re: How were German armored divisions so much more elite than their US counterparts

Thanks to the christie chassis

With regard to the German Panzer Divisions vs the US Armored Divisions.

You have to go half-year by half-year to compare, because, as the war dragged on, the German panzer divisions got worse as the US armor divisions developed real skills.

From November 1942 until summer 1943, the German panzer division had the edge. This edge gradually flipped to the US side because the German panzer divisions had to be re built with new personnel and new equipment more often that you'd think. The German panzer units got consumed and used up in constant action. The US armor units also suffered some attrition, but, on a lesser scale that allowed them to maintain and improve unit quality.

Despite all of the above, there were a handful of German panzer divisions that maintained their excellence and tactical superiority throughout the entire war. The 2nd Panzer Division comes to mind, as does Panzergrenadier Division Grossdeutschland. 1st SS, 2nd SS and 12th SS Panzer divisions also come to mind.

German tanks are thought to be universally better than the US tanks. Keep in mind that the most numerous German tank during the latter half of the war was the Panzer IV with the long barreled 75mm main gun. The Panzer IV was a tank design dating back to 1936. By 1944 the Panzer IV was kind of obsolete and had many weaknesses, not the least of which was that it's frontal armor could be defeated by the most common 1944 US tank at fairly distant ranges. So, it's not true that the German tanks were universally better.

The German tank designs that WERE better than US designs were always way too few in number to keep the Western Allies out of Germany.

The Sherman Easy Eight was probably a better tank than the German Panzer IV, but, this point is debatable.

Final point: by late 1944, due to combat losses, the German tank CREWS were of an overall mediocre quality, because they were relatively new soldiers that had relatively little tank crew training. It could very well be true that by this phase of the war, the American tank crews were overall more experienced and better trained than the German tank crews.

In the movie, Brad Pitt's character is said to have been fighting in a tank crew since November 1942 when the US invaded North Africa. This would give him an immense advantage in tank crew experience over any of his German opponents. Very, very few, if any, German tank crew members in November 1944 would still be crewing a tank in 1945.

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They would have owned Europe if we didn't join in (and possibly saved the Russia attack for later after they established control)...

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Hitler launched an invasion of Russia a few months before America entered the war. Without American involvement, I think all of Europe would be speaking Russian assuming everything else in history remained the same. Russia would have swept through Europe much like they did in WWII but they likely "liberate" France and refuse to give it back. The English Channel maybe saves Britain. In that instance, I think you have a situation at least as terrifying as Germany owning all of Europe.

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Take a look sometime at what assets they were throwing against the Americans and British in the drive to Germany. They still severely outnumbered us and had huge advantages in manpower, armor, artillery, etc on the Western front and yet they Brits and Americans were able to break them within a year of landing in France.

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Quite frankly I don't think the Western front in WW2 was nearly as grand as it is remembered the West. As I think has been referenced, Hitler's real goal was the east. He believed the Slavs were a subhuman race that didn't deserve that land, to Hitler.. it belonged to the Aryan's. I believe I've heard figures reference for every 1 German division on the Western front there was about 20 on the Eastern front, and "D-Day" type assaults in terms of number of troops and troop deaths occurred on a daily basis in the East.

I say all that to kind of back up your point. The US had nearly all of its Navy and Marine focus in the Pacific as well as some Army, whereas the Germans had the majority of their troops in the East.

It was never a "lets put all the German might against the American might and see what happens" kind of thing that I think it is sometimes depicted as being.

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I think anyone who knows much about the war realizes that the Russians pinned down the majority of Germany's land forces. Bluntly put we let them do most of the dying

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Yes, and because of the total war nature that had gripped the Eastern front both sides were willing to die in droves to defeat the other. Really for three reason.

1) Because each truly hated everything their enemy represented.
2) Because of #1, you know losing to them would lead to the complete rape of your country and your people, as occurred with both of them during times of the war.
3) If you weren't willing to die for your country you'd probably end up getting shot by your own men for it.

We were absolutely better off than wwI. Hell the Japanese struck when they did because we ordered 17 essex class carriers in 1940 that would have made Japanese conquest impossible if they didn't try when they did

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Your "fun fact" is fricking wrong. I suggest reading a bit more. This is as far from the truth as you can get.

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I studied it in college man. Yeah it varied from place to place just like it does in American POW camps. By and large our soldiers were treated ok.

It took us breaking jn25 to do that though. One huge part of the war in the Pacific that isn't talked about enough was Nimitz keeping the intelligence department intact after pearl. Everyone else got the boot but he kept them. That won us midway and got us that bastard Yamamoto

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Quite frankly I don't think the Western front in WW2 was nearly as grand as it is remembered the West. As I think has been referenced, Hitler's real goal was the east. He believed the Slavs were a subhuman race that didn't deserve that land, to Hitler.. it belonged to the Aryan's. I believe I've heard figures reference for every 1 German division on the Western front there was about 20 on the Eastern front, and "D-Day" type assaults in terms of number of troops and troop deaths occurred on a daily basis in the East.

I say all that to kind of back up your point. The US had nearly all of its Navy and Marine focus in the Pacific as well as some Army, whereas the Germans had the majority of their troops in the East.

It was never a "lets put all the German might against the American might and see what happens" kind of thing that I think it is sometimes depicted as being.

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Most certainly, and any serious student of the war knows that. What is the stat? 9 out of every 10 Wehrmacht killed were killed by the Red Army? It's something close to that.

However, those who advocate for German dominance do not realize the following:

1. We were also fighting a two-front war, and a very large chunk of our service was confronting another vicious, large, motivated, and heavily armed enemy halfway across the world (by ourselves, by the way)

2. The absolute advantage we and the British had in naval power from early 1942 onward

3. Logistics: we were both supplying the British and Soviets and choking out the Germans - real students of war understand the importance of logistics. Operations drive logistics, and logistics drive operations

4. Manpower: we legions upon legions upon legions of reserves waiting to go after the Wehrmacht if need be waiting back in the States. We had an active force of almost 15 million, and only 1 million or so were ever in duty at one time in the ETO