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Hyrax Attack! posted:During WWII I know Italy had a weak industrial base, especially compared to Germany. Is there a reason Germany didn’t do more to equip their ally with decent guns and tanks? Even if Italy couldn’t build these themselves, having access to better equipment seems well worth the investment for Germany in getting better results in Africa and other fronts. Especially with how the US wasn’t shy about sharing with their allies. Well for one Italy was getting dunked on for reasons other than having obsolete tanks so that's a good way to get a whole bunch of your fancy new tanks captured by the British. Also Germany needed every tank they could get as it was so why waste it in Italy when it instead could be sent to the Afrika Corps or Eastern Front? It's not like they had piles of spare new tanks lying around. For the most part, when they did give their allies or puppets tanks they were largely obsolete ones or captured French vehicles. In summary, Nazi Germany was, unsurprisingly, a lovely ally.
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Jan 18, 2021 06:00
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brains posted:i'd imagine it unlikely, considering both sides were already actively employing mustard gas and other horrific, unimaginably gruesome ways of killing each other? the modern idea of the criminality of certain weapons seemed to come about afterwards; horror from the experience of gas attacks in the Great War lead to a series of international treaties banning the use of inhumane and cruel weapons like gas or landmines, and even then some major powers, such as the US, still to this day are not signatories. I thought the question was about what rando soldiers might have thought than what the governments did. But that’s just my reading and I’m some rear end in a top hat.
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Jan 18, 2021 06:04
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Mr Luxury Yacht posted:Well for one Italy was getting dunked on for reasons other than having obsolete tanks so that's a good way to get a whole bunch of your fancy new tanks captured by the British.
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Jan 18, 2021 06:06
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Italy I think iirc did licence German equipment IIRC, probably planes/engines? e: Ironically Germany did "provide" (re forced) Italy to use the enigma which I think contributed to Italy's worsening performance in the Med? Raenir Salazar fucked around with this message at 06:16 on Jan 18, 2021 |
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Jan 18, 2021 06:12
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I believe the US did what it did because their ludicrous industrial capacity meant that once on a war footing they were producing more materiel than they were capable of using.
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Jan 18, 2021 06:17
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Mr Luxury Yacht posted:Well for one Italy was getting dunked on for reasons other than having obsolete tanks so that's a good way to get a whole bunch of your fancy new tanks captured by the British. Makes sense, thanks for info. I was thinking with the US approach of equipping the hell out of their allies with great results (even if the Soviets liked their locomotives more than their tanks), that other nations would be doing the same by default to improve their odds as a whole. But yeah, Germany. The Lone Badger posted:I believe the US did what it did because their ludicrous industrial capacity meant that once on a war footing they were producing more materiel than they were capable of using. Oh yeah I remember reading that Italy as a whole was outproduced by Ford alone. Helped to put the insane US output into context.
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Jan 18, 2021 06:20
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Raenir Salazar posted:Italy I think iirc did licence German equipment IIRC, probably planes/engines? I know several Italian fighter designs used license-built Daimler-Benz engines.
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Jan 18, 2021 06:24
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The Lone Badger posted:I believe the US did what it did because their ludicrous industrial capacity meant that once on a war footing they were producing more materiel than they were capable of using. I read 112 Gripes About The French and it states patriotically that every rifle in French hands is an American away from the frontlines. The same is true of tanks and Soviet tank drivers.
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Jan 18, 2021 06:25
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Chamale posted:I read 112 Gripes About The French and it states patriotically that every rifle in French hands is an American away from the frontlines. The same is true of tanks and Soviet tank drivers. I need to look that up. I was reading about the western allies planning their next move after North Africa and someone (possibly Churchill) pointed out that at the moment zero German divisions were being engaged by the US or UK and Stalin might not tolerate that indefinitely.
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Jan 18, 2021 06:29
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White Coke posted:I've heard that the Germans didn't like American soldiers using shotguns, or British soldiers using sedated bayonets in WWI and that they threatened to execute anyone they captured using these weapons. Is that true, and were there any other weapons that were considered similarly criminal in WWI? It was the Germans that had the serrated bayonets, IIRC. Barthas doesn't say anything about them being more objectionable, and in fact, one of his buddies (the ex priest) spends some time in no-man's land trying to loot one off the dead as a souvenir.
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Jan 18, 2021 06:29
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I remember a bit in All Quiet On The Western Front where some newly-raised soldiers arrived with serrated bayonets, and the veterans made sure to take them away and give them straight bayonets because they believed the British troops would kill anyone they captured who had a serrated bayonet. Not sure how good a source that is, but the author was a veteran of the war.
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Jan 18, 2021 06:34
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Hyrax Attack! posted:During WWII I know Italy had a weak industrial base, especially compared to Germany. Is there a reason Germany didn’t do more to equip their ally with decent guns and tanks? Even if Italy couldn’t build these themselves, having access to better equipment seems well worth the investment for Germany in getting better results in Africa and other fronts. Especially with how the US wasn’t shy about sharing with their allies.
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Jan 18, 2021 06:39
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The Lone Badger posted:I remember a bit in All Quiet On The Western Front where some newly-raised soldiers arrived with serrated bayonets, and the veterans made sure to take them away and give them straight bayonets because they believed the British troops would kill anyone they captured who had a serrated bayonet.
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Jan 18, 2021 06:50
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Raenir Salazar posted:Italy I think iirc did licence German equipment IIRC, probably planes/engines? 
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Jan 18, 2021 06:51
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Terrible Opinions posted:I thought that scene had him taking it away because a bayonet that gets stuck in your enemy is a bayonet that traps you for his buddy to kill. I don’t know about the book version but the movie version goes into lurid detail about the various ways the British will supposedly torture you to death. Edit: still just soldier stories, don’t think anyone was ever killed for having one of those n
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Jan 18, 2021 06:54
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Certainly not evidence that it happened, I'm just offering it as evidence that german soldiers thought it would happen.
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Jan 18, 2021 06:59
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Cyrano4747 posted:I don’t know about the book version but the movie version goes into lurid detail about the various ways the British will supposedly torture you to death.
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Jan 18, 2021 07:04
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SeanBeansShako posted:I think he means serated. Serrated, but yes.
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Jan 18, 2021 07:08
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Italians did some licensed production of German fighter engines, put them in some decent fighters but didn't build very much of them. Tanks-wise the Germans didn't have enough, and trucks-wise the Germans definitely didn't have enough. No point running an armoured division on horses so it wasn't going to work. Must be said too that Germany and Italy were mostly Allies out of having common enemies, furthered by Mussolini's instincts. He thought WWII was just about over in 1940, and wanted to nab some concessions from France and Britain, while also getting on Germany's good side so they wouldn't point the barrel at Sudtirol next. While Hitler got along with Mussolini personally, the other Nazis were ambivalent about Italy and didn't really care about working together. You can see the end-state of this in what the Germans did when Italy surrendered in 1943. Rolled the army down the peninsula, killed a bunch of them, and dragged the PoWs back to Germany to be slave laborers. At Sicily, the Luftwaffe's Herman Goering Paratrooper-Armour Division was around to support the defenses. That's how they got Panzer IVs onto the fight in Italy, through German units. Also yes, you read that unit name correctly.
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Jan 18, 2021 07:22
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FMguru posted:Yeah. Every German tank given to Italy is a German tank not fighting in the Soviet Union. I guess that explains why Romania, Finland and others were actually furnished with German tanks and planes - they had the right enemy?
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Jan 18, 2021 07:25
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Tias posted:I guess that explains why Romania, Finland and others were actually furnished with German tanks and planes - they had the right enemy? Italy did send something like 250,000 troops to fight in Russia.
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Jan 18, 2021 07:28
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Tias posted:I guess that explains why Romania, Finland and others were actually furnished with German tanks and planes - they had the right enemy? Doing some brief research looking it up on wikipedia Germany did send some tanks to Italy, but comically low amounts. The Panzer IV for instance was apparently their most-exported tank, and Italy managed to get a whopping twelve out just under 300 that were sent out to Germany's allies.
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Jan 18, 2021 07:51
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They probably figured Mussolini would send such tanks either to Africa (And they had someone there to manage German tanks themselves, thank you) or to Yugoslavia to shoot at partisans (in which case, why not give him the second-tier or lightly used tanks?)
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Jan 18, 2021 08:05
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brains posted:really interesting, and it seems like the main argument against it by the Germans was that shotguns were too efficient. the irony of protesting such a weapon was not lost on the people of the times: Funnily enough, according to the guy at C&Rsenal, while Germany absolutely did protest against the American use of shotguns... the Americans didn't actually use that many shotguns, mainly because at the time they used paper cartridges that were very, very easily ruined in the wet, muddy environment of actual trench fighting. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6ofO8MaIp4&t=733s Longer, more detailed video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oROttbSkayU
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Jan 18, 2021 08:06
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:I read an article that made the argument that these bans were really only possible because of the sheer impracticality of gas as a weapon of war. Conventional weapons are generally more effective (more damaging ton-for-ton, easier to manufacture/store/deploy) for dealing damage, and the problem with denying territory to your opponent (such as with gas or landmines) is that you also deny that territory to yourself, and you need to be able to maneuver just as much as they do. Signing treaties banning a weapon's use is easy when you don't ever plan to use the weapon anyway. If for some reason you do find a use for it, well, breaking the treaty is not very hard. Always a little shocked and relieved we never got to the ultimate use of chemical weapons, in the terror bombing campaigns.
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Jan 18, 2021 08:10
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Nessus posted:They probably figured Mussolini would send such tanks either to Africa (And they had someone there to manage German tanks themselves, thank you) or to Yugoslavia to shoot at partisans (in which case, why not give him the second-tier or lightly used tanks?)
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Jan 18, 2021 08:13
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Also, Italy outproduced all smaller axis aligned nations combined handily, while having roughly the same total population. They may not have had production numbers like the big boys, but they still needed the aid less than Hungary etc.
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Jan 18, 2021 08:32
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Slim Jim Pickens posted:Italians did some licensed production of German fighter engines, put them in some decent fighters but didn't build very much of them. Also the Germans were incredibly stingy about giving equipment to their allies until much later in the war. The Romanians did get some gear in 1942, but it was a pittance, and only as Soviet forces moved across Ukraine did the Germans provide the Romanians with Panzer IVs and Stugs for their 1st armored division. The Germans later provided some for the Hungarian armored divisions as well. The idea behind Romanian participation in the first place was that they would provide oil to be paid for in military equipment but the Germans were very flighty about paying for the oil, and it's one of the contributing factors to their defection.
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Jan 18, 2021 10:28
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Acebuckeye13 posted:Doing some brief research looking it up on wikipedia Germany did send some tanks to Italy, but comically low amounts. The Panzer IV for instance was apparently their most-exported tank, and Italy managed to get a whopping twelve out just under 300 that were sent out to Germany's allies. Raenir Salazar posted:Italy did send something like 250,000 troops to fight in Russia. Good points. That has me thinking, did they receive the short end of the stick because the Germans looked down on them? We have ample evidence of this attitude, after all.
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Jan 18, 2021 10:31
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Panzeh posted:The idea behind Romanian participation in the first place was that they would provide oil to be paid for in military equipment but the Germans were very flighty about paying for the oil, and it's one of the contributing factors to their defection. Well that sure is an oops.
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Jan 18, 2021 10:36
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White Coke posted:I've heard that the Germans didn't like American soldiers using shotguns, or British soldiers using serrated bayonets in WWI and that they threatened to execute anyone they captured using these weapons. Is that true, and were there any other weapons that were considered similarly criminal in WWI? There were two widespread and major moral panics among Entente soldiers, specifically about things that Zee Chermans might do to them personally, that began right in the very first days of 1914 (importantly, long before poison gas came out). Those were Germans using serrated bayonets, and also Germans either being issued manufactured expanding ammunition, or turning ordinary ammunition into expanding ammunition by slashing the tips of their bullets. As far as I can tell, expanding ammunition was purely a moral panic and is in any case impossible to verify; and serrated bayonets were definitely issued to Germans. Which is an excellent excuse to re-repost French grognard-in-chief Louis Barthas telling the tale of the fighting Father Galaup (a bit less resigned than Job on his dung-heap) and his quest to obtain just such a bayonet as a souvenir of German barbarity... quote:The abbé Galaup was haunted for some time by the desire to find a German rifle with a sawtoothed bayonet attached, to take home as a souvenir. The Germans had one of these in each squad, in case it was needed to cut a branch, saw up a wooden plank, etc. Of course they would occasionally put it on the end of a rifle, to cut through a thorax or a belly. It served double duty. Father Galaup, in search of this combination weapon-tool, went out into the fog each morning, at the risk of intercepting a bullet along the way. The time for wasting perfectly good equipment had not yet arrived... Trin Tragula fucked around with this message at 11:55 on Jan 18, 2021 |
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Jan 18, 2021 11:52
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Why would you bother with expanding ammo for the massive infantry rifles they used in WW1? A round from one of those will mess you up plenty expanding or no.
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Jan 18, 2021 12:08
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Has been brought up already but shotguns were overall basically insignificant in WW1, the German protest is high tier trolling as the Americans were the only ones to use them and even then in extremely limited quantities because, as said, the cartridges sucked balls. Germany had what some might call a slight PR issue in WW1 and slung all sorts of galaxy brain protests around in an attempt to ~BOTH SIDES~ Also serrated bayonets (aka sawback bayonets) were used all over Europe in the lead up to WW1 by engineers/pioneers for...sawing trees! I got no idea what people are imaging when they say sawbacks somehow inflict worse wounds than a straight blade. They kinda ended up sucking for the actual sawing part compared to proper tools which is why only the Germans still have them by the time the war breaks out. (not 100% sure why they still kept them tbh)
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Jan 18, 2021 12:56
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Hyrax Attack! posted:During WWII I know Italy had a weak industrial base, especially compared to Germany. Is there a reason Germany didn’t do more to equip their ally with decent guns and tanks? Even if Italy couldn’t build these themselves, having access to better equipment seems well worth the investment for Germany in getting better results in Africa and other fronts. Especially with how the US wasn’t shy about sharing with their allies. Germany sold stuff to the Italians, but the Germans still need weapons and equipment to replace lost gear and the Italians don't have enough of an industrial base regardless.
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Jan 18, 2021 14:15
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Tias posted:I guess that explains why Romania, Finland and others were actually furnished with German tanks and planes - they had the right enemy? The Germans tended to sell gear to their allies. Finland, mainly, would have captured gear sold to them for use against the Russians. Other nations were sold things in very limited quantities, like the Bf-109G or Hungary's very limited number of Panther tanks (unless the evidence I've seen only has Panthers painted in Hungarian colours, not sold to them). The Italians were given and sold Ju-87 stukas, mostly because they lacked a good ground-attack aircraft. The Breda Ba.65 was too vulnerable, and the Ba.88 just wasn't good. They had decent/good torpedo bombers, but the Stukas were meant to supplement this in a way, by offering dive bombing capability to the RA. The DB-605 engine, and a select few others, were licensed to Italy, if only because they lacked the expertise/capacity to build high HP engines in large quantities.
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Jan 18, 2021 14:49
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I don't think that it would have mattered much if Germany had sold or given more of their stuff to their allies, since they themselves lacked tanks and planes. The total amount of armored divisions or fighter wings etc. on the Axis side wouldn't have changed. But if the troops of the smaller Axis countries weren't as well trained as the German troops, the quality of those divisions and wings would have been worse. Was the quality of the troops much different in the mid or late war? Did Germany produce some material more than they could use themselves? Panzerfausts and Panzerschrecks perhaps?
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Jan 18, 2021 15:09
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ChubbyChecker posted:I don't think that it would have mattered much if Germany had sold or given more of their stuff to their allies, since they themselves lacked tanks and planes. The total amount of armored divisions or fighter wings etc. on the Axis side wouldn't have changed. But if the troops of the smaller Axis countries weren't as well trained as the German troops, the quality of those divisions and wings would have been worse. Was the quality of the troops much different in the mid or late war? Did Germany produce some material more than they could use themselves? Panzerfausts and Panzerschrecks perhaps? With the fuel shortages, arguably you could say they produced more aircraft than they could use themselves.
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Jan 18, 2021 15:32
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Jan 18, 2021 15:45
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InRange did a test of the sawback bayonet to see how they actually work. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckNWB8nC1TU They found that the bayonet by itself is pretty bad as a saw, but attaching it to the rifle makes it much more functional and only slightly worse than a larger purpose-built tool.
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Jan 18, 2021 16:00
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ThaBus posted:They kinda ended up sucking for the actual sawing part compared to proper tools which is why only the Germans still have them by the time the war breaks out. (not 100% sure why they still kept them tbh) I mean they still could be used for forage and whatever wood based repair/maintaining Sappers had to do outside the entrenched front line.
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Jan 18, 2021 16:14
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