(01-10-2018 07:37 AM)tanqtonic Wrote:  

(06-04-2014 02:14 PM)bitcruncher Wrote:  The biggest factor in the Axis losing the war was Hitler declaring war on Russia. Had they not tried to fight a war on 2 fronts, they would have conquered all of Europe. The Russian winter decimated their army, and was the beginning of the end for Germany.

But what is neglected is that Hitler *still* has no sources of oil sufficient for a modern war, much as he never did.

The nearest and only sources sufficient are Baku and that region, and the Middle East.

Without an oil source Hitler *never* wins.

Hitler had just about all the oil he needed, in Romania.

However, Ion Antonescu refused to work with Hitler on them much because he wanted greater assistance from the German armaments industry and never got it. Romanian armored united were forced to use homemade variants of captured Soviet equipment or go largely without.

By 1944 the Royal Romanian Air Force, which had done an admirable job defending them, was past the point of exhaustion and continual bombing put them nearly out of action.

On a side note, the Romanian arms industry did manage to throw out some truly spectacular items, including a variant of the Soviet 115mm gun which was considered superior, the IAR 80, the vehicle upon which the famous STUG self propelled gun was based, and the Orita submachine gun. Together, this along with the ability to produce without assistance all of the various requirements to keep a modern army in the field made Romania perhaps Germany's most important ally.

On a further side note, the Romanian military was not considered to be unreliable by the Germans and for a period the entire German 6th Army was placed under Romanian leadership. That didn't happen again as Petre Dumetrescu refused to take orders directly from the German High Command and instead routed his information through Budapest because he felt that the German High Command was being too directly influenced by Hitler who he felt had no real appreciation for the situation on the ground. The same Romanian general had earlier begged for permission to reduce the Soviet pocket from which Operation Uranus was launched. Instead, the German High Command requisitioned almost all of his artillery and heavy equipment, along with that of the Hungarian and Italians, including most of their trucks, to support the German attack on Stalingrad. We all know what happened next.

***For clarification, what is in the fourth paragraph is known as a list. The vehicle upon which the Hetzer, and ultimately the STUG were based on was a Romanian design known as the Maresal***