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Nevada Convert

Another WWII Fact You Didn’t Know

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Props to incredible historian Mark Felton on YouTube for this info. with great video. He’s got dozens of great segments on the war, and best of all the historic video of it actually happening. He has probably 50 to 70 segments on his channel now. 


Everyone talks about Germany getting as far as Stalingrad before taking a shit and getting surrounded. But the fact is that in early December 5, 1941, the Germans had three different advances surround Moscow. One of them got within 14 miles of Red Square, another 22 miles, another 18 miles. Moscow was going to easily fall, but just in the nick of time, the German supply lines broke down and yup, they ran out of fvcking gas!!! Perhaps a slightly lower mileage Panzer may have conquered Moscow and the USSR....we’ll never know. 

Another thing that hurt was in October 1941, about 150 miles out, the rain hit hard for days and the roads were impassable muck. The tanks couldn’t move. They had to wait a few weeks for the ground to freeze before they could continue. This gave Stalin time to bring in soldiers used to cold weather from Siberia to defend the capital, and brought in 1,000 tanks. This made it tougher, but the Germans kept advancing. There’s a monument where the closest Germans got with huge red anti-tank obstacles as a part of it. The implication that the Soviets stopped the Germans is total propaganda rubbish. Empty gas tanks did.

The self inflicted supply line problems plagued Hitler the entire war. The Battle of the Bulge ended abruptly for the same reason. The reds did a great job of disguising red square by painting the gold domes black, constructing regular building fascads around parts of it to make it tough for a bomber to recognize in the air. But not an advance on the ground. Stalin must have been shitting red bricks. 

I’ve got 3 words for Hitler:

SUPPLY LINES, BITCH!!!!

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9 hours ago, Nevada Convert said:

Props to incredible historian Mark Felton on YouTube for this info. with great video. He’s got dozens of great segments on the war, and best of all the historic video of it actually happening. He has probably 50 to 70 segments on his channel now. 


Everyone talks about Germany getting as far as Stalingrad before taking a shit and getting surrounded. But the fact is that in early December 5, 1941, the Germans had three different advances surround Moscow. One of them got within 14 miles of Red Square, another 22 miles, another 18 miles. Moscow was going to easily fall, but just in the nick of time, the German supply lines broke down and yup, they ran out of fvcking gas!!! Perhaps a slightly lower mileage Panzer may have conquered Moscow and the USSR....we’ll never know. 

Another thing that hurt was in October 1941, about 150 miles out, the rain hit hard for days and the roads were impassable muck. The tanks couldn’t move. They had to wait a few weeks for the ground to freeze before they could continue. This gave Stalin time to bring in soldiers used to cold weather from Siberia to defend the capital, and brought in 1,000 tanks. This made it tougher, but the Germans kept advancing. There’s a monument where the closest Germans got with huge red anti-tank obstacles as a part of it. The implication that the Soviets stopped the Germans is total propaganda rubbish. Empty gas tanks did.

The self inflicted supply line problems plagued Hitler the entire war. The Battle of the Bulge ended abruptly for the same reason. The reds did a great job of disguising red square by painting the gold domes black, constructing regular building fascads around parts of it to make it tough for a bomber to recognize in the air. But not an advance on the ground. Stalin must have been shitting red bricks. 

I’ve got 3 words for Hitler:

SUPPLY LINES, BITCH!!!!

It wasn't just lack of supply that stopped the German Ardennes Offensive.  The Germans were absolutely stonewalled on the North Shoulder of the bulge on Elsenborn Ridge.  The success of those American units ( initially primarily the veteran 2nd Infantry Division and the green 99th Division) in defending their positions really threw a wrench into the German's plan.  If someone thinks the western Allies only succeeded because of superior numbers, they need to take a look at that battle.

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2 hours ago, SalinasSpartan said:

Why would the USSR surrender just because Moscow fell? Especially considering the U.S. would have likely joined the war before Germany took the city. 

That’s an interesting question I forgot to mention. If you blow up Red Square into oblivion and Stalin and his advisers are dead, by cutting off the head of the snake, is the rest of the snake dead? Certainly the military could’ve continued on, but initially there would’ve been lots of confusion and dysfunction until the military agreed to take orders (big picture perspective) from a new Leader. There’s no question the Germans would’ve taken advantage of that and even made it worse by sending phony orders from a new phony leader that the generals would question. So when the real leader sent them, they would question those. That’s my guess, but who knows.

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11 hours ago, Jimbo_Poke said:

It wasn't just lack of supply that stopped the German Ardennes Offensive.  The Germans were absolutely stonewalled on the North Shoulder of the bulge on Elsenborn Ridge.  The success of those American units ( initially primarily the veteran 2nd Infantry Division and the green 99th Division) in defending their positions really threw a wrench into the German's plan.  If someone thinks the western Allies only succeeded because of superior numbers, they need to take a look at that battle.

I’m confused. Yeah, when I say the supply lines sucked, it’s implied that the Americans were doing their job in contributing to that German problem. When we held Bastogne and Patton showed up to the rescue, the Germans chose to bypass Bastogne because they couldn’t take it. Hitler had to have known that forcing his supply lines to also bypass and follow them in open terrain would’ve made it extremely difficult for a supply line to do it’s thing in a timely manner. 

But the Germans offensive didn’t ultimately stop and get shut down in the Ardennes. They continued on much further west of the Ardennes (hence the bulge) when the Panzers ran out of gas. The Germans had a lot of fight left in them, but when their vehicles went dead, they jumped out and tried to make it back to Germany on foot while they took shots at Americans with the guns they had. So the B of the Bulge ended sooner because their supply line was completely disrupted. And not to totally blame the supply line, Hitler was having trouble getting enough fuel to use for the military in general, at that point. And that also meant little fuel for their planes. When the weather finally cleared, it was also easy to take out their armored convoys and supply vehicles. 

In Vietnam, the supply lines on the Ho Chi Minh trail were sometimes decimated by our planes. In fact, the commies had to handcuff their vehicle drivers to the steering wheels to prevent them from jumping out and running into the jungle every time they thought they heard one of our planes coming. 

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18 hours ago, Nevada Convert said:

I’m confused. Yeah, when I say the supply lines sucked, it’s implied that the Americans were doing their job in contributing to that German problem. When we held Bastogne and Patton showed up to the rescue, the Germans chose to bypass Bastogne because they couldn’t take it. Hitler had to have known that forcing his supply lines to also bypass and follow them in open terrain would’ve made it extremely difficult for a supply line to do it’s thing in a timely manner. 

But the Germans offensive didn’t ultimately stop and get shut down in the Ardennes. They continued on much further west of the Ardennes (hence the bulge) when the Panzers ran out of gas. The Germans had a lot of fight left in them, but when their vehicles went dead, they jumped out and tried to make it back to Germany on foot while they took shots at Americans with the guns they had. So the B of the Bulge ended sooner because their supply line was completely disrupted. And not to totally blame the supply line, Hitler was having trouble getting enough fuel to use for the military in general, at that point. And that also meant little fuel for their planes. When the weather finally cleared, it was also easy to take out their armored convoys and supply vehicles. 

In Vietnam, the supply lines on the Ho Chi Minh trail were sometimes decimated by our planes. In fact, the commies had to handcuff their vehicle drivers to the steering wheels to prevent them from jumping out and running into the jungle every time they thought they heard one of our planes coming. 

The American ground forces at Elsenborn Ridge held resulting in the "bulge" not extending as far north as the Germans had wanted.  Further it prohibited the Germans from being able to utilize key roads that they had been counting on to get to Liege (major American supply center and major corridor to get to Antwerp).  If anyone is unfamiliar with this particular part of the Battle of the Bulge, I encourage you to look it up. The German forces attacking the Americans here had plenty of supply, tanks, fuel, and ammo.  What stopped the Germans in this important sector was not lack of supply, rather it was hard fighting by U.S. infantry and efficient use of artillery.

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54 minutes ago, Jimbo_Poke said:

The American ground forces at Elsenborn Ridge held resulting in the "bulge" not extending as far north as the Germans had wanted.  Further it prohibited the Germans from being able to utilize key roads that they had been counting on to get to Liege (major American supply center and major corridor to get to Antwerp).  If anyone is unfamiliar with this particular part of the Battle of the Bulge, I encourage you to look it up. The German forces attacking the Americans here had plenty of supply, tanks, fuel, and ammo.  What stopped the Germans in this important sector was not lack of supply, rather it was hard fighting by U.S. infantry and efficient use of artillery.

There’s no question our guys did a brilliant job and would’ve defeated the Nazi’s in a number of ways, if required. 

The post war analysis, however, blames German logistic failures failing to supply gas and some arms and thus hindering vehicle/tank movement as the cause of the failure of the Ardennes Offensive. 

Read the 1st paragraph in the abstract, below, and that sums it up. If you don’t have enough fuel to move your tanks when and where you want them to, it causes big problems. And when they actually run out of gas, they’re completely useless.

https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a384410.pdf

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On 5/14/2021 at 5:06 PM, Nevada Convert said:

There’s no question our guys did a brilliant job and would’ve defeated the Nazi’s in a number of ways, if required. 

The post war analysis, however, blames German logistic failures failing to supply gas and some arms and thus hindering vehicle/tank movement as the cause of the failure of the Ardennes Offensive. 

Read the 1st paragraph in the abstract, below, and that sums it up. If you don’t have enough fuel to move your tanks when and where you want them to, it causes big problems. And when they actually run out of gas, they’re completely useless.

https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a384410.pdf

Making my way through this, and I am not downplaying logistics nor their importance.  Page 47 states the Germans had gathered sufficient fuel to reach Antwerp, BUT half the fuel was to be delivered once the Germans secured bridges across the Meuse River.  The Germans were never able to do that, in large part because of the stubborn defense of the 2nd and 99th U.S. on Elsenborn Ridge but also the effective placement and defense provided by reinforcements  (including 82nd and 30th divisions) along the Meuse.  That stubborn defense resulted in German forces having to detour on longer routes, use more fuel in repeated failed attacks, in short the stubborn defense resulted in chaos for the German logistics.  If the Americans had simply rolled over the Germans would have had sufficient fuel to reach Antwerp per this paper.  As it was the stubborn defense that caused the (admittedly tight) logistics of the Germans forces to implode in this offensive, I think one needs to couple the stubborn defense and logistics on why the German offensive failed.

Edit:Also the tanks attacking the 2nd and 99th had plenty of fuel as they were still close to the offensive staging area.  As those particular German units had the needed supplies, those attacks didn't fail because of lack of supply.

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The reason I brought up Elsenborn Ridge is it is one of a number of battles that go against popular narratives of the war that are relatively unknown.  Another (though it has been getting some more recent attention) is Arracourt.  These battles have American forces outnumbered, no air support at key moments, and yet they won and decisively so.

My first exposure to both these battles was in the book "There is a War to be Won" by Geoffrey Perret.

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19 hours ago, TheSanDiegan said:

I really enjoy these WW2 threads of yours @Nevada Convert, and @Jimbo_Pokeyour contribution here is equally appreciated.

Thanks, and I do want add @Nevada Convert
did make solid points about the overall logistical situation in Western Europe 1944-1945.

Another YouTube channel I am appreciating right now is the time ghost army week by week videos both their main war episode released on Saturdays and then their War Against Humanity series.  That second series is sobering to say the least.

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