Western Allies liberating Europe without the USSR

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Re: Western Allies liberating Europe without the USSR

#91

Post by ljadw » 22 Jul 2016, 18:56

It is an illusion to think that Germany could dominate Europe: no country could, not France, not Spain, not even the SU .

The truth is that the Western Allies could liberate Europe without the USSR and that the USSR could liberate Europe without the Westen Allies .

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Re: Western Allies liberating Europe without the USSR

#92

Post by T. A. Gardner » 22 Jul 2016, 20:27

ljadw wrote:
T. A. Gardner wrote:How many bombers, on average, during 1943 did Germany have on the Eastern Front at any given time?

"Eagle in Flames " gives the following numbers :


30 december 1942 : 383

30 june 1943 : 552

31 december 1943 :226
Thanks.

Müller in The German Air War in Russia has a table on pg 178 for the entire bomber strength of the Luftwaffe during that period. The average operational strength was 817 aircraft for 1943. This varied between a high of 1078 in December and a low of 573 in August. Most Kampfgeschwader were never at full strength.

Now, Guaporense stated the following:
I also read that in the last 10 months of 1943, medium bombers from the Luftwaffe executed about 180,000 sorties over the USSR, that implies in a bombing tonnage of ca. 270,000 tons over this 10 month period in the Eastern front, when the Luftwaffe was operating at it's maximum level of intensity:

So in 1943, the Luftwaffe medium bombers were doing ca. 20,000 sorties per month in the Eastern front, that means that at maximum capacity they could drop upwards to 60,000 tons of bombs per month and probably dropping about 30,000 tons. Despite the fact that Germany was focusing the vast majority of their resources on ground warfare, indeed in mid 1943, the Eastern front was consuming ca. 250,000 tons of ammunition per month.
That is a 306 day period. 180,000 / 306 = 588 (rounded). That means by his account the Luftwaffe's bomber force in the East was flying at least one mission per day, every day with every available bomber on the Eastern front. Of course, it can easily be assumed that weather, operational requirements, maintenance, and other such things kept many bombers grounded many days out of that period. The means that what bombers were available on days they could fly were flying multiple sorties. Given ljadw's numbers, would have to fly 3 to 5 a day to reach that sortie rate.

That is clearly not the case. The bulk of the bomber force in the East at the time was using He 111 H-6, 11, or 16's. There were a few units with Ju88. The He 177 and Do 217 weren't in theater until early 1944. The He 111 operated almost entirely at night as it was no longer viable against fighter opposition by day. Compounding that was a problem getting adequate pathfinder crews. This seriously degraded the accuracy of what strikes were made.
Then throw in that losses per month amounted to 20 to 30% of the total force (245 per month average for the year) and the replacement crews were poorly trained. New production barely kept up with losses resulting in a slow decline in operational strength.
The problem was so bad that Obrest Dietrich Peltz, head of the Luftwaffe's bomber aviation recommended early in 1943 that no less than 14 bomber Kampfgruppen be withdrawn from combat entirely for refitting and training of crews. The lack of skill among bomber crews was a major reason for the high attrition rate throughout 1943.

It is clear that the Luftwaffe's bomber force, in 1943 was only a fraction as successful as Guaporense would have us believe. It is also clear that they were using largely obsolescent aircraft that would have faced far stiffer opposition in the West. The Luftwaffe's operations staff admitted as much.


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Re: Western Allies liberating Europe without the USSR

#93

Post by ljadw » 22 Jul 2016, 21:13

The Eastern Front was NOT consuming 250000 tons of ammunition per month in mid &943:

The figures from Waffen und Geheimwaffen are

april :61239

may :89078

june :74586

july : 236915

august : 254648

september :205196

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Re: Western Allies liberating Europe without the USSR

#94

Post by Guaporense » 22 Jul 2016, 22:18

See, July-August-September is 230 thousand tons a month on average.
"In tactics, as in strategy, superiority in numbers is the most common element of victory." - Carl von Clausewitz

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Re: Western Allies liberating Europe without the USSR

#95

Post by Guaporense » 22 Jul 2016, 22:24

Graniterail wrote:It really shouldn't be underestimated what Strategic Bombing (conventional alone) was becoming capable of. Look at the graphs for bomb tonnage by year, it was going up exponentially.
Yet, German industrial production peaked in mid 1944, after 900,000 tons of bombs dropped in Europe over the 3 years before June 1944. Overall strategic bombing was a failure in it's achievements.

Strategic bombing had a small effect on the second world war in diverting some German resources from the Eastern front, that was it's main strategic effect.
North Korea is a good indicator, nearly every building in it was flattened in 1950-1951. They lost 1 to 1.5million people out of a population of 9million while America & Britain ran essentially peacetime economies. Keep that sort of population death up & you're approaching 'M.A.D' territory.
Europe is not North Korea.

If Europe, under German political domination, mobilized it's resources they could easily maintain a powerful interceptor force to protect their population. Well, even in 1943, the Western Allies had a great difficulty flying over Europe, despite the fact that 90% of Germany's resources were allocated against the Soviet Union and only 10% was allocated in the defense of Europe. Imagine with 100%.

I think it's easier for Nazi Europe to bomb the UK than the other way around, just due to the difference in economic strength: Nazi dominated Europe's GDP in 1939 was larger than the UK+US.
Look at how fighter range was increasing to cover Germany, aircraft numbers were increasing. Recall how in the later stages of the European campaign in 1944-1945 fighter-bombers were being used to shoot up anything they could find, right down to horses & carts.

It'd get ugly quite frankly. The North Koreans began to live in underground caves. The Germans would fear going outside in daylight.
You are making some strong assumptions here.
"In tactics, as in strategy, superiority in numbers is the most common element of victory." - Carl von Clausewitz

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Re: Western Allies liberating Europe without the USSR

#96

Post by ljadw » 22 Jul 2016, 22:29

Guaporense wrote:See, July-August-September is 230 thousand tons a month on average.

july,august,september are not mid 1943.

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Re: Western Allies liberating Europe without the USSR

#97

Post by Guaporense » 22 Jul 2016, 22:36

ljadw wrote:It is an illusion to think that Germany could dominate Europe: no country could, not France, not Spain, not even the SU .
Germany did actually dominate Continental Europe (excluding USSR) by in the period from 1940-1944. And if the Western Allies didn't open the Western front in 1944, the Soviet Union would have dominated the whole of Continental Europe (with the possible exceptions of Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece).
The truth is that the Western Allies could liberate Europe without the USSR and that the USSR could liberate Europe without the Westen Allies .
I think it would be hard for the USSR to win the war without any Allied help. Although it might have been possible the fact was that historically the USSR was almost collapsing and mobilizing everything they could. If German strength in the Eastern front increased just 10% from historical levels in 1941 and 1942, that might have made a difference in the outcome.

On the other hand, I don't think the Western Allies could liberate Europe:

First because it would be almost impossible to do an amphibious invasion against an army of 250 combat ready Wehrmacht divisions. Historically they managed to do it because there were only a dozen combat ready divisions in France in June 1944 (see Zetterling (2000)) and thanks to massive aerial bombardment they managed to cut the logistics supply of the divisions in France which enabled the Normandy breakout. With Europe's resources mobilized into maintaining aerial superiority that it would be much harder to actually damage the French transportation network.

Second, because most of the Western Allies economic strength was in another continent, so even though the Western Allies had comparable economic strength to continental Europe, geography meant that they couldn't project their economic strength so easily across the oceans.

Third, since the Western Allies were democracies they couldn't simply sacrifice many millions of soldiers as if they were ammunition like Stalin. And yes, imagine trying to do an amphibious invasion against fortified beaches with millions of well equipped, trained and prepared Wehrmacht soldiers, obviously, casualties would be in the millions upon millions.

Even if the amphibious invasion succeeds, following the hundreds of thousands of monthly casualties, they would quickly lose political support specially because the Western Allies war in Europe was a war of aggression: they would be invading OTHER countries for the benefit of their own government. The Soviet Union fought so ferociously against the Wehrmacht because they were fighting for their homeland and for their existence. One shouldn't expect the same from an invasion force which would be fighting for Anglo-American political interests. Roosevelt and Churchill would be hard pressed to retreat just due to political costs caused by casualties (like Vietnam), even assuming they wouldn't suffer from manpower problems (which they would).
Last edited by Guaporense on 23 Jul 2016, 01:01, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Western Allies liberating Europe without the USSR

#98

Post by Gorque » 22 Jul 2016, 22:51

ljadw wrote:
Gorque wrote:
ljadw wrote:There were only 9 security divisions in june 1941, this means that the Ostheer would have to provide the manpower for the 41 additional ones .

Strong LW forces would be tied in the East


a ) to destroy the Soviet armament industry in the Urals :the Germans considered that the war would last for a lot of years

b ) to suppress local revolts : it was more economical to use air forces than ground forces:Britain used after WWI also the RAF to crush revolts in the ME

c ) to protect the southern borders against British incursions

d ) to help the ground forces who were planned to advance in the ME .

These points indicate also that the divisions charged with to provide "law and order " would need more than men considered unfit for front-line service .

The Germans planned an army of 180 divisions for after the defeat of the SU .A third would be in the East, a third in the other occupied countries and a third in Germany .


a.) Why would the Germans need to destroy the Soviet armament industry after the Soviets had been defeated? This makes little sense to me.

b.) it may be more economical, but you can't hold land with an airplane, but you can hold it with security units.

c.) It's a long way to not only advance over the southern borders of the Soviet Union but also to supply these troops. This is about as fantastic as the Germans linking up from Russia and North Africa in Iran.

d.) See item (c.) above.

The above counter-points have effectively debunked the requiring of 50 front-line infantry divisions be stationed in European Russia.
Point A was very clearly mentioned in Weisung 21 : if necessary the LW would destroy the Soviet armament industry : "if necessary " = the possibility that after the Ostheer was at the AA line, the Soviets would continue the fighting : as the Germans had not the forces to go to the Urals, the only possibility was to use the LW (which IMO would fail)

point B : Goering said that if there were some revolts, these would be crushed by the LW .

About the 50 front-line divisions : if the war was going on, they would be needed,and besides, a lot of the ID stationed in France in 1944 were not better than the forces who would remain in the East;thus one can not say that these frces would not be useful/needed in France .


Point C : the Caucasian oil was important for the Germans (IMO it was an illusion,but whatever ) and these oil fields were vulnerable for British air attacks from Iran .
The units in France would, most likely, form the cadre for fleshing out the security divisions, while the front line troops in Russia would be repositioned in France and elsewhere, as needed.


a.) Once again, if the Soviet Union was defeated (your words, see bolded above), then why the need to attack a beaten enemy?

b.) Göring also stated that he could supply the 6th Army that was surrounded in Stalingrad. So much for his bombast.

c.) Agreed in regards to fighter defense. However, good luck to reaching the oil fields by land.

So once again, no need for anything other than security divisions in Russia. And if the Germans played the ethnic cards correctly, then they probably would have no shortage of locals to flesh out the security division's manpower requirements.

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Re: Western Allies liberating Europe without the USSR

#99

Post by Guaporense » 23 Jul 2016, 00:59

By the way, it's far cheaper to shoot down a bomber than to make a bomber: a fighter cost Germany about 85,000 marks to produce, out of a government budget in 1942-1944 of ca. 135 billion RM, a B-17 cost 220,000 dollars, out of a government budget 1942-44, 85 billion dollars, which means that if proportional resources were allocated for Germany relative to the US in terms of aerial defense/bombing, means that for each bomber the US had, Germany would have 4 fighters. For the UK's case government expenditures in 1942-44 were 5.5 billion pounds, a Lancaster bomber cost 45,000 pounds , so for each Lancaster the UK could produce, Germany could produce 13 fighters with proportional allocation of financial resources.

But one could claim: well they had the money but they didn't have the factories to produce the fighters?

Well, in January 1945 Germany had about the same stock of industrial metal working machinery than the US:

Image

Raw materials? A fighter consumed 4-5 tons of aluminum to make and Germany's aluminum production with occupied territories was 40,000 tons a month, enough to make 10,000-8,000 fighters a month. Historically German output of fighters peaked at 3,000 a month in mid 1944 (which was the same output as the US monthly average in 1944, when US fighter output also peaked).

However, Germany lost aerial superiority due to the attrition on the pilots and lack of fuel to train more pilots and to fly more sorties. A US or British pilot had 300-400 hours of training, a German pilot? 130 hours in 1944 (down to 280 hours in 1940). While fuel production collapsed from 180,000 tons a month to 30,000 tons a month from march to september in 1944.

This mean that although Germany had great supply of fighters they couldn't be effectively utilized: for a nice 400 hours of training would require 40-50 tons of fuel, so to properly train the required 1,500 pilots a month to fly on 3,000 new fighter planes a month (taking into account that you lose aircraft more quickly than pilots), you need ca. 75,000 tons of fuel a month, almost half of Germany's total synthetic fuel output.

The lack of pilots was due to the fact that historically, only 10,000 tons of fuel a month were allocated to training pilots.
Last edited by Guaporense on 23 Jul 2016, 01:14, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Western Allies liberating Europe without the USSR

#100

Post by T. A. Gardner » 23 Jul 2016, 01:10

Guaporense wrote:By the way, it's far cheaper to shoot down a bomber than to make a bomber: a fighter cost Germany about 85,000 marks to produce, out of a government budget in 1942-1944 of ca. 135 billion RM, a B-17 cost 220,000 dollars, out of a government budget 1942-44, 85 billion dollars, which means that if proportional resources were allocated for Germany relative to the US in terms of aerial defense/bombing, means that for each bomber the US had, Germany would have 4 fighters. For the UK's case government expenditures in 1942-44 were 5.5 billion pounds, a Lancaster bomber cost 45,000 pounds , so for each Lancaster the UK could produce, Germany could produce 13 fighters with proportional allocation.
This is a straw man. You compare apples to oranges and ignore Allied fighter production.

The US didn't send bombers in alone. By late 1943 they were escorted by swarms of escort fighters. It wasn't unusual for the bombers to have more escorts than bombers by early 1944. Worse, the USAAF also began a policy of allowing escorts when released (they usually cycled in waves) to drop down and attack targets of opportunity as they went home. That meant airfields, trains, vehicles, what-have-you started getting random attention from the US fighters.

Germany might have 4 fighters for each US bomber, but the US would have 3 or 4 fighters for every one the Germans put up. Worse, the German pilots would be far less experienced meaning their loses would be proportionately higher by several times over.

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Re: Western Allies liberating Europe without the USSR

#101

Post by Graniterail » 23 Jul 2016, 10:46

Guaporense wrote:
Graniterail wrote:It really shouldn't be underestimated what Strategic Bombing (conventional alone) was becoming capable of. Look at the graphs for bomb tonnage by year, it was going up exponentially.
Yet, German industrial production peaked in mid 1944, after 900,000 tons of bombs dropped in Europe over the 3 years before June 1944.

..

If Europe, under German political domination, mobilized it's resources they could easily maintain a powerful interceptor force to protect their population. Well, even in 1943, the Western Allies had a great difficulty flying over Europe, despite the fact that 90% of Germany's resources were allocated against the Soviet Union and only 10% was allocated in the defense of Europe. Imagine with 100%.

I think it's easier for Nazi Europe to bomb the UK than the other way around, just due to the difference in economic strength: Nazi dominated Europe's GDP in 1939 was larger than the UK+US. ..
The industrial expansion in 1944, much like that in 1942 was a result of industrial plants coming online that were begun 2-3 years previously. Without Allied bombing, production would have been much higher - until around early 1944 when Germany would begin to run out of strategic materials it couldn't replace. With the bombing, Germany would have still wound up unable to continue production in short fashion even if Allied Armies were delayed in their drive into Germany itself.

Anglo-American production never reached anything approaching it's capacity. The U.S was scaling back armaments production in 1944, they could have continued to increase their output well into the late 40's had they the need to.

You can't just take resources for fighting on the Eastern Front & handwave them into increased aircraft production, there were bottlenecks in German industrial capacity that didn't have easy workarounds.

You can't compare the economic capacity of Europe in 1939 with that of German occupied Europe because of -
1. The blockade the British were running that deprived Europe of raw materials,
2. The way Germany strip-mined the economies of the occupied territories to feed it's own rather than develop them collectively in any sustainable fashion,
3. The completely inefficient way the Germans managed their industrial & scientific programs.

Go read Richard Overy, 'Why the Allies won'. There's far more details in there.

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Re: Western Allies liberating Europe without the USSR

#102

Post by T. A. Gardner » 23 Jul 2016, 18:57

One should also add that most of the late war industrial expansion was done by consumption of Germany's strategic reserves of materials. That is, the Germans used up everything they had to achieve it and if the war drug on for several more years, there would have been a major loss of production as all their scarce resources so carefully hoarded were now gone. So, much of the increase bought by Germany in late 1943 to the end of 44 was done by figuratively chewing their own leg off.

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Re: Western Allies liberating Europe without the USSR

#103

Post by Guaporense » 24 Jul 2016, 23:47

Graniterail wrote:
Guaporense wrote:
Graniterail wrote:It really shouldn't be underestimated what Strategic Bombing (conventional alone) was becoming capable of. Look at the graphs for bomb tonnage by year, it was going up exponentially.
Yet, German industrial production peaked in mid 1944, after 900,000 tons of bombs dropped in Europe over the 3 years before June 1944.

..

If Europe, under German political domination, mobilized it's resources they could easily maintain a powerful interceptor force to protect their population. Well, even in 1943, the Western Allies had a great difficulty flying over Europe, despite the fact that 90% of Germany's resources were allocated against the Soviet Union and only 10% was allocated in the defense of Europe. Imagine with 100%.

I think it's easier for Nazi Europe to bomb the UK than the other way around, just due to the difference in economic strength: Nazi dominated Europe's GDP in 1939 was larger than the UK+US. ..
The industrial expansion in 1944, much like that in 1942 was a result of industrial plants coming online that were begun 2-3 years previously.
Not entirely. There was some investment but overall the increase in armament production was mostly due to an increase of demand due to losses. In other words, German armament production was demand driven not supply driven:

---------- armament sales ---- government expenditures
1942 --- 17.7 ------------------ 102.9
1943 --- 21.9 ------------------ 125.9
1944 --- 26.0 ------------------ 149.4

Direct sales of armaments were a small fraction of total government expenditures. Hence, increasing total armament production was easy.
Without Allied bombing, production would have been much higher - until around early 1944 when Germany would begin to run out of strategic materials it couldn't replace.
I wouldn't think that without strategic bombing production would be much higher.

The aircraft industry, for example, had 840,000 workers in june 1944 and was producing 3,600 aircraft that month. While in the US the aircraft industry had 2.1 million workers and was producing 8,000 aircraft per month. Without bombing how many aircraft Germany would have produced? Overy guessed 55,000 aircraft but that's the difference between the planned production levels and realized and I think that there was a binding constraint of labor supply to realize aircraft production plans that called for a German output of ca. 6,500 aircraft a month.

Historically, given the industrial capital and labor supply, output in 1944 was actually pretty much consistent with the hypothesis that strategic bombing didn't exist.

Industrial output decreased following mid 1944 due to the fact that Hitler lost many economically important territories after that.
Anglo-American production never reached anything approaching it's capacity. The U.S was scaling back armaments production in 1944, they could have continued to increase their output well into the late 40's had they the need to.
No, they were producing at maximum given their labor force and industrial capital stock. The UK, for example, was employing 5.6 workers for each industrial machine tool they had in stock, compared to 2.3 workers for Germany. The Allied favorites were running on two or three shifts while 92% of Germany's industry was running on a single shift. It's plain ignorant to claim the inverse: that Allied output was below capacity when it fact they were suffering from extreme scarcity of industrial capital given their demands.

[quote}You can't just take resources for fighting on the Eastern Front & handwave them into increased aircraft production, there were bottlenecks in German industrial capacity that didn't have easy workarounds.[/quote]

There was no bottleneck to massive increase in aircraft production besides labor supply. In fact, during the whole war the German aircraft industry was operating at a fraction of it's capacity. The plan to increase aircraft production to 6,500 aircraft a month was essentially the output that the industry could turn out if their factories worked at full capacity.

Even the aero-engine industry, which was considered the main bottleneck, had only 4.1 workers per machine tool in march 1944 when output peaked. But it was small compared to the whole of German metal-working: it's machine tool stock was 75,000 machines compared to the aggregate German stock of 2,300,000 machines and German output of ca. 200,000 machine per year. With focused investments and with the labor force increase from the millions of dead soldiers from the eastern front it would be perfectly possible for aircraft output to massively increase from historical levels.

For instance, if the aero-engine industry had 100,000 machines instead of 75,000 (addition of 25,000 machines was only 1.5 months of German machine tool production) and a workforce of 550,000 instead of 310,000 (working roughly at the same intensity as the British did: 2.5 shifts). Aero-engine output would be increased then to about 11,500 engines a month enough to supply 7,000 aircraft: engines for 3,500 single engine aircraft per month, 3,500 twin engine aircraft (including twin engine heavy bombers like the He-177) and 1,000 spares.

Overall, though, the main bottleneck for expansion of aircraft output was oil supply to make aircraft fuel. Again, with the conquest of the USSR that problem would be solved.

There were also cultural differences in the way the German war effort was organized compared to the Allies.
You can't compare the economic capacity of Europe in 1939 with that of German occupied Europe because of -
1. The blockade the British were running that deprived Europe of raw materials,
2. The way Germany strip-mined the economies of the occupied territories to feed it's own rather than develop them collectively in any sustainable fashion,
3. The completely inefficient way the Germans managed their industrial & scientific programs.

Go read Richard Overy, 'Why the Allies won'. There's far more details in there.
I read that book years ago, it's a very good book although I wouldn't agree completely with all the points he makes.

1 is solved with the conquest of the USSR.
2 and 3 are problems of the Nazi regime and I agree completely that the Nazi economic policies were very inefficient. Yet, even though they were inefficient the Nazis were able to extract massive resources from occupied Europe to finance their war: Government expenditures were much higher than Germany's own economy could have supported (in 1943-44, for example, government expenditures were equivalent to 93% of Germany's total national income).
"In tactics, as in strategy, superiority in numbers is the most common element of victory." - Carl von Clausewitz

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Re: Western Allies liberating Europe without the USSR

#104

Post by Guaporense » 25 Jul 2016, 02:05

stg 44 wrote:
Michael Kenny wrote:
Guaporense wrote:[b[/b]

How many casualties would the Western Allies suffer in a long land campaign? Well, I estimated based on historical data that Western Allies would lose approximately 300,000 men a month........... How realistic is that?
Completely unrealistic considering we have data that shows actual losses in the summer of 1944 were 200,000 Allied and 400,000 German.
That was in the context of the Germans putting the vast majority of their effort into the East historically, with a fraction of their combat strength being in France. Given the crushing material and numerical superiority the Allies inflicted about equal combat casualties on the Germans, while taking a lot of PoWs when the German army collapsed. In terms of ongoing combat without a German collapse and encirclement the the loss ratios will be about even and certainly higher than the Allies experienced historically, because the majority of German casualties that summer during the Normandy campaign and breakout came during the breakout phase and collapse of the German army in France. If the Germans had numerical parity and anywhere close to parity in material the Allies weren't going to break out and would suffer a lot worse in Normandy.
By the way, German losses in Normandy were 210,000 compared to Allied losses of 240,000. The "400,000" losses number is an Allied estimate, which usually were much higher than actual losses (that's a given since the Allies always wanted that the losses they inflicted to be much higher than their own losses).

Source: Zetterling (2000), Normandy 1944. It's an statistical analysis of the battle.

By the way, in mid 1940, there were 143 divisions in the Western front, each division had a manpower slice of 20,000 men, for a total of 2,860,000 men, while in mid 1944, there were only 880,000 men in 66 divisions (under strength and under supplied) in the Western front: The forces the Allies had to deal with in 1940 were enormously stronger than the forces the Allies in 1944 had to deal with.
"In tactics, as in strategy, superiority in numbers is the most common element of victory." - Carl von Clausewitz

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Re: Western Allies liberating Europe without the USSR

#105

Post by Takao » 25 Jul 2016, 02:41

Guaporense wrote:By the way, German losses in Normandy were 210,000 compared to Allied losses of 240,000. The "400,000" losses number is an Allied estimate, which usually were much higher than actual losses (that's a given since the Allies always wanted that the losses they inflicted to be much higher than their own losses).
Ummm....No. 400,000 in not an "Allied estimate", but hard numbers.

You have forgotten those 200,000+ German "super soldiers" who surrendered, and were languishing in Allied POW pens. Yeah, I know...You don't usually expect to find super soldiers in POW pens, but by not counting the POWs is then only way to support the "super soldier" myth.

Also, IIRC, the Allied losses include those casualties from the respective Allied air forces and navies.

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