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#61

Oh you are starting it again…

But obviously “this” is. Since you keep uncritically repeating it without in any way factoring or considering that there were actual reasons why a ground war in Europe could not be fought before 1943, mainly since the US was not prepared for war and had to grow an Army that only introduced conscription in May of 1940, and had not only its own military to produce supplies for, but the Soviet, British, and “Free” ones as well. And of course for a multitude of resistance movements…

Just do not tell me that the whole two years since 1941-43 the USA was not enough to prepear the American army ( using the greates american industry) for the landind fight:)
Do you know a proverb- the one who wish - search the possibility, thea one who don’t wish - search reason don’t do it.:slight_smile:

I have, no less than twice in a couple of the many flame threads here…

I can’t count to the twice:)
And i don’t remember

Um, that’s not even remotely related to what I said. Is your translator broken again, or does it function selectively? Perhaps you don’t understand, but there was a schism in the Allied high command and the British, at Churchill’s and Brooke’s behest, largely wanted to continue the War in Italy --even at the expense of Normandy. Certainly not all British officers found this a good idea and many have since been critical…

Just do not need to tell about my understanding of text.
This is wrong case, i do realize you well enough. Besides i’ve already read about
schism in Churchils memours ( and even post in here in forum).
My point is not that.
The problem that nobody in American command indeed has not found the serious arguments agains foolish plan of CHurchill ( that actually has been such)

No, they didn’t have any weapons to spare.

Perhaps you cannot see the inherent contradiction in your own post or are just completely irony impaired. But how was the US to build an army after years of it being an underequipped, underfunded “constabulary force” and supply everybody else as well? Feel free to Google on US tank production, which consisted largely of the M-2 up until 1940, and had only begun designing tanks that could match the German panzers in 1941 (The M-3 Grant). Their main anti-tank gun remained the 37mm and the US command was still reeling from the shock of the Fall of France and how they could counter such a force that caused it. The US Army at the end of 1941 was still scarcely over a million men TOTAL! And even then, that was because the peacetime draft was instituted for the first time in America ever only 18 months prior. Then they were to launch an amphibious invasion against what would have been a superior force in France, AFTER projecting such forces across an entire Ocean, WHILE supplying everybody and dedicating resources to the SECONDARY theater in the Pacific…

Oh Nick.
it seems you who want to see the just convient facts in history.
The poor USA industry could not arm its OWN army with tanks and guns:)
it’s so pity.
But at that same time they prodused the GIANT figure of Bombers and Ships for Britain, figters and tanks for Soviets.
And US tank production that provided the Soviet Army more tank that Germans even made during the war:)
The USA supplied 7 000, Germany has made just about 5000 of panthers and about 1200 Tigers)

There simply were not enough divisions in the US Army at that time, and the ones available would have been less than the total of German ones in France…

Oh it’s a nightmare:)
The biggest 200++ millions state in the World , that armeds all the rest world with excellent wearpon, could not prepeare its own Army to fight with GErmans.
So sorry:)

Oh, of course. But they failed to “help” France and Britain though. In fact, it almost seems they were providing much the Nazi Germany at that time as the Soviet gov’t was their primary resource supplier.

Oh really, So may be USA helped France or Britain in the 1939?
No, why?
Becouse they were TOO busy having trade and supplied the Japane Imperial Army.
BTW the some of American companies supplied Nazy via the Spain ALSO.
Your dear mst George Bush should know a lot about this:)
Is your version of History include such events?

I’m sorry, the USSR’s enormous human toll and majority contributions to destroying the Wehrmacht should not be confused with martyrdom and apologism for the bastards that allowed it to happen. And they weren’t in the US gov’t…

And in what gov were they?

#62

Nick,
Could you , please, elaborate on the highlighted words.

#63

Yea , much better to give the Brits and Russians time to make the GErmans power weaker and less , then to prepeare the OWN american Army in the 1942-43 for full scale invasion:)
This is so hard task Nick, for America, smalles and helpless country in the world :rolleyes:

And oh yes, there was a matter of the Japanese that actually attacked the US. And where the ‘cowardly’ US troops ‘that hated fighting’ were actually engaged in it. And there were fears that the Japanese might attempt an invasion of Pearl harbor to use as a springboard to threaten the US West Coast…

Oh one more reason do nothing- the supposed “Japane Invasion” to the US western coast:)
We have a lot of fun here already Nick.
Japs even wasn’t able to attack Australia ( they have no troops and ships for that )

Just like Hitler was only saving the Germanic population in Poland, and retaliating for a dastardly border “Polish Army attack” on a German radio station… :rolleyes:

No. Pirl-Harbour wasn’t the radio-production. Japans planned the real show not Hitlers’s opera.

#64

The Allies didn’t know that at the time.

It was reasonable to suppose that Japan was aiming at an invasion of, or a raid upon, or at least attacking the American west coast.

Which is exactly what American military planners prudently prepared for. And which was one of the reasons that it limited America’s ability to train and export troops to Europe, among other places.

At the beginning of 1942 the presumed risk of direct attack spurred the creation of Eastern and Western Theaters of Operations, which included, respectively, the east and west coasts of the United States. These had been the old Eastern and Western Defense Commands. The two theaters contained the majority of the trained combat troops and squadrons in the United States. The lack of any tangible danger, however, permitted General Headquarters to reduce these establishments in short order. It abolished the Eastern theater in March 1942 and the Western theater later in the same year. Manpower remained the limiting factor. It was impossible for the Army both to garrison the long frontiers of the United States and to superintend the training of the mass Army needed to fight an offensive war. Offensive action had the clear priority, and almost immediately the manning of defensive garrisons began to take second place to the training needs of the Army.
http://www.ibiblio.net/hyperwar////USA/USA-C-Americas/index.html

#65

Um, it is the fact that the Germany was dependent on Soviet foodstuffs, petroleum, and raw materials prior to the Battle of France and Barbarossa as per the non-aggression pact…

One of the key Entente strategies was to essentially isolate Germany and to take advantage of their strategic advantage over Germany in 1939 and 40’. Mainly because they wanted to go over to the offensive in 1941 and ultimately to get the Soviets to cut off Germany. Hitler realized this and it is one fo the key reasons behind “Fall Gelb” and “Sickle Cut” in France, which was seen as a dangerous gamble by most Wehrmacht officers…

#66

American troops were disgraced in their first battle with the Germans. It was at the Kasserine Pass in Tunisia in February 1943, where many green American troops ran from their first contact with the battle hardened enemy.

The battle exposed numerous flaws in American soldiering and equipment

The Americans learnt from this and came back later as much more effective troops with better equipment, as shown in Italy.

Here’s an AA biased appreciation of the battle and its lessons, but there were lessons for all arms. http://www.skylighters.org/hammer/chapter4.html

Ignoring the absence of landing craft and support naval and merchant shipping and logistical back up in mid 1943, let alone mid 1942, the American experience at the Kasserine Pass shows they would have been slaughtered in any multi-division attempt at a Second Front across the Channel, or anywhere else. That they were able to do it so well in mid 1944 speaks volumes for their ability to learn and adapt their training, tactics, and equipment to D Day which was an impossibly larger task than the Kasserine Pass where they failed on a vastly smaller scale not quite two and half years earlier.

#67

But there was and other strategy Nick.
They obviously was aimed to isolate the USSR also intill the 1939.
They did not let CHehoslovakia use the Soviet help in 1938 during the Germans intervention, right?
Besides they refused the Soviet-Western alliance that could effectively stopped the Germans.

#68

Soory RS if you don’t know somthing critically importaint- you will do everything to learn it, right.
There is the special intelligence units that used for getting information.
The Soviets not all time knew what Germans were going to do in the front.
Doest it mean they should do nothing?

#69

Moi? Starting? :slight_smile:

I can’t count to the twice:)
And i don’t remember

Maybe it was the electric shocks at the sanatorium? :wink:

Just do not need to tell about my understanding of text.
This is wrong case, i do realize you well enough. Besides i’ve already read about
schism in Churchils memours ( and even post in here in forum).
My point is not that.
The problem that nobody in American command indeed has not found the serious arguments agains foolish plan of CHurchill ( that actually has been such)

They did in fact. The simple overview is that Churchill was right at first, then he was wrong to continue to focus on the Mediterranean. There are various arguments to be made, but hindsight says the Americans were wrong about invading France in 1942, but that an invasion could probably have taken place in the Summer of 1943, but by then, the Western Allies were engaged in Italy in terrain which heavily favored the German defense of it and men and materials were being siphoned off to a theater that favored the Germans (although one which absorbed many German resources as well admittedly)…

Ideally, Sicily would have been secured than a holding action fought in Italy, which still would have destabilized the Germans, then a cross channel attack could have been mounted. But that didn’t happen…

Oh Nick.
it seems you who want to see the just convient facts in history.
The poor USA industry could not arm its OWN army with tanks and guns:)
it’s so pity.

Who said this? They did just that.

But perhaps you can explain the size of the US Army to me between 1941 and June of 1942 and their disposition…

But at that same time they prodused the GIANT figure of Bombers and Ships for Britain, figters and tanks for Soviets.
And US tank production that provided the Soviet Army more tank that Germans even made during the war:)
The USA supplied 7 000, Germany has made just about 5000 of panthers and about 1200 Tigers)

You speak as if the US was a magical, boundless place of production. It wasn’t. They “produced” this throughout the War, not just between the Summers of 1940 and 1942. The US transitioned over to a full War economy even before the Germans did and relatively smoothly largely thanks to much prewar contingency planning in Roosevelt’s administration and Gen. George C. Marshall. But that still took time! Especially after the ravages of the Depression. The economic infrastructure was there, but the actual industry had decayed a bit and still had to be transitioned to producing tanks and aircraft. The US was still producing passenger cars into 1942!

Oh it’s a nightmare:)
The biggest 200++ millions state in the World , that armeds all the rest world with excellent wearpon, could not prepeare its own Army to fight with GErmans.
So sorry:)
Oh really, So may be USA helped France or Britain in the 1939?
No, why?

Um, the US pop. was 120 million then I believe. And the numbers of military aged men changes nothing is they are not trained an equipped to go to war. Expansion took time, and I might remind you that more soldiers of the Red Army were killed or captured than existed in the entire US Army on the eve of Pearl Harbor…

The US was powerless to do much outside of project naval and air forces in 1939. Its Army was less than 200,000 men who mostly still used WWI era equipment and doctrine. The French Army was considered the most “powerful” in the world at the time and the Entente was very confident in their ultimate victory in a long war. Even if the US had declared War, France may well have failed even before the US had any sort of sizable army, and it was the very Fall of France that politically enabled FDR to expand US forces and shocked even the most ardent Isolationist…

Becouse they were TOO busy having trade and supplied the Japane Imperial Army.
BTW the some of American companies supplied Nazy via the Spain ALSO.
Your dear mst George Bush should know a lot about this:)
Is your version of History include such events?

And in what gov were they?

My God man, seriously. Where do you get your histories? The US “supplied” the Japanese IA? The US emplaced an embargo over Japanese outrages in China which sparked the war to begin with. What US weapons did Japan use?

And yes, US companies dealt with the Nazis. As they did with Stalin, and as Stalin dealt with Hitler…

#70

Hindsight! At the time, you might have seen an advancing Japanese Imperial Army winning victory after victory as a bit more formidable. The incident over the phantom air raid in the “Battle of Las Angeles” shows how panicky and unpredictable things had become…And even the Aussies believed that they might be next which is why the US built up its forces…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Los_Angeles

#71

The Americans did exactly what the Soviets did when threatened with invasion.

Moved troops to their borders to meet the threat.

What else should they have done?

Rung up Tojo and asked him, on scout’s honour, if he was going to attack the continental US and get him to promise not to cross his fingers behind his back when he answered?

Or sent troops to the USSR, which wouldn’t have let them land in a fit?

The Americans didn’t do anything in 1941- 42, unless you consider minor events like the Coral Sea, Midway, Guadalcanal, the Doolittle Raid (where the Soviets kindly interned one of the crews in poor conditions as recognition of their fraternal regard for the Americans), and a vicious defence in the Philippines as doing nothing.

The USSR always had the advantage of fighting on its own land mass. America never did. All its land battles were fought a long, long way away, yet it, and Britain, managed this while still sending supplies and equipment to the USSR.

I don’t recall much going back the other way, or were there some T-34s landed in North Africa, Italy and Normandy under Yak air cover?

#72

All very true, although, I would caveat that the Kasserine was not the first time that US troops came into contact with the Germans, and that US formations had fought extensively with the Vichy French and had fought a few German units, sometimes with a mixture of success, failure, exuberance cowardice, and stupidity. But there was no shortage of incompetence after the shock many recieved when they learned how tough, well trained, and equipped the Germans were, which in turn improved them. The equipment was probably there and getting better, but Kasserine exposed flaws in conceptualizations (i.e. the Tank Destroyer doctrine) and the poor state of some of the overage officers that were fine in a peace time or a training environment, but fell apart in battle. Specifically, an example would be Gen. Friedendall and his paralysis of decision making at the Pass. He would replaced with Gen. Patton, and had previously spent a good deal of time well behind the lines and sapping his engineering talent by ordering them to build a bunker of mythic scale and proportions. But he was emblematic of many and it took time to balance out the US Army and make them a consistent fighting force and to purge the largely prewar dead-weight of senior officers, and the US Army still had to overcome its sometimes dogmatic doctrine and training by retraining the “replacements” once they got into theater and ignoring their manuals, right up until the end of the War…

I’ll have to pull out my copy of “An Army at Dawn,” but I believe the Germans had something like 26 Divisions in France, and it would have taken months from the start of an invasion before the Anglo-Americans would have any sort of equivalent power, much less a minimum of a 2:1 advantage. That’s assuming a force of a few divisions didn’t get slaughtered and managed to maintain a large beachhead. They would have been lucky to have even pulled off an Anzio, and if it didn’t turn into a larger Dieppe. But I think the Battle of the Kasserine Pass stands out as it was the first large scale counteroffensive launched against US forces, it should also be mentioned that the Germans also missed an opportunity to do more damage and ultimately sealed their fate in that battle…

*Edit: I never knew the Afrika Korp began the attack with infiltrators dressed in US uniforms…

#73

I believe this was seriously considered. I need to read more about it though…

#74

I doubt very much that there was landing craft enough to mount a succesful invasion in 1943. It would be impossible to mount an invasion of the 1944 size.

Chevan: Could you write me as soon as you can find a pole who agrees with you?!
The Russian empire have swelled over the borders of many minor countries, and to claim that all that was at one time part of the Russian empire (or part of any other empire) should remain so is both stupid and dangerous.

#75

Yep, I think that nails it, U.S. army wanted to get at the throat of the Nazis ASAP with Operation Sledgehammer in '42 and Roundup in '43, but the Brits were pursuing their traditional strategy of diversionary attacks on the perimeter of an enemy dominated Europe, while providing as much aid as possible to her continental allies and also preparing for an eventual invasion.
But only if the invasion had a good chance of success.

Although we’re a little off topic I found the following interesting

It’s impossible to say for certain that an invasion of France in 1943 would have failed. But without complete mastery of the air [which was not achieved till 1944] specialised landing craft, etc, it is difficult to see how an opposed landing, attempted by inexperienced American troops and commanders, would have been possible. What made Overlord [or “Roundup” as it was then called] impossible in 1943 was the demands of operation Torch in '42/43. In other words, it was either one or the other. An invasion of France in '43 would have meant no Torch in '42. So a D Day in 1943 would have been the first meeting of American and German ground forces – and bearing in mind the American experience at Kasserine, this might very easily have been a disaster

And even if the Allies DID establish a beachhead in France in 1943, there seems to be no reason to assume that this would necessarily have won the war any sooner or any more cheaply than the strategy that was employed. The assumption seems to be that the war would somehow just automatically end one year after the invasion of France – i.e. if you move this one event forward then everything else would have been moved forward as well. Very convenient, but is there really any basis for such an assumption? By 1943 the Second World War had become a great war of attrition. The German Army still had to be beaten, and it was considerably stronger in 1943 than it was a year later, following further crippling losses in Russia, in North Africa, and Italy. Would a reduced Allied invasion force have made rapid progress against the much stronger German [and Italian for that matter] forces? It seems doubtful to me. How long might the Allies have been restricted to their beachhead in these circumstances? It is easy to imagine Roundup having turned into a campaign very similar to that which emerged in Italy [or perhaps Anzio would be a better analogy], only on a larger scale. In all likelihood it seems that a Second Front in France in '43 would probably have got bogged down and turned into a prolonged war of attrition similar to what was happening on the Eastern Front.

Industrial capacity is not immediately convertible into military strength. The Americans needed time to build up and train their forces before they could hope to engage the full weight of the German Army in France. North Africa, Sicily and Italy offered theatres where they could meet the Axis forces on roughly equal terms, gain valuable experience and divert German forces from the Eastern Front [and later from France.] At the same time, by 1944 Italy had clearly become a strategic dead end, and the Americans were probably absolutely right to have made the British stick to Overlord.

#76

@Nickdfresh,

Could you please reply on the post #62. Thanks.

#77

Perhaps you can tell me what was the reason for the numerous wars that Denmark waged against it’s neighbours. Were the reasons much different?
And considering the difference in country sizes it makes Denmark not that much less landgrabing than Russia.

#78

My bold.

Excellent point!

#79

Egorka:

The difference is that no one in Denmark is agitating for a return to Denmark of territory won and lost in stupid wars, and neither the population or the government entertain fantasies of empire.

Where borders ought to be is something we can discuss forever. The right of the mighty usually decides borders. In “the right of the mighty” equation you can delete “right”, and this is why not all borders are undisputed or right. We need an Earth twice the size, if everybody should have their more or less rightful claims to land.

#80

See post #65…

If you want numbers, I’ll see what I can come up with. My comments are based on recollections of reading Deighton and Keegan, and the Wiki link, on the Battle of France.

A TIME Magazine article from February 26, 1940:

Germany’s No. 1 economic war problem is to persuade, by hook or crook, her neighbors to produce and deliver to her much-needed war materials. The Allies’ big job is to persuade them not to. Last week’s action on the trade front went mostly in favor of the Nazis:

— Last August, just before the Nazi-Communist non-aggression treaty was signed, the Soviet Union and Germany concluded a barter trade treaty. Germany gave $80,000,000 worth of credits to be applied to manufactured goods to the Soviet Union; Russia reciprocated with the promise of $72,000,000 worth of raw materials. The exchange was to cover two years.

Since then Russian trade with Britain and France has virtually collapsed, and Germany has lost half of all her import & export trade because of the blockade. As a result a German trade mission headed by Dr. Karl Ritter, former Nazi Ambassador to Brazil and largely responsible for the huge pre-war Brazilian-German barter trade, has been in Moscow to make bigger,better arrangements. Last week, as the mission started for home, it was announced that another Nazi-Bolshevik trade treaty had been signed which, Nazi officials boasted, would give Germany all the imports she needs to defeat the purposes of the Allied blockade. The Russians were not less boastful in pointing out that Russia’s raw materials and Germany’s industrial plants complement each other.

The new treaty’s terms were kept a military secret, but bragging Nazis let it be known that they expected the exchange of German manufactures, arms and industrial installations for Russian oil, wheat, cotton, fodder and manganese to reach more than $400,000,000—i.e., more than in 1931, the banner year for Soviet-German trade. Most people thought the Nazis were having day dreams.

In Berlin there was talk of German technicians going in force to “organize Russia”—particularly her railroads, refineries, canal system. This was easier said than done. The job would take years, the Russians themselves might not like such a big dose of German efficiency and the whole business would be contingent on the continuation of a standstill war in the west. While the Russian transportation system never has been much, Germany’s has been so overworked of late that it has begun seriously to deteriorate. Despite all the bluff about Russia supplying oil to the Reich, it was noted last week that at the Rumanian port of Constantsa on the Black Sea, the first post-pact Russian tanker with oil consigned to Germany had just arrived. The shipment—12,000 tons—was to be refined in Rumania and then shipped by rail through Hungary to the Reich—a long, expensive process. …