Posted on 03/09/2015 12:38:33 PM PDT by C19fan
The Germans are a polarizing people, and so are their products. Sort of like when journalists review a BMW — people either love ‘em or hate ‘em. This is because Germany’s engineering prowess is a double-edged sword. On one hand, it enables Volkswagen, BMW, Porsche, etc., to lead the pack when it comes to performance. On the other hand, the Germans are notorious for letting their reach exceed their grasp. They rush new and innovative products to market without giving them a proper shake-down first.
Not only does this odd duality explain Germany’s mixed record in building fine automobiles, it also sheds light on designs going as far back as World War II. Case in point: the Panzerkampfwagen Tiger battle tanks the Fatherland built to counter Allied armor. They were either deadly killers, clunky death traps, or both, depending on who you ask.
(Excerpt) Read more at autos.yahoo.com ...
If Hitler had put Albert Speer in charge of armaments production from the start, and had left him alone to do his job, the allies would have have faced a much more uphill struggle to destroy the Third Reich.
“Reginald you have the wrong map here you silly old leg-before-wicket English person.”
This article mentions a FReeper repeatedly but you fail to ping him. What’s with that?
I’ve crawled all over the US’s capture Elefant schwerer panzerjager, years ago while it sat on a railroad siding at Aberdeen Proving Ground, waiting for restoration.
It’s an absolute monster.
But the most impressive was the US Army’s T28 Super Heavy that used to be at Ft Knox (now at Ft Benning, I think)
Yes. Agreed. As I stated one of Hitler’s biggest mistakes was invading the USSR to begin with.
AH made many mistakes at Stalingrad too. ALL of his generals advised breaking out of the pocket. Hitler refused.
Only Goering, high on morphine no doubt, thought an airlift could keep the 6th Army supplied-—this despite the fact that the miserable winter weather made this an impossible fantasy which only AH and Goering seemed to share.
Less than 500 were built, due largely to Allied bombing raids that destroyed most of Henschel’s production facilities.
I've heard right here that bombing factories was a waste of time and inhuman.
Thank your Dad for me .........
I get grief on WOT since I bought an IS6 on special since I got tired of being sent up against bigger and better than me.
A few times recently I played and a couple of them said I shouldn’t be there since I am not a hundreds of missions player. At least one chimed in with his money his choice. I can understand where people are coming from but I never got hit was anything in terms of restrictions or levels when I shopped the store.
As a former 19K (ARNG) I have at best a 40% success rate. I was only a driver.
“This article mentions a FReeper repeatedly but you fail to ping him. What’s with that?”
Oh, panzerkampfwagen! I was thinking all this talk of ‘penetration’ meant you thought we should ping Laz!
Probably a good idea to have the tanks built and tested BEFORE concocting a “Barbarossa”.
Its actually pretty accurate. Germans make really good things, and some things they make are really weird and crappy with little longevity or utility. IE, the VW rabbit pickup.
They forgot that a heavy load in a pickup bed, and a front wheel drive are a bad combination.
Toyota blew them out of the wasser.
There is a guy I sometimes talk to on another website who's father was an officer in the German army during World War II. He claims that the Germans got wind of a plan by Stalin to attack them, and so Hitler decided to preempt them by attacking first.
His explanation actually makes more sense than what we've been led to believe happened. It has been an enduring mystery for me why Hitler stopped the attack on England and opened up a new front on Russia. It seems like a complete blunder, but if credible information exists that the Russians were planning to attack Germany, then it starts to make more sense.
It may not even be true, but if the German's thought it was, it better explains why they did what they did.
The running gear on the Panther stank on ice. It was easily clogged with mud, and rocks and could freeze overnight. It difficult to repair or maintain. But it did allow the Panther a relatively high speed.
The initial versions had a “shell trap” under the gun mantlet that directed shells right into the diver’s hatch. This was not fixed until the “G” model.
The Panther’s high velocity 75mm was actually a better AT gun than the Tiger I’s KwK36. It was not until the Tiger II that a proper AT gun, the KwK 43 (PAK 43) was mounted.
When the Germans started out, they were going to copy the T-34, but Hitler would Hear of it. So they ended up with an over-complicated tank that they could not produce enough of!
“sometimes talk to on another website who’s father was an officer in the German army during World War II. He claims that the Germans got wind of a plan by Stalin to attack them, and so Hitler decided to preempt them by attacking first.”
Nazi propaganda. That they had no choice. The truth is that Hitler discussed his plans for Ukraine in Mein Kampf in the 20s.
England didn’t really fascinate the Germans, and some even thought England would settle into some kind of coexistence with them.
He just though the USSR would be fast and easy. That whole “kick in the door and the rotten house will collapse” thing. He Really faced no serious military in the early conquests and thought the USSR would be like France, Poland, etc,, a few months of blitz, followed by a collapse. Peter principle in military terms.
Only two Super Pershings were ever built, and the 3AD had the only one in the European Theater - an experimental version with its remarkably long barrel. Arriving very late in the war (March, 1945), it was field tested and modified inside Germany and subsequently saw about ten days of actual combat action, beginning several days after the Battle of Paderborn and ending with the Battle of Dessau on the Elbe River.
If the Nazis had focused on the Panther and the Panzer IV and their variants, the war would’ve gone a lot differently. Those were the best all around tanks that could be produced in large numbers.
Yes and no. We might have accomplished the same thing by bombing hell out the rail marshaling yards.
Which is exactly what we did prior to D-Day. It eventually got to the point that the Germans had to road march by night to get anywhere.
Someone else pointed out here that the nazis ran over Europe in small fast tanks that were armed with 37mm guns. Then they switched to a pitifully small number of giant and complex tanks.... and got their asses handed to them by swarms of speedy dependable allied tanks,, doing blitzkrieg.
Actually, the USSR could’ve been a gold mine for the Nazis if they’d played it better. They came across a lot of folks who viewed them as liberators, which would’ve given them more troops, and had Hitler perhaps gone after the USSR first after Poland, he could’ve potentially brought France and even Britain in on his side by playing it off as a crusade against communism.
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