How plausible is an Axis Victory

Its been pointed out before, but the real weakness of germany at the time was political. Churchill came up with some really dumb ideas, but the system of government was not going to allow him to override the decisions of more knowledgable people as often as hitler was able to do. i know people will say that this is the familiar argument that germany's generals didn't lose the war because hitler was crazy etc..but you have to wonder if at least an honorable peace could have been reached if the 300,000 seasoned campaigners under mannstein weren't just thrown away
 

backstab

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The software wins over the hardware. This happened every time, in 1940 as in 1941 as in 1944.

For an example of what happened when veteran tankers were in Shermans, and green tankers were in Panthers, there is the Arracourt battle.

The Shermans and the much-maligned US TDs simply cut the Panthers to shreds, with insignificant losses of their own. I can provide further detail if needed.

Sorry for jumping into this late but your statement is pretty vague... ofcourse the Panthers would have been cut to shreds if you were outnumbered 4-6 to 1. Its a numbers game , not Skill. US tankers were pretty crap compared to the Germans (Have a look at who holds the world records) even up to the beginning of 1945
 
Then that would be followed by Roosevelt's impeachment. Why declare war on a nation that hasn't attacked you? That is political suicide.

Really? So tell me about the US President's political suicide in WWI.

Germany had not attacked the USA in 1941? That depends on not defining US warships as US territory, not a safe bet, I'll tell you. Look up the following ship names: Greer, Kearny, Reuben James.

Had Germany not declared war in December 1941, torpedoes would have been fired again and again, back and forth, in Northern Atlantic, while the US armed forces geared up fro war, trained, and bought materiel. Finally, after one sinking too many, the USA would have had enough and enough consensus would be present to declare war.

Add that it was not an uncommon impression in the uSA at the time that Pearl harbor had been pulled off by the Japanese only thanks to German help.

Short story of it is what I posted: US DoW on Germany some time in the first half of 1942.
 
For Japan, the only remote chance is avoid war with the US, invade the Dutch East Indies and hope the americans are too worried with the germans to bother to declare war on them, even if the Filipines are a danger in their back.
In Europe, I still believe the germans had their only chance in 1941. They did very well in the first months of Barbarrossa, and only a bit more success could have meant victory. Take Moscow, then destroy the soviets in Ukraine. My guess is that Stalin would have thrown anything he had at Moscow and would have lost it. Or maybe not, but anyway that was their best chance. After december 1941 a german victory is almost impossible.
A Germany succesfull in the east would not be able to invade a UK backed by the US (though could do a lot of damage), but would be also invincible in Europe. All resources could be diverted to Luftwaffe so an allied landing would be impossible and some sort of peace would be achieved.
 
Sorry for jumping into this late but your statement is pretty vague... ofcourse the Panthers would have been cut to shreds if you were outnumbered 4-6 to 1. Its a numbers game , not Skill. US tankers were pretty crap compared to the Germans (Have a look at who holds the world records) even up to the beginning of 1945

Pretty vague, as in giving you the name of the battle? Arracourt; you can look it up on your own. Or if this was a not very kind way of asking me for the details I offered, I'll post more details later on. And no, the Panthers were not outnumbered, and no, in that occasion the crappy tankers were the German ones, exactly as I stated.
Stay tuned.
 
Pretty vague, as in giving you the name of the battle? Arracourt; you can look it up on your own. Or if this was a not very kind way of asking me for the details I offered, I'll post more details later on. And no, the Panthers were not outnumbered, and no, in that occasion the crappy tankers were the German ones, exactly as I stated.
Stay tuned.


To my undrestanding the allies did pretty well during the battle of Ardennes as well...being on the defence does give you some pretty good advantages, a fact often forgotten when talking about the superiority of german tankers.
 
For Japan, the only remote chance is avoid war with the US, invade the Dutch East Indies and hope the americans are too worried with the germans to bother to declare war on them, even if the Filipines are a danger in their back.

I disagree, if the Japanese can get the declaration of war in before the attack and delay the Americans rally, they have a good shot at getting the American people sick enough of this war to give peace a chance.

And it might even help the Japanese if the Germans don't declare war on the US. FDR would have then had to go to congress and ask for a declaration of war against Germany which he very well couldn't get in that circumstance. The Japanese declaration, stating the reasons for the war would have placed the blame squarely on FDR's shoulders, what with his "Interventionist Saber-Rattling" and congress might not be thrilled at the prospect of giving him a blank check to get the US into an even messier situation.

And so even if the US is militarily stronger by being able to fight a one front war the political pro-war crowd would be significantly weaker and more willing to look for peace, even if they start winning.
 
The Arracourt Case Study

Sorry for jumping into this late but your statement is pretty vague... ofcourse the Panthers would have been cut to shreds if you were outnumbered 4-6 to 1. Its a numbers game , not Skill. US tankers were pretty crap compared to the Germans (Have a look at who holds the world records) even up to the beginning of 1945

Here are the promised details about the battle of Arracourt, taking place on September 19, 1944, in the Nancy area. The Germans were on the counterattack.

On the US side, it involved elements of Combat Command A of the 4th Armored Division; elements of the 37th Tank Battalion had been detached, so as far as armor went, this boiled down to one company of medium tanks, one of light tanks (M-5s) and one of tank destroyers. IOW, 14 standard Shermans, 4 M-4A3E2 "Jumbos", 4 105mm Shermans, 19 M-5 Stuarts, and 13 M-18 TDs. If one counts only the tanks with a 75mm or larger caliber main gun, that's 35.
It was however a combined-arms team with infantry, engineers, attached artillery and armored artillery.
The 4th Armored Division, by this time, had had not only extensive training but also numerous combat experiences. It had been prevailingly successful through them, and could be counted as a veteran unit.

On the German side, the battle involved most of the newly formed 113. Panzerbrigade, a new unit and a new concept of armored unit for the Germans. The vanguard would be made of its Panther battalion, with 43 Panthers. It was accompanied by recon elements on armored cars and armored half-track APCs, and followed by dismounted infantry.
As said, the 113. was a new unit. It had been cobbled together just some 10 days before with reserve and replacement battalions. They had small cadres of veteran officers and instructor NCOs, but the average tanker was a trainee. The various elements had not trained together. For all purposes, the unit was green.

The battle featured, in the morning, repeated hesitant piecemeal attacks by platoons and companies of the Panther battalion. These were met by ambushes of small US units, even as small as a 2-tank section. Every time, the Germans managed to be shot up at close range, and most of the times on a flank. They lost tanks at the first fire, most of the times did not cause losses on the US tanks, and withdrew the surviving tanks.
The attacks were repeated, with probes from various directions and different parts of the front. The US troops did not just stand their ground; they maneuvered and counter-maneuvered, set up flying ambushes, withdrew and ambushed again. At one point, a Panther company managed to strike an area with no US tanks, and was pushed back with losses by US infantry and M-7 SP howitzers.
In the afternoon, the US troops attacked back, and achieved roughly the same results; heavy German losses for few US casualties.
On the following day, the terrain was in US hands and counted 43 German wrecks, most of them Panthers. German reports account for a loss of 49 tanks from the Brigade's force, which might mean some 6 were recovered and later repaired. The US troops lost 8 AFVs (3 TDs and 5 Shermans). One of the German Panzergrenadier Abteilungen had been badly damaged, too. The US forces had lost 19 men.

The factors favoring the US tankers were the following:
1. they were on the defense. They knew the area and could lay ambushes. As a rule, this should be balanced by a numerical superiority of the attacker, which should be between 2:1 and 3:1, and this was mostly not the case here. Even so, the Germans did have a small superiority (1.2:1) and they were not on the attack for all of the engagement; when the roles were reversed in the afternoon, the Germans kept losing.
2. The weather conditions. The day was foggy. This limited the distances of engagement and thus negated the technical advantage of the 75mmL70 Panther gun. But it should be mentioned that the German commanders thought it would be an advantage for them – since it would rule out Allied tactical air support, and furthermore it would cover the attacker's initial moves.
3. The US tankers were veterans; the German tankers were green. That the Germans had a much better tank did not change this fact.

Software wins over hardware. It happened when experienced Germans on PzIIIs overcame green French and Soviet tankers on heavy tanks; it happened again here when 35 Shermans and M-18s driven by veterans cut to shreds 43 Panthers driven by trainees. QED.
 
I disagree, if the Japanese can get the declaration of war in before the attack and delay the Americans rally, they have a good shot at getting the American people sick enough of this war to give peace a chance.

IMHO, if the war declaration is soon enough, the attack on a ready Pearl would be costly and less effective. The japanese military situation would be worst and the american motivation for war a bit less, but it does not matter as they achieve a great material advantage later on.
The only way to get americans against the war would be if Rooselvet declares it, and then the navy suffers a defeat. Maybe a DoW after japanese agression against european colonies, followed by a naval deep-water disaster for the USN (say, in Filippines).
But if attacked first, the americans would fight until the inevitable victory.
 
I am obviously of the minority here, but I think it's possible for Japan to have succeed in staving off America long enough to get a favorable peace, and the two possibilities I thought of have to do with the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Necessary to both of these ideas, the declaration of war has to come before the attack. Any declaration that happens before the attack will ensure that the reasons for the war will be broadcast and will increase dissent towards Roosevelt's actions and decrease the willingness of America to fight.

The first scenario is that in the attack, the Japanese bomb the Oil storage tanks at the base and destroy them. The loss of the Oil itself would be bad, but worse would be the loss of the storage facility itself. Instead of relying on Hawaii as a fully supplied base of operations, a massive shipping campaign would have to be made from the West Coast to bring oil to ships and there wouldn't be an immediate place to store it which would reduce our logistical efficiency moreso.

A third strike really isn't plausible in the historical Pearl Harbor raid when the US was at peace and it's even less plausible when attacking a Pearl Harbor that's on a war footing to begin with (and so inflicts greater damage upon the Japanese air strikes). Hitting the oil storage tanks will require the use of D3As dive bombing against low visibility targets (smoke from previous strikes having obscured the targets). At this point in time, the Japanese have already lost 22% of their dive bombers shot down or damaged beyond repair (11% of the B5Ns but these would be level bombing only and were not used in the second strike) and there is likely an even larger number that are not currently mission capable plus American resistance is obviously far stronger. In fact, the second wave lost 35% of the dive-bombers (with even higher for repairable but not in time for a notional third strike), a crippling amount that would make a third strike tantamount to suicide and leaving the carriers defenseless (bear in mind that the US carriers have not been located). Simply for the sake of completeness, the first wave lost 40% of its torpedo-bombers. For the sake of comparison, Black Sunday (Operation Tidal Wave) lost only 30% of its aircraft.

Source

You can of course posit that the first or second strikes ignore the ships and attack the oil storage facilities, but that would require a massive justification and I'm not sure its plausible.

It would take a long time to rebuild the facilities and restock it, and until then the US Navy would be severely hampered. With not enough oil to go around the carrier expedition to Midway may be called off or reduced leading to a possible loss of that island. The prolonged war and additional defeats could lead to America losing it's taste for the war and try to strike a deal.

The island of Midway won't be lost, the Japanese were too incompetent at opposed amphibious landings for that to be the case (witness First Wake). Coral Sea and Guadulcanal aren't likely to occur though. Remember that the very latest that the Japanese will be able to extend the war is August 1945, at which point the Americans drop atom bombs from B-29s staging from China.

The other possibility is the Japanese take Hawaii and use it as a forward base.

Not possible, end of story.
 
From Warships1 on the third strike.

Electric Joe said:
This regards Nagumo's withdrawal.

Probably the single best vetting of this contrived issue is found in Willmott.

The single most damning indictment of the idea of a third strike was timing. Launching a third strike the same day would have necessitated a night recovery, something for which every single one of the Japanese carrier aviators was technically "out of qual" for due to not flying any night approaches or landings in at least two weeks. Some parties love to jump up and down about how well trained the Japanese aviators were, but I suspect not one of them has a night trap in their log books. I came within three of equalizing my day and night traps and night carrier landings are not a trivial issue...especially on an axial deck, in pitching seas, tired from flying a second five-hour combat mission. Launching a third strike the following day would have put the destroyers in extremis for fuel, and potentially expose the carrier force to all manner of retaliation from air, surface and below.

The next limiting issue was the aircraft available and the damage done to them. Only 29 aircraft were shot down, but another 111+ were damaged (and at least 20 of those were deemed constructive total losses). From the first wave, 8+ torpedo-armed B5Ns were damaged, and 10 AP bomb-armed B5Ns, and 17 D3As. From the second wave, 16 B5Ns, and 41+ D3As were damaged.

Looking at these figures, as well as the loss of 5 B5N torpedo-carriers and 14 D3As, Genda concluded that the environment had become unsurvivable for B5Ns and made the decision not to include them in any follow-up strike under consideration. Then they looked at the available D3As. Of those, the majority had just landed and still needed to armed and fueled, and in 58 cases, they needed to be repaired to some degree. So all that remained available was 56 undamaged D3As, 23 of which had just recovered, and only 33 of which could be made immediately ready. Unfortunately, those 33 had recovered in the first recovery and were in the deepest recesses of the hangars, farthest from the lifts.

So if there was going to be a third strike the same day, it was going to be D3As and fighters. Unfortunately, there was a premium on both types due to the need for a CAP in the event of retaliation either from the island, or from the missing carriers. In the event the missing carriers appeared, an anti-shipping strike would desperately require D3As to knock out those carriers. Since the carriers were not in the harbor, one of the first priorities for the Japanese carriers had to be organizing an anti-shipping strike as a contingency.

Thus a third strike the same day wasn't going to fly for aircraft availability, and of course it wasn't going to fly the next day due to the destroyers' fuel state.

The final issue is one of just what took place on Akagi's bridge regarding the discussion of a third strike. Pertinent to this issue are Yamamoto's orders to Nagumo which nowhere specified the base facilities as targets. Nor did Yamamoto's orders specify anything about a third strike. The orders Nagumo issued raised the idea of a third strike as a concession to Genda. The mission objective was to sink or cripple at least four battleships and delay the United States from interfering with the Southern Advance for at least six months. Nagumo could definitively say that he had met his mission objective and then some. And despite some fantastic contingency plans by Genda that contemplated loitering for unrealistic periods (something impossible due to fuel), after Genda decided it wasn't safe for B5Ns over the target due to the mounting AA fire, those contingencies looked fanciful at best. Genda did not press the idea of a third strike when the time came. Fuchida claims to have pressed the issue when he landed, but Fuchida lied. The conversation he recounts actually took place a couple of days later and was rather wistful. Both Genda and Kusaka exposed Fuchida's lie long ago in Japanese language accounts that most Americans are unfamiliar with. Kusaka and Genda also exposed that although Nagumo included his concession to Genda in the orders he issued, he had no intention to following through on that concession. Genda reported that beforehand his representation for a third strike was "should the first [two] fall short" which they most certainly didn't.

Another issue that is not addressed by Willmott, is the suitability of ordnance available to some of the suggested targets. The drydocks were virtually impervious to the available weaponry. The shallow water torpedoes were expended, as were the AP bombs. What remained lacked the necessary characteristics to effect heavy concrete structures. As for the tools and dies in the machine shops of the Navy Yard, they probably would have survived any bombing, even if the buildings house them did not. This was the common experience in Europe with similar facilities raided by heavy bombers dropping more and larger bombs, so such an attack might not have produced the desired results and Hawaii is not exactly an unpleasant environment to work outside. The oil tanks were certainly flammable, but not necessarily easy to hit, ignite, or spill, and the majority were diked to prevent run-off into the harbor.

Losing these facilities and supplies even temporarily would certainly have been a blow, but not as fatal as many officers' later hyperbole implies. More-or-less permanent shop buildings don't take long to erect, not do oil tankers. Filling them would certainly take a few months, but that too was well within American capabilities. However, the likely result of a third raid on this facilities would be much less than total destruction. Dive bombers are fairly precise, but a dive bomber pilot can't tell where to plant his bomb in a building to score the direct hit usually necessary to destroy machine tools and dies. Hitting oil tanks could certainly set them afire, but only breaching their sides will really get them to spill their contents and such a hit is harder to achieve than simply putting a bomb through the top. If the tank doesn't spill, it can be extinguished, repairs and some volume of unburned fuel might be salvaged. Of course, precise hits are harder to make when under heavy fire, and the Japanese judged the fire during the second raid to be the heaviest they had ever encountered. This is a telling point because the Army batteries never got into the fight. Any third raid would also have that fire to deal with, in addition to the Navy's batteries, and any aircraft that could rise to oppose the attack (as some did to oppose the second).

The third raid was never seriously practicable or seriously considered. Yamamoto did not include the proposed targets of such a raid in his orders to Nagumo. Nagumo entertained a third raid in the orders he issued to humor Genda, who suggested such a thing only in the event the earlier raids failed in their objective. Genda entertained other contingencies, but those contingencies were impractical and he never pressed for any of them with Nagumo. Nagumo and his Chief-of-Staff, Kusaka, looked at the situation beforehand and came to the basic conclusion that a third raid was impractical and had essentially already made the decision against it the night before, something of which Genda was aware. Fuchida's self-reported remonstrances of the day, were, in fact, wistful discussion of might-have-beens a couple of days later.
 
Let's not forget that the Japanese shot down a few planes identified as the sort appearing only on US carriers so they knew one or more enemy carriers were in range after the losses suffered in the first two strikes.

If you were Nagumo would you push a third strike in against resistance from remaining US planes and anti-aircraft guns knowing that one or more carriers may be launching a strike against you at any moment?
 
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