2nd World War Vehicles.

What armored vehicles were being used in World War II by the United States?

There’'actually a Wikipedia article on just this subject, with links to take you separate articles on each one.Category:World War II armored fighting vehicles of the United States - WikipediaIt's an interesting article, because if you're a WW2 amateur buff, you can save 1 link, and hop to any vehicle without having to type in a separate google search while you're looking things up, and you don't need to put all the individual links in your WW2 folder of bookmarks, which I'm sure is a great relief to many, not just myself.

Were any German WW2 weapons or vehicles used after the war by Germany?

Most German Equipment and Weaponry were captured by the Soviets which were then scrapped for materials.The best example that comes to my mind are the Captured Panthers in the French Army. They had 50 of them, enough to equip one regiment but they were later replaced by French ARL-44 TanksPanther TankArl 44Other Panthers ended up in Bulgaria and Romania.Syria later on received Panzer 4 Tanks which would go on to see action in the Six-Day War.Panzer 4Most German equipment wasn't used postwar. They were either discarded, destroyed or scrapped. Their importance came from the influences that they had on weapons development. You could argue that Assault rifles, Main Battle Tanks, Jet Fighters, Anti-Tank Weaponry all were influenced by German Weaponry.However, you can still find surplus WW2 weaponry being used by Insurgents and Third World Countries. Some of them even date back to the First World War.Pretty damn impressive considering that they are still serving after that amount of time.

What are some of the most feared vehicles in military history?

For German ground troops, the “Jabos”, ground attack aircraft.Here, rocket firing Typoons.Here, A P-47 srafing a train, cutting supply lines. Those things circled in ref are enemy AAA fire. Strafing was not a job for the reint at heart.Here, a P-47 strafing Tiger Tanks. The narrative is interesting, because on tactic they used was to ricochet the API rounds off the road, bouncing them up into the this armor on the underside.Here, P-47’s with “krauts in the open”And here is just a compilationStrafing - YouTubeIf you take “most feared”, to mean feared by the largest number of people, fighter-bombers beginning in about 6JUN44, have to be most feared.You could go through you whole tour in the ETO as an allied soldier, and never even see a tank, and less likely still to see a Tiger.But if you were German, infantry, armored, transport, supply, any land troops, Allied fighter bombers, unfettered from bomber escort, free to engage “targets of opportunity”, the very sound of an aicraft engine must have caused a knot in your stomach.Only a total of about 2000 Tiger 1’s, and Tiger 2’s were pruduced. Distributed all over the Western Front and the Eastern Front.On D-Day alone, the allies put 13 thousand aircraft in the air, against about 200 Luftwaffe planes. And as airbases were captured or constucted by the allies, it only got worse for the Germans

Did the U.S Military leave behind vehicles and weapons after the second world war?

In many cases, vehicles were destroyed in place at the war’s end. Often, a CB bulldozer would dig a long deep trench in a beach. Vehicles including construction equipment, jeeps and trucks would be driven into the trench and covered in sand. Salt water would do the rest.The Philippines were a little different. Hundreds and hundreds of jeeps were left behind intact. These were colorfully decorated and modified by the Philipinos to become a fledging transportation sector.The rationalization was that bringing the equipment home would be expensive and would disrupt the civilian market for similar equipment. Much of the equipment had been worked hard in corrosive humidity, sand and salt water.

What did Ford make during World War 2?

“Ford-Werke AG later Ford-Werke GmbH was Ford’s German CompanyA Luftwaffe Ford V3000 truck, Italy, 1943The company was re-organised in 1939 and changed its name to Ford-Werke.With the outbreak of the War, car production continued at first with the Taunus being made until 1942 but increasingly military production took over. Ford-Werke built both conventional trucks and Maultier half-tracks for the German armed forces. Most notably, Ford-Werke manufactured the turbines used in the V-2 rockets. In spite of the heavy bombing of Cologne, the factory got off relatively lightly and after the war production was able to restart in May 1945 with truck manufacture, the US government having paid $1.1 million in cons ideration of bombing damage.”above from Wiki entryWhat irony, Ford make the trucks for the German Army, and parts for the V2 rockets used to blow up London, and than get paid compensation by their Government.Henry Ford receiving the Grand Cross of the German Eagle from Nazi officials, 1938

What happened to all the scrap vehicles, planes, weapons, uniform and equipment after World War 2? Also, after the battles on D-day and other battles during WW2, who cleared up the bodies and equipment?

The side that held the field would clear it. Those major items that could not be put back into operation and reused ie. by the Germans in France, were hauled back to Germany to use as scrap for more weapons of war. If a French tank or artillary piece could be put back into service, it was. In the UK the crashed German fighters and bombers during the Battle of Britian were hauled to the scrap yard to melted down to build new British fighters and bombers. Small arms left on the battle field would be snatched up by the infantry for collectibles, or by passed and policed up by the Quartermaster and Ordance Corp for salvage or destruction. Its not that different today. One only need watch the news to see how many HUMMVE’s, artillary pieces and M1A1′a ISIS has captured from the Iraqui army and put back on the road. Regarding KIA’s. Its not uncommon for the local nationals to bury the dead combattants. We saw it in Iraq, if US forces had the misfortune to be killed outside of US “lines” and were not recovered by American or coalition forces, the locals would usually bury the dead, irrespective of what military they were part of. We had an incident like this in An Nasirah. A US AFV was destroyed by a missle and its crew/occupants were killed. It was only after interviewing locals that the US was able to identify the location of the remains and recover them. No one wants to have dead combattants or civilians laying out in the open in front of their home. If the battle is moving rapidly, the ground behind the advance is virtually abandoned and left to civilian “salavagers” to clean up

During the second world war did soldiers use there enemies weapons after they killed them?

Absolutely.Germany is probably the best example of this, mostly because of their own production issues.Germany extensively used vehicles made by the conquered enemies, and some specific weapons were very prolific.The main light tank of the Wehrmacht early in WWII was the Panzer 38(t), which was literally a Czech LT vz. 38. This vehicle was also the basis of the later war Jagdpanzer 38 (t). The (t) literally stands for what the Germans called the Czechs.They used AEC Armoured Command Vehicles in North Africa, which were literally captured from the British in North Africa. The Germans captured three of these vehicles and 2 were extensively used by Rommel himself.They used scores of French vehicles, and other nation’s vehicles and would often cut their superstructures off and make them into self-propelled guns.Here’s a big list of most of the vehicles they would re-purpose with their German designations.On top of those, they also used some arms they liked from the enemy. The biggest one I can think of now is the Russian PPSH-41 submachinegun. They liked these so much that they actually converted many to use their own 9x19 cartridges and designated it MP41(r), or supplied a similar ammunition for non-converted versions.