Five Swedish soldiers wounded in Afghanistan

[Crni Vuk]

well yeah the Kuebelwagen was a good vehicle but it lacked all-wheel-drive capabilities which the Jeep had from what I can read. The Italians in general had only a handfull of comparable vehicles and most of them had not the same quality but this also counted for most of their tanks and othe equipment except for a few (Semovente Assault gun/Tank hunter but even they did a poor job compared to either German or Allied equipment). In general the output of jeebs was a lot higher to the Kuebel and it might explain why a Kuebel was seen twice as "expensive" like the US counterpart. But thats just speculation from my side. The Germans had always to struggle with motoriszing their units as whole leaving alone the army. In WW2 the only force that could realy take the account of beeing the first completely motorized army was the US which gave their infantry a very high mobility. Not even the Soviets achieved that before the end of the war as they had as well quite a few units using horses in their army at least for 43 and been dependand on rail roads though not so much like the Germans.

The Russian "jeep" would be the GAZ-67B (Gorkowski Awtomobilny Sawod). The similar look to the American Willy was intentional.

 

[Kahgan]

Yeah the 4wd was clearly an advantage for the jeeps, I haven't really touched either one of them, so I can't really compare them.

The Russian "jeep" would be the GAZ-67B (Gorkowski Awtomobilny Sawod). The similar look to the American Willy was intentional.

Hehe, knowing the russians, it may very well have been a "borrowed" design...

 

[SuAside]

Crni Vuk, your whole tirade about the tanks or the presumed length of the war have no meaning at all when talking about the Pearl Harbor assault.

the USA didn't enter the war because they thought they had superior gear, nor because they thought it would be a swift win...

 

[Crni Vuk]

the point I wanted to make (which might not have been clear, if that so then sorry) is that you never can predict the outcome of a battle and that many ideas, theories and assumptions we make today are done by looking at the end of the war with the example of what you give for Pearl Harbor that the US had "a lot to gain". But they also had in that time the potential to loose a lot and they did in some cases loost a lot the war against Japan was the bloodiest conflict the US ever fighted outside of their nation. Thats why I used the Kassarine pass as example, or the Normandy champaign.

Even if you have a superior economy at some point and can throw out ships and tanks like penuts if you cant use them accordingly it doesnt mean much in the end even the Russians had to learn that lesson the hard way since the Russians did not simply won in the east by sheer numbers alone they also learned when and most important how to use that advantage. And without the help of the British it would have meant a bad situatoin for the US in Africa since the Brits had experience with the Germans particularly in armored warefare. The US did used mainly WW1 designs for tanks (multi turret, light armor, smaller short guns) and tactics. Discipline was also not the best in the Army and improved later a lot.

Its for me questionable that a force regardless if US, European or what ever would sacrifice willingly one of their most important military instalations particularly if they know that the enemy is a battle experienced and well equiped agressor.

Now that Japan would have won the war is very unlikely (from our standpoint today) particularly if they would have decided for the implausible case to invade US soil. But if the US would have loost Pearl Harbor completely the cost for the War might have been a lot higher compared to how it really was and pushing the Japanese back might have took a lot longer and a lot more lives since they would have gained a lot more time and freedom in their operations.

 

[SuAside]

cost would've been higher, but the purpose it served remained the same. yes, the war could've been 5 years longer, easily.

but all the above doesn't change much to the motivation. you're taking a humble position, which is fine. but it's not the kind of position someone at the top usually takes.