Posted on 01/18/2024 8:08:54 PM PST by SunkenCiv
Hitler was a cunning politician who didn't understand military strategy or tactics, and fought the war like it was a bus schedule. Each time he faced a big decision he always chose wrong (started trying to conquer Eurasia years before remotely ready to start; didn't close the bag at Dunkirk; didn't finish up in North Africa and take control of the canal and middle east oil before launching Barbarossa; launched Barbarossa instead of not, or instead of waiting a couple extra years; pulled 3 divisions out of the prep for Kursk and sent them to Italy where the terrain naturally favored the German defenders; the Bulge).
My pleasure!
Different, smaller torpedo with the same fusing problem.
Hitler didn’t have enough men to conquer the Soviet Union.
At Stalingrad the Romanian, Hungarian and Italian armies were destroyed and hitler lost over 1 million soldiers.
Stalingrad wasn’t the turning point of the war it revealed that the Germans had already lost.
It's not just that. Hitler attacked the Soviets during the Battle of Stalingrad. During winter. His Generals wanted to retreat. The war would have ended in a stalemate if he could retreated to Poland and then fortify. The Allies' invasion of Normandy would have failed if Hitler could send more troops.
I think that Hitler is way overrated as a leader. He eventually led his country to utter destruction.
He was always hyper aggressive and knew the Allies wanted to avoid war, eventually they figured him out and he wasn’t so smart anymore.
What he did have was the best army in the world (by far) in 1940, 1941. The Germans were using blitzkrieg (combined arms) tactics while everyone else was using WWI tactics.
The problem is that if you can’t win the war in a couple of years the other side eventually adopts your tactics and your advantage disappears. (Ex: the South in the civil war).
He was attacking in the South because he needed the oil. The need for oil drove his strategy.
The Axis could have won the war by winning the war in North Africa.
Knocking England out of the war and seizing adequate oil supplies before attacking the Soviets would have made the difference.
After the war German generals said the same thing.
At some point, the Soviets and the Nazis were going to fight. So the best thing Hitler could have done was to knock out the Allies like you said in North Africa and make sure Stalin had to stay in Moscow.p
Those tactics were adopted/adapted by Patton and others in the US armed forces, but the UK and USSR never did that, relying instead on US industrial might to gain overwhelming advantages in firepower. Until they ran out of the basics, the German army maintained its vaunted ability to regroup and counterattack with alacrity. Due to his own lack of comprehension and ability, Hitler wasted that capability with untenable attacks, mired in his delusions that a decisive counter was possible.
While the Antwerp offensive was a remarkable effort (20-some divisions seemingly conjured out of thin air), arms and equipment shortages were already biting. German forces were up to standards on paper only, and told they had to go as they were.
The allied response was to seize and hold major crossroads like Bastogne because the French road system was mostly still of medieval origin, and the German tanks needed to zigzag through those crossroads and along the modern road surfaces to make their objectives and their timetables.
It took a mighty effort by the US and UK, nevertheless. The German failure in The Bulge accelerated final collapse by a couple of months.
Both air-launched and sea-launched were inadequate for more than a year. The Navy, Army, and Marines still kicked the hell out of them regardless. :^)
By the battle of Kursk the Soviet army was already more mobile than the German army thanks to the 500,000 trucks the US sent to Russia during the war.
In 1944 during the destruction of the German army central group the Soviets used encirclement tactics to overwhelm the German army.
I’ve seen US army studies showing that during the war the British and American army’s suffered 1.5 causalities vs 1 to the German army.
The Soviets had a 3 to 1 loss compared to the German army.
No matter the Germans ran out of men.
In battle, the element of surprise cannot be underestimated.
Thanks blam.
I read it all.
Kudos. YouTube’s generated transcript is nice to have, but as the saying goes, it’s not that the bear dances well...
Classic!
:^)
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