What were the worst Allied mistakes after 1942?

[CalBear]

...

And in the PTO: Pelileu: the unnecessary amphibious operation. Bull Halsey was right in saying that the island could've been bypassed.

This 100x. The ONLY reason that damned rock was invaded was that the planning was so advanced. Cost 2,336 Marines their lives (+8,450 WIA, many with life altering wounds) for nothing. Nimitz's great mistake.

Another Pacific bungle was the invasion of Leyte. Supposed to be a virtual walk-over to secure locations for airfields to support the attack on Luzon. Instead Yamashite decided to fight to the finish on the Island. Turned out the proposed locations were far too boggy to use as air fields delaying their construction until better ground was secured (even then several airfields were overrun by Japanese counterattacks in early December and had to be recaptured). Would be a contender for biggest error in the Pacific except for the rescue of large numbers of PoW who would almost certainly have died/been executed by the Japanese and the simple fact that it freed 450,000 people from the not so tender mercies if the Japanese Occupation.

 

[marathag]

How many times did they repeat raids on German railway marshalling yards?

Destroying the Cars is a worthy goal, especially since then Henschel get to make replacement rolling stock over panzers

 

[lionhead]

Battle of the Java Sea

I knew they had to try to repel the landings but they were facing a much more powerful force. It cost precious ships. Even if they'd won it would have only delayed the inevitable.

It was a desperate attempt from the get-go, simply trying to do as much damage to the enemy as fast as they could, but this tactic proved pointless. They should have made a run for it after the first contact.

 

[Father Maryland]

Not cashiering MacArthur for his long, LONG record of gross incompetence and egomaniacal bullshit.

Probably would have been best post Phillipines campaign to do what Calbear did in his TL. Namely raise him, praise him, and erase him. Build him up to be a great hero to help with the PR war then have him on a few war bond drives and then give him some non combat command back in CONUS where he can slowly fade away into irrelevence.

 

[Peg Leg Pom]

Selling out Eastern Europe to the Soviets at Yalta and Potsdam.

 

[Kevin Renner]

Bombing the railway yards and tracks in Europe. It was shown time and again that railways are easy to fix when you have the parts to hand. All you need is shovels, a pile of dirt and gravel and some spare tracks and sleepers. Takes about a day per mile.
Even the British railway managers told the RAF this but they still carried on trying to blow up what are essentially fields with tracks in. How many times did they repeat raids on German railway marshalling yards?

There was a point after 1942 where tactical and more precise bombing was needed instead of the mass area bombings. More Mosquitos and less Lancasters could have provided better results when it came to knocking out specific factories and power stations.

The one thing I would like to see improved across the whole war is the radios. Numerous Allied attacks faltered and failed because of poor communications. Most of this was down to portable backpack radios breaking down at critical moments.

Attacking railroad marshalling yards is more about turning rail into Sherman's Bowties. It is also the rolling stock and locomotives. Even going after rail viaduct usually just means rerouting trains. The rail network in NE Europe is fairly dense.
Radios. That might require an earlier investment in transistors. Remember, Joe or Tom can still manage to wreck Rock MK I

 

[Father Maryland]

Selling out Eastern Europe to the Soviets at Yalta and Potsdam.

I'm not really sure what other options are available? The Soviets are going to conquer those countries long before Western allied forces can reach them.

 

[Cryhavoc101]

British op-sec SUCKED.

During 42 I would argue it went from amateur hour to best in class

Browning's HQ was Multi national (mainly UK/USA) affair - not that it matters but the Officer was apparently a US Army Captain (a dead British officer is shown in the film)

While the plans gave the timing of air drops etc apparently they were deemed suspect when said airdrops did not happen (timings had changed due to weather) and so in some cases were actually counter productive as the Luftwaffe used up scant fuel reserves.

But a massive mistake none the less

But then IMO - Browning's HQ should have followed the ground forces via MT - the Gliders he used could have delivered the best part of an additional Brigade and that chap should not been have even been there.

 

[Kevin Renner]

Not arranging a convenient accident or illness for Winston. If for nothing else his idiotic Soft Underbelly of Europe notions. Keeping his image alive is one thing. Imdoubtable spirit and all that.
One thing everyone should remember. Even if certain actions had not been taken, the possibility still exists that worse ones can and will.
My choices
1) Italy. The Free French took Corsica by October 43. Anzio should have been canceled. Instead of Anzio an amphibious landing in spring 44 somewhere between Livorno and Genoa. But within allied airpower flying off of Corsican airfields. The goal is to cut Kesselrings lines of communications. A lot of which airpower operating off of Corica did. A secondary goal is the removal of Italian war production. Workable? I don't know. There was a political need to take Rome. But Italy between Rome and Florence? That's another question. But no matter the strategy or tactics in Italy, the Wallies are up against some of the best terrain in Southern Europe for the defender.
2) Market Garden. Even if all the bridges are captured you still have the problem of a long thin supply line. Trying to use it to support an offensive into Northern Germany is going to be a logistical nightmare. The axis of operations is impossible to conceal.
3) Not crossing the Rhine at Strasbourg. True not the best place to launch an offensive into Germany from.
3) The Phillipines. Again like Rome there is a political and moral need here. As much hatred there is on site for MacArthur his operations on New Guinea were not that costly. His biggest FU was his insistence on Pelilue being taken. Think of that as the Pacific Theater's Hurtigen Forrest.
4) Not being ready for the pace of operations post breakout from Normandy. The Red Ball Express did amazing things but it could only go so far.
Things the Wallies did right
1) Generally the Western Allies learned from their failures. As bloody as Tarawa was, in the long run the lessons learned there probably saved more lives than lost. The same could be said for Cartwheel. The lessons learned at Buna, Lea and other places along the North coast of New Guinea stood the US* well during the rest of the war.

*I really do not want to get into the whole Australians as victims of MacArthur's ego thing. I get it. Everybody, including Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, was second fiddle to MacArthur.

 

[JohnBull]

I guess Britain might have been much better in Malaya and Singapore. Using their formidable forces there wisely might have doomed Japan much earlier. Burma, Indonesia would all be spared, while Midway was just around the corner.

 

[McPherson]

More meat.

Bombing the railway yards and tracks in Europe. It was shown time and again that railways are easy to fix when you have the parts to hand. All you need is shovels, a pile of dirt and gravel and some spare tracks and sleepers. Takes about a day per mile.

Even the British railway managers told the RAF this but they still carried on trying to blow up what are essentially fields with tracks in. How many times did they repeat raids on German railway marshalling yards?

Railroad yards contain locomotive repair shops, switching systems and railroad workers. Blowing up garages, locomotives turntables, track rerouters and railroad workers is useful,

There was a point after 1942 where tactical and more precise bombing was needed instead of the mass area bombings. More Mosquitos and less Lancasters could have provided better results when it came to knocking out specific factories and power stations.

If you mean more long range low level night raids by fast medium bombers? You still have the range/time aloft problem and accuracy of drop problem and size of bomb problem. The bombs to hit the way you want them to hit have to be 227 kg or larger demo and have to drop from 300 meters or less to hit within 50 meters of desired impact points. Where is the allied 8 hour aloft twin engined fast bomber that can do that?

Good luck with that.

The one thing I would like to see improved across the whole war is the radios. Numerous Allied attacks faltered and failed because of poor communications. Most of this was down to portable backpack radios breaking down at critical moments.

BRITISH radios. The American ones generally worked, both operator and hardware.

Greece in '41 had political & diplomatic aspects to it from a UK perspective, but it was in '41 so would be a derail for me to push it further.

Greece was geographically and logistically undoable. If you cannot control the air, you cannot stay, so Churchill's notions of fighting there were wrong until enough airpower could be mounted in ITALY to make the Germans run.

Stalin was able to put a lot of pressure on the Western Allies as the war progressed, and not unreasonably given the numbers of Axis troops his nation was engaged with; the Western Allies had to be always pushing away with bombing and new invasions/operations, to show Stalin that they were trying to pull their weight.

It is roughly equivalent logistically to mounting 1 Baytown every time a 1000 plane RAF raid ties down 250,000 LW personnel in Germany. What the hell, Joe?

Shingle

doesn't seem to me to have had enough lift as far as I understand how it happened (Not Enough Landing Craft - an eternal problem of the Western Allies almost up to the end) but I can just about understand it in the sense of trying to get a breakthrough on the cheap in Italy, presumably rehearsing and trying out more amphibious stuff before Overlord, and showing Stalin that the Western Allies were still probing away and trying to stretch the Germans.

I OBJECT to Shingle for the same reason I object to Greece. The man who thought it up had no clues about logistics, sustainment, AIRPOWER or the terrain difficulties. (Land in a swamp? Sheesh.)

Most of the worst western allied mistakes took place, it seems to me, well before 1942, including in terms (hello there successive post WW1 UK governments) of running down the armed forces and the usual (post-Marlborough) UK government desire not to produce actually good troops and commanders for future use.

Experimental Motorized Force? Full motorization? I would say the British army had internal political shenanigans (Looking at you Royal Artillery) more than the Crown governments were not willing to try new things and train new ways.
By 1942 it was a case of having to pay the piper for a ton of errors which had originated years or even decades earlier.

Regular tracks, sure, just fill the hole in and lay new track, but weren't marshalling yards full of crossovers/junctions which required specifically customised rails which couldn't be replaced with mass-produced stuff?

What he said. Don't forget killing scarce railroad technicians is an added bonus.

As said just above but also the marshalling yards were where the locomotives and wagons/loads were all concentrated together in a target size that should receive much of a raid.

Reiterated.

This 100x. The ONLY reason that damned rock was invaded was that the planning was so advanced. Cost 2,336 Marines their lives (+8,450 WIA, many with life altering wounds) for nothing. Nimitz's great mistake.

Cough, Tarawa, cough.

Another Pacific bungle was the invasion of Leyte. Supposed to be a virtual walk-over to secure locations for airfields to support the attack on Luzon. Instead Yamashite decided to fight to the finish on the Island. Turned out the proposed locations were far too boggy to use as air fields delaying their construction until better ground was secured (even then several airfields were overrun by Japanese counterattacks in early December and had to be recaptured). Would be a contender for biggest error in the Pacific except for the rescue of large numbers of PoW who would almost certainly have died/been executed by the Japanese and the simple fact that it freed 450,000 people from the not so tender mercies if the Japanese Occupation.

Not a bad idea actually, BUT the seizure of

Homonhon and Dinagat first, and developed properly, would have provided HARD flotation ground for runways and provided anchorage security with land based airpower for a later landing at San Pedro Bay. The mistake was not to phase the operation in steps as MacArthur had previously done. That and not enough combat engineers as usual.

Battle of the Java Sea

I knew they had to try to repel the landings but they were facing a much more powerful force. It cost precious ships. Even if they'd won it would have only delayed the inevitable.

NOT ENOUGH AIRPOWER. Only alternative is to run for it and try further south, maybe in the Arifura Sea.

It was a desperate attempt from the get-go, simply trying to do as much damage to the enemy as fast as they could, but this tactic proved pointless. They should have made a run for it after the first contact.

A stand to defend Darwin. When Nagumo showed up later, Darwin was knocked out... permanently.

Attacking railroad marshalling yards is more about turning rail into Sherman's Bowties. It is also the rolling stock and locomotives. Even going after rail viaduct usually just means rerouting trains. The rail network in NE Europe is fairly dense.

Yup.

Radios. That might require an earlier investment in transistors. Remember, Joe or Tom can still manage to wreck Rock MK I

It was usually the WET that ruined a radio. Tommy or Joe Infantry had enough sense not to drop the things. And let's be honest, German radios were crap, British radios were crappier than German, but even the best (American radios) did not like WEATHER at all. One good mud march and it was a miracle if the sets worked at all. STILL is, BTW. solid state circuits don't like wet either.

 

[McPherson]

1) Italy. The Free French took Corsica by October 43. Anzio should have been canceled. Instead of Anzio an amphibious landing in spring 44 somewhere between Livorno and Genoa. But within allied airpower flying off of Corsican airfields. The goal is to cut Kesselring's lines of communications. A lot of which airpower operating off of Corsica did. A secondary goal is the removal of Italian war production. Workable? I don't know. There was a political need to take Rome. But Italy between Rome and Florence? That's another question. But no matter the strategy or tactics in Italy, the Wallies are up against some of the best terrain in Southern Europe for the defender.

You want to land there? Hell NO!

 

[jmc247]

I'm not really sure what other options are available? The Soviets are going to conquer those countries long before Western allied forces can reach them.

The US and Britain were in more of a position to make demands then they believed. Still you are right if you want an free Eastern Europe post war you probably need something akin to Truman’s idea of letting up on the LL once the Soviets start kicking ass.

 

[ObssesedNuker]

The US and Britain were in more of a position to make demands then they believed.

No, they really were not. Not by Yalta and certainly not by Potsdam.

 

[CalBear]

More meat.



Railroad yards contain locomotive repair shops, switching systems and railroad workers. Blowing up garages, locomotives turntables, track rerouters and railroad workers is useful,



If you mean more long range low level night raids by fast medium bombers? You still have the range/time aloft problem and accuracy of drop problem and size of bomb problem. The bombs to hit the way you want them to hit have to be 227 kg or larger demo and have to drop from 300 meters or less to hit within 50 meters of desired impact points. Where is the allied 8 hour aloft twin engined fast bomber that can do that?

View attachment 541108

Good luck with that.



BRITISH radios. The American ones generally worked, both operator and hardware.


Greece was geographically and logistically undoable. If you cannot control the air, you cannot stay, so Churchill's notions of fighting there were wrong until enough airpower could be mounted in ITALY to make the Germans run.



It is roughly equivalent logistically to mounting 1 Baytown every time a 1000 plane RAF raid ties down 250,000 LW personnel in Germany. What the hell, Joe?



I OBJECT to Shingle for the same reason I object to Greece. The man who thought it up had no clues about logistics, sustainment, AIRPOWER or the terrain difficulties. (Land in a swamp? Sheesh.)



Experimental Motorized Force? Full motorization? I would say the British army had internal political shenanigans (Looking at you Royal Artillery) more than the Crown governments were not willing to try new things and train new ways.
By 1942 it was a case of having to pay the piper for a ton of errors which had originated years or even decades earlier.



What he said. Don't forget killing scarce railroad technicians is an added bonus.

Reiterated.


Cough, Tarawa, cough.



Not a bad idea actually, BUT the seizure of

View attachment 541120

Homonhon and Dinagat first, and developed properly, would have provided HARD flotation ground for runways and provided anchorage security with land based airpower for a later landing at San Pedro Bay. The mistake was not to phase the operation in steps as MacArthur had previously done. That and not enough combat engineers as usual.


NOT ENOUGH AIRPOWER. Only alternative is to run for it and try further south, maybe in the Arifura Sea.



A stand to defend Darwin. When Nagumo showed up later, Darwin was knocked out... permanently.



Yup.



It was usually the WET that ruined a radio. Tommy or Joe Infantry had enough sense not to drop the things. And let's be honest, German radios were crap, British radios were crappier than German, but even the best (American radios) did not like WEATHER at all. One good mud march and it was a miracle if the sets worked at all. STILL is, BTW. solid state circuits don't like wet either.

I disagree about Tarawa. While it was very costly it was a critical education for the USN & USMC, much as Torch and the problems the Army encountered in North Africa was the first hard lesson for Ike and the ETO. Without Tarawa future landing would have been far more costly, especially Saipan (which was a very bloody affair as was).

 

[TDM]

....

Most of the worst western allied mistakes took place, it seems to me, well before 1942, including in terms (hello there successive post WW1 UK governments) of running down the armed forces ....

Only given this was after "the war to end all wars", the creation of the wondrous LN* and then during economic downturn, any party campaigning on "we're going to spend loads on the military" likely doesn't get into power to spend anything.

*Yes we know it didn't live up to expectations, but they had high hopes

Selling out Eastern Europe to the Soviets at Yalta and Potsdam.

"selling" suggests we had much of a choice

 

[CalBear]

I'm not really sure what other options are available? The Soviets are going to conquer those countries long before Western allied forces can reach them.

There really was no serious alternative. While FDR arguably gave away too much in return for the Soviets signing off on the UN (I mean giving Ukraine and Belarus separate seats in the General Assembly?) the simple fact was that the Soviets were already halfway across Poland by the time of Yalta and the WAllies were still hitting the Siegfried Line.

The commitment by Stalin to engage with the Japanese was far more important to the WAllies (the U.S. in particular) than is sometimes acknowledged. Too many people have the erroneous belief that the Empire surrendered because of the Bomb. The Emperor was able to step in because of the the Bomb AND the Soviet invasion of Manchuria. It was a combination of blows, the amazing destruction of the Bomb, the rolling up of the Kwantung Army virtually from the first hour of the Red Army's attack, AND the shattering of the Japanese hopes of a Soviet brokered peace treaty that put the "War Faction" on its heels for long enough for common sense to intervene in the military's plan to destroy Japan (in order to save it).

 

[ObssesedNuker]

the simple fact was that the Soviets were already halfway across Poland

More then halfway: the Soviets had already cleared all of pre-war Poland by February of '45, save for some "moving pockets" of fleeing German troops and the odd isolated fortress garrison stuck behind their lines, and the only parts of Post-War Poland they had yet to deal with were Silesia and Pomerania.

 

[TDM]

The US and Britain were in more of a position to make demands then they believed.

how so?

Still you are right if you want an free Eastern Europe post war you probably need something akin to Truman’s idea of letting up on the LL once the Soviets start kicking ass.

finding the magic tipping point between kicking ass without needed LL, and kicking ass while needing LL is going to be tough, especially when Stalin is going to be perfectly capable of holding back if he sees any holding back from the wallies. Either way a slower Soviet advance in the east isn't going to help the wallies in the south and the west. But frankly we're just on the wrong side of Germany to do anything about eastern Europe unless we want to fight the soviets after fighting the germans. Given the losses and damage the soviets have suffered there's no way Stalin's not going to look to come out ahead or with a nice eastern European sphere of influence between us and him. (he remembers our pre-war attitudes toward him just as we remember his attitudes towards us)

 

[Father Maryland]

The US and Britain were in more of a position to make demands then they believed. Still you are right if you want an free Eastern Europe post war you probably need something akin to Truman’s idea of letting up on the LL once the Soviets start kicking ass.

The only thing I can really think of is if somehow the US began at least limited mobilization a few years earlier then OTL. Figure out someway to keep the US military stronger in the interwar period allowing the US to begin large scale combat efforts earlier then OTL.