Was World War II "mainly peaceful"?

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@NJBob

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@NJBob

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@Safiel

@NJBob

@Safiel

Add the fact that Russia did all the hard work against the Wehrmacht.

The United States got the advantage of facing only the depleted shell of the former Wehrmacht.

Untrue.

Many of the German soldiers the US faced were battle hardened Wehrmacht and SS veterans rotated out of the East to the Western Front. The battle of Normandy, June thru August, was as intense as anything in the East.

They had some vicious battles.

But not nearly the battle they would have to face had the Russians not worn down the Wermacht.

The United States lost about 407,300 worldwide during WWII.

Russia lost, at a minimum, 8,668,000, mostly against Germany.

Without the Russians absorbing so much loss and inflicting so much loss on the Germans, I estimate our military losses at a minimum would have exceeded 4 million in Europe alone.

Yes, we fought fierce battles and lost lots of men, but only a fraction of what we might have lost.

This is correct.

To minimize what the US faced in Europe in WWII is false.

It wasn’t minimized, it’s truthful. In June of '44 the best troops were fighting for their lives on the eastern front. A total 0f 58 out of 300 divisions were stationed in France, Belguim and the Netherlands, with many troops being green. They did have some very experienced NCO’s thrown in and some good units. There is a lot of information on this.

During the battle of Normandy no less than 6 SS panzer divisions were engaged in the fighting.

Comparing US losses to Soviet losses is way off base. The US did not send soldiers into battle without weapons and tell them to pick up the weapons of the fallen. We didn’t have political officers ready to shoot our soldiers if the dared to retreat.

Not all of Germany’s best troops were in the East. The Germans regularly rotated veteran unit to the West.

To say that the US faced only worn down Wehrmacht troops is completely wrong.

I didn’t say that. After almost 5 years of war and 3 years since the invasion of Russia and being mostly in retreat since the debacle in Stalingrad early in '43, they whole army was beaten down. Plus we had virtually complete air superiority on the entire western front. (Thanks to the success of our strategic bombing campaign)

There was a lot of tough fighting. I’m not trying to minimize anything, the history is there. The war was over 11 months after we landed.

BTW, the business of the Russains sending in troops without rifles is myth. There TINY kernel of truth during the first few days of the German invasion encircled huge numbers of them and some escaped without weapons to fight again.