Originally Posted by david_the_positive

Hi guys. Good to post here again. I see a real potential for research in the interest displayed here on the Soviet-German war.

On Stalingrad statistics, I think its crucial to know your sources. If you rely on what a particular historian writes down and credits to somebody, you are not exactly thinking for yourself.

If you have German or Russian wartime docs, please share them. I certainly would be interested. For my part, I can email you scans of German docs (in Russian translation.) Reading posts on this forum encouraged me to look them up.

-David.

Hi David. The trouble is can anyone agree on one definitive source of casualty figures? There are a few books and numerous links on the web all with varying estimates. A more reliable one on the web is:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Stalingrad

Looking at what it says and discounting Axis Satellite losses which were mainly Romanian and occurred outside Stalingrad itself you can see that the ratio was nearly 5:1 in favour of the Wehrmacht. I think we can deduce from taking all the reliable sources into account that the Soviets (as with every other major winning offensive they conducted) took heavy casualties to achieve victory. If you look at my posts I almost always will provide links to back-up my opinions in any case.

Stalingrad was the decisive battle, for the following reasons: 1. The Germans never really recovered from it. Although they were able to retake the initiative from the Russians at certain places and times after the battle, they never kept it, and the retreat that started from the Caucasus as a result of the battle did not end until the fall of Berlin. 2. For the first time, it showed that the Wehrmacht could be decisively engaged and defeated, something that had not yet occurred at that level. 3. The loss of the 6th Army meant the end of any and all advances into the Caucasus oil fields, which was one of the main objectives of Barbarossa. In fact, after Operation Saturn, Manstein's flank was exposed, so he quickly withdrew all of Army Group B to the north of Rostov ensuring it's survival. That retreat finally finished in Berlin. 4. In spite of the fact that the Germans had suffered a defeat, the OKW still believed that the Russians were incapable of producing enough men and materiel to continue fighting the war. Thus, they continued to underestimate the Russians until it was far too late. Kursk was an attempt to re-take the lost initiative on the Eastern Front, and Moscow was the final push of an exhausted army the could not have gone much farther had they wanted to. Stalingrad was the point at which the Russians changed the course of the war.

So there....

Dean.

The constant firebombing, UK all night and US all day, demoralized Germany and made it almost impossible to regroup without being bombed. All the Mosquito bombers, B-17s, B25s, and every other bomber after we gained air superiority over Germany and were bombing at will.

Next, the support we gave Russia on the Eastern front took enough pressure off Stalin so they could become offensive for a change.

Originally Posted by Missileer

The constant firebombing, UK all night and US all day, demoralized Germany and made it almost impossible to regroup without being bombed. All the Mosquito bombers, B-17s, B25s, and every other bomber after we gained air superiority over Germany and were bombing at will.

Next, the support we gave Russia on the Eastern front took enough pressure off Stalin so they could become offensive for a change.

It's a misconception that the strategic bombing of Germany made any decisive difference to the eventual outcome of WW2. It was only after the eventual defeat of Germany was more or less assured that strategic bombing became effective. The conclusion is that strategic bombing is only effective on a military power who is already defeated.

http://www.historic-battles.com/Arti...ic_bombing.htm

I don't think Stalin needed any help from us to go on the offensive, although what we did helped enormously. Stalin launched numerous offensives without any direct help from the Western Allies. What really helped Stalin was Lend-Lease, which was critical to the Soviet Union's ability to recover in 1941/42 and eventually defeat the Wehrmacht.

This seems to qualify to some extent the effects bombing had on the ability of Germany to sustain a successful war effort.




Despite the Germans success at countering the Allied bombers, this diversion of German effort was, paradoxically, one of the major successes of the Allied strategic bombing campaign. The German efforts to counter the Allied attacks were huge and required the services of tens of thousands of workers and a large proportion of German industrial output to build and maintain defences such as flak batteries and bomb shelters, and to repair the damage caused by the Allied bombers. By 1944 4.5 million German soldiers and civilians, representing 20% of the German labour force, were employed in combating the bombers. This greatly limited the manpower pool available to work in armaments factories, and therefore limited the scale of the increase in armaments output.[33] The desire to retaliate against Britain also wasted German industrial resources, with the V1 and V2 rocket programs using significant resources for meagre returns.[34] So great was the total diversion of German resources required to counter the bombers, that Albert Speer believed that it in effect “opened a second front long before the invasion of Europe”, and represented a major Allied victory.[35]

Originally Posted by Doppleganger

It's a misconception that the strategic bombing of Germany made any decisive difference to the eventual outcome of WW2. It was only after the eventual defeat of Germany was more or less assured that strategic bombing became effective. The conclusion is that strategic bombing is only effective on a military power who is already defeated.

http://www.historic-battles.com/Arti...ic_bombing.htm

I don't think Stalin needed any help from us to go on the offensive, although what we did helped enormously. Stalin launched numerous offensives without any direct help from the Western Allies. What really helped Stalin was Lend-Lease, which was critical to the Soviet Union's ability to recover in 1941/42 and eventually defeat the Wehrmacht.

I agree with you Dopps.

The fire bombing of Germany probably made the Germans more resolute! As it did the British during the Blitz.

Stalingrad was the turning point but the Battle of Moscow was a significant blow to the Germans. It was their first major military reversal.

When the Mustang was in use (very late in the war) then air attacks had the Germans very much on the ropes.

I think Missileer should read Max Hastings "Bomber Command".

I agree with you as well Doppleganger.

Air power didn't have the Germans down for the count till very late in the war.

Airpower was very inaccurate during the mid-point of the war.

The Germans certainly used a lot of resources to defend themselves. Missileer has a point here.

It wasn't the turning point but it eventually ground the Germans down.

Originally Posted by Baby700

Airpower was very inaccurate during the mid-point of the war.

Oddly enough I have just got through reading a book called "Cassino The Hollow Victory" by John Ellis and he says the same thing, despite a massive level of air superiority in the Italian campaign time and again the allied airforce failed to take a major toll on the German retreat from Sicily across the straits of Messina and around Anzio in particular the allies were particually inactive.

You've got multiple fronts so there were multiple turning points.

WEST: D-Day landings
EAST: Defeat at Stalingrad
MIDDLE EAST: El Alemain
PACIFIC: Defeat of the Japanese at Milne Bay (PNG)