Infantry - Gurkha

Air Force - Luftwaffe

Attitude - Ireland.


There's a what? What's on? A WAR?! I'm not dressed!


Pfft, one track mind. :O:

Still, japan planned 6 Yamatos
6 yamatos vs 6 bismarks I'd bet on the yamatos

I presume its not SH4, so one sub can't take out 10 battleships

Oh you mean how she took about 30 bombs and 20 torpedoes before sinking? :03:

If the US didn't have air superiority and only some of those attack planes made it to their target things could have been different.

A Battleship-Carrier force properly used can be a lot more dangerous than a carrier only force.

The only reason the soviets had any logistics at all is due to lend lease.
We sent them so many trucks that they went from an immobile army on defensive's 1941-1943 to a very German styled mobile army 1944-45.

Lend lease did save the Soviet Union despite all the Russia won da war by dem selves sayers.

Here is where Lend lease proved most effective, Trucks, Rubber and fuel, not tanks, planes and guns.

They had the manpower always did but Germany still walked all over them because they lacked mobility, We gave them that mobility and they quickly turned the tables although getting black eyes all the way to Berlin.

And also for your close air support argument, While not quite a Sturmovik the P-47's and the Typhoons and Tempests were still just about as effective with the added advantage that they were no longer bomb trucks when the payload was dropped but competitive fighters!

I'm with August since you're talking organizational structure, not just equipment. That means if you pick German armor, you get their logistical train, too. No picking and choosing. Ditto german infantry—crappy logistics.

US tanks were not as good, but they were easy for us to keep running (the fact that most americans were familiar with their own cars or farm vehicles didn't hurt—US car ownership was grossly higher than anywhere else on earth, so the lads all knew about keeping their jalopies running).

And sank no ships in return, yes that's the one.

German 44 armor was not that great operationally. Panthers and Tigers were not very mobile off road, broke down often and the germans did not have dedicated tank movers/recovery vehicles. At Anzio, the Germans assembled a dream team of Tigers, Panthers, etc., but most bogged down or broke down before they reached the front line.

In spring 44 on the Ostfront, there is a story I remember of a Soviet tank division entering a town at the height of the spring thaw. In and around the town, they found 200 abandoned German AFVs, all hopelessly stuck in the mud.

Bismark was a POS in reality for WW2. She had the weight per minute of AAA of a USN Fletcher Class or so (and far less effective since the KM had nothing like our 5/38 with VT shells).

She'd have been awesome in WW1.

Yamato was a waste of metal, too. Better to have 3 South Dakotas than 2 Yamatos.

:rotfl2::rotfl2::rotfl2:

I disagree with you opinion on the Yamato

Japan has less ship manufacturing capability
It couldn't make all those big ships at the same time

I'd have to dispute that. I rummaged through some of my sources a while ago because of a thread on the Tanksim forum, and apparently the amount of Jeeps and Trucks that arrived in the Soviet Union amounted to less than half the amount produced by the Soviets during the war (Of course not counting the ones they produced before the war and not counting the ones they captured from the Germans). Though I'm not sure what the ratio was for trucks. Either way, while the amount was certainly significant, it was by no means the only reason the Soviets were able to mount large scale offensives.

Now, I don't have numbers for how much oil and other raw materials was produced by the Soviets during the war, but I do know they had extensive ability to produce many of these.

While the Soviets did not win the war by themselves, the Americans are not solely responsible for victory either, as it is sometimes made out.

Also, the Soviets also never became a very German style mobile army, since their army was heavily constructed on their own pre-war doctrine, which predated the Blitzkrieg. Also, you'll be surprised at how much of the German transport capacity came from old fashioned horse transport rather than trucks and other mechanized assets.

Any BBs for the IJN was a waste of metal. One Yamato turret used enough materials to make a large DD, or perhaps 4 Kaibokan.

Given the % of japanese shipping sunk by submarines, 24 more escorts would have been a good investment (and that is just not using the 6 main turrets on 2 BBs!).

You are right regarding large slips for building ships, but the reality is that there was never any reason for large BBs. 4 35k tone CVs also a better idea. The Shokaku Class (probably the best IJN CV) was 25k tons empty. That's 2-3 per Yamato. A whole Kido Butai wasted on 2 ships that did nothing of value. Heck, they did negative value as they tied up units (and crew, and oil, etc) to hang around doing nothing just in case they might be needed.

The US also supplied the CCCP with oil, gas (most high octane avgas used was from the US, actually), and food.

Pretty nice of us considering that the Soviets started the war just like Germany by invading Poland (why they were ever considered on the same side is beyond me, we should have pushed in the west, then let the 2 kill each other in the east til nothing was left, iMHO).

My point was that the Russian armored formation gained much mobility by having trucks instead of feet move the infantry with them.

All you have to do is look at operation bagration in spring 1944 to see that it was a total different army in 1944 than in 1942 even. They could now break through and encircle as the Germans found out with an alarming speed.

Even if slightly less than half of their mobility came from lend lease than that is still a large portion!

In a close call battlefield and lets not fool ourselves the Germans even on retreat were more than capable of pulling of tactical victory's one after the other they just didn't have the forces left to reverse anything for long. On something that close even 30% mobility stripped if lend lease didn't happen might have had a huge outcome.

It was a joint affair. Russian's bled more for sure but without the west I believe that their collapse was almost certain considering how close the German army came with 70% of its forces while the other 30% were west and in Africa.

It was that fortunate alliance that forged victory in a close brutal war that was not certain until after mid 44'.

The point is that they shouldn't have wasted the man an materiel on prestige platform in the first place. Yamato had such significence that it could not be wasted in combat. As it's keel was laid in 1937, it is very likely that you could have built multiple useful platforms in time to serve during WWII.

This.

Heck, more tankers would have been a good idea, too. And fast AKs.

Because the western allies couldn't have won the war without the soviets? could that be why. The only reason Normandy was as successful as it was is because the Germans were cough up in a extensive 2 to 3 front war and were spread very thin, if the soviets had have been out of the game, the allies would have had to face much larger concentrations of german troops, and the German air force would have been in much more strength.

And if the Germans had broke, all western Europe would be soviet, boom same situation.

Not slightly less than half, slightly less than half what the Soviets produced in the war. That means slightly less than a third, probably more in the vicinity of a fourth or maybe less. While I don't deny that the lend-lease trucks were important enough, they were not the factor that saved the Soviets from defeat.

Also, while the Germans were capable of inflicting significant casualties on the Soviet advance, due to quite a number of factors, very few of these were actual tactical victories, and they hardly mean the Germans were close to winning. Certainly it was a joint effort, but I seriously doubt the Soviets owed their victory to lend-lease.

Just because most of it was used doesn't mean that the Soviets were incapable of producing sufficient quantities of it, perhaps by diverting resources from other things. Either way, I don't have numbers for this at the moment, so I'm afraid can't argue about this.

As for food, most sources I've seen put the amount of food delivered to the Soviet Union by tonnage at 25% of the amount produced by the Soviets themselves during the war (So, that would make a fifth).

yes, of course

But it seemed like a good idea at the time
I mean, in 1937 people still believed that the battleship is king

Also, Japan tried to compensate for having less ships with better ships.

They just never caught on with the convoy raiding

A lack of commerce raiding did not lose the war for Japan. Poor production decisions did. They created and maintained a naval force that was ill-suited for the type of war that was fought. That is the fact at the heart of both tater's argument and my own.