WW2 military ratings.

Come on Panzer- I want your thoughts as to 'game changers'- not just your shooting skills!

 

And it all worked out great until they actually had to do something besides exactly what they wanted to do.

 

Air force? Japan.

 

The Marine dug in on the lava sands of Iwo Jima won the war...

The Russian with his Mosin-Nagant defending his kitchen in Stalingrad from the Nazi invasion, won the war....and it was often times literally in his kitchen.

The British, Czech and Polish pilots willing to strap themselves into a Spitfire or Hurricane and dogfight over the channel, won the war.

There is no doubt, the code breakers played significant roles in victory...as did technological advancements along the lines of radar...no doubt...significant roles.

But it bothers me, to say a group of Mathematicians locked in a room...away from the violence and harrowing aspects of war...actually won the war....
while it could be said Englanders did face nightly bombing raids..and did indeed experience war first hand...my contention is still firmly held in the belief it is the front-line
soldiers...in the Pacific, in Europe, and on the Eastern Front...it is these front-line soldiers who held steadfast against the enemy...

They won the war.

Technology alone, will not bring victory, the will to fight, the will to endure...the will to victory...is what wins wars.

The A-Bomb could not have been achieved without Marines and soldiers taking and holding islands from which air bases could be established to launch a bombing campaign
over mainland Japan.

The A-bomb, for example...as a symbol of technology if you will, is just the tip of a pyramid bulit upon the foundation of men willing to pick up a rifle and go to war...the full visceral experience.

 

Nice tribute to the soldiers who fought.

 

The best soldiers and pilots---man for man---were the Germans

Best Navy was US, by its sheer size and technology.

The best rifle of the war was not the Garand, it was the MP44, as assault rifles have made all other MBR's obsolete.

German fighter pilots were the most experienced, as most were allowed to fight to the death, many of them racked up huge kill totals 300+ for some like Hartmann. German bomber pilots on the whole were about as good as any. The very best combat pilot of all time was the German Rudel, who's record makes any allied pilot look insignificant.

 

Any discussion of military ratings would have to subdivide the forces and also time periods.

Land forces:
Sept 39-Sept 1942
The Wehrmacht, despite its lack of across-the-board motorization was far and away superior. Their infantry was cohesive in the defense and trained in Hutier tactics on the offensive. Their infantry worked well with mechanized forces and artillery. Their armored forces were simply the best. Their artillery was the best in this time frame. Heavy attrition in the winter of 1941-1942 eroded overall superiority. The drafting off of good units by Luftwaffe and SS degraded overall superiority.

Oct 1942-May 1945
The Red Army, while inefficient was very large and very well mechanized. Soviet tanks were superior to German tanks across the board and the Soviets developed effective (if costly tactics) for using them.

Land Forces Honorable Mention:
January 1942-September 1945
US Army artillery. Simply terrorized both Germans and Japanese. Fully motorized, lavishly supplied with ammunition, excellent system of forward spotters. “Time on target” tactics were devastating. Use of VT fuzes in 155mm shells made foxholes obsolete after December 1944.

August 1942-September 1945
US Navy and Marines
Raised amphibious assault from a costly improvisation to a high art.


Sea forces:
Surface forces: September 1939 to April 1942
Overall, the Royal Navy dominated maritime operations in this period. Kept the U-boats menace as manageable as possible until technological advances could gain the upper hand. Retained status as best ASW force throughout the war.

Surface forces: May 1942 to September 1945
US Navy. With the exception of early night actions off Guadalcanal, the US Navy was totally dominant. By October 1942, USN regained control of sea off Guadalcanal and after Santa Cruz the Japanese were toast. Second only to the allied Royal Navy at ASW. Excellent integration of small carriers and destroyer escorts in hunter-killer ASW task forces. Maritime logistics the best ever. No allied forces lacked for supply and reinforcements except for short periods of local inconvenience. USN fleet train kept enormous forces at sea thousands of miles from nearest US ports. Outstanding damage control training and doctrine combined with robust engineering made USN ships very hard to sink.

Submarine forces: September 1939 to January 1943
Kriegsmarine U-boats
Agile if obsolete boats having superior commanders and crews and appropriate tactics ran the RN a merry chase until RN/USN tech edge made the U-boat a German kamikaze.

Submarine forces: January 1943 to September 1945
USN Pacific submarines. Once the problems with the Mk. 14 torpedo were rectified, the USN subs dominated the Pacific. Far more effective than the Germans, the USN did completely choke off Japan’s maritime imports and supply far-flung forces. Many Japanese soldiers simply starved to death because USN subs cut off their supplies. USN subs used tech superiority and adoption of night surface attack to exploit Japanese lack of radar.

Honorable mention
Imperial Japanese cruisers and destroyers
For a brief time the combination of superior torpedoes and night training and tactics allowed the IJN to dominate Pacific surface action. Japanese heavy cruisers were exceptions to normally squalid Japanese damage control. IJN heavy cruisers could take fearsome punishment and dished it out quite well, too. Eventually worn down by USN/USAAF air dominance.


Air Forces:
September 1939 to January 1944
The Luftwaffe. Originally set up to be “flying artillery,” it controlled the air everyplace it could reach. Stuka was the best ground support plane of the war. Me109 was still a competent if not dominant high altitude fighter even late in the war. FW-190 was murder at medium altitudes. JU-88 was OK, but other German bombers were mediocre. Brilliant aircrew and hard-working ground crew. Excellent radar coordination both day and night. Never able to train aircrew fast enough to make good losses. Ground down by Big Week and Battle of Berlin.

February 1944 to September 1945
USAAF. By mid-April 1944 had wrested control of daylight air over Europe. Along with USN carrier planes had gained air superiority in the pacific by November 1942. Luftwaffe had no answer to the range, speed, maneuverability and firepower of the P-51. While USAAF never had the famous aces of the Luftwaffe or IJN, they rotated experienced aircrew back to train rookies so after mid-1944 USAAF aircrew were on average better than the Axis aircrew. That high average crew quality combined with sheer numbers of aircraft ran the Luftwaffe and Japanese out of the air. By D-Day, the Luftwaffe could put only a few planes over the beaches and they could only hit and run. B17/B24/B29 heavy bombers were without equal. Bombed Germany and Japan flat. Raised air transport to an unheard-of level.

Honorable mention:
RAF
Excellent point defense fighters and night strategic bombing first delayed the Luftwaffe and then crushed Germany industry. Like the Luftwaffe, the RAF daylight was denied dominance because of short range of its aircraft.

 

Japanese vs Luftwaffe?

The Luftwaffe was clearly superior. The Zero was a good plane but sacrificed the lives of their initially excellent pilots. Even before the F6F showed up Wildcats drivers had developed tactics for dealing with Zeros and while the Zero could out-dogfight the P-38, the P-38 pilots (influenced by Chennault) simply would not dogfight the Zero. They'd dive, shoot, and extend away from the zero which could not out run or outclimb the P-38. The P-38 was never able to abuse the Me109 or Fw190 like it did the zero.

The Luftwaffe figured out how to attack the B-17/B24 early on with the 12 o'clock high attack. Their planes were heavily enough armed to pull off such an attack. The Zeros never really found a way (beyond surrounding cripples) to deal with the US four-engine bombers.

 

The MP44 was not fielded in near the numbers of the German K-98 Mauser, the average Wehrmacht infantryman carried the Mauser, and the Garand was superior to the Mauser.

 

People don't seem to realize just how bad the German supply and arms implementation was. Yes, they had some excellent "sexy" weapons like the MP44, Tiger etc, but in many cases the majority of their forces were still equipped with oudated equipment and weapons. It was a nightmare supplying the German Army because they had so many different weapons and equipment with different parts and specifications. The Germans are known as a powerful mechanized force too, but in reality they were MUCH less mechanized than the U.S. and even the Soviets.

 

The MP44 also had serious reliability issues.

For my money, the best rifle of the war was the M-1 Garand, although I think it should have been modified to accept BAR magazines and be given select fire ability.

 

Not really, the Luftwaffe was stopped in it's tracks when taking on aircraft comparable to the FW-190 and Me-109...the Spitfires and Hurricanes more than matched any of what was fielded by the Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain.

Historians list the actual figure as more like 1,294 German losses against the RAF which lost 788 planes.

 

The Battle of Britan was won because of the people on the ground watching the planes, then relaying the info to central commands. Radar was helpful as were the great British pilots. The German would have eventually beat the Brits in the air but chose to attack cities instead of airfields.

 

The Garand was more reliable, but had a fraction of the firepower.

Pehaps they did studies of hit probabilites with live fire test on both these.

If I had a stack of all these weapons to choose from going to war, I'd still choose the MP44. 30 shot mags, fast to reload. Shoots full auto. If it jams a bit here or there, I'll clear it.

I think the term is firepower superiority.

 

The reliability issues of the MP44 resulted in jams that weren't easily cleared, that is when they rifle didn't break entirely or make it blow up.

The Garand could also be produced in numbers the MP44 couldn't.

 

The Germans had no decent bombers to speak of and no ability to invade Britain by ground. The British could also have moved their airbases further west in Britain and put them completely out of range of German fighters. The bombing of Britain was nothing when compared to the later British and American campagins against German and Japan.

 

The German army was the Heer not the Wehrmacht.

 

The AK47 was the weapon that the MP44 wanted to be but wasn't.

 

Correct.

And note, contrary to popular belief, despite their outward similarities, the AK-47 is not based on the MP44.

 

I agree with most people on the others, but I think the Soviet army was the best. They took on most of the German forces by themselves, even though you don't hear about it often in the West. They developed the best mass produced tank of the war, the T34. Their ability to mass produce military items reached and even surpassed the U.S. in some areas. They developed some decent aircraft during the war that was on par with Germany towards the end. They had the most widespread use of the multiple launch rocket system that spread fear in German troops. They had decent tactics towards the end. If it wasn't for the 1941 disaster, they would have handled Germany quite easily. Hitler's decision to attck the Soviet Union in 1941 was a good one, even though he should have attacked earlier that year. The Soviet Union would have been much better prepared in 1942, and Germany would have lost even sooner had they attacked then.

 

Back in the 1970s Col. Trevor DePuy of TRADOC wrote a book that caused a lot of consternation. He noted that the Soviets never faced less than 83% of the German forces. His pithy quip was that for all practical purposes, the Soviets beat the Germans by themselves and the Americans beat the Japanese by themselves.

That was argued endlessly in military circles for a decade and a half.

The Soviets did make some good stuff and their people fought bravely if clumsily. More than anything else, the Soviets had twice the population (145 million vs 67 million for Germany)and literally unlimited strategic depth. The Soviets (like the US) had free access to all the oil they needed. The Germans (like the Japanese) did not.

If the Germans had punched out the British and taken a couple years to "digest" the rest of Europe, and properly prepared for a winter war, immediately recruited Ukrainians and dissident Russians to augment German manpower, and launched their attack into the USSR in early May instead of late June; they might have just pulled it off.

 

Oil played a big part in it for sure...instead of focusing on the oil rich Russian Caucasus , Hitler insisted on taking Stalingrad, thusly over extending his forces.
A series of bungling strategic errors by the Germans...primarily by the meth-amphetamine addict, Hitler himself...led to their defeat.

 

History flipped on a few bad decisions by the German leadership.

 

Germany didn't have the ability to punch out the UK. Even if the Luftwaffe had continued bombing RAF airfields they couldn't have won the BoB outright and didn't have the ability to cross the Channel in large numbers. Estimates are that if Operation Sea Lion had gone ahead the Germans could have landed 1 infantry division in the first wave and that's only if none of the barges sunk, which is highly unlikely, on the way over.

 

It's questionable that the German army could even reach the Caucases. Their logistics and supply train were strung out and (*)(*)(*)(*)ed as it was with Stalingrad and the Baku oil fields were another thousand miles away.

One of the grand mysteries to me is why Hitler didn't invade Turkey. Cutting accross Turkey to get to the Caucasus would have been much shorter and would have bypassed most of the Russian Army.