History's most decisive battles

[98tls]

Fuel was the real reason why Germany went to war in the first place.
When Barbarossa was launched, there was an acute shortage and the advance relied upon scavenging fuel from the Soviet remains. "Scorched Earth Policy" prevented the German advance from reaching set objectives.

No.fuel had nothing to do with why germany went to war at all.....sure they needed it but Hitler went to war with land in mind,he was full of the fatherland/germanic living space crap..read his book to gain an insight to it.Germany went to war..for the umpteenth time because they had been fighting wars since almost time began,go back through the history books and germany had been at war many times and its leaders were steeped in military history..the results of that were acts of blind obedience as at stalingrad were paulaus..spelling..took no notice of what he knew to be true...until it was to late.The greatest military feat of all time in my mind anyway was that Germany managed to wage a war against those odds for so long.Hitlers almost demonic ability to rally others and a resentment of the way the first world war ended only served to send millons to there doom.

[avgas]

What about '05?

So-so, wasn't really as decisive as the last one, as there wasn't a problem until some pissed bright spark yelled "Fuck the Police" and threw a bottle....then the volley started......and that bright spark got the hell out of there.
I missed the "Vans Waihi Beach" though, heard that was quite decisive and more cars got rolled.

[Swoop]

No.fuel had nothing to do with why germany went to war at all.....sure they needed it but Hitler went to war with land in mind,he was full of the fatherland/germanic living space crap.

Correct on the "expansionism of the empire" approach, but to do that Germany had to "aquire" some petroleum resources. I read somewhere that the country imported virtually all of its oil, and with the D-mark being worthless, the purchase of fuel was crippling the economy (apart from spending sooooo much on re-armament...).
The nearest supplies were "across the border"...

Once the allies decided to target fuel production there was a slowing down of the axis war machine. Not sufficient supplies to fuel the aircraft - even though production of planes was keeping up. Same with tanks. Same with trucks.

[Street Gerbil]

As someone has already mentioned the most important battle for those of us middle-aged folks with slowing down metabolism is the battle of the bulge which we keep losing kilogram after kilogram... The sight of the sixpack slowly turning into a kegger is as sad and pathetic as the white flag and hands raised in the air... And I don't even eat pies!..

[Timber020]

Fuel had alot to do with the outbreaks of WW1 and WW2. They were both attempts to control resources. (The ww2 Afrika Corps and ww1 Anzacs werent in the middle east to get a tan) Interesting fact that the first british units to deploy in ww1 were the dorset regt in egypt.

Japan had no natural resourses and was heavily threatened when a trade embargo was put into effect. I think without there invasion of fuel and rubber rich areas they would have been bankrupt in 6 months.

Iraq invaded Kuwait because they were broke after the iran iraq conflict, all its neighbours were overproducing oil and demanding the money back they had lent Iraq. Again, if he didnt get money from somewhere he couldnt pay his soldiers, and we all know what whole armys do when the leader doesnt pay them.