World War 2 General Discussion Thread

[Goram]

Bren gun. That thing kicked around forever.

At least you didn say the sten. That piece of crap jammed all the time from what i hear. The stug however led to the development of the ak47

Early model Sten guns had questionable reliability, mostly based on who built them. Probably got something to do with the haste at which they were being built. Later models, once the apparent threat of invasion (although, realistically speaking, there wasn't much of a one) the Sten gun became a much more reliable weapon. Like the Bren, versions of the Sten kicked around forever. Special versions, you might be interested to know, were supplied to US special forces in Vietnam.

The lasting problem was that if you dropped it whilst it was cocked, or even just placed it heavily on the ground, it would probably go off.

The StG, funnily enough, only gave Kalashnikov the idea - to use an intermediary round. The round used by the StG is what most influenced his design process. As for the weapon itself and it's operation, an AK pattern rifle is drastically different to that of the StG - even if they do look a little similar from the outside.

[The Conez Imperium]

You're aware that the range on the bazooka and the panzerfaust is tiny, right? Like, less than 100 yards for any sort of accuracy. The Panzerfaust especially, you had to get in within 60 yards to have the range to get a hit, and get a damn sight closer than that to have a good chance at one. Obviously things like the Panzerfaust did work, but lets not pretend that infantry anti-tank makes tanks obsolete. The same line of thinking, as I've said, was taken up in the thirties with the advent of the anti-tank gun. Guess what? Tanks are still around and, I'm sure you'll agree, they were quite important in the Second World War.

As for infantry supporting tanks? Well, yeah. Kind of been that way since tanks first appeared. The fact of it is there's no one wonder weapon on the battlefield. Everything and every one needs support. Aircraft need to be vectored onto target. Infantry need heavy vehicles to provide them with fire support. Heavy vehicles need infantry or lighter vehicles to protect them from threats they simply can't turn or elevate the gun to reach. At the risk of off topicing, but I don't think anyone here will complain, this is what happened in Fallujah. M1's supported by M2's with embarked infantry turned out to be able to effectively destroy anything they came up against. The lighter guns, that could turn and elevate, and the troops protected the tanks. The tanks handled anything that the rest couldn't. Effective combo, that. Just because tanks need support, as they have always done, as everything always has done, doesn't mean they're obsolete.

Just because the current enemy doesn't have tanks (and IS probably does have some), doesn't mean the next enemy won't.

You guys should play Wargames, the king of combined arms.

-So I need to attack this town so I can secure my flank however the enemy has infantry in the town.
-I would use artillery to shell them into suppression however the enemy has active counter artillery
-Air support is not an option because of his use of AAA and various anti aircraft missiles
-And it will be dangerous for my tanks to attack because they would be in range of enemy ATGM squads.

Thus the plan is first I will use mortars to smoke the edges of the town preventing enemy ATGM sight. Then I shall send my APCs with infantry inside towards the town. Whilst that is happening SEAD aircraft will be used to destroy any radar units. As predicted enemy counter artillery will try to attack my mortars to which I shall use my own artillery to respond. If I succeed in capturing the town I then must expect the enemy might send some armor, thus I shall send some helicopters with ATGMs to deter armored pushes. etc, etc.

[The Conez Imperium]

I think the M1 Garand is a fine piece of military rifle. It's not the fanciest piece of weaponry like the Stg 44 but its semi-automatic nature + its widespread ability means the average US soldier out fires the average German/Russian soldier armed with their equivalent rifle (bolt action rifles in this case).

What about sidearms,what do you like?

Don't know much about sidearms except for the stereotypical luger and M1911. Yours?

[Goram]

Well, first off Blitzkrieg isn't a thing. People like to attribute the Germans has having an "I win" blueprint, blitzkrieg, that caught everyone off guard with their amazing tanks. Yeah, no. They didn't. Literally no body expected France to capitulate so easily - days prior to invasion Churchill had said "thank God for the French Army". Days after the invasion, German high command privately harboured fears that the operation would fail. Fail it could well have done, if the BEF and French command hadn't completely gone to shit. The Germans won because they got lucky, they faced an incompetent enemy in the early stages, they had better communications and training. All of this took OKW by surprise as, like I said, they expected a long slog. Blitzkrieg as some war winning idea, particularly in 1940, is an utter myth. It didn't happen. They did try it in 1941, having drunk their own coolaid and forgotten how much of a surprise France/Poland was, and attempted to knock the Russians over quickly. They subscribed to their own myth and paid for it.

As for the idea of pushing armour through the line unsupported, also no. Panzer Divisions, despite being Panzer Divisions, rolled everything into one. They had armour (though in 1940 it was of fairly poor quality when compared to the French), but they also had organic artillery support and motorised infantry. The tanks might exploit a weak point, but you can guarantee the infantry would be very close behind - except in a rather famous case where Rommel decided to just keep rolling. He ought to have been dicked by the Allies, as he had no support, but as I said, Allied high command had gone to shit and both the British and French legged it (mostly) without giving any real thought to what was going on. What's more, Panzer divisions liked to fight on the strategic offensive, but tactical defensive. That is to say, the Germans would often retreat in the face of enemy armour - knowing they'd have infantry and artillery support very close behind. The infantry and artillery obviously having anti-tank capabilities - something early German tanks very much lacked, compared to the Char B1 for example. In the event of shit seriously hitting the fan, some German units contained what we'd now call Forward Air Controllers in motorised transport. They could whistle up air support that, at worst, would take 45 minutes to arrive.

The whole idea that when faced with serious opposition the now vaunted Panzers would fall back to their close support gives credence to the combined arms concept. As I've said before there is no one battle winning weapon. Everyone needs support, even tanks, and if you're doing it right then everyone ought to give mutual support to everyone else. Tanks, Artillery and Infantry work together. They always have, always will. And, as I've said before, that's what makes them relevant today. That's what makes them valuable in urban environments. Probably don't build any more for the time being, because you're right. Asymmetrical war is the reality of today's combat. But how many Cold War designs have proved themselves in Afghan/Iraq? The A-10, the M1, the Apache. Orginally, tank killers all, but as it turns out they're all really, really good at helping troops out on today's battlefield when it all gets a bit hectic and the enemy has engaged you in a serious contact.

I get what you mean about looking too far ahead and spending too much when there's no immediate enemy. I concede you that. But if you've got this kit anyway and it's proved itself useful? Don't scrap it because it's not being used to do what it was designed for. Use them.

[Brickistan]

Well, first off Blitzkrieg isn't a thing. People like to attribute the Germans has having an "I win" blueprint, blitzkrieg, that caught everyone off guard with their amazing tanks. Yeah, no. They didn't. Literally no body expected France to capitulate so easily - days prior to invasion Churchill had said "thank God for the French Army". Days after the invasion, German high command privately harboured fears that the operation would fail. Fail it could well have done, if the BEF and French command hadn't completely gone to shit. The Germans won because they got lucky, they faced an incompetent enemy in the early stages, they had better communications and training. All of this took OKW by surprise as, like I said, they expected a long slog. Blitzkrieg as some war winning idea, particularly in 1940, is an utter myth. It didn't happen. They did try it in 1941, having drunk their own coolaid and forgotten how much of a surprise France/Poland was, and attempted to knock the Russians over quickly. They subscribed to their own myth and paid for it.

As for the idea of pushing armour through the line unsupported, also no. Panzer Divisions, despite being Panzer Divisions, rolled everything into one. They had armour (though in 1940 it was of fairly poor quality when compared to the French), but they also had organic artillery support and motorised infantry. The tanks might exploit a weak point, but you can guarantee the infantry would be very close behind - except in a rather famous case where Rommel decided to just keep rolling. He ought to have been dicked by the Allies, as he had no support, but as I said, Allied high command had gone to shit and both the British and French legged it (mostly) without giving any real thought to what was going on. What's more, Panzer divisions liked to fight on the strategic offensive, but tactical defensive. That is to say, the Germans would often retreat in the face of enemy armour - knowing they'd have infantry and artillery support very close behind. The infantry and artillery obviously having anti-tank capabilities - something early German tanks very much lacked, compared to the Char B1 for example. In the event of shit seriously hitting the fan, some German units contained what we'd now call Forward Air Controllers in motorised transport. They could whistle up air support that, at worst, would take 45 minutes to arrive.

The whole idea that when faced with serious opposition the now vaunted Panzers would fall back to their close support gives credence to the combined arms concept. As I've said before there is no one battle winning weapon. Everyone needs support, even tanks, and if you're doing it right then everyone ought to give mutual support to everyone else. Tanks, Artillery and Infantry work together. They always have, always will. And, as I've said before, that's what makes them relevant today. That's what makes them valuable in urban environments. Probably don't build any more for the time being, because you're right. Asymmetrical war is the reality of today's combat. But how many Cold War designs have proved themselves in Afghan/Iraq? The A-10, the M1, the Apache. Orginally, tank killers all, but as it turns out they're all really, really good at helping troops out on today's battlefield when it all gets a bit hectic and the enemy has engaged you in a serious contact.

I get what you mean about looking too far ahead and spending too much when there's no immediate enemy. I concede you that. But if you've got this kit anyway and it's proved itself useful? Don't scrap it because it's not being used to do what it was designed for. Use them.

Blitzkrieg was very much a thing. Indeed, the Germans (well, a few of them anyway...) had spend the inter-war years thinking long and hard about how to use this strange new weapon.

But yes, it does have some serious limitations. And yes, the infantry has to be pretty close behind or there'll be trouble.

The reason it worked was a combination of the speed the Germans moved at, the bold strategy employed, and utter incompetence on the part of the Allies. They had been planing for a refight of the previous war, and so they constantly found themselves one step behind the Germans, often ordering their front lines to fall back to positions that had already been overrun.

And that's the strength and weakness of highly mobile warfare, especially when you leave your infantry behind. Against an unprepared enemy it's pretty effective. Against a prepared enemy, however, it's much harder to pull off. It worked during the Battle for France because the Allies had no clue what they were doing. And even then they nearly caught the Germans on several occasions. During Operation Barbarossa it also worked. But once the Russians started fighting back, combined with the vast distances, it started to bog down.

In short: it's a valid tactic, but care must be taken as to when and where it's employed.


As for using the kit you've got, I can see your point. But considering the resources needed to keep an Abrams operational (especially since they're now getting pretty old), I'm wondering if there aren't better, less resource intensive, options that should be explored.

Indeed, I find it interesting that the basic design of the MBT has remained unchanged for so long. Sure, the electronic ecuipment has been upgraded several times, but at the core it's still much the same as it was in the late seventies / early eighties.

For asymmetrical warfare in urban environments, for example, you might look at smaller and more nimble two or thee man tanks with a smaller rapid-firing gun.

The Germans did actually experiment with such a tank - the Panzer I Ausf. F - a very heavily armoured infantry support tank. Although, as with most German one-off designs during the war, it never really had much of an impact.

[Imperializt Russia]

Blitzkrieg is not itself a thing. There was no German doctrine, there was no "manual of Blitzkrieg".

Blitzkrieg was a term used really to describe the success of the German military if anything. They didn't do anything particularly revolutionary in theory terms - their ideas were inspired by Fuller in Britain and Tsukachevsky[sic] and others in Russia. They implemented their ideas, however, and implemented them well. The way they planned operations was different as well.

[Grenartia]

In a previous life, you must have been one of those people who said that the F-4 Phantom didn't need a gun because missiles made dogfighting obsolete.

Well, if I did say that in a previous life I sure don't remember it...

However, I can see where they were coming from.

Still, there is a difference. Back then fighters still had a role as dogfighters. Today though...? Taken to the extreme, you could say that today you need neither guns nor missiles as aircrafts spend most of the time attacking ground targets rather than fighting other aircrafts.

By your logic, we should disarm our nukes, since we don't need them any more.

[Imperializt Russia]

Well, if I did say that in a previous life I sure don't remember it...

However, I can see where they were coming from.

Still, there is a difference. Back then fighters still had a role as dogfighters. Today though...? Taken to the extreme, you could say that today you need neither guns nor missiles as aircrafts spend most of the time attacking ground targets rather than fighting other aircrafts.

By your logic, we should disarm our nukes, since we don't need them any more.

We should probably stand down infantry, they're vulnerable to rifle fire, shell splinters, gas attack, they're slow, they're easily disorientated...

[Grenartia]

By your logic, we should disarm our nukes, since we don't need them any more.

We should probably stand down infantry, they're vulnerable to rifle fire, shell splinters, gas attack, they're slow, they're easily disorientated...

Take away their guns, too. Those things are prone to accidental discharges, jamming, misaiming, running out of ammo, etc.

[Sun Wukong]

We should probably stand down infantry, they're vulnerable to rifle fire, shell splinters, gas attack, they're slow, they're easily disorientated...

Take away their guns, too. Those things are prone to accidental discharges, jamming, misaiming, running out of ammo, etc.

Although soldiers are also prone to accidental discharges when you take away their guns...

[Ardavia]

We should do away with helicopters and planes for combat roles. SAM systems and MANPADS launchers can present a threat to them, they're costly to keep in service, the models in service are old, and they were designed for a different kind of war.

/s

[Braberland]

RIP Karel Doorman best naval commander in the 20th century.

[Grenartia]

Take away their guns, too. Those things are prone to accidental discharges, jamming, misaiming, running out of ammo, etc.

Although soldiers are also prone to accidental discharges when you take away their guns...

We should just do away with the military altogether. Its not like anybody wants to actually invade or attack us or anything.

[The Two Jerseys]

By your logic, we should disarm our nukes, since we don't need them any more.

We should probably stand down infantry, they're vulnerable to rifle fire, shell splinters, gas attack, they're slow, they're easily disorientated...

We really should, infantry has been obsolete since 10,000 BC.

[Esceen]

Although soldiers are also prone to accidental discharges when you take away their guns...

We should just do away with the military altogether. Its not like anybody wants to actually invade or attack us or anything.

Following in the path of New Zealand I see

[Librica]

All I have to say is that "DDay" was one of the most poorly planned and executed military operations I've ever heard of.

[The Huskar Social Union]

All I have to say is that "DDay" was one of the most poorly planned and executed military operations I've ever heard of.

In comparison to a lot of things, not really. In fact it was probably far better that it could have been. For example if the germans moved up their tank formations right away or did not fall for allied espionage attempts to lure the german focus to other areas.

It would have been a lot worse than it actually was.

[Shamhnan Insir]

All I have to say is that "DDay" was one of the most poorly planned and executed military operations I've ever heard of.

Poorly planned???
Have you not heard of Operation Mincemeat, or Operation Fortitude?
The planning was vast, huge amounts of espionage went into D-Day. Misinformation was developed through an amazing variety of means to throw off Hitler. It led to a great amount of repositioning of Hitlers defences in the weeks and even hours before the invasion, and also pushed the paranoia that the allied invasion of Europe would be coming from many more angles.

As for execution, it was a success. It was always going to be costly, but we needed a strong beachhead and that's what was delivered.

[Imperializt Russia]

All I have to say is that "DDay" was one of the most poorly planned and executed military operations I've ever heard of.

The fuck.

Based on what.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oradour-sur-Glane
This was part of D-Day.

[Eol Sha]

All I have to say is that "DDay" was one of the most poorly planned and executed military operations I've ever heard of.

Then you've never read about Market Garden.

[Islamic Meritocratic Transoxiana]

Lets talk about the best infantry weapons. My favourite is the Sturmgewehr 44

Don't really have a fav, but just a story:

I was once in Rhode Island, and went to a small place there called the Varnum Memorial Armory. They actually had a prototype sturmgevehr, one of the couple thousand sent to the East w/o Hitler's permission. Apparently, there are only 4 left.

[Imperializt Russia]

All I have to say is that "DDay" was one of the most poorly planned and executed military operations I've ever heard of.

Then you've never read about Market Garden.

Market Garden wasn't particularly poorly planned and wasn't that poorly executed. It failed to achieve the key objectives at Arnhem and the British para group was basically destroyed and its wider strategic objective failed as a result, but the American phases worked well. Planning and execution were hindered by terrain and lack of suitable alternatives.

[The balkens]

Then you've never read about Market Garden.

Market Garden wasn't particularly poorly planned and wasn't that poorly executed. It failed to achieve the key objectives at Arnhem and the British para group was basically destroyed and its wider strategic objective failed as a result, but the American phases worked well. Planning and execution were hindered by terrain and lack of suitable alternatives.

weren't there battle-hardened and elite German divisions in place instead of what was thought to be defeated and broken divisions AS WELL as old men and young boys?

[Imperializt Russia]

Market Garden wasn't particularly poorly planned and wasn't that poorly executed. It failed to achieve the key objectives at Arnhem and the British para group was basically destroyed and its wider strategic objective failed as a result, but the American phases worked well. Planning and execution were hindered by terrain and lack of suitable alternatives.

weren't there battle-hardened and elite German divisions in place instead of what was thought to be defeated and broken divisions AS WELL as old men and young boys?

It is believed the commanders who planned the operation knew that SS-panzer divisions brought back from Normandy were in the Arnhem area.
They decided to go ahead with the operation.

This means that they knew that they would sacrifice a lot of men in the British para group, but they believed this sacrifice to be worth it.
If they pulled it off, the war could have been "over by Christmas" to repeat that cliche once more.

[Librica]

I could of taken those beaches without a single casualty.