Most decisive European battle of WWII??

Well, one important german victory is due to Hitler, the campaign in the west in 1940.
Had he listened to his generals, he would not have launched any offensive, because they believed an offensive could never succeed.

 

Ah, but success breeds overconfidence...

 

Why, thank you, Roel! For awhile there I thought you didn'tm appreciate my little analogies!

 

Yeah, especially in a megalomaniac.

 

I don't, that's why I posted that! Just the things that annoy me stick in my memory...

 

BTW, I do stand by that statement. The Russian Front dug the grave, Italy nailed the coffin shut, and Northwest Europe shovelled in the dirt.

 

Yes, that's what you said. However, as I see it and staying in the same metaphore, the eastern front dug the grave and dropped in the coffin while all the other froints were just nails and dirt.

 

But the nails and dirt are very important, too, Roel. After all, one does want the deceased to stay both in the coffin and in the grave.

 

Ouch! Tell that to post-war Germany...

 

I certainly will. All things considered, post-war Germany got off very lightly, although life was a lot tougher for those in East Germany.

 

Yes, but if I may use your metaphore, it turned out after WW1 that putting a concrete block over a solid steel coffin will only make the deceased more anxious to get back out.

 

True enough. But that was mostly because the Allies failed to make sure that the deceased was well and truly graveyard dead and going to remain that way.

 

OOOO! Pretty metaphor!

 

Thanks!
Of course, Corp has no trouble usig it for his reply.

 

I see where you are coming from but I don't regard Barbarossa truly as a 'battle' as such, more so as the opening phase of an entire war. After all, the Soviet/German war was a war unto itself. The Soviets call it the Great Patriotic War.

I still go along with Kursk as the most decisive battle of WW2. Even so, after losing at Kursk the Germans still might have pushed the western Allies back on D-Day had their commanders prepared and reacted properly so maybe there WASN'T an all out most decisive battle of WW2. All things considered though, Kursk is the closest to it and by some way.

 

Well, the Battle of Britain, as it prevented the Luftwaffe gaining air superiority over Southern England, thus postponing Seelowe.

Although whether a fair degree of air superiority could have prevented the Home Fleet from pulverising the invasion fleet is a good question...

The Battle of the Atlantic - if Germany had won that, the Battle of Britain could not be won. Britain would probably have fallen / sued for peace, which could have had disasterous consequences. See the "Could the Western allies have won it alone?" topic.

Land Battles?
Stalingrad - the loss of the 6th Army was rather a setback...

 

Even so, all was not lost. After Stalingrad, von Manstein's counter attack in Feb-March 1943 which retook Kharkov saved the entire southern front in Russia. More than that, it once again gave the Germans the initiative and this led to the Kursk offensive in July 1943. If not for the spring thaw, the Germans would had been fully capable of pushing the Soviets further back. Had the Germans attacked in the Kursk salient in April or May 1943 then it probably would have succeeded. Stalingrad was very important and it inflicted a terrible first major defeat on the Germans (and other Axis powers) in the east but it wasn't a 'crippling blow' or anything like that. Kursk was. After Kursk, it was a slow fighting retreat (which still cost the Soviets millions of lives and two years) all the way back to Berlin.

 

I was going to say that! Well, I did so before. It's a solid even though often forgotten fact that the Germans launched a tremendously succesful counterattack in March 1943, which proved that they weren't incapable of offensive action yet. They were after Kursk. This is why I'm with Lyndon (or he's with me?) on this topic.

Maybe, just maybe, a lot of people in the west are still too focused on Britain surviving or not. I think that the Soviets, still recieving massive material aid from the US even though Britain was out of the war, could have won the war against Germany 'on itself' in the wider sense of this word. And don't tell me the US wouldn't join the war if Britain fell, because the UK's cry for help when invaded would certainly reach an attentive ear in Roosevelt's office.

 

Roel,

I think we are together here. Kusk surely was the defining moment of WW2. I don't care that no Hollywood movie was made about it to make it famous. 1.3 million Soviets against 900,000 Germans immediately catogorizes it as the biggest (and most important!) battle of WW2. It should be THE focus of WW2 but it isn't for whatever reason. I suspect the reason is that no western allies took part. Very sad. :cry:

 

Roel - If Britain was invaded the USA may well have joined the war. But how long would they have stayed?