Fallout: The Reality

[Mohamed2001]

German incompetence also contributed nicely.

You have the German fleet using WW1 like tech. People propose for it to be upgraded? HOW DARE YOU TELL ME WHAT TO DO, yadda yadda.

Goering? You mean the man who didn't believe the P-51 could reach Aachen? Like.. didn't believe AN ACTUAL REAL WRECK in Aachen?

Hitler? Yes, the enemy is building a wall that will defeat us, we should charge them while they're building it. But wait, new tanks!!!! Hold off the attack until our tanks arrive.

These are all one examples. I can go on. Honestly, some of the leaders were only in charge because they were best buddies with Hitler.

But anyway, this is about nuclear war.

 

[Crni Vuk]

If the question of "what would've been different" was specifically directed at the results of the war, then with ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY we can say that the latter question matters MUCH more than the former. The Soviets won WWII, period. American involvement certainly moved along the momentum to its closure more quickly, but it was not the key to the swing of the war. The break of the non-aggression pact- specifically the catastrophic Battle of Stalingrad, and the subsequent Soviet "Motherland" campaign -is what got the ball rolling toward the Axis powers losing the war. The States were already involved in the war, but just like in WWI, their efforts were behind the scenes; deliberately obfuscated from public knowledge so American citizens could feel satisfied that they were NOT involved in foreign conflicts, yet definitively participatory in impact to such an extent that nations recognized that the Americans were not-so-surreptitiously helping out one of the sides. Pearl Harbor was simply an excuse to make involvement official. But for all the horror stories of their experiences in the war, American soldiers had no purpose being there because they really accomplished nothing. The Axis powers were being overwhelmed by the Soviets, and the Japanese were preparing negotiations for surrender to the Soviets when Truman's babies were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Except that this isnt completely correct. The support by the US didn't just start with Pearl Harbor and the first time a US soldier set foot on Africa fighting Rommel - and getting a pretty bloody nose, but they learned very quickly from it!

The Soviets and British received already aid before 1942 by the US in substantial numbers. In both men and material. Fighters flown by US volunteers in the Royal Airforce, the Eagle Squad. Though the economic aid with military material and resources really has been a pivotal point in the War. Particularly for the Soviets. The Axis attack even with all the warnings has hit the Soviets by surprise. Many members of the Soviet Military command didn't expect a confrontation before the Germans wouldn't finish the British, definitely not before 1942 or 43. Many of their fighter planes for example have been sheduled for those years. So the years of 1941 and 42 have proven to be extremly critical for the Sovietunion and their military. A lot of the instalations in the Ukraine, white Russia, around Leningrad etc. have been relocated far outside the German reach. At this point it proved to be a serious issue for the Germans that they neglected their long range bomber programms. It was probably a big luck for the Soviets that Wever was replaced after his death by Albert Kesselring who scraped any of the long range bomber programms before 1936. Wever correctly assumed that the German army would not move further east than Moscow. A long range bomber could destroy the relocated industry out of reach of existing bombers, ending the ability to fight without the need of ground forces. A concept that was later exploited by the western Allies to great effect cripling the German warmachine.

Lend-Lease: Facts and Numbers

The country was formally added to the Lend-Lease list in November 1941 and became the second largest recipient (after the British Commonwealth) of munitions and other materials valued at $11.3 billion. About a quarter of this aid was in the form of munitions and 75 percent consisted of industrial equipment, raw materials and food.

The Germans might have overrun the Soviet Forces before 1942/43 when their efforts started to become a serious issue for the Germans. The Soviet army was literaly destroyed almost completely during the war. They lost almost 2 million men in just a few months of 1941 which got either killed or taken as prisoners by the Germans. And yet the Soviets managed to stop the Germans at Moscow. There is no doubt that the 1941 Soviet mobilisation programme was simply the largest and fastest wartime mobilisation in history. But even the Soviets had not unlimited resources. This incredible feat was only possible because of the huge support by the US and British industry delivering almost everything the Soviets needed, most importantly ammunition, with the Lend and Lease programm. From tanks to fuel, amunition, food, whole trains and also knowledge. There is a popular rumor that Stalin himself admited to Zhukov that they would have most probably lost the war if not for the US and British support in supplies and equipment. The British in particular have been very quick with their as they provided more material even than the US before their support started to grow after 1941. Not to mention that any material by the US send to Britain allowed them to support the Soviets.

I am not a historian, but I personaly believe that WW2 might have changed the face of Europe in a very different way with a more negative outcome if the US decided to do absolutely nothing after 1939 and eventually concentrating only on Japan.

 

[The_WitchDoctor]

The shadows on walls still terrify me to this day. I hope nothing like that will happen, but certain leaders in the world I think are more than a little aggressive.

What terrifies me is the survivalists vivid description of how he figured his family had suffered;

Spoiler

SLC is mostly craters. Warped steel girders where highrises sat. Mounds of bricks.

Never found our house. Didn't even find street. What wasn't a crater was scorched clean.

Want to believe it was fast, a flash, both of you vaporized. Lies to make me feel better. I'll never know. Which part of city got hit first? Northeast and you both died in a blink. Farther away and you burned alive screaming or the blast broken glass and bits of brick and wood splinters shredding you like hamburger. Look at it coward and listen don't turn away face it. If you'd been brave lucky man you would've found a spot and blown your brains out.

What's actually terrorizing is to think of all the infants in such a city that most countries would look at as a perfect nuclear strike target. An infant in it's innocence should never, ever have to feel such terrible pain. We can only thank god that their deaths would be to quick before their bodies even realize that they are in pain. With the size of most of today's nuclear warheads, the entire city would be vaporized and 90% of people would die in the blink of an eye, which is very merciful when you compare it to those who are on the out reaches of the bomb's ground zero.

There have been many people who think the human race deserves to die out for ever creating such a weapon, let alone using it. I can only imagine how much pressure must have been on Truman. How can somebody weigh lives? Could you imagine having to be in the position where YOU were the one who decided whether you were to drop a nuclear bomb(s) and end the war then and there, or keep throwing more young soldier's lives into the meat grinder than we call war? Could you imagine having to make that decision?

How do you weigh lives? They said that if America were to invade the Japanese mainland, it would cost us another 250,000 casualties easily, which is around how many people were killed in the atomic bombings. To be forced to make that decision.... that must be enough to drive you insane. Unless you are cold-hearted of course, which many politicians are.

Not to mention that most of our General's today are put to the litmus test of "will you fire on American civilians?" And if you answer no, then you fail.

 

[Cistern Logic]

There have been many people who think the human race deserves to die out for ever creating such a weapon, let alone using it.

I don't think we deserve to die for our pursuit of knowledge and science. However, I can't help but feel that our own stupidity will eventually spell our doom. While nuclear power generation and the peaceful harnessing of the atom was a noble by product of this research, I believe its' time has come and gone. If Chernobyl didn't drive the point home, Fukushima should be a stark reminder - nuclear power isn't safe for human consumption. You are aware, I'm sure of all the spent fuel rods we have buried here and there all around us. An old colloquialism goes like this: "Only a fool shits where he eats." We need to find something safer post haste, regardless of the economic cost before something catastrophic and irreversible occurs.

Afterthought: The 30 kilometer Chernobyl Exclusion Zone won't be safe for human inhabitation for 200,000 years. That's a bit longer than a football season. Modern man as we know ourselves have only been here for roughly 50,000 years (though some Evangelicals may argue that tenure to be less than 6,000 years).

 

[LordAshur]

I find it strange that the Lend-Lease act is presented as some kind of charity, while the USSR was in fact paying for it the whole time. Not to mention the fact that American tanks were almost entirely useless on the eastern front because they couldn't measure up to the panzers at all. The trucks were useful, though.

And even had Japan not surrendered after the Soviets rolled into Manchuria, it would have been helpless. The nukes were just a demonstration of power, not unlike the Dresden bombing. It was most certainly a war crime.

The height of US involvement in the war was never aimed at actually liberating territories, it was aimed at stopping the USSR from liberating them first. Had the famous D-Day never happened, the only thing that would have been different is that France would have been freed by the USSR. By 1944, the Soviet advance was simply unstoppable.

But all that being said, the mere existence of nukes is a VERY GOOD THING. It's what has kept the peace for so long. If there were no nukes, the cold war wouldn't have been all that cold.

And nuclear energy is perfectly acceptable. We had two major disasters, yes, but one of them (Fukushima) would not have happened if the plant was built in an area not so endangered by earthquakes or tsunamis.

 

[DarkCorp]

We didn't force their sales either.

Although Lend Lease wasn't charity, it was strategically important.

Lets not forget the history proven lesson that fighting a two front war is foolish and extremely costly.

Shermans

Thats like claiming the T34 was useless. It was no Tiger, King Tiger or Panther but it was badass in sheer numbers.

What the germans didn't understand was bigger doesn't always mean better.

As to the nukes, we really don't know. Firebombing would have increased in intensity and scope, therefore even MORE cities might take casualties. Instead, two cities were hit.

The other side also claimed that we shouldn't have used the bomb because Japan was already essentially defeated and firebombing or starving the japanese would have been less horrific.

 

[Crni Vuk]

Afterthought: The 30 kilometer Chernobyl Exclusion Zone won't be safe for human inhabitation for 200,000 years. That's a bit longer than a football season. Modern man as we know ourselves have only been here for roughly 50,000 years (though some Evangelicals may argue that tenure to be less than 6,000 years).

It's interesting though that Chernobyl has become pretty much a save heaven for an incredible amount of animals. And research shows, as astonishing as it is, that the population of wolfes in the zone is not worse compared to other areas outside the zone. Tests with rodents show that they have a lost in their population between 3-5%, unaccaptable for humans, but apparantly no issue for them. Things do look a bit different with certain birds, but sea agles also breed without issues. Which as some say is a positive sign as they are on top of the food chain.

Many wolfes are so radiated that you should not touch them without gloves and breathing protection so you don't inhale small parts of the fur which is full of radioactive particles. And yet. Those creatures thrive and prosper in the zone.

A man-made hell for us, is a paradis for nature.

I find it strange that the Lend-Lease act is presented as some kind of charity, while the USSR was in fact paying for it the whole time. Not to mention the fact that American tanks were almost entirely useless on the eastern front because they couldn't measure up to the panzers at all. The trucks were useful, though.

*shrugs* It still was crucial, that is the point. Not so much a charity really but more a necessity, at least for the British.

Soldiers can't get very far without amuntion. Also, a bad/mediocre tank is still better than no tank. Not to mention in 1941 the most common tank of the German Army contained Panzer IIIs with 37mm guns, short barreled 75mm Assault guns and the Panzer IV with short 75mm guns with a substantial number of Panzer IIs and even a few Panzer I tanks and a high number of captured tanks, like the hungarian 38M Toldi and Czech Panzer 38(t). In 1941 when the most common Soviet tanks was the BT series of light tanks from the BT1 to BT7 with more than 20 000 units comparable with the Panzer II and Panzer III. The T34 left a huge impression on the Germans even though the production was not yet in full swing for 1941 and the first few tanks that saw combat had to deal with many issues. And the famous KV1 and KV2 heavy tanks. The Germans even decided to create a copy based on the T34, the VK 3002 DB, but it was scraped in favour of the VK 30.02 (M), later known as Panther which was a prototype going as far back as to the late 1930s. The number of British and few American tanks delivered in 1941 played a crucial rolle in filling the gabs of the Soviet front line before better and new designs could eventually arrive. It proved pivotal in the battle of Moscow and other strategic areas. At some point the British tanks must have become a very common sight for the Soviet tanker.

According to research by a team of Soviet historians, the Soviet Union lost a staggering 20,500 tanks from June 22 to December 31, 1941. At the end of November 1941, only 670 Soviet tanks were available to defend Moscow—that is, in the recently formed Kalinin, Western, and Southwestern Fronts. Only 205 of these tanks were heavy or medium types, and most of their strength was concentrated in the Western Front, with the Kalinin Front having only two tank battalions (67 tanks) and the Southwestern Front two tank brigades (30 tanks).
(...)
While the Matilda Mk II and Valentine tanks supplied by the British were certainly inferior to the Soviets’ homegrown T-34 and KV-1, it is important to note that Soviet production of the T-34 (and to a lesser extent the KV series), was only just getting seriously underway in 1942, and Soviet production was well below plan targets. And though rapid increases in tank firepower would soon render the 40mm two-pounder main gun of the Matilda and Valentine suitable for use on light tanks only, the armor protection of these British models put them firmly in the heavy and medium categories, respectively. Both were superior to all but the Soviet KV-1 and T-34 in armor, and indeed even their much maligned winter cross-country performance was comparable to most Soviet tanks excluding the KV-1 and T-34.

A steady stream of British-made tanks continued to flow into the Red Army through the spring and summer of 1942. Canada would eventually produce 1,420 Valentines, almost exclusively for delivery to the Soviet Union. By July 1942 the Red Army had 13,500 tanks in service, with more than 16 percent of those imported, and more than half of those British.

(...)

 

[LordAshur]

Shermans

The Sherman was the worst mass used tank in WWII. As far as I know, the general consensus is that Patton was an idiot to choose it as the primary tank for US operations in Europe. It couldn't even put a dent in most German tanks' frontal armor, and had no range to speak of.

It's interesting though that Chernobyl has become pretty much a save heaven for an incredible amount of animals. And research shows, as astonishing as it is, that the population of wolfes in the zone is not worse compared to other areas outside the zone. Tests with rodents show that they have a lost in their population between 3-5%, unaccaptable for humans, but apparantly no issue for them. Things do look a bit different with certain birds, but sea agles also breed without issues. Which as some say is a positive sign as they are on top of the food chain.

Many wolfes are so radiated that you should not touch them without gloves and breathing protection so you don't inhale small parts of the fur which is full of radioactive particles. And yet. Those creatures thrive and prosper in the zone.

A man-made hell for us, is a paradis for nature.

I also heard stories of some people refusing to leave when the evacuation order came. What became of them in the end? Do they still live in the zone?

 

[Crni Vuk]

...
I also heard stories of some people refusing to leave when the evacuation order came. What became of them in the end? Do they still live in the zone?

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=People+living+in+chernobyl

The Sherman was the worst mass used tank in WWII. As far as I know, the general consensus is that Patton was an idiot to choose it as the primary tank for US operations in Europe. It couldn't even put a dent in most German tanks' frontal armor, and had no range to speak of.

I will spare you from the long and rather pointless discussion that would usually follow here to show that the Sherman was actually an excelent tank for its class and time and just let Arnold do the talking for me.



*I am not attacking you by the way. It's simply to hot here -.-
Oh and you are wrong, I say it again the Sherman was an excelent tank

 

[Deleted member 53669]

The Sherman was a great tank, because 10 could be produced for one Panzer, and 100 could be produced per one Tiger.



Also, if you studied Patton at all, you would realize that mobility was the key tactic used in his strategic aims.

So, you take this tank that uses less resources, in mass, that is very utilitarian and can fit multiple roles, in large masses...you effectively have a machine that takes the Wehrmacht philosophy of blitzkrieg and electrifies it, to its ultimate form.



However, yeah, the Sherman was a weak tank, and was a horrible thing to be inside in that war.

 

[Crni Vuk]

The Sherman was a great tank, because 10 could be produced for one Panzer, and 100 could be produced per one Tiger.
(...)
However, yeah, the Sherman was a weak tank, and was a horrible thing to be inside in that war.

I just cant let this stand
And I am not saying this because the Sherman is one of my favourite tanks - it's like this little engine, I think I can! I think I can!

Spoiler

To the question, what kind of tank was the Sherman? The answer is. It depends. It is about hard data and soft data, as how I would call it.

The hard data are the numbers and informations you can get directly about the tank, the weight, the armor thickness, guns etc. The soft data are a bit harder to come by. Those are crew experiences, crew training, battle experience, strategical decisions and the skills of the officers/commanders in the field and behind the battlefield.

Just because a tank is excellent on paper doesn't mean it performs excellent on the field. The M3 Lee for example was an outdated design that looks horrorible with its multi turret design. Yet, it proved to be a valuable little fucker in the African desert and the British troops using it loved it - for the most part. When the Soviets received the M3 though in the later stages of the war it got the nick name grave-for-5-friends.

It is easy to just look at the numbers and come to the conclussion that the Sherman or T34 for that matter was garbage. That is, if you take tanks like the Tiger or Tiger 2 as standart which saw the battlefield years after the Sherman and T34 have been developed. If you look at the most common German tanks however, which have been the Stug, Panzer IV and the Panther, things look a bit different.

The Sherman saw over the time upgrades which improved it's performance. Most noticable the upgrade of its turret and gun from the short 75mm gun to the high velocity 76mm gun used in the M4a3e8, also nick named easy8. But also upgrades to design, like the suspension, engine and amuntion storage. The Sherman in particular was actually a very save tank for its crew compared to other design. The Germans would store amunition all over the place in their Panzer IV while the Sherman had a wet ammo storage at least after February 1944. This design in particular was comparable to the Panzer IV H.

The British used their famous and powerfull 76mm 17pf as the Sherman Firefly. Those changes gave the Sherman a chance to engage succesfully both Panthers and Tigers head on on the battlefield. It was possible to penetrate the Tiger I from distances to up 800 meters and the Panther within 600 meters from the front - henec why the tank combat in Fury is inaccurate. The Firefly could engage Panthers and Tigers from even biger distances, combat reports speak from penetrating Panther turrets and knocking them out from up to 1100 meters.

Combat reports from 1944 directly after the landing in France also paint a more positive picture from the Sherman. Even those where the Sherman armed with the 75mm gun had to directly engage Panthers. The figures of 6 Shermans and 10 T34 for one Panther are exagerated, inaccurate and have no historical sources to back it up. Particularly as the numbers of deployed Shermans/T34 and destroyed Panthers in the war simply don't match with it.

The Soviets also received quite a few of the Shermans and what the Soviet veterans say about it can be read by Dimitry Loza:

Dmitriy Fedorovich, on which American tanks did you fight?



On Shermans. We called them "Emchas", from M4 [in Russian, em chetyrye]. Initially they had the short main gun, and later they began to arrive with the long gun and muzzle brake. On the front slope armor there was a travel lock for securing the barrel during road marches. Tahe main gun was quite long. Overall, this was a good vehicle but, as with any tank, it had its pluses and minuses. When someone says to me that this was a bad tank, I respond, "Excuse me!" One cannot say that this was a bad tank. Bad as compared to what?

(...)

The Sherman was an pretty good medium tank for its time

 

[Mohamed2001]

T-34-76 = M4A2 75 (diesel. M4/A1/A3 were radial IIRC)

T-34-85 >< M4A2 76 (it SERIOUSLY depends on ammo)

T-44 >>>< (T-44 is more mobile, has better armor, lower profile, but the M26 has better ammo overall, for the gun) M26

T-54-3 > M46

 

[SnapSlav]

The USA would have had "official" involvement in the war with or without Pearl Harbor, though. US-Japan relations were so frosty at that point it's hard to believe that anything but a shooting war could have resolved it. Japan had to strike out for a new source of oil soon for their China war. So if, say, they bypassed the Philippines and strike for British holdings and the Dutch East Indies, FDR still has a solid reason to push for war. Same situation if it was some random U-Boat attack on an American vessel or something else. The only difference was that, without Pearl Harbor, the American government would possibly have to draft people or use some other motivator - instead of people just making lines to volunteer like after the attack. Either way, there was no way America would have been as minimally involved as they were in WW1. They would be present in an active, more involved capacity no matter what.

The point I was focusing on was that Pearl Harbor was an excuse to make an official effort with the American people at the government's back. Prior to WWII, Americans were very "keep to ourselves" in foreign policy mentality. They NEEDED the Lusitania sinking to want anything to do with WWI, and they likewise NEEDED Pearl Harbor to want anything to do with WWII. That doesn't mean the military, members of the government, influential businessmen, and more WEREN'T involving themselves in WWII. There were many Nazi supporters in the States, and the oil embargo itself was a clear effort to thwart Japan. So the country WAS involved... but it wasn't involved in an official declaration of war, let along with the backing of the people.

Take, for example, the recent Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts as instigated by the States. Neither of them were official declarations of war, as U.S. government framework clearly states that only congress has the authority to declare war, yet congress never did. So, all the Americans who are pro "keep to ourselves" (or worse, those "American Exceptionalism" sorts, or "American Superiority" types who think the country can do no wrong) had an EXCUSE to say that the country was not at war, and not invading other countries, and not this and not that. I mean... CLEARLY it very much was. Anyone simply PAYING ATTENTION would look at mobilization of ground troops and bombings and point out "we've declared war". But the major differences (there are MANY, but I'll just highlight a couple bigger ones) between that time, and the time around WWII, was the speed and spread of communication, for one, and the average American attitude about foreign involvement, for another. 40's Americans wanted nothing to do with foreign conflict; besides the longstanding origins of that mentality, they were also very preoccupied with getting themselves out of their Great Depression. So together with the fact that news simply did not travel nearly as fast, and the wealth of information wasn't whatsoever as readily available as it is nowadays, combined with that isolationist mentality, the American PEOPLE had no interest in joining WWII.

Like you said, any other events could've done the deed of getting people up in arms and ready to join the military in droves like they did; it didn't HAVE to be Pearl Harbor, specifically. But that's history as it was. Like I mentioned before, there's little point in looking at "what if" scenarios, barring aside considerations like these that "it wasn't the only possibility".

 

[Cistern Logic]

The Sherman was a great tank, because 10 could be produced for one Panzer, and 100 could be produced per one Tiger.

That was Nazi Germany's biggest handicap. The Germans are GREAT engineers, and they had the best equipment of the war. Unfortunately, their quality machines were expensive, complicated to operate and repair in the field and difficult to mass produce. The Soviets also produced the T-34 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-34. They were deceptively crude looking but their simple faceted design made it difficult to score a crippling hit with anti-tank fire and they were an extremely effective medium tank in their own right. Perhaps more importantly, they could be mass- produced and they were by the tens of thousands. In materiel at least, the Germans were greatly outnumbered.

 

[Crni Vuk]

Which didn't play much of a role between 1939 and 42 when the Germans achieved their most sucesfull victories, over Poland, France, Britain and the Soviet Union. The Soviets in particular deployed a large number of men and equipment on the front line just to see it getting anhiliated in the German Blitzkrieg Strategy. And yet, when the tables turned it was the time when those sophisticated equipment reached the front. But neither the Panther nor the Tiger or any other fancy tank saw combat in large numbers before mid/late 1943 which was already the point where the military initiative moved to the Allies, which started to use the rules of mobile warefare against the Germans.

It wasn't simply about numbers and superior equipment really. The first years of WW2 show this very clearly. The Germans have been quite often outnumbered and outguned. They had no tank in their whole arsenal to rival Monsters like the Char B1 or KV1 and KV2 heavy tanks. Most of the German tanks had problems dealing even British tanks like the Mathilda 2. The most common anti tank gun of 1939 and 40 where made of 37mm and 50mm guns.

Numbers sure played a pivtotal role in many battles. But tactical and strategical decisions as well. The Allies simply had a hell lot of good commanders in the field making the right decisions where Hitler started to take over the military planing and strategy after the events of Moscow.

 

[ninjacapo]

this is, in essence, the theme of the fallout games (the originals at least): how absurd it is that, after torching the world in the name of war, our first reaction would be to pick up weapons and start killing each other, stealing from each other, and trying to gain power through war, death, and destruction. it's hilarious satire when a supermutant torches his ally point-blank and says "oops". which, really, is why we all loved the original games. they have as much depth and story as a novel, with the interactive ability to create a new story every time

 

[ninjacapo]

The shadows on walls still terrify me to this day. I hope nothing like that will happen, but certain leaders in the world I think are more than a little aggressive.

What terrifies me is the survivalists vivid description of how he figured his family had suffered;

Spoiler

SLC is mostly craters. Warped steel girders where highrises sat. Mounds of bricks.

Never found our house. Didn't even find street. What wasn't a crater was scorched clean.

Want to believe it was fast, a flash, both of you vaporized. Lies to make me feel better. I'll never know. Which part of city got hit first? Northeast and you both died in a blink. Farther away and you burned alive screaming or the blast broken glass and bits of brick and wood splinters shredding you like hamburger. Look at it coward and listen don't turn away face it. If you'd been brave lucky man you would've found a spot and blown your brains out.

What's actually terrorizing is to think of all the infants in such a city that most countries would look at as a perfect nuclear strike target. An infant in it's innocence should never, ever have to feel such terrible pain. We can only thank god that their deaths would be to quick before their bodies even realize that they are in pain. With the size of most of today's nuclear warheads, the entire city would be vaporized and 90% of people would die in the blink of an eye, which is very merciful when you compare it to those who are on the out reaches of the bomb's ground zero.

There have been many people who think the human race deserves to die out for ever creating such a weapon, let alone using it. I can only imagine how much pressure must have been on Truman. How can somebody weigh lives? Could you imagine having to be in the position where YOU were the one who decided whether you were to drop a nuclear bomb(s) and end the war then and there, or keep throwing more young soldier's lives into the meat grinder than we call war? Could you imagine having to make that decision?

How do you weigh lives? They said that if America were to invade the Japanese mainland, it would cost us another 250,000 casualties easily, which is around how many people were killed in the atomic bombings. To be forced to make that decision.... that must be enough to drive you insane. Unless you are cold-hearted of course, which many politicians are.

Not to mention that most of our General's today are put to the litmus test of "will you fire on American civilians?" And if you answer no, then you fail.

yeah in a lot of places it isnt the bomb blast that kills you, it's the oxygen being forcefully ripped from your lungs to fuel the fire that will disintegrate your body

 

[Mohamed2001]

The Sherman was a great tank, because 10 could be produced for one Panzer, and 100 could be produced per one Tiger.

That was Nazi Germany's biggest handicap. The Germans are GREAT engineers, and they had the best equipment of the war. Unfortunately, their quality machines were expensive, complicated to operate and repair in the field and difficult to mass produce. The Soviets also produced the T-34 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-34. They were deceptively crude looking but their simple faceted design made it difficult to score a crippling hit with anti-tank fire and they were an extremely effective medium tank in their own right. Perhaps more importantly, they could be mass- produced and they were by the tens of thousands. In materiel at least, the Germans were greatly outnumbered.

So me and a friend did maths to evaluate this whole T-34 cheaper thingy.

We used a more expensive Panther than reality (intended final drive, 100mm glacis, etc)

The result was that:

A Soviet Union SIZED Germany could produce 22k T-34-85s, or 11k Panthers. So it's not that much cheaper, really.

 

[Beaushizzle]

Shermans

The Sherman was the worst mass used tank in WWII. As far as I know, the general consensus is that Patton was an idiot to choose it as the primary tank for US operations in Europe. It couldn't even put a dent in most German tanks' frontal armor, and had no range to speak of.

It's interesting though that Chernobyl has become pretty much a save heaven for an incredible amount of animals. And research shows, as astonishing as it is, that the population of wolfes in the zone is not worse compared to other areas outside the zone. Tests with rodents show that they have a lost in their population between 3-5%, unaccaptable for humans, but apparantly no issue for them. Things do look a bit different with certain birds, but sea agles also breed without issues. Which as some say is a positive sign as they are on top of the food chain.

Many wolfes are so radiated that you should not touch them without gloves and breathing protection so you don't inhale small parts of the fur which is full of radioactive particles. And yet. Those creatures thrive and prosper in the zone.

A man-made hell for us, is a paradis for nature.

I also heard stories of some people refusing to leave when the evacuation order came. What became of them in the end? Do they still live in the zone?

You're dead wrong about the Sherman. Dozens of tests show the gun to be more than adequate against every German tank except the Tiger models. Do your research before spouting useless dribble.

 

[Crni Vuk]

Well the Tiger I had 100mm of armor for its front hull but it was for the most part flat so if the Tiger crew didn't angle their tank a Sherman with the 76mm high velocity gun had a better chance of penetrating the Tiger than the Panther with its 85mm of sloped armor, I think the sloped armor had the same effect like 140mm of flat armor. The Sherman could eventually penetrate the Tiger I succesfully from 700-800 meters with its standart armor pearcing shells. The situation becomes a bit more complicated on higher distances because the High Velocity Shells, also known as APCR was unreliable. Not so much because of bad design, but simply because of a physical effect that was largely uknown by that time, the shatter gab. It plays mostly a role when a very dense material like tungsten hits a high quality armor plate at very high speed. It can happen that the shell shatters on the armor even though it could penetrate it on paper. This effect is increased if the diamater of the shell is smaller than the thickness of the armor.

So in the field the Panther might have been the more dangerous foe. By 1944 and particularly 1945 the Tiger 1 lost a lot of its superiority. The British, US and Soviets started to deploy more and more powerfull anti tank guns and tanks on the field which could succesfully deal with the Tiger on usual combat ranges. The widespread use of 85mm guns by the Soviets was based on tests with captured Tigers in 1942/43. They managed to get their hands on one of the first Tigers deployed in the field near Leningrad in late 1942, recognizing the threat they realized that the gun with the highest potential was the 85mm anti air craft gun and 122mm artillery gun since those could be delivered in high enough numbers. An angled Tiger though was close to invulnerable for any Sherman on usual combat distances.