"Janithor" <Janithor@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:403C6CE6.9000502@comcast.net...

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old coyote wrote:

A bit of a thread drift here by me thor, but wasn't german armament
and technology superior to that of the French and English during
the period that led up to WWII? Their superior tactics and
self-assuredness certainly played a major role as well.

My understanding is this, if anyone has better information, please
correct me.

In short, no, they did not have superior technology in the beginning.
The tanks Germany used in the beginning were not the huge Tigers that
they used in the end. They had the crap surprised out of them when
the Russians came back at them with T-34's, which were superior to
German tanks. And what doesn't get mentioned is that a large part of
the Wehrmacht either walked or was carried by horses. Behind the
Panzers were a lot of horse-drawn artillery, which slowed down the
advance into Russia. The Panzers would break through and then have
to wait for the infantry to catch up.

The Germans had superior optics at sea. Long range gunnery is what
killed the Hood, but they hadn't enough destroyers and crusiers to
make good their advantage. There is also a theory that the German
navy lacked esprit.

I tend to concur with you. I am no infantry officer but the best of
my understanding is that at the start of the war german tanks were
infantry support type with short barrelled main guns and machine guns.
The French Army had more tanks or equivalent numbers in 1940. When
the number of tanks built on (conquered) Czech chasis is subtracted
the German deficiancy is more pronounced. French tactics called for
tanks to be employed in small numbers across the whole formation,
where German tactics placed tanks in concentrations to gain local
superiority. One French LtCol saw the problem from before the war and
was able to make a counter attack against the German right flank west
of Ardennes (which the French and BEF had not defended because it was
'impassable to modern armies') LtCol DeGualle gathered several
formations of tanks for his attack and was ablet to stop the German
advance for something like 12 hours before his lack of supply and
support ended the attack, even so it was that which enabled the BEF to
leave France. German infantry tactics were in general superior in
attack as well. Instead of the rifle platoon, which features aimed
fire at long range supported in end by bayonet defence, the German
used the what would be called a squad automatic weapon team. One
soldier carried a machine gun and the other four provided local cover
to protect him. Two squads, about the same number of men as a French
platoon, would move forward in support of each other (like leapfrog).
The two SAWs or MG's or whatever they were called would put out much
more fire power than a whole platoon of bolt operated rifles.

The fancy weapons listed by Ivan didn't come out until later, and
then in limited quantities. The British planes were not outclassed
by the German planes. Britain was outnumbered something like 4-1 or
10-1, I forget the number, during the Battle of Britain. But they
had an excellent early warning system and could mass their planes and
be ready for a German attack within minutes. The British and French
surface fleets were vastly superior to the Germans. The Germans had
U-Boats, but by '43 they suffered huge losses, due to radar, sonar,
and small aircraft carriers that could patrol the sea lanes and
pounce on any surfaced uboats. The uboats had to operate mostly on
the surface too. German uboats had the highest casuality rates out of
anyone in the war - I think it was around 75%.

Also, we had broken their codes. They thought all their signals
traffic was safe because it was encoded through the enigma machine,
which they thought was unbreakable. So we had superior information,
too.

By we, I hope you mean the Poles and the British. The American code
breakers weren't very much involved in Europe. The US pulled a couple
of neat prizes out of subs, but the Poles had the idea of what the
machines looked like and the Brits had the idea of the math that the
Luftwaffe were using. Oh, and the Luftwaffe always started their
messages with the time and weather, which helped everyone.

My understanding is that the Allies were simply not ready for the
then new Blitzkrieg tactics of the Germans. The French sat behind
the Maginot Line, while the Germans simply went through the weak spot
in the Ardennes, cutting off the rest of the Allies in the north. In
Russia, Stalin had purged something like 50% of his officer corps,
the Red Army was shredded by Stalin in the mid-30's, so they were not
at all ready to fight the Germans.

Things changed later of course. German weapons improved, but not
enough to outweigh the immense advantage we had in logistics and
information. They had only a few hundred Tigers I believe, while we
produced ~50,000 Shermans over the course of the war, and the
Russians produced ~50,000 T-34's. It became a war of attrition, and
that they were going to lose, because we (USA, UK, USSR, et. al.) had
a lot bigger starting base than they had, and their base was
increasingly getting the snot bombed out of

it.

Even to the end of the war, as Thor says, German supply was mainly
horse drawn below the 'corps' level. The Germans had superior tanks
at the end of the war but they had much more trouble making them than
the US had making Shermans. Shermans suffered brutal losses against
the 'modern' German tanks. But the US had a design that lent itself
to rapid production. Even using pump gas instead of diesel (pump gas
is what causes the tanks to burn so easily) the US was able to achieve
a kill ratio that favored the US although it didn't favor the USArmy.
The US would lose 3 or 4 Shermans to every Panzer, but there were 10
Shermans to every Panzer in the fight.

It was worse on the eastern front. The T34 was revolutionary in
design. It was mass producable and equivalent or superior to German
tanks. (I believe the T34 was the basis for every tank design up to
the M60 and the T68) The Russians also had men. Men everywhere: with
guns, without guns, with tanks, without tanks, with air support,
without air support. Invading the USSR was just hopeless for a
country as small as Germany. Stalin killed as many of his own men as
Hitler did and still won. He probably would have won without a
western front. Attrition is not much of a strategy for a democracy,
but if you have time and men (and women) it will work.

Also, we had broken their codes. They thought all their signals traffic
was safe because it was encoded through the enigma machine, which they
thought was unbreakable. So we had superior information, too.

By we, I hope you mean the Poles and the British. The American code
breakers weren't very much involved in Europe. The US pulled a couple of
neat prizes out of subs, but the Poles had the idea of what the machines
looked like and the Brits had the idea of the math that the Luftwaffe were
using. Oh, and the Luftwaffe always started their messages with the time
and weather, which helped everyone.

"Nom dePlume" <nomdeplume1000-at-yahoo.com> wrote:

We helped him attack Iran to ***** off the Soviets
during the cold war. Where do you think he got
weapons of mass destruction in the first place?

He got them from the Russians, the Chinese, and the French, with some
help from Pakistan and North Korea, but mostly the first three.

The Russians sold Saddam tanks and fighter jets.
North Korea sold Saddam missiles. France sold Saddam
a nuclear power plant which was destroyed by Israel.
But the country which provided Saddam with Anthrax etc. was the US.

"Nom dePlume" <nomdeplume1000-at-yahoo.com> wrote:

We helped him attack Iran to ***** off the Soviets during the cold
war. Where do you think he got weapons of mass destruction in the
first place?

He got them from the Russians, the Chinese, and the French, with some
help from Pakistan and North Korea, but mostly the first three.

The Russians sold Saddam tanks and fighter jets. North Korea sold Saddam
missiles. France sold Saddam a nuclear power plant which was destroyed
by Israel. But the country which provided Saddam with Anthrax etc. was
the US.

(It is different for Lybia, btw. German companies provided Ghaddafi with
chemical weapons factories).