Could the Germans have defeated the russians in WW

[Portuguese Rebel]

If the Germans had taken Russian oil fields, then maybe they could have won. There would also be the issue of transporting the oil once they got it

I think there is a very weak chance of them getting the fields before the russians set fire to it.

[Carolus XII]

Portuguese Rebel. You don't know the American mindset. They never would have remained neutral under any circumstances. They industrial capacity for war did not stat to expand at the moment of Dec. 7, 1941. It had been building since the mid 1930s...preparing for the inevitable. I believe conscription started in 1940. Drafting soldiers is not the act of a nation that is pledged to neutrality. once the US was attacked, there was no such thing as an opposition "peace party". The capacity for the Germans (and Japanese) to underestimate their enemies...The US, The Soviet Union, and the British Empire, boggles the mind. What were they thinking?
Even if England had fallen, don't you think the rest of the empire would have kept fighting? Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India (OK, maybe not India). What if the whole British Empire had capitulated? Would the USA have accepted a puppet "vichy like " government in Canada?
Invading the Soviet Union was the execution sentence for the Germans. Declaring war on the US was the coup de grasse.

[Portuguese Rebel]

They never would have remained neutral under any circumstances.

American history shows that the US would remain neutral to the last minute if they had the chance (WWII), or until the war can be brought to a swift end by their intervention (WWI). If the war had been turned in favor of the axis US's politics would become unpredictable. The "US mindset" as you call it was (and still is in some cases) of isolationism.

[GodEmperor Nicholas]

Not since Pearl Harbor.

[morble]

ya, everyone is always complaining about how isolationist the US is. So, does that make the US isolated interventionists, or intervening isolationsts?

Either way, at least everyone has something to complain about?

[Kazak borispavlovgrozny]

Defeat was inevitable for the Germans..heres why

[wilpuri]

German Officer: "Hmm... How does zis vork? I vandar if iz loaded, Günther?"
Günther: "let uz find out!"

[Krazy Munkey]

Originally posted by borispavlovgrozny+Mar 22 2004, 09:18 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (borispavlovgrozny @ Mar 22 2004, 09:18 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin-GodEmperor Nicholas@Mar 22 2004, 09:42 PM
Well Remember that when Nap took it, it was a fake capitol. St. Petersburg was really more economically important and also for its industry. But by the time of WW2, it was almost 30% of all the industry in russia. The problem was: the rest of the major industry was behind the causcasus. So the germans wouldnt have got there for years.

And It is a mistake to equate manpower with prowess. You need manfacturing, ammunition, and disciple. The russians were short this, but they still had it. They were more sophisticated than just throwing men into the grinder-they did it with more tact than that.

NM

not caucaus but the Urals....big difference... [/b][/quote]
Well, they could&#39;ve got the Japanese to conquer Kamchatka and Siberia w/ kamikaze Mongol peaseants. That would only be if they weren&#39;t so stupid as to do Pearl Harbor. What a moron Yamamoto was.

[GodEmperor Nicholas]

Good discussion, I am happy with the maiden voyage of the month, so its time for the new one&#33; Check out pinned topics&#33;

NM

[SilverDeath]

firstly they invaded in june where the ground is muddy and with all the roads and bridges being bombed or sabotaged by the germans ironically or by the russians they had to take to the fields all muddy and bad for tanks, many vehicles had to be pushed&#33; And since it was june then came winter and the germans were still wearing their summer uniforms&#33; And with all shelter burnt down by fleeing soviet forces there was nowhere to shelter, many had to use explosives to blow holes to hide in. Hitler should have ordered the invasion on april where the ground was frozen and with the army clothed in warm coats. That way, offense would have been much easier.

Well, actually hitler should have attacked the british held middle east oil fields and grab the world by the balls. The german army was even stationed in greece to prepare for the invasion but spies pretending to be soviets created a paranoia for hitler and he launced his own self destruction&#33;

Now, if we went further back to the battle of britian, instead of loosing half your bomber fleet against london he should have increased air attacks against airports, bridges, docks, factories, radar towers, roads after Fighter Command was hit&#33;

Now further back, when hitler crushed France he should have ordered a massive attack on Dunkirk and station maybe 10-15 subs in the channel and let the ships come take some troops and wait till they get to the half way point then begin the slaughter&#33; The reason to get guys onto ships is kind of really obvious, create confusion and drown alot of men and taking out alot of ships and continusly bomb all of Dunkirk EXCEPET for the docks so that more allied troops can get onto transports that would be sunk&#33;

Hell, we can even go further back when hitler screwed up the german education system, which would haunt him later when the young germans grew up without knowing even simple math or science. He had 60% of the school time dedicated to physical education&#33; 20% to propaganda&#33; and 20% to others&#33; Sure u get hard, dedicated troops but against a tank they&#39;re nothing&#33; He could never rebuild the luftwaffe because all the new kids don&#39;t know any advance technical skills&#33; He should have made it so children are tested on their skills until high school and then get specialized classes to help guide them to the most favourable brance in the military...

PLUS, a bunch of jewish scientists (einstein included) offered to make germany a new deadly weapon... the A-Bomb&#33; And that dumbass hitler CANCELLED it cause it was a jewish invention&#33;

The list goes on and on but suffice to say hitler had EVERYTHING going for him yet he messed up and thank god for that&#33; In a poker game he would have a royal flush and yet he folds to a pair of threes&#33;

[Julius Caesar III]

My english is too bad to make a clear explanation about your question Nicholas, but i&#39;m going to give you some precisions.

Firstly the russians have been taken totaly by surprise on the 22th juin 1941, when operation Barbarossa started. Remember the secret pact between Hitler and Stalin, before the war even started in 1938, which was about cutting poland in 2 parts ? Well Stalin had his own ideas about conquering europe.
I&#39;ve read a book where it says that Stalin was secretly preparing an invasion of europe, and that the german attack on russia has been at the end used to enter europe and make what russia would have done in one way or the other.

I know also that the mistakes during barbarossa came directly from the top. Hitler delayed the attack on moscow something like 8 times, and this was a bloody big error, because every minute Stalin was gathering more and more troops from all Russia into trains and trucks going to the front.
Also the russians had a very good general on their side, General Winter who was making the biggest damages on german military equipment.

St.Petersbourg (Leningrad) was at this time encircled by german forces.
My grand mother was making fox holes and barikades for russians soldiers.
My grand father was director of a university in Leningrad, and answered the call of Stalin to defend MOTHER RUSSIA. He spend the war with his sniper gun,making head shots like Vasili Zaitzev. (Zaitz means rabbit by the way).
The food ressources in Leningrad where starting to end, so populations including my grand-ma, were starting to eat every horse, dog, cat, rat they could find to survive. I even heard her telling me when i was child that there were people running after her to cut a piece out of here &#33;&#33;&#33;
So, the only way that food came into the city was trough a frozen lake which was called "Ladochkaya" or something like this, and a big number of trucks braked also trough the ice etc....

And by the way, as someone said, the russian would never give up.
I think its Tolstoi who said "He, who is going with a bullet against Russia, will die by a bullet" .......well, Hitler should have read some russian litterature before going into it. *gun*

[Rupertel]

without knowing much about troop strenghts or tactics on the eastern front, this question (from the first post) is easy to answer:

YES, hell, YES, sure they could have won.

hannibal could have razed rome to the ground if it hadn&#39;t been for the stupid carthaginian politician morons mixing into affairs of strategy and tactics (and support...).

napoleon could maybe have conquered all of europe ultimately, if it hadn&#39;t been for his own crazyness.

and surely the germans could have won ww2... kind of if it hadn&#39;t been the ww2 we know. if it hadn&#39;t been for those megalomaniac leaders, those morons. it starts with being nazi, that&#39;s the first and worst among many stupid things. banning (or burning... bah) your best scientists, because they&#39;re jews. moron. sacrifice a whole army for what was it? nothing, right? moron&#33; not allowing your soldiers to wear winter uniforms, just because a new shipment of summer clothes has recently arrived... although it&#39;s in the midst of russian winter (grandpa told) - moron&#33; :wub:ing around with the 3 strongest military powers in the world at the same time. moron&#33; going for completely meaningless objectives instead of concentrating on the important things. moron&#33;
the best thing all those morons did was getting us rid of themselves by being so moron-ish&#33; if they hadn&#39;t been so terrible morons, they wouldn&#39;t have lost. on the other hand, if they hadn&#39;t been so terrible morons, nobody would have wanted them to lose. so since they were morons, they deserved to lose. GJ, morons&#33;


ps.: i apologize if anyone feels offended by my excessive use of the word &#39;moron&#39;

[wilpuri]

Originally posted by Julius Caesar III@Apr 5 2004, 12:04 PM
My grand father was director of a university in Leningrad, and answered the call of Stalin to defend MOTHER RUSSIA. He spend the war with his sniper gun,making head shots like Vasili Zaitzev. (Zaitz means rabbit by the way).
The food ressources in Leningrad where starting to end, so populations including my grand-ma, were starting to eat every horse, dog, cat, rat they could find to survive. I even heard her telling me when i was child that there were people running after her to cut a piece out of here &#33;&#33;&#33;
So, the only way that food came into the city was trough a frozen lake which was called "Ladochkaya" or something like this, and a big number of trucks braked also trough the ice etc....

You must mean Lake Ladoga:

During the defense of St. Petersburg (then Leningrad) against the Germans in World War II, the frozen Lake Ladoga was the lifeline by which Leningrad was supplied in the winters from 1941 to 1943. Because of the difficulties of navigation, the southern shore of Lake Ladoga is paralleled by the Ladoga Canals, c.100 mi (160 km) long, connecting the Svir and Neva rivers and forming part of the Mariinsk System (see Volga-Baltic Waterway ) and the Baltic-White Sea Canal System.

-encyclopedia.com

Things could have turned sour, If Mannerheim had answered Hitler&#39;s call to use the Finnish forces in the sieging of the City

[Julius Caesar III]

Yeah sorry its Lake Ladoga, it came out from very old memories hehe.

[Portuguese Rebel]

hannibal could have razed rome to the ground if it hadn&#39;t been for the stupid carthaginian politician morons mixing into affairs of strategy and tactics (and support...).

That&#39;s a WHOLE new debate in itself...
I don&#39;t believe it would be that easy anyway...

[SilverDeath]

Originally posted by Portuguese Rebel@Apr 5 2004, 08:26 PM

hannibal could have razed rome to the ground if it hadn&#39;t been for the stupid carthaginian politician morons mixing into affairs of strategy and tactics (and support...).

That&#39;s a WHOLE new debate in itself...
I don&#39;t believe it would be that easy anyway...

I agree, Hannibal didn&#39;t have the manpower or the seige equipment.

[Rupertel]

oh my good...

*ot* *sorry*

lol, i didn&#39;t mean to start THIS debate (although i quite like it ), sorry, for going off topic... i just wanted to point out that many great opportunities have been spoiled throughout history because of moronism...

great opportunity in this case (ww2) not meaning great for the whole world (just to make sure no-one says i&#39;d have wanted the nazis to win), but great possibility for the ones pursuing the goals they did, in effect, not complete...




oh, and as for hannibal - sure he didn&#39;t have the manpower... because morons denied him the vital support he would have needed to make the aggressive kind of war it would have taken to kick rome off it&#39;s throne... or however you want to call it.... (talk about useless waste of men on sicily, or not finishing off the remaining troops in spain)
AGH sorry off topic... just couldn&#39;t resist

[JvlivsCaesar]

Originally posted by Julius Caesar III@Apr 5 2004, 04:04 AM
And by the way, as someone said, the russian would never give up.
I think its Tolstoi who said "He, who is going with a bullet against Russia, will die by a bullet" .......well, Hitler should have read some russian litterature before going into it. *gun*

Actualy I think it was St Alexander Nevsky who said "Those Who Come Into Russia With A Sword Shall Fall From It" (a side note Alexander Nevsky deffited Tuetonik Knights a german cursading order on the lake near Neva river that runs though St Petersburg.)
I think seige of Leningrad could give us some idea an how hard Russians would fight to deffend their country. The city was under seige for 900 days with virtualy no food suply and some of the Hardest winters in a 100 years also it was Stalins most hated city and he let the germans take it. So it wasent that people liked Stalin no they hated him but they liked their country.

The one quote about russia at war i like the best is "Russians take forever to sadle up but ones on the horse they ride fast and brake slow"




PS julius are you from St Petersburg cuz thats where i am from.

[Julius Caesar III]

Eum no, actually i was born in Paris but my mom is from St.Petersbourg, and at home we speak only russian since i was born, she even teached russian to my dad lol.
So i&#39;m quite russian in my bones.
And yeah soooooooooooooooooorry about the big big mistake on Nevsky.
Really stupid a** i am. * Goes back to his russian books* *out of ideas* .
Izvini drujog.

[Krazy Munkey]

Originally posted by Portuguese Rebel@Apr 5 2004, 01:26 PM

hannibal could have razed rome to the ground if it hadn&#39;t been for the stupid carthaginian politician morons mixing into affairs of strategy and tactics (and support...).

That&#39;s a WHOLE new debate in itself...
I don&#39;t believe it would be that easy anyway...

That&#39;s the main reason republican nations lose wars. We could&#39;ve kicked HItler&#39;s butt early on if it weren&#39;t for Chamberlain.