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Son of Butch

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PBS - The Great War - American Experience 3 part series

Film of a German army division marching through Brussels in August of 1914 on their way to France.
50,000 soldiers marching in lock step 10 abreast with horse and riders 5 abreast all very impressive.
Row after row as far as the eye could see. Standing still, it would take a man on foot over 6 hours to travel it's length.
On foot... what a way to travel to war.

Later they showed American army in training marching in the states. You'd think all marching armies look about the same, but somehow the German army looked stouter and more disciplined than any other. Even their horses appeared more uniform. All nice and large, beautifully conditioned, dark brown and conservatively marked with some
having a white star on their forehead or a blaze face.
They must have appeared unbeatable to any seeing them on the move at the time. Allied fighting forces had a 3:2
advantage on the battle field, but could only hold them to a stalemate for most all of the war.
 
The German advantage in WW2 was not their equipment. Tactics and really good soldiers made the early difference.
 
shaz":3dcipj18 said:
The German advantage in WW2 was not their equipment. Tactics and really good soldiers made the early difference.
They had far superior equipment to the USA they couldn't keep up the manufacturing due to bombing the ball bearing factors and slave labor.
Check out the Horten Bomber they were light years ahead of us.
Our entire space program was designed by the German scientists we captured before the Russians.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horten_Ho_229

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messerschmitt_Me_262

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amerika_Bomber
That is just one example their tanks were far superior as well as their Air Force. Their downfall was long range heavy bombers and manufacturing.
 
no one today will acknowledge it....
but hitler attacking russia and subsequently getting his ass kicked there is what really cost him the war....
if he had deployed all those resources lost there into the rest of the war....it would at least been a longer and more brutal fight....
 
Caustic Burno":3j9lyg9l said:
shaz":3j9lyg9l said:
The German advantage in WW2 was not their equipment. Tactics and really good soldiers made the early difference.
They had far superior equipment to the USA they couldn't keep up the manufacturing due to bombing the ball bearing factors and slave labor.
Check out the Horten Bomber they were light years ahead of us.
Our entire space program was designed by the German scientists we captured before the Russians.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horten_Ho_229

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messerschmitt_Me_262

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amerika_Bomber
That is just one example their tanks were far superior as well as their Air Force. Their downfall was long range heavy bombers and manufacturing.

Early in the war Their best equipment came out too late and in insufficient numbers. Lack of fuel didn't help either.
 
The US does not have an industrial base to call on as we did in WW2. Ford motor company was building bombers. Singer mfg rifles as was international harvester. This is only a few. Also the East Texas oilfield came into being about that time to keep the war machine going.
 
Didn't have it at the start of ww2 either. That transformation came right after Pearl Harbor.
Can we do it today? Probably, tho the workforce would have to be found/trained to build the aircraft. Too much of our auto industry is now robotic, and entire lines would have to change to a lot of manual assembly for aircraft production.
 
Poor World War 1 usa vets
(truly forgotten as any mention of them and WW2 always over shadows them)

53,402 usa combat deaths in less than 2 years 1917-1918 wounded 204,002
33,686 usa combat deaths in Korea in less than 4 yrs 1950-1953 wounded 92,134
47,424 usa combat deaths in Vietnam spread over 20 yrs (1955-75) wounded 153,303 mia 1643

One thing I did not know that was pointed out in the 3 part series....
The bxstxrds in charge of usa air corps refused to issue parachutes to usa pilots during WORLD WAR 1
Saying that would just give them an excuse to bail out early.

So every American plane shot down meant certain death for the pilot.
Many reports in dogfights of German pilots shot down parachuting to safety while their usa counterparts were
plunging to their deaths. With usa pilots shooting themselves in the head with their service revolvers to spare
themselves a firey death when their planes caught fire plunging to certain death below.

All because usa air command wanted to make sure the pilots were really trying their best.
They had parachutes but never issued them no matter how many requests.
Sounds like something the Russians would do... not the USA.

Maybe the final usa tally in WORLD WAR 1 would have been 53,400 dead instead of 53,402 if they had.
 
Viet Nam Memorial Wall
At the dedication in 1982, there were 57,939 names inscribed on the Memorial. As of Memorial Day 2015, there are 58,307 names. These are names of military personnel who were wounded in Vietnam between 1957 and 1975 and ultimately died of their wounds. (1959 and 1975 are the years inscribed on The Wall.
Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund | Frequently Asked Questions
 
USA wasn't the only coutry that didn't use many parachutes SoB.
I read a book once, called No Parachute.A fighter pilot in WW1
RAF pilot and among other things, he lamented that balloon observers had parachutes but fighter pilots did not.
an excerpt:
Rising to the rank of air vice-marshal, Gould Lee never forgot the RFC's needless sacrifices - and in a trio of trenchant appendices he examines, with the mature judgement of a senior officer of the RAF and a graduate of the Staff and Imperial Defence Colleges, the failure of the Army High Command to provide both efficient aeroplanes until mid-1917 and parachutes throughout the war, and General Trenchard's persistence in a costly and largely ineffective conception of the air offensive.
 
Like I said... I had no idea that the USA had parachutes in hand and refused to issue them.
It was said that WW1 Ace fighter pilot Eddie Rickenbacker did back flips over the stupidity of it, not to mention
the inhumanity.

So much senseless carnage in World War 1
An open field daylight charge order that sent 45 men straight into machine gun fire.
43 of the 45 mowed down like grass with the 2 survivors able to retreat back into their trenches.

Battle of Verdun the 1st battle in history with over 1 million estimated casualties... so what's another 43 men.

As one American, who received France's highest military honor for heroism at Verdun, later stated...
"I wasn't shocked by the number of men killed at Verdun. What shocked me is that anyone survived."
 
pdfangus":t3n5xohc said:
Viet Nam Memorial Wall
At the dedication in 1982, there were 57,939 names inscribed on the Memorial.

Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund | Frequently Asked Questions
Yes over 10,000 died in Vietnam from non combat injury and illness... also in Korea, WW1 and WW2 all gave their
lives whether in combat or not and are no less dead than those killed in combat.
 
Son of Butch":174asmcx said:
PBS - The Great War - American Experience 3 part series
You'd think all marching armies look about the same, but somehow the German army looked stouter and more disciplined than any other.

That's what the French women said.
 

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