Fantastic Swordsman vs WWII infantry enemies

Of course, keep in mind that even though the swordsman may win all his fights, his side may lose the war because they couldn't hold their own.

Considering how Axis has this swordsman instead of Adolf Hitler, i'm not so sure about that.

What I meant was that even though he may win the battles he partakes in personally, the battles fought elsewhere may be completely out of his control. Battles can't be just looked at as individual bouts when the war is a global thing.

Well yes, but it isn't as if his soldiers are terribly incompetent.

What about the rest of the army? For example, elite units in WW 2 such as various elements of the Fallschirmjäger or the Waffen SS were in many ways superior to their Soviet or Western Allied regulars but they alone could not win the war for Germany, especially since the regular soldiers of the Wehrmacht were vastly inferior in battle to the More Dakka wielding Soviets and Americans.

Germans had the MG-34 for More Dakka, no?

Yep, and the Germans still lost the war.

That is mainly due to Hitler's insanity and paranoia causing him to stop listening to his generals, isn't it?

Artillery, artillery, artillery. If your character goes against the Soviets, be ready to account for every self-propelled artillery piece and tank in range to start opening fire, followed b artillery and MLRSs.

If there's one thing where you won't beat the Russians, it's having lots of artillery.

edited 20th Sep '10 6:18:08 PM by Morgulion

Germans had the MG-34 for More Dakka, no?

Early on, but then they made the infamous MG-42. However, the entirety of the Wehrmacht's squad tactics were built around 1 MG per squad and the rest with bolt-action Kar98k rifles. (even in late 1944 and early 1945!)

What the Soviets had were entire divisions armed with the 71 round drum mag 35 round box mag PPSH-41 and PPS-43.

The Americans had standard right at the start of the war (no other nation had this) the M1 Garand standard issue. The US was the only WW 2 power to have a self-loading rifle ready and issued at the start. Likewise everybody was given one unlike the STG-44 which was given mainly to elite forces on the Eastern Front or the MP-40 which was only given to NCOs/Officers. And if the American GI didn't have a Garand he had either a submachinegun (usually M3 "Grease Guns" post-1943 although Thompsons were very common) an M1 Carbine, or manned the Browning Automatic Rifle. (Fun fact, all GIs were trained on the BAR.) Crew wise they also had the M2 Browning .50 cal. More Dakka in BFG form which could literally shred anything less than a Panzer IV. The Germans didn't call it the "Meat Chopper" for nothing. Especially if you packed 4 of them together for some serious Dakka on the M16 Gun Motor Carriage. Basically take an M3 half-track and load it up with an anti-aircraft quad-machine gun and thousands of rounds of ammo and the gun had the ability natively to aim low enough to engage ground targets even up close. End result? The platform could put out over 2200 rounds per minute cyclically, a feat not replicated again in the US military until the invention of the M61 Vulcan Gatling Cannon.

edited 20th Sep '10 6:26:23 PM by MajorTom

Is there no sane option for one to equip the solders with better weapons? Is it too expensive? Too costly in materials?

(Read my new edits)

Germany was strapped for materials, suffered tactical and strategic blundering and a willingness to choose expensive weaponry over cheap, (Such as the STG-44 and the G43 semi-automatic rifle) so yes they didn't have many options in re-equipping their men. This became extremely apparent when Western Allied forces established aerial supremacy over France and much of western Germany and began bombing the shit out of their industrial capabilities in the Rhineland.

edited 20th Sep '10 6:29:45 PM by MajorTom

If they preferred expensive weapons over cheap ones, why is it that most soldiers were equiped with a century-old bolt action rifle?

Hitler's meddling and his command crew's tradition of using the bolt-action rifle. (That and it was one of the cheapest weapons they had.)

To be fair however, everybody else (sans the US post-1936) was using bolt-action rifles too. (Especially the British.)

It doesn't seem to be a very bad gun.

The Kar98k was an excellent gun...for the time period it was designed for. (WW 1-era/Interwar Period) However more forward thinking arms designers like John C Garand and John Browning came into the forefront with better more effective weapons. True the Kar98k is very effective compared to other bolt-actions like the Lee-Enfield Rifle No. 4 (standard issue British bolt-action rifle) or the Mosin-Nagant (Russian bolt-action rifle seen early on but quickly faded in use) but ultimately Technology Marches On.

Also, the Urban Warfare environment seen in Stalingrad quickly proved the usefulness of the submachinegun (especially since they were literally equipping every Soviet conscript they could get with one) over that of the bolt-action rifle.

When the Wehrmacht came across American troops they quickly found themselves outclassed in every way by the M1 Garand.

Another thing about dealing with Russia in their homeland: the cold. It stopped the Axis dead in their tracks.

If Russia could equip so many soldiers with submachine guns (i'm assuming that Russia has a larger army because of it's sheer size at the time) then why wouldn't Germany be able to?

Russian SM Gs were very cheap, sometimes being made partly from a rifle sawn in half. The Germans ones were more expensive to make.

Russia had the industrial capabilities. That and their submachineguns were really fucking cheap to make. You can make a PPSH-41 submachinegun with simple tools and unskilled labor in only a few hours of work. And Russia had plenty of all of that.

You got to realize that industrial base wise Germany was the underdog. It could not sustain any protracted conflict against Russia, or the US (especially). It could hold its own against the UK and had somewhat comparable industrial power compared to Japan but it could not sustain a long war under any circumstances.

In WW 2, the Russians and the Americans were the 800 pound gorillas in the room in terms of industrial power. Especially the Americans. (Victories at places like Stalingrad would not have been possible without Lend-Lease equipment propping up their logistics.)

edited 20th Sep '10 7:58:54 PM by MajorTom

That and the Russian's built their stuff to last. I've heard of stories where Russian tanks proved so rugged, they could essentially just ram their way through a German tank like it was nothing.

The T-34 could do that to the weaker Panzers. But against a Tiger it might get stuck. (Assuming the Tiger simply didn't blow the T-34 away from 1000 meters.) T-34s were also underarmored in the turret. A well placed tank gun or artillery hit there would effortlessly knock a T-34 out of the battle even if it was still drivable.

I thought Russian tanks were supposed to be designed to be lighter and faster.

And I guess that explains how they filled in such a huge technological gap.

Some are. The BT series of fast tanks (and I mean fast. They could match an Abrams today for speed.) were extremely light. Others like the T-35 (a Games Workshop machine if there ever was one) were not so light.

Hm.

If Germany was the underdog to such an extent, why do people say that Axis may have won World War II if Hitler would have followed his generals' advice and stuff?