[raketenjagdpanzer]

The "German technical superiority" claim is one that always sticks in my bearings. Yes, there is some truth to it. However, the Germans weren't all equipped with wunderwaffen that only true grit, saving private ryan and Band of Brothers was able to overcome.

The German infantry rifle, the Kar98k, was a WWI-era bolt action rifle. As early as the Civil War, the US Army proved that volume of fire from smaller numbers of rifles is vastly more important than sheer numbers of rifles. I'll take a squad of men with Garands against a platoon with Kar98ks all experience being equal.

The "tech" behind the German heavy tanks was often very poorly thought out - aircraft engines and transmissions (I'm looking at you, Maybach) too lightweight to do the job. Pie-in-the-sky ideas like having a full diesel engine...that runs an electrical generator which actually powers the roadwheels...terrible. (Admittedly the Sherman's gas powered engine was pretty terrible, too).

Also, on the Armor front? Yeah the Sherman was massive overkill versus the PzKpfw I-III, about an even match for the IV. It wasn't much of a match for the Tiger but that's not doctrinally what it was for, either.

The Germans never gave serious consideration to nuclear weapons. Yes, they had Heavy Water experiments in Norway, but even if the Allies had left them untouched and the war had dragged on (which the Soviets weren't going to do - they were after blood, the Western Front be damned), there's no way they'd have had a tested and working bomb before the Reds got to them.

As pointed out, German jet engines were crap. Also, regarding jets? The British flew the Gloster prototype in '41 - about the same time the Germans were taking their first steps with jet engine combat a/c. Wasn't built because - surprise! - the Germans were still using prop a/c. The US' entry into the field was '43 with the Shooting Star and even before then with the P59 Airacomet which, while not much faster than piston a/c, carried a very hefty bomb-load and cannon (37mm main gun supported by dual .50s, and a 2500lb bomb-load - half what a B-17 could carry in a short-duration mission).

The Allies overcoming the Germans wasn't just because we kept pouring tons of crap weapons on top of their technically superior weapons. The T-34 in spite of its almost laughable human engineering faults was generally technically superior to most German designs prior to the PzKpfw Tiger Ausf.-b. And even then the Nazis steered clear of the '34 when it could be helped. Moreover, the Germans captured and used the T34 frequently on their retreat from the Russian Front.

The reality is more than "we had bad weapons but had more than they had, so we won". Likewise I feel like I should point out the same regarding NATO v. Soviet weapons. Where the Soviets would have hurt us wouldn't have come primarily from "Well we can swamp one division with ten of inferior men and armaments" - it would've come in the opening hours of the war with their massive intelligence coups, special operations groups, and the like. Remember, the Walkers (may all of them rot forever) essentially gave the Soviets every piece of operational information about the US Navy they could. Everything from classified stats on Fleet deployments down to F-14 fuel consumption and turning ratios. The consequence of not living in a nightmare police state which is what everyone east of the Berlin Wall lived under until 1990, but rather a free and open society was that the Soviets were able to pre-position Spetsnaz groups and equipment throughout western europe.

But this idea that NATO somehow put on blinders and decided to exactly imitate the Nazi military mindset of producing super-tanks and I don't know what is just ridiculously fallacious, and I wish we could drop it.

Our fucking Abrams Tank was designed to survive a fight with a dozen slave labor produced T72s because we as a society decided not to let ourselves live like slaves, throwing huge portions of our GDP into a war machine poised to invade the East (in spite of what the authors of T2k seem to think).

I recommend those of you not acquainted with it read Air-Land Battle and see what it set out to accomplish. Also, for extra homework, look up what the Soviet tactics designed to counter it were. They were so confident in the ability of their divisions full of illiterate conscripts and disposable tanks that from D+1 they were planning on using thousands of tons of biological and chemical agents on concentrations of NATO troops that their own glorious People's Army was unable to overcome, as well as tac-nukes in the rear areas.

I'm sorry if that's ranty and I know people are going to jump on this post but this notion that the Nazis had unbeatable wonder weapons and could've won the war given a few extra months is a lie, and likewise the BMPs on the Seine by D+10 is an equally monstrous lie.