Quote:
Originally Posted by Tomsdad
Your average American 18 year old in 1944 has likely driven something at some point at home, probably done some work on engines and has some kind of practical hands on knowledge of how vehicles work.
Your average 18 year old Russian would be tank driver has possibly driven some crappy 1930's era soviet tractor and has experience in keeping the thing going in bad conditions, so they give him one to drive (T34).
But your average German 18 year old in 1944 has been living in a society with domestic fuel, rubber & lubricant shortages for years, limited private vehicle usage and likely has never been behind the wheel before in his life and has had little to zero experience of driving, engines etc"
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Also, if you desperately needed to, you could pull a logistics driver and put him in a tank. The Russian or American driver would be intimately familiar with GMCs and Studebakers, but the German driver would have trouble figuring out which end you put the hay into (exaggeration, but not by as much as you'd think). The German army was one of the least motorized militaries in Europe, except for a brief period where they were able to keep hordes of Russian trucks running without access to spare parts.