Did the U.S defeat Hitlers Germany?

T-Case wrote:

Well technically the quote said that if it wasnt for our Grandparents , which is very true and every verteran of WW2 should be respected equally, it was a cumulative effort, i mean if it wasn't for Americas involvment than Germany wouldnt have had to fight a two front war and Italy would have still been in the war, and the same can be said for Russia, not to mention the british and the RAF which held strong against the Luftwafa(sic?), and kept hope alive in Europe the fact of the matter is that it was all the allies together that helped win the war

Yep ... Also, the massive U.S. industrial machine built not only the bombers that crippled Hitler's war machine (I wonder if the Germans could have beat Russia if their factories hadn't been smashed to bits?), but also built many of the ground weapons used by the Allies, including the Soviets. The latter had their own T-34s and Stalin tanks (in spades), but they were heavily reliant on U.S. material as well. Trucks, infantry weapons ...
The American contribution in material and logical support was as significant as the Soviet's contribution to the actual fighting. The latter took the pounding from the Germans and did much of the grunt work. But its not clear that the Soviets could have won it all without American aid.

Byrnzie wrote:

But the germans were already fighting a war in the West, and in North Africa. Sure, Hitlers decision to invade Russia proved to be his undoing. He sorely underestimated Russia and the Russian character. I'm not for a second saying that there was no combined effort. I just think that it's time people realise where the main effort came from. You only have to look at the statistics to see that what the Russians did was central to Germany's defeat. Seriously, when you look at the figures and look at the war as a whole then it's quite clear where most of the credit lays. In the battle of Stalingrad alone more people died that the allies lost in the entire war. The same can be said of the defense of Moscow. These facts alone speak volumes. I'm not denigrating Americans, or anyone else. I'm simply putting things into perspective.

Decent argument ...

Byrnzie wrote:

I like the word for Goodbye...

До свидания!
Da sveedaneeya
Good-bye!

Д о с в и д а н и я!
D a s v ee d a n ee ya!

Ye, I just say Dogspitonya

BrotherLoveBone wrote:

Without the Germans we might be talking Russian here. They gave us weapons and in the end also troops to keep the Russians away and later the Germans were chased out to Norway.

One of the reasons why Hitler underestimated Stalin's forces was that Stalin underestimated us and couldn't conquer Finland with his army. After seeing how huge losses Russia suffered against our tiny army Hitler thought the Soviet troops to be no match for the Germans, but of course they fought differently when they were defending their homeland and not attacking some unknown small country.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_War

Then again 1 Finn equals about 500 Russians
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simo_H%C3%A4yh%C3%A4

The Winter War was won because the Russians were equipped to fight in the Tundra and the German's froze their asses off.

BrotherLoveBone wrote:

In Operation Barbarossa yes.

Different than winter war.

Wasn't that the same shit?

Ahnimus wrote:

Wasn't that the same shit?

Well same shit yes (=war) but different battles.

Barbarossa was when Hitler attacked Russia and winter war (not so well known outside nordic countries) was Finland against Russia.

Cosmo wrote:

...
I think the Russian Winter was a great factor on the Eastern Front.
Look at German Air Aces... the top aces on the Eastern Front had 200 - 300 kills, while the top Western Front Ace, Adolph Galland, scored 104 (many of those over Spain). The Russians weren't the best soldiers... but, damn... there were a lot of the buggers.

Yes and like i said the morale is different when you're on home soil defending and afterwards they were out to get even in Germany.

Byrnzie wrote:

Yeah, the Finns kicked Russia's ass in 1939. An amazing victory. It was the Finnish ski troops who carried out a successful guerilla war against the Rooskies, if my memory serves me right?

Exactly right. The Russians didn't use skis, only roads so during winter on a road in the middle of a forest surrounded by snow they were basically trapped.

Motti is a Finnish military slang for an encircled enemy unit. This tactic of envelopment was used extensively by the Finnish forces in the Winter War and the Continuation War to a good effect. Basically motti is a double envelope manoeuvre using bad going terrain and light troops to encircle an enemy restricted on good going or roads. Heavily outnumbered but mobile forces could easily immobilize an enemy twenty times larger than itself.

The idea was to cut the enemy columns or battlegroups into smaller groups and then encircle them by light and mobile forces, such as ski-troops during winter. This was especially effective against some of the mechanized units of the Soviet Army, as they were effectively restricted to the roads. The Finnish troops on the other hand could move quickly through the forests and strike weak points in the formations. The smaller pockets of enemies could then be dealt with individually by concentrating forces on them.

If the encircled enemy unit was too strong, or if attacking it would have caused unacceptable friendly casualties, e.g. because of a lack of heavy equipment, the motti was usually left to "cook" until it ran out of food, fuel, supplies and ammunition and was ready to be eliminated. Some of the larger mottis held until the end of the wars, because they were resupplied by air.

The word motti (originally borrowed from Swedish mått, "measure") means one cubic meter of firewood. When collecting firewood, the logs were cut and stacked in 1 m³ cubical stacks, which were left scattered in the woods to be picked up later.

The largest motti battles in the Winter War occurred at Battle of Suomussalmi. Three Finnish regiments enveloped and destroyed two Soviet divisions and tank brigade trapped on a road. (from wikipedia)

I don't know if i love this stuff since it's war but hearing stories from my grandfathers (R.I.P) and many like them you're kind of brought up appreciating what they did over here. Not to mention the compulsory military training we still have.