Lets consider just the major powers for simplicity's sake. Would a soviet infantryman conscripted shortly after the German invasion have any chance of surviving till the end of the war? How about German and Japanese servicemen. Would they basically be fucked due to ever increasing conscription policies. Meaning that nearing the end of the war they would be forced to fight again even if they received a military discharge. I know there's a lot of variables involved with the basic premise, but I'm just wondering if it would be possible to survive the war if you were basically fighting since day one.
Very good point. As a first wave German recruit you were fucked
Liam Peterson
I know it MUST have happened, because there are accounts from people like Otto Carius, who enlisted before the war, and served right up into 45. But it must've been quite uncommon.
Sebastian Moore
>Would a soviet infantryman conscripted shortly after the German invasion have any chance of surviving till the end of the war? millions did USSR mobilized 35 million people they had 10 million irrecoverable military losses give or take a few you don't have to be a mth ace to see where this is going
Ryan Thomas
>As a first wave German recruit you were fucked Presumably some of those early recruits were captured in Barbarossa and survived 15 years in gulag, only getting home in 1956
Parker Foster
U-Boot crews had a 75% casualty rate
Kevin Howard
Im guessing the the fatality rate would be very close, if not equal to that due to being in a metal tube under the sea.
Liam Reed
>due to being in a metal tube under the sea While being hunted by the world experts in finding and destroying metal tubes under the sea
Noah Walker
Pretty much. One sub even managed to kill its crew twice.
I wonder if those early POWs got a slightly better treatment because the brutality of the eastern front was still in its infancy.
Jordan Rogers
It's very unlikely that there were any German POWs from Barbarossa. The first defeats come from operations like Uranus, Tornado, Citadel, Case Blue etc.
Bentley Rogers
>Tornado fuck. Typhoon.
William Gray
True, but Im willing to bet those statistics change drastically when you discriminate between combat arms and support.
Chase Long
>It's very unlikely that there were any German POWs from Barbarossa. they were some
usually Russians didn't just take prisoners, they killed the Germans on the spot, sometimes they tortured and mutilated(the usual cutting and putting their genital in their mouths them first, by December the Russians only had 10.000 prisoners
Leo Jenkins
>survive the war alone for 33 years
Jonathan Hall
My grandfather was conscripted in '39, and wounded and captured at the very end. Spent most of the time in the east.
Joseph Sanders
Captured by the russians?
Julian Hernandez
>killing farmers I mean, there's doing your duty and there's being an autistic retard who cant come to the logical conclusion the war ended.
Leo Young
If you lived in the areas between the eastern German border and the Moscow (so Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, chunks of Russia, the Baltics) you had a roughly 1/5 chance of death between 1939 and 1945. More specifically:
Poland: 20% population loss (5.9 million dead) Belarus: 26% population loss (2.3 million dead) Ukraine: 17% population loss (6.9 million dead) Baltics: 14% population loss (0.75 million dead) Russia: 13% population loss (14 million dead)* *Includes areas east of Moscow.
Jaxon Wood
penal battalions is probably the worst job
Gavin Phillips
>5.9 million oy vey
Thomas Clark
He and the other 2 crazies that didn't realize the war ended for 25 years are some of my favorites. >The most interesting thing is that when Shoichi Yokoi was captured he said that he was aware that the war was over since 1954, but he was too ashamed to return. The Japanese soldiers were taught that it is more honorable to die than to be captured by the enemy. His words when he returned to Japan became a popular saying in the country: “It is with much embarrassment, but I have returned.”
Sebastian Butler
The fact that he killed civilians while knowing the war was over is inexcusable. Thats utterly disgusting and in no way deserves hero worship.
Connor Richardson
Yeah, then had a nice stay in a Ukrainian Gulag for for a few years
Lincoln Morales
It depends entirely on where you're deployed and when
Germans had it worse because pretty much every German soldier would go through combat, whereas most US infantry actually never saw direct or fierce combat
Hudson Jones
There's some US rule that says they won't go to war if they believe the casualities of the war will be over 12%, even ww1 and ww2 weren't over 12%. This includes 12% of all military combat personnel, which shows how most soldiers don't get wounded
Owen Morgan
Where did you get that?
Aiden Green
I cant remember, it was a long time ago. It could be bullshit.
Benjamin Peterson
Christ, more than a 25% chance of becoming a fatality. I wonder what the casualty rate was. The soviets bled a lot during wwII. No wonder they were harsh in their response.
Noah Bennett
My grandmother's brother was conscripted too, on the German side. I don't know the details but he fought at Stalingrad, survived and died after coming back home a few years after the war. He was French.
Noah Sullivan
That sounds like propaganda. While I have no doubt German POWs were treated quite badly, mutilation seems like something Goebbels would come up with.
