The German Panzers weren't fit for function and especially the later ones seem to have been designed in a vacuum from the logistical needs of the army. In a bid to earn the approval of the party, tank designs were blighted with redesigns which meant tooling and processed had to be constantly revised. Just look at how much difference there is between the different iterations of Panzer IV and Panzer III. This led to an ultimately catastrophic shortage of spare parts because other than the T34 and Sherman, they never bothered standardizing their designs.
The later Panzers were, quite frankly, fucking jokes overhyped by inept historians. The Panther had such an abysmally designed drive drain system that the final drive was prone to breaking in the span of a single tank of gas; a catastrophic failure that would require the tank to be returned to the factory which is why there are so many panthers still in museums; the allies were capable of simply picking them up and towing them away after the crews left them due to a drive failure. Sure, they had amazing armor and impressive firepower which was capable of defeating even the Jumbo Sherman, but their overreliance on train transport (whose tracks, especially in france during 1944, were continually being sabotaged by resistance efforts) and inability to move up or retreat for prolonged areas proved a fatal flaw. The Tiger II was just retarded; a fuel guzzling monstrosity designed in a time where the german army barely had any of them left It is estimated that the absolute majority of Tiger II losses were caused by intentional crew abandonment because they simply became immobile, as moving the tank from the station to the frontline would chug up most of its fuel.
The Sherman and T34 was less impressive, but that isn't a negative for a tank, because they were reliable, had fairly good defences, and were consistently upgunned to meet the needs of the battle. They got shit done. Germans build their tanks with the assumption they could leisurely tow them back to their factories. The Sovjets had no time for that and the US didn't find it logistically feasible to bring tanks back to Detroit, as such, their tanks were build with reliability and ease of repair in mind. And as any military leader can tell you: In war, reliable equipment beats efficient equipment every fucking time. The Germans would've done a lot better iterating on the PzIV and Tiger 1 onwards than wasting resources, engineering time and factory space on the Panther, Tiger II and the fucking Maus, of all things. But the party demanded new shinies and their sycophant engineers eagerly complied, pushing out unproven design after unproven design while abandoning things that had proven their worth throughout the war.
Furthermore, the London Blitz was specifically done due to the percieved effectiveness of terror bombardment, which the Germans had also employed against Rotterdam and was used when they assisted in the Spanish Civil war. Why didn't it extend past London?
Well, simple answer: logistics. Germany expected the UK to be scared into signing a peace treaty with them, but instead the UK turned it around for propaganda and began bleeding dry their airforce, which is why by the time D-Day happened, allied AA vehicles were used for anti-infantry operations; there simply weren't any german aircraft left for them. This is not to say that they didn't have plans to do so; they were hoping to develop intercontinental bombers to target New York with, and had some prototypes ready, but nothing ever manifested because they already had the US knockin on their door. That being said, to make up for their lack of bombing fleets, they just used far less precise Vengeance missiles instead, which had questionable accuracy (11km deviation from impact at their peak) at best and were therefor used exclusively for terror bombing.
As for Japan; m8, Japan did bombing raids out the ass. Not only did a bombing raid of what was by warlaws a civilian target start their war with the US, they carried out the terror bombing of Chongqing in their war with China, and they extensively bombed Australia during 1942. Why did they stop? Well, the US simply controlled too much of the airspace from that point onwards and again, they had bigger concerns.
The nuclear bombings would've also been a lot less costly for human life than a ground invasion of Japan would've been. As it is said; the US is still using purple hearts stamped in anticipation for the Japan mainland invasion. There is no good or bad in war, only the simple practical of victory or oblivion, and any rules we percieve it as having are only ever followed if one thinks they can afford to.
Please if you wish to engage in revisionist history do first get a adequate understanding of the history you are advising, instead of underqualified dipshits from the discovery channel hyping up the Axis forces to the point that explaining their loss requires several layers of irony.
Again, its the simple practical of war. You should read up on the matter, after Okinawa the US was incredibly weary regarding the prospect of invading the mainland, assuming that they would face an unprecedented degree of civilian resistance. Casualties were expected to be in the Western Front range; about 720000 casualties (dead and wounded) was the most positive estimate, however, with such a massive degree of civilian resistance, it could end up as high as 4 million with 800k dead soldiers. Civilian deaths would be estimated to top 5 million, as the only effective way to really quash such widespread civilian resistance is by basically just flattening every city you come across. To mitigate such damage there was open discussion of just wiping their asses with war laws and employing acid gas bombardments to clean out cities.
On top of that, it was already known to US intelligence that Japan had directives to execute all US POW's should the mainland be invaded, which were to be about 100000 at that point.
At the end of the day, the simple practical of war applies, and the only just war can be a swift war, for all war is an abomination, the prolonging of which is a crime against mankind. 100000 people were burned on the nuclear pyre to shock the nation into compliance. Its crude, it isn't a moral decision at all, but the human cost of throwing the bombs was but a fraction of that of an invasion, and most importantly, the cost would be wholly on the shoulders of the Japanese.
The German Panzers weren't fit for function and especially the later ones seem to have been designed in a vacuum from the logistical needs of the army. In a bid to earn the approval of the party, tank designs were blighted with redesigns which meant tooling and processed had to be constantly revised. Just look at how much difference there is between the different iterations of Panzer IV and Panzer III. This led to an ultimately catastrophic shortage of spare parts because other than the T34 and Sherman, they never bothered standardizing their designs.
The later Panzers were, quite frankly, fucking jokes overhyped by inept historians. The Panther had such an abysmally designed drive drain system that the final drive was prone to breaking in the span of a single tank of gas; a catastrophic failure that would require the tank to be returned to the factory which is why there are so many panthers still in museums; the allies were capable of simply picking them up and towing them away after the crews left them due to a drive failure. Sure, they had amazing armor and impressive firepower which was capable of defeating even the Jumbo Sherman, but their overreliance on train transport (whose tracks, especially in france during 1944, were continually being sabotaged by resistance efforts) and inability to move up or retreat for prolonged areas proved a fatal flaw. The Tiger II was just retarded; a fuel guzzling monstrosity designed in a time where the german army barely had any of them left It is estimated that the absolute majority of Tiger II losses were caused by intentional crew abandonment because they simply became immobile, as moving the tank from the station to the frontline would chug up most of its fuel.
The Sherman and T34 was less impressive, but that isn't a negative for a tank, because they were reliable, had fairly good defences, and were consistently upgunned to meet the needs of the battle. They got shit done. Germans build their tanks with the assumption they could leisurely tow them back to their factories. The Sovjets had no time for that and the US didn't find it logistically feasible to bring tanks back to Detroit, as such, their tanks were build with reliability and ease of repair in mind. And as any military leader can tell you: In war, reliable equipment beats efficient equipment every fucking time. The Germans would've done a lot better iterating on the PzIV and Tiger 1 onwards than wasting resources, engineering time and factory space on the Panther, Tiger II and the fucking Maus, of all things. But the party demanded new shinies and their sycophant engineers eagerly complied, pushing out unproven design after unproven design while abandoning things that had proven their worth throughout the war.
Furthermore, the London Blitz was specifically done due to the percieved effectiveness of terror bombardment, which the Germans had also employed against Rotterdam and was used when they assisted in the Spanish Civil war. Why didn't it extend past London?
Well, simple answer: logistics. Germany expected the UK to be scared into signing a peace treaty with them, but instead the UK turned it around for propaganda and began bleeding dry their airforce, which is why by the time D-Day happened, allied AA vehicles were used for anti-infantry operations; there simply weren't any german aircraft left for them. This is not to say that they didn't have plans to do so; they were hoping to develop intercontinental bombers to target New York with, and had some prototypes ready, but nothing ever manifested because they already had the US knockin on their door. That being said, to make up for their lack of bombing fleets, they just used far less precise Vengeance missiles instead, which had questionable accuracy (11km deviation from impact at their peak) at best and were therefor used exclusively for terror bombing.
As for Japan; m8, Japan did bombing raids out the ass. Not only did a bombing raid of what was by warlaws a civilian target start their war with the US, they carried out the terror bombing of Chongqing in their war with China, and they extensively bombed Australia during 1942. Why did they stop? Well, the US simply controlled too much of the airspace from that point onwards and again, they had bigger concerns.
The nuclear bombings would've also been a lot less costly for human life than a ground invasion of Japan would've been. As it is said; the US is still using purple hearts stamped in anticipation for the Japan mainland invasion. There is no good or bad in war, only the simple practical of victory or oblivion, and any rules we percieve it as having are only ever followed if one thinks they can afford to.
Please if you wish to engage in revisionist history do first get a adequate understanding of the history you are advising, instead of underqualified dipshits from the discovery channel hyping up the Axis forces to the point that explaining their loss requires several layers of irony.
Again, its the simple practical of war. You should read up on the matter, after Okinawa the US was incredibly weary regarding the prospect of invading the mainland, assuming that they would face an unprecedented degree of civilian resistance. Casualties were expected to be in the Western Front range; about 720000 casualties (dead and wounded) was the most positive estimate, however, with such a massive degree of civilian resistance, it could end up as high as 4 million with 800k dead soldiers. Civilian deaths would be estimated to top 5 million, as the only effective way to really quash such widespread civilian resistance is by basically just flattening every city you come across. To mitigate such damage there was open discussion of just wiping their asses with war laws and employing acid gas bombardments to clean out cities.
On top of that, it was already known to US intelligence that Japan had directives to execute all US POW's should the mainland be invaded, which were to be about 100000 at that point.
At the end of the day, the simple practical of war applies, and the only just war can be a swift war, for all war is an abomination, the prolonging of which is a crime against mankind. 100000 people were burned on the nuclear pyre to shock the nation into compliance. Its crude, it isn't a moral decision at all, but the human cost of throwing the bombs was but a fraction of that of an invasion, and most importantly, the cost would be wholly on the shoulders of the Japanese.