World War II

When the time for the last battle for the capitol of Germany came The british and americans let the Red Army do the dirty work because they were scared of how much casualties they would recive during the battle for berlin...and if britian or USA attacked berlin the germans could of won...

That is not to say that the US/British/Canadians didn't do anything!
The bombing campaign which the Allies performed were invaluable to the war effort.

By 1944-45 Germany had nothing left to produce with. Either because their production centres were destroyed or they were being starved of much needed resources.
And generally speaking quality of German equipment dropped toward late 1943-1944 because of the lack of proper iron/coal/oil.
Panzer 4 build in early 1943 was probably of quite significant better in quality then by the end of 1944.


But in reality, you are right.
Eisenhower didn't see any value anymore in Berlin and the resulting casualties from assaulting it and the friendly fire from the 2 armies would be... unwelcome.
The most significant service they did was bomb it with Mosquito's for 36 nights in a row.

Defeat was final. Nothing could've changed it.

the germans wouldnt have won the battle for berlin if it was the western allies. And while Eisenhower saw no importance in rushing to get to Berlin, Patton tried his best to get there before the Red Army did. Patton was eager to reach Berlin, becuz he knew tht his military career was pretty much done after tht, and wanted to go out by taking the capital of his enemy.So while Eisenhower didnt see any inportance in Berlin, Patton DID try to race the Red Army there

Patton would have lost many shermans to the Hitler youth and there Panzerchrecks and they would of retreated and the germans by somehow could of counter attacked...plus there were some german divisons comming to save berlin but were cut off by the allies..

Scared? erm, not the word.. they stayed back. Why would you want to go into a battle and get your men killed, when someone else can do it for you?....

The Allies wouldn't like to see the Communist take over Berlin, so the Allies were trying their best to get to the capital before the Red Army. Fortunately the Red Army steamrolled to Berlin before the Allies could. Soviet's were even up against most of the German army.

On a broader front, with less natural obstacles, against an already beaten army.

On a broader front, with less natural obstacles, against an already beaten army.[/quote]

Most of the armies in the western front came from the ostfront such as the Das Reich (2nd SS Panzer Division) So most of the armies that came from the east were already pretty beaten. There was so much advantages for the Allies, but the Red Army had their own lighting speed tactics to get to Berlin before the British and American's could.

Yep, the Germans were outnumbered was it four to one on the Western front? I can't quite remember. But it does mean that really the (western) Allies should've been a bit quicker than they were. Well, maybe I should say that once i've tried to invade Fortress Europe myself.

Actually I believe it wasnt the allies exactly who were really racing to get Berlin. From what I heard it was just General Patton who really wanted tpo beat the Soviets to Berlin. Not sure though. Feel free to correct me if Im wrong but thts wut I heard

As a means of propaganda being the first to capture Berlin was huge.

Early 1945 the British-American army realised this was not feasible any more and stopped their effort in trying to get there first. (aside probably from Patton)
The 2 main reasons were that the Russian already were quite near in capturing it and with that the British-American army didn't want to waste any more of it's forces in the assault/friendly fire that would happen if they attacked the city.

Early US relations with the Soviets were not that bad, I think. (in contrast to the Cold War; for instance).

yeah i believe ur right. Roosevelt wsa actually good friends with stalin and I wonder what wouldve happened if Roosevelt did not die...

If the British-American force tried to take berlin..I would say what the berlin defenses were...Massive casualties...Lots of Sherman tanks would be destroyed

It end up like Market garden...

No doubt. City fighting, weak armour, panzerfausts, friendly fire from the Russians, ... but it wouldn't really have mattered much when you have 49.702 and of them.
Germany was going to end no matter what.


Now Market Garden was different. Market Garden failed because they overextended and also quite a bit of bad luck.
The general plan was that the airborne troops would only have to hold 2 maximum 3 days, unfortunately in the end they had to hold out for 2x that amount of time.
They also thought that the roads leading up to Arnhem were also in a much better state then they actually were. And with the small tracks of the Sherman they were slowed down quite a bit.
And finally what really put the nail in the coffin is that a couple of days before the attack Elite SS and Fallschirmjaeger units were deployed in the area's they were attacking.

The real reason why the Western Allies didn't race to Berlin was the threat that the German government might escape and fight on from the Alps. They had a chance of getting to Berlin if they attacked in a single thrust because the Soviets were delayed at the Oder. But Like the reason above and the threat of friendly casualties from the Soviets, they attacked elsewhere.

This is a question for everyone. I know some things about WW2 ,but mostly from the American front so I dont know all that much about Italy in the war other than they got the crap kicked out of them and had problems at home. My question is this, would the war have went diffrent the Germans had not have allyed with Italy? It seems from what I know Germans were dragged into Italys fights for land they sometimes didn't even find important.

If germany had not allied with Italy i suspect that they would have ended up fighting them, and Italy has imposing terrain, espceially considering that blitzkrieg tactics revolved around a quick armored thrust, I think a similar thing that happened to the Americans and British would have happened to the germans, and it would have been a stalemate for most of the war. This is assuming that GB (and possibley america) helps italy.

If Italy wouldn't have allied with Germany then they would've been neutral-friendly with them like Spain.
So they probably wouldn't have joined them in open conflict like they have. But rather send material support and stuff.

If they didn't allied with Italy in the war, than they would of not fought in North Africa. Italy just stayed neutral throughout the entire war, than there is going to be differences. This probably wouldn't change Hitler's view on attacking the USSR because obviously stated in his book (Mein Kampf) he wanted to take vast amounts of land from the east. So the German people can have space. Adolf Hitler should of done his absolute best on taking the British isles, and then afterwards begin the attack on the Soviet Union.