America needs an Erwin Rommel

Email Me When A New Comment Is Made
Show Only Poster Name and Title Newest to Oldest

Pages: PREV 1 2 3 4 NEXT

elcid RE:Patton sends his regards. 12/29/2004 7:36:30 AM

Bluemoon - you need to go find a realy WWII military historian. RUSSIA won the war MORE than the USA did. All the foreign aid amounted to less than 10% of Russia's gear, often not its best. Russia outproduced Germany in critical things like tanks by staggering numbers. And Germany always put about 2/3 of its forces against the Russians - because if it did not the Red Army would have won much faster. It does not look like Germany ever had much of a chance, even if it fought Russia alone.

Quote Reply

fall out RE:Patton sends his regards. 12/29/2004 7:55:18 AM

"Bluemoon - you need to go find a realy WWII military historian. RUSSIA won the war MORE than the USA did. All the foreign aid amounted to less than 10% of Russia's gear, often not its best. Russia outproduced Germany in critical things like tanks by staggering numbers. And Germany always put about 2/3 of its forces against the Russians - because if it did not the Red Army would have won much faster. It does not look like Germany ever had much of a chance, even if it fought Russia alone " - For starters, Germany never got on a full war footing until 1944, and when that occured, despite continuous allied bombing, Germany was outproducing Russia in numerous areas, such as Tanks and Arty's, despite having to share those resources around more due to a stronger emphasis on naval power. Germany got to within looking distance to the domes of the Kremlin in 1941, and the reason why they were stopped was because of one man, Hitler, he diverted much resources of Army Group Centre (the one going for Moscow) to the South and North, he also started the war later (on june 22nd which btw was when napolean invaded Russia, talk about a bad omen!!), the original date was for early may, not late june, those extra few weeks and a better and stronger emphasis on taking Moscow would have meant Moscow would have fallen thus taking out the Centre of a Centralised Country, and come Dec 7th Hitler stood a good chance at some sanity to not declaring war on the US due to the vulnerability of the USSR (he originally declared war on the US, the only country he did so, to try to entice Japan to attack Russia). 1941 IMHO was humanities most vulnerable year in history, the Japanese were bad enough to make any of the world's worst criminals seem like a 15yr old female ballet dancer, let alone the Nazis! Romell, if supplies properly would have annihilated Patton, Monty, any allied general, simple, in Operation BattleAxe for example, Monty built up his forces to an extent that he outnumbered the Germans 3 or 4 to 1, yet after the opening few days, Romell blunted the offensive, and counter attacked and knocked out more than 80% of the allied armour!! yet because of his lack of numbers and supplies he couldn't keep pressing.

Quote Reply

BLUEMOON RE:Patton sends his regards - you guys need to hit the books. 12/29/2004 8:26:13 AM

It's a fact that American AID saved Russias butt. Maybe both of you should read up on the letters from Joseph Stalin to FDR. Go on and look it up ! I got all day to laugh. And yet again I read that if only Rommel a bigger army or better tanks he could have won ? Well did'nt he have all of that crap when he invaded France or North Africa ? Unlike Patton who did'nt have 15 tries at bat, Rommel was a complete failure. If Patton could pull it off with cheaper stuff, why could'nt the great Rommel with his better tanks and so on ? By the way, why did hundreds of thousands of soldiers from England land on Normandy on one of the worst rainy days at sea ? If Germany was so great how come Hitler could'nt take on England in the skies ? Bottom line : American and it's allies won, and no X-BOX game in which everybody plays the Germans can take that one simple fact away : EVER.

Quote Reply

Croaker8989 RE:Patton sends his regards. 12/29/2004 8:27:24 AM

Also rommel at first only had a few of the panzer IV most of his forces were the older panzer III which still packed a decent but a much shorter ranged attack. So the allies even though had over all worse armour the numbers made up for it. Also the movement into Russia was a mistake many men died from lack of supplies and freezing it was to costly when the forces could have been put to the north african campain to put an end to the allies there easily.

Quote Reply

FJV RE:Patton sends his regards. 12/29/2004 1:11:02 PM

"Romell, if supplies properly would have annihilated Patton, Monty, any allied general, simple, in Operation BattleAxe for example, Monty built up his forces to an extent that he outnumbered the Germans 3 or 4 to 1, yet after the opening few days, Romell blunted the offensive, and counter attacked and knocked out more than 80% of the allied armour!! yet because of his lack of numbers and supplies he couldn't keep pressing." From what I've read was that Rommel was weak in the logistics part of strategy which was what caused him to be under supplied in the first place. He also didn't stick his mission orders which were limited. I've also read one book that made the case that if Churchill didn't replace Auchinleck by Montgomery, Rommel could have been defeated earlier. From: Humble, Richard: Famous Land Battles from Medieval to Modern Times London: Artus, 1979 "But when Winston Churchill claimed that "before Alamein we never had a victory. Ater Alamein we never had a defeat", he should have known better. The British forces in North Africa had won several victories there: and if Churchill himself had been less keen to sack any general that dipleased him, he could have had his victory at Alamein a lot earlier than he did. The real victor over Field-Marshal Rommel at Alamein was not Montgomery, the lucky man who had the job of adminitering the coup de grace with doble Rommel's rescources and the comfortable knowledge that an Allied invasion was due to go in behind Rommel's back. It was the man who, three-and-a-half months before, picked up the pieces of a broken and demoralized army to fight Rommel to a standstill at Alamein and force him on the defensive: General Sir Claude Auchinleck." PS This links to a free downloadable biography of Rommel (pdf format) link I don't about the quality of it though, because I haven't found the time to read it.

Quote Reply

Carl D. Generals and Politicians 12/29/2004 3:01:15 PM

The issue of Auchinleck, Montgomery and Churchill is a classic example of political meddling, as is Hitler's influence on the Russian campaign. Big politicians with big egos (yes that is a double up) and conducting a war is always a bad combination. Considering how good a job that the Anwher did in getting Stalin to replace good field commanders with political officers, if they'd waited until the following spring they could well have taken Moscow. Remember, until the Germans invaded, the USSR was for all practical purposes a member of the Axis. As for attacking a machine gun in a mounted charge, didn't our guys in Afganistan do that?

Quote Reply

Croaker8989 RE:Generals and Politicians Afghanistan 12/29/2004 3:43:54 PM

O yah right after the we launch hundrededs of missles and droped even more bombs.

Quote Reply

elcid RE:Patton sends his regards. 12/30/2004 5:50:26 AM

Fall Out - Germany did not mobilize until February 1945 - that is when Steinweg was told to stop making pianos - by which time the economy was nearly collapsed. And it NEVER outproduced Russia in tanks. It was not even competative. The Russians also made BETTER tanks, but more important it made them in numbers that counted. To the extent USA sent Shermans to Russia, they were a second string thing. The Panther was an attempt to make something competative with the T-34.

Quote Reply

elcid RE:Patton sends his regards. 12/30/2004 5:54:46 AM

Don't get me wrong - I am a fan of Rommel. And I am not impressed with Monty - although I think you fail to grasp the problem of losing men was for the UK - and that may have made him more risk averse than he otherwise might have been. But it is clear that Germany could not compete economically, and interestingly enough, it could not do so just with Russia. On the other hand, I disagree with you about Japan. I think war with Japan was avoidable. If we were going to get upset about China enough to cause a war, we should have done so in 1935 or 1937. By 1941 it is a bit late to say we care a lot about China's fate.

Quote Reply

elcid RE:Patton sends his regards - you guys need to hit the books. 12/30/2004 5:58:48 AM

It is not X box games that say WWII was won by the Russians. It is history. The only thing more rediculous than saying the US/UK did it all is the Russian version - which says the US/UK did virtually nothing. [No, the Russians do NOT teach US aid saved them. Stalin did say nice things during the war - sometimes - and he also denied them other times - see his denial that the allies ever sent what they said on PQ13. But Russian propaganda says Red Army did it all - or maybe ALL. Well, that is bunk. But so is the Russians were not decisive. No serious student thinks we would have won the war if Russia had capitulated.]

Quote Reply

PREV 1 2 3 4 NEXT