badgerx16

That's like saying the inventor of the shock absorber invented the VW Golf. We also used it on the cruiser tank series from the A-13 up to the Comet - were they 'American' ? It scared the bejesus out of the German tank crews.

Err, no. It used a Christie suspension but wasn't an American design. As for the technical comparison of the 2 sides - Sources suggest that the Germans had the following numbers : PzKpfw I - 410 PzKpfw II - 746 PzKpfw 35(t) - 149 PzKpfw 38(t) - 623 PzKpfw III - 965 PzKpfw IV - 439 Total - 3332 Of these the PzI and PzII were recce vehicles and not used for tank v tank operations, and the P35(t) was pretty much obsolete by 1941. The P38(t) and PzIII had moderate armour and main gun ( 37mm ), and were slower than the Russians, and the PzIV versions at this time ( up to Ausf F1 ) were intended for infantry support and had a low velocity 75mm gun. For the Russians, the bulk of their vastly superior numbers were, indeed, obsolete, but they still had several thousand BT-7s, which in theory were a match for the PzIII etc, with weaker armour but a better gun ( 47mm ), and faster. In addition there were the first tranche of the T-34, far better armour and gun ( 76mm ) but unreliable, and the KV-1 heavy monster. However, as with the Brits in the western desert, Russian tactics tended towards the cavalry charge with firing on the move, whereas the tactically more experienced and astute German crews would halt to fire - a far more accurate and effective tactic. Even with their limitations, contact with the Russians taught the Germans some hard lessons and they very quickly pushed through a process of upgrading the armour and main weapons on the PzIII ( Ausf J got a 50mm gun and thicker armour at the front ) and PzIV ( Ausf F2 got a long barreled high velocity 75mm main gun ). They also very quickly ditched their PAK 37mm anti-tank guns in favour of 50mm systems, or even captured Russian 47mm & 75mm guns, of which they had amassed thousands in the opening weeks of the invasion.

I would suggest that is not the main reason, the Soviet command and control capabilities were atrocious - for instance in the tank regiments only the unit commander had a radio, the rest signaled with flags. As with previous campaigns, the principle of BlitzKrieg in Barbarossa was deep, fast, penetration, which disrupted the enemy's rear echelon and command troops, with vast encircling moves to 'kettle' the bulk of the enemy and leave them to the PBI. The scale of the success of the pincer movements was aided by the immobility of the Russian armies, and the reluctance of commanders to act on initiative for fear of the NKVD.

From WIKIPEDIA, but seems accurate enough based on other things I've read over the years : " Subassemblies for the T-34 originated at several plants: Kharkiv Diesel Factory N.75 supplied the model V-2-34 engine, Leningrad Kirovsky Factory (formerly the Putilov works) made the original L-11 gun, and the Dinamo Factory in Moscow produced electrical components. Tanks were initially built at KhPZ N.183, in early 1941 at the Stalingrad Tractor Factory (STZ), and starting in July at Krasnoye Sormovo Factory N.112 in Gorky.[28][notes 1] After Germany's surprise invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941 (Operation Barbarossa), the Wehrmacht's rapid advances forced the evacuation of Soviet tank factories to the Ural Mountains, an undertaking of immense scale and haste that presented enormous logistic difficulties and was extremely punishing to the workers involved. Alexander Morozov personally supervised the evacuation of all skilled engineers and laborers, machinery, and stock from KhPZ to re-establish the factory at the site of the Dzherzhinski Ural Railcar Factory in Nizhny Tagil, renamed Stalin Ural Tank Factory N.183.[29] The Kirovsky Factory, evacuated just weeks before the Germans surrounded Leningrad, moved with the Kharkiv Diesel Factory to the Stalin Tractor Factory in Chelyabinsk, soon to be nicknamed Tankograd ("Tank City"). The workers and machinery from Leningrad's Voroshilov Tank Factory N.174 were incorporated into the Ural Factory and the new Omsk Factory N.174. The Ordzhonikidze Ural Heavy Machine Tool Works (UZTM) in Sverdlovsk absorbed workers and machines from several small machine shops in the path of German forces. While these factories were being rapidly relocated, the industrial complex surrounding the Dzherzhinski Tractor Factory in Stalingrad continued to work double shifts throughout the period of withdrawal (September 1941 to September 1942) to make up for production lost, and produced 40% of all T-34s during the period.[30] As the factory became surrounded by heavy fighting in the Battle of Stalingrad in 1942, the situation there grew desperate: manufacturing innovations were necessitated by material shortages, and stories persist of unpainted T-34 tanks driven out of the factory directly to the battlefields around it.[31] Stalingrad kept up production until September 1942." Plus this : http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/weapons_t-34_production.html " First Factory No.183 - Charkovskiy Traktornyj Zawod (ChTZ), Kharkov Production of the T-34 began at Factory No.183 at Kharkov, where the tank had been designed. On 5 June 1940 the Central Committee passed a resolution ordering the Kharkov plant to produce 600 tanks in 1940, with another 100 to be produced at Stalingrad. In fact only 183 T-34s were completed during 1940, all of them at Factory No.183. Production stepped up in the first half of 1940, when 553 tanks were produced at Kharkov, and reached a peak in the second half of the year, when despite the rapid approach of the Germans another 939 T-34s were completed. A total of 1,675 T-34s were produced at Kharkov. By September 1941 it was clear that there was a real danger that Kkarkov would fall to the Germans. On 13 September 1941 the factory was ordered to evacuate to Nizhniy Tagil, east of the Urals. The first of 43 trains left on 17 September, the last on 19 October. Although much of the factory equipment reached the new site, only 10% of the work force and 20% of the engineers followed the machinery. Production Summary T-34-76: 1,675"

As T E Lawrence would put it No Prisoners !!!!!!!!

Seventh Heaven !

No contest :):):)

Bump. I came across this excerpt from a Parliamentary Education Committee meeting in January 2012 : "Chair: If "good" requires pupil performance to exceed the national average, and if all schools must be good, how is this mathematically possible? Michael Gove: By getting better all the time. Chair: So it is possible, is it? Michael Gove: It is possible to get better all the time. Chair: Were you better at literacy than numeracy, Secretary of State? Michael Gove: I cannot remember." http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201012/cmselect/cmeduc/uc1786-i/uc178601.htm

Yes he does.

In their raid against Alexandria they sank the battleships Valiant and Queen Elizabeth. However, as the harbour is shallow, and they both settled upright, the RN painted new waterlines on them and carried on with dockside activities as if nothing had happened, thus fooling the follow up reconnaissance flights.

In that case, China, who were fighting the Nips long before we joined in.

On the basis they were willing to waste over £27Mill for Fellaini, and they have ( apparently ) an unlimited budget,could we resist £30Mill for AL and £20Mill plus add-ons for LS ?

Mein Kampf was published in 1924, and Hitler lays out his vision there, so it shouldn't have been a surprise.

If Ossie plays, who takes penalties ?

There are several, though disputed, sources for this; http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v18/v18n3p40_Michaels.html http://www.lawrencehelm.com/2009/03/stalins-surprise-at-barbarossa-and.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_offensive_plans_controversy

Do the Free French count ? Or the Poles and Czechs ? ( The latter were fighting before we started ).

There is a point of view that the Germans' plan to launch Barbarossa in May was actually a pre-emptive strike against a planned Soviet invasion due to start in August 1941, and that the reason so much Russian military materiel was ensnared in the first few weeks of hostilities was due to it's having been positioned in preparation for such a move.

Up until mid 1942 the Americans didn't use convoys for their own coastal shipping, despite allocating fleet destroyers to assist UK bound convoys from Canada, ( which in fact they had been doing for many months previously whilst being ostensibly 'neutral' ). They didn't even blackout the coastline which helped the U-Boats to navigate, and to silhouette shipping against the lights. It should be remembered that in took quite a few months, and some heavy loses for us to institute the convoy system ourselves, despite the lessons of WW1.

Apart from the 'second happy time' U-Boat blitz on coastal shipping - over 600 ships sunk.

Norway was invaded primarily for 2 reasons - to gain better access to Swedish iron ore, and to take control of harbours granting more open access to the North Atlantic and British supply routes. Denmark was just in the way. However there was the secondary justification of expanding the 'germanic empire', so possibly this would still have happened.

I agree about the French mentality, one division at Sedan during the Ardennes offensive in 1940 abandoned it's position in panic when the men heard tanks approaching - the tanks were their own reinforcements. The success of the BlitzKreig was based on the divisional generals in the German army, such as Rommel and Guderian, taking some extreme chances ( often in direct contravention of Army orders ), and in doing so beating their opposition psychologically by spreading fear and panic in the rear of opposing formations whilst avoiding direct head to head conbat.

The nearest point to the centre of Moscow that the Germans reached was to the NorthWest, at Khimki. There is a memorial to mark the spot at just over 20Km from the Kremlin.

That's what happens when the Italians are your allies.

They would have needed 51 to finish above Colchester, they finished with 32. Before the Oldham game they were 10 points from Oldham in 20th place, ( Skates 23 Oldham 33 ).

I suspect that the German plan was always to invade Russia in 1941; the Heer ( Army ) was not happy with commencing hostilities in 1939 because they weren't ready. The German armour, in terms of numbers, as well as quality of armament and protection ( apart from the Czech tanks they adopted after 1938 ) was inferior to what the French and Russians had, and despite the mythos of the BlitzKrieg, most of the divisional artillery was horse drawn, and the vast bulk of the infantry went on foot. What the western allies should have done was to commence an attack against German territory as soon as they could after war was declared, but the mentality of the French was strictly defensive, ( although they did make a token advance of about 7 miles on part of the frontier ), and they sat, cosy, in the 'impregnable' Maginot Line. which the Germans, of course, simply drove around.