No, it's not a Kings of Leon song, it's Bozo.
In his Fox interview with Chris Wallace, Bozo says "We won two world wars, two world wars, beautiful world wars . . ."
"Beautiful" world wars?
Over 100 million people dying is "beautiful"?
Huh?
Mustard Gas looks pretty I guess.
I dislike it when any nation says we won the war without acknowledging their allies, the Entente and Allied powers respectively won the two world wars.
Or perhaps he's talking about the tiny matter of the result of the war.
The thing that kept 100 million deaths from being 200 or 300 million.
Saving lives is always beautiful.
Unless you suffer from TDS.
I agree with you Stav. Americans have watched too many Hollywood movies and now firmly believe they won those wars single handed.
Truth is, America took a long time to join WW2 and only did so when their ships were attacked at Pearl Harbour. Up until that point they were happy to watch as the brave RAF pilots kept the Luftwaffe at bay while hanging on by a fingernail. That's when the war was won and lost.
Well I could never criticize the American's for trying to keep out of the wars, after all my own country didn't participate in WW2 and I wouldn't belittle the effort any of the nations that fought in the wars.
The Americans played their part and did the vast bulk of the heavy lifting in the Pacific theater of WW2 and land lease was crucial to both the Soviets and British in Europe.
The war wasn't won during the Battle of Britain either, the war in Europe was primarily decided on the Eastern front where the German army was ground down in the absolutely titanic battles that occurred there.
From what we know now due to the disparity of naval power between the Great Britain and Germany the Germans even had they won the Battle of Britain and won air supremacy, they where not capable of successfully invading the UK. The German navy was simply too small particularly after its mauling in Norway to protect an invasion fleet and in pretty much an scenario where the Germans could of invaded the UK there would of no way they could have successfully reinforced and supplied the invasion force once it landed in the UK. Once the landing sites where identified the Royal Navy would just steamed down in force and wrecked the invasion fleet. This was not to say Britain did not believe it was fighting for its survival at the time, they didn't know back then what we know now.
What should also be noted is the effectiveness of the British blockade on Germany, which crippled its oil supply, that significantly affected Germany's ability to mechanize and wage war in general.
Stav, I still believe that the Battle of Britain was a very close call and if it had gone the other way then the outcome of the war would have been significantly different . . . but while we can argue about whether the turning point in the war was the Battle of Britain, Operation Barbarossa, the Battle of Stalingrad, the entry of the USA after Pearl Harbour or nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki; one thing I'm sure we can agree on is that it wasn't a "beautiful" war.
World War 1 may not have been fought on the same scale and may have had a lot less total casualties but the intensity of the fighting and the conditions were even less "beautiful" than WW2.
Well the Battle of Britain was a close run battle, but pretty much every military historian is in agreement that Germans would not have been able to successfully invade the UK in the short to medium term it was simply beyond their naval and air capabilities to protect and supply any invading force and addressing a naval imbalance takes years to do so. Perhaps had they won the Battle of Britain, the UK might have sued for peace but with Churchill in charge I think that's somewhat unlikely.
There is not really much argument to be had, the Eastern Front from 41-45 was the most important theater and its where the outcome of the war in Europe was determined.
Pearl Harbor obviously started the Pacific war and doomed Japan who literally had no chance of beating the US, but it might not necessarily involved America into the European war. That was down to Germany and Italy declaring war on the US.
While you can salute the bravery of your soldiers and be proud of your nations accomplishments I don't think war can ever be called beautiful.
And also yes the way World War 1 was fought was utterly horrendous. It also seems like a far more pointless war than the WW2.
The small mindedness of the Left. Trump was obviously referring to the liberation of Stalingrad, Paris and all the other cities and countries under the yoke of the Axis.
As for what won the war. It was the American lifeline to the U.K. carried in 1200 Norwegian vessels denied to the Germans .....along with the pilots and the threat of the navy that saved Britain.
The other major event was the Battle of Kursk which settled the Russian conflict, after which the result was inevitable.
You chaps have watched too many Pom movies....they survived bravely but had little positive effect on the outcome beyond that. Hell Monty extended the War by half a year by deciding to not secure the approaches to Antwerp....and then there was Market Garden . Absent the US and Russia they would have been lost.
The utter tastelessness of the right, describing the two most devastating conflicts in human history as beautiful.
As for the liberation of Stalingrad...I didn't know the US was involved. My hole he was referring to Stalingrad, he's probably never even heard of it.
No one thing won the war, but the largest overall contribution to wining the war in Eur ope was made by the Soviets. Had it not been for the losses the German sustained on the eastern front its unlikely the Americans and the British could have liberated Western and Central Europe without having to use nuclear weapons. They would have been facing millions more soldier's in addition to thousands more tanks and aircraft.
The Germans had in all likelihood lost the war well before Kursk. They probably had already lost any realistic prospect of victory when Barbarossa failed back in 41.
As for the Brits barely surviving, that's a misconception. The U-Boats never really came that close to actually starving them out even before the US entered the war and as I said the Germans never realistically had a chance to successfully invade the UK. Victory for the Germans in North Africa would not have been fatal to the UK either.
Its true to say the British could not have defeated Germany alone, but to say they had little positive effect is complete crap. The U-Boat building programmer designed specifically to knock the UK out of the war consumed considerable resources the Germans could have used elsewhere. The blockade of Germany enforced by the Royal Navy significantly contributed to Germany's severe oil shortages throughout the war,.The Battle of Britain reduced the Luftwaffe strength by a third before it went into Operation Barbarossa, the battle for Africa and in the Mediterranean theater tied down a significant portion of the Luftwaffe away from the Germans primary theater of operations and the African campaign was very costly to the Germans in terms of resources particular oil. They routed the Italians on numerous occasions and achieved a noteable victory at El Alamein. They wisely counseled the Americans not to attempt a cross channel invasion in 1942-1943 before they where ready. Without Britain where would of been no commonwealth forces which provided significant manpower to the allies. Without the Commonwealth there would have no critical important lessons learned for D-Day at Dieppe. It was the British that cracked enigma. Its the British that did the heavy lifting by tying down all the German panzer divisions at Caen enabling the Americans to break out of Normandy. The British just surviving alone provided the allies with the staging area to invade Europe.
The US may have ended up as the senior partner in the end but to say Britain had little positive effect on the war is just insulting and disrespectful to your allies.
The rights and wrongs of Operation Market Garden can be debated till the cows come home, but before you pin the blame entirely on Monty then it could be argued that the decision of General Gavin the commander of the 82nd Airborne Division not to prioritize capturing the bridge at Nijmegen (the sole reason the 82nd Airborne was there in the first place) to focus on taking up defensive position around his landing zone to fend off a counter attack from 1,000 phantom panzers was arguably the single biggest reason Market Garden failed and had he taken the bridge Market Garden may well have succeeded.
"The US President Donald Trump once again opposed the renaming of military bases named after generals of the Confederacy.
It doesn't matter that he acknowledged the world wars as cruel and terrible, its utterly bizarre he referred to them as beautiful . Its not at all an appropriate way to describe the two world wars
Image saying that to a Jewish person.
As for the rest of his quote, if no one who's who General Bragg is, then why is there a statue of him?
I had assume some of the confederate generals who these bases where named after were being honored because like Robert E Lee they where considered brilliant military leaders as opposed to being named after them to glorify the confederacy, but reading up on it, some of these confederate leaders with bases named after them where not considered great battlefield commanders and some where actually quite incompetent. Bragg is one of them.
Anger you really see the world in simple terms.....take your comment about the Russians stopping the Germans before winter. Not really true, the Germans were advancing till into December. And that advance in itself was effected by atrocious weather in October and November which turned everything into a mud bath.
The Germans had lost the war before Kursk? Nonsense Kursk could have gone either way and it was pivotal....this sums it up well:
What does it take to turn the tides in a war? Often, it comes down to one pivotal battle. What it takes to win that battle, on the other hand, is a different matter entirely. For the first part of World War II, Germany commanded pretty clear control. Most battles in these first years were defined by Germany on the offense and everybody else playing defense. However, in each of the fronts that Germany fought, eventually this changed. On the Russian front, the pivotal battle most responsible for turning the tides was the Battle of Kursk.
......
Most of the other material in your post is also delusional...reflecting a very parochial view of the War.
This from Brittanica may help you get a basic understanding Anger, but to be honest, I’m not optimistic:
Bock’s renewed advance began on October 2, 1941. Its prospects looked bright when Bock’s armies brought off a great encirclement around Vyazma, where 600,000 more Soviet troops were captured. That left the Germans momentarily with an almost clear path to Moscow. But the Vyazma battle was not completed until late October; the German troops were tired; the country became a morass as the weather got worse; and fresh Soviet forces appeared in the Germans’ path as they plodded slowly forward. Some of the German generals wanted to break off the offensive and to take up a suitable winter line. But Bock wanted to press on, believing that the Soviets were on the verge of collapse, while Brauchitsch and Halder tended to agree with his view. As that also accorded with Hitler’s desire, he made no objection. The temptation of Moscow, now so close in front of their eyes, was too great for any of the topmost leaders to resist. On December 2 a further effort was launched, and some German detachments penetrated into the suburbs of Moscow; however, the advance as a whole was held up in the forests covering the capital. The stemming of this last phase of the great German offensive was partly due to the effects of the Russian winter, the subzero temperatures of which were the most severe in several decades. In October and November a wave of frostbite cases had decimated the ill-clad German troops, for whom provisions of winter clothing had not been made, while the icy cold paralyzed the Germans’ mechanized transport, tanks, artillery, and aircraft. The Soviets, by contrast, were well clad and tended to fight more effectively in winter than did the Germans.
I won't be too critical of you this time Mozart because the belief that the Russian winter was the primary factor in the German defeat in 1941 is still widely held among the general public but its a view no longer held by military historians and authors who have studied the Eastern Front.
It mostly an excuse created by the German generals to explain their defeat at the hands of the Russians.
Barbarossa failed for several reasons but simplifying it the primary reason Barbarossa failed was the Germans assumed the USSR/Red Army would collapse within a few weeks to months of fighting, that didn't happen and Germans didn't have he resources to cope. The Red Army inflicted heavy casualties on the Germans best units before the Russian winter kicked in and the German logistics system couldn't cope with the vastness of the USSR.
"The Germans had lost the war before Kursk? Nonsense Kursk could have gone either way and it was pivotal....this sums it up well:"
Kursk wasn't never even close to a German victory. It was never going to be. Once Russia failed to capitulate quickly in 1941 the Germans where arguable done for and if they had a tiny chance of winning in 1942 it was gone when they failed to take the Caucasus oilfields. By 1943 the Germans were dead men walking.
Even had the Germans won at Kursk, it wasn't intended as a war winning battle. The Germans planned the battle in order to destroy the Kursk Salient so they could neutralize the Red Army as a threat for the remainder of 1943 and shorten the line on the eastern front to transfer troops to the west. But its difficulty to see that making much difference other than extend the war by a few months.
As for saying my view is simplistic and then going on to quote an article from Brittanica that's quiet simply just LOL.
Your views are your views...everybody else believes weather played a major role. Another factor you miss is the Nazi atrocities towards the locals, strengthened Russian resolve.
Moscow seemingly lay open to a German advance, but at this point Russian weather intervened with heavy rains that turned the roads into morasses. The frosts of November solidified the mud, so that the drive could resume. Despite the lateness of the season and the fact that further advances would leave their troops with no winter clothes or supply dumps for the winter, the generals urged Hitler to continue. The Germans struggled to the gates of Moscow where Soviet counterattacks stopped them in early December. In desperate conditions, they conducted a slow retreat as Soviet attacks threatened to envelop much of their forces in a defeat as disastrous as that which befell Napoleon’s Grand Army in 1812. In the end the Soviets overreached, and the Germans restored a semblance of order to the front; the spring thaw in March 1942 brought operations to a halt. But Barbarossa had failed, and Nazi Germany confronted a two-front war that it could not win.
WILLIAMSON MURRAY
The Reader’s Companion to Military History. Edited by Robert Cowley and Geoffrey Parker. Copyright © 1996 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
As for Kursk....the war with Russia was very much undecided before Kursk.....in 1943 Russia had retaken the Ukraine, but suffered a major loss at Karkhof.
At Kursk so many troops and so much material was committed that a clear victory by either side would have changed the nature of the conflict for the rest of 43. As it transpired an inconclusive result with massive losses was less devastating to Russia. And that decided the war. Here are some supporting opinions:
The Battle of Kursk was the last major offensive they launched in Russia. The material damage done to the German Army was massive. The campaign was a strategic Soviet success, despite the fact that the suffered more casualties. For the first time, a major German offensive had been stopped before achieving a breakthrough[22]. The defeat at Kursk was to prove in many ways more decisive than Stalingrad. Winston Churchill, argued that the defeat at Kursk ‘heralded the downfall of the German army on the Eastern Front’[23]
ConclusionThe Battle of Kursk was a turning point in the war on the Eastern Front. The Germans had failed to reach their objectives and they had suffered huge losses. The German air force after the battle, began to lose the control of the skies. After Kursk the Germans in the East were on the defensive. They had lost the battle for several reasons, overoptimistic planning, a failure to appreciate that the Soviet air force had improved and they underestimated the Soviet defenses around Kursk. Significantly, they also believed that their new weapons would earn them a victory and this over reliance on new and untested military technologies, such as the Tiger Tanks, played a critical role in their defeat in the most famous tank battle in history.
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Now you can tell us Churchill never knew what he was talking about....LMAOFY!
"Its not at all an appropriate way to describe the two world wars"
Yes, that was a gaffe. I am sure he does not think any war is beautiful. Up till now he was way less of a warmonger than any of his predecessors.
Still Anger your’s is not the dumbest comment on this string....that belongs to ‘Rooi’ of the Rovers with his:
‘Up until that point they were happy to watch as the brave RAF pilots kept the Luftwaffe at bay while hanging on by a fingernail. That's when the war was won and lost.‘
A comment naive enough to embarrass even a Boy’s weekly
Wehe . . . Moffie thinks the Yanks liberated Stalingrad!
Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
Looks like Moffie knows even less than ou Maaik about history!
"Your views are your views...everybody else believes weather played a
major role. Another factor you miss is the Nazi atrocities towards the
locals, strengthened Russian resolve."
Everyone's views are their own. But I believe my views backed up by the facts. The Russian weather played a role and certainly made things worse for the Germans but the perception that it was the sole or primary reason in the German defeat in 1941 is not true.
While it wasn't accurate for me to say the Russian stopped the Germans before winter kicked in they had had inflicted over 700,000 causalities on the Germans before winter started, mostly front-line combat troops. The war in Russia from the get go was extremely tough for the Germans (worse for the Russians) with July 41 being the month they took the most casualties in any month in the war up till December 1942. The German logistics system couldn't cope with the vastness of Russia and its poor infrastructure and the Germans knew this before even going into Russia. They bet the farm on having a quick victory.
I didn't miss the Nazi atrocities, I just didn't mention them. It was one of the reasons the Russian fought so stubbornly and fanatically at times, and also fear of their own regime. German soldiers often commented how tenacious Russian soldiers were and how their resolve had greatly improved from World War 1. Be bringing this up your actually supporting my position.
"As for Kursk....the war with Russia was very much undecided before Kursk.....in 1943 Russia had retaken the Ukraine, but suffered a major loss at Karkhof. "
The Germans where defeated before Kursk, the Soviets and Allies superiority in manpower and resources was simply too great but the Allies and Soviets still had to go through the motions of finishing them off. Kursk was a notable victory for the Russians but it was more that it was stepping stone on the path to eventual victory. The German victory at Karkhof is often lauded as this amazing German victory in which the Germans where vastly outnumbered like 12 to 1 or something ridiculous and it was due to the sheer military brilliance of the Germans that they won it. But while it was a again a note worthy victory for the Germans its again being exaggerated to push the myth the Germans were vastly superior to the Russians and that only things like Hilter's incompetence, the Russian winter or Russia's massive manpower advantage was the reason they where beaten and not actually the endurance and capabilities of the Soviet Red Army.
"At Kursk so many troops and so much material was committed that a clear victory by either side would have changed the nature of the conflict for the rest of 43. As it transpired an inconclusive result with massive losses was less devastating to Russia. And that decided the war. Here are some supporting opinions"
Except its on record what the German plans where for Kursk. It was never intended by them to be war winning battle. I already explained what the German intentions where for Kursk in a previous post. The Soviets over exaggerated the battle for propaganda reasons.
Yes the forces committed to the battle where considerable on both sides. But by the time the Germans called it off they have sustained less than 60,000 causalities. If you include the Soviet counterattacks afterwards its significantly more but still notably less than Barbarrossa (over 1 million casualties) Stalingrad (300,000-400,000), the Fall of Tunisa (290,000-320,000) and 1944's Overlord (300,000-520,000) Operation Bagration (400,000).
Yes Churchill was wrong about Kursk. Don't get me wrong I believe Churchill got more right than wrong, but he was wrong about an awful lot of things. Are you saying he got Gallipoli right? Aside from which the traditional views of the war has change and myths have been exposed over time. Churchill didn't have access to all the facts. We still don't now.
Again the idea that Kursk was a decisive battle is a common one but as more research has been done into and your subjectively look at it its not really true.
Realistically speaking the Germans where doomed once Barbarrossa failed to provide a quick victory. After that they needed everything to go right for them, make all the correct decisions and the Russians to make all incorrect decisions. That didn't come close to happening and was never likely to happen.
You're very patient with Moffie, Stav. I suspect at some point you'll eventually realize he's just a very ignorant yet hilariously opinionated blowhard who also happens to be extremely childish and obnoxious and who really isn't worth the effort . . . but until then, good luck.
I just treat him as comic relief. The Yanks liberated Stalingrad! LMAO!
Peeper point out where I say the USA liberated Stalingrad.... go ahead.
So Anger you admit you were wrong about the impact of the weather. And then you say Kursk was a ‘stepping stone’ to an eventual Russian victory.....totally contradicting your earlier belief that the Germans were already defeated.
What is it to be....weather/no weather....formality/stepping stone?
Wait, let me help......the weather completely blunted the German advance, taking away their advantages in mobility and tactics. And Kursk was a pivotal moment. Just as the counter attacks around Moscow swung things in the Russian favor when they seemed defeated, a decisive German victory at Kursk could have reversed all that.
One more among many possible quotes making the same point:
Yet compared with the battles of Guadalcanal, Midway, D-Day, Arnhem, and the Bulge, the great clash at Kursk is very little known in the West and hailed only by aficionados, despite its dwarfing each of those other battles in size and indeed in importance. The veteran historian Dennis Showalter, whose many excellent books on the war form a remarkable canon of military history writing, makes a convincing case in this well-researched and well-written book that Kursk should be seen as the key turning point of the war, even more important than Stalingrad in its long-term implications. “The battle of Kursk was the Eastern Front’s transition point,” Showalter argues with a conviction supported by well-deployed evidence, “and its point of no return.”
ANo Liar.....I said ‘ Trump was obviously referring to the liberation of Stalingrad, Paris and all the other cities and countries under the yoke of the Axis.’
So were all the cities under the yoke of the Axis liberated by the US? Of course not, only a WW2 noob wouldn’t understand that reference to the Axis, which clearly brought in all the victories of the Allies.
I repeat ‘all the other cities’.
This is one of two things....a deliberate distortion or complete ignorance of the Axis. Your usual territory Lush, dishonesty or ignorance.
It’s so easy.
Wehe . . . sounds like someone's watched one too many Audie Murphy movies.
The Yanks liberated Stalingrad!
LMAO!
That's right up there with a day being measured by the speed that the sun spins on its axis.
Out of interest, Moffie, if that's how much you know about history and science, what is your strong suit?
We know it's not rugby . . .
"Now they say that the allies never helped us, but it can't be denied that the Americans gave us so many goods without which we wouldn't have been able to form our reserves and continue the war," Soviet General Georgy Zhukov said after the end of WWII.
As I showed to your discomfort, I never inferred that the US saved Stalingrad....but General Zhukov (you have heard of him perhaps) says they did.
Schploooooooooooootttttttttttttttt!
So Anger you admit you were wrong about the impact of the weather. And then you say Kursk was a ‘stepping stone’ to an eventual Russian victory.....totally contradicting your earlier belief that the Germans were already defeated.
As I said that weather had an impact, but it wasn't the primary factor. That was just an excuse the German generals hid behind to explain their defeat and it gained popularity because it allowed for simple comparisons to Napoleons failed invasion of Russia.
Oh it was just an excuse? The soldiers and vehicles struggling through mud and record low temps were just an excuse. The mobile attacking force were not disadvantaged vs the entrenched defenders?
And I just have to accept Corporal Anger’s assertions the Germans were done in 42 and Kursk was just a formality....despite historian after historian saying it was the major turning point?
And that’s proof? Hahaha....sonny boy....You are just repeating yourself. Provide some proof ....you know, expert opinions, statistics, momentum and capability assessments.
But if the Germans were licked, why did British Historian Ben Wheatley recently publish this:
Wheatley's assessment, backed by detailed study of battle reports and historical archives, is that on 12 July the Germans lost just five Panzer IV tanks at Prokhorovka, but decimated "kamikaze" Soviet tank formations, turning more than 200 Soviet tanks into smouldering wrecks.
He writes that dozens of Soviet T-34 tanks tumbled into an anti-tank ditch 4.5m (15ft) deep, dug by Soviet infantry, and when the Red Army realised its mistake other T-34s started queuing up to cross a bridge. German tanks were easily able to pick them off at the bridge.
.........
The fact is the Germans were totally competitive at Kursk, but failed to actually break through entrenched Russian positions.
Given the invasion of Sicily two days before the tank battle and the prospect of a 3 front war when the US and it’s allies invaded France, Germany decided to withdraw.
....
Shocked, all those things you believed are no longer so cut and dried? No need to thank me.
"Now they say that the allies never helped us, but it can't be denied that the Americans gave us so many goods without which we wouldn't have been able to form our reserves and continue the war," Soviet General Georgy Zhukov said after the end of WWII.
Wrong again:
Your decision, Mr. President, to give the Soviet Union an interest-free credit of $1 billion in the form of materiel supplies and raw materials has been accepted by the Soviet government with heartfelt gratitude as urgent aid to the Soviet Union in its enormous and difficult fight against the common enemy – bloodthirsty Hitlerism," Stalin wrote to Roosevelt.
The first convoys with American goods were already being sent to the USSR by August 1941. Shortly afterwards the Germans found out about the convoy routes, and the allies suffered great losses. During the war Nazi submarines and torpedoes sank about 80 cargo ships destined for the USSR.
More than 14,000 U.S. airplanes, 8,000 of which came from Alaska, were given to the Soviet Union in the course of the war.
The USSR received a total of 44,000 American jeeps, 375,883 cargo trucks, 8,071 tractors and 12,700 tanks. Additionally, 1,541,590 blankets, 331,066 liters of alcohol, 15,417,000 pairs of army boots, 106,893 tons of cotton, 2,670,000 tons of petroleum products and 4,478,000 tons of food supplies made their way into the Soviet Union.
But I doubt Zhukov was saying they were saved in 1944 when the Soviets were rolling westward. So I’ll just take him at his word that they were saved when they needed saving...in 1941, 1942 and 1943 including in Stalingrad, which occurred long after the Soviets were benefitting from US support.
Then there’s this:
Lenin asked that the national electrification plan be sent to every school; peasants should use it to learn to read.By 1928, when the Soviets inaugurated the First Five-Year Plan, Henry Ford had become an even greater hero to the Soviets than Frederick Taylor. An emotional cult grew up around Ford’s methods and even his person. By 1925 his autobiography, My Life and Work, had had four printings in the Soviet Union, and one American in Russia reported that plant managers were studying Ford with as much enthusiasm as they had had for Lenin. More than one village adopted the name of the Fordson tractor, and the New York Times reporter Walter Duranty wrote in 1928 that “Ford means America and all that America had accomplished to make her a model and an ideal for this vast and backward country. . . . Cheap mass production is a Soviet goal, more precious from the practical standpoint than world revolution.”
Oh it was just an excuse? The soldiers and vehicles struggling through mud and record low temps were just an excuse.
The emphasis on the winter as the primary reason the Germans lost is the excuse not that the extreme cold had no affect. The primary reason they lost was the damaged the Russians inflicted on them.
Wheatley's assessment, backed by detailed study of battle reports and historical archives, is that on 12 July the Germans lost just five Panzer IV tanks at Prokhorovka, but decimated "kamikaze" Soviet tank formations, turning more than 200 Soviet tanks into smouldering wrecks.
He writes that dozens of Soviet T-34 tanks tumbled into an anti-tank ditch 4.5m (15ft) deep, dug by Soviet infantry, and when the Red Army realised its mistake other T-34s started queuing up to cross a bridge. German tanks were easily able to pick them off at the bridge.
------------
So the number Wheatley claims are pretty accurate. Was actually 4 Panzer IV's and 1 Panzer III lost to the Russians 196 tanks around Prokhorovka. But this is cherry picking one sector of the whole battle and does not show the full picture.
Kursk was a pincer attack designed to close the Kursk pocket from both the South and the North. Almost immediately the northern attack was stopped cold making very little progress. The Germans did better in the south advancing further and achieving the success at Prokhorovka mentioned above. At this point the offensive was called off. Von Mainstein the German commander in the south was adamant that the Russians where close to breaking and the offensive should continue, however he was completely oblivious to the fact the Soviets still had massive tank formation in reserve, entire Russian tank corps being brought up to combat the German southern attack. In addition even Von Mainstein said he could not close the entire pocket by himself and the advance to Kursk would be pointless if the northern attack couldn't close its side of the pocket.
You want some expert opinion.
Skip to 3.05 for the part on Kursk in this video.
This gives a sense of the vast scale of US support for Russia:
Roughly 17.5 million tons of military equipment, vehicles, industrial supplies, and food were shipped from the Western Hemisphere to the USSR, 94% coming from the US. For comparison, a total of 22 million tons landed in Europe to supply American forces from January 1942 to May 1945. It has been estimated that American deliveries to the USSR through the Persian Corridor alone were sufficient, by US Army standards, to maintain sixty combat divisions in the line.[58][59]
"But I doubt Zhukov was saying they were saved in 1944 when the Soviets were rolling westward. So I’ll just take him at his word that they were saved when they needed saving...in 1941, 1942 and 1943 including in Stalingrad, which occurred long after the Soviets were benefitting from US support."
The aid the Americans provided was very useful to the Russians overall. Russian military successes in 1943,1944 and 1945 would not have been possible without the equipment sent from the US. It undoubtedly shortened the war and saved ten's if not hundreds of thousands of Russian lives. But American land lease had no bearing on the Eastern Front in 1941 and only a token bearing in 1942. The Russian's where not saved but survived on their own.