The Most ASB moment of WW2?

The Most ASB moment of WWII?

  • Japan's Success at Singapore

    Votes: 17 7.9%
  • Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact

    Votes: 9 4.2%
  • Hitler Survives July 44th Plot

    Votes: 30 14.0%
  • Churchill becoming PM

    Votes: 3 1.4%
  • Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor

    Votes: 4 1.9%
  • Germany Success during Battle of France

    Votes: 91 42.5%
  • Montgomery's Success as El Alamein

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Successful Evacuation at Dunkirk

    Votes: 33 15.4%
  • Something Else

    Votes: 27 12.6%

  • Total voters
    214

tenthring

Banned
The German made a breakthrough in Sedan, then hurried toward Abbeville, trapping the best french armies and the BEF into the Dunkirk pocket. GAME OVER !

Their initial success in establishing the Sedan bridgehead is nearly ASB

From what I know, Rubarth and his platoon fought their way, Rambo-style, against the line of french bunkers aligned along the Meuse river.

SIX infantrymen facing seven bunkers. Just six soldiers managed to create a bridgehead that was to doom France. Can you believe that ???!!!

It's amazing what men the Kaiser and the Nazi's managed to squander.
 
I choose the success of the German Army in May 1940. It as a unbelievable event then, & even today has to be explained away by recycling some rather weak politically based & self serving excuses by the French Generals & Marshals. God forbid they ever admit they made bad decisions during the course of the battle. When you add up material, position, preparation of the defense, act… and look at the actual losses the Germans suffered it is still incredible in retrospect. Guderian judged the success achieved a miracle. Even as the most optimistic proponent of the massed mechanized attack across the Meuse river had seen the odds against before the battle started.

...
From what I know, Rubarth and his platoon fought their way, Rambo-style, against the line of french bunkers aligned along the Meuse river.

SIX infantrymen facing seven bunkers. Just six soldiers managed to create a bridgehead that was to doom France. Can you believe that ???!!!

I'm certain it happened that way in the imagination of Gobbels propagandists. Since the after action reports & other documents of Guderians Pz Corps were destroyed in a Allied air raid in 1943 or 44 it is really difficult to figure out what happened on the German side of the battle. Numerous accounts of the French soldiers were collected after the Armistice in 1940-41. Captain Cariboius account is revealing. He was commanding the battalion defending the sector just north of Sedan/Torcy where the Gross Deutchland Regiment crossed. Doughty cites from Caribious report in his 'Seeds of Disaster' Rubarths squad may have been chosen for the news reports since they actually survived. The GD suffered several hundred casualties in their crossing & late afternoon assault up the river banks. The leading wave was badly shot up by the handful of French MG still manned.
 
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For long term, I give you Joan Pujol Garcia ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_Pujol_Garcia )

A Spaniard, who so hated the fascists that when the British turned downed his offer of becoming a double agent he decided to go into private practice and managed to set up an imaginary intelligence network that was so believable that British Intelligence was looking for it at one point. He even had one of his agent's get sick and die to explain how he missed a major fleet movement and got the Nazi's to give his 'widow' a pension. He was also a key piece of Operation Fortitude in keeping the Nazi's convinced that the true attack was going to be at the Pas-de-Calais.

This about defines ASB

Pujols story is incredible. FBI Chief Hoover met him & rejected him as worthless, after the Brits had judged his effort of great value & had been using it for nearly a year. Hoover & his staff could not believe the claims made for J P Garcias activity.
 
For long term, I give you Joan Pujol Garcia ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_Pujol_Garcia )

A Spaniard, who so hated the fascists that when the British turned downed his offer of becoming a double agent he decided to go into private practice and managed to set up an imaginary intelligence network that was so believable that British Intelligence was looking for it at one point. He even had one of his agent's get sick and die to explain how he missed a major fleet movement and got the Nazi's to give his 'widow' a pension. He was also a key piece of Operation Fortitude in keeping the Nazi's convinced that the true attack was going to be at the Pas-de-Calais.

This about defines ASB

Some novels you might be interested in, based on this: Derek Robinson's trilogy The Eldorado Network, Artillery of Lies, and Red Rag Blues.

The first two deal with the British disinformation practiced on the Abwehr in WW2. In the last, Luis Cabrillo (the author's Garcia analogue) ends up in the USA in 1953, where he offers his talents to a Senator for Wisconsin.

Black comedies, like all of Robinson's works, recommended.
 
France getting steamrolled so fast in 1940, which was pretty much only possible because of shockingly bad strategy on the part of the Allies.
 
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