WWII Deaths

[Amnorix]

A fascinating video. Maybe it should go in DC, but it's history and I think has a wider pool of potentially interested people, so

[gblowfish]

There's too many of us....there's too many of us....there's too many there's too many there's too many....

[Otter]

I often wonder the outcome of WWII if Germany allied with Russia instead of invading. Not 100% the Axis would have won but wow, the land campaigns would have been so much more brutal for the Allies.

Thanks for link.

[mikey23545]

What a powerful little video.

[Amnorix]

Originally Posted by Otter

I often wonder the outcome of WWII if Germany allied with Russia instead of invading. Not 100% the Axis would have won but wow, the land campaigns would have been so much more brutal for the Allies.

Thanks for link.

Well, ultimately we win for one simple reason, see below, but the entire war would have been much, much, much uglier.

[Sweet Daddy Hate]

Originally Posted by Otter

I often wonder the outcome of WWII if Germany allied with Russia instead of invading. Not 100% the Axis would have won but wow, the land campaigns would have been so much more brutal for the Allies.

Thanks for link.

Had we not invaded and pushed across when we did, we were about two to three months from being completely ****ed by the Germans.

They were very, VERY close to completing technology that would have decimated the allies.

As luck would have it, we were more than happy to commandeer those brilliant minds and put them to work, post-Berlin.

[Eleazar]

I was watching some program the other night where a Canadian soldier was taken back to the Channel where they had located the ship he was on, which sank during the invasion of Normandy after striking a mine. The story was just incredible, being blown across the deck of the ship, trying to decide if he should just jump or wait for the bow to sink and swim for it, having to shed his gear in order to swim, and getting hold of a capsized lifeboat by happenstance and then still going ashore.

They also described this method someone had come up with to try to make tanks float by surrounding them with this inflatable air bladder, which didn't really work well because it wasn't tall enough and the middle part filled with water from the waves. What must it have been like to be crew of the the second tank, after you see the first one push off the front edge of the boat and seeing it sink?

[Amnorix]

Originally Posted by Sweet Daddy Williams

Had we not invaded and pushed across when we did, we were about two to three months from being completely ****ed by the Germans.

They were very, VERY close to completing technology that would have decimated the allies.

As luck would have it, we were more than happy to commandeer those brilliant minds and put them to work, post-Berlin.

What technology? Jet engines on planes, which Hitler undervalued, misused and ignored? Dumb ballistic missiles that could not be targetted on strategic targets and had pathetically small warheads? Nuclear weapons, the program that was essentially deprioritized early in the war and was absolutely nowhere near completion? Longer-range submarines, which were crippled by Doenitz's centralized control requirements when Enigma had been cracked?

By 1944 nothing was going to save the Germans except the atomic bomb, and they didn't have it, and weren't even trying hard to get it.

[Eleazar]

Maybe he's talking about the V2?

[Sweet Daddy Hate]

Originally Posted by Amnorix

What technology? Jet engines on planes, which Hitler undervalued, misused and ignored? Dumb ballistic missiles that could not be targetted on strategic targets and had pathetically small warheads? Nuclear weapons, the program that was essentially deprioritized early in the war and was absolutely nowhere near completion? Longer-range submarines, which were crippled by Doenitz's centralized control requirements when Enigma had been cracked?

By 1944 nothing was going to save the Germans except the atomic bomb, and they didn't have it, and weren't even trying hard to get it.

Coming from a defender of BB, I'm going to pass on your assessment.

[Amnorix]

Originally Posted by Cochise

I was watching some program the other night where a Canadian soldier was taken back to the Channel where they had located the ship he was on, which sank during the invasion of Normandy after striking a mine. The story was just incredible, being blown across the deck of the ship, trying to decide if he should just jump or wait for the bow to sink and swim for it, having to shed his gear in order to swim, and getting hold of a capsized lifeboat by happenstance and then still going ashore.

They also described this method someone had come up with to try to make tanks float by surrounding them with this inflatable air bladder, which didn't really work well because it wasn't tall enough and the middle part filled with water from the waves. What must it have been like to be crew of the the second tank, after you see the first one push off the front edge of the boat and seeing it sink?

Yes, those didn't work well, at all. We lost alot of tanks that way, and tank crews.


Everyone wants to paint every single human being fighting for us in that war as a stellar example of heroism, but they were human like in any other war. I've read accounts of some pilots on D-Day who were basically forced at gunpoint by the troops on their own ships to get in ****ing CLOSER to the shore. When you see the ship next to you discharge troops/tanks that sink and die, and then your "captain" (really a scared kid who is maybe 25 years old at best, and like an Ensign in rank) tells you it's time to get off the boat and charge because the bullets are hitting his boat --- well, you can imagine what will happen, given that the boat has, whatever, 200+ soldiers and like 20 sailors.

("boat", means an LST or similar landing ship).

Pictures of a tank with its bladder.

[Amnorix]

Originally Posted by Sweet Daddy Williams

Coming from a defender of BB, I'm going to pass on your assessment.

What technology? You could've written the answer in as many words as you typed, but instead tried a pathetic dodge.

[Amnorix]

Originally Posted by Cochise

Maybe he's talking about the V2?

Nothing new there. The Germans launched over a thousand (I forget how many) V-2s during the war. The main problems were (1) small warhead and (2) no guidance system so that strategic targets could be selected.

I haven't run the numbers or seen this written, but I would bet serious money that the total payload dropped in any of the large late war allied bombing raids (pick one, Dresden, Frankfurt, Berlin) was larger than the total payload carried by all V-2s launched by Germany during the war.

[Sweet Daddy Hate]

Originally Posted by Amnorix

What technology? You could've written the answer in as many words as you typed, but instead tried a pathetic dodge.

Unconventional technology.

[Amnorix]

Originally Posted by Sweet Daddy Williams

Unconventional technology.

Very helpful. You mean sharks with laser beams on their freaking heads or what?