WW II Historical Thread, Discussion, Pics, Videos

[Jura The idiot]

IMHO, logistics cannot be emphasized enough.

Jeff, I thought you would oppose, but I didn't expect such a strong statement ;-)

Tactically, in the air, on the ground, or on land, you can defeat, or cause to withdraw a better armed and higher technological foe if you can find a way to cut their logistical supply and starve the head of the beast.

I can give you examples which, I think, would disprove what you just said; the first one would be the Battle of Crete in May, 1941 (it was the GERMAN supplies which didn't arrive, but the Fallschirmjäger prevailed anyway).

I think that during the WW2 sometimes "an overemphasis of logistics" hurt, in fact, by putting off an operation until too late ... But don't get me wrong, usually the better the supplies were, the better the outcome of a campaign, of course.

 

[Jura The idiot]

No, it wasn't. Mahan was merely the one who popularized it amongst arm chair naval enthusiasts.

Oh, was he? Then I should like it

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[Jura The idiot]

I find 2 books very instructive about the background on the allied side of the war against Japan. One is War Plan Orange: The U.S. Strategy to Defeat Japan, 1897-1945 by Edward Miller. The other is about British planning from 1919-1941 for war with Japan, it appears to be out of print and I forgot the title, I'll look it up when I get home.

Did you mean: Andrew Field "Royal Navy Strategy in the Far East 1919-1939: Planning for War Against Japan" Routledge 2004 ?

 

[delft]

Jeff, I thought you would oppose, but I didn't expect such a strong statement ;-)



I can give you examples which, I think, would disprove what you just said; the first one would be the Battle of Crete in May, 1941 (it was the GERMAN supplies which didn't arrive, but the Fallschirmjäger prevailed anyway).

I think that during the WW2 sometimes "an overemphasis of logistics" hurt, in fact, by putting off an operation until too late ... But don't get me wrong, usually the better the supplies were, the better the outcome of a campaign, of course.

Operation Market Garden in 1944 was set up as a gamble to cross the Rhine before the German defense had hardened. The Germans had been giving ground all the way from Normandy so fast that allied armor had been left behind. At the same time logistics rested on a few ports near Normandy, all the others in France and Belgium had been by-passed. The result was a colossal failure.

Btw in 1973 I was at a symposium about a famous battle in the North Sea in 1673 between the Dutch fleet and a Combined British-French fleet which was duly defeated. I met there a professor of military history who had been a Lt-Col in the Dutch army and, not wanting to talk naval matters, I asked him about the logistics of the French army when it attacked The Netherlands in 1672. He said he didn't know anything about that! Since then books about such subjects have appeared in the Netherlands. I read one, and gave it away to a friend, about the logistics in the War of the Spanish Succession in what is now Belgium and Bavaria.

 

[Jura The idiot]

Operation Market Garden in 1944 was set up as a gamble to cross the Rhine before the German defense had hardened. The Germans had been giving ground all the way from Normandy so fast that allied armor had been left behind. At the same time logistics rested on a few ports near Normandy, all the others in France and Belgium had been by-passed. The result was a colossal failure.

Believe me or not, but when I was giving the Crete landing example, I saw the Amherst counterexample coming

Btw in 1973 I was at a symposium about a famous battle in the North Sea in 1673 between the Dutch fleet and a Combined British-French fleet which was duly defeated. I met there a professor of military history who had been a Lt-Col in the Dutch army and, not wanting to talk naval matters, I asked him about the logistics of the French army when it attacked The Netherlands in 1672. He said he didn't know anything about that! Since then books about such subjects have appeared in the Netherlands. I read one, and gave it away to a friend, about the logistics in the War of the Spanish Succession in what is now Belgium and Bavaria.

I don't mean to be cynical, but at that times quartering of soldiers and looting were part of the logistics.

 

[chuck731]

you overrated Roosevelt. his Yalta mistakes lost millions and millions of people to Communist rule and the peace in East and West for decades. it is often said the US won the war but lost the peace after ww2 because of what happened at Yalta. Roosevelt miscalculated Stalin and Soviet Union's political ambitions in the new postwar world and the world did suffer dearly for his mistakes.

That's second guessing by post-WWII wish-thinking cold warriors rather than a legitimate critique of Roosevelt's appreciation of the critical impact of domestic political capital on a democratically elected head of state's ability to shape a policy agenda and carry weight in international agenda.

But even Roosevelt did not have the political capital to start a war with Stalin, whose country the Americans at the time held in exceptionally high esteem for doing even more to defeat Germany than the US, while the US still had another half million to million dead to look forward to in invading Honshu, and more political capital will be needed in dealing with its fallout, to say nothing of the massive demobilization afterwards.

 

[asif iqbal]

Dont compare Japanese Army to Japanese Navy. Those were two different 'animals' without too much mutal love between them and always were at each other's throat. It's normal in any army but in Japan it was pretty significant. Navy has been much more 'mature' than army. And don't compare Kwantung Army to the rest of Japanese land forces.

Both branches of the Imperial Japanese militray and also the air force suffered from the same problem, they were very rigid in thier doctrines and stratedgys

This is where they differed from the US marines who were flexible and changing thier stratgdy as the war went on

Great Marianas Turkey shoot showed this, one after the other the Japanese bombers and fighters were shot down by Americans but the air component didn't break formation or try anything different they just waited in line to be next

Machine gun posts during Guadalcanal were repeatedly attacked head on, no out flanking no counter strategy, Japanese were very very fanatic and extremely suicidal dying for the sake of dying this made the war very brutal and the no surrender code of Bushido also made the war much much tougher than it should have been

Battle of Sugar Loaf hill on Okinawa is known as one of the bloodiest battle in Marine Corps history, Japanese stratedgy was simple make Ameircans pay high price as possible for every inch of land they try to take

 

[Rutim]

Battle of Sugar Loaf hill on Okinawa is known as one of the bloodiest battle in Marine Corps history, Japanese stratedgy was simple make Ameircans pay high price as possible for every inch of land they try to take

That was the battle where both sides made no mistakes. That's what it was. Perfect plans and execution. Both sides made excellent effort.

And don't pick up such examples as Marianas because such defeats happened to US Army as well. And Japanese Army and Navy were best and most experienced in the world at landing operations in the moment when the war between Japan and US started. I bet US Marines took much from it's tactics and utilised that in the war. Big guns from the sea and planes from aircraft carriers to dominate in the air were first used by Japanese.

 

[delft]

Believe me or not, but when I was giving the Crete landing example, I saw the Amherst counterexample coming



I don't mean to be cynical, but at that times quartering of soldiers and looting were part of the logistics.

The French army attacked the Netherlands by way of the Rhine valley ( In many other wars they came along the Meuse ). It needed bread for the soldiers and hay and straw for the horses in large quantities. Transport by water is by far the cheaper option, thus the use of the river routes. They also needed to subdue Dutch garrisons along the river that where there because of these strategic considerations. Looting to get food and fodder would delay the approach to the Netherlands fatally. So a logistical organisation was essential.

 

[Jeff Head]

The carrier wars in the Word war II were a mixture of very pitched battles, submarine sinkings, and sinkings by land based aircraft. Many carriers on each side were lost. How many?

The US Navy lost thirteen aircraft carriers in World War II, one to Germany and twelve to Japan.

The Royal Navy lost eight aircraft carriers in World War II, seven to Germany and one to Japan.

Japan lost twenty aircraft carriers in World War II, all to the US Navy.

That's a total of 41 aircraft carriers sunk in the War (and does not include the two Italian carriers lost at their berths before they were completed, the Nazi carrier, or the French carrier which were not out and out sunk during the war). Think abnout that, 41 carriers sunk. Horrific and costly losses.

At the end of the war:

Japan had three carriers left at the end of World War II which were all scrapped in 1946.

The Royal Navy had fifteen carriers left at the end of World War II, five of which were either scrapped, sold, or loaned to others by 1949. MOst of the Roual Navy carriers were decommissioned and scrapped in the 1950s. Two Royal Navy Wolrd war II carriers made were decomissioned in the 1960s, and one other made it to 1981. However, three served on much longer in foreign service, one to Brazil, one to Argentina, and one to India, which served the longest. Thios was the Colossus Class carrier that later became the INS Vikrant, which was decommissioned in 1997 and the preserved as a Museum. Sadly, the obnly ROyal NAvy World wr II carrier to be preserved.

The United States had thirty one fleet and escort carriers (not counting dozens of "jeep" carriers). Eight of these larger carriers were decomissioned and scrapped, laid up, or transferred before 1950. Most of the World War II Essex carriers served on, after some large refits and refurbs, and were decommissioned in the 1960s and 1970s. A few served well into the 1980s, and two, the Midway and Coral Sea, served into the 1990s. Five of the Essex class carriers re preserved around the United States as aircraft carrier museum ships.