Skunk, you're a terrible troll, no one is falling for your bait.

I'd just like to state, without causing any further argument hopefully, That I never said the US didn't have problems. Every country in the world has issues of it's own, whether they are big or small. I was simply stating that the United States of America has the largest military in the world. While I may have said it in quite a childish way, which I apologize for, The fact still remains true. Do they spend the most money? Yes. Could they use it in a better way? Maybe, I'm not 100% sure.

I don't want to start another flame war about the United States, I just wanted to clarify my answer. I re-read what I posted and realized it sounded incredibly childish and immature. Once again, I'm sorry.

I didn't include partisans in my statement, because they were relatively ineffective in the grand scheme of the war.

"Dutch resistance to the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands during World War II can be mainly characterized by its prominent non-violence, summitting in over 300,000 people in hiding in the autumn of 1944, tended to by some 60,000 to 200,000 illegal landlords and caretakers and tolerated knowingly by some 1 million people, including German occupiers and military."[1]

....

When I say "ineffective", I don't mean they didn't do anything. Was merely talking about the actual fighting of the war, which the Dutch did very little of.

You should avoid sweeping statements when you are commenting on a specific then.

Partisans includes all irregular forces - you are specifically talking only about the Dutch.

WWII was the crucible in which the US Military was forged, and it was a moral and technological high point. Unfortunately, the story of the American military since WWII is a story of decline, the low point of which was the debacle in Vietnam.

@VaporX are you serious about not being "100% sure" whether we could use our money in a better way? I think you must be either very young or living under a rock. The pentagon in the 80s was famous for wasteful spending and nothing has changed. Check out this article about how nearly a million dollars was spent shipping 2 19 cent washers: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=ardg6DwCCMFI&refer=home

That's only one example.

I should have said "WWII was the crucible in which the *modern* US Military was forged."

In terms of partisans, my knowledge is nowhere near what I know about the actual fighting in the war. But were any partisan groups, other than the Russian partisans, actually effective? What were their contributions, other than being minor annoyances? Sabotage in weapons factories certainly played some part, judging by the numerous accounts I have read in which Allied soldiers were saved by the increasing unreliability of German munitions, but we were talking about who BEAT the Nazis militarily, and the partisans simply didn't. Were the heroes? Yes. Should we all respect their resistance in the face of extreme persecution and reprisal? Yes. But they didn't BEAT the Nazis, soldiers did.

. . .

. . .

Where to start?

Partisans were active in every theatre and country of world war 2. Which is more than any individual nation can say.

Were they effective? They tied down regular axis forces into a consoldation role, protecting factories and lines of supply means those forces were not actively on the front lines fighting the allies. Which makes it a lot easier for the front line allied armies to overcome the axis on the fronts.

They provided intelligence about all kinds of things, if we take only one of these thigs military disopositions for example that makes it a lot easier for the allies to choose the right places to attack. In warlight terms thats like having infinate spy cards to play.

Sabotage yes of course, expatriating escaped prisoners - helping those that the Nazi's or Japanese would like to take to concentration camps avoid capture.

It's dangerous to view a war so two dimensionally, perhaps a read of Howard Zinn's A Peoples History of America can illuminate for you the dangers of only considering government centric History with it's emphasis on big battles and centralised decision making as opposed to considering both the people and their place in making and forming history alongside the armies and governments.

Fair enough. But what were the actual numbers used in "tying down" Axis forces? I always assumed that, except for the Eastern front, most of the occupation (security) forces were relatively poorly equipped and trained (many of them were essentially forced at gunpoint to serve)and were not present in significant numbers.

So we can argue the smaller and more interesting points of WWII. But let's take a second and look at a simple big picture here. What (relevant armies involved) country fighting Germany and it's allies were actually holding their own until the "Sleeping Giant" got involved? Was there any?

And who outfitted and financed said "Sleeping giant"?

I think the thing a lot of people are missing about WWII is that it was a team effort from the allies.

Always amuses me that Italy and Germany actually declared war on the US, not the other way around. Had they not done so you could argue (I would disagree) that the US would have just focused on Japan and left Europe to Germany.

Can't say I ever heard that the allied forces outfitted and financed the US war effort. Know the US did some questionable support of UK (lend-lease program) that really should have negated their neutrality but not heard it the other way round.

America tried to stay an isolationist country before and during the beginning of the war. Lovers, not fighters. But then the Japanese made the mistake of popping the U.S. in the nose without warning. After that they mass produced better than everyone else and opened a can of woop-azz.

Of course it was a team effort ska, just saying the Americans dominated that's all. Americans got into Europe and the great race was on. Yes?

@ Sharpe the Germans were reluctant to do so and angry with the Japanese at the time - but they had an alliance which had to be honoured.

Ah - I thought you were talking about Russia - as before the Russian front was opened by the Germans it was all one way traffic - the Germans were going through Europe like it was a big Autobahn :O

But y'all forgeting that it was the Russians who entered Berlin?

that was only because the amerricans couldn't be bothered to fight for territory that wasn't in their piece of post war germany

Lol Arun

Thanks for the genuine mirth that your ignorance gives me :)

Let us end thois thread you have all toally derailed from the subject why are the french seen as failures but you seemed to have drifted to american military then war world 2

Conversations move on Ironheart. Get over it.