Anyone else catch "Fury" this weekend?

T.J. wrote: Another U.S. made WW2 movie where they make it seem like we came in, kicked some ass and defeated the Germans? More truthful is that the Russians defeated the Germans and we sat out of it as long as we could then came in late and did some mopping up. It would be interesting to learn more about WW2 history from the Russian POV. That being said, I like me some Sherman tanks, but since I barely ever get out to a movie, I'll probably see it when it becomes free with Amazon Prime.

Yeah, that whole western front was untouched and we didn't do anything there at all. I'm not going to lie, the Eastern front allowed the Western front to be breached, but it wasn't "mopping up". Never mind the countless lives lost bombing the Germans back to the stone age to destroy their infastructure.

In reply to T.J.:In total, the US deliveries through Lend-Lease amounted to $11 billion in materials: over 400,000 jeeps and trucks; 12,000 armored vehicles (including 7,000 tanks, about 1,386[26] of which were M3 Lees and 4,102 M4 Shermans);[27] 11,400 aircraft (4,719 of which were Bell P-39 Airacobras)[28] and 1.75 million tons of food.[29]

Roughly 17.5 million tons of military equipment, vehicles, industrial supplies, and food were shipped from the Western Hemisphere to the USSR, 94% coming from the US. For comparison, a total of 22 million tons landed in Europe to supply American forces from January 1942 to May 1945. It has been estimated that American deliveries to the USSR through the Persian Corridor alone were sufficient, by US Army standards, to maintain sixty combat divisions in the line.

I wouldn't exactly say we didn't do anything to help the USSR.

Bobzilla wrote:

T.J. wrote: Another U.S. made WW2 movie where they make it seem like we came in, kicked some ass and defeated the Germans? More truthful is that the Russians defeated the Germans and we sat out of it as long as we could then came in late and did some mopping up. It would be interesting to learn more about WW2 history from the Russian POV. That being said, I like me some Sherman tanks, but since I barely ever get out to a movie, I'll probably see it when it becomes free with Amazon Prime.

Yeah, that whole western front was untouched and we didn't do anything there at all. I'm not going to lie, the Eastern front allowed the Western front to be breached, but it wasn't "mopping up". Never mind the countless lives lost bombing the Germans back to the stone age to destroy their infastructure.

Kind of with Bozilla on this one. In terms of lives lost, T.J. may be spot on. The Russians suffered unbelievable casualties, military and civilian. (Most from the Germans, a fair number from Stalin himself) Many of the major Eastern Front battles where wholesale slaughter on a scale rarely, if ever, seen on the Western Front. But . . .

The U.S. lend/lease program helped keep Russia in the fight, at least early on while they were moving and rebuilding their industrial base. The delivery of those materials was costly both in treasure and lives.

The "second front", even in its early stages, tied up German divisions that might well have tipped the balance in the east. Most honest allied commanders, even at the time, conceded that operations in the Med/North Africa/Italy where a costly waste of lives (Take a look at "An Army at Dawn" and "The Day of Battle" by Atkinson) which did little to advance the allied cause. They were undertaken in large part as a sideshow to take pressure off the Russians.

The cost in lives and resources for the air campaign in staggering. (Take a look at the loss rates from the early daylight bombing raids) Its impact will probably be debated by historians forever, but it was something Russia was completely incapable of pulling off.

Don't forget, the allies (mostly the U.S.) were fighting another enemy at the same time. The Russians didn't jump into that fight until the very end, when it had more to do with grabbing land than defeating Japan.

So, yeah . . .

T.J. wrote: Another U.S. made WW2 movie where they make it seem like we came in, kicked some ass and defeated the Germans? More truthful is that the Russians defeated the Germans and we sat out of it as long as we could then came in late and did some mopping up. It would be interesting to learn more about WW2 history from the Russian POV. That being said, I like me some Sherman tanks, but since I barely ever get out to a movie, I'll probably see it when it becomes free with Amazon Prime.

Wow, that's some reading there. While I agree that the Russian history of WWII is interesting, I think you're pretty heavily overstating their contribution. I remember reading stories about the battle of Moscow. They were basically taking untrained draftees, lining them up, and pointing them toward the Germans. They gave every other guy a rifle and minimal ammo because they just didn't have enough to go around. They effectively told the second guy "Follow the guy with the gun until he gets killed, then pick up the gun and keep going." The Russians took horrific casualties, it's true, but it's largely because they were relatively unequipped to fight the Wehrmacht.

And that's leaving out the entire western European air war, and staging a massive amphibious assault across 30 miles of sea.

So I'm, ahhh, going to go ahead, and, ahhh, disagree with your analysis.

You guys are also leaving out the invasion of North Africa and Italy. When the Italians basically gave up, the Germans had to spend significant effort to slow the Allied advance up Italy.

The Russians certainly lost the most people, but that had a lot to do with the "style" of fighting on both sides.

To recap: I say that we in the US always get fed the version of history that we wrote. That we saved the day, liberated Europe, defeated Hitler and if it wasn't for us the Euros would all be speaking German. Our version of the story likes to pretend that Russia was not really an ally and not really doing much at all except sacrificing their soldiers with stories like one gun two soldiers recounted above.

If that set of circumstances had taken place wit our forces, why they would be among our greatest heroes. Young men who charged the German line without even a rifle. But since it is a Russian story, we tell it as an example of how evil Stalin was. (I'm not saying he wasn't).

Just saying that there is more to the story of WW2 than the mythology we get fed all the time. Funny that when I suggest that Russia did more of the fighting against Germany people actually respond by saying I am crazy because we sent a lot of military supplies over there. Anyone look up casualty numbers?

if you're into games you can buy the FURY for only $30 or something like that in world of tanks lol.

http://worldoftanks.com/en/news/pc-browser/22/fury-event/

haven't seen it yet... will once it hits the small screen though

In reply to T.J.:

You don't really read what people wrote do you?

A.) No one here has said you're crazy.

2.) No one has said anything about "evil Stalin" (except you).

III.) Many of us have mentioned that the Russian front afforded the Allies the chance to open the Western front.

d.) You've completely ignored Africa, Italy, the air war (that lasted from 1942 until the end of the war.) or the Normandy invasion etc.

vi.) No one here has said anything about the US being the "savior" (again, except you.).

But hey, you want to keep arguing with yourself, go right ahead. Who am I to stop you?

06HHR wrote:

Bobzilla wrote: In reply to yamaha: Don't forget that they up-gunned as many as they could in the field as well....They realized (almost too late) that the Sherman wasn't up to the task for tank on tank. In Africa they used their numbers to overwhelm the Germans, much like the Russians planned to do with NATO if push ever came to shove. speaking of.... what the hell were our military leaders thinking? Did they not remember their history? Sheer numbers can easily overcome better engineering and the Russians were doing just that. IIRC from some of the old ICA mags I had back in the 80's the US Military expected a 30:1 ratio of tanks/armor/manpower if the Soviets ever stormed West. I don't care how good our military is, that is almost unsurmountable IMO.

Back in the mid 80's I was deployed to Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany). I was in a transportation unit that ferried the field units to and from the main forward training area at Grafenwoehr, in what was then known as the "Fulda Gap" where it was thought the Warsaw Pact forces were most likely to make their assault. The units stationed in and around West Germany were basically sacrificial, and designed to slow down the onslaught just long enough for US and NATO reinforcement ground troops to fly in and gear up at the POMCUS sites scattered around the country. Combat life expectancy for units varied based on one's proximity to the "Fulda Gap" and the Czech and East German borders. If you were near Grafenwoehr (or "Graf" as we called it) you could expect to be overrun within minutes. Berlin was basically toast, and it was widely expected that our tactical missile batteries would use battlefield nukes if necessary to protect NATO headquarters, which is one of the reasons we were always alerted to Anti-Nuclear weapons demonstrations by the locals and routinely advised where not to go in-country when off-duty. We also did a lot of escape and evasion and NBC (Nuclear Biological Chemical) training as well because, well we were basically cannon fodder. While a lot of units have stood down since the fall of the USSR, i'm pretty sure some (or a lot) of that battle plan is still in place, and you can bet Putin is aware of it as well. Sorry about the Ninja edits, close to 30 years makes the brain foggy..

interesting reading this... I lived about 400km west of there at Hahn air base (just south of koblenz) from 80-86... I was a little kid but I remember the frequent exercises including dads chem warefare suit and such as a little kid... ya know... when he wasn't doing his 90 days in turkey, or spain.

on another side note... I was talking with dad a while back and I mentioned nukes... he's a happy go lucky type of character but as soon as I mentioned that his face expression completely change and he blurted out "I can neither confirm nor deny the presence of nuclear devices" or something like that... then after a short silence he relaxed and he grinned saying something like "but I will say if we ever sent them out they always came back"

I can also recall the emergency evacuation drills and things like that... hop on a huge cargo jet with the mesh seats and such... I was only 5 or 6 at the time and the weight of that sort of reality has never set in until you mention it like that...

Also, the USAAC and British air force dropped 2.7 million tons of bombs on Germany from 1939 to 1945.

06HHR wrote:

Bobzilla wrote: In reply to yamaha: Don't forget that they up-gunned as many as they could in the field as well....They realized (almost too late) that the Sherman wasn't up to the task for tank on tank. In Africa they used their numbers to overwhelm the Germans, much like the Russians planned to do with NATO if push ever came to shove. speaking of.... what the hell were our military leaders thinking? Did they not remember their history? Sheer numbers can easily overcome better engineering and the Russians were doing just that. IIRC from some of the old ICA mags I had back in the 80's the US Military expected a 30:1 ratio of tanks/armor/manpower if the Soviets ever stormed West. I don't care how good our military is, that is almost unsurmountable IMO.

Back in the mid 80's I was deployed to Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany). I was in a transportation unit that ferried the field units to and from the main forward training area at Grafenwoehr, in what was then known as the "Fulda Gap" where it was thought the Warsaw Pact forces were most likely to make their assault. The units stationed in and around West Germany were basically sacrificial, and designed to slow down the onslaught just long enough for US and NATO reinforcement ground troops to fly in and gear up at the POMCUS sites scattered around the country. Combat life expectancy for units varied based on one's proximity to the "Fulda Gap" and the Czech and East German borders. If you were near Grafenwoehr (or "Graf" as we called it) you could expect to be overrun within minutes. Berlin was basically toast, and it was widely expected that our tactical missile batteries would use battlefield nukes if necessary to protect NATO headquarters, which is one of the reasons we were always alerted to Anti-Nuclear weapons demonstrations by the locals and routinely advised where not to go in-country when off-duty. We also did a lot of escape and evasion and NBC (Nuclear Biological Chemical) training as well because, well we were basically cannon fodder. While a lot of units have stood down since the fall of the USSR, i'm pretty sure some (or a lot) of that battle plan is still in place, and you can bet Putin is aware of it as well. Sorry about the Ninja edits, close to 30 years makes the brain foggy..

That sounds vaguely familiar to what I remember reading as a pre-teen.