Napleon, Hitler and a Russian Winter

Hitler attacked in June 1941, so if he had attacked six months earlier he would have been striking in the middle of Russia's winter. End of the day Hitler occupied the Balkans at mussionlis incomptence to surpress the terrority he already owned in the balkans and at his failure to take Greece.

Also Germany did occupy Italy but the Northern half after Mussolini was deposed and the itlains surrendered to the Allies. Hence the fact fighting continued in italy throughout the entirity of the war and many "veteran" allied divisions and regiments (dependant on your country which is which) being able to take part in D-day.

On the part of if Hitler had waited his tech would have moved forward that is mildly false. The Tiger, Panther and other tanks of that level were developed to counter the soviet T-34, which was nearly indestrucible by early German tanks during barbarossa and typhoon. Now it is possible that infantry weapons may have been more advanced bu my opion is the Germans were content with the job their tanks had done in Poland and France and Norway and felt them good enough for Russia.

On a side note, has anyone else thought of the fact that the USSR wasn't truly united against the invader until they stopped doing the Communist propaganda and appealed to nationalistic virtues?

Edited: Off topic here but this message is my response to the other page before we get confusion

Well, I don't know, because if Hitler didn't attack, Stalin could have attacked first, so in this scenario, could the Germans hold the Soviet onslaught?

To all honest truth Hitler never intended to take all of Russia. He set up an objective line for which his generals were to aim to reach and then Germany would claim control of that land and leave the rest of Russia to well the Russians. In turn he was then gonna reduce the Russians to the level of the lowest of the low in his new empire.

In the end Russian equipment was never fully upto par with the Germans. With Panthers and Tigers being able to destory a T-34 from a far greater distance than the T-34, which had to be within 500 metres before it could get a good shot off on the German ones.

Admittably as they fought the Russians began to learn how to fight but in the end of it for every high German casuity battle there would still be higher Russian casulities.

If our previous conversation earlier was anything to go by if the soviets had been able to get themselves ready and upto date on thier equipment and and officer corps and such then i feel the Germans would have fallen and Europe in its entirity would've been occupied by the Soviet Union.

I don't agree with this, firstly because the tanks you're talking about were only like 10% of the total German tanks, the rest were the Panzer IV, which was way worser than the T-34 that could easily outmatch them in armour, speed and maybe the gun.

That's what I first thought, I don't know though because the Germans would still have a lot of supplies and manpower.

I don't think so cause in the end of it the Russian Man power and supplies would have overweighed the Germans even if they were the invaded not the invader. Don't forget Germany would still be fighting in areas like Egypt and such and hey those might even have gone differently if Hitler hadn't invaded Russia.

Now i don't agree with that becuase at the battle of Kursk the only way russian tanks could take down a group of German tanks was by ramming their own vehicles onto the tops of the other tanks, well not the only way there were of course tank to tank gun fighs but towards the end. End of the day everyone will always go, "Oh the RUssian tanks were the best." But end of the day Germany quickly built tanks which could counter the T-34, like the Panzer IV, meaning the only reason the T-34 was successful was due to quanity not quality.

Probably a soviet invasion of Germany would have been a giant scaled up version of the Winter war, except the Germans would have the manpower and supplies to follow up early success.

The war might have been over later, considering it would have given the Germans a shorter supply line and more time to build up fortifications on all fronts. Also, D-Day would happen later because Germany would begin to lose ground later.

Okay so tell me this why are the casulities on the Eastern front half the total number of the entrie Second world war? T-34 became inferior after Germany began to pump out larger better tanks. SOviet heayvy tanks were slow and also inspoired tank like the Panther. The T-34 was okay a good tank not arguing that but in picthed battle over open ground that was it unless the T-34 started within five hundred metres it would go up in smoke to a tiger or Panther.

In turn your list of Stalingrad casulites was wrong as you just did the infantry casulities not the loss of 4,000 soviet tanks compared to 1,500 german ones. Total casulities and losses of equipment, at Stalingrad, equalled:

Axis: 841,000 (including the 91,000 captured)
Soviet: 1,129, 619

So unless we're just gonna have counted infantry losses for a whole war i doubt we need to continue the argument on losses.

Edit: In turn okay yes I would seem stupid too think of Germany reaching the Urals as like heart of irons but I hate to say it I wasn't I was thinking in the realistic like always. Think on it in realistic terms by the time your country had had itself steam rolled by Germany and its allies and millions of men killed whats your moral going to be like? And in turn is your government going to want to keep fighting at increasing expense? Simple answer NO! BUt of course we can't be sure due to the issue of it didn't happen (at least not in our timeline) so simple open shut close.

I've got a book on WWII that says exactly this, but it also says the Soviets preferred the MP40 because it was lighter, go wonder. =P

Btw, do I have to repeat that the Panther almost saw no action and that the Tiger was so inferior to soviet tanks, its only good in comparison to T-34s would be its Main gun but later the Soviets increased the calliber of the T-34's main gun, from the 76mm to a 85mm.

Which of course an T-34 85mm beats a Tigers 88mm. The panhter admittably did outclass the Russian tanks but yes your correct the germans manufactured it too quickly leading to many break downs in the field but it still saw action. Kursk was about the only field the Panther saw action and it was there it broke down but still the way you guys are talking you seem to froget that even the modified T-34 could be wiped out by a tiger outside of 500 meters whilst it had to be within 500 meters to take out a tiger.

The T-34 had the sloped armour sure but the Tiger had thicker armour, meaning, shells had a harder job penetrating its armour compared to the soviet tanks where most shells grazed off. But in the end saying one side had better tanks than the other is incorrect because in the end of it the Germans and Soviets both had the best tanks of the war no arguing. Also, in uncertain terms, the Germans were weakened in tank production by the allied air campaign so saying that I think we can safely say one of the reasons the German tanks had such diffiicltiues wasn't due to full soviet superority it was due to issues on the homefront.

The slopped armor of the T-34 offered almost as the same protection as a heavily armored Panzer IV, but it was lighter because it didn't need as much Steel as a Panzer needed, so in the end, the Panzers were basically, a mobile artillery and MG station. While the T-34 carried a lot of infantry to the battles to support them and they simply could outmaneuver any German tanks in the field.

The T-34 was an easily produced GREAT performance tank that was able to go toe to toe with the German panzers.

The Panzer in my opinion was slightly better then the T-34 however it all comes down to what was easer to make and the T-34 outshines the Panzer in that category.

Okay now i said casulities which include wounded back when the number figure came in. Hence i added USSR wounded to the factor of those battles due to casulities meaning dead and wounded.

I got heavy tanks as you were saying Russian tanks were absoultly better than German ones because of KV and such which is a soviet heavy tank to my teaching.

Also minor failure on peoples knowledge you all keep saying sloped armour but if you look at a sherman its armour at the front was sloped. Sloped armour didn't have anything to do with the soviet T-34 superiority or minor increase there of, it was the angle of the slope that did that.

Also I do know of the civilian deaths done by Germans just forgot that factor but I haven't forgetton that Russian prisoners had a habit of being shot, starved and other things happening to increase their death toll even after fighting.

End of the day though yeah i'll concede that the Russians used their tanks better and could manufacture more and the angle of the slope on the armour was an added acheivement.

Interesting question i want to give you guys though. Whilst reading a book about the battle of Moscow, there was a part that was a German soldiers point of view of the battle and he came up with a strange theory on the way Russian commissars did human wave assualts. His theory was that the commissars calucated the number of machine guns and the number of bullets fired per second, then added rifles and other weapons to that number then the time to cross the ground and then times that number by three or something random and that would give them the number of troops to send.
Now I'm not sure if its fact or not but whats everyones opinion on that?

Now that I like. You ever heard of the German stomach battlion? It was a battlion made entirely of middle aged men with stomach issues that needed a special diet.

Btw, it was not only the Soviet civilians that suffered a lot of casualties, don't forget the bombings the allies did in Germany, mainly the Dresden one.
I do agree about the Sherman having slopped armour, however it's weak points is that it had a worser gun than the T-34/76 and its sloping angle was kind of high, meaning it didn't deflect as much as the T-34s did.