Did the Allies win WW2 mostly due to brute force?

Did the Allies win WW2 mostly due to brute force?

  • Yes

    Votes: 97 27.2%
  • No

    Votes: 99 27.8%
  • To a degree

    Votes: 160 44.9%

  • Total voters
    356
Fascists are scum and all - but I don't know how any intellectually honest analysis can conclude that the Allies would not have won without a 5x advantage.
Well to be honest they are probably related. When you start with massive advantages you can afford to play with technical innovation and have something not work. When you're desperately trying to catch up and cutting every corner in order to do it, you have to take a few more risks and hope for the best.

To be honest the only real part of the Nazi grand strategy that worked was the invasion of France, and that happened with so many lucky strikes for the Germans that it's very plausible we could instead have been sitting here saying, "Wow, those Nazis sure were foolish, weren't they?"
 
To be honest the only real part of the Nazi grand strategy that worked was the invasion of France, and that happened with so many lucky strikes for the Germans that it's very plausible we could instead have been sitting here saying, "Wow, those Nazis sure were foolish, weren't they?"

On that note have you ever heard of the TL A Blunted Sickle?

https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/a-blunted-sickle.287285/ thread 1

https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/a-blunted-sickle-thread-ii.402994/ thread 2

Its a TL where the French have a different defensive plan which means a less successful blitzkrieg
France does not fall 1940 and near the end of 1941 allies are on German soil around the Ruhr and planning a spring offensive in 42 that should end the war.
 

Summary; the metrics of economic war. Numbers. And the economic logics.


Summary; The US factor.

Commentary. If the Germans are supposed to be those "military geniuses" then what the hello is the United States? L.o.g.i.s.t.i.c.s. is the foundation of all war art. The US not only projected actual power across two oceans during the period she fought, but almost a year before active combat. We forgot that part of WW II history.


Commentary: The Axis were after resources. Russia, at the beginning, (Stalin) damages the west by being Germany's 'Lend Lease' partner and oil supplier; until Germany double-crosses their supplier and tries to steal the Russian oil by conquest instead of acquisition by "trade". Oil being the central strategic factor drives German lunacy in their Russian war and telegraphs their intent. Follow the OIL. It is the same craziness that underpins Japan's own oil ambitions and war so-called "strategy". The US and Japan fight their own naval war based on that factor. It does take the US a while to figure out that oil tankers are more important than battle ships or aircraft carriers, but they do figure that out eventually. Witness the 1944 submarine campaign they wage. Finesse over brute force. Incidentally, pay attention to the US rubber crisis. The Allies' armor fought on synthetic rubber treads and their trucks rolled on synthetic rubber tires. Factor THAT little bit of history into "The Allies won on brute strength." myth. I think I also need to mention the Allied science war with its fundamental basis in communications and information processing, too There is a whole Allied operational art (Mainly the UK, but a lot of Russian and American invention, too.) that is invented around the strategic use of RADIO for example. The finesse involved is incredible. The results from Midway to Kursk is startling.

Force on force? How about, information warfare, guile and applied misdirection based on it as applied principles of war? I think that might be almost 50% of the Allied victory.


Battle of Britain. Commentary: Small tactical mistakes yield huge operational errors. German bombing navigation aid electronics fails and that small mistake starts the mutual city killing campaigns between the UK and Germany. Germany screws up her end of it as the fighting turns to pure air terrorism, and as the UK reciprocates with ever mounting fury. It is the first time we see that the result of strategic bombing stiffens the civil resistance and causes a nation to adapt to the bombardment, forcing the attacking air force to expend far more resources than it damages "war production". Sounds like an own goal to me. The Luftwaffe can only manage it for about six months, then it quits. The British persist and pommel the Ruhr for four and a half years, but the thing is, the treasure both sides waste is not entirely to naught for the Allies as it is for the Germans. How so can that claim be?

Remember that almost 50,000 pieces of heavy artillery, 3000 aircraft, and 1,000,000 men tied down for defense of the German homeland, are not available to the Germans to march into Russia because of the RAF and later the USAAF strategic bombing campaigns. That is a lot of tactical level warpower, not on the Russian steppes, driving on Baku.

That kind of overlooked metric is the kind that makes one almost stomach the 8,000 heavy bombers and 80,000 men killed as the price. It is Stalin's Second Front in the air that he is never generous enough to acknowledge that contributes to Russia's survival, that the Allies mount right from the start, you know?
 
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Actually the Maginot Line is a textbook failure to follow a basic principal that goes back so far that it ca=n be seen as instinctive. The French utterly failed to secure their northern flank on a solide defensive position, largely, but not exclusively, to avoid insulting the Belgians. The Line should have ended at the sea, either including Belgium behind it or along the French-Belgian border leaving Belgium to its fate. Instead the French did neither. By doing so they left their Northern flank hanging entirely in the air and provides a 200 mile wide entry for the Heer to exploit. There were political reasons for the decision, but from a military perspective the decision was far beyond idiotic, Of course the politicians were making the decisions based purely on political considerations.
This fails to account for a very broad range of reasons why these fortifications were not built, and why they would not have been a good idea to have been built:
1)Construction and planning of the Maginot Line took place in a period in which the Belgians were close allies of the French, so inherently Belgian fortifications and cooperation could be assured. As it turned out, they could not, but in the planning in the late 1920s there was no reason to assume otherwise.
2)The Maginot Line had a wide variety of objectives. Being an impenetrable wall was never one of them. These objectives included providing a fortification line which would protect key resources along the frontier, economize troops, but most importantly provide time for troop mobilization.
3)Economizing troops is perhaps the most important, since the Maginot Line was designed to free up mobile forces for use elsewhere, ie. in the North.
4)There are important construction problems concerning the Northern frontier, as much of it has difficulties with a very high water table. I would recommend purchasing some books on the Maginot Line which discuss its construction principles to see just how deep many of the structures were built: in a high water table region this obviously poses a problem.
5)Doubtless it is possible that this could be dealt with, at great cost: cost that would have to come from somewhere else. While the actual sums spent on the Maginot Line as a part of total French expenditures throughout the 1930s was much more limited than is generally thought, proposing a doubling of the line, with much more expensive construction, is inevitably going to eat away at funding for procurement and mobile forces - which was the exact opposite of its point, in conserving forces in one region to free up those for another, as mentioned previously.

In fact, to quote French Foreign and Defense Policy 1918-1940: The Decline and Fall of a Great Power, these exact concerns were clearly stated by the French themselves:

General Emile Ricard, later explained, in regard to the Franco-
Belgian border: obtaining ‘effective protection [through fixed defences] for this
part of the front would have demanded an effort truly disproportionate to the
means we possessed’. Fortifications facing Belgium ‘could only have been
conceived as a device to enhance…the defensive combat power of the main battle
corps deployed there’.73 Maginot-grade defences from Montmédy to the Channel
would, according to an estimate from Gamelin, have cost between ten billion and
fifteen billion francs. This was a sum of a magnitude that France did not possess,
over and above the investments required for renovation of the field army,
expansion of the air force and modernisation of the navy.74 By 1937, judges
Anthony Adamthwaite, ‘given the state of the French economy, it was clearly too
expensive to extend the Maginot Line to the Channel ports’.75

6)Even if it was the case that the French military had pulled from the aether this tremendous amount of funding, the Northern border includes a variety of population, industrial, and economic centers, which are not simply close to the border and hence requiring protection by fortifications like in Alsace-Moselle, but rather on it. What do you do for the city of Lille for example, which is essentially on the border? If you build fortification lines, these places are not protected, but simply become the front line and are intensely vulnerable to destruction. Strasbourg faced a similar fate and had to be evacuated, but evacuating all of these areas would simply serve to harm the long term French war making capability.
7)To some extent it was desired that just such a hole be left in the north: the French military in the Interwar, exceptionally fond of intense planning and logic, effectively managed to dramatically reduce the level of front over which it had to plan to fight, making it likely that the Germans could only come on one approach vector - one which would preferably not be on French soil and hence not fought there. As it turned out, the Germans could come through an unexpected approach even with this, but it nevertheless did remove much uncertainty.

While the French defensive strategy ultimately failed, and failed quite disastrously, I feel that you are critiquing the Maginot Line to an excessive degree, and on the wrong points. Building fortifications to the sea carried a huge length of drawbacks and the French were right to instead choose to press for forward defense and use of mobile forces: that these failed is not necessarily connected to the Maginot Line (although the Maginot Line being extended a few dozen more kilometers to cover the Ardennes would certainly not have been a bad idea....)

The French also had budget concerns, as the Maginot Line ate up a huge part of their defense money and arguably was part of the reason the French army-air force was so unprepared for WW2. The French did bet on the Belgian forts to anchor their position when they moved in their army to the Dyle, but the Germans managed to take their centerpiece position, Eben Emael, with a quickly and shockingly successful commando operation at very low cost. So beyond their military mistakes the French (and Belgians) suffered pretty badly from having invested so much in a fortification line that left too little for the military to keep up with their opponents.
Maginot Line expenses were allocated and spent in the period of 1930-1936. Even if there had been a political will in the Maginot Line votes around 1930 (which there was not - defensive spending was popular and securing the borders even more so, offensive nature spending was politically impossible, and even if was voted for then it would probably have been, unlike the Maginot Line, been cut), then assuming that funding was directed to the French Air Force instead the aircraft it would have built would have been painfully obsolete. Of course, there would probably have been positive secondary effects including things like airbase construction, airbase defense, pilot training, communication systems, building up productive capacity, etc., but spending money on aircraft construction in 1930, 1931, 1932, etc. only is going to have a very limited and secondary impact on forces available in 1940 or even in 1938. More likely the funding would have been swallowed up in the inefficient building apparatus, to build planes which would have already been mediocre in the early 1930s, and utterly obsolete several years later... the Maginot Line fortifications at least, preserved their utility in 1940, and even half a decade after that, as can be seen by the shambles of the American attack on Metz.

The same can be said concerning the army but to an even greater degree: the French Army received 14 billion francs for a 1936 plan alone to modernize, which is nearly 3 times Maginot spending. But if the Maginot Line was never built the French would have had to station far more troops along the Franco-German border. They did station far too many historically, but this would just amplify it. The number of mobile forces available to fight in Belgium would have been reduced, not increased.
 
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Commentary. If the Germans are supposed to be those "military geniuses" then what the hello is the United States? L.o.g.i.s.t.i.c.s. is the foundation of all war art. The US not only projected actual power across two oceans during the period she fought, but almost a year before active combat. We forgot that part of WW II history.

Full disclosure: I'm going to respond to this without watching the video so possibly my comment is redundant. I'll give it a go later, just not right now at my desk.

With that out of the way: despite some of my other comments in this thread, it's a bit unfair to Germany to just say that they sucked at logistics, full stop. They didn't really. It's just that geographically and strategically their fundamental thinking about warfare was different. If anything it's the Nazis' failure to be good Germans, ironically, that got them into trouble.

If you're American, or Canadian, or for that matter even British, and you're doing anything other than fighting on your soil, then by definition you're fighting at the end of a logistics train that has to travel across sea and land -- or rather, land and then sea and then land again. It helps if, for both Britain and even more so for the U.S., you've got massive production capabilities tied into a global supply chain of raw resources. Basically, you've got to be able to coordinate complex supply problems in order to fight at all. The army's view of logistics is naturally going to reflect this. Hence our viewpoint in the modern age that logistics is everything. Well, it is, if you're based in Kentucky but the battlefield is in Iraq. Getting all the people, and the equipment, and the ammunition, and the spare parts, etc. to the right place at the right time across several thousand miles is a minor miracle but you either do it or you don't go at all.

Germany in contrast is a land power. Its principal enemies would always be its neighbors and near-neighbors, and it doesn't have the global supply chain or links to distant manufacturing centres. From Germany's perspective logistics is about getting the maximum concentration of people and resources to the border at the right time to launch an invasion that will be as quick and as decisive as possible. Defeat the enemy fast before you get stalled in a war of attrition, before the enemy can start to draw on reinforcements from elsewhere. Germany's prospects in a drawn-out slugging match of industrial production and attrition aren't great, so the logical solution is to end the war before the enemy has time to bring this giant cannon to bear. It worked for Germany when they invaded France in 1870, it very nearly worked in 1914, and then it worked again in 1940. This is a different logistical problem, but it is a logistical problem.

Of course the problem with that mode of warfare is that if you push to the end of your logistical chain and the enemy still has some serious fight left in him, you're at the end of a very long and tenuous supply chain that was never designed for long-term use and he's pushed up right next to his manufacturing centers. Hence you get this seasonal start-stop effect on the eastern front where the Germans end up in a stop-start war where they leap forward successfully, then try to hold most of what they've got while the logistics catch up, then leap forward again, etc. This works too at least for a while. Of course eventually, the Soviets smash the Germans so hard that they can't recover the initiative, and then it's one long bloody and inexorable march to Berlin. Maybe somebody should have thought of that.

Anyhow, all of this is just a long-winded way of saying let's not be too mean to the Germans. They had an effective theory of warfare to a point. The Nazis overestimated its applicability.
 

Why have you linked two examples of German run and led conspiracies against Germany?

If your point is to point to some German counter intelligence successes than yeah OK, but we're not saying the Germans had no counterintelligence results or indeed no intel ones either. Just that when comparing the two sides this was an aspect of the war they lost decisively.

you linked the German code breaking successes on Wikipedia earlier but look at the first lines in that article


German code breaking in World War II achieved some notable successes cracking British Naval ciphers until well into the fourth year of the war,[1] but also suffered from a problem typical of the German armed forces of the time: numerous branches and institutions maintained their own cryptographic departments, working on their own without collaboration or sharing results with equivalent units. This led to duplicated effort, to a fragmentation of potential, and to lower efficiency than might have been achieved.[2] There was no central German cryptography agency comparable to the British Bletchley Park facility

That's the issue, and you see the same error made agan and again, in logistics, in different armed forces collaborating, in economic mobilisation. Now maybe we blame the failings of the system the Nazis put in place "divide and control" or "competition is the way to results". Or what have you.

Honestly I had other posts of yours ready to multi quote, but it's really the same point. For example it's not that The Germans had no trucks or where physically incapable of loading and driving the ones they had (well so long as they had petrol) it's just again that was an aspect of the war where they were out classed not just in scale but quite often in efficient use.
 
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hipper

Banned
They, the British, were creamed at Arrakan in 1943, During the bungled British operation against Sumatra in 1944, a combination of Japanese fighters and misuse of weather fronts showed that Sir Philip Vian's TF 67 was not ready for prime time. Operation Robson that was. As late as January 1945 off Palambang, Vian had another try. This time the weather cooperated. It was only Japanese IJA aviation. The strikers were thoroughly chopped up. Operation Meridian that was, against "green" IJA pilots. The refinery was blown up and the Japanese lost 14 aircraft (British claimed 50.). What we do know is that the British failed to score significant permanent damage and at least 7 attackers were splashed, but half of the strikers were so shot up, they were write-offs. (20 planes.)

Columbo 42? British radar was shut down. Losses; 27 British aircraft caught on the ground, 5 Japanese aircraft to AAA during 5 April. British cruisers Dorsetshire and Cornwall sunk. Round 2 was another winner on 9 April. HMS Hermes, HMAS Vampyr (spelling?) and HMAS Holyhock (spelling?) sunk. Between those two episodes Admiral Sir James Somerville (HMS Formidable and HMS Indomitable on hand) supposedly tried to fight a night air/sea action with Nagumo. He never found Nagumo. British claimed 30 Japanese planes splashed in total from the 2 Columbo visits. Actual? Japanese sources list 14 to enemy action and 11 to operational accidents. Damage to another 20. Pearl Harbor was 29 confirmed by wreckage and was worse as to damage, but MURPHY, this is April 1942 with a British fleet alerted at SEA! Make that 3 times the British boloed against the First Team.

Vinegar Joe, Wedemeyer, or even Eisenhower, himself, the bottleneck was always Chiang. At least Mao listened and learned from his peers. He might even have listened to Americans after Otto Braun and his Russian cohorts bugged out and left the CCP in the lurch during the Long March. But that is 1935, and calls for more foresight than Washington possessed at the time.


you keep bringing in irrelevant points that make the British look poor I’ve noticed this before in American history writers ( Ambrose, Aitchison ) is it some general angliphobia or a lack of confidence in American methods?

to get back to the point

Enemy radar must have detected our approach, for Hurricane fighters came out to intercept before we reached the target.
— Lt. Cmdr. Mitsuo Fuchida

“The three Hurricanes of the dawn patrol were quickly in an ideal position: They blasted through the escort in a dive from 22,000 feet. Two Zeros were quickly knocked down. Two of the three 261 Squadron fighters climbed back to safety, but the third was seen pouring smoke.”

this for those that are interested this the use of boom and Zoom tactics by the RAF in 1942 against the Japanese

the book Bloody Shambles Volume 2 states three Zeros were accepted as having been shot down over Trincomalee, as were two Kates - with seven seriously damaged.

of the 16 Hurricanes that had made if off the ground, eight were shot down or force-landed. Three more were damaged.

that’s the worst air to air loss ratio the KB had suffered in the War to date.
it’s also the first time it came up against an operational Air defense network.

other than that Nagano never spotted Somerville’s Fleet Somervilles Spotters found the Japanese fleet, the Japanese used their mobility to escape from Somerville after striking Columbo. while Somerville was looking for Nagato.
 
Full disclosure: I'm going to respond to this without watching the video so possibly my comment is redundant. I'll give it a go later, just not right now at my desk.

I will comment.

With that out of the way: despite some of my other comments in this thread, it's a bit unfair to Germany to just say that they sucked at logistics, full stop. They didn't really. It's just that geographically and strategically their fundamental thinking about warfare was different. If anything it's the Nazis' failure to be good Germans, ironically, that got them into trouble.


Short commentary. Like most professional militaries, the Germans had competent logisticians. They were actually asked about Barbarossa and they pointed out a couple bolos.

1. The German army from its Polish area supply base are going to immediately change over to a different railroad gauge. It should be axiomatic that the Russians would destroy railroad switching equipment, rolling stock and water supplies (steam locomotives need charging about every 80 kilometers, so that is the water tank along the rail line.). The German panzers would march at the speed of a truck. The German infantry would march at the speed of Private Hans and Mr. Ed the horse. Two different tactical speeds. Mr. Ed would need fodder. Russia is not great horse country. It is also HOT and dry in spring / summer with dust as a problem (Need filters and water for your shiny panzers.), and wet and COLD during autumn and winter. Need coats for Hans and Ed, and something, too, for the panzers and trucks so that their engines and running gear do not freeze weld. And in spite of trying to feed Mr. Ed off that poor Ukrainian grass, one is going to need to ship in fodder from western Europe, especially during winter to supplement local sources. 4 million unhappy horses... sad.

So logically, as Mr. Supply Guy, you also point out that if I was Russian, every hovel, barn, shanty, lean-to, or what not will be sabotaged or rendered unusable as a weather shelter. Private Hans and Mr. Ed need that shelter from General Freezer. Never mind the German sapper shortage, how about construction troops? Railway repair troops? Red Horse (airfield repair) units? Medical troops? (Pneumonia, frost bite, cold stroke etc...). General construction troops?

If you're American, or Canadian, or for that matter even British, and you're doing anything other than fighting on your soil, then by definition you're fighting at the end of a logistics train that has to travel across sea and land -- or rather, land and then sea and then land again. It helps if, for both Britain and even more so for the U.S., you've got massive production capabilities tied into a global supply chain of raw resources. Basically, you've got to be able to coordinate complex supply problems in order to fight at all. The army's view of logistics is naturally going to reflect this. Hence our viewpoint in the modern age that logistics is everything. Well, it is, if you're based in Kentucky but the battlefield is in Iraq. Getting all the people, and the equipment, and the ammunition, and the spare parts, etc. to the right place at the right time across several thousand miles is a minor miracle but you either do it or you don't go at all.

2. One comment. If you are Carlisle trained in the 1930s, you actually understand the little things, like the usual load limitations problems of tank transporters, flatcars and current ships available to you. You design your equipment specs. accordingly. Take that tank as an example; Your upper limit in 1939 is about 30 tonnes mass, no more than ~ 3 meters wide and 6 meters long. Hello Mr. Sherman or Mr. Cromwell. The guys who go to Iraq in 1991? They have Mr. Abrams. That 65 tonne monster exceeded the routine 45 tonne mass limits and sizes that general shipping could handle in 1980 (Mr. Patton). The tanks could be moved, but it was an embarrassment and it was reported. Or how about the little movement from Germany into the Balkans, later, the US Army tried during the Yugoslavia crisis? Crossing a few rivers in the rain with the equipment in use was an embarrassment carried LIVE on the network news.

Somebody forgot about vehicle ground floatation limits and making sure the bridging equipment was up to specs. Why do I bring that up? Because the Germans forgot the same exact kinds of things. They did not remember to ask where they were headed and what conditions they could expect. What works logistically on the North German plain gets you stuck up to the axles in front of Smolensk in November. And poor Mr. Ed; he freezes to death or dies of pneumonia. Not enough veterinarians either.

The Germans sucked at logistics.

Germany in contrast is a land power. Its principal enemies would always be its neighbors and near-neighbors, and it doesn't have the global supply chain or links to distant manufacturing centres. From Germany's perspective logistics is about getting the maximum concentration of people and resources to the border at the right time to launch an invasion that will be as quick and as decisive as possible. Defeat the enemy fast before you get stalled in a war of attrition, before the enemy can start to draw on reinforcements from elsewhere. Germany's prospects in a drawn-out slugging match of industrial production and attrition aren't great, so the logical solution is to end the war before the enemy has time to bring this giant cannon to bear. It worked for Germany when they invaded France in 1870, it very nearly worked in 1914, and then it worked again in 1940. This is a different logistical problem, but it is a logistical problem.

It is not a different logistical problem. it is the same logistical problem. How do you march 1000 kilometers into Russia? WW I Germans managed it and won. Somebody goofed.

Of course the problem with that mode of warfare is that if you push to the end of your logistical chain and the enemy still has some serious fight left in him, you're at the end of a very long and tenuous supply chain that was never designed for long-term use and he's pushed up right next to his manufacturing centers. Hence you get this seasonal start-stop effect on the eastern front where the Germans end up in a stop-start war where they leap forward successfully, then try to hold most of what they've got while the logistics catch up, then leap forward again, etc. This works too at least for a while. Of course eventually, the Soviets smash the Germans so hard that they can't recover the initiative, and then it's one long bloody and inexorable march to Berlin. Maybe somebody should have thought of that.

Somebody did, but they were overruled. And that start stop cycle is weather related. Not enough good German meteorologists either. I have an interesting timeline where I discuss something I call the "weather war" which is the Canadian American campaign to deny Germans that kind of information. (See tagline for that source.)

Anyhow, all of this is just a long-winded way of saying let's not be too mean to the Germans. They had an effective theory of warfare to a point. The Nazis overestimated its applicability.

If your supply guys tell you, "Boss; I know you want Moscow by Octoberfest, but we may have some serious problems doing that thing.", and you don't listen and plan accordingly, then you deserve what happens to you.
 
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I would say they won by a combination of brute logistical force (mostly in the west), brute physical force (Russian Front), and brute economic force (Pacific). Still, none of that alone could win the war. All the ammunition and equipment in the world won't help if the men using it fail every step of the way so a lot of credit still needs to be given to the boots on the ground. Even in this area, though, the Allied approach using force rotation proved to be superior to Axis "fight until the war is over or you die" approach. By the mid-point of the war, and certainly by the end, the Allies were showing more skill and experience on a man-to-man and even unit-to-unit basis, quickly overcoming their initial deficits in this area.

Ultimately though the vast expanse of area under Allied control which was unreachable by the Axis powers made the final difference. North American industry and to a lesser extent Soviet industry, were largely untouched and untouchable by their enemies throughout the duration of the war (never mind the Japanese balloon bombs), while the entire industrial and supply capacities of Italy, Germany, and--by the end of 1944--Japan were open targets for Allied bombing campaigns. Say what you will about the inefficacy of individual raids but the fact is when you add them up Axis industrial and logistical capacities were almost nil by the times of their surrenders.
 
you keep bringing in irrelevant points that make the British look poor I’ve noticed this before in American history writers ( Ambrose, Aitchison ) is it some general angliphobia or a lack of confidence in American methods?

YOU really need to read the timeline where I tackle the Americans in the Southwest Pacific Ocean Area. You think I'm unkind to the British?

to get back to the point

Enemy radar must have detected our approach, for Hurricane fighters came out to intercept before we reached the target.
— Lt. Cmdr. Mitsuo Fuchida

Based on his reporting on the Battle of Midway (Read "The Shattered Sword") Fuchida is worthless as a reporter on anything. The Japanese say so themselves. He is sort of the Japanese Marc Mitscher when it comes to alibis about what he did wrong.

“The three Hurricanes of the dawn patrol were quickly in an ideal position: They blasted through the escort in a dive from 22,000 feet. Two Zeros were quickly knocked down. Two of the three 261 Squadron fighters climbed back to safety, but the third was seen pouring smoke.”

Same again. Example; "Midway: the Battle that Doomed Japan", Fuchida claims the Japanese strike was spotted on the aircraft carriers ready to take off and blast Fletcher just mere moments before the dive bombers wheeled down on Kaga and Akagi. Horsefeathers. I am somewhat knowledgeable on Midway, so let me discuss Fuchida as a source that way. I know that Japanese aircraft handling procedures and op-cycles are based on pre-war British practice; that is strike below, arm and fuel in the hanger deck, and that to cycle their standing combat air patrols (two shu-tai or six planes at a go) the Japanese had to keep their decks clear. Tomonaga, notwithstanding, this was the op-cycle condition during the air-battle that morning of 6 June 1942; clear decks, with the CAP cycling through during the series of American Midway based torpedo plane and bomber attacks. The Japanese landed their fighters, and hurriedly rearmed and cycled them over the course of two hours, during lulls in the fighting. Otherwise they would have been Winchester and Bingo when the Torprons from the American carriers showed up. Fuchida lied about it.

this for those that are interested this the use of boom and Zoom tactics by the RAF in 1942 against the Japanese

the book Bloody Shambles Volume 2 states three Zeros were accepted as having been shot down over Trincomalee, as were two Kates - with seven seriously damaged.

of the 16 Hurricanes that had made if off the ground, eight were shot down or force-landed. Three more were damaged.

On the 9th. The British were caught on the ground on the 5th. I mentioned that.

that’s the worst air to air loss ratio the KB had suffered in the War to date.
it’s also the first time it came up against an operational Air defense network.

Not true. The British air intercepts collapsed on the 9th. That is not an air defense network. That is Pearl Harbor 3.0.

other than that Nagano never spotted Somerville’s Fleet Somervilles Spotters found the Japanese fleet, the Japanese used their mobility to escape from Somerville after striking Columbo. while Somerville was looking for Nagato.

True, sorta. An Albacore found Nagumo and Somerville could have tried a night attack. Somerville actually ran for it, instead (Orders?). I think that was the correct decision considering the poor readiness state of British forces in theater and what Nagumo would do to them come the dawn. I was trying to be polite and not hurt the RN's reputation.
 
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Deleted member 1487

...so your counter to German intelligence not being very good are two plots German intelligence/security never discovered, or even had high-ranking members involved in? Also both conspiracies failed utterly despite that.

Not really a counter-case.
I'd recheck that, the Oster conspiracy was broken up and the Abwehr eventually disbanded; they were detected earlier and allowed to survive until the Hitler assassination attempt to keep channels to the West open during the war for a potential negotiated peace.
Also I said early war, I swear you people don't actually read what I'm writing.

Why have you linked two examples of German run and led conspiracies against Germany?

If your point is to point to some German counter intelligence successes than yeah OK, but we're not saying the Germans had no counterintelligence results or indeed no intel ones either. Just that when comparing the two sides this was an aspect of the war they lost decisively.

you linked the German code breaking successes on Wikipedia earlier but look at the first lines in that article


German code breaking in World War II achieved some notable successes cracking British Naval ciphers until well into the fourth year of the war,[1] but also suffered from a problem typical of the German armed forces of the time: numerous branches and institutions maintained their own cryptographic departments, working on their own without collaboration or sharing results with equivalent units. This led to duplicated effort, to a fragmentation of potential, and to lower efficiency than might have been achieved.[2] There was no central German cryptography agency comparable to the British Bletchley Park facility

That's the issue, and you see the same error made agan and again, in logistics, in different armed forces collaborating, in economic mobilisation. Now maybe we blame the failings of the system the Nazis put in place "divide and control" or "competition is the way to results". Or what have you.

Honestly I had other posts of yours ready to multi quote, but it's really the same point. For example it's not that The Germans had no trucks or where physically incapable of loading and driving the ones they had (well so long as they had petrol) it's just again that was an aspect of the war where they were out classed not just in scale but quite often in efficient use.
My point was that yes the Abwehr was the hub for anti-Nazi resistance as Calbear suspected, which may well have been a factor in why their performance was so poor during the latter parts of the war. Canaris actively intervened to keep Spain out of the war in 1940.

And you're not reading what I've written, I said that EARLY in the war the Germans had quite a few intel successes, which were counterintel, sigint, and even to some degree spy derived. By 1942 at the latest their successes and dried up. Yes of course they lost the intel war decisively, which I already stated bluntly. My point was don't build more myths about WW2 by pretending that the Axis was entirely incompetent and somehow blundered to early success based solely on dumb luck. If you'll note that the link you cited supports what I said, they had notable EARLY successes which was a big reason they were so successful early on. Yes, the Nazi state, among other reasons, was a if not the big part of the problem with organizing SigInt and general intelligence gathering.

In terms of logistics, service competition, and economic mobilization to some degree that existed in all nations, but was worse in the major Axis powers due to their political systems; I'm not denying that or defending anything about their stupidity or their evilness as regimes. I'm just pushing back against the new mythos of the utterly incompetent Axis against which the Allies were superior in every way and numbers had nothing to do with their victory. At some point the truth should matter, but instead it seems like in the desire to push back against Wehraboos, of which there really aren't that many out there anymore, a new false narrative has been created. Of course that said the Allies did not simply win on numbers, but a pretty major part of their victory is attributable to it and denying that fact is creating a false historiography. If you think I'm making that up read Ian W's or McPherson's posts in this thread. Or watch the videos they cite; House and Glantz for instance, despite the stellar work they've done on the Eastern Front, have swung the pendulum too far in the direction of Soviet virtuousity, while others out there are doing the same with the Wallies by pushing 'correctives' against the Germans and to some degree the Japanese citing the 1950s historiography as the reason why, despite that narrative being long dead.
 
I'd recheck that, the Oster conspiracy was broken up and the Abwehr eventually disbanded; they were detected earlier and allowed to survive until the Hitler assassination attempt to keep channels to the West open during the war for a potential negotiated peace.
From your own link:

“The plotters survived to become leaders of German resistance to Hitler and Nazism during the Second World War. Oster himself was on active duty until 1943, when placed under house arrest after other Abwehr officers were caught helping Jews to escape Germany. After the failed 1944 July Plot on Hitler's life, the Gestapo seized the diaries of Admiral Canaris, in which Oster's long term anti-Nazi activities were revealed. Oster was executed in April 1945.”

Also I said early war, I swear you people don't actually read what I'm writing.
Then don’t provide examples that are late-war or pre-War.
 

Deleted member 1487

From your own link:

“The plotters survived to become leaders of German resistance to Hitler and Nazism during the Second World War. Oster himself was on active duty until 1943, when placed under house arrest after other Abwehr officers were caught helping Jews to escape Germany. After the failed 1944 July Plot on Hitler's life, the Gestapo seized the diaries of Admiral Canaris, in which Oster's long term anti-Nazi activities were revealed. Oster was executed in April 1945.”
Ok? He was an intelligence officer and was extremely careful, but was ultimately caught. His boss Canaris was the one being primarily surveilled and activities tolerated by Himmler:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08850609608435318?journalCode=ujic20


Then don’t provide examples that are late-war or pre-War.
Why would pre-war examples not count, especially given how they impacted the early war, like the capture of the MI5 officers that led to the roll up of the British intel networks in Europe pre-and early war?
 
Ok? He was an intelligence officer and was extremely careful, but was ultimately caught. His boss Canaris was the one being primarily surveilled and activities tolerated by Himmler:
It doesn’t support your argument in any way. No conspiracy broken up, no arrests, everybody went on to form new conspiracies.
Why would pre-war examples not count, especially given how they impacted the early war, like the capture of the MI5 officers that led to the roll up of the British intel networks in Europe pre-and early war?
Then why didn’t you use those instead.
 

Deleted member 1487

It doesn’t support your argument in any way. No conspiracy broken up, no arrests, everybody went on to form new conspiracies..
You clearly are just ignoring what I'm writing. I said they were tolerated because they were being kept as a channel for a negotiated peace; the paper I linked to said it was unclear why Himmler, who was well informed about what Canaris was up to, was tolerated for so long and the answer was because of his contacts with British intelligence and through them the British government which was used as a channel to discuss peace as Canaris tried to do repeatedly. They were broken up when Hitler finally was clued in to what was going on by the assassination attempt and ordered a clean sweep; it is hardly shocking then that they were all already known about and 20,000 people swooped up in a matter of weeks.

Then why didn’t you use those instead.
I did already, you don't read apparently.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venlo_Incident
http://www.historynet.com/undercover-walter-schellenberg-january-97-world-war-ii-feature.htm
Best, Stevens and Lemmens were rushed to Berlin for interrogation. In Stevens’ pocket was a recently scrawled list of people, including all of MI-6’s agents, who were to be pulled out of Holland in case of a German invasion. Both British spymasters revealed a considerable amount of valuable information during the nearly four weeks they were questioned. As one British official said, “Our entire espionage system in Western Europe was mopped up…in a single swoop.”

The Venlo Incident had widespread fallout that went beyond the obliteration of Britain’s station in the Netherlands and the Z Organization. It proved to be a long-lasting blow to genuine anti-Hitler activities inside Germany, affecting everything from internal efforts to outside support. The Führer also used the incident to justify his ultimate invasion of Holland, stating that Klop’s involvement proved Dutch neutrality was a sham.

Furthermore, not only were British-Dutch relations soured, but France’s suspicions were roused that London was trying to make a separate peace behind its back. Hitler’s prestige at home was increased by the Venlo Incident, and he was handed a tremendous propaganda victory, one that included tying the British to the attempt on his life.

Finally, MI-6 received one of the greatest embarrassments in its history. British Intelligence agents remained perplexed about the events at Venlo until November 22, when the Nazis revealed what had happened. Clearly, the incident at the Café Backus was a crucial opening battle in World War II’s intelligence war.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Dansey#Z_organization
The Hague was the major shipment point for MI6 operations at the time, gathering information from all over Europe and sending it to London. However, the station in the Hague was headed by two retired military officers: Sigismund Payne Best and Major Richard Stevens, who had little intelligence experience. Their operation had been penetrated by a Dutch recruit, who was a double agent for the German SD and knew the identities of all Best's and Stevens's agents and assets.

When SD officer Walter Schellenberg posed as a dissident German military officer, Best and Stevens took the bait and were captured at Venlo in September 1939. The whole MI6 apparatus in the Netherlands was destroyed.
 
Short commentary. Like most professional militaries, the Germans had competent logisticians. They were actually asked about Barbarossa and they pointed out a couple bolos.

It doesn't particularly matter if you have a competent logistics office buried somewhere in the general staff if nobody at the top wants to listen to them, which they plainly did not.

Instead like any bureaucracy the people at the top get sold a song and a dance from somewhere else about how the boring logistics guys don't matter because we can just re-gauge the track and use lots of captured trucks from Poland, Czechoslovakia, etc., and fake it till we make it. The boring logistics guys are probably further marginalized in minds at the top by the fact that the boring objections to invading France all turned out -- seemingly -- to be nothing but hot air.

2. One comment. If you are Carlisle trained in the 1930s, you actually understand the little things, like the usual load limitations problems of tank transporters, flatcars and current ships available to you. You design your equipment specs. accordingly. Take that tank as an example; Your upper limit in 1939 is about 30 tonnes mass, no more than ~ 3 meters wide and 6 meters long. Hello Mr. Sherman or Mr. Cromwell. The guys who go to Iraq in 1991? They have Mr. Abrams. That 65 tonne monster exceeded the routine 45 tonne mass limits and sizes that general shipping could handle in 1980 (Mr. Patton). The tanks could be moved, but it was an embarrassment and it was reported. Or how about the little movement from Germany into the Balkans, later, the US Army tried during the Yugoslavia crisis? Crossing a few rivers in the rain with the equipment in use was an embarrassment carried LIVE on the network news.

I don't disagree with this but my point is the German system of war has not historically had to deal with these problems. Whether it's 1870 or 1914 or 1940, the core logistical problem is getting as much force as you can to the marching-off point in time to advance towards the enemy at an unexpectedly rapid pace and ideally cave in the enemy front while they are still mobilizing. Two out of three times this worked against France, essentially. The third time (1914) was essentially an hour's drive on good roads away from changing world history unrecognizably.

What seems to have been overlooked in German planning, thought not as you correctly point out by logisticians, was the magnitude of the difference between getting to Paris on good roads and getting to Moscow on bad ones. Much the same way they seem to have initially overlooked the magnitude of the difference between crossing a river and crossing the English Channel. I introduce Sea Lion with a bit of trepidation here, but it would be interesting to know whether these same logisticians expressed an opinion on the viability of Sea Lion.

It is not a different logistical problem. it is the same logistical problem. How do you march 1000 kilometers into Russia? WW I Germans managed it and won. Somebody goofed.

The WWI Germans did not attempt to sprint to Moscow in one season. If I remember right, at the time of the failed July Offensive in 1917, the eastern front was still squarely in central to western Ukraine.

If your supply guys tell you, "Boss; I know you want Moscow by Octoberfest, but we may have some serious problems doing that thing.", and you don't listen and plan accordingly, then you deserve what happens to you.

Can't disagree with that.
 
Instead like any bureaucracy the people at the top get sold a song and a dance from somewhere else about how the boring logistics guys don't matter because we can just re-gauge the track and use lots of captured trucks from Poland, Czechoslovakia, etc., and fake it till we make it. The boring logistics guys are probably further marginalized in minds at the top by the fact that the boring objections to invading France all turned out -- seemingly -- to be nothing but hot air.

The railroad problem. The experts were ignored.

First, I want to write that I agree with almost everything you write in reply to my comments. Second; I think the logistics guys in Case Yellow get a bum rap. Mannstein upset the apple cart with his extremely risky Ardennes suggestion, so seemingly negating their early objections to Schlieffen 2.0.. The ruffle shuffle was so quick that it is to the credit of those same logistics planners that the Ardennes punch worked at all. There was an unexpected Pontoon shortage for example and when the Germans tried to cross the Meuse, they had to Grant it (Overland Campaign style.) and improvise with equipment they had plus field expedient (local timber and seized boats). They must have had a Colonel Haupt in there somewhere.
 
The railroad problem. The experts were ignored.

First, I want to write that I agree with almost everything you write in reply to my comments. Second; I think the logistics guys in Case Yellow get a bum rap. Mannstein upset the apple cart with his extremely risky Ardennes suggestion, so seemingly negating their early objections to Schlieffen 2.0.. The ruffle shuffle was so quick that it is to the credit of those same logistics planners that the Ardennes punch worked at all. There was an unexpected Pontoon shortage for example and when the Germans tried to cross the Meuse, they had to Grant it (Overland Campaign style.) and improvise with equipment they had plus field expedient (local timber and seized boats). They must have had a Colonel Haupt in there somewhere.
Thanks for that. An interesting read - I did not realize for example that German success in the north can be partly explained by the fact that the Soviets had yet to finish converting Baltic rail track.
 

Short commentary: The Meuse crossing. Pay attention to the OODA cycle and the small details that allow the Germans to claw their toeholds along the Meuse. Also, he who holds the battlefield, repairs his tanks.
 
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