Comments by "" (@VersusARCH) on "Drachinifel" channel.

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  13. Regarding the commerce raiding. RN was the silent deciding factor of WW1. Sure the enormous French and Russian land armies contributed significantly, but they were matched by the Central powers' land armies. It was the RN blockade of commerce to the Central Powers that tipped the scales by: 1) slowly starving the Central Powers out of the industrial pairity with the Entente in the long run, 2) Diverting all US cargoes bound for Germany or neighboring neutral countries to UK where they were bought by UK with US loans - thereby effectively ensuring US support, and, when necessity seemed to arise, active participation in the war on the Entente side. Regarding commerce raiding today - the only two navies capable of seriously endangering the US-controlled worldide maritime trade, the Russian navy and the Chinese navy are both under siege in geostrategic terms. Russia's Black Sea fleet (submarines included) cannot sortie through Bosphorus without being detected by NATO, their Pacific fleet is under watch from Japan, South Korea and Alaska, their Baltic Fleet would be spotted at Oresund and their Northern fleet would be spotted at the UK-Greenland SOSUS barrier. The Chinese navy is under siege by US bases in Japan, S. Korea, Taiwan and Vietnam and I believe if worse came to worst the US would absolutely make sure they are back on the Philippines. So neither of the two navies could do more than briefly interrupt the maritime trade with any SSGs they had in the open ocean prior to commencment of hostilities that were, for any reason, not tailed by NATO forces.
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  42. Reasons why Japan lost the Guadalcanal campaign: 1) Midway. Without Midway full strength Kido Butai would have, with a bit of luck, had enough planes to overwhelm USN at, say, the Battle of Eastern Solomons and neutralize Henderson Field and even raid Espiritu Santo, thereby cutting supply lane of the Americans on Guadalcanal while protecting their own and thus enabled the army to retake the island. But had Midway not happened, the US would probably not have invaded Guadalcanal in the first place (although had Coral Sea not happened either, they probably still would have invaded). 2) Given that Midway did happen: lack of engineering equipment made the Japanese overextend - they should have built airfields on Bougainville and New Georgia before Guadalcanal. Instead they found themselves trying to win air superiority over Guadalcanal from faraway Rabaul (grueling 8 hrs round trip with about 30 mins of fighting time at max - making effective air cover for transport ships an impossibility with the number of fighters available) 3) USN early warning system (air-search radar + coastwatchers) 4) Intelligence provided by ULTRA that enabled the US to parry every Japanese attempt to win air superiority over Guadalcanal using their remaining carriers. 5) USN surface radar enabled the USN to fight the Japanese in night surface engagements on overall equal terms. 6) Low fuel stocks made the Japanese reluctant to commit their battleships to shell Henderson field (they only comitted the Kongo-class battlecruisers).
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