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[KillerMan91]

I think it's easy to overlook how huge it was that France fell so rapidly. I mean these two European powers had been squabbling for centuries and France was the dominant land power in Europe for a very long time. Bowled over I think is a good term for it. pretty incredible military feat that has, maybe undeservedly, shamed France ever since.

I never get the shaming of Frances military that seems to be quite widespread especially in US. I mean yeah in WWII they got their asses kicked badly but that is pretty much it(?) Do people forget that Napoleon was french? Or that in WWI they were the biggest part of western front? I mean with something like Italy I could understand the jokes lol.

 

[KingV]

Yea the bigger is better mentality was quickly disproven. German tank designs like the Maus were dumb as shit.

Mass produced T-34s and M4 Shermans were the right way to go during WW2.

How are you gonna make a tank the size of a monster truck and call it the Maus?

 

[nkarafo]

Their outfits were great too

Thanks Hugo Boss

It's amazing how the officer outfits made even some skinny weaklings look scary and intimidating in them.

 

[Erheller]

I think you hit the nail on the head. Nazism wasn't just about a military force, it was about trying to impose an entirely new culture and set of ideals.



Yeah, I've noticed when people talk about WWII tanks (and military equipment in particular) they treat it like a game of Top Trumps and say things like "the Tiger had the strongest gun and armour so it's the best" This ignores many important questions like: How easy/quick was it to manufacture? How much did it cost in resources? How reliable was it in field conditions? How easy was it to operate? What sort of logistical support did it require?
The later Nazi tanks were great on paper, but that's it.

Anyway, here's my submission for "cool Nazi tech"

An infra red scope aka, the "Vampyr"

The Tiger I armor could be penetrated easily by the IS-2's 122 mm gun, and the Tiger II armor was very brittle, so much that non-penetrating shots could still damage important parts of the tank (like the transmission) and knock it out. The real Eastern Front heavy tank that influenced the war the most was probably the IS-2. It could stand its ground and more against the Tiger I and II. And there were over twice as many IS-2's (3,854) than Tiger I's (1,347) and Tiger II's (492) combined.

How are you gonna make a tank the size of a monster truck and call it the Maus?

I mean, they had plans to make a tank the size of a small warship and call it the Ratte

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landkreuzer_P._1000_Ratte

 

[Tagyhag]

Their outfits were great too

Thanks Hugo Boss

Actually, the more known uniforms were designed by Karl Diebitsch. The Boss company just manufactured them.

 

[KillerMan91]

The Tiger I armor could be penetrated easily by the IS-2's 122 mm gun, and the Tiger II armor was very brittle, so much that non-penetrating shots could still damage important parts of the tank (like the transmission) and knock it out. The real Eastern Front heavy tank that influenced the war the most was probably the IS-2. It could stand its ground and more against the Tiger I and II. And there were over twice as many IS-2's (3,854) than Tiger I's (1,347) and Tiger II's (492) combined.



I mean, they had plans to make a tank the size of a small warship and call it the Ratte

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landkreuzer_P._1000_Ratte

If Germans would had actually had as good quality steel as they had during the early war Tiger II would have been much harder to penetrate. Still though I don't disagree that overall Soviets had best tank designs of the war (powerful, cheap and reliable).

 

[SerAardvark]

I think it's easy to overlook how huge it was that France fell so rapidly. I mean these two European powers had been squabbling for centuries and France was the dominant land power in Europe for a very long time. Bowled over I think is a good term for it. pretty incredible military feat that has, maybe undeservedly, shamed France ever since.

Like I talked about in my previous post, though, the victory over France is really far more complicated than it being solely a Germany accomplishment.


* The general French attitude about war was not particularly good - heavily defensive, keen to avoid prolonged conflict and casualties, etc. Also things like Gamelins' reluctance to bomb the Ruhr (or even advance in any meaningful way into Germany during the invasion of Poland because of fear of retaliation).

* French high command was very rigid in its strategic and tactical thinking, both in terms of over-reliance on the Maginot Line and its use of its own tanks

* Major French strategic blunders (i.e. poor screening of the Ardennes, overreliance on static defensive lines, strict adherence to its prewar planning even as German advances made that impractical)

* Various logisitical errors by the French (mobilizing and then sitting around and doing nothing for months on end which weakened industrial production and hurt morale, Gamelin's HQ being poorly set up for communication with both political leaders and the front lines, the long time it took orders to get to the commanders that needed them especially when specific commanders either died or were out of contact)

* The Belgian withdrawal from its alliance with the British and French prior to World War II, undermining French strategic planning

* The poor morale of the French military - from being mobilized and taken away from home without actually doing anything other than sitting on the border while Germany annihilated Poland and then prepared for its campaign in the west

France was certainly thought of as a major power during the 1930s. But in practical terms that reputation was not really deserved by the time war broke out (let alone by the time the Germans attacked in 1940). Its political leadership was inconsistent and prone to defeatism (Reynaud, at least at first, was a notable exception), it's military leadership was inflexible in both strategy and tactics (and Gamelin himself was a polarizing figure who clashed with both political and military rivals, even ignoring his poor performance in 1940), it wasted many of its military's strong points by doing things like spreading its tank strength throughout infantry units (and almost solely utilizing them as infantry support unlike the Germans) and so on.

The German victory over France - especially the speed of it - is still impressive, but it tends to be overrated by an overreliance on France's reputation coming into the war. That isn't meant to denigrate the French (who fought bravely, even after the Ardennes breakthrough effectively ended the campaign) - it's just that the victory over France didn't really represent a crushing victory over a first-rate power; it was more of a crushing victory over a demoralized, ineffectively led power that made multiple mistakes to compound the situation.

 

[RinsFury]

I mean, they had plans to make a tank the size of a small warship and call it the Ratte

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landkreuzer_P._1000_Ratte

Lmao at the theoretical speed in that wikipedia description. No way in hell was a 1000 tonne tank moving at 40 km/h.

 

[zer0das]

You could replace Germany with "everyone." Nothing motivates humanity like trying to destroy each other.

The Allied achievements were far greater. The Atomic bomb is the major one, but computing also largely took off from all the cryptology that the Polish, the British, and the US did to crack the Enigma code. Reading through Churchill's unabridged memoirs and it is quite astounding how badly the British beat the Germans in the electronic war.

Although the precursors to modern rockets and missiles are nothing to sneeze at either.

Realistically, Germany's greatest scientific achievement was probably making the Allies nervous enough to technology share at an unprecedented level, while also causing a large percentage of the scientists to flee to these technology sharing countries.

 

[btrboyev]

Let's not make a thread about nazis and preface it by saying it isnt about nazis.

Settle the fuck down. We can discuss things without having to be offended. What Germany did during World War 1 and 2 with technology was impressive. We are allowed to say that and discuss it.

 

[Proelite]

Nazi stuff looked cool, but were expensive, high maintenance, inefficient and ultimately worse than their allied counterparts.

It's their doctrine, training, and tactical superiority that won them their early war success. By the end of WWII, the allied forces had caught up in that area too.

If people want example of nations that were way superior technologically than their peers in military, you have the Romans, the Song/Tang, the Byzantines, the current USA.

 

[Respect]

Operation Paperclip

Edit - damn you and your ninja skills Respect.

A more built up, modernized and recovered from the purges USSR would be enough for it to be a worse scenario for Germany then it was in real life. Sealion would never work, the U.S would still be the industrial powerhouse it was and the USSR would be much more prepared.

Hell with 3 or 4 extra years France might have actually been able to modernize some more like actually having radios in tanks which would have been pretty useful.

Space age doesn't help when your in the middle of a war, the V1/V2 was a huge waste of resources, like all of the Nazi's wunderwaffes.

Not talking exclusively of the V2 when referring to Hitler's meddling, this was in regard to all military projects in the middle of the war. As you stated, Hitler had become obsessed with magic weapons that would suddenly turn the tide of the war back in German's favor. If there is relative peace in this time instead of war, I have little doubt they would have made greater advancements in the process of killing people than any other country at the time. Especially with most everyone else in Europe exhausted from WWI and wanting no part of another conflict like that ever again.

I never get the shaming of Frances military that seems to be quite widespread especially in US. I mean yeah in WWII they got their asses kicked badly but that is pretty much it(?) Do people forget that Napoleon was french? Or that in WWI they were the biggest part of western front? I mean with something like Italy I could understand the jokes lol.

Perspective unfortunately. It really was a huge surprise by all accounts that Germany was able to defeat France as quickly as it did. Hitler was supposedly very concerned when he learned France had declared war on Germany when they invaded Poland. If they push into Germany and really make a concerted effort to defeat them as opposed to sitting behind the Maginot line and playing a completely defensive war, who knows, the war would have been over before it even started.

 

[wandering]

Mmm, Wehraboos.

 

[ZombiePlatypus]

Yes mein Fuhrer?
I require a weapon.
Ja, ve are making a cannon.
Nein, a cannon is not enough. I want a giant phallus that fires bombs the size of mein staff car.
*Furiously scribbling notes*
And strap it to a train. Ze vorld vill tremble with fear vhen confronted with mein boner choo-choo.

Nazi scientists were really ahead of the curve. They invented the first railgun.

Ok I laughed when I read "boner choochoo" in Hitler's voice in my head.

 

[Bleepey]

We should talk about medical advancements we have to thank the nazis for, that would be a fun discussion.

Haha yeah. I heard scientists still debate the ethics of using say the results about the human bodies' tolerance to cold based on nazi experiments

 

[MJPIA]

I mean they did have some impressive engineers and researchers but they had a reputation for being complex to make and as a consequence hard to maintain.
Germany could field monstrous tanks capable of going toe to toe with anything provided it made it to the battlefield without breaking down and the US would just throw a dozen Shermans at it and overwhelm it with numbers.
And this applied to everything they did.

That piece of skin from a BF109 is complex to form, then it has to be heat treated and the spar and internal structure in the wings have a continuous taper going outboard making them extremely expensive and time consuming for modern day restoration shops to make, they seemed to be incapable of making something simple and all those things that were a little more complicated than they needed to be added up.

Not to say that British aircraft weren't complicated as well compared to American aircraft but at least they weren't being made by unskilled slave labor.

 

[Bregor]

It always amazes me that most people largely ignore the most important technological innovation of the war, the one that had the greatest effect on it's outcome:

Radar.

It had huge effects on air defense, bombing accuracy, sub hunting, naval battles and other fields.

And the key breakthrough in radar occurred in Britain: the cavity magnetron.

 

[reckless]

Not talking exclusively of the V2 when referring to Hitler's meddling, this was in regard to all military projects in the middle of the war. As you stated, Hitler had become obsessed with magic weapons that would suddenly turn the tide of the war back in German's favor. If there is relative peace in this time instead of war, I have little doubt they would have made greater advancements in the process of killing people than any other country at the time. Especially with most everyone else in Europe exhausted from WWI and wanting no part of another conflict like that ever again.

Germany's main enemy would still be the USSR who was producing plenty of new weapons which were a match German weapons and had a tendency to actually work, somewhat reliably unlike the Germans.

Waiting longer does not help Germany at all. France could pretty much only do better in that situation, Poland would still get destroyed, USSR would be a lot more prepared, the UK would still be safe, since Sealion would never work, the US would have been at war with Japan so it would have been in a war economy for years already etc.

I mean they did have some impressive engineers and researchers but they had a reputation for being complex to make and as a consequence hard to maintain.
Germany could field monstrous tanks capable of going toe to toe with anything provided it made it to the battlefield without breaking down and the US would just throw a dozen Shermans at it and overwhelm it with numbers.
And this applied to everything they did.


That piece of skin from a BF109 is complex to form, then it has to be heat treated and the spar and internal structure in the wings have a continuous taper going outboard making them extremely expensive and time consuming for modern day restoration shops to make, they seemed to be incapable of making something simple and all those things that were a little more complicated than they needed to be added up.

Not to say that British aircraft weren't complicated as well compared to American aircraft but at least they weren't being made by unskilled slave labor.

Damn inflation is a hell of a thing, used to be 5 shermans ( sorry Ronsons) to take out 1 tiger with Wehraboos now its DOZENS!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Arracourt
Dat superior German engineering, even when outnumbering the Allies.

 

[Morat]

It always amazes me that most people largely ignore the most important technological innovation of the war, the one that had the greatest effect on it's outcome:

Radar.

It had huge effects on air defense, bombing accuracy, sub hunting, naval battles and other fields.

And the key breakthrough in radar occurred in Britain: the cavity magnetron.

Indeed. As I said earlier, I'll take the radar fuze over any other wartime technological advance.

 

[Syder]

They did build a favourite weapon of mine.

The Schwerer Gustav 80 cm railway artillery:

It's stupidly huge.
It requires a stupid amount of manpower.
It's stupidly slow to fire.
It requires you to build a special stupid railway system to move the damn thing.
It stupidly had negative war effort impact when comparing what it actually managed to it's cost of running.

They built two.

And I love it.

but how much damage can it do?

 

[Kin5290]

Isn't the technological superiority of the German armed forces in WW2 something of a myth? A lot of their innovations were overengineered, unreliable bullshit, like the early Panther and Tiger tanks, or wunderwaffe that ultimately had a negligible impact on the war, like the ME-262, the V-2, and the Carl Gustav gun. The Soviet T-34 and American M-4 Sherman may have been boring, but they were far more practical and effective at filling their respective combat roles.

 

[drawkcaB]

Nazi stuff looked cool, but were expensive, high maintenance, inefficient and ultimately worse than their allied counterparts.

It's their doctrine, training, and tactical superiority that won them their early war success. By the end of WWII, the allied forces had caught up in that area too.

If people want example of nations that were way superior technologically than their peers in military, you have the Romans, the Song/Tang, the Byzantines, the current USA.

Also not mentioned is that Germany was largely running a war time economy and all that entails years before the war even started. It was the equivalent of a boxing match where one fighter trained for a few months while the other could only train for a few weeks.

 

[HariKari]

Isn't the technological superiority of the German armed forces in WW2 something of a myth? A lot of their innovations were overengineered, unreliable bullshit, like the early Panther and Tiger tanks, or wunderwaffe that ultimately had a negligible impact on the war, like the ME-262, the V-2, and the Carl Gustav gun. The Soviet T-34 and American M-4 Sherman may have been boring, but they were far more practical and effective at filling their respective combat roles.

Supply chains and organization in general wins protracted wars. The Germans were pretty awful at that. So many variants and bespoke parts. Hilter and some of the planners had way too much say in what was produced rather than going with what was effective for the resources, with things like the King Tiger being a prime example.

Once the U.S. got up to speed and Germany threw away its most experienced troops in the Russian meatgrinder, it was over. Wouldn't have mattered how good their equipment was.

 

[iRAWRasaurus]

Germany's main enemy would still be the USSR who was producing plenty of new weapons which were a match German weapons and had a tendency to actually work, somewhat reliably unlike the Germans.

Waiting longer does not help Germany at all. France could pretty much only do better in that situation, Poland would still get destroyed, USSR would be a lot more prepared, the UK would still be safe, since Sealion would never work, the US would have been at war with Japan so it would have been in a war economy for years already etc.



Damn inflation is a hell of a thing, used to be 5 shermans ( sorry Ronsons) to take out 1 tiger with Wehraboos now its DOZENS!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Arracourt
Dat superior German engineering, even when outnumbering the Allies.

goddamnit, just spend the last 30 mins browsing thro wikipedia reading on random articles starting with this one.

 

[Not Spaceghost]

I've been searching and there aren't any. Nazi medical research was worthless.

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199005173222006

Yep, their research was terrible and poorly conducted since it wasn't actually research just torture, but it eventually did lead to something with no thanks to them.

 

[Respect]

Germany's main enemy would still be the USSR who was producing plenty of new weapons which were a match German weapons and had a tendency to actually work, somewhat reliably unlike the Germans.

Waiting longer does not help Germany at all. France could pretty much only do better in that situation, Poland would still get destroyed, USSR would be a lot more prepared, the UK would still be safe, since Sealion would never work, the US would have been at war with Japan so it would have been in a war economy for years already etc.



Damn inflation is a hell of a thing, used to be 5 shermans ( sorry Ronsons) to take out 1 tiger with Wehraboos now its DOZENS!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Arracourt
Dat superior German engineering, even when outnumbering the Allies.

France lost because of their military strategy, I highly doubt they would have adopted an offensive mindset in 3-4 years. Also, never claimed they would have been more successful, even said Russia would have been in a better position to combat them given the extra time as they were building up their own military in the meantime. America still would not have any interest in the European conflict as a whole, their focus would be on Japan and so would popular opinion, I doubt Hitler haphazardly declares war on the US, if Germany is not at war with anyone at the time.

 

[Dubbedinenglish]

goddamnit, just spend the last 30 mins browsing thro wikipedia reading on random articles starting with this one.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Tidal_Wave

Recommend reading for random WW2 battles, IMO the most fantastic air raid story of the war. AA trains, low altitude bombing runs.

 

[Lombax]

I've been searching and there aren't any. Nazi medical research was worthless.

you should search just a little harder. The research was horrific, but there was value that came out of it.

EDIT: Sorry forgot to mention the Japanese as well

 

[GurgleBot20]

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199005173222006

They did some really fucked up shit but thankfully we're at least able to benefit and save some lives from some of the fucked up shit they did.

Am I missing something? Because the link kind of supports the person you're quoting:

This review of the Dachau hypothermia experiments reveals critical shortcomings in scientific content and credibility. The project was conducted without an orderly experimental protocol, with inadequate methods and an erratic execution. The report is riddled with inconsistencies. There is also evidence of data falsification and suggestions of fabrication. Many conclusions are not supported by the facts presented. The flawed science is compounded by evidence that the director of the project showed a consistent pattern of dishonesty and deception in his professional as well as his personal life, thereby stripping the study of the last vestige of credibility. On analysis, the Dachau hypothermia study has all the ingredients of a scientific fraud, and rejection of the data on purely scientific grounds is inevitable. They cannot advance science or save human lives.

In the light of these findings, attempts to use the data from the Dachau experiments have been puzzling. The persistence of the claim that the work offers usable or valuable information is difficult to understand. One probable reason is the extremely limited availability of the Alexander report and the tendency of investigators to use secondary citations without consulting the primary source. Wider circulation of the Alexander report would thoroughly expose the true nature of the work and put an end to the myth of good science at Dachau. Future citations are inappropriate on scientific grounds.

Inferior science does not generally come to the attention of the ethicist because it is usually discarded by scientists. Ethical dialogues deal with work of sound scientific but controversial moral content, and the mere fact that a debate is conducted implies that the subject under consideration has scientific merit. If the shortcomings of the Dachau hypothermia study had been fully appreciated, the ethical dialogue probably would never have begun. Continuing it runs the risk of implying that these grotesque Nazi medical exercises yielded results worthy of consideration and possibly of benefit to humanity. The present analysis clearly shows that nothing could be further from the truth. Although the Dachau experiments opened the dialogue about an important ethical issue, the discontinuation of debate about these experiments should not bring an end to exploration of the larger subject —the implications of the use of ethically tainted data. But the Dachau study is an inappropriate example for that purpose.

 

[Praetorpwj]

Supply chains and organization in general wins protracted wars. The Germans were pretty awful at that. So many variants and bespoke parts. Hilter and some of the planners had way too much say in what was produced rather than going with what was effective for the resources, with things like the King Tiger being a prime example.

Once the U.S. got up to speed and Germany threw away its most experienced troops in the Russian meatgrinder, it was over. Wouldn't have mattered how good their equipment was.

Yes Hitler was frustrated by the sheer variety of special weapons projects. He wanted to focus on a few simple to mass produce designs to aid the war machine.

 

[OG Shaka Zulu]

Didn't know about the disparity in machinery between Germany and the Soviets. So if the US sat out of WWII we wouldn't be speaking German right now, we'd be speaking Russian?

 

[sssstententen]

Carlin actually has a fantastic series of 4 episodes on how everyone likes to marvel at the impressive nature of the Nazi army in the second world war, it was nothing like the insane power that the German Empire's army was at the beginning of the first, and that a very specific set of circumstances essentially saved both Russia and the Allies from getting their asses handed to them.

http://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-history-50-blueprint-for-armageddon-i/

Great listen and a much more surprising since WWI often gets overlooked after WW2.

 

[Dark Ninja]

Zombies, UFO's, Aliens, Clones, Super Soldiers and Time Travel

 

[Not Spaceghost]

Am I missing something? Because the link kind of supports the person you're quoting:

Oh no I was actually agreeing with him lmao, but their shitty research that did nothing at least gave us an idea on the right track on how to help people with hypothermia later on.
Edit: Looking back at my post yeah I forgot to include like 3 sentences, that's what you get when you're posting while distracted lmao. I'll go fix that now.
What I originally meant to say was "Their research was terrible and poorly conducted since it wasn't actually research just torture, but it eventually did lead to something with no thanks to them"

 

[SerAardvark]

Didn't know about the disparity in machinery between Germany and the Soviets. So if the US sat out of WWII we wouldn't be speaking German right now, we'd be speaking Russian?

The United States was heavily involved in supporting the USSR with materials, vehicles, supplies and other logistical support through the Lend-Lease program so the Eastern Front would have been a lot messier without American entry into the war -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lend-Lease#US_deliveries_to_the_Soviet_Union

British aid was also really important in terms of keeping the Soviets afloat in 1941-42, which might have been more limited if the Americans weren't as involved.

My inclination is to say more of Europe would have fallen under Soviet influence, although it'd really depend on a lot of factors (what do the British do without their primary ally? Why, exactly, is the US not involved and how does that affect American political and military strategy? etc.)

 

[Captain Tuttle]

Speaking of, how does the US think about Wernher von Braun nowadays? Do they consider that Nazi Bastard as a national hero because after he shot rockets for the Nazis in other countries, he shot people to the moon? I once read a book about him, written a couple of years after the moon landing and I was disgusted how they hushed over that topic.

von Braun is talked about but not too in depth, I think it's pretty common knowledge that he was a Nazi scientist.

The big tech leap in WW2 that outshone everything was nuclear weapons. There are countries today that still don't have the capability to make one and most of the ones that do stole or bought the tech from somewhere else

Nah, he's right, we'd be speaking Russian (or at least Western Europeans would). It would have just taken longer.

 

[iRAWRasaurus]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Tidal_Wave

Recommend reading for random WW2 battles, IMO the most fantastic air raid story of the war. AA trains, low altitude bombing runs.

Thanks, Welp I already wasted my day away.

 

[StayDead]

Didn't know about the disparity in machinery between Germany and the Soviets. So if the US sat out of WWII we wouldn't be speaking German right now, we'd be speaking Russian?

German tanks were far superior to the T34 in every way other than production.

The T34 was so cheap and they could be built at such high volume that eventually they overwhelmed the germans.

That's also ignoring the strategic miss-step that Germany made when attacking Stalingrad. For months they had been bombing the city to rubble. All this did was made their panzer divisions and gave the meager red army forces better defensive positioning as they didn't have too deal with the fast movement of tanks (the tanks literaly couldn't get down most streets). This delay gave the Red Army a chance to reinforce and eventually push back the germans.

The entire end of the war from a german perspective was a total mess. However had the winter not been as harsh in 1941 Moscow may well have fallen. Had Barbarossa not gone so badly I think Germany would've won the war. All they needed was the oil and Germany very nearly broke through ours (the UKs) air defences and were days off of winning the Battle of Britain. The only reason why we didn't lose is the Luftwaffe seemed to think we had a lot more than what we had.

 

[Linkstrikesback]

They did build a favourite weapon of mine.

The Schwerer Gustav 80 cm railway artillery:

It's stupidly huge.
It requires a stupid amount of manpower.
It's stupidly slow to fire.
It requires you to build a special stupid railway system to move the damn thing.
It stupidly had negative war effort impact when comparing what it actually managed to it's cost of running.

They built two.

And I love it.

I'm honestly surprised this was an actual thing and Valkyria chronicles didn't make it up. That'll teach me.

 

[reckless]

German tanks were far superior to the T34 in every way other than production.

The T34 was so cheap and they could be built at such high volume that eventually they overwhelmed the germans.

That's also ignoring the strategic miss-step that Germany made when attacking Stalingrad. For months they had been bombing the city to rubble. All this did was made their panzer divisions and gave the meager red army forces better defensive positioning as they didn't have too deal with the fast movement of tanks (the tanks literaly couldn't get down most streets). This delay gave the Red Army a chance to reinforce and eventually push back the germans.

The entire end of the war from a german perspective was a total mess. However had the winter not been as harsh in 1941 Moscow may well have fallen. Had Barbarossa not gone so badly I think Germany would've won the war. All they needed was the oil and Germany very nearly broke through ours (the UKs) air defences and were days off of winning the Battle of Britain. The only reason why we didn't lose is the Luftwaffe seemed to think we had a lot more than what we had.

The t-34 and its variants were more then a match for the Panzer 3/4's and their variants.

Comparing a t-34 to a tiger 2 or something is dumb, maybe in a head up in a flat area starting at max range or something a tiger 2 will win, thats not how wars are fought. That's also like comparing a battleship to a destroyer, a t-34 is a medium tank, panthers (regardless of what the Germans say) and tigers were heavy tanks.

Also tanks do a lot more then fight other tanks... Tanks getting killed by other tanks are a minority of tank casualties.

 

[Shao Kahn Brewing a Stew]

I watched Oliver Stone's TV documentary about the history yesterday, and I learned quite the same in my class. Germany was a behemoth but they got toppled by it's own mistakes, three big ones being:

1) Ignoring Japan and letting them fight their own battle instead of treating them as allies (if Japan was treated equally, they all could've toppled USSR in a few weeks).

2) Declaring war on U.S. right after Pearl Harbor attack by Japan, forcing U.S. to say "Let's dance".

3) Breaking treaty and attacking Russia for 2 long years, aiming for arrogance rather than dominance.

If we ignore the biggest 3 mistakes Germany made, this would've been a Germany-dominant world with different focus on tech, art, lifestyle and culture.

With that said, the advancements they pushed for and achieved after taking over Europe is instrumental to our current technology and success. War always accelerate the best in mankind (and churns out the worst in it as well).

 

[rtcn63]

All I see in this thread is Metal Slugs

 

[KDR_11k]

Man, can you imagine what would have happened if Nazi Germany got the bomb before we did? Those crazy fuckers would have definitely tried to make a Metal Gear.

Fortunately they weren't even really trying, supposedly Hitler said he needs no nuke because by then he'll have won the war so it was a low priority.

If they found a way to stick nukes to V2s that would have ended horribly.

There's also that German system of manufacturing was idiotic. Allies typically waited until there were enough changes planned to make shutting down a production line down for retooling, whereas Germans wasted time implementing new stuff as they came up with that. Very inefficient production.

And let's not forget that Germans wasted resources for things of marginal use, if that. Their rocket projects, while advanced, were largely useless. For example, the V2's production killed more people than the weapon itself.

AFAIK only the US had any knowledge of economics? Or was that WW1?

 

[dpunk3]

Speaking of, how does the US think about Wernher von Braun nowadays? Do they consider that Nazi Bastard as a national hero because after he shot rockets for the Nazis in other countries, he shot people to the moon? I once read a book about him, written a couple of years after the moon landing and I was disgusted how they hushed over that topic.

I may have read the same book, the dude was a straight up Nazi and allegedly used Jewish slave labor to build his rockets. He claimed he was forced into it or he would have had to forego his research, but many people claimed he was as Nazi as they come. The US just happened to not care in a race against the USSR. It's kinda shitty that they have monuments and museums built in his honor.

 

[CertifiedFP]

I'm honestly surprised this was an actual thing and Valkyria chronicles didn't make it up. That'll teach me.

Uh, you must be thinking of Trails of Cold Steel. That's a game that has Railway Guns actually based off of these two, with the exact same limitations and long reload cycle, with it being pointed out that they have no practical use in actual warfare - And exactly two produced at that

Spoiler

Though two more produced later on to replace the first two that Crossbell nuked.

.

Valkyria's ""Railway Guns"" were just par-standard mundane mortars mounted on a railway track.

 

[zer0das]

It always amazes me that most people largely ignore the most important technological innovation of the war, the one that had the greatest effect on it's outcome:

Radar.

It had huge effects on air defense, bombing accuracy, sub hunting, naval battles and other fields.

And the key breakthrough in radar occurred in Britain: the cavity magnetron.

I would consider this as part of the electronic war, with cryptography being more important. Radar and radar advancements likely would have happened even without the war, whereas I doubt we would have anything resembling modern computers without World War II.

As for the tank battle the US trounced Germany, it isn't entirely fair comparing a tank vs tank battle when one side has overwhelming air superiority. No duh tanks are going to get wrecked by aircraft.

 

[Prez]

I watched Oliver Stone's TV documentary about the history yesterday, and I learned quite the same in my class. Germany was a behemoth but they got toppled by it's own mistakes, three big ones being:

1) Ignoring Japan and letting them fight their own battle instead of treating them as allies (if Japan was treated equally, they all could've toppled USSR in a few weeks).

2) Declaring war on U.S. right after Pearl Harbor attack by Japan, forcing U.S. to say "Let's dance".

3) Breaking treaty and attacking Russia for 2 long years, aiming for arrogance rather than dominance.

If we ignore the biggest 3 mistakes Germany made, this would've been a Dutch-dominant world with different focus on tech, art, lifestyle and culture.

With that said, the advancements they pushed for and achieved after taking over Europe is instrumental to our current technology and success. War always accelerate the best in mankind (and churns out the worst in it as well).

What do the Dutch have to do with this?

 

[Harlock]

This video shows how V2 development was kinda of waste of big money in comparison with your effectiveness in the war.

The V-2 Rocket (A 4) - How Effective was it?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9f8zv7dNxQI

(And Military History Visualized is a great channel, the guy always go after original sources in books and documents).

Why is Rommel so complicated? - Erwin Rommel vs. Desert Fox
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jw1UJCwcgNc

 

[Coriolanus]

but how much damage can it do?

if it somehow hits, roll all dices available one at a time and keep multiplying the result by the previous result.

 

[Kin5290]

German tanks were far superior to the T34 in every way other than production.

The T34 was so cheap and they could be built at such high volume that eventually they overwhelmed the germans.

That's also ignoring the strategic miss-step that Germany made when attacking Stalingrad. For months they had been bombing the city to rubble. All this did was made their panzer divisions and gave the meager red army forces better defensive positioning as they didn't have too deal with the fast movement of tanks (the tanks literaly couldn't get down most streets). This delay gave the Red Army a chance to reinforce and eventually push back the germans.

The entire end of the war from a german perspective was a total mess. However had the winter not been as harsh in 1941 Moscow may well have fallen. Had Barbarossa not gone so badly I think Germany would've won the war. All they needed was the oil and Germany very nearly broke through ours (the UKs) air defences and were days off of winning the Battle of Britain. The only reason why we didn't lose is the Luftwaffe seemed to think we had a lot more than what we had.

Yeah, this is completely false.

At the opening of hostilities, German Panzer IIIs and Panzer IVs (armed with a short-barreled 75mm infantry support howitzer) were completely outclassed by early-gen T-34s with their sloped armor and anti-tank cannons. It's the T-34 that forced the Germans to adopt more heavily armed and armored tank models, like the Panzer V Panther and Panzer VI Tiger tanks, which proved unreliable and further taxed the German war machine.

Of course, as the war progressed, the Soviets would respond to German tank developments with their own, such as the IS-2 and T-34/85.