The Course Of The War

well , leaving aside hitler third reich who obviouly had the biggest
influence , on the allied side the british made sure than the war was not
lost in 40 , the Ussr destroyed the german war machine at moscow ,
stalingrad ,kurtsk , korsun , bielorussia 44 ,the rest was important but
peripheral .The pacific war had been going on since 36 and the japannese
forces were stopped in new guinea on the kokoda track by the diggers and
in the coral sea ( very messy ) by the U.S. Navy and the marines .

 

Neither the amount of equipment and supplies brought to the USSR by the USA and Britain via Lend-Lease, nor the amount of German soldiers involved in air defence against the Anglo-American strategic bombing campaign, were exactly peripheral.

 

I'm not saying unimportant or not nescessary , just peripheral
and to stir thing a little bit keep in mind than the totality of the british
empire plus the dominions fought four german divisions in north africa
for 2 years the yugoslavs partisan did about as well !

 

The British Empire was also fighting in South-East Asia, over Germany and on the Atlantic at the time, as well as frantically trying to improve its own territorial defences against probable invasion by Germany. Besides, it is much harder to support one division far overseas than a whole army that can be reached by rail from the capital.

 

gee I got PLENTY of mail , OK ..how many tanks did the pomms destroy
between july 40 and july 43 , I know they could miss facories by miles and
ok , they kept the german , just , for starving them and they COULD fly
by night over the reich and hitting cities , that pissed off goering no end
and probably diverted a good number of 88 from the russian front ,but it's
all I can think of , in spite of the bravery of the poor fellows at the pointy
end ,it a bit , what shall I said " lite" . Maybe a general feeling of , let others take the losses kind of thing , let's use those peasant from the colonies do the actual fighting in north africa , and if the aussies are worrying about their home under attack by the japps and if they absolutely insist on going home to fight , maybe we can transport them to burma an they will never notice the difference

churchill is no hero in the aussie pub , ( shades of galopolis )

P. S. the yanks were lousy fighters at first but they had balls and learned
quickly what not to do .

 

By 1944 the defence against strategic bombing took up the majority of the Luftwaffe's efforts. More than a million soldiers were constantly engaged in securing Germany's air defences. That's hardly light.

The same, by the way, goes for Britain - more than a million men were engaged in RAF activities and air defence. Great demands on manpower were also made by the RN, which is a very important part of Britain's war effort because it ensured the continuing access of the Allies to British Imperial resources in manpower and equipment, as well as the eventual victory over Germany in the Atlantic which in turn allowed the invasion of France. Meanwhile the British also held hundreds of thousands of actual army men under arms, which had to be trained and equipped from the ground up after most of the regular army had been lost in France in 1940.

It seems to me like you're emphasizing the ground war too much, crediting the air and naval parts of the war with absolutely nothing. These are exactly the parts where Britain played a major if not decisive role.

 

the ground war is the full intercourse of two nations at war anything else
is foreplay or self abuse .
I persist and sign ,the british government fighting of nazi germany was at
best a rather half hearted affair , especialy after the greece fiasco , were
the australian troops fought in excellent defensive country and got totally
outclassed , that probably was the best campaign of the german army
ever ....a classic .

 

Australians and South Africans held Tobruk for many months.

Jeaguer, I think you are being very disrespectful and unrealistic in claiming that the millions of men engaged in naval and air warfare during WW2 were in fact doing nothing but "foreplay or self-abuse". Without the Anglo-American victory in the Atlantic the very invasion of Europe could never have taken place; without the Atlantic convoys, the USSR would not have recieved millions of tons of crucial supplies of various kinds. Without its air defences Britain could have been invaded by Germany; it was those few pilots of the RAF that took over from the infantry in bearing the direct confrontation with the enemy in those summer months of 1940.

The Luftwaffe would have reigned supreme for much longer than it did in the East if it hadn't been for the incessant drain on efforts and pilots that was caused by the Allied strategic bombing campaign. Literally millions of men were engaged in this campaign and the defence against it, and so no matter what its effects may have been, it was of great influence on the war as a whole simply because great significance was apparently given to it by both Axis and Allied staffs.

It was these efforts in which Britain shone; it was these efforts in which Britain contributed to the Allied victory which could not have been achieved as it was without them. It would simply have been impossible without Britain, as it would have been impossible without the USSR or the USA.

 

Germany

Mic

 

To be I think that the USSR did more damage. Because they were facing about 85-90% of the German Army. They also paved the way for D-Day, also we could have easily lost D-Day, considering we were fighting four fronts and all. So the USSR made the war in Europe easier for all the allies.

 

D- day nearly failed or got canned
the weather was dicky and a big storm a few days latter left the beacheads
solated .
Still on the 22 june the soviets declenched their summer offensive , totally
fooling the german high command and utterly destroying the army group
center , after that ! the war was over militarily
the only thing left to do was more pointless killing
if the allies had not landed or held the beaches , the russian would have
liberated the neederland

As for the aussies fighting record , it's good enough to acknowledge when
we got trashed and greece was complete wipe-out ,
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That's mostly a question of when. There were never any troops transferred from the Eastern front to the West (for combat missions) until the autumn of 1944; hence we may estimate that the Russians would not have been able to advance any faster than they historically did, facing, as they would, the exact same amount of troops. So we're talking about a Battle of Berlin in mid-1945.

When Berlin falls and Hitler shoots himself, would the Germans actually maintain resistance in the occupied countries? In the historical situation the remaining occupied lands surrendered four days earlier than the German Armed Forces as a whole.

 

Well, we imagine that there never was a western front, why would Hitler stay in Berlin if he could retreat westward?

I'd then like to see him explain to the German people why the Reich's capital has fallen :smok: It is not unlikely that the taking of Berlin would signify the end of significant German resistance whether or not Hitler died there

 

I'm mostly considering the option that the Russians would surround the city with Hitler still in it, like they did in 1945. He refused to leave.

 

The arguments for a battle of berlin in the spring of 45 are pretty good ,
the russians could not advance any faster and had to stop in front of warsaw
much to the dismay of the pole .

it seems likely than hitler would have stayed in his capital , or tried to if he
was still coherent then !

the surrendering of the western garnisons would take place in a matter of
days , there would be battallions of allied airborne dropped all over the
place to receive surrender with local resistance parading in the streets .
the soviets armies fight the hard cases to the rhine .

I would put the soviets on the rhine , in jutland , on the swiss border and
in vienna ,the last fighting taking place in ost friesland .

It would not matter overmuch as the land deal was pretty close
to agreed to anyway , within one year the occupation zones would be
about the same . the legend of russians taking over western europe were
pure delusionnal bull ! they wanted to go home and it took Churchill best
efforts to keep them on the Oder
....

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