OT: German vs Allied Tech in WW2

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Originally Posted by raketenjagdpanzer

...I'm sorry if that's ranty and I know people are going to jump on this post...

Um yeah, I am going to jump on a few things here but probably not the ones people think. In fact what I'm going to say means I am quite happy to jump to Raellus's defence for his original post in defence of the Red Army.

Originally Posted by raketenjagdpanzer

...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...

Jury is still out I think on this, I've read statements from German scientists from after the war saying that they actively prevented the development of atomic weapons even though they believed that they could have achieved production. In particular, they claimed that by using technical language involving physics and higher math, they were able to confuse the issue enough that they never truly conveyed the power of atomic weapons to the Nazi regime nor the ability to produce them.

And I've also read claims that the Germans didn't have the knowledge to do so or that they didn't have the necessary uranium resources and so on, so it seems that the whole issue is never going to be particularly clear...

Originally Posted by raketenjagdpanzer

...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...

I personally know Czechs, Russians and Poles who were living behind the Iron Curtain and yes indoctrination played a huge part in the development of their cultures and the secret police played a significant part in their lives (even more so with East Germany) but for the majority of people living outside the Soviet Union, life was actually pretty damned good some of the time. Free and I mean COMPLETELY free education and medical care and if you didn't have a job one would be found for you (if however, you were a lazy swine who didn't want to work, you would often be thrown in forced labour prisons or conscripted)

In Poland and Czechoslovakia for example, they had more freedoms than the Soviets and more consumer goods and generally more food, clothes and luxury items in the shops. My Czech work colleague used to be a coal miner and the liberties extended to miners would never happen in the West simply because the communist regimes relied heavily on the mines and gave the miners a lot of leeway - such as the ability to refuse conscription and the "exchange rate" was pretty good, three years in the Army or one year in the mines.

True the mines were dangerous but no more so than mines in any Western nation. My work colleague stayed as a miner for many years and was able to afford such luxuries as a brand new colour TV from West Germany - TVs that were regularly sold in Czechoslovak department stores.

Hungarians had a rather "too easy" time crossing the border into Austria during certain years of the Cold War because memories of the Austro-Hungarian Empire were still very strong and the border guards of both nations might sometimes be related by old family ties. Hungarians often went into Austria to shop for items that they then sold on to the Soviets!

Originally Posted by raketenjagdpanzer

... a dozen slave labor produced T72s...

Many Soviet workers actually took pride in their work and firmly believing the crap that the Soviet State indoctrinated them with, many of them felt that they were contributing to the security of the Motherland and helping to keep the world free. That plus the Soviets massive expenditure on Civil Defence shelters and training compared to the West convinced many Soviet citizens that the State did care about their ability to survive any aggression from the West.

You have to consider that despite the harshness of the State, the Russians in particular lived in a harsh land and were used to making sacrifices for Rodina (that plus the fact that they have been invaded by significant military forces nearly every two hundred years tends you make you more accepting of the need for sacrifice).

The Soviet Union did have significant problems, food & clothing shortages particularly, but the idea that everyone east of the Berlin Wall lived under a nightmare police state is hyperbole and propaganda and dare I say, indoctrination, from the West.