Most decisive European battle of WWII??

I do apologize for the tone of my post, Roel; I'm afraid you hit a nerve and I knee-jerked.

 

Apology accepted, don't feel bad now

 

Wasn't the British invasion of Madagascar a "practice run" for Normandy D-Day? I know the British did a poor job taking the island, they lost 1/10 of the invasion force. I'm glad they did better in Normandy or we might be singing Deutchland uber alles right now.

 

I don't think that the invasion of Madagascar can be seen as serious preparation for the invasion in Normandy.
The french force defending this island was very poorely equipped, without any source of supplies.
But indeed, the british onducted this operation very badly, since it took them 6 months to conquer the whole island, and their losses were quite high.

The same can be said about the british invasion of french Syria in june 1941, which nearly became a total fiasco, and finally only was sucessfull because the french didn't have supplies anymore and refuded to be supplied by the germans.

 

Hey, wow! I didn't know anything about these campaigns except from some footnotes! Thank you Castelot.

 

Stalingraaaaad :bang: :bang: :bang: :angry:

 

Stalingrad was way more of a morale/psychological victory than it was a tactical military victory. Had the Germans won the battle for this city, their forces still would have been mangled by the street fighting; it was their morale, above all, that was broken by this battle. And that of the Soviets restored.

 

Stalingrad

Whatever we say about the battle of Stalingrad, one thing remains for sure: Since that time Germans on the eastern front were mostly losing and Soviets mostly winning. Until the end of the war.

 

Without question. But that is because morale is one of the most decisive factors in the fighting ability of an army.

 

This is not true until Kursk. The Russians were still losing after Stalingrad, not once after Stalingrad did the Russians break the German lines until Kursk, but once Kursk was over then they met little resistance all the way to Berlin.

 

Moonchild didn't say that the russians never lost after Stalingrad, just that they'mostly won'. of course, they lost some local or even regional battles against the Germans, but the latter were unable, after Stalingrad, to make any significant territorial or military gains. Almost all offensives the Germans started after the beginning of 1943 were lost, while almost all Soviet offensives were won.

 

there is one factor we have overlook :the air battle over Europe.
Thanks to the USAAF, for the virtual elimination of the Luftwaffe they were able to pound the german industry and cities with inpunity also to be able to wreck havor in the ground against the armored columns and transport, river, trains and trucks , the same we can say about the russians

 

As Rommel put it, 'having to fight a war without air superiority is having to fight a modern enemy with sticks and stones'.

 

i still believe the battle of britian was the most important because if hitler was winning he wouldnt have turned on russia and if he hadnt turned on russia the war would be over also if d-day didnt happen and hitleer knew it wouldnt he could send all his troops to russia and make so much damage on the russians that they woudnt trust the allies

 

If he emptied France of troops then the Allies will attempt a D-Day and with no loss.

And, If there were no German troops to stop rebellions, partisans, etc, the Germans while not be able to keep France.

 

Also, Hitler would have attacked the Soviet union under any circumstance, as it was his purpose all along. He wanted to have access to the enormous Russian natural resources, and needed this for his war machine. In the end he never got it - because he turned on Stalingrad. In this respect the battle for the Volga city is even more important than ever.

 

I will vouch for that, when I was in the Canadian Army the morale was high, 'because we are Canadians', but when it came to our euipment, in comparison to our American and British allies the equipment we had and the shortage was very demoralizing.
Many a soldier's loyalty to their regiment is greater than to the Canadian government; because they knew that they could count on their fellow servicemen and women to be there.

With this said, I know that I can get a little long winded, I was taught that there is no point in winning about your lot in life. Use what cards you have and get the job done. We did.

Cheers!

 

IMO the Battle of Britain was the most decisive.

Look, If Germany conquered Britain (Maybe Iceland as well) they would not have to worry much about an impending invasion. This would probably have freed many divisions for Russia, probably enough to make a difference. The Luftwaffle would have been in a better shape, whilst the German industries would not have been subject to massive bombing raids, which probably had a profound effect on German morale.

With Britain gone, the United States would find it very difficult to invade France, and Africa would fall very quickly as well. Rommel would be able to invade the Caucases by driving through the Middle East, diverting Russian strength from the Ukraine.

Hitler, inept as he was, would probably manage to defeat Russia in such an advantageous position. If he succeeded, two superpowers would already have been eliminated, and the Germans, under the leadership of Albert Speer, would probably be able to compete with American industrial production with the entire expanse of Russia at their disposal.

 

I completely agree with you. With out a staging post for the invasion, the Americans would not be able to invade France successfully. Although Germany would still be at war with America, and America will still be at war with Japan, so the out come could still be Axis defeat. The Americans did have 16 million active service men in 1945, so they were very powerful.

 

The Battle of Britain was important, sure, but decisive, I doubt it.
For one thing, the Germans would have been unable to invade England even without RAF in the air, because they had no suitable amphibious assault fleet. Secondly, such an invasion would have caused an enormous fight to erupt in Britain, with the advantage of territory on Britain's side and with people fighting for their very homes under improving leadership; this would suck up more and more men from the German military. Third, if they would be able to win, they still would need a giant occupation force to keep the people of Britain suppressed; this would consume a lot of troops which could have been sent to Russia. And fourth, the invasion of England and the subsequent fighting would take so much time that the invasion of Russia would have to be either postponed to a time at which the Russian army would have been more ready, or started prematurely, causing horrendous losses at some point during the campaign and signalling the retreat.
Remember, after Britain, Germany still had to secure their southeast flank in order to invade Russia, so the Balkans had to be defeated as well. More time and troops would be lost. The invasion of Russia, as it did in history, would fail.