Big WW2 Question: Who Really Won It?

Yes the yak-9 was a good plane. It even saw combat in the korean war. The Il-2 is still my fav russian ww2 plane though.

The me-262 fiasco was mostly due to hitler who wanted it used as a bomber instead of a fighter. That was really dumb since Arado already had a jet bomber in the works, the Arado AR-234 which flew higher and faster than anything the allied had in europe at the time.

And the usa, as you say had a jet program in the work and so did the british with their Meteor which entered service in 1944 and like the yak-9, saw service in the korean war.

 

His point, which he may have been a bit vague on, was that the simplicity of the Sherman and its ability to be mass produced and quickly repaired on the battlefield was a tremendous advantage for the tank. The T-34 was surely a better overall tank in terms of capability, but the Sherman was probably more easily produced. Many people get obsessed with the "tank vs. tank" comparison and don't realize that in an actual war the comparison often doesn't matter.

Comparing U.S. and Soviet industrial output before, during, and after World War II is a losing proposition for the Soviets. The U.S. economy was twice as big as the Soviet economy in 1938 and 4 times bigger in 1945

 

Especially since during WWII, Tanks were not designed to go up against other Tanks. Tanks were still more or less under the WWI doctrine, where their main job was supporting the Infantry. Tank Destroyers were the armour that was designed to go after other Tanks.

 

In a brand-new technology fixing bugs might take years you lack fighting a war.Germany was so found of building jet-powered planes, that in 1945 it had the smallest and the most backward prop-driven fighter airforce.
Besides, 262 , even with all bugs fixed, would only be 100 km/h faster than the fastest prop-driven aircraft and still wouldn't be as agile as they were.

It wasn't. They were pretty much equal along with Pz.4, with own shortcomings and advantages.

It probably wasn't.T-34 was cheaper than M4. Mostly.
Sherman cost was~33,500$
T-34 cost was~160 000 roubles~30,100$
Pz. IV cost was~103,462 reichsmark~41, 200$

(1$=5,3 roble
1$=2,5 reichsmark)
Sherman also wasn't as unificated as T-34.
For example, almost all T-34 had the same V-2-34 engine, with the exception of 1200 units produced with aircraft engines due to shortage of V-2-34.
Sherman had 6 types of eniges. Wasn't good for both production and services.
These things included:

Chrysler Multibank A57 made from six automobile L7 engines.

Economy=/=industrial output. Soviet economy never had banking sector, for one. Direct comparison is pointless.
Industrial outputs were pretty close in 1941 with US economy stagnating in great depression and Soviet economy on the rise.

Moreover makes you wonder how did 4 times smaller Soviet economy in 1945 made it to 2 times smaller in 1991. Is that....socialism superiority?

 

No, simply that it was so far behind, that anywhere it went after that had to be up.

 

So how about number T-34 produced? You admit that you were wrong?

 

Where did you get your unit costs?

Did these vary during the war?

Where did you get your FX rates? These certainly varied wildly during the war. There wasn't much of a market for German to U.S. currency....difficult to make a comparison. How do you quantify the "cost" of forced Soviet Labor versus paid American workers during World War II?

 

Also, for starters, your German tank figure is pretty inaccurate. You seem to have intentionally left out the fact that the German figure of 103k doesn't include armament or radios.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panther_tank#Cost

 

You continue to go on about the total number of T-34s produced during the entire run until the late 1950's. Yes, it was the most produced tank ever. I have never said otherwise.

I was concentrating only on those built until 1945. You are right, in that there were more T-34s produced, I never said otherwise. But you fail to grasp that any built after 1945 have no impact on WWII.

Now, would you like fries with that?

 

Can you really trust Soviet production numbers?

No offense, but Stalin was very secretive...to this day, no one knows the number of reserves used....many of them were sent to Gulags after the war...particularly Red Army soldiers conscripted from Soviet satellites like Ukraine....there was a mass grave of over 3,000 Polish officers....and unlike the Germans who kept detailed ledgers on everything from soup to nuts...including the number of people they detained/killed in concentration/death camps...the Soviets were secretive.
Folks just disappeared...no records...I can't imagine they kept accurate production numbers on tanks and aircraft.

So really, nothing personal against "KGB Agent"....but no one should trust Soviet numbers...on anything. This was a regime built upon a foundation of paranoia. Why would they let the World know exactly how many aircraft/tanks/vehicles they produced? So "wiki" quotes a number...and what is the source? Someone "counted" them?

There's the number they say they produced and there's the number produced.
I do not imagine these numbers coincide. After Leningrad was attacked...many factories were moved away from the front...moved to remote areas....filled by essentially slave labor more often than not...and we're supposed to "trust" the Soviets would keep accurate production numbers, let alone reveal them?

 

Link1
I, actually, gave you a favour by putting M4 price 10000$ lower, than in the source above(seems to be first samples cost). Link2

Of course, these are average costs, if i get it correctly.
For one, first T-34 were~240 000 roubles, those 1945 produced T-34-85, while more sophisticated, costed ~140 000 roubles.

You are wrong. Those times national currencies were linked to gold. So everything is very clear in this part.
Link3 It was 5.3 Roubles per 1 Dollar through entire war.

Ignorance is Bliss? Maybe not in your history book, but workers on factories were recieving wages/food. Hardly a "forced" labour.
How is that relevant anyway? We are discussing overall product cost, the way it was achieved is irrelevant.

Provide your soure for full cost then. Have no problems with that at all. Pz4 was way more expencive than both T-34 and M4 anyway.

Short memory much?
What was that?

I guess I would spare my free time and avoid any discussion. Maybe with your kids or granchildren, if I would be alive at that point. I am not interested in "Evil Stalin ate children and drunk virgins blood!!111 and killed a bazillion of people!!111" scary stories. Yep. Nothing personal.

And, by the way, there is always a link in Wikipedia for a book or an article or smth like that for almost every claim.

 

Maybe you should educate yourself on the Stalin regime... Just watch "Cannibal Island" a documentary about Stalin purges and forced deportation.

- - - Updated - - -

Maybe you should educate yourself on the Stalin regime... Just watch "Cannibal Island" a documentary about Stalin purges and forced deportation.

 

I doubt that Stalin was so mad he bit the rug anymore than Hitler was.

Stalin was a worse military stragetgist than Hitler, and Hitler wasn't that great. At least Stalin allowed his generals (the ones left alive anyway) to take over military operations later on after the slaughter of so many---and eventually win.

 

The authorized histories just make up illogical, simplistic, and self-serving conclusions from the facts. In other words, they don't connect the dots; they only collect the dots. It takes intelligence to come to rational conclusions; any workoholic idiot can gather all the facts. It's an impractical mindset to respect people because of hard work; only talent matters and the orthodox view shows very little of that.

 

How on earth can you make a fair comparison between the rouble and the dollar? The Soviet economy was a centralized planned economy where it was forbidden to even export the national currency. It wasn't a free market system. There's no way you can make a fair comparison between an artificially floated currency (rouble) and a freemarket one (dollar). Why was their massive inflation at the end of the Soviet Union? It was because the rouble was artificially valued.

There where more than 1 million Soviet citizens in Gulags during World War 2. They were all used as force labor. Also, the Soviet government controlled the wages of its citizens. Trying to compare metrics like that of two VASTLY different systems is ridiculous. Soviet citizens were forced into labor depending on the whims of Stalin's government and paid whatever they decided (often little more than food).

 

Yeah....but other than those inconvenient truths.....

 

You didn't get it. They were both linked to gold equivalent at that time. Moreover, if exchange ratio was arificially lowed, the real cost of T-34 in dollars would be even lower.
However, you do have a point here. Perhaps it would be more accurate to compare amount of labour needed to produce each tank. In 1943 T-34 required 5700 hours to be produced. Would like to see M4 data.

So? The rest (~140) were not. Prisoners tend to work in normal countries, 'Murica included. Oh, excluding Norway, where killer of 89 people lives in 3-room flat and would be released after 20 years.

So? In capitalist economies employer controles the wages of citizens.

True. It is strange that you tried it several pages ago.

American citizens were forced into labor depending on the whims of Roosewelt's government and banksters and paid whatever they decided (often little more than food). Enjoy the mirror.

 

Let me guess, that came from the same source that claimed millions in the US died of starvation during the Great Depression.

Anybody that honestly thinks that has absolutely no concept what the US is like, especially at that time. WWII was actually a very good time for the US workers. Pay was on the rise, as it was very difficult to find and keep skilled workers. And Capitalism 101 is that when the labor pool is small, wages increase or the worker moves elsewhere. In fact, the pay was so good that it forever changed the maje-up of the US population, finalizing the drastic movement from agrarian industries to industrial ones.

And we had strikes during the war as well. The Coal, Railroad, Steel workers, UAW, there were several strikes during the war, (the only unions that agreed to not strike were the AFL and CIO). So I am sorry, what you have said was complete nonsense.



Now kindly prove your claim that workers were "often paid little more then food". Please.

 

What about pre-WW2?
That is kinda what i meant. Huge unemployment, government's programs to deal with it (like building roads) with 16 h work day and minimal wages just to avoid people diying from hunger. Or you deny that it happend? That people were starving, dying on the streets in long cold winter nights because they could not affrod to have a house to live in? Huge crime rates and the rise of mafia? It seems a load of films, american films (Cinderella Man, for one), about that time was just a lie, it didn't happen?
Or it is just a doublethink, i.e. "not bad when we do it"?

As I said. Have no desire to discuss the same (*)(*)(*)(*) again and again and again. It is pointless. Won't respond further.

 

THis is where you are consistently failing.

We are not talking about before WWII, we are not talking about after WWII. We are tailing about WWII, so what you are saying has nothing to do with it. Stop being dishonest and stay on topic.

And no, there was no mass starvations, there was still work, and this is what prompted the vast migrations of the era. Large percentages of the population left the large cities of the East Coast and the dust bowl of the Midwest and moved to the West Coast, primarily California and Oregon.

Yes, I am aware of the claims of certain Russians as for the "Great American Holomodor", where they claim that over 7 million people starved to death in the United States during the Depression. To bad it is all a bad fantasy and easily disproven.

http://www.northstarcompass.org/nsc0903/amholomor.htm

 

Yep- there was huge unemployment- and initially there were no 'government work programs'. Then under FDR several work programs were started, among them the most famous was probably the WPA.

But no one was forced to wok in WPA projects- they flocked to work in WPA projects. Anyone who has travelled in the U.S. has likely seen some of the fine WPA buildings built during that time- schools, park buildings, libraries.

Wages were set at local wage standards, working hours were limited to 30 or 40 hours a week. Many of us had grandparents or great grandparents who were employed.

Now shall we compare that to the Soviet gulags for political prisoners? Or the Soviet era mass population transfers of 'inconvenient' populations under Stalin?

The rise of the Mafia actually pre-dates the Depression, and is largely because of the our ill fated Prohibition. "Huge crime rates"? I don't know the numbers, but actually I think you are mistaken. Dying in the streets, starvation- both happened- the United States had a very limited societal safety net for Americans- but they were not the result of intentional government policies to displace populations and leave them without the means of feeding themselves.

 

You know what is the main difference between me and you? I remember what I was writing 2 days ago.

You are too brainwashed with 70 years of anti-Soviet (or anti-Russian, if you wish) propaganda so discussions with you are pointless. I was practicing this before and now I am done with it. If I would respond and explain why you are pain hypocrites, you would probably try to prove me wrong with more propaganda. Not going to work out. I am out of this.
P.S.And if I argue with Mushroom and prove him wrong, he would dissapear to reapear on another page/thread and would continue to be a smartass like nothing happened. Happened 3 times already.

 

Run away.....run away....

Shall I post some of the murals made by artists employed by the WPA? We have some fine ones in San Francisco.

Meanwhile in the United States, the war economy led to lucrative employment by eager American workers.

Which brings me back to my very first post in this thread.

The United States clearly 'won' World War 2 if any nation could make any such claim. I don't claim that the U.S. militarily won the U.S., but no nation came out of World War 2 so economically and socially intact as the U.S., and no country dominated the world economy and culture after WW2 as the U.S. did.

 

Whatewer your are comfortable with. Didn't even bother to read =)

 

I thought you had already run away?