Big WW2 Question: Who Really Won It?

It enabled Stalin to fake a strategy of tying down his Siberian troops. In actuality, they were the real Red Army kept in reserve until Hitler had overextended himself fighting Stalin's fake European army, which was cruelly sacrificed, but that's typical of Stalin, isn't it? The authorized version of WWII should be disrespected.

Khalkhin Gol is just one more proof that, despite the view of ignorant and illogical historians, Stalin tricked Hitler into invading. Historians don't connect the dots, they only collect the dots.

 

You have a crying need to defend your intellectual father figures. Documents can be doctored.

 

Heisenberg, with his Indeterminacy theory of Willy-Nilliness, is one of the heroes of decadent physics. Whenever I debate with the Post-Clack quacks, I naturally bring up the fact that he was a Nazi, going from irrational physics to irrational politics (just like the New Age philosophical hero, Heidegger). The childish degenerate escapists always try to weasel out of that accusation, saying that it is "Ad Hominem." Further proof is that Heisenberg was an incompetent bombmaker. The Americans had real-world scientists working on the bomb; that's why it worked.

 

That wasn't so much an error, but up till about 1938 was the widely accepted theory for nuclear production. A Danish scientist made a breakthrough just before the war that indicated a bomb could be produced.

 

Unclear on what a crying need is. I think you just made your own term up. Somehow you figured getting the word "crying" in there it made it better for you.

Stalin was in complete denial that Hitler was invading and for the first day he was frozen in disbelief.

 

Oh yes, that is why Saddam is still in power to this day. We lost, he won.

 

Yes, the Soviets were fielding the T-34, but not in numbers anywhere close to that of the M-4 Sherman. During the war, the Soviets made a total of 35,000 T-34s,. the US made almost 50,000 M-4 Shermans. And both sides continues to make more tanks of various models, but it was the sheer numbers of the M-4 that made it effective more then the capabilities.

But that was enough to help hold off the Germans.

Mostly what the Germans went into the Soviet Union with was their second line fighters and bombers. The Stuka was still in use in the Soviet Union, where it had pretty much been retired in the rest of Europe. Also the same with the Do-17 "Flying Pencil" and many other aircraft. Those fighters made a large difference, because it forced the Germans to then start to use more of their first rate equipment, instead of the second and third that they had initially sent to the Eastern Front.

 

NO, That is why the Chinese are developing the Iraqi oil fields and not Halliburton. Why exactly do you think we invaded Iraq?
The goal was the oil, and we lost.

 

Originally I didn't want to intervene into your hilarious disqussion, but I can't tolerate that thing above.
Mushroom, please, check your facts before posting.
There were totally 80 000 T-34 produced. It is the second world's most prodused tank through history.

 

Which authorized analysis completely contradicts Stalin's proven character of suspiciousness about everybody and his pre-emptive killing to keep any possible threat from growing. Of course, the character and competence of the academics and journalists who are privileged to publish these illogical analyses is beyond question in our contemporary credentialist mindset.

 

Not only was it a much better tank, but it was designed to work in very cold weather. The Panzers and the Shermans weren't.

 

"We" always lose. Our ruling class always wins.

 

It was diesel engines in the T-34 and the Shermans and Panzers used gasoline engines...how do you figure diesel is better than gas in cold weather? The advantage to diesel is in fuel economy and durability...but I don't see any cold weather advantage. The Shermans did ok in the Battle of the Bulge, where temperatures were frequently well below zero.

 

Yes. And the T-34 continued in production until 1958. The production of M-4 Sherman's was stopped in 1945, replaced by the M-26 Pershing. I did check my facts, I was only including the T-34s that were built between 1941-1945. I was not including the entire production run.

The general conversation is about WWII, therefore tanks built after 1945 do not figure into this.

 

The biggest advantage of a Diesel engine in a tank was that it was less likely to kill the crew if the engine compartment or fuel storage was ruptured.

The M4 and Panzer II and III were not just nicknamed by their crews after lighters and called "torches" as a term of endearment. All of these used gasoline, and were quickly engulfed in flames in an unlucky hit. With the Diesel of the T-34 however, the fumes were not as flammable and it was not as explosive, allowing the crew more time to escape after a similar hit.

However, a lot of the T-34 has been romanticized, where it often becomes hard to separate fact from fantasy. Like the sloped armor, originally designed as a cost-saving measure, since a plate at an angle is thicker then a plate head-on. So a way to make thinner armor behave as thicker armor created an unexpected side-effect of deflecting rounds.



The Panzer IV actually had thicker armor then the T-34, but it was not sloped the same way so effectively it actually had less armor.

 

While diesel does typically have a higher flash point than gasoline, in terms of combustibility it's safer. I don't agree with the statement that it was solely these volatility differences which account for the burning of tanks, after being hit by shells, in the majority of instances. The major reason for Shermans burning was the stowage of main gun ammunition in the sponsons above the tracks....after they incorporated what is known as "wet stowage" using water filled bags around the ammunition.. this drastically reduced burning after a shell penetrated the tank.

Some jet fuels have a similar flash point range to that of diesel...it still burns if an ignition source is hot enough.

 

So what? Most of them (60 thousand) were produced during WW2. Still beats Sherman.
Link

You didn't, excluding the case you counted T-34-85 as a separate tank, what, of course, would be just a cheap trick.

It is also less fire hazard. Something it was better than "Tommy-cookers" and "Panzers" produced by so-much-care for their soldiers lives Americans and Germans.

 

Nice theory you have but you are just making stuff up

http://www.militaryhistoryonline.com/wwii/articles/barbarossa.aspx

 

About 15,000 of the T-34s produced by the Soviets during World War II came before 1943. It's clearly not intellectually honest to count production by a fully mobilized wartime economy (Soviet Union) against a peacetime or recently mobilizing wartime economy (the U.S.).

A more honest comparison can be found for the production of each tank by its respective country in 1943 and 1944. By then the U.S., while not completely at the apex of its production capability, had at least a year of war time mobilization. I declined to include 1945 since the end of the war skewed the data. Here are the numbers from your own source.

Sherman Tanks (all variants) LINK
1943: 28,164
1944:15,489
TOTAL: 43,653


T-34 and T-34-85 LINK
1943: 15,812
1944: 13,949 (3500 85s)
TOTAL: 29,761

Clearly the U.S., when fully mobilized, could produce substantially more Shermans than the Soviets could produce T-34s. I think the real question is how many T-34s could the U.S. produce with its greater production capabilites. We'll never know.

 

You are trying to make that a competion. But it is not. I was saying only that there were more T-34 produced, than Shermans, that Mushrooms post is incorrect. I was never comparing production capabilities.
Cuzz if I was, I would count not solely Sherman and T-34, but other armored vehicles as well. For one, USSR produced 5 times more heavy vehicles, than USA. "Fair comparison" would also include USSR not losing 1/3 of it's industry and population under occupation and not fighting a major war for survival. But, as I said, that wasn't my point.
So it is unclear what you want to prove to me.

 

Tank aficionado's love the T-34. It's regarded as the best all-around tank of WW2. I can't say, as I'm not a tank expert or have read about much about them...what is never talked about is the Soviet Yak-9, the Soviet's most mass-produced fighter of all time. Over 14,500 of them built during WW2. A solid aircraft...as comparable to the Bf-109 or Fw-190...maybe even slightly better in terms of performance.

...are you folks aware a Yak-9 shot down a Me-262, and was the first allied aircraft to do so?

Although initially light in the armament department, continual improvements over the course of the war combined with it's already superb handling characteristtics...made it excel at dog-fighting.

 

The Me-262 made all other fighter aircraft instantly obsolete. If the Germans had somehow pushed the production even one year earlier, worked out the bugs and had enough trained pilots, then Yaks, Mustangs or whatever other prop-driven aircraft would not have stood much of chance.

Most German jet aircraft were simply shot down while trying to land. Allied air superiority was something like 10 to 1 from 1944 out.

 

I'd hardly call a model,which combat expirence resulted into 150 planes shot down per 100 planes lost and 1400 pdoduced "superior". Would rather go for "overcomplicated ureliable expensive trash". While the push for jet-powered planes deserves a certain respect the results were rather poor. 262 was good only at armament and max. speed and suffering from poor acceleration and agility. So meeting with 262 wasn't that bad for Tempest,P-51,La-7,Yak-3 and Spitfires.

Guess what, it wouldn't that bad if somebody wasn't so big fan of "wunderwaffe".

 

The 262 was vulnerable while landing, and the engines were not very reliable...plus very short range.

In terms of speed, it was king...for a few short years....once jets were perfected...even the 262 would be obsolete soon.. America was developing the P-80 which had lots of issues, but once the bugs worked out would have matched the 262.

 

As I said---after the bugs were worked out. That means making the plane handle better and so on. One can only make a prop-job so fast. Jets---better to say, made prop fighter aircraft obsolete.

yes Hitler can take his share of blame for many blunders.