Reply With Quote@He219:
Ok, you convinced me!
"Edmund: Do you mean "How did the war start?"
Baldrick: Yeah.
George: The war started because of the evile Hun and his villainous empire-building.
Edmund: George, the British Empire at present covers a quarter of the globe, while the German Empire consists of a small sausage factory in Tanganyika. I hardly think that we can be entirely absolved of blame on the imperialistic front.
George: Oh, no, sir, absolutely not. (aside, to Bal****) Mad as a bicycle!
Baldrick: I heard that it started when a bloke called Archie Duke shot an ostrich 'cause he was hungry.
Edmund: I think you mean it started when the Archduke of Austro-Hungary got shot.
Baldrick: Nah, there was definitely an ostrich involved, sir."
@He219:
Ok, you convinced me!
Rantanplan....Love Blackadder... got series 1,2, and 4 on DVD... will buy series 3 when I get the chance.
The problem with the "european" view of things is that it is biased. If you are going to standardise history then you need to look at all sides and not agree on anything... otherwise all you'll have is bollocks.
Ask an American or a Brit what the high point of WWII was than they'd say D-Day or some such thing. Ask a Russian and they'll say something completely different. Are either of them wrong? Of course not... for each front there is a clear high point, just as there is a clear low point, and a strange bit where nothing is happening.
As someone who is interested in the non-western bits of the war, the 1939-45 thing is rubbish. As far as the Russians are concerned their official war with Japan didn't start till 1945 when they opened a second front. But it could be argued that in the late 30s when there were skirmishes on borders with the Japanese and the Japanese were soundly thrashed by Georgi Zhukov was also part of WWII. Then a short time later the war with the Finns by lesser generals where well equipped Finns armed with SMGs and skis gave the Soviet conscripts and their lesser leaders a good thrashing for a while, which meant eventually a sledge hammer had to be brought in to smash eggs led those in Europe to think the Russian army was weak... and to quote Hitler once we kick in the front door the whole rotten place will collapse in on its own weight. Or something to that effect.
Yeah, as Germany invaded Russia they did it with 3300 tanks and around 3000 aircraft. Soviet forces outnumbered them severly, for example Stalins army had more than 20000 (!) tanks and more than 10000 aircraft.
(As far as tanks are concerned it is interesting to know that Soviet tanks weren't technologically inferior. In fact, the Russians were the first to build huge tanks with strong guns and sloped armor. And the Germans didn't have Panthers or Tigers at that time. The Panther was in fact inspired by the Soviet T34 tank. Nonetheless virtually all of those 20000 Soviet tanks were destroyed or captured by the Germans during the first months of the invasion). It is really astonishing that Hitler dared to attack this mighty force. He obviously had a lot of faith into the quality of German troops...or the un-quality of Soviet ones.
Perhaps he just gambled that the Soviet Union might break apart. And in fact the nearly incredible losses made the Russian state come close to it. Stalin had killed and terrorized its own population in an incredible way during the 30ties...he was hated by many. It was perhaps Hitlers cruelty which was his undoing. If the Germans would have come as liberators and not as new orpessors this probably would have done the trick. But as it were Stalin used the attack to rally his people. In fact the war and the victory over Nazi Germany gave the Soviet state an sense of purpose and a feeling of being the "liberators" of Europe that may have even stabilized the Soviet Union in the decades after the war...
Wait Poland was invaded? When? How? By Whom? haha jk
"for example Stalins army had more than 20000 (!) tanks and more than 10000 aircraft. "
But most of those tanks were light tankettes armed with a small turret and a MG for infantry support, or a huge multi turreted bohemouth, while most of the fighter planes were Polikarpov biplanes and monoplanes that flew well in the Spanish civil war, but the introduction to that war of the Bf-109A spelt the polikarpovs obsolescence. Most aircraft were destroyed on the ground lined up next to their runways which meant that most of the pilots survived. The vast majority of the tanks lost were captured when overrun.
Throughout the war the Germans handled their armour much better than its opponents.
At the start of the war the Soviets saw tanks as single purpose vehicles... either as direct infantry support or as mobile artillery. Direct support meant MG armament or a short 3 in gun firing HE rounds. The other role was tank hunter with a high velocity small calibre gun, like a 37mm or 45mm HV gun. Such a small calibre gun couldn't use much HE so as an anti infantry round it wasn't that good... hense the short barrel 76.2mm guns.
The breakthrough of the T-34 was the multipurpose gun. Previous vehicles intended to take on other tanks had high velocity but small cailbre weapons. 37mm-45mm was common. Panzers entered the Soviet Union confident in the power of their 50mm guns. For infantry support MGs or large calibre guns were used with very short barrels... short barrel 3 in guns were common. The large 5 turreted heavy Soviet tanks had up to 5 turrets with the top central turret with a short L11 76.2mm gun, while enemy tanks were engaged with two 37mm or later 45mm guns mounted in each corner, with the opposite corners armed with turrets with MGs for close in defence. The L34 and then later L44 76.2mm gun on the T-34 used a longer barrel with a relatively high velocity added to large shell weight for a good HE round as well. (Lxx shows the length of the gun barrel in calibres... ie L44 is 44 calibres long, or 44 x 76.2 = 3352.8 or a 3.3m long barrel). this length of barrel meant the same gun could be used against infantry (HE) and tanks (solid shot).
But the Germans used 3508, 2176 with 3,7cm gun(or bigger), ther were using PzKpfw I and II.Originally Posted by GazB
Most of soviet tanks with MG were with 12.6mm
Most of german tanks with MG werw with 7,62mm
No, I meant the main armament of many Soviet tankettes was a turret with a 7.62mm MG. The Panzer 2s had a 7.92mm MG and a 20mm cannon, whereas the Panzer 3s had 50mm guns. Early Panzer 4s had short 75mm guns but they were later fitted with longer barrel guns that were comparable to the gun fitted to the T-34. These were necessary as the 50mm couldn't penetrate the T-34s armour except with the brand new and expensive (rare) tungsten (wolfram) rounds... and even then they had to be fired from close range and from behind a T-34.
Soviet tankettes were later upgraded with 50 cal MGs and their heavy tanks like Stalin tanks had 50cals mounted above their turrets and later still 20mm cannon were fitted to some too, but most often the MGs used on soviet tanks were DT 7.62mm MGs.
Light tanks like the BT series were limited to 45mm guns as their turrets weren't big enough to absorb the recoil of a more powerful gun.
On the german side the 50mm anti tank guns were found to be useless against the few T-34s and KVs to be found at the start of the war, but were very effective against the lightly armoured tankettes and the thinskined multiturreted tanks (Less than 500 multi turreted tanks were actually made... they looked good on parade, but in combat they usually broke down and were abandoned).
When the Germans invaded the Tiger was on the drawing board and prototypes were being tested, though the discovery of the T-34 and KV series both greatly changed the requirements and drove an acceleration to the project. In the mean time a new medium tank to replace the Panzer 4 was demanded... and it was largely based on what the Germans learned from the T-34.
GazB what do you understand under tankettes and light tank?
"GazB what do you understand under tankettes and light tank?"
Sorry, don't understand the question.
I am using Tankette and Light tank as interchangable terms. Both are very light, lightly armoured and lightly armed tracked vehicles.
Tankette and Light tank is not the same. Tank has a turret. Tankette is armed in MG.
BTW do you know names of soviet tankettes
BTW do you know that part of soviet light tanks were able to swimm. What german tank were able to swimm?
There is a most impressive site concerning German Armed Forces of (mostly) WWII. It is still in the making, but it seems to be quite objective and well researched and has already an overwhelming mass of material.
Check out: http://www.feldgrau.com/
Note the part about statitistics and numbers: http://www.feldgrau.com/stats.html
(especially the KIA/MIA numbers per WWII war month. Should be taken with agrain of salt but nonetheless fascinating.)
Also note that the (Polish?) claim, that the German losses during the Polish campaign were higher than those of the French campaign in summer 1940 is not supported by the numbers given here. The losses during the French campaign were nearly three times as high.
(If anyone has a source that contradicts this, just say so...I am only interested in the truth here).
My source (Janusz Piekałkiewicz book "Wojna pancerna 1939-1945") German losses :
KIA - 27074
WIA - 111 034
MIA - 18 348
note the KIA and MIA
KIA + MIA = 45422
on the feldgrau site KIA 46000 MIA 1000
I will check objective anather time
Take French forces(and Brits) stats and compare it to Polish (number of tanks planes etc)
The most common light tanks at the start of the war were T-26 (single or twin turret with rifle cal MG in each), T-37 also with rifle cal MG in turret and the T-40 which supersceeded it with a 50 cal and rifle cal MGs in a turret. The later T-60 tank had a 20mm aircraft cannon as a main armament. (The T-37, T-40, T-60 and the other later recon tanks could swim).Tankette and Light tank is not the same. Tank has a turret. Tankette is armed in MG.
BTW do you know names of soviet tankettes
BTW do you know that part of soviet light tanks were able to swimm. What german tank were able to swimm?
Not sure about the german vehicles.
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