Bell of the HMS Hood recovered

[CaptainCrunch]

I don't know if I agree with that though. As soon as they opened the front into Russia they doomed themselves technology or not to the eventual weight that the Soviet Red Army had in terms of sheer man power.

The turnaround in Russia was going to happen eventually, as soon as Stalin got their manufacturing moved over the mountains and mobilized the sheer manpower of the Red army, the war was going to end badly for the Germans.

I also think that Hitler really miscalculated in terms of his terror bombing of England. He really should have launched a amphibious assault into England from three fronts as soon as the weather permitted. While the British Navy was very strong, Hitler probably could have shifted his formidable submarine force to going after the heavier British ships instead of going after convoys. If Hitler could have established a foothold in England and re-enforced it and forced the English to fight on their home soil, if would have changed the dimensions of the war.

With England under Hitler, the American's probably would have shifted their priorities to Japan with the promise to try to free England later. The great convoys to Europe probably would have stopped and America wouldn't have tried to re-enforce Stalin

Where ever he's roasting he's regretting

The invasion of Russia and backstabbing his ally

Hoping that England would surrender to an air campaign instead of conquering her.

[IliketoPuck]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

I don't know if I agree with that though. As soon as they opened the front into Russia they doomed themselves technology or not to the eventual weight that the Soviet Red Army had in terms of sheer man power.

The turnaround in Russia was going to happen eventually, as soon as Stalin got their manufacturing moved over the mountains and mobilized the sheer manpower of the Red army, the war was going to end badly for the Germans.

I also think that Hitler really miscalculated in terms of his terror bombing of England. He really should have launched a amphibious assault into England from three fronts as soon as the weather permitted. While the British Navy was very strong, Hitler probably could have shifted his formidable submarine force to going after the heavier British ships instead of going after convoys. If Hitler could have established a foothold in England and re-enforced it and forced the English to fight on their home soil, if would have changed the dimensions of the war.

With England under Hitler, the American's probably would have shifted their priorities to Japan with the promise to try to free England later. The great convoys to Europe probably would have stopped and America wouldn't have tried to re-enforce Stalin

Where ever he's roasting he's regretting

The invasion of Russia and backstabbing his ally

Hoping that England would surrender to an air campaign instead of conquering her.

In one of the older Sid Meyer's Civilization games, they had a scenario option where you could go back and replay famous points in military history from the perspective of any party involved.

I remember playing both as the Allies, and the Axis (in the European theater). It was far, far harder to win as the Allies. As the Axis, I rolled up the French immediately, and then set about taking down the Brits with Air/Land. Then I took out the Americans. I never touched the Russians until I had an undeniable advantage, at which point it was a cakewalk.

Western Civilization is very lucky that Hitler had extremely poor judgement and a great deal of hubris. The war could have been very different.

[Puppet Guy]

I read that the Hood's bell will be displayed at the Museum of the Royal Navy in Portsmouth after it's restored. Didn't make it to that museum, but I can vouch for the historic dockyard in Portsmouth. It's a wet dream come to life for Naval history buffs.

http://www.historicdockyard.co.uk/

http://www.nmrn-portsmouth.org.uk/

[CroFlames]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

I don't know if I agree with that though. As soon as they opened the front into Russia they doomed themselves technology or not to the eventual weight that the Soviet Red Army had in terms of sheer man power.

The turnaround in Russia was going to happen eventually, as soon as Stalin got their manufacturing moved over the mountains and mobilized the sheer manpower of the Red army, the war was going to end badly for the Germans.

I also think that Hitler really miscalculated in terms of his terror bombing of England. He really should have launched a amphibious assault into England from three fronts as soon as the weather permitted. While the British Navy was very strong, Hitler probably could have shifted his formidable submarine force to going after the heavier British ships instead of going after convoys. If Hitler could have established a foothold in England and re-enforced it and forced the English to fight on their home soil, if would have changed the dimensions of the war.

With England under Hitler, the American's probably would have shifted their priorities to Japan with the promise to try to free England later. The great convoys to Europe probably would have stopped and America wouldn't have tried to re-enforce Stalin

Where ever he's roasting he's regretting

The invasion of Russia and backstabbing his ally

Hoping that England would surrender to an air campaign instead of conquering her.

That's what I'm saying. With Germany's technological edge and ingenuity, a few good (bad?) decisions were all it took for total victory for Germany. Not invading Russia would have been the biggest. Leave Russia & the USA alone, and Hitler basically could have taken all of Europe. Once he established dominance in west Europe, like you said, the Americans would probably just be like Mr Hitler, we will leave you alone if you leave us alone.

[accord1999]

There's a great book called the Wages of Destruction which examines the German economy before and during WW2.

Germany was a relatively poor country and the rearmament programs all but bankrupted it. Thanks to incredible amounts of economic manipulation and fortuitous gains from Austria and Czech., it managed to keep going but in the long-term, it would lose to a Franco/British alliance because their superior economic base would eventually outproduce Germany. This forced Germany to war early and was far more successful than it expected, giving it control of nearly all of Europe west of the USSR. However, Europe is relatively poor in resources and especially oil so it wasn't enough. In fact, it became a drain on German oil and coal supplies.

Germany wanted to be able to challenge the USA but it didn't have the resources to do so even with Europe. It needed the USSR. The best thing may have been the USSR joining the Axis but that would have required such a change in ideology at the top that it seems impossible for it to happen long-term. That's why it invaded.

[nik-]

Originally Posted by Thor

View from my office, last week before the left for Greenland.

Hey, screw you Thor for depressing the hell out of me with the view from your office

[Frequitude]

Originally Posted by edslunch

The same Prince of Wales was sunk by Japanese aircraft shortly after Pearl Harbour, confirming that the end of the battleship era was at hand.

A little off topic but if the US Pacific Fleet's 3 aircraft carriers had been in Pearl Harbour and destroyed by the Japanese, would it have turned the tables in any meaningful way? Or would the Vinson-Walsh act eventually have put enough boats in the water that the US would have inevitably defeated the Japanese?

[CaptainCrunch]

At the end of the day, there was a big myth that Germany had a competent intelligence organization, and they failed a lot.

On the other hand as much as we talk about the competence of the American, British and Israeli intelligence arms, the Russians were the king of that throughout most of the 20th century leading back to Beria.

The failure in Russia was that the Soviet military and civilian agencies were screaming that the German's were coming, and Stalin who believed that he would have eventually gone to war with Hitler lived in a sphere of delusion that the invasion wasn't happening and he needed more time to prepare.

The hard truth for Russia was that the vanguard of the German Army was passing by trains heading from Russia to Germany carry food stuffs and other goods.

At the same time, if Hitler would have paid attention to his more competent generals he would have realized a couple of key facts.

1) That the Russians were buying time with space and starving out the German Army by burning everything that could have been of use to the Nazi's, at the same time, Stalin was relocating anything of strategic value or manufacturing value as far away from the German's as possible. while the aid from the West was important, Stalin rightfully knew that he needed to build up as big of a sucker punch as possible to shatter the German army. So while the key battlefields like Stalingrad held the Germans by the nose, the Russian army was getting ready to kick the German's in the a$$ really hard.

2) If the German's had treated the Russian civilians left behind well those Russians would have probably joined Germany in trying to topple Stalin. I think that the old saying is first you seduce them, then you murder them.

For the Russians, they were fortunate enough to have a ton of man power in their military that far outstripped their available weapons stock.

Stalin was also extremely fortunate in that he had a extremely competent, competitive and agreessive generals in Georgy Zhukov and Vasilevsky and Rokossosky who weren't concerned about casualties versus success but came up with a lot of innovative strategies that throw the German's into the cold winter.

[accord1999]

Originally Posted by Frequitude

Or would the Vinson-Walsh act eventually have put enough boats in the water that the US would have inevitably defeated the Japanese?

Yeah, I think the sheer number of carriers the US builds by 1944 is so overwhelming that with superior aircraft means that the USA will still win.

And with the atomic bomb, the USA just needs to get within B29 range of Japan.

[CaptainCrunch]

A little off topic but if the US Pacific Fleet's 3 aircraft carriers had been in Pearl Harbour and destroyed by the Japanese, would it have turned the tables in any meaningful way? Or would the Vinson-Walsh act eventually have put enough boats in the water that the US would have inevitably defeated the Japanese?

With out the three fleet carriers, the Americans probably would have lost the battle of midway, the Japanese would have had trouble holding it as the Americans' were producing ships at a huge rate after Midway, the Japanese probably would have tried to fortify their holdings and the great Island hopping campaign though would have eventually been a bigger slaughter as the Americans would have been able to pour more carriers and cruisers and destroyers into the campaign.

As big of a slaughter as the Marianas Turkey shoot was for example, it probably would have been even more one sided. Frankly while the American's progressed their technology in terms of ships and fighters rapidly, the Japanese technology in terms of aircraft and ships fell behind.

The war might have been extended, but the Americans would have eventually been won.

If the Carriers had been destroyed in Pearl, More Aggressive Japanese Admirals probably would have pushed for a seaborne assault of the Hawaiian Islands as the Americans had nothing to really defend themselves between the Islands and the American West Coast.

[CaptainCrunch]

As an add on, it was almost thanks to Pearl Harbor that the American's were forced to examine the role of the Submarine service and how poorly it was being commanded. The Americans' realized that they needed more aggressive skippers, and guys like Mush Morton, Dick O'Kane, Sam Dealey and John Coye really pushed the Sub into prominence and eventually chocked off the Japanese in their own waters.

It was because of these Commanders that the Americans leapt ahead of everyone else in terms of the use of Submarines and created a generational gap between the US and every other nation.

[peter12]

Pretty hard to play that kind of historical revisionism, but all the Japanese were looking to do was push an already isolationist America further into isolationism. Essentially, by destroying the American Pacific Fleet, they were hoping that American sentiment against imperial intervention would open up Japan's economic sphere of influence in the Pacific, giving them access to steel, rubber, and oil. This would, in turn, have allowed the Japanese to increase the quality and size of their already formidable fleet. The superior quality of American equipment was significantly aided by access to a deeper resource pool. For example, Japanese aircraft were wood-framed, and canvas-skinned by necessity for the entire war, while increasingly fast, and heavily armoured American aircraft were developed with increasing innovation and quantity.

By war's end, the differences were shocking, but around 1941, not so much.

The loss of the carriers would have prevented all American military successes of 1942/43, such as Coral Sea, Midway, etc... The Japanese would have been able to push into Australia, isolating another member of the British Empire entirely, would not have been bogged down in slugfests at Guadalcanal, Cape Gloucester etc...

In the words of the Duke of Wellington, the Battle of Waterloo was a "near run thing." Victories in hindsight look obvious, especially to those who historically have benefited, but they are so close.

[peter12]

MacArthur's great island hopping campaign was incredibly wasteful, and unnecessary.

The Japanese soldier was an excellent, experienced campaigner. Even though he was tactically out-gunned by about 10-1 by his American counterpart, the Japanese were able to inflict roughly equal casualties on American infantry (especially once they moved to the hardened, hybrid defense model seen on Iwo Jima, Peleliu, and Okinawa, and finally abandoned the banzai suicide charge).

Once again, the war in the Pacific was a very near run thing. If the early defeats by the Japanese had been more total, it is possible that American morale would have been drained quite early. For goodness sake, Midway and Coral Sea were both extremely lucky victories for the Americans, ie. Lexington being hit twice, Japanese indecision to refuel and rearm.

[CaptainCrunch]

I would add on that at Midway the Japanese were defeated by command arrogance more then anything else, The American's won that day via a very solid recon strategy that allowed them to learn where the Japanese were, what they were launching and when.

The Japanese on the other hand didn't do much patrolling and as such were engulfed by the fog of war. They simply didn't do enough to find the American carriers. On top of that the ability for Midway to soak up the first Japanese Airstrike and force the Japanese planes to return and rearm with air to ground bombs which you indicated went against Japanese Doctrine.

The other thing was that the American's rewrote the book on Carrier doctrine that the Japanese originated and surprised the Japanese admirals with the use of naval air power.

[peter12]

Absolutely. So what happens if the Americans lose those carriers, those crews (naval casualties as percentages were absolutely brutal), and have to wait for the eventual build-up in 1944?

[FlameOn]

Originally Posted by peter12

Once again, the war in the Pacific was a very near run thing. If the early defeats by the Japanese had been more total, it is possible that American morale would have been drained quite early. For goodness sake, Midway and Coral Sea were both extremely lucky victories for the Americans, ie. Lexington being hit twice, Japanese indecision to refuel and rearm.

Well the whole thing hinged upon the American carrier fleet being away from Pearl Harbour at the time. If they had been at port and had been destroyed with the rest of the American Pacific fleet, the Americans would not have been able to mount any sort of offensive for years after. It's just dumb luck again that some of the carrier fleet was spread everywhere else at the time.

If even the Lexington and the Enterprise where in port at the time Pearl Harbour at the time instead of travelling between Midway... would have been big problems.

[FlameOn]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

I would add on that at Midway the Japanese were defeated by command arrogance more then anything else, The American's won that day via a very solid recon strategy that allowed them to learn where the Japanese were, what they were launching and when.

Also the Americans had broken the Japanese naval code by then, it doesn't hurt to know your enemy's every movements and numbers.