Posted on 02/27/2015 2:04:57 PM PST by Berlin_Freeper
In fairness they were massively outnumbered and outgunned. And I’m not discounting the ability of the US Army that beat them, of which my own dad was a part. Even still, it was a close call, and could have gone the other way, especially if Hitler had allowed his professional General Staff to make decisions instead of constantly overriding them with disasterous results. And I do also have respect for the NVA and Russian Spetsnaz too.
I remember a story of an American tank commander who had a copy of Rommel’s book. An Iraqi prisoner asked why he had a book by an enemy of America. The soldier told him to STFU, if more Iraqis had read it they might not be prisoners.
We march to the East!
The German Army in fighting Russia is like an elephant attacking a host of ants. The elephant will kill thousands, perhaps even millions, of ants, but in the end their numbers will overcome him, and he will be eaten to the bone.
—Colonel Bernd Von Kielst
The German Army outgunned by the US Army? The Germans had the best tanks, not to mention their 88 mm howitzers, hands down the best gun of WW2.
They weren’t much good in the mud and snow.
In quantity of arms, not quality. By the US, Britain and USSR. As for quality, they were better in some areas, we were in others. We had a better (semi-auto) rifle, they had a squad level machine gun, but nothing comparable to our 50 cal. They had better tanks, but no strategic bombers. Pretty even.
BTW, the 88 wasn’t a howitzer, it was originally an anti-aircraft gun later used as an anti-tank gun. It featured a long barrel for high velocity direct fire. Howitzers are designed for indirect fire—medium velocity shells at high elevations.
In other words, their entire army is less than 1/4 the size of the one that marched into Stalingrad. On top of that, these ain't your grandpa's Germans. The postwar generations have been thoroughly pacified.
“especially if Hitler had allowed his professional General Staff to make decisions instead of constantly overriding them with disasterous results”
True, canceling the 262 as a fighter and insisting it be a bomber was a classic of his. Another was the V2 program. Spent the money of the Manhattan project, and produced the weight on target of about 2 raids of the Eighth Air force and Bomber Command.
That whole effort as zippy as it was, was something that by 44 we could do two to three times a week.
Hats off to your dad. Those were the best soldiers ever, far exceeding the respect they get.
Russians were raw numbers combined with German lunacy of the mass murders.
On the eastern front, transport rail was literally too busy moving Jews to be used by the army.
By contrast, the US Army ran straight into Germans that were 100% on the task of warfare.
I'd bet Ivan knows...
5.56mm
Thanks for your post, good info.
Re: the German 88 mm, my comment was based on how the allies rated it. They seem to have unanimous respect for it, whether as a flak gun, field gun, or on the tiger tank. Many of them, downright terrified of it.
But, like you said, the allies had the edge in quantity.
yeah, from the article about those Spaniards:
“The Spaniards belonged to the far left and were inspired by the International Brigades, the multinational volunteer forces that fought against Francisco Franco’s uprising during the Spanish civil war in the 1930s.”
My dad fought the Germans and I spent time with their Special Operations and earned German jump wings, your attempt at insulting freepers who have served in NATO over the last 60 years and support our alliance, is grotesque.
You sink too low in your support for the Russian strong man, and his military goals against us.
The German soldier is superior to the Russian, as is his equipment and training, and he is a member of a 27 nation military alliance that vastly out mans and out guns Russia.
Russia would be making a very stupid mistake to invade NATO.
Yeah, well, he got eaten by a shark later.
Except for the part about them out killing us and the Brits, man for man, and they were vastly superior to the Russians.
Since the issue is Russia invading NATO and us fighting a defensive war on our own soil, why are people talking as though Russia is sitting at home and being threatened by us invading them?
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