Top 10 Military Nations

Gollevainen said:

well actually Russians would have won the eastern front without any western allied help. Even if all Nazi resources would have been placed in the Barbarosa, they still wouldnt have had a change to defeat Russia. German capacities just weren't enough.

Click to expand...

I would argue that point strongly. Without a UK and US to deal with in the west and on the south, I believe the Germans would have very possible prevailed. At the very least, it would have turned into an interminable slaughterhouse.

...but at this stage...so many years later, it really does not matter.

Jeff Head said:

I would argue that point strongly. Without a UK and US to deal with in the west and on the south, I believe the Germans would have very possible prevailed.

Click to expand...

I doubt it. Germany threw more men and equipment against the Russians. They would have been able to hang on for longer, but eventually they would have lost.

Gollevainen said:

US also won single handedly Japan, that had great effect in the Asia.

Click to expand...

Good points regarding the tenacity of the Russian defense on the Eastern Front, though I have to point out that arguably without China tying down vasts amount of Japanese war material, the US would have a much harder time in the Pacific. It did a significant amount of the fighting to be sure, but I would not characterize it is winning 'single-handedly'.

yeas, there where help, but US didnt get any other nation to support its own efforts in homefront. With out US participation, no China, Australia, Nedherlands or Uk could have stop Japanese. But in europe, both US led west and Soviet Union had the capacity to stop nazis, single handedly if nessery

The_Zergling said:

Good points regarding the tenacity of the Russian defense on the Eastern Front, though I have to point out that arguably without China tying down vasts amount of Japanese war material, the US would have a much harder time in the Pacific. It did a significant amount of the fighting to be sure, but I would not characterize it is winning 'single-handedly'.

Click to expand...

As The_Zergling said, the U.S. did not win the Pacific War single handed, nor would the Western Allies have prevailed against Germany without Russia. Although the Pacific island-hopping campaign was mainly an American affair, only in the Philippines and on Okinawa did the U.S. have to pit full-fledged field armies (6th and 8th in the Philippines, 10th on Okinawa) against the Japanese, and only in the Philippines did the U.S. face a the Japanese equivalent of an actual field army. During the on and again, off again war in China, both China and Japan manoeuvered much larger forces on the mainland in sustained campaigns than anything the U.S. and Japan used in the Pacific island campaigns. And not to forget, for some years the British 14th Army fought a full-fledged Japanese field army in Burma, in part to keep the supply lines to China open over the Burma Road.

In the West, the Russian front was crucial to the defeat of Germany - most Americans, unlike Europeans and some others, do not properly appreciate just how capable the Germans really were: for all their faults, there were the undisputed A-List, noone else approached them for much of the war - although I have doubts Russia could have finished Germany off itself without at the very least the massive material support from the West and the threat of massive Allied invasion from the West to tie down a third of Germany's land forces.

All this said, none of these things would have mattered if Japan's ability to wage war had not been progessively strangled by U.S. submarines in the Pacific, and if the convoy routes to Britain had not been kept open. And American military power and war supplies made that possible. I doubt that Britain and the Commonwealth could have kept the Atlantic supply lines open entirely on their own.
15 Minutes Ago 02:10 PM

FuManChu said:

I doubt it. Germany threw more men and equipment against the Russians. They would have been able to hang on for longer, but eventually they would have lost.

Click to expand...

Of course they threw more men and equipment against the Russians. It was a landlocked war with large Armies manuevering in the field. The Germans felt their fortress Europa was going to help them against the west. They knew that only huge quantities of men and material were required in the east.

But, had all of those divisions that were involved in defenidng against the west in France and Italy not been tied up with the Americans and UK, they may well, at the critical junctures, have made the difference in the east.

And, had the Germans been given more time with their technical developments and been able to produce more of them without the large hinderance to their production facilities that the invasions and bombing brought...that could have made a big difference too.

I am not saying it necessarily would have...but I am saying it could have. It took, IMHO, the combined weight of the US, the UK, and the Russians to put the Nazis down for sure. Without either an eastern or a western front, great doubt as to the outcome would have been entered into the equation. It was hard enough as it was. Having losy my mother's only brother over Germany, and had Uncles and their friends relate directly to me some of the things they experienced.

Jeff's right. Although no one could ever know for certain who would have prevailed in a straight one-on-one between Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia, the fact remains that throughout the war, Germany fought Russia with only part of its available force, while trying sinultaneously having to bail out its allies in Southern and Eastern Europe (Italy, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, etc.) when things went badly for them or they faltered. With the exception of Finland (until late in the war), Germany's allies tended in some ways to be more of a liability than a help.

On the other hand, Russia was fighting principally on one front and able to concentrate practically its entire force on that front. Moreover it received massive material support from the West, not the least of which was 300,000 trucks - trucks that gave the Russians an ability to move and sustain troops and supplies at a rate far greater than that of the Germans, most of whose forces were overwheilmingly dependent upon horse-drawn carts for logistical support.

The Germans may have been much better fighters than the Russians, but the Russians' ability to quickly move vast numbers of troops, equipment and supplies with those 300,000 trucks meant that they could outmanoeuvre at the strategic and operational levels the Germans almost at will, and concentrate forces at a level of 5 or even 10 to 1 against the Germans in critical sectors. With only a fraction of the numbers of trucks that the Russians had, the Germans could not move to counter such Russian concentrations, only to seek to limit and contain the resulting Russian break-throughs and trade more territory for time.

But, had there been little or no Western support for Russia, and had the Germans been freed from diverting troops to garrison the West and the Mediterranean, the Eastern Front would probably have turned out rather differently.

I think many people never really appreciate the strategic bombing of Germany by the Americans. The master minds behind those operations really change the battle of the sky. Never before had any air force had to charge at the fortress's in the air, but with the American bombers, the Luftwaffe were the first to fell to such victim. Many aspect of aerial combat changed. Imagine if the Luftwaffe had the time to perfect the Me 262, not a single fighter can match it. I am not sure if Russia can do it alone.

I also don't understand why does people keep saying all Chinese did at the Korean war, was gather a large amount of people and charge at the Americans. It is so wired, that tactic did not work on the Japanese in the WWII and did not work on any of the European nations at the first world war(BTW, American's fire power is a lot more impressive than any of those countries). Then, how does that work on the Americans, at the Korean war? The Chinese essentially stripped North Korea from the US, you can't achieve that by just charging at your enemy.

optionsss said:

I think many people never really appreciate the strategic bombing of Germany by the Americans. The master minds behind those operations really change the battle of the sky. Never before had any air force had to charge at the fortress's in the air, but with the American bombers, the Luftwaffe were the first to fell to such victim. Many aspect of aerial combat changed. Imagine if the Luftwaffe had the time to perfect the Me 262, not a single fighter can match it. I am not sure if Russia can do it alone.

I also don't understand why does people keep saying all Chinese did at the Korean war, was gather a large amount of people and charge at the Americans. It is so wired, that tactic did not work on the Japanese in the WWII and did not work on any of the European nations at the first world war(BTW, American's fire power is a lot more impressive than any of those countries). Then, how does that work on the Americans, at the Korean war? The Chinese essentially stripped North Korea from the US, you can't achieve that by just charging at your enemy.

Click to expand...

well to be honest with you, Chinese forces really kind of did charge the American forces. According to a veterna chinese fighter during the korean war, they said that some americans where busy in their sleeping bags when the chines rushed them O_O

Unit88 said:

well to be honest with you, Chinese forces really kind of did charge the American forces. According to a veterna chinese fighter during the korean war, they said that some americans where busy in their sleeping bags when the chines rushed them O_O

Click to expand...

I am not saying they never charged at the Americans, but some people made it sounds like that is ALL they did.