>>9297
We like the mustaches?

And Germany is a severely militaristic state which militarists admire.
The modern state of Germany, unified under Prussia, attacked by France whom they defeated in 1871 and then formally announced their unification at Versailles in France, was a state born of war and screaming for conflict and expansion against their other colonial and imperial competitors in Europe and Russia.

>So why is the German military so shit?
>shit

Wait, since when is the German military considered to be shit?

The way my history books read, they curbstomped ALL of Europe twice in 30 years, and only got beaten back when countries with five times the GDP decided to attrit them to death.

German soldiers didn't lose WWI or WWII, German factories did. German soldiers were the ones who (according to one article I read) killed roughly four enemy soldiers for every man lost during the war. They managed to do that without having round-the-clock air cover, too.

I don't know where people get the idea that the American GI was the best soldier in the war, the historical reality is that the Germans were better, and only only got beaten because the Soviets had numbers and the Americans had factories. If you throw enough men and bombs at an enemy, he'll die no matter how good he is, and that's exactly what happened.

Now, granted the USAAF had better planes than the Luftwaffe, and that was a factor in winning the air war, but I maintain that the Wehrmacht grunts were the best grunts in the war.

>>9300
They had some tough dudes, but our guys always had a sense of humor.

Which makes them awesome.

>>9300
>Now, granted the USAAF had better planes than the Luftwaffe
whoa, wait, you need to look at the air force a little closer. Germany had the best fighter planes of the war up to and including the first jet fighter.

>>9302
Yeah, but their bombers left a lot to be desired.
Examine the Battle of Britain.
Fighters too short-range to provide good escorts in inland targets and only for 10 minutes of fighting over London.
Stukas were hammered by the RAF so badly they were pulled from service (at least temporarily).
Heinkel 111 bombers were just lame. Too vulnerable, too light a bomb load, too slow, too sluggish, and weak defensive armament.
Me-110 (Messerschmitt Bf 110) twin-engine heavy fighter-bombers did not live up to expectations (they were great in the Battle of Britain PC game from 1989 by LucasFilms, but not so much in reality).

The fighters were good, but the German bombers just couldn't get the job done.

Now the Luftwaffe did well against the Soviets in 1941 until air superiority was taken away from them in the Eastern skies in 1943 and onward.

>>9302
They got the Me-262 (and the rest of their advanced fighters) into the air too late and in too small of numbers to really make a difference, and the Bf-109 (according to "experts" on television) was outclassed performance-wise by the P-51 in several different was. Less range, slower, and couldn't out-turn the Mustang.

Then there's the B-17. Nuff said, really.

>>9299
Don't forget that post-war all the Nazi generals where busy writing their memoirs about how great they were and how it was all Hitler's fault that they lost. And then it gets compounded over the next 60 years as the only other sources are the Russian archives, which western historians don't have access to, and of course we also needed to marginalize what the Soviets did, after all the Eastern Front was just a mix of Warhammer 40k and Enemy At The Gates (this is false fyi). So as a result of this there's still a ton of RAH RAH RAH GERMANY STRONG TIGER II NEVER PENETRATED IN COMBAT bullshit.

>>9300
http://tankarchives.blogspot.ca/2013/05/german-soldier-quality.html
>Those problems did not improve by 1944. CAMD RF 233-2309-162, states: "Since the beginning of the operation, a very large amount (hundreds of thousands) of anti-tank grenades "Faust" (large and small) and "Ofenrohr" was discovered. Their application is negligible, barely 3% of all knocked out tanks fell to them. This is explained by the weak morale of the German infantry, shocked by our rapid advances. They run when our tanks are within 200-300 meters (the range of "Faust" is 40-50 meters)."

It's also worth pointing out that "kill claims" are a really shitty way to judge effectiveness. Especially as the Germans lied a lot in their reports, for example:

http://tankarchives.blogspot.com/2013/06/cheating-at-statistics.html

Crashed aircraft being reported as "10% damaged."

http://tankarchives.blogspot.com/2013/06/cheating-at-statistics-part-2.html

Knocked-out tanks disappearing into thin air.

http://tankarchives.blogspot.com/2013/07/cheating-at-statistics-part-3.html
Tanks knocked out in combat being reported as "abandoned by crew" at the end of the month.

Of course the Germans were certainly effective at one thing: murdering civilians and stealing shit.
http://tankarchives.blogspot.ca/2013/10/german-efficiency.html
>During the "Winter Magic" operation, between February 25th and March 5th 1943, these 3 German units managed to kill...one partisan. And captured a gas mask. In order to do this, they expended 2000 rounds of ammunition and suffered no casualties.
>In order to accomplish their lofty goal of killing a single partisan, they also managed to kill 633 civilians and deport 234 (including 54 children). And steal 3.3 tons of grain, and 500 units of livestock. Also they burned down 31 villages, many singular buildings, and one brick factory.

>>9302
Advanced =/= the best. The Jumo 004 was, as usual, overly complex and inferior to allied designs, in this case the British Rolls-Royce Derwent, which output more power and had a much longer engine life than the Jumo.

>>9303

>Heinkel 111 bombers were just lame

what about the He 111Z version?
so I heard you like bombers....

>>9309
If I remember right, the He 111Z was a glider towing aircraft.
Probably towing the huge Gigant glider.

- German WW2 Heinkel He 111 Z 'Zwilling' (twin) towing a Messerschmitt 321 glider.

What really hampered the Luftwaffe was poor strategy and tactical decisions.
- Depending on the Luftwaffe to destroy the remains of the British Army at Dunkerque.
- Not destroying the radar stations in the south coast of England.
- Not attacking the south British airfields until the RAF fighters have been largely eradicated.
- Not providing enough fighter escorts for the bombers.
- Switching to bombing London and other large cities to force capitulation.

- A German Luftwaffe Heinkel He 111 bomber flying over Wapping and the Isle of Dogs in the East End of London at at the start of the Luftwaffe's evening raids of 7 September 1940.

Unfortunately, during WWII, german political units (ie, the various SS divisions running around) often got prioritized for receiving gear over proper military units. Which was very bad, since they were way less effective fighters and it was essentially a waste of good weapons.

As for why everyone thinks the soviets sucked, it's their fault for blamming a huge portion of their population and then keeping everything secret for 50+ years. It's not the fault of US filmmakers and documentarians that they didn't make realistic depictions of the eastern front when they had no reliable information about what happened there.

>>9305

Also, not a shock that the quality of german infantry was suffering in late 1942. They were starting to lose the war at that point and a good portion of their best soldiers were probably already dead.

>>9312
didnt the SS divisions have the best training and most experience?

theres probably not a historian out there that will deny the germans were the best trained and most efficient ground force in WWII

>>9332
The SS Divisions were a mixed bag, according to what I've heard. Since they were "political" units instead of being "regular" units, some of them were elite, and some were what you'd get if you through all the Occupy kids into a military unit.

It is my understanding that they were poorly regarded at the outset of the war, but that by the end of it some of them had proven themselves to be very, very tough.

>>9332
No, the political units had the best equipment. They were poorly trained and poorly disciplined fanatics.

>>9335
I would not describe the SS as poorly disciplined. They made their reputation on fanatical devotion to the NAZI Party and suicidal adherence to orders.

The SS were lavished with equipment and preferential treatment as elite units. The NAZI hierarchy wanted a strong military force under their direct control. As the war progressed, the SS continued to grow and assume greater duties and this caused a lot of inter-service rivalry and hostility. The Army discounted the SS as cretinous fanatical amateurs and the SS viewed the Army with suspicion as cowardly failures, led by aristocrats.

There were even plans to make an SS version of the Luftwaffe, late in the war.

>The SS Divisions were a mixed bag
>Not mentioning best SS divison

Never even grew to platoon strength, vast majority of those who joined did so to sabotage the unit from within.

>>9332
>theres probably not a historian out there that will deny the germans were the best trained and most efficient ground force in WWII

>germans in wwii
>best trained
See that link I already posted.

>most efficient
Only at murdering civilians. Their logistics and production was fucked, there was so much wastage of material it's absurd. We're talking about issuing tailored combat uniforms and helmet covers made of three layers of fabric.

>>9335
Actually the Waffen SS was at about parity in regards to equipment.
http://www.panzerworld.com/equipment-quality-of-the-waffen-ss

>>9338
>I would not describe the SS as poorly disciplined.

They were a bunch of war criminals who raped and murdered their way across Russia.

Though I'll give the benefit of the doubt to members of armor units, but "less likely to have committed war crimes than the landsers!" still isn't a desirable description.

>There were even plans to make an SS version of the Luftwaffe, late in the war.

IIRC the reason they weren't formed was because some general in the Luftwaffe managed to convince Hitler that ramming airplanes into bombers wasn't a "germanic" way to die or something like that.

There were also plans to use Hitler Youth members trained to fly gliders to fly an even simpler version of the Komet.

>>9340
>There were also plans to use Hitler Youth members trained to fly gliders to fly an even simpler version of the Komet.
You mean the Natter? A disposable vertical launch bomber interceptor rocket plane. Solid fuel booster rockets got it up and the Komet bi-fuel rocket motor quickly got it to the altitude of the bombers. The nose was packed with 24 rockets that would be fired at enemy bombers and then the pilot would bail out as the Natter had no landing gear and had the flight characteristics of a brick. Range was very short, so the Natter was conceived as being stationed at big industrial centers (or other inviting targets). They were truck-mobile and did not depend on airfields, juts raised for launch, like a V-2 Rocket and launched at groups of bombers. Even made as cheap as possible, a disposable rocket fighter is still wasteful and the Natter never got the nod, nixed by the nattering nabobs of negativity.

- German WW2 Natter (Viper) Bachem Ba 349A-1 (BP-20) rocket interceptor w solid fuel booster rockets attached.

The Bachem Ba 349 Natter (English: Viper, Adder) was a World War II German point-defence rocket powered interceptor, which was to be used in a very similar way to a manned surface-to-air missile. After a vertical take-off, which eliminated the need for airfields, the majority of the flight to the Allied bombers was to be controlled by an autopilot. The primary mission of the relatively untrained pilot, was to aim the aircraft at its target bomber and fire its armament of rockets. The pilot and the fuselage containing the rocket motor would then land under separate parachutes, while the nose section was disposable. The only manned vertical take-off flight on 1 March 1945 ended in the death of the test pilot, Lothar Sieber.

In 1943 with Luftwaffe air superiority being challenged by the Allies over the Reich, radical innovations were required to overcome the crisis. Surface-to-air missiles appeared to be a promising approach to counter the Allied strategic bombing offensive; a variety of projects were started, but invariably problems with the guidance and homing systems prevented any of these from attaining operational status. Providing the missile with a pilot, who could operate a weapon during the brief terminal approach phase, offered a solution. Submissions for a simple target defence interceptor were requested by the Luftwaffe in early 1944 under the umbrella of the "Emergency Fighter Program". A number of simple designs were proposed, including the Heinkel P.1077 Julia, in which the pilot lay prone (on his stomach), to reduce the frontal area. The Julia was the front-runner for the contract. The initial plan was to launch the aircraft vertically, but this concept was later changed to a conventional horizontal take-off from a tricycle-wheeled trolley, similar to that used by the first eight prototypes of the Arado Ar 234 jet reconnaissance bomber. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bachem_Ba_349

- Bachem Natter replica, Fantasy Of Flight Museum, Florida

Bachem Ba 349 „Natter“ M23, replica at the „Militärgeschichtliche Sammlung“ at Lager Heuberg in Stetten am kalten Markt; Baden-Württemberg, Germany. The pilot Lothar Sieber gets final instructions from the engineer Erich Bachem.

Here, you can see the recovery parachute by the rear to save the rocket motor after the fuel was consumed. The front part of the plane breaks away and crashes (hopefully with the pilot away in his own parachute).

Onless I'm going senile and have misremembered, it's pretty widely accepted by historians that:

Wehrmacht/Heer- well trained, well disciplined troops. Skilled, competent and generally behaved honorably. Obeyed hitler because soldiers are supposed to follow orders.

Waffen-SS- psychotic assholes famous for committing atrocities against civilians wherever they went. Also famous for taking massive losses whenever faced with opponents who could shoot back. These are the guys who ran the death camps and burned most of eastern europe to the ground. They often fought to the death without hesitation, but are widely accepted as having been far better at the dying than the fighting part. No one misses them, not even the germans. They did have awesome uniforms though.

Back to the drawing board.

>>9348
Sounds about right.

>>9342
Nope, the Focke-Wulf Volksjager (Not to be confused with the He 162), basically a wooden Komet with 20 rounds per gun instead of 60.

There was also the BV 40, a wood-frame glider with (IIRC) a single 30mm cannon and 15 rounds that would have been towed above allied bomber formations by a Bf109 and then released.

>>9348
>and generally behaved honorably

Nope. The myth of the "Unblemished Wehrmacht" is just that, a myth. Even before you go into the fact that German records indicated they were willing participants, there's no way the SS and OrPo/Einsatzgruppen could have committed the atrocities on the level they did without help from the Wehrmacht.

>Obeyed hitler because soldiers are supposed to follow orders.

Well that and there was the oath they had to swear to him:
>"I swear by God this sacred oath that to the Leader of the German empire and people, Adolf Hitler, supreme commander of the armed forces, I shall render unconditional obedience and that as a brave soldier I shall at all times be prepared to give my life for this oath."

And the fact that by the start of the war, the Nazis had largely succeeded in indoctrinating the military in their ideology.
>Acting on his own initiative, the Defence Minister Werner von Blomberg had purged the Army of all its Jewish personnel in February 1934. On December 8, 1938, the Army leadership had instructed all officers to be thoroughly well versed in National Socialism and to apply its values in all situations. Starting in February 1939, pamphlets were issued that were made required reading in the Army. The content can be gauged by the titles: "The Officer and Politics", "Hitler's World Historical Mission", "The Army in the Third Reich", "The Battle for German Living Space", "Hands off Danzig!", and "The Final Solution of the Jewish Question in the Third Reich".

>>9354
What I remember about the Heinkel He 162 Salamander 'Volksjäger' was that it was made out of plywood, was unstable, but it had an ejection seat.

The Focke-Wulf Volksjäger, meaning "People's Fighter" in German, was a German rocket-powered emergency fighter project for the Luftwaffe. It was designed by the Focke-Wulf industries towards the end of World War II as part of the defense effort against the devastating allied bombing raids.
Focke-Wulf presented two Volksjäger projects to the Luftwaffe in early 1945. This rocket-powered design corresponds to project number two. Neither of them was given an RLM aircraft designation.
The Focke-Wulf Volksjäger was a small aircraft with a wingspan of 4.8 m (15 ft 9 in) and a length of 5.3 m (17 ft 5 in). Power was to be provided by a Walter HWK 109-509 A-2 rocket engine that would enable it to reach speeds nearing 1000 km/h. Armament was to be two 30 mm (1.18 in) MK 108 cannons located under the fuselage.
In order to save strategic materials the wings of the Fw Volksjäger were built of wood. The aircraft had no wheels, only a landing skid. It was designed to take off on a detachable dolly. Once airborne it would speed almost vertically towards the bomber combat box where it would fire its cannons. Its effectiveness was curtailed by the fact that it would have only about 15 minutes of combat action time. Test flights for this aircraft were scheduled to be carried out between May and June 1945. Three units of the Volksjäger were under construction at the time of the Surrender of Nazi Germany.
The Focke-Wulf Volksjäger should not be confused with the He 162, also known as Volksjäger, nor the Focke-Wulf Volksflugzeug, the first Focke-Wulf project designed to be powered with a BMW 003 turbojet as an actual contract competitor to the He 162A, whose original Volksjäger competition in the second half of 1944 required the BMW 003 powerplant's use.

- Pencil drawing of the Focke-Wulf Volksjäger 2, a 1945 Luftwaffe interceptor project

One important German bomber I forgot to mention was the Junkers 88 "Flying Fishbowl", a large twin engine bomber that had the crew in the bulbous transparent nose of the aircraft, making communication easier, as opposed to a dispersed crew using intercoms. But this compact crew arrangement made them vulnerable if the nose section took fire. During the Battle of Britain, the Ju 88 bombers suffered heavy losses so they had their nose armor and defensive MGs increased.

The Junkers Ju 88 was a World War II German Luftwaffe twin-engine, multi-role aircraft. Designed by Hugo Junkers' company in the mid-1930s to be a so-called Schnellbomber which would be too fast for any of the fighters of its era to intercept, it suffered from a number of technical problems during the later stages of its development and early operational roles, but became one of the most versatile combat aircraft of the war. Affectionately known as "The Maid of all Work" (Mädchen für Alles), the Ju 88 proved to be suited to almost any role. Like a number of other Luftwaffe bombers, it was used successfully as a bomber, dive bomber, night fighter, torpedo bomber, reconnaissance aircraft, heavy fighter, and even as a flying bomb during the closing stages of conflict.

Despite its protracted development, the aircraft became one of the Luftwaffe's most important assets. The assembly line ran constantly from 1936 to 1945, and more than 16,000 Ju 88s were built in dozens of variants, more than any other twin-engine German aircraft of the period. Throughout the production, the basic structure of the aircraft remained unchanged.

Ju 88 R-1 nightfighter, Werknummer 360043, in the RAF museum at RAF Hendon. This aircraft is well known because of its crew defecting to the UK in 1943. The antenna of the FuG 202 Lichtenstein B/C radar installation can be seen; although these particular items are replicas, as the entire radar system was removed from the aircraft for evaluation during the war.

Battle of Britain:
By August 1940, A-1s and A-5s were reaching operational units, just as the battle was intensifying. The Battle of Britain proved very costly. Its higher speed did not prevent Ju 88 losses exceeding those of its Dornier Do 17 and Heinkel He 111 stablemates, despite being deployed in smaller numbers than either. Ju 88 losses over Britain in 1940 amounted to 313 machines between July–October 1940. One notable incident involved ground fighting between the crew of an A-1 and soldiers from the London Irish Rifles during the Battle of Graveney Marsh on 27 September 1940. It was the last action between British and foreign military forces on British mainland soil. Do 17 and He 111 losses for the same period amounted to 132 and 252 machines destroyed respectively. A series of field kits were made to make it less vulnerable, including the replacement of the single MG 15 rear machine gun by a twin-barreled MG 81Z machine gun, and additional cockpit armour.

It was during the closing days of the Battle of Britain that the flagship Ju 88 A-4 went into service. Although slower yet than the A-1, nearly all of the troubles of the A-1 were gone, and finally the Ju 88 matured into a superb warplane. The A-4 actually saw additional improvements including more powerful engines, but, unlike other aircraft in the Luftwaffe, did not see a model code change. The Ju 88 C-series also benefited from the A-4 changes, and when the Luftwaffe finally did decide on a new heavy fighter, the Ju 88C was a powerful, refined aircraft. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junkers_Ju_88

- Ju 88D in the World War II Gallery at the National Museum of the United States Air Force

JUNKERS JU 88D-1/TROP
The German Ju 88 was one of the most versatile airplanes of World War II. It operated in nearly every kind of combat role, including dive bomber, level bomber, night fighter, day interceptor, photographic reconnaissance, tank destroyer and even as an unpiloted missile. The Ju 88 made its first flight on Dec. 21, 1936, and hundreds remained in use when the war ended in 1945.

The airplane on display, a Ju 88D-1/Trop (later designated Ju 88D-3), is a long-range photographic reconnaissance version modified for tropical use. Known as the Baksheesh, it was the best known Ju 88 of the 15,000 built. Completed in June 1943, this aircraft was delivered to Romania, an ally of Germany during WWII. In July 1943, a disillusioned Romanian pilot flew the aircraft to Cyprus to defect to British forces there. The British Royal Air Force turned over Baksheesh to the U.S. Army Air Forces. After Wright Field test pilots flew the aircraft extensively, the USAAF stored it in the Arizona desert after the end of WWII. Shipped to the museum in January 1960, Baksheesh is painted in the Romanian Air Force markings it carried in July 1943. http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=506

TECHNICAL NOTES:
Armament: Six 7.92mm machine guns
Engines: Two Junkers Jumo 211s of 1,200 hp each
Maximum speed: 295 mph
Cruising speed: 225 mph
Range: 1,553 mph
Ceiling: 27,880 ft.
Span: 65 ft. 10 in.
Length: 47 ft. 1 in.
Height: 15 ft. 11 in.
Weight: 26,700 lbs.

Ju 88s of II./KG 30 photographed over Norway, 1943

Junkers Ju 88 A4/D-1

Does anyone know about the men of the kriegsmarine? I've seen a few documentaries and read one book that claim that not withstanding a few exceptions they were generally honourable sailors who followed the rules of war. I've never really seen any true example of this outside these sources so I've never been 100% on it.

I also know that in terms of aviation, the Germans sat there for a few years wasting both resources and design teams doing nothing of great value from 41ish-43ish before going headlong into fighter development. This was based on the high command being unfocused which ultimatly meant that many of the 1945 wonder weapons showed up too late. If they had started right away would it have changed the war? Yes. Would they changed the outcome? I highly doubt it.

The Luftwaffe had poor bombers because they were not meant to besiege cities, they were meant to support the fast moving units of the Wehrmacht. As such when it came to that they suffered, and for whatever reason German industry couldn't stop making over complex heavy bombers that failed to reach any level of operational status.

>>9469
You mean those jerks in the submarines and the commerce raiders who were torpedoing and shelling civilian merchantmen?

I can't really complain about civilian commerce being attacked. Anything of economic importance was a legitimate target in such a total war.

Reminds me of P-47 Thunderbolt and other ground attack aircraft pilots were instructed to attack locomotives on sight. Especially to blast the driving compartment where the engineers were as an experienced driver and engineer took years to train and were nearly irreplaceable. A pilot asked if intentionally attacking civilian locomotive engineers was a war crime. "Don't worry about that," was the reply.

>>9469
>honourable sailors who followed the rules of war

Depends on how honorable you consider unrestricted submarine warfare against civilian shipping or murdering POWs. It's also quite obscure, but Kriegsmarine marines were involved with the holocaust in Latvia.

But yeah, the surface arm of the Kriegsmarine was probably the least criminal part of the German military, generally because at most guys on ships or at naval bases won't have much of an opportunity to do anything worse than murder a random civilian for saying something mean about Herr Hitler. Happened more than a few times in Denmark and Holland going by some post-war prosecutions I read a while back and going by personal accounts from family in Denmark.

Though once the crews got turned into infantry there was, of course, behavior typical of the "honorable" German soldier, such as the killings of civilians, stuff like that.

>>9305

Please get "proof" from a website that isn't a soviet shill factory. Thx

>>9474
>translated archive documents are shilling

lol.

>>9476

Well, we all KNOW the Soviets never lied about anything on reports... R-R-Right guys?

sure is SIDF in here

>>9478
And your reaction is pretty much exactly what I expected.
>technical documents and intelligence reports by engineers and the guys in charge of figuring out how to best kill the enemy are fake and lies

>claims from fascist propagandists and the Hitlery Channel are above reproach, Tiger II never penetrated frontally! Kill ratios! 8.8cm effective at 4km! Whittman destroyed more vehicles at Villers Bocage than where actually there!

If you're gonna namefag, you should probably go with "GoebbelsLuver69."

Wait, seriously, we're talking about world war II, and you guys (not all of you) are saying that any military unit that attacked civilians is automatically as bad as the SS?

Every military power in WWII had a policy of attacking civilian populations. However, they usually did it as a side effect of attacking anything remotely military and not being particularly discriminatory. Sometimes military units would also attack civilians or POWs out of poor discipline.

The SS were bad by even the low standards of the time because they attacked civilian units that weren't remotely connected to any military objective. And they did it under orders that any sane group of people would realize were completely immoral and illegal. And on top of that, they obeyed enthusiastically.

>>9483

>>claims from fascist propagandists and the Hitlery Channel are above reproach, Tiger II never penetrated frontally! Kill ratios! 8.8cm effective at 4km! Whittman destroyed more vehicles at Villers Bocage than where actually there!

Never said this. Top lel though.

Wow, it's like I'm really in a Wargaming.net forum.

>>9484
I think most of us would agree that civilian casualties as part of a campaign against industry or attacking merchant shipping is not a war crime, versus air raids specifically targeting residential areas or having your soldiers wage a war of total extermination against civilian populations.

And again: The Wehrmacht did not commit war crimes out of poor discipline, for example during the invasion of Poland, personnel involved in the many mass killings of civilians received blanket pardons from Hitler himself, during the invasion of Russia soldiers could only be prosecuted for rape if the commander of their unit requested it, and in Greece the Wehrmacht (under Rommel at the time) disarmed and then murdered some 5000 Italian soldiers who surrendered to them after the Italian government surrendered to the Allies.

>>9493
What a coincidence, you sound just like one of the proto-nazis from the German HT subforum.

>>9497

Why don't you come up with other sources to verify what you've said?

I mean, surely you could use something other than Ad Hominem on people who disagree... Right?

>>9500
I don't see you posting anything to disprove my cites, beyond "archive documents are propaganda!"

>>9501

Except that Soviet-Era archives aren't exactly the most accurate because... Yanno, the political climate permeated every facet of that society, so posting "documented archives" from that era are often incorrect or outright lies. Please, if you want to push the claim that German armor wasn't all it was cracked up to be, find reputable sources that also say the same thing, rather than just expecting me to prove you wrong.

When you make a point, please, source multiple, valid sources, and not one SIDF "declassified Soviet-era Archives" which are known to be grossly exaggerated and/or outright lies.

I mean, even by general observation, anyone can see that the Germans did very well against the Soviets during WWII, so you saying the Germans were shit is simply incorrect. And if you insist on saying that German armor, etc was so shit, then why were the Germans able to do so well against the Soviets and other allied powers? I mean, it's not like they didn't effectively control Europe in 1940 or anything... Right?

Not to mention that you only seem to want to talk about the few negative aspects and overblow them to make it seem like things were far worse than they actually were. Most/all of you posts are extremely biased against Germany. The only thing you mention about the Germans is how they were only good at killing civilians and getting blown up by T-34s apparently. If you're going to incessantly shit on a side in a war, you could at least be fair and show the negatives of the other sides as well, but you make no effort to do so.

And as for the SS and Wehrmacht being nothing but war criminals, what about the advancing Soviet forces? They were probably saints, right? Never committed a war crime ever. Lets get real, the Soviets were just as bad as the SS if not worse. Lets not pretend that the only bad guys in history were Germans.

tl;dr Please use multiple, VALID sources with accurate information, and don't search for shady sources that happen to align and reinforce your political narrative.

>>9505
This isn't British libel court buddy, burden of proof is on you to prove that the stuff I've posted isn't accurate.

>Most/all of you posts are extremely biased against Germany. The only thing you mention about the Germans is how they were only good at killing civilians and getting blown up by T-34s apparently. If you're going to incessantly shit on a side in a war, you could at least be fair and show the negatives of the other sides as well, but you make no effort to do so.

Posts that don't make Germany look good in a thread asking about why the German military was shit? Perish the thought!
http://www.theonion.com/articles/world-war-ii-documentary-suffused-with-antinazi-un,33758/

>And as for the SS and Wehrmacht being nothing but war criminals, what about the advancing Soviet forces? They were probably saints, right? Never committed a war crime ever. Lets get real, the Soviets were just as bad as the SS if not worse. Lets not pretend that the only bad guys in history were Germans.

Nice historical revisionism there bro, but you forgot to tell us that Nazism wasn't bad because Andrew Jackson ordered the genocide of native Americas.

Anyways. "An eye for an eye, a head for a head." It's entirely unsurprising that Soviet troops committed war crimes, especially second and third line units which would have had more time to linger in areas, as they advanced into German held areas and Germany proper, and encountered what the Germans had done. When you wage a war of total extermination, do not expect kind treatment when you get defeated.

But again, this is not a thread about Soviet or Allied war crimes. It's about why the Germans can't win wars and are barely competent at handing out water bottles to Afghan civies.

>>9506
>This isn't British libel court buddy, burden of proof is on you to prove that the stuff I've posted isn't accurate.
>burden of proof is on you
>buddy

Learn how the burden of proof thing actually works
Stop being mad
Stop being a dick
Stop being surprised when no one takes you seriously

>>9506

>>And as for the SS and Wehrmacht being nothing but war criminals, what about the advancing Soviet forces? They were probably saints, right? Never committed a war crime ever. Lets get real, the Soviets were just as bad as the SS if not worse. Lets not pretend that the only bad guys in history were Germans.

>Nice historical revisionism there bro, but you forgot to tell us that Nazism wasn't bad because Andrew Jackson ordered the genocide of native Americas.

What historical revisionism? I like how you revert to Ad Hominem every time you are challenged.

>>9507

Pmuch this.

>>9508
>What historical revisionism?

Your attempt to marginalize German crimes with the old "BUT BUT BUT MAO AND STALIN KILLED MORE PEOPLE!" chestnut.

And it's funny how the guy whining about ad hominems is trying to use an ad hominem tu quoque argument.

>>9521

You're not attempting to marginalize Soviet war crimes by not even mentioning them in the slightest? I never mentioned Mao, lel. Even the airsofters at Red Alliance are more balanced than you in their telling of history. Top fucking kek.

It's almost like there is no limit on the words you can put in my mouth.

GG bru.

This thread is like the Battle of Kursk except it's shitposting instead of tank combat.

This thread started shit, and just got shittier. I was gonna lock it, but you know what, I'm just going to sit back and watch it burn as an example of how not to have a discussion on historical military effectiveness.

You should all know that the truth cannot be taken from just one source. If you really want to figure out the historical effectiveness of say, the Heer, look at the russian records, look at the german records, look at the british, american, etc. etc.

Then look at scholarly analysis of these records, peer reviewed papers, military academy lectures, etc.

Saying THE GERMANS ALWAYS LIED or THE RUSSIANS ALWAYS LIED just leads to two people smacking eachother around with one set of facts neither party is able to budge from because no one is willing to consider, you know, the other thousands of hours of scholarly analysis since 1945.

>>9527
Feh! I provided good content and pictures reinforcing my assertion that German bombers in WW2 left much to be desired.

>>9528
You of course are exempt from my diatribes, BG. Have mercy on my Fleshy soul.

Main reason Germany is bad@war is a combination of their military being primarily defensively focused for most of history ("Die Wacht am Rhein"), their commanders focusing on tactical victories instead of strategic ones, and outdated logistics. This is the country that thought they could invade Russia with their logistics train being mainly comprised of horses, which turned out about as well as it did for Napoleon, except they didn't even manage to capture Moscow.

"Why the Germans Lose at War" by Macksey is a good starting point, "Why the Allies Won" by Overy, "Cross of Iron" by Mosier and "The Wages of Destruction" by Tooze are others.

As to the idea that German equipment was somehow "better," that's some branding stuff dating from around WWI. Before then Germany had a reputation for making cheap, shoddy, ugly things. So around 1907 the Deutscher Werkbund was formed to both standardize everything (from tea kettles and filing cabinets to fonts and factory floor plans) and improve the image of German industry, and by the 30s they had largely succeeded in getting rid of the "HECHO EN DEUTSCHLAND" reputation. However during the war this came back to bite them in the ass, as pretty much all of their equipment was at parity with Allied or Soviet equipment but was more complex, less reliable and used more resources.

>>9297
Because they try to take on people who outnumber and outproduce them. Even when they DON'T do this, they fail to fully commit until it's too late.

See:
Legano.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Legnano


Milan and three neighboring towns were able to field a LARGER army than the fucking holy roman empire. At the time, you have the excuse of them not being a single entity themselves, but later on, in ww2, you see the oh-so-efficent and logical deutsch failing to work round the clock despite being in a fight to the death with more than one other nation.