Big WW2 Question: Who Really Won It?

Well, Midway was certainly an important turning point, but it was not the only thing that turned the war against Japan. Up until early 1943 I would still give the edge to Japan over the US, but the tide by then was definitely turning (mostly due to lack of resources by Japan). The US may have had an advantage in some areas, but it was not until 1943 that 2 of the biggest "game changers" in the war actually made their appearance: The P-51B, and more importantly the F6F Hellcat, the first plane that clearly had the advantage over the Japanese aircraft.

I shudder to think what would have happened if we had used the F4F Wildcat as our primary Naval Fighter until 1945.

The Germans never even had a half-arsed plan for invading England. All that had was Operation Sea Lion, which mandated 2 conditions before an invasion could happen: Air superiority and Naval superiority. And Germany achieved neither, so no invasion was ever actually planned.

 

I was answering post #10.
FDR had legitimate reasons to fear Hitler and Stalin calling a truce, once the US had committed to europe.
Yes, I know it didn't happen, but it was a legitimate fear on the part of FDR, that influenced policy.

 

All you say is ridiculous. First off Stalin's USSR was a pretty weak country in the beginning of the war. With out aid (mostly from the USA) in terms of supplies and armaments, The Soviet Union was going to fall. They were just barely kept alive. After the USSR turned the tide against Germany and started to move westward, it was by the American bombing in coordination with the Soviet ground forces that allowed rapid movement by the Soviet Army. In addition, you state the war was over for the Nazis by the start of the D Day invasion. You do realize that Germany was fighting a three front war. The had pressure from the invasion in Italy as well as in France. Many forces were drawn away from the eastern front to fight these two other theaters. Many nations fought in WW2 and to diminish any countries efforts is not right but to try to suggest that the USSR was THE powerful force in the beginning of the war and was inevitably going to defeat Germany singlehandedly is really the sort of propaganda they taught in Soviet schools. Former Soviet citizens were brain washed into thinking that the Soviet Army won the war nearly single handedly.

 

Something is really only possible if it is probable. Yes, it was also possible that Iraq could have defeated the US in the First Gulf War, but not very probable.

 

No I dont think I can agree with you here. US aid did not win the war for the Soviets, it just sped things up. No US aid simply mean the Russians would have continued to give space to create time. Germany could have pushed all the way to the Urals and Soviet production capacity would hardly be affected. The real tipping point was the Japanese attacks on the US - This allowed the Soviets to release large numbers of quality troops from the East and bring them into the war with German

 

Yes in all my reading of the war in the east I have never seen such an idea offered even in jest. The war in the East was going to be to the death, the total destruction of one nation or another. That is why the ferocity of that war was orders of magnitude beyond anything experienced in the west

 

In a great many ways, the US and USSR were very similar. Not likely to prepare for war ahead of time, enter into conflict with what they have as they have their experts plunge full steam ahead into R&D, and once attacked not forgive until the other side has rolled onto it's belly and begged for it to stop.

The Germans were going for nothing short of the destruction of Communism (probably the only group they hated as much as the Jews), and once attacked the Soviets were going to stop at nothing but the complete destruction of the evil nation that violated the treaty and attacked them without warning. I could no more see them agreeing to peace with Hitler after Operation Barbarossa then I could see the US agreeing to peace with Japan after Pearl Harbor and the Philippines.

 

Sure the Soviets slowly moved production farther east but this all happened after the siege of Stalingrad was not successful by Germany. Had Russia not gotten aid the year before this of Airplanes and Sherman tanks and other armaments as well as food and medicine, the Soviets would have lost Stalingrad and the Germans would have pushed into Moscow. It would have been over for the USSR regardless of any future production of armaments that they may have been able to produce later.

 

But Iraq turned around and defeated the US in the second gulf War.

Saying that the Soviets would never conclude a truce with Hitler ignores that they had already done exactly that.
Stalin could have seen making a truce with Hitler a way to secure all Europe for the USSR, there are all kinds of scenarios, and it was a legit fear that guided FDRs policies, that's all I'm saying.

 

After Stalingrad, there was only one way that war was going to go. And that was what, 16 months before D-Day. Russian tanks were coming off the assembly line faster than Hitler could make brats.

 

There's nothing we could have done about it. Stalin was a gentleman for asking.

 

Didn't Kursk happen after Stalingrad? So the Germans were still well capable of putting up a fight and holding there own against the Soviets.

 

The thing though the Russians had lost their capitol to the French and it didn't stop them all that much. They waited for the French to leave and they harried them all the way back to their border. The thing is the Soviets had good enough soldiers, their equipment was equal to anything the Germans had, but the organisation and leadership was in the toilet

 

In World War II, the Fascist countries lost their worst people while the formerly Great Britain and the formerly United States lost their best. Historically, losing your best while winning accounted for how decadent Greece became after Marathon.

 

But remember that was an offensive operation by the Germans. The Soviets had extremely good intelligence, thanks to the British, about the German plans. So the battle went from a major German offensive to a giant Soviet trap

 

It is a different situation. One of the great axioms of war is to fight a war on someone else's territory. Germany and the Soviets were simply building a rump state or a buffer zone between the two nations for when war came

 

Kursk was still 10 months before D-Day. After Stalingrad and then Kursk, the Russkies were on their way to Berlin. Kursk was a tank battle and just showed that the Russians had a numerical advantage and that the advantage was only going to get bigger.

 

The Mongols made the Nazis look like Little Sisters of the Poor. When Tamerlane forced Baghdad to surrender, he executed the entire population of 800,000. He did that to a dozen other cities. The Mongols' rule of war was to kill everybody and destroy everything. They wanted empty territory within which to practice their primitive lifestyle. The Mongols also ruled Russia for 300 years. Their brutal presence there probably accounts for the Russian character of putting up with any kind of tyranny as long as their rulers refrained from killing everybody.

 

Before the invasion by the German's the Soviets had crap weapons and not enough of them. They had to get a butt load of American fighter planes and tanks to stay alive. Sure three years into it the Soviets were producing loads of T34s and excellent fighter bombers, but if they were wiped out in 1942 they never would have had a chance to produce those weapons.

 

the Third Reich brough killing to the industrial scale...are you forgetting the wholesale slaughter of 10 million Jews, homosexuals, gypsies, mentally ill, political dissidents, Poles, Czechs, Russians? Imagine the population of New York city...dead and gone ...killing on a mounumental scale.

The Democide Hall of Fame is easy....Hitler and Stalin...the two most barbarous leaders on the face of the Earth clashed and literally made the Eastern Front a living Hell...

Now had the Mongols had access to the technology of war and killing that was available in the 20th Century...perhaps they'd be right up there...but the Reich...was exceptionally smart and exceptionally brutal....they did not hack and slash their way across Eastern Europe...it was cold, calculated and pre-medidated....

 

Hitler thought the Russians were weak too. How did that prejudice work out for him?

The only logical conclusion is that Stalin purposely provoked Hitler in order to draw him into a trap, which was enhanced by giving Hitler the illusion that he was winning a blitzkrieg. Stalin had the always superior Red Army ready to smash the Germans when he tricked them into having too long of a supply line. After disposing of the Nazis, the Red Army was still strong enough to take half of Europe and occupy it with a force that could not be resisted by the occupied nations.

 

Very good point, but I think more that Britain lost it's best people in WW1 and they hadn't been replaced by WW2.

 

Seriously no.

The Soviets had tons of tanks- which weren't great- but not that much more inferior or were the equivelent of the Germans. And they were already starting to field KV-1's(500 in service) which were superior to anything the Germans had a the time. The T-34 was fielded by the end of the first year of the invasion.

American tanks appear to have been of negligible use- seriously by the time the Shermans started arriving, the Soviets were already fielding T-34's which were superior in most ways(not all).

The American fighters sent to the Soviets? As I recall they got second tier fighters- P-39's, later P-63's, and maybe some P-40's.

As others have pointed out, what Western support did provide that was crucial were trucks and locomotives.

 

Hitler had 9/10ths of Stalingrad in his possession. Hitler was extremely close to knocking it all down. Were it not for the help of the USA early on for the USSR, Hitler would have succeeded.

 

The US and British Empire.