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I will get the ball rolling with these comments from another thread and some questions: - How did the British lorries compare to German types? - How many lorries were captured by the Germans in 1940? How many did they use in other campaigns (Greece, USSR)? @Stuart Galbraith The problem with the Nazi's was that they didnt have good trucks. There was, in my mind at least, little wrong with the Opel Blitz. But rather than do what the Americans did, standardize on one, maybe 2 different designs, they had about 3 or 4 different designs for a single role, all with different engines, drivetrains, probably even tyres knowing the silly buggers. For short wars there was no problem with. For trying to defeat the Soviet Union, it clearly was. I submit, rather than seeing this as an advantage, it gave them lots of trucks, wholly dissimilar with anything else they operated. They might pat themselves ont he back about that. I doubt they were doing it in 1942 when they suddenly found the nearest Halfords was well over a thousand miles away. @mkenny In the desert British trucks outperformed their German counterparts. The entire Lorry fleet of the BEF was captured in 1940 and along with Greece and desert captures provided a vast increase in German wheeled vehicle stocks, second only to the French trucks ( the entire French Army 1940 truck fleet) and some of those trucks were still in use in 1945. Without French and British truck and tank captures the Germany army would have been buggered in 1941. The increase in German Panzer Divisions was only accomplished by reducing the establishment of current division (to form new ones) and providing them with captured transport. If you check German wheeled vehicle losses in 1941-42 you will see how badly it went for them. @Stuart Galbraith 'The entire lorry fleet of the BEF' was captured yes. How much was that actually operable? Not much. Not when you consider how much of it was parked in the sea as a jetty, and there were standing orders to drop the coolant and oil and destroy the engines. Yes, I dont doubt being creative people the Germans were able to fix some. But I would argue that it was French lorries, which were able to be adapted to carry twice their designed cargo, that were the real price, and seem to have been far more used when looking at photos than anything the British left them with. And some of it was not of great value. I remember reading that in 1939 the British Army were so desperate for trucks, they bought up a job lot of Bedford trucks that were designed for local councils. Had a tipper body for dumping tarmac or salt. Not much cargo space in them either. As for outperformed, If you have sources im happy to be convinced. You have have your work cut out however.

I suppose I should talk about things in which this game excels, compared to other war games. First, I like how it compresses the normal combat ranges between two tanks in a space of one computer screen without sacrificing much fidelity to real life dynamics. This is because distance in this game is not linear: 1 tile separation is about 100m but 8 tiles (the maximum range for most tank guns) is equivalent to 2000m IRL terms. This allows the game to present both the long range engagements and the details of small scale maneuvering. Secondly, the morale system. In this game a continuous bombardment of a tank with a gun too weak to actually pierce through the armour can still make the crew reconsider pushing forward and stop or fall back to re-group before they try attacking again. I apologise to all my virtual solders who died because of my tactical blunders. Other thread: https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=251222

Hi guys, I always wanted to create a game. Growing up in the 80s, I learned how to program at a young age. The wish to become a game designer and developer influenced my choice to become an IT professional. After my academics I ended up working in IT all over the world. But I still couldn’t shake the wish to create a game. So I finally bit the bullet and did it. The result is Panzer Battle. It is actually a combination of the old games Conqueror (on the Acorn Archimedes) and Panzer General (PC strategy). You are a tank commander slowly upgrading your tank and gradually moving through the scenarios of World War 2. I just launched the game and enhancements are incoming, but of course getting visibility is rough these days and even (or especially) for a free game it is hard to get noticed. So I was hoping if you guys could give me a leg up. Would really appreciate it! Thanks, Martijn Download from Apple app store Download from Google Play See video here

During WW2 the Soviet Union supplied the US with certain raw materials and products. The scheme for this supply was "Reverse Lend-Lease". The Soviet Union was able to pay back by providing what the US might need. The list below shows the deliveries. Item/Quantity Chromium ore (tons): 300.000 Manganese ore (tons): 32.000 Platinum: * Tin: * Petroleum (tons): 1.070 Fruit (tons): 6 Vegetables (tons): 102 Meat (tons): 23 Eggs (doz.): 17.643 Railroad freight (ton-miles, est.): 9.538.050 Railroad passenger (passenger-miles, est.): 1.345.560 Truck freight (ton miles): 60.000 Labor ($): 280.000 Aggregate value (U.S. wartime est.): $ 2.200.000 * Negligible quantities Source: "History of the U.S. Military Mission to Moscow," Modern Military Records Division, R.G. 165, Box 146, OPD 336TS, N.A., 356-57; Oleg Rzheshevsky, World War II; Myths and the Realities (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1984), 190. Feeding the Bear: American Aid to the Soviet Union, 1941-1945, by Hubert P. Van Tuyll. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, Inc. 1989 I haven't been able to find details on the negotiations and how it was agreed. The food, petroleum and freight is likely to be included because of US troops/personnel being based in the Soviet Union. Chrome ore and manganese deliveries are more interesting. In the link below it is possible to find the US production during the war. The % of manganese supplied by the USSR is not very significant when compared to the local output (~3%), but chromium is more significant. Local output reduces by a quarter in 1944 (145.600 vs 45.600 tons) and reduces to a trickle in 1945 (14.000). Finally, what does the "aggregate value" include? I can't get how all those items are worth just $ 2.200.000.

Historical photos of LSW Panthers are quite rare, so it would be pretty cool if this is a real example, but so far I've unable to track down the source/context of this photo, and something about it doesn’t feel right (one detail being the dimension of the store’s entrance compared to the Panther). I suspect that you guys will be able to prove me a fool for ever believing this was real, but that’s preferable to carrying on being ignorant.

So thinking about it when it comes to Armor, everyone talks about the gun and how well protected a tank is but there are other things to consider. One of the things that I think the US Army did well was engineer vehicles. Dozer Tanks and recovery tanks are a good example. There are just no German equivalents to a bulldozer blade on a tank. When the US Army arrived on scene they brought air compressors, chain saws, dozers and everything else they could cram on a ship. The British had some "funnies", what did Germany and Russia do?

I just finished reading a book by M. Middlebrook and P. Mahoney on the sinking of the battleship Prince of Wales and battlecruiser Repulse in December 1941. Following the disaster the Royal Navy withdraw most ships to bases Ceylon (and Dutch East Indies) and saw little action until 1945. I was wondering what would have happened if the ships were not sunk. Could they have provided artillery support to Singapore's garrison? Or be used in any other way to prevent the fall of the base?

On November 10, 2019, a private research group, Lost 52 Project, announced it had found the wreck of Grayback off the coast of Okinawa, in June 2019. The submarine sits upright on the bottom in 1,400 feet (430 m) of water, with severe damage aft of the conning tower, consistent with reports of a direct bomb hit in that area. Said to be searched for in the wrong area due to a wrong translation of an intercepted Japanese message. NYT article Wiki article

Zhukov gets much criticism for carrying out a direct assault on the Seelow Heights. The story is well know, Heinrici expected the attack and the night before the offensive he retired most of the troops to the third line of defence, thus the Soviet bombardment was largely ineffectual. Stiff German resistance and difficult terrain led to high Soviet losses. Having read a few books on the topic, I was wondering what other options did Zhukov have. Is he ultimately responsible? It was Stalin who decided on a simultaneous attack by both Koniev and Zhukov on 16th April. Now we know that Koniev's advance was much more smooth because Hitler expected that its objective would be Prague. Would it have been better to let Koniev carry out the assault? If we look at the disposition of the Soviet troops, Zhukov's First Belorussian Front is sandwiched between Rokossovsky Second Belorussian Front and Koniev's First Ukrainian Front.

In his famous book Panzer Battles, Generalmajor von Mellethin states that the war in the Eastern Front could have been won by using an elastic defense, and bleeding white the Soviet Army. It was only Hitler's interference that prevented this. He is not the only German officer to make this claim. On the other hand In the edition I read there are several tables of German losses in the Eastern Front, together with the replacements received. There is a clear deficit, see below. The reforms of the Panzer divisions during the war to cope with the losses and new material are well known, but what about the infantry. What specific politics/reforms were applied? Some of them are well known, for example, in 1942 German allies had a much bigger role than in Barbarossa.

Hello everyone, I always wondered why some designers used mostly 3 bladed propellers for their planes while others used mostly 4 ? For example, all the German planes from ww2 time frame that I can think of had 3 blades ( minor exceptions, 2 for Ju52/ HS123 and 4 for HE177 ) while US used 4 more or less everywhere. The British started with 3 and ended up with 5 or more. From a technical pov, how significant is this difference ? Less blades means it needs more rpm or longer length for the same pull ? Longer length and higher rpm cause the tip to exceed sound speed with a significant drop in efficiency from what I've read. Did the pitch mechanism played a role in this ?

This looks like it might be a nice diversion when it comes out. http://www.battlefleetgame.com/bf2.html