MiTasol
1st Lieutenant
Well put and something we all tend to forget
Ad: This forum contains affiliate links to products on Amazon and eBay. More information in Terms and rules
A large part of getting an aircraft into production is money. If congress (in the US) only funds 13 airplanes that is what you get, 13 airplanes. However the manufacturer, plans accordingly and only invests in enough tooling, floor space and workers to build the 13 aircraft in the time span specified in the contract. Which means the follow up contracts take time to fill as more floor space, workers and tooling have to be provided in order to increase production.
Resp:Well put and something we all tend to forget
Which wars were fought to "the death" in any era in Europe?
First of all; welcome aboard NevadaK! You've brought to the table a broader perspective than our usual focus on performance, tactics, combat record and technology. Well done.
This manifested in so many ways: failing to adequately protect the merchant shipping that carried the lifeblood of their economy; bypassing opportunities to attack enemy logistics transport because of a focus on primary combatants; a general neglect of defense in favor of offense; failing to put sufficient effort into developing the next generation of all nature of weaponry until the current one was disastrously obsolescent, and the list goes on. Any nation as resource constrained as Japan taking on a major power like the US could not afford such errors.
Cheers,
Wes
Which wars were fought to "the death" in any era in Europe?
Did they? Which ones?Also the Romans annihilated several polities they came into conflict with.
Did they? Which ones?
Nothing wrong with the quality of their equipment. Their torpedoes were the best in the world, hands down, no contest. The Zero was a strong, well built aircraft with world class performance on a less than 1000 hp engine. It needed armor and self sealing tanks but it was not shoddily built.
The Norman invasion of England was seen by William as claiming his rightful throne, he may have subjugated the north in the harrying of the north but that was only a small part of his already defeated enemy, it was consolidation of a victory already won. You are going back into the distant past. I have met and worked with a Huguenot descent French woman in Paris so the wars against them weren't all that successful. The 30 years war was devastating but eliminated most by starvation and only 50% not all of the population. Going back to Biblical times it has been tried and not achieved and the burden you put on the killers creates a people you just don't want to be in charge of, they will obviously kill anyone for no particular reason.Lets be clear, we are talking about two things - "to the death" of the State, ala another nation, kingdom, republic or etc., and second the overlapping concept of 'Total War'. Neither scenario literally means total murder of every single person.
Fighting to the death of a rival State was rare but not unheard of. I can think of a few off the top of my head: The Norman invasion of England saw the permanent and quite thorough overthrow of the Saxon regime which had preceded it. The Burgundian Wars ultimately ended the well developed State of the Valois Duchy of Burgundy when the Swiss killed Duke Charles the Bold at the Battle of Nancy. The Mongols annihilated several polities on the Eastern fringes of Europe (like the Principality of Kiev) in the 13th through 16th Century, as did the Ottomans from the 15th through the 17th. (The Ottomans destrroyed the Byzantine State as the most prominent example, though there were many smaller ones). Others were converted into Satraps which were effectively new States (with the old regime murdered and thousands of citizens impaled or enslaved). The War between the Conquistadors The War of the Roses in England ended in virtual annihilation of the Lancastrian side. The Albigensian Crusade was fought to the annihilation of the Cathars, the Northern Crusades were fought to the annihilation of the native Prussians, though the Lithuanians proved to be a harder nut to crack.
Total War was also not unheard of and was widely practiced during the 30 Years War in the 17th Century which saw the massacre of the population of the entire city of Magdeburg for example, and a hitherto unusually widespread mass-murder of civilians. The same occurred during the Hugujenot Wars in France.
During the Napoleonic Wars, several States were at least temporarily overthrown and re-created as "Revolutionary" puppets of the French Empire. And so on.
The Norman invasion of England was seen by William as claiming his rightful throne, he may have subjugated the north in the harrying of the north but that was only a small part of his already defeated enemy, it was consolidation of a victory already won. You are going back into the distant past. I have met and worked with a Huguenot descent French woman in Paris so the wars against them weren't all that successful. The 30 years war was devastating but eliminated most by starvation and only 50% not all of the population. Going back to Biblical times it has been tried and not achieved and the burden you put on the killers creates a people you just don't want to be in charge of, they will obviously kill anyone for no particular reason.
Third Punic War comes to mind...Which wars were fought to "the death" in any era in Europe?
It is easier to eliminate a population when that population amounts to almost nothing. Like "clan feuds" I have read about in Scotland that were little more than a pub brawl. I live in the North East of England I am fully aware of what the Norman conquest was and what it meant, I am also fully aware that it involved very few people in modern terms, the total population of England was about 1.5 millionI was pretty careful to stipulate what I meant - war to the destruction of the rival State, and Total War, neither of which require or mean the complete extermination of the population. That said, certain polities did occasionally exterminate. And in particular, though there was no extermination, the Norman conquest of England was far more brutal and lethal than most people realize. Much, much more extreme than had previously been the case during the Viking conquests.
The point though is that the Saxon regime was eliminated.
I did go far back but examples I cited are not all in the distant mists of time, they extend from Rome to Napoleon. And I could cite more. That said, it was far more common in Europe for wars to be fought for relatively small territorial gains and not to the destruction of one or both parties. This was my original point - WW II didn't have to be a war to "unconditional surrender" -it was really the Strategies of the two primary Axis powers which led to that.
It was planned to be only one step away from a surprise attack. The actual text of the diplomatic message was convoluted and vague and well short of an unequivocal declaration of war. It certainly didn't give any specifics of impending hostile action, and even if delivered on time, would not have allowed adequate time to alert defensive forces in an effective manner. Diplomacy aside, militarily the Japanese expected to achieve tactical surprise.The Japanese did not decide to attack by surprise. It was a screw-up due to decoding issues.
Resp:It was planned to be only one step away from a surprise attack. The actual text of the diplomatic message was convoluted and vague and well short of an unequivocal declaration of war. It certainly didn't give any specifics of impending hostile action, and even if delivered on time, would not have allowed adequate time to alert defensive forces in an effective manner. Diplomacy aside, militarily the Japanese expected to achieve tactical surprise.
Cheers,
Wes
At least somebody was awake that morning! Let's hear it for junior tin can skippers; not old enough to succumb to caution.Resp:
Correct! But if it had been delivered, rather than delayed . . . the Japanese could have said we notified you. As an aside, the US Navy actually fired the 1st shot when they fired (and hit) a midget Japanese sub.
It is easier to eliminate a population when that population amounts to almost nothing. Like "clan feuds" I have read about in Scotland that were little more than a pub brawl. I live in the North East of England I am fully aware of what the Norman conquest was and what it meant, I am also fully aware that it involved very few people in modern terms, the total population of England was about 1.5 million
Norman conquest was different from the Anglo Saxon conquest of the land we call England today.
Norman conquest was top down so the Lords and Kings were replaced although when the Kings lost their French possessions they became English and more Anglo by default. So one could argue that Anglo Saxon culture and language did overcome Norman over time. The peasants would not have seen themselves as French so the conquest was political.
When the Anglo Saxons conquered Celtic Britannia that was the full ethnic cleansing with the Celts booted out off land. That was far more a root and branch destruction of what came before than the Norman conquests or the Roman conquest.
William was of Viking descent and so were many in the North East of England at the Time.