also off topic- I can’t get an off-site avatar of 90x90 pixels to show up at all!?
AmyLynnB17- another area that came to mind was German U-boat service deaths compared to ours. It was something like 36,000 compared to a few hundred… :shock:
Yes but the Japanese didnt put as much emphasis on killing SUbs as the Brits did.
Try to decrease the size of the picture or ask Tiger (our combat photographer) - he is in charge with the avatars.
some of the orginal poster’s numbers are off
while there are different estimates, these are probably the most accurate ones. (all military dead)
US dead 407,000, (375,000 dead in the Europeon theater of operations)
UK 403,000
soviet union 11.6 million dead (not including the winter war)
Germany- 3.25 million dead (2.9 million died in russian, 350,000 died everywhere else)
an interesting thing is that 350,000 germans died fighting ALL the allied forces…
including the invasion of poland and france, which lost the allies all together 300,000 dead.
not to mention the other minor europeon nations…
German military production doubled between 1943 to 1944. An enormous amount of german war material was poured out, even more then ever before.
Secondly, the german forces in the ETO did not suffer as great losses on the ground as you think due to airpower. Very few tanks were permantly destroyed in the ETO through Allied airpower (however, many more were damaged, but most were salvaged /repaired) The entire normandy campaign saw the total destruction of only little more then 100 german tanks. However, many “soft targets” like trucks and cars were destroyed.
thirdly, German troops on the ground were much, much less afraid of US carpet bombing then Allied artillery. Carpet bombing in the 40s were inaccurate and often predictable. Enormous amount of bombs missed.
Often, the germans got enough warning from air observers and recon units to abandon their positions and relocate to set fall-back positions while the entire bomb carpet missed them.
One thing, though, that helped the US reduce caualties were their use of massive material wastage. The loss of the m4 sherman meant nothing to them as they sent tanks to do a (normally) infantryman’s work.
Allied bombers stats:
* 12,000 heavy bombers were shot down in WWII
* Between 1939 and 1945 the Allies dropped 3.4 million tons of bombs
* That averages out to be 27,700 tons of bombs a month
* 2/3 of Allied bomber crews were lost for each plane destroyed
* 3 or 4 ground men were wounded for each killed
* 6 bomber crewmen were killed for each one wounded
* Over 100,000 Allied bomber crewmen were killed over EuropeWow, when you put that all in perspective - those are very impressing numbers…and not necessarily in a good way. :shock:
RAF bomber command lost approximately 55,000 men (roughly 60% of the total force). From only German U-boat crews (who lost 28,000 men - roughly 70% of the force) faced greater odds against their survival.
Note on France:
They lost between 210,000 and 253,000 fighting men in the war. France surrendered in 6 weeks after the initial invasions (not one), and had lost 90,000 men in that time period. The other 160,000 were Free French deaths (Vichy men aren’t counted in these statistics).
Countries Total Deaths in WWII
USSR 20,600,000
CHINA 10,000,000
GERMANY 6,850,000
POLAND 6,123,000
JAPAN 2,000,000
YUGOSLAVIA 1,706,000
FRANCE 810,000
GREECE 520,000
UNITED STATES 500,000
AUSTRIA 480,000
ROMANIA 460,000
HUNGARY 420,000
ITALY 410,000
CZECHOSLOVAKIA 400,000
GREAT BRITAIN 388,000
NETHERLANDS 210,000
BELGIUM 88,000
FINLAND 84,000
AUSTRALIA 39,000
CANADA 34,000
ALBANIA 28,000
INDIA 24,000
NORWAY 10,262
NEW ZEALAND 10,000
LUXEMBOURG 5,000
Total Deaths In WWII 52,199,262
http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/timeline/statistics.htm
Wow, that is VERY much, considering on the little amount of people in Finland at that time… :shock:
That’s counting civilian deaths of course, which may seem why the numbers are so high.
Yes it is ,Check the link