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Thread: Who were the best soldier of ww2?

  1. #1681
    Farnan's Avatar Saviors of the Japanese
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    Default Re: Who were the best soldier of ww2?

    Quote Originally Posted by tonymurphy88 View Post
    You were genralising before i was
    I was?

    My original post on this thread, more than a year ago:

    Quote Originally Posted by Future Redleg Officer View Post
    The difference from a veteran American, a veteran British/Commonwealth, a veteran German and a veteran Russian probably wasn't that different.
    “The nation that will insist upon drawing a broad line of demarcation between the fighting man and the thinking man is liable to find its fighting done by fools and its thinking by cowards.”

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  2. #1682

    Default Re: Who were the best soldier of ww2?

    Quote Originally Posted by Markas View Post
    Sorry, what?
    What? this:

    Quote Originally Posted by Markas View Post
    The initial landing was done in a day.
    Yup, they owned the germans in a day.

    Quote Originally Posted by Markas View Post
    The soviets incurred similar losses practically every day on the Eastern front.
    Yup, they got owned by the germans every day.


    Quote Originally Posted by tonymurphy88 View Post
    Tell you what then, America obviously couldent defend, because it didnt (sarcasm). Are you trying to say soviets couldent attack under pressure, im pretty sure they were fighting a more difficult battle against the most hardcore troops in the German army when attacking Berlin.
    Hardcore troops? you mean those morally broken soldiers? Hell, even Hitler was demoralized.

    Quote Originally Posted by tonymurphy88 View Post
    You should tell the American army to try and attack a significantly better defended area than Omaha.
    Like the japs defended Islands?

    Quote Originally Posted by tonymurphy88 View Post
    (not trying to talk down what the Americans done for us, but it sounded like you were trying to talk down the Russian army and talk up the American army)
    Not at all, soviets did very good but that doesn't change the fact that they were owned again and again before getting Siberian industry ready to build.

  3. #1683
    tonymurphy1888's Avatar Senator
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    Default Re: Who were the best soldier of ww2?

    Quote Originally Posted by Future Redleg Officer View Post
    I was?

    My original post on this thread, more than a year ago:
    My only other post before you came in with the genralising:


    I think 1 Vs 1 Britain would lose but we'd never be 1 Vs 1 we had the Empire and the loyal Empire that now makes up the Commonwealth and if Canada and Australia be for us, who be against us?

    Btw the only reason we would lose is because the jerries had better tech and larger numbers.
    So you still genralised before me
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  4. #1684
    Lysimachus's Avatar Spirit Cleric
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    Default Re: Who were the best soldier of ww2?

    Hardcore troops? you mean those morally broken soldiers? Hell, even Hitler was demoralized.
    Actually, you'd be surprised at how tenacious the defence of Berlin was. The Soviets invaded the city with the amount of troops Germany began Operation Barbarossa with and it still took two weeks of hard street fighting to secure the city.

  5. #1685
    tonymurphy1888's Avatar Senator
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    Default Re: Who were the best soldier of ww2?

    Quote Originally Posted by thursgun View Post
    Hardcore troops? you mean those morally broken soldiers? Hell, even Hitler was demoralized.
    Demoralised? the couldent be demoralise they were machines this is the SS were talking about. Hitler was a unstable fool.


    Quote Originally Posted by thursgun View Post
    Like the japs defended Islands?
    Ill tell you what id rather be fighting 3000 japs than 300 SS trained Germans

    Quote Originally Posted by thursgun View Post
    Not at all, soviets did very good but that doesn't change the fact that they were owned again and again before getting Siberian industry ready to build.
    They werent prepared for war, America had like 3 years extra to prepare for Russia war was violently thrust upon them by a country with whomb the had a non-aggression pact, America started training conscrips in 1940, Russia didnt have anytime to train conscipts.
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  6. #1686
    Farnan's Avatar Saviors of the Japanese
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    Default Re: Who were the best soldier of ww2?

    Quote Originally Posted by tonymurphy88 View Post
    My only other post before you came in with the genralising:
    Where?

    http://www.twcenter.net/forums/searc...archid=1003605
    “The nation that will insist upon drawing a broad line of demarcation between the fighting man and the thinking man is liable to find its fighting done by fools and its thinking by cowards.”

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  7. #1687

    Default Re: Who were the best soldier of ww2?

    Quote Originally Posted by thursgun View Post
    What? this:



    Yup, they owned the germans in a day.
    When you massively outnumber and out-resource the enemy in a limited place of your choosing that tends to happen. Tch.

    Yup, they got owned by the germans every day.
    No... no they didn't. The Soviets were kicking the Germans back and doing all the hard work in the European Theatre long before D-Day even happened. Seriously, read some books.
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  8. #1688
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    Default Re: Who were the best soldier of ww2?

    Quote Originally Posted by Future Redleg Officer View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by Future Redleg Officer View Post
    The Soviets had awesome commanders at the very top, but generally, with some exceptions of course, commanders division level and below. The US, UK and Commonwealth had awesome Division level and below commanders (and had real NCOs) but were mixed above division level.
    I dunno if you can spot it
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  9. #1689
    Farnan's Avatar Saviors of the Japanese
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    Default Re: Who were the best soldier of ww2?

    Yea, I generalized the command structure not the individual soldiers.

    Due to the nature of the war and their societies the Soviets (not only in WWII but up till its collapse) focused on the Operational Level of warfare which requires good Army Groups, Army and Corps commanders but doesn't require good commanders below that. The Western Allies that became NATO focused on the Tactical level which requres good Division and below leaders. However the Soviets crushed at Operational Level planning.


    Its like the difference between a sniper rifle and assault rifle.
    “The nation that will insist upon drawing a broad line of demarcation between the fighting man and the thinking man is liable to find its fighting done by fools and its thinking by cowards.”

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  10. #1690

    Default Re: Who were the best soldier of ww2?

    and it still took two weeks of hard street fighting to secure the city.

    Not exactly. The Berlin Operation started on April 16 but they started from the eastern banks of Oder and Neisse, it took 9 days to push the Germans back behind the Oder and Neisse and win the battle for Seelow Heights. First Russian units approached the outskirts of Berlin on April 24. On April 25 - after capturing Potsdam - the city was completely encircled but Russian units were not attacking Berlin yet. On April 26 the assault started - at first mostly artillery units were involved. On April 29 Polish units (1st Inf.Div.) reinforced Soviet forces in Berlin and since April 30 they participated in combats. On April 30 the heaviest battle for the city centre (so called battle for the Reichstag - but of course combats were in many districts of Berlin) started. On May 2 - after 6 / 7 days of combats - last German resistance in Berlin was broken.

    So in fact it took 6 - 7 days of hard street fighting to secure the city (Berlin surrendered in the morning - 6:55 AM of Moscow time - on May 2 1945).

    Soviet losses inside the city were relatively light compared to losses in the entire operation (especially in the battle for Seelow Heights at the Oder river).

    But yes, the Germans in Berlin were fanatics - some SS units tried to resist even after the city's surrender on May 2 but were wiped out.
    Last edited by Domen123; March 21, 2010 at 04:05 PM.

  11. #1691

    Default Re: Who were the best soldier of ww2?

    Quote Originally Posted by thursgun View Post
    Yup, they owned the germans in a day.
    why? because they had absolute air superiority [only two german planes strafed omaha that day], naval artillery and tanks (although on omaha, the germans managed to knock out all the tanks involved in the 1st landing).
    on the other hand, the german airforce had been withdrawn (homeland defense against heavy bombers was a priority), and the german coastal artillery couldn't resupply its ammo fast enough.

    under those circumstances, it's easy to overrun the enemy, just pound the positions long enough.

    [google 'Hein Severloh']

    Quote Originally Posted by thursgun View Post
    Yup, they got owned by the germans every day.
    read up on german losses during the first months of operation barbarossa. even if the russians took horrendous losses, german casualties where critical too, and could barely be replaced in 1941. what's more, the main cause for russian losses was the ruthless way in which the commanders sought to stop the german advance - by sending wave after wave of their soldiers against them in the hope to submerge them. add to this the 'not a single step back' directive by stalin in 1942, and maybe you'll get an idea of what it was like to serve in the red army.

    Quote Originally Posted by thursgun View Post
    Hardcore troops? you mean those morally broken soldiers? Hell, even Hitler was demoralized.
    the russians put the fear of god in the germans who didn't fight for hitler or an ideology anymore, but to keep the red army away from their homes as long as possible. if that's not an incentive to fight to the last bullet, then i don't know what is.

    [fun fact: the SS defending the reichstag in berlin where to some extent french from the division 'charlemagne']

    Quote Originally Posted by thursgun View Post
    Like the japs defended Islands?
    cf. Tarawa, iwo jima
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  12. #1692
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    Default Re: Who were the best soldier of ww2?

    Yup, they owned the germans in a day.
    Well yes, they did pretty much "own" the Germans on the day. Pretty much every single beach was poorly defended, and even Omaha with elements of the 352. Infanterie-Division was secured by the end of 6th June (though just barely).

    "At 1:35 p.m. General Marcks was erroneously informed by the 352nd Division's chief of staff that the invasion had been thrown back into the sea, and Rommel's headquarters were therefore informed that 'the situation in the area of 352nd Division is now restored.'

    The available 352nd Division reserves were squandered during the course of the day on repeated counterattacks against three companies of U.S Rangers, around 200 men in all, who at 7:00a.m., in a bold stroke, had scaled the 100-food sheer cliffs at the Pointe du Hoc and had captured the German battery whose big guns...

    ...shortly before nightfall the resolute troops of the U.S. 1st Division penetrated the Germans' second line of defense along the Colleville-Saint-Laurent, pushing their front line to the south and east of the coast road and extending their beachhead to between one and one and a half miles in land - a remarkable achievement for men who had been so badly drubbed in the morning.

    ...

    By dark, V Corps held a beachhead six miles long and not even two miles deep. Its hold was precarious. The minefields were not completely cleared; German mortars and artillery still harassed the beach; there was a grave shortage of tanks and guns and the troops were in a seriously weakened condition after a bloody and exhausting day in which they had sustain some 3,000 casualties.

    Whether the Americans were at Omaha to stay depended on what the German defenders could throw against them in the night and in the days to follow. And that, in turn, depended on the fortunes of the British battling it out on Gold, Juno and Sword."
    The Second Front, Douglas Botting, page 129.

    Despite the fact that the US attacks had been strongly resisted, they were nonetheless able to secure a position on the beaches, and with inadequate numbers of troops available to the Germans they were incapable of pushing the Allies back to the sea. The victory on the 6th June would be followed by the push inland, construction of the "Mulberries" and fighting through the bocage and for the British Empire would involve facing crack German Panzer-Divisions at Caen.

    Yup, they got owned by the germans every day.
    Au contraire, it was only in 1941 that the Soviets faced immense military defeats. By 1942, they were gradually learning from their errors and the massive encirclements of 1941 were not so prevalent, and the Soviets were able to simply able to lure the Germans further and further away from their already hopelessly overstretched supply lines and of course in to that fateful place we know as Stalingrad. In 1943 this was followed by Kursk, and in 1944 was followed by Operation Bagration.

    "The Red Army's starting to withdraw ahead of the Germans in July 1942 was not part of a devilish plan. Quite simply, Stalin had at last accepted the wisdom of allowing commanders to evade encirclement. As a result, the German pincer attack west of the Don closed uselessly." Stalingrad, Antony Beevor, page 73/74.

    Hardcore troops? you mean those morally broken soldiers? Hell, even Hitler was demoralized.
    No, we're on about the remnants of the Third Reich who defended their capital to the last. Although a mixture of various nationalities of SS, Wehrmacht and Volkssturm they put up quite a fight. Not "hardcore" troops, but the damage inflicted on the Soviets was quite large in the last days of the war considering the huge margin in terms of men, artillery, tanks and planes.

    "The Waffen SS did not believe in standing behind the makeshift barricades erected close to street corners. They knew that these not very effective obstacles would be the first thing to be blasted by gunfire. It was all right to put riflemen at windows of the upper floors or on roofs, because tanks could not elevate their guns enough. But with the panzerfaust, they made their ambushes from basements and cellar windows. This was because the panzerfaust was very hard to fire accurately from above. The Hitler Youth copied the SS enthusiastically, and soon the Volkssturm - the ones who had seen service in the First World War and stayed at their posts - followed the same tactics...

    ...Tank losses, especially in the 1st Guards Tank Army, prompted a rapid rethink of tactics."
    Berlin, Antony Beevor, page 316.

    Like the japs defended Islands?
    Just wiki any pacific battle the Japanese took part in. The battles were extremely intense, and by the end the Japanese defending them were pretty much obliterated rather than surrendering. There are plenty of cases of some going in to hiding simply out of a refusal to surrender and only resurfacing decades after the war.

    Not at all, soviets did very good but that doesn't change the fact that they were owned again and again before getting Siberian industry ready to build.
    In 1941, yes. By 1942, after having learnt the lessons of the German Blitzkrieg they were able to defend against the Germans much better.
    Last edited by Lysimachus; March 25, 2010 at 11:22 AM.

  13. #1693
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    Default Re: Who were the best soldier of ww2?

    Just for a point of comparison. I do think its unfair to compare the Allied soldiers in the Western European theater to the Russian soldiers in the Eastern European Theater. They fought in two completely different environments.

    If you truly want to compare apples to apples you really do have to compare the US Pacific Campaigns to the Russian Eastern campaigns. In each case they had similar factors or weather, exhaustion, supply and immense scopes of geography to contend with. Both nations suffered nothing but serious defeats until a change of wind hammering out new strategies after a prolonged battle. Stalingrad for the Russians, Guadalcanal for the US. Both involved fierce contests over a small piece of land where you often could not see the enemy until it was too late. Both offered environmental factors that caused great suffering to soldiers on both sides, and both had to deal with lack of supplies and reinforcements (I'd argue that Guadalcanal had a slightly more difficult time of it since the Russians were able to hold onto the river front through the entire seige, the Allies lost control of the New Georgian Sound for nearly 2 months) and both weren't decided until one side was able to out a strangle hold on the other.

    For those that claim that the US entered the war late, also remember that Guadalcanal was happening at the same time as Stalingrad, Aug - Dec 42, and we weren't fighting on home soil, so we needed to have the infrastructure and transportation channels secured and the soldiers trained before the event.

    I'm not making an argument of one is better than the other. But if we're going to compare Russian soldiers to US soldiers, Stalingrad and Guadalcanal must, in my opinion, be the standard by which we make the comparison.
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  14. #1694
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    Default Re: Who were the best soldier of ww2?

    ^^If we are going down that route then I would say an even better comparison is with the British and Commonwealth forces in Burma. They even called the Battle of Kohima the 'Stalingrad of the East'
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  15. #1695
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    Default Re: Who were the best soldier of ww2?

    Quote Originally Posted by Azog 150 View Post
    ^^If we are going down that route then I would say an even better comparison is with the British and Commonwealth forces in Burma. They even called the Battle of Kohima the 'Stalingrad of the East'
    Makes sense, you can only make a good comparison when comparing how they were in comparably similar conditions.
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  16. #1696
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    Default Re: Who were the best soldier of ww2?

    Quote Originally Posted by tonymurphy88 View Post
    the couldent be demoralise they were machines this is the SS were talking about.
    That's quite a comic book exaggeration. The SS were well trained, very motivated soldiers, sure. But they sure as hell weren't "machines" and they could be demoralised like everybody else.
    For some reason the SS gets portrayed as though they were the Special Forces of the German Army. They were not; far from it.
    They werent prepared for war, America had like 3 years extra to prepare for Russia war was violently thrust upon them by a country with whomb the had a non-aggression pact, America started training conscrips in 1940, Russia didnt have anytime to train conscipts.
    Well, no. Stalin wasn't an idiot. He knew full well that the non-agression pact was a crock and that Hitler would stab him in the back as soon as he had the opportunity (in fact that's why the Russians were making plans about attacking Nazi Germany too).
    The 1941 Operation Barbarossa still caught Stalin a bit by surprise (he wasn't expecting an attack quite so soon) but it's not like they weren't prepared for war. They had dug in well, by taking over and fortifying Eastern Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, etcetera...
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  17. #1697
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    Default Re: Who were the best soldier of ww2?

    The Germans no doubt, they Invaded Europe with a very efficient and coordinated blitzkrieg

  18. #1698

    Default Re: Who were the best soldier of ww2?

    They had dug in well, by taking over and fortifying Eastern Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, etcetera...

    Hmm, did they really build any new fortifications in Eastern Poland? Apart from those Poland already had got in 1939?

  19. #1699
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    Default Re: Who were the best soldier of ww2?

    ....................in conclusion the Finnish had the best kill death ratio, Finnish soldiers win.

    End of Thread.

  20. #1700

    Default Re: Who were the best soldier of ww2?

    Put the Finnish army in the steppes of Ukraine instead of Finnish snowy forests & mountains and order them to repulse similar attacks - we will see the kill death ratio...

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