COH: Europe In Ruins

well the thing is, the main characters are the tellers of the story so of course they don't die or you don't know what happened.

uh dude, the story is real..most if not all the names are real, the actions for the most part are real... its REAL.. with a bit of hollywood twist.

and saying why didnt the germans do this and that, well, put yourself in their place, they had no comms, they were in the dark, airborne was all over the damn place they had no idea wtf was going on...  luckily, it seems, that all the mis drops and so on helped the airborne acheive its goals, it made them look like they were all over and the germans, with hitler sleepy and their best commander away for his wifes Bday totally clueless as what was going on..     pretty simple stuff, if they moved the panzer div in faster and units from calais faster, it could have been a pretty bad thing for the allies, but all the allied head games they played help out alot.. so, for a long answer, thats why the german hmg just sat there, they were freaking clueless as what was going on.

What Mgallun said. I'm not sure if that's true for each engagement shown in the series, but a lot of fights shown are based on real after-action reports, whether Winters' unit was involved in them or not.

It is made with propaganda. Don't bother trying to 100% realistic. Things that media don't want to show is not there.

All war movies are made with propaganda. So far the only ones I've not see AS propaganda inflicted were made by the German movie company that made Das Boot and Stalingrad

ZOMG I SAW CROMWELL AND WAS LIKE PEWPEW, GET VET 3 GO. THEN HE WAS LIKE, DEAD.

History is written by the victors. There will be bias towards the victorious side in every engagement ever recorded, because if it was written by the winning side they'll of course say they had their shit together, and then who are the losers to say they didn't, because that'd mean they got their asses kicked by people who didn't have their shit together!

It's just so simple as that, and it's part of the needed propaganda warfare to keep the people "happy". The average joe across the world will always let the crimes of the "loosing" side overshadow/justify the means of the winning team, and simply forget them over time. The other issue is the precedent this can set, because it can give the "winning" team moral authority across the world to wage war versus anyone they want.

This kind of psychological warfare is called "White" [Omissions + Emphasis], it's technically a fallacy, not a lie. Which most people fail to acknowledge because it's truthful, not strongly biased, and the source of information is acknowledgeable.


And no, I'm not hinting at any country/community/etc specifically.

Well, you do have to consider that war in and of itself is a means versus the ends conundrum. Killing everybody is not a very good way to get what you want, which is why diplomacy exists. But, if the ends are justified, countries have no problems means-ing away.

Machiavelli has a lot to offer, even in today's world.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Yet...there are people who are MORE equal than you are...

Winner writes the history all the battles are right but how they show those battles in shows are often not exactly the way the battles went

You are right, it is completely unrealistic. Winters himself t bagged all of the germans on Normandy, but the show made it seem like they did it as a team. So fake.

heh, these threads make me laugh

u make me laugh tbh

I agree of course the victors and media will not make nazi totally pwn the americans, but still no matter what, clueless or not its compeltely idiotic to semble all your men blobbing on a grass eating, maybe so they were surrounded but at least they could organize a bit and make some defensive position.
That would be a bit more exciting to watch rather than pwning the germans..

besides their the goddamn waffen SS, as shown on that episode classic wehrmacht unit seems better.

pff..

The SS was not better trained than the normal Wehrmacht soldiers.

To become part of the SS it would be enough to be the son/relative of rich party members from the NSDAP. It had some kind of prestige meaning to it.

But just because they had their own "Army" doesn't mean that they were trully better.

So far all people think of the SS as super elite soldiers. Well, doh, that's what they wanted to make their enemy fear.

In band of brothers it seems to me they are the SS-hitler jugend i think Winters or some other NCO said that when they briefed. Well theese soldiers didn't get that much training.
But normal SS soldiers was alot better then the standard ones, they had longer training and much more tougher.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRBBJvHtfI4&feature=fvw (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRBBJvHtfI4&feature=fvw)

Actually most of the SS were hardened veterans from the Russian front pulled to deal with the new threat. And compared to the American troops who at the time were mainly raw recruits, they were super elite soldiers. Also the SS were well known for their fanatical loyalties, which made them fight harder then the mainly drafted American soldiers.

People should remember that there were 2x SchützStaffeln's

SchützStaffeln AND Waffen SchützStaffeln.

Waffen SS was the fighting unit, in short they were Elite infantry with better training than regulars.
SS was a simple protection squad that marched on the streets. Waffen SS was on the frontlines.

Even the SS protection squad had equivalent skill to the Whermact (can't spell it) and were often chosen from veteran companies

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ba3baBS8gbo&feature=related

This are the fuhers elite, lol! Take notice of the one in the front! hahahaha.

If you'd relize, that is re-enactment which means fat and thin nerds who are intrested in war.
This is leibstandarte: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_gF3YmjIWs (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_gF3YmjIWs)

What I personally hate is that always the Nazi's are viewed as evil brainless unimportant soulless fighting machines, while every Allied soldier that dies is a dramatic loss etc etc.

Personally, I would love to see a war where the Nazi's (which were actually mostly normal people, except for a few fanatic exceptions) are actually SHOWN to be normal people, with feelings, problems and their own fears too.

There are no such movie out there, well Stalingrad and Das Boot had something like that

May be a WW1 movie, but does All Quiet On The Western Front not show the Wehr as human?

Yeah, STALINGRAD did that and i love the movie i even bought it as much as i liked it.

There are a couple good movie, A Bridge Too Far shows some good moments. But lets face it, the SS and groups like Hitlers Kids gave Germans a bad name as they were extremely fanatical and loyal. While maybe 80% deny it (who knows how many of them did so to save face, a controversial topic so i won't get into it but good to keep in mind) the 20% who were SS, and HK and other such groups gave a really bad face to Germany at the time which Hollywood being Hollywood preyed upon.

Man i love you for reminding me on A Bridge Too Far  which ive been trying to remember, and yeah it's true what you say.

The SS were to Nazi Germany what the US Marines are to the US Army today (in a more politicized form). They were a (somewhat extraneous) military branch that evolved far past its initial bounds due to its wild success early in (the) conflict(s).

They tended to be slightly better, on average, than the actual army because they were given preferential treatment in some form or another (the SS had better training and equipment, the US Marines tend to have slightly better training and slightly worse equipment for comparison).

The US marines are an actual elite unit though.  Look at their performance in Korea, every other NATO unit collapsed except them.  The marines are trained to a higher standard and only accept a higher standard.

The SS is more like the Islamic Revolutionary Guard in Iran.  They are a pseudo political military organization that only certain people with the right connections and qualifications can get into. And those connections tend to have nothing to do with how capable they are at fighting a war.

The SS did receive top of the line German equipment, so they tended to be better equipped. Many of their victories can be attributed to the fact that they simply had superior equipment compared to their wehrmacht counterparts and received first pick of reinforcements and supplies.  Everytime people talk about the SS, they bring up Das Reich division, or the Totenkoph division.  Never any of the other ones like the Wiking or Nord divisions, which performed very poorly, especially given their lavish equipment and logistics support.

The true elite Germany formation of the war were the fallschirmjager.  With the allies it was the same thing, paratroopers were the elite of infantry branch of the army.

The marines are amazingly equipped. So your point is moot, also the Marines are only rated 3rd in the worlds Elite, with both Israeli and British special forces beating them. The mere fact is that we know the Germans were the best, why? because they were a moderate size country with a couple small countries, all recently pulled out of immense debt and almost conquered ALL of Europe. Sadly The Allies victories paled by the Axis own mistakes, like Hitlers decision to attack Russia (a neutral ally up till then) instead of finishing off victories, that cost them the war.

...What?  Why are you comparing a regular warfighting formation with special forces?  That'd be like comparing the US coast guard with the Canadian navy, it makes no sense.

Hitler's decision to attack Russia was excellent.  The Soviets were in the middle of purging their military and were extremely vulnerable.  Stalin was going to attack Hitler when he finishes reorganizing his army in 44-45 anyways, Hitler just beat him to it.

I'm also not sure what you mean by "finishing up victories".  Where else was Germany going to expand to?  Occupying western Europe was a huge resource drain and imploding their economy.  The original plan as envisioned by Hitler has always involved attacking Russia to take over the Ukranian wheat fields and the Russian oil fields.

First, you brought the marine comparison in.
Second, Hitler had Britain at its knees, and the British knew it.
If he had finished them off like the original plan had said THEN attacked Russia the Allies would have had no where to launch d-day from so Russia would have been all alone against Germany. But Hitler had panicked causing once again a two sided war that ended him.

Also Hitler declared war on the US in accordance to its alliance to Japan after Pearl Harbor, which was a stupid move since the US had no intention of allying itself with Britain due to old enmities.
I could go on. Like letting the British and French armies escape to Britain. The pulling of the Panzer core in panic back to Germany which would have crushed the entire allied force on the shores during D-day.

Oh and allowing the constant bombing of London which freed the RAF and the RCAF to take to the skies instead of keeping them pinned on the ground as they were
 ETC.

Well, obviously we can draw better parallels. The Hollywood Marines, for instance, would be like Wiking :p


No they aren't. They get the ass end of our army's gear and every marine knows it. "Marines make do."


...

The stupid burns.


No, I did, he didn't.


No he didn't.


Classic arm-chair general.

Please, pray tell, how is Hitler going to "finish off" Britain?


We were best buddies ever since WW1; hence, you know, selling them hundreds of billions of dollars in war supplies.


...wha? Panzer corps going where?

Pfft, The whole war is a lie. Everyone knows William "B.J." Blazkowicz defeated Hitler

Not to bother quoting Malevolence
But the Germans had France, all they had to do was cross the Channel but were delaying at first till the weather got better. Hence Churchill's famous quote
"What General Weygand has called the Battle of France is over: the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilisation. Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be freed and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duty and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say: "This was their finest hour"

The failure to complete The Battle of Britain has also been called the foremost reason Germany failed their goals of ww2

http://www.operationsealion.com/ (http://www.operationsealion.com/) a basic overview on exactly how

And yes i also read that the plan had alot of reason for failure, and as such there are some who believe it never would have worked. And it may well not have who knows arguing such futures are best left to such people like Harry Turtledove who have greater access to first hand accounts and info then most

Sorry, i forgot the US hid behind the title "arsenal of democracy" supplying weapons but no intent to fight.

And the Panzer corp was called back to Berlin to "protect the fuhrer", well the exact reason isn't as well known as i have heard many reasons but there was a major panzer corp within easy crushing reach of the beaches but it did nothing. It was the 47th Panzer Corp i believe.

In all honesty, what the hell are you smoking? There is literally no way in hell Hitler could have amassed a navy AND won air supremacy in time for any version of Operation Sealion to succeed. The site you linked to STATES THIS.

http://www.operationsealion.com/p1_problems.php


Consider that Hitler was just outside of Moscow in December. In all probability, Hitler declared war on the United States in an attempt to get Japan to declare war on the Soviet Union, thereby drawing precious Soviet divisions off into Manchuria...a very calculated attempt to gain an advantage in Russia before the United States could intervene. It's far more probable to state that Hitler's declaration of war was self-motivated, not stupid. Indeed, one of the Russian Intelligence's biggest successes of the war was learning about Japan's adherence to the cease-fire in Manchuria, allowing Zhukov to withdraw several divisions from Manchuria just in time to bolster Moscow's defenses (this happening, of course, before Hitler's declaration of war on the United States).

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "the US had no intention of allying with Britain due to old enmities." As I recall, the USN and what passed for the merchant marine were given live-fire orders against the German Navy (and U-boats) long before Pearl Harbor. The United States passed over a hundred destroyers to Britain, and began Lend Lease. The United States even sent "volunteer" pilots (Eagle Squadrons) to help out the Brits. The US was fighting alongside Great Britain since 1940 in everything but name.

Your last point is also flawed. Firstly, Allied air interdiction and la Resistance kept Das Reich away from the beaches for 17 days. Most forms of rapid response were, as Rommel predicted, paralyzed by Allied air supremacy during the first few days of the Operation. Why would Hitler's order allow timely German movement towards the beaches? Indeed, why would Hitler order his reserves forward when the "real" invasion would come at Pas de Calais, not Normandy (something that pretty much every German officer fell for)?

To be fair to Hitler, a second landing did happen, just not at Pas de Calais; South France's Operation Anvil-Dragoon was pure win for the Allies.

Secondly, as the Germans learned the hard way at Salerno, the navy of any invasion force is basically a collection of enormous artillery pieces with built-in fire and control centers; the standard 5-inch naval gun fired a shell over twice as heavy as the 105mm at, in sustained operations, twice the rate of fire. Any sort of push that came remotely close to the beaches would be...annihilated.

On the last point, your information for the Battle of Britain is wrong. Even in the worst of times during the BoB, the RAF was still out-attritioning and out-producing the Luftwaffe.

The British believed it was possible and so do many historians.

As to BoB yes, the RAF was almost grounded completely by the bombings of their airstrip until the accidental bombing of Berlin which caused the orders for the bombing of London, a task which Germany's Airforce could not do both at the same time.

http://www.raf.mod.uk/bob1940/phase1.html (http://www.raf.mod.uk/bob1940/phase1.html)

As a Canadian I am proud that we won, but i realize as many do that it was by the skin of our teeth that the allies won. Some of my info comes not from what i read, but heard from family who fought in the war from its beginnings to the end, but most is pretty sound. And i do try keep as much of my personal bias out of it.

The British were wrong. Understandable, given wartime hysteria, but incorrect nonetheless. I'd love to see which historian supports this viewpoint.

From the link you just gave me:

"In order to invade Britain, the Germans had to have control in the air over the English Channel, otherwise the RAF and the Royal Navy would have been able to destroy their invasion force before it reached the shore. It has been postulated by many naval experts that due to the type of flat-bottomed barge built by the Germans, simply running a Destroyer Squadron at full speed through their ranks would have caused many to capsize in the wake from the ships. The troops and their equipment would have suffered heavy casualties, and the invasion effectively stopped with little or no gunfire."

Forget destroyer wakes; launching the invasion in rough weather would have pwned the Germans. The river barges the Germans wanted to use were simply too slow and too...well, bad for sea use.

On another note, the British ran a simulation of Sealion at Sandhurst in 1974 with people like Galland and Student as umpires. The British assumed that the Germans had somehow managed to land the first wave without losing it and delay the British navy with minefields (in reality, the Germans did not have enough mines in Europe to make an effective mine barrier). The British won.

And what's this, the entire RAF was grounded by the bombing of a single airstrip? Amusing, considering that British fighter sorties were always higher than German fighter sorties (not by small numbers, either, I'm talking about hundreds/week), even in the worst of the airfield bombing. Also, exactly one-half of Britain was out of Me-109 range; the implications are obvious. The Germans simply built the wrong type of fighter for the wrong kind of war.

Read all the phases, during the phase 2 i count 18 airfields being hit. Its after that phase that they allow the fiasco to happen.

this is the interesting part

"However, just when it seemed that the country and 11 Group in particular couldn't continue for another day, the Germans changed their tactics."

Also simulations are just computers and never take into account of that 1 man, the one who storms up against all odds and does something so mind blowing no one can believe it.

Key word: "seemed". Germany always underestimated British strength. Britain always overestimated German strength. The fact remains that, even in the worst of the offensive, the RAF was outattritioning, outflying, and outproducing the Luftwaffe. Britain was suffering, but Germany was suffering even more. Even discounting the fact that the RAF could simply relocate to North Britain, untouchable by Me-109s, if it needed to, Germany had no chance of establishing air supremacy, especially not in time for Sealion.

The website certainly mentions the number of hit airfields. But, even in the worst of the bombing, only 2 airfields were closed for more than a few hours by enemy action. That's terrible.


I can't tell if you're trolling or not. Please offer evidence that Sealion would have worked with river barges, air parity, 10-day unloading times, and overwhelming naval inferiority.

Hmm, the Romans got to Britain on small wooden vessels designed for the Mediterranean

William the Conquer did pretty much the same thing too. However, these two examples are flawed as they didn't have to contend with a Navy or an Airforce actively opposing them.

http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA421637&Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf (http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA421637&Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf)

Its a long read, but a good one. The numbers in there do not lie. To sum it up they say, that Germany could have won, but do to failures to pursue  objectives long and hard enough they let the British gain back the upper hand.

With a direct quote from the conclusion

"Three days after he ranted to an audience of thousands “I am coming!  I am coming!” Hitler
concentrated his air offensive on the city of London, saving the Royal Air Force from mortal at-
trition and undermining German air strategy (8, 132)"

To play as a moron in this fight I'll say one thing.

UK was on its knee when RAF was pinned down on their airfields with no rest and 24/7 services since German HE-111 bombers bombed their bases while Wolf packs lurked around UK's shores. They had hard time getting supplies as most of them were sunk by Torpedoes. If this fight had kept going on UK would have starved to death economically and the population would have suffered hunger. This might've forced UK to surrender under German bombardment. Remember that Germany had number and equipment superiority during the early stages of battles. UK was pretty much pinned to their own island. Then Hitler started to bomb London and left the airfields alone allowing rest and repairs that were much needed and- well RAF recovered quickly and started to take over the skies.

deleted

Wow this topic was about BoB and you changed it into a history leasson XD

I know right ;D

It was about a claim that a historical show is inaccurate, it started as a (bad/wrong) history lesson.