70th Anniversary of D-Day

[Godscreated]

I would like to go to the Normandy beaches and memorials, I've heard it's emotional and beautiful keep. I've been to pearl Harbor and the memorials there. I had an uncle who was at Pearl Harbor when the attack came, he survived, only one killed on his ship. His ship was one of the most hunted ships in the Pacific by the Japanese. They pissed those boys off and they made the them pay.

GC

It really is GC, and I'd certainly recommend it. It's a beautiful part of the world anyway so there's plenty to do aside from visiting the beaches and memorials.

I don't have anywhere near enough money to travel to Hawaii but if I ever do PH will be top of my list.

I'm in the same situation as far as money goes. Pearl Harbor is a very moving place, especially the USS Arizona Memorial. The biggest surprise I got was all the Japanese who were there, at first I was upset, then I wondered exactly why were they there, I then realized it is part of their history also, so whatever their individual reasons, it's okay, everyone needs closure of horrible events no matter which side their family member was on.

GC

[DeistPaladin]

Bagration dwarfed Overlord.

That's why the Russians call WWII, "The Great Patriot War". Given the horrific casualties they endured and that they fought the bulk of German forces, it's understandable they have a "who's this 'we' Kimosabe?" outlook.

However, I will say that taking down Japan in the Pacific theater was mostly the doing of Western allies. Russia only got involved at the very end after it was all over.

[Brian37]

Oh and yes, I will take even this event to remind everyone there ARE atheists in foxholes. One of my deer friends who died in 04 was an old man, who I met at a Unitarian Church served, not on D-Day, but saw combat in Europe in WW2. He was an atheist then, and even after seeing all that death and violence, he remained an atheist until the day he died.

I also have met atheist veterans from the Vietnam war. One of them was also a member of that same church. He came up to me one day knowing I was an atheist, and said, "I suffered a heart attack once, yes it scared the shit out of me, but I didn't feel the presence of a god and when I survived it I also didn't default to a god." This was a guy who saw violence and death in Nam but was more scared of his own heart attack but in neither case got so scared as to cower to a superstition.

Of course it would be nice to not have to bring this up, but unfortunately there ARE far to many who think if they survive a war or win a war, the Christian god got them through it. The truth of that war, and even WW1 and all wars, is that when you are fighting fascism, or tyranny, what matters isn't what the guy next to you believes, but that you all get through it and go home.

I don't have the guts to do what they did. And even some that day once they got on the beach, froze in complete terror, but even that was more than I could muster. The western allies, do not have any god to thank for the win, we all have those brave men to thank.

Bottom line, there are atheists in foxholes and always have been.

[Anomalocaris]

The Panzer V was generally considered the best German tank...



specifically designed to overcome the Russian T-34



Their problem of course was that the Russians built over 10 times as many T-34s.

Panthers are heavily overrated, as were all German tank designs after the MKIV.

Panthers and Tigers appears to be well engineered to automotive gear heads because it heavily overemphasized aspects of automotive engineering, such as even weight distribution and ride quality that are much trumpeted in the passenger automobile trade but were of limited value to combat tanks. But they was very poorly engineered in many critical combat related areas. For example, the designers neglected to give it a balanced turret, as a result if the Panther or Tiger I is parked onany significant slope, its turret would naturally coast until the gun points down hill, and can't be trained onto the target.

Germans optics were good, but in the supposedly more fearsome German Tanks they offset by the fact its hydralic turret training mechanism is very poorly designed and sloppy, so that it is tough to actually point the gun accurately.

Panthers and Tigers were also grossly inefficient design from the perspective of combat power to weight, and combat power to height ratio. As a medium tank Panther manage to outweigh any Soviet heavy tank and yet was grossly inferior to Soviet Heavy tanks in armor and firepower. It was also taller than any Soviet tank, medium or heavy. Tiger II might gave some advantage in armamement and armor over Soviet Heavy tanks, but Tiger II weighed 50% more than any Soviet heavy tank fielded during the war.

When Soviets fielded a heavy tank comparable to Tiger II in weight right after the war (The JS-7), it was so far superior to the tiger II in mobility, armor and armament that it can't but make painfully clear how inefficient and overrated the late war German designs really were.

While Germans certainly came up with some elegant engineering solution to small scale design problems, the overall designs of German war time tanks were nothing more the dumb brutal application of overwhelming amount of scarce steel. No evidence of elegant overall approach to design, no conception of economy of design.

[Brian37]

Germany really fucked up attacking Russia. I think they would have been fine if they had stopped at Europe. They also could have gotten lots of Africa too. But, as morbid as it sounds, their greed did them in and we are all better off because they simply went too far.

But WW2 could have been avoided altogether if the allies after WW1 hadn't economically left Germany to rot.

[Minimalist]

Does not change the fact that it was the best design they managed.

[Anomalocaris]

Does not change the fact that it was the best design they managed.

Still an brutal, uneconomic, scarcely affordable design. The antithesis of the brilliant piece of war winning weapon design.

[Brian37]

One thing I still have yet to understand about the war itself in it's entirety. Japan sucker punched us into it with Peril Harbor in 41, but D-Day didn't happen until 44 and the war ended just several months later? So if we were fighting both prior to D-Day why did it take so long when D-Day seemed to make it so quick? Someone's going to say strategy I am sure.

[Minimalist]

Russia.

---

Does not change the fact that it was the best design they managed.

Still an brutal, uneconomic, scarcely affordable design. The antithesis of the brilliant piece of war winning weapon design.

Best they could do under wartime pressures. Remember the Pz V was rushed into production when the Germans were shocked to find themselves facing the T-34. The lacked the industrial base to do much more.

[Anomalocaris]

One thing I still have yet to understand about the war itself in it's entirety. Japan sucker punched us into it with Peril Harbor in 41, but D-Day didn't happen until 44 and the war ended just several months later? So if we were fighting both prior to D-Day why did it take so long when D-Day seemed to make it so quick? Someone's going to say strategy I am sure.

Because quite simply we were waiting for the Russians to beat the Germans down, and it took Russians until middle of 1944 to put Germany into a fatal headlock from which it could not escape.

We entered European land theater in middle of 1944 because if we wait any longer, Russia was going to overrun all of Germany of walk off with all of the spoils.

The war only lasted 11month after we landed only partly because we added our forces to those of the Russians. The main reason was the Russians had set up the Germans to receive some of the heaviest blows ever dealt by one army upon another in the months leading up to D-day. Right after D-day the Russians sprung their trap and delt a series of defeat on the Germans that absolutely dwarved what British and Americans were doing in Normandie.