This is not a /pol/ thread

How elite were the Waffen SS as a fighting force?

They were the greatest warriors of last millenia.

well they fuckin lost so shitty.

The Wehrmacht generals didn't believe in their capabilities as an effective fighting force

>((()))

Early on in the war, not very elite at all.

By the end of the war they were way worse than the Wehrmacht.

The thing that really differentiated the SS from the Wehrmacht was their status as an ideologically-oriented force. That, and their greater tendency to commit war crimes.

Literally this. They only appear to be good because they're compared to the Italian Army.

they werent. They were a meme that was regularly BTFO and were hated by the Wehrmacht for their retardation. The only group that was actually somewhat competent were Das Reich, all the other ones were a hilarious embarrassment, like the 30th waffen SS division, which was made up of ukranians and sent to fight in France. They got their asses kicked, then just murdered their commanders and joined the Free French forces.

the idea that the SS were special forces or something isnt true at all. To put it simply, they were just Hitlers personal army dedicated to him and his cause, as opposed to the wehrmacht which was the army of Germany.

Very good at wiping out Russian/Polish/Yugoslav etc villages. Better than any other divisions during the entire war at doing that.

Even the best divisions of the Waffen SS routinely suffered very disproportionate casualties and losses of hardware and supplies in comparison to regular Heer divisions. A fairly recurring theme would be keeping them on the front line until their wasteful tactics had rendered them so thinly stretched as to be a danger to the stability of the line. At this point they'd be withdrawn, resupplied, refitted and reinforced. After this the division would return with a core consisting of fairly experienced NCOs (not because of their great training and not necessarily good leaders either, but rather the lower ranking enlisted who'd won at survival of the fittest (and inherently lucky)) and vast numbers of fanatic, green as grass enlisted men and officers, and the cycle would be repeated.

Besides the Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler, Das Reich, Wiking, and one or two other divisions that I'm forgetting, they were pretty shit. It's not that their training was amazing or anything, it's that those four divisions were at the top of the lists for supplies and replacements.

A mixed bag in terms of combat effectiveness, but they were all well supplied and fanatical so that counts for something. I would imagine by the end of the war some of the more seasoned divisions were pretty damn skilled since SS were often sent into heavy fighting. Early on they were pretty inexperienced since they were primarily a political organization. I don't think they got any special combat related training beyond what their equivalent Wehrmacht units would have gotten. I would guess some of the SS divisions would have been the equal of similar "named" divisions in the regular army.

>filename

pretty sure US soldiers in WW2 germany didn't have AKs

They were well motivated and fanaticized but also extremely reckless in actual combat. LSSAH division was for example completely obliterated by the end of 1941 and only managed to refit in 1943, when it was once again destroyed at Kursk.

Wehrmacht preffered to use them as cannon fodder, throwing them wherever too risky and dangerous. They were better at commiting warcrimes than actual battle.

What do you infer with this post?

>mfw reading about how the Wehrmacht and Waffen SS "were not on speaking terms" by 1945

jesus christ, how does that happen in a military

i don't think even the IJA and IJN disintegrated to that point

Superbly fanatical
The last forces fighting in Berlin was an ss Charl*'magne division with french larpers

A few divisions did pretty well (wiking, das reich, hitler jugen) but the rest were kinda shit

They had a few elite formations, but by and large, they were mediocre compared to the Heer. They get most of their reputation for being willing to fight in the last, hopeless days of the war, when the general Wehrmacht just surrendered; but that has little to do with bravery or skill, more that they weren't recognized as a legitimate military and were often looking at being hanged as war criminals if they surrendered.

Because the SS got more priority for new equipment and didn't really deserve it considering their propensity to get those resources knocked out in stupid piecemeal offensives

Wrong. The IJA and IJN have literally left each other to get BTFO by Americans.

Take the Liberation of the Philippines for example. The IJA advocated that they all head to the mountains of the Northernmost bit of the Philippines to better defend from Murricunts. The IJN said no tenno heika banzai and defend Manila to the last man.

The IJA pretty much then abandoned the navy to die in Manila. The IJA pocket in the mountains of the Northern Philippines lasted up to the surrender.

>the IJA literally had to build their own supply submarines to supply their forces by the end of the war
Why were the japs so autistic?

>The IJA pretty much then abandoned the navy to die in Manila.

i don't know much about the pacific, but shouldn't it have been the opposite way around?

how did the IJA abandon the IJN on an island archipelago?

They were pretty good at dying

Didn't you read my post? The IJA forces in the Philippines never left, they just went to a more defensible position and left the navy to die their edgy deaths in Manila.

The IJN kept going off on leroy-jenkins tier suicide missions where they'd rush the american fleet with cruisers and destroyers and get torpedo planed' to death. The IJA refused to go on simultaneous offensives on land while the IJA did whatever they wanted.

>Because the SS got more priority for new equipment and didn't really deserve it considering their propensity to get those resources knocked out in stupid piecemeal offensives

i know logistical priority is one of the main reasons for the breakup bet WH and SS, cant remember the more significant one, probably something about ideology or grand strategy (or lack thereof).

>The IJA refused to go on simultaneous offensives on land while the IJA did whatever they wanted.

but how would the the IJA going on a simultaneous assault on land help the IJN?

oh wait, let me guess, that's what the IJA asked and the IJN basically did the autist screech in locked bulkheads until the ship went down? legit asking, i dont know the pacific very much.

There were like 2 or 3 divisions that were worth a shit, the rest were glorified Boy Scouts with a tendency for war crimes.

The Wehrmacht were the ones who bore the brunt of the fighting.

It would have been to draw allied airplanes away from the IJN going all leroy jenkins. Honestly, if I was the commander of the IJA in the philipines I would have said "sure, bro" just so I didnt have to listen to their fucking radio messages any more.
>YFW FOW lists SS units as FV, not FC

>Honestly, if I was the commander of the IJA in the philipines I would have said "sure, bro" just so I didnt have to listen to their fucking radio messages any more.

i thought the IJN was supposed to be less retarded? naval forces generally have to be more cautious and calculating than land counterparts. what happened?

>Honestly, if I was the commander of the IJA in the philipines I would have said "sure, bro" just so I didnt have to listen to their fucking radio messages any more.

i think that's more acceptable in the west than the east, i remember reading about germans doing that? didn't rommel do that a lot?

>I thought the IJN was supposed to be less retarded
They literally attacked pearl harbor, they weren't exactly strategic geniuses

>gets new tanks
>drives directly into AT gun

The SS were the soldiers of the Nazi party itself. It would be like if in the USA, the Republican party had its own military, or like if other major parties in any western democracy had one.

But that's because they were guaranteed hanging when surrendering because treason. They rather take a few ruskies before they were killed or captured.

>It would be like if in the USA, the Republican party had its own military

It would be more like if Trump had his own personal army. The SA was the paramilitary of the nazi party, the SS was the paramilitary of hitler

Good point.

M8 it would be more like if the KKK had their own army

just like my video games

what gaem?

So wait, the SS was basically retarded?

Are there other militaries that had a retard branch like the Nazis did with the SS?

I was led to believe that the 12th SS panzer did extremely well at normandy though?

>M8 it would be more like if the KKK had their own army

Nigga, the KKK along with the Red Shirts and White League were basically the armed wing of the Democratic Party until the 1880s

nothing worth spending your time on, senpai

>So wait, the SS was basically retarded?

it turns out that ideology cannot, in fact, overcome trivial things like strategy, tactics and logistics.

Army =/= a bunch of armed hillbillies

1st, 2nd, 3rd and 12th were good. They mostly sucked up resources and died too much.

please tell me user, my time isnt exactly valuable

Coh 2, it's fun enough but wehraboo as fuck.

in that case, think of your blood pressure.

i'm thinking of taking norvask again because of the game/community that i wish i had never known of.

For a bunch of kids yeah.

A lot of people say the waffen-ss had priority on equipment and weapons but I had the impression only the original 3 had this privilege. The others had to do with captured and outdated equipment.

user im 20 i dont have to worry about my blood pressure for at least 25 more years

>A lot of people say the waffen-ss had priority on equipment and weapons but I had the impression only the original 3 had this privilege. The others had to do with captured and outdated equipment.

everyone was using captured/obsolete equipment, but the waffen ss got high priority for new equipment when refitted.

and obviously the 36th Waffen SS wouldn't get the same priority as the 1st LSAH.

They had the best equipment, and early on the best equipment, but their fanaticism (belief that will and determination could stop a bullet) lead to 75%+ casualties in many major conflicts. Which in turn lead them to be replaced with lesser skilled and younger soldiers.

>Are there other militaries that had a retard branch like the Nazis did with the SS?
Basically any unit in the Arab world called the Republican Guard

The Waffen SS is generally what happens when you have a paranoid government who has to internally police its own ranks, as well as that of the people they watch.

Besides the SS, you have what has said. Also in the People's Republic of China, the Party relied on the Militia for policing both the populace and the People's Liberation Army. People like Mao's Red Guards ultimately came from Militia outfits.

Which is why Post-Mao, Deng's China and the Modern PRC spent the last 30-40 years defanging the Militia until today they're just China's Gendarmerie/Armed Police Force.

>your in North Korea with some Marines in the '50s when pairs of gooks start doing drive-bys with SKS' and bicycles at your platoon
What do

whip out ma deuce

They were a bloated, oversupplied inefficient mess. Good equipment, shitty tactics.

That's like saying Napoleon's Old Guard was a group of conscripts you fucking idiot.

I get the sense this one isn't an american. Armed hillbillies are the oldest special forces guerilla warefare experts this continent has except maybe the Apache.
They outperformed the colonial british in the seven years war, then played the primary war in the american revolution.
Hell, the american civil war was more along the lines of armed hillbillies wanting independence than anything else.

couple of misconceptions ITT
>they were fanatical
not any more than your avarage german, however the general idea among them was soviet dont take prisoners, makes you fight harder, ppl probably draw such conclusions from the hitlerjugend divisons losses in 1944 on the west (needlessly throwing their lives away)

>they had the best equipment
not really, most of the non panzer/panzergrenadier divisons had roughly the same shitty equipment as any other wehmacht unit

>waffen SS had priority
not really, armored and mobile divisions had priority, some happened to be SS, some didnt

its much better if you look at divisons indivudually, by doing that you can ignore about half of them for being shitty, hastly organized volunteer divisons from minorities, allies, poorly equiped and trained, not much use apart from occupation

then some of the traditional ones like the Polizai, the Florian Geyer which are not quite up there with the panzers, but still youll see them perform in action from time to time

and lastly the Totenkopf, AH, Das Reich, Wiking, Hohenstaufen which were the fire brigades of the reich

After Barbarossa the germans started to have difficulties with manpower, which became a severe after Stalingrad and got worse and worse, to the point where battalion of a panzergrenadier SS regiment shrunk to 100 ppl or less, often consisting of supply train personel, yet somehow, they always put up a fight againts anyone

3 or 4 divisions were quite good, rest was Volksturm with shit morale.

SS not the wehrmacht you dense cunts

Only a few Waffen SS divisions could actually be considered as "Elite"

They had the best k/d ratio of all the WW2 units.

And only for the first few years of the war, before Hitler got the shits with the Heer and let the Waffen SS conscript

>They were a meme that was regularly BTFO and were hated by the Wehrmacht for their retardation.
Not at all true. This is a meme made up by Clean Wehrmacht proponents. Many Wehrmacht veterans have stated that they liked the SS

more like d/k

No they didn't
I think that reputation has more to do with Heer command hating them for being upstart shits

>No they didn't
They did

(spoiler)I'm counting women and children too(/spoiler)

> the SS was basically retarded?
They weren't retarded, they just weren't as good as people like to claim
Some units performed exceedingly well but others flopped and weren't capable of much more than getting killed and committing war crimes

Are you saying the SS didn't lose?

you will like the guy who rolls in with tanks to relieve you from soviets, even if its for a few days/weeks

Probably the Einsatzgruppen

Not a combat unit

They put their lives on the line every day risking a ricochet off the back of a skull

no, the skull shattered and they were covered in brain/blood depending on what weapon were they using

usually an MP40 for mass killings

Because they were potential enemies in a hypotetical civil war. The SS was created so Hitler and the Nazis could have their own army in case of a military coup by the Wermaht.

Kek

Every one here is talking out their ass not providing source for their claims.

So how many types of SS were there? Weren't the Gestapo part of the SS?

They weren't elite. They were closer to a well-coddled paramilitary group than a military unit.

There was the Waffen SS, which is the ones that actually went into battle with tanks and machine guns ect who actually fought in the war. This is like the guys at the end of Saving Private ryan

Then there was the Allgemeine SS, which were more bureaucrats types and police and management who ran government agencies and were in charge of intelligence. This is like what Hans Landa was in Inglorious Bastards. this is also what the Gestapo fell under

Then there was the Totenkopfverbände SS, which were the ones who ran and managed the concentration camps

There were more within these three groups of course, but that was the main three parts that made up the SS.

What about these combat SS made up of non-germans?

Hitler admired the Muslim religion.

Source?

>The IJA were literally building and operating their own aircraft carriers
JUST

What the hell was wrong with the Japanese military anyways?! From this thread and from what I already knew, its starting to look like the Japanese Army was also a navy, and the Japanese Navy was also an army, and these two were rival militaries kept trying to one-up each other and kept doing their own thing. Am I getting the right Idea here?

but does k/d even really matter?

forgot image