Biggest Mistakes of WW2

[UK_Widowmaker 571]

Was watching a Documentary last night, about 'The Biggest Mistakes of World War two'...yet, it failed to mention, probably the Biggest one of all. The Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbour!... Metaphorically, that's like going up to the Biggest Kid at School, kicking him in the Nuts...then wondering why you and your Nazi mates get seven shades of Shit kicked outta you! 

[hrc 156]

War between Japan and US was imminent. Expansion perimeter of Japan was starting to collide with that of US and British heavily already in the mid 30's. Us had induced series of heavy sanctions and embargos on Japan due to Tokyo's brutal expansion in China. The conflict was imminent, but Japs tried to make a deal with US, i.e. to draw a sphere of influence line in the Pacific, but US refused, so  Japs decided to attack the US when it was most vulnerable. Big factor in Pearl Harbour attack were the British, a less known historical fact.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoKQkhJ94Wg

 

 

But the biggest mistake in WW2 was made by Nazis by attacking the USSR. Threat from USSR wasn't imminent, in fact it wasn't even there.

[Snailman 517]

Biggest mistakes in WW2?  I think there were no big fatal mistakes...

 

If I say, it was a mistake that Britain was forced into a second war by the Churchill clique.. while still recovering from WWI... Not really a mistake, as it was intentional.

If I say, supporting FDR's beloved Soviet Russia from the 30's, and almost making the mass murderer Stalin the ruler of Europe? was it mistake?

Japanese attack? Well if someone tries to choke you, you will fight to get air. War does not start with the first shot, fighting is just the final phase of a conflict. Economic warfare, offensive politics, covert ops, spying, puppeting a nation, help in overthrowing a government - all warlike actions. It was crystal clear, that if they corner Japan, the moderate cabinet will fall and warmonger militarists, fascists will take over. If you want to kill someone, let him attack first. Damn simple.

 

The main purpose of the WW2 was to destroy Germany and Japan. It is about supremacy. Germany stood up, to be the strongest in Europe, Japan became a pain for other imperialist powers (who did the very same in China before, we forgot that fact)... Moreover, in Germany, a new economic and political system emerged which was a deadly threat to financial-capitalism.

The solution is simple. Make a war, in which both will lose. Arm the communist, support Stalin he will sure to make a war if strong enough. they will wipe out Germany and their allies. Raise Hitler as leader and make sure his lunatic ideas will start a war, and lead his nation to its doom. Make sure Japan turns against the USA. Zhukov's sneak attack against the japanese in Manchuria forced out a non-agression pact and made sure the japanese will never try to attack the USSR. Stalin's back is secure. And FDR got his own war he wanted.

Pearl Harbor... There is a GOOD documentary (by BBC!!) that explains one variant of the truth. Of course, no one can count with an exploding Arizona and the effectiveness of aerial attack that was never seen before.  But more casualties are the better, to shock and shake up a nation to support war. We all know the casus belli tricks.

 

 

But the biggest mistake in WW2 was made by Nazis by attacking the USSR. Threat from USSR wasn't imminent, in fact it wasn't even there.

 

Absolutely disagreed... Remember the Soviet-Polish war in 1919-1920...  Thanks to Pilsudski and the greed and stupidity of the Tsaritsin-triumvirate (Budyenniy, Voroshilov, Stalin) the plundering, raping (and jew murdering..) red horde have been defeated. But their goal was clear, to reach Berlin and to unite with german communist uprisings.

Whatever the communist propaganda still tries to hide, in 1941 the Red Army was bigger and stronger than all of Western Europe together. The germans did months and months of aerial reconnaissance, it is impossible that they were unaware of the opposing forces. If only half of the 26000+ soviet tanks (including at least 800 heavy tanks) were operational... Reds lie about supplies, too... that they had no fuel and ammo. Sure that why the german attackers captured ammo and fuel by the millions...

Let's think ahead... what changed after the war? I can tell nothing. Except Poland was betrayed and handed over to Stalin. Nice prize for fighting on the allied side, winning Battle of Britain... etc. They were not even invited to the Allied Victory Parade (Stalin's influence).

1956? We even have a campaign featuring that operation. Use Hungary (and Poland) to incite uprisings to distract attention from Suez. Wait till the US elections take place (Nov 4) then crush the hungarian rebellion in two days (Nov 2-4) and the offensive can be launched... Thankfully Hruschev's clique and the madman Zhukov's old Stalinist clique started internal rivalization that cause too much delay and the opportunity was lost to start a world war.

So I have no doubts that the soviets wanted to attack first. Whatever awful strategist Hitler was, to attack against a force 6-8 times larger was nothing but a last resort preemptive attack. He would have attacked, of course, no doubts, but only after winning in the west. THAT is why the Red Army MUST have started an offensive as early as possible before this opportunity was lost.

 

Mistakes? In warfare there were, many. That is strategy and tactics. But in national strategy, on political level, there were no mistakes but cold headed plans.

[hrc 156]

I agree with the fact that bolsheviks in 1919-20 had some ideas to reach German communist uprising (German comunists were very strong and numerous in those days)  with their Red Army .  But there isn't  evidence that Stalin wanted to attack Germany in 1941. There is evidence that Stalin wanted to share the spoils of British Empire after Hitler has defeated London. Stalin did nothing to bolster or bring into high alert Soviet divisions on the frontier in the spring or summer of '41. Only few days before German attack did he issue such partial orders when German army concentration and recon flights were highly visible. But even then he deluded himself that these are some roque German oficers acting on their own. Paranoid uncle Jo on the eve of Barbarossa even dismissed Soviet intelligence reports that Hitler is about to attack, denouncing them as British plot to drag Germany and Soviet Union into war. It resulted in Red Army being taken by surprise and being mauled and in desperate attempts to form a strong defensive line for month.

 

That is a case of two wannabe military giants who both made capital mistakes at the same time:

Hitler attacking USSR and thus the beginning of the end for him starts, and

Stalin not seeing the attack in the first place and thus causing millions of unnecessary Red Army deaths

Edited November 27, 2013 by hrc

[JediMaster 451]

For the losers, the biggest mistake was getting involved. For the winners, it was also getting involved. It just didn't turn out as bad.

[KJakker 902]

Was watching a Documentary last night, about 'The Biggest Mistakes of World War two'...yet, it failed to mention, probably the Biggest one of all. The Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbour!... Metaphorically, that's like going up to the Biggest Kid at School, kicking him in the Nuts...then wondering why you and your Nazi mates get seven shades of Shit kicked outta you! 

 

To add some perspective on this mistake here is an article I copied for you on the issue.

 

Link to the source: http://www.combinedfleet.com/economic.htm

 

 

Why Japan Really Lost The War

 

 

 

Introduction

 

It's no secret that Japan was, shall we say, 'economically disadvantaged' in her ability to wage war against the Allies. However, the sheer, stunning magnitude of this economic disparity has never ceased to amaze me. So, just go give you an idea of the magnitude of the mismatch here, I decided to compile a few statistics. Most of them are taken from Paul Kennedy's "The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers" (which, among other things, contains an excellent analysis of the economic forces at work in World War II, and is an all-around great book) and John Ellis' "World War II: A Statistical Survey." In this comparison I will focus primarily on the two chief antagonists in the Pacific War: Japan and the United States. They say that economics is the 'Dismal Science'; you're about to see why....

 

Overview

 

By the time World War II began to rear its ugly head (formally in 1939 in Poland, informally in China in 1937), America had been in the grips of the Great Depression for a decade, give or take. The net effect of the Depression was to introduce a lot of 'slack' into the U.S. economy. Many U.S. workers were either unemployed (10 million in 1939) or underemployed, and our industrial base as a whole had far more capacity than was needed at the time. In economic terms, our 'Capacity Utilization' (CapU), was pretty darn low. To an outside culture, particularly a militaristic one such as Japan's, America certainly might have appeared to be 'soft' and unprepared for a major war. Further, Japan's successes in fighting far larger opponents (Russia in the early 1900's, and China in the 1930's) and the fact that Japan's own economy was practically 'superheating' (mostly as the result of unhealthy levels of military spending -- 28% of national income in 1937) probably filled the Japanese with a misplaced sense of economic and military superiority over their large overseas foe. However, a dispassionate observer would also note a few important facts. America, even in the midst of seemingly interminable economic doldrums, still had:

 

 Nearly twice the population of Japan. 

 Seventeen time's Japan's national income. 

 Five times more steel production. 

 Seven times more coal production. 

 Eighty (80) times the automobile production.

 

Furthermore, America had some hidden advantages that didn't show up directly in production figures. For one, U.S. factories were, on average, more modern and automated than those in Europe or in Japan. Additionally, American managerial practice at that time was the best in the world. Taken in combination, the per capita productivity of the American worker was the highest in the world. Furthermore, the United States was more than willing to utilize American women in the war effort: a tremendous advantage for us, and a concept which the Axis Powers seem not to have grasped until very late in the conflict. The net effect of all these factors meant that even in the depths of the Depression, American war-making potential was still around seven times larger than Japan's, and had the 'slack' been taken out in 1939, it was closer to nine or ten times as great! In fact, accroding to Kennedy, a breakdown of total global warmaking potential in 1937 looks something like this:

 

 

When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the sleeping giant was awakened and came looking for trouble. And even though the majority of America's war-making potential was slated for use against Germany (which was by far the most dangerous of the Axis foes, again for reasons of economics), there was still plenty left over for use against Japan. By mid-1942, even before U.S. force of arms was being dramatically felt globally, American factories were nevertheless beginning to make a material effect in the war's progress. The U.S. churned out seemingly endless quantities of equipment and provision which were then funnelled to not only our own forces, but to those of Great Britain and the USSR as well. By 1944, most of the other powers in the war, though still producing furiously, were beginning to max out their economies (i.e. production was stabilizing or plateauing). This resulted from destruction of industrial bases and constriction of resource pools (in the case of Germany and Japan), or through sheer exhaustion of manpower (in the case of Great Britain and, to an extent, the USSR). By contrast, the United States suffered from none of these difficulties, and as a consequence its economy grew at an annual rate of 15% throughout the war years. As scary as it sounds, by the end of the war, the United States was really just beginning to get 'warmed up.' It is perhaps not surprising that in 1945, the U.S. accounted for over 50% of total global GNP.

 

War Production

 

What, then, were the concrete outputs, in terms of 'beans and bullets', of the two competing industrial bases? I have presented some statistics on this matter in the following tables. I start with naval vessels, because they were a very important index of power in the Pacific War.

 

Warship Production

[Key: CV/CVL/CVE = Aircraft Carriers of all kinds; BB = Battleship; CA/CL= Heavy Cruiser, Light Cruiser; DD =Destroyer; Escorts = Destroyer escorts, frigates, sloops and corvettes]

 

A couple of points need to made here. First, the majority of the carriers listed in the U.S. totals were 'Jeep' carriers, CVEs carrying a couple dozen aircraft and suitable mostly for escort duties rather than front-line combat (which didn't subtract a whit from their effectiveness as antisubmarine or ground-support platforms). But it should also be noted that the American CVs on average operated substantially larger air wings than their Japanese counterparts (80-90 vs. 60-70 aircraft). The net result; by 1944, when Task Force 38 or 58 (depending on whether Halsey or Spruance was in charge of the main American carrier force at the moment) came to play, they could be counted upon to bring nearly a thousand combat aircraft with them. That kind of power projection capability was crucial to winning the war -- we could literally bring more aircraft to the party than any island air base could put up in its own defense, as the neutralization of both Truk and the Marshall Islands attests.

 

The other important figure here is the DD/Escort totals. Japan, an island empire totally dependent on maintaining open sea lanes to ensure her raw material imports, managed to build just sixty-three DDs (some twenty or so of which would have been classified by the Allies as DEs) and an unspecified (and by my unofficial count, relatively small) number of 'escort' vessels. In the same time span, the US put some eight hundred forty-seven antisubmarine capable craft in the water! And that total doesn't even cover the little stuff like the armed yachts and subchasers we used off our Eastern seaboard against the German U-Boats. All in all, by the end of the war, American naval power was unprecedented. In fact, by 1945 the U.S. Navy was larger than every other navy in the world, combined!

 

The Pacific War was also very much a war of merchant shipping, in that practically everything needed to defend and/or assault the various island outposts of the Japanese Empire had to be transported across vast stretches of ocean. Japan also had to maintain her vital supply lanes to places like Borneo and Java in order to keep her industrial base supplied. A look at the relative shipbuilding output of the two antagonists is enlightening.

 

Merchant Ship Production (in tons)

 

 

Every time I look at these number, I just shake my head in amazement. The United States built more merchant shipping in the first four and a half months of 1943 than Japan put in the water in seven years. The other really interesting thing is that there was really no noticeable increase in Japanese merchant vessel building until 1943, by which time it was already way too late to stop the bleeding. Just as with their escort building programs, the Japanese were operating under a tragically flawed national strategy that dictated that the war with the United States would be a short one. Again, the United States had to devote a lot of the merchant shipping it built to replace the losses inflicted by the German U-Boats. But it is no joke to say that we were literally building ships faster than anybody could sink them, and still have enough left over to carry mountains of material to the most God-forsaken, desolate stretches of the Pacific. Those Polynesian cargo cults didn't start for no reason, and it was American merchant vessels in their thousands which delivered the majority of this seemingly divinely profligate largesse to backwaters which had probably never seen so much as a can opener before.

 

Finally, no examination of the Pacific War would be complete without taking a look at air power. For all the talk of the Pacific War being a 'Carrier War', an aircraft carrier is really nothing more than a vehicle to deliver an airplane to an area of operations. While airplanes certainly couldn't take and hold islands by themselves, air supremacy was vital in ensuring that such bastions could be reduced and captured. Below is a table depicting the aircraft production of the two antagonists.

 

Aircraft Production

 

Again, a pretty staggering difference. Not only that, but as Paul Kennedy points out, the Allies were not only cranking out more planes, but many of them were of newer design as well, such as the new F4U Corsair and F6F Hellcat fighter aircraft. Japan, on the other hand, pretty much relied on variants of the Zero fighter throughout the war. The Zero was a brilliant design in many respects, but by 1943 had clearly been surpassed by the newer American models. This pattern was repeated across every category of airplane in the two opposing arsenals. In addition, a large part of the American production total (some 97,810 units) was composed of multiengined (either two or four engines) bombers, whereas only 15,117 of the Japanese planes were bombers (which were universally two engine varieties). Thus, if one were to look at aircraft production in terms of total number of engines, total weight of aircraft produced, or total weight of combat payload, the differences in production would become even more pronounced.

 

Strategic Implications

 

So America had an advantage; so what? Well, as an example, let's take a moment to consider the importance of the Battle of Midway. Midway is often cited as the 'Turning Point in the Pacific', the 'Battle that Doomed Japan,' and a string of other stirring epithets. And there's no question that it broke the offensive capability of the Japanese Navy. The question I ask is: what difference would America's economic strength have made if the Americans had lost badly at the Battle of Midway? Let's take the worst case scenario (which, incidentally, was very unlikely, given our advantage of strategic surprise) in which a complete reversal of fortune occurs and the U.S. loses Enterprise, Yorktown, and Hornet, and Japan loses none of the four carriers which were present. After such a hypothetical battle, the balance of carrier forces available for Pacific duty would have looked like this:

 

 

The question is, would losing Midway really have mattered? How long would it have taken America's shipyards to make good the difference and dig us out of the hole? Let's find out. We'll take the table just presented above and extend it out until the end of the war (in 6-month increments). Here are the assumptions I'll use while doing so:

 

 I am only including carriers which were capable of conducting fleet operations. In practice, this means the vessel must be capable of speeds of 28 knots or more and be able to both launch and recover conventional aircraft. That leaves Junyo, Hiyo, Ryuho and the converted Mogami, Ise, and Hyuga out of the picture. [Yes, I know the Japanese tried to use Junyo, Hiyo, and Ryuho with Combined Fleet, and they had some limited success. But they also were either too slow and mechanically unreliable, or too structurally unsound (in the case of Ryuho) to be really useful to the Combined Fleet. Furthermore, we used our little CVEs all the time in combat areas, and some of them participated heavily in the Battle of Leyte Gulf. Not only that, we also had the older but still somewhat capable Ranger available for refit as well. So, if you want Hiyo, Junyo, and Ryuho in the picture, you really have to count Ranger and all those American CVEs, too, and that adds about a zillion (i.e. 2,000+) planes to the American totals. I just didn't feel like messing with all that, so I didn't. The point is clear enough without including the marginal players.]

 A carrier could be placed in combat within three months of its completion date.

 The war will probably last longer, so I am extending the build totals into the first half of 1946

  As part of the longer war scenario, I further assume that the Japanese and Americans complete some vessels which were discontinued late in the actual conflict. I have taken my best guess as to their likely completion dates under wartime conditions.

 

Here's how the numbers work out:

 

 

In other words, even if it had lost catastrophically at the Battle of Midway, the United States Navy still would have broken even with Japan in carriers and naval air power by about September 1943. Nine months later, by the middle of 1944, the U.S. Navy would have enjoyed a nearly two-to-one superiority in carrier aircraft capacity! Not only that, but with her newer, better aircraft designs, the U.S. Navy would have enjoyed not only a substantial numeric, but also a critical qualitative advantage as well, starting in late 1943. All this isnot to say that losing the Battle of Midway would not have been a serious blow to American fortunes! For instance, the war would almost certainly have been protracted if the U.S. had been unable to mount some sort of a credible counter-stroke in the Solomons during the latter half of 1942. Without carrier-based air power of some sort there would not have been much hope of doing so, meaning that we would most likely have lost the Solomons. However, the long-term implications are clear: the United States could afford to make good losses that the Japanese simply could not. Furthermore, this comparison does not reflect the fact that the United States actually slowed down its carrier building program in late 1944, as it became increasingly evident that there was less need for them. Had the U.S. lost at Midway, it seems likely that those additional carriers (3 Midway-class and 6 more Essex-Class CVs, plus the Saipan-class CVLs) would have been brought on line more quickly. In a macro-economic sense, then, the Battle of Midway was really a non-event. There was no need for the U.S. to seek a single, decisive battle which would 'Doom Japan' -- Japan was doomed by its very decision to make war.

 

The final evidence of this economic mismatch lies in the development of the Atomic bomb. The Manhattan Project required an enormous commitment on the part of the United States. And as Paul Kennedy states, "...it was the United States alone which at this time had the productive and technological resources not only to wage two large-scale conventional wars but also to invest the scientists, raw materials, and money (about $2 billion) in the development of a new weapon which might or might not work." In other words, our economy was so dominant that we knew we could afford to fund one of the greatest scientific endeavors in history largely from the 'leftovers' of our war effort! Whatever one may think morally or strategically about the usage of nuclear weapons against Japan, it is clear that their very development was a demonstration of unprecedented economic strength.

 

Conclusion

 

In retrospect, it is difficult to comprehend how Japan's leadership managed to rationalize their way around the economic facts when they contemplated making war on the U.S. After all, these were not stupid men. Indeed, internal Imperial Navy studies conducted in 1941 showed exactly the trends in naval shipbuilding I have outlined above. In the end, however, the Tojo government chose the path of aggression, compelled by internal political dynamics which made the prospect of a general Japanese disengagement in China (which was the only means by which the American economic embargo would have been lifted) too humiliating a course to be taken. Consequently, the Japanese embarked on what can only be described as a suicidal venture, against an overwhelmingly large foe. However, their greatest mistake was not just disregarding the economic muscle which lay partially dormant on the other side of the Pacific. In actuality, their chief error lay in misreading the will of the American people. When the American giant awoke, it did not lapse into despair as a result of the defeats that Japan had inflicted upon it. Rather, it awoke in a rage, and applied every ounce of its tremendous strength with a cold, methodical fury against its foe. The grim price Japan paid -- 1.8 million military casualties, the complete annihilation of its military, a half million or so civilians killed, and the utter destruction of practically every major urban area within the Home Islands -- bears mute testimony to the folly of its militarist leaders.

 

[Snailman 517]

But, might I add some notes...

 

As with Germany, the same situation was with Japan... Mistake or not, they had no other choice. The fight of a cornered rat, to the death. Moreover, their choice was desired and foreseen by the Roosevelt government. And of course exploited maximally. Everyone with more than two braincells could anticipate this outcome, who knows japanese internal affairs, society and military structure.

 

Let me quote the last part....

 

 

In the end, however, the Tojo government chose the path of aggression, compelled by internal political dynamics which made the prospect of a general Japanese disengagement in China (which was the only means by which the American economic embargo would have been lifted) too humiliating a course to be taken.

 

Submitting to the american demands was not an option. First because no cabinet would have survived such a political and military surrender especially not without a fight. Second, this whole procedure was without sense as the USA would not have lifted the embargo anyway and let Japan alone even if these (meant to be impossible) demands are fulfilled. They knew if they give a finger, the next demand will be an arm. Literally speaking, the USA would not back off until the complete disarmament and elimination of Japan as an imperialist greater power. or worse, to turn Japan into a colony sooner or later.

Plan Orange, the conflict with Japan was considered as early as '35 or even earlier.

 

 

However, their greatest mistake was not just disregarding the economic muscle which lay partially dormant on the other side of the Pacific. In actuality, their chief error lay in misreading the will of the American people.

 

They were aware of the economic situation. As Yamamoto writes himself, they planned a short war, to knock out the US fleet and force out an armistice. The mistake was that the misread the will of the US leadership, and their intentions. And pre-planned political and military traps like the Pearl Harbor bait. As a military action Pearl was also a non-event, losses meant to be low (as I said, no one could with the Arizona). As a symbolic event, however it raised the people's support for war and justified the destruction of Japan.

Oh my god ... we were attacked.. moreover a sneak attack ... , lets kill'em all little yellow monkeys...  and nuke em. It is familiar choreography even in our days.

[+Gepard 11,323]

As with Germany, the same situation was with Japan... Mistake or not, they had no other choice.

 

There is always a choice. You can solve your problems peacefully.

 

For Germany the first major military mistake was to let flee the brits from Dunkerque. If the british troops would have been POW, Churchill would have had nearly no army left.

The second big mistake was to start the Battle of Britain.

 

The biggest mistake was the attack on the USSR. This land is so endless. Its senseless to attack it. The russians go into the woods and start their partisan warfare. They have done it successfully against the Mongols and Napoleon. They fight fto defend mother Russia and in this role they are great. As invaders they are poor. As you has seen in the winter war against Finland. If the Red Army would had attacked first in 1941 they would have been defeated.

Edited November 28, 2013 by Gepard

[hrc 156]

It is wrong to assume that USA was a bad guy or a greater bully and that Nazis and Japs were cornered and choose to strike first before being stricken themselves. After all it wasn't US that made countless acts of aggression against their neighbours. Even Nazi loving British oligarchy wouldn't attack Germany if she didn't attacked Poland in '39 and greater Germany would be legitimised. Just a year earlier treacherous Chamberlain fed Austria and Czechoslovakia into Hitlers jaws with Munich accords.  But in the end it turned out that Frankestein's monster would bite the hand that fed him.

F.D.Roosevelt on the other side was a single president in 20th c. along side Kennedy who wasn't a Wall Street puppet. Japan was nuked on Truman's watch, Truman on the other hand was one of the worst and weakest US presidents ever who's controllers advised him into  cutting lend lease and not extending  Marshall's plan to Russia and thus bringing cold war into reality .

[Snailman 517]

There is always a choice. You can solve your problems peacefully.

 

IF given chance...  considering Roosevelt and Morgenthau..

 

For Germany the first major military mistake was to let flee the brits from Dunkerque. If the british troops would have been POW, Churchill would have had nearly no army left.

The second big mistake was to start the Battle of Britain.

 

The biggest mistake was the attack on the USSR. This land is so endless. Its senseless to attack it. The russians go into the woods and start their partisan warfare. They have done it successfully against the Mongols and Napoleon. They fight fto defend mother Russia and in this role they are great. As invaders they are poor. As you has seen in the winter war against Finland. If the Red Army would had attacked first in 1941 they would have been defeated.

 

i agree with this part, perhaps the Soviet army would have been defeated anyway... BUT at what cost, numbers are numbers. The soviets had 300+ thousand paratroops only, the FJ had a max of 10K in its glorious times...

even if their actions were only to provoke out a german attack (also likely) to distract them from the British by opening a second front. Remember their talks, when Molotov visited the UK by plane. Also a very likely variant. Even the dumb ass Zhukov admits that they learned a whole lot from the failures of Finnland 17months earlier.

 

It is wrong to assume that USA was a bad guy or a greater bully and that Nazis and Japs were cornered and choose to strike first before being stricken themselves. After all it wasn't US that made countless acts of aggression against their neighbours. Even Nazi loving British oligarchy wouldn't attack Germany if she didn't attacked Poland in '39 and greater Germany would be legitimised. Just a year earlier treacherous Chamberlain fed Austria and Czechoslovakia into Hitlers jaws with Munich accords.  But in the end it turned out that Frankestein's monster would bite the hand that fed him.

F.D.Roosevelt on the other side was a single president in 20th c. along side Kennedy who wasn't a Wall Street puppet. Japan was nuked on Truman's watch, Truman on the other hand was one of the worst and weakest US presidents ever who's controllers advised him into  cutting lend lease and not extending  Marshall's plan to Russia and thus bringing cold war into reality .

I'm sorry but I strongly disagree with that. With all respect forget the first strike thing, that's NOT the beginning of a war. If I steal you wallet or use dirty words on your family and spit on you, you would attack me for sure. And who started, you aggressor... i just hit back.

Of course the Hitlerist regime and the Tojo cabinet were militarist aggressors. But think about it who created the circumstances in all those countries and in the neighborhood, that their governments (and part of the population also) have been taken over by extremists? Who supported Hitler's takeover... financially and politically? Like Lenin... or other shit stirrers and dictators later on, the Shah, Batista, Pinochet... Saddam... and all the communist... the list is endless. These key figures were put into the right places to run the ship aground from inside. Its all logical to think they were supported by outside forces.

Roosevelt not a puppet???? Very wrong, he was the biggest of all... FDR was the flagship of the hawk lobby (or whatever corporate groups behind) that forced the armed part of the conflict, thats for sure. Of course only a time machine could provide direct proof... but I would bet everything on it, that I am right in that. Its all about cause and effect. Ability, opportunity and benefit.

 

The good war is not necessarily the victorious one, but that one which last for a long time and drains money from the taxpayers to the fat lobbies who provide supplies, weapons, grow rich on rebuilding the devastation, and put their hands on conquered resources. I might risk to say, these groups are the only creators of conflicts, and get all benefits and are responsible for every major armed conflict from the Boer wars to the so much wanted attack on Iran.

Yes it is the same. No one cares whether Iran has nukes of not, the goal is to crush their political system, to halt their development and put a second asslicker Shah clone puppet in power who will sell everything to the "more equal" like others did..

 

Just one word about Marshal aid... according to my studies it was the USSR and Stalin who ordered the occupied countries not to accept the Marshal aid by extorting them with the war reparations. please correct me if Im wrong. It was long time ago, when I did trust the 'official' politology...

Edited November 28, 2013 by Snailman

[+Jug 99]

So the final word is that the war against Japan and Germany were the result of the US actions/inactions.  What have you been smoking because I would like to try some.

[Snailman 517]

So the final word is that the war against Japan and Germany were the result of the US actions/inactions.  What have you been smoking because I would like to try some.

 

Not US... thats not what I said... read it again. The beneficiaries are above nations and governments. I did not generalize german, russian or US people - The People has zero influence on any of these events. We are tools. Stupid unthinking (weed smoking) tools.

In any case a county - let's say the US - gets into a war who profits from it? The People? Who pay in lives and tax? Hell no. The Federal State of the USA who gives out orders to purchase weaponry, food supplies etc etc from the national monetary reserves? Hell no. The anonymous stock holders (that 1% of the population) of the companies which surprisingly receiving those orders and making profit from it - Hell yes. The politicians who were paid to forward the state money to the right place? Hell yes.

Everywhere on the world.

Medicine and War are the most profitable businesses on Earth. War and illness are the better the longer they last without ending - for those who produce arms or drugs you eat.

[Derk 265]

The biggest mistake by the Germans wast that they did not count with Spike Milligan: read "Hitler and my part in his downfall" and after you recovered and stopped laughing, you may as well read "Rommel, gunner who....?",  "Monty, his part in my victory" and last but not least "Mussolini, his part in my downfall..."  Very enlightening literature.....

[+Jug 99]

Snailman.  Understand your explanation better now.  However, not much new here.  You can become the town crier on a soap box in front of city hall or buy some stock.  I recommend the latter.

[Snailman 517]

))) well that is an option.. but not really for me) been to war twice (almost three times, damnit) but no more uniform anymore. No more blood money. No more fat ass post-communist to order me around for 400$ a month... and refused dirty PMC work and non-US citizen gestapo... I rather live from 200-300$ a month as freelancer. Not really a factor on the stock market))) Not a member of that 1%))

I do have some sort of conscience.  Anyway money means nothing to me.

... I'd better cut the politics anyway, better off modding SF2. ))

Edited December 2, 2013 by Snailman

[+CrazyhorseB34 937]

Yeah that is kind of lame. The real people in the world that do all the dirty work, don't buy stocks. Remember when Mitt Romney's advice to college graduates was to, "Borrow $20,000 from your parents and start a business," that was an awesome example of what Snailman was trying to say. It is the real people, the 99% in America and of that 99%, 1% of that, that have suffered the burdens of war for the last twenty some years. Another funny fact is, to all the stock buyers the stock market in America has never been better. Pretty good for a "Socialist" President huh?

 

Back to the topic at hand, the NASDP started WW2 because they where pissed because the Imperial Army got stabbed in the back by civilian politicians in WW1. Japan was a side show. We could of let the Japanese sit on those islands for twenty years dying of malaria. They had not capacity to seriously threaten the U. S. mainland whatsoever.

[eraser_tr 29]

Well, that advice from the election kind of assumes one's parents could actually lend their kid 20 grand.  If he just said, try to start your own business, that would have been great advice, instead it came off as out of touch.

 

One thing to take into account in WW2 with the soviet union is they had a nonaggression pact with hitler, and had actually collaborated against Poland.  It was entirely conceivable that the allies might end up fighting both the soviets and the nazis.  To that effect, we assisted Finland against the soviets early on, which kind of throws out Snailmans idea that Roosevelt had any love of the soviets.  Also, regarding the profiting aspect of war, Roosevelt outright said he didn't want anyone to get rich from the war.

 

A whole other angle is the R&D aspect and technological advances made.  At the start of the war, the Japanese and Germans had serious advantages, it was probably inconceivable that the allies could catch up and pass them as they did.  The Zero outclassed anything we had in speed, maneuverability and firepower. We practically had no tanks at the start either and the Germans had a huge advantage there over all the allies.

[+CrazyhorseB34 937]

"Came off" WTF! Eraser, front leaning rest.

[Sheriff001 397]

None of the allies had any love for the Soviets. Since the Soviets were perfectly prepared to stand by and see the Allies destroyed by Germany and Japan, I can understand the Allies having little regard for them. The alliance with them was purely a matter of convenience at the time. In the 20th century, human civilisation and freedom faced three great threats. In WW2, the Allies combined with one of those threats to defeat the other two. I'd say they got the "order of oeprations" pretty well right.

 

Japan and Germany made the same fundamental mistake. They both believed that the western nations, particularly the English-speaking nations, were full of weak, complacent people, unwilling to stake their lives on principles. This belief in western (particularly Anglo) decadence seems to have caused many a tyrant to come a cropper. I call that mistake the "index mistake", because it is the mistake from which all others arose.

 

A lack of coordination and cooperation between the armed forces of the Axis powers also significantly hampered their operations. In Japan, the Army and Navy were effectively fighting separate wars. The British, on the other hand, could place part of the British Army under the RAF's control, or part of the RAF under the Royal Navy's control, and have the whole thing work.

 

I don't believe that leaving the Japanese to rot on the islands would have saved the US in the long run. Bypassing certain islands is certainly a reasonable approach. The reason is the dependence of the US, and the rest of the world, on oceanic trade. Leaving Japan in effective naval control of the Pacific would pose an intolerable threat to the US. The big threat is not so much a landing on the US mainland, it is the ability to dictate to the US what may or may not by imported and exported. In the face of US inaction, the Japanese may well have been able to harness the vast resources of Asia, in manpower and raw materials, to the Japanese military buildup. This would eventually give them the ability to fight the US on equal terms.

 

eraser_tr, your take on the Zero requires a little context. It was certainly conceivable that the US or Britain could have built a fighter with the Zero's performance. Mystique aside, the Zero is nothing special. What it represents is a different set of trade offs to those made by British and American designers. These reflect design requirements, and perhaps also cultural attitudes. The Japanese sacrificed hitting power, armour, self-sealing fuel cells, and structural strength in order to achieve speed, long range, high climb rate, and agility. Apart from these factors, they represent an attitude of total emphasis on attacking. Japanese pilots were there to do the shooting, not get shot at. I've heard the Zero compared to a Samurai sword, and I think the comparison is apt.

 

Germany's technological advances were less important during the war than is otherwise believed. For all the sophistication of their tanks, they couldn't design one that was durable in the face of the conditions present in Russia. Their production figures reflect the failure of the Germans to design their weapons for mass production. American mass production techniques (known to the Germans as "Fordism" for obvious reasons) allowed the US to take an average housewife, and make her an effective factory worker in a short time. Their early tanks were qualitatively inferior to those of many of their enemies. What made the German tank forces superior early in the war was their organisation, tactics, and training. The most prominent areas of German technological superiority were in missiles, and jet engines. Neither did them any good. Their missiles made no difference in the conduct of the war at all. Their more advanced jet engine designs (axial-flow rather than centrifugal-flow) were of no avail due to a lack of metals required to make reliable axial-flow engines. The technological advances of the Allies, in areas such as electronics, production engineering, and "soldier-proofing", were relevant and used to greatest effect. Thus, the M4 was qualitatively inferior to most of the German tanks arrayed against it ... but their numbers were sufficient to drown the Germans in Shermans.

 

I have absolutely no time for Snailman's conspriacy theories.

[+CrazyhorseB34 937]

If the Luftwaffe would of had the Type 21 in 1940, they would have won the Battle of Britain.

[Sheriff001 397]

 

If the Luftwaffe would [have] had the Type 21 in 1940, they would have won the Battle of Britain.

 

It's a possibility, but a very distant one. The decisive factors in the Battle of Britain were strategic. The various attributes of the single-seat fighters weren't of the decisive importance that many maintain. The advantages and disadvantages of the various fighters were placed at the disposal of the men who flew them. If these men were able to fight their advantages against their enemy's disadvantages, they stood a good chance of success. Thus, the Bf-109 pilot would seek to fight in the vertical plane, while the Spitfire pilot would try to fight in the horizontal plane. One thing the British aircraft had going for them was fuel, the RAF used 100 Octane fuel, while the Germans had 87 Octane fuel.

 

If should also be pointed out that virtually every German aircraft loss resulted in the effective loss of the pilot. Even if he survived, and sustained no injuries in baling out, he would spend the rest of the war in a POW camp. The uninjured British pilot could fight again. The RAF experienced no shortages of fighter aircraft. Their manufacturing base, and repair infrastructure were well organised, and provided a constant stream of new and repaired aircraft to the squadrons. German airfield attacks were not effective in preventing RAF operations, and dispersal airfields were available.

 

Given the strategic considerations, a German Zero (Null?) would not have been a decisive factor.

[Snailman 517]

Given the strategic considerations, a German Zero (Null?) would not have been a decisive factor.

 

I agree in that. Might I add the skill and experience of Polish pilots, also.

 

While the Zero was a magnificient plane, one of my favourites, but on the European theater it would have been different. Its primarily a naval fighter with unmatched range, due to light structure and lack of armor. In 40 probably was not, but later on it became also seriously undergunned by european standards.

[+CrazyhorseB34 937]

The range factor of the Type 21 would have been a game changer for the Luftwaffe. They suffered from the fact that 109Es had almost no loiter time over England. True the advantage always goes to the defender, but the Type 21 could have stayed on station longer and protected more bombers. Something that the 109E was unable to do due to it's stubby legs. The Type 21 of 1940 was far superior in range, maneuverability, and firepower than the Hurricane (Which the VAST majority of the RAF's fighters where in 1940) or the Spit I. An interesting idea, but the man in the cockpit factor really has to go to the Luftwaffe. Even though they where not able to recover as many of their pilots ( The whole, defender's advantage thesis), the Luftwaffe pilots, individually, where more experienced and far better trained at that time. It doesn't matter, because British RADAR won the BOB.

Edited December 3, 2013 by CrazyhorseB34

[Snailman 517]

It doesn't matter, because British RADAR won the BOB.

 

Also a big factor, indeed. I think the biggest mistake was to divert all attacks to bomb cities and London instead of continuing with airfields and industries. This and the eastern front put an end to the story. Otherwise they could have finished the job sooner or later.

[+Gepard 11,323]

In german military exist a proverb since ages: "Was nicht durchdacht wird wird nicht geübt. Was nicht geübt wird geht schief." translated : "What is not thought through is not trained. What is not trained goes wrong."

This is exactly what happend in the Battle of Britain. The german Luftwaffe was designed and trained for CAS. This was part of Blitzkrieg strategy. The Luftwaffe never had the ability for a strategic warefare. The Luftwaffe also never had the neccessary capability for air to ship warefare. All war plannings were focused on support of the army. All other aspects were wore or less neglected. Thatswhy the Battle of Britain was lost and in the case, that the Luftwaffe would have won it, so the Operation Seelöwe, the invasion of England would have had failed, because nobody in Germany had had an idea, how to do such an operation.

Edited December 3, 2013 by Gepard