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View Poll Results :Most decisive battle in WW2? | |||
Battle of Stalingrad |
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34 | 33.33% |
Battle of Kursk (Operation Citadel) |
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15 | 14.71% |
Battle of Moscow |
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10 | 9.80% |
Battle of Leningrad |
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0 | 0% |
Battle of El Alamein |
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3 | 2.94% |
Operation Overlord (Battle of Normandy) |
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17 | 16.67% |
Battle of Midway |
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11 | 10.78% |
Other |
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12 | 11.76% |
Voters: 102. You may not vote on this poll |
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[quote=MontyB
Its certainly a part of the war that few have mentioned my only question is how decisive the action was given that Japan was by that stage pretty much finished and probably only months from giving up with or without the use of the atomic bomb. .[/quote] Monty - has there acually been any evidence that Japan was preparing to surrender at that stage?? |
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Its a good question, I think there is fairly even split between camps on this one.
There is certainly a sizable group that say they would have had the role of the Emperor been defined/agreed on earlier but it is hard to say for sure. Unfortunately the Pacific war is not an area I have spent much time looking at which is kind of odd given that it was fought on my back doorstep, I will look into it more and see if I can find anything to back up my claim though however I will probably take it to a new thread rather than pull this one off topic. |
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Please revise your post to provide a translation in English. |
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Quote:
In terms of numbers, let us bring up the issue of WWI. In that war, superior German technology defeated Russia. So, why was WWII different? There were many reasons including (1) a much larger American population base, (2) a brutally stupid Nazi military allocation system and (3) Stalin. The most important factor was, however, number 2. Had the Germans really prepared for the war against Russia, that country would have been wiped out during Barbarossa. In fact, considering the advanced state of the German economy and German resources in general, I cannot even understand how anyone can make the argument that the Soviets were a real enemy. The main German enemy was Nazism...and certainly not the Prussian military tradition OR the totally inferior Russian state. As it was, only the COMBINED resources of the British empire, the United States and Russia defeated Germany. So, give me a break! (and, dude, please spell Schwarzkopf's name correctly...another German-American who wrote history) |
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Another comment:
If we want to understand WWII, then let us look at the military actions of 1945. In that year, a year normally written off by historians as a foregone conclusion, the German military fought off the American-British invasion on the Rhine and the Soviet invasion and rape of eastern Prussia. Anyone who has ever looked into the issue knows of the immense Allied difficulties in penetrating Germany. The western Allies found the fighting extremely tough and bloody. More Allied soldiers were lost than in Normandy. Rough and poorly trained German "Ersatz" divisions fought off the best of the western world. But, the scale of these military actions fades into nothingness when we balance all western actions against the heroic German stand on the Oder. In my opinion, the German defence of the Seelower Höhen stands as the greatest German defensive operation of all time. When we account for the difficulties confronting German arms at the time, even the fact that a defensive line was consolidated blows one away. Adding Soviet losses to the equation forces a new analysis of WWII. Had Germany not waged war on 4 fronts, the eastern front would have been different. There is a reason why few historians focus on the incredible German defensive operations of the period. They have to confront the Nibelungen-style German staying power and the reason why the Soviets pushed for a suicidal termination of the war. To put things into some kind of perspective, Germany was reminiscent of Tolkien's Rohan. I have hinted at the reasons in previous posts. Here, today, I will only add the following...think about the Soviet Union. American analyses after 1945 were very clear. The future Cold War enemy was ruined by WWII. Russia literally sacrificed itself on the alter of human history to defeat Germany. Just like Britain and most of the planet. And, I would like to add, the main reason why Germany lost the war was "Enigma" and manpower. Therefore, looking at any single battle becomes unimportant. The war was not won on any battlefield...the Germans were in any case much better soldiers than the rest of the planet combined. Extraneous factors such as OVERWHELMING MANPOWER counted. The Soviets were nothing but Allied cannon fodder. |
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