Biggest german mistake

How would the German light cruisers have preformed as commerce raiders?

@KurtGodel7:

As you pointed out, actually capturing the city was unnecessary. But having captured the city, Hitler was very determined to hold onto it. Abandoning it would have presumably meant having to recapture it later; and once again suffering that same 1:1 ratio during the recapture.

One thing I’m wondering: why would Germany have to (or even want to) recapture at great cost a city that it was unnecessary (and indeed counterproductive) to capture in the first place?

@The:

@CWO:

@ABWorsham:

Did I forget a category or person?

I don’t know how his numbers stack up against the others, but Adolf Galland shot down over a hundred Allied aircraft.

Galland ranked right up there, if not surpassed, most of the airmen in the Luftwaffe.

He could also light a cigar and smoke while wearing his oxygen mask. Great fighter pilot! Had he not been promoted to General he may have added another hundred kills to his score.

It could have made a difference I think, the brits could still not beat the blitzkrieg then.

And their army was 10x smaller then the italian, whose moral would raise by the arrival of the germans/first defeats of the british.

But of course, malta should be taken first.

The officially stated target for Barbarossa was the Astrakhan-Archangel line.

@balungaloaf:

i heard on a show lately that the german army lost 1/4 of all supplies and material that the germans ever produced in the ENTIRE SECOND WAR!

i was like whaaaaaaa?!

is this accurate?  it makes sense of a lot of things for me.  by number losses of troops alone i always thought that the germans should be able to recoup their losses by their volunteer campaigns in occupied territories, or by forcing human labor in the territories occupied to free up more german men to be put into the wehrmacht.

1/4 of all supplies produced lost is staggering.

makes you wonder why in the hell Hitler didnt allow a tactical retreat from the area after the soviets counterattacked en masse.

the question is this. is the 1/4 loss number accurate?

I think this may be be reference to a line in the “Stalingrad” episode of “The World at War”.  Towards the end of the episode, as the narrator describes the German losses in men and equipment at Stalingrad, he says that enough equipment was lost to equip one-quarter of the German army.  So it’s not a reference to one-quarter of the equipment produced, which would be a much larger number.

@finnman:

@gnasape:

Looks like an episode of “Deadliest Warrior” on Spike TV!  Someone should contact them about doing this.

Best show ever, The SS just fought the veit cong.

Good show, not great show. Had the show had this face off ( Marine Raiders vs Waffen SS) it could hold the title: great show.

@yamamato456:

Well actually the battle of britain itself was not necassarily a German mistake.  The way the battle of britain was fought was a mistake.  In the beginning of the battle the Germans were smart to only target the British airforce.  However, the air battle was lasting longer than Hitler wanted… so he decided he would bomb London instead.  All of the german generals thought this was a huge mistake and wanted to keep attacking the airforce.  In fact on the day that they started targetting london there were only 14 operational planes in the whole UK.  If the German generals would have had their way the Germans would have won the battle of britain.

Even assuming Germany “wins” the air war, they never win the battle of Britain. Britain never gets successfully invaded, Germany just doesnt have the operational power to do so.

The mistake was in attacking Britain, rather than the Med. Taking Egypt (and gaining access to Iran/Iraq oil) and depriving UK of supplies was the only way to “win” (which eventually would not have worked as the USA would eventually enter the war and supply Britain with whatever was needed).

Had the med been conquered and become an axis lake, you could delay Torch till 44. Perhaps egypt is never retaken until 45. Which would give Germany time to mass produce its "super-weapons). This also assumes the blunders on the eastern front are also ignored.

Squirecam