Hacker News Reader

Comment by munin | Hacker News Reader

the history that I got about WWII was that Germany built wunder-weapons that individually were of far superior quality to anything else, but couldn't be built at any kind of scale. their tanks were initially technologically superior, but not much else about their mechanized infantry stuff was. the bismark was probably better than any individual ship in the british navy (when they finally found the wreck they determined that british main gun shells literally bounced off of the armor), but it wasn't better than all of them and the germans could only build one.

View on HN

>the germans could only build one [bismark]

The Germans built two Bismark-class ships. The other sailed under the name Tirpitz

Arguably the Tirpitz was the most effective ship of the war as well.

How so, other than by diverting resources to keep it close to home base?

> their tanks were initially technologically superior

It's my understanding that French tanks like the Char B1 and the SOMUA S35 were pretty effective in fighting German armor early in the war.

the story I have heard is that some things about french tanks were superior to german tanks - they had more armor and a more powerful main gun. however, the french had a 2 person crew, a driver and a commander/gunner, while the german had a 3 person crew, a driver, a gunner, and a commander. so the french had a more overloaded crew driving a superior tank and that didn't work out.

The Germans built just fine at scale - remember that it took the resources of Russia, the British Empire, and half of the US industrial juggernaut to take them down.

> America built 74,000 Sherman hulls and engines; Germany built just 1,347 Tigers.

The Tigers were heavy tanks plagued by manufacturing problems. The Sherman was a medium tank more comparable to the Panzer line - the Germans built around 45,000 of those. The American M6 was comparable to the Tigers, of which few were built and 0 saw battle.

Panzer is just the German generic term for tank (or more literally, "armor".) Everything from the tiny, machine-gun armed Panzer I, to the Panzer VI Tiger.

The standard, 75mm Sherman was roughly equal to the long-barreled Panzer IV (~6000 built).

Sherman: 33-ton tank, Tiger: 60-ton tank; Sherman: mainstay of US armor, Tiger: heavy tank. You're comparing apples and oranges.

The Sherman's counterpart was the Panzer - which the Germans still only built roughly 15k of - but then again, the Germans also made heavy use of tank destroyers and assault guns - the Stug III by themselves were another 10k worth of hulls.

But, again, just because someone has more capacity than you doesn't mean you're not building at scale.

"Panzer" just means "armor", and was the label used for all German tanks. Everything from the tiny Panzer I to the Panzer VI Tiger. Presumably you're thinking of the Panzer IV? But only about 8000 were built, of which only about 6000 were the long-barreled version which could match the Sherman.

That's not * really * accurate. The Germans had a big head start, because they started the war, of course. But by the time the US and USSR had ramped up to full military production, by 1943-44, they could have rolled through Germany 3 times over and had hardware to spare.

The US was by no means at the end of its resources by the end of the war, running on fumes (the Germans were of course, out of fumes).

Everyone in Europe was ramping up in the 30s - it's an utter myth that factories only started really getting going in '39.

Germany could build at scale just fine - however it was also facing three resource powerhouses, and had no allies that could compensate. Germany couldn't build at a scale to compete with the Allies, but it could "build at scale".

> by 1943-44, they could have rolled through Germany 3 times over and had hardware to spare.

... and yet they waited until halfway through '45? :)

Edit: I've hit my 'make comment' limit, but in counterpoint to adventured:

The parent said that "by 1943", the Allies had enough to "roll through" Germany 3 times over. Never mind that the Allies couldn't organise an effective coastal invasion for another year and a half, nor that the war in the east had only just reached tipping point.

My point was that if it was so easy ("roll through", remember?), then why wasn't it done in 1943?

> Why not sit back and bomb the hell out of Germany prior to rolling over them?

You have the cart before the horse - "bombing the hell out of them" was a major part of being able to defeat a tough, tenacious foe.

I remember one WWII veteran complaining about the film Saving Private Ryan, in that while the opening scene was realistic, the rest of the film had Germans acting like idiots, running into machine-gun fire and across open areas for no reason. He hated it because not only did it not do the Germans justice for being excellent soldiers, it also didn't do the Americans justice for being able to take out this difficlt foe. Painting the taking of Nazi-occupied Europe as a form of cakewalk doesn't do either side justice.

They didn't wait until half-way through '45. Hitler was dead at the end of April '45. Germany had already been smashed well before that date.

Of course they 'waited' somewhat. Priority #1 was taking back France and bringing an ally back online. That single outcome by itself guaranteed the end of Nazi Germany. Why would any sane commander do it differently?

Why not sit back and bomb the hell out of Germany prior to rolling over them? Again, the only smart choice, and that's exactly what the allies did.

By '45 Germany was exhausted and obviously defeated. The only thing left was to cap it off. Nothing Germany could possibly do could turn the war around at that point. Why would you choose to do anything but wear Germany down in an optimal fashion? You win when it's most convenient for you, when you can lose as few soldiers as necessary, not when it's best for the Germans to inflict casualties upon you.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com