German Engineering

[javacontour]

Really, so we weren't shipping arms under lend lease to the Brits or the Russians? We didn't have Americans traveling back to France or England to fight the Germans?

Sure, we may not have declared war on Germany until 12/8/1941. But to say we were not involved is simply untrue.

US Merchant Marine shipping was sunk as early as 1939.

Check YOUR facts.

 

[Popinski]

Y_K, if I were you, do not mess with the military veterans.

 

[expat]

Here we go....

 

[Y_K]

Originally Posted By: Popinski
Y_K, if I were you, do not mess with the military veterans.
Agreed, especially with the wannabees who don't know that D-Day was June 1944

 

[javacontour]

Originally Posted By: Y_K
Originally Posted By: Popinski
Y_K, if I were you, do not mess with the military veterans.
Agreed, especially with the wannabees who don't know that D-Day was June 1944


Funny,

My grandfather was in Europe before D-Day.

My grandmother was making bullets and bomb fuses long before D-Day.

Many volunteers long before D-Day. Many served in Europe and China well before Roosevelt declared war on the Axis.

So what does D-Day have to do with anything?

What of all the airmen who were shot down long before D-Day flying bombing missions over Germany? They didn't fly those missions from the US like many are flown today. They flew them from England. They died in the skies over Germany, or were held as prisoners of war if they didn't escape capture and make it back to England or elsewhere out of the reach of the Nazi's.

If what you are saying is the US wasn't involved in the European campaign of WWII until D-Day, you leave out North Africa and the Sicily landings.

D-Day was not the first attack on mainland Europe, but fighting in Europe started long before that in the air and in other places in the European theater.

 

[Y_K]

Nobody questions the war effort. WWII started in 1939. The debate was about the Europe 1941-1945 as quoted before. You simply can not compare 6 million Eastern Front to anything done on Western Front. Canadians and Brits also sacrificed their lives. Pacific campaign on the other hand is unprecedented.

 

[LS2JSTS]

Originally Posted By: Y_K
Originally Posted By: Popinski
Y_K, if I were you, do not mess with the military veterans.
Agreed, especially with the wannabees who don't know that D-Day was June 1944


I know darn well when D Day was, I had family there......You are the wannabee who made the foolish comment that the "Russians already had all the work in Europe done". I suppose D Day was uncalled for then right?

 

[javacontour]

Originally Posted By: Y_K
Nobody questions the war effort. WWII started in 1939. The debate was about the Europe 1941-1945 as quoted before. You simply can not compare 6 million Eastern Front to anything done on Western Front. Canadians and Brits also sacrificed their lives. Pacific campaign on the other hand is unprecedented.


Last time I checked, we WERE in Europe during that time.

When did the US begin shipping arms via Lend Lease to the UK and the USSR?

When did the 8th Air Force begin operations against German industrial targets?

When did US Forces fight in what is technically called the European theater in North Africa?

How about the invasion of Sicily and the subsequent Italian campaign?

I agree, the Russians suffered great losses in WWII, more than we could ever dream about, 20 million, IIRC. The US, the UK (a big umbrella) and France combined didn't lose as many did the USSR, again, IIRC.

My post wasn't a comparison of the losses. Human life is valuable, period, and the US, unlike many of the other combatants, such as the USSR, were not fighting to defend their home turf.

They left home and defended democracy in Europe. At the time, the Germans were not a threat to the US. The Japanese were not either.

But the world was not becoming a better place with those two powers on the rise militarily and the US joined the fight, including fighting to defeat the enemies of England, France, the Netherlands, Poland, etc in the European theater.

My response was about the idea that Americans don't travel.

Seems we are not wanted unless someone is invading in many nations. As long as many nations are at peace, they can thumb their noses at the US. If they are threatened, then who do they call, Iran? North Korea? Cuba?

No, the call goes out to the US for assistance.

 

[Y_K]

Originally Posted By: LS2JSTS
I suppose D Day was uncalled for then right?
That's another fallacy - the sacrifice in Normandy saved a lot of lives elsewhere. D-Day was called for a little sooner than that. This way more Europe would be spared from Red Plague. It took Churchill nearly 2 years to convince Roosevelt to open the 2nd front. You are just too ignorant and brainwashed. If you are so tough how come the White House is captured by alinskynites and all kinds of reds?

 

[javacontour]

Y_K, I think you underestimate the resources that went into a landing like D-Day.

The Soviet forces had the advantage that they didn't have to perform a major landing to get boots on the ground.

They gave up a lot of land for time, getting their act together after Stalin's purges in the 1930s of some of the best military leaders.

The efforts of the Soviet people were indeed heroic, and most Americans probably have little idea what the Soviets faced and beat back when the German Army moved in June of 1941.

Logistically, I'm not sure it could have been done any sooner than June 1944. Certainly not the two years you cite.

Think about it. How do you move that many men and that much material over the ocean, where U-boats were initially very effective at sinking Allied shipping?

Estimates were it took about 10 tons of supplies for a soldier on the ground for one year. Now think of the 10's of thousands and eventually 100's of thousands it would take to march across France, Belgium and Germany.

You might be able to make an argument for June 1943, again if the materials were in place. But summer of 1942 wasn't feasible, and it had to be late spring due to weather concerns. Once the men were on the ground, the weather is not as much of a factor. But to establish a toe hold, the troops can't be fighting the weather and the Germans while trying to extend their beachhead.

The Soviet forces didn't have to establish a beachhead. They had far shorter supply lines, and had a local industrial complex that could build arms that was very similar to that of the US, and out of the reach of German bombers.

(It would be interesting to see how things might have been if the Germans had a heavy bomber force. That goodness they didn't!)

One might be able to make an argument for something like D-Day in the summer of 1943. But even then, I'm not sure it could have been done logistically.

It was the Summer of 1943 when we went for the "Soft Underbelly" (Ha!) of Europe through Sicily and Italy.

So one cannot say we didn't open a second European front, we had.

But again, my point isn't about who did more. It's about Americans traveled to Europe to defeat the Nazis. One can agree or disagree about the timeline and WHEN things SHOULD have been done. But the bottom line was Americans were willing and able to go from the get-go.

 

[Y_K]

Originally Posted By: javacontour
Y_K, I think you underestimate the resources that went into a landing like D-Day.

No argument there. The argument was on chronology and knowledge of History. Speaking of German technology and science they are top-notch. Werner von Braun and success of the Manhattan Project are great testaments to that. Resources were American of course.
As said above Pacific campaign was nothing short of miracle.

 

[javacontour]

Stalin wasn't so keen on our help. He barely acknowledged Lend-Lease. It didn't fit into his constant PR machine that largely promoted Stalin, not the Soviet system.

So I'm not sure how much help Stalin really wanted.

Now if you were to say we should have gone sooner to liberate more of Germany before the Soviets got there, I can see that argument.

I simply don't know how feasible that was.

On the plus side, the German defenses may not have been as well established had we gone a year before. On the other side, the Germans were thinning their lines to fight the Soviets, possibly making a landing on the French coast a possible success.

A landing a year earlier may have resulted in failure, not the success we had in 1944.

We are not in possession of the facts that Roosevelt and Eisenhower had when they signed on to the D-Day landings.

 

[Ursae_Majoris]

Originally Posted By: javacontour

The Soviet forces didn't have to establish a beachhead. They had far shorter supply lines, and had a local industrial complex that could build arms that was very similar to that of the US, and out of the reach of German bombers.

(It would be interesting to see how things might have been if the Germans had a heavy bomber force. That goodness they didn't!)

One minor correction. Soviet main industrial base (before WWII) was in Ukraine (think Donbass) and western Russia. They were conquered within the first 6 months of war. Soviets managed to strip most of the production equipment and ship it east to the Urals, Siberia, and southern republics (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, etc). There had been factories in Siberia (Magnetogorsk), but not on the same scale as in western Soviet Union.

Equipment was saved at the cost of civilian refugees.

Soviets could have pushed all the way to the Atlantic (if Allies had not landed in Normandy and Italy), but it would have cost them dearly, and if they did, the Iron Curtain would have covered all of Europe. Stalin would not give up his conquests. Disloyal communist countries, like Yugoslavia, would have been the best possible outcome, as a far as the West was concerned. France would have ended up like East Germany and Poland, more than likely, if we had not landed in Normandy.

Would there be a war between the former Allies (if Soviets had conquered France)? I do not know.

 

[Ursae_Majoris]

Originally Posted By: javacontour
My response was about the idea that Americans don't travel.

Seems we are not wanted unless someone is invading in many nations. As long as many nations are at peace, they can thumb their noses at the US. If they are threatened, then who do they call, Iran? North Korea? Cuba?

No, the call goes out to the US for assistance.

I'll second that.

 

[simple_gifts]

Quote:

I got that impression from the symphony music.

Actually that is a Vivaldi (Italian) Concerto from the Four Seasons

 

[mechtech2]

I have a dial up - is this about Sham Wow?
"The Germans make good stuff"

 

[simple_gifts]

Where is Gordon Sinclair when you need him?

 

[Quattro Pete]

Originally Posted By: Ursae_Majoris

One minor correction. Soviet main industrial base (before WWII) was in Ukraine (think Donbass) and western Russia. They were conquered within the first 6 months of war.

By whom? Germany didn't begin fighting Russia until June of 1941. Before then, they were buddies, quietly dividing up Poland and other smaller nations between themselves under the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact.

 

[Ursae_Majoris]

You are right, WWII started with Sudetenland, two years prior. I was talking about the 1st six months AFTER June 22, 1941.
Stalin was so convinced that the non-aggression pact would hold, that he did not bother moving the factories until after the German invasion of Russia.

Hey, if we want to dig so deep, Soviets taught German officers in its military academies in 1939 and 1940.

OP--apologies for the rabbit trail. I think a few history buffs (me included) took the thread in the completely different direction.

 

[expat]

Originally Posted By: willix
I don't have that much faith in hydraulic lines & hoses or cylinders for that matter. German or any other. I have worked on heavy equipment 20+ years.


What would happen here in the case of hydraulic failure?
I see the machine 'locked in' at each step. A failure would just leave it hanging!

Sorry if I have gone Off Topic!!