Was wehrmacht the most powerful army in mankind's history?

Yeah, you'll notice I wrote Poland twice, it was meant to be France

There are a number of reasons why they wouldn't have been able to conquer Russia, and while the weather didn't help, it was more that there was no way to sustain the manpower needed to do it while still fighting on the western front. They would've had to focus everything on just Russia, and even then there was no guarantee.

Now, if we want to discuss invasions that actually would've worked if not for the weather, then these guys are ones to talk about. The changes in Russian weather made it extremely difficulty for them to transport everything they needed. Plus there was the whole thing about the succession decisions after the Khan died, too. Even then they still fucked things up real bad.

Lmao, Yes. Russians were basically saved by dumb luck, and Had Hitler pushed on Moscow in August like he was told, Russians would all be speaking German now (a small bunch that would survive General plan Ost I mean)

Not very fair to compare 1800's warfare with 1940's

>unironically forgot the factories in Siberia and the huge burger supplies of vehicles and "food"
Hitler lost the war when it started, but he accelerated his faith with attacking his only good trade connection, the Soviets. I don't know what was the most "powerful army" but the red army destroyed the Germans thanks to Hitler's retarded no retreat policy.

Ain't it what OP did?
If anything, WW2 warfare was much swifter than Napoleonic warfare

>Russia basically took them down alone, and its a fact.

>the French got too cocky thinking that the Germans wouldn't dare use the same route as in the first war.
Actually it was the opposite, the French thought the Germans would try to go through Belgium again, which was why thats where half of the French army, including all of the elite forces were. The Germans went through the Ardennes, bypassing Belgium which cut the French forces in two. The forces in Belgium tried to turn around and fight their way back into France but the roads were so badly clogged with refugees they got bogged down, cut off, and destroyed.

It IS a fucking fact you brainlet. Russians won the war alone, 90% of Krauts died in the east.

...

If we're not talking about relative to it's day then obviously the us military of today is the most powerful in human history.

Viewed in context it's much less impressive.

Poland was a far weaker foe (less than 1/10 their industrial capacity and a largely static army) they gang banged with a fellow great power. However the Poles still put up a Valiant effort. Evacuating 150,000 soldiers to form units in the west, a couple hundred thousand others underground to form a resistance, 250,000 to surrender to the Soviets instead of the Germans (and eventually form units in the east), inflicting 50,000 casualties on German spear points and knocking out 1/4 of all their armor and air forces, and waging a guerilla war over the next five years that costed the Germans another 200,000 casualties and loads of material.

Denmark and Norway didn't have much military might to speak of.

France (they didn't have much British support, just one mobile field army) + the Low Countries constituted a near peak foe to Germany. They won handily, in probably their most impressive victory. But it was a very close run thing. A few extra divisions at Sedan easily could've turned the whole thing into a German defeat. As would Hitler NOT vetoing the original plan in favor of the Manstein Plan.

Their naval and air war against Britain was a failure.

Greece fell with almost literally no resistance because 75% of their men were engaged against the Italians in ALBANIA and even these men were a month away from totally running out of ammunition. Greece would have fallen with or without Germany.

Yugoslavia was in chaos due to multiple coups when the Germans and their allies invaded from every angle. And was a relatively small and poor state as well. Despite this, about half the Yugoslav army escaped the German invasion and formed partisan units. The ensuing partisan war would be a stiff fight for Germany.

>poles think anyone conquering their weak shithole is a superman

Lmao

>standard issue bolt action rifles in 1940

lel no

*cough* MG42. STG44.

Honestly, Europe as a whole was ready to just get blown over by a strong wind at that point. Much of it was still fucked from WWI.

Considering how much of Germany's power and resources were devoted to developing their army and the overall war effort, the fact that they didn't conquer even more than they did says a lot about the difference in leadership quality between them and their opponents.

The invasion of France, as you mentioned, was really their most significant victory, but it didn't take long (relatively speaking) before momentum got turned right around back on them.

Britain had a standard issue bolt action rifle in the 40s, too.

Do you know what "standard issue" means. The 98k was still the standard issue rifle in 1945 hahahahaha.

>muh german engineering!

When the Germans invaded the USSR, they had a massive advantage in literally everything. Every part of Europe except Britain and the USSR itself was either an ally, a territory, or a satellite. The USSR was horribly outmatched. Despite this, the Germans' arrogance and poor planning meant they were able to hold back a drastically stronger enemy for two whole years before WAllied support became decisive.

The last two years of the war, when the Americans got involved in force, constitutes the only real time of the war where the Germans were clear underdogs. With the Americans and their near limitless resources landing 4 million superbly equipped and fully mechanized troops in Europe, plus another 2 million other Allied (mostly Commonwealth) troops, while launching the Combined Air Offensive and supplying heavy Lend Lease to the USSR, it was bound to be a hard fight.

Surprise, when actually outmatched the Germans got their fucking asses kicked across the continent. The Soviets in the east never possessed a more than 2-1 advantage in numbers on the strategic level yet with American support still rolled the Germans back from Kursk to Berlin. Meanwhile the Americans and WAlliedv forces invaded southern and western Europe and completely annihilated the Germans, inflicting some 2 million killed or wounded and taking 6 million prisoners, at the cost of about a million casualties of their own in total.

Yea and the BAF fared about as well as the Wehrmacht.

I'm not saying which is better, I'm just saying it's not that surprising. Soviets and Japs also had standard issue bolt action rifles.

Soviets already had SVT-40.

It's a little surprising considering the Americans developed the M1 in 1936. And it's not as if the Germans couldn't make semi-auto rifles, it was actually part of their tactics to use bolt-action because they though individual riflemen were relatively useless and preferred using their machine guns. That line of thinking gives further legitimacy to the idea that the Wehrmacht was not the greatest army of all time. It wasn't even the greatest army in their time.

>Model 1891/30: The most prolific version of the Mosin–Nagant. It was produced for standard issue to all Soviet infantry from 1930 to 1945

I'm not arguing whether it was great or the greatest. I'm a Garandboo if anything, I'm saying that "lel they used bolt-actions" isn't really an argument when most nations standard issue were bolt actions back then.

Maybe, but most of the worst atrocities were later in the war after the drug use had subsided.

Who gives a fuck about k98? MG42 alone slaughtered much more Allied troops than any other weapon. Allies were incapable of creating anything that could even rival MG42 of STG44.

"lel they used bolt-actions" is certainly an argument if we're trying to decide if the wehrmact was the greatest army of all time. using the same standard issue weapon as most other armies at the time does not give much support to the idea that the wehrmact was GOAT.

Moving on from weapons, the Nazi (Wehrmact) chain of command was full retard. It's fucking hilarious looking at Nazi chain of command, it's no wonder they got thrashed by any real military units they encountered.

>And it's not as if the Germans couldn't make semi-auto rifles

It is exactly like that. Krauts could NOT enginerr semi auto rifles. Their G43 was a patheitc copy of Soviet SVT40 and notorious for breaking down like piece of shit it was.

>Allies were incapable of creating anything that could even rival MG42 of STG44

If only machine gun squads were more powerful than riflemen. The results of US and USSR forces on the field speak for themselves friendo. General Patton called the M1 the "greatest implement of battle ever devised."

>is certainly an argument if we're trying to decide if the wehrmact was the greatest army of all time.
Honestly I'd say this devolves into what one means by "greatest", if we mean technologically greatest yes Germany was far from the "greatest", amerika bomber projekt was a meme, too. I'd say war is more than just winning via small arms.

T.i never studied a real WWII History book ever

80%.

However, the thing about industrial warfare is not where you spend your lives, but where you spend your steel. Germany spent devoted more manpower to the east, but more resources to the west, due to the naval and air nature of the war.

Don’t forget that time their entire invasion fleet was destroyed by a typhoon on the way to Japan.

Also, mentioning the weather in Barbarossa is fucking ridiculous because the Nazis didn't start the offensive UNTIL FUCKING JUNE. It's their fault they didn't start months earlier.

Don't mind these ignorants, but also Tito and french resistance where a fucking pain for the germans

Wrong. They spend ALL of their resources on the East, untill mid 1944 when war was already practically over.

lol. Do you have any idea how many submarines and aircraft were lost in the Atlantic theater?

The invasion of France was a political defeat... why do people fucking talk about stuff on this board when they aren't even educated ???

And those are completely fucking worthless, and irreleveant compared to one Pz 4 on the Eastern front?

Probably the greatest example of a nation being saved from conquest by sheer luck in history.

That fact that it happened fucking twice in a row, years apart, makes it even crazier.

I'm pretty sure he's talking about the Mongol invasion of Japan that got crushed by the original Kamikaze events.

No, I was talking about how winter saved Russia from racial extermination from the hand of Germans.

>losing almost 2,000 aircraft and even more experienced pilots is worthless

Don't even need to mention the absurd amounts of materials and resources used to build the SEVEN FUCKING HUNDRED Uboats and 28K crewmen they lost in the Atlantic. You sound like you would have fit in at Nazi High Command.

What does

>Don’t forget that time their entire invasion fleet was destroyed by a typhoon on the way to Japan.

Have to do with the Germans invading Russia?

Meme. They got to Japan, landed, got their asses kicked, and left.

>entire submarine fleets and like half the luftwaffe is less costly than one tank
Tankies everyone

1 Type VII U boat costs as much as 40 Panzer IV tanks.

That was the first time. The second, larger invasion attempt was the one where they got smashed by a typhoon.

There were two kamikaze. The first one was from what you are talking about, where they got repelled the old fashioned way, but they got crushed by a typhoon during their retreat.

The second, more famous one was the one where their ships all got smashed on the way there because they took too long finding a good place to land, and it caused them to get caught up in a typhoon.

Goebbels is quoted talking about how every aa-gun devoted to German cities could have been used on the eastern front. The Russians did most of the work, but if it hadn;t been for the incessant bombing and the invasion of north africa, italy and france on d-day the Germans would have had a much greater chance of winning in the east because they wouldn't have had to keep so much equipment and troops in the west

They didn't get sunk on the way. They landed and got wrecked while moored. Because they made multiple attempts at an amphibious landing that were all repulsed.

Panzer 4's are cheap compared to aircraft.

A Panzer 4 is 110,000 RM

A BF 109G with engine is 130,000 RM

Each Type VII U boat was 2 million RM, roughly 20 Panzer 4's, enough to equip a tank company. The allies sunk about 750 Uboats.

The Bismarck was 200 million RM, roughly 2000 Panzer 4's, more than any German army group had at a given time.

No, you dumb fuck. They were NOT repulsed, they were destroyed by Typhoon. Are you really fucking telling me that backward Nips could repel a Horde that ravaged China, which by that time was the world's most powrfful military power on Earth?

Fuck off weeb shit.

Muh financial fallacy.

Shut the fuck up, Krauts spend most steel, Iron and coal on the east. They lost the war on the east, you dumb fuck.

Its utter fucking shit. Russians won the war alone, and Allies did not really do fucking ANYTHING you dumb fuck. Nothing would have saved Krauts.

>there was not a entire other theater of war in the Pacific in which Russia took basically zero part

Oh the Pacific war? In 6 days Russia anihilated 700 thousand Japs in Manchuria, while Yanks only 660 thousand japs in 3.5 fucking years.

Russia won BOTH theaters really.

>Germans went through the Ardennes, bypassing Belgium
What

>In 6 days Russia anihilated 700 thousand Japs in Manchuria

lol

And furthermore, only 140K troops were in Manchuria. The 700k figure is the entire JIA. You dumb fuck.

Sure thing brainlet, even thou the single largest steel/explosives expenditure for Germany was Flak guns and rounds for those flak guns to be shot at the bombers.

Would be correct if he said "bypassing Flanders".

>most powerful army in mankind's history
>litterally raped by subhuman slabs

What did they mean by this?

The wehrmacht is a watered down attempt at German Imperial Army Deutsches Heer

No, you dumb fucktard. Japanese had 700 thousand troops in Manchuria, stupid fucktard,

Thats fucking nothing compared to east front.

Not him, but did you read your own screenshot? Manchuco forces deserted, not Japanese.

poles should be range banned desu

Fucking this. But you also have to give credit to their commanders. The german leadership was light years ahead of their enemies’.

No, Krautniggers should be permabanned.

The Kaiserreich is more impressive IMO. In some ways the Wehrmacht is flashier but the Kaissereich was really impressive.

bruh even your fellow poolacks are calling you out on your bullshit
do us all a favour and kill yourself

America is user and it's not really close

And then he calls other people brainlets.

>What did they mean by this?

War is a numbers game.

Every army was on meth, you dolt

No, you kill yourself. And there is no Polacks on His/.

when all you do is count beans

>Reaching Moscow means being able to take it despite being defended by some of the best divisions in the Red Army while they weren't able to take Stalingrad when it was manned by the reserves.
>Taking Moscow somehow guarantees a victory against the largest nation on Earth.

>the US won the war in Vietnam because body count

lol

given how technological progress works the most powerful army in human history is modern day USA

Absolutely not. But on the operational and tactical levels they were very good and the top performers in WWII (on those levels alone).

Ignore the rest of the retards posting in the thread.

pre-industrial warfare is incomparable to 1940's warfare, while there are automobiles in 1940 there also was no miles of dense fortifications manned by 100's of thousands of troops in the Napoleonic era

I know it's sort of a meme here but it's true, the size, terrain and weather of Russia beat the Germans more then the soviet army did until about 44. If you have actually done some reading about it (literacy is uncommon on this board) The German supply situation was fucking atrocious in the USSR, every bullet a german soldier fired needed to be transported 1000km through the relatively poor infrastructure of Russia with railways that were incompatible with German trains. German generals way overestimated the amount of food that could be "foraged" in the USSR so food had to be imported as well

>there are no polacks on Veeky Forums

the reason German shitposters arent a problem is because they (for the most part) aren't still completely asshurt over history

Shut the fuck up, you krautnigger. Slavic Russians defeated Germniggers, not countryside.

If they took Moscow the USSR would've capitulated. They almost lost all hope as is and, if Mussolini never invaded Greece, Barbarossa would've succeeded.

Also don't act as if the Soviets were allies. The Soviets had made repeated attempts to ally with the West against a growing Germany before the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. They even had a formal treaty of mutual assistance against Germany with France in 1935, which later broke down after the assassination of Louis Barthou (French foreign minister). The Soviets would've joined the allies in a heartbeat if Poland, England and France would've allowed it.

Thus, it was an alliance of convenience. Hitler needed security on the eastern front to take out Poland and France. The USSR needed time to rebuild their officer ranks after the physical and psychological damage caused by Stalin's purges (and would need time to recoup after the Winter War). Neither side had any love for each other. There are even some historians that would suggest Barbarossa was a preventative war since Stalin was preparing to attack in July.

It's as if starting Barbarossa in June was too fucking late in the year. Dumbass nazis.

Calm down Niko. Now hurry back from the library to your concrete box before the village rapist pays a visit.

It was originally to start seven weeks earlier, but Mussolini's failed invasion of Greece and bad weather delayed it.

>Antony Beevor writes about the delay caused by German attacks in the Balkans that "most [historians] accept that it made little difference" to the eventual outcome of Barbarossa

>Invade a region with bad weather at that time of year, and be unable to make much progress for a month in the second case
>With boats that aren't really designed for sea voyages, much less surviving a major typhoon
it would be more surprising if bad weather didn't destroy them than if it had