The United States was a minor player in World War Two

Where did I said anything like that?
Guys like you always need to put words in people mouth to support their twisted view of world and history. Guys like you do that all the time.
Get back to reading history books and stop posting nonsense.

Yeah, it must be your freedom! Whole world doesn't like you because of your freedom!

 

I think someone is confusing the second and first war world

- WWI 1914-1918 - Russia was 'defeated by Germany and Axis' when country fell under communism.
- WW2 1939-1945 - Russia was beating Germany prior to any serious intervention by the U.S., however the end came quicker when U.S. came on board.

 

I never put those words in your mouth go back and look at the thread.

Also YOUR the one said the world doesn't like us because of our freedom.

I don't see how you can say Russia was winning when Germany was still in their country.

 

The same way you can say the Allies won the first world war - even though they hadn't took a step into Germany itself - Germany was still occupying parts of France and Belgium - its just Germany saw the writing on the wall and surrendered - while that wasn't an option in the second world war.

 

Russia may have had large numbers of soldiers, but they weren't trained nearly as good as the Germans, and didn't have the type of weapons the Germans did.

Look at history it took the COMBINED efforts of the USA, UK, and Russia to oust Germany out of Berlin, to think that the UK could have single handily driven the Germans back to Germany is mistaken, and even if the Russians ever got to Berlin, they wouldn't have been able to conquer it.

 

The T34 was a superior weapon, many Russian tanks, artillery, planes and even firearms were superior - especially in certain conditions - definitely in the snow - when much German equipment froze and stopped completely.

 

What about the biggest tank, the German Tiger Tank? What air support, Germany had superior numbers and better equiped planes.

 

The Joseph Stalin 2 was one of the biggest tanks of the Second World War - ready in 1944 - it had a 122mm gun

and was designed in armor to withstand the 88 guns of the Germans; it had - 120mm frontal armor.

The biggest German tank was not the King Tiger (a rather dismal failure - too heavy, pone to mechanical breakdown and very slow), but rather the MAUS - 128mm cannon 240mm frontal armor - barely 13 kph in best conditions (SLOW), however these only reach prototype stage unlike the JS2 that even came out in JS3 version in numbers before the end of the war.

As for the airforce after Stalingrad Russia had thousands more planes -

While the Americans and British cursed the Shermans in fear of the Tigers - the Russians had no such worries about "Jerry Cookers" as they tended to have tank superiority for most of the war - the T34 holds the title as the best overall tank of the war - even the Germans copied its design as the only way to beat it.

Sorry for so many quotes - but it looks like you need to do a bit of reading if you are going to know the real facts.

 

If this is all true. How did Germany with smaller, slower, weaker tanks, less inferior aircraft, and way less people get all the way to Stalingrad?

 

Uhhh... what?

The Russians did get to Berlin (before the allies) and they conquered it plenty. Granted, the rest of the allies had been launching air raids on Berlin, but by agreement, the U.S. and U.K. kept ground forces 60 miles away while the Russian army marched into the German capital.

The Germans got to Stalingrad because they had signed a non-aggression treaty and suckered the Soviets into being unprepared. Anyway, Napoleon made it as far as Moscow but that doesn't mean he beat the Russians, either.



Soviet flag on the Reichstag, May 1945

 

If you look at a map of Russian - Stalingrad not that far in - its such a huge country.

 

I have to admit it: I just hate these threads, over which ally "won" WWII. We all fought, we all bled, and we all made a helluva contribution. It's time to honor those sacrifices and drop the national egos at odds.

 

It may be big, but its not densly populated. If the Germans could have won Stalingrad, they could have easily subdued the rest of Russia.

 

I agree. It's just that I take offence when people say that the USA played a non-essential part in WWII. Because that assumption is false. We loss lots of good men, and it pains me to see that many are not grateful for that.

 

According to this we suffered even more military deaths than the UK.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties#Casualties_by_country

 

Yes, but not total if you add in their civilian casualties. Nor if you consider the "Empire" of the time - i.e. Canada, Australia, New Zealand and India who all suffered significant casualties.

I agree - all allies did contribute a part to the victory - like a Basketball team as someone early in the thread added - just in the Winning Chicago Bulls teams - Russia was the Michael Jordan of the team in terms of contribution.

 

You don't like seeing message board warriors fight WWII again?

 

Thats alot of countries you added up. Also its not the civilian deaths that count, its the military.

I disagree with you, I think the USA was the Mike Jordon.

Look at history, the Allies were losing. The UK couldn't push Germany back, and Russia may have started, but if Germany would have pulled troops from the West line, they could have easily beaten Russia back. Remember in the first WW, Russia had a major offensive that pushed the Germans back, but then the Germans came back and totally crushed Russia.

Also who was going to stop Japan? They had already taken China. What if they would have put troops on the Russian border and forced Russia to fight a 2 front war????

 

True, but early in my argument I said all along Japan should have invaded Russia and not bomb Pearl Harbor - history would have played out very different - Stalin learning that Japan had no intention to invade transferred 20 fresh Eastern divisions to the defense of Moscow - not only were they fully winter equipped but they launch a counter offensive that pushed the Germans back from Moscow - Germany came close to capturing Moscow - only 30 k's out from the Kremlin - they could even see the spires - but they failed and lost the war - they didn't need stalingrad - they needed to capture Leningrad and Moscow - the number one and two cities -

 

Oh, I don't mind a good fight, but yeah, not a fan of board warriors or web rangers doing it (a show of bravado from behind the keyboard); and over this issue in particular, guess I just tire of the arguments, since we all contributed so much.

I used to belong to http://www.wildbillguarnere.com, a site dedicated to "Wild Bill Guarnere," E Company, 501st PIR, 101st (great site, by the way, for anyone interested in WWII, and the 101st in particular).
Every once in a while you'd see it there, too. Just a shame, since all allies contributed men, women, and material to win the war.