Anon

"Heck, Hitler still had Germany producing VWs during the war."

Heck should never be part of the vocabulary of an infantryman.

Fucck is a perfectly good substitute.

Bluesman

Small quibble: the SS was never part of the Wehrmacht. They were split off from the SA (which most of the Wehrmacht's professionals would have nothing whatever to do with, because the SA was just a club of thugs and political creeps), and maintained a parallel organization throughout the war...and by so doing, impeded their own and the Army's missions.

I'll give you this, though: the average SS trooper (before being diluted with second-rate troops to make up for horrendous losses) pulled off some amazing and dare I say, HEROIC feats of arms. Fanatacism, extreme discipline, hard training, cohesiveness and the pick of equipment and re-supply priority were all factors in their performance in battle, which can rightly be called 'excellent'.

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"The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it, and if one finds the prospect of a long war intolerable, it is natural to disbelieve in the possibility of victory."
- George Orwell

Bluesman

True. They weren't great troops, but they came in great numbers, and they were employed ruthlessly by their high command. And yes, some were remarkably tough, determined, and pretty dam' good (not often, but almost often enough.)

Well, what do you expect he'd say: "We just got our asses handed to us by a bunch of clodhoppers and laundrymen."? With an ego like Doug's, you know he'd have to impart some kind of skill to their soldiers, lest he admit that he'd been beaten by a great general using second-rate troops - which is what happened.

When you can jerk some kid out of the ranks for lighting a survival fire and shoot him in front of his company, discipline tends to be pretty dam' good.

Very true. The Chinese couldn't sustain offensive ops, because we cut their LOCs. But when they WERE able to mass materiel, they controlled ops tempo and had the initiative. May God forbid we EVER find our forces in that position again, with the enemy determining when he's going to do what he wants, and us in reactive mode, wating for the hammer to fall, and scrambling to find the right answer. Intolerable.

Interesting counter-fact:
I don't think that's accurate, as the figure generally accepted by historians is 500K. As for the 60K at the pointy end, I think that's WAY low, too, and even if it were accurate (I do not concede that point), they certainly were not fighting every single Allied troop that tried to escape on the long trip back down south, either. In fact, given the MASSIVELY longer 'tail' of the Allied forces compared to their enemy, it makes the factor that the Allied line doggie was outnumbered by that much higher.

So, they were all set then, after they'd given up to the Chinese, right? Three hots, a cot, and Doctor Hu to look after their boo-boos.

They were more willing to surrender because the infiltration/encirclement tactics used by ChiCom formations made pulling back VERY much an unsure proposition. So, I concede this: the Chinese, in their pursuit of battles of annihilation all too frequently acheived their goal, and bagged WAY too many of our guys. Nothing wrong with admitting that they bested our units with appalling regularity.

generation_x

I frequently come across this "I am Captain America" tendency from the west. Well you know America lost the battle in Vietnam is a fact, try to accept that may be you will learn what you don't know. You donot win a battle by running away from the battle field.

Leader

"may be you will learn what you don't know. You donot win a battle by running away from the battle field."

Many of us do know that actually.

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Bluesman

And where are YOU from, sport? Any other wise words about losing wars that you'd care to share?

Anon

"I frequently come across this "I am Captain America" tendency from the west. Well you know America lost the battle in Vietnam is a fact, try to accept that may be you will learn what you don't know. You donot win a battle by running away from the battle field."

Go fucck yourself.

lemontree

On the contrary US forces won all major battles in Vietnam, however, they lost the political battle in their own home.

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Cheers!...on the rocks!!

Chino

No, not quite yet, the author of the book related that the Chinese captors were accused of starving the Americans. He went on to explain that the Chinese fed each American POW the equal amount of ration each PLA soldier would receive. However, what was adequate for a PLA soldier was far from enough for the American POW.

leib10

Couldn't have said it better.

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"The right man in the wrong place can make all the difference in the world. So wake up, Mr. Freeman. Wake up and smell the ashes." G-Man

RepublicanGuard

Well true they where never "Officially" part of the whermacht ( forgive the spelling again ) but they where determined/controlled by Army central command

RepublicanGuard

Dahlem, im 18.

now back to topic. the panthers and tigers commited to kursk did have trouble with their drivetrains but they still had the classic effect of the later marks of german tanks on russian armor IE the armor that could not be penetrated at point blank by a T-34's 76mm gun, the L48 75 and the 88 that could rip through a T-34 @ 1900 + meters.

Dont doubt my intelligence. you are probably more than twice my age who has been avidly studying military tech since the mid-70's. if you want to argue about my age, grow up- im not going around flaming other members like you seem to be doing to me either...

leib10

Actually, the Panther had the L70 gun. The Mark IV had the L48.

Recon_sgt

And so would I but the problem is you have summed up this mans age and abilities without much actual info on him to go on this is in itself missguided.
What with that the S.S. make ineresting study or that his argument has merit.
My point was merely that the tiger was not to be taken as lightly as being called silly nothing more.
Yes so true but I would prefer the tigers personnally if they were properly supplied and air support was adequate. My argument in this case is not based on the course of event more the actual vehicle (not sure if that made sense, oh well).
Wait a moment whats this about points, suddenly this is a competition .
seriously though, Do you deny that Hitlers blatent incompetence and direct interference in military affairs contributed greatly to the way in which WW2 turned out. Yes there were other factors (many and some quite big) that contributed as well. Oh by the way I did not mention his sanity merely his lack of military clout .

Hmm got ya
agreed, you can get quite a confused view of events by focusing on only 1 aspect.

Of course it does as we now live in the real live version of the film "fatherland", wait a moment oh thank F*** it was only a dream . Truely though it is not always the most numerically or technologicaly superior or the most mightily equiped who win wars.

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they have us surrounded, the poor bastards.

generation_x

Yeah that's exactly what the Vietnamese had to say when Americans moved out of Vietnam