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WW2 Most significant difference
Which allied nation in WW2 made the biggest difference in the eventual defeat of the very formidable axis powers?

America 35.21 % (25)
Soviet Union 38.03 % (27)
United Kingdom 12.68 % (9)
Australia 2.82 % (2)
Canada 1.41 % (1)
China 8.45 % (6)
France 1.41 % (1)
Total votes: 71

I'm insulted Canada isn't an option, we had bigger forces in the War than Australia did (not minimizing their contribution in any way), hell we even had our own beach on D-Day.

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better?

Much, thanks Mike.

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I'm surprised at the votes China is getting, when in fact they spent most of World War II getting mercilessly pounded by the Japanese. In fact the Nationalist and Communist armies tended to avoid confronting the Japs with their full force as they wanted to save their strength to beat the crap out of each other when the United States defeated Japan.

It's country on the list that had the least impact on the outcome of World War II IMO, their biggest contribution was keeping some Japanese military forces occupied, away from the war with the Americans.

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I've voted US and the main reason is that the enormous industrial capabilities plus the enormous amounts of various materials produced by US "sunk" axis.
Without obviously minimising the role of other nations

I would vote Russia, in terms of human sacrifice alone they are ahead of the Western Allies by a good margin. I dont believe the Germans could have beaten them even if they had had all resources availble to them.

Plus ive taken into account that the U.S produced tonnes of munitions for Russia and that Britain delivered these to the Russians.






"Garlic......and bread?? Garlic bread??"

" I dont believe the Germans could have beaten them even if they had had all resources availble to them."


That makes more than a million first rate troops, the half of the Luftwaffe, at least 2 Panzerkorps, the entire navy and countless of 88mm guns more on the Eastern Front. Still that sure? Also one has to keep in mind that the Soviet war machine was in part kept going artificially due to Lend Lease.

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i put the U.S i mean who would have defeated the Japanese if not the americans? the russians? i dont think so they would not be able to stand the same casualty rate on two fronts.

"Brazil has rediscovered itself, and this rediscovery is being expressed in its people's enthusiasm and their desire to mobilize to face the huge problems that lie ahead of us."
Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva

I think we forget the 2.4 Million Indian Troops that participated in the War.

Heh, I do not see why France is in the Poll. Did they not surrender early enough, delaying Germany another 3 weeks?
Seriously though, Poland and Yugoslavia had larger resistance groups than France. Anyways, I voted for the US, the US helped UK and USSR out immensly with Lend-Lease, and helped China out with mercenaries(The Flying Tigers.) That was all before they entered the war. US took Northwest Africa, invaded Sicily and southern Italy, half of the DDay landings and a majority of the push toward Germany after that. US also defeated Japan, after Japan had already taken most of Europe's asian colonies including the UK's Singapore.

Lol @Quack for the France comment.

Seriously, who the hell are voting for China? HBN probably one of them... and then Dragon...

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You don't know the power of Chinese Propaganda unless you meet HBN2025 and QQ007.

Whatever happens, The US has white chicks, and China does not. -KingOfEngland commenting on speculation that China will surpass the US in 2025.
Is it not ironic that we get angry at our Gov't when the Gov't does nothing to protect us but we get MORE angry at our Gov't when they actually do something to protect us.

People say terrorists' objective is to reduce our freedoms... wrong. Terrorists couldn't care less about us having less freedoms or not, it makes no sense since us having less freedoms would make them more hard to strike. What they do care is that we live or die, not our rights.

People say that many people have died for the Freedoms we are having today and we shouldn't take them off, even for temporarily, but the question is, are you willing to die for your freedoms? If so, then we have won against terrorists because we are now willing to die, thus the terrorists' most potent weapon, terror, is immune to us.

Russia of course. They inflicted more casualties on the Axis than all of the other Allied Nations combined.



"We will write our own military manuals, which the Americans, British, and French can study in their staff colleges."
-Colonel Behrouz Soleiman, Deputy Commander, Iranian 21st Infantry Division

"If the invaders reach Iran, the country will turn into a burning hell for them."
-Mohammad Khatami

"The baseless claim made us laugh. We do not use laptops to keep our classified documents.”
-Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi, on American claims that an Iranian laptop they had captured contained evidence that Iran was producing a nuclear warhead

i would say Russia for shear scale



Federal Commonwealth Society


Proud member of the Evil Anglo Conspiracy (TM)

READ THE RULES

>>That makes more than a million first rate troops, the half of the Luftwaffe, at least 2 Panzerkorps, the entire navy and countless of 88mm guns more on the Eastern Front<<

Dont get me wrong the German Army that invaded Russia was an awesome fighting machine i just dont believe that it could have successfully defeated Russia. I dont think any nation could have beaten the Russians. At the same time though i think its doubtful that Russia could have had the same success against Germany that it did later in the war.



"Garlic......and bread?? Garlic bread??"

Up until Stalingrad, Stalin offered a truce through informal channels. And considering that now we would have far more options: Leningrad would have been lost, far more troops available for Heeresgruppe Süd etc. Just imagine the impact on all the planes stationed in France, Norway, Germany and Africa in Russia. Game over. They were on the edge even without that, they would go down.

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Fact is, it's all hypothetical.

At the end of the day Russia had the biggest impact.

I voted for the Soviet Union. They the dirty work.

>> Seriously though, Poland and Yugoslavia had larger resistance groups than France. <<

I guess you haven't heard of the Free French? At the end of the war they counted 1,250,000.

I say USA.

The Americans fought the decisive battles on TWO fronts of the war, in Europe, and the Pacific, and they essentially helped to secure the victory of the war to the Allied powers. Cause you have to remember, the Brits, Soviets, were losing the war till 1942, when USA decided to steal the victory.

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17th century India, The Masters of the Oceans...

The 2 front thing is impressive but it was more of an American thing imo. It was never really a Russian or British interest.

As for the allies loosing in 1942? Quite the contrary. The Russians were engaged at Stalingrad which turned out to be, imo, the key battle of the war. If they had lost that it would probably have been game over and by the time D-Day came in 1944 the war in Russia might well have been over and an extra million or so German soldiers would have been on the Atlantic wall. Admittedly, this is pure conjecture.

Conversely, the British in 1942 had also gained its first major land victory at El Alamein. As Churchill said, Before Alamein we never had a victory. After Alamein we never had defeat.

Link this to when the Americans did first engage the Germans (Operation Torch, Kasserine Pass) and this was in 1943. At the same time the other pinnacle battle which the Russians eventually won was going on; Kursk. This served to finish the Wermacht once and for all. After Kursk the Germans were always on the retreat.

Russia and the Winter, from 1941 to 1945, 90% of the casualties of the German army were made at the east front. The incoming of USA in the war ensured the final victory because of its productive machinery, but who made the dirty work? Russia, sure. The ratio of casualties (400.000 USA(Japan + Germany) in front of 23.000.000 Soviet Union) is clear.

http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/World-war-ii-casualties

Voted for Russia,But on a side note Germany was kicking ass left and right,The German people are a strong and smart people even today.

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"DIOS Y VICTORIA".
-Alvaro Uribe

So without engagement in the West, the German army gets following nice things on Barbarossa day:

53 divisions, of which 1 was armored and one motorized (the Afrika Korps).

The whole of the navy to smash Leningrad and Murmansk.

Great portions of the Luftwaffe.



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here are the results.. thanks to all who participated..

WW2 Most significant difference
Which allied nation in WW2 made the biggest difference in the eventual defeat of the very formidable axis powers?

America 35.21 % (25)
Soviet Union 38.03 % (27)
United Kingdom 12.68 % (9)
Australia 2.82 % (2)
Canada 1.41 % (1)
China 8.45 % (6)
France 1.41 % (1)
Total votes: 71

Not being funny reaver but apart from the U-Boats and the Bismarck/Scharnhorst(sp?) what was the rest of the German fleet doing during the war?

Well, yes it was mainly the Ubootwaffe with over IIRC 1100 boats.
Other notable actions were the invasion of Norway under the nose of the RN costly, but successful. Support for the army in the Baltic, mainly destroyers T, S and E-Boote and the old Pre-Dreadnoughts. Then we have the sorties of the capital ships that are relatively well known. And there were also merchant raiders and many E, S and T-Boote that fought many running battles against British MTBs in the channel.

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"I've voted US and the main reason is that the enormous industrial capabilities plus the enormous amounts of various materials produced by US "sunk" axis.
Without obviously minimising the role of other nations"


me too

Reaver180
Other notable actions were the invasion of Norway under the nose of the RN costly, but successful.

nop. not successfull. Not before France was about to fall. The French, the Poles and the Norvegians had conquered Narvik, the Germans were retreating in direction of Sweden, hard pressed by the French that were about to crush them when the troops were asked to reembarque because the situation in France was very serious.

EDIT:
That's either the US either Russia. More probably Russia.

France of course has nothing to do in this poll but its contribution wasn't negligible contrary to what brainwashed morons like to think.

I was looking at a list of naval vessels in the German Navy and i must say i never realised how many surface vessels you had and then how little you seemed to use them. Obviously, everyone knows what the cpaital ships and U-Boats were doing, but you guys did have a ****load of Destroyers and some Cruisers which, correct me if i'm wrong, didn't actually leave the Baltic...

Yeah Harry, and that too on both the Allied and Axis sides.

Netajis Indian National Army in Southeast Asia is well known.

Less well known is the Indian Legion of the Nazis. Rashid Khan was awarded the Iron Cross for single handedly taking out four American tanks...

"Who are the rulers of the lands beyond Guraiz and Burzil? The Darada Rajas."
The Rajatarangini

"nop. not successfull. Not before France was about to fall. The French, the Poles and the Norvegians had conquered Narvik, the Germans were retreating in direction of Sweden, hard pressed by the French that were about to crush them when the troops were asked to reembarque because the situation in France was very serious."

And? Narvik was the only battle that we were having a very hard time Oslo, Bergen etc. went well. At best you could have held that corridor open until we brought in enough troops to drive you out. We achieved the strategic surprise, using warships and a few transporters as assault ships sailing directly into the harbors, only with the help of some airborne and airlanded troops. Honestly, Norway is probably the most underrated German operation during the war.

It was daring, quick, and innovative. The Kriegsmarine in particular, despite much of today's criticism offered a very good display.

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"I was looking at a list of naval vessels in the German Navy and i must say i never realised how many surface vessels you had and then how little you seemed to use them. Obviously, everyone knows what the cpaital ships and U-Boats were doing, but you guys did have a ****load of Destroyers and some Cruisers which, correct me if i'm wrong, didn't actually leave the Baltic..."

http://www.german-navy.de/kriegsmarine/index.html

Here you can get a quick operational reference for the career of the ships.

With regards to intermediate ships, pocket battleships, cruisers and destroyers.

We had 6 heavy cruisers/PBs. One was sunk in the South Atlantic (Graf Spee, one during the Norway operation (Blücher), 3 were continuously active in support of the army in the Baltic (Admiral Hipper, Admiral Scheer and Lützow/Deutschland) they were eventually all crippled by intensive air attacks and scuttled to prevent capture in the end. It is not well known in the west, but these ships saved countless German soldier's and civilian's lives.

And the lucky survivor Blücher was eventually captured and taken by the Americans.

The CLs were old and generally crappy.
And we didn't that many destroyers IIRC only about 30. And they did much work.

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Nice link.

After Norway did the ships stay in Norwegian ports for the duration of the war?

I do now remember that there was a massive evacuation operation in 1944 or 1945 when i think it was Army Group North was surrounded by the Soviets...

>> Narvik was the only battle that we were having a very hard time Oslo, Bergen etc. went well. <<

Oslo did not go well. The sinking of Blücher delayed the task force and prevented it from achieving its main objectives, the capture of the royal family, government and gold reserves. Combined with the royal guard defence at the battle of Midtskogen it enabled them to escape and continue the fight from exile.

China and Frace were occupied! LOL why do they even get votes? Probably china men in this forum.

Indian troops were under british command

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"The Eneny of my Enemy is my Friend"

"Iraq Prevailed in the 8 Year War"

"Oslo did not go well. The sinking of Blücher delayed the task force and prevented it from achieving its main objectives, the capture of the royal family, government and gold reserves. Combined with the royal guard defence at the battle of Midtskogen it enabled them to escape and continue the fight from exile."

I would say the main objective was the invasion of Norway and they achieved that goal.

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