airpig,

All I'll add is that those 5-7 time zones and anti-Russian population all goes back to my original premise, 'political will'. They went where they were told and did what they were told and they kept their mouths shut, otherwise they were headed to a gulag in Siberia (if they were lucky...) The NKVD was very efficient..

As for the Japs, Stalin had a very lucky break with Richard Sorge. He knew that the Japanese had no designs on the USSR unless;

a. Moscow was captured by the Germans, and
b. The Kwantung Army in China was 3 times the size of Soviet Far Eastern forces, and
c. A civil war started in Siberia.

a. Was a possibility, b. relied on success Japanese in the SPA, and c. was extremely unlikely in any circumstances. The Japs were never a serious concern to the Soviets.

Air cooled diesel beats liquid cooled petrol in sub zero conditions. Air cooled aero engines cope with tropical temperatures better than liquid cooled ones.
In the temperate zones take your pick.

airpig:-
Which of course was what the Manhattan Project was all about, defeating a Nazi Germany that had been given time to develop and use a nuclear device. Given that it wasn't given the time, Truman used his bombs instead to save Allied lives (and many more Japanese ones) being lost in an invasion of Japan.

German nuclear weapon research has always been downplayed, but if Hitler had years rather than months left to get there I see no reason to doubt he would have succeeded. You only have to consider the technical lead he had in rocket, jet, and submarine propulsion at war's end. Mercifully that extinguished all of his various lights of perverted science, which had been greatly dimmed by the Strategic Bombing Campaign. That of course is a continuing bone of contention here at dear old Aunty PPRuNe...

There was no other reason for Truman to use the A-bomb except to show the Russians who was the boss; The Japanese had been surrendering for weeks.

"There was no other reason for Truman to use the A-bomb except to show the Russians who was the boss; The Japanese had been surrendering for weeks."


I think that your history teacher needs to be sacked if that is your understanding. Perhaps you have not heard of Okinawa?

Wensley, if you read the history, Fatman and Tallboy WERE just as much about the Russians as they were about the Japs. Not only were they decisive in ending the Pacific war, they were meant as a clear message to Stalin as well.

'This is what we can do. We know you can't do this yet. Back
off'

He did..

:DThat's double plus good!

if you read 'The untold History of the United States' by Oliver Stone, chapter 8, you may find a different version of the history that your teacher brought to you.
Schoolbook history is usually written by the winning side with a purpose.

I like this. Citing Oliver Stone as an authority on history.
*my ribs hurt*

As to Fox3's source on the Panther:
You can head to the Wikipedia page for the Panther tank and find a similar summary. down in the bottom where the sources are, there looks to have been good research into that article. We had a discussion on Panthers/Tigers and such here (or at Jet Blast?) recently which got me looking up such things. Until I read that article, I had not idea that German steel choices for critical transmission gears were what drove their maintenance problems, but I did understand how it was that this decision was made. Hitler made a variety of similar decisions.

He was an artist, FFS, not an engineer by education.

PPS: please give that man his tank back.

About the Authors
Oliver Stone has won numerous Academy Awards for his work on such iconic films as Platoon, Wall Street, JFK, Born on the Fourth of July, Natural Born Killers, Salavador and W. Peter Kuznick is a Professor of History and the director of the award-winning Nuclear Studies Institute at American University and is currently serving his third term as distinguished lecturer with the Organisation of American Historians. He has written extensively about science and politics, nuclear history and Cold War culture.

Fine documentaries, all.
Wait, no they are not.
He is a story teller, not a historian. Please discern the difference.
Fascinating chap, to be sure.

Of course, the basic question that is the crux of the matter in the confiscation of the 88mm AT gun and the Panther tank, is whether civilians should be allowed to possess items of military hardware at all.

Despite being technically "disabled", they are all capable of rapidly being returned to fully operational wartime status (in secret), with the potential for disastrous results in the hands of someone pyschologically unstable.

With an ever-increasing number of people suffering from mental instability via drug use, overwhelming but unbalanced feelings of personal injustice, and marginalisation, it doesn't take much to tip some people over the edge.

I would be a little nervous about any neighbour of mine who was becoming more irrational by the day, at the same time as he was going on a military hardware collection binge. :suspect:

if the owner of said devices had stashed ammunition for them they would not work. 75 or 88mm cartridges would be long dead by now. They are interesting relics nothing more but should be preserved.

On the discussions on Panther,s and Tigers I re call seeing some documentation which was done pre Normandy when the British Army was looking at the statistics of how many Sherman,s it took to kill 1nr Tiger and they were working on a 23 to 1 ratio. The big concern was the moral of the crews in the 24th Sherman onwards who would have to go hunt the next Tiger ! As it was I do not think the ratio did get quite that bad apart from some memorable actions already alluded to. As far as German crew morale in Tigers and Panthers was concerned they appear to have kept it together until the bitter end, though all the documentation I have read does emphasise there fear of "Jabo" (ground attack A/C ) which accounted for many tanks and crews in the field and transit.


With regards Warsaw Pact when I was bouncing round West Germany in that model of UK engineering a Chieftain in late 1970,s we were told the WP could put a tank every 3m facing West from the Artic circle to the Black Sea. Admittedly they would not all be 1970,s vintage but it still seemed a very large number to have to fight and knock out to this lowly 2nd Lt !


Regards
Mr Mac

In the British Army, a tank troop consisted of six tanks, one of which was a Firefly. The idea was the the 75mm Shermans would distract the Panther or Tiger, while the Firefly would get in a position to kill it.

Actually, a troop in WW2 was originally of 3 tanks - a single Firefly was added to each troop of Sherman equipped armoured regiments in the European Theatre in order to "up" the firepower making four tanks per troop in total. Each Squadron consisted of 4 troops plus an HQ troop of 3 or 4 tanks. There were 3 squadrons in each armoured regiment. The 4 tanks in each troop had the callsign alpha through to delta, with the firefly having the callsign "Charlie". The typical formation for the troop was a triangle of standard gun Shermans with the firefly a little to the rear - any contact would usually result in the call to "bring up the Charlie tank".


Armoured regiments equipped with Cromwells, rather than Shermans, were sometimes issued with "Challenger" A30 tanks rather than Fireflies to give them their 17 Pdr upgrade. Independent Armoured Brigades (usually equipped with Churchills and operating with an organic infantry division) did not receive a 17 Pdr vehicle, and maintained the 3 tank troop.

Just to put the record on Japan straight.
Aug 6th- A bomb on Hiroshima.
Aug 8th-9th- Russia defies the Soviet- Japanese Neutrality Pact, invades Manchuria.
Aug 9th- A bomb on Nagasaki

It has been said that the Russian campaign in Manchuria was the reason that the Japanese surrendered when they did.
After Nagasaki, Truman ordered military operations against Japan be continued.

Aug 15th- The Emperor announced the surrender.
Aug 20th -The Russian campaign ended.
Sept 2nd- Formal surrender signed.

To be accurate, Roosevelt only asked for Soviet help against Japan at Yalta because he wasn't sure at that stage if the nukes would work. The Japanese knew they faced inihilation after Nagasaki proved to them Hiroshima wasn't a one off.

Stalin was a cagey f:mad:er. He grabbed as much as he could while it was there for the pickings (Sakhalin etc)

I think you'll find though that the claim "that the Russian campaign in Manchuria was the reason that the Japanese surrendered" is a little myopic.

Agreed on that last point. The bolded point underscores how hard the war with the Japanese was. Even with them being pushed back, they were fighting hard. FDR was looking for a way to end the war as soon as he could, and bringing the boys home rather than having them die overseas. Truman followed through on that.

The idea that the Japanese were going to surrender anyway and dropping the A-bombs was intended as a warning to the Russians gained popularity during the anti-war 1970s.

It's proponents pretty much all have one thing in common - they didn't live through it. Those who were actually part of what happened in 1945 pretty much dismissed the whole concept out of hand.
Not only were the Japanese not "surrendering for weeks", they were fighting with ever increasing resolve as the Allies closed in on the home islands. After the Emperor announced his intent to surrender, there was an attempted 'palace coup' by some of the war lords who were intent on continuing the fight.

You see, I've spent more than a little time studying this particular aspect of USA history. My dad fought the Japanese in the Pacific during the war, including Guadalcanal (Purple Heart) and the Philippines. At the time they dropped the bomb on Hiroshima, he was a Lieutenant training for the initial landings on the Japanese home islands - his platoon was going to be part of the second wave of landings. He had been warned to expect 80% casualties, while Japanese losses were expected to be ~10x higher (and precious few Japanese casualties survived).

Dropping the bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima may have saved more lives than any other act in WWII.

BTW, back to the original thread topic - I read a book on WWII tanks many years ago (it had lots of neat cutaway illustrations and such - quite an interesting read). IIRC, the reason the Sherman (and other US tanks) had such mediocre guns was that the planners didn't foresee "tank vs. tank" as being the predominate battle tactic. Stopping tanks would be done by "tank destroyers" (relatively fast and lightly armored with big anti-tank guns). It wasn't until well after the US entry into the war that it became obvious that tanks needed to be able to take on other tanks effectively. Further, when the Sherman first showed up in North Africa, it was quite a shock to the Germans - clearly superiour to the Mark III and IV panzers that made up the majority the German tank forces. It wasn't until the Panthers and Tigers started showing up in force that the Sherman was in trouble.
One thing I never understood was, after they came up with the upgunned Firefly Sherman, why didn't they make that the standard kit? Was it due to the availability (or lack there of) of the 17 pounder gun?