Recent content by petr

Even if Kurita didn't give up, it would be tremendously hard to even get to Oldendorf. While fighting Taffy 3 directly and planes from Taffy 2 and 1, Kurita lost several of his heavy cruisers and a torpedo attack on Yamato forced it to ran northwards for quite a while, distancing it from the...

Why not including Hitler in the list?

Indeed, it was an expensive process with a unit of fuel from refined oil costing a fraction of a unit of synthesized fuel. But Germany had no other option after establishment of the allied blockade which immediately created a yearly oil deficit of Germany of 4 million tons (pre-war German fuel...

Good point about rubber. As for speed of construction of synthetic plants, yes, but a) Germany even before the war had the most advanced and extensive synthetic fuel production facilities, b) it would receive strategic priority already in Oct 1939 (Germany indeed had to build gun barrels but...

Well, had France resisted until spring of 1941 (let's say that fighter planes production and pilot training in UK and France pre-war was given priority, so in May 1940 allies have air parity or slight superiority against Luftwaffe and manage e.g. to destroy bridges and pontoon bridges over...

Assuming that, say in October 39, after realizing that UK and France will not budge on the issue of blockade, Hitler decides not to rely on the shaky possibility of future imports of fuel from the west and starts an accelerated mass program of construction of synthetic fuel plants using...

I agree. Also participating in the first wave of attack on Japanese carriers with Yorktown it would probably sink or incapacitate Hiryu even before it would send its planes on Yorktown.

Would it participate in the Battle of the Corral Sea? 1) If yes, with better fighter cover Lexington might perhaps not have been sunk. Or greater effect achieved in attack on Shokaku and Zuikaku. If Japan lost, say, not only Shoho, but also Shokaku with Zuikaku badly damaged and lower...

Ok, you are right that more can be brought in. You can e.g. get a convoy at 10 knots from England to southern France in about ten days. The problem is that when you do it, along with bringing in some 200 LST ships and hundreds of LCT boats from the north, if you want to keep some pace of...

I'll start here first. If you carry out Dragoon in summer 44, instead of trying again in the north at the same time, you restrict your capacity to land forces in the north later because of weather. Weather was a crucial factor and carrying out a large scale northern invasion post September was...

The assumption (however unlikely) of this scenario was failing of the D-Day landings, that is at the very beginning, perhaps within a few days of D-Day. That would mean that no more than the three German panzer divisions available in Normandy would get involved and therefore depleted. That...

On the second thought, the idea of stronger Dragoon in November or later is good on the condition that allies would by the time capture northern Italy and build airbases in the northwest (Torino area) adjacent to the landing area. That would enable enough fighter force to operate to protect the...

What you suggesting makes sense in terms of the tactic of letting the enemy to attack, expose himself and suffer heavy casualties. However, it would require a very bold commander, who still remembered the fiasco of Dieppe, to expose his forces (and let's keep in mind that had the DD tanks...

I agree with that and I think some sort of repeat in the north would be more likely than Dragoon because of the air force, troop and logistical concentrations that were far better in England than in the Mediterranean area. It would all depend on why it failed. Was it the failure of DD tanks...

As for the embarkation points, true, but you are describing an operation that was secondary to the already successful Normandy which (Normandy) in the end attracted 11 of the 12 panzer divisions Germans had in France (with only the 11th Wehrmacht in training staying in the south). A primary...