Hey, lets discuss WWII!

Tyrant

Spaceman
Anyways, the more I've read WWII history books and documentaries, the more it seems that the Axis Power's loss was simply inevitable, because of the Allies' overwhelmingly superior manpower and production capabilities, and they were just runing the Clock out.

Also, I've also read up on the Battleships, the more it becomes apparent that the US' Battleships were superior to everybody elses Navy.

Is this an accurate summery, generaly?

Just trying to start a discussion.
 
Also, I've also read up on the Battleships, the more it becomes apparent that the US' Battleships were superior to everybody elses Navy.

Maybe so, but as any Wing Commander fan worth his salt knows, it's all about the carriers - in WC and WW2.

Is this an accurate summery, generaly?

It all played out pretty much like this........

Ugh, yuck.
 
Anyways, the more I've read WWII history books and documentaries, the more it seems that the Axis Power's loss was simply inevitable, because of the Allies' overwhelmingly superior manpower and production capabilities, and they were just runing the Clock out.

Also, I've also read up on the Battleships, the more it becomes apparent that the US' Battleships were superior to everybody elses Navy.

Is this an accurate summery, generaly?

Just trying to start a discussion.


I don't think the Axis Power's loss was that inevitable. At the very least, the timing of the war was deeply affected by intelligence, codebreaking, technology and luck. Codebreaking was key to both the Pacific and European theaters; the U.S. was outnumbered and outgunned at Midway. If the U.S. had not managed to outfox the IJN by intercepting communications and code, Midway might well have turned out differently. Even with that advantage, the Battle of Midway turned on serendipity to some degree.

In the European Theater, the Allies gained a strong advantage after finding a way around the germans' Enigma cipher.

Finally, battleships were almost irrelevant in WW2. The engagement and sinking of the Bismarck makes an excellent historical tale, but it was pretty small potatoes compared to the land wars in Europe, Africa, and Russia. In the Pacific Theater, the aircraft carrier was king. U.S. battleships were not necessarily superior to IJN battleships, and many of them were sunk or crippled at Pearl Harbor before the war in the Pacific really got underway. For the most part, U.S. battleships didn't arrive on the scene until two years into the war in the Pacific, and even then, they filled two roles for the most part: 1) shore bombardment and 2) anti-aircraft support. The IJN's extra battleships also made almost no difference in the pacific war, since they never came within bombardment range of Hawaii or the west coast, and only on a very few occasions came within gun range of U.S. naval targets.

There's not really that simple an answer to these questions; there's a lot more to add to the equations, including to the relative quality of aircrews, the time needed for training, the evolution of ACM, the advantages of radar and early warning... I think I heard somewhere that Adm. Yamamoto was not in favor of bringing war to the U.S., and that even with the advantage of a surprise attack, he felt that the war in the pacific had to be won in a year and a half or less, or it would be lost for certain.
 
I'd also point out that the IJN Admiral (Yamamoto?) Lost sight of his objective, and the bombers switched from torpedo's to bombs.

And even if the US Navy had been sunk at Midway, and the Japanese did get their toe hold on the Hawiian islands. They couldn't go any farther. The IJN burned up half of their year's allocation of oil on that operation, and Oahu is one of the most heavily defended places in the world of 1942. The Hornet could be called up, the first CVL/E's are coming online, and the Essex carriers IIRC could be launched by the end of the year.

When we get down to it, Japan was just screwed against the United States. They definately couldn't out-produce the US, not even by a mile. This article give an excellent overview of just how much of a mismatch it really was.http://www.combinedfleet.com/economic.htm
 
I'd also point out that the IJN Admiral (Yamamoto?) Lost sight of his objective, and the bombers switched from torpedo's to bombs.

And even if the US Navy had been sunk at Midway, and the Japanese did get their toe hold on the Hawiian islands. They couldn't go any farther. The IJN burned up half of their year's allocation of oil on that operation, and Oahu is one of the most heavily defended places in the world of 1942. The Hornet could be called up, the first CVL/E's are coming online, and the Essex carriers IIRC could be launched by the end of the year.

When we get down to it, Japan was just screwed against the United States. They definately couldn't out-produce the US, not even by a mile. This article give an excellent overview of just how much of a mismatch it really was.http://www.combinedfleet.com/economic.htm

Adm. Nagumo, I think it was. And I'm not sure it's fair to say he lost sight of his objective so much as all his scouting data came in at the wrong time, causing all of his unfortunate thrashing back and forth with the armaments on his carrier decks.

Yes, there was one hell of an economic mismatch - and Yamamoto knew it. It was perhaps the biggest reason why he found the whole war in the pacific to have been ill-advised, yes? Hornet might not have held the line against Akagi, Kaga, Hirya, Soryu, Zuikaku, and Shokaku alone, but in war, anything's possible. It's not just a numbers game. If anything proves that, it's Midway. There's also the matter of psychological warfare - the Doolittle raid carried out by Hornet and Enterprise had an incredibly disproportionate effect on both US morale and Japanese posture relative to the actual damage inflicted. As a sort of delaying action, it bought the US some sorely-needed time. If Japan had gotten a toehold on Hawaii, it would have been much harder for the US to defend all of its coastal interests without that central staging area, but with the sheer proliferation of Essex class carriers and CVE's, eventually the US would have been able to manage to hold onto the Pacific - once all the shipbuilding from Norfolk and other east coast facilities made it through the canal.

There's also the matter of relative experience in aircrews. Either the Shokaku or the Zuikaku didn't make it to Midway because most of her aircrews had been lost at Coral Sea or thereabouts. It's not just the number of planes - it's also about the quality of the pilots. And the dogfighting advantage of the Zeros was severely mitigated by the development air tactics like the Thatch Weave. The Zeros were like Salthis, the Wildcats were like Scimitars - but tactics were developed to take advantage of the Wildcats' few relative strengths and that was enough to turn the tables considerably. By Leyte Gulf, the IJN had very few good pilots left, right?
 
The actual reasons behind the allied victory has much more to do with the economical management and political leader ship of the allies compared to those of the axis states then any single battle.

The main battles of 1942 where the ones which changed the course of the war (Midway, Stalingrad and Al-Alamain) but in a sense the out come was, arguably, predetermined -
In the economics field:
The Germans were undoubtedly the most technologically advanced - Jet fighters, the best tanks (King-tiger tanks were better the the T-34, they just have very few of them), guided missiles and so on... but these technologies came at a cost - they were expensive, hard to produce (thus produced in small numbers) and were very temperamntal (like the Me-163 who tend to blew up upon landings).
The allies on the other hand kept to 2 major concept - make it reliable and simple and build a lot of it - they had DROVES of every thing - the M-4 Sherman was a lousy machine compared to german tanks - you'd need 5 Shermans to destroy one Panzer IV - But when you have 10 Sherman per every Panzer...
Also the Allies had much more resources - by the end of the war the IJN had no fuel for it's ships, so they had to sail in a straight line even when tactically it would have been better to sail around...
Even when they had the same resources, Alleid production was much better - in 1943-44, with the same amount of coal and still the USSR produced almost 4 times as many tanks and artillery pieces then the germans.
And don't even start talk about the US, who supplied arms to any other allied company, and was responsible for approximately 47% of the total production of the war (compared to only 19% for the Germans and less the 7% for Japan).

There a few other reasons, but since I'm at work I can't ad any more...

One last thing:
"Why the Allies Won" (1995), ISBN 0-224-04172-X - by Richard Overy - this book discusses these reasons exectly -
EXELLENT READ!!!
 
Toast said:
At the very least, the timing of the war was deeply affected by intelligence, codebreaking, technology and luck.

Intelligence played a very big part in the naval battles. The British and the Germans were constantly struggling to overcome one another when it came to the supply groups/U-boat battles. The British finally discovered that the majority of U-boat attacks happened at night when the U-boat was surfaced and couldn't be picked up by SONAR. The British ended up outfitting many of their destroyers and bombers with new RADAR systems and that tech advantage put the U-boats at a serious disadvantage. The Germans simply couldn't figure out how bombers were happening across their U-boats several times per night in the pitch black.
 
Sirs,

It might be a little strong to suggest that the outcome of the war was a foregone conclusion, especially in Europe. There seems very little possibility of a Japanese victory in the Pacific, I accept, but you are forgetting the very real possibilities squandered by the Germans to bring the war to a succesful conclusion. This could have occurred in several ways:

i) Britain could have accepted peace overtures in late 1940. There were several attempts made by the Germans to negotiate a ceasefire after the fall fo France - Hitler admired the civilisation and order the Empire had brought to the world, and saw no reason to keep fighting. Then there would have been no need for a second front and, more importantly, Barbarossa would have gained several weeks of operations before the winter; probably allowing the drive on Moscow.

ii) The Luftwaffe always had the capacity to win the Battle of Britain. Faulty tactics, insuficient weapons and strategic misdirection of the forces by Goring threw away an offensive that, at its most successful and heavy, had reduced the RAF to only a few usable airfields and a handful of pilots. Then the attack was switched to assaulting London, which allowed a respite for the RAF to re-arm with new Hurricanes and Spitfires and train new pilots - sufficient to inflict 3 times as many losses on the Germans as they themselves suffered.

iii) Once the North African and Balkans adventure of the Wehrmacht was underway, the conquest of Russia could have been abandoned in favour of a sustained operation against assets of the British Empire and a renewed air attack using better technology against Britain in 1941. Hitler cancelled all medium-to-long term air advances halted in development after 1940, only restarting them later, as he was convinced they would not be needed. He might not have been so overconfident.

Notice that once the Soviet Union and US were engaged, these were no longer possibilities. That makes sense given the industrial deficit. Germany was more than capable of winning a European war, just not a World War. And she had to do it before the close of 1941.

Battleships were an irrelevance in Naval battles in the 1940s - Carriers had simply eclipsed them. In terms of unit-for-unit strength, the British King George V class and the best US Battleships were about on par, but the Bismarck/Tirpitz were better and the gigantic Yamato/Musashi more powerful still. Both of the latter were deleted in airstrikes though, illustrating the point.

Regards, KvK
 
Focusing solely on the battleship angle, there's more to judging a BB than its gun caliber/count. The Yamato/Musashi may have had bigger guns, but Japanese fire control radars were somewhat lacking, to put it mildly, pretty much throughout the entire war. Being able to put a lot of steel on target doesn't mean much if you can't actually put it on the target, or at least can't do so until after the other guy is already accurately lobbing shells at you.

Also, in part due to cultural issues, the IJN wasn't anywhere near as proficient at planning for the inevitable results of being hit. Their damage control procedures weren't well practiced, and the equipment was, in general, inferior to what the USN had available. Add to that better compartmentalization (to restrict damage from spreading to unaffected compartments), and it's quite conceivable that an Iowa could put a serious hurt on the Yamato or Musashi, without luck being a significant factor.
 
Anyways, the more I've read WWII history books and documentaries, the more it seems that the Axis Power's loss was simply inevitable, because of the Allies' overwhelmingly superior manpower and production capabilities, and they were just runing the Clock out.

That depends on the moment of the war. For some two months, only England faced the entire Axis forces on Europe. In fact, Germany and the Soviet Union invaded Poland togheter.

However, later on contries that used to be part of the Axis joined the Allies and begain fighting against Germany.

And, of course, there's the US joining the war.

There are plenty of what-if scenarios that could change the outlook dramatically. What if Japan didn't make a sneak attack against the US and didn't sign a non-aggression pact with the URSS, could the Germans have captured Moscow? What if the Germans had invaded Malta, could they dominate the Mediterranean and the rich oil supplies nearby? Who knows.

Anyhow, I don't buy the deterministic approach. There's a lot of things that could go wrong to the allies. The only bottom line is the Atomic Bomb, that could end the war with favorably towards the US regardless of any other considerations. The Americans could’ve arguably taken down the Russians and reshaped the world as they saw fit, had they chosen to do so.
 
i) Britain could have accepted peace overtures in late 1940. There were several attempts made by the Germans to negotiate a ceasefire after the fall fo France - Hitler admired the civilisation and order the Empire had brought to the world, and saw no reason to keep fighting. Then there would have been no need for a second front and, more importantly, Barbarossa would have gained several weeks of operations before the winter; probably allowing the drive on Moscow.

That might be true - Unfortunately for Hitler, Cherchil was in power by now - and he understood Hitler all too well - and despised him - he would have never (as in NEVER-EVER-EVER!!!) would have agreed for peace with Germany.

ii) The Luftwaffe always had the capacity to win the Battle of Britain. Faulty tactics, insuficient weapons and strategic misdirection of the forces by Goring threw away an offensive that, at its most successful and heavy, had reduced the RAF to only a few usable airfields and a handful of pilots. Then the attack was switched to assaulting London, which allowed a respite for the RAF to re-arm with new Hurricanes and Spitfires and train new pilots - sufficient to inflict 3 times as many losses on the Germans as they themselves suffered.

You are wrong here.
Hitler always interfered with the development of german weapons - what he didn't view as Blitzkrieg weapons was not allow to be produced - that included 4-engine long range bomber.
The Luftwaffe's bombers and fighters' ranges covered London and it's surrounding with only a few minutes to spare before they had to turn back to France. Anything more to the north was completely safe, and the Brits were moving their industry centers and fighter bases beyond the Luftwaffe's reach.

iii) Once the North African and Balkans adventure of the Wehrmacht was underway, the conquest of Russia could have been abandoned in favour of a sustained operation against assets of the British Empire and a renewed air attack using better technology against Britain in 1941. Hitler cancelled all medium-to-long term air advances halted in development after 1940, only restarting them later, as he was convinced they would not be needed. He might not have been so overconfident.

It has been published that Stalin was preparing an invasion of Germany - the Russian high command made the necessary plan, a lot of paratroopers (which are essentially infantryman trained specifically for offensive operations) were being trained, special armored vehicles with both tracks (for field operations) and wheels (for roads - of which western Europe was abundant of) were developed -
so for Germany to abandon the conquest of Russia would not have achieved much, as apparently a Russian invasion was imminent.

Notice that once the Soviet Union and US were engaged, these were no longer possibilities. That makes sense given the industrial deficit. Germany was more than capable of winning a European war, just not a World War. And she had to do it before the close of 1941.

Have no argument with you here :)

Battleships were an irrelevance in Naval battles in the 1940s - Carriers had simply eclipsed them. In terms of unit-for-unit strength, the British King George V class and the best US Battleships were about on par, but the Bismarck/Tirpitz were better and the gigantic Yamato/Musashi more powerful still. Both of the latter were deleted in airstrikes though, illustrating the point.

In regard to Battleships - you might find this interesting...
http://www.combinedfleet.com/baddest.htm
 
Its fun to talk stats and what ifs about WW2 but in the end america had the bomb. I don't think that the outcome could of ever been different.

sorry to bring the A-bomb up I don't want to ruin the discussion but I can't see a defense against nuclear weapons.


EDIT: beaten to it
 
Focusing solely on the battleship angle, there's more to judging a BB than its gun caliber/count. The Yamato/Musashi may have had bigger guns, but Japanese fire control radars were somewhat lacking, to put it mildly, pretty much throughout the entire war. Being able to put a lot of steel on target doesn't mean much if you can't actually put it on the target, or at least can't do so until after the other guy is already accurately lobbing shells at you.

Yeah, that's typically why USN battleships were supposed to be better than the Yamato. Iowa's and South Dakota's used much better fire-control systems IIRC, and while Yamato did have better guns, Iowa's, in addition to having better fire-control, were also faster, and a bit more manueverable.

If it came to a point-blank shoot-out, Yamato might win, if only because of their larger guns. The farther it gets away though, the better the Iowa has at knock it out.

Also, in part due to cultural issues, the IJN wasn't anywhere near as proficient at planning for the inevitable results of being hit. Their damage control procedures weren't well practiced, and the equipment was, in general, inferior to what the USN had available. Add to that better compartmentalization (to restrict damage from spreading to unaffected compartments), and it's quite conceivable that an Iowa could put a serious hurt on the Yamato or Musashi, without luck being a significant factor.

I didn't know that, thanks.

That might be true - Unfortunately for Hitler, Cherchil was in power by now - and he understood Hitler all too well - and despised him - he would have never (as in NEVER-EVER-EVER!!!) would have agreed for peace with Germany.

Have you ever heard of the Lord Halifax telegram? He wanted peace with Germany by a coup against Churchill, removing him from power.

The Problem was that the Germans never responded. If they had, Halifax could of pull off a coup, he had over half of Parliment's support, he could of done so.

England surrenders and makes peace with Germany, the problem is that it leads down to the road of Stuart Slade's The Big One, where.... well, it gets the point well across where the better Nazi Germany does, the worse it becomes for Europe.

Battleships were an irrelevance in Naval battles in the 1940s - Carriers had simply eclipsed them. In terms of unit-for-unit strength, the British King George V class and the best US Battleships were about on par, but the Bismarck/Tirpitz were better and the gigantic Yamato/Musashi more powerful still. Both of the latter were deleted in airstrikes though, illustrating the point.

Actually, US Battleships were generally better than their Axis counter parts... see above on my post, or just read the excellent article Hammerhead posted.

Bismarck and Tirpitz' main weapons were 15in batteries, were as Iowa fire 16inchers. Iowa had better fire-control, and unlike all things German, wasn't ludicrusly over-engineered. Iowa's and South Dakota's also had much better fuel stores, and thus, range. The reason why Bismarck became so famous was

A): She sank THE HMS Hood, pride of the Royal Navy. Hood wasn't the best ship in the RN, but she flew the flag across much of the empire's territories. That fact she went down like she did, hit in the damned ammo magazines, and went up so violently.

B): Bismarck's last duel, with Prince of Wales and several other ships. She was outmaned, out gunned, the rudder was taken out by Swordfish at this time (Those darn fighters have friggin character shields, I tellz ya!), and she was also leaking fuel. I don't fully know if they just stood their ground, because they had lost too much fuel, and/or the rudder was dead, but Bismarck gave the British a hell of a fight.
 
ANother thing I can bring up is Nazi Germany's tanks. Let's face it: While the Tiger actually has uses, largely as a heavy tank that could smash targets quickly, the King Tiger wasn't really needed, same with the Panther. Why?

Because they took away valueable man-hours that could of been used to make more Panzer-IV's. The King Tiger was, well... somebody please tell me what they had that was just so much better than the bog-standard Tiger?

The Panther is easy: A): It weighed in at nearly 60 tonnes. That's almost as much as a heavy tank. B): They also generally had awful transmissions.

Basically, the Panther was a stab at a Main Battle Tank before technology made MBT's largely useful. It was heavy, it was expensive, and they took away man-hours that could of made Panzer-IV's, which were much more viable for full-on mass-production, M4 Sherman style. Panther was a good tank, dare say it was an excellent tank. It just wasn't worth the extras cost in the long run. The Germans needed tanks right now, and they just didn't get enough of them.

Besides, later run Panzer-IV's were tough enough to hang-tough with the T-34/85, and the M4 Shermans quite well.

Now, it's quite hypocritical to say the Sherman= Suckzzors, T-34/85=god's gift to armour. The later-run Sherman's got good guns, they were quick, they were capable of going through the terrain effectively, and they had... wet storage. The Sherman was a no-frills AFV that did it's job very well. If it did suck so hard, then somebody is going to have to explain the Sherman firefly, and why the Israeli's used them all the way up to 1974.
 
Have you ever heard of the Lord Halifax telegram? He wanted peace with Germany by a coup against Churchill, removing him from power.

The Problem was that the Germans never responded. If they had, Halifax could of pull off a coup, he had over half of Parliment's support, he could of done so.

England surrenders and makes peace with Germany, the problem is that it leads down to the road of Stuart Slade's The Big One, where.... well, it gets the point well across where the better Nazi Germany does, the worse it becomes for Europe.

Haven't know that! - really interesting, I'll need to look it up.

@ Stone48420 - America may had the bomb first, but that because:

A) Axis scientists never tried to build one (the German believe it to be too costly to invest in, and the Japs had Bio-weapons).
B) They had their own weapons of mass-destruction - the Germans had "Dirty bombs" and the Japs had Bio weapons - But both lacked the one thing America had - A long range bomber capable of delivering the weapon.

Actually the Japanese had been using their bio-weapons in Manchuria, but in secret. It is very feasible that if they had openly threaten to use Bio-weapons against the continental US, the US would not have been so "quick" to Nuke Homeland-Japan...
 
The King Tiger was, well... somebody please tell me what they had that was just so much better than the bog-standard Tiger?

The King-Tiger was simply "...More" of the tiger - More fire power, More armor, More horse-power etc. It was actually one of the best tanks of the war, but like all German tanks it was flawed in (at least) 3 major areas -
1) Like all German tanks it had narrow tracks, which limited it's mobility.
2) It was quite unreliable.
3) by this time of the war, the German simply hadn't enough fuel. tanks were usually going into battle on less then full fuel-tanks, and got stranded without fuel in the midst of combat.

Besides, later run Panzer-IV's were tough enough to hang-tough with the T-34/85, and the M4 Shermans quite well.

A ton for a ton, the T-34 and the Panzer IV were kind of a close, with some advantages to the T-34. the real difference was the crew quality - as the Russians became better the tide tern more and more to their side.


Now, it's quite hypocritical to say the Sherman= Suckzzors, T-34/85=god's gift to armour. The later-run Sherman's got good guns, they were quick, they were capable of going through the terrain effectively, and they had... wet storage. The Sherman was a no-frills AFV that did it's job very well. If it did suck so hard, then somebody is going to have to explain the Sherman firefly, and why the Israeli's used them all the way up to 1974.

About the Sherman, I guess I over-took it a little - Early Sherman were lousy - too thin armor, week guns, gasoline engines (which tend to blow up when hit).
As the war progressed, so did the Sherman - It got better engines, better guns, thicker armor, safer Diesel engines and ammo storage etc.
But in the end, there was one cardinal rule about the Sherman and the German tanks - Most of the guns used on Sherman tanks were not powerful enough to penetrate the front armor of the German tanks it faced (mainly Panzer IV, Tiger, King-Tiger and Panther). (one of the exception was the Sherman Firefly).
But it was much faster and much more mobile - not just due to it's high speed - since it was lighter it could pass were it's heavier German counterpart couldn't.
So Shermans used their advantages to run around the German tanks and shoot their rear.
But even with this the simple truth was that for each Sherman that got behind a Panzer or a tiger, usually 4-5 other Shermans got hit (though not necessarily destroyed).
All-in-All it was a good tank - it was however a medium tank forced to fight heavy, more powerful tanks

The post-war Sherman were much better - powerful engines were installed, the armor became better, as well as the guns.
And since you mentioned the Israeli use of the Shermans -
In Israel the Sherman were used as the basis for quite a few armored vehicles - including tank-ambulance, self-propelled guns, combat-engineering vehicles, Rocket launchers (and more).
As a "Tank" it was use in several variants, the last of which is the Super Sherman M-51 (which is considered one of the most power Sherman variants) with a 105mm cannon, 460hp Diesel engine, ablative armor and more.
In the Yom-Kippur war, two of these tanks were defending an outpost against 6 Egyptian T-62 tanks (the Top Russian tank of the day - the T-72 only completed it's field trials at the time). The two 25 years old Shermans managed to destroy 2 of the T-62, damage one more, and repel the attack.

The M-51 variant remained in use up to the early 1980(!), and was sold to chile (and I have no idea how long it was in service there :)).
 
Anyhow, I don't buy the deterministic approach. There's a lot of things that could go wrong to the allies. The only bottom line is the Atomic Bomb, that could end the war with favorably towards the US regardless of any other considerations. The Americans could’ve arguably taken down the Russians and reshaped the world as they saw fit, had they chosen to do so.

Actually, if we tried to take out Russia at the end of WW2, we'd probably win. Russia at this point was virtually exhusted on man power, and they used a lot of supplies that was givin to them.

Russia definately couldn't match the US in WW2 when it came to production capabilities.

Another reason why they were exhousted: The Soviet's recklessly charged the Eastern front, and they sustained a huge amount of casulties in the process.

After WW2, the USSR simply needed to recover, and I doubt they could of survived another war with the US just right after WW2.

The King-Tiger was simply "...More" of the tiger - More fire power, More armor, More horse-power etc. It was actually one of the best tanks of the war, but like all German tanks it was flawed in (at least) 3 major areas -
1) Like all German tanks it had narrow tracks, which limited it's mobility.
2) It was quite unreliable.
3) by this time of the war, the German simply hadn't enough fuel. tanks were usually going into battle on less then full fuel-tanks, and got stranded without fuel in the midst of combat.

In other words, just like most German tanks relative to Allied ones. Powerful, has good armour, but just simply breaks down, and lack of fuel. And over-enginneerd. Don't get me wrong, I don't hate German tanks; The Tiger had an excellent design, but they simply couldn't build enough of them.

A ton for a ton, the T-34 and the Panzer IV were kind of a close, with some advantages to the T-34. the real difference was the crew quality - as the Russians became better the tide tern more and more to their side.

That was a thing though: Most of the Veteran German tankers were killed by this point. It doesn't help that the T-34 is a pretty good tank, and the late-war models had a pretty good gun.

Interesting stuff on the Sherman. Thanks for the info.
 
[The Bismarck] sank THE HMS Hood, pride of the Royal Navy. Hood wasn't the best ship in the RN, but she flew the flag across much of the empire's territories. That fact she went down like she did, hit in the damned ammo magazines, and went up so violently.

And even that was only because of a known design flaw in the Hood, namely thin deck armor (or "armour", given the country flag flown by the Hood :) ).
 
Actually, if we tried to take out Russia at the end of WW2, we'd probably win. Russia at this point was virtually exhusted on man power, and they used a lot of supplies that was givin to them.

On a conventional war, it’s not that easy. The losses on the eastern front were far too great, it's unknown if the US would be willing fight a war of attrition with the Russians. It wouldn’t need to, anyway, because the US had nukes and the Soviets didn’t.
 
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