Were the Germans really that good?

[Steel God]

Still disagree with you guys. Why then, did the German forces end up in full retreat in Russia if they were so fantastic? They had great equipment which did nothing but drag things out. If they were that good they should have been able to continue the push and beat the Reds.

The laws of physics caught up with them. As the advanced eastward the size of the front tripled in size, while their manpower pool to attack with shrunk. Meanwhile the Russians, whose manpower reserves were under estimated, refused to accept defeat. The German military machine WAS the best on the earth between 39-42, but it was built for short campaigns, not long ones. Russia was the first opponent who refused to fold after 3 months and from that point on it was really a lost cause. That doesn't mean that man for man, the Russians were better than the Germans. They just buried them under weight.

In the west they totally outclassed the Allied in tanks and most infantry equipment but still got their butts kicked. As for the air war well that was a joke wasn't it. As soon as they came up against equal a/c they were defeated (Battle of Britain).

I'll have to disagree with you here again Chris. The Luftwaffe did not lost the BoB to the RAF because of superior or equal quality aircraft (alhough that is a true statement); they lost because of a lousy German operational plan (failing to see concentrate on the radar and the fighter bases) and the RAF's radar control system was a force multipier. All other things remaining the same, the RAF loses without the Chain Home Stations.

"The German tanks did not outclass the Russian tanks early in Barbarossa, in fact it was the other way around, even more so than the French tanks outclassed the Germans (which was machine wise also the case)."

They did? BT7 and T26s? Sorry, I will take a PzIId or PzIII over these tin cans anyday. Sure they had some T34s, but not until 43 were they everywhere.

The KV series of tanks were available in significant numbers and cold be dealt with only by 88s or close assaults. No German tank cold do anything but immobilize a KV. The T34s were only available in low numbers true, but every Russian tank was capable, on paper, of destroying any German tank it might encounter. The fact that they often lost the exchanges is because of superior German doctrine and training, not equipment, and that illustrates my point.

The Germans didn't win at Arnhem, the allies lost it by poor planning and drive. The Germans would have been totally caught off guard if it had not been for a resting SS pz div that just happened to be there. Luck, not skill.

I used to think that too, but that's from reading too much American history. Study that batle, really get into the nuts and bolts of that battle and you will come away with 2 important facts. The notion of the Red Devils dropping on top of a "SS Pz Div" is nonsense. The 9th SS was about 2 battalions in strength, and all it's vehicles were stripped out to make 10th SS Pz (also only a few battalions in strength) mobile. The other thing you will learn is that the entire German operation at Arnhem, from one end of the corridor to the other, was a masterful demonstration of operational flexibility and planning that NO other Army in the world, NONE, could have puled off. On the contrary to Monty being an idiot for trying MG, that plan had every right to succeed, and would have against any other army in the world. When I worked on MG'44 for HPS and had to do some serious research, it really opened my eyes as to what happened there. It is far and away, my favorite ETO battle precisely because it is so misnderstood.

Ardennes? That was a joke. Scramble brains strips all his forces and creates new divisions for a last hurrah. This operation had no chance of success, not at all. Hell, they couldn't even beast a frozen, poorly supplied airborne division with other elements for 2 weeks! How about St Vith where some 105s firing over open sights stopped them cold. Yeah, great operation there!

I'll grant you that the Bulge was doomed to failure from conception, but you're missing the point. What other Army in the world, could have gone through 1944 and suffered the twin disasters of D-Day in the East, and the destruction of Army Group Center in the East, and still possessed the discipline to even put together an operation like Bulge, let alone execute it in a some what effective manner? To reverse roles, it's the equivilant of the Japanese beating up on the US and UK for 6 months in early 1942, and the Americans responding with the battle of Leyte Gulf.

If the German tactics were so great, then why did they suffer HUGE LOSSES in Russia? The Russians were not tactical geniuses that is for sure. So their superior leaders and training with equipment should have easily won the day, but they didn't. In the end farmers beat the super men; and in the west civilians in uniform did the same.

Exactly. Like Ivan says, 100 militia can kill for SpecOps guys almost every time out. That in no way diminishs the fact that the SpecOps guys are, man for man, much better soldiers than those taliban militia. The Germans were clearly, man for man, the best practitioners of the military art in WWII.