What were the greatest battles of WW2,I have to say(even though its an invasion)D-Day
i would have to say that Stalingrad was the greatest battle of World War 2. It is the battle that changed the outcome of the war on the Eastern front. Next would be the battle of Kursk. That is what i think.
they were great battles of WW2.Stalingrad was a big come back for the russians and well i dont know much about kursk
I would also say that the battle of St.Lo was a geat battle,the battle was mostly street fighting and i think it was D-Day+3 or 4 i dont know
Yair, fay to say Stalingrad was the turning point, but I believe Kursk was the most influential battle for a number of reasons.
It was Germany’s last shot of the dice as they had expended so much in resources to rebuild their shattered armies from the Stalingrad battle and much faith was placed in new weapon systems and tactics.
While the northern assault was bogged down in the Soviet defensive belts, the southern attack force spearheaded by the SS divisions nearly pulled off a miracle. Some sources suggest Hitler’s decision to call off the battle after the Allied landings in Sicily, was a grave mistake as the SS had almost rebuilt their Tiger force which had been so effective. Soviet casualties had been extremely high and there was a despair over the difficulties in destroying the new Tiger tanks.
SS commanders believe one final push was enough to break the final resistance of the Soviet reserves.
Of course we will never know.
Regards Digger.
how about the battles in the lower country? i mean its amazing that german gliders can trap over 1000 soldiers in their fort, with only less than 100 soldiers!
what battle was that
Kursk, Stalingrad, D-Day. All were critical in their own way.
Winner at Kursk got hold of the battlefield and could repair large number of battle tanks. Stalingrad is eternal ‘what-if’ topic. D-Day was pretty one-sided because of allied airpower limiting german units moving like 5km/day, while allied units could move 50km-500km/day. 
My personal favourite maybe 1942 counteroffensive (including Third Battle of Kharkov) by von Manstein.
_
Meanwhile, an almost entirely separate war from the one in Europe was being waged in the Pacific.
Guadalcanal was a major turning point in the Pacific Theater. After that, the Japanese were on the defensive for the rest of the war. I believe that it was also the first occasion in the 20th Century that the Imperial Japanese Army suffered a defeat.
JT
So how do we define greatness of a battle? What are the criteria? Troops involved? Casualties? Impact on the course of the war? What is it?
Or each of us can just take a pick?
Troops that were involved were british,canadian,and american, the total of troops were more then 150000.
Casulties on each beach Juno-1,204,gold-413,sword-630,utah-197,and omaha with the worst of around 2000.
It effected the war by entering the captured area that let the allies to cose in to berlin concluding to the capture of the city thus ends the war in the european therter
Rifleman,
I guess you answered my post.
Do you understand that on all of the points you mentioned the D-Day can not be defined as THE greatest battle of the WW2. It was neither the biggest nor the bloodiest. It was not decisive as it did not change the course of the war, only accelerated the fall of Germany.
Hello dear Digger. I/m so gald to see your post again.
I/m agree with you the Kursk was the last case when the Germas tryed to get strategic initiative back and losed it finally in the East. By the of enourmous losing of tanks the Red Army could stay under the giant tanks blow of Germans. And after the retreat the our tanks troops could captured the all the hited Germans and soviet tanks and many of them was repaired.If befor the battle we have about 3000 tanks - right after the battle about 800 - then through three month - already about 2 000. This was resault of operative repearing of damaged tanks and which could be easy repeared . And vise versa - the Germans could not to use the losed tanks and the after the Kursk battle they could not fully restore its tank troops.
About the SS tanks which could save the the germans from the defeat - i don’t think so. Certainly the SS tanks parts were better equpmented then the other wermacht units. They were fully complected by the first Tiger and Panther but both of those tanks were far from ideal at that period of war (mid 1943). Hitler ordered to move the 2 tank SS corp to the Italy when the battle had come to the end. Moreover to the Italy was send only military personal. The all hard equipment ( tanks and selph-propeller guns) was stayed near the Rostov.
Cheers.
The Stalingrad ( jan 1943) and African ( may of 1943) surrenders of Germans were the turning moment of the WW2 IMO
Mate i also think the D-day wasn’t serious battle. It could not especially help the Red Army in summer of 1944 couse the most of Germans army was busy in the East.
But D-day was importain political moment which demonstrated the day’s of Nazy HAS come to the end.
From this momen there were no any doubts the Germany totally losed this war and the compromiss or armistice of the Nazy with the Western allies ( as it dreamed some of Germans generals) was no more possible.
Yea alephh
The active defence of Manstain after the collapse of 6 army in Stalingrad was the brilliant.
He really saved the rest of German troops from the total surrender in the South ( Caucaus and Crimea). He let them calmly evacuated from theis regions and saved the combat abilities.
But honestly speaking soviet comman tactical abbilities was still far from excellent in the 1942. And wrong commanding of soviet troop helped the experienced Mainstain to hold the defence.
Mate, what have you been smoking while you’ve been away? Whatever it is, it’s powerful mind-altering stuff.
If the Western Front didn’t matter, and if it couldn’t help the Red Army (not that that was the primary consideration in the formulation of the other Allies’ operational decisions on every occasion as they had a bit on their own plates) why was Stalin getting his panties in a twist from 1942 onwards demanding that the UK and US open the Western Front?
If D-Day wasn’t a serious battle, or more accurately a number of battles, what do you think qualifies as ‘serious’? It’s by far the biggest landing in WWII, and ever, and represented a mammoth effort by the UK and US.
As for D-Day being important only politically, what does that mean? It didn’t demonstrate Nazis had come to an end. That happened months later, and probably not until after the Ardennes, after a lot more grinding battles by the UK and US forces advancing towards Germany. The D-Day landings could have been repulsed if the Germans had acted differently. It’s not like the opinion polls turned against Hitler on 7 June 1944 and it altered his conduct of the war. The only thing that mattered was the military wins on and after D-Day.
P.S. Whatever it is that you’ve been smoking, can you send me some? It’s top gear. :mrgreen:
RisingSun!
I can recognise the lawyer talk in every bit of your post!
Do not twist his words. Chevan did not say that the Western Front did not matter or that it did not help Red Army. He said D-Day it self did not helped much in the “Bagration” offensive.
Stalin did ask for western front all the time from the begining.
He would had ask in any case, even if the situation was much better. Because it is clear he wanted to push as much burden to Western Allies as possible. Of course Churchill was not a naive puppy and was not easy to trick.
If D-Day wasn’t a serious battle, or more accurately a number of battles, what do you think qualifies as ‘serious’? It’s by far the biggest landing in WWII, and ever, and represented a mammoth effort by the UK and US.
D-Day was serious battle and indeed the biggest landing operation that was the result of lots of very hard work.
But can you see the difference between the biggest landing operation and the biggest battle? It is deemed that the later one is bigger than the former one per definition.
The german losses was not very high. The allied losses were low as well. There is almost no material gain after the D-Day battle, but what it did it oppened the new chapter in WW2 and enabled western Allies to enter the land war in Europe which dramaticaly accelerated the defeat of Germany and saved many-many lives of Soviet soldiers.
That is waht, I think, Chevan ment by political importance. It is not D-Day it self, by what it made possible after.
As for D-Day being important only politically, what does that mean? It didn’t demonstrate Nazis had come to an end. That happened months later, and probably not until after the Ardennes, after a lot more grinding battles by the UK and US forces advancing towards Germany. The D-Day landings could have been repulsed if the Germans had acted differently. It’s not like the opinion polls turned against Hitler on 7 June 1944 and it altered his conduct of the war. The only thing that mattered was the military wins on and after D-Day.
I agree with all of your statements here, which still does not show D-Day as the greatest battle of WW2. Nor the most important one either! Very important - yes, THE most important - no.
That’s what you think! Wait till I start throwing the Latin around, ejusdem generis, mutatis mutandis, sui generis, post hoc propter hoc, a fortiori, ad colligenda bona, nemo dat quod non habet, fieri facias, me old Russian mate!
I agree with all of your statements here
This isn’t the first time I’ve had to point out to you that if you keep this up we’ll have nothing to talk about.
which still does not show D-Day as the greatest battle of WW2. Nor the most important one either! Very important - yes, THE most important - no.
The thread is greatest battles, not THE greatest battle.
I read Chevan’s post as being dismissive of D-Day. Yours isn’t. Yours is a better assessment of its significance, or perhaps better expressed than Chevan’s assessment. Maybe because your post is longer and is able to present an argument rather than a couple of assertions that don’t make much sense on their own.
Still, we wouldn’t want to encourage longer posts that explain things rather than just making assertions, would we?
You are right (Ghhrrrr!!!) it is “battleS”.
I again agree with you… I will give it a though, that the lawyers and dentists are maybe not the most evil people on the face of the Earth after all.
I share your opinion that D-Day belong to the top 100 most important battles of WW2.