D-Day, June 6th, 1943???

[Abraham]

I would like to provoke a discussion about the question if the Allies could have invaded Europe succesfully in the summer of 1943, had they decided so at the Casablanca conference in January 1943.

As you probably know, the Allies choose to invade Sicily, then Italy, both in 1943. According to Churchill this was the indirect approach through "the soft underbelly of Europe".
Only on June 6th 1944 was N-W France invaded, followed, on August 15th 1944, instead of coinciding as originally planned, by the landings in Southern France (ANVIL-DRAGOON).

I have the idea that an invasion in 1943 would have been succesfull, but before I give my arguments, I would like to hear your opinions and argumentation.

Please don't go into what if the invasion had happened in 1943, I just want to know if you think it would have been feasible.

[scandium]

Might have been possible. The Battle of the Atlantic had already turned in the allies favour and they posssed by then a good body of Intel from cracked Enigma ciphers and other sources. Also the Italians were clearly more hindrance than help, while at the same time things were not going so well on the Russian front. At least that's my initial reaction.

[Abraham]

Might have been possible. The Battle of the Atlantic had already turned in the allies favour and they posssed by then a good body of Intel from cracked Enigma ciphers and other sources. Also the Italians were clearly more hindrance than help, while at the same time things were not going so well on the Russian front. At least that's my initial reaction.
The first two sound arguments! Both valid.

[joea]

Basically what scandium said...with the caveat that the LW was far from defeated in 1943 and would have been more of a problem.

[Type XXIII]

Interesting question. The invasion would probably have been on a smaller scale, as the planning period would have been shorter and there wouldn't be so much equipment and troops ready to be used for an invasion. On the other hand, the defenses would have been less completed as well.

It might have been a success, but my guess would be that it would be less of a success than the actual Operation Overlord was. The advancement and low casualties of the landings stunned even the Allied Command.

Also, the Germans might have been able to deploy more troops to the Western Front at this point and establish a front line somewhere in France. Of course, this would lead to that the Eastern Front would have fallen even faster than in our timeline.

But what would have happened in Italy if it had been left unchecked?

[STEED]

:hmm: Need a bit of a think and hit the books :yep:

[STEED]

One point would Operation Torch gone ahead in late 1942 due to it was a major operation.

[Torplexed]

Invading one month before the Germans committed themselves to Operation Citadel does present Hitler with an handy excuse to cancel it and bring some of those nasty SS Divisions west. So maybe we would have been watching all those new Panthers breaking down with teething problems in northern France instead of at Kursk. :hmm:

[Abraham]

One point would Operation Torch gone ahead in late 1942 due to it was a major operation.
TORCH was essential in many aspects, first and foremost the liberation of the North African coast, but also as the first combined Allied operation, the first huge amphibious landing and the first 'blooding' of US troops in the European Theater of Operations (ETO).
So I pose my question in the post-TORCH period let's say the Casablanca Conference (January 1943).

It boils down to:
What was the fastest way to conquer Germany?
Through HUSKY (landings in Sicily) and consequently Italy or by skipping a year and going straight for OVERLORD in the summer of 1943 (my exact date June 6th 1943 was of course a teaser, around July 1st would be more realistic).

And yes Torplexed, through ULTRA info it could be somehow be coincided with CITADEL.

[STEED]

Let's take a step and have a think for the build up in England most of the supplies would come from the U.S and in 1942, the U-Boat war was raging and the outcome was far from certain. And don't forget the Allied bombing as well with no long range support from fighters, the Americans more so as they bombed in day light would had taken even more of a higher casualty rate.

[TLAM Strike]

Yea yea... and if Rommel accepted Patton’s challenge to a armored desert death duel the war could have been over in '42. :roll:

[CCIP]

Torch was also a very valuable experience for the Allies; things probably would have gone much worse for them on D-Day if they didn't have that 'practice run'.

Possible? Yes, very. But I think they were quite justified in holding it off; time was on the allies side and, ultimately, striking with full force is always better than a half-hearted committment.

[Neutrino 123]

Here are a few random facts I sometimes see overlooked in 1943 invasion discussions.

Torch would definitely still have taken place. A 1943 Overlord (Roundup I think?) would have been held at the same time as the invasion of Sicily, early July, when the Germans were bogged down in Kursk (the west knew of the impending Kursk offensive and warned the Soviets, though they had plenty of warning by themselves).

Husky was a big invasion, so I don't see the inital forces being vastly different then the historical overlord (unless of course, the invasion was at Pas de Calais, a distinct possibility due to the Atlantic wall being much worse in 1943 then 1944).

Another factor to consider would be the air forces. The luftwaffe was certainly more capable in 1943 then 1944. However, this would not be as great a factor as it might first appear. If the Luftwaffe wanted to attack, it would need to operate bombers against the Western air force, a very difficult proposition. To contest the skies, the Luftwaffe would only need fighters. These fighters were historically used to attack the U.S. strategic bomber offensive (which lacked effective long-range escort until the P-51). Now they would have to deal with Allied short-range fighters too, so they would probably be killed faster then historically.

A rarely considered factor is the level of American commitment to the European Theatre of Operations. With a 1943 invasion in France, Paciifc Operations (in terms of Army ground firces) might be scaled down. This could slow the war in the Pacific, but make noticibly more resources avalible for Europe (due to distance considerations, it is easier to supply a division in Europe then the Pacific). Divisions would also suffer fewer non-combat casulties in Europe then the jungles of Pacific islands.

Finally, the armor avalible to the Allies in 1943 was much better compared to the Germans then in 1944. In 1943, the Germans were mostly composed of Mk IV tanks that were roughly on par with the early Shermans. Tigers were rare, and the first use of Pathers (a brigade of 100) was at Kursk. I'm guessing that the forces initially in the west were worse then average, and probably had alot of MkIIIs, Sherman meat except at close range. Meanwhile due to the scale of the invasion. the Allies might realize how much the Sherman sucked sooner (despite the initial much easier time it will have, there will still be a few Tigers scattered about and other factors), and bring in the later-model Shermans and Pershings earlier then historically.

[Abraham]

Ah, more arguments pro & con...

@ CCIP:
I don't agree with your time argument. Not on the short term, that is. As soon as OVERLORD was planned, the troop level was fixed. On the German side, defenses grew in strenght by the month after Rommel took over. Serious work on the Atlantic Wall started only in the 3rd quarter of 1943, till then only harbours and coastal cities were fortified.

@ Neutrino 123:
Some good arguments.

HUSKY (Sicily July 1943) was a big invasion indeed, even more ships were used than in OVERLORD, contrary to popular and Hollywood belief.

As far as air forces are concerned, I agree that the defensive strenght of the Luftwaffe was not weakened in 1943 as much as in 1944, but a 2 or 3 months long agressive air offensive might have easely changed that. The offensive capacity of the Luftwaffe was already greatly reduced. Allied long range fighters, essential for the air offensive, were ready to be built, the P-51 with the Rolls Royce Merlin, only lacking an official requirement.

Indeed in 1943 with the postphonement of ROUND-UP there was a notable shift of US Army troops and landing craft towards the Pacific. The ETO never overcame that loss of landing craft...

Your argument about Allied armour is also valid. There were much more Shermans then Mark IV's especially of the late versions. The Mark IV H were not available yet, very few Tigers and brand new Panthers with teething troubles.

Your remark about the M 26 Pershing is interesting. This tank was ready for full production as early as January 1944. However, the US Military, which had strange ideas about tank warfare, did not want to switch production with the inevitable loss of productions of the standard Sherman (with the blessing of Patton, by the way).


Do we see the possibilities of an 1943 invasion in Europe taking shape?
Anyone with more argument pro and con?

[Sixpack]

I would say all in all 1944 was the first good opportunity for a number of reasons.

Logistically, the balance in the BotA, the bombing campains to destroy/damage German industries, certain German battle fatigue and decreasing German public moral, in a small way also the occ. territories' underground movements, and some more factors.

The allied would have taken much harder knocks in 43 and a succesful outcome of the operation would have been highly doubtful.

Btw, hasnt there been a historically pretty obscure smaller scale invasion attempt in 43 on the N-France coast (by Canadians I think it was ?) which resulted in utter catastrophe ? I cant recall from memory when this took place.

[Happy Times]

Why not, they could have done it earlier, the casualties the allied took were so small compared to the east front, were the real fighting mostly took place in WW2. Maybe they wanted that Germany and Russia would eat each other up? :hmm:

[STEED]

When the Allies invaded Sicily, then Italy what did they do? They divided the German forces causing logistical problems for them and gain more knowledge about landing on enemy ground. With out Sicily & Italy operations there would be more Germans to face in Normandy and Tanks and worst still the Allies would have limited knowledge of landings.

[joea]

Btw, hasnt there been a historically pretty obscure smaller scale invasion attempt in 43 on the N-France coast (by Canadians I think it was ?) which resulted in utter catastrophe ? I cant recall from memory when this took place.

Dieppe, August 1942, very bloody and very well known in Canada.

http://www.junobeach.org/e/2/can-eve-mob-die-e.htm

At least mistakes made here were applied to make later landings a sucess.

[August]

Dieppe was more of a raid than an invasion, as there was no intent to stay.

Delaying operation Overlord until '44 was necessary for many reasons, some already mentioned in this thread. One must understand that for the invasion to be a success the Allies needed more than the units involved in the actual landings themselves, they also needed the follow-on forces to push beyond the beaches and across France.

In '43 sufficient forces for both just weren't available. They were either still in training (ex 4th ID/101st ABD) or being used elsewhere (ex: 1st ID/82nd ABD).

In addition to the troops there's the enormous amounts of fuel, equipment and supplies to sustain them. All of which had to be stockpiled in England before the invasion began.

[Sixpack]

From Joea's link: (yes, this what I actually meant, a testcase)

The Allies' long-term goal was to get a foothold on the continent and set up a bridgehead from where ground forces could move into Europe. But before it could attempt a large-scale landing, the Combined Operations Headquarters had to test some of its assumptions in real action. Would it be possible to capture a fortified seaport large enough to be used afterwards by invading troops, and that, without destroying its infrastructures? Amphibious landing techniques had been successfully tested in previous operations but how would the new barges designed to carry tanks and heavy artillery behave? There was a need to test the complex combination of land, naval and air manoeuvres required by a large-scale invasion in real action conditions, in order to check the efficiency of new equipment, communication lines and chains of command. The August 19th, 1942, raid was to answer all those questions.

The heroism displayed by these Canucks is beyond comprehension !

[joea]

The heroism displayed by these Canucks is beyond comprehension !

We are proud of it too. :smug: Or we should be, lots of kids these days forget. Anyway, whatever I think of politics these days, I can honestly say our men and women are serving well in Afghanistan, the Balkans and many other places. :cool:

[Neutrino 123]

When the Allies invaded Sicily, then Italy what did they do? They divided the German forces causing logistical problems for them and gain more knowledge about landing on enemy ground. With out Sicily & Italy operations there would be more Germans to face in Normandy and Tanks and worst still the Allies would have limited knowledge of landings.

Sicily was good landing experiance, but it was also a decently conducted landing. A similar landing in France would not have faced a serious West Wall defense like historically. The beach-heads would probably more closely resemble Utah then Omaha or even Gold-Juno-Sword, even if the landing technique was only up to Sicily standards.

The Italian Front may have divided German forces, but it divided Allied forces similarly. Furthermore, Italy is a very bad place for an attacking force due to the terrain and the confined area. For Each allied division in Italy, the Germans would need fewer units to effectively face it then for each Allied division in France (and even fewer armored fighting vehicles were needed in Italy due to the terrain).

Also, Germany was just getting its economy into total war production in 1943. A major Allied landing would avoid most of the build-up that took place until 1944, and the German overall buildup might be disrupted (less training time due to more enemy forces being faced and thus more danger points that need reinforcements).

[Abraham]

Neutrino 123 rightly points out that Italy was anything but "the soft underbelly of Europe" as Churchill used to call it. It took the Allies a year to get from Sicily to Rome (liberated on June 5th, 1944 (!) and the country was exelently suited for defence. While holding their front line, the Germans could perpare the next defense line.

The liberation of Italy caused many administrative and logistic problems the Allies were hardly prepared for. They were basically responsable for a broken country that had had an Axis regime.
An earlier invasion in France would have been possible. I do not agree with August that the necessairy trained forces were not available, they were fighting a less effective battle in a less decisive place: Italy.

Another argument that I want to bring forward is that there were - of course - no "Free Italian" forces. However, there were four "Free French" divisions fighting in Italy. An 1943 invasion in France would have tapped a huge pool of trained military manpower to create a substantial French contribution to the war before the end of the year 1943. Just imagine: a French division would have participated in D-Day 1943 with three more as follow on forces and these forces would have been tasked with clearing Brittany and the South of France. They would not only have considered as liberators but would have been a mobile recruitement office for the French Army. That could have solved the manpower problem of the Allies in the ETO.

Sadly, the Allies - especially Roosevelt - never let France play the role it could have played and should have played.

Any counterarguments.

[joea]

Not from me. :up:

Vive la France.

[STEED]

It dose seem an invasion in 1943 may not have been a sound move due to so many factors, it's possible for the invasion but I suspect a much higher casualty rate and bogged down progress would be a lot harder for the western allies. By 1944 the situation had changed in the favour of the western allies and resulted in successful invasion of Normandy.

[Ishmael]

Let me chime in. After reading the other posts, I would offer an alternate plan. My father was a merchant seaman who took part in all of the Mediterranean/African invasions(North Africa, Sicily, Salerno and Anzio). In 1943, the bulk of Allied fighting forces were in the Med area and the forces in England were nowhere near the strength needed for a cross-channel invasion. At the same time, Italy as an invasion target was definitely a mistake due to terrain problems that wasted many lives.

My idea would have been to invade southern France instead of Italy after the success in Sicily. This would have allowed Allied forces to move up the Rhone valley, tap into French resistance forces, bypass Italy with it's hellish terrain suited for defense and concentrate battle-hardened Allied forces into France a year earlier. I might send a token force into southern Italy to tie down Italian forces there, but the bulk of the operations would go to the Riviera with all of it's ports(Nice, Cannes, Toulon & Marseille). With those ports in Allied hands, we could have poured much more men & materiel into southern France.

of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.

[STEED]

Ishmael; the Allies did land in Sothern France, Operation Anvil was the first code name before it was changed to Dragoon. I suspect you knew that here’s the info for those who may not have known that landing.

http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1772.html

[Abraham]

I had never given serious thoughts to a pre-1944 invasion in N.W.-Europe.
My arguments? The Allies were not strong enough yet, did not have enough landing craft and tanks, well, anything you’ve read on this thread. And Sir Basil Liddle Hart had said nothing about it.

It was clear to all that the decisive battle between the Western Allies and the Germans could only take place after an invasion in N-W Europe and that this battle had to take place as soon as possible, given the evil character of the Nazi regime, the necessary support for Stalin, the need to bring France actively into the war and geo-strategically reasons concerning a post-war Europe.

The first time I questioned myself if WW II could have been speeded up before D-Day was when I studied the North African campaign of ‘42. Serious time was lost before the Battle of El Alamein (Monty probably could have finished with a counterstroke after the Battle of the Alam Halfa Ridge at the end of August ’42) which battle finally started on October 23th, and through the postponement of Operation TORCH till November 8th - 11th , 1942. Within two weeks the Allies were within 15 miles from Tunis, the German base. The Germans brought in tens of thousands of reinforcements, which were in the end doomed, but gained extremely valuable time for Hitler: Tunis was captured only on May 13th, 1943, thus delaying any Allied offensive action for 6 months! The result of this Allied inactivity was that between Nov.’42 and May ’43 the Germans were able to transfer 17 divisions from Western Europe to the East front.

In my opinion it would have been a much better idea to contain the isolated Germans in Tunis, attack their vulnerable lines of communications with naval and air forces and move the bulk of the 1.000.000 (!) Allied troops in North Africa to England to build up a pre-invasion force. On the Washington-conference (May 11th, - 25th, 1942) however, Churchill and Roosevelt decided to set the date for the invasion on May 1st, 1944 and that only in November ’43 seven divisions would be withdrawn from the Mediterranean theatre to Britain.

However, the Allies had already decided to attack Sicily (Operation HUSKY), which took place on July 10th, 1943. On August 17th all resistance stopped, but the Germans had managed to save 40.000 of their 55.000 men with 50 tanks, 94 guns, 10.000 vehicles and 17.000 tons of supplies (compare Dunkirk!).
Because no earlier preparations were made it took the Allies till September 9th, 1943 before the Salerno landings near Naples were executed (Operation AVALANCHE). Almost immediately afterwards most landing ships were transferred to the Pacific, which by then had become the main focus point for the Americans.

At the end of 1943 the balance was that Tunis was liberated, Sicily occupied, together with the South of Italy. The Allies were still 80 miles short of Rome, which only fell on June 5th, 1944.
A valuable year wasted…

It is clear to all that the original idea of an ‘emergency’ landing in N-W Europe in 1942 to prevent the collapse of the Soviet Union (operation Sledgehammer), was immature.
But an invasion between May and July 1943 was certainly possible. Such an invasion would have coincided with the landing in Southern France (Operation ANVIL DRAGOON) - as originally planned - and with a large Russian offensive, because the Russians could not afford the invasion to fail.
The Germans would have had great problems shifting forces between the West and the East, because the Eastern front was still deep in the Soviet Union.
Two new fronts in France and an amphibious thread against Italy would in my opinion have been too much for Germany.
The men were available: more then 1.000.000 soldiers – many veterans – were fighting a useless campaign in Italy, there were 16 British divisions training in England and the US Army had already expanded to 73 divisions and 176 Air Groups.
The tanks were available: the Allies already had quantitative superiority and the qualitative gap hardly existed yet.
The planes could have been made available: throughout WW II the Allies lacked enough air transport (C-47’s/Dakota’s). Yet if priority had shifted from building strategic bombers – who never formed a real alternative for an invasion anyway – to transports (and ASW patrol planes) and if the P-51/Mustang would have been ordered in October ’42 (when it was ready), instead of in October ’43, planes would not have been a problem either.
The amphibious ships were available: the HUSKY-fleet in ’43 was bigger than the OVERLORD-fleet in ’44; the US Navy had already tens of thousands of landing craft (only 2.500 of the US Navy’s total of 31.000 landing craft took part in OVERLORD!).
The technology was not available – yet, but with the proper sense of priority there is little doubt that all gadgets of D-Day could have been produced one year earlier; amphibious tanks were already tested and the MULBERRY artificial harbour concept existed already in 1942!

The only thing really lacking was the Atlantic Wall as a continuous defence line.

[Kapitan]

We would have been anialated if we went at that time it would be another dunkirk.

[STEED]

We would have been anialated if we went at that time it would be another dunkirk.

Or we landed but at a higher price and got bogged down for months.

[Abraham]

We would have been anialated if we went at that time it would be another dunkirk.
Any arguments?
The Germans were at the Eastern front at that time...

[Abraham]

We would have been anialated if we went at that time it would be another dunkirk.

Or we landed but at a higher price and got bogged down for months.
No, that's what happened in reality.
And you care about prices? Guess what the campaign in Italy costed, from the Salerno landings, to Monte Cassino, to Anzio, to the Gotha-line. Those were WW I prices, paid for nothing.
And as far as prices are concerned, you also have to take the price on one extra year of war into account as well, for soldiers at the Eastern front, Jews in extermination camps, political prisoners in concentration camps, German civilians being bombed, I mean, the whole madness of war.
Iven if the losses in 1943 would have been double those of D-Day 1944 (= 5.000) it would have been a succes on the cheap, to put it bluntly.

Any war should be conducted as efficiently and swiftly as possible. Time is every's enemy, and in the spring of 1944 especially the enemy of the Allies, with the Russians conquering Eastern Europe and the Germans planting mines by the millions, anti-invasion obstacles on the beaches and the drop zones, inundating the low-lands and develloping the V-1, the V-2 and the Me 262.
The Allies were in a hurry without hurrying...

[STEED]

Is it true the U.S.A wanted to invade in 1943?

[Abraham]

The U.S.A. wanted to invade N-W Europe in the second half of 1942. That was premature.
But in 1942 Churchill and Roosevelt definitely decided to invade N-W Europe in 1943 and promised Stalin so.
However, as I posted before, the Allies were not that daring and agressive in North Africa, got their priorities wrong (thanks to C.I.S. Lord Alanbrook, who convinced Churchill to attack Italy instead of France, lost subsequently 6 months to conquer - without military necessety - Tunisia and thus lost the chance to end the war late 1943.

[STEED]

It's still a bit of a tricky one, but you put up a good case Abraham. I would give it even odds. :up:

[Abraham]

Because D-Day was a great succes and the Allies subsequently won the war, nobody ever challenged the grand strategy of the winners.
Just imagine how far the bulk of the German army was from Normandy in spring 1943; the Eastern front was roughly along the line Leningrad - Smolensk - Orel - Kursk - Karlov - Rostov (Crimea!).
I'm quite convinced that a double invasion in Normandy and the South of France, as planned, would have provided the Germans with insurmountable problems.
And the attack of Italy was unnecessairy because after North Africa had fallen Italy had lost it's stomach for continuing a world war against Britain and the USA.

[Kapitan]

It does boil down to stupid decisions on both sides that prolonged the war for each other.

[August]

You guys are forgetting the Pacific theater. In 43 they were already making do with much less than the ETO and paying the price in blood.

[Abraham]

@ August:
I am a great admirer of the the US Fleet and Maribe operations in the Pacific, especially the carrier group and the submarine actions. I'm less enthousiastic about the MacArthur campaign. I think that the Navy and Marines could have brought Japan to the brink of surrender by themselves.
However, there was a top strategic decision to beat Germany first, being the greater danger to both Britain and America.
That decision was being circumvened by Admiral Ernest King and, on a lower - but still very influencial level - by Douglas MacArthur.
After it became clear to the Americans that no invasion in N.W. Europe would take place in 1943, most of it's warmaking capacity concentrated upon the Pacific Theater. I already gave the example that in May, 1944 the US Navy had more than 31.000 landing craft of which only 2.500 were made available for Operation OVERLORD.

I dare say that as from the second quarter 1942 most of the Navy's resources and a smaller but still substantial part of the Army's resources were directed towards the Pacific.

[Type941]

hat might have been possible, because..

Or rather hat might have been possible, IF:

The Brits let the French fight and ignored the government. It was a fatal call of Churchill to acept the defeat of France and listen to the government that was panicking. Ok, his many commanders were panicking too, but at that stage he abandoned the Belgians, and Netherlands and French who militarily were stronger has command collapse. They also made so many mistakes in the early days of war that had no confidence at all... The facts tell a different story. When the brits actually fought, they were excellent. When the french tanks engaged germans one on one - they beat them. But then they never realized that command of air was decisive, and that Germans achieved it not by outnumbering - but by flying 4 times more sorties since they had bases close to France. Brits who were safe behind he lines, managed 1-2. So yes, a 1943 D-day was possible. But the whole WW2 might have ended in 1940 had the Allies actually fought the Germans. But the government made the calls, and a propoganda after the war made the French into cowards, and germans into monster machines, when reality was probably much more different. This WW2 the more you study it, the more amuzed you get at HOW much different it would have been had it not been for the failures of command in the early ears of war.

But all we are told is that French wasted all their efforts on Maginot line. Which is complete crap, as in WW2 allies and germans realized just how good those forts actually were. Doesn't it strike you as odd as history trembles before the german reinforced concrete structures with MG42s and flaks, while at the same time dismissing the maginot line as completely old school and useless? I think it's rather ironic. :)

[August]

@ August:
I am a great admirer of the the US Fleet and Maribe operations in the Pacific, especially the carrier group and the submarine actions. I'm less enthousiastic about the MacArthur campaign. I think that the Navy and Marines could have brought Japan to the brink of surrender by themselves.

I disagree. Besides the Army Air Corps providing strategic bombing, land based fighter and close air-ground support etc, Army ground troops were used in nearly every major land engagement in the Pacific theater, from Guadalcanal, to the Aleutians, Saipan, New Guinea, Peleliu, Okinawa and so forth.

The USMC just wasn't big enough to do the whole job themselves. Nothing to do with their soldiering abilities it's just that the Army had the numbers and the heavy equipment, artillery, tanks, Engineers, etc that was needed to take and hold ground beyond the reach of Naval gunfire.

I agree that MacArthur made several mistakes, especially early on in the war, but retaking the Phillipines was necessary, both from a military standpoint as well as for the national honor.

Here's an interesting site which details some of the Army contributions to the ground campaigns in the pacific.

http://www.army.mil/cmh/brochures/westpac/westpac.htm

[joea]

August and Type941 excellent posts. :up:

[August]

August and Type941 excellent posts. :up:

I worked on the punctuation until my fingers bled... :D

[Khayman]

It was a fatal call of Churchill to acept the defeat of France and listen to the government that was panicking.

I thought Churchill visited the French when he heard they were contemplating surrender. He went personally to try and revive their spirits and get them to fight on. He didn't accept the defeat of France of at all, in fact it depressed him.

Incidently I remember reading a book by a German commander (memory is a bit vague sorry) and he said he was surprised that Britain and France didn't attack them when most of their units were still in Poland. Germany was apparently wide open for attack.

As for the OP. What I've read so far says that Overlord needed the years of planning and build-up. Amphibious operations are extremely hazardous. I don't quite know enough about the war to qualify that statement, but thought I'd shove my 2p in seeing as I'm posting anyway :)

[Abraham]

What I've read so far says that Overlord needed the years of planning and build-up. Amphibious operations are extremely hazardous. I don't quite know enough about the war to qualify that statement, but thought I'd shove my 2p in seeing as I'm posting anyway :)
Don't believe what you're reading. The amphibious operations in the Pacific usually took a few months of preparations. Operation TORCH, the cross-ocean(!) landings in North Africa, took about five months tp prepare. Operation HUSKY, the landings in Sicily, with a bigger fleet than was used on D-Day, took ten weeks to prepare. Operation AVALANCHE, the Salerno landing, took no more than 2 months to prepare.
With the necessary urgency and advance planning attack on N.W. Europe could have replaced both HUSKY and AVALANCHE in nid 1943, especially since to German opposition was extremely weak at that time. Harbours like Cherbourg, Brest, Calais, Ostend and even Calais had inadequate land defenses at that time, which situation was corrected only after January 1944 and subsequently caused the Allies lots of logistic misery after the breakout from Normandy. (Read Von Rundsted's inspection reports in Oct. 1943).

[Type941]

It was a fatal call of Churchill to acept the defeat of France and listen to the government that was panicking.

I thought Churchill visited the French when he heard they were contemplating surrender. He went personally to try and revive their spirits and get them to fight on. He didn't accept the defeat of France of at all, in fact it depressed him.


Well not exactly. I'll quickly mention, that German commanders when writing their diary often exaggerated things and also belive in their own propoganda. But one this is true - they were indeed wide open for attack. Why? They lost a LOT os things actually, especially in Holland. Poland also had a huge army left. It held out for a month, not for a week as the myth believe. But that's another story. Now about Churchill.

I think you read part of that propoganda too. From the non bandwagonner analysts, it reads something like this - Churchill (a historian in a way) knew how french operated. He knew that command would collapse but as military they would still fight on. That's what he was trying to convince the Frenchies in the first place. Don't give up, you can do it. Routs happen in a war. Rout is not a lost war. But at the time, most of his commanders were just itching for a retreat. They waited for the call. all was prepared. And guess what - officially CHurchill had a note from the French government that they surrender. So he just went along. Some people who really studied that time believe (and I agree) that Churchill should have actually fought the war. But at the time, as said, everyone was basically panicking. It looked like germans had millions of airplanes (thanks to flying many more sorties ;)) and thousands of tanks. Also myths of destroying Poland in 1 week (it was 1 month at least!) and bombing of Amsterdam really did make them brown their pants. That's true. So they were totally demoralized and eager to retreat.

Sad thing is they completely failed to learn lessons of failure and would repat them later (throwing themselves at germans en masse, only to be shot to pieces). And they also failed to understand (opposite to germans) that 2 key doctrines that dominated pre war thinking (tank as a main weapon aimed at destroying the enemy communication, a perpeteously moving machine killing all and all; and airplane bomber thinking it was unstoppable and needed no protection, and was accurate too.)

Germans by the way, always used Luftwaffe as support for its ground forces. Brits made the big mistake of leaving them fight their own war. And that's how the mythical air superiority was achieved! Allies were not there or there but too late. They also thought it was better to save planes rather than fight the enemy with everything at once. A tactic that proved fatal for french and polish airforces to give a couple of examples...

[Neutrino 123]

You guys are forgetting the Pacific theater. In 43 they were already making do with much less than the ETO and paying the price in blood.

Are you sure this is entirely accurate? I was under the impression that in 1943, things improved alot in the Pacific theatre, and that the difficult operations (that had to make do with small forces and bad equipment), Guadelcanal and Buna, were over very early in 1943, before a 1943 invasion of France would begin to have an effect..

Toward the end of 1943 the Central and Southwest Pacific operations began. With fewer Pacific resources, the Southwest Pacific would be regulated to a secondary theatre, to tie down Japanese troops. Overall U.S. Army presence in the Pacific would be reduced, but it would still be enough to support the Central Pacific drive.

Without a major attack in the Southwest Pacific, the Japanese would probably be able to reinforce the Central Pacific theatre more, leading to more casulties. However, the total casulties could easily be less, since the Southwest Pacific would have much less intense fighting. The overall result after the Central Pacific drive would be a huge number of trapped Japanese forces, completely useless for Japan.

As for the Phillipines, why bother with them after the Central Pacific is secured? The troops in them would be trapped, and the supply lines to Japan would already be cut. The United States might have an obligation to defend the Phillipines, but that doesn't mean it needs to be drawn to them like a bee to flowers. This is the attacking counterpart of "Do not yield one inch of the motherland!" The best way to liberate the Phillipines is to defeat Japan. In fact, if the Phillipines were never invaded, it might have been better for the U.S., the Japanese, and the Phillipinos since the fighting would not occur there, and Japan would have surrendered regardless of wheather they had an isolated garrison in the Phillipines.

[TLAM Strike]

As for the Phillipines, why bother with them after the Central Pacific is secured? The troops in them would be trapped, and the supply lines to Japan would already be cut. The United States might have an obligation to defend the Phillipines, but that doesn't mean it needs to be drawn to them like a bee to flowers. The Philippines were a stepping stone to Formosa (Taiwan) incase we needed to invade there. Plus it had dock facilities useful for actions to the north (next closet major docks were in Guam and Singapore IIRC.)

In fact, if the Phillipines were never invaded, it might have been better for the U.S., the Japanese, and the Phillipinos since the fighting would not occur there, and Japan would have surrendered regardless of wheather they had an isolated garrison in the Phillipines. You are forgetting the battle of Leyte Gulf. Invading the Philippines cost the IJN 4 aircraft carriers, 3 battleships, 8 cruisers, and 12 destroyers. Leyte Gulf and the Battle of the Philippine Sea 6 months before (Three Carriers sunk 3 Damaged) succeeded in eliminating the IJN's mobile carrier force.

[Neutrino 123]

...but we didn't need to invade to invade Formosa, so...? Also, there were plans to just bypass the Phillipines and go straight to Formosa.

Guam is close to Iwo Jima, though Okinawa does benifit from a closer distance to the Phillipines. Still, this isn't really a massive benifit as few U.S. ships were crippled at this point.

As for the naval battles for the Phillipines, they were definitely important (I was refering to the land battles). However, I would think that with the U.S. carrier supremacy, if the Japanese units were not destroyed at Leyte Gulf, they would have been eventually. In fact, it might have been less harsh for the U.S. since the confusing circumstances that resulted in the surface attack on the escort carriers might have been avoided.

[TLAM Strike]

But if we didn't take the Philippines and those carriers were still around its possible the Japanese might have been able to launch a reinvasion (is that even a word?) of say the Marianas or reattack Midway via Wake and Marcus. Imagine if we had to chase down their Carrier groups and retake islands because all our efforts were geared toward heading right towards Japan, we end up with enemy strongholds to the south of our offensive that could be used to launch attacks against our rear areas.

I don't doubt that their handfull of CVs and BBs would have been hunted down by the Allies massive fleet of flattops but an intact force of carriers on the counteroffensive could have bought the Japanese time if they had the support of operating closer to the home islands.

[Neutrino 123]

An intelligantly used carrier task force could certainly cause mayhem, but what are the odds that the Japanese could pull off a nasty surprise at this time? In Autumn '44 the U.S. would have a strong presence at Guam, so the Japanese would have to circumvent that without being spotted. Then, assuming the U.S. didn't have a signifigant air force at the base they attacked, the Japanese would have to conduct a quick operation, landing in a well-defended island with a large force. In addition, wasn't the U.S. reading the Japanese codes by then?

Historically, I suppose the Japanese could have tried something like this between the invasions of Guam and the Phillipines, but they didn't...

I don't think the Japanese would even consider something like this. They wanted a decisive battle on as favorable terms to them as possible. A raid might be a nusiance, but if it lead to a decisive battle, the Japanese would be at a disadvantage. The Japanese were trying to win the war, and they did not accept defeat and try to work within those limits as a modern commander might if trying to "score points" :ping: as the Japanese side (does this make sense?).

[TLAM Strike]

I kinda see your point but Operation Ten-Go just keeps coming to mind.

[Abraham]

I think it is highly unlikely that the Japanese had the power to launch an amphibious counterstroke against any US occupied territory after they were kicked off Quadalcanal. Remember, an re-invasion/occupation requires not just to put an X number of troops on a defended shore, but to sustain their fighting capacity over an extended period. That's why the Japanese failed on Quadalcanal in '43, the US was already superiou in menpower and naval power.
After mid '43 the US Navy constantly tried to engage the Imperial Fleet, but the Japanes only wanted to fight under the most favourable conditions, which they seldom encountered.

Remember also these points.
1. the Office of Naval Intelligence could decipher (parts of) the main Japanese codes;
2. the Seabees turned every occupied island - sometimes within days into an unsinkable aircraft carrier - major airfields with long range bombers and patrols were often prepared within weeks;
3. The full Japanese merchant fleet was needed to transport raw material for the minimal Japanese war recources.

My conclusion: at the beginning of 1943 Japan had lost it's offensive capacity and was already on the way of losing the Pacific war.
To go back to the original topic: Of course US Army and Army Air Force units were needed to sustain the Pacific campaign, but the Army advance by MacArthur had more political than military significance. One could ask of - given the "Germany First" grand strategy decision, the US did not direct too much resources towards the Pacific (which was of course the consequence of British pre-occupation with the Medditerranean).

[Konovalov]

I think that the best way to explore WWII what if's is by dragging out the old boardgame Axis and Allies. :-j

[Type941]

HOw did this end up a discussion about Philippines?? :rotfl:

[TLAM Strike]

:ping: Taking this even more off track. Today (or tomrrow depending on the rotation of your location) the 7th is the day the Yamato was sunk. :ping:

[joea]

I don't see why the Phillipines were not important, at least from a political standpoint. I have one Filipino friend who told me of his family's experience during the war. His father, who became a diplomat after the war, was in the resistance, his mom had to follow with some of the kids as she had seen a neighbour iirc shot in front of her by Japanese soldiers threatning her to say where her husband was. Well going off on a tangent here again.

Yamato you say TLAM?

[Type941]

i mean on scale of things, philippines is as useful as allies fighting in Norway.

[Abraham]

@ joea:
I have been defending the case for an Allied invasion in N.W. Europe in mid-1943.
The reason is that in my opinion such an attack might well have brought victory over Germany before the end of 1943 or early 1944, with a tremendous saving of lives (including German lives) and a lot less misery.
In order to reach that goal the Allies should have stuck to their original grand strategy of "Germany (being the greater danger) first."
What happened was that substantial US Navy and Army forces were committed in the Pacific theater that - officially - had no priority. That means it was a strategic distraction.
The argument for the liberation of the Phillipines can be that it was a political necessety. I dont know if it was that or a personal thing for MacArthur to keep his vow "I shall return". But political objectives tend to distract from military objectives and thus from ending wars

The 'justification' of liberating the Philipines can't be the suffering of the local people. First of all because peopleelsewhere under Japanese occupation, in the Dutch Indies and in Burma or Korea, were suffering as much, which only shows that strategy has to be determined by other factors. Secondly because a well thought out strategy ends the war at the soonest and therefor ends all war-related suffering the soonest.

Some have argued in this thread that an invasion in mid 1943 could have only succeeded at a much higher casualty toll. I doubt that and have not seen valid arguments. But even if the losses of the campaign to liberate Western Europe in 1943 would have been - say - double of those in 1944/1945, but the war in Europe would have ended ultimo 1943 or early 1944, countless more lives would have been saved in Europe.
Then the whole sea, land and air might of the Allies would have turned against Japan and finished the Pacific war earlier as well, saving lives again...

[Neutrino 123]

I don't think the European war would have ended in 1943. The Germans still had alot of room to retreat in the east, and the Western Allies would have encountered the same logistics problems as historically. Perhaps after a major spring and/or summer offensive in 1944, Germany would be occupied. Certainly by Christmas '44 :ping: even if the Allies made a couple major screwups.

For the Pacific theatre, I don't see how it could have ended earlier then it did. After a European campaign, forces could be transfered to the Pacific, but the central Pacific islands of Iwo Jima and Okinawa would still have to be secured, and the preparation for the invasion of Japan would be a long undertaking as well, preceded by strategic bombing. The ability to invade would probably be obtained a little earlier (it was historically set for November 1 1945), but by that time the atomic bombs would be ready and dropped on time, ending the war as historically.


...of course, there is one wildcard. With the USSR suffering somewhat less then historically, the frontier moved closer to Soviet borders, and the ability of Western airpower less evident (until attacks on Japan), Stalin may have decided to spread the revolution to the rest of Europe...

[Type941]

@ joea:
I have been defending the case for an Allied invasion in N.W. Europe in mid-1943.
The reason is that in my opinion such an attack might well have brought victory over Germany before the end of 1943 or early 1944, with a tremendous saving of lives (including German lives) and a lot less misery.
In order to reach that goal the Allies should have stuck to their original grand strategy of "Germany (being the greater danger) first."

You forgetting that the earlier you dig, the better the german army was still. German army was just better than US, British, Soviet, French. Period. Defeating them would never be easy as long as allies used wrong tactics. Take France for example.

Allies were as Hitler, advocates of mass armor advances, and by that point commanded air superiority just as Germans have in 1940s. They thought: We put all those tanks in one huge move and run over whole France and strike into the heart of Germany. It was basically impossible. Why. Simple. Logistics.

In france, the roads are narrow, have the hedges on sides, and terrarain in lines of advance is not the best for movement of armor. In 1920s, the tank was an ultimate offroad machine. In 1940s, it was not. Remember that. The tank of WW2 was either weakly armored, thin tracked, attack machine (aka Sherman) or heavy beast incapable of taking even bridges (aka Tigers). There were excellent tanks like the Pershing later, and T34 but some were too late on battlefield, others were not in Normandy. So you have these tanks that heavily relied on roads. And you had columns stretching for tens of miles of tanks, going 2 abreast maximum! It's too narrow of a front to conduct a warfare that Allies thought they would. That's a reason why Market Garden was a failure actually. The tank reinforcements just never got in time to releave the brave paratroopers who were expected to hold their own against the german divisions (ones that intelligence didn't anticipate in the first place but did suprise the germans at first). The tanks took too long to get through to Andheim and that was because they had only one higheway to take! 2 tanks abreast, it was easy to bog down by even the crappies german derfences, and infantry ended up clearing forests around the highway in order to get the tanks through. And it was to late. It's a perfect example of how inefficient the tank was at times when not accounted for Terrarain! That's something Monty, Patton and Bradley didn't anticipate, and something Eisenhower more or less understood, but not too well. Germans on the other hand understood it perfectly!

The superiority of German army would not have allowed the allies to march over them. The only reason they actually lost by 44 was because of Hitler's own beliefs in armor and tanks. He instead of letting the germans do what they do best = defend = threw them all in pointless counteroffensive, virtually destroying them. But still, this is not to say the german army was beaten in 44.

There was this huge offensive in 44 (was it august?) that Hitler threw in order to relieve Caen, and that surpirsed the allies, but they quickly responded and stopped the advance. Than Monty attacked and found out that German defences were completely depleted. All of a sudden the whole german army in france collapsed and retreated. The allies couldn't believe - at that point everyone believed the war was won. Far from it. Germans retreated fast, took up new defencive locations (Metz whcih was oh so heavily fortified and gave so much trouble to 3rd US Army - while being guarded by probably the least capable of german miliatary!).


ALl in all, there is an interesting fact that tells about why GErmans were better. It's miliatry doctrine and leadership. In 1900s, germans had twice as many officecers and subcoms than French. During WW1, they lost less of them than French. And by end of WW1, they had a lot of miliatary officers with war experience. The fact that all notable commanders of WW2 are the ones with WW1 experience (Eisenhower, Monty, Bradly, Patton) only strenghtens the point. So germans in fact had very good leadership, especially thanks for the 100thou man army imposed by treaty. They had the best. And while infantry wasn't as good as it was in WW1, the command made up for those defficiences. A better commanded army was always better suited to adopt fast to new conditions, better organized, better changed rout into offense, better defend, better coordinate, you name it. And when looking at it - those were exactly the strenghts of the Germans the allies recognised and never been able to master.

There is a story of Monty relieving an officer of command who protested by saying he studied doctrines and tactics for months and months, and Monty said that Germans studied it for all their lives.

So 1943 Normandy, less casulties?... Who knows, but defeating Germans would never be easy for the allies, unless they fought them the way Russians did on eastern front in the end - broad front offensive simply overwhelming. When Allies were doing this, they were winning. As soon as it deteriorated into localized conflicts, they got bogged down.

Casulties toll would have been less had there not been bombings on civilian population = that's for sure.

Romans raised down Carthage, but they didn't pretend it was an unexcapable part of war. They did it on purpose. They were not kidding anyone. They were successful too. Allies raised down cities by aerial bombing and later claimed it was part of war effect and civilian casulities were unfortunate part of the war. But it was never really successful, and with much more bull****.

[TLAM Strike]

The fact that all notable commanders of WW2 are the ones with WW1 experience (Eisenhower, Monty, Bradly, Patton) only strenghtens the point.Well not the Japanese ones... Although Yamamoto served in the Russo-Japanese War as an ensign (and lost two fingers)

WWI experience doesn’t mean a commander wasn't good.

[Drebbel]

Anyone knows if the allies already had enough troops, army hardware, airforce hardware, ships, etcetera in the UK to make this 1943 D-Day possible ? And also have some spare stuff to cover their back ?

[Type941]

Anyone knows if the allies already had enough troops, army hardware, airforce hardware, ships, etcetera in the UK to make this 1943 D-Day possible ? And also have some spare stuff to cover their back ?

They didn't. US was starting to flood the brits with tanks, but Brits lacked in infantry heavily. It was bogged down in italy, depleted after fighting in Africa.

Put it this way: the way they thought wars should be fought and won were incorrect and even if they had enough manpower, they would have still made the same mistakes, but probably against a more powerful enemy. ;) In 1943 the effect of bombing was pretty much zero, except a lot of earth was moved about, and civilians were dying. Militarily they couldn't achive much against the germans, and in 43 their didn't have good guns in numbers to trouble the german's who had excellent 88s and 75s (which was a high velocity gun standard in end of war on panzers and was mighty good, but often only the 88s gets the credit). Thanks to Russians btw, you should see the pics of German T34s!

http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/town/avenue/vy75/pictures/T34-G2.jpg

http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/town/avenue/vy75/pictures/T34-G.jpg

[Abraham]

Anyone knows if the allies already had enough troops, army hardware, airforce hardware, ships, etcetera in the UK to make this 1943 D-Day possible ? And also have some spare stuff to cover their back ?
The Allies landed and sustained a military force of about 1.000.000 in the Medditerranean, which force produced remarkably few results and had long lines of supply.
A much smaller force in the South of Italy combined with threats of amphibious landings behind the lines would have forced the Germans to keep a substantial presence in Italy and would have allowed the Allies to move hundreds of thousands of experienced combat troops to Britain to prepare for an invasion.
Sustaining a force in Italy put much more pressure upon communications and logistics than preparations for an invasion in 1943 would have done. Thus, the Allies would have been able to build up the necessary supplies quite rapidly.

And remember, the German army was fighting deep in Russia and did not have tanks (in substantial numbers) that were superior to the Sherman tank.
Also such an invasion should have coincided with a Russian spring or summer offensive on a broad front, complicating the German defensive problems even more.

[Type941]

And remember, the German army was fighting deep in Russia and did not have tanks (in substantial numbers) that were superior to the Sherman tank.

They key word here is 'numbers'. One on one, nothing americans or brits had could trouble Panzer 4s, not to mention Panthers or Tigers. And yes, allies had 1 million men tied in italy (pointless) thanks to Churchil's mentioned 'striker soft underbelly of europe' tactic. The whole point of taking italy was to get some airbases to attack germany from south, but they should have stopped at certain point, not go into the whole country where germans (like 40000 army) was holding them all up for months. In other words, your assumption it was easy to relieve that force is wrong. It was not easy.

[Abraham]

And remember, the German army was fighting deep in Russia and did not have tanks (in substantial numbers) that were superior to the Sherman tank.

They key word here is 'numbers'. One on one, nothing americans or brits had could trouble Panzer 4s, not to mention Panthers or Tigers. And yes, allies had 1 million men tied in italy (pointless) thanks to Churchil's mentioned 'striker soft underbelly of europe' tactic. The whole point of taking italy was to get some airbases to attack germany from south, but they should have stopped at certain point, not go into the whole country where germans (like 40000 army) was holding them all up for months. In other words, your assumption it was easy to relieve that force is wrong. It was not easy.
You're making a factual mistake here, Type941.
The Sherman was no worse and in many aspects even better than the contemporary versions of the Pz.KW IV. The Tiger was only introduced at the beginning of 1943 and still showing teething troubles. The Panther was first introduced in mid '43 during the Battle of Kursk, with disasterous results, since it was not combat ready.
Since the Allies had a huge superiority in tank numbers since the beginning of 1943 I can't see what the Germans could have done to stop an invasion in N.W. Europe in mid 1943, especially if it was combined with a broad front Russian offensive.

[Type941]

Mk4 v2 for Germans was still much better than Sherman, especially when fitted with a proper 75mm high velocity gun. To put it bluntyly, till brits put 'real' guns into Sherman, it was a nontank fighting machine, more like a tracked armored car with gun incapable of delivering any damage to most of german top armour. Please let's not disucuss the advantages of Sherman. It had 2: speed and reliability. Not power, not cross country ability, not armor. It was significant in that it was made in huge numbers. But even early german tanks could knock it off. All due to a doctrine US had at the time that tank weren't supposed to fight tanks.

You are also completely forgetting the jagdpanzers - a unit that allies had no alternative against - a unit germans were making proportionally more than tanks towards the end of the war. What they [allies] had was either too lightly armored, or too lightly armed. Or both actually. Besides in 43 Germany had control of its resources in France and Romania (key) to keep going. And had the plan been put in place in 43, it would have been a complete disaster since it planned for a much narrower punch into the coast line by the allies, and didn't have any planning in place for landing (special vehicles for brits) than Germans would keep the allies on the beaches like the did in Italy for a while.

In 44 when landed allies had no plan at all for what to do after they took the beaches. In 43 I reckon situation would have been even worse!

[Abraham]

There was no Atlantic Wall yet and hardly any German troops in France. And the number of Jagdpanzer and 75mm high velocity equipped tanks was extremely limited. Furthermore, only the PzKW IV F, G and H could stand up to the Sherman, but had worse mobility. All PzKW III versions and the early IV's were really easy meat - as was shown in the North African campaign.

[Type941]

easy meat for vastly outnumbering shermans in afrika - hardly an argument in favour of the tank's strenght as a single unit.

[Abraham]

But a strong argument for a succesfull invasion in 1943, which is what we are discussing, right?

[August]

But a strong argument for a succesfull invasion in 1943, which is what we are discussing, right?

Not without the advantage of hindsight it isn't Abraham. Was it physically possible given what we know now? Perhaps, but then again so was knocking off Hitler while he was touring Paris if someone had foreknowledge of where and when he'd be standing.

Not so easy if given the intel available at the time...

[Neutrino 123]

Well, the Allies knew that the MkIIIs and short barreled MkIVs were ineffective against the Sherman (except at close ranges for the MkIIIs with long barreled 50mm guns), so I don't see how this point can be considered hindsight.



You forgetting that the earlier you dig, the better the german army was still. German army was just better than US, British, Soviet, French. Period. Defeating them would never be easy as long as allies used wrong tactics. Take France for example.

The German army was not better then those others you listed except at the beginning of the war. By the last part of the war, the German army had decayed somewhat (a lot by the VERY end), and the other armies had vastly improved. Take Soviet operational art for example. Only the very best German (and Western Allied) generals were able to match it. On the tactical scale, the Germans had an edge due to their flexible doctrine and good officers. They could still beat the Soviets at the tactical level, but the Western Allies greatly advanced in this area. Its troops were the best-trained, and it had extremely good artillery usage (and air-ground relations), the best in the world by far. This is demonstrated by the casualties the Western Allies suffered compared to the Germans (and Soviets) in specific operations.



Allies were as Hitler, advocates of mass armor advances, and by that point commanded air superiority just as Germans have in 1940s. They thought: We put all those tanks in one huge move and run over whole France and strike into the heart of Germany. It was basically impossible. Why. Simple. Logistics.

In france, the roads are narrow, have the hedges on sides, and terrarain in lines of advance is not the best for movement of armor. In 1920s, the tank was an ultimate offroad machine. In 1940s, it was not. Remember that.

What?! You’re saying that tanks DEvolved between the 20s and 40s in mobility? Also, only Normandy is hedgerow-country. As far as I know, the rest of France doesn’t have more hedges then anywhere else.



The tank of WW2 was either weakly armored, thin tracked, attack machine (aka Sherman) or heavy beast incapable of taking even bridges (aka Tigers). There were excellent tanks like the Pershing later, and T34 but some were too late on battlefield, others were not in Normandy. So you have these tanks that heavily relied on roads. And you had columns stretching for tens of miles of tanks, going 2 abreast maximum! It's too narrow of a front to conduct a warfare that Allies thought they would. That's a reason why Market Garden was a failure actually. The tank reinforcements just never got in time to releave the brave paratroopers who were expected to hold their own against the german divisions (ones that intelligence didn't anticipate in the first place but did suprise the germans at first). The tanks took too long to get through to Andheim and that was because they had only one higheway to take! 2 tanks abreast, it was easy to bog down by even the crappies german derfences, and infantry ended up clearing forests around the highway in order to get the tanks through. And it was to late. It's a perfect example of how inefficient the tank was at times when not accounted for Terrarain! That's something Monty, Patton and Bradley didn't anticipate, and something Eisenhower more or less understood, but not too well. Germans on the other hand understood it perfectly!


Market-Garden was a rather special example. It was an attack on an extremely narrow front. In the area between Nijmegen and Arnhem (the island) there was indeed only one road. No tanks could operate off-road, German or Allied (even T-34s couldn’t have) because it was too easy to bog down. Also, I think intelligence found out about the two SS divisions, very late, but it was decided to proceed anyway. Overall, Market-Garten was definitely a poorly planned operation for these reasons and more.




The superiority of German army would not have allowed the allies to march over them. The only reason they actually lost by 44 was because of Hitler's own beliefs in armor and tanks. He instead of letting the germans do what they do best = defend = threw them all in pointless counteroffensive, virtually destroying them. But still, this is not to say the german army was beaten in 44.

There was this huge offensive in 44 (was it august?) that Hitler threw in order to relieve Caen, and that surpirsed the allies, but they quickly responded and stopped the advance. Than Monty attacked and found out that German defences were completely depleted. All of a sudden the whole german army in france collapsed and retreated. The allies couldn't believe - at that point everyone believed the war was won. Far from it. Germans retreated fast, took up new defencive locations (Metz whcih was oh so heavily fortified and gave so much trouble to 3rd US Army - while being guarded by probably the least capable of german miliatary!).


Well, Hitler would be just as annoying in 1943 as in 1944. The offensive you are talking about was not to relieve Caen, but to cut off American units executing the Cobra breakthrough. It was a poorly planned operation, and the Allies used their tactical skill to successfully defeat it. On the other hand, the breakout into France shows that the Western Allies did not posses very good operation skills, some commanders excepted (Patton being the most obvious). The Allies made a few mistakes which prevented them from rolling into Germany by the end of 1944.
1. They send some divisions in the Cobra breakout west to Brest (and other useless places I think) just because their original plan called for that.
2. They were not very aggressive in closing the Failase pocket, allowing many Germans to escape.
3. They did not secure the Schelt estuary, and in doing so, fail to destroy the German 15th army and gain access to Antwerp as a port.
4. They did not close the trap on the German forces retreating from the Dragoon attack in southern France, allowing another large group to escape.
All these things could EASILY have been rectified, and at least 3/4 would have if Patton or the Soviets () had operation command. Even fixing one of these mistakes (the first two would have the same effect) would have prevented the Germans from forming a line on the west wall. Even with the historical circumstances, the Germans demonstrated their flexibility by managing to hold, barely, but then demonstrated their operational incompetence (a significant portion due to Hitler, of course) by executing the Ardennes Offensive.



ALl in all, there is an interesting fact that tells about why GErmans were better. It's miliatry doctrine and leadership. In 1900s, germans had twice as many officecers and subcoms than French. During WW1, they lost less of them than French. And by end of WW1, they had a lot of miliatary officers with war experience. The fact that all notable commanders of WW2 are the ones with WW1 experience (Eisenhower, Monty, Bradly, Patton) only strenghtens the point. So germans in fact had very good leadership, especially thanks for the 100thou man army imposed by treaty. They had the best. And while infantry wasn't as good as it was in WW1, the command made up for those defficiences. A better commanded army was always better suited to adopt fast to new conditions, better organized, better changed rout into offense, better defend, better coordinate, you name it. And when looking at it - those were exactly the strenghts of the Germans the allies recognised and never been able to master.


At the beginning of the war the Germans had a vastly superior officer corps compared to all other nations. However, this is because they were very innovative, not because they had more experience. The Allies had comparable numbers of officers in WWI, but they all started out with mostly bad officers because their doctrines were inferior.

The most notable commanders of the war, were, of course, the senior commanders. These commanders happened to be old enough to be officers in the previous war. That did not mean they were better officers then those less notable officers (less seniority means lower rank, and thus a lower chance to be noticeable) who did not fight in WWI.



There is a story of Monty relieving an officer of command who protested by saying he studied doctrines and tactics for months and months, and Monty said that Germans studied it for all their lives.

So 1943 Normandy, less casulties?... Who knows, but defeating Germans would never be easy for the allies, unless they fought them the way Russians did on eastern front in the end - broad front offensive simply overwhelming. When Allies were doing this, they were winning. As soon as it deteriorated into localized conflicts, they got bogged down.

Casulties toll would have been less had there not been bombings on civilian population = that's for sure.

Romans raised down Carthage, but they didn't pretend it was an unexcapable part of war. They did it on purpose. They were not kidding anyone. They were successful too. Allies raised down cities by aerial bombing and later claimed it was part of war effect and civilian casulities were unfortunate part of the war. But it was never really successful, and with much more b.s..

Eisenhower did actually advocate a “broad front” strategy. This strategy is good in some ways/situations and bad in others. However, it does not mean simply attacking all along the line. It refers to multiple major efforts in different parts of the front. Regardless of the commanders or the decisions, finishing the war wouldn’t be easy, but a 1943 invasion of France would probably have made it easier.

The British bombing campaign was usually ineffective, though it did score some successes such as Hamburg (the firestorm was a dent into the German economy), that was more by accident. The American daylight campaign targeted things vital to the war effort, but it is unknown what impact this had. The Germans geared up for total war production starting in 1943, and the production continually increased, which obscures the exact role of the precision bombing campaign. One thing is for certain, however. The bombing campaigns of both Western Allies forced the Germans to devote significant resources to counter them.

I will start a new topic later tonight comparing the German Mk IV, American Sherman, and Soviet T-34. All these tanks are actually very similar (see topic for details).

[August]

Well, the Allies knew that the MkIIIs and short barreled MkIVs were ineffective against the Sherman (except at close ranges for the MkIIIs with long barreled 50mm guns), so I don't see how this point can be considered hindsight.

I was speaking in a general sense but to answer your question, assume for a moment that this is November 1942.

You are an officer on a planning staff charged with determining the feasibility of a June 43 invasion against the Germans in western Europe.

One of the things you have to attend to is estimating the Shermans effectiveness against what the Mark IV and what other armor types they might field.

There have been some reports from North Africa of some success against enemy units armed with MkIIIs and older variant MkIV's. However at this time it is unclear whether that success is due to our equipment, their equipment, our tactics, their tactics, our good luck, their bad luck or outright will of God.

Being a thorough officer you have sent a request through channels to have the officers involved in these engagements write further reports, but several of them have since been killed in action or transferred to other combat duties outside the ETO and will be hard to reach. Their respective commanders also tend to take a dim view of their subordinates being taken away from their duties to write lengthy reports and are stalling the issue.

You also don't have a clear idea of how many mark III's, IVs, Vs, or VIs the Germans have available, or their variants, or their mechanical condition, or their crews readiness for combat. Again you have estimates and reports but these, like the ones from N. Africa, are sometimes imprecise and contradictory.

The point i'm trying to make is that hindsight is mainly about time, not facts. Time to digest and research and interview and test those facts, eliminating the things that don't add up or are uncorroborated to arrive at what you believe is the truth. The hindsight of 1942 in 1943 is not the same thing as the hindsight of 2006.

Is it feasible that the Allies could have pulled off an invasion of western europe in the summer of 43? Well, given what we know now maybe it was, but any officer who made that same call in late 42 would have been making a wild and very, vary dangerous guess with a lot of mens lives and possibly the very fate of the free world.

For any army to win a battle it has to first believe it can win. It's leaders also have to believe they can win. That confidence, bottom to top was just not there in 1943, hence it was not possible for the allies to successfully invade at that time.

[Neutrino 123]

On the countrary, the United States wanted to invade France in 1943. It was higher level British leaders that did not want to. Did they even want to in 1944? I've read wierd things about invasions into the Balkans...

As to the tanks abilities, wouldn't it be extremely simple to do armor/gun pernetration tests? You would only need one broken down panzer with a functioning turret to do everything about that model with.

It's true in a general sense that much was unknown 1943, but much was also unknown in 1944. Things were constantly changing.

[Abraham]

... Is it feasible that the Allies could have pulled off an invasion of western europe in the summer of 43? Well, given what we know now maybe it was, but any officer who made that same call in late 42 would have been making a wild and very, vary dangerous guess with a lot of mens lives and possibly the very fate of the free world.

For any army to win a battle it has to first believe it can win. It's leaders also have to believe they can win. That confidence, bottom to top was just not there in 1943, hence it was not possible for the allies to successfully invade at that time.
You don't convince me, August. It is not a matter of hindsight in my opinion. The knowledge was there, it was a matter of lack of urgency.

Emergency plans had been made to invade N.W. Europe in Brittany in 1942 if the Soviet front would collapse. (Operation SLEDGEHAMMER). These plans were premature, a succesful invasion in 1942 would have been an illusion. But invasion plans were constantly updated and it was clear to the Allied Supreme Command that a decision could only be reached in N.W. Europe.
At the Roosevelt-Churchill meeting in Washington (August '41) it was decided that N.W. Europe should be invaded in the spring of 1943 (Operation ROUND-UP). Stalin was even informed about this "Second Front in 1943"!
Plans and preparations were consequently made, but the Allies, especially the Brits, were too much distracted by the Mediterranean Theater Of Operations and subsequently lost too much time to realise the invasion in 1943 and end the war that year.

From a strategic viewpoint, 1943 was - in Europe - a lost year.
As I said, it was just a lack of urgency...

[Type941]

But a strong argument for a succesfull invasion in 1943, which is what we are discussing, right?

But Abraham, the Allies tactic that could only work was an overwhelming advance, with millions of men. That's what happened in the end. In equal number allies could never beat the germans. Germans had better army, and were better in defending and organizing after routes! Who cares about tanks, they had not enough menpower on the ground. Look up Metz 1944 if you want proof of what the crappies german garrison could do against a mighty US 3rd Army. In 1943 it was impossible, because Allies used a flawed tactic of attacking the germans. They needed MAXIMUM of people to get the offensce going, and even in 1944 after successful landing they got bogged down for months. Agree to disagree, but facts are not on your side here. ;)

[Type941]

The German army was not better then those others you listed except at the beginning of the war.

No, German army was better all the way to the end, as 44 proved. Arguing against facts with Allied propaganda you are!


What?! You’re saying that tanks DEvolved between the 20s and 40s in mobility? Also, only Normandy is hedgerow-country. As far as I know, the rest of France doesn’t have more hedges then anywhere else.

First, yes, I am saying exactly that. Tank was devised as a machine to break through the trenches, barbed wire, etc. By WW2 it was hardly a superb cross terrain vehicle it was designed to be and all armies preferred to use road highways to move tanks around – which is a key to my statement (and in 39 germany's main battle 'tanks' were less armored than WW1 french Renault Tanks... talking about Mk1 and Mk2 thingies that were the 'terror' of the allies with their machine guns in turrets!). That’s a fact. Another fact is that cross terrain they had much less speed, and ate much more fuel. That made the tank hardly a superb cross terrain vehicle. Your ‘What?!’ is a classic example of jumping to conclusion without trying to understand the point, but it’s ok. You as many others keep thinking of a tank as a perpetual moving machine, but at least you are in great company – along with Churchill, and other military leaders of the era.

On second point, yes hedgerows are mainly in Normandy but as far as I know the direction of Allied travel was through the hedgerow lands so your point is a bit mute. Breakthrough to south (as US did) was a little bit in the wrong direction to put it mildly. This is all about planning (or lack of it). Refer to my Andheim example. It doesn’t need to be hedgerows around. Small towns that were in the way of main roads with tightly packed houses made a mess of tanks. And those tightly packed towns were all over France and Belgium hence further making ‘blitz’ advances difficult. And if there were no hedgerows but soft swampy lands around, Sherman with its thin tracks was not too impressive there either.


Also, I think intelligence found out about the two SS divisions, very late, but it was decided to proceed anyway. Overall, Market-Garten was definitely a poorly planned operation for these reasons and more.

Those 2 divisions were hardly anything spectacular if you actually look at it. Yet allies simply chose to ignore the intelligence and paid the price not to mention they thought the german army collapsed after the retreat of summer 44, and were surprised that parts of 15th army appeared there which was thought to be trapped behind!. The fact that after 5 years of fighting, they still couldn’t figure out that tanks had certain drawbacks and needed terrain to fight well (goes back to my point of modern tank of WW2 being not so super cross terrain!!) proves the point they were not so good at tactics, while Germans were! Remember, this ain’t Poland 1940. it’s almost the end of war.

. Even with the historical circumstances, the Germans demonstrated their flexibility by managing to hold, barely, but then demonstrated their operational incompetence (a significant portion due to Hitler, of course) by executing the Ardennes Offensive.

Well, by that time noone could tell Hitler otherwise. But at least Germans could recruit people still, while Allies didn’t complement themselves the way Germans did (i.e. brits were badly in need of infantry by 44 thanks to pointless of war in Italy). And what I mean by this is Germans would recruit navy and Luftwaffe personnel into infantry when necessary – something Allies were not doing. Hence Germany was being so much harder to put down. And the further back they went to Germany, the better their communications got, the more will they had to fight, etc. Hitler’s decisions were known to fail and I believe the people on the ground planned for that. There is a story about a captured Kriegsmarine diver in the Ardennes offensive! :D



At the beginning of the war the Germans had a vastly superior officer corps compared to all other nations. However, this is because they were very innovative, not because they had more experience. The Allies had comparable numbers of officers in WWI .

Wrong. Before WW1, Germans had 100000 officeers roughly speaking and French had about 60000. During war much more officers from France died than from germany. Surving german officers in an army that was limited to 100000 people did wonders for training of personnel. But by 30s, this aristocratic approach was replaced by the more brutal and no less effective nationalistic approach of SS and Luftwaffe. While SS is remembered for its crimes against civilians and its pure disgusting brutality, as a fighting force it was very very capable on officer level. So your thesis is they were ‘innovative’ is a bit weak. They had more experience because they were much better at WW1 to begin with and fared much better and learned much better. Add to that better doctrines, etc and you get the picture. Allies didn’t have anywhere near of comparable numbers of officers of WW2. In Britain it was almost non existent!


The most notable commanders of the war, were, of course, the senior commanders. These commanders happened to be old enough to be officers in the previous war. That did not mean they were better officers then those less notable officers (less seniority means lower rank, and thus a lower chance to be noticeable) who did not fight in WWI.

I find it hard to follow your logic there, but I’ll say this: while germans with their 100thou army limited were able to get the best of the best from those of WW1, in Allied countries the BEST were weeded out as they were proponents of an old warfare and were concedered old fashioned. You know who got into their place? Blind worshippers of modern doctrine of the Tank and the Bomber. And as shown those were very much a wrong thought of warfare. Tanks was not perpetual all killing machine and bomber was invulnerable to AA fire. But the ideas were received and theorists got into place of experienced officers who knew how to fight on the ground. In fact so many commanders of top operations of allies were with irrelevant or small experience. Those who conducted parachute drops for Market Garden have never actually done that before. So much for experienced people in place, huh? No, germans had always better officers and subcoms, and allies did not. If you take Soviets, they had the Stalin purges to make things worse as well, but that’s separate.

Eisenhower did actually advocate a “broad front” strategy. This strategy is good in some ways/situations and bad in others. However, it does not mean simply attacking all along the line. It refers to multiple major efforts in different parts of the front. Regardless of the commanders or the decisions, finishing the war wouldn’t be easy, but a 1943 invasion of France would probably have made it easier

.
The British bombing campaign was usually ineffective, though it did score some successes such as Hamburg (the firestorm was a dent into the German economy),

First of all Eisenhower had to give command to Monty originally. That meant he had to let the details to be taken car of him. He was in favour of broad based attack, but in 43 the plan was in place for a NARROW thrust. Thanks to Monty the narrow trhust got to be NOT SO NARROW, but still was a problem. So in 43, its’ too early. They had no manpower as I keep saying but seems like you guys only listen to yourself. No manpower. 1m people in Italy. Bogged down. No infantry for the brits. And I don’t suppose the war in atlantic had an effect on things either…

And second, the Hamburg thing is a MYTH as I previously wrote. In 4 (!!!) months it was back to 80% efficiency and only kept on climbing. It was NOT a success of any chance. To the Bomber worshipper, Dresden was a bloody success. Bloody it was alright, but not a success by any human standard.

Fun topic to debate though. But I see you have some small misconception about tanks and bombers and belive in the blitzkrieg myth – something I complete disagree with. 

[Abraham]

... First of all Eisenhower had to give command to Monty originally. That meant he had to let the details to be taken car of him. He was in favour of broad based attack, but in 43 the plan was in place for a NARROW thrust. Thanks to Monty the narrow trhust got to be NOT SO NARROW, but still was a problem. So in 43, its’ too early. They had no manpower as I keep saying but seems like you guys only listen to yourself. No manpower. 1m people in Italy. Bogged down. No infantry for the brits. And I don’t suppose the war in atlantic had an effect on things either…
At least with me you have a misunderstanding here.
In my vision the invasion of North West Europe should have taken place in 1943 instead of those of Sicily (Operation HUSKY) and Italy (Operation AVALANCHE). So moost of the 1.000.000 military in the Med Theater would have been available. Perhaps there would have been an opportunity to invade Sardinia, which would have put a lot of pressure for an amphibious landing on the West coast of Italy, if only to pin German troops along the Italy coast.
Certainly the Normandy landings should have coincided with a Soviet offensive to make it impossible to withdraw troops from the - by then still extended - Eastern Front. Even a combination with landings in Southern France would have been possible, men and material wise, as was planned all along (the later Operation ANVIL DRAGOON).
I keep saying that the whole German resistance would have collapsed...
Germany did not have the manpower to fight on so many fronts, so extended and remote from one another at the same time.

Fun topic to debate though...
Sure.
Nice debate. No politics. No moderation needed. Everybody happy!
:rotfl:

[Type941]

oh, if you throw away Italy landing, it's a whole different ballgame. Wouldn't have been easy though. But that's pure wonderland. I was thinking in realities of that time and situation with 1m tied in Italy fighitng 400000 germans.

And had italy not invaded North Afrika... :P This can go into many directions now!

[Abraham]

oh, if you throw away Italy landing, it's a whole different ballgame. Wouldn't have been easy though. But that's pure wonderland. I was thinking in realities of that time and situation with 1m tied in Italy fighitng 400000 germans.

And had italy not invaded North Afrika... :P This can go into many directions now!
Well, in August 1942 the Allied leaders decided to invade N.W. Europe mid 1943 after Operation TORCH. That was the original plan, of which Stalin was informed.
The unnecessary six months delay to conquer Tunis, the landings in Sicily and Italy were later adaptions/distractions.
The Allies originally intended to skip the Mediterranean and it was Gen. Alan Brook CCIS who pushed the Allied war effort into the Med. theater.
I want to stick as close as possible to the original Allied strategy an prove that 1943 was wasted by the Allies.

[Type941]

it was Churchill's idea of invading Italy and attacking Germany from south, the 'soft underbelly' of europe (in reality riddled by alps). So don't pin it on some GI, this came from the brilliant man himself. ;)

[Neutrino 123]

The German army was not better then those others you listed except at the beginning of the war.

No, German army was better all the way to the end, as 44 proved. Arguing against facts with Allied propaganda you are!


No! You are the one basing your information on the post-war accounts of German generals! 1944 proved that the Allies were effective. Just look at the results of operations Cobra and Bagration!


What?! You’re saying that tanks DEvolved between the 20s and 40s in mobility? Also, only Normandy is hedgerow-country. As far as I know, the rest of France doesn’t have more hedges then anywhere else.

First, yes, I am saying exactly that. Tank was devised as a machine to break through the trenches, barbed wire, etc. By WW2 it was hardly a superb cross terrain vehicle it was designed to be and all armies preferred to use road highways to move tanks around – which is a key to my statement (and in 39 germany's main battle 'tanks' were less armored than WW1 french Renault Tanks... talking about Mk1 and Mk2 thingies that were the 'terror' of the allies with their machine guns in turrets!). That’s a fact. Another fact is that cross terrain they had much less speed, and ate much more fuel. That made the tank hardly a superb cross terrain vehicle. Your ‘What?!’ is a classic example of jumping to conclusion without trying to understand the point, but it’s ok. You as many others keep thinking of a tank as a perpetual moving machine, but at least you are in great company – along with Churchill, and other military leaders of the era.


The MkI only had machine guns, but the MkII had a 20mm cannon. The MkIII (early versions) had a 37mm, and the MkIV a 75mm. All these were in the French campaign, and all were effective against infantry that had few AT weapons (this is where the terror comes from). When the Germans had to deal with the French heavy tanks, they needed to get side/rear shots or bring up the 88s.
The German tanks may have had poor off-road ability compared to the Sherman and T-34, but they were faster then the tanks that they faced.

Also, while there might have been a few extremely light tanks (tankettes I think they were called) in the 1920s armed with machine guns that were fast with good off-road ability, most were not. In WWI, tanks were slow on road and off-road, much slower in both areas then most WWII German tanks. What is your source for these off-road 1920s tanks? The Onwar site has some early ones, but only the tankettes seem to have good off-road ability.


On second point, yes hedgerows are mainly in Normandy but as far as I know the direction of Allied travel was through the hedgerow lands so your point is a bit mute. Breakthrough to south (as US did) was a little bit in the wrong direction to put it mildly. This is all about planning (or lack of it). Refer to my Andheim example. It doesn’t need to be hedgerows around. Small towns that were in the way of main roads with tightly packed houses made a mess of tanks. And those tightly packed towns were all over France and Belgium hence further making ‘blitz’ advances difficult. And if there were no hedgerows but soft swampy lands around, Sherman with its thin tracks was not too impressive there either.

The Allies landed in Normandy historically, but in 1943 they may have landed in Pas de Calais. Even if they landed in Normandy, the hedgerows would have been less of a problem because there would be fewer Germans at first. Thus, by the time German reinforcements arrive, the Allies might be mostly out of hedgerow country. If the Germans transfered enough forces to counterattack, it might have been them learning the problems with hedgeorws...

Generally, northern France and Belgium are good tank country, with the exception of the Ardennes and Alcalse (mountains there...). Entering Germany, one begins to encounter more forested areas. The Netherlands have some good tank country, but also alot of swampish areas where tanks can bog.


Also, I think intelligence found out about the two SS divisions, very late, but it was decided to proceed anyway. Overall, Market-Garten was definitely a poorly planned operation for these reasons and more.

Those 2 divisions were hardly anything spectacular if you actually look at it. Yet allies simply chose to ignore the intelligence and paid the price not to mention they thought the german army collapsed after the retreat of summer 44, and were surprised that parts of 15th army appeared there which was thought to be trapped behind!. The fact that after 5 years of fighting, they still couldn’t figure out that tanks had certain drawbacks and needed terrain to fight well (goes back to my point of modern tank of WW2 being not so super cross terrain!!) proves the point they were not so good at tactics, while Germans were! Remember, this ain’t Poland 1940. it’s almost the end of war.

Poland 1939 you mean...
The 9th and 10th SS panzer divisions were indeed VERY depleted, but to parachute divisions, they could still pack quite a punch. Market-Garten was indeed an example of poor Allied planning.
Of course, right afterward, the Germans launched Wacht Am Rhein, sending their tanks into a dense forest with only a few roads. Not exactly the smartest thing to do...and they paid the price for that. It was their last major offensive.


. Even with the historical circumstances, the Germans demonstrated their flexibility by managing to hold, barely, but then demonstrated their operational incompetence (a significant portion due to Hitler, of course) by executing the Ardennes Offensive.

Well, by that time noone could tell Hitler otherwise. But at least Germans could recruit people still, while Allies didn’t complement themselves the way Germans did (i.e. brits were badly in need of infantry by 44 thanks to pointless of war in Italy). And what I mean by this is Germans would recruit navy and Luftwaffe personnel into infantry when necessary – something Allies were not doing. Hence Germany was being so much harder to put down. And the further back they went to Germany, the better their communications got, the more will they had to fight, etc. Hitler’s decisions were known to fail and I believe the people on the ground planned for that. There is a story about a captured Kriegsmarine diver in the Ardennes offensive! :D

The Allies (especially the British) could certainly have managed their personell more effective, but the reason they did not transfer personell from the Air Force and Navy was becuase thier Air Force and Navy did not get destroyed, like the Germans' did. Their air force and navy actually needed the personell! :ping:



At the beginning of the war the Germans had a vastly superior officer corps compared to all other nations. However, this is because they were very innovative, not because they had more experience. The Allies had comparable numbers of officers in WWI .

Wrong. Before WW1, Germans had 100000 officeers roughly speaking and French had about 60000. During war much more officers from France died than from germany. Surving german officers in an army that was limited to 100000 people did wonders for training of personnel. But by 30s, this aristocratic approach was replaced by the more brutal and no less effective nationalistic approach of SS and Luftwaffe. While SS is remembered for its crimes against civilians and its pure disgusting brutality, as a fighting force it was very very capable on officer level. So your thesis is they were ‘innovative’ is a bit weak. They had more experience because they were much better at WW1 to begin with and fared much better and learned much better. Add to that better doctrines, etc and you get the picture. Allies didn’t have anywhere near of comparable numbers of officers of WW2. In Britain it was almost non existent!

The Germans benifited signifigantly from their officer advantage in WWI. However, the armies changed alot in that war. By the end of the war, I doubt they had twice the number of officers the French, British, and Americans had in their armies per capita.

The 100,000 man army does not have anything to do with the effectiveness of Germany. The Germans would have had those officers whether it was 100,000 or 300,000. The 100,000 army did indeed ahve a high concentration of officers because Germany wanted to be able to expand its army quickly in time of war. By the time war broke out, Germany had sufficient numbers of officers and non-comissioned officers as well. I'm not sure about how many officiers per capita they had at this point compared to the allies, but the important thing was that their officers were much more effective. This was due to superior doctrines, particularly the emphasis of agressiveness and initiative at the small-unit level.

The Heer was responsible for its on training. Luftwaffe ground and SS units made up only a tiny, tiny percentage at the beginning of the war.


The most notable commanders of the war, were, of course, the senior commanders. These commanders happened to be old enough to be officers in the previous war. That did not mean they were better officers then those less notable officers (less seniority means lower rank, and thus a lower chance to be noticeable) who did not fight in WWI.

I find it hard to follow your logic there, but I’ll say this: while germans with their 100thou army limited were able to get the best of the best from those of WW1, in Allied countries the BEST were weeded out as they were proponents of an old warfare and were concedered old fashioned. You know who got into their place? Blind worshippers of modern doctrine of the Tank and the Bomber. And as shown those were very much a wrong thought of warfare. Tanks was not perpetual all killing machine and bomber was invulnerable to AA fire. But the ideas were received and theorists got into place of experienced officers who knew how to fight on the ground. In fact so many commanders of top operations of allies were with irrelevant or small experience. Those who conducted parachute drops for Market Garden have never actually done that before. So much for experienced people in place, huh? No, germans had always better officers and subcoms, and allies did not. If you take Soviets, they had the Stalin purges to make things worse as well, but that’s separate.

On the countrary, there were many theorists that had extremely good theories. Some good ones were listened too, and some bad ones were listened too. The people that prepared for the previous war, mostly the French, did very poorly. This was becuase they did not accept new doctrines very well. They planned for static defense (for example, spread the tanks to 'stiffen up the line'), and got a mobile war. There were some French advocates of mobile war (they belatedly formed a few mobile divisions), but they were not heeded enough.


Eisenhower did actually advocate a “broad front” strategy. This strategy is good in some ways/situations and bad in others. However, it does not mean simply attacking all along the line. It refers to multiple major efforts in different parts of the front. Regardless of the commanders or the decisions, finishing the war wouldn’t be easy, but a 1943 invasion of France would probably have made it easier

.
The British bombing campaign was usually ineffective, though it did score some successes such as Hamburg (the firestorm was a dent into the German economy),

First of all Eisenhower had to give command to Monty originally. That meant he had to let the details to be taken car of him. He was in favour of broad based attack, but in 43 the plan was in place for a NARROW thrust. Thanks to Monty the narrow trhust got to be NOT SO NARROW, but still was a problem. So in 43, its’ too early. They had no manpower as I keep saying but seems like you guys only listen to yourself. No manpower. 1m people in Italy. Bogged down. No infantry for the brits. And I don’t suppose the war in atlantic had an effect on things either…

And second, the Hamburg thing is a MYTH as I previously wrote. In 4 (!!!) months it was back to 80% efficiency and only kept on climbing. It was NOT a success of any chance. To the Bomber worshipper, Dresden was a bloody success. Bloody it was alright, but not a success by any human standard.

Fun topic to debate though. But I see you have some small misconception about tanks and bombers and belive in the blitzkrieg myth – something I complete disagree with. 

As was mentioned, a 1943 invasion of France would DEFINITELY be in lieu of Italy. When I refered to a broad front strategy, I meant to strategy after the landing, not the strategy of the actual landing (one of the things that Monty got right - it was important to have a decently sized beachhead).

In my post, I agreed with you that night bombing was usually ineffective (I don't have enough information to form an opinion on daylight bombing). However, Hamburg was a success. As you said, it took FOUR MONTHS just to build back up to 80% efficientcy. This damage was inflicted in just ONE NIGHT of bombing! If the British could inflict a firestorm each time they made a major bombing raid, then bombing would have won, or at least made a huge contribution, to the war. They could not, of course, so night bombing was not too effective.
The actual damage was little, but the Germans did expend resources to defend against it. It is these wasted resources of the Germans that was the real contribution of night bombing, but Britian wasted even more resources on it, so it was definitely not a success overall.

The bombing of Dresden actually killed far less then was thought for awhile (there is an Armchair General article about this, and I have seen other sources as well). The death toll was comparible to toher bombings. I am not sure if it was a success. Did it destroy any industrial targets or signifigantly damage the war economy? I don't think damaging the regular economy would be too important this late in the war, but am not 100% sure...

As for the 'Blitzkrieg Myth', I am not exactly sure what you are talking about. I definitely do not believe that superior German tanks smashed everything in sight. The French tanks were better. It was operational and tactical ability of German officers and soldiers that was responsible for their victories. The fastness of operations is why the warfare was called 'blitzkrieg'.

[Abraham]

@ Type941:
Actually it was Gen. Alan Brooke's idea. He lured the Allies into the Mediterranean Campaign when Roosevelt & Churchill still favoured Marshall's plan to attack N.W. Europe in 1943.
Alan Brook pointed out to Churchill the political advantages of a possible Balkan campaign, the Colonial importance of appearing as a strong power in the Middle East, and played on his fears for a repetition of a trench war WW I style.
That, and some serious delays in 1942 that I pointed out earlier, swung Churchill to the idea of knocking Italy out of the war first, instead of getting France into it...

@ Neutrino 123:
Ha, another convert for D-Day, June 6th, 1943!
:D

[TLAM Strike]

Abraham I found another thing that went bad for the Allies because of the Sicily/Italy campaign. It tied up two of the Royal Navy's eastern fleet Flattops when they could have been helpful at the Solomons! HMS Indomitable and HMS Illustrious could have been helpful as could any Battleships and Battlecruisers the RN could spare. The RN CVs only carried about as much planes as a US CVL but two together could have been a sufficient fighting force although the Swordfish and Fulmar would probably be brutally slaughtered by the Zero. (or were the RN's flattops fielding the Wildcat and Advenger at this time?)

We started with Saratoga, Hornet and Enterprise and ending with just Saratoga operational, Enterprise badly damaged and Hornet sunk after the battles of Santa Cruz and Eastern Solomans.

Would have been nice to have a few British BBs at the Guadalcanal Naval Battles. Although we managed a bloody victory.

But of course while all this was going on those RN ships were busy invading Madagascar and “the soft underbelly”. Forget D-Day ’43 what about winning the Solomans and taking out Truk mid ’43 then Iwo Jima in mid ’44? :rock:

[Abraham]

Abraham I found another thing that went bad for the Allies because of the Sicily/Italy campaign. It tied up two of the Royal Navy's eastern fleet Flattops when they could have been helpful at the Solomons! HMS Indomitable and HMS Illustrious could have been helpful as could any Battleships and Battlecruisers the RN could spare...
Would have been nice to have a few British BBs at the Guadalcanal Naval Battles. Although we managed a bloody victory.

But of course while all this was going on those RN ships were busy invading Madagascar and “the soft underbelly”. Forget D-Day ’43 what about winning the Solomans and taking out Truk mid ’43 then Iwo Jima in mid ’44? :rock:
Good one, TLAM Strike.
I bet the RN would have switched to Wildcats & Avengers if it had operated in the Solomons Campaign. British carrier were armoured - one reason for their reduced air complement - and therefor better resistant to a hit by a single bomb.

But I don't agree about forgetting D-Day 1943. The basic decision to tackle Nazi Germany first was politically and militarily sound. Germany was the bigger danger, Japan was doomed fromday one (or at least from the Battle of Midway).

More personal: my parents were living under German occupation and didn't like it at all.
:D

[Type941]

Neutrino it's hard to keep qouting and replying so I will only address main issues I disagree.

1. No, German army was better than allies 1 on 1. Always. And that's not an account of some nazi diary, more like an american one that fought against them. :roll:

2. German army was superior in many key places, but perhaps the key was its use its integration of airforce into the ground troups offensive. Luftwaffe never fought its own war, unlike RAF for example. That's a key difference.

3. Blitzkrieg myth is that germans won in poland and france due to some new tactic they used. Which is bollocks and untrue but reading your belief in tank I see you still perhaps in illusions about that part, but I tried my best to despell that. I don't know what that site had, seems only tech data and few paragraphs. I recommend you read a book called Blitzgrieg Myth by John Mosier. You'll know I meant later about the bombing, the doctrines, and why german army was better - outnumbered but better.

[TLAM Strike]

British carrier were armoured - one reason for their reduced air complement - and therefor better resistant to a hit by a single bomb. Indeed. It also reportedly made them "Kamikaze-Proof". But considering that about ½* of the CVs (Full sized ones) the US lost in the Pacific were due to torpedo hits from subs I don’t know if it would have mattered.

*US CV Losses
Hornet to Aircraft at Santa Cruz
Lexington to Aircraft at Coral Sea
Yorktown to Submarine (damaged but maybe salvageable after Air Attack) at Midway
Wasp by Submarine in route to Guadalcanal
(The light Carrier Princeton was sunk to aircraft but there was no real way to give it an armored deck so I discount that)

As for CVEs (also incapable of handling an armored deck)…
Bismarck Sea to Aircraft
Block Island to U-Boat
Gambler Bay to Gunfire
Liscome Bay to IJN Submarine
Ommamey Bay to Kamikazes
St Lo to Aircraft

So only three ships (Lexington, Yorktown and Hornet) might have survived (Yorktown could go either way since she was already damaged IIRC) if they had an armored deck, but all took torpedo hits (Lexington 1, Yorktown 2- only counting Aircraft ones here, Hornet 4- also took 14 from USN and IJN forces trying to scuttle her, felt that was also of note) which an armored deck would do squat for so IMHO Lexington might have been the only one that might have been saved from sinking by an Armored deck.

But I don't agree about forgetting D-Day 1943. The basic decision to tackle Nazi Germany first was politically and militarily sound. Germany was the bigger danger, Japan was doomed fromday one (or at least from the Battle of Midway). Errr well I didn't mean don't do a NE Europe invasion (I think it could have been pushed up a few months at least, maybe not ’43 but early ‘44). I ment imagine instead for discusson a sooner end to some of the PTO battles. I guess my American way of talking makes that kind of confusing.

[Type941]

oh, one more point. You said Dresden was not so bad. If 200,000 + dead (according to german police, which was looked quite reliable) is not so bad, than I am a bit stunned. Allies would not wont to say how much they really killed in there, nor had they any means to actually verify it. Germans are known to count things well though... In any case 200 to 260 thousand is the figure that's believed died in Dresden bombing and dismissing that as some minore thing is just wrong. Saying No to my Yes is hardly a way to argue this. ;)

[joea]

Abraham I found another thing that went bad for the Allies because of the Sicily/Italy campaign. It tied up two of the Royal Navy's eastern fleet Flattops when they could have been helpful at the Solomons! HMS Indomitable and HMS Illustrious could have been helpful as could any Battleships and Battlecruisers the RN could spare...
Would have been nice to have a few British BBs at the Guadalcanal Naval Battles. Although we managed a bloody victory.

But of course while all this was going on those RN ships were busy invading Madagascar and “the soft underbelly”. Forget D-Day ’43 what about winning the Solomans and taking out Truk mid ’43 then Iwo Jima in mid ’44? :rock:
Good one, TLAM Strike.
I bet the RN would have switched to Wildcats & Avengers if it had operated in the Solomons Campaign. British carrier were armoured - one reason for their reduced air complement - and therefor better resistant to a hit by a single bomb.

But I don't agree about forgetting D-Day 1943. The basic decision to tackle Nazi Germany first was politically and militarily sound. Germany was the bigger danger, Japan was doomed fromday one (or at least from the Battle of Midway).

More personal: my parents were living under German occupation and didn't like it at all.
:D

Hey not supposed to bring suffering populations in rememeber? ;) Others were unhappy with German occupation and also Japanese. My great-grandmother and other relatives were under German occupation in Greece, my gandparents and parents part of the greek community in Egypt were mmost fortunate thanks to lots of brave Commonwealth (and indirectly Soviet ;) ) troops NOT to experience that.

[August]

Tackling Germany first does not mean allowing the Japanese to run rampant completely unopposed.

WW2 was a two theater war for the US and GB, three if you count Indian and Burma as a separate theater.

Stripping the PTO of troops to push the west european invasion up a year would have been disasterous for the Allies, especially the Australians and Chinese.

[joea]

oh, one more point. You said Dresden was not so bad. If 200,000 + dead (according to german police, which was looked quite reliable) is not so bad, than I am a bit stunned. Allies would not wont to say how much they really killed in there, nor had they any means to actually verify it. Germans are known to count things well though... In any case 200 to 260 thousand is the figure that's believed died in Dresden bombing and dismissing that as some minore thing is just wrong. Saying No to my Yes is hardly a way to argue this. ;)

Dude, for all the good points you bring up you're falling into a couple of traps too ... the German always better than anyone and all the literature and information since the war is Allied propaganda (yes saying anything the Americans did/made can't be good because Yanks crow so loudly about it is just as wrong as Americans wanting everyone else to believe it).

As for this constant talk of civlians killed in Allied bombing raids, well come clean then. How many German civilians were killed when the Red Army entered German territory...and how many died or lost homes after getting expulsed from East Prussia? One very good book I read by a Brit writer and journalist in Russia said the ordinary folks were cheered when they heard about big RAF raids on German cities...as I am sure the Brit population was. War sucks, and I mean war is hell. Again I see some fo the points you and Abraham are making...just focusing on some divergences.

[TLAM Strike]

Tackling Germany first does not mean allowing the Japanese to run rampant completely unopposed. What like they did from Dec '41 till June '42?

WW2 was a two theater war for the US and GB... For the Dutch too... well untill The Battle of the Java Sea. :(

[August]

Tackling Germany first does not mean allowing the Japanese to run rampant completely unopposed. What like they did from Dec '41 till June '42?

With the exception of the 100 thousand or so troops, airmen and sailors we lost in the Pearl Harbor, the Philippines and Wake island (not to mention those the Brits lost in Singapore and elsewhere) I suppose you could say unopposed...

[TLAM Strike]

Tackling Germany first does not mean allowing the Japanese to run rampant completely unopposed. What like they did from Dec '41 till June '42?

With the exception of the 100 thousand or so troops, airmen and sailors we lost in the Pearl Harbor, the Philippines and Wake island (not to mention those the Brits lost in Singapore and elsewhere) I suppose you could say unopposed... Wake Island and "Elsewhere" (Indian Ocean) are two perfect examples.

At Wake the USN was sending a Carrier group to resupply the island's garrison and fend off the coming Japanese invasion, then *poof* gone carrier group recalled. Leaving Marines to fend for them selves don't constitute opposition it constitutes abandonment. :damn:

The Indian Ocean Raid, Adm. Somerville allows his light carrier and two cruisers to get caught with no Air Cover and get sunk, he then fails to attack the Japanese Carrier Group that went on to bomb everything in sight. Lets see 3 Carriers against 6 might sound like long odds but where have I seen those numbers before, I’ll give you a hint most people forget to count the two IJN Escort Carriers that were not sunk… Midway. Maybe this should go in the Wasteful Operations thread but the RN had an opportunity to hurt the IJN, now I don’t expect them to “scratch” all the flattops but fight back! Get some revenge for the Repulse and Prince of Wales. But no they sit back and watch, Columbo could have been the British Midway or at least the British Coral Sea if they acted. Cornwallis was wondering why I have a low opinion of the RN well this is part of it. :x

Getting killed does not consitute opposition in my book. :nope:

EDIT: The only true resistance I see until Coral Sea was in Java. Of course that was lead by the Dutch. :rock:

"Ik val aan, volg mij!” ('I'm attacking, follow me').
-ADM. Karel Doorman (or at least according to legend)

Now that’s sentiment I can get behind! He managed to take a few Japanese with him and send the others home for repair. He knew the troops on those Transports would kill his comrades on shore and he fought till the last man (himself) to sink them. Even when the 2nd best ship in his TF (a British ship) cut and ran for port he continued on.

[August]

Tackling Germany first does not mean allowing the Japanese to run rampant completely unopposed. What like they did from Dec '41 till June '42?

With the exception of the 100 thousand or so troops, airmen and sailors we lost in the Pearl Harbor, the Philippines and Wake island (not to mention those the Brits lost in Singapore and elsewhere) I suppose you could say unopposed... Wake Island and "Elsewhere" (Indian Ocean) are two perfect examples.

Examples of what? News flash Hotshot, mistakes are made during warfare, always have and always will.

At Wake the USN was sending a Carrier group to resupply the island's garrison and fend off the coming Japanese invasion, then *poof* gone carrier group recalled. Leaving Marines to fend for them selves don't constitute opposition it constitutes abandonment. :damn:

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make TLAM. Even the abandoned can oppose those trying to kill them, and their ultimate defeat is usually anything but worthless in the bigger picture. In the case of the Phillippines (and to some extent Wake island as well), their sacrifice bought vitally needed time to get a nation ready to fight a two front war. It also supplied intelligence on the capabilities and habits of the enemy. Hardly worthless and I think your opinion does a disservice to the 100s of thousands who fought and died in those places.

[TLAM Strike]

Tackling Germany first does not mean allowing the Japanese to run rampant completely unopposed. What like they did from Dec '41 till June '42?

With the exception of the 100 thousand or so troops, airmen and sailors we lost in the Pearl Harbor, the Philippines and Wake island (not to mention those the Brits lost in Singapore and elsewhere) I suppose you could say unopposed... Wake Island and "Elsewhere" (Indian Ocean) are two perfect examples.

Examples of what? News flash Hotshot, mistakes are made during warfare, always have and always will. Examples of wasted opportunities to fight back, to really give the Japanese some resistance, not just allow their troops and garrisons to be over run.

At Wake the USN was sending a Carrier group to resupply the island's garrison and fend off the coming Japanese invasion, then *poof* gone carrier group recalled. Leaving Marines to fend for them selves don't constitute opposition it constitutes abandonment. :damn:

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make TLAM. Even the abandoned can oppose those trying to kill them, and their ultimate defeat is usually anything but worthless in the bigger picture. In the case of the Phillippines (and to some extent Wake island as well), their sacrifice bought vitally needed time to get a nation ready to fight a two front war. It also supplied intelligence on the capabilities and habits of the enemy. Hardly worthless and I think your opinion does a disservice to the 100s of thousands who fought and died in those places. Their sacrifice wasn't required, we were ready to fight at least in the case of Wake. Task Force 14 (Saratoga, Lexington, USNS Tangier AV-8, plus escorts and the 4th Marine Coastal Defense Batallion) were on their way to Wake only to be called back by Vice Admiral William S. Pye acting CINCPAC. The island could have been reinforced and maybe even an IJN carrier or two sunk but instead they left them to be captured.

[Linton]

June 10 1943 I believe was the day the allies started the invasion of Italy.Submarines were used as navigational beacons to mark the invasion beaches

[Abraham]

Tackling Germany first does not mean allowing the Japanese to run rampant completely unopposed.

WW2 was a two theater war for the US and GB, three if you count Indian and Burma as a separate theater.

Stripping the PTO of troops to push the west european invasion up a year would have been disasterous for the Allies, especially the Australians and Chinese.
Dear August,
The 'Germany First' grand strategy certainly did not mean that Japan would be unopposed. It only set priorities in a multi theater war.

What actually happened that far from stripping the PTO the US Navy under Ernest King constantly moved assets from Europe towards the Pacific and the US Army started to do the same under (partly political) pressure from MacArthur when Marshall noticed that the British tilted to put emphasis on the Mediterranean Campaign.
It's kind of tragic that - certainly in Europe - 1943 can be considered a lost year. I know from the stories of my parents that everybody expected an invasion during that year. It might or might not have shortened the war in the Pacific, but it would certainly have shortened the war in Europe with at least a year...

@ joea:
I know personal suffering is not a factor that should decide strategy. I have advocated that myself. That's why I put the smiley.
However, the suffering in Europe as a whole made it imperative to end the war as quickly as possible, to go for the guttoral and not waste time in Italy.

[August]

Task Force 14 (Saratoga, Lexington, USNS Tangier AV-8, plus escorts and the 4th Marine Coastal Defense Batallion) were on their way to Wake only to be called back by Vice Admiral William S. Pye acting CINCPAC. The island could have been reinforced and maybe even an IJN carrier or two sunk but instead they left them to be captured.

On the other hand the Lexington and Saratoga could have been sunk and the task force destroyed which would have hurt our war effort far more than loosing the 1000 or so troops we had at Wake. Pye did the sensible thing. We just could not afford to risk those carriers at that time.

I also notice you steer clear of the Phillippines. Wake was a very small side show compared to the fighting on Bataan and Corregidor.

[TLAM Strike]

Task Force 14 (Saratoga, Lexington, USNS Tangier AV-8, plus escorts and the 4th Marine Coastal Defense Batallion) were on their way to Wake only to be called back by Vice Admiral William S. Pye acting CINCPAC. The island could have been reinforced and maybe even an IJN carrier or two sunk but instead they left them to be captured.

On the other hand the Lexington and Saratoga could have been sunk and the task force destroyed which would have hurt our war effort far more than loosing the 1000 or so troops we had at Wake. Pye did the sensible thing. We just could not afford to risk those carriers at that time. We had the advantage in aircraft 180+ to 144. :yep:

I also notice you steer clear of the Phillippines. Wake was a very small side show compared to the fighting on Bataan and Corregidor. The only force that really could have helped reinforce was sunk at Java.

I didn’t bother talking about the Philippines since considering who was commanding its garrison its no wonder they were conquered. :roll: :down:

Remember its airforce detachment had 107 P-40s and 35 B-17s the largest US air formation outside the United States at that time! And what happend? Destroyed on the ground because the request to begin bombing Japanese targets was denied. The Phillipines defenses were horrably wasted. :nope:

[August]

We had the advantage in aircraft 180+ to 144. :yep:

You're quoting facts not in evidence at the time. For all we knew that task force was sailing into a trap. It's goes to what i've been saying about hindsight being 20-20. Monday morning quarterbacks always know what play should have been called, but it's not that easy when you have to make the call at the time.

The only force that really could have helped reinforce was sunk at Java.

I didn’t bother talking about the Philippines since considering who was commanding its garrison its no wonder they were conquered. :roll: :down:

Remember its airforce detachment had 107 P-40s and 35 B-17s the largest US air formation outside the United States at that time! And what happend? Destroyed on the ground because the request to begin bombing Japanese targets was denied. The Phillipines defenses were horrably wasted. :nope:

Nope sorry, even with those few aircraft AND the few ships lost at Java the Phillippines would still have fallen. They were just too far away to sustain given our capabilities at the time.

Now i'm no great fan of MacArthur but you overly blame the man for a situation that was pretty much beyond his control. Remember this. In spite of what you say he was considered valuable enough to order out, he was considered valuable enough to be kept in command throughout the war and he was considered valuable enough to be put in charge of the occupation forces in Japan after the war ended.

You'll forgive me if i take FDRs and General Marshalls opinion of MacArthurs leadership capabilities over that of some anonomous guy posting on an internet forum... :roll:

[TLAM Strike]

Nope sorry, even with those few aircraft AND the few ships lost at Java the Phillippines would still have fallen. They were just too far away to sustain given our capabilities at the time. Then by your logic we shouln't have tried to defend New Guina! Which lead to the battle of the Coral Sea.

[August]

Nope sorry, even with those few aircraft AND the few ships lost at Java the Phillippines would still have fallen. They were just too far away to sustain given our capabilities at the time. Then by your logic we shouln't have tried to defend New Guina! Which lead to the battle of the Coral Sea.


I didn't say that we shouldn't have tried to defend them, but you have to be realistic. Take a look at the map.

Bataan was over 2700 miles behind enemy lines (from Australia) New Guineas southern shore barely 100. Which one is more defensible?

More to the point which one is a better risk to employ scarce and vital naval assets to control?

[TLAM Strike]

More to the point which one is a better risk to employ scarce and vital naval assets to control? Controlling the Philippines could cut off the SLoC from Japan to Singapore and can serve as a submarine base for attacks against the main islands of Japan. If the Japanese took New Guinea the Allies could attack using both forces from Australia and the Philippines with Marine reinforcements from the States.

Holding which would be a bigger pain for the Japanese? Answer the Philippines.

[August]

More to the point which one is a better risk to employ scarce and vital naval assets to control? Controlling the Philippines could cut off the SLoC from Japan to Singapore and can serve as a submarine base for attacks against the main islands of Japan. If the Japanese took New Guinea the Allies could attack using both forces from Australia and the Philippines with Marine reinforcements from the States.

Holding which would be a bigger pain for the Japanese? Answer the Philippines.

You are ignoring reality TLAM.

What Marine reinforcements? You mean the ones flocking to recruiting stations in post Pearl Harbor patriotic fervor, who haven't even had their first military haircut yet and will be in training for months to come?

The US pacific fleet at the time was just not capable of opening and maintaining a supply line to the Phillipines sufficent to supply the troops already garrisoned there, let alone ferry in reinforcements.

Like I said, look at the map Dude.

http://www.army.mil/cmh/brochures/pi/pimap1.jpg

[TLAM Strike]

Yea if they managed to hold the Philippines the Japanese's entire South Western plan would collapse! The entrance to the Netherlands Indies, Indochina, and Malaya would be in Allied hands!

Their were plenty of Australians being sent to Europe redirect them to the Philippines and fill the gaps in Australia with green recruits.

[August]

Yea if they managed to hold the Philippines the Japanese's entire South Western plan would collapse! The entrance to the Netherlands Indies, Indochina, and Malaya would be in Allied hands!

Their were plenty of Australians being sent to Europe redirect them to the Philippines and fill the gaps in Australia with green recruits.

Wouldn't that sort of go against the "Europe First" policy? Maybe it'd have delayed Overlord until June of '45...

Hey look i understand the ramifications of being able to hold on to the Philippines but it just wasn't possible. I'm glad we had military leaders smart enough not to waste our remaining military assets trying to try it.

[Neutrino 123]

Neutrino it's hard to keep qouting and replying so I will only address main issues I disagree.

1. No, German army was better than allies 1 on 1. Always. And that's not an account of some nazi diary, more like an american one that fought against them. :roll:

2. German army was superior in many key places, but perhaps the key was its use its integration of airforce into the ground troups offensive. Luftwaffe never fought its own war, unlike RAF for example. That's a key difference.

3. Blitzkrieg myth is that germans won in poland and france due to some new tactic they used. Which is bollocks and untrue but reading your belief in tank I see you still perhaps in illusions about that part, but I tried my best to despell that. I don't know what that site had, seems only tech data and few paragraphs. I recommend you read a book called Blitzgrieg Myth by John Mosier. You'll know I meant later about the bombing, the doctrines, and why german army was better - outnumbered but better.

1.Individual accounts are VERY useful, but to draw conclusions, you will need to look at a LOT of them. "1-1" is a bit ill-defined here. If you are talking about the individual soldier level, America would have an advantage due to better rifle and more training. If at the squad level, the Mg42 in experianced hands gives the Germans the advantage. At the platoon level...etc etc. Overall, the Western Allies suffered fewer casulties then the Germans in the operations they conducted (especially if you leave out Italy). They were better supported, but also on the offensive most of the time.
One can find examples in many situations of the Allies winning engagements with inferior numbers. This is not to say that they were superior. The topic is highly argueable, and variable depening on the situation.

2. The Western Allies were far better at using their air force then the Germans. They had excellent air-ground coordiantion, unlike the Luftwaffe in the early stages of the war. Remember, the Americans and British essentially had two air forces. The strategic air forces conducted the bombing campaigns over Germany and other targets. The tactical air forces attacked German troops and logistics. These tactical air forces had a large effect, often forcing the Germans to move at night.

3. I have that book, somewhere in a long, long reading list... I'll get to it eventually...

oh, one more point. You said Dresden was not so bad. If 200,000 + dead (according to german police, which was looked quite reliable) is not so bad, than I am a bit stunned. Allies would not wont to say how much they really killed in there, nor had they any means to actually verify it. Germans are known to count things well though... In any case 200 to 260 thousand is the figure that's believed died in Dresden bombing and dismissing that as some minore thing is just wrong. Saying No to my Yes is hardly a way to argue this.

"Armchair General" magazine had an article (as I mentioned previously) about this that cites research (a new book by someone named Taylor) stating that the total was actually 25,000-40,000, less then the Hamburg total of 50,000, and much less then some of the raids on Tokyo. I'm just passing word here; I can't personally support any number since I haven't investigated it myself.
Was the bombing of Dresden ethical? That's a whole other very complicated topic...


Next person:
Tackling Germany first does not mean allowing the Japanese to run rampant completely unopposed.

WW2 was a two theater war for the US and GB, three if you count Indian and Burma as a separate theater.

Stripping the PTO of troops to push the west european invasion up a year would have been disasterous for the Allies, especially the Australians and Chinese.

It would not have been stripping the PTO, just confining the SW Pacific theatre to a lower intensity. Buna and Guadelcanal were already won by July 1943 (the time an invasion of France would take place), so Australia wouldn't have been threatened, and the Allied submarine offensive would be just as effective helping China.


June 10 1943 I believe was the day the allies started the invasion of Italy.Submarines were used as navigational beacons to mark the invasion beaches

Nope, Sicily was invaded July 10.



TLAM Strike, holding the Phillipines would certainly cause massive damage to the Japanese war effort, but how could this be done even with maximum effort? Level bombers like the B-17 are no good against ships. The Japanese had carrier supriority at this time (especially near the Phillipines, which is closer to their bases), and the Phillipines were in range of Japanese land-based bombers.





Arg, I decide to get involved in two topics, and spend all my free time today typing replies... How do you forum regulars post so much? Do you take lunch breaks, or something?
P.S. I must temporarily withdraw from the discussion, but shall return on the weekend... :ping:

[TLAM Strike]

June 10 1943 I believe was the day the allies started the invasion of Italy.Submarines were used as navigational beacons to mark the invasion beaches

Nope, Sicily was invaded July 10. Normandy as well



TLAM Strike, holding the Phillipines would certainly cause massive damage to the Japanese war effort, but how could this be done even with maximum effort? Level bombers like the B-17 are no good against ships. The Japanese had carrier supriority at this time (especially near the Phillipines, which is closer to their bases), and the Phillipines were in range of Japanese land-based bombers. I prefer to think that the Japanese land-based bomber's airbases were in range of our bombers! Take out those bases would force the IJN to sent additional CVs to the Philippines and remove the threat of night raids by twin engines bombers. If they could stock a lot of fighters (sent a CV or two to resupply like the Brits did at Malta) the IJN carrier fleet could be tied up in the Philippines (where we have a large infrastructure for aircrafts) rather than in the Indian ocean (where the RN was asleep) or trying to invade islands like Midway or the Solomons were we were basicly limited to Carrier based attack aircraft.

[August]

Normandy as well

Nope, Normandy was invaded on June 6th

I prefer to think that the Japanese land-based bomber's airbases were in range of our bombers! Take out those bases would force the IJN to sent additional CVs to the Philippines and remove the threat of night raids by twin engines bombers. If they could stock a lot of fighters (sent a CV or two to resupply like the Brits did at Malta) the IJN carrier fleet could be tied up in the Philippines (where we have a large infrastructure for aircrafts) rather than in the Indian ocean (where the RN was asleep) or trying to invade islands like Midway or the Solomons were we were basicly limited to Carrier based attack aircraft.

Dude, seriously, you need to read up more on the early pacific war. Take out bomber bases? How long does it take a few thousand peasants to fill in a few runway bomb craters? Their short supply line ensures that anything more substantial is easily replaced whereas any Allied replacements have to come from thousands of miles across enemy controlled territory.

As for sneaking in fighters there's a few big problems with that theory as well. First is availability. Factories were just beginning to tool up for war production so your fighters would take several months to be built. Second is pilots to fly them, they were also in short supply. Third, fighters are not bombers. Loads of fighters (even if they existed) would not have been able to effectively attack Japanese bases. Lack of destructive power and range limitations would ensure that. Last is the carriers themselves. As i've said a couple times already we could not afford to loose them. Even the loss of one single carrier, would likely have turned the tide at Midway in the Japaneses favor a year later.

Bataan fell in April of 42. Reinforcements would have had to be delivered a couple months before that to change the course of the battle. Seriously, look up where we were at militarily in Feb of 42. you'll see the numbers of troops, planes and ships necessary to sustain the Phillippines just weren't there yet.

You can start with this site:

http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/USA-P-PI/index.html

[TLAM Strike]

Normandy as well

Nope, Normandy was invaded on June 6th I meant they used the Subs for Navigation.

I prefer to think that the Japanese land-based bomber's airbases were in range of our bombers! Take out those bases would force the IJN to sent additional CVs to the Philippines and remove the threat of night raids by twin engines bombers. If they could stock a lot of fighters (sent a CV or two to resupply like the Brits did at Malta) the IJN carrier fleet could be tied up in the Philippines (where we have a large infrastructure for aircrafts) rather than in the Indian ocean (where the RN was asleep) or trying to invade islands like Midway or the Solomons were we were basicly limited to Carrier based attack aircraft.

Dude, seriously, you need to read up more on the early pacific war. Take out bomber bases? How long does it take a few thousand peasants to fill in a few runway bomb craters? Forget catering the runways, hit the flight lines and hangers like the intruder missions did against Germany.


As for sneaking in fighters there's a few big problems with that theory as well. First is availability. Factories were just beginning to tool up for war production so your fighters would take several months to be built. Reposition of current assets. That link you gave me said that Hawaii had 87 P-40B I think they could have spared some since the CV force was keeping closer to base at this time. Then reinforce Hawaii with planes fresh from the factories.

Third, fighters are not bombers. Loads of fighters (even if they existed) would not have been able to effectively attack Japanese bases. Who said I want the fighters to attack Japanese bases? Beachheads maybe but leave the base attacks the FFs.

Last is the carriers themselves. As i've said a couple times already we could not afford to loose them. Even the loss of one single carrier, would likely have turned the tide at Midway in the Japaneses favor a year later. We could have afforded to lose Midway!
http://www.combinedfleet.com/economic.htm
Holding on to a large island that is within striking range of Japanese targets is more important than a small atoll.

Reinforcements would have had to be delivered a couple months before that to change the course of the battle. Seriously, look up where we were at militarily in Feb of 42. you'll see the numbers of troops, planes and ships necessary to sustain the Phillippines just weren't there yet. In 1941 the US built 12,804 aircraft to Japans 4,768. We couldn't spare 500 to the Philippines?

[August]

Forget catering the runways, hit the flight lines and hangers like the intruder missions did against Germany.

Different theater of war, different situation. Intruder missions used the P-61 Black Widow, an aircraft that didn't even enter service until 1943. It'd take a pretty strong magic wand to put them in the Philippines in early '42.

Reposition of current assets. That link you gave me said that Hawaii had 87 P-40B I think they could have spared some since the CV force was keeping closer to base at this time. Then reinforce Hawaii with planes fresh from the factories.

87 obsolete fighters, and the P40B was obsolete, would not have changed anything. You'd just be throwing them away along with their much more valuable pilots.

Who said I want the fighters to attack Japanese bases? Beachheads maybe but leave the base attacks the FFs.

I said fighters because you talked about sneaking them in. Fire up a game like Pacific Fighters and see how well a B-17 with a full bomb load can take off from a carrier. Then there are the bombs, fuel, spare parts and other supplies they'd need to keep them running which could hardly be delivered by air in sufficient quantities to keep them flying.

We could have afforded to lose Midway!
http://www.combinedfleet.com/economic.htm
Holding on to a large island that is within striking range of Japanese targets is more important than a small atoll.

First the Phillippines is more than a "large island" it is a collection of over 7 thousand islands covering over 100 thousand square miles. Second the value of the battle of Midway was the destruction of the Japanese carriers and the preservation of 2 of the 3 US carriers. The Midway atoll itself is incidental unless the Japanese were able to get land based bombers on it which would put them in range of Hawaii.

In 1941 the US built 12,804 aircraft to Japans 4,768. We couldn't spare 500 to the Philippines?

No we couldn't.

Look man, this is getting boring. If you prefer to live in a fantasy land then go right ahead. Myself and others here have repeatedly told you that your theory, while attractive, is completely impractical, even with hindsight which certainly wasn't available in early 42. Attempting your plan would have been merely a drain on vital resources we could not afford and it still wouldn't have changed the eventual outcome.

[TLAM Strike]

Forget catering the runways, hit the flight lines and hangers like the intruder missions did against Germany.

Different theater of war, different situation. Intruder missions used the P-61 Black Widow, an aircraft that didn't even enter service until 1943. It'd take a pretty strong magic wand to put them in the Philippines in early '42. The the B-26 was also used for those missions. The B-26 was avaiable in '41.

Who said I want the fighters to attack Japanese bases? Beachheads maybe but leave the base attacks the FFs.

I said fighters because you talked about sneaking them in.Fire up a game like Pacific Fighters and see how well a B-17 with a full bomb load can take off from a carrier. Then there are the bombs, fuel, spare parts and other supplies they'd need to keep them running which could hardly be delivered by air in sufficient quantities to keep them flying. Why does a B-17 need to take off from a Carrier? :huh:

[Neutrino 123]

There is a book about this called "Second Front Now - 1943" by Walter Dunn. It is a bit old (~1980), but appears to have alot of relavent data. I've just started reading it... :ping:

Edit: aggh! What happened to my popeye avatar?!!! :-j

[Type941]

Neutrino, we have some fundamental difference of opinion, reading what you said I can't actually continue arguing with you because you belief in something which believ is a complete propoganda of Allies and has little actual historical credibility (except from thos who wrote Allies version of history, a traditional view). I.e. your statement of Allied airforce being actualy better than german in ground to air coordination is completely false, since facts say the opposite. You should not make statements like this unless you can back it up. Facts show that allies lost france and poland because they lost the battlefiedl air command right at the start of the conflict. My sorties number example is perfect reason why it happened, but that's irrelevant. I pretty much remain of the opinion that german army was superior in training than allied when the war began, and allies could beat it only with numberical superiority in huge quantity. Don't leave italy out - that's just silly. Italy is apart of war, part of statistics. If you can prove the allied air to ground coordination was good, be my guest, but a small warning, if you actually look up the doctrine they had at the start of the war, the BAF or USAF had a doctrine that allowed them to be independent of ground forces and allowed them to wage their own war. And Luftwaffe on contrary was designed to compliment ground troops. Given these profound differences in doctrine, i find it very hard to take your argument seriously. By end of war it could have been another matter, virtually for the fact that in west, Luftwaffe was tiny (fighting in east mostly) and had no command of air of any kind. yet germans still fought so well and defined the odds - another testement of how good they were at defending against outnumbering allied troops.

and Dresden - you'd think the Allies want to dumb down the numbers of losses for bombing of Dresden, eh? German's are known for being meticulous and precise in their calculations, and their own local police accounted for between 190k to 240k fatalities from the bombing. 40 thousand? i don't think so.

[joea]

Anyone know where to find Luftwaffe stats that show numbers and types of aircraft per year/theatre for both deployment and losses? In defence of the Allies, I would say sweeping the LW from the skies of Western Europe was at least one victory.

[STEED]

There is a case against the Normandy landings in 1943, to many ships were tied up in the Med and on convoy duty. Not enough men and materials and so on the result could have resulted in the Allies being pinned down and taking very heavy losses, before they are forced to withdraw. This is why it took place in 1944 every aspect of the planning had to be planned to the very last detail it was a high risk operation which had to succeed in the landings. Securing the beachheads next and then to drive in land, with the follow up troops and supplies. And not forgetting all the other operations that took place to deceive the Germans.

[joea]

Guy another book on my list (I took out several on WWII) just finished a book on "Barbarossa" with a series of articles from an academic conference on WWII edited by John erikson and with a wide range of historians including some Russians.

Next on my list in "Why the Allies Won" by Richard Overy which has some stuff which might be applicable here. Not that I take one historian as gospel (even ones with new ideas) ;) but always try to find academic works that use primary sources or studies and are objective.

[Abraham]

There is a case against the Normandy landings in 1943, to many ships were tied up in the Med and on convoy duty. Not enough men and materials and so on the result could have resulted in the Allies being pinned down and taking very heavy losses, before they are forced to withdraw. This is why it took place in 1944 every aspect of the planning had to be planned to the very last detail it was a high risk operation which had to succeed in the landings.
@ STEED:
You are exactly confirming the point I am making.
Too many ships and men were tied to the Meditarranean Theater, a front of secondairy strategic importance.
There is no valid argument why these troops and ships should not have been used for an invasion in N.W. Europe by mid 1943. As I said before, no Atlantic Wall yet, few - already outclassed - Luftwaffe units and the bulk of the Wehrmacht fighting deep - I mean DEEP - in the Ukraine...

[Neutrino 123]

Neutrino, we have some fundamental difference of opinion, reading what you said I can't actually continue arguing with you because you belief in something which believ is a complete propoganda of Allies and has little actual historical credibility (except from thos who wrote Allies version of history, a traditional view). I.e. your statement of Allied airforce being actualy better than german in ground to air coordination is completely false, since facts say the opposite. You should not make statements like this unless you can back it up. Facts show that allies lost france and poland because they lost the battlefiedl air command right at the start of the conflict. My sorties number example is perfect reason why it happened, but that's irrelevant. I pretty much remain of the opinion that german army was superior in training than allied when the war began, and allies could beat it only with numberical superiority in huge quantity. Don't leave italy out - that's just silly. Italy is apart of war, part of statistics. If you can prove the allied air to ground coordination was good, be my guest, but a small warning, if you actually look up the doctrine they had at the start of the war, the BAF or USAF had a doctrine that allowed them to be independent of ground forces and allowed them to wage their own war. And Luftwaffe on contrary was designed to compliment ground troops. Given these profound differences in doctrine, i find it very hard to take your argument seriously. By end of war it could have been another matter, virtually for the fact that in west, Luftwaffe was tiny (fighting in east mostly) and had no command of air of any kind. yet germans still fought so well and defined the odds - another testement of how good they were at defending against outnumbering allied troops.

I don't know what sources you think I read, but I assure you that none of them are propaganda, unless you think authors like David Glantz and Charles MacDonald are bad historians. In addition, I have provided sources for many of my statements while all you did was vaguely point to a book I have.

I never said that early war Allied air forces were well coordinated with the ground forces. In fact, their coordination was terrible, partly for the reasons you describe. Later in the war, however, the coordination between the ground and the tactical air forces (such as the 9th Air Force and 2nd Tactical Air Force, which were completely different then the 8th AF and Bomber Command, the ones mainly responsible for strategic bombing - the entire Luftwaffe was a tactical force since they did not have strategic bombers) was far better then any other force at any time during the war. I don't know of any historian that doesn't agree with this assessment, do you? A source for this is at (http://permanent.access.gpo.gov/lps51153/airforcehistory/usaaf/ww2/dday/index.htm). Skim through the conclusions for the main bits, and the other chapters for more detail. In case you aren't familiar with ground attacks, note that the claims of destroyed targets, especially tanks, by airmen tend to be greatly exaggerated.

By the way, the Luftwaffe kept most of it's bombers in the east, but in terms of fighters, a huge number were in the west. http://www.lesbutler.ip3.co.uk/jg26/thtrlosses.htm
This table starts in September 1943. Of course, in the time period starting from Barbarossa, more Luftwaffe losses were in the east (I'm not exactly sure when east and west looses became equal, probably sometime earlier in 1943).

Exactly what facts show that it was command of the air that gave the Germans their victories in Poland and France? This was a significant factor, but far from the only one. Mosier himself seems to state from “The Blitzkrieg Myth” that the main reason for defeat was panic in the French command and Churchill’s subsequent decision to withdraw (I don’t agree with this conclusion, but this is another debate). He says that airpower was important, but not the only solution. On page 146 he even mentions that it was German propaganda that the air force was entirely responsible for their victories.

When the war began, the German army was certainly superior in training to the Allies (one of the main reasons for their early victories). However, by the end of the war, the Western Allies had superior training, and the German training was greatly reduced (I can’t find sources for precise training times, but this is fairly well-known). Exactly what are you talking about when you mention Italy? I don’t understand what you’re trying to say there…


and Dresden - you'd think the Allies want to dumb down the numbers of losses for bombing of Dresden, eh? German's are known for being meticulous and precise in their calculations, and their own local police accounted for between 190k to 240k fatalities from the bombing. 40 thousand? i don't think so.

After the war, the Allies accepted the high German figure, which turned out to be propaganda. It is the Germans who would have more reason to inflate the figures, as they would want to obtain greater sympathy. Then their Soviet masters came in and were willing to use anything to make the west look bad. Wikipedia seems to have a balanced article on this matter, with several sources mentioned, including Germans ones. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Dresden_in_World_War_II)

[Abraham]

@ Neutrino 123:
Thanks for the Dresden link.

[The Avon Lady]

Suggested reading:

HISTORICAL ANALYSIS OF THE 14-15 FEBRUARY 1945 BOMBINGS OF DRESDEN (https://www.airforcehistory.hq.af.mil/PopTopics/dresden.htm).

Bound to upset the modern day revisionists.

[Abraham]

Suggested reading:

HISTORICAL ANALYSIS OF THE 14-15 FEBRUARY 1945 BOMBINGS OF DRESDEN (https://www.airforcehistory.hq.af.mil/PopTopics/dresden.htm).

Bound to upset the modern day revisionists.
Wrong link or server down?

[The Avon Lady]

Suggested reading:

HISTORICAL ANALYSIS OF THE 14-15 FEBRUARY 1945 BOMBINGS OF DRESDEN (https://www.airforcehistory.hq.af.mil/PopTopics/dresden.htm).

Bound to upset the modern day revisionists.
Wrong link or server down?
Works for me! Interesting that it's a secure link (HTTPS).

[TteFAboB]

You double-agent!

She's the one leaking CIA info, shoot her! Shoot her!

The link is "secured" now, 404, move along, nothing to see here.

[The Avon Lady]

https://www.airforcehistory.hq.af.mil/PopTopics/dresden.htm+%22HISTORICAL+ANALYSIS+OF+THE+14-15+FEBRUARY+1945%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1] (http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:_iXt0skUZNwJ:Cached copy of report[/u]. :smug:

[joea]

I still want to read Mosier, but I too have a problem with Type941's calling historians like Glantz, Overy and others as "propaganda" plus I ahve read some pretty strong criticisms of Mosier's work.

Thanks for the link AL btw.

[Abraham]

https://www.airforcehistory.hq.af.mil/PopTopics/dresden.htm+%22HISTORICAL+ANALYSIS+OF+THE+14-15+FEBRUARY+1945%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1] (http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:_iXt0skUZNwJ:Cached copy of report[/u]. :smug:
Thanks for a link that made me reconsider my position on the subject.

[STEED]

How many of you guys know what Germany's Achilles heal was? Oil have a think, as this is a WW2 thread listen up England programme on this Friday.

Friday 28th BBC2 21:00
Battle for Warsaw
Documentary about the Warsaw Uprising of 1944, one of the most heroic and tragic military operations undertaken by any resistance movement in the Second World War. Against incredible odds, for two months, the men, women and children of Warsaw took on the might of the Nazis alone. The Soviet Union's Red Army arrived on the scene at the height of the conflict, but failed to join the battle

Duration: 50mins

[STEED]

Abraham I do believe Germany had air power on their side in 1943, I dread to think of the damage they could had inflicted on the Allies.

[Abraham]

Abraham I do believe Germany had air power on their side in 1943, I dread to think of the damage they could had inflicted on the Allies.
Remember, this is a kind of "What if" thread.
So what is the Allies had decided in the third or fourth quarter of 1942 to concentrate on an invasion in North Western Europe in mid 1943?
Well, one of the planes that played an important role in the destruction of the Luftwaffe day fighters in spring 1944 was the P 51 Mustang. The production of this plane started only on October 1943. But: this plane (with the Packard/RR Merlin) engine was ready for production from October 1942! For a year nobody was realy interested at procuring it, because the Bomber boys thought they did not need daylight fighter protection and the invasion was not yet in sight.
Furthermore, in mid 1943 the Luftwaffe was if not in quality then at least in quantity surpassed by the Western Allies.
And even if the Invasion losses would have been higher - which I doubt - wouldn't that have weighted against a peace at the end of 1943 or beginning 1944. Do you realise that the Allied losses in Italy 1943-1945 were much heavier than in Western Europe 1944-1945... Can anybody explain why the Allies were dispersing so much troops and material to a theater of secondary importance that was extremely suitable for defense instead of going for the decisive invasion in 1943?

[STEED]

Found some info that throws light on the events of 1943.

The Grand Strategic Vision
"We came, we listened and we were conquered."
General A C Wedemeyer, US Army (12)
The JCS considered that they 'lost' at Casablanca, that they were talked into a strategy to which they had no intention of subscribing at the start of the conference, despite the fact that the British circulated an agenda weeks before the conference.(13) Murphy talked of the Americans as a 'reluctant tail to the British kite,' while Marshall was well aware that the British had outplanned and outmanoeuvred their American counterparts.(14) As we shall see, the British did indeed gain agreement for their strategic agenda, against the better judgement of the Americans, and with the able assistance of Churchill. Roosevelt offered no comparable support to the JCS.
It is possible to consider some elements of Grand Strategy for 1943 discretely; for example the Combined Bomber Offensive and the Battle of the Atlantic. But when it comes to operations on land, or amphibious operations requiring landing craft, naval and air support and logistics, it is not so easy to consider each theatre of operations in isolation, largely because operations in one were likely to be at the expense of the others. At the beginning of 1943, Anglo-US forces were disposed in two theatres against the Germans, and in one against the Japanese. A number of divisions, both British (in which we include Commonwealth and Dominion troops) and American, were held in the UK, partly for home defence and partly as part of BOLERO, which was envisaged as eventually leading to the invasion of North-West Europe. American and British troops were also engaged in ongoing operations in North Africa, where they were following up the successful TORCH landings with the conquest of Tunisia. The troops in the Pacific were largely American, although there was a significant British presence in India and South East Asia, hence the feasibility of undertaking operations in support of the Chinese in 1943. When the CCS met at the start of the Casablanca conference, they were faced with a number of dilemmas and decisions on the broad outline of Grand Strategy, before they decided on the actual operations to be undertaken. These were as follows:
• What splitting of resources and effort to effect between the European / North African theatre and the Pacific / Far Eastern Theatre;
• Whether or not to undertake an invasion of north-west Europe in 1943;
• What operations to undertake in the Mediterranean in 1943, if any;
• Whether or not to open a full-scale Second Front in 1943, and if so, where.
The details of the strategic arguments, which raged among the CCS (not necessarily along national lines) and their planners, are too intricate to go into here. A number of writers have summarised them, and particular attention should be drawn to Michael Howard's Grand Strategy, where chapters XIII and XIV deal with future strategy and future operations respectively. The 'broker', Field Marshall Dill, was vital to the resolution of a number of thorny issues, and the CCS met numerous times to thrash out a way of taking the fight to the Axis.(15) Our concern, though, is with the war leaders - what did they think of the issues, and to what extent did this opinion shape the position of their country at the negotiating table? More importantly, how did their opinions affect the way they treated each other?
Churchill, as had been apparent since the Great War, considered himself to be a keen strategic thinker - he is famous during that conflict for having masterminded the ill-fated Gallipoli campaign while First Lord of the Admiralty. A preoccupation with peripheral strategies and attacking the 'soft underbelly' of the Axis marked out his thinking during the WW2 as well, and he and the COS were very much in tune in wanting to avoid major cross-Channel operations in 1943. However, Churchill was prepared to countenance some form of SLEDGEHAMMER in 1943, that is a limited operation against France, with the objective of provoking air and naval battles with the Germans, as well as of forcing the Wehrmacht to divert more troops from the Russian front. The minutes record that:
Mr. Churchill then discussed operation SLEDGEHAMMER. He thought … that plans should be made to undertake it, including the appointment of a Commander and the fixing of a target date. He had not been in favour of such an operation in 1942 but felt that it was our duty to engage the enemy on as wide a front as possible. (16)
He did not favour ROUNDUP, that is a major return to the Continent in force, for 1943. One senses with Churchill's advocacy of SLEDGEHAMMER, though, that the politician in him was talking, rather than the strategist - he did not wish to contradict the desire of the Americans to make some impact on the continent. Churchill was a persistent advocate of caution in planning cross-Channel operations, remembering clearly the disastrous 1942 Dieppe raid. Given his preoccupation with the Mediterranean, this policy points to an awareness of the danger of being out of step with American opinion too badly, especially with the opinion of Marshall, a persistent advocate of SLEDGEHAMMER and critic of Mediterranean operations. Churchill probably knew that by supporting the invasion of Sicily he made ROUNDUP impossible and SLEDGEHAMMER unlikely, without alienating Marshall or the JCS.
Churchill was all in favour of the operation in Burma proposed by the Americans (ANAKIM), especially as it enhanced the safety of his beloved India, and as it reassured the Americans that he was serious about the British commitment to war in the Pacific. Churchill made it plain that 'not only are British interests involved, her honour is engaged' in the Pacific, demonstrating the political and diplomatic value he invested in military policy. (17)
It almost goes without saying that Churchill was enthusiastic for operations in the Mediterranean: he wanted to see the invasion of Sicily as soon as possible (preferably by May 1943), wanted to retake the Dardanelles from the Germans, and bring Turkey into the conflict as soon as possible. Always his own man strategically, Churchill was, as we shall see, fundamentally different in his approach to matters of strategy to FDR.



I think there is more to this than meets the eye, some more information.

Operation Sledgehammer
During World War II, Operation Sledgehammer was an Allied contingency plan for a limited-objective cross-channel invasion of Europe in response to a German or Soviet collapse in 1942. It was to be used to reduce pressure on the Russians.
The main objective of the operation was to capture Cherbourg or Brest in northern France in order to establish a defensible foothold in mainland Europe, which would provide a staging area for a larger invasion force.
The United States argued for the operation, but the United Kingdom was against it. The Allies eventually agreed that they did not have enough landing craft at the time and abandoned the plan in favor of Operation Gymnast (later renamed Operation Torch), the invasion of Northern Africa. The costly raid on Dieppe later demonstrated the difficulty of capturing a major port in the face of determined enemy opposition, and the D-Day invasion of Normandy avoided ports altogether.


Operation Roundup
Military history records two operations called 'Operation Roundup:
1. The first was a 1942 plan for an invasion of northern France in the spring of 1943.
This plan, drawn up by then-Brigadier General Eisenhower reflected American enthusiasm for an early entry into Europe. Given the shortage of landing craft and other resources, this plan was unrealistic. Briefings concerning this plan brought Eisenhower’s organizational and diplomatic skills to the attention of senior civil and military leaders in the United States and Europe, launching his meteoric rise to Supreme Allied Commander, Europe. Although it was never executed, parts of it were incorporated into Operation Overlord. Operation Roundup included Operation Sledgehammer and the later variant Operation Roundhammer.


It seems the costly raid on Dieppe may also played its part in putting off the 1943 invasion. But I think even us landing in North Africa in 1940 played its part too. And I think I know why, but what I am thinking may also fall in to the What If. ;)

[Abraham]

Found some info that throws light on the events of 1943.

The Grand Strategic Vision
"We came, we listened and we were conquered."
General A C Wedemeyer, US Army.
The JCS considered that they 'lost' at Casablanca, that they were talked into a strategy to which they had no intention of subscribing at the start of the conference, despite the fact that the British circulated an agenda weeks before the conference.(13) Murphy talked of the Americans as a 'reluctant tail to the British kite,' while Marshall was well aware that the British had outplanned and outmanoeuvred their American counterparts.
It is a well known fact that the British came much better perpared to the Conference of Casablanca then the Americans. That's what made the war last at least one year longer.
... When the CCS met at the start of the Casablanca conference, they were faced with a number of dilemmas and decisions on the broad outline of Grand Strategy, before they decided on the actual operations to be undertaken. These were as follows:
• What splitting of resources and effort to effect between the European / North African theatre and the Pacific / Far Eastern Theatre;
• Whether or not to undertake an invasion of north-west Europe in 1943;
• What operations to undertake in the Mediterranean in 1943, if any;
• Whether or not to open a full-scale Second Front in 1943, and if so, where.
The British tried to get as much US support for a theater that they considered important (Mediterranean) and that would be under British military control (Gen. Alexander).
Churchill... considered himself to be a keen strategic thinker... A preoccupation with peripheral strategies and attacking the 'soft underbelly' of the Axis marked out his thinking during the WW2... and he and the COS were very much in tune in wanting to avoid major cross-Channel operations in 1943. However, Churchill was prepared to countenance some form of SLEDGEHAMMER in 1943, that is a limited operation against France, with the objective of provoking air and naval battles with the Germans, as well as of forcing the Wehrmacht to divert more troops from the Russian front... He did not favour ROUNDUP, that is a major return to the Continent in force, for 1943... Churchill probably knew that by supporting the invasion of Sicily he made ROUNDUP impossible and SLEDGEHAMMER unlikely, without alienating Marshall or the JCS.
It almost goes without saying that Churchill was enthusiastic for operations in the Mediterranean: he wanted to see the invasion of Sicily as soon as possible (preferably by May 1943)...

The invasion of Sicily - after spending 6 months to mop up the surrounded Germans in Tunesia(!) was the lure to get the US military heavily involved in the Mediterranean. After Sicily an invasion in Italy was the 'logical' step that would commit major land and naval forces in the Mediterranea in mid 1943, thus making ROUNDUP impossible.
...
Operation Roundup
Military history records two operations called 'Operation Roundup:
1. The first was a 1942 plan for an invasion of northern France in the spring of 1943.
This plan, drawn up by then-Brigadier General Eisenhower reflected American enthusiasm for an early entry into Europe. Given the shortage of landing craft and other resources, this plan was unrealistic. Although it was never executed, parts of it were incorporated into Operation Overlord.

It is incredible that "shortage of landing craft" is seen as an argument for not invading North Western Europe:'Operation Roundup'... was a 1942 plan for an invasion of northern France in the spring of 1943... Given the shortage of landing craft and other resources, this plan was unrealistic.
The Allies never had a shortage of landing craft in 1943 and 1944. They were just used at the wrong time at the wrong place. Few realise that more landing craft were used during HUSKY (the invasion of Sicily in may 1943) then during OVERLORD (D-Day 1944)!

Interesting article, STEED.
:up:

[STEED]

I think this is the Domino affect here if we stayed out of North Africa out right, what could have happen. Well we could have lost Malta and are Naval Bases and most importantly Iraq and the control of the Oil. There were a number of minor battles in Iraq in 1941. How many of you lot knew that little known fact, Germany could had taken out right control? Granted it’s another what if situation.

Sorry I missed one little point Italy invaded North Africa first; never the less Italy and Germany could have taken control. Once Italy invaded North Africa the dominos started to fall, and when North Africa and Scilly were liberated, the next logical move was to knock Italy out of the war.

And as I am in a good mood today, properly to do with it’s a bank holiday weekend here in the UK, here’s where you can read about Iraq 1941. :D



Iraq 1941
The battles for Basra, Habbaniya, Fallujah and Baghdad
(Campaign 165)

Author: Robert Lyman
Illustrator: Howard Gerrard

US Price: $18.95
UK Price: £13.99

Availability: In stock
Paperback; February 28 2006; 96 pages; ISBN: 1841769916

[Neutrino 123]

I finished "Second Front Now - 1943" by Walter Dunn, and it was a well written book, though some might find it a bit dry. He gets a few things wrong (some inavoidably - the book was written when ULTRA was just revealed to the public and not all ULTRA information was avalible) and leaves out specific details in a few things that I would consider important, but some of these are actually benificial to the Allies (example: he says the Mk IV had 85mm of front armor, but it had no more then 80mm with low slope in the hull and only 50mm in the turret, which is more important then the hull). The book is well-crammed with many useful facts.

Particularly important statistics to judge the German strength in the West is the tank strength of their forces. On 20 June 1943 (very close the the projected invasion time) the panzer strength was very low (from table on p.99):

46 Panzer II 20mm L/55 popgun
61 Panzer IIIF medium-barreled 50mm L/42 gun
14 Panzer IIIM flammenpanzer
111 Panzer IIIJ* long-barreled 50mm L/60 gun
18 Panzer IIIN short-barreled 75mm L/24 gun
31 Panzer IVF short-barreled 75mm L/24 gun
152 Panzer IVH medium-barreled 75mm L/48 gun
400 captured tanks (mostly French tanks with ineffective guns)
17 command tanks
assault guns numbers not specified (there were a few Marders and Stugs with effective 76.2mm/75mm guns, while others were crappy including things such as French WWI 75mm guns from p.84)

*All late with 50mm L/60 according to the table, but I cannot confirm this. It is possible that some of these were earlier J-models with 50mm L/42 guns. The source may also have lumped the early Js into the 'F' type catagory.

From this table, it can be seen that there were only 152 tanks capable of dealing with the Sherman on equal footing (and a few assault guns). The 111 Panzer IIIJs could also deal with the Sherman at close range.

On 6 June 1944 the Germans had a much more powerful inventory. p.111 gives it as (I have also seen these statistics in many other places):

663 Panzer V Panther long-barreled 75mm L/70 gun
102 Panzer VIE Tiger medium-barreled 88mm L/56 gun
787 other German tanks (mostly Panzer IVs with medium-barreled 75mm L/48 guns)
310 assault guns (mostly StuG III with medium-barrreled 75mm L/48 gun)
+other captured tanks (mostly useless)

The Panther and Tiger could only be dealt with effectively by the British Firefly (rare) and at close range by the Allied 76.2mm equipped units.

[Abraham]

I was inspired for this thread by
'1943 THE VICTORY THAT NEVER WAS' by John Grigg (Penguin Books). He makes a compelling argument for a victory over Nazi Germany in late 1943.
I think it is without doubt that a strong German counterstroke as near Mortain in Normandy (July 1944) or the Ardennes (Dec. 1944) was impossible in 1943. The German strenght in the West was too low from a quantitative and qualitative point of view and the distances \between the main German army, fighting in the Ukraine and near Leningrad, coupled with the terrible infrastructure in the Soviet Union, would have made quick reenforcement of the German troops in the West illusionary.
Also there were no German emergency plans to strenghten the Western Front in case of an Allied invasion, like there were in 1944.

[STEED]

I was inspired for this thread by
'1943 THE VICTORY THAT NEVER WAS' by John Grigg (Penguin Books). He makes a compelling argument for a victory over Nazi Germany in late 1943.

I saw a review on this book -

My issue with this book is not that the information presented is in anyway floored, nor, necessarily the conclusions arrived at are wrong - it is rather that when you collect quotes to argue you point it is rather like choosing which chess pieces your opponent can start the game with and here is where I feel that Grigg's comments whereby some allied commander or other let the Germans get away with something he has failed to either consider or let the reader consider what the Nazi forces were attempting to win too.

The reviewer found the author to be to one sided. I in counted this situation years ago when I read a book and the author argued if the Germans took Malta they would have won the war. Hardly what I call a strong case, in the case of the book you read Abraham may be a good idea would be to do a spot of research and see how strong this case is for a 1943 invasion was.

[Abraham]

...
I saw a review on this book -

My issue with this book is not that the information presented is in anyway floored, nor, necessarily the conclusions arrived at are wrong - it is rather that when you collect quotes to argue you point it is rather like choosing which chess pieces your opponent can start the game with and here is where I feel that Grigg's comments whereby some allied commander or other let the Germans get away with something he has failed to either consider or let the reader consider what the Nazi forces were attempting to win too.

The reviewer found the author to be to one sided...
Well, the author tries to prove a thesis and as such is one sided. But - as the reviewer writes - the info presented and the conclusions drawn are not necessarily wrong. That's what interested be and that's why I asked forum members to give their idea's.
My opinion about the subject was by the way not solely founded upon this book.
Now I am reading the very authorative History of the Second World War by Sir Basil Liddell Hart. A very critical book about the way the war was fought. Especially by the Allied leadership.

[STEED]

Good book that one Abraham, read it many years ago. :up: