You're missing the point. The point was not 'The Battle of the Bulge was a shining example of wise strategy' as it certainly wasn't. The point was 'don't discount what the German army could do with extremely limited logistical support.'
The victory at Crete is telling, and it must be realized that it was done essentially with auxiliary forces temporarily borrowed from preparations for Barbarossa.
Further, you mention that the RAF would be out of reach, disregarding that we are talking about a scenario that focuses on overtaking airbases, whereupon new ranges would be defined from those points, even if the numbers that could be fielded would be quite limited. It would be a matter of how many could be secured and made servicable in what timeframe.
It's all fairly wild speculation I admit. It just seems that the Germans were quite surprising opponents on the field, and it would be a disservice to think that Sea Lion would just be Normandy in reverse.
The Battle of the Bulge proved that a German army believed to be on the edge of defeat could deliver a hell of a punch on little more than gas fumes and whatever supplies could be scraped together. I think that few people understand how resourceful and inestimably efficient the German army really was.
If you think that 1941-1943 was a one front war for Germany, there would be a lot of veterans of the African campaign who would gladly punch you in the face. Ditto for the tens of thousands of aircraft fielded by the RAF during and after the Battle of Britain before US entry and the bulk of US aircraft production (do you really think that the start of combined bombing was the start of all bombing? Please).
And as for the 'shit' from the US, Grigori Rechkalov, the second-greatest Soviet fighter ace scored most of his kills flying a US-made P-39. Alexander Pokryshkin also flew a P-39 and down over five dozen aircraft while doing it.
Comparisons between US and Russian industry are retarded if for no other reason than the US didn't have half its developed territory occupied for two years right out of the gate. You know what reasonable people call that? Crippling.
In order to motivate his men to fight the Aztecs Hernando Cortes burned his ships. History is as much about the right leadership as it is purely logistical concerns.
The Germans lost more aircrew and more aircraft because they had more to lose to begin with. Losses on both sides were proportionate to the size of the forces involved. And while the UK did ramp up aircraft production, it was because their armor production was virtually ignored. If Germany could deliver its armor to Britain and drive it inland quickly it would have been virtually impossible to defend against at that time.
As for resupply by air, I think the Berlin airlift proved what was possible in a focused effort. Yes, I realize there was nobody shooting and airfields were used, but I think it would not be impossible for a focused invasion to take an airfield in short enough order.
I already mentioned that regardless of the degree of bias, some bias is inevitable, as I said no matter how accurate an account is made of material involved there is no way that the forces or their commanders could *be* German in terms of disposition and tactics. At best they could only be British with a German accent in terms of representing the opposing mindset. Unless they all grew up in Germany, went through German training, followed German orders in a German way for German reasons, there is just no equivalency. Armies are not made up of equipment alone.
As an example of military bias in wargames (though not specific to this context) I present the case of Lt. Gen Paul Van Riper. Whenever he innovated successes where he was expected to provide only token resistance to a supposedly superior force he was told things like 'but they would never actually do that!' He dared to try to think like the enemy instead of just being a scaled down version of the US force, and for that he was just countermanded until things went the way the other commanders wanted.
Do you really think that the hearts of Englishmen would be wholly invested in pantomiming the successful invasion of the UK by the Nazis? I can't believe it. I don't think that any wargame proves anything.
Lies and FUD from somebody who accuses me of an absurd denial of history. The German military fielded over 14 million people during the war. Eastern front casualties through the whole of 1944 amounted to less than 3 million. Less than a quarter is two thirds to you, huh? Granted, in terms of total casualties only, regardless of fielded numbers, half occurred on the Eastern front, the balance are divided between the rest of Europe and Africa.
The Russians 'sacrificed more' because they didn't give a shit about their soldiers. The soldiers were given an inhuman choice by their commanders: advance and maybe you'll live, retreat and we'll shoot you ourselves. The demotivated, disorganized Russian army shoveled men into the meat grinder with abandon, losing three Russians for every German killed. That's not something to honor, something to celebrate. It's disgusting compared to the US, UK, and France who lost less than a million on all fronts COMBINED (while killing four times as many Germans and Japanese). Amazing how survivability goes up when you treat soldiers like people instead of fodder.
The Russians did a fair amount, but not more. They had to recover an enormous swathe of land from Estonia to Ossetia and then push into the Balkans and Germany itself. However, the Western Allies had to recapture all of North Africa, Italy, France, Norway, and numerous smaller nations, all while minimizing both their own losses and civilian casualties, both concerns being beyond the Soviet commanders.
You also claim that the Eastern front dwarfed the other fronts in terms of material. Yes, there were a lot of tanks, but remember that the Russians had virtually no navy (USSR produced only a few dozen vessels throughout the war, relying instead on the thousands of ships fielded by the Western allies, including 33 million tons of merchant vessels by the US alone), and a paltry airforce (half the size of the US alone) compared to the Western Allies (they were lucky they had to only face a portion of the Luftwaffe and only had to face the Japanese at the twilight of the conflict).
Let us see how well your revisionism faces down those facts.
Yes, I'm sure that the Sandhurst wargames were completely equivalent and unbiased. Nevermind that even if they accounted for all the material properly there was no way that they could truly replicate differences between the mindsets of British and German commanders AND rank-and-file soldiers.
In 1940-1 Germany had enough air power to do the job. I wouldn't call it supremacy, but the Battle of Britain was a draw in Germany's favor, it's just that the Germans didn't understand that well enough to keep pushing. Because Hitler decided that Russia should be attacked before Britain much of the air power that might have kept the pressure on Britain was diverted east, otherwise Britain would not have recovered.
That the Kriegsmarine was not immediately equal to the task is granted, but German industry could have rapidly built enough transports for a one-off if the idea were taken seriously. If a German invasion force could rapidly advance off a beach head such that British naval intervention would be mitigated in immediate importance (essentially give the beach back for a period of time, decisively create a pocket supplied and supported by air focused on expanding to critical resource/transit hubs) there might have been a chance. The British would not have been imaginative enough to have seen that coming.
Italy took a large part in the trench warfare of WWI. Who do you think fought Austria-Hungary? Pixies? I highly doubt that the 5 million Italian soldiers (of which more than half a million were killed) just evaporated with the morning dew after it was over.
You imply that Italy lacked hardware, as though Fiat didn't exist or any other vehicle manufacturers, as though Italy didn't have more battleships than you've had hot dinners, etc. You further imply that because Germany came up with the autobahn that makes them more special than the people who basically invented paved roads in the first place.
No experience in desert warfare? Italians had been fighting in the Horn of Africa since the 1880s.
I'm afraid you are insufficiently informed to make a cogent argument. Italy was a failure primarily for being unable to motivate its military and use its forces decisively and effectively. In terms of supply and experience they were on par.
The only things that stood between Apollo 13 and three dead men were tireless effort, human ingenuity, and the will to survive. Apollo 13 was a 'successful failure'.
I think WWII is the most fertile half-decades in history for what-if scenarios. I agree that Italy was a major cause of upsetting German timelines. However I think that the primary mistake was backing off of Sea Lion. If the majority of forces organized in France could have been moved to take down the UK, Africa would have fallen into place as a natural consequence, and support for British operations would have also been significantly curtailed in the Pacific Theater, easing pressure for Japan. Great Britain was very much a snake coiled around the whole world in the 40s, and cutting off the head would have robbed those many coils of their strength.
That won't stop all the mod sheep from agreeing with his hip, edgy anti-corporate sentiment. Oh yeah dude, you really showed The Man how you won't be snowed by those evil money-grasping bastards who are almost wholly responsible for every aspect of the standard of living you'd sorely miss if it were ever deprived of you!
As always, people love to ride the wagon and spit at it too.
Well, the Russians could have done what the rest of continental Europe did: briefly offer token resistance and then capitulate to save lives at the cost of their freedom. But the joke was on the Germans, USSR didn't have any freedom to lose!
This whole revisionism that swings the pendulum of near-complete responsibility for toppling Germany from the US to the USSR is just as wrong-headed as the original assumption. Do you really think the USSR could have survived a German military undivided by multiple fronts powered by an industry undisturbed by coordinated day and night bombing by the US and Britain? You might try telling the families of the crews of the 18,418 US aircraft lost over German-held territory how it was the Russians alone that did much of the damage. Lord knows that the nearly 1.7 million missions flown by the USAAF alone were just larks to go have tea on B-17s. Nevermind also that the US provided a significant amount of material support including wholly assembled aircraft and trucks to the USSR during WWII to supplement its initially crippled industry. The list goes on.
Neither the US *nor* the USSR 'single-handedly' won WWII, nor did one or the other do 'most of the damage'.
Really? All the people responding don't get that this is an illustrative analogy? He's saying 'just because Apollo 11 succeeded does not mean that Apollo missions are easy nor does it mean that all Apollo missions will succeed.'
I don't think that a vag exists in space or time that James T. Kirk has not been all-up-ins. I'll bet that's what he was really doing in the Nexus before Picard got there.
Another dumbass who fails at logic. The context of the statement you're trying to turn into irony through your ignorance is 'I have [...] karma' -therefore- 'I don't fucking care' (about being modded down). Because you possess the IQ of a lobotomized gibbon you read this as 'I don't care about what you say' which would violate the context of the sentence as it talks about karma, which is about moderation, not responses, which are in fact exclusive.
I should troll more often. It's fun to insult idiots.
1987? Pff. Cloaking technology was used in 1986 when the crew of the starship Enterprise arrived from the future aboard the HMS Bounty to acquire humpback whales to appease a mysterious space dildo.
Even assuming you could prevent the viewer from getting a radiation overdose that doesn't solve the cancers that everybody else will get who are 'viewed'. Ionizing radiation is not a toy.
Maybe your tiny AC brain is too small to get it the first time: I know it's a flamebait post that contributes virtually nothing. That's why I expect it to get modded down and announced said expectation. I have more karma than Ghandi, so I don't fucking care. Sometimes I just say what I want regardless of somebody else's approval or valuation!!1!one! ZOMG! Shocking! I know.
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Who the hell is modding this flamebait? I didn't say anything negative to Shakrai, for chrissake he's on my friends list.
You're missing the point. The point was not 'The Battle of the Bulge was a shining example of wise strategy' as it certainly wasn't. The point was 'don't discount what the German army could do with extremely limited logistical support.'
The victory at Crete is telling, and it must be realized that it was done essentially with auxiliary forces temporarily borrowed from preparations for Barbarossa.
Further, you mention that the RAF would be out of reach, disregarding that we are talking about a scenario that focuses on overtaking airbases, whereupon new ranges would be defined from those points, even if the numbers that could be fielded would be quite limited. It would be a matter of how many could be secured and made servicable in what timeframe.
It's all fairly wild speculation I admit. It just seems that the Germans were quite surprising opponents on the field, and it would be a disservice to think that Sea Lion would just be Normandy in reverse.
The Battle of the Bulge proved that a German army believed to be on the edge of defeat could deliver a hell of a punch on little more than gas fumes and whatever supplies could be scraped together. I think that few people understand how resourceful and inestimably efficient the German army really was.
If you think that 1941-1943 was a one front war for Germany, there would be a lot of veterans of the African campaign who would gladly punch you in the face. Ditto for the tens of thousands of aircraft fielded by the RAF during and after the Battle of Britain before US entry and the bulk of US aircraft production (do you really think that the start of combined bombing was the start of all bombing? Please).
And as for the 'shit' from the US, Grigori Rechkalov, the second-greatest Soviet fighter ace scored most of his kills flying a US-made P-39. Alexander Pokryshkin also flew a P-39 and down over five dozen aircraft while doing it.
Comparisons between US and Russian industry are retarded if for no other reason than the US didn't have half its developed territory occupied for two years right out of the gate. You know what reasonable people call that? Crippling.
In order to motivate his men to fight the Aztecs Hernando Cortes burned his ships. History is as much about the right leadership as it is purely logistical concerns.
The Germans lost more aircrew and more aircraft because they had more to lose to begin with. Losses on both sides were proportionate to the size of the forces involved. And while the UK did ramp up aircraft production, it was because their armor production was virtually ignored. If Germany could deliver its armor to Britain and drive it inland quickly it would have been virtually impossible to defend against at that time.
As for resupply by air, I think the Berlin airlift proved what was possible in a focused effort. Yes, I realize there was nobody shooting and airfields were used, but I think it would not be impossible for a focused invasion to take an airfield in short enough order.
I already mentioned that regardless of the degree of bias, some bias is inevitable, as I said no matter how accurate an account is made of material involved there is no way that the forces or their commanders could *be* German in terms of disposition and tactics. At best they could only be British with a German accent in terms of representing the opposing mindset. Unless they all grew up in Germany, went through German training, followed German orders in a German way for German reasons, there is just no equivalency. Armies are not made up of equipment alone.
As an example of military bias in wargames (though not specific to this context) I present the case of Lt. Gen Paul Van Riper. Whenever he innovated successes where he was expected to provide only token resistance to a supposedly superior force he was told things like 'but they would never actually do that!' He dared to try to think like the enemy instead of just being a scaled down version of the US force, and for that he was just countermanded until things went the way the other commanders wanted.
Do you really think that the hearts of Englishmen would be wholly invested in pantomiming the successful invasion of the UK by the Nazis? I can't believe it. I don't think that any wargame proves anything.
Lies and FUD from somebody who accuses me of an absurd denial of history. The German military fielded over 14 million people during the war. Eastern front casualties through the whole of 1944 amounted to less than 3 million. Less than a quarter is two thirds to you, huh? Granted, in terms of total casualties only, regardless of fielded numbers, half occurred on the Eastern front, the balance are divided between the rest of Europe and Africa.
The Russians 'sacrificed more' because they didn't give a shit about their soldiers. The soldiers were given an inhuman choice by their commanders: advance and maybe you'll live, retreat and we'll shoot you ourselves. The demotivated, disorganized Russian army shoveled men into the meat grinder with abandon, losing three Russians for every German killed. That's not something to honor, something to celebrate. It's disgusting compared to the US, UK, and France who lost less than a million on all fronts COMBINED (while killing four times as many Germans and Japanese). Amazing how survivability goes up when you treat soldiers like people instead of fodder.
The Russians did a fair amount, but not more. They had to recover an enormous swathe of land from Estonia to Ossetia and then push into the Balkans and Germany itself. However, the Western Allies had to recapture all of North Africa, Italy, France, Norway, and numerous smaller nations, all while minimizing both their own losses and civilian casualties, both concerns being beyond the Soviet commanders.
You also claim that the Eastern front dwarfed the other fronts in terms of material. Yes, there were a lot of tanks, but remember that the Russians had virtually no navy (USSR produced only a few dozen vessels throughout the war, relying instead on the thousands of ships fielded by the Western allies, including 33 million tons of merchant vessels by the US alone), and a paltry airforce (half the size of the US alone) compared to the Western Allies (they were lucky they had to only face a portion of the Luftwaffe and only had to face the Japanese at the twilight of the conflict).
Let us see how well your revisionism faces down those facts.
Oh bleh. That was me, don't know how the Anon box got checked.
Yes, I'm sure that the Sandhurst wargames were completely equivalent and unbiased. Nevermind that even if they accounted for all the material properly there was no way that they could truly replicate differences between the mindsets of British and German commanders AND rank-and-file soldiers.
In 1940-1 Germany had enough air power to do the job. I wouldn't call it supremacy, but the Battle of Britain was a draw in Germany's favor, it's just that the Germans didn't understand that well enough to keep pushing. Because Hitler decided that Russia should be attacked before Britain much of the air power that might have kept the pressure on Britain was diverted east, otherwise Britain would not have recovered.
That the Kriegsmarine was not immediately equal to the task is granted, but German industry could have rapidly built enough transports for a one-off if the idea were taken seriously. If a German invasion force could rapidly advance off a beach head such that British naval intervention would be mitigated in immediate importance (essentially give the beach back for a period of time, decisively create a pocket supplied and supported by air focused on expanding to critical resource/transit hubs) there might have been a chance. The British would not have been imaginative enough to have seen that coming.
Italy took a large part in the trench warfare of WWI. Who do you think fought Austria-Hungary? Pixies? I highly doubt that the 5 million Italian soldiers (of which more than half a million were killed) just evaporated with the morning dew after it was over.
You imply that Italy lacked hardware, as though Fiat didn't exist or any other vehicle manufacturers, as though Italy didn't have more battleships than you've had hot dinners, etc. You further imply that because Germany came up with the autobahn that makes them more special than the people who basically invented paved roads in the first place.
No experience in desert warfare? Italians had been fighting in the Horn of Africa since the 1880s.
I'm afraid you are insufficiently informed to make a cogent argument. Italy was a failure primarily for being unable to motivate its military and use its forces decisively and effectively. In terms of supply and experience they were on par.
The only things that stood between Apollo 13 and three dead men were tireless effort, human ingenuity, and the will to survive. Apollo 13 was a 'successful failure'.
I think WWII is the most fertile half-decades in history for what-if scenarios. I agree that Italy was a major cause of upsetting German timelines. However I think that the primary mistake was backing off of Sea Lion. If the majority of forces organized in France could have been moved to take down the UK, Africa would have fallen into place as a natural consequence, and support for British operations would have also been significantly curtailed in the Pacific Theater, easing pressure for Japan. Great Britain was very much a snake coiled around the whole world in the 40s, and cutting off the head would have robbed those many coils of their strength.
I have a feeling that there was somebody at the Politburo whose answer to everything was 'why don't we nuke that sonnovabitch?!'
Actually finding out about this technique makes me wonder how humanity ever survived the Cold War.
That won't stop all the mod sheep from agreeing with his hip, edgy anti-corporate sentiment. Oh yeah dude, you really showed The Man how you won't be snowed by those evil money-grasping bastards who are almost wholly responsible for every aspect of the standard of living you'd sorely miss if it were ever deprived of you!
As always, people love to ride the wagon and spit at it too.
Well, the Russians could have done what the rest of continental Europe did: briefly offer token resistance and then capitulate to save lives at the cost of their freedom. But the joke was on the Germans, USSR didn't have any freedom to lose!
This whole revisionism that swings the pendulum of near-complete responsibility for toppling Germany from the US to the USSR is just as wrong-headed as the original assumption. Do you really think the USSR could have survived a German military undivided by multiple fronts powered by an industry undisturbed by coordinated day and night bombing by the US and Britain? You might try telling the families of the crews of the 18,418 US aircraft lost over German-held territory how it was the Russians alone that did much of the damage. Lord knows that the nearly 1.7 million missions flown by the USAAF alone were just larks to go have tea on B-17s. Nevermind also that the US provided a significant amount of material support including wholly assembled aircraft and trucks to the USSR during WWII to supplement its initially crippled industry. The list goes on.
Neither the US *nor* the USSR 'single-handedly' won WWII, nor did one or the other do 'most of the damage'.
Really? All the people responding don't get that this is an illustrative analogy? He's saying 'just because Apollo 11 succeeded does not mean that Apollo missions are easy nor does it mean that all Apollo missions will succeed.'
I don't think that a vag exists in space or time that James T. Kirk has not been all-up-ins. I'll bet that's what he was really doing in the Nexus before Picard got there.
Another dumbass who fails at logic. The context of the statement you're trying to turn into irony through your ignorance is 'I have [...] karma' -therefore- 'I don't fucking care' (about being modded down). Because you possess the IQ of a lobotomized gibbon you read this as 'I don't care about what you say' which would violate the context of the sentence as it talks about karma, which is about moderation, not responses, which are in fact exclusive.
I should troll more often. It's fun to insult idiots.
This is begging to become the vector for the next Rick Roll-esque phenomenon.
1987? Pff. Cloaking technology was used in 1986 when the crew of the starship Enterprise arrived from the future aboard the HMS Bounty to acquire humpback whales to appease a mysterious space dildo.
Even assuming you could prevent the viewer from getting a radiation overdose that doesn't solve the cancers that everybody else will get who are 'viewed'. Ionizing radiation is not a toy.
This is what the 'Parent' button is for.
Maybe your tiny AC brain is too small to get it the first time: I know it's a flamebait post that contributes virtually nothing. That's why I expect it to get modded down and announced said expectation. I have more karma than Ghandi, so I don't fucking care. Sometimes I just say what I want regardless of somebody else's approval or valuation!!1!one! ZOMG! Shocking! I know.
Fucking ACs.
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Who's laughing now all you Apple fanbois! Oh yeah, Google's growth isn't sustainable. Sustain this , bitches!
(Sits back and waits for the karma burn.)