Why the Waffen-SS

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j keenan
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Re: Why the Waffen-SS

#2596

Post by j keenan » 15 Jul 2017, 20:52

Pena V wrote:Sid,
Sid Guttridge wrote:If you look at AHF's W-SS descriptions, they are usually helpful in this regard. For instance, for 38th W-SS Division it gives such context as, "Although it was called a division it never had more than a brigade's strength (roughly around 6000 men)." In other cases, their OB (perhaps four infabtry battalions and an artillery battalion, give the game away.
Pena V wrote:Pena V wrote:the late SS-Divisions were weak This is not an issue. The issue here is that if someone calls them divisions is it right to say that he j keenan wrote: is living in Fantasy land
As I have said before I have no problems admitting that the 38th never had more than a brigades strenght but if you call the 38th a division are you living in a fantasy land? AHF has chosen to call the 38th a division although it never had more than a brigade's strength.

If you would call the 38th a brigade instead of a division it wouldn't be historically correct. As a side effect it could improve the image of Waffen-SS like this:
A says: The 38th SS Division didn't do so well in 1945.
B says: The 38th was actually a Brigade.
A says: If it was only a brigade then the performance was OK. :)

Regards,

Pena V
Yes it's correct fantasy you only have to read the above posts by offizier1916 and Stiltzkin in the above posts to see the fantasy world people live in.
Elite tanks crews ?
Elite if you have massive tanks ?
The SS had the best crews ?
The bigger the unit the less casualties ?
The SS was mainly made up of volunteers it goes on and on Fantasy starts with 38 divis how many did they have in 39 ?

Stiltzkin
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Re: Why the Waffen-SS

#2597

Post by Stiltzkin » 15 Jul 2017, 21:32

Elite tanks crews ?
Elite if you have massive tanks ?
http://www.panzerworld.com/equipment-qu ... -waffen-ss


Pena V
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Re: Why the Waffen-SS

#2598

Post by Pena V » 16 Jul 2017, 23:10

Jamie,
j keenan wrote:Yes it's correct fantasy you only have to read the above posts by offizier1916 and Stiltzkin in the above posts to see the fantasy world people live in.Elite tanks crews ?Elite if you have massive tanks ?The SS had the best crews ?The bigger the unit the less casualties ?
It's up to offizier1916 and Stiltzkin to defend their views. I defend mine.
j keenan wrote:The SS was mainly made up of volunteers it goes on and on Fantasy starts with 38 divis how many did they have in 39 ?
01 Jan 1939: 0 SS-Divisions
31 Dec 1939: 3 SS-Divisions (SS-Division-Verfugungstruppe, SS-Totenkopf-Division and SS-Polizei-Division)

Regards,

Pena V

Sid Guttridge
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Re: Why the Waffen-SS

#2599

Post by Sid Guttridge » 17 Jul 2017, 11:59

Hi Stiltskin,

You write of the W-SS, "They seemed to have better tank crews." "Seemed" is the operative word. Whatever their quality, they certainly had the best advertised tank crews, both late in the war courtesy of Goebbels and in numerous insufficiently analytical publications since.

(1) It seems clear that the German advantage over its opponents in terms of armour use was early in the war, when the Army had a monopoly of the arm.

(2) Over 1939-42 the W-SS had no tank crews. This being so, there was no reason to give them tanks, which could only be done at the expense of deliveries to the proven tank units in the Army.

(3) When they did receive tanks over 1943-45, the W-SS crews were trained in Army tank schools, using Army equipment and tactics.

In short, the W-SS made almost no identifiable, significant, contribution in either quality or originality to the Panzerwaffe. In short, there was no obvious "value added" in giving the W-SS tanks.

As regards paratroops, just calling a unit paratroops does not make it either "para", or high grade "troops". If I remember rightly, only two of the eight or nine German paratroop "divisions" were ever fully trained to jump, and only one of them actually did so. The later ones were a Goering ego-trip, like the Luftwaffe Field Divisions. He was reluctant to see his empire shrink through loss of manpower to the army, so he clung onto it by creating his own formations. Like the W-SS, their manpower could quite possibly have been better used by the Army.

Cheers,

Sid.

PatrickBateman
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Re: Why the Waffen-SS

#2600

Post by PatrickBateman » 17 Jul 2017, 12:49

Sorry for interrupting the panzer crew Waffen-SS vs Wehrmacht discussion, but I have a sort of the same question. How big was the difference between the training of the Waffen-SS infantry compared to the Wehrmacht?

j keenan
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Re: Why the Waffen-SS

#2601

Post by j keenan » 17 Jul 2017, 16:14


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Frankel
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Re: Why the Waffen-SS

#2602

Post by Frankel » 17 Aug 2017, 20:07

A mute point really, but the Wagnerian 'Winged Helmet' insignia for the 38th is a post-war addition, so I read recently.... I can't quite remember what the original was, but I'm sure it was the head of a falcon over something else....
Please don't admonish me for going off-topic, I hereby claim the 'Right of the Newbie'!

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Eross McCloud
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Re: Why the Waffen-SS

#2603

Post by Eross McCloud » 07 Sep 2017, 18:08

Their uniform looked amazing. :milwink: :milwink: :milwink:

Sid Guttridge
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Re: Why the Waffen-SS

#2604

Post by Sid Guttridge » 08 Sep 2017, 11:51

Hi Eross,

Exactly - appearance rather than substance!

Cheers,

Sid.

j keenan
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Re: Why the Waffen-SS

#2605

Post by j keenan » 08 Sep 2017, 12:30

There were plenty of divisions with substance !! Plenty of !!

Sid Guttridge
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Re: Why the Waffen-SS

#2606

Post by Sid Guttridge » 12 Sep 2017, 18:10

Hi jkeenan,

Only a minority, and they were all motorized and/or mechanized. Their performance was not obviously distinguishable from that of their Army equivalents.

The W-SS could produce formations that performed well enough, but generally by equipping selectively recruited men with mechanized equipment that most of the conscript, foot-bound Army did not get.

The W-SS had no magic fairy dust that allowed it to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear!

In short, the W-SS offered almost no military originality or "value added" to the Wehrmacht. Its men and weaponry might just as well have stayed with the Army, from whose resources they were subtracted in the first place.

All Germany's conquests were made early in the war without any indispensable W-SS contribution.

Cheers,

Sid.

j keenan
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Re: Why the Waffen-SS

#2607

Post by j keenan » 14 Sep 2017, 21:21

Sid Guttridge wrote:Hi jkeenan,

Only a minority, and they were all motorized and/or mechanized. Their performance was not obviously distinguishable from that of their Army equivalents.

The W-SS could produce formations that performed well enough, but generally by equipping selectively recruited men with mechanized equipment that most of the conscript, foot-bound Army did not get.

The W-SS had no magic fairy dust that allowed it to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear!

In short, the W-SS offered almost no military originality or "value added" to the Wehrmacht. Its men and weaponry might just as well have stayed with the Army, from whose resources they were subtracted in the first place.

All Germany's conquests were made early in the war without any indispensable W-SS contribution.

Cheers,

Sid.
So they did have substance !!
Been foot-bound Army = Infantry Division
Selectively recruited men with mechanised equipment Army = Panzer Division/Panzer Grenadier Division
The Heer had no magic fairy dust either
The Waffen-SS fought under the same Wehrmacht control so subtracted nothing from the Heer !!
The Waffen-SS contributed to the early conquests of the war and who's to say if they hadn't contributed Germany might not have got as far as it did

Sid Guttridge
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Re: Why the Waffen-SS

#2608

Post by Sid Guttridge » 15 Sep 2017, 15:47

Hi jkeenan,

Of course some W-SS divisions sometimes had substance. They should have, given the manpower and resources thrown at them!

The footbound army infantry divisions were often of high quality, especially those of Welle I. The same cannot be said of a single W-SS infantry division.

Only one army division was recruited on a similar selective basis to the senior W-SS divisions - the Grossdeutschland. Army Panzer Divisions/Panzer Grenadier Divisions were largely made up of conscripts.

Certainly the W-SS "fought under the same Wehrmacht control" but it is ridiculous to assert that this "subtracted nothing from the Heer". A man or tank cannot be in both W-SS and Army simultaneously. Every single Alt Reich man who served in the W-SS was on the Army's reserve list until late 1938. The Army even led the W-SS in the recruitment of all foreigners except "Nordics" who were reserved for the W-SS by political decree from the start.

Certainly the W-SS contributed to the early conquests of the war, but my point was that they were not indispensible to any of them. The German Army's margin of victory in all its conquests was always greater than the meagre W-SS contribution.

Certainly the Heer had no fairy dust, but then It didn't need the same sort of fantasy magic ingredient required to justify an independent W-SS. It had something more substantial - professionalism and tactical mastery, which gave it a much higher margin over its opponents early in the war, when the W-SS's indispensible contribution was minimal, than was achieved by the Wehrmacht later in the war, when the W-SS had begun to absorb an ever higher proportion of volunteer manpower and armoured resources.

Cheers,

Sid.

j keenan
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Re: Why the Waffen-SS

#2609

Post by j keenan » 15 Sep 2017, 18:31

Sid Guttridge wrote:Hi jkeenan,

Of course some W-SS divisions sometimes had substance. They should have, given the manpower and resources thrown at them!

The footbound army infantry divisions were often of high quality, especially those of Welle I. The same cannot be said of a single W-SS infantry division.

Only one army division was recruited on a similar selective basis to the senior W-SS divisions - the Grossdeutschland. Army Panzer Divisions/Panzer Grenadier Divisions were largely made up of conscripts.

Certainly the W-SS "fought under the same Wehrmacht control" but it is ridiculous to assert that this "subtracted nothing from the Heer". A man or tank cannot be in both W-SS and Army simultaneously. Every single Alt Reich man who served in the W-SS was on the Army's reserve list until late 1938. The Army even led the W-SS in the recruitment of all foreigners except "Nordics" who were reserved for the W-SS by political decree from the start.

Certainly the W-SS contributed to the early conquests of the war, but my point was that they were not indispensible to any of them. The German Army's margin of victory in all its conquests was always greater than the meagre W-SS contribution.

Certainly the Heer had no fairy dust, but then It didn't need the same sort of fantasy magic ingredient required to justify an independent W-SS. It had something more substantial - professionalism and tactical mastery, which gave it a much higher margin over its opponents early in the war, when the W-SS's indispensible contribution was minimal, than was achieved by the Wehrmacht later in the war, when the W-SS had begun to absorb an ever higher proportion of volunteer manpower and armoured resources.

Cheers,

Sid.
The Waffen-SS divisions had substance through out the war,they had no more manpower or resources thrown at it then the Heer had !!
Which Waffen-SS infantry division ?
Most of the Waffen-SS were conscripts
So the Waffen-SS didn't subtract anything from the Heer as by your own admission they were recruiting more men !!
The Waffen-SS contributed wether you like it of not,playing a major role in the conquest of the Netherlands and a small part in France
The Waffen-SS was expanded on Hitler's orders so it must have been doing something right and at no time did any Heer unit go with out manpower or equipment.So your argument is all about you and your dislike of the organisation

Sid Guttridge
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Re: Why the Waffen-SS

#2610

Post by Sid Guttridge » 16 Sep 2017, 14:59

Hi jkeenan,

You write, "The Waffen-SS divisions had substance through out the war...." Well, no. Their performance in Poland was undistinguished even though their senior units had by far the highest proportion of "regulars" of any German uniformed service. Or look at the late war 12th W-SS Division. It had the most highly selected manpower in the German ground forces. Yet it took nearly a year and a half to put in the field, performed very well for two months in Normandy, but was never the same again. There was no consistency in W-SS performance that would justify the proposition, "The Waffen-SS divisions had substance through out the war".

You write, "they had no more manpower or resources thrown at it then the Heer had". The Heer had to accept all men of whatever quality, most of them conscripts. By contrast, the only W-SS divisions that were of any quality, which were also the mechanized/armoured ones, took either pre-war uniformed regulars from a variety of sources, volunteers, or "volunteers". The better W-SS divisions recruited selectively, the Army could not, with the exception of the Grossdeutschland.

No, the Waffen-SS added no more men to the Wehrmacht. All its Old Reich Germans were subtracted from Army reserves while its ideological racial hang-ups made it slower than the Army to recruit everyone except "Nordics", who were very few in number. (Norwegians and Danes volunteered at an average rate of four men per day. As I have said before, nobody was likely to get crushed to death at the recruiting offices in Oslo or Copenhagen!)

Certainly the W-SS contributed, but as I have said repeatedly (and without contradiction from you), they were indispensible to none of Germany's early war conquests, when Germany's qualitative advantage over opponents was at its greatest.

You write, "The Waffen-SS was expanded on Hitler's orders so it must have been doing something right...." Yup. It was politically more reliable for the Nazi Party than was the Army, whose first allegiance was to Germany, not the Party. The W-SS was expanded for political reasons rather than military ones. After all, the early war German Army was arguably the best in the world. So what was the raison d'etre of having an independent W-SS if it wasn't political?

You write, "at no time did any Heer unit go with out manpower or equipment." Well, a man or gun cannot be in both the Army and W-SS simultaneously, can it? And as almost all new weaponry was developed by and for the Army, ordered by the Army and tactics developed for it by the Army, whatever the W-SS received must necessarily have been diverted from the Army. In 1943 the Army had to wipe from its establishment almost exactly the same number of divisional panzer battalions as the W-SS acquired that year. So, yes, Army formations very definitely were deprived of equipment by the expansion of the W-SS, especially from 1943 onwards.

Cheers,

Sid.

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