WWII in photos

[Bring_Back_Shantz]

Originally Posted by the-rasta-masta

I always thought the German Tiger was one of the most feared?

It was, but it took a huge ammount of resources to manufacture, was incredibly complciated, and difficult to maintain, and just wasn't available in the numbers that were needed.

1 Tiger, would beat 1 T-34 or 1 Sherman 100% of the time, but that was almost never the case. Usually it was 1 Tiger vs a dozen allied tanks.

Allied tanks were easy to build, easy to maintain, and had a numerical advantage that was just overwhelming.

[CaptainCrunch]

There were lots of problems, it didn't take advantage of sloped armour design so it was heavy and slow and had to have a lot of armor. while it had a 88 mm cannon and could outrange most other tanks it wasn't super maneuverable. It had a poor suspension and transmission system.

You feared the gun on it, but if you got into knife fighting range of it, you could out perform it.

[Northendzone]

that one picture of all of the german soilders is mind boggling - it must have taken a long time for that many soilders to congregate in full gear and formation......

[Magnum PEI]

Canada spent the first 3 years of the war twiddling their thumbs in England, not courageously battling the nazis. Our biggest contribution in that period was impregnating a teenaged Ms Clapton. Fact is Americans saw action in the European theatre long before Canadians, PM King refused to allow our boys to fight in North Africa so the Canadians werent unleashed until Dieppe. Canada also had the easiest landing on D-day and still got nowhere near their objectives, despite being flanked on both sides by the Brits. While the Americans were plunging straight into the heart of Germany Canadians were off on a side mission to liberate the Netherlands, which they failed to do by wars end (though some Canadians fought in North Germany, my Gramps among them. He was at the liberation of Bergen-Belsen, which is a crazy story.)
So, yeah, Canada's role in WW2 has been extremely inflated, probably due to patriotism and the education system. America won the war, its time for us all to admit it. They basically fought two wars at the same time, and were giving loads of material to Russia and UK prior to Pearl Harbour.

[burn_this_city]

Canadians made up 20% of the Bomber Command loses in the war. They weren't twiddling their thumbs in England until D-Day. My Grandfather survived a 30 mission tour as a bomb aimer, most of his buddies he went through training with didn't.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Magnum PEI

Canada spent the first 3 years of the war twiddling their thumbs in England, not courageously battling the nazis. Our biggest contribution in that period was impregnating a teenaged Ms Clapton. Fact is Americans saw action in the European theatre long before Canadians, PM King refused to allow our boys to fight in North Africa so the Canadians werent unleashed until Dieppe. Canada also had the easiest landing on D-day and still got nowhere near their objectives, despite being flanked on both sides by the Brits. While the Americans were plunging straight into the heart of Germany Canadians were off on a side mission to liberate the Netherlands, which they failed to do by wars end (though some Canadians fought in North Germany, my Gramps among them. He was at the liberation of Bergen-Belsen, which is a crazy story.)
So, yeah, Canada's role in WW2 has been extremely inflated, probably due to patriotism and the education system. America won the war, its time for us all to admit it. They basically fought two wars at the same time, and were giving loads of material to Russia and UK prior to Pearl Harbour.

So you choose to ignore Canada's role in the battle of the Atlantic, the Canadian airmen that fought in the battle of britain? You ignore the fact that Juno beach was heavily defended, and Canada succeeded in hitting its first day mandate while taking a 50% casualty rate.

You ignore the fight towards Caen which was key to the Liberation of Paris.

You ignore that Canada fought and drove the German's out of the Scheld. I don't know what the hell you are talking about when it comes to the Netherlands, considering that the German's capitulated to Canada after Canada had liberated most of the nation. On May 5th, but by then the German Army in the Netherlands was beaten.

[getbak]

Originally Posted by the-rasta-masta

One thing about the Germans is their army and uniforms looked way more badass than anybody elses. Those uniforms are sleek. I always get a chill whenever I see their troops marching/goose stepping. Intimidating war machine to say the least.

Sure, they were dressed by Hugo Boss.

[Knut]

I guess you could say they were dressed to the Nein's

[CaptainCrunch]

wha wha whaaaaaa

[Shasta Beast]

Originally Posted by the-rasta-masta

I always thought the German Tiger was one of the most feared?

It definitely was but it was plagued with problems mentioned by others. It's relative rarity would have helped it's reputation as well, with few enemy tank crews coming into contact with it, experience fighting it was low too.



The Panther tank was another notorious German tank, it was produced in higher numbers but was not without some problems of it's own, it had above average battle success. Both the Tiger and Panther tanks did fantastic against the western allies though, in part due to USA's tank Command underestimating the enemy armour and sticking with a low caliber gun, too low to penetrate on most shots.

For tank to tank combat the real killers was the StuG.



Though they are typically forgotton, some units in these tanks have reported 20:1 kill ratios using them, and nearly all others have had high positive ratios too. While the tank destroyers aren't as good in the assault role they really excel on defense, which was the case for most battles for the Germans in the latter half of the war. The Germans had some other good tank destroyers but these were the most numerous and successful. Most German tanks were terrific at long range and in the open field too, but as the war wore on and the German's lost production power and resources they definitely fell behind in tank advancement.

[Shasta Beast]

Oh but for general ubiquity for the Germans the PzIV would be their main tank and the workhorse.



It was produced throughout the whole war, served on all fronts, and received numerous modifications and upgrades to keep it in contention.

[CaptainCrunch]

You have to admit though the German's fell behind in the tank technology range in a hurry.

They really followed the heavy tank philosophy where they hoped that their excellent guns which could outrange anything in the battlefield.

But German armor design fell behind where as other nations embraced the defensive aspects of tanks, which was fast fairly agile tanks that took advantage of slopped armour design.

The t-34 was probably at least in my mind the best tank in WW2, and it could be considered to be a medium tank.

Thanks to the Christie suspension and a very powerful engine, it could travel at 35 miles an hour on rugged terrain, it had a decent 76 mm gun that could penetrate German armor at range, and its 50 mm of sloped frontal armor was equivalent to a 250 mm straight front armour.

The Tiger on the other hand had a top speed of 25 miles an hour but could honestly only achieve that on a nice flat road. It had a 88 mm rifled gun which could outrange anything and up to 120 mm of frontal armour but it was straight mounted which meant a better chance of penetration or the dreaded shock destruction.

Another fatal difference was that the T-34 had a battle range of 400 km, the Tiger about 150 km.

The Russian's really won the war on the back of the T34.

[Shasta Beast]

Oh I agree. By the end of the war the Russian's definitely had the most and the best tanks. They had guns big enough too to penetrate any of the German heavies.

On the western front the German's had a much longer run at tank superiority though.

[T@T]

The holocaust pics really show how cruel man can be..no word other than disgusting.

NSFW!

[CaptainCrunch]

So disturbing.

What always amazed me is the number of people that bought into the holocaust movement, and I'm not just talking about the German's.

[Coys1882]

I've never met a Holocaust denier so I've always wondered how they explain those kind of photos.

[Bill Bumface]

Jewish slumber party.

[CaptainCrunch]

They deny the numbers to be honest. They deny that the Nazi's and not just Germany managed to turn 6 million jews into air pollution.

They argue that the numbers were in the hundreds or low thousands which in their minds makes it the act of a few without the consent of Hitler and the Nazi party.

They want to put it into the realm of other battlefield atrocities.

[Bill Bumface]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

They deny the numbers to be honest. They deny that the Nazi's and not just Germany managed to turn 6 million jews into air pollution.

They argue that the numbers were in the hundreds or low thousands which in their minds makes it the act of a few without the consent of Hitler and the Nazi party.

They want to put it into the realm of other battlefield atrocities.

Which is pretty amusing because I'm fairly certain the photo essay alone shows far, far more than hundreds of corpses. I still don't get how you ease soldiers/camp guards into thinking this is a "normal" course of action. It's a piece of psychology I hope to never understand. I wonder what it was like for the soldiers that liberated those camps? Especially ones where the remaining survivors, who had lasted through years of torture, were burned or shot as they could hear their liberators approaching.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by hulkrogan

Which is pretty amusing because I'm fairly certain the photo essay alone shows far, far more than hundreds of corpses. I still don't get how you ease soldiers/camp guards into thinking this is a "normal" course of action. It's a piece of psychology I hope to never understand. I wonder what it was like for the soldiers that liberated those camps? Especially ones where the remaining survivors, who had lasted through years of torture, were burned or shot as they could hear their liberators approaching.

A lot of those photo's didn't see the light of day for decades because of the disturbing nature. I don't even know if the Nuremburg trials drilled that deeply into the specific counts of the final solution.

The guards at most of these camps and soldiers were the loyal of the loyal, they were either members of the SS, or they were people that had been completely indoctrinated through organizations like the Hitler Youth.

Beyond Hitler and the Nazi's effectively blaming the jews for Germany's financial troubles, they were effective at teaching that the Jews were inferior, bad genetics and sub human. You weren't killing a person, you were killing a cow like parasite.

There was a lot of inherant hatred of the Jews in Europe before the Nazi's came into the power spreading back to the pre-inquisition days, so its not hard to imagine when the Gernan's conquered countries and recruited their civilians that the first target of their rage were the Jews.

When the German's took over in Finland for example and raised a Finnish based SS division, they couldn't kill Jews fast enough if they found them.

A lot of Soliders were extremely disturbed and angry, They went to nearby villages and made German citizens visit the camps bury the dead and tend to the sick, most of the German's denied that they knew about these camps and told the Allied troops that they thought it was a sausage factory, they were not believed.

With the Russians, they were already driven by revenge, and when they hit the camps they lost any desire to be gentle sith german soldiers and civilians and they started shooting members of the SS on sight. Stalin then turned the Camps into his own killing grounds.