Current Events > How was UK able to beat Nazi Germany in WWII?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Crazyman93 posted...

If the Kreigsmarine and the Luftwaffe could have played nice, and Hitler got over his submarine fetish, the carriers COULD have made things interesting in the Atlantic. At least until Germany lost access to French ports. Large portions of the war in the pacific were fought with fleets never seeing each other.

A). You dont just build a navy in 3 years

B). Germany is a land based power and no where near a naval power. Strong navies take Long maritime tradition and experience , Long coastal borders with natural harbors, resources(oil)

C). Actual wars change trend and technology, not years of peace. Nobody really knew the power of aircraft carriers till the war progresses, so countries were still focused on the battleship. The USA could go to war with China today and realize how obsolete its carriers are because they are expensive ticking time bombs that todays technology could easily destroy.

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JBaLLEN66 posted...

A). You dont just build a navy in 3 years

B). Germany is a land based power and no where near a naval power. Strong navies take Long maritime tradition and experience , Long coastal borders with natural harbors, resources(oil)

C). Actual wars change trend and technology, not years of peace. Nobody really knew the power of aircraft carriers till the war progresses, so countries were still focused on the battleship. The USA could go to war with China today and realize how obsolete its carriers are because they are expensive ticking time bombs that todays technology could easily destroy.

this reminded me of the time Spain went to war with the US with its wooden ships and they were pretty much tinder boxes waiting to get lit up. The us had newer tech (metal ships)

Crazyman93 posted...

Even if more than a few got purged later.

actually, as the war got underway, they un-purged certain generals, notably Rokossovsky

most of the other key leaders survived the war and became national hero figures as part of the propaganda developed by krushchev to help keep the nation fighting, and stalin died/was murdered soon enough after the war that another purge of the army was not really in the cards

if zhukov were more socially ept he likely would've succeeded krushchev

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TopKekBro posted...

How could the Germans rebuild AND get so powerful after they got so wrecked in ww1?

Possibly because Germany wasn't nearly as "wrecked" after WW1 as the Foreign Ministry's Schuldreferat, in its inter-war propaganda campaign to get the world tearfully scraping the "poor Germany" violin, liked to make out.

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Firewerx posted...

Possibly because Germany wasn't nearly as "wrecked" after WW1 as the Foreign Ministry's Schuldreferat, in its inter-war propaganda campaign to get the world tearfully scraping the "poor Germany" violin, liked to make out.

Germany wasnt fully invaded and capitulated in WW1, they only suffered thru war time attrition

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kuwab0 posted...

Russia

And the US giving them all their gear....also Scotish people are pretty badass historiclly speaking

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The Germans are a very angry people...you can feel it through how screamy the language is.

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ZeroX91 posted...

And the US giving them all their gear....also Scotish people are pretty badass historiclly speaking

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Churchill

The man brough a LongBow, BagPipes, and a BroadSword into WW2

And he became a legend after all his crazy escapades.

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ZeroX91 posted...

The Germans are a very angry people...you can feel it through how screamy the language is.

Haha

saspa posted...

Not sure if topic title is satire lol.

So... would you say America is the Gohan to Britain's Goku?

Canada is Goten :3

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ZeroX91 posted...

The Germans are a very angry people...you can feel it through how screamy the language is.

Because your only exposure to German is through Hitler's speeches?

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ZeroX91 posted...

The Germans are a very angry people...you can feel it through how screamy the language is.

What a horrendously stupid post. Wirklich dumm

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ModLogic posted...

Russia the real MVP

US just had better PR and stole the glory

Dont pretend we didnt end the war. Japan remembers. :p

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Thompson posted...

Because your only exposure to German is through Hitler's speeches?

Supposebly my family is German our last name is some harsh sounding bullshit that apperently translates to semiprecious..or something

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ZeroX91 posted...

Supposebly my family is German our last name is some harsh sounding bullshit that apperently translates to semiprecious..or something

Einsprachigkeit ist eine Krankheit.

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ASithLord7 posted...

Einsprachigkeit ist eine Krankheit.

No speaka the dutch

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ZeroX91 posted...

No speaka the dutch

Dat is niet Nederlands.

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JBaLLEN66 posted...

Germany wasnt fully invaded and capitulated in WW1, they only suffered thru war time attrition

Indeed. By contrast, France suffered immense infrastructural damage. In terms of industrial production, war and occupation cost France 80% of her steel, 55% of coal and 90% of iron ore. Losses in cereal production amounted to 50% of wheat and 30% of oats. Livestock losses in the war zone amounted to over 90%. 293,039 houses, 6,147 public buildings and 20,000 industrial and commercial establishments had been destroyed and a further 435,961 houses and 10,731 public buildings damaged. 1,500 miles of railway had been completely destroyed and 5,250 had to be repaired; 33,000 miles of road needed to be rebuilt. In addition, France had nearly 2 million internal refugees and massive war debts, having borrowed over $3.4bn from the USA to pay for the costs of the war.

Damage suffered by Germany amounted to... well, very little. (Although the British did bomb German cities like Cologne, Frankfurt, Mannheim, Offenburg, Kaiserslautern, Karlsruhe, Saarbrucken, Trier, Hagendingen and Saaralben and managed to kill 768 civilians.)

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ASithLord7 posted...

Einsprachigkeit ist eine Krankheit.

Spanish is more useful and relevent. :p

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ZeroX91 posted...

Spanish is more useful and relevent. :p

*relevant.


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Thompson posted...

*relevant.

T-T
America and Russia one the war and rebuilt the world in their image. :p

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ASithLord7 posted...

Einsprachigkeit ist eine Krankheit.

Something language is a disease? Havent practiced my german in years.

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ZeroX91 posted...

Spanish is more useful and relevent. :p

Depends entirely on you, where you live, and how you define those terms

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ReeNoiP posted...

Something language is a disease? Havent practiced my german in years.

Monolinguism. Thanks google :)

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ReeNoiP posted...

Something language is a disease? Havent practiced my german in years.

Monolingualism is a disease

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ZeroX91 posted...

T-T
America and Russia one the war and rebuilt the world in their image. :p

You meant to say won.


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Thompson posted...

You meant to say won.

T_T

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ASithLord7 posted...

Monolingualism is a disease

Aah right. One (ein) language (sprach) ness (igheit).

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L'Allemand est une langue monstreuse
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UnholyMudcrab posted...

L'Allemand est une langue monstreuse

Viel besser als Franzsisch!

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Hur mnga sprk skall vi tala d?

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Thompson posted...

Hur mnga sprk skall vi tala d?

Mindst fire.

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Einsprachigkeit ist eine Krankheit

Speaking two languages is better


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Sackgurl posted...

if zhukov were more socially ept he likely would've succeeded krushchev

Some of the best generals made lousy politicians. General Grant's presidency was a total disaster for instance. Meanwhile, Eisenhower was appointed to his position BECAUSE of political aptitude, given he had to herd around major egos like Patton and Montgomery and make them work together.

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Firewerx posted...

Indeed. By contrast, France suffered immense infrastructural damage. In terms of industrial production, war and occupation cost France 80% of her steel, 55% of coal and 90% of iron ore. Losses in cereal production amounted to 50% of wheat and 30% of oats. Livestock losses in the war zone amounted to over 90%. 293,039 houses, 6,147 public buildings and 20,000 industrial and commercial establishments had been destroyed and a further 435,961 houses and 10,731 public buildings damaged. 1,500 miles of railway had been completely destroyed and 5,250 had to be repaired; 33,000 miles of road needed to be rebuilt. In addition, France had nearly 2 million internal refugees and massive war debts, having borrowed over $3.4bn from the USA to pay for the costs of the war.

Damage suffered by Germany amounted to... well, very little. (Although the British did bomb German cities like Cologne, Frankfurt, Mannheim, Offenburg, Kaiserslautern, Karlsruhe, Saarbrucken, Trier, Hagendingen and Saaralben and managed to kill 768 civilians.)

Please tell me you looked up those numbers instead of having them memorized.

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Geiki Ganger posted...

Please tell me you looked up those numbers instead of having them memorized.

Good grief, yes. It's far from the first time I've posted those stats, so I made notes. People talk about post-war Germany being "wrecked" as if it was some shattered wasteland, but in terms of the colossal material damage wrought by the war Germany got off very, very lightly by comparison.

(I actually forgot to mention that France also suffered the total destruction of 1,039 towns and villages and the partial destruction of another 3,290, and that an area roughly the size of The Netherlands, the most resource-rich part of France, had been devastated by industrialized firepower of megaton proportions. But hey.)

And it wasn't just the result of the random violence of war, either. There was relentless asset-stripping by the Germans in the occupied zone (which amounted to around 10% of the total territory of metropolitan France), with whole factories being dismantled and shipped back to Germany. There were German scorched-earth policies, too -- the biggest of which was Operation Alberich, the cover name for all German preparations for the retreat to the Siegfried Line. It wrought some of the worst economic ruin upon France.

Between the winter of 1916 and the spring of 1917, teams of German pioneers painstakingly worked around the clock to transform much of the Somme valley region into a shattered desert incapable of supporting human communities. No stone or brick or timber was to be left sitting on top of another, no fence or tree or bush left standing, no two pieces of metal screwed together, no well or spring or reservoir left usable, no pipe left unbroken, etc etc. Alberich was so meticulously planned and methodically implemented that Army Group Kronprinz Rupprecht boasted in a report that its demolition teams had managed to completely destroy the entire town of Bapaume in just forty-five minutes.

When you know stuff like that, claims that Germany was "wrecked" after the defeat seem overblown. Yes, the first few years -- 1919-23 -- were undeniably very tough for Germany; but recovery was a rocky road for many countries, and putting the pieces of France back together was not cheap.

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