Comments by "John Burns" (@johnburns4017) on "Military History Visualized"
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Germany had no realistic ability to overrun the UK. The British knew what sort of chance the Germans had. The reason the Germans had no chance was that the British were ready and waiting with factories turning out the latest equipment 24/7. During the so-called Battle of Britain, the Royal Navy had a mass of ships at Gibraltar ready for offensive operations against the Italians, they took the invasion of Britain really so seriously.
The German Navy was near non-existent. The single battleship the British kept in Portsmouth was quite able to handle everything the Germans had on the surface, together with the four flotillas of destroyers. I'm not counting the Home Fleet, which had additional powerful ships. In other words, the British kept plenty of naval force at home. All they needed to deal with the Germans with a good deal to spare. Also, 55 Matilda 2 tanks, which was immune from German anti-tank guns, were sent to North Africa, the Brits took the invasion so seriously.
Admiral Raeder said he could not guarantee putting down an invasion force, even with German air superiority, when the Royal Navy was still there. General Jodl talked of his men going through a British mincing machine.
In Churchill's memoirs, he says that he was prepared to defeat tens of thousands of Germans if they invaded (take that as slaughter). Presumably even if they arrived with weapons and not half-dead from seasickness in a 24 hour sea trip in barges being attacked from sea, land and air. The British kept plenty of force at home, all they needed.
And what were the Germans supposed to do? Sortie with two or three heavy cruisers, and blast their way through the Home Fleet or the Channel defences? At that point in the war, Bismarck was still under construction, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were under repair from the Norway operation, two of six heavy cruisers sunk, two of six light cruisers sunk, and only five of those could be considered modern warships, a large number of their destroyers were sunk at Narvik. The repair status on the rest of the ships wasn't real good. The Germans never even had an effective torpedo plane. The Stuka dive bomber was predictable in that it dived vertically. It was easily shot down and suffered so many losses in the Battle of Britain it was withdrawn from the battle.
So, with the German navy whittled to almost nothing, and the army incapable of crossing with enough force to win, the only threats was the then small U-boats force and the Luftwaffe. The British were therefore sparing about sending the RAF overseas. I don't know of any significant deployment of Spitfires outside the UK until the second half of 1942, and escort vessels kept on being built. The RAF defeated the Luftwaffe over Dunkirk, so the Germans knew they were no push over.
If anyone thinks that operation Sealion was a serious attempt at an invasion they are deluded. Even German generals never took it seriously. An invasion in concrete barges towed by tugs and no navy to speak of? The Germans knew the UK had a large industry working 24/7, the same size as Germany's, and the largest navy in the world to their virtually none.
The RAF was large with a large bomber force, which the Germans could not knock out. Any invasion at the few suitable invasion beaches would be met at the beaches by all types of aircraft. These could be based out of Me 109 range. State-of-the-art fighters would still be produced 24/7. There would always be top line fighters around.
According to Guderian in "Panzer Leader", and by pretty much any historian to follow, Sealion (Zee Lowe?) could succeed only with complete air superiority over the invasion areas, and at least naval equality in the Channel. Hence the air Battle of Britain, hard fought and clearly won by Britain. Naval equality was a pipe dream for Germany, but a pipe smoked only if the Luftwaffe could attain a decisive victory. Given the failure of the prerequisite, there is really no point in debating the if Germans could invade the UK.
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Wages of Destruction by Prof Adam Tooze: page 442:
"Shipments of oil to Britain peaked at more than 20 million tons, nine times the maximum figure ever imported by Germany during the war. In January 1941, when Germany is sometimes described as being 'glutted' with oil, stocks came to barely more than 2 million tons. In London, alarm bells went off whenever stocks fell below 7 million tons. So great was the disparity that the British Ministry of Economic Warfare, charged with assessing Germany's economic situation, had difficulty believing its highly accurate estimates of German oil stocks. To the British it seemed implausible that Hitler could possibly have embarked on the war with such a small margin of fuel security, an incredulity shared by both the Soviets and the Americans, who agreed in overestimating Germany's oil stocks by at least 100 per cent."
During 1941, Italy was only able to import 600,000 tons of fuel with 163,000 tons given to the navy. At this point the monthly consumption had to be reduced to 60,000 tons. The total amount of oil fuel available at the end of the year was about 200,000 tons. During this period it was decided to remove from service the older battleships. After the November British attack in Egypt, the high command and Mussolini requested that the Italian fleet defend the Libya-bound convoys. This paid off and was only possible by the special shipment of 80,000 tons of German oil fuel delivered at the end of the year.
On January 10th, 1942 the Italians informed the Germans that their navy’s supplies of fuel had dropped to 90,000 tons. During these months, the bottom was hit with reserves down to 14,000 tons. The situation deteriorated by the shipment of 9,000 tons of German oil fuel of quality too low to use. At the end of April, it was possible to import 50,000 tons of fuel oil per month from Romania. Suspending escort and mining missions by Italian cruisers reduced consumption. These cuts and new shipments allowed for the deployment of the whole Italian fleet during the battle with the British of mid-June. The Germans supplied fuel oil of only 10,000 tons in July 1942 and 23,000 tons in September. At the end of November 1942 the oil fuel reserve was about 70,000 tons plus all which was stored aboard the ships, This was enough for one sortie of the whole fleet. At the end of December, the old battleships Cesare, Duilio and Doria were removed from service.
The allied landing in North Africa in 1943 put the Italian navy in another state of fuel crisis. New missions were made possible by the shipment of 40,000 tons of quality German fuel oil. In January 1943, the fuel oil crisis reached its climax and the three modern battleships had to be removed from service eliminating the Italian battle force. The only naval division still operating was in Sardinia. Only 3,000 tons were received in February 1943 and in March and April the modern destroyers had to be removed from escort missions. By the 10th of April, the only major naval force was annihilated when the Trieste was sunk and the Gorizia seriously damaged by allied air attack. Expecting a possible Allied invasion, the remaining destroyers were reactivated along with the battleships which had only half their bunkers filled with diesel fuel.
In April 1943, the Italian navy was partially active and destroyers were used in escort missions. But there was no reserves of fuel oil left. The Germans "loaned" 60,000 tons of fuel oil captured from the French fleet at Toulon, allowing the three battleships to be reactivated with some cruisers. When Italy surrendered on September 8th 1943, their fleet only had enough fuel to reach Malta to surrender.
Such was the effect of the Royal Navy blockade, the most effective and forgotten operation of WW2.
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Nice find from the German archives. As David Fletcher said about the Churchill, "it came back to haunt the Germans". Its design was flawed in many aspects, however its assets were outstanding. It was a vastly underrated tank, as its overall performance showed.
The Churchill was a rushed together infantry tank design. They never had a proper tank engine for it, using two joined together bus engines creating a flat boxer engine (giving an advantage of a lowered centre of gravity). The tracks ran all around the tank's body, like a WW1 tank. The Germans saw it thinking it was just that, as it looked outdated in many ways, and outdated to other British tanks. It was viewed as an old expendable tank design, probably only used for one raid. The Churchill was introduced one month before the Tiger 1. The Churchill was similarly armoured to the Tiger 1, but weighed far less at 39 to the Tiger's 50 tons.
It is clear the German assessment was poor, in getting some matters wrong and also missing some unique aspects of the tank. They never tested it fully for sure, as if they did they would have discovered its amazing climbing ability. It could even turn on its own axis. Mark Felton did a good vid on its climbing ability, with a few of them wiping out a whole German column in Tunisia by climbing big hills the Germans never expected a tank could climb. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2p-izpDBZv4
The German assessment failed to full appreciate the Merrit-Brown gearbox, which was also used in the Centurion, which also climbed mountains in Korea to the amazement of the Americans. The throw away Churchill tank was also used in Korea.
No tank in WW2 had its climbing ability and none were better in beach shingle. Well over half the tanks at Dieppe got over the high beach wall, something the Germans seemed to miss. none got into the town as roads were blocked with large concrete blocks. As this vid points out, only a few were bogged down on the beach due to the shingle. The Germans tested their own tanks in beach shingle and all got bogged down. The tracks running all all around the tanks body gave the Churchill superior beach handling properties.
Only a few months after Dieppe, the Churchill was to be phased out, however it performed excellently at El Alemein, so kept on. Its unique properties came to the fore in the mountains of Tunisia. It was kept on with 400 of them being up-gunned in Tunisia.
The last version of the Churchill was a match for a Tiger 1, as the 6-pouder gun using APDS shells could knock out any Tiger 1 - and not with a lucky shot. Its armour was similar. The Tiger 1 was faster but the manoeuvrability and go anywhere nature of the Churchill gave it the edge. The Churchill could run over bridges the heavier Tiger could not. The Churchill did not need a tank transporter to get it around.
The Churchill was not used for tank v tank engagements, as its versatility and manoeuvrability were better used in other roles. The tank's ability to be adapted for various roles was seen by Hobart who developed it into many of the Funnies.
If you were a general of an army with adequate anti-tank guns to destroy enemy tanks, given the option of having 400 Tiger 1s (the tank many have a strange fascination about) or 400 Churchills, you would go for the Churchill as it was far, far, more versatile filling many roles an army needs. Bare in mind that most tanks were not knocked out by other tanks.
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"Even more remarkable, however, was the fact that, at key points in the line, the Soviets were able to back their superiority in manpower with a similar preponderance of guns, tanks and aircraft. The fact was that despite the optimistic newsreel propaganda, Speer and Milch were losing the battle of the factories. Even leaving aside the British and Americans, who produced under far more favourable circumstances, Germany was being outdone by the embattled Soviet Union. If there was a true 'armaments miracle' in 1942 it occurred, not in Germany, but in the armaments factories in the Urals. Despite having suffered territorial losses and disruption that resulted in a 25 per cent fall in total national product, the Soviet Union in 1942 managed to out-produce Germany in virtually every category of weapons. The margin for small arms and artillery was 3:1. For tanks it was a staggering 4:1, a differential compounded by the superior quality of the T34 tank. Even in combat aircraft the margin was 2:1. It was this industrial superiority, contrary to every expectation, that allowed the Red Army, first to absorb the Wehrmacht's second great onslaught and then in November 1942 to launch a whole series of devastating counterattacks."
-Wages of Destruction by Prof Adam Tooze:. Page 588
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The British won the Battle of Dunkirk. No miracles involved. The British BEF was only 9% of the total allied forces in France and the Low Countries. The huge French army collapsed in front of the British small army, which manned mainly the coastal areas. Nevertheless the German advance was halted in France as the British with a vastly inferior force stopped them at Arras. Some German soldiers turned and ran. Directive 13, issued by German Supreme Headquarters on 24 May 1940 stated specifically for the annihilation of the French, English and Belgian forces in the Dunkirk pocket. The Luftwaffe was ordered to prevent the escape of the British forces across the English Channel.
The German southern advance was stopped at Arras by the British with a numerically inferior force. The Germans never moved much further after. The Germans could not have taken Dunkirk, they would have been badly beaten in and around the town. The Luftwaffe was defeated over Dunkirk by the RAF with the first showing of the Spitfire en-mass. More German than allied planes were destroyed in the Dunkirk pocket. The first defeat of the Nazis in WW2 was by the British in the air battle over Dunkirk. Only six small warships were sunk at Dunkirk by the Germans as the effectiveness of the Luftwaffe blunted.
The British were retreating after the French collapsed in front of them - a programme already in motion, a programme already in motion before the Germans showed up, as General Gort saw the disjointed performance of the French forces in front of him, and the exceptionally poor leadership. If the French collapsed the small BEF had no hope against the large over two million strong German force heading west. French forces were amongst the British when General Gort decided to take the men back to England, as he did not trust the French in a joint counter-attack. French General Wiegand held a meeting to arrange a counter-attack not inviting General Gort head of the BEF. Gort was under the command of Weigand. Gort heard of the meeting rushing to be there. He got there after the French and Belgians had left. He ordered the evacuation, having no faith in the elderly French leaders.
All armies retreat and regroup when the need is there. There happened to be a body of water in the line of the retreat. Were the BEF to move down the English coast and enter France further west with more men from England? The Germans did not know what was to be the next British or allied move. The Germans could not have taken Dunkirk trying for nearly a week failing in the process. The British retreat operation was carried out as planned and in orderly fashion. All bridges to Dunkirk were destroyed by the allies.
The British counter-attack at Arras was with outdated Matilda 1 tanks, which only had machine guns, and a few of the brand new Matilda 2 tanks. The Germans fled in droves. In desperation the Germans turned a 88mm AA gun horizontally successfully against the Matilda 2 - their conventional anti-tank weapons and tanks could not penetrate the tank. The 88mm had hard shell shells made for it, to use against the Maginot Line's bunkers. The Matilda 2 would roll over German gun emplacements killing the gunners, not even using the guns. Rommel thought he had been hit by a force three times the size, which made them stop and rethink. The Germans countered with their superior numbers pushing back the British who fell back consolidating towards Dunkirk.
The British resolve and the new Matilda 2 tank made the Germans sit up and think about a street fight in Dunkirk against a consolidated force still with its weapons and the new Matilda 2 - the large 88mm would be useless in Dunkirk streets while the Matilda 2 would be in its element, with the Matilda 2 easily destroying the Panzer MkIII & MkIVs. The Matilda 2 could knock out any German tank at the time, while no German tank could knock it out. The Germans were expecting the Matilda 2 to be shipped over in numbers and for all they knew many were in Dunkirk, and some were. The Germans could not stop the tanks coming as the RAF controlled the skies with a CAP and the RN the waters of the Channel. Not a good prospect for the Germans. A Dunkirk street fight was a fight the German troops were untrained and unequipped for and unwise to get involved in.
Von Rundstedt and von Kluge suggested to Hitler that German forces around the Dunkirk pocket cease their advance, consolidating preventing an Allied breakout from Dunkirk. Hitler agreed with the support of the Wehrmacht. German preoccupation rightly was with an expected attack from the fluid south of the German lines, by mainly French and some British forces, not from dug-in Dunkirk which was too much of a formidable consolidated opponent, taking substantial resources to seize. The German column had Allied troops to each side with soft marshland to the south west of Dunkirk unsuitable for tanks. If German forces had engaged in a street battle for Dunkirk, they would be vulnerable on their weak flank from the south. In short the fast moving panzers were now static; German forces attacking Dunkirk in a battle of attrition would have been largely wiped out.
The German columns were consolidating their remaining armour for an expected attack by the British and French from the south, and the important resupply from Germany, which was slow as it was via horses - or maybe a combined attack from the south and the Dunkirk pocket. The Germans attacked on a remarkably narrow front. They had over-stretched their supply lines. The Germans had no option but to stop, being more concerned at defending from the mainly French forces in the south which were viewed as a greater threat than Dunkirk. French general Weigand implemented his creation of hedgehogs to attack German lines from the sides, with success - hedgehogs were adopted post war by NATO being a part of the tactics until the 1970s.
What were the Germans thinking? Are the British retreating to England from Dunkirk to move down the English coast and re-enter France further south with fresh forces, including Canadians and the new Matilda 2 tanks, which they feared, and join up with the French forces there to hit the Germans from the south? Are the British going to reinforce the Dunkirk pocket supplied by the Royal Navy with a 24/7 air CAP? The British did reinforce Dunkirk by taking over from England the 30th Tank Regiment and 20th Guards Brigade on the 25th and 26th May, with the Germans fully aware of this. Canadians landed further south. The British could easily do any of these as they controlled the Channel.
Reinforcing Dunkirk would create one large difficult to combat force. The Germans also saw the resolve of outnumbered British forces at Arras. German generals were trying to figure out what was happening. None thought that British troops would retreat to England and stay there. The British never did that sort of thing.
The Germans could divert most of their forces south to engage the French forces, then risk a Dunkirk breakout. This would mean being attacked from their rear fighting on two fronts. Or stay and consolidate, which they needed to do anyhow, awaiting a French/British attack from the south and use some forces and the Luftwaffe to attack Dunkirk. Which what they did. German forces resumed their attack on Dunkirk, after only a 36 hour delay, for over 6 days failing to seize the port.
The plan to break out of the Dunkirk Pocket using British, Belgian and French forces was abandoned as Gort had no confidence in the French. All military school studies since, knowing what the German and allied positions and situations were in 1940, have shown it would have succeeded.
The Germans were defeated at the Battle of Dunkirk. They tried militarily to seize the port but failed. Only because the British did not trust the French and moved back to England did the Germans eventually occupy the town. The Germans did not let the British get away that is misguided myth, they tried for a week simply not able to seize Dunkirk.
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As to the massive gamble of the German army in 1940, I will let others say it for me. Attacking France...
Wages of Destruction, Prof Adam Tooze:
"There’s always a problem in history of determining after something’s happened what the balance of probabilities was before it happened. And the German plan is a plan which is again a spectacular gamble, and it succeeds because the forces in the German offensive are concentrated in an extraordinarily tight pack which is going to drive through the Ardennes in a single offensive move all the way across northern France to the Channel. This is an operation of unprecedented logistical risk and gives the opponents of Germany - Britain, France, Belgium and Holland - the chance, if they’re sufficiently well organised, to mount a devastating counterattack on Germany and on the pincer moving across northern France. And for this reason the Germans fully understand that if this plan fails they’ve lost the war. So it’s, rather than simply the result of a series of coincidences, more that the Germans are simply taking a very, very high risk gamble. The gamble bears the possibility of total victory, which is what they ultimately achieve over France, but also a risk of catastrophic defeat which they’re fully conscious of."
Wages of Destruction, Page 371.
"The German army that invaded France in May 1940 was far from being a carefully honed weapon of modern armoured warfare. Of Germany's 93 combat ready divisions on May 10 1940, only 9 were Panzer divisions, with a total of 2.438 tanks between them. These units faced a French army that was more heavily motorised, with 3,254 tanks in total."
....Half the German tanks that invaded the west were armed only with a machine gun!! The German Army was not on equal footing with the French when in fact it was vastly inferior.
"By May 1940 Britain had 7 regiments equipped with 28 light tanks plus 44 scout carriers each. There was also 1 regiment of armoured cars with 38 Morris light reconnaissance cars. There was also an Army Tank brigade with two regiments of infantry tanks. That gave a total of 308 tanks 23 of which had a 2pdr gun the rest had machine guns. Ist Armoured Division started to arrive in France from late May. However many of the Cruiser tanks were so recently issued that their crews had only been half trained on them and many lacked wireless sets, sighting telescopes and even armour piercing ammunition."
-Source The Great Tank Scandal, David Fletcher
Dutch, Belgian, UK & French tanks in total were 4,200 tanks.
Prof Tooze, page 371/372.
"Nor should one accept unquestioningly the popular idea that the concentration of the Germans tanks in specialised tank divisions gave them a decisive advantage. Many French tanks were scattered amongst the infantry units, but with their ample stock of vehicles the French could afford to do this. The bulk of France's best tanks were concentrated in armoured units, that, on paper at least, were every bit a match for the Panzer divisions."
Page 377
"The Germans not only committed "all" their tanks and planes. In strictest conformity with the Schwerpunkt principle, they committed them on an astonishingly narrow front"
"the Luftwaffe sacrificed no less than 347 aircraft, including virtually all its transports used in the air landings in Holland and Belgium".
Page 378
"if Allied bombers had penetrated the German fighter screen over the Ardennes they could have wreaked havoc amongst the slow moving traffic"
"highly inflammable fuel tankers were interspersed with the fihting vehicles at the very front with the armoured fighting vehicles"
"The plan called for the German armoured columns to drive for three days and nights without interruption".
....The drivers were put on "speed" pills.
Page 379
"success would not have been possible had it not been for the particular nature of the battlefield. The Channel coastline provided the German army with a natural obstacle to pin their enemies, an obstacle which could be reached within few hundred kilometres of the German border."
"the Germans benefited from the well made network of roads"
"In Poland in 1939 the Wehrmacht had struggled to maintain the momentum of its motorized troops when faced with far more difficult conditions."
"a close analysis of the of the mechanics of the Blitzkrieg reveals the astonishing degree of concentration achieved, but an enormous gamble that Hitler and the Wehrmacht were taking on May 10."
Page 380
"because it involved such a concentrated use of force, Manstein's plan was a "one-shot affair". If the initial assault had failed, and it could have failed in many ways, the Wehrmacht as an offensive force would have been spent. The gamble paid off. But contrary to appearances, the Germans had not discovered a patent recipe for military miracles. The overwhelming success of May 1940, resulting in the defeat of a major European military power in a matter of weeks, was not a repeatable outcome"
Tooze, page 373:
"In retrospect, it suited neither the Allies nor the Germans to expose the amazingly haphazard course through which the Wehrmacht had arrived at its most brilliant military success. The myth of the Blitzkrieg suited the British and French because it provided an explanation other than military incompetence for their pitiful defeat. But whereas it suited the Allies to stress the alleged superiority of German equipment, Germany's own propaganda viewed the Blitzkrieg in less materialistic terms."
Tooze page 380.
"In both campaigns [France & Barbarossa], the Germans gambled on achieving decisive success in the opening phases of the assault. Anything less spelled disaster".
....If the belt broke the whole movement stopped. The Germans thought they had formulated a version of Blitzkrieg in France that was a sure-fire success. They used this in the USSR, just scaling up forces. They did not have the intelligence to assess properly, that the reason for their success was allied incompetence not anything brilliant they did.
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Deus Vult
You must stop making things up.
Some facts for you. The British were the single biggest agents in the defeat of Nazi Germany. They were there from day one until the end. The so-called "invincible" Germans army tried and failed, with their allies, for two years in WW2 to defeat the British army in North Africa. The finest army in the world from mid 1942 onwards was the British. From El Alemein it moved right up into Denmark, through nine countries, and not once suffered a reverse taking all in its path. Over 90% of German armour in the west was destroyed by the British. Montgomery had to give the US armies an infantry role as they were not equipped to engage massed German SS armour.
Montgomery stopped the Germans in every event they attacked him:
♦ August 1942 - Alem el Halfa
♦ October 1942 - El Alamein
♦ March 1943 - Medenine
♦ June 1944 - Normandy
♦ Sept/Oct 1944 - The Netherlands
♦ December 1944 - Battle of the Bulge
Not on one occasion were Monty's ground armies pushed back into a retreat by the Germans. The US Army were struggling in 1944/45 retreating in the Ardennes. The Americans didn't perform well at all east of Aachen, then the Hurtgen Forest defeat with 33,000 casualties and Patton's Lorraine crawl of 10 miles in three months with over 50,000 casualties. The Battle of the Bulge took all the US effort, and vital help from Montgomery and the British 21st Army Group, just to get back to the start line. The Germans took 20,000 US POWs in the Battle of The Bulge in Dec 1944. No other allied country had that many prisoners taken in the 1944-45 timeframe. The USA retreat at the Bulge, again, the only allied army to be pushed back into a retreat in the 1944-45 timeframe. Montgomery was effectively in charge of the Bulge having to take control of the US 1st and 9th armies and parts of the US air force put under RAF command. The 9th stayed under his control until the end of the war just about.
Normandy was planned and commanded by the British with Montgomery leading, which was a great success coming in ahead of schedule and with less casualties than predicted. The German armour in the west was wiped out by primarily the British - the US forces were impotent against the panzers. Monty assessed the US armies (he was in charge of them) and had to give them a supporting infantry role, as they were just not equipped to fight tank v tank battles. On 3 Sept 1944 when Eisenhower took over overall allied command of ground forces everything went at a snail's pace. The fastest advance of any western army in Autumn/early 1945 was the 60 mile thrust by the British XXX Corps to the Rhine at Arnhem.
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@DC9622
The British and Canadians took on 90% of the German armour in Normandy. Eight Panzer Divisions and 3 Tiger battalions:
21st Panzer Division (117 Panzer IVs).
Panzer Lehr Division ( 101 Panzer IVs, 89 Panthers).
2nd Panzer Division (89 Panzer IVs, 79 Panthers).
116th Panzer Division (73 Panzer IVs, 79 Panthers). In reserve just behind the front.
1st SS Panzer Division (98 Panzer IVs, 79 Panthers).
9th SS Panzer Division (40 Stugs, 46 Panzer IVs, 79 Panthers).
10th SS Panzer Division (38 Stugs, 39 Panzer IVs)
.
12th SS Panzer Division (98 Panzer IVs, 79 Panthers).
Tiger Battalion SS101 (45 Tigers).
Tiger Battalion SS102 (45 Tigers).
Tiger Battalion 503 (45 Tigers).
Sources:
Panzers and the Battle For Normandy by Georges Bernage.
Normandy 1944: German Military Organization, Combat Power and Organizational Effectiveness by Niklas Zetterling.
In Normandy the Americans only faced one battalion of 40 assault gun in June (Stugs of 17th SS), apart from a few insignificant early war obsolete French tanks, and only one panzer divisions (2nd SS) in July.
The only time the Americans faced tanks in any numbers in Normandy was during the August Mortain counter-attack. Even then, the panzer divisions had been reduced in strength after engaging British forces around Caen being nowhere near the strength they were when fighting around Caen.
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@EdgyNumber1
Again..
Just for you....
Germany had no realistic ability to overrun the UK. The British knew what sort of chance the Germans had. The reason the Germans had no chance was that the British were ready and waiting with factories turning out the latest equipment 24/7. During the so-called Battle of Britain, the Royal Navy had a mass of ships at Gibraltar ready for offensive operations against the Italians, they took the invasion of Britain really so seriously.
The German Navy was near non-existent. The single battleship the British kept in Portsmouth was quite able to handle everything the Germans had on the surface, together with the four flotillas of destroyers. I'm not counting the Home Fleet, which had additional powerful ships. In other words, the British kept plenty of naval force at home. All they needed to deal with the Germans with a good deal to spare. Also, 55 Matilda 2 tanks, which was immune from German anti-tank guns, were sent to North Africa, the Brits took the invasion so seriously.
Admiral Raeder said he could not guarantee putting down an invasion force, even with German air superiority, when the Royal Navy was still there. General Jodl talked of his men going through a British mincing machine.
In Churchill's memoirs, he says that he was prepared to defeat tens of thousands of Germans if they invaded (take that as slaughter). Presumably even if they arrived with weapons and not half-dead from seasickness in a 24 hour sea trip in barges being attacked from sea, land and air. The British kept plenty of force at home, all they needed.
And what were the Germans supposed to do? Sortie with two or three heavy cruisers, and blast their way through the Home Fleet or the Channel defences? At that point in the war, Bismarck was still under construction, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were under repair from the Norway operation, two of six heavy cruisers sunk, two of six light cruisers sunk, and only five of those could be considered modern warships, a large number of their destroyers were sunk at Narvik. The repair status on the rest of the ships wasn't real good. The Germans never even had an effective torpedo plane. The Stuka dive bomber was predictable in that it dived vertically. It was easily shot down and suffered so many losses in the Battle of Britain it was withdrawn from the battle.
So, with the German navy whittled to almost nothing, and the army incapable of crossing with enough force to win, the only threats was the then small U-boats force and the Luftwaffe. The British were therefore sparing about sending the RAF overseas. I don't know of any significant deployment of Spitfires outside the UK until the second half of 1942, and escort vessels kept on being built. The RAF defeated the Luftwaffe over Dunkirk, so the Germans knew they were no push over.
If anyone thinks that operation Sealion was a serious attempt at an invasion they are deluded. Even German generals never took it seriously. An invasion in concrete barges towed by tugs and no navy to speak of? The Germans knew the UK had a large industry working 24/7, the same size as Germany's, and the largest navy in the world to their virtually none.
The RAF was large with a large bomber force, which the Germans could not knock out. Any invasion at the few suitable invasion beaches would be met at the beaches by all types of aircraft. These could be based out of Me 109 range. State-of-the-art fighters would still be produced 24/7. There would always be top line fighters around.
According to Guderian in "Panzer Leader", and by pretty much any historian to follow, Sealion (Zee Lowe?) could succeed only with complete air superiority over the invasion areas, and at least naval equality in the Channel. Hence the air Battle of Britain, hard fought and clearly won by Britain. Naval equality was a pipe dream for Germany, but a pipe smoked only if the Luftwaffe could attain a decisive victory. Given the failure of the prerequisite, there is really no point in debating the if Germans could invade the UK.
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Why Germany rushed to invade the USSR.
The coming air war:
Roosevelt promised 50,000 plane per year production in May 1940, of which a substantial amount would be in the RAF. Germany could not compete with the level of aircraft at the UKs disposal. Whether the planes had US and UK pilots or just UK pilots they were coming Germany's way. And the only way they could really get at each other was by air. Germany feared mass bombing, which came - the first 1,000 bomber raid on Germany by the RAF was a matter of weeks after the USA entered the war. The bomber in the late 1930s was perceived as a war winning weapon. The Germans knew the lead time for aircraft was 18 months from order to delivery. That meant in late 1941/early 1942, these planes would be starting to come in service in great numbers. Germany needed the resources of the east to compete. If the population was too big they would eliminate the population - the precedence was the American move to the west expanding the USA, taking lands from the natives population and Mexicans then eliminating the population.
Wages of Destruction by Prof Adam Tooze:
Page 422:
"At the Berghof on 31 July 1940, in conference with the military leadership. Hitler emphasized that the Soviet Union would have to be knocked out of the war, if Britain was to be brought to heel and America's support neutralized. 'Britain's hope lies in Russia and the United States. If Russia drops out of the picture, America, too, is lost for Britain, because elimination of Russia would tremendously increase Japan's power in the Far East.' Russia, according to Hitler, was the 'Far Eastern sword of Britain and the United States', a spearhead pointed at Japan. Attacking and decisively defeating the Soviet Union in 1941 would rob Britain of its 'dagger on the mainland' and unleash Japan. If Britain did choose to continue the war and if Japanese aggression provoked American entry, complete control of the Eurasian landmass would at least secure for Germany the resources it needed for a true trans-Atlantic confrontation. As Hitler put in on 9 January 1941, after the conquest of Lebensraum in the East, Germany would be ready for a 'war against continents'."
Tooze Page 454:
"Critical stores would be reserved above all for the main strike force of 33 tank and motorised infantry divisions. If the battle extended much beyond the first months of the attack, the fighting power of the rest of the German army would dwindle rapidly."
"Fundamentally the Wehrmacht was a "poor army". The fast striking motorised element of the Germans army in 1941 consisted of only 33 divisions of 130. Three-quarters of the German army continued to rely on more traditional means of traction: foot and horse. The German army in 1941 invaded the Soviet Union with somewhere between 600,000 and 740,000 horses. The horses were not for riding. They were for moving guns, ammunition and supplies."
"The vast majority of Germany's soldiers marched into Russia, as they had in France, on foot."
"But to imagine a fully motorised Wehrmacht, poised for an attack on the Soviet Union is a fantasy of the Cold War, not a realistic vision of the possibilities of 1941. To be more specific, it is an American fantasy. The Anglo-American invasion force of 1944 was the only military force in WW2 to fully conform to the modern model of a motorised army."
Page 455:
"the chronic shortage of fuel and rubber"
"the fuel shortage of 1941 was expected to be so severe that the Wehrmacht was seriously considering demotorisation as a way of reducing its dependency on scarce oil."
"Everything therefore depended on the assumption that the Red Army would crack under the impact of the first decisive blow."
Page 456:
"a new Soviet industrial base to the east of the Urals, which had the capacity to sustain a population of at least 40 million people."
"Soviet industrial capacity was clearly very substantial."
"Franz Halder recorded Hitler's ruminations about the Soviets' immense stock of tanks and aircraft."
Reading further Tooze gives the misgivings of the German generals of the invasion. All were negative.
Page 457:
"Halder noted in his diary: Barbarossa: purpose not clear, We do not hurt the English. Our economic base is not significantly improved."
At the top of page 459 Tooze emphasises that Hitler misinterpreted Backe's comments about the Ukraine grain. A region that had little surplus and had a substantial population increase from WW1.
Page 459:
"On 22 January 1941 Thomas had informed his boss, Keitel, that he was planning to submit a report urging caution with regard to the military-economic benefits of the invasion. Now he reversed directions. As it became clear that Hitler was justifying Barbarossa first and foremost as a campaign of economic conquest, Thomas began systematically working towards the Fuehrer."
Thomas was head of the OKW economic planning staff. He modified his reports from nagative to positive, presenting the Ukraine as an economic breadbasket. Thomas was an insider and it is assumed he had heard of the misinterpreted Backe's comments to Hitler.
Page 459:
"The OKW now claimed that in the first thrust the Wehrmacht would be able to seize control of at least 70% of the Soviet Union's industrial potential."
Page 460:
"As late as the Spring of 1941, the Foreign Ministry was still opposing the coming war, preferring to continue the alliance with the Soviet Union against the British Empire."
"If the shock of the initial assault does not destroy Stalin's regime, it was evident in February 1941 that the Third Reich would find itself facing a strategic disaster."
Page 452:
"the Germans had already conscripted virtually all their prime manpower. By contrast, the Red Army could call up millions of reservists."
Why did Germany invade the USSR in a rushed ill-conceived plan?
Page 431:
"the strongest arguments for rushing to conquer the Soviet Union in 1941 were precisely the growing shortage of grain and the need to knock Britain out of the war before it could pose a serious air threat."
"Meanwhile, the rest of the German military-industrialised complex began to gird itself for the aerial confrontation with Britain and America."
Germany rushed to invade the Soviet Union, with an ill-equipped army with no reserves in anticipation of a massive air war with Britain and the USA, hoping they could win the Soviet war within weeks.
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♦ The Churchill had amazing hill climbing ability. The Churchill could climb mountains as in Tunisia. Many times in Italy and Tunisia the Churchill’s would climb hills the Germans thought were tank proof. On one occasion a Colonel Koch of the Herman Goering regiment, transmitted this radio message: “… been attacked by a mad tank battalion which had scaled impossible heights and forced me to withdraw!”
♦ It could cross muddy ground and force through the forests of the Reichswald in 1944. No other tank could have managed the same conditions.
♦ There is a story of a large line of tanks waiting to cross a bridge over an anti-tank ditch. The Churchill's drove into and out of the ditch.
♦ The Churchill could keep going even if it had three wheels on the same side blown off.
♦ The Churchill was also used in Korea, with many American Units extremely glad of its amazing hill climbing ability getting to places Sherman and Pershing tanks could not.
♦ It had a flat engine, giving a lower centre of gravity.
♦ It was to be discontinued a few months after introduction, however performed well at El Alemein so was kept on.
♦ The Churchill was the basis of the Hobart 'Funnies'.
♦ It could turn on its own length because of the innovative Merrit-Brown transmission, which the Germans missed in their assessment.
♦ During trials the Australians found it a better tank for jungle warfare than even the Matilda II.
♦ In the fighting in late 1944 the Germans flooded areas so heavily that resupply could only be carried out by using DUKW’s. The roads were even impassable to trucks. The 6th Guards tank brigade's Churchill's, fought and continued the advance. Churchill’s even crossed an underwater bridge on the Dneiper river, operating without problems alongside T-34′s in swamps.
♦ It was well armoured, which was only penetrable except by the most powerful of German guns. It had initially 102mm in the front, which was then upgraded to 152mm for the later models - thicker than the Tiger I.
♦ It had a large chassis allowing it to be use larger turrets and guns. Churchill’s were adequately armed for the job they were meant to do.
♦ The Churchill was roomy by WW2 standards being popular with crews.
♦ The 4th Grenadier Guards in Churchill’s were the unit that set the record for fastest advance of any armoured unit in Europe.
♦ After WWII a study on all armoured units in 21st army group found that the 4th Grenadiers had the lowest casualty rate of all.
♦ In Italy a single Churchill was hit over 100 times by enemy AT weapons.
♦ The best all round tank of the war. As an army moves forward, tanks have to do a multitude of tasks. Tank v tank engagements were rare. No other tank accomplished the various tasks better and more comprehensively than the Churchill.
♦ It was heavily armoured could match most tanks in the 6pdr gun version and with APDS ammunition could penetrate a Tiger.
♦ At Dieppe it was the only tank in the world that could get off the pebble beaches. Half got over the high sea wall. Attributes that went un-noticed by the Germans.
♦ After Dieppe the Germans tested a Panzer IV on a beach, and got the following results. To quote David Fletcher:
“This showed that on beaches with a slope between 15 and 20 degrees the German tank could manage quite well but where the slope increased to between 30 and 40 degrees the tank started to slip then dug itself in until the tracks ceased to function.”
♦ Towed 6-pdrs in Tunisia took out two Tigers plus their supporting Pz III’s using standard AP (no APDS was around then) with penetrations starting at 800 yards to the turrets. Churchill tanks also took out four more Tigers in Tunisia, with no loss, 48 Royal Tank Regiment and Northern Irish Horse- two each, still only armed with 6-pdrs firing standard AP.
♦ Churchills got the first Panther kills by the western allies, 48 Royal Tank Regiment, with 6-pdr armed Churchills.
♦ The Churchill had the highest survivability in any tank of WW2.
A much ignored and underrated tank.
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+Pennywise Marhakesh
The tactic I think you think the Germans discovered was what the west called Blitzkrieg. First used by the British at Amiens in 1918.
Prof Adam Tooze, Wages of Destruction
Page 380
"because it involved such a concentrated use of force, Manstein's plan was a __one-shot affair._ If the initial assault had failed, and it could have failed in many ways, the Wehrmacht as an offensive force would have been spent. The gamble paid off. But contrary to appearances, the Germans had not discovered a patent recipe for military miracles. The overwhelming success of May 1940, resulting in the defeat of a major European military power in a matter of weeks, _was not a repeatable outcome."
The Germans tried it on the USSR and it failed, despite having superb advantages, of surprise, better organisation and battle proven forces.
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There is a myth that the Germans were way ahead of the British in jet engines and planes in WW2, when the opposite is true. The WW2 German jet engines were extremely unreliable and had low performances with very high fuel consumption. The German axial-flow turbojets never worked properly and were developed up to 1953 by the French to obtain a usable engine. The French lost a lot of time playing around with the German engines, instead of working with the British. The French and Soviets after WW2 tried to improve the German axial-flow engines and largely failed.
The British in order to get a usable and reliable jet engine, with the technology of the time, went for a centrifugal design rather than the troublesome axial-flow design. This design produced less thrust than an axial-flow but was quicker to develop and reliable. It took 5 months to develop, while the first reliable axial-flow engine was the 1950 Rolls Royce Avon, which took 5 years to get right.
In 1945 the French made and tested some German designed turbo jets made with quality steel unavailable to German industry in WW2. They ran for 25 hours instead 10 hours to the poor steel the Germans used. Not much better. The German axial-flow engines failed because of heavy design faults. The centrifugal compressor used by the first British Meteor plane was fine and much more reliable, but unable to reach high compression ratios. This limited performances. Centrifugal compressors were used up to the 1960s.
In 1945 the team from the French ATAR laboratory plus some BMW and Junkers engineers, were engaged by the French SNECMA research bureau, with the objective to built a new reliable and performing axial-flow turbojet. The BMW 003/Jumo004 was considered unusable. It was tested on the first French jet aircraft, the 1946 So6000 Triton, overheating and exploding. The plane only flew with a Rolls Royce Nene centrifugal turbojet.
The ATAR project took 6 years to produce the first acceptable axial-flow turbojet (ATAR 101 B1), produced in 1953. So 8 years research and developments by the French using the German jet engines as the base. It was installed on the first French jet fighter, the Dassault Ouragan.
The French lost a lot of time because the German jets had a poor efficiency and some concept fails. Essentially in the combustion chambers and fresh air circulation to reduce the external temperature of the engine. The BMW jet was know for overheat problems which precluded fuselage installation.
The question at the end of WW2 was what is the most efficient way to produce jet fighters. The answer is clearly not adopting the German design of engine and fuselage. The build costs for a jet engine were much higher than a piston engine, with the fuel consumption near 3x. The centrifugal compressor the British adopted in some planes was the best choice with 1944-45 technology, more compression pressure was not an advantage when the hot turbine was unable to resist higher temperatures. The German turbojets had big overheat problems as the engine would not work in an enclosed fuselage for single engined fighters. This defect was immediately noted by the French on the 1946 "SO 6000 Triton" prototype, and by the Soviets on the 1946 Mig 9. The Soviets quickly replaced the BMW 004B2 by the centrifugal Rolls Royce Nene which worked without problems, dismissing the BMW engine for fighter planes.
The Rolls Royce Nene was copied to the last nut by the USSR being installed in the Mig 15 being used effectively in the Korean war. About 10 years ago the USSR eventually paid royalties to Rolls Royce.
The Meteor was the first proper fully developed jet plane introduced. The 262 was slightly faster than the Meteor F3, but extremely unreliable. The British would never put into the sky such an undeveloped plane as the me262. The British could have had a jet fighter operational in 1941, but it would have been as bad as the me262. The Germans advanced R&D on jets after they interrogated captured British RAF men. They learned the British were advanced in jet technology and flying prototype planes. Until then the Germans had no intention of mass producing jet planes.
The rushed together Me262 started claiming kills on 26 July 1944, the Meteor claimed its first V1 kill on 4 August 1944. But the Meteor was a proper fully developed jet plane, not a thrown together desperate effort as the me262 was. The me262 fuselage was similar to a piston plane with the pilot over the wings obscuring downward vision, while the Meteor was a proper new design fuselage specifically for jet fighters with a forward of the wings pilot position with superior vision, as we see today. The sweptback wings of the me262 were to move the engines further back for better weight distribution, not for aerodynamic reasons as is thought the case.
Centrifugal compressors were not obsolete being used in turboprops. Between a turbo jet and a turboprop, the only difference is the turbine, not the compressor. The last centrifugal compressor jet engine still in service on a handful of commercial aircraft like the Fokker 27, is the Rolls Royce Dart turboprop. A very reliable engine made in 27 versions, but with high fuel consumption to modern engines. The Rolls Royce Dart Turboprop turbo jet engine was produced the longest, being a comparable design turbojet to the likes the Rolls Royce Nene. This rugged engine was produced from 1946 up to 1987.
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Ian Whittle, son of Frank Whittle, primary concern is to protect his father's memory from continued erosion. "It is now an accepted fact in America that my father did not invent the jet, but that he and von Ohain - who became an American citizen - co-invented it at the same time," he says. "Pretty soon, history will be rewritten to say that it was a German or American invention." Certainly, many engineering institutions now routinely describe von Ohain as one of the "inventors" of the jet. So would the Germans have flown that first jet in 1939 if they hadn't pinched young Whittle's plans?
"Certainly not. It was Frank's invention and they just copied him," says one of the greatest test pilots in aviation history, Captain Eric Brown, late of the Fleet Air Arm. He should know. Not only has he flown more planes than anyone - 487 different types - but he was sent to Germany straight after the war to get hold of all the Nazis' aviation technology. "I interrogated von Ohain, who was very ambivalent about where he had got his ideas," says Capt Brown. 'But his sidekick was utterly straight-forward about it. He said that Whittle's patent had been in every technical library in Germany even before the war.
"I have absolutely no hesitation in saying that Frank Whittle was the real inventor of the jet engine and that he could have produced a jet fighter by 1937 if the Establishment had been on his side."
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The British BEF was only 9% of the total allied forces in France and the Low Countries. The German advance was halted in France as the British with a vastly inferior force stopped them at Arras. Some German soldiers turned and ran. Directive 13, issued by German Supreme Headquarters on 24 May 1940 stated specifically for the annihilation of the French, English and Belgian forces in the Dunkirk pocket. The Luftwaffe was ordered to prevent the escape of the British forces across the English Channel.
The German advance was stopped at Arras by the British with a numerically inferior force. The Germans never moved much further after. The Germans could not have taken Dunkirk, they would have been badly beaten in and around the town. The Luftwaffe was defeated over Dunkirk by the RAF with the first showing of the Spitfire en-mass. More German than allied planes were destroyed in the Dunkirk pocket. The first defeat of the Nazis in WW2 was in the air by the British over Dunkirk. Only six small warships were sunk at Dunkirk by the Germans as the the effectiveness of the Luftwaffe blunted.
The British were retreating after the French collapsed in front of them - a programme already in motion, a programme already in motion before the Germans showed up, as General Gort saw the disjointed performance of the French forces in front of him. If the French collapsed the small BEF had no hope against the large German force heading west. The French were still in front of the British when General Gort decided to take the men back to England, as he did not trust the French in a joint counter-attack. All armies retreat and regroup when the need is there. There happened to be a body of water in the line of the retreat. Were they to move down the English coast and enter France further west with more men from England? The Germans did not know what was to be the next British or allied move. The Germans could not have taken Dunkirk and they tried. The British retreat operation was carried out as planned and in orderly fashion. All bridges to Dunkirk were destroyed by the allies.
The British counter-attack at Arras was with outdated Matilda 1 tanks, which only had machine guns, and a few of the brand new Matilda 2 tanks. The Germans fled in droves. In desperation the Germans turned a 88mm AA gun horizontal and it worked against the Matilda 2 - their conventional anti-tank weapons and tanks could not penetrate the tank. The Matilda 2 would roll over German gun emplacements killing the gunners. Rommel thought he had been hit by a force three times the size, which made them stop and rethink. The Germans countered with their superior numbers pushing back the British who fell back towards Dunkirk.
The British resolve and the new Matilda 2 made the Germans sit up and think about a street fight in Dunkirk against a consolidated force still with its weapons and the new Matilda 2 - the 88mm would be useless in Dunkirk streets while the Matilda 2 would be in its element, and the Matlida 2 would have easily destroyed the Panzer mk3s. The Matilda 2 could knock out any German tank at the time, while no German tank could knock it out. The Germans were expecting the Matilda 2 to be shipped over in numbers and for all they knew many were in Dunkirk. The Germans could not stop the tanks coming as the British controlled the skies with a CAP and the waters of the Channel. Not a good prospect for the Germans. A Dunkirk street fight was a fight the German troops were untrained and unequipped for and unwise to get involved in.
Von Rundstedt and von Kluge suggested to Hitler that German forces around the Dunkirk pocket cease their advance and consolidate and also to prevent an Allied break out from Dunkirk. Hitler agreed with the support of the Wehrmacht. German preoccupation rightly was with an expected attack from the fluid mainly French and some British forces to the south of the German line, not from dug-in Dunkirk which was too much of a formidable consolidated opponent, taking substantial resources to seize. The German column had Allied troops to each side and in front and there was soft marshland to the south west of Dunkirk unsuitable for tanks. If German forces had engaged in a street battle for Dunkirk, they would be vulnerable on their weak flank from the south. In short the fast moving panzers were now static; German forces attacking Dunkirk in a battle of attrition would have been largely wiped out.
The Germans were consolidating their remaining armour and the important resupply from Germany, which was slow as it was via horses, for an expected attack by the British and French from the south. They had over-stretched their supply lines. The Germans had no option but to stop. The Germans were more concerned at defending from the mainly French forces in the south which were viewed as a greater threat than Dunkirk. French general Weigand implemented his creation of hedgehogs to attack German lines from the sides, with success - hedgehogs were a part of NATO tactics until the 1970s.
The German were thinking, are the British retreating to England from Dunkirk to move down the English coast and re-enter France further south with fresh forces, including Canadians and the new Matilda 2 tanks, which they feared, and join up with the French forces there? The British could easily do that as they controlled the Channel. This would create one large difficult to combat force. German generals were trying to figure out what was happening. None thought that British troops would retreat to England and stay there. The British never did that sort of thing.
The Germans could divert most of their forces south and risk a Dunkirk breakout and then risk being attacked from their rear fighting on two fronts, or stay and consolidate, which they needed to do, awaiting a French/British attack from the south and use some forces and the Luftwaffe to attack Dunkirk, which they did. German forces resumed their attack on Dunkirk for 6 days failing to seize the port and the surrounding pocket.
There was a British plan to break out of the Dunkirk Pocket using British and French forces which was abandoned as Gort had no confidence in the French. All military school studies since, knowing what the German and allied positions and situations were, have shown it would have succeeded.
This sounds strange, but the Germans were defeated at Dunkirk. They tried militarily to seize it but failed. Only because the British did not trust the French and moved back to England did the Germans eventually occupy the town. The Germans did not let the British get away that is misguided myth, they tried and simply could not seize Dunkirk.
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The Battle of Britain was an attempt to establish German air superiority in daylight over Southern England, with a view to either:
♦ Allow Operation Sealion, the invasion of England to proceed;
♦ To force the British government to ask for peace terms by the loss of that air superiority over their own soil.
The German aim was to obliterate RAF Fighter Command, which meant engaging them in the air. The German view of gaining air superiority gradually changed because of Luftwaffe losses,. Their decisions confirmed their change of stance::
♦ Withdrawing Stuka ground attack dive bombers from combat on August 19 because of heavy losses.
♦ On September 3, Kesselring presented the case for attacking London in mass as the last attempt at forcing the British to the decisive air-to-air engagement, being the Luftwaffe's last chance for air superiority in a short time.
♦ On September 16, Goering still wanted to believe that Fighter Command could not sustain the fight. On September 23, Speidel's report to the OKW could not avoid acknowledging that the Germans would be using fighters during the day and bombers only at night.
This precluded German total air superiority of fighters and bombers during the day. German fighters during the day had little chance of achieving the destruction of Fighter Command, because the British would not scramble for German fighter sweeps leaving German fighters flying around by themselves. The RAF would scramble for fighter-bomber attacks, but these would not cause mass combat leaving the RAF with ample planes, doing little to establish total German daylight air superiority for seaborne invasion purposes. The Germans being matched, and exceeded, in fighter technology made matters even worse for them.
Lee Mallory's air defence system was the world's first 'intranet', on which all current air defence systems are based. It located, intercepted and engaged German bomber formations before they reached land. The threat of Sealion was over by September 15, having begun in August 1940. The British had more planes at the end of the battle than at the beginning, while German stocks of planes dwindled fast.
On October 12, orders by Hitler made it clear that the preparations for an attempted invasion would only be carried on as a means to exercise pressure, however without damaging the German economy. In short, this order acknowledges that assuming Operation Sealion had not always been a bluff, it was from then on.
By October 27, Enigma intercepts, aerial photos of the barge fleet being sent back into the German economy, the season, and the winding down of the Luftwaffe's daylight air activity convinced Churchill that Sealion wasn't coming and that the Luftwaffe was shifting to the siege strategy of night bombing, dropping sea mines, etc.
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Germany had no realistic ability to overrun the UK. The British knew what sort of chance the Germans had. The reason the Germans had no chance was that the British were ready and waiting with factories turning out the latest equipment 24/7. During the so-called Battle of Britain, the Royal Navy had a mass of ships at Gibraltar ready for offensive operations against the Italians, they took the invasion of Britain really so seriously.
The German Navy was near non-existent. The single battleship the British kept in Portsmouth was quite able to handle everything the Germans had on the surface, together with the four flotillas of destroyers. I'm not counting the Home Fleet, which had additional powerful ships. In other words, the British kept plenty of naval force at home. All they needed to deal with the Germans with a good deal to spare. Also, 55 Matilda 2 tanks, which was immune from German anti-tank guns, were sent to North Africa, the Brits took the invasion so seriously.
Admiral Raeder said he could not guarantee putting down an invasion force, even with German air superiority, when the Royal Navy was still there. General Jodl talked of his men going through a British mincing machine.
In Churchill's memoirs, he says that he was prepared to defeat tens of thousands of Germans if they invaded (take that as slaughter). Presumably even if they arrived with weapons and not half-dead from seasickness in a 24 hour sea trip in barges being attacked from sea, land and air. The British kept plenty of force at home, all they needed, two million regular soldier and one million Home Guard.
And what were the Germans supposed to do? Sortie with two or three heavy cruisers, and blast their way through the Home Fleet or the Channel defences? At that point in the war, Bismarck was still under construction, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were under repair from the Norway operation, two of six heavy cruisers sunk, two of six light cruisers sunk, and only five of those could be considered modern warships, a large number of their destroyers were sunk at Narvik. The repair status on the rest of the ships wasn't real good. The Germans never even had an effective torpedo plane. The Stuka dive bomber was predictable in that it dived vertically. It was easily shot down and suffered so many losses in the Battle of Britain it was withdrawn from the battle.
So, with the German navy whittled to almost nothing, and the army incapable of crossing with enough force to win, the only threats was the then small U-boats force and the Luftwaffe. The British were therefore sparing about sending the RAF overseas. I don't know of any significant deployment of Spitfires outside the UK until the second half of 1942, and escort vessels kept on being built. The RAF defeated the Luftwaffe over Dunkirk, so the Germans knew they were no push over.
If anyone thinks that operation Sealion was a serious attempt at an invasion they are deluded. Even German generals never took it seriously. An invasion in concrete barges towed by tugs and no navy to speak of? The Germans knew the UK had a large industry working 24/7, the same size as Germany's, and the largest navy in the world to their virtually none.
The RAF was large with a large bomber force, which the Germans could not knock out. Any invasion at the few suitable invasion beaches would be met at the beaches by all types of aircraft. These could be based out of Me 109 range. State-of-the-art fighters would still be produced 24/7. There would always be top line fighters around.
According to Guderian in "Panzer Leader", and by pretty much any historian to follow, Sealion (Zee Lowe?) could succeed only with complete air superiority over the invasion areas, and at least naval equality in the Channel. Hence the air Battle of Britain, clearly won by Britain. Naval equality was a pipe dream for Germany, but a pipe smoked only if the Luftwaffe could attain a decisive victory. Given the failure of the prerequisite, there is really no point in debating the if Germans could invade the UK.
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The Turning point of WW2 was the Battle of Moscow in Dec 1941. That was when Germany and Japan were doomed.
♦ Japan thought Germany would definitely win defeating the USSR soon
after. The German defeat at Moscow would ensure Germany would not
defeat the USSR.
♦ The Japanese entered WW2 on a presumption they would be linking
up with Germany. It transpired they were alone fighting two massive
powers with a third pinning their forces down and eventually fighting
all three. Not at all what they wanted.
♦ Germany needed the Japanese to fight the British to keep them away
from him as they were building up a massive air fleet to attack him.
♦ Germany needed US production, primarily aircraft, diverted away
Germany.
Japan would not attack the British empire, Dutch empire and the US unless Germany declared war on the USA. If Germany said no to declaring war on the USA, Japan would never have attacked and there would be no Pacific war. The two theatres were linked.
Japan did not want to face alone the USA and the British empire. the worst case scenario. And that is what happened. The Germans attempted to get the Japanese to attack the British in the Far East to divert the British away from Europe. The UK was amassing a large air fleet and also had the world's largest navy. They would not sit by for long only fighting in the desert. The reason Germany attacked the USSR was to get their resources to fight the coming air war with the British. The Japanese repeatedly refused to declare war. Only when the Japanese thought the USSR was about to fall they joined in. The USSR kept 40 divisions opposite the Japanese Kwantung army all though WW2. With superior armour to the Japanese.
Japan received assurances from Germany in the Spring of 1941. that they would declare war on the USA. Japan, economically could not sustain war of any length of time against any major power by itself, either the UK or the USA. Especially a war strung over a vast front. They imported most raw materials with their industry primarily artisan based, with little mass production. If going it alone, what the hell attacking the USA and British Empire was to achieve with no back up occupation force at Pearl Harbor defies belief. The Pearl Harbor attack was to fend off the US navy while they gain as much resource rich territory as possible in the south while the USSR threat is moved away from their north in China by the Germans. To Japan the key was the defeat of the USSR, which by Oct/Nov 1941 they thought was a foregone conclusion.
All through WW2 the Soviets had approx 40 divisions (most armoured) in Siberia and the Soviet Far East facing the Japanese. Without Germany fighting the USSR anticipating a quick German win, the Japanese would never had attacked the USA and the British Empire. It was madness to do so unilaterally and would entail certain defeat - even the Japanese knew that.
The Japanese were to eliminate the US Pacific fleet. The US Atlantic fleet would be occupied by the German U-Boats. The carriers got away at Pearl Harbor. If the carriers were sunk, the Japanese would not have been on the defensive by June 1942, giving them far more breathing space and lots more with the anticipated defeat of the USSR within months by the Germans. If the US carriers were sunk along with the US Pacific fleet, and the USSR defeated by summer 1942 by the Germans, Japan would be in very strong position.
The Japanese gained far more territory than they gambled on. They were one day away in Singapore from surrendering, but the British beat them to the white flag. They were expecting more protracted battles in Malaya/Burma and even maybe in the Philippines.
Using some common sense tells you the Japanese were not banking on being alone fighting the world's two largest economic powers. They were expecting at least the USSR to be neutralised or eliminated. And then some military aid from the Germans would be nice if it came. The link was enacted with 41 U-Boats operating from Penang. The Germans then would engage the British diverting them away from fighting the Japanese in Burma. Getting rid of the British and the Soviets was a major prize for Japan, and Germany could do the latter and both they thought the former. So was the notion.
Wages of Destruction by Prof Adam Tooze in quotes:
• The tripartite pact was signed in Sept 1940. If one is attacked the
others come to their aid.
• "The real nightmare of German strategy was the possibility that
Japan might come to terms with the United States, leaving Germany
to fight Britain and maybe America alone. To forestall this possibility,
Hitler had offered to declare war on the United States in conjunction
with Japan already in the Spring of 1941."
• Germany had offered to declare war on the US before the June 1941
attack on the USSR.
• "But the Japanese had refused to commit themselves and instead
entered into a last round of negotiations with the USA."
• "It was not until October and the fall of the Konoe government that
Berlin could feel sure that the Japanese-USA talks were going nowhere."
• "When in November 1941 Tokyo began to signal that Japan was about
to commit itself against the West, it was the cause of relief, bordering
on euphoria in Berlin. Finally Hitler and Ribbentrop had the chance to
complete the global strategic alliance they had been hoping for since
1938. And they did not hesitate."
• The Germans immediately started to revise the Tripartite pact, knowing
of the Japanese commitment to war, at the German's insistence.
• "Without prior knowledge of the Japanese timetable for a surprise attack
on Pearl Harbor, Hitler pledged himself to following Japan in a declaration
of war on the United States."
• 7 Dec 1941, Japanese attack the USA at Pearl Harbor and British territories
in Malaya and Hong Kong.
• The amended Tripartite pact was signed by all, between the 7 Dec 1941,
the attacks on the USA and British Empire, and Germany declaring war
on the USA on 11 Dec 1941.
• 11 Dec 1941 Germany declares war on the USA.
Wages of Destruction is clear that the Germans were informed by the Japanese in November 1941 that they were to declare war. The attacks on the US and British Empire was no surprise to Hitler. He never knew the date or where.
Wages of Destruction also states that Germany was repeatedly attempting to get Japan to declare war on the British empire to get them away from him. The Japanese knew exactly what the Germans wanted and what they would do. It all fits.
As it turned out:
♦ The USSR was not defeated and maintained a large army opposite the
Japanese - the Japanese had already been mauled by the Soviets in
Manchuria in 1939.
♦ Japan was facing the worst case scenario, the scenario it feared - fighting
alone against the British empire and USA, the world's two largest economic
superpowers.
♦ This was not in the forecasting. The German army defeated militarily superior
France within weeks and since June 1941 were mauling the USSR so badly it
was obvious to the Japanese in late 1941 the USSR would be defeated.
♦ The week in which the Japanese attacked the USA and British Empire, the
Soviets counter attacked at Moscow with a battering ram of superior T-34
tanks pushing the Germans back taking 30,000 prisoners, so ending any
chance of Germany defeating the USSR in one swoop. A protracted war
against the USSR would ensue.
♦ In Spring 1941, the Germans feared fighting the USA & the British alone - a
worst case scenario for them. They were desperately worse off, fighting the
British, USA and the USSR alone.
♦ If the Soviet counter attack had been one month earlier the Japanese would
not have attacked the British and the USA - and most probably signed a pact
with the USA which was in ongoing talks virtually to the attack on the British,
Dutch and Americans.
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The RAF was defeating the Luftwaffe with the Royal Navy vastly superior to anything the Germans and Italians combined could put to sea. The British were able to out-produce the Germans in aircraft even prior to the German invasion of the Soviet Union.
Although Germany had access to the industrial plant of Northern Italy, France, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands they were not able to use it to match either the Soviets or the British in war production. Ironically, the 1940 conquests only burdened the German war economy since Western Europe was a net importer of food (animal & human), and raw materials burdening Germany to support them - the Royal Navy blockade was effective. French aircraft production aimed for Germany was minuscule. France had access to manufacturing plant and supplies of bauxite however was not able to produce as it imported coal from Britain for its electricity production. With the RN blockade the main source of coal for France became Germany. However Germany was not able to increase its production sufficiently to overcome the short fall.
The amount of food produced in Europe fell. Previously the production of meat and dairy products in countries such as Denmark had been dependant on the import of grain and animal feed from the Americas. That was not available and the amount of food available for the dairy industry collapsed as did food production. In the rest of Europe food production had been based on the widespread use of chemical fertilizer. Apart from the issues of the RN blockade huge amounts of the chemicals used for fertilizer production was diverted to the making of explosives affecting agriculture. On January 10th, 1942 the Italians informed the Germans that their navy’s supplies of fuel had dropped to 90,000 tons. During these months, the bottom was hit with reserves down to 14,000 tons. The Italian navy at no time had enough fuel to perform all operations they wanted.
French workers were moved on to subsistence rations and as the country had been dependant on motorized transportation. Most of France's oil imports came from abroad. Agricultural produce could not be distributed because of no fuel, and vehicles taken by the Germans, with milk being literally being poured away. In Germany on the outbreak of war the only available oil products came from Romania or from synthetic oil made in Germany. This was barely enough for the needs of the German armed forces and not enough to keep the Italian Navy operational. France reverted to a pre-petroleum transport economy.
This economic background partially influenced Hitler's decision to invade the USSR. The USSR had the natural resources, including vital oil, that would enable European industry to out-produce Britain and America and face the coming air war with Britain. The two of them could only really get at each other in a big way by air. Roosevelt in May 1940 stated the US would build 50,000 planes a year - they built over 90,000 in 1944 alone. Hitler knew the lead time was approximately 18 months for a plane and that these planes, plus British production, which was greater than Germany's, would be coming his way. The British empire would not talk peace and would not sit back with Hitler knowing that. He had to be prepared with an equal air force. Even as German forces moved into the USSR in June 1941, German industry was moving over from army production to Luftwaffe production in preparation.
Had Hitler won against Stalin, he would have gained unrestricted access to resources he needed to fight the British in an air war. The conquest of the Soviets was a key step in Hitler's strategy and not irrational. However the Soviets were able stand up to an invasion and better able to marshal their resources outlasting the Germans. The USSR in 1942 out-produced the USA in arms.
Germany had 2.5 times the per capita GDP of the USSR. Invading the USSR was critical because Western European industry was dependent upon exports, with the RN blockade cutting them off.
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Germany had no realistic ability to overrun the UK. The British knew what sort of chance the Germans had. The reason the Germans had no chance was that the British were ready and waiting with factories turning out the latest equipment 24/7. During the so-called Battle of Britain, the Royal Navy had a mass of ships at Gibraltar ready for offensive operations against the Italians, they took the invasion of Britain really so seriously.
The German Navy was near non-existent, being largely destroyed in Norway. The single battleship the British kept in Portsmouth was quite able to handle everything the Germans had on the surface, together with the four flotillas of destroyers. I'm not counting the Home Fleet, which had additional powerful ships. In other words, the British kept plenty of naval force at home. All they needed to deal with the Germans with a good deal to spare. Also, 55 Matilda 2 tanks, which was immune from German anti-tank guns, were sent to North Africa, the Brits took the invasion so seriously.
Admiral Raeder said he could not guarantee putting down an invasion force, even with German air superiority, when the Royal Navy was still there. General Jodl talked of his men going through a British _mincing machine_.
In Churchill's memoirs, he says that he was prepared to defeat tens of thousands of Germans if they invaded (take that as slaughter). Presumably even if they arrived with weapons and not half-dead from seasickness in a 24 hour sea trip in barges being attacked from sea, land and air. The British kept plenty of force at home, all they needed.
And what were the Germans supposed to do? Sortie with two or three heavy cruisers, and blast their way through the Home Fleet or the Channel defences? At that point in the war, Bismarck was still under construction, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were under repair from the Norway operation, two of six heavy cruisers sunk, two of six light cruisers sunk, and only five of those could be considered modern warships, a large number of their destroyers were sunk at Narvik. The repair status on the rest of the ships wasn't real good. The Germans never even had an effective torpedo plane. The Stuka dive bomber was predictable in that it dived vertically. It was easily shot down and suffered so many losses in the Battle of Britain it was withdrawn from the battle.
So, with the German navy whittled to almost nothing, and the army incapable of crossing with enough force to win, the only threats was the then small U-boats force and the Luftwaffe. The British were therefore sparing about sending the RAF overseas. I don't know of any significant deployment of Spitfires outside the UK until the second half of 1942, and escort vessels kept on being built. The RAF defeated the Luftwaffe over Dunkirk, so the Germans knew they were no push over.
If anyone thinks that operation Sealion was a serious attempt at an invasion they are deluded. Even German generals never took it seriously. An invasion in concrete barges towed by tugs and no navy to speak of? The Germans knew the UK had a large industry working 24/7, the same size as Germany's, and the largest navy in the world to their virtually none.
The RAF was large with a large bomber force, which the Germans could not knock out. Any invasion at the few suitable invasion beaches would be met at the beaches by all types of aircraft. These could be based out of Me 109 range. State-of-the-art fighters would still be produced 24/7. There would always be top line fighters around.
According to Guderian in "Panzer Leader", and by pretty much any historian to follow, Sealion (Zee Lowe?) could succeed only with complete air superiority over the invasion areas, and at least naval equality in the Channel. Hence the air Battle of Britain, hard fought and clearly won by Britain. Naval equality was a pipe dream for Germany, but a pipe smoked only if the Luftwaffe could attain a decisive victory. Given the failure of the prerequisite, there is really no point in debating the if Germans could invade the UK.
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Prof Adam Tooze, Wages of Destruction
Page 371:
The German army that invaded France in May 1940 was far from being a carefully honed weapon of modern armoured warfare. Of Germany's 93 combat ready divisions on May 10 1940, only 9 were Panzer divisions, with a total of 2.438 tanks between them. These units faced a French army that was more heavily motorised, with 3,254 tanks in total.
Half the German tanks that invaded France and Low Countries in the west were armed only with a machinegun!! The German Army was not on equal footing with the French when in fact it was vastly inferior.
Tooze, page 371/372:
Nor should one accept unquestioningly the popular idea that the concentration of the Germans tanks in specialised tank divisions gave them a decisive advantage. Many French tanks were scattered amongst the infantry units, but with their ample stock of vehicles the French could afford to do this. The bulk of France's best tanks were concentrated in armoured units, that, on paper at least, were every bit a match for the Panzer divisions.
Page 378:
if Allied bombers had penetrated the German fighter screen over the Ardennes they could have wreaked havoc amongst the slow moving traffic with highly inflammable fuel tankers were interspersed with the fighting vehicles at the very front with the armoured fighting vehicles. The plan called for the German armoured columns to drive for three days and nights without interruption.
The drivers were put on speed pills.
Page 380:
_because it involved such a concentrated use of force, Manstein's plan was a one-shot affair. If the initial assault had failed, and it could have failed in many ways, the Wehrmacht as an offensive force would have been spent. The gamble paid off. But contrary to appearances, the Germans had not discovered a patent recipe for military miracles. The overwhelming success of May 1940, resulting in the defeat of a major European military power in a matter of weeks, was not a repeatable outcome.
Tooze, page 373:
In retrospect, it suited neither the Allies nor the Germans to expose the amazingly haphazard course through which the Wehrmacht had arrived at its most brilliant military success. The myth of the Blitzkrieg suited the British and French because it provided an explanation other than military incompetence for their pitiful defeat. But whereas it suited the Allies to stress the alleged superiority of German equipment, Germany's own propaganda viewed the Blitzkrieg in less materialistic terms.
Tooze page 380:
In both campaigns [France & Barbarossa], the Germans gambled on achieving decisive success in the opening phases of the assault. Anything less spelled disaster.
If the Blitzkrieg's belt broke the whole movement stopped. The Germans thought they had formulated a version of Blitzkrieg in France that was a sure-fire success. They used this in the USSR, just scaling up forces. They did not have the intelligence to assess properly, that the reason for their success was allied incompetence not anything brilliant they did. Germany never had the resources to fight a sustained war.
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@manilajohn0182
Yes, me again.
As to the wondrous German army I will let others say it for me. Attacking France...
Prof Adam Tooze, Wage of Destruction:
"There’s always a problem in history of determining after something’s happened what the balance of probabilities was before it happened. And the German plan is a plan which is again a spectacular gamble, and it succeeds because the forces in the German offensive are concentrated in an extraordinarily tight pack which is going to drive through the Ardennes in a single offensive move all the way across northern France to the Channel. This is an operation of unprecedented logistical risk and gives the opponents of Germany - Britain, France, Belgium and Holland - the chance, if they’re sufficiently well organised, to mount a devastating counterattack on Germany and on the pincer moving across northern France. And for this reason the Germans fully understand that if this plan fails they’ve lost the war. So it’s, rather than simply the result of a series of coincidences, more that the Germans are simply taking a very, very high risk gamble. The gamble bears the possibility of total victory, which is what they ultimately achieve over France, but also a risk of catastrophic defeat which they’re fully conscious of."
Wages of Destruction, Page 371.
"The German army that invaded France in May 1940 was far from being a carefully honed weapon of modern armoured warfare. Of Germany's 93 combat ready divisions on May 10 1940, only 9 were Panzer divisions, with a total of 2.438 tanks between them. These units faced a French army that was more heavily motorised, with 3,254 tanks in total."
....Half the German tanks that invaded the west were armed only with a machine gun!! The German Army was not on equal footing with the French when in fact it was vastly inferior.
"By May 1940 Britain had 7 regiments equipped with 28 light tanks plus 44 scout carriers each. There was also 1 regiment of armoured cars with 38 Morris light reconnaissance cars. There was also an Army Tank brigade with two regiments of infantry tanks. That gave a total of 308 tanks 23 of which had a 2pdr gun the rest had machine guns. Ist Armoured Division started to arrive in France from late May. However many of the Cruiser tanks were so recently issued that their crews had only been half trained on them and many lacked wireless sets, sighting telescopes and even armour piercing ammunition."
-Source The Great Tank Scandal, David Fletcher
Dutch, Belgian, UK & French tanks in total were 4,200 tanks.
Prof Tooze, page 371/372.
"Nor should one accept unquestioningly the popular idea that the concentration of the Germans tanks in specialised tank divisions gave them a decisive advantage. Many French tanks were scattered amongst the infantry units, but with their ample stock of vehicles the French could afford to do this. The bulk of France's best tanks were concentrated in armoured units, that, on paper at least, were every bit a match for the Panzer divisions."
Page 377
"The Germans not only committed "all" their tanks and planes. In strictest conformity with the Schwerpunkt principle, they committed them on an astonishingly narrow front"
"the Luftwaffe sacrificed no less than 347 aircraft, including virtually all its transports used in the air landings in Holland and Belgium".
Page 378
"if Allied bombers had penetrated the German fighter screen over the Ardennes they could have wreaked havoc amongst the slow moving traffic"
"highly inflammable fuel tankers were interspersed with the fighting vehicles at the very front with the armoured fighting vehicles"
"The plan called for the German armoured columns to drive for three days and nights without interruption".
....The drivers were put on "speed" pills.
Page 379
"success would not have been possible had it not been for the particular nature of the battlefield. The Channel coastline provided the German army with a natural obstacle to pin their enemies, an obstacle which could be reached within few hundred kilometres of the German border."
"the Germans benefited from the well made network of roads"
"In Poland in 1939 the Wehrmacht had struggled to maintain the momentum of its motorized troops when faced with far more difficult conditions."
"a close analysis of the of the mechanics of the Blitzkrieg reveals the astonishing degree of concentration achieved, but an enormous gamble that Hitler and the Wehrmacht were taking on May 10."
Page 380
"because it involved such a concentrated use of force, Manstein's plan was a "one-shot affair". If the initial assault had failed, and it could have failed in many ways, the Wehrmacht as an offensive force would have been spent. The gamble paid off. But contrary to appearances, the Germans had not discovered a patent recipe for military miracles. The overwhelming success of May 1940, resulting in the defeat of a major European military power in a matter of weeks, was not a repeatable outcome"
Tooze, page 373:
"In retrospect, it suited neither the Allies nor the Germans to expose the amazingly haphazard course through which the Wehrmacht had arrived at its most brilliant military success. The myth of the Blitzkrieg suited the British and French because it provided an explanation other than military incompetence for their pitiful defeat. But whereas it suited the Allies to stress the alleged superiority of German equipment, Germany's own propaganda viewed the Blitzkrieg in less materialistic terms."
Tooze page 380.
"In both campaigns [France & Barbarossa], the Germans gambled on achieving decisive success in the opening phases of the assault. Anything less spelled disaster".
....If the belt broke the whole movement stopped. The Germans thought they had formulated a version of Blitzkrieg in France that was a sure-fire success. They used this in the USSR, just scaling up forces. They did not have the intelligence to assess properly, that the reason for their success was allied incompetence not anything brilliant they did.
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War Production:
Keegan, World War Two, chapter War Production:
♦ Germany was third behind the USA, then the UK in GDP,
in 1939. Germany = UK in capital goods production in 1939.
♦ UK economy grows 60% during WW2.
♦ Hitler says to Guderian, re: USSR, "had I known they had so
many tanks as that, I would have thought twice before
invading"
Wages of Destruction by Prof Adam Tooze, Preface, xxiii:
"Combined GDP of the UK and France exceeded Germany & Italy by 60%."
Tooze, page 454:
"It was poor because of the incomplete industrial and economic development of Germany".
Interesting:
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/research/workingpapers/publications/twerp603.pdf
Snippets:
"Soviet exceeded German GDP in 1940"
"The Allies won the war because their economies supported a greater volume of war production and military personnel in larger numbers. This was true of the war as a whole, and it was also true on the eastern front where the Soviet economy, of a similar size to Germany's but less developed and also seriously weakened by invasion, supplied more soldiers and weapons."
"the technological key to Soviet superiority in the output of weapons was mass production. At the outbreak of war Soviet industry as a whole was not larger and not more productive than German industry. The non-industrial resources on which Soviet industry could draw were larger than Germany's in the sense of territory and population, but of considerably lower quality, more far-flung, and less well integrated. Both countries had given considerable thought to industrial mobilisation preparations, but the results were of questionable efficacy. In both countries war production was poorly organised at first and productivity in the military-industrial sector had been falling for several years. The most important difference was that Soviet industry had made real strides towards mass production, while German industry was still locked into an artisan mode of production that placed a premium on quality and assortment rather than quantity. Soviet industry produced fewer models of each type of weapon, and subjected them to less modification, but produced them in far larger quantities. Thus the Soviet Union was able to make considerably more effective use of its limited industrial resources than Germany.
"Before the war Soviet defence industry was in a state of permanent technological reorganisation as new models of aircraft, tanks, and other weapons were introduced and old ones phased out at dizzying rate."
The USSR had access to oil from the British refinery in Iran, more natural resources and far more men. Making their ability to produce far greater than Germany, which actually happened.
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If Montgomery's forty division thrust to the north, then east on the North German Plains, had been adopted, instead of the ridiciuous broad-front of Eisenhower, the war would have been over in 1944. Allied forces stretched from the North Sea to Switzerland. They were too thinly spread with no real punch anywhere along the line to break through.
General Bodo Zimmermann, Chief of Operations, German Army Group D, said that had the strategy of Montgomery succeeded in the autumn of 1944, there would have been no need to fight for the West Wall and the central and upper Rhine, all of 24 would have fallen automatically.
If Montgomery's proposal for a 40 division concentrated thrust towards the Ruhr been accepted by Eisenhower instead of aimlessly moving about in the Lorraine, Alsace, Vosges etc, it would have all been over for the Germans in the west, and most probably completely.
"The best course of the Allies would have been to concentrate a really strong striking force with which to break through past Aachen to the Ruhr area. Germany's strength is in the north. South Germany was a side issue. He who holds northern Germany holds Germany. Such a break-through, coupled with air domination, would have torn in pieces the weak German front and ended the war. Berlin and Prague would have been occupied ahead of the Russians. There were no German forces behind the Rhine, and at the end of August our front was wide open. There was the possibility of an operational break-through in the Aachen area, in September. This would have facilitated a rapid conquest of the Ruhr and a quicker advance on Berlin.
By turning the forces from the Aachen area sharply northward, the German 15th and1st Parachute Armies could have been pinned against the estuaries of the Mass and the Rhine. They could not have escaped eastwards into Germany."
- Gunther Blumentritt quoted in, The Other Side Of The Hill by Liddell Hart
After Bagration and Normandy, the Germans had a thin line to their west with the Soviets to their east who extended their supply lines, needing quite a time to regroup and resupply. They could handle that, as no steamroller was coming their way. They were gently squeezed from both sides then they collapsed.
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Charles Lathrop wrote:
"the British bailed the Americans out of the Bulge? Again... wut?"
I will let the Germans have a say on the Bulge:
Genral Hasso von Manteuffel:
‘The operations of the American First Army had developed into a series of individual holding actions. Montgomery's contribution to restoring the situation was that he turned a series of isolated actions into a coherent battle fought according to a clear and definite plan. It was his refusal to engage in premature and piecemeal counter-attacks which enabled the Americans to gather their reserves and frustrate the German attempts to extend their breakthrough’.
By November 1944, British SHEAF officer, Strong, noted that there was a possibility of a German counter-offensive in the Ardennes or the Vosges. Strong went to personally warn Bradley at his HQ, who said, "let 'em come".
Montgomery on hearing of the attack immediately took British forces to the Meuse to prevent any German forces from making a bridgehead, securing the rear. He was prepared to halt their advance and attack them. This was while Eisenhower and Bradley were doing nothing.
even by 19 December, three days into the offensive, no overall plan had emerged from 12th Army Group or SHAEF, other than the decision to send Patton’s forces north to Bastogne. Overall, the Ardennes battle was in urgent need of grip.
General Hodges had yet to see Bradley or receive more than the sketchiest orders from his Army Group commander.
- Neillands, Robin. The Battle for the Rhine 1944
On 20 December, Montgomery had sent a signal to Alanbrooke regarding the US forces:
"Not good... definite lack of grip and control. I have heard nothing from Ike or Bradley and had no orders or requests of any sort. My own opinion is that the American forces have been cut in half and the Germans can reach the Meuse at Namur without opposition."
Omar Bradley, commander of the 12th Army Group, did very little:
16 Dec, the first day, for 12 hours did nothing.
16 Dec, after 12 hours, he sent two armoured divisions from
the flanking Ninth and Third Armies.
17 Dec, after 24 Hours, he then called in two US airborne
divisions from Champagne.
18 Dec, he ordered Patton to halt his pending offensive in
the Saar.
18 Dec, he had still not established contact with the First Army,
while Monty had.
19 Dec, he withdrew divisions from the Aachen front to shore
up the Ardennes.
19 Dec, he had still not produced an overall defensive plan.
19 Dec, the Supreme Commander intervened directly late in the day.
20 Dec, Eisenhower telephoned Montgomery telling him to take
command of the US First and Ninth Armies
While all this dillying by Bradley was going on, German armies were pounding forward into his lines.
British SHEAF officers Whiteley (British) & Betts (US) visited the U.S. First Army HQ seeing the shambles. Strong, Whiteley, and Betts recommended that command of the armies north of the Ardennes be transferred from Bradley to Montgomery. Unfortunately only two British officers approached Beddel Smith of their recommendations, who immediately fired the pair, claiming it was nationalistic. The next morning, Beddel Smith apologized seeing the three were right, recommending to Eisenhower to bring in Monty.
During the Battle of the Bulge Eisenhower was stuck self imprisoned in his HQ in des-res Versailles near Paris in fear of German troops wearing US uniforms attempting to kill allied generals. He had remained locked up more than 30 days without sending a single message or order to Montgomery, and that is when he thought he was doing ground control of the campaign, when in effect Montgomery was in control as two US armies were put under his command after the German attack, the US First and Ninth. Coningham of the RAF had to take control of US air force units. The Ninth stayed under Monty's control until the end of the war, just about.
And yet biased American authors such as Stephen Ambrose said that Eisenhower took control of the Bulge and made the battle his veneering it as an all American victory. Ambrose completely falsified history. The only thing Eisenhower did was tell Monty to get control of two out of control US armies, tell the US 101st to go to Bastogne (who were in northern France after the buffer Market Garden was created) and men under Bradley to counterattack. That is it.
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Peter Michalski
Two American Airforce Generals, Brereton, in command of the First Allied Airborne Army, and Williams, USAAF, were the reason why the Market Garden plan was flawed. Nevertheless, despite their failings, the operation failed to be a 100% success by a whisker. It was Brereton and Williams who:
♦ Ignored nearly all the Airborne tactics and doctrine that had been established, practised and performed in operations in Sicily, Italy and Normandy;
♦ Who decided that there would be drops spread over three days, losing all surprise, defeating the object of para jumps;
♦ Who rejected the glider coup-de-main on the bridges that had been so successful on D-Day on the Pegasus bridge and which had been agreed to on the previously planned Operation Comet;
♦ Who chose the drop and landing zones so far from bridges;
♦ Who would not allow the ground attack fighters to attack the Germans while the escort fighters were protecting the transports and thereby not hindering the German reinforcements. Ground attack fighters were devastating in Normandy;
♦ Who rejected drops south of the Wilhelmina Canal that prevented the capture of the bridges at Son, Best and Eindhoven by the 101st because of "possible flak".
The job of the Airborne was to capture the bridges with as Brereton said 'thunderclap surprise'. Only one bridge, at Grave, was planned and executed using Airborne tactics of surprise, speed and aggression - land as close to the objectives as possible and attack the bridge simultaneously from both ends.
General Gavin of the 82nd decided to lower the priority of the the biggest road bridge in Europe, the Nijmegen road bridge, going against orders compromising the operation. To compound his error, lack of judgement or refusal to carry out an order, he totally ignored the adjacent Nijmegen rail bridge, which the Germans had installed wooden planks between the rails for light vehicles to move on. At the time of the landings by the 82nd there were only 20 Germans guarding both bridges with a few troops in the town. There were no bridge defences such as ditches and barbed wire. This has been confirmed by German archives.
Gavin sent only two companies of the 508 seven hours after they had landed to capture the bridges. They arrived at 2200, eight hours after being ready to march. Company A moved towards the bridge while Company B got lost. In the interim eight hours the 19 guards had been replaced by Kampfgruppe Henke with 750 men and then a brigade of the 10th SS Panzer Division (infantry) setting up shop in the park adjacent to the south side of the road bridge at 1900 hours, five hours after the jump. The Germans occupied the town, which was good defensive territory being rubble in the centre as the USAAF had previously bombed the town in March 1944 by mistake thinking they were in Germany, killing 800.
XXX Corps Guards Division's aim was to reach Arnhem at 15.00 on D-Day+2. They arrived at Nijmegen in the morning of D-Day+2, with only 8 miles to go to Arnhem. Expecting to cross the road bridge they found it in German hands with Germans fighting 82nd men in the town, seeing something seriously had gone wrong. The 82nd had not captured either of the bridges or cleared out the Germans from Nijmegen town itself. XXX Corps then had to seize both bridges and clear the Germans from the town, using some 82nd men in clearing the town, seizing the bridge themselves. What you see in the film 'A Bridge Too Far' is fiction. It was the Grenadier Guards tanks and the Irish Guards infantry who seized the Nijmegen road bridge.
If the 82nd had seized the road bridge, immediately on landing, as ordered, the Guards Division would have reached Arnhem well within time relieving the British 1st Airborne men on the north side of Arnhem bridge. The German archives state quite clearly that failure to capture the Nijmegen bridge on d-day was the reason for XXX Corps not making a bridgehead north of the Rhine. A failure made possible by General Gavin. Even the US Official War record confirms this.
Charles B. MacDonald wrote the US Official history on Market Garden: https://history.army.mil/books/70-7_19.htm
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In 1941 the Ark Royal class was considered superior to Japanese designs. The Illustrious class from 1940, had an armoured flight deck and hurricane bows, being considered the leading carrier design at the time. Japanese carriers, as US carriers, had wooden flight decks. Japanese and US carriers were bigger as they operated in the vast Pacific. They used planes as the "attack". British carriers were a part of a fleet with the battleships being the 'attack', performing a recon role and occasional torpedo attack.
British carriers were smaller, only meant to operate at around 10-14 days sea, as they were always near a friendly port. British carriers were envisaged to operate closer to shore, meeting more potent land based aircraft, so were armoured. Hence why they were used close in to Okinawa, where kamikazes bounced off them. British carriers had a control room that coordinated carrier and land based planes - the US adopted this design.
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