese resistance on Okinawa as late as April-June 1945, when Americans suffered more than 49,000 casualties (12,500 dead) in battle against about 117,000 Japanese troops. And the Home Islands still had more than 2.3 million Japanese soldiers; Manchuria, more than 1 million. So Allied planners expected the worst and designed operations in deadly earnest for what they believed would be prolonged, complicated campaigns against the remaining Japanese strongholds.
Based on proven capabilities of the Japanese High Command and the individual Japanese soldier, Soviet plans were as innovative as any in the war. Superb execution of those plans produced victory in only two weeks of combat. Although Soviet planners had overestimated the capabilities of the Japanese High Command, the tenacious Japanese soldier met Soviet expectations. He lived up to his reputation as a brave, self-sacrificing samurai who, though poorly employed, inflicted 32,000 casualties on the Soviets and won their grudging respect. Had Japanese planners been bolder - and Soviet planners less audacious - the price of Soviet victory could well have been significantly higher.
Scope, magnitude, complexity, timing, and marked success have made the Manchurian offensive a continuing topic of study for the Soviets, who see it as a textbook case of how to begin war and quickly bring it to a successful conclusion. They pay attention to the Manchurian offensive because it was an impressive and decisive campaign.
Our neglect of Soviet operations in World War II in general - and in Manchuria in particular - testifies not only to our apathy toward history and the past in general, but also to our particular blindness to the Soviet experience. That blindness, born of the biases we bring to the study of World War II, is a dangerous phenomenon. How can we learn if we refuse to see the lessons of our past for our future?

The Battle

Shortly after midnight on 9 August 1945, assault parties of Soviet troops crossed the Soviet-Manchurian border and attacked Japanese positions in Manchuria. This was the vanguard of a force of more than 1.5 million men that was to advance along multiple axes on a frontage of more than 4,400 kilometers, traversing in its course virtually every type of terrain from the deserts of Inner Mongolia to the shores of the Sea of Japan. Thus began one of the most significant campaigns of World War II.
For the Soviets, the Manchurian offensive marked the culmination of four years of bitter conflict with Germany in the west and a similar period of worried attentiveness to Japanese intentions in the east. The Soviets had absorbed the potent attacks of the Germans in 1941, 1942, and 1943 and had rebounded with their own 1944 and 1945 offensives, which finally crushed the military machine of Germany. While the Soviets waged a war of survival with the Germans, precious Soviet units remained in the Far East to forestall a possible Japanese attack in support of its Axis partner. Because of the combination of Soviet victories in the west and Japanese defeats in the Pacific, the potential for Japanese attack on the Soviet Far East diminished. Conversely, as Allied victory over Germany approached in 1945, Allied leaders continued to press Stalin to commit his forces against Japan in order to complete the destruction of the Axis combination.
Moved by Allied appeals for support and wishing to cement the Soviet Union's postwar position in the Far East, Soviet leaders began planning a final campaign to wrest from Japan Manchuria, northern Korea, southern Sakhalin Island and the Kurile Islands. The enormity of the task of conquering the vast expanse of Manchuria before a Japanese surrender rivaled the challenges of earlier operations. More than 10,000 kilometers separated Manchuria from the main area of Soviet operations in Europe. Forces and equipment destined for deployment to Manchuria had to move along a transportation network limited in capacity and fragile in its composition. Soviet estimates of force requirements necessary to undertake such an extensive campaign were correspondingly large. Thus, the anticipated campaign involved extensive planning and preparations stretching over a five-month period from April to August 1945. The results of the campaign attested to the success of the planning and the thoroughness of preparations.
In nine days Soviet forces penetrated from 500 to 950 kilometers into Manchuria, secured major population centers, and forced the Japanese Kwantung Army and its Manchukuoan and Inner Mongolian auxiliaries to surrender. Thus, Soviet forces achieved their territorial objectives within a limited period of time, despite severe terrain obstacles and significant Japanese resistance. The campaign validated the experience Soviet forces had gained in the war against Germany. The Red Army applied the advanced tactical and operational techniques it had learned in the brutal school of war in the west. It also displayed the requisite degree of audacious leadership Soviet commanders had laboriously developed during the western campaigns. The Manchurian campaign represented the highest state of military art in Soviet World War II operations. Contemporary officers and any serious student of twentieth century warfare can benefit greatly from an understanding of the nature of this campaign.

[jacobtowne]

PART II

Conclusions
The Soviet High Command projected that operations in Manchuria would last about one month and prepared accordingly. Preparations for a short, victorious campaign involved massive redeployments of forces in limited time under conditions of secrecy. Carefully selected commanders manned a unified command structure to control the massive forces operating on such a wide front. Commanders at all levels selected strategic, operational, and tactical objectives and tailored their forces to secure them in the shortest possible time. A vast array of support units of all types prepared to support the combat forces. As planned, operations exploited terrain and dynamically used all elements of combat power, especially armor. Flexibility and audacity characterized the operation. Commanders at all levels displayed initiative to achieve success.
Challenging the Soviets in Manchuria were stringent time requirements, terrain obstacles, and Japanese resistance. The Soviet Army met the first two challenges itself, while Japanese dispositions and plans helped it meet the third. Essentially, the Soviets completed the operation in seven days (by 16 August). Subsequent engagements and movements were pro forma. The Soviets exceeded their timetable by three weeks, suffered light casualties, and overwhelmed the Kwantung Army.
Why the Soviet victory? In essence, ultimate Soviet victory was inevitable. The preponderance of Soviet forces, the crumbling Japanese strategic posture in the western Pacific, the devastating bombing offensive against Japan (including the atomic bomb), and the weakened condition of the Kwantung Army all spelled inevitable defeat for Japan. So the real question then becomes why did the Soviet victory come so quickly? Although it is convenient to use the oversimplifications cited above, they mask other reasons for quick Japanese defeat.
The Soviets expected a difficult campaign when they entered Manchuria, so they prepared accordingly. The result was a bold plan of operations. The Soviets apparently had a fairly good knowledge of Japanese defensive plans and adjusted forces accordingly. Nevertheless, they probably over-assessed the strength of Japanese covering units on the border, hence the massiveness of initial Soviet attacks. The Soviets also expected greater Japanese resistance in the redoubt area of southern Manchuria. Soviet planning reflected this overestimation in several decisions: to gain the central Manchurian plain, to inflict piecemeal defeat on Japanese forces, and to divide them before they could consolidate. Thus, the attack occurred on many axes, including the thrusts into Korea. But even Soviet commanders were surprised at the scope and speed of their own successes.
In terms of leadership, equipment, and manpower, the Kwantung Army of 1945 certainly was not the same army as it was in 1941, but it was also not as ineffective as some analysts have claimed. In many instances, the marginal replacements of 1945 performed well on the battlefield, whenever they were permitted to fight. Even in reduced state, Japanese divisions outmanned their Soviet equivalents and fought well. Thus, the Japanese 80th Independent Mixed Brigade and the 119th Infantry Division did a remarkable job at Hailar and on the road through the Grand Khingan Mountains to Pokotu. The 135th Independent Mixed Brigade and the 123d Infantry Division acquitted themselves well at Aihun and Sunwu. Many border garrisons, holed up in fortified regions against overwhelming numbers, performed heroic defenses and earned the respect of their adversaries, who perhaps thought of similar Soviet sacrifices at Brest and Sevastopol. The Soviets viewed with awe the Japanese "death units," which threw their explosive-laden bodies at Soviet tanks. In fact, where Japanese forces stood and fought under competent leadership, they did a credible job and gave the Soviets the opposition they had expected. In reality, it was the higher echelon leadership of the Kwantung Army who engineered the army's overall mediocre performance.
Unquestionably, the cease-fire rumors and the ultimate surrender decision disrupted Japanese operations and forestalled possibly greater Japanese resistance in southern Manchuria. Yet much of the damage had already been done and could not be undone. Setting aside Soviet actions, the Japanese High Command reacted sloppily and indecisively, whether because of overconfidence, complacency, confusion, or pessimism. Japanese overconfidence and complacency regarding the Soviets had persisted for years, if not decades, before the Manchurian campaign. The Khalkhin-Gol defeat at the hands of the Soviets was surprising to Japanese commanders in 1939, but even more surprising was how little they had learned from it. Perhaps the Soviet defeats of 1939 and 1940 in Finland and in 1941 at the hands of the Germans gave rebirth to that Japanese complacency and overconfidence.
Yet, five years later, by 1945, little had been done to modernize the Japanese infantry division to make it capable of engaging a modern Soviet rifle division, much less a tank or mechanized unit. Antitank weapons were lacking, and although the division was heavy in manpower, it was lighter in firepower than the Soviet equivalent. In mechanized and tank forces, the Japanese also compared badly: they had no tank comparable to the Soviet medium T-34. The Kwantung Army was scarcely better equipped to conduct mobile war in 1945 than it had been in 1939. At least in part, this deficiency was a measure of complacency and overconfidence. Japanese plans forgot or ignored another lesson from 1939: the Soviets had a penchant for doing the seemingly impossible, such as using the arid wastes of eastern Mongolia as a launching pad for a major invasion of Manchuria. Whether through complacency or overconfidence, the Japanese demonstrated a traditional tendency to underestimate the Soviets. That underestimation spelled doom for the Kwantung Army. For whatever reasons, Japanese commanders failed their army. Confusion reigned at the top, and area army and army orders conflicted. Thus, many units withdrew from combat, while others were swallowed up by it.
Compounding the Japanese difficulties was the nature of the Soviet offensive. Japanese plans might have succeeded to a greater degree against a lesser foe. Unfortunately, the Japanese High Command faced a highly professional force led by the cream of the Soviet officer corps, blooded and educated in four years of war. Far East Command units were among the best in the Soviet Army, and their equipment had been tested against the best weaponry European arsenals could produce. For the Soviet Army, this was the last campaign in a long war, quite literally one last opportunity to excel. And excel it did. The Manchurian operation qualified as a postgraduate exercise for Soviet forces, the culmination of a rigorous quality education in combat begun in western Russia in June 1941.
Historians must exercise care when projecting lessons from the study of any military campaign, for the value of such a study derives from viewing that campaign against the concrete conditions that affected its conduct. The Manchurian campaign may hold tactical lessons to be learned and applied in similar contemporary situations, basic techniques that transcend the technological changes that have occurred since 1945. If in fact such constants, or tactical techniques derived from battle that apply to any period, do exist, then Manchuria is worthy of study.
The concrete conditions Soviet forces faced in Manchuria presented Soviet planners a unique set of problems associated with how to attack and win quickly in the beginning period of war. The Soviets adopted techniques formulated to solve those precise problems. For example, speedy advance would preempt initial or subsequent Japanese establishment of a solid defense and would secure strategically critical territory before the Japanese could decide to abandon the war effort. Speedy advance, of course, required the Soviets to crush any opposition that might threaten their ability to adhere to that timetable.

[jacobtowne]

PART III


Thus, the Soviets structured their forces to squelch the opposition and to generate the requisite speed. They also adopted tactical methods to maintain that momentum. Using cover and deception, they assembled and deployed their forces in secret. These precautions bolstered the effectiveness of other combat techniques. Soviet forces attacked on multiple axes - in fact along every possible axis - with a majority of forces well forward in the first echelon as a means of bringing maximum pressure to bear on an already overextended foe. On each axis, the Soviets massed at the critical point and artfully maneuvered those massed forces over terrain considered impassable, much less suitable for maneuver.
In order to generate initial success and to maintain offensive momentum, the Soviets carefully timed application of their offensive power by attacking with assault units, advanced units, and then main force elements. Consequently, from the very beginning, Japanese forces were off balance, and they remained off balance throughout the short campaign. These creative Soviet methods sowed confusion in the Japanese command structure, and that, in turn, ruled out effective Japanese response.
In order to exploit these initial efforts and to preempt Japanese plans, the Soviets used armor-heavy forward detachments of every size to drive deep into Japanese positions. With limited combat power forward, Soviet main force units could advance almost unhindered. Each detachment worked in a manner similar to an awl, boring a hole into hard wood and preparing the wood for subsequent penetration by a screw. Punctured in numerous sectors, the Japanese defense lost all coherence and never regained it. Soviet main force units and the forward detachments were tailored combined arms entities suited to the terrain over which they operated. They tore into the disrupted defense, fragmented it, left it paralyzed, and raced on to their next objective. Soviet success in the campaign underscored the effectiveness of their strategic, operational, and tactical techniques.

JT

[pdf27]

Okay, I admit I can't remember why, but why did Russia not help the Allies fight Japan in the Pacific Campaign?
As already mentioned, they invaded Manchuria once Germany had been safely destroyed. Given the sheer scale of ops going on it made more sense for all the Soviet effort to be against Germany (where they had a prayer of providing enough logistic support) while the US forces displaced from the fight against Germany by the Russian ones were sent to the Pacific. That way each country played to it's strengths.

Besides, Japan never declared war on the Russians so why should they?

[GermanSoldier]

Russia was a contributor to the allied victory very much. With being invaded by the Germans and taking heavy losses the Soviet Union was being overtaken. The Germans were taking Russia day by day. That all changed in the battle of Stalingrad when the Russians won. By the time they were attacking Berlin they had very severe casualties. Then when they took Berlin the fighting in Europe was over.

The Soviet Union Military had the most reported dead soldiers in World War 2. The Soviet Union had too much casualties for them to continue another war on a different front. Around the 1943's the Soviet Union probably didn't help America in the Pacific because they were worried about not getting took over by the Germans. They had more things to worry about.

[32Bravo]

They assisted at the end, after the Japanese had been nuked, as they were vying for position in the Pacific theatre i.e. they got their hands on Korea.

[Egorka]

They assisted at the end, after the Japanese had been nuked, as they were vying for position in the Pacific theatre i.e. they got their hands on Korea.

Bravo, do you sugest Stalin knew about the comming nuclear attack on the 6th of August? ;)

As you may know USSR entered the war in pacific exactly according the agreement between Allies, that is exactly 90 days after the German capitulation. Check out the info about he Yalta conference.

And as for the threads topic... USSR did not start before because we had non-agression pact with Japan. And USSR never breaks the agreements! :roll:


Wohahahahahahahaaa


.

[George Eller]

-

01

History of the Second World War
Part 93, The War: An Overview
BPC Publishing Ltd. 1966
First Edition 1966
Second Edition 1972
Published by Marshall Cavendish Promotions Ltd. 1975, pp 2577-2582.

http://img133.imageshack.us/img133/9027/sovietmanchuria01cu3.jpg
Colonel Nikolay Vasilievich Yeronin, p 2577

http://img133.imageshack.us/img133/972/sovietmanchuria02qf3.jpg
Colonel Nikolay Vasilievich Yeronin, p 2578

http://img410.imageshack.us/img410/8930/sovietmanchuria03kp0.jpg
Malcomb Mackintosh, p 2579

http://img133.imageshack.us/img133/281/sovietmanchuria04tu9.jpg
Malcomb Mackintosh, p 2580

(CONTINUED BELOW)

-

[George Eller]

-

(CONTINUED FROM ABOVE)

02

History of the Second World War
Part 93, The War: An Overview
BPC Publishing Ltd. 1966
First Edition 1966
Second Edition 1972
Published by Marshall Cavendish Promotions Ltd. 1975, pp 2577-2582.

http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/7462/sovietmanchuria05zj5.jpg
Malcomb Mackintosh, p 2581

http://img410.imageshack.us/img410/751/sovietmanchuria06gu5.jpg
Malcomb Mackintosh, p 2582

-

http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/5730/sovietmanchuria07ua6.jpg
Illustrated World War II Encyclopedia, Lt Col Eddy Bauer and Brigadier Peter Young, H.S. Stuttman Inc., 1978, Vol 20, p 2691

http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/8278/sovietmanchuria08ak9.jpg
Illustrated World War II Encyclopedia, Lt Col Eddy Bauer and Brigadier Peter Young, H.S. Stuttman Inc., 1978, Vol 20, p 2692

(CONTINUED BELOW)

-

[George Eller]

-

(CONTINUED FROM ABOVE)

03
http://img410.imageshack.us/img410/2127/sovietmanchuria09qo8.jpg
Illustrated World War II Encyclopedia, Lt Col Eddy Bauer and Brigadier Peter Young, H.S. Stuttman Inc., 1978, Vol 20, p 2693

http://img410.imageshack.us/img410/8666/sovietmanchuria10xc1.jpg
Illustrated World War II Encyclopedia, Lt Col Eddy Bauer and Brigadier Peter Young, H.S. Stuttman Inc., 1978, Vol 20, p 2694

http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/8607/sovietmanchuria11jz3.jpg
Illustrated World War II Encyclopedia, Lt Col Eddy Bauer and Brigadier Peter Young, H.S. Stuttman Inc., 1978, Vol 20, p 2695

http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/6503/sovietmanchuria12qu9.jpg
Illustrated World War II Encyclopedia, Lt Col Eddy Bauer and Brigadier Peter Young, H.S. Stuttman Inc., 1978, Vol 20, p 2696

(CONTINUED BELOW)

-

[George Eller]

-

(CONTINUED FROM ABOVE)

04
http://img410.imageshack.us/img410/6629/sovietmanchuria13bm7.jpg
Illustrated World War II Encyclopedia, Lt Col Eddy Bauer and Brigadier Peter Young, H.S. Stuttman Inc., 1978, Vol 20, p 2697

http://img410.imageshack.us/img410/1627/sovietmanchuria14uz0.jpg
Illustrated World War II Encyclopedia, Lt Col Eddy Bauer and Brigadier Peter Young, H.S. Stuttman Inc., 1978, Vol 20, p 2698

http://img133.imageshack.us/img133/1746/sovietmanchuria15xk8.jpg
Illustrated World War II Encyclopedia, Lt Col Eddy Bauer and Brigadier Peter Young, H.S. Stuttman Inc., 1978, Vol 20, p 2699

http://img133.imageshack.us/img133/5121/sovietmanchuria16uc6.jpg
Illustrated World War II Encyclopedia, Lt Col Eddy Bauer and Brigadier Peter Young, H.S. Stuttman Inc., 1978, Vol 20, p 2700

(CONTINUED BELOW)

-

[George Eller]

-

(CONTINUED FROM ABOVE)

05
http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/5816/sovietmanchuria17hy3.jpg
Illustrated World War II Encyclopedia, Lt Col Eddy Bauer and Brigadier Peter Young, H.S. Stuttman Inc., 1978, Vol 20, p 2701

http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/6213/sovietmanchuria18ap2.jpg
Illustrated World War II Encyclopedia, Lt Col Eddy Bauer and Brigadier Peter Young, H.S. Stuttman Inc., 1978, Vol 20, p 2702

http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/273/sovietmanchuria19zx4.jpg
Illustrated World War II Encyclopedia, Lt Col Eddy Bauer and Brigadier Peter Young, H.S. Stuttman Inc., 1978, Vol 20, p 2703

http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/835/sovietmanchuria20xi5.jpg
Atlas of World War II, David Jordan and Andrew Wiest, Barnes & Noble Books, 2004, pp 236-237

-

[Rising Sun*]

Because the US and UK had agreed on the 'Germany First' policy long before the Soviets came in, and the Soviets conformed with that policy as it was also much more in their interests to do so rather than open an unnecessary war on two fronts.

From a purely domestic strategic viewpoint, apart from requiring troops in the east which would be better employed in the west against Germany, in 1941-42 the USSR would have been stupid to start a war in its east which could result in Japanese forces pushing it westward when it needed all the room it could get to withdraw forces and industry east if the German advance kept up. The eastward withdrawal would draw Germany's lines of communication out and shorten the USSR's giving it a steadily increasing advantage.

From memory, something like 60 to 70% of Japan's army was in China for the whole war against Japan (about 80% in December 1941), but much of it was engaged against the Chinese in southern China rather than active apart from garrisons at the Russian border. The risk to the USSR in joining the war against Japan was that the Japanese might decide to disengage or fight a holding war in the south and divert forces to the north. This could then deplete Soviet forces against the Germans or force a retreat. This would draw forces away from the Chinese Allies but they weren't a priority in US, USSR, UK planning except as holding Japanese forces against them so they couldn't be employed elsewhere.

If the USSR had engaged Japan it would only have reduced its ability to fight Germany without contributing anything worthwhile to the defeat of Japan; put the USSR at a much greater disadvantage; and delayed the defeat of Germany and therefore Japan.

[Chevan]

Oh thanks guys for a lot of infor.
I/m fully agree with Rising Sun if the the USSR-Japane had began not after downfall of the Germany in 1945 but early in the 1941-1942 this could be catastrophical for the USSR.
If during the fiercing battles for the Moscow the Japanes attacked the Far East - there is no doubt the Moscow could be lost and perhaps Turkey could joined to the Axis in Caucaus. This fact inevitable led to defeat of USSR in the WW2.
Don't need to repeat for you guys - WITHOUT USSR the allies could NEVER win this war.

Cheers.

[Chevan]

Okay, I admit I can't remember why, but why did Russia not help the Allies fight Japan in the Pacific Campaign?
But Red Army helped them to creat the communist China ;)

[ww2admin]

THis is great info, thanks George for posting those articles. I did not read them all yet, but I'll have to come back and read it later today.

[pdf27]

Don't need to repeat for you guys - WITHOUT USSR the allies could NEVER win this war.
Not entirely sure about that - the size of the US population was such that they could probably have fielded forces the same size as the Soviets, given time. However, they would also have had to take casualties on a similar scale to the Soviets.
The other side of things is that the US was practically invulnerable to Germany at home, and by 1948 would have been in a position to produce enough nuclear devices to destroy Germany in an afternoon. It would also have been able to produce enough uninterceptable long-range bombers (Convair B-36s - prototypes flew during WW2 and they were virtually immune to intercept until the MiG-17 entered service) to deliver these nuclear devices. So if you call destroying Germany "victory", then the Allies could have won without the Soviets.

The price - both for the rest of the Allies and the whole world - would have been a great deal higher, and thus I am and remain deeply grateful that the Soviets were on the same side as us during WW2.

[Chevan]

Not entirely sure about that - the size of the US population was such that they could probably have fielded forces the same size as the Soviets, given time. However, they would also have had to take casualties on a similar scale to the Soviets.

Don't forget pdf if the Germans could get the resources of Caucaus in the 1941-42 and isolated the rest of the soviet army in the Syberia the cource of war could changed radically and already in the 1943 the Grmans could absolutly dominated in the whole Europe. Moreover they ( together with Turkey) could move farther to the Asia via Iran and finaly they could joined with Japane.
Moreover the germans army which were realised from the East could be succesfully used in other fronts like in N/Africa.

The other side of things is that the US was practically invulnerable to Germany at home, and by 1948 would have been in a position to produce enough nuclear devices to destroy Germany in an afternoon. It would also have been able to produce enough uninterceptable long-range bombers (Convair B-36s - prototypes flew during WW2 and they were virtually immune to intercept until the MiG-17 entered service) to deliver these nuclear devices. So if you call destroying Germany "victory", then the Allies could have won without the Soviets.

But are you sure the Britain will EXIST till 1948? I/m not.
Using the new kind wearponry ( in fact the germans had the more hight tech fighters and tanks) they had NEVER lost the initiative in the air above continental Europe. Even the strategic bombers armads could be easy neitrelized by the jet fighters ( as it we showed in the Korea) and even the piston TA-152H ( which were the best high-altitude fighter of WW2).
If the German,s NAVY had get enough the resource from the East they could realize the dream of Deniz about 1000 U-boats battle-ready and thus practically could lead the Britain from the war ( despite of USA support).
And don't forget about German rocketry. In fact the tactica of application the V-2 constantly inproved and already in ht e1946 the Germany coulde get the much more accurate and intensive bombarding of London. ( and the perspective transcontinental V-9/10 which could began to reach the USA coast since 1946-47)Analogical rockes could appears in the USA ONLY 7-9 years later.
And even if USA could use the (two or three) a-bomb in 1945 against Germany the rate of production of the a-bombs could not let to make more that 3-5 charges per year. And there is no any doubts the Germany could create the own a-bomb for the shortest time.
And the first Mig-17 could take off in the 1950 do you really think the high-thech German industry coul not create the simular ( or better) aircraft in the 1946-47 already?
Don't be the naive pdf;)

The price - both for the rest of the Allies and the whole world - would have been a great deal higher, and thus I am and remain deeply grateful that the Soviets were on the same side as us during WW2.

Yea i/m love you too ;)
Cheers.

[Egorka]

Chevan,

I think possession of the nuclear weapon gives USA a certain edge in this situation.
Should the scenario (in case of USSR collapse) develop the way you and PDF describe, the USA woild use the nukes with no hesitation (and they did it, as we know).
USA had 2 nukes in 1945 and 32 in 1947.
Not too many, but still big help. I think nukes make it much more unsertain to speculate...

[Cojimar 1945]

U.S. production was well beyond that of Germany. The reich did not make good use of their resources during the war anyway so their output was considerably lower than one might have expected. Taking out Britain would not be possible once the U.S. was involved given US production capacity.

[Cojimar 1945]

The Germans occupied Belgium, France, Holland and some other countries but their output of weapons remained very unimpressive following these conquests. Clearly, these vast resources were not used.

The war seems rather pointless anyway given the German defeat in the first world war. World War II was unnecessary because if the allies had maintained a strong military presence in Germany following the German defeat the Germans could not have easily rearmed.

The allies didn't need Russia to finish off Germany in World War I.

[Cojimar 1945]

I believe the B36 first flew in 1946 but Britain is close enough for other bomers to be used.

[pdf27]

But are you sure the Britain will EXIST till 1948? I/m not.
Doesn't matter. Unrefuelled combat radius of a B-36 is somewhere over 3,000 miles (source Office of Air Force History, United States Air Force), and this appears to be for aircraft that have not gone through the Featherweight programme and are carrying 35 tonnes of bombs. Featherweight B-36s regularly hit 50,000ft in service and if carrying a single nuclear device should have a combat range of the order of 4,000 miles - more than enough to hit anywhere in Germany from North America.

Using the new kind wearponry ( in fact the germans had the more hight tech fighters and tanks) they had NEVER lost the initiative in the air above continental Europe. Even the strategic bombers armads could be easy neitrelized by the jet fighters ( as it we showed in the Korea) and even the piston TA-152H ( which were the best high-altitude fighter of WW2).
Ummm... sort of. While the Germans produced a profusion of advanced designs, rather a lot of them never got past the prototype stage because they simply didn't work. Of those that did, the majority of production was series-produced prototypes rather than true mass production. This caused rather a lot of problems - non-standard parts, limited production runs and the fact that the bugs were not fully worked out to name but three. An excellent example of an "advanced" German design is the Ta-183. Generally held to be a highly advanced design which everyone copied postwar, it was actually built in Argentina by Kurt Tank as the IAI Pulqui and turned out to be a complete dog of an aircraft.
The various WW2 high-altitude fighters were useless against a B-36 too - they simply had neither the wing area or the engine power. At very high altitudes stall speed and Vne get closer and closer together. The lower the wing loading the less this is a problem - and the B-36 had very low wing loading. From memory the Ta-152H topped out at around 45,000ft and was distinctly unpleasant to fly at such altitudes (not to mention it could only stay up there for the 5 minutes it's chemical boost lasted).
Jet fighters were also of little use - the early jets simply didn't have the power at high altitudes. It was on the introduction of reheat/afterburner which enabled fighters to fly and fight at such altitudes - hence my reference to MiG-17s.


If the German,s NAVY had get enough the resource from the East they could realize the dream of Deniz about 1000 U-boats battle-ready and thus practically could lead the Britain from the war ( despite of USA support).
Quite apart from the fact that I'm highly sceptical about this (I don't think Germany had the infrastructure to build U-boats a great deal faster than they did - yards and skilled workers are far more critical than resources), it's irrelevant. I was suggesting that the US was quite capable of destroying Germany by nuclear attack launched from the continental US.

And don't forget about German rocketry. In fact the tactica of application the V-2 constantly inproved and already in ht e1946 the Germany coulde get the much more accurate and intensive bombarding of London. ( and the perspective transcontinental V-9/10 which could began to reach the USA coast since 1946-47)Analogical rockes could appears in the USA ONLY 7-9 years later.
Umm... again, I think you're making the mistake of confusing what the Germans thought they could do with what they actually managed to do. It is notable that when pretty much the entire German rocket team was transplanted to the US and given resources far in excess of what they had available in Germany, it took them until 1960 for them to built a rocket with that sort of range (Atlas). Korolev in the Soviet Union frankly made monkeys of them, and it is notable that he looked at the V-2 design and discarded it as a pile of junk.

And even if USA could use the (two or three) a-bomb in 1945 against Germany the rate of production of the a-bombs could not let to make more that 3-5 charges per year.
The reason that the US made so few nuclear weapons in the immediate postwar period was that they made the very courageous decision to shut down production to rebuild their systems to postwar standards. Furthermore, funding was cut massively at the end of the war. Had the war continued and had they continued with full rate production, they would have had around 150 weapons for summer 1947.

And there is no any doubts the Germany could create the own a-bomb for the shortest time.
There is a great deal of doubt. The entire German nuclear programme was a comedy of errors, ranging from a physicist who didn't notice that his graphite samples were contaminated with Boron* due to being lovesick, to a head physicist (Heisenberg) who couldn't even calculate critical mass correctly (as shown by the farm hall transcripts - they initially thought the Hiroshima bombs were a trick).

And the first Mig-17 could take off in the 1950 do you really think the high-thech German industry coul not create the simular ( or better) aircraft in the 1946-47 already?
Don't be the naive pdf;)
No, I don't think they could do it. The German aircraft industry produced two good aircraft in the entire war - the Me-109 and Fw-190 in their various guises. Most of the rest were as already mentioned little more than series production prototypes or were complete dogs. Even given the wartime conditions they faced, the Soviet aircraft industry consistently matched the Germans and the British/Americans consistently outmatched them. Couple this with the fact that most German "advanced prototypes" in the late war period were little more than dirty paper and you see why I strongly doubt that the Germans could produce anything nearly as good as the MiG-17 in that timeframe.


* They were testing graphite to use as a moderator, i.e. to slow down the neutrons in a nuclear reactor. Boron is a ravenous neutron absorber, and was well known to be one at the time. At the same stage this lab level experiment was going on, the US was building an atomic pile in Chicago and was producing extremely pure graphite on an industrial scale - something the Germans never figured out how to do

[George Eller]

THis is great info, thanks George for posting those articles. I did not read them all yet, but I'll have to come back and read it later today.
-

My pleasure ww2admin :)

Great info guys. http://www.ww2incolor.com/forum/images/icons/icon14.gif

-

[Chevan]

Doesn't matter. Unrefuelled combat radius of a B-36 is somewhere over 3,000 miles (source Office of Air Force History, United States Air Force), and this appears to be for aircraft that have not gone through the Featherweight programme and are carrying 35 tonnes of bombs. Featherweight B-36s regularly hit 50,000ft in service and if carrying a single nuclear device should have a combat range of the order of 4,000 miles - more than enough to hit anywhere in Germany from North America.

Oh i didn't know pdf you are so "soc..." of us military;)
Firstly the B-36 was ready the the serial ppoduction only in may of 1948.
The Germany which also could the priority in the developing of AAA-rocket has enough time to neitrealize this super-experiencive US-monster
http://warplane.ru:81/plane/b36/pic/b36j_01.jpg

Ummm... sort of. While the Germans produced a profusion of advanced designs, rather a lot of them never got past the prototype stage because they simply didn't work.

Not in cases of Tiger tanks , Rocketry V-2 and the Jet fighters.
Agree in the initial of application those wearpon were unreliable and unaccurate. But it developed RAPIDLY. Moreover don't forget that the new kinds of USA wearponry like bombers B-36 were also prototype till 1948 .


Of those that did, the majority of production was series-produced prototypes rather than true mass production.

Again the one "serial-propotype" Tiger 1/2 was equeal of 10/15 Shermans or others.
Ore one Panther - about 5/7 allies or soviet tanks.

This caused rather a lot of problems - non-standard parts, limited production runs and the fact that the bugs were not fully worked out to name but three. An excellent example of an "advanced" German design is the Ta-183. Generally held to be a highly advanced design which everyone copied postwar, it was actually built in Argentina by Kurt Tank as the IAI Pulqui and turned out to be a complete dog of an aircraft.

All this is true pdf, and we have already discussed it in other threads.
But you just forget the allies has aslo a lot of problems with new kinds of wearponry and they LOSED the thechnological competition in such field like the jet aircrafts, rocketry (especially!!!!),U-boats and acoustic torpedos, the optic ecupment.
They a little lose in the radar technology but not critically.

The various WW2 high-altitude fighters were useless against a B-36 too - they simply had neither the wing area or the engine power. At very high altitudes stall speed and Vne get closer and closer together. The lower the wing loading the less this is a problem - and the B-36 had very low wing loading. From memory the Ta-152H topped out at around 45,000ft and was distinctly unpleasant to fly at such altitudes (not to mention it could only stay up there for the 5 minutes it's chemical boost lasted).

Its strange but you critisize the German wearponry ( which really fliyed and fough in the WW2) as the unrealiable and non-effective but you are in delight from the piston-jet dinosaur like B-36 whic could to fight only in 1948.
I have no any doubt that in the 1948 the B-36 could meet not the T-152H, but the new kind of jet extra-high-altitude fighter and the newest radio corrected the AAA-rockets.

Jet fighters were also of little use - the early jets simply didn't have the power at high altitudes. It was on the introduction of reheat/afterburner which enabled fighters to fly and fight at such altitudes - hence my reference to MiG-17s.

Well Mig-17 which firstly took off in the jenuary of 1950 was a good fighter but thre is no adoubt the germany could prodused the simular ( or better) jet fighter in the 1946-47 on the basis of Me-262 or other.

Quite apart from the fact that I'm highly sceptical about this (I don't think Germany had the infrastructure to build U-boats a great deal faster than they did - yards and skilled workers are far more critical than resources), it's irrelevant. I was suggesting that the US was quite capable of destroying Germany by nuclear attack launched from the continental US.
In fact the production ( and supplies) of the enourmous Germans tanks armies and aviation in the East absorbed the greap part of the Germany industry ( and the hight-skill manpower particulary). The realising those power from the East could let the Germany consentrate in the building the U-boats in more scale. Moreover the new millions of slavs from the East could ( and resources) could realised the Germans manpower from the civil fields and directed them to the war industry.

Umm... again, I think you're making the mistake of confusing what the Germans thought they could do with what they actually managed to do. It is notable that when pretty much the entire German rocket team was transplanted to the US and given resources far in excess of what they had available in Germany, it took them until 1960 for them to built a rocket with that sort of range (Atlas). Korolev in the Soviet Union frankly made monkeys of them, and it is notable that he looked at the V-2 design and discarded it as a pile of junk.

Well as we knw today the Americans could repit the V-2 only in the end of 1940s. USSR builed its own copy of V-2 in the 1947 ( so called first rocket of Korolev R-1).
But the V-2 really flight in the 1943 ( inspite of the the problems with electronic system of stabilisation ).
The prototipe of transcontinental A-9/10 was able to appear not later than in the end of 40s.

The reason that the US made so few nuclear weapons in the immediate postwar period was that they made the very courageous decision to shut down production to rebuild their systems to postwar standards. Furthermore, funding was cut massively at the end of the war. Had the war continued and had they continued with full rate production, they would have had around 150 weapons for summer 1947.

Bu i heared the another point from Nicdfresh.
The USA forced the development of A-bombs and strategic aviation ( including your "lovelly" B-36) as hard as it was possible. At that same moment they decreased te common troops to the profite of the new atomic wearpon and aviation. This was the forced wway ( and more cheaper ) for the holding off the USSR in the first stage of Cold war.

There is a great deal of doubt. The entire German nuclear programme was a comedy of errors, ranging from a physicist who didn't notice that his graphite samples were contaminated with Boron* due to being lovesick, to a head physicist (Heisenberg) who couldn't even calculate critical mass correctly (as shown by the farm hall transcripts - they initially thought the Hiroshima bombs were a trick).

Bud do you agree that the entire soviet nucler program was just pity parody of Germans "comedy"?
Nevertheless the Soviets was able to creat a own bomb for the period of 1945-49 practically from the ZERO.
So doy you seriously thing the MUCH MORE HIGH-TECH Germany could not capable to creat the a-bomb ( using its "comedian"former experience ) until the end of 1946-47? I'm not.

Cheers

[pdf27]

Firstly the B-36 was ready the the serial production only in may of 1948.
The Germany which also could the priority in the developing of AAA-rocket has enough time to neitrealize this super-experiencive US-monster.
Errr... two problems with that. Firstly, B-36 wartime production was massively delayed by the fact that a bomber with that performance simply wasn't needed and would barely be in service by the end of the war. Thus, resources were diverted to built and improve the B-17, -24 and -29. Once resources became available at the end of the war (even under peacetime budgets) the problems were rapidly fixed.
Secondly, who says the Germans were to know that the B-36s were coming?
WW2 German spying in the US was an abject failure, and if the US were planning a nuclear strike with the B-36s it simply makes no sense to use them on conventional raids beforehand to let the Germans practice their defences. Thus they simply had no reason to build a rocket like Wasserfall (which would in any case be of very limited effectiveness against a B-36 - if it had any idea where the launchers were it could pretty much fly around them).

Again the one "serial-propotype" Tiger 1/2 was equeal of 10/15 Shermans or others.
Ore one Panther - about 5/7 allies or soviet tanks.
Umm... allowing for a bit of hyperbole, that's sort of true. The thing is, that the US or Russians could produce 20 tanks for every one the Germans made without breaking a sweat, and these tanks would be more reliable and easier to maintain. Thus, you're hitting a ratio of about 30 Shermans per tiger.
The other point - an absolutely critical one that everybody always seems to miss - is that tanks don't only fight tanks. In fact, the major job of the Sherman was infantry support, and it did this superbly well. Because they never produced enough Tigers or Panthers, the German infantry was perennially short of tanks - so the contest wasn't Tiger .vs. Sherman, but German Infantry .vs. Allied Tanks & Infantry. It may not sound too bad, but believe me when on foot any tank is a behemoth. Even for modern light infantry with decent anti-armour weapons, the minute something as weak and lightly armoured as a BMP-1 turns up it becomes your number one priority for destruction. Imagine what it must be like for Landsers facing full on tanks without decent anti-armour weaponry.

But you just forget the allies has aslo a lot of problems with new kinds of wearponry and they LOSED the thechnological competition in such field like the jet aircrafts, rocketry (especially!!!!),U-boats and acoustic torpedos, the optic ecupment.
Ummm... not even sure that's true.
- With Jet aircraft, the RAF actually had jet fighters in squadron service before the Luftwaffe, and these were both better fighters (capable of dogfighting with Spitfires - something the Me-262 never was) and had enormously better engines.
- Rocketry is again a bit of a mix - at a battlefield level the Allies were probably better at it, particularly the Russian rocket artillery and the US/UK use of air launched rockets for anti-tank work. Only at the very small level (Panzerfaust) and very large level (V-2) were the Germans clearly better, and the V-2 made a very minimal contribution to the effect of the war.
- U-boats - again, not perhaps as much to chose from as you might think. The Schnorkel and Type-XXI battery capacity were about the only significant innovations without parallell on the Allied side, and the Allies were able to come up with successful countermeasures to both during the war. What is often forgotten is that the Allies actually ran the most successful submarine campaign in history (the blockade of Japan) which actually did to the Japanese what the Germans tried to do to the British. Furthermore, the British submarines operating out of Malta were extremely effective in cutting off supplies to North Africa - some convoys being completely wiped out.
- Accoustic torpedoes - the Allies actually had the rather more technically difficult anti-submarine accoustic homing torpedoes in service by March 1943 (linky (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_24_FIDO_Torpedo)) and a variant for submarine use against surface shipping was deployed in the Pacific by summer 1944.
- Optics - no idea.

Its strange but you critisize the German wearponry ( which really fliyed and fough in the WW2) as the unrealiable and non-effective but you are in delight from the piston-jet dinosaur like B-36 whic could to fight only in 1948.
Thing is I know the performance of both, and the technical challenges involved in getting both to work (remember that technically the B-36 was actually a lot less advanced than the B-29). I also have the benefit of 60 years worth of hindsight coupled to 4 years of professional engineering training at one of the better universities out there for engineering (http://www.eng.cam.ac.uk/). This gives me a pretty good insight into just how good or bad the various wartime systems were. This is why I'm hammering many of the German systems - because I genuinely think they were a big steaming heap of faeces compared to the competition, not because I believe the Americans were some form of natural born genius.

Well Mig-17 which firstly took off in the jenuary of 1950 was a good fighter but thre is no adoubt the germany could prodused the simular ( or better) jet fighter in the 1946-47 on the basis of Me-262 or other.
Seriously, the Me-262 could not be pushed any further in performance without a major redesign that the German aircraft industry simply didn't have the knowledge or the resources to push through. Furthermore, to reach the kind of height that the B-36 operated at requires very high performance engines. These require both a lot of strategic minerals the Germans don't have access to (principally Nickel - they ended up being forced to use steel and aluminium for their turbine blades in WW2, cripping performance). Not only that, but the design of the engine was a blind alley - postwar the Soviets tried to get the new "advanced" German jet engines which were to power the next generation of fighters to work and simply could not. This despite having far more resources, access to strategic minerals, etc. The designs were simply that bad, which is why they bought a bunch of RR engines instead and based their initial designs on those.

In fact the production ( and supplies) of the enourmous Germans tanks armies and aviation in the East absorbed the greap part of the Germany industry ( and the hight-skill manpower particulary). The realising those power from the East could let the Germany consentrate in the building the U-boats in more scale. Moreover the new millions of slavs from the East (and resources) could realised the Germans manpower from the civil fields and directed them to the war industry.
Maybe. I'm far from convinced that very many of them would have the skills needed to expand production all that much. Some improvements could be made, but the Germans frankly did not employ the US mass production and process control systems which allowed them to produce huge amounts with unskilled labour. The German designs also tended to rely on tight tolerances, which in turn block them from the Russian method of loose toleranced designs which work anyway.

Well as we knw today the Americans could repit the V-2 only in the end of 1940s. USSR builed its own copy of V-2 in the 1947 ( so called first rocket of Korolev R-1).
But the V-2 really flight in the 1943 ( inspite of the the problems with electronic system of stabilisation ).
The prototipe of transcontinental A-9/10 was able to appear not later than in the end of 40s.
The A-9/10 might have appeared, but I simply don't believe it would work. Pretty much the entire team from Peenemunde ended up working for the US, and like I said it took them 10 years longer than you're thinking to do the same thing. Even today, only a very limited number of nation states are able to build missiles of that range, and they are generally both horrendously inexpensive and ludicrously inaccurate (missing the entire country you're firing at is far from uncommon).

But i heared the another point from Nicdfresh.
The USA forced the development of A-bombs and strategic aviation ( including your "lovelly" B-36) as hard as it was possible. At that same moment they decreased te common troops to the profite of the new atomic wearpon and aviation. This was the forced wway ( and more cheaper ) for the holding off the USSR in the first stage of Cold war.
The bombers were. For the first few years of the Cold War, the bombs themselves were a giant bluff. Between 1945 and about 1950, the Americans actually had very small numbers of nuclear weapons available. They (successfully) gave the impression to the rest of the world that they had a plentiful supply however, and this kept the peace as effectively as real weapons would have done.

[pdf27]

Bud do you agree that the entire soviet nucler program was just pity parody of Germans "comedy"?
Nevertheless the Soviets was able to creat a own bomb for the period of 1945-49 practically from the ZERO.
So doy you seriously thing the MUCH MORE HIGH-TECH Germany could not capable to creat the a-bomb ( using its "comedian"former experience ) until the end of 1946-47? I'm not.
No way. The Soviets had an extremely capable bunch of Physicists backed up by some very capable engineers and plenty of resources. They also knew that Atomic weapons were possible, and from their spies within the Manhattan project knew at least some of the blind alleys they should avoid. The Germans had none of these - the project was of a very low priority, the physicists couldn't even calculate the most basic of values like critical mass correctly (something even the Japanese had done by about 1943), and they never had the industrial or engineering resources to turn any theoretical design into reality. It is hugely insulting to those involved in the Soviet programme to even compare them the the German attempts.

[Chevan]

Errr... two problems with that. Firstly, B-36 wartime production was massively delayed by the fact that a bomber with that performance simply wasn't needed and would barely be in service by the end of the war. Thus, resources were diverted to built and improve the B-17, -24 and -29. Once resources became available at the end of the war (even under peacetime budgets) the problems were rapidly fixed.
Not so rapidly fixed indeed.( the proptotipe took off 1946. The first serial B-36A was ready to fly in mid of 1948. The latest and the best modification of B-36H( with additional jet engines - the very unoptimal technical design) had come to the service only in 1952.
So if in the peace time the USA has the entire 5-6 years of polish up and finish the B-36. Ans as we know the first prototipe of Mig-17 was ready in 1950 ( in the 1952 the serial production had begin).
So i never believe the Germany which already in 1945 had the enourmous experiece in the building of jet fighters was unable to create the own analog of Mig-17 in 1947-48.

Secondly, who says the Germans were to know that the B-36s were coming?
WW2 German spying in the US was an abject failure, and if the US were planning a nuclear strike with the B-36s it simply makes no sense to use them on conventional raids beforehand to let the Germans practice their defences. Thus they simply had no reason to build a rocket like Wasserfall (which would in any case be of very limited effectiveness against a B-36 - if it had any idea where the launchers were it could pretty much fly around them).

And who said them that B-17 had appeared in 1941?
And why they had enopugh reasons to developed the Wasserfall against B-17?
They were able to destroy about 15-20% of allies bomber in the raids of 1943-44 when the luftwaffe was still enought airplains. If they consentated the whole its airforces ( if the USSR was out of war) agains the stategic bombert - there is no any doubt the allies strategic fleet could dissapeared for the few month of "succesfull" raids ;)
Moreover in the lates monts of war the Germans gas developed the wery effective and simple way to hit the bombers -they used the small guided rockets under wings of fighter.
The single volley was able to shot down the bombers with a hight probability.

Umm... allowing for a bit of hyperbole, that's sort of true. The thing is, that the US or Russians could produce 20 tanks for every one the Germans made without breaking a sweat, and these tanks would be more reliable and easier to maintain. Thus, you're hitting a ratio of about 30 Shermans per tiger.
The other point - an absolutely critical one that everybody always seems to miss - is that tanks don't only fight tanks. In fact, the major job of the Sherman was infantry support, and it did this superbly well. Because they never produced enough Tigers or Panthers, the German infantry was perennially short of tanks - so the contest wasn't Tiger .vs. Sherman, but German Infantry .vs. Allied Tanks & Infantry.

No so simple pdf.
You right the major task of Panther and Tiger was the anti-tank fight ( and honestly speaking they did it excellent).This two kind of last germans tanks had joined in itself the last tend of German war in 1943-45 - defence war. So they created the good defence anti-tanks ( which were especially effective in ambush ) Do you read the examples when the single Panther or Tiger crasher the 10-15 allies or soviet tank?
And do you remember the Michael Vittman battle in the 13 june of 1944 when he in its Tiger, hited the about 25 british tanks. for 20 minuts(!!!)

It may not sound too bad, but believe me when on foot any tank is a behemoth. Even for modern light infantry with decent anti-armour weapons, the minute something as weak and lightly armoured as a BMP-1 turns up it becomes your number one priority for destruction. Imagine what it must be like for Landsers facing full on tanks without decent anti-armour weaponry.

I'm believe you , but you you just ignore the some facts.
Lets imegine the sitution when the allies platoon supported of 10 tanks attack the villiage when the Germans platoon take the position with single Tiger.
In practice this tiger had more chances to destroy the all allies tanks before itself could be hitted and the allies infantry stay alone ( did you play the CoD2 mission "Tiger"?)
In fact if not the absolut air superiority of allies in Normandy ( about 15x1) they HAD NO effective way of fight with Germans tanks till the end of war except the aviation blows.

Ummm... not even sure that's true.
- With Jet aircraft, the RAF actually had jet fighters in squadron service before the Luftwaffe, and these were both better fighters (capable of dogfighting with Spitfires - something the Me-262 never was) and had enormously better engines.

firstly the the Germans had the shortage of the Nickel and Chrome for turbine blades therefore the Jumo 004-engine was too unreliable. But don't forget we discuss the situation of collaps of the USSR and involving to the war the Turkey ( with its Crome and Nickel stockpile.In this case the Germany could receive the much more reliable jet-engine.
Sec why the Me-262 must firght with Spitfire ?The last piston FW and Me could easy fight with Spitfire. But the main task of Me-262 was the fight with strategical bombers.( 4x30-mm gun were more than enought for this action)

- Rocketry is again a bit of a mix - at a battlefield level the Allies were probably better at it, particularly the Russian rocket artillery and the US/UK use of air launched rockets for anti-tank work. Only at the very small level (Panzerfaust) and very large level (V-2) were the Germans clearly better, and the V-2 made a very minimal contribution to the effect of the war.

Not a so minimal. If the in begining the aplication of V-2 he persantage of succesfull attack ( i.e. reaching the London) was the 30% than the in the feb of 1945 - already 50%.
This was due to progress with system of stabilizing and guidance to the target.
The Germans already in the 1944 HAD a good and realible rocket engine with the thrust of 20 tons(!!!)Nether allies nor the USSR had no nothing simular.

- U-boats - again, not perhaps as much to chose from as you might think. The Schnorkel and Type-XXI battery capacity were about the only significant innovations without parallell on the Allied side, and the Allies were able to come up with successful countermeasures to both during the war. What is often forgotten is that the Allies actually ran the most successful submarine campaign in history (the blockade of Japan) which actually did to the Japanese what the Germans tried to do to the British. Furthermore, the British submarines operating out of Malta were extremely effective in cutting off supplies to North Africa - some convoys being completely wiped out.

The all succes of allies U-boats was just pity shade of the gernas Kringsmarine
http://torpedo-los.narod.ru/victories-tonn.bmp
The tonnage of sinking allies transport by the Kringsmarine per month of all war.
Besides the underwater blockad of Japane was sucsessfull due to the full collapse of Japane NAVY in the battles of 1944.

- Accoustic torpedoes - the Allies actually had the rather more technically difficult anti-submarine accoustic homing torpedoes in service by March 1943 (linky (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_24_FIDO_Torpedo)) and a variant for submarine use against surface shipping was deployed in the Pacific by summer 1944.

The technically difficulity is not yet the effective.
In fact in the 1945 the allies were wery troubles of the new kind of germans torpedo.When the Red army cuptured the Donitz bases the Churchill asced the Stalin to send to the Britain the one accustic torpedo for the study.

- Optics - no idea.

In the beginning of 1945 the Germany had began the serial production of new night vision devices and artillery sight which were establised on the selfh-propelers anti-tank guns.

[Chevan]

....This gives me a pretty good insight into just how good or bad the various wartime systems were. This is why I'm hammering many of the German systems - because I genuinely think they were a big steaming heap of faeces compared to the competition, not because I believe the Americans were some form of natural born genius.

Your personal thech experience sertainly good( and i have the enjoy to discuss it with you ).
But your hypercriticism of germas archivements could not refused the historical facts:
for instnace after the WW2 both USSR and USA wery succesfull used the Germans tech experience for instanse in the rocketry and U-boats.In fact the Geramny had the BEST examples of it.
First soviet jet fighter Mig-9 used the soviet copy of german Jumo-004. And the first soviet tactical rocket was the copy of V-2.The first after war soviet submarines widly used the tecnical desigions of Kringsmarine.

Seriously, the Me-262 could not be pushed any further in performance without a major redesign that the German aircraft industry simply didn't have the knowledge or the resources to push through.

Nevertheless they had the best experience of the creation of jet fighter and they were the pioneers in the combat appication of jet aviation and just the shortage of special materials like Chrome did not let them to create the enough reliable engine.

Furthermore, to reach the kind of height that the B-36 operated at requires very high performance engines. These require both a lot of strategic minerals the Germans don't have access to (principally Nickel - they ended up being forced to use steel and aluminium for their turbine blades in WW2, cripping performance). Not only that, but the design of the engine was a blind alley - postwar the Soviets tried to get the new "advanced" German jet engines which were to power the next generation of fighters to work and simply could not. This despite having far more resources, access to strategic minerals, etc. The designs were simply that bad, which is why they bought a bunch of RR engines instead and based their initial designs on those.

Don't forgot the Nickel was not problem if in the war joined the Turkey.( the situation which we are considering)
Well you right the first soviet reliable jet engine RD-45 was the full copy of British Rolls-Royce Nene II. But already through year the first soviet endine VK-1 was ready.(This engine used the both achivement of Britains and Germans).

Maybe. I'm far from convinced that very many of them would have the skills needed to expand production all that much. Some improvements could be made, but the Germans frankly did not employ the US mass production and process control systems which allowed them to produce huge amounts with unskilled labour. The German designs also tended to rely on tight tolerances, which in turn block them from the Russian method of loose toleranced designs which work anyway.

The Russian loose tolerance was the forced mean coz the shortage of high-skilled
menpower which the tecnically more developed germany had no in the first time of the WW2.Nothing more. Plus the tecnical ecupments of soviet plants were less then the germans.
The succesfull way of mass production of the soviet wearponry was mostlu becouse this loose tolerence sure, ( and soviet and lend lise resources let this method to be effective) But this way was absolutly unpossible for the GErmany, becouse they had not enought resousec and instead of 10 Sherman or T-34 they prefered to produce one-two Tiger or Panther which was equeql the 10 allies tanks ( with one condition - if it was operated professional enough.).


The A-9/10 might have appeared, but I simply don't believe it would work. Pretty much the entire team from Peenemunde ended up working for the US, and like I said it took them 10 years longer than you're thinking to do the same thing. Even today, only a very limited number of nation states are able to build missiles of that range, and they are generally both horrendously inexpensive and ludicrously inaccurate (missing the entire country you're firing at is far from uncommon).

Firstly the Germany never be the a "common nation" during the WW2 , this nation was ready to produce and used the 20 tonn rocket in the 1944(!!!).
Not 100% effective but it works.( in comparition with allies and soviet rocketry at this moment;).They were the pioneers in the manies of thech designs including the rocketry( this is the fact).So i have no doubts if the Germany did not lose the war in 1945 they wer able to create the strategical rocket the FIRST.

The bombers were. For the first few years of the Cold War, the bombs themselves were a giant bluff. Between 1945 and about 1950, the Americans actually had very small numbers of nuclear weapons available. They (successfully) gave the impression to the rest of the world that they had a plentiful supply however, and this kept the peace as effectively as real weapons would have done.
Not so a "great bluff" as you could to think.
The stategic aviation had the priory right after WW2 in USA as the means of the delivery the a-bombs to the USSR territory.
In this period the strategic aviation of USA has the great boom.And the technically ugly B-36 ( the pitfull mixture of the pistons and jet engines) was just intermediate level between the B-29 and the purelly jet B-49 and B-52.


No way. The Soviets had an extremely capable bunch of Physicists backed up by some very capable engineers and plenty of resources. They also knew that Atomic weapons were possible, and from their spies within the Manhattan project knew at least some of the blind alleys they should avoid. The Germans had none of these - the project was of a very low priority, the physicists couldn't even calculate the most basic of values like critical mass correctly (something even the Japanese had done by about 1943), and they never had the industrial or engineering resources to turn any theoretical design into reality. It is hugely insulting to those involved in the Soviet programme to even compare them the the German attempts.
Well after the Hirosima ( or the possible nuke strikes tothe Germany) there were nobody doubt the Nucler wearpon is possible.
BTW in the Soviet union Stalin ordered the goupe of soviet Physicists to begin the developing the soviet a-bomb in the 1943. But till the end of war the work progressed a unsignificant coz the USSR had a shortage of Uran-ore. After the collapse of Germany the soviet physicists obtained the germans material and theretical stuff. Where the mistake were.
But the active work has begin after this and the soviet own progect of a-bomb could be ready in the 1950. But time is going out and the US nuclear monopoly threated the world.( for instance crazy MacArthur planned to burn the China in 1951).
The first soviet a-bomb was based on the americans datas. This let to create the bomb more quickly in 1949.


Cheers.

[Cojimar 1945]

The Germans had some very advanced designs. The bashing of German technology seems comical given how they compared with the allies. The Germans had potential but sadly made many errors. However, there technology was quite impressive in many cases.

Germany actually was more impressive in World War I than in WWII. Germany held out against many adversaries for a long time.

[Chevan]

The Germans had some very advanced designs. The bashing of German technology seems comical given how they compared with the allies. The Germans had potential but sadly made many errors. However, there technology was quite impressive in many cases.
.
What does mean SADLY ?
May be you wish to say it SADLY that Gemany losed WW2?

[Cojimar 1945]

I don't think Germany winning is a good scenario. The anti-semitism was tragic and things would have been better had this not occured.

[Chevan]

I don't think Germany winning is a good scenario. The anti-semitism was tragic and things would have been better had this not occured.

Why when somebody damns the Nazy he firstly recalls about anti-semitism. The slav population were exterminated MUCH more then the jews in the WW2?
May be becouse jewish mass media portray them as the "international high-race" which only could be mentioned for the moral reproach for the other nations?

[Cojimar 1945]

I recently found a book that discusses the experiences of Germans on the eastern front in the first world war and there impression of the inhabitants. However, i'm not sure this territoty is considered Russia today. They might have just been in the Ukraine and Belearus.

[Sneaksie]

Without USSR Germany would have its hands free and 'Sea lion' would be inevitable reality. Then the only Allies footholds close to Europe would be Africa and Iceland maybe to field stratobombers. More, it is not safe to assume the US production would be higher forever - with USSR resources German production would go off the charts, as it was handicapped by lack of resources during most of the war. And here comes biggest trouble - without war in Europe US can't safely sit behind the ocean anymore - it MUST act or face constantly increasing Axis production, thus losing it's biggest advantage.

I think it would be a VERY bloody stalemate after some years at best. Atomic bombings of Reich would make peace impossible with every German thinking about revenge all the time. After that US, even if it manages to defend itself against entire Eurasia, would have very few options considering constant increasing of Axis power and potential making of Axis nuclear weapons. Kinda apocalyptic future:)

[pdf27]

Sorry for the delay, I've been busy and missed this thread popping up again.
So i never believe the Germany which already in 1945 had the enourmous experiece in the building of jet fighters was unable to create the own analog of Mig-17 in 1947-48.
OK, I'll grant that they might have done - the future is after all uncertain. However, based on what I know about just how difficult designing aircraft in that regime is, and how much the engine used owed to Whittle (a true genius, and one that Germany didn't have an equivalent to in engine terms) I think it unlikely. Given that the Ta-183, generally touted as the German equivalent to the MiG-15 (with the MiG-17 after all being largely a developed and afterburning MiG-15) was a miserable failure when built as the IAe Pulqui II, despite having a better engine than the Germans ever managed, I'm left hugely sceptical. The fundamental principles of swept wings were known prewar, and only the Germans were dumb enough to think there was any point in trying them during the war. Everybody else knew that they simply didn't have the engine power to benefit from them.


And why they had enopugh reasons to developed the Wasserfall against B-17?
Personally I think it was politics. The Germans seem to have used rockets as the answer to most things, even when it was a really dumb idea. For examples see the Natter last-ditch fighter which killed the only pilot dumb enough to try flying it, or the Me-163 which could only intercept enemy flying right over it's airfield and would dissolve the pilot given half a chance.

They were able to destroy about 15-20% of allies bomber in the raids of 1943-44 when the luftwaffe was still enought airplains. If they consentated the whole its airforces ( if the USSR was out of war) agains the stategic bombert - there is no any doubt the allies strategic fleet could dissapeared for the few month of "succesfull" raids ;)
Before the introduction of escort fighters, this was true - the long range raids, whether day or night suffered horrendous losses. It's worth noting that (for the war in the west - I have no access to Soviet statistics) the only job more dangerous than RAF Bomber command was being part of a U-boat crew.
However, once the escort fighters got going this probably wasn't true. The USAAF had a hell of a lot of very high performance fighters which were free to engage the enemy, and they usually killed more than they lost. I see no reason why adding German reinforcements would change this trend.

And do you remember the Michael Vittman battle in the 13 june of 1944 when he in its Tiger, hited the about 25 british tanks. for 20 minuts(!!!)
Indeed - but remember that Wittman was eventually killed by a Sherman (probably a Sherman Firefly). Furthermore, Wittman was a truly exceptional tank commander - the average would be much less capable - and his Tiger was mobility killed and abandoned during the battle.
Incidentally, during this operation the six tanks under Wittman's command killed roughly 30 British tanks. Wittman was credited with 27 of these - suggesting that either he was massively better than the average, or someone was cooking the books for propaganda purposes.

In fact if not the absolut air superiority of allies in Normandy ( about 15x1) they HAD NO effective way of fight with Germans tanks till the end of war except the aviation blows.
The 17pdr on the Sherman Firefly was effective, as were a number of the US tank destroyer designs, and the British towed anti-tank guns. In any case, the western Allies had plenty of air support and could use that against the Germans. Again, their industrial capacity was superior - they could have both.


Sec why the Me-262 must firght with Spitfire ?The last piston FW and Me could easy fight with Spitfire. But the main task of Me-262 was the fight with strategical bombers.( 4x30-mm gun were more than enought for this action)
I was trying to point out that the British equivalent to the Me-262 - which was in squadron service a little before it - was a much better dogfighter yet had the same speed. Had the Me-262 ever become a major problem then the Meteors would have moved to the continent (they did anyway in early 1945, probably tasked to shoot down V-1s) and we would have seen Meteor .vs. Me-262 dogfights. I think the Meteor would probably have won these - it was the better fighter and had a more suitable armament.

Besides the underwater blockad of Japane was sucsessfull due to the full collapse of Japane NAVY in the battles of 1944.
Umm... not so sure about that one. The Japanese prewar really didn't have any effective antisubmarine warfare capability, and never built one. They concentrated on using their fleet as an offensive arm.

[pdf27]

The Russian loose tolerance was the forced mean coz the shortage of high-skilled
menpower which the tecnically more developed germany had no in the first time of the WW2.Nothing more. Plus the tecnical ecupments of soviet plants were less then the germans.
The succesfull way of mass production of the soviet wearponry was mostlu becouse this loose tolerence sure, ( and soviet and lend lise resources let this method to be effective) But this way was absolutly unpossible for the GErmany, becouse they had not enought resousec and instead of 10 Sherman or T-34 they prefered to produce one-two Tiger or Panther which was equeql the 10 allies tanks ( with one condition - if it was operated professional enough.).
The US production genius was in devising a system of mass production which lets a small number of highly skilled people supervise a vast number of the unskilled, producing parts to a tolerance set that previously only skilled workers could achieve. The German (and indeed British) systems by and large combined the worst points of both systems.

[pdf27]

Why when somebody damns the Nazy he firstly recalls about anti-semitism. The slav population were exterminated MUCH more then the jews in the WW2?
May be becouse jewish mass media portray them as the "international high-race" which only could be mentioned for the moral reproach for the other nations?
I think the reason is much simpler. The western powers saw for themselves that Jews from countries they liberated had all been taken away, and found at places like Bergen-Belsen direct evidence of what had been done to them. The Genocide committed against the Slavs was largely (with the exception of Soviet PoWs - and cruelty to men of fighting age is always somehow less viscerally shocking) committed on Soviet territory in the place people lived. Hence, it was largely hidden from the Western allies and at least in part dismissed as propaganda. This gives the suffering of the Jews a much higher profile than that of the Slavs, Gypsies, Homosexuals, etc.

[Egorka]

I think the reason is much simpler. The western powers saw for themselves that Jews from countries they liberated had all been taken away, and found at places like Bergen-Belsen direct evidence of what had been done to them. The Genocide committed against the Slavs was largely (with the exception of Soviet PoWs - and cruelty to men of fighting age is always somehow less viscerally shocking) committed on Soviet territory in the place people lived. Hence, it was largely hidden from the Western allies and at least in part dismissed as propaganda. This gives the suffering of the Jews a much higher profile than that of the Slavs, Gypsies, Homosexuals, etc.

pdf27,

The Bergen-Belsen camp was NOT an extermination camp at all and the inmates died due to neglect and causedthat lead to starvation and epidemy. The extermination camps for jews were on the territory libirated by RKKA.

So your point that the extermination of jews was more visible to western public looks a bit artificial to me. Well, I agree that it had/has higher profile. It is not the issue. The issue WHY it has higher profile. And this is not so simple as one may think.

.

[pdf27]

The Bergen-Belsen camp was NOT an extermination camp at all and the inmates died due to neglect and causedthat lead to starvation and epidemy. The extermination camps for jews were on the territory libirated by RKKA.
Indeed. However, the BBC were among the first troops to liberate the camp, and the government had a special documentary made of it which was shown in just about all the cinemas in the UK. Call it wartime propaganda if you will, but within a short time of Bergen-Belsen being liberated the overwhelming majority of the British public had seen images of Germans treating Jews in thoroughly beastly ways - and the news from the Nuremberg trials (complete with documentary evidence of Auschwitz, Treblinka, etc. provided by the Soviets) reinforced this impression. So far as I'm aware something similar happened with the US, while the occupied European countries had their own direct experiences to go on.

So your point that the extermination of jews was more visible to western public looks a bit artificial to me. Well, I agree that it had/has higher profile. It is not the issue. The issue WHY it has higher profile. And this is not so simple as one may think.
Maybe. I tend to apply Occam's Razor to things like this - the theory that the simplest explanation for something is usually right. In this case it seems to me that the simplest explanation is that more information was available in the west about the mistreatment of Jews than any other group, and it came from sources the western populace were accustomed to trust (governments, newspapers and organisations like the BBC).

[Rising Sun*]

The US production genius was in devising a system of mass production which lets a small number of highly skilled people supervise a vast number of the unskilled, producing parts to a tolerance set that previously only skilled workers could achieve. The German (and indeed British) systems by and large combined the worst points of both systems.

The measure of the US system in the field was that when the US entered the war and started supplying their items and parts for them the British artificers, armourers, mechanics etc were astounded by parts that fitted without the need for filing, hammering and so on. The savings in time and efficiency, and getting equipment back into the field, were immense.

Germany and Britain, while often capable of better design and engineering than the US, were often more like large cottage industries compared with the price-efficient and productive factories of the US. We're seeing the same nowadays with cheap and adequate, but not very good or durable, power tools and other products coming out of China, with which nobody else can compete.

Britain managed to carry on its sound engineeering but unsatisfactory production tradition after the war, such as by designing some excellent cars but building them to varying standards on the same production line, which might involve moving the car about on dollies rather than the American idea of a production line.

In comparing the quality of product of the different nations, and in particular the consistency of American parts, it is worth remembering the dictum (which I think might have come from W. Edwards Deming, the American father of Japan's industrial resurgence) that quality control doesn't mean the item is any good, it just means they're all the same as each other.

[pdf27]

The measure of the US system in the field was that when the US entered the war and started supplying their items and parts for them the British artificers, armourers, mechanics etc were astounded by parts that fitted without the need for filing, hammering and so on. The savings in time and efficiency, and getting equipment back into the field, were immense.
Absolutely. And the thing is, that's actually a pretty minor benefit of proper process control. The real benefit is that if you need to fettle parts to get them to fit together in a factory, you need skilled craftsmen who can do the job and know what to modify to get it to work. With properly toleranced truly interchangeable parts, the skill level is reduced to knowing which bits to attach to each other. This pretty much eliminates the skill requirements on the factory floor while sending productivity per worker through the roof. It's absolutely a work of genius, almost worthy of being described as a second industrial revolution.

Germany and Britain, while often capable of better design and engineering than the US, were often more like large cottage industries compared with the price-efficient and productive factories of the US. We're seeing the same nowadays with cheap and adequate, but not very good or durable, power tools and other products coming out of China, with which nobody else can compete.
The interesting thing is that many engineering companies - at least the ones who sell the final product - don't care. They keep the design and engineering functions in the first world, create the prototypes there, and move long term production to China. The experience of my company is that something like 90% of the value of a product moved to China will stay in the UK. This actually increases barriers to entry for companies in China entering our market, so the Chinese entry to the market is actually improving our competitiveness, not reducing it.
The real problems are for subcontractors making cheap, simple parts with no critical dimensions. They're screwed, frankly. Where they have design input, or the part is cheap and tolerances critical then manufacture is likely to stay in the first world.

[Rising Sun*]

Absolutely. And the thing is, that's actually a pretty minor benefit of proper process control. The real benefit is that if you need to fettle parts to get them to fit together in a factory, you need skilled craftsmen who can do the job and know what to modify to get it to work. With properly toleranced truly interchangeable parts, the skill level is reduced to knowing which bits to attach to each other. This pretty much eliminates the skill requirements on the factory floor while sending productivity per worker through the roof. It's absolutely a work of genius, almost worthy of being described as a second industrial revolution.

To what extent were these improvements the product of machine tools designed and produced to finer tolerances? Or of the necessary machine tools being limited to a small proportion of manufacturers? Did the Americans have better tooling?

I've never understood how Britain could produce the RR Merlin yet have basic parts for lesser equipment that needed to be filed and hammered etc to fit.


The interesting thing is that many engineering companies - at least the ones who sell the final product - don't care.

Yes, and it shows in the declining standards of their products.

Chinese manufacturers are renowned for shaving quality and content wherever possible. Nobody much cares if they do it over a year or so as it's barely noticeable, but wait five years and see what you get.

Although, oddly enough, the cheap Chinese stuff that's been arriving in the Antipodes has been improving slightly in quality over the past few years. Which doesn't mean it's great quality, but for home use the power tools are generally adequate if you don't mind noisy brush motors and a bit of shaft run out and so on. Where they really fall down is in cheap but simple precision tools like spirit levels. Tested half a dozen in a store recently by swapping ends and they were all close, but no cigar. Then again, they produce very acceptable laser levels for AUD $20 and plastic digital vernier calipers for AUD $15 that are close in accuracy to stainless steel ones ten times that price maybe five years ago. But I still keep my steel one in a case for good.

[pdf27]

Indeed - but remember that Wittman was eventually killed by a Sherman (probably a Sherman Firefly). Furthermore, Wittman was a truly exceptional tank commander - the average would be much less capable - and his Tiger was mobility killed and abandoned during the battle.
Incidentally, during this operation the six tanks under Wittman's command killed roughly 30 British tanks. Wittman was credited with 27 of these - suggesting that either he was massively better than the average, or someone was cooking the books for propaganda purposes.
I've just had another thought that relates to British and possibly Commonwealth tanks and is very relevant here.

One of the problems the British Army had in WW2 was recruiting the best and brightest. It was very much the least glamourous of the services, with the worst conditions. Thus, there was a tendency for the most able and brightest young men to join the RN or RAF instead of the Army. These are the very people you are relying on the most to provide your officers and junior NCOs - without good people filling these positions, you're frankly screwed.
It got worse for the tankies though. The Paras and Commandos were the most glamourous units, while the county/Guards infantry regiments tended to sweep up the best of the rest. This meant that the tanks tended to get by and large the less good officers and JNCOs. There were some attempts to correct this - for instance the formation of the Guards Armoured division - but the problem was never really solved.

I'm not sure how this affected Commonwealth or US forces. I suspect that it would be much the same for Commonwealth units, with US forces being less badly hit (not having the county regiment system, I suspect that the Infantry would suffer even worse in the US system).

[Rising Sun*]

I'm not sure how this affected Commonwealth or US forces. I suspect that it would be much the same for Commonwealth units, with US forces being less badly hit (not having the county regiment system, I suspect that the Infantry would suffer even worse in the US system).

Off the top of my rough old head, I'm not sure that it would have translated to the Australian forces to quite the same extent.

We certainly lost many of our best and brightest to Britain as pilots and aircrew, and to our own air force.

But tanks didn't play such a huge role in our activities in the Pacific, where we did all our land fighting from 1942 onwards, as they did in Europe. The Pacific was much more an infantry war, although we certainly used tanks but nothing like in Europe and not opposed to anything like the tank forces anywhere in Europe. Tanks in the Australian Pacific campaigns were more infantry support than tank-tank weapons.

IIRC we disbanded some armoured units around 1944 and converted them to infantry, which is an indignity no cavalryman should ever have to suffer.

[Rising Sun*]

It was very much the least glamourous of the services, with the worst conditions.

Were the conditions that bad?

Having spent my brief and entirely undistinguished military career in an armoured unit, which I joined because (a) the recruiting sergeant confirmed my expectation that I would be flying across the countryside with my yellow silk scarf streaming behind me as I commaded a Ferret scout car within weeks or at worst a few months of joining (carefully concealing from me the fact that the unit had only a few Ferrets with immortal sexagenarian crews welded to them) and, (b) why walk when you can ride (which was another disappointment as the recruiting sergeant didn't tell me that I actually had to spend about ten years, or a bit less with an unusual run of harsh winters causing unexpected deaths among elderly soldiers, as a mechanised grunt), the facts remained that you could put an awful lot of food and other gear on an armoured vehicle.

You could sleep in it, on it, beside it, or under it, without having to dig a hole or any of those other quaint things that infantry do.

You usually had engine heating for water, cooking, and personal comfort.

You always had petrol for starting fires for water, cooking etc.

You never had to walk very far.

You always had a nice big MG behind you if things went wrong at your end.

Apart from the risk of being brewed up, which was pretty low in my case as we weren't allowed to sully the vehicles by spending too much time in them, it was the best way to go to war.

[pdf27]

Were the conditions that bad?
Sorry, I should have been clearer about that. I was comparing the Army to the Navy and RAF. Of those three, the Army was clearly the shortest on creature comforts and had the least glamour going for it.

[Cojimar 1945]

The allies prevailed in World War I even though Russia dropped out of the conflict.

If the allies maintained a large army in Germany after World War I I don’t see how the Nazis would have taken power. I don't undestand why Germany would be a problem given that the Germans had already been beaten in the Great War.

[Chevan]

Sorry for the delay, I've been busy and missed this thread popping up again.

OK, I'll grant that they might have done - the future is after all uncertain. However, based on what I know about just how difficult designing aircraft in that regime is, and how much the engine used owed to Whittle (a true genius, and one that Germany didn't have an equivalent to in engine terms) I think it unlikely. Given that the Ta-183, generally touted as the German equivalent to the MiG-15 (with the MiG-17 after all being largely a developed and afterburning MiG-15) was a miserable failure when built as the IAe Pulqui II, despite having a better engine than the Germans ever managed, I'm left hugely sceptical. The fundamental principles of swept wings were known prewar, and only the Germans were dumb enough to think there was any point in trying them during the war. Everybody else knew that they simply didn't have the engine power to benefit from them.

Well i know about problems of aircrafts in that regime of fly. And what is the haracter - it was proved by the manies deads of the tested pilots the straight wingis absolutly uneffective for the jet fighters. In the speed over 750-800 km/h the corkscrew was inevitable. The ONLY sweptback wing was able to use in this limit of speed. In fact the germasn was first who began to use the sweptback wing on the Me-262.
http://warplane.ru/plane/me262/pic/me262_ch.jpg
Moreover the lates modification Me-262 HG II had a more sweptback wings and tail. Unlike the Meteor and Aircomet.
So i agree the Germans had a problems with engeens which were explained mostly shortage of the Nikel and ets, but the germans undoubted had a better knowlege about high-speed aerodynamic. The form of wings of the last modification of Me-262 proved this.


Personally I think it was politics. The Germans seem to have used rockets as the answer to most things, even when it was a really dumb idea. For examples see the Natter last-ditch fighter which killed the only pilot dumb enough to try flying it, or the Me-163 which could only intercept enemy flying right over it's airfield and would dissolve the pilot given half a chance.

Yes in the last period of existence the Nazy was a full of any ideas even a really dumb.I am agree the Me-163 was a "coffin for the Luftwaffe pilots".
But could you deny the fact the germans could produce a best piston fighter of WW2?
Moreover when they polished the methods of a attack of the stategic bombers formation with using the small rocket.

Before the introduction of escort fighters, this was true - the long range raids, whether day or night suffered horrendous losses. It's worth noting that (for the war in the west - I have no access to Soviet statistics) the only job more dangerous than RAF Bomber command was being part of a U-boat crew.
However, once the escort fighters got going this probably wasn't true. The USAAF had a hell of a lot of very high performance fighters which were free to engage the enemy, and they usually killed more than they lost. I see no reason why adding German reinforcements would change this trend.

Not so effective was the escort fighter as at first view it could seems.
How do you think the Germans has the fighters in the union AA-defence ?
In the best months of 1943 there were no more 400-500 fighter at the whole continental territory.
In the 1944-45 this quantuty was no more 300-100 ( at last month of war).
So when the allies armades of 600 / 1000 and even 1500 bombers under cover of 300-500 Mustangs and Tanderbolt meeted the 100-200 Germans fighters- the germans could nothing did against them. Certainly they was able to shot down a 10-15% of bombers ( and losed about so of own fighters) but it was too small and too late - The grmany industry was not capable to compensate for the losses.

Indeed - but remember that Wittman was eventually killed by a Sherman (probably a Sherman Firefly). Furthermore, Wittman was a truly exceptional tank commander - the average would be much less capable - and his Tiger was mobility killed and abandoned during the battle.
Incidentally, during this operation the six tanks under Wittman's command killed roughly 30 British tanks. Wittman was credited with 27 of these - suggesting that either he was massively better than the average, or someone was cooking the books for propaganda purposes.

I know the Wittman was a exceptional commander. But if you wrote the description of this battle more attentive you could find the Tiger of Witmans had a some hit of british shell and NO one of this was critical for the life of crew. Even the last hit which caused the damage to the undercarriage was not danger for the crew and Witman calmly left tank and returned on foot into its part where it it changed seats to new Tiger it continued battle.
This just proved the combat power of Tiger was a capable fight with 10-15 of allies tanks and win.

The 17pdr on the Sherman Firefly was effective, as were a number of the US tank destroyer designs, and the British towed anti-tank guns. In any case, the western Allies had plenty of air support and could use that against the Germans. Again, their industrial capacity was superior - they could have both.

The Furefly Sherman was not widly used in the WW2 and even the Pershing M-26 was too late for the combats. But already in the 1944 the germany had a 67-tonn Tiger -2 which had a worst armoure becouse the Germany had a constaint shortage of materials ( don't forget we considered the case when the USSr losed and germany get the resources of the Caucause and Turkey). So the both Pershing and firefly was just a tiny copy of Tiger and they inevitably losed in the battle.


I was trying to point out that the British equivalent to the Me-262 - which was in squadron service a little before it - was a much better dogfighter yet had the same speed. Had the Me-262 ever become a major problem then the Meteors would have moved to the continent (they did anyway in early 1945, probably tasked to shoot down V-1s) and we would have seen Meteor .vs. Me-262 dogfights. I think the Meteor would probably have won these - it was the better fighter and had a more suitable armament.

Not fact .
As we could to see the Meteor was deadline way of jet fighters (the Korean war it obviously demonstrated) the straight wing did not make it possible to fly at the high speeds.
Perhaps the Meteor in dogfighter could win the Me-262 ( as could win the Mustang and Yak) but if the Me-262 could get the reliable engeens ( this couldb be possible in the case which we are consigering) it could be the UBER-fighter for the allies strategic armades.

Umm... not so sure about that one. The Japanese prewar really didn't have any effective antisubmarine warfare capability, and never built one. They concentrated on using their fleet as an offensive arm.
Well i/m agree the japanes never had the enought ant-submarine means.

[Chevan]

.. I tend to apply Occam's Razor to things like this - the theory that the simplest explanation for something is usually right. In this case it seems to me that the simplest explanation is that more information was available in the west about the mistreatment of Jews than any other group, and it came from sources the western populace were accustomed to trust (governments, newspapers and organisations like the BBC).
Right according your tend i have to admite the more simplest explanation ;)
Indeed in the west it was widly known the death rate of slav in this war.
The overal statistic of victims was a enought good. But begining of Cold war forces to present the most of the Slavs as the enemy (they were joined to the soviet block).
Therefore for a long time in the west it is inconvenient to speak about the victims of Slavs in this war at least purely from a propogandic point of view.
Also don't forget a simplest fact the most of biggest Mass media sources are HEADED by the jews ( at least in the USA). Every time when they speak about victims of WW2 they mean only the Holocaust. And just somethimes they add - Gipsies,homosexuals and ... the Slavs.
The more simpleast reason i could not to imagine ;)

Cheers.

[Egorka]

Indeed. However, the BBC were among the first troops to liberate the camp, and the government had a special documentary made of it which was shown in just about all the cinemas in the UK. Call it wartime propaganda if you will, but within a short time of Bergen-Belsen being liberated the overwhelming majority of the British public had seen images of Germans treating Jews in thoroughly beastly ways - and the news from the Nuremberg trials (complete with documentary evidence of Auschwitz, Treblinka, etc. provided by the Soviets) reinforced this impression. So far as I'm aware something similar happened with the US, while the occupied European countries had their own direct experiences to go on.
I know this story. And I do not deny that films like that should be shown. I assume the the film depicted what happened. But atributing Bergen-Belsen to the extermination of Jews is not correct. And in lesser or bigger extent can be seen as the result of a direct media campain. Even nowadays Bergen-Belsen is atributed as the symbole of the Holocaust by many people.

Originally Posted by Egorka
So your point that the extermination of jews was more visible to western public looks a bit artificial to me. Well, I agree that it had/has higher profile. It is not the issue. The issue WHY it has higher profile. And this is not so simple as one may think
Maybe. I tend to apply Occam's Razor to things like this - the theory that the simplest explanation for something is usually right. In this case it seems to me that the simplest explanation is that more information was available in the west about the mistreatment of Jews than any other group, and it came from sources the western populace were accustomed to trust (governments, newspapers and organisations like the BBC).

Yes, lets go for a simple explanation. What do we have when speaking of Western Europe / USA?

We have more or less correct statistics available freely.
We have freedom of speech.
We have people whose average education level is relatively high (compare to the wilderness of, per instance, USSR).
We have presumably smart people capable of making reasoable conclusions.


So I look at these points... and I wonder! And ask: "How come?"

If you tell me it a result of a sporadic process, I whould disagree. It is a result of largerly (but not entierly) directed media campain.
And, by the way, I do not think those who organised that campain were/are evil. I kind of understand them a bit.

[George Eller]

Well i know about problems of aircrafts in that regime of fly. And what is the haracter - it was proved by the manies deads of the tested pilots the straight wingis absolutly uneffective for the jet fighters. In the speed over 750-800 km/h the corkscrew was inevitable. The ONLY sweptback wing was able to use in this limit of speed. In fact the germasn was first who began to use the sweptback wing on the Me-262.
http://warplane.ru/plane/me262/pic/me262_ch.jpg
Moreover the lates modification Me-262 HG II had a more sweptback wings and tail. Unlike the Meteor and Aircomet.
So i agree the Germans had a problems with engeens which were explained mostly shortage of the Nikel and ets, but the germans undoubted had a better knowlege about high-speed aerodynamic. The form of wings of the last modification of Me-262 proved this.


Yes in the last period of existence the Nazy was a full of any ideas even a really dumb.I am agree the Me-163 was a "coffin for the Luftwaffe pilots".
But could you deny the fact the germans could produce a best piston fighter of WW2?
Moreover when they polished the methods of a attack of the stategic bombers formation with using the small rocket.

Not so effective was the escort fighter as at first view it could seems.
How do you think the Germans has the fighters in the union AA-defence ?
In the best months of 1943 there were no more 400-500 fighter at the whole continental territory.
In the 1944-45 this quantuty was no more 300-100 ( at last month of war).
So when the allies armades of 600 / 1000 and even 1500 bombers under cover of 300-500 Mustangs and Tanderbolt meeted the 100-200 Germans fighters- the germans could nothing did against them. Certainly they was able to shot down a 10-15% of bombers ( and losed about so of own fighters) but it was too small and too late - The grmany industry was not capable to compensate for the losses.

I know the Wittman was a exceptional commander. But if you wrote the description of this battle more attentive you could find the Tiger of Witmans had a some hit of british shell and NO one of this was critical for the life of crew. Even the last hit which caused the damage to the undercarriage was not danger for the crew and Witman calmly left tank and returned on foot into its part where it it changed seats to new Tiger it continued battle.
This just proved the combat power of Tiger was a capable fight with 10-15 of allies tanks and win.

The Furefly Sherman was not widly used in the WW2 and even the Pershing M-26 was too late for the combats. But already in the 1944 the germany had a 67-tonn Tiger -2 which had a worst armoure becouse the Germany had a constaint shortage of materials ( don't forget we considered the case when the USSr losed and germany get the resources of the Caucause and Turkey). So the both Pershing and firefly was just a tiny copy of Tiger and they inevitably losed in the battle.

Not fact .
As we could to see the Meteor was deadline way of jet fighters (the Korean war it obviously demonstrated) the straight wing did not make it possible to fly at the high speeds.
Perhaps the Meteor in dogfighter could win the Me-262 ( as could win the Mustang and Yak) but if the Me-262 could get the reliable engeens ( this couldb be possible in the case which we are consigering) it could be the UBER-fighter for the allies strategic armades.

Well i/m agree the japanes never had the enought ant-submarine means.

-

Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star

http://www.ww2incolor.com/forum/showpost.php?p=85682&postcount=6

http://www.ww2incolor.com/forum/showpost.php?p=85683&postcount=7

http://www.ww2incolor.com/forum/showpost.php?p=85684&postcount=8

Lockheed P-80A vs Messerschmitt Me 262A
http://www.ww2incolor.com/forum/showpost.php?p=85698&postcount=13

-

Jack Northrop's XP-79B Jet Fighter

http://www.ww2incolor.com/forum/showpost.php?p=85706&postcount=16

http://www.ww2incolor.com/forum/showpost.php?p=85707&postcount=17

http://www.ww2incolor.com/forum/showpost.php?p=85720&postcount=19

-

WWII McDonnell FD/FH Phantom - the U.S. Navy's first operational jet

http://www.ww2incolor.com/forum/showpost.php?p=85719&postcount=18

-

Lockheed L-133 Project

http://www.ww2incolor.com/forum/showpost.php?p=85918&postcount=22

-

Gloster Meteor vs Me-262, Allied vs Axis jets, etc.

http://www.ww2incolor.com/forum/showpost.php?p=84176&postcount=4

http://www.ww2incolor.com/forum/showpost.php?p=84537&postcount=11

http://www.ww2incolor.com/forum/showpost.php?p=50583&postcount=7

http://www.ww2incolor.com/forum/showpost.php?p=50602&postcount=9

http://www.ww2incolor.com/forum/showpost.php?p=50607&postcount=11

http://www.ww2incolor.com/forum/showpost.php?p=70724&postcount=20

http://www.ww2incolor.com/forum/showpost.php?p=70870&postcount=33

http://www.ww2incolor.com/forum/showpost.php?p=70958&postcount=35

http://www.ww2incolor.com/forum/showpost.php?p=70960&postcount=36

-

JET ENGINE
http://www.ww2incolor.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1975&highlight=meteor

Rolls-Royce Nene jet engine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolls-Royce_Nene

-

[pdf27]

Well i know about problems of aircrafts in that regime of fly. And what is the haracter - it was proved by the manies deads of the tested pilots the straight wingis absolutly uneffective for the jet fighters. In the speed over 750-800 km/h the corkscrew was inevitable. The ONLY sweptback wing was able to use in this limit of speed.
BS. The Lockheed Starfighter and Bell X-1 are both examples of supersonic aircraft with straight wings. You're mixing up the problems of thick wings at high speed (high drag - something swept wings partially alleviates) and swept wings at transonic speeds (tip stall - giving the sort of flat spin behaviour you seem to be describing)

In fact the germasn was first who began to use the sweptback wing on the Me-262.
Moreover the lates modification Me-262 HG II had a more sweptback wings and tail. Unlike the Meteor and Aircomet.
So i agree the Germans had a problems with engeens which were explained mostly shortage of the Nikel and ets, but the germans undoubted had a better knowlege about high-speed aerodynamic. The form of wings of the last modification of Me-262 proved this.
Actually, the swept wings on the Me-262 were brought about purely and simply by the engine problems they had. At a late stage in development, they realised that the turbine part of the engine was going to be a lot heavier than planned. The only options were to move the entire wing aft - not practical at that stage - or to move the centre of lift of the wing aft. They did this by sweeping back the tips. If you look closely at the wing you'll see that the section inboard of the engines is tapered, not swept. It's an aerodynamic fix to a problem they spotted very late in the day, and not a very good one. It gives you all the problems of tip stall you have from swept wing aircraft, but the wing itself is too thick to gain any benefit from being swept. IIRC the Spitfire wing (being substantially thinner) actually had a higher critical Mach number - the highest speed it can practically reach - than the Me-262 wing.

As we could to see the Meteor was deadline way of jet fighters (the Korean war it obviously demonstrated) the straight wing did not make it possible to fly at the high speeds.
Perhaps the Meteor in dogfighter could win the Me-262 ( as could win the Mustang and Yak) but if the Me-262 could get the reliable engeens ( this couldb be possible in the case which we are consigering) it could be the UBER-fighter for the allies strategic armades.
No way. Quite apart from the engine problems, it had major issues as a fighter - notably the cannon and swept wing design. Read up on the development of the MiG-15 - it took a hell of a lot of development and frightened test pilots before they worked the bugs out. I'd recommend Yefim Gordon's book on the MiG-15 if you're looking for an English reference - I've no idea what if anything is available in Russia and how good it is.
The Me-262 never got fast enough to find all this out.