Quote:

True, Russia had to be dealt with sooner or later, but his mistake was the sooner part because he had more fronts then he could handle. Even still, if things went down differently, eventually the American death machine would've grounded Germany into dog food anyway


Hitler's timing on the attack was nearly perfect, maybe 60 days late. Stalin had decapitated the military leadership and had no competent generals, nor any material or planning in place. Stalin absolutely believed there would be no attack, and the best time to hit is when the other guy believes it will never happen, is totally unprepared, and has no means of getting organized once the attack begins.

Had Hitler waited Russia would have been somewhat better prepared. And there were no other fronts to speak of: compared to Barbarossa everything else was a mere distraction.

It is my opinion that America could not have defeated Nazi Germany had Russia not been in the war. I simply don't see any successful strategy for doing it. Russia, on the other hand, certainly would have defeated Germany without Britain or the US since Russia did essentially do just that. At worst, had Britain surrendered and the US never gone to war, the Germans might have held off the Russians until 1946 but no more.

Quote:

Goderian


Heinz Guderian

Quote:

They developed a simple system in the last year: they'd mount supply convoys with nothing but ammo and fuel. No clothes, no boots, no food. Anything the Red Army needed, they were told to take from the people they just "liberated" (including apparently a few tens of thousands of German women)


The Russian generals didn't like this at all, not one bit. It was very bad for discipline to have soldiers off looking for food or women instead of moving forward or organizing for it. But those were Stalin's orders, and that was that.

Quote:

The Germans were eventually driven out of Russia by wave after wave of human cannon fodder who had no choice but to over-run the Nazis or face the wrath of Red Army guns trained on their backs.


It was the NKVD that ran the machine-gun squads to prevent retreat. The NKVD was not part of the Red Army in any way and reported to Lavrenty Beria (a truly evil man - a worthy choice for Zenman's avatar), thence Stalin.

This really wasn't necessary once the Russians began recovering territory and the soldiers began seeing with their own eyes what the Nazis had done.
_________________________
"If they can't picture me with a knife, forcing them to strip in an alley, I don't want any part of it. It's humiliating." - windsock