Feel free to add them in:

1. The Germans had better tanks - they had better guns and armour but they were constantly breaking down, never had the spares and by the end of the war lacked the copper for the electrical systems.

2. Britain was going to be invaded by sea in 41 - this was *never* going to happen, the Kriegsmarine pretty much rules it out when asked to do a feasability study.

3. The germans invented the Jet fighter - they didnt they just got the first operational one and that was supposed to be used as a bomber!

edit:

4. The poles charged panzers with lances - never happened, it happened in a post war polish art/propaganda movie. In reality a polish cavalry unit was *near* a german panzer unit but in true 'dragoon' style dismounted to fight the germans while supported by an armoured train.

The German stuff was good, but it was overengineered (so when it did break it was a nightmare to fix) and they had constant supply problems. I believe the analysis of captured tanks was that the worksmanship was incredible but the materials were awful.

The Germans lost because they made the same mistakes they made 30 years earlier: they got too greedy and tried to do too much at the same time. They should've stopped with France and the Benelux, consolidated their power, let everyone get used to the new status quo and only then join with the Americans in taking on the USSR. Then, only too late, the rest would've realized that Germany had gotten big of a sudden.

Though they would never have held the conquered lands, not solidly, not long enough. There would've been revolts and revolutions and after the end of the personality cult.

Of course, the history only really gets interesting in the nineteenth century where Bismarck was successfull in isolating France from the rest of Europe. The failure of his successors to do so led to WW1, which led to WW2.

Im really keen to dispell the 'german tanks were great myth'.

Basically the wehrmacht had at its most 'convenient' point no fewer than 67 different types of AFV in service with little commonailty in parts (a few had shared chassis) making logistics a nightmare.

The panther is often lauded as the wonder tank but it was frankly awful when you look at it past the impressive 'stats'.

After World War 2 the royal tank regiment had ten panthers in for assessment.

About 7 of them caught fire on being started up.

Reluctant to lose anymore they went to a local POW camp and found some panzer crew who were yet to be repatriated. They told the tankies that essentially you have to stall a panther in gear when you stop it or fuel washes back up the lines and ignites when you turn it on.

They also told them that the steering differential was flawed and constantly caused it to throw tracks and that they had to 'neutral turn' the tank to change direction (basically stop one track dead to cause the other to spin it round rather than use the complicated steering mech you should use).

In the words of the panzer crewman 'we fought the tank every day'

The guy who told me this story was ex royal tank regiment and a member of staff at Bovington Tank Museum.

They were also horrifically over engineered to the point you could make five or six shermans for the cost of one panther.

Lastly, as mentioned because germany had ran out of copper and rubber the tracks were often lacking rubber 'track pad' shoes which meant they skidded everywhere on hard surfaces and turrets that were supposed to be electrically driven often had to be turned using the back up hand crank systems.

All in all a tank thats great in wargames but in reality was apparetly a total pig to crew.

Tigers allegedly spent more time broken down than being driven

To me the true german innovations were decent personal cam (the issue of smocks and helmet covers), the best helmet design (for protection) of the war and a the first decent selective fire assault rifle ... of and a fairly good run of early jet fighters.

The Germans lost because they made the same mistakes they made 30 years earlier: they got too greedy and tried to do too much at the same time. They should've stopped with France and the Benelux, consolidated their power, let everyone get used to the new status quo and only then join with the Americans in taking on the USSR. Then, only too late, the rest would've realized that Germany had gotten big of a sudden.

Though they would never have held the conquered lands, not solidly, not long enough. There would've been revolts and revolutions and after the end of the personality cult.

Of course, the history only really gets interesting in the nineteenth century where Bismarck was successfull in isolating France from the rest of Europe. The failure of his successors to do so led to WW1, which led to WW2.

They should have gone in to the Ukraine as 'liberators' and 'bent their rules' to consider ukranians 'aryan'. They could probably have taken russia then.

Failing to take Russia in 41 cost them the war.

If the US and Uk had just held their ground and launched *zero* offensive campaigns against Germany the soviets would still have won in the end... it just would have taken them until about 1960 to do it

(note this sounds a bit pro nazi, im not, im very glad they lost)

By 43 the Russians were clearly going to win...

i think its also important to remember that while axis kit was good 'on paper' in reality it was built by starved slave labour and often sabotaged on the production line.

Another story i remember being told was of an event that ran flights in a WWII Ju52 (this is years and years ago) and at one event and old chap said 'i wouldnt fly in that'... when pressed he said that they used to sheer the bolts in half or saw partly through them if they could when assembling them so they would break up in the air.

No idea how true that is but it sounds highly probable.

I know British Pows used to sabotage the german farm economy by putting broken glass and razor blades in pig swill when working as labourers on german farms... horrible for the pigs but a small step in destroying the agriculture from within while still a prisioner.

The Germans lost because they made the same mistakes they made 30 years earlier: they got too greedy and tried to do too much at the same time. They should've stopped with France and the Benelux, consolidated their power, let everyone get used to the new status quo and only then join with the Americans in taking on the USSR. Then, only too late, the rest would've realized that Germany had gotten big of a sudden.

Though they would never have held the conquered lands, not solidly, not long enough. There would've been revolts and revolutions and after the end of the personality cult.

Of course, the history only really gets interesting in the nineteenth century where Bismarck was successfull in isolating France from the rest of Europe. The failure of his successors to do so led to WW1, which led to WW2.

They should have gone in to the Ukraine as 'liberators' and 'bent their rules' to consider ukranians 'aryan'. They could probably have taken russia then.

Failing to take Russia in 41 cost them the war.

If the US and Uk had just held their ground and launched *zero* offensive campaigns against Germany the soviets would still have won in the end... it just would have taken them until about 1960 to do it

(note this sounds a bit pro nazi, im not, im very glad they lost)

By 43 the Russians were clearly going to win...

Yeah, D-Day wasn't strictly necessary, the threat of an invasion was enough to tie up needed resources that prevented the Germans from gaining the upper hand on the east front.

But there you also see the biggest problem in Blitzkrieg, especially when applied to massive countries like the SU: you just can't deal with those lengthening supply lines.

While in WW1 it was greed that kept massive amounts of German forces in the east after Russia had dropped out due to the Revolution. Had the Germans transported those armies West the Allies wouldn't've stood a chance.

Good thread. I love when people talk about German "super weapons." I just laugh and say, "The only super weapon of the war worth mentioning was American."

Totally agreed on the rest of their "kit" as well. I think the stat I saw was that a Tiger tank needed 7 man-hours of repair work for every 1 hour of operation or something like that.

The Germans lost because they made the same mistakes they made 30 years earlier: they got too greedy and tried to do too much at the same time. They should've stopped with France and the Benelux, consolidated their power, let everyone get used to the new status quo and only then join with the Americans in taking on the USSR. Then, only too late, the rest would've realized that Germany had gotten big of a sudden.

Though they would never have held the conquered lands, not solidly, not long enough. There would've been revolts and revolutions and after the end of the personality cult.

Of course, the history only really gets interesting in the nineteenth century where Bismarck was successfull in isolating France from the rest of Europe. The failure of his successors to do so led to WW1, which led to WW2.

They should have gone in to the Ukraine as 'liberators' and 'bent their rules' to consider ukranians 'aryan'. They could probably have taken russia then.

Failing to take Russia in 41 cost them the war.

If the US and Uk had just held their ground and launched *zero* offensive campaigns against Germany the soviets would still have won in the end... it just would have taken them until about 1960 to do it

(note this sounds a bit pro nazi, im not, im very glad they lost)

By 43 the Russians were clearly going to win...

Yeah, D-Day wasn't strictly necessary, the threat of an invasion was enough to tie up needed resources that prevented the Germans from gaining the upper hand on the east front.

But there you also see the biggest problem in Blitzkrieg, especially when applied to massive countries like the SU: you just can't deal with those lengthening supply lines.

While in WW1 it was greed that kept massive amounts of German forces in the east after Russia had dropped out due to the Revolution. Had the Germans transported those armies West the Allies wouldn't've stood a chance.

Not true, actually. The US entry into WW1 doomed the Germans.

Here's a good one: The Wehrmacht was a fully-mechanized modern army. Most of the German Army used horse-drawn equipment in their divisions.

Pearl Harbor was a disastrous defeat. Not to downplay the casualties, but the IJN failed to knock out Pearl as a base: the fuel storage tanks, and drydocks were left intact, and the USS Enterprise, arriving in the evening of the 7th, was in and back out overnight. Only two battleships were never raised: Utah, and Arizona. (Oklahoma was raised, but it was 1944 by the time they got around to her, and they didn't think it worth repairing her by then. Idiots.)

I need to look into this one further, but I was told that Blitzkrieg was only solidified as a concept in 1947. By a British guy. I'll try to find the source on that one again.

The Japanese Navy was horribly inaccurate. Their surface fleet showed extremely poor gunnery in numerous engagements, such as Java Sea, Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, and Leyte Gulf, and even the feared Type 93 torpedoes (nicknamed Long Lance post-war), had a poor accuracy record. The AA fire directors were even worse.

Not true, actually. The US entry into WW1 doomed the Germans.

I'm going to disagree with you on this one. While the arrival of fresh troops certainly sped up the end of the war, Germany was going to run out of war materials long before the French or British Empires, even with Russia KO'd.

Oh, I agree with that, but I will say that the US troops were responsible, in large part, for holding back the German offensives in the Spring of 1918. They made the difference between large (but not disastrous) gains by the Germans and maintaining, and even advancing the allied line.

Not a huge history buff, but from what little I know it seems that superior german engineering was completely cock-blocked by poor planning for terrain

One of my favorite stories is surrounding the Elefant Tank Destroyer so it'll be interesting to see how much of that is myth

So from what little I know, this thing was an absolute beast...in open field tank on tank engagements. Most of its time was apparently spent getting stuck when its massive frame broke local roads or got mired in off-road terrain or got stuck in russian trenches so russian recruits could just swarm the **** thing. Apparently it was also so heavy that when the Germans inevitably had to retrieve them from whatever hole they dropped themselves into, they needed a ridiculous number of Tigers to even have chance of towing the thing around, necessitating that a lot of them just had to be straight up abandoned in the field

3. The germans invented the Jet fighter - they didnt they just got the first operational one and that was supposed to be used as a bomber!

I just want to correct you on this one - the Me.262 was intended as a fighter from the start. Hitler insisted it be used as a bomber but Messerschmitt etc pretty much ignored that and only made provisions for a couple of tiny bombs. Milch actually got relieved from his Air Marshall post over it.

Germany didn't invent the jet engine itself (depending on which step you consider an actual jet engine it was either the Italians or Whittle), but they did finally get axial-flow compressors to work which was HUGE.

German tanks being bad is it's own myth as well. The bad reputation comes from the fact that most late war material was made with slave labor and had an issue with sabotage. Also from the fact that many of the experienced tank and maintenance crews were dead. By 1945 crews were being thrown into vehicles they weren't properly trained up for. With a trained crew and regular maintenance the tanks were reliable.

However when the allies tested them after the war they hadn't been maintained and didn't have properly train crews for the vehicle. Thus they gained a reputation .

Erwin Rommel was a tactical genius.

Only he wasn't. He was lucky.

That no-one in the Allied armies appears to have taken the time to read his book, Infantry Tactics.

Cheers

Baaa

Except Patton.

Speaking of Patton, in movies he's always shown as a hyper masculine man. But in actual recordings he has a really high pitched voice.

3. The germans invented the Jet fighter - they didnt they just got the first operational one and that was supposed to be used as a bomber!

I just want to correct you on this one - the Me.262 was intended as a fighter from the start. Hitler insisted it be used as a bomber but Messerschmitt etc pretty much ignored that and only made provisions for a couple of tiny bombs. Milch actually got relieved from his Air Marshall post over it.

Germany didn't invent the jet engine itself (depending on which step you consider an actual jet engine it was either the Italians or Whittle), but they did finally get axial-flow compressors to work which was HUGE.

No i said it *was supposed to be used* as a bomber. I've read Milchs biography, i know all the problems with the luftwaffe and its internal politics.

It was designed as a fighter and suspended for years as a project (it could have been in service much earlier) it was only hitlers obsession with it as a jet bomber that got the project restarted.

i think Galland said 'even a five year old can see this aircraft is clearly supposed to be a fighter'

But the reason it was eventually built was to be a bomber... even though that was bonkers.

To touch on the WW1 debate. Americas entry had negilble effect in terms on men on the ground, logistically and resource wise a huge effect but the most crippling factor for the germans was actually the SUCCESS of the 1918 offensive.

they had been told for years that England was on its knees and about to collapse, badly supplied, that the english were starving as badly as the germans were at home.

Stosstrupp units and other light assault formations made deep penetrations into allied lines and found immense stockpiles of fresh food and ammo, stuff like bananas the germans had not seen for four years and it completely demoralised the army.

I'll grant you that late war german armour was probably neither built nor crewed to its 'peak' specification but it was still monstrously over engineered and finicky.

The german 'war dept' for procurement used to actually deliberately over specify the requierements for vehicles to ridiculous criteria knowing that the manufacturers would never meet it but if they got half way there they would end up with a vehicle better than what they would get if they said what they really needed it to do.

For example stuff like the 222 was supposed to have like five forward and three reverse gears, to be able to do 60mph in either direction, cross x amount of trench, run on railway lines if you took the tires off etc, carry a 37mm gun.

The 222 they actually got was **** good but couldnt do half the stuff the procurement specs asked for.

The biggest problem though was commonality of parts.

You've got 67 different types of AFV, thats 67 spares sets, 67 different training programs for mechanics.

In contrast what did the western allies use. Just a few core chassis, mainly sherman and cromwell etc

When all your tanks and spgs are using just two or three sets of spares and chassis your logistics train is a lot shorter.

and lets be honest, logisitcs wins wars... not super tanks.

A history teacher once told me that the Germans were bound to lose because they held less than 5% of the world's oil supply. I could believe that they would lose because of that...but is it true?

I know that losing the Rumanian oil fields and the royal navys blockade crippled them and that they had to make synthetic fuel.

Germany was ridicullously resource strapped by 1944.

Non load bearing 'leather' items like dress belts were often made from 'presstoff' (which is compressed cardboard!) and some shoes had wooden soles as they had totally ran out of rubber.

Like i say copper shortages meant that electrical systems in vehicles just didnt happen on a lot of them.

Part of the germans issue was that they knew they were stuffed for resources and a band was put on any 'new' items that could not be in service in two or three years time as they knew a war longer than that would be a disaster. Its why a lot of stuff was suspended until the final years when they deicded to risk everything.

If you read Milchs biography on the luftwaffe its crazy, because everyone was 'empire building' different departments were hiding resources from each other rather than working together to make aircraft (obviously this is a *good thing* for the free world we have today )

I can totaly believe germany had less than 5 per cent of the worlds oil. They had a brief jauntin Africa but Britain controlled the middle east until about 1940 and again thouraghly after 42.

Romania was to my knowledge Germanys only real oil supply and i think the USAAF bombed that to hell and back.

Everywhere else was blockaded by the royal navy, most the german fleet didnt dare come out of port to engage the RN.. only the U boats...

Not a huge history buff, but from what little I know it seems that superior german engineering was completely cock-blocked by poor planning for terrain

One of my favorite stories is surrounding the Elefant Tank Destroyer so it'll be interesting to see how much of that is myth

So from what little I know, this thing was an absolute beast...in open field tank on tank engagements. Most of its time was apparently spent getting stuck when its massive frame broke local roads or got mired in off-road terrain or got stuck in russian trenches so russian recruits could just swarm the **** thing. Apparently it was also so heavy that when the Germans inevitably had to retrieve them from whatever hole they dropped themselves into, they needed a ridiculous number of Tigers to even have chance of towing the thing around, necessitating that a lot of them just had to be straight up abandoned in the field

Ever seen a 'KV2'?

152mm gun on a turret you'd epect to see on a battleship on a KV1 chassis thats been strenghtend.

Only about 200 made, the main problem was that the turret was so heavy if the tank was on an incline you coulnt turn it.

Its plus side was it was near invulnerable to anything short of a PAK 88. There is one acount of one holding a crossroads for a day or so. It had been hit by 37 and 50mm PAK *hundreds* of times, had its tracks and running gear blown off and i imagine the crew were suffering but with three machine guns and a ridiculous main armanent noone could take it out for ages.

"The next day, a single KV-2 heavy tank, at a crossroads in front of Raseiniai , managed to cut off elements of the 6th Panzer Division which had established bridgeheads on the Dubysa . It stalled the Division's advance for a full day while being attacked by a variety of antitank weapons, until it finally ran out of ammunition"

And a german opinion of them

"The KV-1 & KV-2 , which we first met here, were really something! Our companies opened fire at about 800 yards, but it remained ineffective. We moved closer and closer to the enemy, who for his part continued to approach us unconcerned. Very soon we were facing each other at 50 to 100 yards. A fantastic exchange of fire took place without any visible German success. The Russian (sic - Soviet) tanks continued to advance, and all armour-piercing shells simply bounced off them. Thus we were presently faced with the alarming situation of the Russian (sic) tanks driving through the ranks of 1st Panzer Regiment towards our own infantry and our hinterland. Our Panzer Regiment therefore about turned and rumbled back with the KV-1s and KV-2s, roughly in line with them. In the course of that operation we succeeded in immobilizing some of them with special purpose shells at very close range 30 to 60 yards. A counter attack was launched and the Russians (sic - Soviets) were thrown back. A protective front established & defensive fighting continued. ^{[ 10 ] "}

Did you take that passage out of the Osprey book? I have that lying around, somewhere.

Gadge, would you care to grace us with the inspiring story of one Corporal Alvin C. York? I know he didn't participate in the second World War, but perhaps you can clarify a particular myth for me anyway; he is alternately credited with being a member of the 328th Infantry Regiment and my own regiment, the 325 (later to become the 325 Airborne Infantry Regiment, a glider regiment during the second world war). I've never been able to figure out which was actually the case.

I need to look into this one further, but I was told that Blitzkrieg was only solidified as a concept in 1947. By a British guy. I'll try to find the source on that one again.

Found it: The "Blitzkrieg" as we know it was called the Schlacht Ohne Morgen (Battle With no Tomorrow) by the Germans, and was not really a professed concept until people needed to make excuses for losing (both on the Allied and German sides) or winning (where we get the BS of Hitler being a "mad genius," only half of which is true).

Romania was to my knowledge Germanys only real oil supply and i think the USAAF bombed that to hell and back.

Sort of. Ploiesti was the major oil field in Romania, and the 9th Air Force began making runs at it in June 1942. They never managed to shut it down, only inconvenience it until the Soviets overran the place, much to the relief of the aircrews.

Also, slightly off topic, but if you're interested in the Pacific War, check out the book "Japanese Destroyer Captain" by Tameichi Hara. I started it this afternoon, and it's really good so far. Offers an IJN skipper's point of view into the Pacific War.

Not a huge history buff, but from what little I know it seems that superior german engineering was completely cock-blocked by poor planning for terrain

One of my favorite stories is surrounding the Elefant Tank Destroyer so it'll be interesting to see how much of that is myth

So from what little I know, this thing was an absolute beast...in open field tank on tank engagements. Most of its time was apparently spent getting stuck when its massive frame broke local roads or got mired in off-road terrain or got stuck in russian trenches so russian recruits could just swarm the **** thing. Apparently it was also so heavy that when the Germans inevitably had to retrieve them from whatever hole they dropped themselves into, they needed a ridiculous number of Tigers to even have chance of towing the thing around, necessitating that a lot of them just had to be straight up abandoned in the field

off my head, when the Elefant first made it's appearance. it did not carry one mg gun for anti-personnel defense. After Kursk, they retro-fitted a bow mg, as this picture shows it was dated April 1944. Almost a year after Kursk.