Comments by "doveton sturdee" (@dovetonsturdee7033) on "Imperial War Museums"
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@Ballinalower To be honest, that is a really tough one, given all the variables involved. Realistically, I don't believe that the British could have held Burma, but that, as 2,500,000 Indians volunteered for the allies in WW2, I doubt that the Japanese could have taken over India, but would probably have been involved in a protracted and brutal slogging match.
I have never believed that Japan had any real ambitions in India, other than to establish a presence which would disrupt supplies to China, and I have always had doubts about invasions of Australia & New Zealand, given the distances involved, and the comparative lack of the raw materials available there.
The real question, which I really cannot answer, is whether the United States would simply stand by and allow Japan to seize large areas of the Far East, especially after FDR's embargo had put Japan under such pressure in the first place. To be honest, as a naval historian, I don't know enough about US internal politics at the time, but would be interested to read the views of some one (anyone!) who does.
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@romanclay1913 Please explain, as you seem to believe that you are an 'ideas' person, how sending Hess to meet Hamilton, an individual hardly at the heart of government, was likely to have been more effective in bringing about discussions than approaching the British ambassadors in Spain, Switzerland, or Sweden, or even asking the United States to act as an honest broker?
By the way, if Rudolf wanted to meet the 'arch appeaser' Samuel Hoare, he was flying in the wrong direction, as Hoare was actually one of those ambassadors at the time. Didn't your conspiracy theory mention that? Odd, as I read it in one of several books.
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@doejon9424 The Blitz is generally regarded to have ended in mid May, 1941. The US didn't, by the way, 'step in' but was dragged in after Peral Harbor and the German declaration of war.
What did the Blitzkrieg do, exactly? Defeated France, and obliged the British, with their tiny army, to concentrate on their strengths. These being a huge and effective navy, a modern, well equipped air force, the increasing support of the Commonwealth & Empire, and a manufacturing base greater than that of Germany.
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@doejon9424 'The British were running low on mechanized weapons and soldiers.' Really? so short that, as early as August, 1940, they were able to send a Troop Convoy to reinforce the Western Desert Force in North Africa? The 'Apology' convoy of 22 August.
'They had a supioror Navy despite the German U-boats & destoyers.' Presumably, you mean the U-Boats which never came close to success in the North Atlantic? Or the 10 destroyers which were all the Germans had in September, 1940, when the British had 178, of which over 110 were in Home Waters? Or the 400+ with which the Royal Navy ended the war?
The RAF, which, far from lacking 'raw numbers' was consistently operating greater numbers of aircraft, and producing a strategic bombing arm the size of which the Germans could only ever dream about, from mid 1940 onwards?
Technical advancements? Which? There were many projects, but how many were practicable, or saw battlefield service?
'We can only speculate what advancements Germany would have had from 1945- 1948 / 1950. The would've had the fleet of jet fighters, who knows what kind of tanks, various types of ships, accurate rocket warfare.. industrial military complex at it's finest.' Indeed, you must speculate, because you seem to think that Germany had unlimited and inexhaustible resources. Where would the fuel come from which the jets would use? Tanks such as the Maus or the E100? Lunatic ideas? Ships? The Kriegsmarine had stopped building warships after 1941, because of lack of raw materials and manpower. Instead, they concentrated on the U-Boat as a cheap & desperate expedient, which from May 1943 was a broken force. Accurate rocket warfare? The V2 could, with luck, hit somewhere in the London or Antwerp area. 'Industrial Military Complex?' Oh, please! Germany was a shambles of organisations competing with each other. The Germans never even managed to adopt a total war economy, as the British did almost immediately.
'Aircraft carrier?' One almost completed vessel, with an intended Air Group of modified land based aircraft, including the Bf109, with an undercarriage almost ludicrously unsuited to carrier operations. Life expectancy in the Atlantic? A few days, especially since the protective escorts a carrier needed in WW2 simply did not exist in the German navy.
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@doejon9424 What do you mean by 'run dry?' The only land front after June 1940 was North Africa, and there was never any shortage of vehicles at any time. Conversely the axis, because of the problems in actually getting supplies across the Mediterranean, struggled to maintain the forces they had there, and were generally short of fuel.
'It took the invasion of Normandy to push them back.' What does this even mean? By the time of Normandy, the axis had already been expelled from North Africa, Sicily, and half of Italy, as well as suffering massive defeats in the East. As to D-Day itself, actually, two thirds of the men who landed were British/Canadian, 3261 0f the 4127 landing craft were British crewed, 892 of 1213 warships were British, and two thirds of 11,600 aircraft were RAF.
'And you better believe that the campaign in North Africa would have been shut right down if the bulk of Marines didn't have to deal with Japan & island hoping in the Pacific. They would've been sent over there.' What does this even mean, either. There were precisely seven US divisions involved in North Africa, all in Tunisia after Torch.
The 'thinly spread' RAF was, by the way operating 56 fighter squadrons over Northern France by May, 1941, and by the end of the war operated just under10,000 aircraft.
Whether the Bf 109 was superior to the Spitfire is questionable, but largely irrelevant, as the Luftwaffe failed to win the Battle of Britain.
On a one-to one basis, late war German tanks were generally superior, although very little was superior to the Soviet T34/85. German late war vehicles, however, tended to be over-engineered, mechanically complex, difficult to maintain in battlefield conditions, an slow to manufacture. In fact, the Soviets built just under 49,000 T34/85s, the US a similar number of M4s, whereas the Germans built just under 500 Tiger IIs, just under 1400 Tiger Is, and around 6,000 Panthers.
Finally. Yes the Firefly was an American hull, but the gun which made it so effective against Tigers was the British designed & produced 17 pounder. 2,200 were converted. More than the total number of Tigers of both types built.
You need to do some reading instead of relying on myths and falsehoods.
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@iamnutty8471 In that case, then surely you must blame Herbert Asquith, not Churchill? Or is it simply that, like Herbert Asquith, you find Churchill a much more pleasing target for blame?
In terms of 'Chain of Command' by the way, Churchill was the civilian head of the Royal Navy. The professional head of the Navy was the First Sea Lord, who until mid May 1915 was Sir John Fisher, and after him Sir Henry Jackson.
Churchill had no place in the army Chain of Command which was headed at the time by Lieutenant-General Sir James Wolfe Murray, who of course, reported to Asquith. Murray himself was heavily influenced by Herbert Kitchener, and was replaced Sir Archibald Murray in September, 1915.
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