Mightier military vis-a-vis the contemporary competition: Imperial Germany or Nazi Germany?

dnc said:

YellowSnow said:

Carlin lays out a very compelling argument in favor of WW1 Germany...

1- Imperial Germany had 40 + years to prepare where as Nazi's only had 6 years.

2- The Generals ran the show for WWI Germany - i.e., no mad man at the helm, and they didn't make stupid decisions based on ideology. Think how much man power and resources were wasted on the Final Solution.

3- Imperial Germany actually had a navy that was worth a shit, although they didn't use it much.

4- Imperial Germany actually knocked out Russia, while fighting France and Britain at the same time and remember that France and Britain in WWI were willing to lose and entire generation of their youth to "win" in places like Verdun and the Somme. This, of course, was not the case in WWI were those two powers basically rolled over and died.

5- WWI was very much in doubt until late in the 4th Quarter and the Germans had a realistic chance to win. Nazi Germany on the other hand had lost the war by half time (i.e., late 1942 - early 1943) and that was before America was really heavy into the fight.

Conversely, that was a shit tier WWI Russia with a fucking pansy ass czar at the helm (thanks @Rasputin!) rather than a military mind. Also a Russia that was *this* close to Implosion.gif.

Hitler's eastern front SOS was much higher.

Still a chinteresting debate.

This is highly debatable. Remember WWI Germany never got anywhere near Moscow and the Russians held them off for nearly 4 years. If the Bolsheviks don't get into Power, Russia would have kept on fighting. And the Western Front SOS was much, much higher in WWI.

PostGameOrangeSlices said:

WW2 Germany and it's not close.

Who cares if the generals had more say in WW1? Say in what, sending thousands to run to their deaths against trench fortified machine guns?

Nazi German overextended by a fucking lot. They couldnt be satisfied with annexing France and Poland, they just had to spread themselves too thin and attack Russia. If they had fortified, given themselves time to get their new recruits up to speed, and not helped a fucking stupid Italy blunder along in Greece, America would have had a real problem and might not have been able to beat them.

It was probably a matter of time before Russia attacked the eastern flank, but a Russian offensive would have been a joke. Wasting away half of your troops in an offensive in Russia, during the winter, was an all-time dumb fuckup.

Same shit happened to Napolean. Power hungry despots, for some reason, arent happy with conquering the nice parts of Europe. They are compelled to invade Russia for god knows why, lose a shitload of experienced troops, and allow the English to get their shit together.

Yes, except this isn't really what happened in WWI. After Germany failed to knock out France and Britain at the First Battle of Marne in 1914, they basically went on the strategic defensive on the Western Front until Spring 1918. Most of the stupid Civil War era infantry charges against machine guns and barbed wire were British and French Generals continually launching offensives to push the Germans out of France and Belgium. Once Germany knew they were a war of attrition in WWI their strategy was sound as fuck, which can't be said of WWII. Ludendorff and Hindenburg were far better strategists than Hitler.

dnc said:

YellowSnow said:

dnc said:

YellowSnow said:

Carlin lays out a very compelling argument in favor of WW1 Germany...

1- Imperial Germany had 40 + years to prepare where as Nazi's only had 6 years.

2- The Generals ran the show for WWI Germany - i.e., no mad man at the helm, and they didn't make stupid decisions based on ideology. Think how much man power and resources were wasted on the Final Solution.

3- Imperial Germany actually had a navy that was worth a shit, although they didn't use it much.

4- Imperial Germany actually knocked out Russia, while fighting France and Britain at the same time and remember that France and Britain in WWI were willing to lose and entire generation of their youth to "win" in places like Verdun and the Somme. This, of course, was not the case in WWI were those two powers basically rolled over and died.

5- WWI was very much in doubt until late in the 4th Quarter and the Germans had a realistic chance to win. Nazi Germany on the other hand had lost the war by half time (i.e., late 1942 - early 1943) and that was before America was really heavy into the fight.

Conversely, that was a shit tier WWI Russia with a fucking pansy ass czar at the helm (thanks @Rasputin!) rather than a military mind. Also a Russia that was *this* close to Implosion.gif.

Hitler's eastern front SOS was much higher.

Still a chinteresting debate.

This is highly debatable. Remember WWI Germany never got anywhere near Moscow and the Russians held them off for nearly 4 years. If the Bolsheviks don't get into Power, Russia would have kept on fighting. And the Western Front SOS was much, much higher in WWI.

I don't deal in hypotheticals

When it comes to Germany we definitely do.