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

I think what you're thinking of the Russians had a sizeable force on that border because the Japanese kicked the shite out of them before WWI and they were nervous of them because of that. Stalin finally let his generals move forces from there to reinforce the eastern front

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For the life of me I can't remember its name and I can't seem to find it on Google, but I swear there was a pretty big battle between the Soviets and the Japanese in China during the course of the war.

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It may have happened, but there's no record of it until the very end.

They were not in a state of war until August 1945. By treaty the Soviets had to declare war on Japan 3 months after the conclusion of the war in Europe - they invaded on August 8, 3 months to the day - as agreed. It was also, coincidentally 2 days after Little Boy and the day before Fat Man.

That must've been it. Because the Japanese had hammered the Russians earlier in the century they got a little greedy into Soviet territory, then the Russians hammered them in '39 and the Japanese never tried to incur into Soviet territory again.

I never knew the Russians had to declare war by treaty. That's really interesting

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Russo-Japanese of '04-'05 was primarily a naval struggle, though, with a few exceptions.

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Didn't they get into Siberia though? And the West pretty much told them to leave? (which obviously pissed off the Japanese who realized they would never be treated as equals in the West)

Mukden was a huge land battle in the Russo Japanese War.

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Mukden was a huge land battle in the Russo Japanese War.

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Yeah - Mukden was the preview for WWI - in fact much of the land portion of R-J were.

Germany sent observers, among others, and everyone tried to draw lessons and revise tactics. The intense, fairly bloody for their day battles got the Europeans into thinking about trenches and how to fight the next war. Shaped the prepartions for the Great War, no doubt.

When did the US Army and armor units first get really serious about learning how to fight a land war in Europe?

Not until the very important Louisiana Maneuvers of 1940 and again in 1941. The wiki entry on these maneuvers is rather sparse. There's more info in other places.

The Louisiana Maneuvers are a relatively unknown part of WW2 history, but, this is unfortunate. These months of military training were extremely important and all of the Generals that you know from your US WW2 in Europe history were involved in these maneuvers.

LINK

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Hell, if they hadn't been there most of Western Europe probably would have fallen under the Soviet block.

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Which to me would have been just as terrifying as the Nazis controlling Europe.

I have not visited the Museum. I'd like to.

Even though the museum is in Pineville, few people know just how massive the 1941 maneuvers really were. The opposing northern army had elements in Shreveport, while the southern army had elements located in JENNINGS, LA which is near the Gulf coast.

Patton conducted a sweeping motorized maneuver from south to north that swung to the west through Texas then back into Louisiana during the 1941 maneuvers.

Ace, can you back me up on this point? How critical and important was it for the US Generals of the European theater to get large-scale troop maneuver and command experience in 1940 and 1941 to prepare them for ground combat in North Africa and Europe?