Lets See How Good U Really Are MRM

[tabs]

Originally posted by daepp
Is tabs as pompous as this thread makes him sound, or am I missing something here?

I am even more "pompous" in person.

[74-911]

Originally posted by tabs
Why was pursuing the Southern Strategy instead of taking Moscow a strategic mistake that most likily cost Germany the war? Its an amazingily simple answer.

That can't be tabs, why just today I read for the umpteenth time how the Normandy Invasion was the turning point of the war in Europe !

[Rick Lee]

Originally posted by tabs
Well MRM lets ask another question.

Why was pursuing the Southern Strategy instead of taking Moscow a strategic mistake that most likily cost Germany the war? Its an amazingily simple answer.

Well, Stalingrad was much farther away from the Reich than Moscow was and thus made the supply lines longer. The city lay on the east side of the Volga, giving the Germans a fat natural barrier to cross and the Stalingrad populace was expecting the Germans to come and had time to prepare. Aside from that, Hitler had a silly fascination with capturing the place because it was named after his nemesis. Seeing as Hitler lost about 200k troops in the battle and another 90k captured when von Paulus disregarded his orders and surrendered, I'd say Moscow might have been a better choice.

[tabs]

Stalingrad..now known as Volgagrad is on the West Bank of the Volga River....it is spread up and down the banks. The Germans would have done much better if they had started at the N & S end of town and worked towards the center...instead of going huse to house through the city. The German Tanks were not built for house to house street fighting.

[Joeaksa]

Originally posted by Rick Lee
Aside from that, Hitler had a silly fascination with capturing the place because it was named after his nemesis. Seeing as Hitler lost about 200k troops in the battle and another 90k captured when von Paulus disregarded his orders and surrendered, I'd say Moscow might have been a better choice.

Spot on. Hitler wanted Stalingrad worse than anything and the Ruskies threw everything they had at it.

Then when the city was lost the Russians then did a textbook pincer movement with their tanks that destroyed hundreds of Panzers and a few Tigers and ended any chance of an offensive.

[tabs]

NOW HERE IS THE ANSWER TO MY QUESTION.

Ever hear the saying ALL Roads lead to Moscow. Well they do, it is the Road and Rail Hub of the Soviet Union. Most rail and road lines run east and west, with far fewer N and S. If the Germans had taken Moscow it would have severly impaired the Russian ability to move men and material to a crucial front in a timely manner.

[Rick Lee]

Volgagrad may now span both sides of the river, but I'm pretty sure the vast majority of Stalingrad was on the eastern side. I haven't looked at an old map, but the old film footage showed most of the land west of the Volga to be fields with the city burning on the other side. And I know some of the footage was later staged, but when the Red Army pincers surrounded the Germans and Romanians and met up, it looked like they were out in the middle of nowhere.

BTW, if you ever want to see the German version of Saving Private Ryan, shown from a German perspective, rent Stalingrad. IIRC, the Germas actually executed some of their own for self-inflicted wounds to get on one of the evacuation planes. I knew a German guy who was there, was shot in the collar bone and made it out on the very last plane. I also knew a German who wasn't so lucky and didn't make it home from Siberia until 1952.

[tabs]

Originally posted by Joeaksa
Spot on. Hitler wanted Stalingrad worse than anything and the Ruskies threw everything they had at it.

Then when the city was lost the Russians then did a textbook pincer movement with their tanks that destroyed hundreds of Panzers and a few Tigers and ended any chance of an offensive.

NOw U stepped in it Joey. Hitler was after the RESOURCES Southern Russia had to offer. Capturing Stalingrad would have cut the Volga as a supply route N & S. It only came a bit later that AH and JS got into a pissing contest over the place. Both knew its importance, and Stalin said NOT ONE STEP BACK and he meant it. Over 1M Soviets died at Stalingrad. They still turn up skeltons.

Whats the difference between a Panzer and a Tiger? Ohh and the Tiger wasn't introduced until the Spring of 1943..so I don't know how it could have been available at Stalingrad. One of the BIG reasons why the Germans didn't commence Operation Citadel until July was the fact that the new Panthers and Tigers had teething problems.

Oh and Kursk was the introduction of a Porsche vehicle known as the Elephant..or Ferdinan with its 8.8 CM gun it was a potent weapon...with one glaring problem it carried NO MACHINE GUNS to protect itself from enemy infantry. They were slow and also broke down alot. After Kursk the remaining vehicles were withdrawn, reconditioned and deployed in Italy where they were used against American Troops at Anzio in 1944 with success...I guess they didn't have to move around very much.

Operation Citadel or Kursk was the largest Tank Battle the world has ever seen. Where the Panzer Divisions slugged it out with the Russian Tank Corps that had been digging in for months. On the Southern end of the pincer the Germans nearly broke through, but the Americans & Brits landed on Sicily and the Germans had to call off the battle and withdraw a couple of Panzer divisions to help prop up Mussolini. That was the last offensive the Germans were able to accomplish on the Eastern front. While Field Marshall Manstein came up with the plan for a Spring Offensive he knew and advised against it by summer. His idea was for a fluid defense, let the Soviets attack and then cut their flanks. While building a fortified line on the Don. But AH said NO RETREAT, hold every bit of ground.

Also by the Summer of 1943 AH and his flunkys knew the war was lost. Keitel said to Guderian that on average Germany was losing 150,000 men a month with no major battles being fought, and was only able to replace 75,000 of those men a month. So they knew they were losing the war to attrition and it was only a matter of time. AH said to one of his Aides (I think thats who) that his Generals Depressed him as all they wanted to do was take him aside and tell him the war was lost. AH knew that if Germany surrendered his goose was cooked once the Holocost was found out about, so he had nothing to loose by fighting to the bitter end. It was really his only option. So U can see why he demanded no retreat, keep the enemy as far away from yourself as you can for as long as you can.

[Rick Lee]

I don't know how much of a supply route the Volga could have been in those winter conditions. It must have been frozen solid for many months.

[tabs]

Volgagrad is in the middle of fking nowhere. Most of the city was on the West Bank the Germans never got across the river. They did come within a coupla blocks of the river in the city center though.

When the Germans lines stretched out the Romanian and Italian Armys were guarding the German 6th Armys flanks. The Russian after the freeze in November launched an attack on both flanks, easily cutting through the Italian and Romanians Armys to meet up about 75 miles west of Stalingrad.

It seemed at first that Goerings promise to supply the 6th Army might be feasible, but weather and loss of planes soon sank any hopes and things started going from bad to worse. There were several opportunities to break out, AH ordered no retreat and Paulus wouldn't disobey or take it upon himself to take the iniative to breakout. AH had ordered no retreat the previous winter and it had worked out, but this time it didn't.

Manstein was able to get the 4th Panzer Army back from the Caucauss and try an break throught to Stalingrad, I think he got to within 40 miles when his offensive stalled. The rest of the winter it was firebrigade time for Army Group Sud, fighting off one Soviet thrust after another (there was no established front line, just a gapping hole). One thing that the sacrafice of the 6th Army accomplished was being able to tie down massive amounts of Soviet troops until the end of January.

Of the 90,000 Germans who surrendered only 5000 of them ever returned to Germany by 1955. The rest had died in Soviet Prison camps. Only one man broke out from the Stalingrad Pocket and made it back to German lines. Ironically he was soon killed by a Russian Motar shell while in an Aide Station.

[tabs]

Originally posted by Rick Lee
I don't know how much of a supply route the Volga could have been in those winter conditions. It must have been frozen solid for many months.

That leaves Spring Summer and Fall, also with ice U can drive across the river. I don't know if the Volga freezes over or not?

[MRM]

I must have signed out last night before I saw this post. That's too bad because it would have been fun to play. History by trivial pursuit is fun, but it is a grasp of the great sweeps of history, not the minutiae that demonstrates an knowledge and understanding of history. Still, history turns on the small details, like Hitler's obsession with Stalin's namesake city, Heine's political machinations and petty jealousies, and the great man losing his nerve or digging deeper when the crucial hour comes.

Now here's a real question that requires a grasp of history to answer. How long after Pearl Harbor did it take for the US to declare war on Germany, why did it take that long and why did the US declare war on Germany?

Easier question two: what was remarkable about Congress's decision to reauthorize the draft in 1940 and who violated every principle of a representative democracy to ensure that democracy would have the tools to survive?

[Rick Lee]

The US did not declare war on Germany. Germany did so on the US as part of the Axis Treaty because the US had declared war on Japan.

[MRM]

Hehehe. Trick question. Yes, the US declared war on Germany because Germany declared war on it. It was a couple of days before they did it, and another day before the US declared war in return. That shows how isolationist the country was. The US hadn't decided whether to enter the European war when Hitler decided the issue for us. It is still an open question of whether we would have declared war on Germany if Hitler had decided not to declare war on us. In retrospect can you imagine any other decision? In 1941 the answer was not obvious.

So how did the US come to enter the war with a draft still in effect and who was responsible?

[Joeaksa]

Originally posted by Rick Lee
Volgagrad may now span both sides of the river, but I'm pretty sure the vast majority of Stalingrad was on the eastern side. I haven't looked at an old map, but the old film footage showed most of the land west of the Volga to be fields with the city burning on the other side. And I know some of the footage was later staged, but when the Red Army pincers surrounded the Germans and Romanians and met up, it looked like they were out in the middle of nowhere.

BTW, if you ever want to see the German version of Saving Private Ryan, shown from a German perspective, rent Stalingrad. IIRC, the Germas actually executed some of their own for self-inflicted wounds to get on one of the evacuation planes. I knew a German guy who was there, was shot in the collar bone and made it out on the very last plane. I also knew a German who wasn't so lucky and didn't make it home from Siberia until 1952.

The Discovery channel has some good shows called "Battlefield diary's" and one discusses the Stalingrad battle very well. Anyone wanting to learn more about this should watch this one.

Tabs, yep got caught on that one. Typing late at night and tired does that!

My ex-wifes family in Berlin has a gent who was in a tank on the Eastern Front. Forget where he was captured but he was 19 or 20 when his war ended. He was interred in Siberia for 7 years by the Russians. He returned weighing around 60 kilos, skin and bone and with totally white hair... at age 27. He would not talk about it and you could tell that he was deeply effected by his time in their hands.

[tabs]

Now the question is why did Germany declare war on America...Breaking Treatys was nothing new for Hitler?

FDR felt he had gotten himself into the wrong war, and how was he going to get in the fight with the Germans. The Germans solved his problem for him. Churchill knew that the Japs did him a favor, and that the Allies were now going to win the war. It was all about Industrial capacity and the US more than equaled Jap and Germany put together.

[MRM]

No one knows why Hitler declared war on the US. Breaking treaties was nothing to him. He was not bound to attack the US because Japan attacked it. Japan was neutral with the Soviets and Hitler didn't complain. When Hitler made his speech the world was waiting with baited breath wondering what he was going to do. When he declared war Churchilll said that the war was now won because the Americans were joining the fight and that he was the happiest man on earth.

Would the US have declared war on Germany if given the chance? No one knows. All we can say is that for days after Pearl Harbor the US was at war with Japan but not Germany. And for more than two years Hitler was at war with Europe but not America. Then Hitler went and solved the dilemma for all of us. I think Hitler wanted to show the other strong men of the world, Churchill, Stalin, Roosevelt, that he was the alpha dog and this was his only chance to mix it up with them.

To quote one of my favorite authors, "Overreaching don't pay."

[Rick Lee]

Overreaching surely don't pay, but that's too easy to say in retrospect. At the time Pearl Harbor happened, Hitler was still the master of Europe. He'd conquered all of it except Russia in a frighteningly short time. Czechoslovakia and Austria fell without a shot fired. Poland lasted a month, France a few weeks, Benelux a few days. Up until Stalingrad, Hitler had a very good chance at winning the war.

Another good read is Richard Harris's "Fatherland". It's a murder mystery that takes place in Berlin 1964, BUT Hitler won WWII and the Cold War is now between the US and the Reich. Sounds far-fetched. But it's really not. It came very close to happening.

[tabs]

Originally posted by MRM
No one knows why Hitler declared war on the US. Breaking treaties was nothing to him. He was not bound to attack the US because Japan attacked it. Japan was neutral with the Soviets and Hitler didn't complain. When Hitler made his speech the world was waiting with baited breath wondering what he was going to do. When he declared war Churchilll said that the war was now won because the Americans were joining the fight and that he was the happiest man on earth.

Would the US have declared war on Germany if given the chance? No one knows. All we can say is that for days after Pearl Harbor the US was at war with Japan but not Germany. And for more than two years Hitler was at war with Europe but not America. Then Hitler went and solved the dilemma for all of us. I think Hitler wanted to show the other strong men of the world, Churchill, Stalin, Roosevelt, that he was the alpha dog and this was his only chance to mix it up with them.

To quote one of my favorite authors, "Overreaching don't pay."

Nice try but NO CIGAR FOR U.....

Hitler declared war on the USA in the mistaken belief that the Japanese would honor their Treaty and reprociate by declaring war on Russia.

However the Japanese had mixed it up with the Russians in 38 or 39 on the Manchurain Border and had come out on the short end of the stick. So the Japanese were very wary of the Russians.

The Japanese immediatily decided to surrender in 1945 once the Russians had declared war and sent their Tank Divisions slicing through the Japanese Army in Manchuria like a hot knife through butter.

[Joeaksa]

Originally posted by tabs
Nice try but NO CIGAR FOR U.....

The Japanese immediatily decided to surrender in 1945 once the Russians had declared war and sent their Tank Divisions slicing through the Japanese Army in Manchuria like a hot knife through butter.

The Russians got into the war against the Japs only in the last few months and only so that they could demand a share in the booty from the Japanese after the war.