Conscript wrote:Those are german and american numbers. They show the vast majority of German casualties were on the eastern front, and considering the numbers of casualties inflicted only increased as the war came to a close, there's no real reason to believe that the Western Allies were a cut above the Red Army.
Doesn't make the Soviet numbers valid in any way re their own casualties, and since they didn't make a habit of taking prisoners it's more than safe to assume many of those eastern front German casualties were killed after they surrendered.
I mean really, it was called Operation Unthinkable for a reason, and until late in the cold war the USSR had conventional superiority.
This is really just Western chauvinism at work, one of a few things the Nazis inherited. Allied aid was important, but mostly when it came to trucks, food, and bombing. We did not give the Soviets some superior equipment (they disliked our tanks, especially the early shit we gave), training, or doctrine that significantly changed the balance of power. They mostly relied on themselves in this regard.
Anti-western chauvinism and revisionism, not fact.
The red army shouldered a massive burden and underwent a complete transformation between 1941 and 1945. It was the only army to fight that kind of land war with Germany, or at least the only continental Allied member that didn't quickly capitulate.
They were only able to stay in the war at all because of Allied aid, and Allied invasion; the war was essentially over for the Axis when they declared war on the U.S. The rest was just mopping up; even many of the German high command knew it was over in 1943. The Soviets were just hired help, and poorly performing help at that. The British Navy did far more, and deserves more credit than it gets for keeping the sea lanes open and the rest of the Empire providing materiel and troops as well.
One of the legitimate criticisms of Roosevelt's deals with Stalin was that he gave Stalin far more than he was worth as an 'ally'. Expending the same amount of stuff on outfitting Indian and other nations' troops would have been just as good, other than transportation issues.