In the bocage, we was assaulted by them Tigers ... and I mean "assaulted".
Posted on 03/09/2015 12:38:33 PM PDT by C19fan
The Germans are a polarizing people, and so are their products. Sort of like when journalists review a BMW — people either love ‘em or hate ‘em. This is because Germany’s engineering prowess is a double-edged sword. On one hand, it enables Volkswagen, BMW, Porsche, etc., to lead the pack when it comes to performance. On the other hand, the Germans are notorious for letting their reach exceed their grasp. They rush new and innovative products to market without giving them a proper shake-down first.
Not only does this odd duality explain Germany’s mixed record in building fine automobiles, it also sheds light on designs going as far back as World War II. Case in point: the Panzerkampfwagen Tiger battle tanks the Fatherland built to counter Allied armor. They were either deadly killers, clunky death traps, or both, depending on who you ask.
(Excerpt) Read more at autos.yahoo.com ...
Depends on whether it as a 88L or 88LL — caliber made the difference.
Hoss
Amen. We would credit Rosie the Riveter with winning the war. [and the factories and know-how Roosevelt did not export with fair trade]. We could mass produce.
“If the Nazis had focused on the Panther and the Panzer IV and their variants, the war would’ve gone a lot differently”
Would have gone exactly the same. War isn’t tank on tank dueling like knights. It is Bombers causing airbattles that brought up the Luftwaffe to be destroyed by Mustangs and Thunderbolts. Then those thunderbolts run wild because there isn’t a luftwaffe to protect them. And then our side can mass artillery and supplies anywhere we choose, and they cant run a donkey cart to market without getting attacked by jabos.
Ask any german,, the P-47 was their demise.
If the Germans could have quadrupled the number of panthers they made, that would have just been more P-47 and Tempest targets. The object lesson is the minute the weather broke over the Battle of the Bulge, the Germans instantly were helpless and cut to pieces from the air onslaught.
No fantasy tank could have saved them unless it had all aspect sidewinders mounted.
Speer would certainly have pushed to conscript more of the French for labor, and -- if we can believe his own self-serving claims -- would have worked the Jews and Slavs as slave labor rather than killing them outright.
Both of those things would have made much more "sense" from a tyrannical productivity point of view. But would Hitler have agreed to them before it became clear that Germany's position was getting desperate? I'm not so sure.
And as for Speer's claim that he was unaware of the extermination programs? That I simply do not believe is even possible.
Hear, Hear!!!
:D
Hoss
Here’s one bad dude - The Russian T-34:
http://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/russian-tank-t-34-world-war-ii-25091341.jpg
I agree.
Look how long it took BMW to totally redesign their “boxer” motorcycle engines.
The air-cooled “boxer” engine used essentially the same design (with myriad tweaks and improvements but no total design overhauls) from 1923 until the early 90s.
That’s not exactly “rushing” a new product to market.
Wrecked railroads but intact vehicles. Bombing the railyards prior to DDay provided that tactical advantage of forcing road marches. By the mid 1944 many things had changed in the war. Leaving production unhindered wouldn't have helped the Eastern front which likely would have affected mid-1944 in a negative way for the Allies.
Ask the guy who spent $1,000 for a rear engine seal on the 911. Twice.
*
Exactly correct about Rosie the riveter. The Germans made 1300 of the Tigers and less than 500 Tiger 2s. We built 50,000 Shermans, and the Russians built nearly 65,000 T-34s that were more than a match for anything the Germans fielded. Even Guderian said the T-34 was the best tank of all.
I have my doubts about that. Russia attack Germany - with what? The Soviet army was in no shape for a long term offensive against the Germans in 1939.
Attack on Russia was in 1941. Until then, the Nazis and Soviets were allies.
I agree. That was Nazi party propaganda of that era,, not really based in fact. Stalin had done a number on his own military. They were in no shape to attack Germany then. And also the Germans were well aware that they were not about to be attacked. They had conducted -extensive- deep reconnaissance flights for months ahead of the invasion of the USSR.
One always has to remember that Germany had knocked Russia out of WWI in 1917, while the Western Front vs. France and England was a four year holocaust. After France collapsed like a house of cards in 1940, with the BEF barely escaping back across the moat, Hitler thought Russia would be relatively easy. If Germany could whip Russia in 1917 in an infantry campaign with its main forces pinned down in the West, panzers and blitzkrieg backed up by the main weight of the Wehrmacht should do the job a generation later. So he thought. But 1941 was not 1917. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.
Of course, not thinking properly.
But I stand by my statement that the Russian’s did not have the military to invade Germany in 1941. Can not imagine Stalin thinking doing so was such a great idea.
In the bocage, we was assaulted by them Tigers ... and I mean "assaulted".
This guy I argue with is from Austria, and he claims that's what his father (A Doctor in the German Army) said, and that's what he was taught in his history classes.
I would go back and ask him for more detail, but I really don't like him. He's a foreign Pr*ck who's married to an American, now living in Austin Texas, and pushing his socialist mindset here in this country.
I've told him several times he needs to go back to Austria, because he certainly isn't wanted here.
Also, a year earlier, the Germans watched the difficulty the USSR had in taking on Finland. Nobody could seriously argue the Germany feared a Soviet invasion.
The only threat they could have ever posed there was in subversion and assisting any German communists in taking on the Nazis.
But the window for that was also realistically gone too.
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