Where does the WWII Wehrmacht Rank?

The Wehrmacht Ranks...

  • Top 1-10

    Votes: 59 57.3%
  • Top 11-100

    Votes: 34 33.0%
  • Top 101 - 1000

    Votes: 6 5.8%
  • Lower

    Votes: 4 3.9%

  • Total voters
    103

Deleted member 1487

Except they did. IOTL, they were operating a 2-3:1 general superiority in terms of manpower. But when attacking, they made sure they had 7-10:1 odds in the key areas. To concentrate such overwhelming force without being detected by the Germans required stripping other parts of the front of troops and equipment, rapidly moving them hundreds or even thousands of kilometers, and then bringing them to a staging area... all without being detected by the Germans. This takes a lot of skill and good planning. It takes "being clever".
Not that tough when your opponent is on your turf and fighting multiple enemies. The Germans pulled it off in late 1944 and again in 1945. They did it multiple times on the offensive against the Soviets, with the Kursk offensive being an exception. The Soviets had the intelligence advantage from having their civilians behind the lines reporting and traitors on the Germans general staff leaking info. The Germans had none of that.
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Not that tough when your opponent is on your turf and fighting multiple enemies.

Sure it is! The overwhelming bulk of the German's combat capable forces until 1944 was in the East and even at it's lowest point (in the winter of that year) was never below 60% committed. The number of mobile formations the Germans had in the East on June 22nd had the almost as many men as the entire German force deployed at Normandy. And the disproportionate distribution of German forces is reflected in the disproportionate distribution of where German casualties were suffered: 80% on the Eastern Front.

The Soviet didn't amass 7-10:1 numerical odds by the Germans getting forces drawn off to the west or just outnumbering the Germans in general. They got those odds by being smart, utilizing deception, encircling then destroying German armies, and generally being better at stuff that was relevant to actually winning wars. Meanwhile the Germans thought tactical competence alone could carry them. We all know how that turned out for them.

The Germans pulled it off in late 1944 and again in 1945.
Pulled what off? The Germans failed to stop the Red Army and WAllies from invading the Reich and destroying it completely.

They did it multiple times on the offensive against the Soviets,
Kinda. The Germans were better on the attack then the defense ultimately because their strategic intelligence was shit. The Germans had decent tactical intelligence. Units in the field performed solid reconnaissance, and their electronic warfare section was good at tracking enemy signals in battle. But it was all intended to find which hill the next tank was behind. The problem is that while you can attack without good intelligence (although it's certainly not advised), it is nearly impossible to defend without good intelligence (or failing that, superior force that allows you to recover from enemy blows).

with the Kursk offensive being an exception
Really, had the Germans ever tried to launch another major offensive they would have found it was actually the rule from that point on. In 1941 and 1942, the Soviets were taken by surprise from a mix of failing to coordinate their considerable intelligence assets and Stalin being stubborn. From 1943 onwards, the Soviets had gotten their intelligence collection, countermeasures and deception all sorted out and were able to run circles around the Germans as a result. One of the notable things I recall about Kursk is that when the Soviets first assumed that the Germans were going to attack there, they didn't just rest on that assumption because they remembered what happened when they just assumed the Germans would attack Moscow the year before. They made sure to confirm their assumption and to do that they devoted considerable time, attention, and effort to their intelligence services.

The Soviets had the intelligence advantage from having their civilians behind the lines reporting and traitors on the Germans general staff leaking info.
All this means is that the Soviets ultimately appropriately invested in and coordinated their intelligence networks while the Germans did not. This is not a point in the Germans favor.
 
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I'm going to say top 10, but they're well into the lower half of that. Sure they got a lot of victories in the early days, but the one time they came up against an actual competent enemy, it showed. Who was the competent enemy? Poland actually, because with 2/3 the troops, half the guns, 1/3 the tanks (and most of those were actually MG equipped tankettes) and 1/6 the aircraft of the Germans, they still managed to tear a few strips off them before going down.

Also, the Battle of Britain and the Battle of the Atlantic showed up the deficiencies in the Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine respectively. Oh, and their military intelligence was pathetic, I mean they got bluffed by a Spanish wannabe spy (okay, a really talented one, but still part of no agency) operating with no outside support, and all of their agents in Britain were rounded up on day 1. That's not to mention the institutional infighting, racism, etc.
 
On Nazis vs. Soviets:

Bagration wasn't just brute force. It took significant intelligence, planning, coordination, and no small amount of tactical and strategic skill. The idea that the Red Army spent the war throwing men into the meatgrinder with no regard for tactics or any thought process needs to die. It was true in 1941, but by 1943 it couldn't be more wrong.
 
Well they weren't really thinking tactics, they were thinking strategy, if you lose against the Germans, but win against the Romanians, you've got an exploitable hole. It's an efficient but rather ruthless thought process.
 
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