Quote from: mdgiles on May 31, 2013, 06:32:17 PM
Okay with most of what you said; BUT, "relatively still ocean"? Spent 10 years in, what they used to call "The Suck" (that's the Marine Corps, for the uninitiated). Got a laugh out of that. Same laugh I get every time I see troops leaping out of Huey helicopters, in EVERY documentary on the Vietnam War. Two tours, and I think I got on a helicopter three times. And two of those times it was a Medivac chopper.

LOL, remember how they told you we don't march anymore, pointing to the cattle car haulers.
Then the First Sergeant yells "Troooops...Double Time"...Nope, never much marched, but we definitely ran our asses off....

Quote from: viking on July 02, 2013, 10:54:41 PM
Great site. Great thread btw.

The biggest miscalculation of WWII. I would say the Nazi's not doing more to allie with the Iraq's  to run the british colonists out of Iraq thereby taking away one of the allies majore sources of oil and securing the oil resources for themselves thereby negating germanies need to invade russia in the first place, but the Nazi's racist ideologies prevented them from allying with Muslims despite their shered hatred for jews.

But they DID ally with Muslims. In the Balkans. In Iraq. And with the Mufti of Jerusalem. After the war it's thought that more than a few of the Nazi war criminals escaped into the MidEast - those that didn't prefer South America.

Quote from: mdgiles on July 03, 2013, 12:54:01 PM
But they DID ally with Muslims. In the Balkans. In Iraq. And with the Mufti of Jerusalem. After the war it's thought that more than a few of the Nazi war criminals escaped into the MidEast - those that didn't prefer South America.

There was even a TV series about it called the rat Patrol.

Quote from: Solar on July 03, 2013, 01:52:22 PM
There was even a TV series about it called the rat Patrol.

-Which was a miscalculation by not casting an all-British/New Zealand ensemble.   Ya can't have Americans runnin'-around in North Africa.

Quote from: kit saginaw on July 07, 2013, 06:35:52 AM
-Which was a miscalculation by not casting an all-British/New Zealand ensemble.   Ya can't have Americans runnin'-around in North Africa.

Hmm...It is my understanding we have Americans running around places that even b o does not even know about, until he looks at the news. 

Quote from: kit saginaw on July 07, 2013, 06:35:52 AM
-Which was a miscalculation by not casting an all-British/New Zealand ensemble.   Ya can't have Americans runnin'-around in North Africa.

They were Canadians! 

One of the worse miscalculations, was the Japanese idea that the duty of submarines was only to sink opposing warships. As commerce raiders, early in the war the Japanese could have accomplished two things, had they concentrated on the sea lanes between the US and the Pacific battlefields. First, they would have forced the US to provide far greater anti-submarine protection once the beyond the range of West Coast air cover (a single Long Lance would have been instant death to a freighter or tanker). And of course the sinking of ships near the West Coast would have crippled American operations due to the political pressures, for West Coast defense. And it would have place pressure on the US, to cut back on its convoy duties in the Atlantic; thereby assisting their Nazi allies. I wonder if the I-Boats, built to operate for long periods, in the trackless wastes of the Pacific, would have been useful to the Nazis? They could have traded the Japanese machine gun and tank plans for I-boat plans.

Quote from: tbone0106 on June 24, 2012, 09:52:40 PM
I guess this is sort of a poll. There were many huge miscalculations, but I can't help thinking Hitler's move into the Soviet Union in 1941 -- especially so late in the season! -- was the worst.

Opinions?

The worst thing Hitler did, was listen to his own propoganda minister. 

As the allies were rolling into berlin, he was still telling Hitler they'd win.

Quote from: viking on July 07, 2013, 11:50:45 PM
The Japanese were known for their machine gun and tanks??? I thought the nazis had the best machine gun in WWII the mg-38(I think that's what it's called) and the best tanks the tiger and panzer tanks-it's just that they didn't have enough of them

Sigh, caught me on the grammar there. It should have read:"They could have traded the Japanese, German machine gun and tank plans, for I-boat plans". Sometimes my brain is way ahead of my fingers. 

Quote from: viking on July 08, 2013, 12:12:16 AM
Didn't the Nazi's declare war on America after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor??? That would seem like a pretty significant miscalculation???

The expectation on the Nazis part, was that the Japanese would join them in their war on the USSR. But the Japanese had already had a taste of the Soviets, in two early battles on the Mongolian border. Without better weapons, their is no way the wanted anything to do with the Soviets. That's one of the reasons they head South. Which they could have done WITHOUT attacking Pearl Harbor or the Philippines. No way the US was going to go to war to rescue European colonies. They could have snapped up the Philippines after the US granted them independence.

Quote from: viking on July 09, 2013, 08:19:49 PM
I gotchya  I heard somewhere that the allies did some statistical analysis on what caused the most casaulties in the European theatre(I think?) and out of all the weapons the Nazis had they found that most casaulties were caused by machine gun fire-probably the mg-38

Indeed. It's said that infantry in WW2 were psychotically afraid of Tiger tanks, but only 1697 Tigers and King Tigers, were produced total, along with 10,000 Panthers and 9870 Panzer-4's. In comparison, the Soviets produced about 35,000 T-34's and the US produced 49,234 Sherman's. As one defeated German tank commander complained: "We ran out of shells, before they ran out of tanks"!

The MG-42 is still used by the Norwegian army even 70 years later, there is no need to change it because the weapon is so durable, and a proficient gunman can target enemy camps/locations up to 3-4km. The only downside is the weight of the weapon that limits the ammo capacity and that the gun is a two man operation.



The Tiger tanks and anti tank Panther were the best tanks in ww2, the only problem was that they were time consuming and difficult to manufacture compared to the soviet T-34 like mdgiles pointed out. A tiger tank could take out a sherman before the sherman could get in range, that is in addition to having accurate fire under high speed and excellent sloped armor. I also believe the tiger and panther used anti aircraft guns for their main gun which was able tear through any other tank on the battlefield.

QuoteThe expectation on the Nazis part, was that the Japanese would join them in their war on the USSR. But the Japanese had already had a taste of the Soviets, in two early battles on the Mongolian border. Without better weapons, their is no way the wanted anything to do with the Soviets. That's one of the reasons they head South. Which they could have done WITHOUT attacking Pearl Harbor or the Philippines. No way the US was going to go to war to rescue European colonies. They could have snapped up the Philippines after the US granted them independence.

Ideology was also a major factor, the Germans viewed most americans as polluted untermenchen, hardly a match for the aryan giants. A funfact is in their war decleration they gave tribute to FDR for essentially being a dictator.

Also Hitler expected the war against the soviets to be over in 1-2 months, which would have made reinforcing the atlantic wall possible, in addition Hitler expected Rommel to be able to push through Egypt into USSR, but Montgomery attacked and routed Rommels Africa Corps while he was in germany discussing battle plans with Hitler.

I think a very important miscalculation of ww2 were the german generals adherence to Hitler. Hitler had a good overall battleplan which was to secure oil, but the application of that battleplan he screwed up time and time again.

Quote from: Mountainshield on July 12, 2013, 08:11:05 AM
The MG-42 is still used by the Norwegian army even 70 years later, there is no need to change it because the weapon is so durable, and a proficient gunman can target enemy camps/locations up to 3-4km. The only downside is the weight of the weapon that limits the ammo capacity and that the gun is a two man operation.



The Tiger tanks and anti tank Panther were the best tanks in ww2, the only problem was that they were time consuming and difficult to manufacture compared to the soviet T-34 like mdgiles pointed out. A tiger tank could take out a sherman before the sherman could get in range, that is in addition to having accurate fire under high speed and excellent sloped armor. I also believe the tiger and panther used anti aircraft guns for their main gun which was able tear through any other tank on the battlefield.

Ideology was also a major factor, the Germans viewed most americans as polluted untermenchen, hardly a match for the aryan giants. A funfact is in their war decleration they gave tribute to FDR for essentially being a dictator.

Also Hitler expected the war against the soviets to be over in 1-2 months, which would have made reinforcing the atlantic wall possible, in addition Hitler expected Rommel to be able to push through Egypt into USSR, but Montgomery attacked and routed Rommels Africa Corps while he was in germany discussing battle plans with Hitler.

I think a very important miscalculation of ww2 were the german generals adherence to Hitler. Hitler had a good overall battleplan which was to secure oil, but the application of that battleplan he screwed up time and time again.

You're tackling a LOT of subject matter in a single post, Yep, the German tanks could pick off a Sherman LONG before the Sherman's short-barreled 75mm pea-shooter could bang a hole in its enemy. But NO German tank pilot could fight off six or ten Shermans at a time. I think that was Giles's point.

As for Hitler's plans, they were bullshit. Hitler was in no sense an educated strategic impresario, and being a corporal who ran messages in the German army in a losing effort ain't much in the way of chops. He had no f***ing idea what he was doing. Reminds me a lot of a certain Kenyan...

Quote from: TboneAgain on July 17, 2013, 09:14:24 PM
You're tackling a LOT of subject matter in a single post, Yep, the German tanks could pick off a Sherman LONG before the Sherman's short-barreled 75mm pea-shooter could bang a hole in its enemy. But NO German tank pilot could fight off six or ten Shermans at a time. I think that was Giles's point.

As for Hitler's plans, they were bullshit. Hitler was in no sense an educated strategic impresario, and being a corporal who ran messages in the German army in a losing effort ain't much in the way of chops. He had no f***ing idea what he was doing. Reminds me a lot of a certain Kenyan...

Well I would say this goes for one sub-category of conservatives as well who look to Hitler as a person who got things done and saved the german economy. But the overall point that "Oil" was the essential most strategic resource of WW2 is undeniable, the case of Japan proves this beyond a doubt. The application of that fact to wartime strategy by Hitler was bullshit, but not the principle. Even the British acknowledged that fact with their warships undergone the switch from coal power to oil just decades before.

Quote from: Mountainshield on July 19, 2013, 06:47:22 AM
Well I would say this goes for one sub-category of conservatives as well who look to Hitler as a person who got things done and saved the german economy. But the overall point that "Oil" was the essential most strategic resource of WW2 is undeniable, the case of Japan proves this beyond a doubt. The application of that fact to wartime strategy by Hitler was bullshit, but not the principle. Even the British acknowledged that fact with their warships undergone the switch from coal power to oil just decades before.

It is often said that Hitler at least made the trains run on time. On the other hand, he managed to get his country bombed almost out of existence.

Yes, oil was important, and his foray into the Caucasus was aimed at securing the vast oilfields of that region. (His decision to divert the bulk of his Sixth Army from that goal to Stalingrad was politically-motivated stupidity.) It was also part of his reason for taking Romania, and for his forays into northern Africa. But the oil was meant for the military machines. The trains of the day still burned coal, and the German navy (other than the submarine fleet) was nearly nonexistent. To the very end of the war, the Germans never ran short of oil, or airplanes or tanks. They were, in fact, world pioneers in the formulation and production of synthetic petroleum, and those plants cranked the stuff out more or less unmolested until May 1945.

What they ran out of was pilots and tank drivers. And they VASTLY underestimated the ability of the Allies, mainly the US, to pepper the battlefields with tanks and the fill the skies with 1,000 bombers at a time, protected by the best fighter planes (and fighter pilots) in the world. A Bf-109G looked rather silly alongside a P-47D, and a P-51D could outfly just about everything Germany ever put in the air. (There were probably more air-to-air victories involving P-51s shooting down Me-262's than the other way around.) The later Tiger and Panther tanks were indeed awesome fighting machines. But they were unreliable, incredibly difficult to repair and maintain, and there simply weren't ever enough of them. In a sense, they ran short of tanks, but it was because German engineers made those tanks so astoundingly complex and difficult to build and maintain, that their military-industrial complex could never turn 'em out fast enough. And, as I said before, NO Tiger tank, no matter how skilled the crew, can defend itself against 6 or 10 or 17 little Shermans, all manned by skilled crews. Sooner or later, one of those little 75mm shells will hit a track and immobilize the Tiger -- and a tank that can't move is a dead tank.

In the case of Germany, I doubt that the need for oil was a major cause of their aggression. Certainly, Hitler didn't talk much about it, at least at the outset. The Japanese, however, are a much different case, and the war in the Pacific was precipitated by them very much in the pursuit of oil -- and other things like iron and coal and rubber. Being a relatively tiny island nation with really quite limited native natural resources, Japan has always been dependent on imported raw goods like iron ore and rubber and oil. Our moves in the late 1930s helped to deprive them of these things. Despite our stance that our moves were responses to Japanese warmaking in China, Japan saw them as direct attacks. The devastation at Pearl Harbor was facilitated with ships and planes quite literally built from scrap metal and iron ore purchased from the US. And they fueled those machines with the last drops of petroleum fuels they had. Pearl Harbor was immediately followed by conquests of the Dutch East Indies, which offered vast reserves of both oil and rubber.