Ranger-75
Posts: 610
Joined: 6/29/2001
From: Giant sand box
Status: offline
|
To timjot and byron;
"who said anything about a pre-41 British collapse?"
Both of you in the beginning, and then you dragged it out into a "free india" and even brought Ghandi into the picture. Ghandi's outlook on life (to put it mildly) was not in accordance with the Japanese methods of brutality and exploitation that they exhibited everywhere they went in Asia, so if anything Ghandi would have been even a more stabilizing influence in India in the event of a British "collapse" Which as I said would not have happenned. The Germans could not keep any sizeable force supplied in the UK, and the street fighting would have made Stalingrad and Vietnam look like an afternoon tea by comparison.
"who said anything about Hitler not attacking russia?" "Did Hitler have good reasons to attack Russia in 41? Yes. Was it the right decision? NO!"
Timjot mentioned this on 3 oct in this same thread. And yes it was mentioned as a item that could have some influence in the Indian ocean front. You don't understand what was going on in Germany, Hitler was dead set on attacking the Soviets. Remember the drivel he wrote in 1923 while in Landsberg? He followed it farily well. Hitler was going to attack the Soviets, come hell or high water. He resented even sending the small forces that he did send to Africa. Remember too that Hitler did not want to get involved in a war with the west (UK & France) it was only after he "crossed the line" by gobbling up the rest of Chechslovakia in 1939, that Britain & France finally realized that he could no longer be trusted. That was the turning point in the British & French relations with Germany. There was a similar "line crossing" that the Japanese comitted. If you want to find out what it was, read on.
"Did France have good reasons to build the Maginot Line? Yes. Was it the right decision? NO!"
The Maginot line would have been very useful if it was either extended to the coast or if Britain & France didn't walk into the trap set for them by Manstein. Here was a British failing that was to do them in again & again, that being their reluctance on putting their forces in a "neutral" country (Belgium in early 1940) before that country's neutrality was "violated". At least the US has learned this lesson. Singapore would not have been the walkover that it was if Britain had actually stationed forces in Siam (Singora) beforehand.
"Did Churchill have good reasons to send troops to Greece? Yes. Was it the right decision? NO!"
A lot of abosolutes here with the "NO!"s. I don't have a comment on Greece, except that the British erred in letting the Greek commander dictate the disposition of Greek forces. That made things much easier for the Germans. Once more British reluctance to take charge in another country did them in.
"I could go on and on but I wont. History is full of such of examples. To say Japan was any
different is not supportable. The fact is Japan did have other credible options to them abeit not obviously apparent to them at the time. But more enlighten thinking could have gotten them better results"
The problem with this statement is that with the exception of Yammamotto (who was not in charge of policy or strategy EVER), there was NO enlightened thinking in Japan. You mentioned one quote in van der Vat where the army was against attacking the US. That was for a very brief time, After July 1941, Tojo and Suigyama were hell bent on attacking the US. They just weren't in favor of the pearl harbor raid because of the risks involved, not bacause they didn't want to attack the US.
You seem to have missed the point of van der Vat's entire premise, that being that the Japanese were bent on expanding their "empire" at the expense of everyone around them, and that they were a bunch of ruthless liars (they lied to the emporer's face on several occasions). They wouldn't back down even if the alternative weas to get in an even bigger mess. They saw no problems with attacking neutral countries without a prior declaration of war, such as at pearl harbor and several others before then. They refused to face reality even after the shock of 2 atom bombs and losing Manchuria to the the Soviets. do you recall the phrase "not necessarily to Japan's advantage"? and in the end they still refused to own up to their responsibilities in causing the war.
As to attacking the Soviets, this was in the japanese plans until just around the time of the Midway operation. After that, with the growing losses in China and Burma and the necessity of diverting division after division from the Kwantung army to south China, Burma and the pacific, the IHQ finally realized that they could not attack the soviets, and their strategy turned to keeping the soviets out of the war (this was a very real fear of the Japanese from mid 1942 on).
Yes there were other possibilities but not with the people in charge at the time.
As to being able to attack the Brithsh and or DEI without drawing in the US. Remember that "line" ? Well the Japanese crossed it in July 1940 when they took over the rest of Indo-china. After that, the US was prepared (mentally) to goto war, if the Japanese sttped foot on anything that wasn't theirs anywhere else in the pacific.
"With but one or two decisions being made differently, we could easily be saying that it was folly for the Americans to send their outnumbered carriers to Midway to be destroyed."
"Or, with a couple of different decisions, the German thrust through France could have been seen as folly as well."
Manstein's plan was brilliant, it ran afoul of OKW and OKH. It was actually a bit of good fortune for Germany that the original plan was compromised in an aircraft accident (the foolish allied HQ still fell into a trap) and that Manstein was actually able to get his plan in front of Hitler's eyes at about the same time. Manstein still spent the campaign in a corps command against the Maginot line.
The Midway operation indeed had a lot of good fortune associated with it. But remember a few points. After the initial Japanese raid on Midway, the 4 carriers has fewer operational aircraft on them than the 3 US CVs. Also remember that Nagumo, besides being a vacillator, was completely wrong about the US intentions and dispositions. I also can't help but think that there was a "little bit extra" on the side of the US. As one author out it (and I can't remember the name, it's buried in my garage) "the luck that was all with the japanese at the time of pearl harbour started to shift to the US". This was at the time of the failed Operation K and the late submarine deployment. Even so, Nimitz' plan was sound and it was soundly executed by his carrier commanders. Actually the US could have done better than they did. If they had launched a full strike at first (or the hornet SBD commander made a right instead of a left), had better search plane discipline with regard to keeping updated contact info and had better deployed their CAP, then they would have probably gotten the Hiyru in their first strike or would have been able to defeat the two japanese strikes against the Yorktown. Lastly if I-168 was not extremely lucky (its commander even admitted as such) the Yorktown would have made it back to Pearl Harbour.
"To say that Britain would never go down against Germany is foolish when viewed from the perspective at the time. Britain was assuming an invasion would occur, and it did not have the materiel to resist effectively. The only thing between it and Germany was the RAF, and I doubt that anyone at the time would have predicted the success the RAF had. If you posed the facts as they existed in July 1940 to anyone, they would have said Britain was in deep trouble. Who would say that the RAF would win when so outnumbered, their losses far outstripped their ability to replace aircraft, and their airfields could be pummeled at will by the Luftwaffe? British ships were defenseless against the subs. Decisions are made based upon concurrent impressions and assessments. Could the Japanese have invaded the West Coast of the U.S.? In hindsight probably not, but it was a considerable fear at the time. Could the Germans have successfully invaded England? In hindsight probably not, but it was almost assumed that an invasion would occur. So absolutes in history just don't work."
To say that Britain wasn't going to be subject to an invasion ATTEMPT by the Germans would be a foolish statement, but that is not what I said. As I mentioned before, the Germans did not have the ability to keep their forces supplied across the channel, Tanks don't run without fuel. The units that came back from dunkirk did indeed have to leave all their heavy equipment behind, but these material deficiencies were made up during the air campaign. so by the time that Germany MIGHT" have driven the RAF back from its forward bases, their units would have been replinished. Yes the British was expecting the Germans to try, but they didn't expect them to succeed. The RAF was outnumbered, but their losses did not outsrtip their factories capacity to replace them. It was the constant raids on the forward airfield like Marsten (or Manston, I can't remember) that concerned Dowding the most. The British were more worried about losing the use of the airfields than about plane losses. doen't forget only 1 RAF pilot for every 4 or 5 planes lost, whereas for the Luftwaffe, this was more like 1 for 1. British merchant ships were defenceless against subs, but not warships, especially with any degree of destroyer escort. And as far as the Luftwaffe's effectiveness against ship targets, well, just look at the Med for examples, I don't recallany major RN shipo llssess to German aircraft. Yes a few ships (carriers mostly) were hit, sometimes rather severely, but none was ever put in danger of sinking. and the RAF had a total of 7 (3 large and 4 light) carriers available to them in 1940 (after the loss of the glorius & corageous is taken into account) against ZERO german carriers. And the British did know how to use their carriers as demonstrated against the Italian navy.
In the end, Hitler, like Napoleon was perplexed by the sea and never understood it's complexities (I'm borrowing from Shirer here).
As far as a Japanese invasion of the west coast. They might have been able to arrive off the coast undected (not likely, but a VERY slight possibility) but once within about 100-200 miles, they would have been detected and the thousands of aircraft being produced in the US would not have had to stage off to some island base in order to get some very good target practice in on any invasion fleet. So, they could have tried, but again, not succeeded.
"Was Hussein a fool for attacking Kuwait? Was it preordained that America would be able to put together a coalition of ground forces that included Syrian and French units? Who would have thought that probable? He made a miscalculation, and events did not unfold as he predicted. This does not make him a fool or the outcome inevitable."
This is not really relevant to a discussion (however based in fantasy it may be) of the Pacific War, but yes Hussein was a fool at least as far as military operations go. Look at his dispositions. He is a vey clever political operative and is ruthless and cruel to boot, but he is still a fool. The Syrians had no fighting role. That was largely confined to US, UK forces. And, yes, the outcome was inevitable (that his army would be ejected from Kuwait with severe losses to the Iraqis). The only suprising item was that is was so quick. (The last hurragh of the VII Corps and 3rd Armoured Division!). Of course 6 weeks of relentless air attacks will tend to make a lot of units inneffective.
There. That's all I have time for tonight. I must devote my time to CGSC for the next several months. That's much more important to me than enganging in arguments with folks who won't even reveal their real names.
-(MAJ) Michael A. Santos
_____________________________
Still playing PacWar (but no so much anymore)...
|
Printable Version
- 
![]("smile.gif")
"Much is made of MacArthur's and the Army's reversal on the issue of defending the Philippines in July 1941. What is ignored, or generally unknown, is that this was predicated upon the assumption that war would not break out before April 1942. Thus, had the war broken out before then, sans Pearl Harbor, but otherwise per history, the USN still would not have committed to relieving the Philippines. In fact, there's no guarantee the USN would have agreed to do so even in April 1942."
![]("frown.gif")
So make sure you go back and read them all.
![]("biggrin.gif")
- 
New Messages
No New Messages
Hot Topic w/ New Messages
Hot Topic w/o New Messages
Locked w/ New Messages
Locked w/o New Messages
Post New Thread