S.S. American Victory

One of the major improvements to the Soviet armed forces that came out of the Winter War was the replacement of Kliment Voroshilov by Semyon Timoshenko as People’s Commissar for Defence. Voroshilov had helped Stalin carry out the Great Purge by denouncing some of his military colleagues, and (as I recall) he reversed some of the army reforms that his predecessors had carried out.  He also bungled the opening phases of the Winter War, and was eventually turfed out in favour of the more competent Timoshenko.  After the Soviets won in Finland, Timoshenko set about modernizing the Red Army.

Thank you Tall Paul.

Brad Meltzer’s show Decoded on the History Channel had an episode devoted to this topic. Its a good episode, if any of you get a chance watch it.

@Imperious:

Great maps!!!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17390290

19 March 2012

A British general kept Winston Churchill and Free French leader Charles De Gaulle in the dark about a top secret 1942 plan to arm Vichy France, recently discovered documents reveal.

The defeat of Leningrad would have been easier than Stalingrad.

The loss of Moscow would have been much greater loss than Baku and resulted in a shortening of the front of which a latter southern drive could succeed without fear of getting cut off because at that point all logistical support for Soviets would be coming entirely east of the Don and this country is not too developed. The last Soviet Factories would be in range of Axis bombers and the front would have rolled up more easily, than committing the 6th to Stalingrad with all other Soviet logistical and political objectives are intact allowing easy reinforcement from rail heads running south from Moscow.

would it not be better keeping producing Panzer III and IV and keep on developing new Support Tanks etc like Hummel, Nashorn, Wirbelwind, kugelblitz etc.?…It would have been far better to satisfy the needs of the troops instead of longing for bigger tanks.
The Panzer IV was maybe not equal to all the counterparts of the allied tanks but further development of panzer III and IV´s and increasing production of it would be better in the long run!..E series might have been better and easier in production but it is not guaranteed that it would satisfy the need!
I dare even to say that a 5cm gun for panzer III series and a 7,5-cm-KwK 40 L/43 for the Panzer IV´s would have made a big diffrence!
In the end the Panzer IV was the backbone of all Panzerdivisions to the end of the war…

Patton is one of the most interesting characters in WW2.

First of all look at how the Germans feared him. They were terrified of the man. Secondly a good many of Patton’s strategic and tactical viewpoints came to pass about both the 2nd World War and the Cold War. The man also had a sense of justice. He forced German civilians that tried to ignore the existence of the concentration camps to walk through the horrors there. As a tactician and commander I doubt we had anyone better than Patton.

The man had his faults certainly. The two incidents of slapping a soldier (he discharged a firearm in at least one of those, not sure about the second), he always seemed to have trouble managing his supply lines, and he always had trouble keeping his opinions quiet. He blundered severely sending troops to liberate a POW camp that happened to have his son in law as a prisoner. Patton never believed in shell shock, “battle fatigue”.

I really enjoyed Rick Atkinson’s first two books (Army at Dawn and Day of Battle). Patton is a major player in Army At Dawn (focused on North Africa). In the second book Patton is involved briefly but you learn many of his predictions about the fight in Italy prove to be correct. I look forward to third which focuses from D-day to the end of the war. I was disappointed in the amount of time Jeff Shaara devoted to Patton in “No Less Than Victory”. True a wealth of information is already recorded about Patton but writing any WW@ novel without Patton would be like writing about the Shenandoah Valley without mentioning Stonewall Jackson.

I believe that some authors portray Patton with a bias and marginalize Patton (most notably alternative writer Harry Turtledove). Part of this is because Patton offers so much stuff to criticize in his character. Part of it also comes from the fact it is popular to criticize anyone that could be considered conservative today.