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Originally Posted by godofthunder9010 Quote: |
Originally Posted by Strongbow Quote: |
Originally Posted by godofthunder9010 Can't understand what all the fuss is about. The USA and UK combined to tie up a maximum of 30% of Germany's forces and were only actively involved in Europe for about a year and a half. Two for the UK if you count "the Phony War" and 40 days worth of getting the crap beaten out of you in France. The USA and UK can bicker and quarell about their tiny overall impact on World War II Europe, but what is the point? The Soviet Union paid the all important price in blood, iron and human suffering. They stopped Germany. Nobody else did. The USA and UK were there as sideshows to support and distract. The Russian People won it. | I agree with you up to a point but Normandy was hardly a "sideshow" .  . | Remembering that the Western Powers never managed to divert anymore than 30% of German forces at anytime ... "sideshow" may be too the wrong word. It shouldn't matter so much as long as you get my point: The Russian People were the biggest player by far in defeating Nazi Germany. Normandy was one of the few tastes the West had of the mamoth battles that were happening on the Eastern Front nonstop. |
They also never faced the same level of quality as by 1944, the quality of new German recruits was in most cases very low. Even the elite Panzer and SS Panzer Divisions assigned to the West were in many cases battered units sent from the Eastern Front for refit and were in some cases rebuilt almost from scratch. Their combat replacements in terms of men were of the same low quality.