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Muhammad Ali was Right to Refuse Army Induction

Muhammad Ali was Right to Refuse Army Induction

  • For the Motion

    Votes: 21 67.7%
  • Against the Motion

    Votes: 10 32.3%

  • Total voters
    31
Early in the war, lend lease was a help for Russian armament, but later it was clothing, food, and ammo.

Yes, once the T-34 start being produced in sufficient numbers as opposed to many of the older model vehicles other needs were prioritized.
 
Except that's not true. Germany started losing the war when they failed outside of Moscow, because it locked them into an attritional war that they didn't have the resources nor the manpower to wage.

Additionally, the German failure at Stalingrad was directly a result of Case Blue's operational shortcomings, which began unfolding in winter 1942.

Of course the two worst severe winters in a century had nothing to do with Germany's failure of Operation Barbarosa. More German soldiers died from freezing to death, hunger and pestilence than from combat. The Russian troops brought in from the east thought the winters too warm for their tastes.

"200 Russian Cavalry from Siberia armed with sword and pistols, wearing light silk trousers, bare chested except for silk sashes across their chests, carrying a spare sword and a dozen or so long knives, a bandoleer of ammunition for their pistols, descended on 3,000 cold and hungry stranded German elite troops in Petranska, a suburb of Stalingrad at 2:00 in the morning on a February night during a storm from the north. Within 20 minutes all but 30 German captives were dead, one cavalryman had a broken leg from his horse falling, the horse was unhurt, and the Russians suffered no further casualties. It was so cold I could barely breath, barely keep my eyes open. Afterwards, come daylight, the Russians found more than 4,000 frozen German bodies stacked like cords of wood, unburied and dead for weeks, a few days at the least." - From an unnamed British observer journalist, published in the London Times, March 2, 1942.
 
It wasn't accomplished without Shermans, and considering the lay of the land, the Russians had nothing with the necessary speed and maneuverability. The B3 wasn't on the Russian table until mid 1944, also a Sherman made by the Russians. German tanks were slow, easily taken out with anti tank guns. Shermans were fast, and numerically superior. Russian tanks has the same problem as the German tanks, huge and slow.

Uh, what? The most commonly produced Soviet tank during the war, the T-34, weigh less (or just about the same depending on the variant of each tank) as the Sherman.
 
Of course the two worst severe winters in a century had nothing to do with Germany's failure of Operation Barbarosa. More German soldiers died from freezing to death, hunger and pestilence than from combat. The Russian troops brought in from the east thought the winters too warm for their tastes.

And where's your figures for this claim?

Because the cold affects everybody, not just Germans. Plenty of Soviet conscripts came from Central Asia or the Caucuses, far to the south of Moscow.
 
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But their failure outside of Moscow did not allow the Soviets to make lasting gains in the far effort.

Yes it did. German losses at the end of Barbarossa were 889,788 killed, wounded and missing. Their reserves available back in Germany were less than 400,000. In the first six months of the war they had already lost more men they had people to replace them.

That only really started once the Germans lost a whole army in Stalingrad.

The Germans would've lost even had they avoided Stalingrad. It was a type of war Germany was not prepared to wage.

The real shortcoming was expecting the Romanians to be able to hold the flank down when they were under serious pressure.

The real shortcoming was the fact that 80% of the German army wasn't mechanized, German tank production at the onset of Barbarossa was just 250 per month, and the fact that Nazi Germany did not possess the material or industrial base at the time to actually outfit the type of army that was needed to defeat the Soviets.
 
I am trying to educate you.
Traipsing into DP as a new member and telling folks that their debate methodology is incorrect is impolite and very rude.
Either find a site that meets your expectations, or learn to play well with members at DP.
Eloquently simple solution.

@SMTA

In fact, that is not at all what I did. I created a thread formed around a Motion that two opposing sides could compete on. A member had a valid question as they were not familiar with that formatting, which I answered. I cannot help it if people like you, Superfly, and others are so deeply intellectually insecure that you have somehow taken offense to this entirely innocuous matter. Also, I never stated that your debate methodology was incorrect. Rather, there are alternative methods that are held as standard procedure in Formal Debates which I sometimes (but not always) implement.

Thank you for your "concern" and "thoughtful" posts on this front..
 
@SMTA

In fact, that is not at all what I did. I created a thread formed around a Motion that two opposing sides could compete on. A member had a valid question as they were not familiar with that formatting, which I answered. I cannot help it if people like you, Superfly, and others are so deeply intellectually insecure that you have somehow taken offense to this. Also, I never stated that your debate methodology was incorrect. Rather, there are alternative methods that are held as standard procedure in Formal Debates which I sometimes (but not always) implement.

Thank you for your "concern" and "thoughtful" posts on this front..
Don't come here and tell these good folks how to debate.
Your legend-in-your-own-mind posts are wasting bandwidth here.
 
And where's your figures for this claim?

Because the cold affects everybody, not just Germans. Plenty of Soviet conscripts came from Central Asia or the Caucuses, far to the south of Moscow.

Have you ever been in either Central Asia or the Caucuses Mountains during winter?

Let your fingers do the walking when you want verification. Or read about Napoleon's Russian Campaign. Same problems.

Central Asia Russia

https://weather.com/weather/today/l/RSXX6979:1:RS

It's about -20 degrees F in the sparsely populated northern Caucuses of Russia today. Never a significant source of people, let alone conscripts. The other Caucuses regions are outside of Russia.
 
It's about -20 degrees F in the sparsely populated northern Caucuses of Russia today. Never a significant source of people, let alone conscripts. The other Caucuses regions are outside of Russia.

No wonder most of us Caucasians have left the area.
 
Uh, what? The most commonly produced Soviet tank during the war, the T-34, weigh less (or just about the same depending on the variant of each tank) as the Sherman.

The T34 was 4 tons lighter than a Sherman, but it couldn't produce the same speeds, tho still faster than the heavier German tanks. The T34 didn't arrive at Stalingrad until the near end of the siege. Older Russian tanks had been in use, often larger than their German counterparts, with inferior guns and armor, but again, far more numerous.
 
The T34 was 4 tons lighter than a Sherman, but it couldn't produce the same speeds, tho still faster than the heavier German tanks. The T34 didn't arrive at Stalingrad until the near end of the siege. Older Russian tanks had been in use, often larger than their German counterparts, with inferior guns and armor, but again, far more numerous.

Methinks the old boy knows his tanks quite well.
 
No wonder most of us Caucasians have left the area.

White man may have crooked tongue, but not so stupid. Well, maybe not so stupid. :) Most of the people of the region are Eurasian, and not so white.

Puerto Rican comic actor, during an on location shoot in the Northern Caucuses, said "hey, these people look like family."

I liked another line of his, an ad lib from the Count of Monte Cristo. When he swears allegiance to the count, he does so with "I swear by all my dead relatives, even those not feeling so well."
 
The real shortcoming was the fact that 80% of the German army wasn't mechanized, German tank production at the onset of Barbarossa was just 250 per month, and the fact that Nazi Germany did not possess the material or industrial base at the time to actually outfit the type of army that was needed to defeat the Soviets.

Yes, both sides did a lot of marching, and used a lot of horses. Neither Russians or Germans had that many trained drivers when the war commenced.

The Germans started the war with 514,000 horses, and over the course of the war used 2.75 million horses and mules. Those animals that didn't die in combat were slaughtered by the German troops for food.

Comparatively, US Forces, dependent upon who to believe, fielded between 54-60,000 horses and mules in both theaters of the war.
 
The T34 was 4 tons lighter than a Sherman, but it couldn't produce the same speeds, tho still faster than the heavier German tanks. The T34 didn't arrive at Stalingrad until the near end of the siege. Older Russian tanks had been in use, often larger than their German counterparts, with inferior guns and armor, but again, far more numerous.

You may be thinking of the KV1 models which were slow and carried a 76,2mm... But in no way inferior in armor when compared to the PZIII, PZIV or even the Panther.
 
You may be thinking of the KV1 models which were slow and carried a 76,2mm... But in no way inferior in armor when compared to the PZIII, PZIV or even the Panther.

There were many others, some decades old. Big lumbering monsters, some armed only with machine guns. Stalin was more worried about insurgencies than invasions. A bit smarter than Hitler, he quickly learned he wasn't a military leader even though he liked wearing uniforms. He found it easier to create a holodomor than fight the Germans. He lucked out that military leaders who survived his purge, rose to the need.

Taken out of mothball storage for the battle of Stalingrad, 4 Alexi tanks from the beginning of WWI, never having been used in combat. 72 ton behemoths made from converted steam engined locomotives. They managed at 4 mph, armed with a pair of 10mm rapid fire fixed cannons than couldn't be aimed. Almost laughable. After setting tank traps for Panthers, they were used to slam into the sides of the Panthers stuck in tank pits and sit on top of them. An effective 1 time strategy. Crushed their opponents. Later they were recovered for scrap.

There are times when creativity is called on for killing with whatever is at hand. One thing about war, it proves evolutionary theory. We keep evolving with better and better methods for killing each other.
 
There were many others, some decades old. Big lumbering monsters, some armed only with machine guns. Stalin was more worried about insurgencies than invasions. A bit smarter than Hitler, he quickly learned he wasn't a military leader even though he liked wearing uniforms. He found it easier to create a holodomor than fight the Germans. He lucked out that military leaders who survived his purge, rose to the need.

Taken out of mothball storage for the battle of Stalingrad, 4 Alexi tanks from the beginning of WWI, never having been used in combat. 72 ton behemoths made from converted steam engined locomotives. They managed at 4 mph, armed with a pair of 10mm rapid fire fixed cannons than couldn't be aimed. Almost laughable. After setting tank traps for Panthers, they were used to slam into the sides of the Panthers stuck in tank pits and sit on top of them. An effective 1 time strategy. Crushed their opponents. Later they were recovered for scrap.

There are times when creativity is called on for killing with whatever is at hand. One thing about war, it proves evolutionary theory. We keep evolving with better and better methods for killing each other.

I didn't know about the Alexi tanks... I'll have to look that up.

I knew T-35s served at the Battle of Moscow.
 
Have you ever been in either Central Asia or the Caucuses Mountains during winter?

Let your fingers do the walking when you want verification. Or read about Napoleon's Russian Campaign. Same problems.

Central Asia Russia

https://weather.com/weather/today/l/RSXX6979:1:RS

It's about -20 degrees F in the sparsely populated northern Caucuses of Russia today. Never a significant source of people, let alone conscripts. The other Caucuses regions are outside of Russia.


So in other words you don't have any actual sources. Right.

Yes, Russia is cold. Frighteningly so, and life is hellish when it is. But that doesn't change the fact that it was the Red Army, not the winter, that stopped the Germans outside of Moscow.
 
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The T34 was 4 tons lighter than a Sherman, but it couldn't produce the same speeds, tho still faster than the heavier German tanks. The T34 didn't arrive at Stalingrad until the near end of the siege. Older Russian tanks had been in use, often larger than their German counterparts, with inferior guns and armor, but again, far more numerous.

So are you shifting into tank schematics for a reason or are you just shifting your debate?

The Red Army in 1941 could've been equipped with KV-2s and T-34/85s at the onset of Barbarossa and the overall strategic situation would've have changed. It was poor training, abysmal low level leadership, and inadequate planning that ruined the Red Army in 1941.
 
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The Germans started the war with 514,000 horses, and over the course of the war used 2.75 million horses and mules. Those animals that didn't die in combat were slaughtered by the German troops for food.

It's a odd irony that modern day Germany is renowned for their automobiles but back then had one of the least productive auto industries in Europe.
 
I didn't know about the Alexi tanks... I'll have to look that up.

I knew T-35s served at the Battle of Moscow.

I think I learned about the Alexi tanks from one of the World at War episodes, viewed many years back as I was recovering from an appendix removal. That's when I learned the appendix is not on the left side. :)

A lot of T-34's and T-35s showed up for the Battle of Moscow. The Germans were shocked by how many showed up for the party. The wide tracks on the T series tanks could handle the mud that mired the German tanks in place. The Germans lost a 1/4 million casualties, the Russians 600,000 before the elite and trained Siberian divisions arrived and pushed the Germans back 150 miles. Only because a Russian spy had learned the Japanese had decided not to attack Siberia, instead turning south to fight the British in India and Burma, and the free French in Indochina. The Russians picked up 120k German prisoners. Most never made it back to Germany, they were used as forced labor in the east. What Geneva convention, what international laws?

Hitler wanted to annihilate the Russian people, the Russian knew they were fighting a war for survival of the motherland. Unarmed Russian troops attacked along with armed troops, with those who survived the attacks picking up the rifles from the dead to continue the attacks.

Mud and ice, and blood. Rivers of blood. Frozen rivers of blood. For two egomaniac despots.

So easy to quibble over in hindsight.
 
Yes it did. German losses at the end of Barbarossa were 889,788 killed, wounded and missing. Their reserves available back in Germany were less than 400,000. In the first six months of the war they had already lost more men they had people to replace them.



The Germans would've lost even had they avoided Stalingrad. It was a type of war Germany was not prepared to wage.



The real shortcoming was the fact that 80% of the German army wasn't mechanized, German tank production at the onset of Barbarossa was just 250 per month, and the fact that Nazi Germany did not possess the material or industrial base at the time to actually outfit the type of army that was needed to defeat the Soviets.

Yet those losses did not translate to lasting Soviets gains until after Stalingrad. The writing being on the wall is one thing, but the Red Army was in such ****ty shape for the first few years of the war that the Germans taking all those casualties didn't actually stop them.

Oh really? I can think of several cases were if just a little had changed the Germans could have knocked the Russians out of the war. Soviet victory on the Eastern Front was in no way, shape or form guaranteed.

And despite all that they mauled the Soviets over and over and over again. The Red Army simply was not combat ready until late 1942 to early 1943.
 
And where's your figures for this claim?

Because the cold affects everybody, not just Germans. Plenty of Soviet conscripts came from Central Asia or the Caucuses, far to the south of Moscow.

But the Soviets actually had done things like "prepare for a winter campaign" and "have good winter clothing to keep the troops from freezing".

The Germans.....not so much.
 
White man may have crooked tongue, but not so stupid. Well, maybe not so stupid. :) Most of the people of the region are Eurasian, and not so white.

Puerto Rican comic actor, during an on location shoot in the Northern Caucuses, said "hey, these people look like family."

I liked another line of his, an ad lib from the Count of Monte Cristo. When he swears allegiance to the count, he does so with "I swear by all my dead relatives, even those not feeling so well."

I left out the name of the actor, Luis Guzmán.
 
You may be thinking of the KV1 models which were slow and carried a 76,2mm... But in no way inferior in armor when compared to the PZIII, PZIV or even the Panther.

There were things like the BT series tanks, T-28, T-35, T-26, and T-60. Some were better than others......but none could stand up to the Germans for long.
 
So in other words you don't have any actual sources. Right.

Yes, Russia is cold. Frighteningly so, and life is hellish when it is. But that doesn't change the fact that it was the Red Army, not the winter, that stopped the Germans outside of Moscow.


I haven't bothered reading or watching WWII data for decades. I'm not about to start for your benefit.

The winter alone did not stop the Germans, the mud stopped them. Then winter started killing them and giving the Russians an edge.

Without understanding how poor most of Russia was under the Tsars, less than 30 years previously, you (generically) have no idea how poor Russia remained under Lenin and Stalin. To assume, outside of a few elite forces, regionally deployed away from the western front, that the Red Army could have had more than "poor training, abysmal low level leadership, and inadequate planning that ruined the Red Army in 1941" is absurd. In 1933, the entire Russian military numbered around 600k. Two years later, as Stalin watched Hitler emerge and commence arming Germany, he ordered military strength increased, and within two more years, the military numbered 1.3 mil, with 10k tanks and 5k planes, with the majority of new inductees serving as riflemen with no rifles. In 1937, fearing being overthrown by the newly stronger military, Stalin purged the top 7 officers, and then more than 30k additional junior offices, executing 30k. Not a recipe for a quality military. When Russia invaded Finland, a testing ground for the Russians, as Spain had been the same for the fascists, Russia lost 200k men and 1,600 tanks. His air was worthless in that war.

Stalin new his military wasn't ready for the Germans. He ordered the conscription of 3 million men. But Stalin was facing two enemies, at least in his mind, the Germans and Japanese in the east. 1/4 of his military, his most trained troops were deployed in the east. The Russian arms industry was abysmally deficient, not ready to arm so many in this new army, and without the officers to train them and create strategies.

Russia wasn't just the eastern front. It faced betrayal in Ukraine and other southern separatist provinces and states, and the Japanese were a real threat in the east. Russia is larger than the US, with no oceans protecting two of its coasts. Without taking into account the land mass of Russia, both as an asset and liability, the lack of communications, the unreadiness of its transport systems, its inadequate internal politics, and all the rest is to develop an inadequate vision of the entire war theaters of Russia during the war.

We can futilely argue and discuss specific armaments, failures and successes of strategies, and so forth. Nothing changes the past. Why this thread about Ali has drifted in this direction is beyond the usual thread drift. And more aptly, it is worthless rumination.
 
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