Who had the better infantry doctrine in WW2...

they won because they killed more germans

they killed more germans because they had a better doctrine

They won because the Allies combined had a larger warfighting potential than Germany did. It has nothing to do with the quality of troops or equipment. The Western Allies could have sustained casualty ratios of 5:1 and still won the war.

The Germans had a doctrine honed through years of experimentation post-WWI with a highly professional Reichswehr. The idea of America having a professional army is a modern concept.

Germany's tactics were effective, especially their blitzkrieg. Shock and awe helped them make large territorial gains quickly, that strategy isn't very sustainable though.

How so?

The allies had way more casualties.

Nearly all of the "casualties" the Germans inflicted were executed civilians and POWs. The Wehrmacht killed shit in combat with their laughable tactics.

This. Only a relatively small percentage of combat casualties in WW2 were caused by small arms. Artillery was the big killer. I'm willing to believe American infantry tactics were outdated. Suppression via automatic weapons is clearly the way tactics would in hindsight develop, not an emphasis on accurate single-shot rifles. But American artillery was damn good.

they had more causualties because
1.) vatniks are vatniks with muh human waves
2.) civilian casualties because germans arnt human
when it comes down to combat doctrine, the Germans got slaughtered

>Nearly all of the "casualties" the Germans inflicted were executed civilians and POWs. The Wehrmacht killed shit in combat with their laughable tactics.

The graph specifically refute that.

>Wehrmacht
That's because the Wehrmacht was shit, no one considers them actually good. Plus all that meth didn't always help.

Shut your faggot mouth and get back to /pol/. I swear to fucking god I hate all this Nazi apologizing on Veeky Forums. Your wrong. NAzis are shit. End of story.

>vatniks are vatniks with muh human waves
That's a myth. While massed charges were used in certain extreme situations, doing so outside of that would be grounds for punishment and/or court martial.

t. shlomo

Why not both?

Browning
Automatic
Rifle

American infantry doctrine was based around actually having artillery, air, and tank support, instead of being poor machinegun niggers like Germans.

>it took them until they were fighting in the beginning of the war for them to catch up
Woah, really?

GET OUT!!!!!!!!!!!!

>the Wehrmacht was shit, no one considers them actually good

>Tactically excellent
>Strategically incompetent
>pic even describes it as 'not necessarily fatal' "handicap" with a strong leader

Don't get me wrong, Wehrmacht *soldiers* were fine and dandy, if a little strung out, but the Wehrmacht itself was atrocious at its job.

that graph shows how many civilians died from Poland and Russia

not exactly combat fatalities huh

BAR was fucking garbage.

Polish autism

>especially their blitzkrieg
Blitzkrieg isn't a doctrine. Their doctrine is Schwerpunkt or centre of gravity and the basic premise is to break through at the enemy's weakpoints and then exploit the breakthrough with highly mobile units similar to the storm trooper doctrine they had in WW1.

They did decide to go in on D-Day with a short barreled howitzer M4, which means you cant really say the armor doctrine was good or ahead. Thing could not pen a tiger anywhere. Many american armor crews were massacred in the beginning, but because of our enourmous industry upgraded shermans were rushed in quickly. Remember this is why the British made the firefly, its firepower was incredibly lacking

Actually, not the guy you're responding to, but I want to refute this. It's a myth that the main gun that a normal M4 Sherman had couldn't pen the tiger.

At most ranges that occurred during Operation Overlord, I.E hedgerow country, The Sherman could pen the tiger's armor, even from the front. I know, I sound like a fucking lunatic, right? But, according to American Reports from sherman tank crews, and AARs, the sherman had little trouble with the tiger. A sherman could even fight a tiger 1 on 1 (as long as the range wasn't at NORMAL tank range) and would win. Either through speed, or abusing the mechanical short comings of the tiger.

German tank design's only starchild was the panther. Others were HORRIBLY exploited by the sherman. Contrary to popular belief, though, the sherman didn't spam tigers to death. Nor were they willing to 'sacrifice 4 to bring down 1'. After Operation Overlord, when Allied Airpower was firmly established, you didn't see very many normal tank battles, so the sherman was never TRULY exposed.

Jew or Polish either way scum of the earth.

The Sherman Firefly was specifically built in order to tank out the heavier opponents, like the Panther and Tiger, but it was quickly found that the Fireflys were often not entirely needed all that much.

Also, the short barrled howitzer M4s were decided as a contingent to the D-Day forces not due to the decision that it was going to be fighting tanks. They chose the howitzer in order to destroy fortifications, and as an infantry support vehicle.

Also, they chose to have a significant number of these, because they knew the German armor would not act. By the time they would act in any real dangerous number, the foothold would of already been secured.

Yep. This is possibly the worst poster on Veeky Forums

please leave

t. belton cooper
>They did decide to go in on D-Day with a short barreled howitzer M4, which means you cant really say the armor doctrine was good or ahead.
The 75mm M3 isn't a howitzer. There was a 105mm M4 version that was quite uncommon and requested by armored units as it provided additional firepower.
>Thing could not pen a tiger anywhere.
There wasn't a single Tiger in the American sector in Normandy. Furthermore, it can penetrate the side of the Tiger at ~800m.
>Many american armor crews were massacred in the beginning, but because of our enourmous industry upgraded shermans were rushed in quickly.
American tank crews were not massacred nor were many knocked out by enemy tanks. Most were lost due to AT guns, panzerfausts and AT mines. The losses to enemy tanks were so few that the 76mm wasn't requested by armored units but the 105mm howitzer version was because most targets tanks faced were soft targets.
>Remember this is why the British made the firefly, its firepower was incredibly lacking
The Firefly was a fucking meme. Americans never adopted the Firefly because the 17pdr was a shitty tank gun. Its recoil kicked up a ton of dust, making it hard to impossible to see the tracer at closer ranges and 76mm HVAP was superior in penetration and APDS couldn't hit shit.

How? I don't see the graph making a distinction between POW and combat deaths

The soviets just spammed dozens of men at 1 German until the German died. Not much tactic, m8.

>if a little strung out
cmon meth is great for combat
Like think of it how it must have been like being Ivan, having to pull double the guard duty with no amphetamines whatsoever.

layin da smackdown

Gr8 b8 m8

anyone here play company of heroes? I know it isnt 100% realistic but I feel like the tactics you have to end up using are the ones that were actually used in war, ie the whole artillery doing most of the work, considering infantry can be held at bay with machine guns/fortified emplacements

>executed/starved pows are millitary deaths

>hey let's make a weapon supposed to put down supressive fire with like, a 20 round magazine, lmao

>So much autism and retardation in one thread, holy fuck

the BAR was a catastrophe. fucking 20lbs and only a 20rd magazine

militaryfriend here

Here in canada we are told that our doctrine and command structure comes from the germans.

Our officer gives us his "mission intent" and an "end state" which is a general outline of what needs to be done, the rest of ths planning is done by the subordinate. Decentralized command is another reason why germans were so effective. During WW1 and 2 the british officers would micromanage every aspect of the planning leaving them unflexible on ground.

Post WW2 commonwealth doctrine is based off of the machine gun fore to pin the enemy while an assault element approaches to take the position. We also got that from the germans.

> But, according to American Reports from sherman tank crews, and AARs, the sherman had little trouble with the tiger.
Didn't the American crews keep reporting Tigers everywhere when they were actually seeing Panzer IVs?

>Decentralized command is another reason why germans were so effective.
it also has some pretty large drawbacks though, most notably the absolute shitfest that was german logictics in either ww

Pretty much. To the yanks every armored vehicle with a turret was a tiger.

There were two confirmed Tiger encounters for the US during D-Day. The British fought quite a lot of Tigers (and Panthers), which is why they made the Firefly because of difficulty in penetrating German heavy armor frontally.
That said, it's likely US forces were engaged by and engaged Tigers more than twice during the D-Day fight, but clearly with only two confirmed encounters those Tigers were not knocked out.

Dude, half of Russia's combat casualties come from soldiers who died in POW camps.

Yeah dude great I liked saving private Ryan too but "we" didn't win because of our doctrine. We won because of the behemothic scale on the eastern front. If there wasn't an eastern front and Hitler had betrayed Stalin after conquering Europe, it would have been a much different story.

>the sound that's made before they pop up and shoot you

There are applications for either. For example I'd rather have a unit composed of select fire rifles and carbines for kicking down doors and general urban warfare such as Iraq, and rifles with magnification (preferably more than the 4x that the acog offers) for open fighting like Afghanistan.

Soo the soviets

>balts
>allied

Ayylmao

When you realize most of Lithuanian casulties were holocausted Jews, it makes sense.

Same for hungary, but they're considered axis

Russians did that too.
Something about Panzer IV with armoured skirts around it's turret making it's silhouette look like a Tiger from long distances.

>select fire rifles and carbines
>general urban warfare
God you are retarded

If they were tactically excellent then they were not atrocious at their job.

>Hitler was stupid
>the Wehrmacht was actually total shit
>the Luftwaffe was actually total shit
>the High Command and German Generals were all actually total shit
>Germany didn't know shit about science
>German tanks and weapons were total shit
>somehow being outnumbered 3:1 they still managed to conquer most of continental Europe but they're still total shit

there is no nuance here it's just /pol/ vs. anti-/pol/

>Hitler was stupid
He was crazy, which is somewhat different. Whenever he took command over his generals he fucked something up, like sending two different tank armies through a region with only a single road, leading to both of them being disorganized and slowed down.

>the Wehrmacht was actually total shit
It worked well for what it did, and was probaly superior on the tactical level, mostly thanks to a much more efficient doctrin, including armored breakthroughs, close air support and decentralized command. Strategically it was sup-par though

>the Luftwaffe was actually total shit
Against other air forces? Sure. But they were goat at supporting ground assaults.

And so on. It`s retards being retards while not looking at the general performance, just focusing on one piece that support their worldview.

The Americans didn't adopy the 17pdr because of a gun that didn't exist at the time, and didn't find its way into Europe on an American tank until like three months before the war ended?

Superb logic.

I'm an empiricist. I think for you to make an assertion you have to have clear evidence of it first and foremost, before you can even get started on actually proving it. So you could say, "the Italian Army was subpar, I will start by listing the fact that they had numerous losses against weaker opponents such as Greece, then I will solidify my point by listing the details that made this so." I simply cannot conceive how someone could pretend that German organization and military tactics were "subpar" given the shit they gave the entire world around them for a solid 5 years before having to recede thanks to running out of gas. It seems like some of the most armchair intellectualism possible.

>Well look, the allies won in the end

Really can't hurt to have 5 times as many men and resources as the people you're fighting huh

Also HVAP rounds were never even issued to Sherman tanks, HVAP went to tank destroyer units also equipped with the 76mm gun.

Less War Thunder, more history books.

>An order for 20,000 HVAP rounds was issued in the late summer, but production never kept up to demand because of shortages of tungsten. This production was to be equally divided between 76mm and 3 inches, the latter for the M10 3-inch GMC tank destroyer. The HVAP ammunition underwent continual refinement throughout the autumn and was finally type-classified as the M93 76mm fixed shot HVAP-T in February 1945. The first distribution of HVAP ammunition to tank units took place in Belgium on September 11, 1944 to the 3rd Armored Division and the 746th Tank Battalion."
amazon.com/76mm-Sherman-Medium-1943-65-Vanguard/dp/1841765422

>Not ensuring adequate logistic support for Babarossa
>Not taking Gibraltar
>Trying to invade Britain when you lack the capacity to hold on to any beachhead
>No break out at Stalingrad
I could go on. These were major failures at the largest scale, each of them weakening the german forces.

On the tactical level Germany was goat though, just look at the battle for france, which was almost stopped by high command because they feared that they were advancing too fast.

What was garbage about it aside from your opinions?

>pretend it was a fair fight

Literally who says this

Here's another one

books.google.com/books?id=SOTDzoncMroC&pg=PA119&lpg=PA119&dq=Our tank crews had some success with the HVAP 76mm ammunition. However, at no time have we been able to secure more then five rounds per tank and in recent actions this has been reduced to a maximum of two rounds, and in many tanks all this type has been expended without being replaced&source=bl&ots=xfQ04Z9bFK&sig=6wNjnxfARqrwf2CbVkGbIT5JgvY&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwja-63M4c7RAhVH2IMKHfJXAOIQ6AEIHDAA#v=onepage&q=Our tank crews had some success with the HVAP 76mm ammunition. However, at no time have we been able to secure more then five rounds per tank and in recent actions this has been reduced to a maximum of two rounds, and in many tanks all this type has been expended without being replaced&f=false

>As soon as the first M93 HVAP rounds came off the production line, they were transported by air to Northwest Europe around August 1944, and then to the tankers in the field. Each 76mm-gun-armed M4 series tank was supposed to have a moderate supply of this special ammunition.

>Major Paul A. Bane Jr., of the 2nd armored division, comments in a wartime report, "Our tank crews have had some success with the HVAP 76mm ammunition. However, at no time have we been able to secure more than five rounds per tank and in recent actions this has been reduced to a maximum of two rounds, and in may tanks all this type has been expended without being replaced."

1943+ Red army, no one besides Soviets had half of frontline toops armed with submachineguns.

I think you can look back on big picture failures mostly attributed to their HC, yes. As a fighting force though if I'm given a choice between an equal sized, equally supplied and positioned army derived from any of the major players in some kind of arena simulation I'm going with the Germans. It seems like the only military that actually faced a similar land challenge as them was the USSR, in the first place.

No one but communists or fascists could completely dedicate economic production to spamming tanks, planes, and smg's and I don't think the ghost of Germany was going to accomplish it at this stage.

>As a fighting force though if I'm given a choice between an equal sized, equally supplied and positioned army derived from any of the major players in some kind of arena simulation I'm going with the Germans.

Not him, but you might want to look up the progress of the Italian campaign from 43-45.

What do you mean? The joint Allied campaign in Italy?

Yes, the one where the Germans actually had numerical superiority against the Anglo-American forces, and still got steadily forced back and took heavier casualties than they inflicted.

Furthermore, operational failure (which happened quite a bit) could and did lead them to sticking themselves into inferior positions: You don't get Crusader without an overextended DAK on an offensive that its own staff knew it couldn't sustain. You don't get things like Bagration or Jassny-Kishniev without badly misplacing mobile assets in response to Soviet moves and deception campaigns. Overlooking that is foolish.

American weapons had 3x price of Soviet or German

They won because the USSR produced more T-34s than Germany produced tanks in total throughout the war, they won because the US produced more Shermans in total throughout the war than Germany produced tanks in total. They won because while Japan was struggling to churn out one aircraft carrier at a time, the US was easily shitting out seven aircraft carriers at a time, and likely could have adapted their productive capabilities to shit out more if they so wished. They won because Germany with all their additional territories was looking at about 80something million people to reliably recruit from, while both the US and USSR was at 120+ million, add to that the 25% of the world's population under the Commonwealth against the 60 something million Japanese. They won because the majority of South America was feeding the allies. They won because while the Germans and Japanese had taken them all with their pants down early in the war with tactics way a head of the allies, they failed monstrously to adapt to a losing war when they didn't get the quick victory they absolutely needed. Both the Germans and the Japanese could have been the absolute superman the axisboos want to belive, and it still wouldn't have helped them in the long run.

What makes you think they had numerical superiority? Maybe upon the initial invasion (naturally) but not after it was sustained. And these were poorly trained B-team German and Italian bastardized divisions with, again, bad supply lines as the last remnants of their strength were in Eastern Europe. Once you established a beachhead it was a matter of pressing the attack.

I don't deny Germany's biggest failure was in overstretching themselves in a war that saw them fighting 4 fronts, or that they didn't make mistakes. Their hope was rapid conditional surrender and once that didn't happen it was a gradual death. I'm still taking 1941 Germany over anyone else who bought time thanks to distinct geographical advantages over an aggressor that thought they had the oil and logistics to steamroll the planet.

>military """doctrine"""

Literally as autistic as calling out your anime attack names. Just use common sense and attack.

Yeah but no one cares about slavs, chinks and indians.

>genocide shitloads of civilians in occupied countries
WE DID IT GUYS, WEHRMACHT BEST ARMY EVER, MUH KILL RATIO

>What makes you think they had numerical superiority?

By reading up about the campaign?

amazon.com/Path-Victory-Mediterranean-Theater-World/dp/0374529760

>Maybe upon the initial invasion (naturally) but not after it was sustained.

No, seriously. The Germans committed more divisions and artillery (but not airplanes or naval vessels) than the Allies did; this is part of the reason that the Allies ran into trouble in the mountainous areas, and had to advance by slow infiltration techniques instead of just blasting through.

>And these were poorly trained B-team German and Italian bastardized divisions with

No, they weren't. The Italian govenrment had surrendered and the overwhelming majority of their forces disbanded by the time of Operation Avalanche. Units like the 76th and 14th Panzer corps were not "B team"; in fact, I've never once seen the claim that the units on the western or Med fronts were substantially inferior than the ones on the Eastern Front, where, don't forget, we have people like the Hungarians and the Romanians filling out large portions of Wehrmacht orgcharts.

>, bad supply lines as the last remnants of their strength were in Eastern Europe.

Please cite ANY of those claims.

> Once you established a beachhead it was a matter of pressing the attack.

Except of course, that things like the Gothic and Bernhardt lines held up the Allies far more so than the beach defenses at Salerno.

>I'm still taking 1941 Germany over anyone else who bought time thanks to distinct geographical advantages over an aggressor that thought they had the oil and logistics to steamroll the planet.

If you're solely restricting your analysis to 1941, then yes, the Germans are ahead. By later on in the war, they had been passed, and they weren't just defeated by lack of fuel; they were outfought, and badly outfought, as things dragged on.

I have no idea about infantry doctrine (leaning German personally), but as to armor doctrine, well, look at Arracourt.
>4th Armored Division loses 25 tanks (mix of Shermans and Stuarts) and 7 tank destroyers
>Germany loses 200 tanks, most of them Panthers
>so badly trained that a large chunk of the Panthers disabled themselves before reaching battle

>I've never once seen the claim that the units on the western or Med fronts were substantially inferior than the ones on the Eastern Front, where, don't forget, we have people like the Hungarians and the Romanians filling out large portions of Wehrmacht orgcharts.

I said this badly. What I meant to say was not that I hadn't seen the claim, but that I haven't seen the claim proven; it's often just asserted without any supporting evidence, or if evidence is given, it's that the beach defenses at D-Day were third echelon units, as if there weren't rearguard forces out East as well.

It's because it's blatantly false. The Western Allies faced veteran units multiple times after D-Day, notably during Market Garden, Battle of the Bulge and Fortress Metz.

worldoftanks.com/en/news/21/The_Chieftains_Hatch_Firefly/
A Firefly was made available to the Americans for testing in winter 1943-1944.
The result was that in combat situations, the 76mm Sherman was more practical.

Very true, but i doubt a "centralized" logistics system wouldve changed the outcome of the war by much, the shortages also due to limited access to war resources overall. When the US got into the war (and before) the allies got logistic supremacy. In terms of resources the germans didnt have enough to sustain total war and its impressive they made it as far as they did.

Rommel definitely got fucked by shitty logistics in africa.

>Rommel definitely got fucked by shitty logistics in africa.

In large part due to his own strategic blundering. His biggest problem wasn't even getting supplies to theater; it was getting them out of Tripoli to a front line around Tobruk a lot of the time.

dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a348413.pdf

Which is, of course, why his mission was defensive, not offensive; but the problem wasn't one of overall resources that couldn't be divided up properly, the problem was the local infrastructure (or lack thereof) and refusal to plan taking that into account.

>background pic is a Russian soldier shooting cilivilans
Really makes you think

>design a weapon around literally walking forward across No Man's Land and shooting.
>make it a huge, heavy piece of shit with a tiny magazine.

That thing was a trainwreck. Its successes are largely from its ubiquity and solid action rather than actual tactical utility.

...

Sounds like they should add "muh photoshop" to that gif

Actually not true, despite the famous quote by Stalin that quantity is the best quality.

There were many soviet innovation in infantry and urban military theory, like soviet deep combat that were responsible for winning Stalingrad, not waves and waves of meat shields as enemy at the gates or COD finest hour would have you believe.

When they were doing human waves and barrier squads, 1941, is when they did the worst. It went horribly for them.

Weight, shitty bipod in later versions, no single shot, shit capacity. It was grossly unsuited to the role it was use din, and too fucking heavy for anything else.

There's a reason the concept died entirely unitl the marines went full retard.

>Nearly all of the "casualties" the Germans inflicted were executed civilians and POWs
POWs are themselves casualties.
Civilians aren't even counted as casualties to begin with.

Officers in the borscht battalion got em too. And up until a friendly fire incident in the middle East, so did the us.