Posted on 06/28/2019 3:51:35 AM PDT by C19fan
Their alliance was vital in stopping Hitler. But the tetchy wartime relationship between Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin was frequently stretched to its limits. In November 1941, when the Soviet leader had the cheek to criticise the quality of tanks and guns sent from Britain to help Russian forces, the Prime Minister had reached the limit of his patience. Fortunately Stalin realised he had gone too far and took advantage of the fact Churchill’s 67th birthday was imminent to send a gushing ‘card’ as a conciliatory measure.
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Spend any time in uniform - or did you just stick to comic books?
You are a head case. Get help.
Stalin really thought Hitler would keep his word, and seemed to be poleaxed and unable to lead in the early phases of Germany's Barbarossa -- Molotov was sent east for meetings with the Japanese, and they were not fired up about another meeting / beating with the Red Army. Molotov wired back to Stalin that he believed the Czarist-era treaty would hold. That led to the transfer of 70+ divisions out of the east (which is where the first stroke of war had been expected), with the trains loaded to extreme capacity to move all the armor and big guns and everything else to the USSR's western front, and returned east for more, completely empty. That led to the first effective counterattacks.
For his part, Hitler was just a dumbass wanting a do-over of WWI, with the change that one front (France etc) would be finished up first, allowing the use of most forces against the Soviets. Obviously that was just brain-dead. The only move was to finish off the British in North Africa and the Mediterranean, take control of the Suez Canal and access to the Middle East oil. By the time 1943 rolled around, and Germany was finally fully mobilized, *perhaps* it would have been feasible to invade the USSR. But then again, why? What could have been gained, conquering a poverty-stricken nation of agrarian serfs?
I apologize for my last reply. I should not have been insulting. You are correct: I have no idea at all what your background is.
P-39 was liked and Soviet engineers were embedded in US to help improve it for their environment. M-3 was actually rated by the Soviets as the worst piece of armor in their inventory ever. They had their designations for its variants: VG-6 and BM-7 jokingly referred as “(Tombstone) on a common grave for seven”, “All seven dead” or “Assured dead”.
I apologize for calling you a head case. You are better informed than I am about armor use in warfare and I defer to your judgment.
Hitler needed the oil of the Caucasus and resources of the Ukraine. The British blockade was really hurting Germany and Hitler decided he needed those resources to continue to dominate Europe and carry on with the war.
Plus, there was that lebensraum nonsense. Hitler believed the Malthusian crap and concluded he needed to expand Germany east into all of Poland and Western Russia (and eventually exterminate most of those poor Poles and Russian serfs).
Had Hitler waited until 1943 to invade Russia, Stalin probably could have finished his rebuild of the Red Army and established good defensive lines in "his" part of Poland, which he had not in 1941.
As I said, wrapping up in North Africa and taking de facto control of Middle East oil would have solved that problem, and in the long run, no oil, no British fleet. And conquest of the USSR never made any sense. I'm reminded of that line in "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid", "all they got in Mexico sweat and they sell plenty of that back here."
The Sherman was an excellent tank.
They were reliable, effective, well made, and there were lots of them. Put a British 17lber on it, and it could shoot it out with Panther or even Tigers. Upgunned versions stayed in active service until 1960s.
The Chieftain makes the point that the Sherman was a great tank because is was part of an army. Solo combat at two kilometers on open terrain in clear weather is video game nonsense not the way the war was fought.
The Battle of Arrancourt illustrates the point. The Germans had local numerical superiority and tactical air cover was not an issue. The Germans lost 200 tanks and assault guns to American losses of 25 tanks and 7 tank destroyers. (Training and experience may have been telling. While the US 8th Air Force was busily killing the Luftwaffe’s experienced pilots prior to D-Day, the Red Army was beavering away killing Germany’s experienced tankers.)
He also asserts that there were only three instances of Sherman’s directly engaging Tigers. In one instance, the Tiger won, in one instance the Sherman won, and in the third instance, the Tigers were being loaded onto rail cars, so that didn’t count.
As to the Sherman being a death trap. From Normandy to VE-Day, 18% of the US infantry engaged were killed, v. 2% of the tankers, and about half of tanker fatalities occurred when they were outside the tank.
When you are on the offensive, you will always take higher casualties than the defenders. This goes for tankers, too. The makes the Sherman’s record even more remarkable.
The Sherman was a great tank in 1942 and a good tank 1944. It was adaptable, lending itself to many modifications. Army doctrine at the time didn’t support tank vs. tank combat - the anti-tank mission was for AT guns and Tank Destroyers.
The Sherman did relatively well in all theaters.
Watch the video I linked to. The Chieftain cites the contemporary tank doctrine FM showing the opposite. Doctrine was that infantry would punch holes in the enemy lines and tanks would exploit the breakthroughs. Tanks were explicitly expected to destroy any enemy formations encountered, including enemy tanks. The FM for tank destroyers says that they were primarily used in defense, to counter enemy tank breakthroughs (a mission they performed superbly during the Bulge). The FM also states the primary mission did not preclude tank destroyers from being used on offense or as tactical artillery, for instance to destroy an enemy pillbox or machine gun emplacement.
They thought the M4A2 Chrysler radial engine, 5 six-cylinder automobile cylinder blocks on a common crankshaft was *reliable!* With the plumber's nightmare of fuel lines and carbaroters, not to mention ignition wiring and timing. And yet, for them, it worked.
The *emcha*, so called because of the appearance of the M and 4 to the Cyrillic M-Ч, Cha or Che, depending on regional accent was actually favored by some, though its higher center of gravity made it a danger on a road march and an easier target than the more common T34. 4000 of the things ran for the Red Army. It's interesting to see what a Russian tankisti thought of them.
In 1998, I met a WWII Russian pilotka who flew the P-39. I asked him what he thought of the plane:
What a can-opener! Better for ground attack against tanks than our Stormovik!
In 1970, as a young but experienced tanker, I was sent to Spain to evaluate some of the M47 tanks they had in operation, the idea being to refit them with Diesel engines. Imagine ny surprise when I found out not quite all of them were M47s. Five were Tiger Is, and two were Tiger II *Kingtigers*.
The engine eventually decided upon for them was a 500 HP Cummins Diesel. I asked very gently what was to become of them, and was told by a Spanish Foreign Legion officer simply: Morocco.
Always wondered where they got rounds for the 88s.
It did not help matters that Stalin invaded Finland in 1939 with a million and a half men, and four months later, the half-million survivors went home licking their wounds.
Hitler saw what Finland's puny Army and reservists had done to Stalin's Red Army and considered what his own blooded professionals could do. He miscalculated; The Soviets had learned to use the Winter weather from the Finns.
and from the war with Napoleon.
His time time would have been better spent studying map reading and military history rather than painting watercolors.
The Finn's motti tactics were a modern version of Arminius' Teuteburg Forest campaign in which the Roman educated German Arminius completely annihilated three Roman Legions led by the lawyer Varus. Heavily wooded areas bound by swamp and marshland prevented maneuver in both cases. And the three thousand km. plus Eastern Front on a map dwarfs the Karelian peninsula....just my two pfennigs or kopeks. ;>)
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