Comments by "Nattygsbord" (@nattygsbord) on "Military History not Visualized" channel.

  1. Russia survived WW2 with life support from USA and Britain so what is your point? Right now is Russia the little guy in the pact with China. And Russia is so weak that it needs ammunition from North Korea, tanks from Belaurs because it lacks their own, and it have to sell its oil to China and India for below market price. And it is true that the balance of power in the world is changing, because Russia is losing the war and getting weaker while Nato is getting stronger than ever. Never before has there been such an unified effort by the free world to help a country in need.
    8
  2.  @williamzk9083  True, Britains lend lease contributions are a bit overlooked. That island did not have as much stuff to spare as USA. And what little they had they gave to the Soviets. The numbers of the equipment given are not impressive by themselves, but since they were given already back in 1941 makes their significance much more important. There was a real risk that Germany could have won the war in the east in 1941 and 1942 and British equipment helped to tip the scale in allied favor. Probably more so than thousands of American trucks did in 1944, when it was most likely that Germany would have lost the war no matter what. At that late stage of the war would the Soviets likely have won the war even if the shipments of trucks had been delayed with a year or two. It would likely just have led to a longer war and more dead Soviet soldiers. But if the allied help did not arrive in 1941 and 1942 is it possible that the Germans could have taken Stalingrad and the Caucausus and thereby pushed USSR into a 1917 style hyperinflation. And that would have been disasterous for the russian war effort.
    8
  3.  @vladimirpecherskiy1910  Sorry but I do not get paid for debating a 15 ruble troll. I need to use my time for other things. Have a nice day.
    8
  4. Many cool features: - A tank that only needs 1 crew member - A tank that outclassed its competition in excercises with other western tanks of its day - A tank with super sloped armor, low siluette, and extra protection with the engine to the front - which inspired the Israelis designing the Merkava. - High penetration gun with a superior rate of fire thanks to its autoloader - Can be driven backwards as fast as it can be driven forward - Low siluette and sneaky - One of the fastest, if not the fastest tank in the west to go from spotting a target to firing on it. - A tank with excellent frontal armor (for its day), can survive napalm, and have NBC protection and can swim - Have a frontal dozer blade that offers both extra armor protection and can be used by the tank to dig its own foxhole where it can hide and snipe on other tanks and becoming harder to spot and to hit from the enemy - The suspension allows it point the gun over a hill top against the enemy with a minimum of exposure of the front towards the enemy - unlike any other tank
    8
  5. The Russians had much better tanks than in 1944 and they had improved their winter uniforms. But the summer campaign of 1944 on the Karelian Isthmus was also big failure for Russia despite crushing numbers of men, tanks, guns, planes, ammunition and everything else.
    8
  6. China was a too big fish to swallow, and the realistic solution would be to just steal a few provinces and make peace. Hopefully that wouldn't piss America and other powers off too much either. But Japan never did that. And that was their first mistake. Their second mistake was to get sanctioned by the USA - which doomed any attempts from Japan to import machinery from USA so Japan could become a great industrial power like USA, Germany, Britain or Russia. And without a strong industry would the dreams of Japanease pacific super empire be doomed. And the war against China was doomed as well at this point, since there would be no way for Japan to compensate their numerical inferiority with superior industrial might. And the third mistake was the foolish attack on Pearl Harbour. They attacked a gigant without even having a real plan on how they would win. Japan was drunk and started a bar fight with a heavy weight world champion.
    8
  7. I have heard people saying that it was outdated already when the war began, and that it was "a 1930s plane with a fixed landing gear flying in the 1940s". But it proved itself effective and fighting ground targets. Its small bombs was later to be seen as too weak to harm the more powerful allied tanks so some automatic-cannons was mounted under the wings of the JU87G version and it proved to be a succesful solution and the Stuka ace pilot Rudel is said to have destroyed many hundreds of Russian tanks with his plane. And even if he destroyed only a third of all 300 or so tanks that he have been credited for according to propaganda, it would still be a quite impressive number. But the problem with the Stuka was that the axis could not use it when the allies were controlling the skies. But the Russian airforce could not be everyware all the time, so often could German pilots get local air superiority and could then use their Stukas - even in 1945. Germany had better bombers by 1945 such as Hs129 and the Ar234, but they didn't of course have enough large amounts of them, just as Germany didn't have enough super tanks like Tigers and Panthers but suffered from shortages of everything so they therefore had to keep using old tanks and old planes in the war.
    8
  8. Indeed. A large portion of the German army did not have more than 2 weeks of military training when the war begun. The tank force was almost entirly made up by obsolete weak panzer1 and semi-obsolete panzer 2. And the German navy didn't have anything near the numbers of ships it was planned to have when the war begun according to plan-Z.
    8
  9. The Germans started the war with stealing 90% of Russias aluminium production centres by the first weeks of the war. So I guess that they didn't have any other choice than to build small planes that used as little aluminium as possible.
    7
  10. The teacher I had in German said that Wien was nowadys too large for a small country like Austria, since its no longer this capitol of a great empire and centre for the German speaking world. But I think I disagree, I mean Copenhagen is not much smaller despite Denmark only got 5,7 million people. And I guess that history could easily had taken another turn, in the past and Wien and Magdeburg would have been the biggest cities in a unified German empire today. Berlin would never had grown as much as it have without the Prussian glory, and Magdeburg was roughly equal in size to Wien before the sacking during the 30-years war. Its interesting to think how even more massive this city would have become if a Austro-German empire (plus Switzerland) had been created.
    7
  11. 20-40 panzer IV
    7
  12. The insurance companies had all the information on paper about the allied convoys that the Germans needed to know.. what time the ships were going and where and so on. So all the Germans needed to do was to position their uboats for taking out those convoys.
    7
  13. The Ukrainians are not perfect. They still have much old Soviet equipment mixed with their Nato stuff. So of course will they be stuck with some old Soviet tactics which they have to use for their Soviet weapons. Firing rockets from a distance from an attack helicopter and then flying low to avoid manpads and radars is of course a very ineffective Soviet way of fighting a war, but I guess they are stuck with what weapons they have so there is not much else they can do. Their military is also a mess. With Soviet, USAish, British, French, German, Polish, Swedish, Turkish, Ukrainian, Spanish weapons and old WWII stuff is the logistical system of course a mess. The troops are civilians with Ukrainian military training, combat experience, and some have foreign military training. So the diversity is very large in this army. And this do of course create much limitations of this force. I do not think that diversity is a strength. But I do not think one can deny that in some few instances can be very useful. The Russians can never know what type of weapon system they will face in an area - it can literarly be anything, so it is very hard to plan and prepare for any kind of surprise that can await them. Who knows? If they walk over a field they might get HIMARSED, or hit with Caesar, PZH2000, Archer, and Krab. And it might be difficult for every russian tank crew where to aim on weakspots on Ukrainian tanks when they use so many variants of Slovenian, Polish, Czech, Albanian, Slovakian, Ukrainian, and Russian tanks with all kinds of armor modifications and upgrades from different time periods. The Ukrainians have the option to use cheap anti-tank weapons like AT-4, PV1110 and RPG7 to destroy Russian tanks. But they also have large amounts of more sophisticated weapons which all have their unique strenghts like the long range Javelin, or the short range Panzerfaust-3 with 800mm armor penetration which then can theoretically turn any tank on the planet into a burning wreck even if you hit it where the armor is the thickest. All this will of course make life a nightmare for a Russian tank commander. The options that their enemy have are so many that it is impossible to fully guard yourself towards all of them. You can never feel secure and relax. You are always stressed out, afraid and feeling uncomfortable. Your enemy is very creative, innovative and brave so every turn on a forest road is a potential ambush site. And with the crappy infantry support and crappy coordiantion with helicopters and such are you and your tankers left to your own to fend off Ukrainian attacks - which is not fun. Especially not old outdated commie cocker tanks with flying turrets, no gun depression and no vision what is happening outside the tank - so when the enemy stars shooting you quickly get blind as the commander have to dive down into the turret and close the hatch to avoid getting hit from machine gun fire or snipers
    7
  14. https://youtu.be/YZ79i11JSnU?t=87
    7
  15. No modern tank survives that either
    7
  16. The war had already been won at that point IMHO. The nation building project was just a stupid waste of time, and that was my opinion already back in 2003
    7
  17. A good army got brains. Finlands army in the winter war and in the continuation war had brains. The Israeli army in the six day war and the Yom Kippur war had brains. The US army does not have as much brains. It got more muscles than brain. It is a bit like the Roman army. It is large and well supplied and can afford to take heavy losses and still win a war - unlike Finland's big brained army that lacked the muscles to destroy Russia. USA do not have the smartest Generals, its doctrine is stupid (it have neglected Auftragstaktik unlike the Israelis for example) and it have become a bit lazy by beating their enemy by using air power, fire power and technological superiority instead of finding ways to win their enemy without using such luxuries. But with all that contempt for the US military I shown, do they also deserve some admiration and flatter. They are extremely good at technological development - DARPA gave us internet, GPS, microelectronics and so on, so without the US military would there have been no economic wonder with great IT companies like Apple, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, and Amazon that gives USA enormous economic power around the world and brings them enormous economic wealth. The US military is also extremely good at organising acute medical care for wounded soldiers. Both military and civilian healthcare around the world have copied the model of the US army and is now organized by the same model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABC_(medicine) And like the Romans, are the Americans good with logistics and at organizing things like planning for a military operation. And sometimes are the Americans creative as well - like operation Bolo. And there are of course a few good american Generals, like George C Marshall, Matthew Ridgway to just name a few
    7
  18. The Roman farmboys were able to defeat Carthages experienced seamen - which proves that skilled sailors isn't everything. And landing an army in foreign lands in the early 1800s was probably less problematic than today, since the logistical demands was lower and much of it could be plundered from the local area - especially from a rich area like England
    7
  19. The problem was that raiding and plunder is one thing, and permanently occupy and forcefully convert a population on a land to christianity is a completly other thing. You cannot achieve the goals of the crusades with a seasonal viking army, because you need a military occupation force that stays on the land for a very long time.
    7
  20. The Americans were overconfident in themselves and not so realistic. They rejected the Hobart Funnies because they thought that airpower would be able to cancel out any problem. But at Omaha it didn't. Everything that could go wrong did go wrong at that beach. The bombers all missed their targets. The ships with rocket artillery also all missed their targets so the rockets fell into the water instead of hitting the German defences on the beaches, and the smoke the rockets created prevented the Americans from seeing the German defences. So the Americans had a rough day at Omaha beach. And once the beach had at Normandy had been secured, then the Americans tried a breakout. The Americans thought that once the tanks was ashore then the advance would be easy. But things turned out to be harder for the Americans than expected - it turned out to be more difficult to do tank warfare in Normandy than in the open training grounds in Louisiana. The Terrain at Normandy was filled with ditches, narrow roads with stone walls on the sides, and hedgerows (the infamous bocage) everyware. The ideal terrain for ambushes and defence, and the American attacks were driven into a halt. Since it proved to be a difficult task to get through the thin but excellent German defensive line and things wasn't so easy as in American theory. The British troops also got stuck in their breakout operation, but they faced more German divisions than the Americans and the brits were short in manpower as many British divisions were sitting in Italy. And the Normandy landings seemed to end up in a disaster for the allies after being stuck on the beach for 2 months without being able to make a breakout. According the plan should they have conquered a harbour and being able to send in supplies to their 1.5 million men strong army on the beach. But without a harbour it would be impossible to supply such a large force in the long run, and enormous amounts of allied troops would be stuck in a little prison of northern France and not being able to be used elseware. Had the allies not been able to push through the German defences before the end of that year, then the Germans might have won their greatest military victory ever. And the Brits and Americans started to blame each other for the failure. But then Hitler decided to save the allies from defeat. He took his small number of troops and ordered them to do the same mistake as the allies - attack with tanks in the Normandy terrain totally unsuitable for armour and the losses were of course high. And unlike the allies did the Germans not have any reserves so once the operation was canceled (the Avranche offensive) after its failure, then the German army around Normandy had been weakened and the allies could now punch through the German defences and finally do their breakout. And the German defences were completly rolled up and the allies won one of their biggest strategic victories as the westfront collapsed. So I think it is fair to say that the Americans were overconfident in themselves. And they were inexperienced and not very realistic in their goals. Their lessons from the fighting in Sicily were perhaps too much in recent memory for the Americans to being able to absorb the knowledge. For a long time did I think that the war was basicly over for the Germans by 1944 and that the superiority in numbers was so total that there was no way the Germans could win on the western front - The Luftwaffe had only 2 planes to take on ten thousand allied. But now I think that I was wrong earlier. I see atleast 3 possibilities how the Germans could have won. * During D-day did the Germans act logical and reasonable like any of us would. They heard that the situation at Omaha beach was reasonably under control and that the much more acute danger were in the other landing zones so they therefore rushed their reinforcements to those places instead of sending them to Omaha. But history could have ended very differently if the Germans had done the complete opposite and reinforced Omaha instead and pushed back and destroyed the allied landing there. And once that had been done, then the Germans could free up troops to fight back the allied landings on the other beaches and place after place roll back the allied offensive back into the sea. And D-day would have ended in an allied disaster. * A second possibility is of course that the Germans would never have launched its Avranche offensive and that the allies would have been stuck in a siege at the Normandy beachhead and that the entire allied operation would end up in a disaster for that reason instead. * And a third possibility would have been if the Germans somehow have gotten into clarity about the situation. Even after 2 months of fighting in Normandy was the Germans unwilling to send more than half of their troops to the Normandy area because they still believed that the Normandy landing was not the real landing but only a distraction for the "real" allied landing which would take place somewhere else. And the Germans expected that this real landing would probably happen near Pas de Calais, so they concentrated the bulk of their forces there. Later on would they become a little more hesitant in their earlier beliefs so they reluctantly sent away some of their divisions to support the German defence at Normandy. But during the entire battle did the Germans choose to keep their 15th army in Pas de Calais instead of helping the 17th army fight the allied invasion at Normandie. Had the Germans concentrated their forces elseware then the defensive line would have been able to hold the allies back. And the allied troops in Normandie would have been starved from supplies.
    7
  21. The British fought against some of the best units of the German army. The SS divisions Leibstandarte, Das reich, Hohenstaufen, Frundsberg and Hitlerjugend are all usally considered the best troops of the German military, if not even the best troops in the entire war. And the reason was that the Germans shared the British (Montgomery's) view of the importance of the Caen area. If the British had won there then the entire German front would have imploded. So it was important to secure this area for the Germans. It was much was at stake. Had the British made a big mistake in this area then an oppurtunity would have opened itself up for the German to counter-attack which would have made the allied position to implode. And while I am not a fan of teenage solidiers I would however point of that this was much the norm. The American troops in Normandy were also mostly teenage boys. And so was the American troops in Vietnam. So I really don't see your point about Hitlerjugend as a formation as inferior to any other. Nazi-Germany was a country which wanted men in their late teens and early twenties to fight the war. While ironically the old SA men who supported Hitler in the 1920s and 1930s had - to their own dissapointment - become too old for service in the frontline units. So men above 30 were usally used for service at the home front in FLAK units or guarding POWs. Strange priorities perhaps, but this was how countries usally prioritized. Personally I think it is immoral to let 16 year old Germans die uboats and 16 year old Americans go to Vietnam... and I would rather see men in their late 20s and early 30s do majority of the fighting in the frontline. I do however not know any such war when this has been the norm, but I happily get enlightened if there are any wars when this has not been the case.
    7
  22. Russian movies deserve credit for much effort is being paid to bring equipment to depict a real historical war environment. But what Russian movies typically lack is a good storyline and they usually ends up like some propaganda movie in some sort.
    7
  23.  @callsigndd9ls897  "if you look closely, the amount of arms and equipment supplied by Britain is no greater than the amount supplied by Germany" Not true. Britain have sent tonnes of NLAWs at the beginning of the conflict. Germany did send no anti-tank weapons for two months - 300 panzerfaust came to Ukraine, but they were from the Netherlands and NOT Germany. Britain have sent anti-ship missiles. Germany have not sent any anti-ship missiles. Britain has sent APCs, Germany has not sent any APCs but they like to take steal honor from Czechia who sent some BMP-1 to Ukraine. Germany did send some strela - which is good altough being 40 years old, but Britain did sent some Starstreaks which are the most modern manpads that exist. Britain have promised to send MLRS to Ukraine, while Germany have not sent any MLRS. Britain sent troops to train Ukrainian forces early on in this conflict - while Germany did not. Britain have also talked about all kinds of other support as well, some sources say they will perhaps send AS-90 and perhaps even some Challanger2 tanks to Ukraine. Britain have also been one of the strongest stupporters of rebuilding the airforce, and have recently given Ukraine a bunch of drones. Britain has been one of Ukraines strongest and bravest defenders. It is not part of the EU and is a bit isolated in that sense and have recieved nuclear threats for its help to Ukraine. Boris Johnson was also an early vistor to Ukraine before it was cool by world leaders to go there. That gave Ukraine a strong moral support boost and helped to get other countries on the train to support Ukraine. Britain has also put itself into even more danger by guaranteeing the independence of Finland and Sweden the coming months as they plan to join Nato. So no, Germanys lazy half-assed disinterested support of Ukraine is lame compared to Britain. Its even insulting to claim that Britain had not done more. No other country in Europe have supported Ukraine as little as Germany in relation to its GDP -- aside from Hungary, Serbia and perhaps also France. Britains economic support has been larger. And the weapons it have sent have been better, more effective and more modern. And while Germany did almost nothing for two months, did other countries - and USA and UK in particular save Ukraine from dying.. as their shipments of NLAWs and Javelins gave the Ukrainians a chance to stop the Russian tank armies. There are porbably many reasons for dislikeing Boris... and maybe one can see his actions from a cynical angle and say that he do not care about Ukraine, but only wants to get involved in this war to shift focus away from party gate to save his own political career. However, despite his flaws do his love for Ukraine and his support for their cause seem geniune. And he have also invested a lot in building relations with foreing powers lately.. Ukraine, India, Sweden, Finland.. which suggests that Britain is breaking out from its post Brexit isolation. Germany is slowly abandoning its failed Ostpolitik and finally listening to Eastern EU and begin to support them against their Russian threat by aiding Ukraine and looking for alternative sources of energy and stop throwing friendly countries under the bus for the sake of trade with Russia. But countries all over Europe are frustrated how slow things always are going in Germany... and that nagging is always needed to get something done.
    6
  24.  @jameljay2183  The French army was only capable of defensive warfare after the strike. Had the German army found out how bad morale was in the French army in 1917 and launched a major offensive against the French during the strike or shortly afterwards, then it would have been so brittle that it would have been smashed to pieces like a glass thrown against a concrete wall. Oddly enough was the German intelligence so bad that it failed to notice this huge uproar. This could have been one of Germany's best chances of winning the war. And for the French the lesson from this war was clear. It needed a strong defences because relying on bloody large scale offensives nearly broke the French army during the war. And Germany's excellent defensive line in Belgium proved itself to be an obstacle the allies never overcome despite superior numbers and materials and many huge offensives. The French trenches was very difficult to attack, and the British was even better defended with its two defensive lines. But the best defended trenches on the western front was owned by the Germans who had a deep defence with 3 defensive lines, lots of barbed wire, machine gun nests and fortified machine gun nests made out of concrete, and bomb shelters. And since the Germans retreated into Belgium in 1914, they were the ones who also choose what terrain would be used for their defensive lines, so they also used the best terrain with all natural obstacles for their defensive line. While the allies had to take what was given to them and dig trenches in terrain less suitable, and often resulted in their trenches being flooded with water that was coming from uphill. So the French probably also took the lesson from the Germans that their defensive line could be a great defensive barrier almost impossible to break. The first world war became the bloodiest war in British history much because of it, and the offensive at Somme which failed despite bombardment of a million artillery shells and German army tied up at the eastern front.
    6
  25.  @vladimirpecherskiy1910  "80% of the tank crew died when the tank caught fire" - and source of that info is?" Ostfront: Hitler's War on Russia, 1941-45 by Charles Winchester Russian vehicles had durability problems throughout the war and tank losses remained enormous throughout the war. Its perhaps no surprise that quality is not the best when you have old women and young children working in heavy industry in long shifts building those things. But that those tanks could be built by using such unskilled labor is an impressive achievement in itself. But Russian tanks were also primitive and lacked crew comfort, crew safety, good optics western tanks had. Britishers are also better at self-criticism than russians are. In russia you can go to jail if you say T-34 was a crappy tank. But the same is not true in England. So unsurprisingly are the Britisher more self-critical, and often times too much so. Crusader is often called a crappy tank. But I disagree. I think it was a quite good tank for its time, but it was never built for warfare in the desert so unsurprisingly did it not perform well there with its sand filter constantly getting clogged up. Matilda was a pretty strong tank, when you consider that the most common German tank 1939-1941 was the Panzer II. Only in 1942 did Germany get more powerful tanks, but then did still the majority of their tank force consist of weak junk like Panzer II, Pz38t, and PanzerIII that Matilda easily could handle. Cromwell was not a bad tank either. Comet was competative with the best German tanks. And Centurion is considered the worlds first MBT. And Black Prince was a heavy tank that could fight German heavy tanks on equal terms. Indeed, Centurion, Chieftain and Challanger were all some of the most powerful tanks in the world and very succesful ones. They also helped India to design the Vijayanta.
    6
  26.  @stupidburp  According to john mosier "blitzkrieg myth" did France build their maginotline fortifications in the early 1930s. And around 1936 all construction had been done and the wall had been paid for. And France did now turn their efforts on building tanks instead. And they had more tanks than the Germans. And better tanks as well. They even had so many tanks that they did not just only have as many panzer divisions as the Germans. They also had so many tanks that they could give some tanks over to the infantry to support them. And French military planners had also predicted that the Germans would take the road they took into France before the war. So the french military should have been more than able to stop the German assault on their own with the resources they had. So the problem according to Mosier was rather that the French were unlucky to have a bad political leadership in France that paniced when the Germans launched Fall Gelb on 10th of May. The French president paniced and thought that the sky was falling down, and called London to speak with the British prime minister for advice. And the unexperienced new government under Churchill was in their first day in office and had not yet get a chance to get a grip over the situation in the war. So Churchill listened to the paniced French president and decided to retreat his British army from eastern Belgium. And by doing so he did leave the flank open for the Belgian army - which then had no other choice than to retreat as well. So the Germans could advance unopposed for days while the allied line was breaking up, and the British army walked closer and closer to the coast and had to leave Europe with the evacuation in Dunkirk. And France was left open with her flank exposed and without any allies. And the superior German coordination of the Luftwaffe and ground units had given the allied air force a heavy blow. So the war in the west as about lost. All because the allies decided to leave a good defensive position and stop following their pre war plans. France did actully win the first tank battles fought against German tanks. But political leadership fucked up all the whole situation so the war was lost anyways.
    6
  27. The Germans planned to take Malta and prepared paratroops and made bombraids for months. But just before the planned attack the abandoned the plan because it was no longer seen as necessary to take it after Rommels capture of Tobruk. And this was perhaps largest Axis blunder in North Africa, since it would lead to enormous shipping losses and undersupplied forces in Africa, while the allies had a harbour and aircraft carrier for attacks on Italy.
    6
  28.  @looinrims  It was an excellent weapon for its time back in 1967 it truely was the best tank in the world. And that is not just me saying it, this is also the assesement of the US military. But with vertical stabilizers did this tank become a bit obsolete. It is however not true that other tanks did not follow up on its ideas. The Merkava desiginers did for example get very impressed by the S-tank and its frontal engine, its very sloped armor, and its crew compartment in the rear and the turret design is borrowed from IKV91 which is another Swedish tank.
    6
  29. ​ @geniusderweise400  "It is more that its typical that russia is only thought of in superficial clichés, and only the fitting parts of russian history are taken out and the losses of the other side are rarely considered" Not really. You Russians can never look back at history and learn from your mistakes, because you can never admit that you sucked. But remains that Russia have lost almost all the wars since the Crimean war if we exclude small countries like Georgia which were so small that it did never have a chance. Russia lost the Crimean war. It got humiliated in the Russo-japanease war. It lost World war 1. It lost the Polish-Bolshevik war. It got humiliated in the Winter war and in the continuation war against Finland. It suffered catastrophic losses against Nazi-Germany, but with lend lease help it still managed to stay alive until victory. Russia then lost in Afghanistan against Mujaheddin which should be considered amateurs in guerilla warfare compared to Vietcong. And no match for the North Vietnamese army.... but russia had its ass kicked anyways. And then it got defeated again in Chechenya. So Im not that impressed by Russias track record. And I am not impressed by its performance in older wars either. Like the Great Northern war 1700-1721. It outnumbered the Swedes 4 to 1 in the battle of Narva, and still managed to lose 9000 men and get 20.000 men captured. While the Swedes only suffered 667 dead. A few months later in 1701 there was the battle of Düna. Russia and Saxony outnumbered Sweden 2 to 1. And yet Russia lost with 1300 dead and 700 men captured. While Sweden lost 100 dead. And next was the battle of Rauge the same year, where 7000 Russians faced 2000 Swedes. The battle ended with 50 Swedes killed, while Russia lost 2000 men killed, wounded or captured. This humiliation was followed by the battle of Saločiai in 1703. Here did 6000 Russians face 1,100 Swedes. The battle ended with a Russian loss of 1500 men killed and over a thousand flags and banners captured. Sweden lost 40 men killed. In 1704 did a Russo-Polish force of 15.000 men get beaten by a Swedish force of 3000 men with 2000 Lithuanian auxilliary troops. Sweden won the battle with 238 men dead, while the Russo-Polish side lost 2300 men dead and 500 captured. In 1705 there was the battle of Gemauerthof and 7000 Swedes faced a Russian force of between 13 or 20.000 men. Sweden won with 1900 men casualties, while Russian losses numbered 5000. In 1706 did a Russo-Saxon force of 20.000 men go to battle against 9400 Swedes in the battle of Fraustadt. Sweden won the battle with 400 men killed, while the Russian and Saxon losses were 7377 dead, and 7,900 captured. In January 1708 did a Swedish force of 800 men attack a Russian force of 9000 men, in the battle of Grodno. Sweden won with 11 men killed and Russia had 150 of their men killed and 50 captured. In 1708 was the battle of Holowczyn, 12,500 Swedes went into battle against a Russian force 28 to 40.000 men strong. The battle ended with a Swedish victory with 265 men killed, while Russian losses numbered 2000 men. This dangerous river crossing became the favourite victory of the Swedish King Charles XII. A few weeks later it was time for the battle of Malatitze. A 5000 men strong Swedish force faced 13.000 Russians. Sweden won the battle with 1050 men killed or wounded, while Russia lost 2,700 men killed or wounded. A month later came the battle of Rajovka in september 1708. 2.400 Swedes fought against 10.000 Russians. Sweden won the battle, and lost 100 men killed while Russia lost 375 men killed. In 28th of January 1709 was the battle of Oposhnya, and 2000 Swedes fought against 6000 Russians. The battle ended with a Swedish victory with 19 men lost versus 450 Russians. 12 days later came the battle of Krasnokutsk–Gorodnoye. 2.500 Swedish riders went to battle against a Russian force of about 5000 to 10.000 men strong. The battle ended with a Swedish victory, with 132 men lost while Russian losses was 1200. Well I can go and on... but I am too tired to write more. You can however see that pattern yourself. You outnumber the enemy 3 to 1, and oftentimes 10 to 1 and still manage to lose time and time again. And not losses with a small margin, but usually numbers 10 times higher than your opponents. If any other country behaved like this, then their genepool would have been ended. Because losses like this are unsubstainable for countries with smaller populations, and socities which puts a value on human life - something Russia has never done.
    6
  30. I think they would have fought less hard. The nightmare was that the Morgentau plan would happen, or that Germany would be completly wiped out from the map. But Germany still exist today. And that could have made German soldiers relax had they known that in 1944 and 1945
    6
  31. It was already too late in the summer to launch a new campaign in the east. Things like taking Stalingrad, Leningrad or Moscow had to wait until next year, because those objectives laid far away and the Russian autumn mud and winter cold prevent Germany from taking them if they started their offensive now in july. It would be better for Germany to save their forces in the east for the next year and launch a big wave of attacks in April or May and then push forward and taking a key area in Russia - like Caucausus was in the 1942 campaign. "Was Italy that much of a concern?" There was no British or American troops on continental Europe. But there was a fear that an allied invasion would soon come, so being finished with the things in Russia so Germany could focus on beating back the western allies would perhaps be a good priority.
    6
  32.  @MT-fh1pw  Economics and military strategy focus on the best handling of limited resources. Spending enormous amounts of money on one weapon system to achieve overkill, means that you got less money over to spend on other types of weapons. I don't think that would be an effiecent handling of resources, and it would probably create more human losses. Maybe Tiger II was not the best tank for Germany, despite its extra big 88mm gun made both the gun on the Tiger I and panther look weak. And despite its well sloped thick frontal armor was twice as thick as needed. The Germans did achieve an overkill. But they could never build many of this tank. It would have been better if they had upscaled production of their other tanks instead like the panther. Israel could upgrade their Merkava tanks if they wanted to. Then they could achieve overkill with mounting a 15cm gun on their tank. But it would be pointless to fire a mini nuke on an old Soviet garbage tank that its neighbouring countries use. 15cm ammo is more expensive than the 12cm. It takes more time to reload. You can carry fewer rounds of ammunition inside a tank etc. So I don't think upgrading the gun on Merkava is the most pressing need of Israels army. It might do other better things with its military budget... spending it on the airforce, or on the infantry or whatever..
    6
  33. I think Japan was desperate for friendship with countries with white men. It had an inferiority complex towards the west, and despite Japans succesful industrialization and victory against Russia in 1905 was the country still treated as a typical non-white country to be bullied around rather than a recognized modern country and an equal to the powerful countries in USA and Europe. Japans love for the west was unanswered, and the unequal trade deals and racist immigration policies and the bullying and contempt from western powers on the other hand fueled anti-western feelings among the japanese who began to despise the materialistic greedy west. So Japan had many strange contradictory feelings towards the west, as a great teacher and admireable civilization on one hand and as a hypocritical stupid racist materialistic and overly-comfy civilization on the otherhand. Modernization brought Japan much pride over its great accomplishments. And it carefully selected the best from the western world and copied over to Japan. Here is what proffessor Ha-Joon Chang says: "The best example in this regard is the far-reaching institutional reform in early Meiji Japan (details can be found in Westney 1986, ch. 1 among other things). Having been forced open by the Americans in 1853, the Japanese realized that they needed to import Western institutions if they are to industrialize. After scanning the Western world, they imported institutions that they thought were the most effective with suitable local adjustments – the Navy and the Post Office from Britain, the Army and the criminal law from Prussia, civil law from France, the central bank from Belgium. They also imported American educational system but ditched it in favour of a mixture of German and French systems, after it was revealed to be ill-suited to their country." Modernization in Japan did however also face much backlash by traditionalists who throught that much had gone too far and that too much bullshit had been imported from the west and that Japan therefore needed to lock those things out and go its own way. Japan had modernized their own country, but not everything was possible or desireable to copy from western countries, so they did not for example copy Prussian economic policies to 100%. Prussia was a different country than Japan, and they had both different strengths and weaknesses and economic policies therefore had to be adjusted a bit before they could be transfered into Japan. But even if Japan did an industrial revolution with a Japanese touch, did the changes become dramatic for the Japanese society and many traditionalists didn't like what they saw. Ironically did Japan import European fascist ideas about the modern decadent western music like jazz and its harmful effect on society. And Japans extreme nationalism that didn't exist before was also a new created built under western influence, since the idea of the nation state, and extreme worship for a powerful emperor was ideas borrowed from western countries. Japan have had an emperor since long back in history, but he was quite an unimportant person for most of Japans history before period of modernization. Dying for ones country and ones emperor now became a sacred ideal above everything else in Japan. Japanses culture was celebrated during the mid-war period while western culture like jazz got despised and the japanese who was seen as too westernized got bullied on the streets - like muslims who acts and dress too westernized are today in many parts of the world. Japans nationalism also borrowed ideas from Europe about one people under a common empire. Germany had its pan-German dreams, Russia dreamt about bringing all slavs into a common empire. And Sweden, Norway and Denmark also dreamt about becoming one country. And Japan dreamt about creating a gigantic empire that unified all Asians under one ruling country - like Prussia did with the Germans. And if Japan did that, then western countries would be forced to accept Japan as an equal and as a great power. Indeed, if Japans dream came true it would probably be the mightyiest country in the world.
    6
  34. There are many trends at play here. A division is expected to cover a broader part of the front now than in the past, and it is perhaps possible now when firepower have increased so much. And the amount of lead flying in the air is increasing constantly. But at the same time it gets harder and harder to kill an enemy. On average did it take 400 shots to hit an enemy during Napoleons days. 20.000 during the Manchurian wars, 200.000 during WWII, and 600.000 rounds per killed enemy solidier in Vietnam. The battle ranges is also decreasing as the enemy tries to get closer to their enemy so he will not try to kill him with superior firepower from artillery or air power out of risk of hitting their own troops - as in Vietnam.
    6
  35. If the criteria is "a mediocre tank is better than no tank at all" and if you are willing to accept losses. And if you think a bad tank could save lives of soldiers instead of having no tank support at all. Then this tank is indeed an asset for Ukraine. Its probably the best that could happen to these old tanks in storage. The main enemy (Mordor) gets weaker while the west does not have to spend any own meat and blood to achieve that. We get rid of our old tanks that costs money to keep in storage, while Ukraine saves their own soldiers lives by giving them tank support. And this tank use 105mm tank ammunition that is plentiful in supply while Ukraine is on a starvation diet on 155mm shells. Any of those tanks lost is only a tragedy if men are killed. Hopefully they can be repaired and put back to use to Ukraine does not lose combat power. But if a tank have become an irrecoverable burning wreck then it is no loss in the long run. I cannot imagine any country would want to have a Leopard1 in service after this war as it is beginning to get too old for military service. Only possible North Korea, or some dictator in Africa or Latin America would think it is a good idea to field tank batallions of Leopard1 in year 2030. Other countries look for other options. Like tanks with thicker armor with chobham, steel foam or whatever.. which is lighter and gives better protection. A larger caliber gun might also be preferable... but given that nazi russia and communist china are mostly fielding old junk would it probably be suffiecent to use an old small caliber. That would give a shorter reload time and allow for more ammunition to be stored inside the tank and lower the weight of the gun and tank. Using big expensive ammunition to destroy an old tank from the 1960s is just unnecessary overkill. And if a more powerful threat shows up one will only have to use depleted uranium rounds to destroy it.
    6
  36. An interesting aspect of negative side effects of better communication. I think another example of this could be seen in Vietnam where the helicopter and the radio made commanders tempted to micromanage everything on the ground from above - much to the frustration for the men on the ground which had to follow stupid orders, because the man in the air thought that he knew best, despite when he was told by the men on the ground that the situation on the ground was much different from what he thought, and that not everything is easy to see up from the air. And especially not in Vietnam since the Vietcong was very good at ambushes and camouflage.
    6
  37. I think that Germany put 12 million men in uniform in World war 2. While Russia mobilized 40 million men. And USA put 12 million in uniform, but it could probably easily add many more million if it had wanted to, but it did see that as necessary as the war was considered almost as won by the autumn in 1943.
    6
  38. I never given this topic much thought, but when I think about it I see that... Hitler was nervous and wanted the invasion of France to happen under the winter, but it happened in the summer. The final push at Dunkirk in 1940 got deleyed. Barbarossa was supposed to happen in may, but was launched 22 of june. The battle of Moscow got deled because of the need to deal with troop concentration at the Kiev. Malta was bombed for months, and the air invasion then got canceled the same week it was supposed to take place. The evacation of the Rzhev pocket was a very old idea when the order to abandon the position finally came. The order of breakout from Stalingrad was also supposed to happen but it never came, and at one point it got too late for that to happen. Germany's handeling of the Afrika korps in late 1942 - early 1943 was wishy-washy, and the Germans couldn't take a firm decision to either evacuate the troops from Africa, or to plan a strong firm last stand, or to reinforce Nort Africa and try to play the game to win. Mansteins rescue campaign of army group south was filled with much hesitation from Hitler and decisions back and fourth, and the Kharkov offensive was partly part of the same story. And the Kursk offensive also got several deleys. The Korsun pocket was plagued with much bad luck, bad weather, mechanical failures of panther tanks, lack of big bridges to carry the heavy panther tanks etc.. so the rescue operation to save the encircled troops suffered from many deleys.. even if the operation itself started early. The decision of no evacuation of the German garrisons during operation bagration turned out to be fatal mistake, even if a permission to retreat came only a few days later - but then things were already too late. The German reaction to D-day was also deleyed. Hitlers Ardennes offensive had been planned for months before it was finally launched in december 1944, the operation had been deleyd several times and was therefore not launched earlier.
    6
  39. I think the Panther and the King tiger had a better gun. Their guns was quicker to reload, had more precision, they could hit targets further away, their guns was more than capable of knocking out any allied tank at any distance, and they could store ammunition inside the tank. The King Tiger and the Panther made smarter use of the armor they had with their angled shape. They were tanks that should take the enemies at far distances and certainly better snipers than the IS2 that was more of a close combat brawler. The only thing I think is impressive and that I like about IS2 is that the Soviets found a way to use an old heavy tank chassi and upgrade it and thus making useful use of their old chassis. And they could mass produce a heavy tank and a breakthrough tank without creating a big heavy weight tank that would consume like 55 or 70 tonnes of steel. They made a heavy tank that was quite fearful to the enemy. But on the other hand was it also clearly inferior to the latest german cats in long range combat. IS2 was built for mass production and mass consumption. Heavy losses was to be expected. And many were indeed lost to german long range weapons, and losses were also heavy in Finland against finnish infantry with close range weapons such as panzerfaust and panzerschreck. So it was a vehicle used by a military that was willing to accept enormous losses of their own soldiers lives. And that in turn makes me less impressed about this vehicle. Sure it got the job done in defeating the Germans. And sure was the 3rd world country russia never able to compete with Germany in terms of quality, so they opted for mass production instead of making russian tigers nad panther supertanks. Luckily for russia did they have USA and Britain backing them up, because otherwise would they have runned out of manpower by 1944 with their wasteful style of warfare. And I doubt russia would have had the production capacity to build those tanks in large enough numbers to compensate for German qualitative superiority if USA had not provided the Soviet union with food and military trucks. Because then would russia have been forced to produce all food and military trucks by themselves - and take men away from the frontline and put them on a farm instead, and the workers in the tank factory would have been forced to build military trucks instead. So less IS2 tanks would have been built, and newly produced tanks would not have been able to keep up with the high losses. And soon russia would had no tank force.
    6
  40.  @princeofcupspoc9073  Indeed. And if the allies nearly failed with D-Day in 1944, then I don't think they would have done any better 1 or 2 years earlier either. Then would the Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine also have the potential to cause an invasion lots of extra problems. The British side also made some mistakes and that only furthers my beliefs that a direct push into Europe would have been a bit more than then the allies were ready to chew. The allies did in the end capture a port in Normandy after 3 weeks, but that long waiting gave the Germans enough time to completly destroy the port facilities and boobytrap it so that the port only became (barely) operational in September. So the allied plans for a breakout was over-optimistic. It was good that the British brought with them some mulberry harbours, but to my understanding was this far too little to solve the logistical crisis the allies had - which didn't then become that much better after the breakout since the allied airplanes and turned bridges, railroads, highways and all kinds of infrastructure into rubble. And new ports could only be captured in mid october (Calais) and Antwerp had to wait until November 28th.
    6
  41. I think it have roughly the same combat value as an AMX30 or a Leopard1 - its really nothing something you want to use in a modern war. But if you are desperatly short in armor you can press it into service and do some complimentary roles like being a mobile gun to support the infantry from a far distance, or use it in ambushes. And this tank might be useful to reinforce a point defence if cammouflaged and dug in. It can be manned by only 1 man, so its clearly better to use man for this tank than to not use him for it. It would been another thing if it became a grave for say 6 men in an extremely poorly protected vehicle I think. I have a high rate of fire with a gun that can work against most things aside from modern tanks, and it can withstand some machine gun fire. But aside from that is it of course not something a modern army wants to use. It could probably still be useful in Ukraine today. But since none of these machines are left aside from a few museum pieces will we never know how it would perform. My guess is that it would do pretty well in a defensive role. But its absolutly not something to use for close combat in a city with RPGs in every tall building, and if advancing in open terrain against the Surovikin line is difficult for more modern tanks, then I see no reason why this tank would fare any better. Russia have lost most of its modern tanks by now. So if one wants to test to see how all Leopard1, Chieftains and AMX30 would have fared against T-55 and T-62 is the cold war became hot - then there is no better time than now. This is probably the last chance to see, as all those tanks are going towards retirement and the Soviet tanks are probably heading towards extinction. I think Ukraine would have wanted our Stridsvagn 103 if we had any to send, but we don't because they don't exist anymore. So thats the end of that story. Its a shame. Because I would really have wanted to see how F-14 Tomcat, Bandkanon and S-tank would have performed in Ukraine. I also think that Chieftain would have done a pretty good job there.
    6
  42. Russia is winning terrain, but the problem is that they are losing too many bodies per 100 meters of land won. If you lose 1000 men per day and only win say 100-200 meters of land, like russia do, then even a big country like Russia is exhausting itself. The Russian people will likely not put up with losses like this forever and revolt against Putin. So either do Russia have to find a new way of taking the same amount of land each day without losing so many men. Or they need to find a way to steal much more land per day for the same amount of men they are wasting at todays rate. Today are the situation looking difficult for Russia. It has dominance in the skies but are unable to do anything useful with it because of all the SAMs and manpads. It is running low on armored vehicles. And its artillery is running low on ammunition so it has to ration ammunition more harshly now, and there is also this problem with HIMARS strikes that makes artillery warfare more difficult than before. And without armor and artillery or air support will there be higher losses when the infantry advances. And you could of course sacrifice people that no one cares about - prisoners, ethnic minorities, homeless beggars, foreign mercenaries and so on.. but even those people are in low supply now. So losses will be high when you attack well prepared enemy positions. A way to minimize losses would be to have high quality troops as your storm infantry, but russia already wasted all of its good troops the first months of the war, so today it has to rely mostly on junk quality troops. So I think russian losses will continue to pile up. Especially western support continues to provide Ukraine with more and more deadly weapons.
    6
  43.  @Ragnarok14107  Not any longer. It is a good variant, but Leopard 2A7 and Leopard2A8 are better. Stridsvagn 122 is a beefed up Leopard2A5 variant. Thanks to its improvements do I consider it equal to Leopard2A6. Newer Leopard2 variants have a more powerful gun than Stridsvagn 122
    5
  44. I think Russias economy will outlast the russian army in this war. The fastest and easiest way towards an Ukrainian victory is probably on the battlefield. I hate to say it, but so far has russian capital controls effectivly prevented the ruble to in price against other currencies. This has effectivly limited the harm from inflation - at least for some time. Furthermore is Russia rich in natural resources, it have money reserves stored up from before this war, and it have customers in China and India that can to some extent make up the loss of the western markets. Something like 20-30% of Russias population don't have any water in their homes, and they are used to extreme poverty and their knowledge about the world outside russia is zero and their entire worldview is based on the manipulative lies that Russian stateowned TV brainwashes them with. Furthermore do I think that the tax increases that the Russian state has done so far has been very moderate. 1.5 billion Euros in extra taxes is not even much money for a smaller country like Sweden where the government yearly takes in about 150 billion in taxes. And we have peace time here. And I would expect that the tolerance for higher taxes would be higher in a country at times of war. And as immoral, stupid and evil Russias war effort has been does over 80% of the Russian people still support Putin according to polls. So there is therefore plenty of room that the Russian government would have for tax increases to pay for the war if the money reserves starts to run low. And raising taxes will cause deflation. And that deflation will compensate for some of the harm that inflation causes. Just like inflation will compensate for some of the damage that too high deflation causes. So the Russian economy can be stabilized through those means as well if need be. Wests economic war have not been a success. But in a few areas have it been very effective. It sanctions have caused a severe lack of advanced components that are needed to make advanced weapons. And the result is an extremely low montly production of cruise missiles - which lead to the failure of Russias terrorbombing campaign on Ukraines energy grid. The lack of components have also forced Russia to cancel tank production of Armata, T-90, T-80 and T-72 and the country has to rely more and more on old garbage tanks like T-62 and T-55 instead. And those tanks cannot get excellent gun sights and such because of the western sanctions. The Russian civilian aviation is living on borrowed time. The 500 passanger planes that Russia stole from western countries will sooner or later become impossible to fly due to the lack of spareparts. And when Russia began the war it had over 50 car producing companies. And now less than a dozen remains. And China is taking over more and more shares of the Russian market. So the future does not look good for Russian industry, and it seems highly unlikely that Russia will ever recover its lost trade with the west for decades. I do not think Germany is eager to undone all its hard work to switch off its energy dependence on Russia, Russia to go back again and piss off all her allies and anger Germans at home who no longer see Russia as a geostrategic friend but more as an evil dictatorship and a potential threat after it just have threatened to nuke it. Such things will not be forgotten. Overall have the sanctions been effective in depriving Russia from war materials. Of course does Russia smuggle components - and that was just expected before the sanctions were introduced as well. However the smuggeling does not render the santions worthless. It becomes harder and sometimes impossible to obtain components, in any significant large amounts to make military production worthwhile. And the lack of cheap easily accessible components also dramatically drives up production costs for making advanced weaponary - which in turn means that less of them can be produced.
    5
  45. I think it is worth pointing out that Swedens army was one formidable opponent at this time and Prussia, Poland, Austria, Denmark, Saxony and Russia all feared it and usally got beaten by it. But Swedens population was small and the resources were limited, and in the end could not great administration and tactics compensate for all the superior strenght of the enemies... but even so, was Sweden able to put up hell of a fight against a 40 times stronger enemy and almost win and crushing the Russian empire in 1709. Most contemporary people (including foreigners from countries all over Europe) thought that Sweden would soon retake her lost provinces, so the loss of the great northern war wasn't necessarily the end of the Swedish empire - but a pro-peace administration took power in Sweden for the coming decades so nothing of that happened. But times would later on change... The times of civil war and caos in Germany, Russia, Poland and the Baltics had made it easy for Sweden to expand it territory on it their expense during the 1500s and 1600s. But in the 1700s, that oppurtunity was beginning to dissapear as Prussia and Russia were building their mighty armies. And the Baltics fell into Russian hands, while Poland would get cut to pieces by Russia, Austria and Prussia later on. So all the oppurtunities for cheap victories were gone. Sweden was a poor country and it opted for peace time policies and spending cuts for its military after the great northern war. So the army became smaller and underfunded and the army was no longer the best in Europe by the mid-1700s, but instead other armies had more modern equipment and the Swedish wars declared on Russia in 1741 and Prussia in 1756 would both end in failures. And Frederick of Prussia didn't think as much about the Swedish threat as he more worried about his much more powerful enemies - Austria, Russia and France. So 1721 became the end of the Swedish empire from our todays hindsight perspective, but things never needed to be this way.
    5
  46. I couldn't agree more. The game is laggy and the AI is retarded - either it make small scale pointless naval invasions here and there, and otherwise it stacks a 100 Divisons in the same province that can be nuked away. And air warfare is only useful for supporting ground troops and having fighters to protect the bombers... any other use of planes are pointless. And bombing big ships is no problem for land based tactical bombers with the tinyiest of bombloads. And sea warfare is basicly just about spamming out ships and lure out the royal navy to a place where the luftwaffe and kriegsmarine can work toghter to sink the british fleet. After that has been done superiority over the seas has been won.
    5
  47. Building a battleship takes years and it is nothing done in a handshake. The real world doesn't work like computer games. You cannot make a baby in just one month even you got 9 women. You need shipyards, skilled workers and resources before you even can scale up your shipbuilding to the numbers needed to defeat the royal navy, and building shipyards and training workers and building housing for them also takes time. And if you cannot get that thing done you have to wait years for the first battleship to get finished, before you can start building the next one, and then wait another 4,5 years before your next Bismarck-class ship is ready. And the Royal Navy was hardly any small force that was a pushover, furthermore would cash and carry and lend lease shipments also show that America would probably not sit idle if Hitlers plan Z would happen. And I strongly suspect that Hitler did not have any port in Spain and that the importance of the ports in Scandinavia are simply next to none from a military and a shipproduction standpoint. I would also say that Napoleons blockade of England was quite effective compared to Hitlers uboat war. England had almost no trade partners then except some smugglers from Sweden and such. While England could rely upon on her great empire and imports from USA and Argentina when she was at war with Hitler. And it took just about half-a-year for Germany to start losing the battle of the Atlantic after America joined the war.
    5
  48. I think killratios are a too simplistic measurement to judge how good a weapon is. Should we start considering the old MIG-29 as the best fighter jet in the world if manage to shoot down a hundred P51 Mustangs with badly trained pilots for every MIG lost? The Elephant tank was considered a total failure and production of this tank was halted already in 1943 despite it had the highest killratio of any tank in world war II. So should we consider the Elephant a better tank design than every other tank in world war 2? I think the idea is just silly nonsense.
    5
  49. It is about both. If Russia continue its terrorbombings then you have a humanitarian catastrophy that will make the refugee wave of 2015 to look small by comparison. And by harming Russia we are helping ourselves and helping Ukraine. When we beat the crap out of the Russian bear, then can its neighbours get a moment of rest and peace.
    5
  50. Ingvar Kampfrad - The founder of IKEA
    5