Quote from: TboneAgain on July 19, 2013, 02:29:28 PM
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.

Well Stalin and all the other tyrants of the twentieth century also made the trains run on time (except Idi Amin and Pol Pot ofc), I don't see how this pragmatist approach too totalitarianism is even remotely connected to conservatism or prosperity for that matter, and the founding fathers would have abhorred it.

Quote from: TboneAgain on July 19, 2013, 02:29:28 PM
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.

Thats true, for a good read on the topic I suggest this article

http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=23080

And also the documentary or book "The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power" by Daniel Yergin.

Quote from: COVER D on June 26, 2012, 04:54:28 AM
You'd also have to list Pearl Harbor. While a tactical vicotry for the Japs, it was
perhaps the worse strategic move in history.

There's an urban legend that Yamamoto said:  "I fear we have awakened a sleeping giant."  AFTER Pearl Harbor - as if he suddenly started having second thoughts.  But there's no real evidence of that.

On the other hand, there is full documentation of his position BEFORE Pearl Harbor.  He basically laid out the first six months of the war; said he could stage a sneak attack and then run roughshod over the South Pacific; but he made clear, in absolutely no uncertain terms, that Japan could never hope to invade the continental United States, and that the productive power of the US could utterly crush Japan.

There's a saying that armchair generals talk about tactics, while real military leaders talk about logistics.  Well, Yamamoto was a very very real military leader, and the Japanese high command believed every word he told them.  They knew damned well what a genius he was, and practically revered him as a god.

The Imperial Japanese never doubted for a second the might of America.  What they doubted was America's WILL.  They thought Americans would tire of fighting and agree to whatever concessions were asked.

That's exactly what al Qaida thought about the Twin Towers.  However, America's second Pearl Harbor wasn't met with the exact same reaction as the first.

Quote from: Mountainshield on July 20, 2013, 03:50:47 AM
Well Stalin and all the other tyrants of the twentieth century also made the trains run on time

But did they, really, make the trains run on time?  Or did they just kill everyone who complained about them?  Frankly, that sounds a lot more like a propaganda slogan than the result of a comprehensive analysis of arrival-departure logs.

Totalitarian governments aren't really all that efficient.  Nazi Germany accomplished a lot, unfortunately, but that was only over a very short term.  Germans had been pretty darned punctual for a very long time before that.  And they were also hugely productive before anybody ever heard of Socialism.  Most of the seeming "economic miracle" in Germany was caused by Hitler's final rejection of the hopelessly unpayable debts from the Treaty of Versailles -- a good idea, but not one that required totalitarianism.

What Socialist and Communist governments are "good" at is collectivization:  depriving millions in order to produce a few gigantic projects that people don't necessarily want.  That looks terrific in the propaganda posters, but it tends to do more harm than good to the long-term economy.  The sad fact is that small-minded people are more easily impressed by a few big things than a whole bunch of little things.

It's amazing how many huge missteps were made by such a strong --link removed by taxed .. nice try -- force. It seems very obvious that what killed Hitler, and the Nazis by extension, was his ego. If the Nazis would have won at D-Day, or done better against the Russians, they entire history of the world since then would be dramatically different. The three front war is a horrible idea to start with, when has it ever shown success looking back at military campaigns. However, Germany still might have won despite that had they made good decisions. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad they lost, I despise many of the things they espoused, but I still don't understand how they could be so stupid.

Quote from: KinnonWaltkowski on September 02, 2013, 07:38:52 AM
It's amazing how many huge missteps were made by such a strong -- link removed by taxed -- force. It seems very obvious that what killed Hitler, and the Nazis by extension, was his ego. If the Nazis would have won at D-Day, or done better against the Russians, they entire history of the world since then would be dramatically different. The three front war is a horrible idea to start with, when has it ever shown success looking back at military campaigns. However, Germany still might have won despite that had they made good decisions. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad they lost, I despise many of the things they espoused, but I still don't understand how they could be so stupid.

Welcome....  I keep saying the same think about b o.   

Quote from: KinnonWaltkowski on September 02, 2013, 07:38:52 AM
The three front war is a horrible idea to start with, when has it ever shown success looking back at military campaigns. However, Germany still might have won despite that had they made good decisions. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad they lost, I despise many of the things they espoused, but I still don't understand how they could be so stupid.

I once read a detailed analysis of the thought process that lead to Operation Barbarossa.  The short version is that Hitler THOUGHT he could weaken the alliance between England and America, but he KNEW that the Russians were planning to invade once the Red Army had recovered from Stalin's purges.  And when Hitler saw them lose a third of a million troops invading Finland, he figured he'd strike while the iron was hot.

No matter what was going on in Hitler's head, this was no idle decision, like: "Hey, there's not much else going on right now, so let's just invade Russia now."  Germany was under a lot of pressure and running out of key resources.

The real bottom line is that the war was decided when America committed itself fully.  Our military was relatively puny; the day the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, we only had 170,000 men in uniform.  Everyone thought we would get our nose bloody and then quit. 

But our industrial capacity dwarfed that of the rest of the world.  Even if Normandy had gone south (or, I guess failed to go south, whatever) or any one of a dozen other things went wrong, we still had the industrial capacity to continue.  The only question now is the same as it was then:  whether or not America's political commitment would falter.  My personal guess is that we'd have fired a few leaders, figured out what went wrong and come back stronger than ever.

As for Russia, even if their military had collapsed, that would still have been an incredibly costly occupation across many millions of square miles Germany didn't remotely have the manpower to cover.  Stalin banned a lot of books, but not Mein Kampf.  The Russians knew damned well that Hitler was fighting a war of extermination.  They resented the Communist dictators, but they would fight to the last man against the Nazis.

Thanks for flagging the spam, kopema...

-d

Quote from: taxed on September 02, 2013, 05:28:18 PM
Thanks for flagging the spam, kopema...

-d

  That one slipped right past me.

Quote from: walkstall on September 02, 2013, 07:42:42 AM
Welcome....  I keep saying the same think about b o.   

I guess you could put it down to "ego." I put it down to stupidity. Adolf Hitler spent more than three years working his way up the ladder in the German army in WWI... and managed to get two stripes -- a corporal. After three-plus years, the man's a corporal.

I'm thinking he's not exactly a military genius.

His primary victories were either political -- Rhineland, Sudetenland, Austria (Anschluss) -- or just plain easy -- France, Belgium, Poland, etc. Where he came a cropper was where he had to begin to engage his brain. Barbarossa was the beginning of the end for him, and a kindergartener could have pointed it out.

The man was a masterful politician. But he was a military idiot.

Quote from: TboneAgain on September 29, 2013, 02:50:04 PM
His primary victories were either political -- Rhineland, Sudetenland, Austria (Anschluss) -- or just plain easy -- France, Belgium, Poland, etc. Where he came a cropper was where he had to begin to engage his brain. Barbarossa was the beginning of the end for him, and a kindergartener could have pointed it out.

The man was a masterful politician. But he was a military idiot.

If Adolph Hitler had dropped dead after signing the Munich Agreement, he'd probably have gone down in history as Germany's greatest statesman.  Most of Germany's early victories were more due to mollifying the Allies than military might.  Hitler himself said that if England and France had kept their promises to protect Czechoslovakia, they could have wiped out the German invasion force easily.

Once World War 2 started in earnest, Germany's early victories were probably more due to Hitler's inexperience than despite it.  He let his generals have their way.  Later, when Hitler bought into his own propaganda, he started trying to micro-manage.  That's when the Allies officially cancelled all plans to have him assassinated.  By the last two years of the war, Hitler had basically become the Allies' single greatest strategic asset.

I think the biggest mistake made by Uncle Adolf was the delay in launching Barbarossa in order to clean up the mess in Greece and the Balkans. Not only did it divert front line troops that afterword needed rest and retrofit it cost him maybe 6 weeks of good weather in Russia. If things went as they did and the Germans had another 3 weeks or so of good weather in front of Moscow maybe all the Russkies would be speaking German as a 2nd language.

Quote from: rgf on October 01, 2013, 05:26:08 PM
I think the biggest mistake made by Uncle Adolf was the delay in launching Barbarossa in order to clean up the mess in Greece and the Balkans. Not only did it divert front line troops that afterword needed rest and retrofit it cost him maybe 6 weeks of good weather in Russia. If things went as they did and the Germans had another 3 weeks or so of good weather in front of Moscow maybe all the Russkies would be speaking German as a 2nd language.

Trust me you don't have to go to war to be invaded with a second languages.  Press 1 for English. press 2 for Spanish or press 3 for Arabic. 

Quote from: rgf on October 01, 2013, 05:26:08 PM
I think the biggest mistake made by Uncle Adolf was the delay in launching Barbarossa in order to clean up the mess in Greece and the Balkans. Not only did it divert front line troops that afterword needed rest and retrofit it cost him maybe 6 weeks of good weather in Russia. If things went as they did and the Germans had another 3 weeks or so of good weather in front of Moscow maybe all the Russkies would be speaking German as a 2nd language.

Good point, and one I've made many times myself. Onkel Adolf invested far too much time and resources into cleaning up Barney Fife's Mussolini's messes, like Greece and North Africa. June 22 was mighty late in the year to launch what could probably be described as the largest land-based military invasion of all time, into territory where the weather was known to kill people wholesale in the winter. (cf. Napoleon Bonaparte)

Quote from: COVER D on June 26, 2012, 04:54:28 AM
Definitely Stalingrad. It's where Hitler lost his army. Had he won it D-Day might
have been impossible.

Hitler's officers wanted to go straight to Moscow and sit out the winter before
going to Stalingrad but Hitler wouldn't here of it. The German Army wasn't even
trained for house to house fighting. They liked being in the open.

You'd also have to list Pearl Harbor. While a tactical vicotry for the Japs, it was
perhaps the worse strategic move in history.

You can't prove anything you stated.
Few officers wanted to go on to Moscow and they were overruled by General Winter.

Stalingrad in 42 seemed like the logical thing to do. Not only to take the caucuses but to enter the middle east and hook up with Iran.

Rommel's failure to take Egypt helped to put stalingrad in a more favorable light.

Keep in mind that you can be as  logical as all get out and still fail  miserably.

The British strategy was to defeat the Wehrmacht  through  attrition ; cutting off all resources ,mainly petrol ,meant the panzers would be unable to roll and the luftwaffe would be grounded.
No way to win by standing still as many still believe was the case .

Quote from: tbone0106 on June 25, 2012, 08:52:22 PM
The monumental stupidity of the whole thing has always befuddled me. Until June 1941, Hitler had achieved every goal he had set and won every battle save one -- the Battle of Britain. He had formed the Axis with Mussolini's Italy, reunited Germany and Austria, subdued Czechoslovakia (first the willing Sudetenland, then the rest), conquered and occupied most of Poland (giving Stalin the rest by secret compact), France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway, Luxembourg, on and on. England was not defeated, but hardly stood as a competent threat for invasion at the time, or even in the foreseeable future. And folks in the United States were still holding America Firster rallies.

The worst miscalculation for the USA was to get involved in the war in Europe to start with ,unless the deaths of tens of thousands of us servicemen mean so little.