Author Topic: Why was the Wehrmacht so superior?  (Read 37020 times)

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Offline Archduke Sven

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Re: Why was the Wehrmacht so superior?
« Reply #30 on: December 03, 2013, 11:41:15 am »
They were used to flexible and quick wars.


Blame the Italians, the Romanians, the Bosnian's...

I think you mean Croatians.


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Offline Desert Thunda

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Re: Why was the Wehrmacht so superior?
« Reply #31 on: December 03, 2013, 11:42:06 am »
They were used to flexible and quick wars.


Blame the Italians, the Romanians, the Bosnian's...

I think you mean Croatians.

Why not blame them all in the end? ;D

Offline Archduke Sven

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Re: Why was the Wehrmacht so superior?
« Reply #32 on: December 03, 2013, 11:44:16 am »
Weak allies really plagued the Germans :/


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Offline Hugh MacKay

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Re: Why was the Wehrmacht so superior?
« Reply #33 on: December 03, 2013, 11:50:12 am »
Then again, I doubt the Germans would have done any better invading pretty much all of Europa without any allies :p
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Offline Gokiller

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Re: Why was the Wehrmacht so superior?
« Reply #34 on: December 03, 2013, 02:09:45 pm »
Then again, I doubt the Germans would have done any better invading pretty much all of Europa without any allies :p
Agreed. They wouldn't have had enough manpower to both garrisson and protect their taken land. And invade the Soviet Union. Rather take allies and having them to join you then have to fight their partisans.
« Last Edit: December 03, 2013, 02:15:50 pm by Gokiller »

Offline Augy

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Re: Why was the Wehrmacht so superior?
« Reply #35 on: December 03, 2013, 02:52:31 pm »
Wehrmacht was great for smashing other state armies, it fails once it has to deal with insurgency and rebellion.
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Offline Archduke Sven

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Re: Why was the Wehrmacht so superior?
« Reply #36 on: December 03, 2013, 03:06:41 pm »
Then again, I doubt the Germans would have done any better invading pretty much all of Europa without any allies :p
Agreed. They wouldn't have had enough manpower to both garrisson and protect their taken land. And invade the Soviet Union. Rather take allies and having them to join you then have to fight their partisans.

They did actually. The German troops occupied all of France, Belgium, Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Croatia, Greece, Greek Islands for most of the war. Just in Western Europe there were 40 divisions there at any given time, don't underestimate the amount of soldiers the Germans had at their disposal.

Wehrmacht was great for smashing other state armies, it fails once it has to deal with insurgency and rebellion.

Name an army that has actually succesfully quelled Nation wide rebellions? Not even the present day US army can manage that. Furthermore, i think the Heer actually did a good job dealing with various resistance groups, considering there were resistance groups in all occupied lands (Some 10 countries).


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Offline Gokiller

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Re: Why was the Wehrmacht so superior?
« Reply #37 on: December 03, 2013, 03:33:42 pm »
Then again, I doubt the Germans would have done any better invading pretty much all of Europa without any allies :p
Agreed. They wouldn't have had enough manpower to both garrisson and protect their taken land. And invade the Soviet Union. Rather take allies and having them to join you then have to fight their partisans.

They did actually. The German troops occupied all of France, Belgium, Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Croatia, Greece, Greek Islands for most of the war. Just in Western Europe there were 40 divisions there at any given time, don't underestimate the amount of soldiers the Germans had at their disposal.
I guess, however once they invaded the Soviets and been there for a year or so. (Lets say around Stalingrad - Kursk) they Germans already had more need of manpower most divisions were far under their original strenght. Lets say at that point that it also invaded an succesfully annexed Italy, Croatia, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria and Slovakia. They would have had an even bigger lack of troops. Their front would most likely probably collapsed just because the lack of troops. And the war would probably quite a bit faster. (Also taking in account the Allies would land in Africa, Italy and France just as it did now)

(My personal theory though).
« Last Edit: December 03, 2013, 03:36:29 pm by Gokiller »

Offline Archduke Sven

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Re: Why was the Wehrmacht so superior?
« Reply #38 on: December 03, 2013, 04:04:11 pm »
Well in 1943, the Germans had annexed parts of Italy, and created a puppet state called the Italian Socialist Republic. They were fighting the Guerrillas in Northern Italy and the Allied forces in South-Central Italy. Croatia also was a German puppet state that had to be defended by German divisions (Although they weren't German), most notable being the 7. SS-Gebirgs-Division and the 13. SS-Gebirgs-Division, not forgetting that the entire German 2. Panzerarmee was stationed in nearby Serbia. Once the Soviets got close enough to the Romanian border in late 1943, German troops were required there aswell, same with Hungary since neither of those two country's armies could withstand the Soviets at any rate, i mean just take a read from what troops from the Grossdeutschland-Divison had to say about the Romanians:
Spoiler
(1st Battalion), Pz.Gr.Regt. GD and its Romanian allies occupied a well wired-in and T-Mine-strewn line running to the right of 3. SS-Pz.Div. "Totenkopf's" positions. The Soviets advanced in great waves, their tanks and infantry mixed together. Moving much faster than the Germans had anticipated, they overwhelmed...(the 1st Company), wiping it out to the last man. While (the) temporary battalion commander...attempted to halt and repulse the Soviets with what was left of his battalion, the Romanians to the left of (the 2nd Company) cowered in their trenches like "herrings", as (the) company commander...later recounted. Indeed, the Romanians seemed to have reached an unofficial cease fire with the enemy.
[close]

After '43, the Romanians hardly fought the Soviets to any degree, they mostly surrendered. Although i will say the Hungarians fought much better than the Romanians, they still needed alot of assistance from the Germans. The Slovaks hardly ever helped, their tiny army was only of use in the Invasion of Poland in '39, and later went on to due a National Revolt in '45. The Bulgarians surrendered to the Soviets as soon as Romania had fallen, they didn't even fire a shot.

All in all, i would honestly say the Germans had little use of it's allies other than Hungary and Romania (Romania being it's oil and position as a springboard into southern USSR). Germany would have been better off mounting two puppet governments in the two previous ones instead of making them allies under their own independent governments.

Italy literally fucked up everything for the Germans, that may be harsh but honestly i have a hard time explaining it better. The Italian soldiers may have been much braver than the Romanians, but the High Command was full of incompetent jerk offs who were lead by a flamboyant tough guy who knew nothing about strategy and the army (Mussolini).

Germany was able to mobilise up to 20 million soldiers during the war, the problems they had however was distributing them. Instead of reinforcing existing units, Hitler would often divert the recruits to form brand new units instead, which gave headaches to the high command that had to move around 'divisions' that were the sizes of regiments.


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Offline Riddlez

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Re: Why was the Wehrmacht so superior?
« Reply #39 on: December 03, 2013, 04:46:14 pm »
The Italian soldiers may have been much braver than the Romanians, but the High Command was full of incompetent jerk offs who were lead by a flamboyant tough guy who knew nothing about strategy and the army (Mussolini).
So were te Germans.
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Offline Archduke Sven

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Re: Why was the Wehrmacht so superior?
« Reply #40 on: December 03, 2013, 05:07:16 pm »
The Italian soldiers may have been much braver than the Romanians, but the High Command was full of incompetent jerk offs who were lead by a flamboyant tough guy who knew nothing about strategy and the army (Mussolini).
So were te Germans.

No, Hitler still had an understanding of economic warfare, and sometimes his 'stand ground' doctrine worked, like at the end of operation Typhoon.

However the main difference was that Hitler still had very competent officers around him and leadin his armies that could affect the war on the tactical level. Italy didn't have that.


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Offline Duuring

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Re: Why was the Wehrmacht so superior?
« Reply #41 on: December 03, 2013, 05:20:10 pm »
I can't help but note, Sven, you are really one of those excuse-types who continuously spam how great the German army, their officers and even Hitler were, while putting the blame for all failures on anyone but them, preferably Italians.

Hitler had no military background, education or experience. He was not a military genius - He was a politician. The statement that Hitler practically won the war for the Allies holds some truth.

Offline Tibbert

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Re: Why was the Wehrmacht so superior?
« Reply #42 on: December 03, 2013, 05:21:12 pm »
Yeah man, he totally didn't fight in world war 1 or read any books about war.
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Offline Duuring

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Re: Why was the Wehrmacht so superior?
« Reply #43 on: December 03, 2013, 05:24:48 pm »
He fought as a private soldier, spending most of his time behind the front at headquarters. Saying he got military experience from being a gefreiter is ridiculous.

Quote
read any books about war.

Reading books about war doesn't make you a commander. He showed again and again he had no tactics, he refused to listen to anyone, he was single-minded and cared more about prestige meaningless victories that he could smash at the German people, then those who could have won the war (Hello Stalingrad).

Offline Archduke Sven

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Re: Why was the Wehrmacht so superior?
« Reply #44 on: December 03, 2013, 05:33:12 pm »
I can't help but note, Sven, you are really one of those excuse-types who continuously spam how great the German army, their officers and even Hitler were, while putting the blame for all failures on anyone but them, preferably Italians.

Hitler had no military background, education or experience. He was not a military genius - He was a politician. The statement that Hitler practically won the war for the Allies holds some truth.

Excuse type?

Ok... Other than it's a fact that the Italians, Romanians, Hungarians and other German allies (Big exception being the Finns) were always dragging the Heer down by requesting assistance, opening new fronts they couldn't protect themselves (Thanks Italy). That is a fact, the Axis Alies became more and more detrimental to the Wehrmacht as the war went on, when we saw soldiers from those countries fighting in the Waffen SS for example, they fought 10 times better than they did in their own country's armies. I'm not claiming the soldiers were cowards, i'm claiming the Axis allies had extremely weak armies overall.

Also, Hitler had a very good understanding of Economic warfare, he knew that without oil and industries, that you cannot build or drive your tanks. Without tanks you cannot wage modern warfare, something that many senior German generals overlooked. I'm not claiming he is a genius at all, infact many of his decisions were crazy and made no sense militarily as he became more and more megalomaniatic.

Seems like you aren't very knowledgeable about this, and just blame me for being 'another one of those Wehrmacht myth believers'. It holds quite alot of truth this 'myth', if you took the time to read about it.
« Last Edit: December 03, 2013, 05:38:22 pm by Archduke Sven »


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