Did Nazi Germany have oil? Would Germany have curbed stomped everyone if they never invaded the Soviets? Tank sperging. Debate it all here.

[Just Some Other Guy]

It took the Brits till what, the Cromwell to finally field a tank that isnt a retard brick (Churchill, Matilda) or paper tank (Crusader lol).

Though to their credit, it was a Churchill which disabled the first Tiger to be captured.

Cromwell was still retard brick shaped, just faster. Also Brits based their tank shells on their already bad naval shells....so yeah.

Their best tank was taking a touchy at gun and cramming it into a US hull.

 

[VargReallyDidNothingWrong]

Yeah, if you didn't want your tank to have an aircraft engine you could instead opt for two bus engines tied together with duct tape.

Apparently this strategy worked so well the Soviets used it again in the earlier BTRs with two V8s (which were also used in buses)

 

[Betonhaus]

Apparently this strategy worked so well the Soviets used it again in the earlier BTRs with two V8s (which were also used in buses)

If you have two engines could you still limp to safety even if one fails?

 

[VargReallyDidNothingWrong]

If you have two engines could you still limp to safety even if one fails?

I dont know how the engines in the BTR are linked but you probably could if they're mated together into a single transmission input shaft.

Unless the blown engine is seized or otherwise cannot spin.

 

[Fapcop]

It wouldn't have been that big of a overhaul. (tooling alone would have been the same) And the biggest bottleneck would have been the transmission in terms of manufacturing. But i do agree it would have still hampered the production line to much.

Also, anything is better then a Panther. Like i said unbelievable inefficient and crap design of a tank.

The early Panther tanks had the kind of problems that you typically see in tanks that are rushed into production. Particularly the transmission.

But by the time the Panther G had rolled around, it was an excellent medium/heavyish tank.

Let’s not forget that the kill ratios of Panthers vs Soviet tanks favored Panthers by a large margin. And not just the German claimed kills.

 

[PrimeRadiant]

It took the Brits till what, the Cromwell to finally field a tank that isnt a retard brick (Churchill, Matilda) or paper tank (Crusader lol).

Though to their credit, it was a Churchill which disabled the first Tiger to be captured.

Keep in mind tho that the british were desperate in the early years, and quickly designed and built their tanks w/o adequate testing. Going into the war, the matilda II was perfectly good tank, and by the end of the war the british had excellent tanks like the comet

 

[Susanna]

Does Russia spend a lot time and resources taking those cities or do they bypass them. I am leaning towards Russia eventually bypassing those cities and leaving a small amount of troops surrounding the city and slowly destroy the Ukrainian defenders over time rather than stopping to take the city and then keep going.

This isn’t the Middle Ages, you can’t just starve troops out of a city like that. They have guns, the civilians all have to starve first before the soldiers run out of food, and that’s just not the Russian way.

The British were perfectly aware of sloped armour. But British tank design was limited by the rather small gauge of the British railways. The tanks had to fit on a standard railcar and make it through a rail tunnel. Sloping armour reduced internal space, which reduces the size of the turret and thus the gun you can put on the the tank. They had to design boxier tanks if they wanted a bigger gun. Sloping armour also uses more steel and takes more resources to build. If man hours are at a premium, you cut out the sloping where you can. The UK did not have the immense population and resources of the USSR to draw on if they wanted to spam thier tanks.

Sloping armour uses less steel, remember your Pythagorean theorem.
Anyway the railways placed a limit on how wide the tanks could be, not on their length. You could slope the front armour just fine and leave the sides vertical, that’s how the Panther and T-44 did it anyway. The sloped sides on the T-34 were actually its most major design flaw and why the original turret was so bad, it needlessly limited the diameter of the turret ring.

 

[Just Some Other Guy]

Sloping armour uses less steel, remember your Pythagorean theorem.
Anyway the railways placed a limit on how wide the tanks could be, not on their length. You could slope the front armour just fine and leave the sides vertical, that’s how the Panther and T-44 did it anyway.

Just cope for bad Brit design. We fast forward to the Centurion and we still get bad tank design. I mean at least we get a sloped plate at a whopping 76mm thickness while being substantially heavier than the T-44 and even the M26. Even the experimental T32 heavy tank weighed really not much more while having much better protection and gun.

Brits failed consistently during WW2 at design. Had a handful of decent to good planes, though.

 

[CaptainAutism69]

Unfortunately when I went, the Motherland statue, that triumph of Soviet engineering was closed “until the final victory”, as the young blonde chick in the ticket office said. I rather cheekily asked her “what if you lose?” which she answered with a seething “We WONT!”

(Much to my disappointment, what used to be a WWII history museum at the Motherland statue was turned into a quite ahistorical museum of hohol history. They still had all the Soviet tanks parked outside though. The jellyfish museum in Kiev is also a banger.

What a crying shame. I had the pleasure to visit that museum and go inside the motherland statue before it was bastardised. The govt started their 'desovietisation' bullshit while I was there so was witness to the destruction of their history first hand.
I'd never want to go back though, just lots of whores and sex tourists.

 

[The Ugly One]

Sloping armour uses less steel, remember your Pythagorean theorem.
Anyway the railways placed a limit on how wide the tanks could be, not on their length. You could slope the front armour just fine and leave the sides vertical, that’s how the Panther and T-44 did it anyway. The sloped sides on the T-34 were actually its most major design flaw and why the original turret was so bad, it needlessly limited the diameter of the turret ring.

Sloped armor reduces internal space, so to get the same useful internal space, you need to make the tank wider or longer. Since British tanks were limited in width both by rail gauge and by doctrine, which stated that the crew compartment had to be between the tracks in order to keep a low profile, all they could do was lengthen the tank. The Churchill's hull was already 7.4m long, making it one of the longest tanks fielded during the war, and it's not like it got much additional ammunition stowage for the price. It held 84 75mm rounds, while the T-34 was smaller and held 77-100 rounds (depending on model year). At least it was hard to kill.

 

[Noto Bok]

Sloped armor reduces internal space, so to get the same useful internal space, you need to make the tank wider or longer. Since British tanks were limited in width both by rail gauge and by doctrine, which stated that the crew compartment had to be between the tracks in order to keep a low profile, all they could do was lengthen the tank. The Churchill's hull was already 7.4m long, making it one of the longest tanks fielded during the war, and it's not like it got much additional ammunition stowage for the price. It held 84 75mm rounds, while the T-34 was smaller and held 77-100 rounds (depending on model year). At least it was hard to kill.

I think they mean that the British could have sloped the front, which would have added space in comparison to the original design.

 

[Lurker Child]

View attachment 5756128
Huh?

Go to check out this guy's twitter and this video is the first post I see:

He definitely has an endearing sense of humor lmao.

Iirc Finland gave some land to the USSR after the Moscow Armistice and they still claim it as rightful Finnish clay that must be returned, i'm not sure if they stopped doing that to get into NATO or if they are still claiming that despite being in NATO

In my experience, claiming the lands ceded in the armistice to the USSR are still rightful Finnish clay that must be returned has always been a largely fringe political position in Finland. If someone brings it up, they are almost always talking about Karjala, and there are many good reasons for that. Before the war, it contained major cities like Viipuri, a substantial part of Finland's industry and economy at the time, and was the heart of the "Finnishness" being formulated in the Karelianism of Finnish national romantics of the period and the Academic Karelian Society. Finland was being born, and its doula patriots saw Karjala as the heartland. Which made its loss very condemning for Finland and its return the dream of many patriots since then.

However, there are many good reasons why Finland hasn't pushed for it or taken it back since then. In the decades immediately after the war, Finland's survival was top priority and careful as is, so any bounce-back reconquista was out of the question. Then, as time progressed, having it back became a liability as (i) the Finnish state would have to foot the bill of Soviet decay and (ii) Finnish evacuation and Soviet Russification combined to make the lands no longer practically Finnish, meaning to bring them back would mean mass deportation (unacceptable to Russia) or a significant non-Finnish demographic in Finland (unacceptable to Finland). This is why Finland refused an offer from Yeltsin during the 90s.

Growing up, the sense of these lands were either: They're Finnish, just 'on the Russian side'. -or- They're Russian now so just move on. Nobody really pushes for their return outside of the internet and some ardent nationalist groups. What you rather see, at least, before NATO, was cooperation between the Finnish and Russian governments over these lands and their cities, cultural exchanges between the Finnish government and Karelian and St. Petersburg Oblasts, and Finns visiting and vacationing there for the history and the countryside that has that southern spirit that Finns find soul soothing:

Of course, my testimony is coming from a pre-NATO Finland. With NATO alignment, the current sentiments might easily change. It just depends on how things play out.

WE WUZ KHANS N SHEEET

Link
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Link 2
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MFW:

Also, fun fact, Mongolian throat singing works surprisingly well in Finnish.

 

[Susanna]

https://twitter.com/Alex_Oloyede2/status/1761550503895306348

Look, I get its a tense situation but good Lord at least have the dignity to go out like a man.

View attachment 5755647

This may look harsh, but you have to put the fear of God into POWs. Everyone does it.
Yank soldiers, when surrendering, are trained to sit down, say their name and soldier number, and do nothing else. You can see how insufferable this Gandhi-esque approach to being captured would be. But if you get a few of them together, put bags over their heads, kneel them down in the mud, fire a pistol in the air a few times and have a buddy drop a sandbag next to them, they quickly become a lot more cooperative. Don't feel bad for them, they're yanks.

Sloped armor reduces internal space, so to get the same useful internal space, you need to make the tank wider or longer. Since British tanks were limited in width both by rail gauge and by doctrine, which stated that the crew compartment had to be between the tracks in order to keep a low profile, all they could do was lengthen the tank. The Churchill's hull was already 7.4m long, making it one of the longest tanks fielded during the war, and it's not like it got much additional ammunition stowage for the price. It held 84 75mm rounds, while the T-34 was smaller and held 77-100 rounds (depending on model year). At least it was hard to kill.

Like Noto Bok said, sloping the front actually increases interior volume. You can't really do anything useful with the extra volume and it'll actually give no extra volume around vision blocks and machine guns since those mounts have to be vertical anyway (putting a machine gun in a ball mount on a sloped plate is actually really tricky), but sloping is either no worse or slightly better in terms of interior volume, while massively improving both armour effectiveness and weight. It's downright silly not to slope armour, just as long as you don't do a dumb and slope the sides without at least bulging out around the turret ring, since a wider turret ring is pretty much always good. Even if you don't need it yet, in the future it'll let you put a bigger turret on to give the design a few more years of service.

If someone brings it up, they are almost always talking about Karjala, and there are many good reasons for that. Before the war, it contained major cities like Viipuri, a substantial part of Finland's industry and economy at the time, and was the heart of the "Finnishness" being formulated in the Karelianism of Finnish national romantics of the period and the Academic Karelian Society. Finland was being born, and its doula patriots saw Karjala as the heartland. Which made its loss very condemning for Finland and its return the dream of many patriots since then.

It did at least produce some catchy tunes.

What you rather see, at least, before NATO, was cooperation between the Finnish and Russian governments over these lands and their cities, cultural exchanges between the Finnish government and Karelian and St. Petersburg Oblasts, and Finns visiting and vacationing there for the history and the countryside that has that southern spirit that Finns find soul soothing:

One of my favourite summer spots is the Saimaa lake system, I'd be very sad if the ban on entry is kept up. I've an EU passport but I suspect your border police are going to see through that, and I'm not bothering with entering through Sweden or whatever.

 

[Rubick]

The early Panther tanks had the kind of problems that you typically see in tanks that are rushed into production. Particularly the transmission.

But by the time the Panther G had rolled around, it was an excellent medium/heavyish tank.

Let’s not forget that the kill ratios of Panthers vs Soviet tanks favored Panthers by a large margin. And not just the German claimed kills.

Baring all the childhood disease aside. Panther has a fucking layout that made it next to impossible to do field maintenance if something serious actually broke down Even the tracks on panther were a fucking nightmare to fix. Add then the fact that the Panther weight was at 44 tons. 44 tons of what exactly ? It's certainly wasn't the crew space rivaling a T-34 in this department. Nor was it the armor compared to a T-44 which was designed same period and went into albeit small scale production not that long after.

And as far as panthers gun. While great anti-tank gun as a general purpose gun it actually was lacking Panther it's 75-mm had weaker HE shell than 85-mm gun armed T-34-85 at the time and T-44 it's closes counterpart. Guess what job a tank supposed to do ?

Panther was a shit designed and engineered tank.

I think you are entirely correct that Tactically speaking the Original T-34 wasn't very good. But I think It was basically the best tank of the war still because it was the one most designed for the war that WW2 was. WW2 was a war that killed something like 60 million people. Quality wasn't important, what was important was getting as much somewhat useful stuff out as soon as possible for as cheap as possible

Nah, T-34 stuck around because it was the best at the time Soviet Union had available despite being shit. And latter on interrupting the assembly line of supply of tanks for something better would have costed more lives and extended the war.

It had nothing to do with T-34 cheapness. Which it wasn't. It's engine alone a 4 valve DOHC aluminium block was expensive and pain in the ass to produce in numbers needed compared to if they went with something less at the time exotic. Then there is the christies suspension which was also costly. There is a reason why they went torsion bar route for T-34M and successors. It was cheaper not to mention requiring less space and saving on weight.


Anyway

https://t.me/ZeRada1/18345

Zerada says that Russia is holding 28,000 Ukrainian POWs.


Edit


Footage allegedly from Rabotyno.

Nothing special really except for how many dismounts it carried. Been in a BMP-3 and there is sitting for 9 dismounts. The ninth seat is usually for HQ staff or emergency. There is another place a non seat for a 10 person again for an emergency. But seeing here 13 dismounts is surprising.

 

[The Ugly One]

I think they mean that the British could have sloped the front, which would have added space in comparison to the original design.View attachment 5756422

If you do it like that, you need to move the machine gun co-ax mount and the periscope forward. The sloped armor, extended side panels, and other changes then shift the center of mass forward. The Germans tried exactly this with the Panzer IV. The problem was, shifting the mass this far forward put so much pressure on the front road wheels as to make the design unworkable.

Note the periscope and machine gun positions on the T-34:



You would have had to do something like this on the Comet:



The Comet was already cramped for space as it was, and this would have just made things worse.

The Tiger, by contrast, had more room in the front to play with. I've tried to illustrate where the sloped armor is on the Tiger II relative to the Tiger I. This isn't an engineering drawing, but it's close enough. Essentially, the top edge is moved back, and the leading edge is moved down. This allows roughly a 45 degree slope. (Incidentally, American bombing, which did nothing, also cut Tiger II production by about half, and destroyed the synfuel plants which would have powered them in another completely useless move, as the German Army was running out of oil due to the British naval blockade, which also did nothing, as the USSR won WWII on its own and nothing the Western Allied did mattered.)



Doing something like this on the Comet would have required a significant redesign of the front end, as the crew is too far back, which would have, again, shifted the center of mass forward, and likely have required significant redesign.

Then there is the christies suspension which was also costly.

That famous Russian, J. Walter Christie.

 

[verissimus]

hat the strategic bombing campaign was ineffective genuinely isn’t controversial.

Demonstrably false at least when allied bombing wasn't targeting oil facilities and transportation such as railroad junctions, etc. From 2 to 3 books I read including Targeting the Reich : Air Intelligence and the Allied Bombing Campaign (highly recommend for any one interested in this subject), The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy (don't recommend though it isn't bad), another book (I'll try to find the title of it later) that I believe was mentioned by the author of the first book mentioned which was written by a German author who also did an analysis on the German economy and war production. The first book notes a dramatic decline of German oil consumption (or was it productiion?) between 1944 to 1945 among other things. The third book in particular notes how difficult if not impossible it was for the German economy to function properly since the allies kept disrupting railroad traffic across the reich. Basically his point was that raw materials, semi-finished goods, and finished goods all got significantly delayed.

However, when the allies tried bombing other targets, particular cities or factories, it either didn't work at all or the factories got back working within a few weeks.

The UK and US would never have defeated Germany alone.

That is a completely ridiculous claim considering that the allies could have dropped an atomic bomb on Berlin (or one of Germany's other industrial areas) instead of say Nagasaki or Hiroshima.

Edit : This might be the title of the third book I mentioned : The Collapse of the German War Economy, 1944-1945 - Allied Air Power and the German National Railway. I had already planned on re-reading it again along with the first book.

 

[Fapcop]

Demonstrably false at least when allied bombing wasn't targeting oil facilities and transportation such as railroad junctions, etc.

Nonsense. Allied own studies revealed that their air campaign wasn’t particularly successful.

German war production increased EVERY YEAR up until 1945 when Soviet troops were already in the reich.

However, when the allies tried bombing other targets, particular cities or factories, it either didn't work at all or the factories got back working within a few weeks.

Ah… So it didn’t work. Except for a few cases where it did work.

Wat?!

That is a completely ridiculous claim considering that the allies could have dropped an atomic bomb on Berlin (or one of German's other industrial areas) instead of on Nagasaki or Hiroshima.

No, what’s ridiculous is to assume that without operation Barbarossa, nothing at all happens until July 1945 when the nuclear bomb is ready, and everything stays exactly the same.

In reality, without the Soviet Union in the war, there likely wouldn’t have been a Great Britain to launch the nuke from.

Without GB in the war, the whole raison d’ etre for America fighting disappears and they likely would have sought a political solution.

Germany of course had their own weapons of mass destruction, in the form of Tabun and Sarin gas that Hitler forbade the use of.

Assuming that there still is a war in Europe in 1945 in this contra factual scenario (and a UK allied with the US) Fear of German retribution would likely have kept the US from using the atomic bomb against Germany. (Remember that Germany’s strategic bomber programs were significantly impacted by the war with the Soviet Union, as were German rocketry research chi and own nuclear program.)

https://www.dw.com/en/ukraine-germany-will-not-supply-taurus-cruise-missiles/a-68025974

https://archive.ph/mvI00#

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View attachment 5758472

Smart.

Good to see that some politicians are still thinking with their heads.

 

[Susanna]

Germany of course had their own weapons of mass destruction, in the form of Tabun and Sarin gas that Hitler forbade the use of.

You can’t negate an atom bomb by putting on a gas mask. Chemical warfare is banned because it’s horrific, yes, but so are machine guns and artillery, and those aren’t banned. The great powers agreed to ban chemical weapons because they suck anyway. They’re useful exactly once, after that the enemy will be wearing their gas masks as often as they can, and hate you more than ever.

 

[Falcos_Commisar]

In reality, without the Soviet Union in the war, there likely wouldn’t have been a Great Britain to launch the nuke from.

Without GB in the war, the whole raison d’ etre for America fighting disappears and they likely would have sought a political solution.

Germany of course had their own weapons of mass destruction, in the form of Tabun and Sarin gas that Hitler forbade the use of.

Chemical weapons are mostly good for terrorizing civilians.

Nerve agents are more effective than phosgene, mustard gas or chlorine but not to an exceptional level.

The British were fully prepared to use all of the above on Germany and Germany's horse drawn supply chains would have been quite vulnerable to chemical weapons.

Furthermore, the Germans lost the battle of the Atlantic and Lend Lease was chugging away to the UK by March 1941 and the German Navy had significant defeats by mid 1941.

The Battle of Britain happened in 1940 into 1941 and Germany lost that as well.

A German invasion or knockout of the UK was extremely unlikely unless the German Navy obliterated the Home Fleet and established air superiority over southern England.

You can’t negate an atom bomb by putting on a gas mask. Chemical warfare is banned because it’s horrific, yes, but so are machine guns and artillery, and those aren’t banned. The great powers agreed to ban chemical weapons because they suck anyway. They’re useful exactly once, after that the enemy will be wearing their gas masks as often as they can, and hate you more than ever.

Exactly.

Chemical weapons are good once and are good for terrorizing civilians.

That's about it

 

[verissimus]

In reality, without the Soviet Union in the war, there likely wouldn’t have been a Great Britain to launch the nuke from.

Without GB in the war, the whole raison d’ etre for America fighting disappears and they likely would have sought a political solution.

How the hell would Germany have taken Great Britain when they completely failed to defeat the RAF and Royal Navy. That's bullshit and you know it.

Germany of course had their own weapons of mass destruction, in the form of Tabun and Sarin gas that Hitler forbade the use of.

As @snov said, chemical weapons pale in comparison to atomic weaponry especially if you don't have a good way to deliver said chemical weapons. And if Hitler did reverse his decision, you know full well the British and US would have little qualms using it too.

No, what’s ridiculous is to assume that without operation Barbarossa, nothing at all happens until July 1945 when the nuclear bomb is ready, and everything stays exactly the same.

As ridiculous as believing Germany would have taken Great Britain after they lost the Battle of Britain? Yeah no. Even if the situation for the British was so dire as you claim it to be, what makes you think the US wouldn't have diverted more men and material away from the Pacific Theater to deal with the Germans and Italians? Obviously that would have meant the war on the Pacific would have lasted longer but so what?

Nonsense. Allied own studies revealed that their air campaign wasn’t particularly successful.

Those and other studies only agree that "area bombing" i.e. allied bombing on cities was stupid.