At first observation, it seems the Axis lost WWII more than we won it. As someone who hasn't intensely studied US History, I'm interested to hear the explanation.

9/25/2006 10:34:21 PM

"we got you surrounded"

its too hard to fight a multi front war.

9/25/2006 10:41:20 PM

its quite simple. the nazis allocated about 40% of their resources and capabilities to catching/holding/killing jews.

9/25/2006 10:41:38 PM

the nazis put hitler in charge instead of disney

double whoops

[Edited on September 25, 2006 at 10:45 PM. Reason : JAPAN'S SENDIN PLAYSTATIONS]

9/25/2006 10:44:02 PM

Quote :

"its quite simple. the nazis allocated about 40% of their resources and capabilities to catching/holding/killing jews."

and we all know about 2k worth of pennies would have kept them busy for ages.

9/25/2006 10:47:39 PM

Several Reasons:

Multifront war.
Attacking the Russians in the winter.
Not attack a consistent target with air power in Englad.
etc. etc.

9/25/2006 10:48:49 PM

I guess then I ask you, would have the Allies ever settled for peace with the Axis sometime between 1941-1943?

9/25/2006 10:54:55 PM

^ If Britain had lost before Japan attacked the U.S.
Oh, and then Japan never attacked the U.S.

9/25/2006 11:05:57 PM

why did hitler only drink milk as a child?

9/25/2006 11:07:09 PM

If Hitler had let his generals make all of the decisions instead of trying to micromanage it himself, the Nazis would have fared much better. The allies had a number of plans to assassinate him, but ultimately decided that his bad decision making was enough of a liability to the germans that it was better for him to hold power.

As far as Japan, one of the biggest factors was their inability to produce ships and quality weapons on the scale of the allies. They spent most of the war thinking that the Japanese fighting spirit would win the war for them.

Had the Japanese attacked the USSR as per their original plan with Hitler, the added stress on the Soviets might have tipped the scales in the favor of the axis powers. This would have been even more successful had Hitler neutralized Britain prior to opening another front.

9/25/2006 11:29:53 PM

The Nazis didn't exactly attack Russia during winter -- they attacked before that, but the campaign wasn't over as quickly as they would have liked, nor did it start soon enough in the year.

In all likelihood they would have lost even without a multi-front war, too -- the Soviets eventually would have smashed them on their own.

9/25/2006 11:30:27 PM

Napoleon busted up into Russia all like, "hey I have this great plan"

Then Hitler went in and he was like, "my idea is different, it's totally gonna work"

but he ended up saying, "oops it was the same plan"

9/26/2006 12:07:28 AM

Quote :

"Attacking the Russians in the winter."

This killed the Germans chances.

Number one reason is Japan bombed us and caused us to join the war efforts IMO.

9/26/2006 12:22:15 AM

^ The invasion of the USSR began on June 22.

Since when is that winter?

9/26/2006 12:47:18 AM

There is no way they could have taken the USSR in 6 months......not to mention that Hitler and Stalin had a non aggression pact which would have lasted for a while had Hitler not broken it.

9/26/2006 9:40:38 AM

Sounds like quite an Enigma.

9/26/2006 9:59:14 AM

9/26/2006 11:31:48 AM

^ is why the allies won

9/26/2006 11:42:10 AM

I agree: Hitler lost the European Theatre more than the Allies won it.

Meantime, the Allies won because Japan got the US into the war. Britain probably would have fallen had Germany ever gotten around to an actual invasion.

Also, the Allies got a bit lucky, in that the Germans did not capture the FN49 prototypes/blueprints (Saive actually continued working on the rifle in Britain during the course of the war) as they went through Belgium. If they had, then Germany might have had a decent semiautomatic battle rifle (on the level of the Garand) by like 1941.

9/26/2006 12:43:00 PM

why did the axis lose?

because they underestimated the united states

9/26/2006 12:55:02 PM

I wouldn't say they underestimated. They simply gambled, led by the cessation by Britain.

9/26/2006 12:59:33 PM

Bletchley Park had a lot to do with it.

9/26/2006 1:23:28 PM

^^
There are COUNTLESS times when Hitler overrode the judgement of his field commanders, and basically ordered them to attempt stupid/suicidal/impossible missions.

9/26/2006 1:23:42 PM

Quote :

"There is no way they could have taken the USSR in 6 months......not to mention that Hitler and Stalin had a non aggression pact which would have lasted for a while had Hitler not broken it."

If there's no way it would happen in 6 months, would it have been done in 9? I mean, honestly, if that's really your argument that they shouldn't attack USSR in winter, when you really mean they can't ever attack them because winter comes eventually, you should just make the mistake "Attacking the USSR"

9/26/2006 1:25:44 PM

So basically, if Hitler wasn't in charge but the Third Reich was still waging the same war, we'd have a much, much different world today?

9/26/2006 1:27:27 PM

A lot of espionage went into winning that war.

9/26/2006 1:28:58 PM

Quote :

"you should just make the mistake "Attacking the USSR""

PING! Nail on head!

9/26/2006 1:33:18 PM

Yay, I win a thread! jk

9/26/2006 1:36:33 PM

Quote :

"Also, the Allies got a bit lucky, in that the Germans did not capture the FN49 prototypes/blueprints (Saive actually continued working on the rifle in Britain during the course of the war) as they went through Belgium. If they had, then Germany might have had a decent semiautomatic battle rifle (on the level of the Garand) by like 1941."

They had a number of good semi-auomatic rifles. The gewehr 41, gewehr 43 and the stg44 were fairly brilliant small arms. However, they lacked the industry to mass produce such weapons on a large enough scale to distribute them to enough of their troops to make a difference. One could argue that a large part of this inability was an effect of the allied bombing campaign, although its effectiveness is still a cause of debate.

I could just as easily blame the german defeat on their adherence to infantry tactics built around hefty machine guns with excessively high rates of fire.

We know that you are proud of your new FN49, but it would have had little effect on the outcome of WWII.

9/26/2006 2:42:36 PM

Reasons they lost-

1) Attacking the USSR at all without squaring away the european theatre.
2) Hitler was out of his mind in more ways than one. Add this to the fact that he micromanaged things very poorly, and you have some nice conditions for defeat.
3) Allying with Japan as it did to guard against US involvement actually cause US involvement to be inevitable. Without the Japan situation, US involvement may not have come or at least may have come far too late.
4) Rushing to war before many scientific projects were completed. Although germany probably would not have developed the bomb (their lead scientists had some comical ideas about how much uranium you'd actually need), they could have begun the war with jet aircraft among other things had they waited.

The only thing you could say for the allies actually "winning" have to do with US industrial power and the allied intelligence and counter intelligence efforts. It is not inaccurate to say the axis lost vs. the allies won.

9/26/2006 3:11:12 PM

from what i was told, the us frooze all the japanese's assets and didnt send them oil anymore

so like they attacked us

9/26/2006 3:14:11 PM

Yeah, Japan vs US was something brewing independant of germany. Germany could have kept it that way. Hell, offering a mutual defense agreement to the US (it would have be rejected handidly) even on high level fairly discrete political channels would have gone a very long way in keeping the US out of the european theatre.

[Edited on September 26, 2006 at 3:15 PM. Reason : ]

9/26/2006 3:14:52 PM

Been thinking about it more..

Why did the Allies win WWII?

Dunkirk

/thread

9/26/2006 3:41:40 PM

Quote :

"If there's no way it would happen in 6 months, would it have been done in 9? I mean, honestly, if that's really your argument that they shouldn't attack USSR in winter, when you really mean they can't ever attack them because winter comes eventually, you should just make the mistake "Attacking the USSR""

No, but the Germans should have seen the total war tactics that the Soviets were using, and realized that there would be no resources available, established wintering quarters, more efficient supply lines, and waited until the next spring to make the push for Stalingrad.

9/26/2006 4:02:48 PM

so i'm googling a few things and i put in "unconditional surrender japan" in and i got a shitload of stuff

man i wish the US would do that to more countries

fuck them up to the point that they all have to "unconditionally surrender"

9/26/2006 4:05:40 PM

The war was over before the bomb was dropped.

The allies won because Germany invaded Russia. Had they not, the Axis would have won handily.

9/26/2006 4:17:13 PM

^^
Agreed

--

Quote :

"Charybdisjim: The only thing you could say for the allies actually "winning" have to do with US industrial power and the allied intelligence and counter intelligence efforts."

I think that gets played down too much in a lot of history stuff I've seen or read on WWII -- the power of US industry was/is immense and was a huge factor in the Allied victory 

9/26/2006 4:19:02 PM

you can thank FDR's controll and instigation of wartime industry for that. really the greatest mobilization of resorces ever.

9/26/2006 4:21:20 PM

[Edited on September 26, 2006 at 4:23 PM. Reason : not worth it, n/m]

9/26/2006 4:22:44 PM

Actually I think it gets played up entirely too much.

Compare the Nazi divisions devoted to the Russian front with the number of divisions devoted to the European one. Its safe to say that it was actually Russian manpower that led the Allies to victory.

9/26/2006 4:22:48 PM

^
so your argument is that the Allies still would have won had the US not been there?

9/26/2006 4:24:33 PM

Quote :

"not worth it"

if youre too good for us, then leave and never come back.

9/26/2006 4:24:50 PM

haha no it has nothing to do with being "too good" for anything. it's just your arguments are essentially Kris-lite (typical unsubstantiated left-wing blather) and I've wasted a sufficient amount of time refuting Kris to prefer avoiding a rematch  

9/26/2006 4:31:01 PM

LOL

FDR was a fool

9/26/2006 4:31:46 PM

Its a common misconception that FDR was some hero.

He was a socialist.

9/26/2006 4:33:06 PM

He was a socialist Communist.

I'm still a fan of his foreign policy though  

9/26/2006 4:34:43 PM

that works

how do you recover from a depression? just look at mr. reagan.

9/26/2006 4:36:04 PM

Well yes.

Because the Germans would have attacked Russia anyway but this time instead of NATO there would have only been a Red Europe.

9/26/2006 4:41:20 PM

^
how so?

Had we not been backing up the British (first through arms, then through troops) and the Nazis taken over like they did in France, would the USSR have even been *interested* in spending the time, money and lives to take all of Europe? (as opposed to pushing the Nazis out of their territory)

9/26/2006 4:46:27 PM

Quote :

"Why did the Allies win WWII?"

Because of FDR and Stalin.

9/26/2006 5:11:42 PM