Quote from: kopema on December 16, 2013, 07:44:12 PM
When you say you're "sorry" WHILE your doing something, all that does is take away any excuse you could possibly have.

Well, I hadn't read through every single post on the thread and wanted to chime in.  Hope I haven't ruined your day. 

Quote from: Egg on December 17, 2013, 08:35:29 AM
Well, I hadn't read through every single post on the thread and wanted to chime in.  Hope I haven't ruined your day.

I never ONCE said you weren't an asshole and a jerk.  You can try all you like, but you won't "ruin my day" by whining about how perfectly you agree with me.

Quote from: kopema on December 17, 2013, 11:29:17 AM
I never ONCE said you weren't an asshole and a jerk.  You can try all you like, but you won't "ruin my day" by whining about how perfectly you agree with me.

What in the world are you so angry about? 

Quote from: mdgiles on December 17, 2013, 07:17:01 AM
What fascinates me is the total Japanese fixation on offensive warfare, to the exclusion of defensive operations that ANY island nation MUST have - like anti submarine warfare. This ties into another pet peeve I have about German submarine warfare. The UK was desperate for convoy escorts, to the point of buying old destroyers from the US. So why wasn't it a priority of German U-boats to sink the escort craft. It takes much longer to build and train the crew of an escort craft, than it does to build and train the crew of a freighter. I always see the attack on a convoy in two phrases. The first U-boat group was to attack and sink as many of the escorts as possible. The second phrase was for the rest of the wolfpack to attack the now defenseless convoy.

One reason might have been that the "wolfpack" doctrine designed by Karl Dönitz was originally intended for a much larger submarine fleet, Dönitz believed he still had 5 more years before they would attack and even though he had done his best to gear up the submarine fleet in 1939 it was still wholly inadequate for the purpose it was designed for and Dönitz knew this, he was not in the inner circle in this time and was caught off guard when they started the blitzkrieg into Poland. It is reported that when Dönitz got the memo that they are now at war he sighted and said "lets try and make the best of it".

The worst miscalculation of WW II was Hitler taking on Russia before England had been knocked out of the war. He overestimated the ability of his blitzkreig tactics. And once the Russian campaign started he vasilated back and forth between deep penetrations for strategic goals and envelopment strategies to take massive amounts of Russian POWs. Thereby, dithering away the warm months and leaving his troops in the middle of a Russian winter without the proper supplies.

Quote from: COVER D on June 26, 2012, 12:31:25 PM
Great point about the Russians hating Stalin. He killed almost as many of them as Hitler did
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Where this info came from? Dr. Goebbels?

Quote from: kopema on October 07, 2013, 03:14:59 PM
Even with the German forces split, Stalingrad's defenders were at one point down to a toehold.   If the Germans had hit in full force, the city would probably have been taken fairly quickly.

If, if... They could not. The same time battle of Stalingrad was raging, up north was bloody fighting near city Rzhev, where soviet army tied down german group of armies  "Center" by constant attacking. The fighting there was almost as bloody as at Stalingrad

Quote from: kalash on June 07, 2014, 10:27:26 PM
If, if... They could not. The same time battle of Stalingrad was raging, up north was bloody fighting near city Rzhev, where soviet army tied down german group of armies  "Center" by constant attacking. The fighting there was almost as bloody as at Stalingrad

Through the late 1930s and until early 1941, Hitler was certainly the most able active politician and strategist -- though certainly not the best tactician -- in Europe. The list of significant victories achieved by German arms under his direction is impressive during this period. Alsace-Lorraine, the reoccupation of the Rhineland, politicization and eventual conquest of the idiotic Danzig corridor, the Anschluss with Austria, occupation of the Sudetenland, treaties with Mussolini and Stalin to protect his eastern and southern fringes, repudiation of the Treaty of Versailles (perhaps not formally, but in deed and effect), participation in the Spanish Civil War (and the honing of his new war machine in the bargain), the brutal invasion of Poland and the nation's partition by agreement with Stalin, nearly-bloodless conquests in Norway and Holland, ejection of the BEF from the European mainland -- minus their weapons, the magnificent six-week campaign to subdue France and Belgium.

But on June 22, 1941, Adolf Hitler's death warrant was signed by his own hand, and along with him, Nazi Germany had to die.

Stalingrad was a completely avoidable operation conducted by the German 6th Army, which was actually on its way elsewhere (Caucasus, I think). It was a one-item subset of a very large set of shitty decisions made by the Fuhrer after 1940. Attacking and attempting to capture a distant city primarily because it's named for someone you don't like is not rational. Few of Hitler's consequential decisions after 1940 produced positive results for Germany's war.

Quote from: TboneAgain on April 29, 2013, 12:44:32 AM
Oh, for sure, from the Japanese point of view, PH in the long run was stupid. But it was planned to give them the short time they thought they could use to consolidate their "Southeast Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere." Say that twice and go gargle.

Yamamoto knew, though the quote about "awakening a sleeping giant" is apocryphal. But he had a singular advantage over his peers -- he was educated in, and had vast experience of, the US. He understood the monumental differences between Japanese culture and society and the same things American. He also had a deep appreciation for the simple geographic SIZE of the United States, and an understanding of our natural and technological resources.

His own prediction was six months of free rein for the Japanese in the South Pacific. In fact, his prediction came true almost to the day -- that day being the Battle of Midway, just a day or two short of six months after PH. The loss of four precious aircraft carriers in the waters off that nearly worthless island gutted the Japanese Imperial Navy, and underlined the inability of Japan to produce replacements for them.

I think one paradox about Pearl Harbor that is seldom commented upon is the (to me) obvious fact that the Japs showed up with aircraft carriers (the same ones they lost six months later at Midway) and proved for all the world to see that the age of battleships was over. And they did so by sinking... battleships. There were three carriers attached to our Pacific Fleet at the time, and despite continuous, real-time intelligence provided by Japanese agents and sympathizers in Hawaii, the attack went in KNOWING that no carriers were in the harbor.

I know this is an old post, but I wanted to toss in some semi-quibbles and some extra info. The Pacific Fleet had three carriers (CVs): Lexington, Saratoga, and Enterprise. Sara was in San Diego for work, and the IJN may have known that. But Lex and Enterprise were in and out of PH. Had the attack been a day later, Enterprise would have been in PH; IJN planes attacking PH encountered and fought planes from Enterprise's home-bound air group.

The PH attack was a huge strategic mistake. In CVs, Saratoga was in San Diego, Yorktown and Ranger were in the Atlantic, and Hornet and Wasp were going to be joining the fleet soon. Re battleships (BBs), Arkansas, New York and Texas were in the Atlantic, deemed unsuitable for Pacific service, but if need came ... . The four BBs of the New Mexico class were in the Atlantic. The Colorado was in Bremerton for upgrade. The modern North Carolina was being worked up, and her sister Washington was not far behind. Of the four new South Dakota class BBs, SoDak and Indiana were going to be joining the fleet soon, with the remaining SoDaks and the Iowa class coming. After Hornet and Wasp were the Essex class CVs, and a number of CVLs, converted from Cleveland class light cruiser hulls. Even if Lex and Enterprise were sunk at PH and not salvageable, Japan was going to be buried!

Midway was a huge blunder for the Japanese.

Savo Island was a big, avoidable, disaster for the USN.

I don't know what adjective fits the Mark XIV submarine torpedo and its sibling destroyer and airborne torpedoes. Its magnetic exploder was utterly unreliable; its contact exploder was unreliable; its mechanism for maintaining the set depth was flawed and the things ran way deeper than set. Other than that ...

Quote from: SVPete on June 08, 2014, 08:00:06 PM
I know this is an old post, but I wanted to toss in some semi-quibbles and some extra info. The Pacific Fleet had three carriers (CVs): Lexington, Saratoga, and Enterprise. Sara was in San Diego for work, and the IJN may have known that. But Lex and Enterprise were in and out of PH. Had the attack been a day later, Enterprise would have been in PH; IJN planes attacking PH encountered and fought planes from Enterprise's home-bound air group.

The PH attack was a huge strategic mistake. In CVs, Saratoga was in San Diego, Yorktown and Ranger were in the Atlantic, and Hornet and Wasp were going to be joining the fleet soon. Re battleships (BBs), Arkansas, New York and Texas were in the Atlantic, deemed unsuitable for Pacific service, but if need came ... . The four BBs of the New Mexico class were in the Atlantic. The Colorado was in Bremerton for upgrade. The modern North Carolina was being worked up, and her sister Washington was not far behind. Of the four new South Dakota class BBs, SoDak and Indiana were going to be joining the fleet soon, with the remaining SoDaks and the Iowa class coming. After Hornet and Wasp were the Essex class CVs, and a number of CVLs, converted from Cleveland class light cruiser hulls. Even if Lex and Enterprise were sunk at PH and not salvageable, Japan was going to be buried!

Midway was a huge blunder for the Japanese.

Savo Island was a big, avoidable, disaster for the USN.

I don't know what adjective fits the Mark XIV submarine torpedo and its sibling destroyer and airborne torpedoes. Its magnetic exploder was utterly unreliable; its contact exploder was unreliable; its mechanism for maintaining the set depth was flawed and the things ran way deeper than set. Other than that ...

I'm not sure how I could agree with you more, but I don't see the parts where we disagree.

As I pointed out, Pearl Harbor was a self-destructive and somewhat contradictory demonstration by the Japanese that the age of the battleship was over, and that the age of the aircraft carrier had begun. Yes, PH was a strategic catastrophe, but it was a tactical victory. That was a point I was trying to make. Japan, like Germany, never advanced beyond tactical thinking. Devastating PH -- the US Pacific Fleet -- was what they wanted to do, and they did that fairly well. What they completely failed to do was establish the core of the "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere," the crossroads of which would be, of course, Japan. The long-range strategic planning and execution never got done.

Pearl Harbor losses and torpedo problems aside, Japan was doomed from the start in any sort of protracted war that involved the US. Sure, they managed to gain control of a lot of China and pushed the weak and over-spread British and Dutch out of their distant colonies, but kicking America in the shins was a guarantee for an ass-whippin'. It was just a matter of time.

Quote from: mdgiles on December 16, 2013, 08:16:44 AM
The most amazingly stupid thing about the Japanese attack is that it was unnecessary. They could have bypassed the Philippines. America simply was not going to war to protect European colonial possessions.

Because of the relatively narrow straight between the Philippines and Formosa (i.e. Taiwan), Japan feared blockade at that choke point. Between the Asiatic Fleet (then composed of cruisers, destroyers and submarines, all suitable for blockade) based in Manila Bay and the embargo over the Japanese invasion of China, that fear was far from unrealistic.

Quote from: TboneAgain on December 16, 2013, 02:17:28 PM
In terms of proportion, it's probably accurate to say that Imperial Japan invested a larger fraction of its military budget into naval resources than any other combatant in WWII. But to compare the size of Japan's "resource pie" with that of, say, the U.S. is just silly. I think the Japanese rolled the dice in a very big way with the attack on Pearl Harbor, seeking not to keep the U.S. out of the war in the Pacific, but to delay meaningful U.S. action long enough for the IJN and the Army to establish a defensible perimeter that protected the resources the Japanese so desperately needed, especially oil and coal and rubber. Yamamoto is said to have estimated that he could run wild in the Pacific for six months if the Pearl Harbor operation succeeded. He was pretty close. Almost six months to the day after Pearl Harbor, an American task force fought a Japanese invasion force to a standstill at Coral Sea.

But a month after that, the Japanese came to Midway Island with an attack force that included four of the carriers that had participated in the Pearl Harbor attack. Two of those were Kaga and Akagi, the biggest and best aircraft carriers in the IJN at the time. All four Japanese carriers were lost. The IJN never recovered from Midway. Replacement fleet carriers with similar aircraft capacity didn't come into service until late 1944 -- and they were promptly sunk, for the most part, by a U.S. Navy that by that time had mastered the Pacific Ocean.

In short, the Japanese naval forces were primarily on the defensive by 1943 because they had lost their primary offensive weapons at Midway and could not replace them.

Like Lexington and Saratoga, Kaga and Akagi were not purpose-designed carriers. Lex, Sara, and Akagi started construction to be battlecruisers, and Kaga was going to be a battleship. These conversions were due to naval treaties that limited nations' battleship and battlecruiser fleets and stopped new construction. Lex, Sara and Akagi were fast, due to their battlecruiser heritage, but Lex and Sara, at least, were somewhat lacking in maneuverability (I don't know if that was true of Akagi); due to its battleship heritage, Kaga was not as fast as Akagi and other IJN fleet carriers. Shokaku, Zuikaku (neither present at Midway), Hiryu, and Soryu were designed as carriers; likewise the Yorktown class Yorktown, Enterprise and Hornet. The purpose-designed ships were better-balanced and more resilient (Akagi, Kaga, and Soryu were doomed by having large quantities of ordnance and fully fueled planes on deck and out of magazines when the dive bombers from Enterprise and Yorktown hit them, but Shokaku and Zuikaku fought long and hard).

Losing Akagi, Kaga, Hiryu and Soryu at Midway was huge; losing their air groups - pilots, 2nd-seaters, and deck personnel - may have been an even bigger loss. Japan was unable to replace the ships (I think Japan built two large carriers during the war, plus converting several merchant ships to light carriers) or the personnel.

CombinedFleet has an exxcellent article about how Japan's defeat was all but foredoomed.

Admirals in the IJN and USN had a tendency toward heavy metal tunnel vision. They were, metaphorically at the least, raised on the surface battles of Tsushima Straight and Jutland. The USN learned the lesson of PH a little better than did the IJN; maybe having fewer BBs available for use forced developing/learning air-oriented strategy and tactics. IMO, the greater loss at PH was the ~2400 trained men who were killed; the 191Xs- and 192Xs-vintage BBs were not able to sail with the CVs (too slow), which limited their usefulness.

Quote from: SVPete on June 09, 2014, 05:58:37 AM
Because of the relatively narrow straight between the Philippines and Formosa (i.e. Taiwan), Japan feared blockade at that choke point. Between the Asiatic Fleet (then composed of cruisers, destroyers and submarines, all suitable for blockade) based in Manila Bay and the embargo over the Japanese invasion of China, that fear was far from unrealistic.

IF the US went to war, and that's an awful large if. If the US wasn't going to war over Europe, why would they go to war over little brown Filipinos. You don't take into account the level of racism in the US at that time. The only reason the US cared about China, was political pressure from missionaries and their churches. If the Japanese hadn't attacked PH and had left the Philippines alone, the US would most likely have stayed out. Consider this. Nazi Germany had all the stolen wealth of Europe to pay for war supplies; how could Great Britain have kept the US from delivering those supplies - without going to war with the US. And once factories started up producing and hiring, the political pressure to cut Great Britain lose would have been tremendous.

How about Germany's failure to press the offensive in Britain.  What do you think the possible ramifications of German occupation of England would have been to the tactical and strategic prosecution of the war?

The US could have still entered the European theater from Africa through Italy, but without England D-Day could not have happened.  All the forces that were tied down for so many years guarding against the threat of an invasion into France could have been deployed to block forces in Italy and prosecute the war in Russia, possibly with greater effect.

I think that coupled with the invasion of Russia at the very least, ended the war 5 or more years earlier than it might have.  The only way it may have ended earlier would have been capitulation and German ownership of Europe and North Africa at least.