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

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The Soviets would have defeated Nazi Germany, without the second front, no later than 1947.

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No they wouldnt. Brief points because I dont have the time. Without a western front the Nazi's were already at the steps of Moscow. Without the Lend Lease act the Soviets would have no means/equipment/fuel/trains/etc.. to fight.

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The Soviets would have defeated Nazi Germany, without the second front, no later than 1947. It would have been on the back of T-34s.

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Without the Allies on the western front the Vemork Hydroelectric Plant would have never been destroyed. Hitler would have had his wonder weapon and would have used it ruthlessly to crush Bolshevism.

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Vemork Hydroelectric Plant

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That was done by irregulars prior to Overlord.

There is a dispute if the Germans were even on the right track with heavy water, anyway. I'm not sure, with the self-inflicted brain drain (recall that Einstein fled Nazism and Fermi fled Facism - the person most responsible for the U.S. funding the Manhattan Project, and the single scientist most responsible for the U.S.'s successful nuclear energy/weapons program, respectively).

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The Sherman Easy Eight was probably a better tank than the Panzer IV. It certainly was not a "lightweight" compared to the Panzer IV.

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The Panzer IV H&J models came out the same year as Easy Eight and had more armor and a larger gun. It was less reliable though, supposedly.

You seem to study the war as I do. Wish I wasn't on a phone or I could debate and agree with you for a good bit.

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Hence paper clip after VE day.

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That was mainly for the rockets though. We knew we were on the right track for the bomb. The Germans were already using ballistic missiles - the Russians had their shopping list and we had ours.

Set the stage for a great space race 15 years later, though.

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Well, the implication is that without the Second Front (Overlord) - the Soviets would have lost.

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Without US troop involvement, not just Overlord, I firmly believe that Soviet Russia loses the war. Germany can use the divisions, and Rommel, from Africa and more troops from fortress Europe against the Soviets. This would have been enough to destroy the red army.

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Without US troop involvement, not just Overlord, I firmly believe that Soviet Russia loses the war.

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I used to believe that, too.

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Germany can use the divisions, and Rommel, from Africa and more troops from fortress Europe against the Soviets.

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All true. Of course, a lot of that would have been tied down in France expecting an invasion. The only way to have guaranteed no invasion would have been to take Britain - and that would have posed its own challenges.

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This would have been enough to destroy the red army.

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Germany didn't have enough, short of developing nuclear weapons, to destroy the Red Army - once Soviet production was relocated to the Urals.

The Soviets put almost 35 million men in the field during the war - around half of the total pre-war population of Germany.

Staggering - think about that - 35 million - and a 1/4 of those guys got killed.

There was a good article in WWII magazine recently that compared tank manufacturing philosophies between the US, USSR and Germany.

The basics were:

Tiger tanks took between 200,000-300,000 man hours to produce an cost $320,000 each.

Shermans took 10,000 man hours to produce and cost $33,500 each.

T-34's took 35,000 to 50,000 man hours to produce and cost $50,000 each.

Additionally the Soviets did a study and found that the average life of a tank was six months and the combat life expectancy was only 14 hours. They didn't put a lot of time/manpower in creating technologically superior tanks because they would be 'dead' in a relatively short period of time. Someone mentioned that the T-34's transmission was crap. The Soviet philosophy was "Why design and manufacture a superior transmission that will last 1,500 miles when the tank will not live that long?"

Regarding Lend-Lease, one of the best assets the Soviets received from the US were soft skinned vehicles. The US sent over 400,000 jeeps and trucks to them allowing for increased logistics. Most German units stilled relied upon horse drawn transport for most of the war:

"Despite highly ballyhooed emphasis on employment of mechanized forces and on rapid movement, the bulk of German combat divisions were horse drawn throughout World War II."

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