[SprCForr]

I nominate Zipperfish for uberCanuck!

[BartSimpson]

SprCForr wrote:

I nominate Zipperfish for uberCanuck!

Based on that one post alone I heartily and sincerely Second the nomination!

[Mustang1]

SprCForr wrote:

I nominate Zipperfish for uberCanuck!

Absolutely

[ShepherdsDog]

Quote:

this was originally an Italian job, but they couldn't get anywhere, not even past the Greeks

That reminds me of the scene in that Nicholas Cage movie, Captain Corelli's Mandolin. The Greeks refused to surrender to the Italians, who they had just defeated in battle and told them to fuck off and go find a German so they could surrender to proper victors.

Then again, it was said that Hitler had it easy compared to Mussolini, as Germans followed orders very well......Italians, well, they are good fighters, just not soldiers.

[sasquatch2]

In the words of Marshall Kesselring:

"The Italians are stylish warriors."

[OPP]

When Hitler declared war on the Soviet Union.

[Thanos]

Kursk in summer 1943 was the indicator that the Germans would not be able to win via further military offensives.

The successes in summer 1944 of Operation Overlord in Normandy and the near-total destruction of Army Group Centre by the Soviets in Operation Bagration were basically a pair of one-two deathblows for Germany. The two campaigns ensured that the Germans had no hope left of preserving their empire or of having a post-war Nazi government survive.

I have absolutely no love for the Nazis but it is a testiment to the military skill of the Germans that they were able to continue the fight for almost another full year after the disasters they suffered in mid-1944.

PS: I'd also point out that one of the greater, but lesser known, factors behind the German failure was their lack of a coherent wartime industrial policy. For example, they only built around a maximum of 1500 Tiger I tanks over the course of roughly three years. By comparison the Americans built around 40000 Shermans and the Soviets built around 50000 T-34's in approximately the same time frame. Ditto similiar numbers when it came to aircraft. There is serious enough evidence to suggest that the German cause was doomed simply because of the way Hitler's whims regarding resource-wasting gargantuan "super weapons" derailed German industry from manufacturing a renewable supply of previously-proven and far more reliable but, in Hitler's view, much less glamourous equipment.

[ridenrain]

Thanos wrote:

Kursk in summer 1943 was the indicator that the Germans would not be able to win via further military offensives.

The successes in summer 1944 of Operation Overlord in Normandy and the near-total destruction of Army Group Centre by the Soviets in Operation Bagration were basically a pair of one-two deathblows for Germany. The two campaigns ensured that the Germans had no hope left of preserving their empire or of having a post-war Nazi government survive.

I have absolutely no love for the Nazis but it is a testiment to the military skill of the Germans that they were able to continue the fight for almost another full year after the disasters they suffered in mid-1944.

PS: I'd also point out that one of the greater, but lesser known, factors behind the German failure was their lack of a coherent wartime industrial policy. For example, they only built around a maximum of 1500 Tiger I tanks over the course of roughly three years. By comparison the Americans built around 40000 Shermans and the Soviets built around 50000 T-34's in approximately the same time frame. Ditto similiar numbers when it came to aircraft. There is serious enough evidence to suggest that the German cause was doomed simply because of the way Hitler's whims regarding resource-wasting gargantuan "super weapons" derailed German industry from manufacturing a renewable supply of previously-proven and far more reliable but, in Hitler's view, much less glamourous equipment.

lol. as they said: our tanks were worth 10 of youres... but you always had 11.
Quantity has a quality all of it's own.
I really wondered about how the hot version of the cold war would play out. How the logistic trail supporting Europe would leave almost all of NATO with no APDS for the waves of tanks crashing through the Fulda gap. How the M60's and M1's would run dry of spares and warshot, leaving the hords to flood the west, while the Leopards held on.
Then the Bradleys came out and each and every one had 2 TOWs and the connectivity to unleash the US version of gods wrath upon any inch of the earth, assuming we kept air dominance.
Frightening times for the old folks.