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caitlyn -> RE: This is what happens when you retreat from Iraq too early (8/8/2007 7:20:17 AM)
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I don't agree at all with your theory about the Second World War in Europe.
1. The United States provided just under eleven percent of the war resources used by the Soviet Union, but the real importance of this is a) when they were delivered, b) that they were delivered, c) that they were delivered on credit.
2. The divisional count ignores the point of water barriers used as defense, and most importantly of all, the significant numbers of top German air assets that had to be kept in the west. On the Eastern front, the Germans primarily fought in the air with outdated aircraft like the ME109 (and rarely the more advances G model), because they were a match for the Soviet YAK-9 and LaGG-3 ... and used the superior FW-190 and ME-109G in the West. That there were not superior numbers in the west, was primarily due to them being shot down by British and American fighters. To ignore the notion that these fighters, if deployed in the East, would have cleared the sky of the Red Air Force, is to ignore reality.
I hold the view that all powers shared equally in the defeat of Germany, and to belittle any one, is primarily just spin, or making numbers mean what you want them to mean.
Expanding to the hypothetical, a case can be made that the Soviets might never have beaten the Germans without the Western Allies, while the British and Ameircan might well have beaten the Germans without assistance from the Soviets. The Soviets were seriously outclassed in the air, by aircraft that they were never forced to face, and didn't have the strategic bombing assets to limit production of these assets. A sky filled with FW-190's and ME-210 ground attack aircraft, might have made things highly hazardous for the advance Red Army. The alternate case can be made that by far, the primary casualty causing arms of the Western Allies, was air power and artillery. This is especially true of the Americans, who come in at close to 90% casualties caused by air assets and artillery. Simpley put, massive numbers of divisions were not needed, as these were not the primary killing arms. The Germans were not encouraged to field large numbers of divisions in the West, only to see them carpet bombed. Most importantly, the Western Allies had the ability to seriously disrupt production, and had a multi-flexible navy. A strong case can be made that the Western Allies could have eventually beaten the Germans alone. That said, I wouldn't have wanted to live in a British city, is the war would have lasted in to early 1947.
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