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German defeat was not just about the failure of a few individuals at the top. its defeat was total, from top to bottom, a defeat of all things and all people who aligned with the german cause. german methods, ideas, procedures, organizations, strategy and tactics were all comprehensively and irrecoverably defeated. Why? Numbers, mismanagement, lack of resources, but the failure was comprehensive, total
Absolutely.Particularly on the eastern front..at the beginning the limited resources avaliable to the germans dictated that they adopt narrow points of breakthrough....schwerepunkts, followed by deep penetrations. Tanks would then be forced to sit there and wait whilst the slow moving infantry formations completed the encirclements and cleaned up. generally worked, but it was innefficient, and many Soviets that should have been captured got away.
german logistics was terrible, and pretty much cost them the war. The idea that they could tack on a few mobile units to an unmotorized main body was busted, particualalry as the motorized elements of the infantry (what little they had) fell out of the floor, and then even the horsedrawn elements also lost mobility
And the list goes on and on....this is just one example
Their weapons were pretty good, procedures are just procedures, and almost everyone used similar tactics in simnilar situations at SOME time.
Dont agree, sorry.Some weapons were excelent, some were technically excellent, but the wrong tool for the job, others were downright awful. Examples of excellent include the Nebelwerfer, MP38, MG42, Stug III Me 109 ju88, type VII. Examples of technically excellent but the wrong tool for the job include Tigers, Panthers, most of theiir truck MT in Russia, their artillery in winter(it wouldnt work), their battleships and short range cruisers. examples of terrible equipment...type II,Narvik DDs, F-boote, early war torpedoes, Me 110, Me 210. The problem for the germans though isnt that their weapons were not good, in the main they were excellent, in the field. the problem was that there were never enough of them. okay, so they were behind the 8 from the start, but their production decisions certainly did not help them. The 262 is very much in this category. It wasnt really ready for squadron service in 1944, or even 1945, yet it was eating into their production at a time when they needed everything they could get their hands on. it was criminal how the germans tended to waste their production.
procedeures make all the difference. if procedures didnt matter,why did the french lose in 1940, why did the british get nowhere for 3 years (in NA),why did the germans clobber the russians 41-2. but the germns did not adapt as fast or as well as the allies, and allied/soviet methods were not the sameas german methods. German armoured warfare was fundamentally different to the allies. They focused on the tank, and centred their firepower around it, whereas by 1944, the allies, with their far greater levels of mobility wre able to implement integrated assault teams to a much greater extent than the germans. Dont get me wrong, the germans had some of that, but their formations and techniques of 1940were nothing like allied techniques of 1944, they werent like german techniques of 1944 either, and allied and German techniques remained fundamentally differtnt in 1944.
Russians adapted and produced a unique style of warfare that was all their own. They began the war with essentially western TOE and thinking....but it failed them badly. they simply did not have the technical skills to do what was the norm in the western armies. in the west, a division was more or less the main combat unit,with high levels of integration and a variety of weapins that its commandrs had to co-ordinate. But this required high levels of technical proficiency to produce a fully integrated team.The russians did not have the leadership skills, the technical skill, the mobility to dod any of that. sothey simplified the command problem...rifle divisions weredevoid of nearly everything except the basic weapons...almost quite literally a rifle division was a division with just rifles. what little artillery there was, was mostly for los shooting. The russians formed fuge artillery armies that were magnificant assault TOEs, but hopeless in defence. They found their tank formations hopeless as well, far too complicated for them to be workable, so they formed smaller, simipler Tank and mech brigades, with a few SMG armed men and afew mortars in support, so that such formations were within the level of complexity that their commanders could handle.
because of that lack of C&C, even later in the war the russians adapted. their formations were never as flexible as their German counterparts, So that meant complicated narrow front assaults wouldnt work. Instead the Russians adopted broad front tactics, and something the russians nicknamed a "Zhukov symphany" or "Zhikov orchestra". basically one offensive after another in rapid succession to keep the germans reeling and off balance. Eisenhower used the same approach in france in 1944. germans never used those sorts of tactics.
In an alternate universe, perhaps waves of Natter Vipers could have rose up to challenge Emporer Ming's space fleet, with Buck Rogers leading the charge, but here on earth and in this reality, the Natter was a drain on resources. They required assembly and then hoisting onto static launch pads. Their launch components needed manpower to recover in the field and if that weren't interesting enough...after intercepting the bomber formations, they had to glide back to thier launch point for recovery. God help them if the Allied fighters were in the area waiting for them like actually happened when the Me262 was taking off or landing. Also keep in mind that as "point defense" fighters, their launch areas had to be secured, meaning they could not be easily transferred to another airfield if the Wehrmacht couldn't hold the area.If we look at kill-loss ratio, the Komet was a successful point defence interceptor, but lack of fuel and inefficient unit location limited its usefulness. Only few flew missions in 1945. It would have been a real asset as the Me 163C or 263 and armed with the R4M. The Natter was probably the best wonder weapon the Germans came up with in 1945. If time had allowed it, it would have revolutionized air combat over Germany. The idea was pure genius: basic trained pilots in a manned air defence missile whose only job was to fire the R4M or Foehn rockets towards the bombers, and then eject with the vital parts of the plane ready for re-use. Brilliant !
Kris
Because it was painted the same colors?...So how does the Komet tie into this 262 topic, e.g: apparently because its Luftwaffe or advanced for the 30's/40's tech?
Wiki is wrong. The Me 163 shot down 16 bombers. It also lost less, but need to look up how many exactly.???
From Wiki...
Based on what? Folk stories about pilots being incinerated in their seats?The Me 163 was nothing else then a pilot killer.
What a logical fallacy! Simply because something is not continued with, does not make it bad. We don't use black powder explosives anymore, doesn't mean it was bad at the time. Several countries, especially France, developed rocket fighters well into the 1950s. It was discontinued because turbojets had developed in such a way that they made rocket fighters obsolete. But what was the first jet aircraft to fly? The He 176 rocket plane. What was the first operational jet fighter in the world? The Me 163. Not the He 178 or Me 262.The whole concept was wrong from fuel, speed and the possible tactic with only one try to shoot down an enemy a/c.
The concept wasn't developed any further after the war, which shows it was very inferior.
You can joke about it as much as you like. It was a sound plan. You have to stop seeing them as fighter aircraft and start seeing them as manned SAMs. Germany did not have the technology to guide their missiles to target. Visual guidance as well as homing signals were still under development.In an alternate universe, perhaps waves of Natter Vipers could have rose up to challenge Emporer Ming's space fleet, with Buck Rogers leading the charge, but here on earth and in this reality, the Natter was a drain on resources. They required assembly and then hoisting onto static launch pads. Their launch components needed manpower to recover in the field and if that weren't interesting enough...after intercepting the bomber formations, they had to glide back to thier launch point for recovery. God help them if the Allied fighters were in the area waiting for them like actually happened when the Me262 was taking off or landing. Also keep in mind that as "point defense" fighters, their launch areas had to be secured, meaning they could not be easily transferred to another airfield if the Wehrmacht couldn't hold the area.
None of this is true. The Fw 190A-8 was a dog at hight altitude, even more so when it was used as a Sturmjaeger. Even with a Bf 109 protection group twice its size, it got shot down like in a turkey shoot. The only times the Sturmjaege did any damage was when they managed to find an unescorted US bomber group. Same story with the Me 410. All good bomber destroyers, all shot down in great numbers.Instead of this fantastic wonder-weapon, why not stay focused on what had already proven to work? The Fw190A-8 did terrible damage to the bombers, especially with Bf109 top cover. So did the Me410 and several other conventional types. And here's the bonus: they could actually defend themselves if challenged by Allied escorts instead of being dead meat floating along powerless...
Wiki is wrong. The Me 163 shot down 16 bombers. It also lost less, but need to look up how many exactly.
If this post is refering to the german politics, of racism, violence, Übermenschen and the thousand year Reich it is true.
If it is refering to the Wehrmacht and the military of Germany at WWII it nothing more then bogus.
.Your descriptions are all true, your analysis are very wrong with a tend to be ridiculous
The Me 163 was nothing else then a pilot killer.
The whole concept was wrong from fuel, speed and the possible tactic with only one try to shoot down an enemy a/c.
The concept wasn't developed any further after the war, which shows it was very inferior.