Rising Sun*, are you making fun of me?
I AM talking about the WHOLE war: 01.09.1939 - 02.09.1945!
The criteria are applicable to the whole period and to Axis (you know yourself it includes 3 main coutries as shown on the picture below).
How much more explicit do you want me to be?
Aah, but that wasn’t cricket, at all. Jardine would probably be much more appreciated on the international circuit of today.
We don’t mind being beaten by our betters. It stings momentarily, but not for long. It’s somewhat like a good parent, working hard all of their lives to provide for the children and give them a better chance in life. When the child is grown, better educated and better empoyed achieving more, and contributing to a better world, the parents can congrtualate themselves for having done a good job.
Cricket, to we Brits, is as Sumo is to the Japanese. It is the emodiment of the chivalric code and no where more so than on the village green.
As for a sticky wicket, please, I’m married and a good christian to boot. 
Back on topic.
Egorka, what you propose is simply massive. I, for one, would have to ignore my beauty sleep (as does Rising Sun), my chores, my job, and most important of all, my boss…and I do not have a death wish (she’s quite gentle really, 
a former colonial who loves the game…cricket that is 
).
[QUOTE=32Bravo;]
Egorka, what you propose is simply massive. I, for one, would have to ignore my beauty sleep (as does Rising Sun), my chores, my job, and most important of all, my boss…and I do not have a death wish (she’s quite gentle really, a former colonial who loves the game…cricket that is ).[/QUOTE]
It is not massive. There statistical data available after 62 years! I am not suggesting you to count eveyone blown up tank your self.
So do you have any additional criteria or not?
If not, then we can continue to look at them one by one.
I don’t know about appreciated, but he’d be worth millions. A lot more than Shane Warne, even without the text messages.
That just about represents how the world has, as the Americans say, gone to hell in a handbasket.
Graceless, aggressive, obnoxious, and generally appalling conduct is now a highly marketable commodity which, since the likes of Connors and McEnroe and the current obnoxious but not very good brat from my nation by the name of Lleyton Hewitt, allows talented but unpleasant people behaving badly to make lots of money. I think we’re both old enough to remember when the umpire’s decision was accepted without protest, and opponents shook hands over the net regardless of what happened during the match.
You won’t find a better and more disgraceful example of how it’s all gone wrong than the Australian cricket team over the past 15 years or so. Where Churchill rightly said that a nation should be magnanimous in victory and defiant in defeat, the wearers of the baggy green have embarrassed me and the small proportion of dinosaurs left in this wide brown land by their arrogant behaviour in victory and their churlish whingeing in defeat.
Jardine might have been a cricketing thug, but he was a better man than any of the recent Australians. He did what he did and he didn’t give a bugger about it, or whinge. It’s what used to be called a man.
Mate, if I was making fun of you, you wouldn’t need to ask me if I was doing it.
Please read my recent posts.
All I’m saying is that once you introduce criteria to qualify your question that is the thread topic, you limit the discussion of a question which has no limits and allows, and requires, everything to be considered.
Is that short enough?
Okay, my friend. Try not to become too frustrated by we boys. 
I would seriously enjoy contributing to this project, but as I have mentioned, I have other commitments and I would rather not engage if I cannot give it my full attention. However, I do enjoy becoming better informed and will monitor the thread and, perhaps, chuck in the odd comment.
It is short enough. At least there is progress in this respert…
I have read app. 90% of what you wrote in this thread. I see what you mean. Escentially you want to trow everything in one big melting pot and then claim it is to complicated. I do not know your background, but during the course of my education (I have Ph.D in math modelling of telecom networks) I learned to split the problem and analyse the parts separatly as well as relation between them. All together (parts and relations) form a model of object/process one wants to research. Applying to our case, the parts would be the criterias i proposed (you can add more), i.e. tangable factors. The relation between the factors is intangibles mentioned by 32Brsavo and You. We talk about them after we define criterias.
So can we agree on the list of factors that together form the cause of the defeat of Axis powers?
I am afraid that you do not want to continue because following my logic you will end up with USSR being the main contributor. So you try to lead the discussion on your terms. So do I, it is not a secret! But at least I do it in the thread I oppened my self! Can you see the difference, my friend?
Please oppen a new thread and formulate question as you find appropriate. I promise to participate on your terms!
.
Might I suggest you begin a new thread with a better name. This one has become somewhat corrupted? Fresh name; fresh start etc. ?
I have been thinking about it already my self… You read my mind…
What thread name do you suggest we use, 32Bravo?
I like that, are you sure you don’t play cricket?
How about.
The Axis Powers - Defeat from the Jaws of Victory!
By the way. There was no need to describe your background. It’s startlingly obvious by the way you think everything can be labelled and analysed. History is not an exact science, and warfare is most definately not. I don’t know your experience of combat, but I would expect you to know this. However, to describe things in a scientific way (to quote Bob Marley) ‘Every action, has a re-action!’
Of course the USSR made an enormous contribution to the defeat of the Axis powers. I believe I posted on another thread, somewhere, that the Axis was beaten the moment they stepped foot on Soviet soil. But they did not, and could not, have done it alone. If you have looked at the TV series ‘The World at War’ ? You will see that the Soviet contribution recieves a high-profile. This series was made in Britain in or about 1972. So, even though the USSR remained a closed State for many years after, we, in the West,were not unaware of(nor unimpressed by) the contribution of the USSR and its people, and for what they scarificed and achieved I salute them.
If you read back through this thread, I doubt (because I’m not certain) that you find any of my postings promote the effort of the British during the war, I don’t feel a need to.
At least we’re doing better than the Allies often managed during the war.
I have read app. 90% of what you wrote in this thread. I see what you mean. Escentially you want to trow everything in one big melting pot and then claim it is to complicated.
Read 100%. You’ll be 10% better informed.
I want to throw everything in because that is what has to be done. Not that we’ve gone anywhere near throwing everything in. But when it is all thrown in, I can’t see how a definite answer can be deduced. That is not the same thing as avoiding an answer because it is too complicated.
I do not know your background, but during the course of my education (I have Ph.D in math modelling of telecom networks) I learned to split the problem and analyse the parts separatly as well as relation between them.
I’m not sure that education matters much. Some people without formal education have turned out to be great historians and historical researchers. Some of the best military historians have very little formal education. Some of the best military commanders were civilians with non-military training. Some people with a lot of formal education and even prominent military history positions can be shown to be bloody idiots, and there is one outstanding example in my country.
FWIW I have double degrees in arts (philosophy and history) and law and have been a practising lawyer for nearly 30 years, involving constant evaluation and investigation of all sorts of factual and technical matters where, unlike mathematically modelling telecom networks, my clients lose money or don’t see their children again or go to gaol etc etc if I stuff up. Dissatiisfied clients in some criminal, and family law and other, matters have a tendency to want to kill the lawyer who didn’t get them what they wanted, even if they were as guilty as sin. It adds a dimension to doing one’s job that is missing in most jobs, with or without doctorates in philosophy. I have also been working in a university for many years, surrounded by endless eggheads and advising sundry masters and Ph. D. candidates and graduates and academics. It’s not an experience that forces one to conclude that a Ph. D. is necessarily a certification of common sense, or any sense.
So can we agree on the list of factors that together form the cause of the defeat of Axis powers?
Yes. All relevant factors.
I am afraid that you do not want to continue because following my logic you will end up with USSR being the main contributor. So you try to lead the discussion on your terms.
I agree that following your artificial criteria and the logic which follows from it leads to the conclusion that the USSR won the war in eastern and western Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, the Atlantic, the CBI, the SWPA, the POA, the Central Pacific, not to mention the air war in Western Europe and regaining the Aleutians, and sundry other remote areas. The only problem with this grand conclusion is that I don’t recall any Soviet troops, naval forces, or air forces actually being anywhere near these places.
I’m buggered if I can see how I’m trying to lead the discussion to my terms just because I’m looking at wider issues than the narrow ones you have defined, which have the, as far as you’re concerned, undesired result of indicating that a nation other than the USSR might have contributed one tiny thing to Allied victory.
I very much doubt that this thread has any future other than to emulate the Great Oozlum Bird.
Oh guys you’ve enough fun and personal correspondence here
Nice to learn there are the high-experiensive the lawyer and math modeller. ( i’m ashamed of myself - i’m a only a humble ingeneer).
But back to the topic.
No problem mate.If we spread this criterias to the all fronts of WW2 ( not just German) i think we could to be close to the answer of the thread.
Just one my additional question - have we the reliable detailed figures which you wish to establish?
Cheers.
Guys!
32Bravo, RisingSun* and Chevan!
First. Forget about my Ph.D. Never wanted to brag about it. Just mention because… forget it! It does not contribute to our discussion nay way.
Second. Thank you for acknowledging the USSR’s contribution to the Victory. I appreciate it. I can only assure you that I greatly appreciate the contribution of ALL the people and nations as well. I NEVER ment that USSR could have done it alone! I stated repeatedly that, if UK went out of war (for what ever reason) USSR would most likely have collapsed in 1941.
Third. I do not know what to do. I tried to explain my idea so many times, that I got blisters on my fingers. I must havea huge communication problem with other people. At least when expersssing my self in writen english.
At the end it looks like only Chevan got my idea. But I would really want non-russian persons to give input as well.
I do not know… 
Take up cricket, Egorka!
Perhaps, it’s no coincidence that both you and Chevan are of the same culture? That’s not a criticism, just a consideration. Your English is excellent, so that isn’t the problem.
Speaking for myself. I think a part of the problem is that you feel a need to demonstrate to us that Russia contributed to the War. We know and acknowledge that. If you look back, you will see that I only really became involved in the argument when you, as it seemed, attacked Greece (not literally :D) That’s the cricket thing again, though I wasn’t concsious of it at the time. We support the ‘under-dog’…picking on the little guy isn’t cricket…!
The USSR was the Bogeyman to us for a long time. It was closed to us, and that made us suspicious of it. The idea of anyone standing up and saying we won WW2 is rather repugnant to us. You might not have intended it to be that way, but that was how you came accross. It’s a sensitive matter and needs to be handled delicately (remember many people died) unless, of course, you want to continue to become embroiled in arguments. World War 2 has been fought - we needn’t fight World War 3 here. For me, one of the great attractions of this site is that it is so cosmopolitan.
I think the general idea of examining the roles played by the different allied nations would be quite interesting, but it would be a large exercise to encompass all of what all of the nations did. Then when it comes to putting it all together and adding all of the intangibles, for example: how Hitler intefered and altered the surety of a particualr outcome well,…
Trust Rising Sun to be sleeping when I need him. :roll:
Egorka’s original question was “which country contributed MOST to the Allied victory”.
Taking all emotion out of it the answer must be the USSR.
May be they would not have won on their own, may be they would not have - no one knows. But thank God that the Germans had 180 divisions in the East and “only” 50 in the West or my grandparents might not have survived the war and I might not be here today.
In reality the USSR, UK, USA etc all put 100% in to winning the war.
Rather than asking who contributed most to the Allied victory it woudl be more interesting to understand which belligerent on either side contributed the least - Italy? Romania? France? In fact I might start a thread asking this.
I just can’t fathom why the reichs would make such stupid decisions after the victories of 1940.
It would be interesting to see which allied country inflicted the most damage/casualties on the axis in proportion to damage/casualties received.
How efficient were they?
It might give a more accurate picture to have figures for the national total and also by theatre. I think that the US land forces against the Japanese would have a very much higher kill ratio than against the Germans in Europe and the Mediterranean. Bulking it all in as one figure would distort the efficiency in both Europe and the Pacific by inflating the first and reducing the second.
While they are useful indicators, I think the problem with raw figures is that we often need to go behind them to get a meaningful grasp of what was going on.
For example, the Germans didn’t fight to the death or have suicide charges whereas the Japanese did. The Germans, with isolated exceptions like Stalingrad, didn’t have the same climate / environment related disease problems that many of the Japanese forces did, notably in Burma and New Guinea, which gave large death tolls but much of it not from Allied battle action, although it can be argued that they were still killed by the Allies as the Allies cut their lines of communication.
As another example, it was suggested earlier that one criterion should be the number of divisions deployed. For some reason I recall that Japanese divisions numbered to 100 had about 20,000 troops while divisions numbered above 100had about 10,000 troops. My recollection also is that German divisions varied in size and structure and could be very much smaller than Allied divisions which were more consistently organized. If my recollections are correct, it’s not number of divisions but number of troops, and more importantly combat troops including artillery and armour, that matter.
One of the amazing thing of the WW2 i think was the fiercing Japane fight agains Allies and relatively weak agains them in Europe.
I know the German resistence to the Allies in 1945 was just the pitful shade of its fanatical straglle agains Red Army.
And vise versa in the China Japanes relatively weakly fought agains Red Amy in aug-sep 1945. The whole 1.2 mln Kwantung army were crushed for 3 week (in style of Germans blittzctige). The Japane lost 600 000 only POWs. Soviets overal lost were only 30 000(both KIA and MIA).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_August_Storm
Compare it with USA loses in the Batle of Okinava should be interesting.
Cheers.