Quote:
Originally Posted by Sternjaeger
yeah, I'm not arguing over the tactical disadvantage of the Luftwaffe, I'm just saying that they had better aircrafts.
not that many actually, and turns out the Stuka had the lowest loss ratio (as I said it was counter-propaganda against the Stuka's "trumpets of Jericho" kinda fame) :
Luftwaffe losses in the BoB
(source "Kronika Bitvy o Britanii", M. Weidenhofer, Navrat 1991)
Type Losses
Junkers Ju 87 74
Junkers Ju 88 281
Dornier Do 17 171
Dornier Do 215 6
Heinkel He 56 31
Heinkel He 111 246
Heinkel He 115 28
Henschel Hs 126 7
Messerschmitt Bf 109 533
Messerschmitt Bf 110 229
Total 1562
Historians have worked hard in the last years, the numbers I posted above are apparently quite accurate.
as Dutch_851 mentioned above, they had the Me110, helluva underrated machine.
I'm sorry to contradict you again mate, but that's approximate revisionism.
Germans weren't complete fools, they well knew that they stood a chance if they made it to Moscow. Everything was going according to plans, but then Hitler had one of his typical anal fits and decided to waste three weeks in the Dnepr area to get access to the coal mines, and that's the main reason why the Germans screwed up Barbarossa. If they stuck to the according plans and pushed straight to Moscow from the start he would have decapitated the Russian bear and things could have been quite different..
The real arrogance of the Germans was in the fact that they thought that the Allies wouldn't keep up and gear up for modern warfare in time. And if one side they got their ar$e kicked by the American technology, on the other side they were overwhelmed by the sheer number of Russian troops (20mln+ of military casualties: the Jewish holocaust is a joke compared to it..).
I agree, this is a good chat indeed  |
I really don't see a lot of contradictions, just small points on either side of similar conclusions
.
On Stukas, they were withdrawn from combat operations after losing about 1/5 of their force in about 10 days (doing it from memory, forgive me if I am off). Planes like that need either skies that are cleared of enemy fighters or really slow enemy fighters. The Americans suffered similar losses with their dive bombers in the Pacific.
Hitler was the biggest problem the Nazis had militarily. Really...they guy could screw up a wet dream. He thought his time as a corporal running messages (rather brave I must say though) somehow qualified him to run military campaigns. After him, you have to look at his cronies as the incompetents in charge.
The generals were often very good military men. The soldiers were as good as any on any side. Their equipment was decent. The problem was always leadership (I'm separating military operations from political motivations obviously).
Making it to Moscow was a huge gamble and they greatly underestimated the Russian people. The Russians willingly sacrificed millions of civilian lives to stem the German tide...not something the Nazi leadership counted on. They certainly did not count on the T-34 either in quality or quantity. As I said in another thread, rule number one for aspiring dictators is DO NOT invade Russia lol. To expect the whole campaign to go like clockwork on schedule and to not prepare for contingencies (like General Winter) was pure foolishness which I think stemmed from Hitler's arrogance.
Germans were not fools, but Hitler and his cronies were.
BTW, I have never been clear on whether or not Hitler approved the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor prior to it happening. I know he turned around and declared war on the US, but I find it hard to believe that he thought bringing the US industrial might into the war was a good idea....though he was probably tired of lend-lease by then.
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