WW II Historical Thread, Discussion, Pics, Videos

[Lezt]

I know but after your statement in http://www.sinodefenceforum.com/mil...startegy-discussions-18-6728.html#post268761: "... Keep the "silk road" though turkey and iran open so that Germany can get the required rare earth metal from China " I just wondered how would you have secured "the silk road" (I like that, by the way considering a huge British territory on it, and the Indian Ocean around ... I mean if the Germans should have attacked all the way to Burma, or let Japanese handle it up "back" to Iran? and where would have been the German Indian Ocean Fleet stationed, Djibouti maybe? Colombo would have been more convenient, I guess

P.S. If you thought my questions were wild, then maybe you should read March 2, 1942 issue of LIFE (published in Chicago, Ill.) I just found at

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Jura,

Iran and Turkey were friendly to the Axis during ww2. Thats why the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran took place without a declaration of war:

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Germany had a nonaggression pact with Turkey; and Turkish-German relations run deep from imperial times. So the Axis do not need to invade these two countries.

Afghanistan is also friendly to the Axis:

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So, technically you can have a full path through to China via Turkey, Iran and Afghanistan.

Well how much strategic material can be carried by the silk road? we just have to look at the 2000 tons/year of narcotics being transported out of Afghanistan by trucks and camel back to know that this would have helped the axis industries a lot.

 

[Jura The idiot]

...

So, technically you can have a full path through to China via Turkey, Iran and Afghanistan.

...

Lezt, first I thought you were kidding me (which would be OK because my impression was you'd reach dead-end, in the middle of Hindu Kush, if you tried to go "to Tibet from Afghanistan", but ... technically you're right

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Anyway, how reliable this route would have been if taken in, say, 1942?? I mean it should've been easy for British bombers (from northern Pakistan/India) to cut it ... but maybe you're right and I just missed this (as it also should've been easy for German Jagdgruppe in Eastern Afghanistan to protect that corridor!)

 

[Lezt]

Lezt, first I thought you were kidding me (which would be OK because my impression was you'd reach dead-end, in the middle of Hindu Kush, if you tried to go "to Tibet from Afghanistan", but ... technically you're right

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Anyway, how reliable this route would have been if taken in, say, 1942?? I mean it should've been easy for British bombers (from northern Pakistan/India) to cut it ... but maybe you're right and I just missed this (as it also should've been easy for German Jagdgruppe in Eastern Afghanistan to protect that corridor!)

I think it is simpler than that if the USA had so much issue to control that corridor with all the satellites and drones she have in the modern era (and the USSR too) I certainly do not believe the British bombers will fare that well. It is a sparse country and passage would be disrupted;

I think like this, wolfram/tungsten need of germany was around 3500 tons a year; Spain and Portugal supplied it at 16,800 USD/ton from a prewar price of 75 USD/ton and less than 1000 tons can be brought in europe from sweden, spain and portugal. If Germany can get 1000 tons or 2000 tons (and this can be expected on donkey back) from China especially from the mines and refineries that they helped China built.

16,800 USD/ton is a lot of money back in 1940... the USD have deflated... 13x to today or 218 USD/gram - if you consider opium street price is around 30 USD/gram in LA today... if you offer some tribesmen that sort of money, I think it is very much conceivable that they will haul a lot more rare earth metal to Germany...

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[Jura The idiot]

I think it is simpler than that if the USA had so much issue to control that corridor with all the satellites and drones she have in the modern era (and the USSR too) I certainly do not believe the British bombers will fare that well. It is a sparse country and passage would be disrupted;

yeah now I see I was wrong -- British airplanes could've stopped a regular traffic (convoys of trucks or something), but not some backpackers
However I think British army would've invaded Afghanistan (as happened before in: 1839; 1878; 1919) if thousands of tons of war material had been moving through it.

I wonder, though, what would have happened on the other side of the

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(I mean in Tibet) ... What do you think?

I think like this, wolfram/tungsten need of germany was around 3500 tons a year; Spain and Portugal supplied it at 16,800 USD/ton from a prewar price of 75 USD/ton and less than 1000 tons can be brought in europe from sweden, spain and portugal. If Germany can get 1000 tons or 2000 tons (and this can be expected on donkey back) from China especially from the mines and refineries that they helped China built.

16,800 USD/ton is a lot of money back in 1940... the USD have deflated... 13x to today or 218 USD/gram - if you consider opium street price is around 30 USD/gram in LA today... if you offer some tribesmen that sort of money, I think it is very much conceivable that they will haul a lot more rare earth metal to Germany...

This seems to be much easier than the strategy I suggested (taking over the Indian Ocean, as this would've required to get rid of AT LEAST one British aircraft carrier, two battleships and numerous cruisers, destroyers and submarines

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I was vaguely aware tungsten had been embarked on submarines for those incredible journeys from Japan to Germany (and back, ideally) ... now I checked on this, learned also about other important goods like quinine, opium, mica (for water gauges in ship boilers -- didn't know about this one) and ... coffee LOL ... let me also mention a passenger, Mr. Bose

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[Lezt]

yeah now I see I was wrong -- British airplanes could've stopped a regular traffic (convoys of trucks or something), but not some backpackers
However I think British army would've invaded Afghanistan (as happened before in: 1839; 1878; 1919) if thousands of tons of war material had been moving through it.

I wonder, though, what would have happened on the other side of the

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(I mean in Tibet) ... What do you think?



This seems to be much easier than the strategy I suggested (taking over the Indian Ocean, as this would've required to get rid of AT LEAST one British aircraft carrier, two battleships and numerous cruisers, destroyers and submarines



I was vaguely aware tungsten had been embarked on submarines for those incredible journeys from Japan to Germany (and back, ideally) ... now I checked on this, learned also about other important goods like quinine, opium, mica (for water gauges in ship boilers -- didn't know about this one) and ... coffee LOL ... let me also mention a passenger, Mr. Bose

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I won't worry too much on the Chinese side, the Burma road was built within a year with US/UK assistance in material... If Japan help China, it would be likewise.

It might sound absurd nowadays to think that Japan would help China.. But many Chinese studied in Japan during the 1900s Dr. Sun lived in Japan for a long time.

There is also benefit for the NRA; the white Russians carved Mongolia from China in 1921; if the NRA is not busy fighting Japan, they would most certainly be willing to send an army to reclaim Mongolia especially, if Russia was being assaulted by Germany and Japan.

Also, yes, the british had India, but it doesn't mean that they can interdict traffic through northern india (nowadays pakistan); i.e. it is not a small corridoor drawn on a map; pakistan till nowadays is still pretty porous in the trafficking terms.

 

[chuck731]

I think there are several assumptions being made in the line of discussion above which makes no sense:

1. Soviet Union would attack Germany in 1942. Certainly it would have been discussed in kremlin, but on the whole very unlikely to happen. If Germany did not attack Russia, then 1942-1943 would see Germany reach the zenith of her relative fighting power as her conquests on European continent are digested to add to her military infrastructure, the lessons of the war fully incorporated, and her army units actually brought back up to establishment strength, as opposed to strengths improvised during the exigencies of mobilization. Once Germany gets there, her strength would reach a plateau, because Germany was already a fully developed state without much unused resources that can readily to mobilized for additional economic expansion.

Russian army is still weak from destruction of its officer corp in Stalin's purges, and multiple flip flops in its military doctrine from 1939-1941. It would take Russia longer to digest lessons of 1939-1941, and in 1942 it would still clearly be behind the Germans. Russia is unlikely to perceive herself ready to face Germany army in 1942. But more importantly Russia was still a developing state. Russia has a lot more unused resources that can be mobilized for additional economic expansion. While German fundmanetal war fighting power reach a plateau in 1942-1943, Russian fighting power would continue to increase indefinitely. So unless Russia feels a pressing need to preempt Germany, Russia should be in no hurry to precipitate a war with Germany because relative strength will slowly but inexorably swing in favor of Russia after 1943.

2. If Russia attacked Germany in 1942 Britain will make peace with Germany. Nonsense. Britain's singular and overriding strategic priority since the 16th century had been to prevent the rise of any dominant power on the continent. Germany is that power. In 1942 the soviet army would have been no match for the Wehrmacht at any level. If Soviet Union attacked Germany it would be defeated quickly on a scale comparable to any of the great encircling battles of operation Barbarossa. What is more, since Germany would not have had any opportunity yet to antagonize Russian population, at the end of the defeat of the notional Russian offensive against Germany, Russia would be materially as badly off as she was at end of 1941, but benefitting from little of the patriotic fervor that powered her through Moscow in 1941. So Russian attack against Germany would not change the fact that the target of britain's supreme strategic imperative would remain Germany.

3. If Russia attacked Germany in 1942 the US would join Germany in a anti-communist alliance. Not the US of FDR and the New Deal. The mainstream American view of the era was distant from both fascism and communism, but was more repulsed by fascism than communism. Where as American neutrality in the German British conflict might have been somewhat strained, American indifference to Germany being attacked by Germany would most likely be real. If anything, Anmerican would likely find it necessary to prop up Soviet Union should soviet union attack Germany in 1942 and inevitably be heavily defeated.

 

[Jura The idiot]

...

Also, yes, the british had India, but it doesn't mean that they can interdict traffic through northern india (nowadays pakistan); i.e. it is not a small corridoor drawn on a map; pakistan till nowadays is still pretty porous in the trafficking terms.

Lezt, my impression yesterday was you were talking smuggling tungsten from China via Tibet to Afghanistan (via Wakhan Corridor; my post #263 here) and further west ... but OK, this is a WHAT IF discussion anyway ... and I think it would've been impossible to use British territory for this! The "rules of engagement" were different from what they are today; the Royal Air Force set ablaze German cities, and in nowadays Pakistan had been using a directive entitled “Employment of Aircraft on the North-West Frontier of India.”

Read more:

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since March 1, 1924 ... What do you think would've happened if a storage of strategic materials had been reported in there?

 

[chuck731]

It might sound absurd nowadays to think that Japan would help China.. But many Chinese studied in Japan during the 1900s Dr. Sun lived in Japan for a long time.
.

That was a very different Japan.

Japan was comparatively liberal in 1900s and 1910s, even through parts of 1920s. During that time major parts of Japanese political elitestill embraced a more liberal, somewhat Wilsonian ideals. This fraction envisioned a free, developed and progressive Asia (modeled after what Japan imagine herself to be, of course) equal to and not subjudgated by European powers, and led, but not ruled, by Japan.

That came to a complete end in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Through the 20s and 30s that side of the political spectrum was totally sidelined and silence by extreme right wing militarists. Their leaders were jailed or assassinated. The new military backed ruling class favored absolute Japanese domination of Asia under an ideology of Hakko ichiu, which in effect says the all of the world must be ruled by Japan. In this view, Asia is to be subjugated by Japan, not led by Japan.

There is no way Japan of 1930s and 1940s would support China in any way that does not allow Japan to benefit vastly more, and vastly more directly, than China would. Japan's attitude in 1930s and 1940s towards everyone else is nothing is worthwhile unless it helps Japan much more than any of Japan's counterparties.

 

[Jura The idiot]

I think there are several assumptions being made in the line of discussion above which makes no sense:

...

chuck731 I don't think you referred to my posts (as I only talked about the Germans on the Indian subcontinent, assuming they had conquered Egypt; but maybe I set this all off with the picture of Guilio Cesare in Malta http://www.sinodefenceforum.com/mil...-startegy-discussions-17-6728.html#post268714) but I'll react anyway:
Today I read (again) an article (in a military history journal) about Hitler -- Molotov meeting(s) in mid November, 1940 which mentioned how the Germans feared an invasion of Romania (their major oil and food supplier) by the Red Army during fall, 1940 as, at that time, this invasion couldn't have been stopped militarily but would've led to "a hopeless position of Germany in 1941" (the part I put into quotes was allegedly told by Hitler to the Finnish leader Mannerheim at their meeting on June 4, 1942). My point is the USSR did not have to wage a full-scale war against Germany, but still hurt a lot.

 

[chuck731]

chuck731 I don't think you referred to my posts (as I only talked about the Germans on the Indian subcontinent, assuming they had conquered Egypt; but maybe I set this all off with the picture of Guilio Cesare in Malta http://www.sinodefenceforum.com/mil...-startegy-discussions-17-6728.html#post268714) but I'll react anyway:
Today I read (again) an article (in a military history journal) about Hitler -- Molotov meeting(s) in mid November, 1940 which mentioned how the Germans feared an invasion of Romania (their major oil and food supplier) by the Red Army during fall, 1940 as, at that time, this invasion couldn't have been stopped militarily but would've led to "a hopeless position of Germany in 1941" (the part I put into quotes was allegedly told by Hitler to the Finnish leader Mannerheim at their meeting on June 4, 1942). My point is the USSR did not have to wage a full-scale war against Germany, but still hurt a lot.

Russia did not have the option to hurt Germany without waging full scale war against Germany after the fall of France because Germany certainly would have waged full scale war in retaliation. As history showed, after the fall of France Germany was capable and positioned to retaliate against any Russian attempt to "hurt" Germany with crushing force. As history also showed, Stalin was fully aware and morbidly afraid of this fact. He was so afraid of it that he was practially morally paralyzed and most of his customary cunning and wariness deserted him during the few month prior to Operation Barbarossa.

The only scenario in which Russia might hurt Germany badly without German retaliation was if Germany attacked france and was repulsed, and became engaged in a WWI like war of attrition with France again on the western front. This is not unlikely to happen. But I don't think this is the scenario you had in mind.