WW2 Did US ever fight Germany when they were in their prime?

Discussions on High Command, strategy and the Armed Forces (Wehrmacht) in general.
Graeme Sydney
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Re: WW2 Did US ever fight Germany when they were in their prime?

#76

Post by Graeme Sydney » 09 Nov 2016, 03:50

Stiltzkin wrote: Your comments and yappings are extremely immature and are based on personal opinion, ......
Oh dear; attack the man and forfeit the debate. :roll:

However,

" The surprise was complete: though the Stavka,......."

http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/ent ... Barbarossa

"Yet the Soviets were still taken completely by surprise. That had mostly to do with Stalin's unshakeable belief that the Third Reich would not attack only two years after signing the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. He also was sure the Germans would finish their war with Britain before opening a new front."

http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1761.html

"The Soviet Air Force was caught completely by surprise. Few aircraft were armed or had fuel, some where actually tied to the ground, and most were lined up in parade formation at the airfields. "

That's the results of a 2 second google search. And that is hardly exhaustive.

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Re: WW2 Did US ever fight Germany when they were in their prime?

#77

Post by Stiltzkin » 09 Nov 2016, 04:13

Oh dear; attack the man and forfeit the debate.
Says the one who continously attacks people on this forum. Furthermore, this was directed towards your criticism of the QJM and CEV, which you weren't able to refute. I provided sources, pretty much tells me that you didn't even look at them.
Compare the sources : Yours aren't primary sources, but: Journal of Slavic military studies vs random wikis. I think that says it all...


Graeme Sydney
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Re: WW2 Did US ever fight Germany when they were in their prime?

#78

Post by Graeme Sydney » 09 Nov 2016, 04:45

Stiltzkin wrote:
Oh dear; attack the man and forfeit the debate.
Says the one who continously attacks people on this forum. Furthermore, this was directed towards your criticism of the QJM and CEV, which you weren't able to refute. I provided sources, pretty much tells me that you didn't even look at them.
Compare the sources : Yours aren't primary sources, but: Journal of Slavic military studies vs random wikis. I think that says it all...
Yeah, and as Histan and others have tried to point out there is a difference between strategic, operational and tactical. You seem to be entirely focused on operational and tactic assessment. But, don't worry, you are in good company; it is what Germany did in 1914, 1939, 1941 and in 1945.

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Re: WW2 Did US ever fight Germany when they were in their prime?

#79

Post by steevh » 25 Dec 2016, 21:54

"Did US ever fight Germany when they were in the prime".

Questions like these are asked by people who already know the answer.

Which is "No."

And???

If they'd had substantial land forces in 1941 they could have had some more guys killed in North Africa, or whatever. I think you can still guess who would have won in the end.

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Re: WW2 Did US ever fight Germany when they were in their prime?

#80

Post by BDV » 04 Jan 2017, 11:55

steevh wrote:"Did US ever fight Germany when they were in the prime".

Questions like these are asked by people who already know the answer.

Which is "No."
I disagree. Germany was as "prime" as reasonably described by that word in 1942 and 1943.

And when the UN armies were not careful, bad bad things happened to them; Rzhev Meat grinder, Kharkov3, Kasserine, Dodecanese Campaign.
Nobody expects the Fallschirm! Our chief weapon is surprise; surprise and fear; fear and surprise. Our 2 weapons are fear and surprise; and ruthless efficiency. Our *3* weapons are fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency; and almost fanatical devotion

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Nickdfresh
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Re: WW2 Did US ever fight Germany when they were in their prime?

#81

Post by Nickdfresh » 04 Jan 2017, 16:25

If Germany's "prime" is a narrow temporal section of 1941, then they certainly didn't have many of their "prime" weapons systems and tanks in place...

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Guaporense
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Re: WW2 Did US ever fight Germany when they were in their prime?

#82

Post by Guaporense » 04 Jan 2017, 17:39

Yodasgrandad wrote:In WW2 did America ever fight Germany when they were at their peak militarily? Or when they arrived in Europe they faced a weakened and worn out Germany? (I know they were losing at that point) or if there were any battles US lost in Europe to them.
Well, out of the 280 German divisions available around mid 1944 only 37 engaged the Western Allies in France, the vast majority was in the Eastern front. The US army never engaged more than about 15% of the strength of the German army. While France in 1940 engaged about 90% of it. Russia engaged between 60-70% of the German army while around 10-15% of the German army was used in occupying Europe and also hundreds of thousands of men were engaged in activities like the Holocaust. Poland engaged about 60% of the German army in 1939 as well although the German military wasn't fully mobilized at that point in time. The only time when the German army was fully focused on one front was in 1940 against France and the Low Countries (and in 1918 as well).

In terms of manpower, the German armed forces peaked in size in late 1943 while in terms of personnel in frontline units their strength peaked in mid 1943. In mid 1944 the German armed forces were still very strong numerically and in fact they were better than in 1941 in terms of equipment although there were a lot more of relatively poorly trained soldiers in it. Overall its hard to say when they peaked in quality my guess is mid 1941 before the openened up the Eastern front and the quality of the units began to decline due to continuous attrition.
For example Russia is defeated or instead for whatever reason they don't fight Russia and instead get a lend lease type of assistance from them (But no military assistance) how do America/Allies fair against Germany in Europe? Or would it be impossible for them to land in Europe?
It would be almost impossible: an amphibious invasion on an hostile continent against hundreds of German divisions in top notch condition? Very hard to even imagine.

So if Germany defeats Russia then it meant that Hitler won the Second World War. The most likely event after that would be a Cold War between German controlled continental Europe and the Anglo-Saxon countries. I would even conjecture that most likely Japan it get its way in Asia because the Anglo-Saxon countries would prefer to make a peace deal with Japan instead of risking a long naval war against a coalition of powers controlling Europe and Asia.
"In tactics, as in strategy, superiority in numbers is the most common element of victory." - Carl von Clausewitz

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Re: WW2 Did US ever fight Germany when they were in their prime?

#83

Post by Guaporense » 04 Jan 2017, 18:04

histan wrote:German strategic planning was uncoordinated and incoherent throughout the war but particularly so from 1941 onward.
I disagree. German strategic planning was actually intelligent up to Stalingrad. Their problem was that nobody managed to expect that the USSR's military would pull out a miracle of surviving the loss of 600,000 men per month and actually gain the strategic innitiative while "burning" their labor force at such a rate.
I am probably not the only person who experiences some form of "cognitive dissonance" when asked to believe that the Germans were "better" than the Western Allies in the Normandy Campaign.
The facts on the ground are clear - in early June 1944 the allies were in England, by early September the allies had crossed the channel, passed through France and were at the German border. Equally, in early June 1944 the Germans were on the channel coast in France and in early September they had retreated through France, were rushing troops to defend the German border, and expressing concern that way into Germany was wide open.
Yet at the same time I am expected to believe that the Germans were "better" (either as soldiers or in warfighting) than the allies.
So the concepts of numerical odds and strategic situation eludes you.

If you win, taking 3 months, with 3-1 numerical superiority and complete aerial supremacy while suffering 240,000 casualties because you engaged a small garrison force of 37 poorly manned, trained and equipped divisions that were resting in France after being badly mauled in the Eastern front that was a very poor performance indeed.

Also, the strategic situtation in June 1944 was the following: The Soviet Union already had defeated the Wehrmacht in the critical decisive battles of Moscow, Kursk, Stalingrad, etc and so had already won the Second World War and was advacing in an irresistible fashion into Berlin and they arrived there 11 months later (even though it was only 1200 km away from the Eastern frontlines in June 1944). Nothing that happened in the western fronts in 1944 and 1945 had any decisive influence on the war so even if we assume that those 37 German divisions were able to stop the Western Allies in Normandy, they would still lose in Normandy because if they had contained the WAllies in Normandy then they would relocate those divisions to the Eastern front to help the armies there, and they would continously transfer divisions to the Eastern front which means that that bubble in Normandy would burst sonner or later: at the time of operation Cobra there were only 25 German divisions there compared to over 175 divisions in the Eastern and South-Eastern fronts. In other words, the WAllies did not defeat the German army in France: that army was already defeated, they were only doing the mopping up job and the German soldiers were glad to surrender to the WAllies to escape the Soviet POW camps (and the WAllies were losing many hundreds of thousands of soldiers in this mopping up process).

So, if Germany had already lost my mid 1944 why they were still fighting? Simple, because the Nazis knew that if they surrendered they would be executed by the Allies so they choose to use many hundreds of thousands of lives of the German people as a meat shield to (in a crude selfish manner) prolong their lives. Actually, though, I think that if they surrendered they would have lived longer because the Nuremberg trials took years to judge everybody. Although I doubt Hitler and co. would have admitted humiliation of being held as POWs.

When Germany invaded Poland, against a Polish force substantially larger and more well rested than the force Germany had in France (although with inferior equipment), they defeated Poland in 1 month while suffering 1/5 of the casualties the Western Allies suffered in France. While the German invasions of Greece and Yugoslavia involved a 6,000 casualties and they took several times the number of prisioners that the WAllies took in France in 1944.

Or for a better example, in 1940 the WAllies had 151 divisions in top notch condition (compared to the German troops in 1944) which numerically equivalent to about 230 German divisions of 1944, or a force about 7 times larger than the force the Germans had in 1944 in France along the border with Germany. This force about 7 times larger than the German force in France in 1944, was defeated in 1.5 months while the Germans suffered 150,000 causalties, that is half the time and 60% of the casualties the WAllies suffered to defeat a force 7 times larger and the Germans DID not enjoy numerical superiority while in 1944 the WAllies had a 3-1 numerical superiority.

To me its beyond obvious that the German army was far superior on a operational and tactical level than the WAllies' armies. The Soviet army was also vastly superior to the armies of the WAllies on an operational level (they managed to encircle the German army in Bagration) although they suffered enormous casualties (well it's not like Stalin cared about casualties as long as they were able to replace them).
"In tactics, as in strategy, superiority in numbers is the most common element of victory." - Carl von Clausewitz

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Re: WW2 Did US ever fight Germany when they were in their prime?

#84

Post by Richard Anderson » 04 Jan 2017, 20:22

Guaporense wrote:Well, out of the 280 German divisions available around mid 1944 only 37 engaged the Western Allies in France, the vast majority was in the Eastern front. The US army never engaged more than about 15% of the strength of the German army.
Trying to foist misinformation on the masses again I see.

Of the nominal 294 divisions organized as of June 1944, 150 were on the Ostfront and 8 were in Finland. So 53.74% is a "vast majority"? Meanwhile, 66 were part of Ob. West, 27 part of HG-C in Italy, and 12 were in Norway. So 105 or 35.71%. Which I suppose in your math is a "tiny minority"?

Then we get into your deliberate misuse of the word "committed". In fact, only the 150 divisions of the Ostfront, and the 93 divisions of Ob. West and HG-C were in any sense "committed" at this time, which means that 243 divisions were employed, 61.73% to the East and 38.27% to the West.

So why exactly do you think you can pass off blatant falsehoods, misinformation, and shoddy "analysis" without being called out for it?

(Snip repeated misinformation)
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Re: WW2 Did US ever fight Germany when they were in their prime?

#85

Post by Richard Anderson » 04 Jan 2017, 20:26

Guaporense wrote:So the concepts of numerical odds and strategic situation eludes you.
No more than the concept of "analysis" and "honesty" seems to elude you I suspect.
If you win, taking 3 months, with 3-1 numerical superiority and complete aerial supremacy while suffering 240,000 casualties because you engaged a small garrison force of 37 poorly manned, trained and equipped divisions that were resting in France after being badly mauled in the Eastern front that was a very poor performance indeed.
66 divisions. Meanwhile, the concepts of time and space also elude you I see.

BTW, "3 months" after 6 June 1944, the Allies were approaching the German frontier after destroying the Wehrmacht in France and the Low Countries. The Normandy Campaign was won seven weeks after the landings, not "3 months" later.

(snip more misinformation)
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Re: WW2 Did US ever fight Germany when they were in their prime?

#86

Post by David Thompson » 04 Jan 2017, 21:06

This thread is closed to allow the posters to recover their manners -- DT.

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