70th Anniversary of D-Day

[Brian37]

Oh so basically we let Russia do all the heavy work. Conservation of energy.

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Still though what the fuck was Hitler thinking attacking Russia in any case? What a delusional fuck.

[Cato]

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.

It took awhile to ramp up production, including training soldiers, airmen and sailors. Significant build up for the invasion also couldn't start until the German U-boats were somewhat under control and the RAF gained air superiority. Also, an amphibious invasion of the continent would have been impossible before the German losses suffered at the Battle of Stalingrad. This alone made an invasion conceivable so planning didn't start until '43.

Politics did play a part. The Russians wanted an invasion in '42 simply for relief. Britain was cautious and preferred at times an eastern or southern Europe invasion strategy (looks good on paper until you consider how to supply an advancing army from that point).

[Anomalocaris]

Oh so basically we let Russia do all the heavy work. Conservation of energy.

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Still though what the fuck was Hitler thinking attacking Russia in any case? What a delusional fuck.

Yes, 3/4 of all German combat casaulties suffered in WWII were inflicted by the Russians. Even after Normadie landing, the Russians still faced 2/3 of all available German forces and inflicted 2/3 of all casualties suffered by the Germans.

Russians also suffered 4/5 of all combat combat casualties inflicted by the Germans. There is no doubt Eastern front was the central theater of WWII in Europe.

There are many reasons why Germany decided to attack Russia. You can not say the decision to attack Russia was totally irrational given the intelligence Germany had.

But much of the intelligence proved wrong. The German overall strategic direction on the eastern front was further hampered by Hitler's interference. Hitler had serious trouble with defining an objective and sticking to it, so while Germany had the material superiority in the beginning Germany dissipated her material superiority by switching strategic objectives several times and squandering its force in transportion rather than applying them to the tip of combat. Later when Russia pulled even materially, it became clear where as Stalin encouraged high level Russians generals to learn their lessons from Russian combat experience, Hitler was hampering high level German generals from learning from German combat experiences. So starting from middle of 1943, Russia was constantly outmeneuvering Germany on strategic level, and sucker punching the Germany army time and again. By 1944, The Russians can pretty much count on being able to always out think the Germans and deliver crushing attacks were the germans were least expecting it.

In the west there is a convenient pat story about how Russia crushed Germany by sheer weight of numbers. This is not really the whole story. Where as German army retained an advantage in tactical leadership, Russian overall strategic and operational leadership had became vastly superior to those of Germans by 1944. So while man for man German army retained an advatage on the company and battalion level, there was a parity at division level, and Russians were usually able to outmaneuver and set the Germans up at corp and army level.

[Nine]

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.

I never studied it myself much but a friend of mine who reads a ton on the first and second war talks to me about it. He explained the reasoning for heading into Russia in part was to get more access to the oil they needed to continue fighting the war. As for northern Africa I think that was down to low fuel supplies too.

[Brian37]

Strategy. Seems like we simply made the right timing along with good planning.

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It is sad that war really amounts to a game of chess. Yes funding matters. But humans reduce themselves at a national level to make excuses to fight for resources, then mask it in some grand bullshit ideology.

[Anomalocaris]

Strategy. Seems like we simply made the right timing along with good planning.

We didn't put the English channel there, and English channel's fortuitous presence had a lot to do with our ability to sit back and plan and wait until the Russians had done the heavy lifting.

Never attribute to cunning what could be attributed to geography.

[Brian37]

Strategy. Seems like we simply made the right timing along with good planning.

We didn't put the English channel there, and English channel's fortuitous presence had a lot to do with our ability to sit back and plan and wait until the Russians had done the heavy lifting.

Never attribute to cunning what could be attributed to geography.

Still even with D-Day there were lots of problems. Misjudged tides and the air drops over shooting their targets. I cant imagine being one of those paratroopers being dropped behind enemy lines in the wrong spot like sitting ducks in the air and even if you managed to land.

I couldn't do it even if you forced me. I would have been that guy on the beach frozen behind a rock somewhere trying not to get killed.

[Nine]

Yep, nasty shit. One 75mm A/T gun hidden in the hedge backed up by a squad of infantry with an MG-42 and you could tie that road up for hours.
And you wouldn't know they were there until they opened up. And the bocage was ubiquitous to Normandy.

The MG-42 is a terrifying thing. Just the insane fire rate telling you it means business. Certainly something you wouldn't want to bump into at the wrong range.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwW31u6wYvE

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[Anomalocaris]

Yep, nasty shit. One 75mm A/T gun hidden in the hedge backed up by a squad of infantry with an MG-42 and you could tie that road up for hours.
And you wouldn't know they were there until they opened up. And the bocage was ubiquitous to Normandy.

The MG-42 is a terrifying thing. Just the insane fire rate telling you it means business. Certainly something you wouldn't want to bump into at the wrong range.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwW31u6wYvE

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Yeah, but you also have to consider the following:

1. Outside the MG42, most German infantrymen are equipped with Mauser 98K bolt action carbines, and thus possess much less firepower than the ordinary American infantrymen with semi-automatic M1s, and somewhat less firepower than the British infantrymen with Lee Enfields. So while the German squad automatic weapon the MG-42 puts out a lot more firepower than American squad automatic weapoin the BAR, the American squad can put significantly more firepower from secondary directions than the German squad. And MG42 is more powerful than British Bren gun, but not nearly by as big a margin as over American BAR.

So while the MG42 makes a German squad a strong defensive strong point, the heavy focus on a single weapon makes the German sqaud much less flexible in attack, because firepower in American squads is more distributed.

2. There is no German equivalent to American company heavy weapons like the 50 caliber M2. So American companies can better engage enemy hiding under cover, or from much longer range, than German company.

3. America had overwhelming superiority in artillery, and American artillery were of higher quality both in fire direction, and in coordination with infantry. So MG42 is fearsome, but not as fearsome as a battery of 105mm howiters firing over a range of hills.

[zebo-the-fat]

Two news reports made me smile, one guy was a 20 year old paratrooper on D day, now in his 90's he repeated the jump (as a tandem jump this time!) The other was in a nursing home, he thought the staff would refuse to let him go to Normandy, so he went out with his medals hidden under a coat. After the police had been looking for the missing man for some time his friends told them he was on his way to France and they would look after him!