The History Thread

It goes beyond that. Germany’s prewar care ownership rates were significantly lower than that of the US, UK and even France yet their tanks were more complex. They were putting kids without driving experience into increasingly high end “sports cars” so to speak.

The US was really smart in making their tanks have almost the exact same driving system as their cars. The Soviets had issues with training (not training crew to repair, leading to abandonment) and tactics (sending in units without infantry support) early war, but their tanks had stupid simple driving mechanics.

Speaking of repair, the Soviets and American tanks could pretty “easily” be repaired in the field by the crew. Repairing a German one required special expertise and equipment.

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I started listening to Will and Ariel Durant’s The Story of Civilization last summer. I am in the middle of Volume II (The Life of Greece) and decided to take a break. So I have started Stalin’s War by McMeekin. I have read several biographies of Stalin, and this is more WWII than just Stalin, but for some reason McMeekin makes Stalin sound more terrifying than the other books I have read on him. I know he was a brute, and I think he cared less about communism and more about just the raw power it gave him. If you have time, give it a read, or listen.