Hitler and Sung Tsu

Good post. I can add that the spirit of the RN in the WW2 ranks was a positive and determined one; protection of Britain and its interests was paramount. Allowing Hitler to cross the channel was never an option as far as they were concerned, and their bottom line was never reached.

Believe me - I remember it well, first hand from HMS Hood and Subs.

I need not mention here the contribution of the RAF, I'm sure you all know this, probably better than I.

I heard recently of a secret force of resistance in position and of high professional capability; very unlike the Home Guard widely known.

We may have been down on occasion but we were never out; and I never heard a word of defeatism ever uttered, that was not an optiion.:salute2::salute:
 
Unfortunately, Britain did not kick the Italians and Germans out of North Africa until the Americans arrived, inspite of counting with billions of dollars of help and the millions of Indians, ANZACS, free Frenchmen, Poles, etc, British incompetence made a legend out of Rommel, despite the latter putting himself in extremely precarious positions repeatedly (like the cauldron in Gazala, etc,).

Does it make sense that a country that has millions of foreign troops, billions of dollars in equipment, fuel, etc, the largest navy, a mighty industry and is fighting on one front cannot wipe out from Africa 5% of the German army, until the arrival of the Americans who are supplying the USSR, the UK, the Chinese and themselves and are fighting in the Pacific and Atlantic?

Stalin has to deal with over 80% of the German army, the Americans have to deal with the Japanese thousands of miles away, is it too much to ask of Ritchie in 1941, or Auchinleck and Monty in 1942 to give a much weaker Rommel the death blow, instead of making a legend out of him?

Another example of the British fighting ability:
The allies have a half million troops in the Dunkirk pockets that can be easily supplied by the huge allied navy (French+British+Dutch+Norwegian, etc,) across the English Channel and supported by allied planes in the pocket and from Britain. Moreover, the area is not deemed adequate for the German tanks and the naval guns can reach over 30 km inland, wiping out any tanks in the area.
Instead of holding their ground against the few and very primitive German tanks (mostly PZ I and II and even the PZ IV have a short, wimpy cannon, and all are susceptible even to the 25 mm Hotchkiss gun), like the Soviets did in Oranienbaum for almost 3 years or the Germans did in Courland, with a weak navy and facing huge Soviet artillery, tank and air forces, Churchill decides to evacuate so they can fight on the beaches and in the streets, but in Britain, having lost the powerful French army and air force, whose hundreds of good pilots would have been invaluable against the LW.
The British left a huge pile of supplies and many trucks, artillery, etc, that were useful to the Germans.
The simple fact that the powerful allied navy allowed Guderian to close the pocket is remarkable, since their guns should have kept open a 30 km corridor along the coast.
 
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samneanderthal said:
Unfortunately, Britain did not kick the Italians and Germans out of North Africa until the Americans arrived, inspite of counting with billions of dollars of help and the millions of Indians, ANZACS, free Frenchmen, Poles, etc, British incompetence made a legend out of Rommel, despite the latter putting himself in extremely precarious positions repeatedly (like the cauldron in Gazala, etc,).
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The British could have beaten Rommel alone but Montgomery was an overly cautious leader and slow in his attacks. The Americans were surely helpful but not experienced. They still had to learn a lot.

Does it make sense that a country that has millions of foreign troops, billions of dollars in equipment, fuel, etc, the largest navy, a mighty industry and is fighting on one front cannot wipe out from Africa 5% of the German army, until the arrival of the Americans who are supplying the USSR, the UK, the Chinese and themselves and are fighting in the Pacific and Atlantic?
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Not all their forces were in Northern Africa.

Stalin has to deal with over 80% of the German army, the Americans have to deal with the Japanese thousands of miles away, is it too much to ask of Ritchie in 1941, or Auchinleck and Monty in 1942 to give a much weaker Rommel the death blow, instead of making a legend out of him?
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Rommel was very agressive and inventive, Montgomery was defensive and conservative.

Another example of the British fighting ability:
The allies have a half million troops in the Dunkirk pockets that can be easily supplied by the huge allied navy (French+British+Dutch+Norwegian, etc,) across the English Channel and supported by allied planes in the pocket and from Britain. Moreover, the area is not deemed adequate for the German tanks and the naval guns can reach over 30 km inland, wiping out any tanks in the area.
Instead of holding their ground against the few and very primitive German tanks (mostly PZ I and II and even the PZ IV have a short, wimpy cannon, and all are susceptible even to the 25 mm Hotchkiss gun), like the Soviets did in Oranienbaum for almost 3 years or the Germans did in Courland, with a weak navy and facing huge Soviet artillery, tank and air forces, Churchill decides to evacuate so they can fight in the beaches and in the streets, but in Britain, having lost the powerful French army and air force, whose hundreds of good pilots would have been invaluable against the LW.
The British left a huge pile of supplies and many trucks, artillery, etc, that were useful to the Germans.
The simple fact that the powerful allied navy allowed Guderian to close the pocket is remarkable, since their guns should have kept open a 30 km corridor along the coast.
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That's your theory, wouldn't work in practice.
Did you in your theory included among other things water and food for half a million soldiers, each and every day? Do you now what is needed to supply that to them?
 
Sending water, food, fuel, ammunition to a half million men and evacuating the wounded and sick accross the Strait of Dover 3 dozen km using Calais and a huge navy and under air cover from both sides of the Channel is much easier than supplying Libya and evacuating the axis wounded using the Italian navy and facing the RN and planes from Malta across several hundred km or supplying the men in Courland with the impotent German navy of 1945 and facing Soviet planes, subs, etc,
The allied navy could have transported troops, tanks, etc, from the rest of France to the bridge head to continue the fight, even after Paris fell. Germany could not afford a prolonged war in 1940 and Hitler knew it and dreaded it.
I doubt that Italy would have declared war on the allies, had there been a strong bridge head in France for troops from the colonies and American supplies to keep arriving and continue the fight.
 
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Dunkirk......The Allies, now what would have happened once the French Government told it's troops to stop fighting when they signed the armistice, that would have left the British troops out numbered by ten to one and huge gaps in there lines which meant the bridgehead even smaller and would have come under most of the Germans artillery.

North Africa.....Now Rommel was the master of the counter attack, just ask the Americans what he could do who where at Kaserine Pass.
Now Britain did not have billions of dollars and what ever money they borrowed to fight WW2 has all been paid back in full with interest, mind you it took us 60 years to pay it off but we must be one of the main countries that has cleared its debt's in this conflict. Now at Alemien the same narrow front that stopped Rommel also cost us dearly to break through and nearly two thirds of all British tanks were knocked out there while attacking the German lines. Monty was not in a position to do wide sweeping manoeuvres while chasing Rommel as every thing required had to come along one road and the same soft sand that stopped Rommel also held up Monty
 
VDKMS said:
The British could have beaten Rommel alone but Montgomery was an overly cautious leader and slow in his attacks. The Americans were surely helpful but not experienced. They still had to learn a lot.



Not all their forces were in Northern Africa.



Rommel was very agressive and inventive, Montgomery was defensive and conservative.



That's your theory, wouldn't work in practice.
Did you in your theory included among other things water and food for half a million soldiers, each and every day? Do you now what is needed to supply that to them?
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He does not know,because,in post 51,he said :I don't think
 
Hi Lee,
The French did not want to surrender, they just had to do it when the British espeditionary force, especially the air force abandoned France and Italy invaded France. Had the British remained in France the French could have lost most of France and kept fighting and Italy would not have dared to pounce on France. If the German offensive stalled, Italy may have even joined the allies, like it did in WW I, making a big difference.

Kasserine Pass was a basic American mistake rather than a master stroke of counter attack. It resulted because after el Alamein II on Nov 11, 1942 cautious Monty allowed Rommel to crawl over 1,700 km from the plains of Egypt and Libya all the way to the mountains of Tunisia, while Rommel received lots of troops, tanks (including a few Tigers) up to mid February, 1943. Monty paused for 3 weeks, renewing the offensive on Dec 11, allowing the trounced Rommel to rest and escape. Monty captured Tripoli on Jan 23, 1942 over 10 weeks after el Alamein II.
In Kasserine Pass green US tank crews fell for the trap set with plenty of time by the retreating German tanks and were led all the way to the hidden 88 mm guns, where close to 100 of them were blown up. The American leaders and troops panicked when the German armor renewed the attack, but in the end artillery saved the day and the Pass was in allied hands again by Feb 25, 1943, Patton would soon be winning al el Guettar and the axis would surrender in Africa by May 13, 1943.
Overall in all the action around the battle of Kasserine Pass there were nearly 30,000 allies against 22,000 Germans and the allies were advancing in Mountanous terrain with little air support. In contrast at el Alamein II Monty was attacking in flat terrain with 70% more men, 90% more tanks, 60% more cannon and 290% more antitank guns than Rommel had. The RAF provided considerable ground support, while the LW limited itself to shooting down RAF planes and provided almost no ground support. On the other hand axis troops were short of everything (even water) and had been shelled and bombed for a while and their tanks were badly worn after the long trip from Libya in the desert (it is surprising that a few made the round trip).
 
Korean Seaboy said:
Then who created the strategy of the Blitzkrieg in your opinion? I agree that not one person created the theory, but several people in several nations helped formulate the strategy. However, Liddell Hart, Heinz Guderian, De Gaulle, J. F. C. Fuller, Mikhail Tukhachevsky, and several others all had a part in developing the theory.
To claim that they didn't would be ignoring historical quotes, facts, events, in fact, ignore history itself
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I am going be a bit more controversial here and say that none of the above created the strategy of Blitzkrieg, I would suggest that the principals of Blitzkrieg were put in place as far back as 1807 by the likes of Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Clauswitz this was further developed by von Schlieffen and von Moltke who emphasised the positioning of superior forces at decisive points through the use of superior mobility and railway allowing for rapid manoeuvre.

Essentially "Blitzkrieg" was under development at least 140 years before the Third Reich put it into practice and the men we are crediting with "inventing" it here are the ones that refined it into the form unleashed in 1939 not its inventors.
 
You can all argue until you're blue in the face and you'll never change Sam’s mind.
The outcome of WWII is what it is. Trying to determine whose contribution was greater is nonsense. Too many lives were lost, on all sides, and too many emotional scars left open for anybody to claim to be an absolute winner. Everybody loses with war, it isn't a particularly nice thing to have to engage in and it certainly can't be trivialised by arguing about who made the biggest contribution.

Without Britain remaining free there would have been no allied landing in France. Without the United States the enormous amounts of equipment needed by all allied powers would not have been there. Without the Soviet Union holding down and wearing down in the east, Germany didn't have the resources to repel the sea-borne invasions in the West. This also permitted the other allies to allocate resources for a full-scale operation against Japan, which is also often mistakenly thought of as a side show.

If and buts cannot replace the facts that it was an Allied effort that lead to the downfall of Germany and Japan - period.

World War 2 belongs to history now. Who won what is not all that important more, but how to prevent another one and eradicate Hitler-like leaders from this planet.
 
sam has never worn a uniform or marched in the boots that many on here have, he has never been fed up and far from home, sometimes thousands of miles away like many of us have, he has never felt the gut wrenching fear.

I for one, am sick and tired of his constant bleating, Britain should have done this, or Britain didn't do that. He has no idea what sacrifices that the British people made during those dark years. Until he fully understands what Britain really contributed he should shut his damn mouth and LISTEN to what people are telling him who were THERE.

The freedom he has, has been at a heavy cost, men and nationalities that he is so fond of criticising. I shall look down on him and treat him like the moronic cretin he is.

I served Britain and I am proud to have done so and proud of the units I have served in.
 
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Can there be more Blitzkrieg than that of Attila, Genghis, etc,?
The Mongols used sometimes 5 horses per man, so they could travel 24/7, sleeping on the saddle and pouncing on unsuspecting cities and towns hundreds of miles away. A gallopping archer has a surprisingly stable platform, can shoot 10 arrows per minute accurately and is a difficult target for a stationary archer or for a slow, armoured knight. The main reason the Mongols didn't take over Europe is that every time the khan died they had to return to Mongolia to crown the new khan.
Compare the lightning Mongol conquest of Russia with a few tens of thousands of riders with the crawling pace of a half million of Napoleon and even of the millions of troops of Hitler.
The Vikings, Attila, the Mongols, etc, did not even have to occupy a country, they simply extorted tribute and if payment was delayed they caused so much damage in a quick campaign that tribute would be paid again.
 
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samneanderthal said:
The allies have a half million troops in the Dunkirk pockets that can be easily supplied by the huge allied navy (French+British+Dutch+Norwegian, etc,) across the English Channel....
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The Norwegian navy at the outbreak of WW II would have served little purpose at Dunkirk, with few exceptions it consisted of coal fired, steam propelled vessels predating WW I and lacking basic modern equipment like anti-aircraft guns and up to date radio-sets.
The Norwegian navy was reequipped with modern vessels during the WW II, but the main contribution was the large Norwegian merchant fleet.

And no, it couldn't have done much at Dunkirk either, since it was spread out all over the world at that time.
 
Hi 84RFK,
The Norwegian merchant fleet was quite large and could have certainly contributed to supply Dunkirk, as was the Greek merchant fleet which also helped Britain after Greece fell. In contrast, Mussolini declared war without warning his merchant fleet and promptly lost 1/4 of his ships to the allies, shrinking considerably the already weak axis fleet.

Hi Alte
Of course nothing will change what happened. The idea is to try to evaluate the events so we can appreciate the achievements and mistakes of all the people involved. It is not my intention to denigrate the British people and troops who had to face very difficult times. I am simply trying to point out their leaders incompetence, which just like in the case of Hitler caused most of the debacles, wasting fabulous resources and too many lives.
Although the German and Japanese aggression was wrong and caused most of the world far too much suffering. One can't help to be amazed at the efficiency with which they fought, in contrast to the inefficiency on the far richer and more populated allied side.
 
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:read:Why not stop pissing against the wind for a lost cause; believe it or not, WW11 is over and your supermen had the **** kicked out of them by those useless incompetants and they didn't clear the first hurdle - Great Britain.

Just google 'WW11' and check it out. :-P
 
samneanderthal said:
Hi 84RFK,
The Norwegian merchant fleet was quite large and could have certainly contributed to supply Dunkirk, as was the Greek merchant fleet which also helped Britain after Greece fell. In contrast, Mussolini declared war without warning his merchant fleet and promptly lost 1/4 of his ships to the allies, shrinking considerably the already weak axis fleet.

Hi Alte
Of course nothing will change what happened. The idea is to try to evaluate the events so we can appreciate the achievements and mistakes of all the people involved. It is not my intention to denigrate the British people and troops who had to face very difficult times. I am simply trying to point out their leaders incompetence, which just like in the case of Hitler caused most of the debacles, wasting fabulous resources and too many lives.
Although the German and Japanese aggression was wrong and caused most of the world far too much suffering. One can't help to be amazed at the efficiency with which they fought, in contrast to the inefficiency on the far richer and more populated allied side.
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I will agree with you in part, the purpose of these forums is to discuss "what if's" because to a large degree that is all there is to talk about as the history is already writen.

I also think a lot of people are making the mistake of refusing to look at the recorded history in a different light other than the official version which is also sad because it is only now that documents are becoming available for analysis by the average Joe.

However you need to stop being so extreme, yes we know all the major leaders made mistakes but making mistakes doesnt make you incompetent, not learning from those mistakes and repeating them does.
 
samneanderthal said:
Hi Alte
Of course nothing will change what happened. The idea is to try to evaluate the events so we can appreciate the achievements and mistakes of all the people involved. It is not my intention to denigrate the British people and troops who had to face very difficult times. I am simply trying to point out their leaders incompetence, which just like in the case of Hitler caused most of the debacles, wasting fabulous resources and too many lives.
Although the German and Japanese aggression was wrong and caused most of the world far too much suffering. One can't help to be amazed at the efficiency with which they fought, in contrast to the inefficiency on the far richer and more populated allied side.
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I understand. But as I've said before; History provides understanding, not proof. History provides insight, not analogy.

You will need to critically evaluate the available sources related to your chosen topic. Secondary sources are historical works that offer interpretations of historical evidence and debates, and usually (but not always) draw on some combination of primary sources, and the interpretations of other historians, to support a particular argument. A secondary source is usually in the published form of a book or periodical article from a scholarly journal. A primary source is usually an actual or facsimile record or document from the period under study, for example, newspapers, census records, letters, photographs, or films. Once you have chosen a suitable history research topic and begun your research, you will need to critically evaluate the relevant secondary and primary sources to which you gain access. Historians make arguments and offer interpretations of the past events and available evidence; you need to assess which arguments you find persuasive and articulate why one interpretation seems more plausible than another. Primary material also requires careful scrutiny. Documents do not speak for themselves-if they did, there would be no need for historians. A document from the period under study often reflects the perspective or position of its writer or compiler; primary sources, like secondary sources, need to be assessed rather than simply accepted at face value.

In the beginning of the war the Germans were well equipped, well trained, well led, and our government was 100% behind us. Most European countries still thought with the mindset of WW1. Also remember that the German Wehrmacht had a long standing professional officer corps that had experience going back to the Franco-Prussian War of 1871 and that morale remained high, due in part to the Hitler Youth program, which placed emphasis on nationalistic ideals and group loyalty; personal loyalty to Hitler was above all. The Wehrmacht gained a reputation as an unbeatable foe, and the endurance of the German soldier was legendary. The stereotype was so powerful that even in 1944 some Allied troops feared attacking German units without total numerical supremacy.

There are many reasons for failure in war, such as the lack of training, technological inferiority, the lack of proper intelligence, equipment, failure of logistical support, ineffective flow of information and communication as well as the destruction of morale. However, those factors are external to the leader, whereas military incompetence is an inherent fault in military leadership. All else being equal, a well-equipped, well-trained fighting force will be made ineffective by the presence of an incompetent leader, and no amount of military intelligence, regardless of how accurate and timely it is, will be used effectively by an incompetent general. Therefore it is clear that a military leader is one of the most important force multipliers of any military organisation.

Allied Armed Forces were able to learn from their mistakes and made the necessary adjustments to match the Axis powers' proficiency at the art of war, conversely, Germany's and Japan's Armed Forces did not improve their performance apreciably after their initial successes. But the only thing certain about war is that nothing is certain about war.
 
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