It is just that with Adolf, his mad ramblings are treated as well thought out policies and facts when they are actually ideas that came into his head from nowhere in particular.
Groundhog Thread v. 2.0 - The most important battle of WW2
- Thread starter NightHawk
- Start date
Ad: This forum contains affiliate links to products on Amazon and eBay. More information in Terms and rules
There is no proof that if Group 11 retreated, the German bombers could drop more bombs on London .
About the claim that the British army left most of its heavy equipment behind in France : it was the BEF who did this, and the army was more than the BEF. Besides, the Home Forces would need less heavy equipment to stop Sealion than the BEF to stop Fall Gelb,the Canadian division was strong enough to do it,thus the equipment losses of the BEF had no influence on the success of Sealion .
Much too importance is given to the front line defenses of FC.
Last point : the retreat from Dunkirk was not ignominious.
His criminal ( not mad ) ramblings did not come from nowhere, their origin was to find in the ideas that were supported by a big part of the populations of Britain, US, Germany in the 19th and 20th century .
Hitler executed what a lot of people ( people as G.B. Shaw and Churchill ) were talking about .
Euthanasia, racism, eugenics,antisemitism did not appear on April 20 1889
Well they are mad as well as criminal, Adolf and Goebbels talking of a master race is like dogs proclaiming the superiority of cats. I wasnt talking about that, I was talking about his pronouncements on situations and events. He may have thought he had the most fearsome airforce and army in the world, that didnt make it a fact, he didnt have the capacity to beat the RAF and only had the resources to conquer a quarter of Russia, so he declared war on the USA to leave the world in no doubt about his stupidity.
swampyankee
Chief Master Sergeant
- 4,030
- Jun 25, 2013
Hardly. Most politicians are quite well-connected to reality, frequently more so than their critics. Some politicians are blinded by their ideology; some are blinded by their narcissism. Some forget that politics is not quite the same as running an army or a business (especially a sole proprietorship handed from a parent) and start expecting obedience instead of argument.
Nor was Hitler "barking mad"; he would not have been dangerous had he been just that. He read the German zeitgeist of the time very well, neutralized (not entirely by murder) his opposition, corrupted the judiciary into his tool, co-opted the bulk of the military and industrial leadership, and somehow convinced multiple world governments that he was not a threat well into his military expansion despite publicly saying that he intended to "restore" past German glory, which would entail invading and conquering, among other countries, Poland.
Hitler was responsible for starting WW2 in Europe, so he (and his minions and toadies) were responsible for all the resulting bloodshed. Hitler's sole role in Germany's defeat was starting the war in the first place.
Last edited:
You can call his DOW a stupidity, but the reality is
a he could not remain idle while US would destroy Japan
b PH would inevitably result in a US DOW on Germany
c It took more than one year for US army units fighting against Germans . In Tunisia .
Thus, his DOW on December 11 was not that important .
Just happened to come across your answer. Not only the Germans, but everyone else that saw the RN as a potential adversary was scared of them. The Japanese did not feel confident in their plans to attack the US Navy unless the RN was otherwise tied down in another conflict. As for those that saw the Royal Navy as a potential ally; I've read contemporary accounts of senior USN officers praising the RN and saying that the USN could do well in adopting more of it's features.
I am referring to his speech when he declared war, as part of his "European Crusade" on 11 December 1941
Quote "Today I am at the head of the strongest Army in the world, the most gigantic Air Force and of a proud Navy. Behind and around me stands the Party with which I became great and which has become great through me. "
If he wasnt aware that his airforce was not gigantic at all let alone the most gigantic it shows how daft and ill advised he was. At the time of his lengthy rant, his "strongest army in the world" was starting to die of cold and was eating its means of transport. Far too much respect is shown for this buffoon.
There are a number of histories on the Battle of Crete as well as others that have chapters on it. I once came across a history of intelligence operations in WWII written by an English author who included a chapter on Crete and said the following. British intelligence had uncovered information on the upcoming German invasion of Crete and knew how, when and where the German forces would be operating. British forces that were to be sent to other areas under their control for rest and refit were instead, rerouted to Crete. They were then given the supplies to the maximum then readily available to counter the invasion. As a consequence they were able to affect terrible losses on the German forces, especially the Fallschirmjager. I do not know how accurate this author was but even if partly true this would be another reason for those losses.One thing is for sure, just the terrain of Crete would have made it very very difficult to take. If the British forces there had been fresh troops with good moral and well supplied it very well may have been different.
Wow you two really are starting to go at it!I wonder how much I can sell tickets for.
Glider
Captain
I am sorry but you are wrong. There are two types of fuel shortage 1) Quantity and 2) Quality
Quantity you have a point but the shortage started to bite from mid 43 onwards. However it wasn't able to supply the Italians who had a desperate shortage. Additional fuel would certainly have helped.
Quality you are far off the mark. Until the end of the war the Luftwaffe never had enough C4 fuel which was the equivalent of 100 Octane, any cursory research you do will support that. As mentioned in an earlier post this can make a huge difference to the performance of an aircraft.
On other topics
Are you serious about this, really!! Please give any evidence to support this, from any source or any example.
Please tell me where and when these people were proved to be liars
True but the majority of Americans were against getting involved and Willkie only just scraped through as the other candidate. This definitely didn't make it a certainty.
In 1944 the Germans had difficulty transporting their oil from behind Russian lines.
Words,only words .
Would you expect him to say : I am at the head of an Army that had failed in Russia, of an Air Force that failed in the skies of Britain and of a small U Boat force that has failed in the Atlantic Ocean ,with an admiral who failed to admit that it was better to sink one oil tanker than 10 merchant vessels transporting food ?
He was not daft and ill advised,but was not that stupid to tell the truth .
If he had considered and tried to find out the truth he would have realised even then the situation was hopeless, instead he carried on like a petulant child, telling millions to fight to the death, something he himself famously didnt do.
Once the LW aircraft had passed the Radar installations, no one knew what their direction was : London, Birmingham, Coventry, Liverpool ?
The Radar could only tell that German aircraft were crossing the Channel . Nothing more .The Radar did not say what city would be attacked .
About Liddell Hart : look at what Mearsheimer said of him .He was an imposter who lectured the military hierarchy before the war, while his military career lasted only 4 years . He left as a captain .He did not hesitate to ask after the war Guderian ( an enemy ) to say that the theory of the Blitzkrieg was inspired by him , Liddell Hart ,and Guderian , a Nazi, said yes , of course .Frau Rommel received the same question,but refused . She had some dignity .
It were Guderian and Liddell Hart who were spreading after the war the myth that the escape of the BEF was made possible by the Halt Order and that this order was given by Hitler and that the generals protested .
It was Guderian who said that the only thing that was important in a Panzer Division,was the number of tanks, proving his incompetence .( Panzer Leader P 139 ) In 1943 he wanted to restore Panzer Divisions with 400 tanks ,proving that he was a fool .
It was Guderian who was looking in 1943 in occupied Poland for an estate . He found one, the owner of which had been murdered by the SS . But that was no problem for the friend of Liddell Hart .
buffnut453
Captain
I sourced Lukacs' book about the political disagreements in Parliament about whether to continue the war or sue for peace in May 1940. That does not mean I agree with everything he has ever written.
Interesting that you call me out for citing Lukacs when, in post #862 you said "I have not much faith in Lucacs .He writes fiction." So, which parts of Lucaks' writings are fiction/ Is it the stuff about London in May 1940 or his views on Barbarossa and anti-Communism.
FWIW, I'm glad to see you're citing Wikipedia instead of actually reading the scholarly works for yourself. It's a great way to win an argument.
Some observations on military planning:
1. Military planning precedes the commander's decision which directs the action. You don't decide and then plan; you plan in order to make smart, informed decisions. The commander directs the planning to start because (a) he expects to conduct operations, or (b) he's developing a contingency plan in case of operations.
2. Planning typically involves the development of multiple courses of action (COAs) which are presented to the commander who decides which COA, or combination of COAs, will be executed.
3. Planning is not a linear activity. It is highly iterative as new information and new senior leader direction is received.
4. Planning NEVER starts with a blank sheet of paper. You ALWAYS start with an existing plan as a jumping-off point. The planning effort may integrate components from multiple prior plans.
Again, I will stress that I do this stuff for a living. I know of what I speak. To give you an example of the amount of time it takes to plan major operations, we have an existing OPLAN on the shelf that is massive in scope. Updates to it take at least 3 months to complete...and it's far less complex than Barbarossa.
If Hitler had no intention of attacking the Soviet Union, then all the planning for Barbarossa was nothing more than a contingency plan. Bell has the following to say, which I've transcribed for you, that tallies well with my comments above (P.M.H. Bell "The Origins of the Second World War in Europe", 2nd Ed pp.323-324):
Not all plans are carried out - the directive of November 1940 for an attack on Gibraltar, for example, came to nothing. The absolute certainty of an attack on the Soviet Union cannot, therefore, be assumed on the basis of the military plans alone. But the scale of the military preparations, and the time and energy devoted to them, put the planning for Barbarossa in quite a different category from that of Gibraltar. Certainly from December 1940 onwards it was clear that this was no mere contingency plan, but, short of something extraordinary, would be put into effect. The question is why?
One answer is that it was the fulfilment of a long-formed intention. Alan Bullock concluded firmly in his biography of Hitler that: 'Hitler invaded Russia for the simple but sufficient reason that he had always meant to establish the foundation of his thousand-year Reich by annexation of the territory between the Vistula and the Urals.' Other motives, at most, only reinforced a decision he had already reached. This conclusion has been widely shared and evidence for it may be found throughout Hitler's writings and talks to Nazi and service leaders over a long period. His mind appeared to be firmly set in this mould by the 1920s and the longer his dictatorship lasted the less open he was to new ways of thought.
By 1940 it is probable that the mould was unbreakable. Hitler took up other ideas - an invasion of Britain, a move through Spain, a Mediterranean Campaign, a grand alliance to include the USSR - but he dropped them again. To an attack on the Soviet Union he constantly returned.
The bottom line is that Hitler ordered planning to start for an invasion of Russia. The scale of effort and level of preparation strongly suggests that this was no mere contingency plan. Once planning was complete, 5 months later (a not-unreasonable amount of time given the complexity of the plan), Hitler directed that the plan be executed.
Again, you're assuming that a British capitulation would require occupation of the British Isles by German forces. That is an entirely false assumption to make. If a Parliamentary vote of no-confidence went against Churchill and he was replaced by someone who was willing to agree peace terms with Hitler, then it's far more likely that Britain would adopt a neutral stance, particularly if the constituent parts of the British Empire were no longer under threat of German attack. As I've said all along, the loss of the Battle of Britain didn't need to be an all-out military defeat followed by invasion and occupation. Hitler's aims of knocking Britain out of the war could have been achieved by influencing Parliament to replace Churchill with a more peace-minded alternative.
buffnut453
Captain
You don't wait for the enemy to cross your coast to intercept them; you engage them as far out as possible. Once you have defending fighters engaging the enemy formation, you don't need radar any more...you can just talk direct to the defending pilots. Thus, if you can guide your fighters to an early intercept, courtesy of radar, then you can have a much better means of track-following to their target, with more fighters engaging en route.
The primary objective of blasting a hole in the radar screen would be to reduce British warning of an incoming raid to little more than the human eye. That won't give defending fighters time to scramble and intercept, unless the defenders mount standing patrols but that's incredibly wasteful in machines (e.g. you need an entire squadron to maintain a combat air patrol of just 4 fighters, which means you won't have reserves to launch once a raid is detected). Neutralizing the British radar would greatly enhance the operational success of any formation pushing through the gap. If that attacking formation went on to attack airfields then even more chaos would be sown in 11 Group's turf.
Once again, though, you're focusing on the Luftwaffe attacking British cities when the whole premise of the RAF losing the BoB is the withdrawal of 11 Group from its airfields in the southeast of England.
Last edited:
Glider
Captain
I think this response more than most shows how shallow your reading and research is. Radar warns you about the initial build up of the forces, this gives you time to ready your defences. It tells your the direction the forces are coming in from and an estimate of the numbers involved. It gives you a good idea which are fighters and those that are bombers which need more concentration so you can concentrate your forces. It enables you to intercept the incoming forces before they reach the coast and once past the radar installations the Observer corps took over and generally did a good job. Few, very few raids reached their target without warning.
I shouldn't have to say this as its basic A, B, C, stuff of radar and its use. Someone who says so much would have known this and I find it disappointing.
As for his military career, you do know that he was badly gassed in combat and had two mild heart attacks probably the result of his injuries. Was he perfect, No, did he blow his own trumpet, yes so did others, Montgomery, Patton, Clark, MacArthur, to name but a few and I have no doubt that others could easily be added to the list. Were they all incompetent, no.
You can look at what Mearsheimer said about him and you could also look at what Richard M. Swain said about those comments.
Did Liddell get everything right, No, did he get more right than he got wrong, I would argue yes.
Calling a man who served well and with considerable success a fool is a strong statement. Interestingly it was one of Liddells main theories that infantry should be carried in protected vehicles with the tanks, which is a basic structure of nearly all modern units Excepting specialised units. Not bad for an im,poster in the 1930's
If you are talking fools, you might want to consider your comments about the US Marines starting from the Shetland Islands, invading Scotland, marching onto London and starting a second front. All the time on the presumption that the Battle of the |Atlantic had been lost.
You have heard the phrase, 'People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones'
Last edited:
SaparotRob
Unter Gemeine Geschwader Murmeltier XIII
I don't know much about armor (or much of anything else) but this is the first time I've read of Guderian being called a fool.
GrauGeist
Generalfeldmarschall zur Luftschiff Abteilung
I suppose it would be futile to point out that Goering convinced Hitler that the Luftwaffe could finish off the BEF at Dunkirk, thus the ground forces were held back so the Fat Bastard could get the credit.
Obviously the idiot either didn't realize the Luftwaffe had been reduced in numbers from the recent battles or wouldn't admit it, and thr Luftwaffe failed to deliver on his promise.
Had the "fool" Guderian been unleashed on Dunkirk, history would have quite different...
Obviously the idiot either didn't realize the Luftwaffe had been reduced in numbers from the recent battles or wouldn't admit it, and thr Luftwaffe failed to deliver on his promise.
Had the "fool" Guderian been unleashed on Dunkirk, history would have quite different...
Hitler would have been a complete idiot if he would not demand the occupation of Britain : a neutral Britain could always become again a hostile Britain .
