Pearl Harbor remark on B5
Arkham
famous sneak attacks in history, including Pearl Harbor.
Not being American, I'm not that familiar with the finer details of your
history, so I was surprised to come across this page:
http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/6315/pearl.html
I know that JMS is a big WW2 buff and was wondering what his - or
anybody's - take was on this.
WWS
That accusation's been around a long time. Roosevelt had a lot
of enemies, and still does. Check out Pat Buchanon for one who
subscribes to this.
There were an incredible number of warnings about the attack. In
retrospect, it's natural to find it hard to believe that the Navy
could know so much and still be so lackadaisacal in it's security
and fail to take the situation seriously. The problem with this
scenario is that any one of a hundred different things could have
derailed it totally. What if the inexperienced radar operator
would have had a phone? What if he had questioned the assurance
that he was just seeing a flight of B-17's? What if he *Hadn't*
decided to knock off and go home when his shift was up? What if
anyone in command at Pearl had decided to put up even minimal
airborne screens as they should have, given the tension of the
situation? It's natural to want to blame a conspiracy, because
we hate to believe that absolute sheer stupidity can have such
a huge impact on our history, and by extension our lives. But
the fact is that they just blew it. In hindsight, a blind dog
could have seen this coming, but they still got caught off
guard.
The biggest difference between genius and stupidity
is that genius has it's limits.
--
_________________________________________________WWS_____________
See Battlefield Earth for proof of that proposition.
Jms at B5
that piece, wants to provoke a war does so by having the lion's share of the
fleet he would USE in that war against that power sent to the bottom of the
ocean.
jms
(jms...@aol.com)
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com
(all message content (c) 2000 by
synthetic worlds, ltd., permission
to reprint specifically denied to
SFX Magazine)
Gharlane of Eddore
In <JCxT4.40257$55.7...@news2.rdc1.on.home.com>
"Arkham" <arkha...@yahoo.com> writes:
>
> On one episode (can't remember which one), somebody listed off all
> the famous sneak attacks in history, including Pearl Harbor.
>
> Not being American, I'm not that familiar with the finer details
> of your history, so I was surprised to come across this page:
> http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/6315/pearl.html
>
> I know that JMS is a big WW2 buff and was wondering what his - or
> anybody's - take was on this.
>
The thing that you have to remember when you discuss JMS in relation
to the military, to history, to arms in general, or even to personal
civil rights, is that he's gotten the majority of his education from
the hugely sanitized and laundered material which has been deemed
"politically correct" in what passes for "higher education" these
revisionist days.
He persists in regarding the Kennedys as heroes, he voted for Herr
Klinton both times, and he genuinely believes that FDR was a great
man whose stranglehold on the U.S. federal government was somehow
beneficial.
JMS may think of himself as a history buff; and he's often used the
phrase "I've done a lot of reading on the subject of <xxxx>..."
but in sheer point of fact he knows as little of History as he
does of Physics, and for the same reason; he chose not to do the
spade-work, and concentrated his efforts in other areas.
( which is why *HE* makes TV shows that are usually worth watching,
and folks like us sit out here applauding ( or pointing-and-laughing
when he screws up ). Just remember he screws up a whole lot less
than many other folks in TV. )
The fact of the matter is that the U.S. was in a massive, ugly
depression in the 1930's, and living hugely beyond its means.
Without a consensual degradation of the U.S. quality of life,
there was no way to re-rail the derailed economy; and the only
way to get people to go along with that sort of thing was to create
an enemy, because most politicians are far too inept to inspire
the governed to work toward a positive project. Human beings
have been selectively bred for efficiency in group projects
relating to hunting and killing, to the simplistic impetus of
hatred; the Crusades were created to "free the Holy Land from
the Paynim Heathen..." KrystallNacht was created to get the
Nasty Jews moved out of cities where Good Germans lived...
and Pearl Harbor seems to have been purposely set up to create
such outrage that the U.S. citizenry would consent to massive
taxation and deprivation in the name of "defending democracy"
from the Japanese Menace.
( A hugely inflationary War Economy creates the kind of price
spiralling that makes everything look strong and healthy,
and stops the populace from realizing that prices, while
trailing income rises, are ending up HIGHER. )
Consider, for example, that the infamous Treaty of Versailles
at the end of WWI had created such economic hardship in middle
Europe that the German people were ripe for the rise of a
demagogue mountebank who could point out an evil to combat;
if we hadn't purposely kept Germany in a state of total
starvation and used it as an economic whipping boy in the 1920's
and 1930's, there'd have been little room for the rise of a
fascistic Nazi Party, and their economy could well have made a
rolling adjustment, and conquered a fair share of the world in
a civil fashion, by exporting technology and manufacturing.
( Think about it; Germany was the fount of organic and
manufacturing chemistry, and created mechanical and design
technology we're still using... everyone laughed at the idea
of mass-produced aluminum/magnesium engine blocks, but Herr
Porsche found ways to do it. If we'd let them deal on the
international market like grownups, instead of shooting them
down into starvation, they could have made us pay through the
nose for Volkswagens, and not felt a need to invade their
neighbors for "lebensraum." Herr Shickelgruber would never
have become "Hitler," and would have eked out a tawdry existence
as a minor landscape painter and interior decorator... people
in the U.S. would have been driving VW's instead of Fords, and
six million Jewish folks would have stayed alive, to contribute
to the economic renaissance of middle Europe. )
As for Pearl Harbor, it's been widely accepted for years that
our "government," at the highest levels, specifically intended
to have that attack take place.
Note that the folks in the Japanese Embassy in Washington D.C.
had been tasked with delivering the declaration of war *prior*
to the attack, and were kept waiting for hours, purposely ignored,
so that the White House could claim it was a "sneak attack."
It was game-playing in the classic Japanese tradition; they'd
been getting their snouts whacked off every time there was a
naval confrontation in the Pacific for years, and thought they'd
set up a situation where they could declare war and zap a huge
chunk of our Navy before we could react; but this was a situation
purposely set up by the same governmental team that brought us
the "Social Security" Tax, the 1934 "gun control" legislation,
the nationalization of the U.S. gold supply, and the entire system
of so-called "Social Security Registration."
To that group, people were merely counters in a big Monopoly(tm)
game, and since they had vastly better communications, technology,
and intelligence than the Japanese, they were in a position to
shove un-necessary pieces off the board in order to sucker the
Japanese into handing them a relatively unassailable position.
Note that, on the heels of this situation, the U.S. began putting
Japanese citizens in internment camps EXACTLY THE WAY THE GERMANS
WERE CONCENTRATING JEWISH FOLKS. The U.S. now had a politically
acceptable enemy to fear, right here in our homeland. ( They'd
had a few problems trying to do that with German immigrants, since
they'd been here since the 1600's and looked a lot more like "us."
After all, "New York" started out as "Nieuw Amsterdam." )
Now, please don't think of me as an apologist for the attitude
and behavior of the Japanese government at that time; they'd been
acting like egotistical bully Samurai all over the Pacific and
large chunks of Asia for most of the previous four decades, and
there are many cases on record of them having attacked U.S.
shipping and military craft on the high seas well into the
1930's. The problem was that, reputational guile notwithstanding,
the Japanese nobility and high command simply did not have a clear
understanding of the strategic imperatives involved, and walked
right into the plans of FDR & Co. ...And from that point forward,
it was simply a question of the U.S. sacrificing enough national
economy and population to beat them back to their island, and
at the very last, popping off a couple of nukes to make it clear
to even their most fanatical die-hard military leaders that
surrender was the *only* option. ( Otherwise, we'd have lost
huge quantities of personnel on both sides, invading the home
island. )
In short, the majority of the information you found on that Web
site is news only to "Liberals" who haven't studied much real
history.
While the Web site you reference may contain a few points that are
a bit over the top ( even *I* am not completely convinced that FDR
was stupid enough to believe that involving us in two full-blown
wars at the same was a good thing to do --- I think he seriously
under-estimated the Japanese spirit and economic capacity --- )
the majority of the concrete historical information cited appears
to be correct. I can only speak for parts of it that I have had
occasion to research in the past, specifically relating to codes
and information availability at Pentagon and White House levels...
but that much is a dead-on match with what I've found whenever I
went looking through references and archives.
Keep whacking on the "Freedom Of Information" demands, and eventually
we'll get it all out in the open.
In the meantime, bear in mind that only a "government" can start a
war, and that since you can NOT effectively invade a nation where
all the citizens are armed, the simplest deterrent to war is the
kind of thing that was built into the U.S. Constitution; remember
that the Constitution sought to make it difficult-to-impossible to
maintain a standing army, and tried to insure that every citizen
was armed. You don't *need* an army when no one can invade and
hold your territory; and nukes and biowar notwithstanding, there's
no point in war if you're not prepared to attempt to garrison and
hold the enemy's territory.
Governments *need* to have wars going on, in order to stay in charge;
whether it's wars against the Heathen Paynim, the Nasty Evil Drug
Peddlers, the Asian Peril, or so-called "Assault Rifles," is largely
immaterial; a government can't "justify" taxation without something
to do, and since most governments aren't content to just take five
percent of your salary to build roads and fund a few police departments,
they will always feel a need to create New Evils To Combat, so they
have an excuse to turn you upside down and shake out your pockets.
When the Chicago Mob did it, it was called the "Protection Racket."
When the Canadian Government did it, it was called "Income Tax," or
the "VAT." ( Or perhaps Bill C-68. )
When the U.S. government did it, it was called .... oh, never mind.
I've gone on far enough, you get the idea. I'll shut up for a while.
=================================================================
|| ||
|| " A libertarian is a person who believes that no one has ||
|| the right, under any circumstances, to initiate force ||
|| against another human being or to advocate or delegate ||
|| its initiation. Those who act consistently with this ||
|| principle are libertarians whether they realize it or ||
|| not. Those who fail to act consistently with it are ||
|| _not_ libertarians, regardless of what they may claim." ||
|| ||
|| -- L. Neil Smith, a LP Presidential Candidate ||
|| ||
=================================================================
Andrew Swallow
of Eddore) writes:
>Subject: Re: Pearl Harbor remark on B5
>From: ghar...@ccshp1.ccs.csus.edu (Gharlane of Eddore)
>Date: 15 May 2000 18:55:57 -0600
>
[Snip of some nice conspiracy theories.]
I am too much of a fan of 'Yes Minister' to take conspiracy theories seriously.
The only thing most politicians can do is talk, lie (cover-up) and allow their
civil servants to spend other people's money. To actually run the country,
they would have to stop talking and listen.
Spending money is easy. A 5 year old child can do that. Ask its parents.
Andrew Swallow
Ron Jarrell
I don't know why I'm bothing to reply, but...
> As for Pearl Harbor, it's been widely accepted for years that
> our "government," at the highest levels, specifically intended
> to have that attack take place.
Yea, by reconstructionist historians determined to show just
how evil damn near everyone that ever lived was...
> Note that the folks in the Japanese Embassy in Washington D.C.
> had been tasked with delivering the declaration of war *prior*
> to the attack, and were kept waiting for hours, purposely ignored,
> so that the White House could claim it was a "sneak attack."
No, the Japanese Embassy called and asked to delay their appointment.
The Japanese military had stupidly not *sent* the documents until
almost the last minute, so that the embassy wouldn't spill the beans.
They wanted to attack just moments after the US was informed. The
Japanese delivered the first part of the document, but hadn't finished
decoding the last part, which they didn't get until the end, and had,
in fact, lost part of in their piles of undecoded incoming dispatches.
They destroyed a lot of their code gear just a *little* too soon.
Combine that with stupid Naval intelligence reports that placed that
feet thousands of miles away in its home port (My favorite comment out
of a transcript of a naval briefing runs along the lines of "So, you're
saying we don't actually have any idea where those carriers are."
"Well, No, sir. But the last time we lost them like these they were in
Tokyo Bay, so we're assuming that it's just happened again") and they
were unprepared for the level of what happened. FDR's gov't knew the
Japanese were up to something. In fact, I'm perfectly willing to
accept, and agree there's support for, the concept that he was hoping
they'd try to start something, and had arranged US policy in that
direction. I'm don't agree with interpretations of it that have him,
Churchil like, calmly standing by with the core of the pacific fleet
completely helpless - he was caught flatfooted by the Japanese. They
just completely outmanevered us, and did correctly what he might well
have wanted them to try, and fail miserably at.
Iain Rae
>
> Gharlane of Eddore <ghar...@ccshp1.ccs.csus.edu> wrote:
>
> I don't know why I'm bothing to reply, but...
>
> > our "government," at the highest levels, specifically intended
> > to have that attack take place.
>
> how evil damn near everyone that ever lived was...
>
statement without putting things in context means you can prove that
almost anything was possible.
The mythos about the Singapore guns springs to mind.
> > Note that the folks in the Japanese Embassy in Washington D.C.
> > had been tasked with delivering the declaration of war *prior*
> > to the attack, and were kept waiting for hours, purposely ignored,
> > so that the White House could claim it was a "sneak attack."
>
> No, the Japanese Embassy called and asked to delay their appointment.
> The Japanese military had stupidly not *sent* the documents until
> almost the last minute, so that the embassy wouldn't spill the beans.
> They wanted to attack just moments after the US was informed. The
> Japanese delivered the first part of the document, but hadn't finished
> decoding the last part, which they didn't get until the end, and had,
> in fact, lost part of in their piles of undecoded incoming dispatches.
> They destroyed a lot of their code gear just a *little* too soon.
>
> Combine that with stupid Naval intelligence reports that placed that
> feet thousands of miles away in its home port (My favorite comment out
> of a transcript of a naval briefing runs along the lines of "So, you're
> saying we don't actually have any idea where those carriers are."
> "Well, No, sir. But the last time we lost them like these they were in
> Tokyo Bay, so we're assuming that it's just happened again") and they
> were unprepared for the level of what happened. FDR's gov't knew the
> Japanese were up to something. In fact, I'm perfectly willing to
> accept, and agree there's support for, the concept that he was hoping
> they'd try to start something, and had arranged US policy in that
> direction. I'm don't agree with interpretations of it that have him,
> Churchil like, calmly standing by with the core of the pacific fleet
> completely helpless - he was caught flatfooted by the Japanese. They
> just completely outmanevered us, and did correctly what he might well
> have wanted them to try, and fail miserably at.
The difference was that the Japanese had Yamamoto who had learned from
Taranto, unfortunately for Japan he wasn't commanding the strike as he'd
have done what Cunningham would have in his position, fly off a second
strike on Perl and go hunting for the carriers.
Bear in mind that we were probably more concerned about the Japanese
build up that you guys. We'd been expecting to have to fight the
Japanese since the 20's and were assuming that anything that happened
would happen the following spring. As it was we came off a lot worse
than you did.
--
Iain Rae
Computing Officer
Dept. Civil & Offshore Engineering
Heriot-Watt University
WWS
Iain Rae wrote:
And a big part of that was Churchill's decision to send two cruisers
to help out Singapore in spite of them having no decent air support
at all. It's amazing that up until this point, no one seems to have
understood the lessons of Taranto except the Japanese. Churchill
more than anyone else should have realized what unchallenged air
power can do, even though the Naval staffs hadn't appreciated it
yet.
--
_________________________________________________WWS_____________
Think parochially, post globally -- Peter McDermott
Iain Rae
It's a much bigger tale of woe than that, you have things almost exactly
backwards. Firstly they were a KGV class battleship (Prince of Wales)
and a WWI vintage Battlecruiser (Repulse), actually Repulse was an
"Aunt" of one of the Japanese battlecruisers supporting the Malayan
landings at the time (Kogo I think).
Churchill wanted to send two battleships to do to the Japanese what
Tirpritz was doing to the home fleet, i.e. tie it up in harbour. This
was completely unrealistic as Repulse really was WWI vintage (no major
work had been done on her since 1919) and POW was built to treaty specs
(good 14" guns but with poor loading equipment, limited displacement and
hence speed but probably the best armour layout of any of the 1930's
vintage battleships) and had never had time to properly work up.
THe Admiralty wanted to send a more balanced fleet of 6 R class
battleships (15" guns but slow and heavily armoured) and supporting
corvettes as a shipping protection fleet. With two carriers and a
couple of crusisers being sent on in time of need. This fleet would fall
back on an attol in the middle of the Indian Ocean and the other ships
were supposed to operate out of Dutch territories. Even by the start of
the war the Admiralty had written Singapore off as a base of operations
against Japan, because the malayan mainland could not be properly
defended against a land attack unless there was a considerable increase
in the air and troop defences. There are a whole series of reports
covering this, throught the tewnties and thirties, at the time the
Japanese attacked there were about 20 Brewster Buffalo fighters covering
Malaya and 4 1919 vintage torpedo bombers. The lack of good carrier
aircraft was a real problem for us, the Air ministry tended to put the
Fleet Air Arm at the back of the queue.
The various legends about the guns are;
They didn't cover the mainland.
They didn't have the right ammunition.
THe naval officers didn't know how to use them against land troops.
Well, Naval gunnery has been used to support troops since god knows
when, the gus were copies of or taken from cruisers and used the same
ammo as the ships guns. As for not covering the mainland they were
designed to defend the Naval base not the whole island. Singapore is a
very poor fortress, as there is no water supply you aren't going to hold
out for very long.
Force z itself was desperately unlucky, the carrier Victorious should
have gone with them but grounded off bermuda, the admiralty was supposed
to recall them from Malaya in the event of war but didn't, if the
Japanese had waited a week then there would have been a more balanced
fleet with Dutch and US ships. Finally, much like the Japanese carriers
at midway, the battleships were not spotted, it was the wake of one of
the escorting ships, another half hour and they'd have got away with it.
THe main thing that the Japanese had going for them was that the Betty
way outperformed anything that any allied torpedo bomber could do.
If you want a detailed account of the whole sorry mess see Battleship:
the Loss of the "Prince of Wales" and the "Repulse" by Middlebrook
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0140234691/qid=958486520/sr=1-2/026-6347204-3859455
> --
>
> _________________________________________________WWS_____________
>
> Think parochially, post globally -- Peter McDermott
--
John W. Kennedy
In your own capacity
As a company, you've come to utter sorrow,
But the liquidators say:
Never mind, you needn't pay,
So you start another company tomorrow!
-- "Utopia, Limited"
--
-John W. Kennedy
-jwk...@attglobal.net
Compact is becoming contract
Man only earns and pays. -- Charles Williams
Iain Rae
I think you've got the wrong address, I think you want to go one thread
back and then right at the lights.
Gharlane of Eddore
In response to my article <8fq6aq$2...@news.csus.edu>,
which Andy Swallow refers to as "nice conspiracy theories,"
In <20000515222232...@nso-da.news.cs.com>
andrewm...@cs.com (Andrew Swallow) writes:
>
> I am too much of a fan of 'Yes Minister' to take conspiracy theories
> seriously.
>
> The only thing most politicians can do is talk, lie (cover-up) and
> allow their civil servants to spend other people's money. To
> actually run the country, they would have to stop talking and listen.
>
Or arrange Convenient Accidents for those who impair their ongoing
programs of confiscation and power consolidation.
You have to remember, the average politician is not *INTERESTED* in
"running the country," but rather in the next election, since retention
of power is the primary goal. The only man you can trust in public
office is one who's got the good sense and the self-respect to not
want the job. Anyone who *volunteers* to run for office in a national
legislature or executive branch becomes a de facto suspect who should
be seriously examined for signs of megalomania and schizophrenic
tendencies.
"YES, MINISTER" is produced in a country where the Inland Revenue
enjoys the administration of taxation levels that amount to blatant
confiscation; where it's illegal for the subjects to own weapons
to defend themselves against govermental excess; where the people
can't even get decent medical and dental care in exchange for the
huge percentage of their earnings they have no choice in "contributing,"
due to the rickety inoperability of "socialized medicine;" and where
a silly bimbo who couldn't pass the written tests to get into college
became a national heroine for having a couple of babies and dumping
her husband and getting killed in a car accident with a boyfriend...
and then made into some sort of posthumous saint.
And you honestly believe that "YES, MINISTER" isn't, as well as being
entertaining, unconsciously in line with the Official Stance of
persuading the cattle that "their" government is amusing, ineffectual,
and harmless? Even as it takes more bread from their mouths and
more self-sufficiency from their lives?
>
> Spending money is easy. A 5 year old child can do that.
> Ask its parents.
>
This does not directly pertain to anything I posted; but I'll respond
to it with the ( unoriginal ) observation that democracy fails as soon
as the electorate notices that it can vote itself bread and circuses.
Politicians only fritter away money when the idiots who elect them
*allow* it instead of stringing them up when they attempt it.
In modern times, we substitute theatrical entertainment and "professional
sports" for classic circuses; and occasionally create a charismatic
political icon to justify governmental excess.
The only difference between "Princess Di" and "Santa Evita" is that the
U.K. was stone-broke *before* the Advent of a Synthetic Madonna.
If you genuinely believe, despite your educational level, that
professional politicians aren't just barely clever enough to strip
you to the bone like a school of hungry piranha, you are *precisely*
the sort of person they want comprising the "electorate."
"Vehement outrage" is the *least* of the reactions an intelligent
person should have to the way governments operate.
Jason Larke
>>>>> (Gharlane of Eddore) said:
GoE> As for Pearl Harbor, it's been widely accepted for years
GoE> that our "government," at the highest levels, specifically
GoE> intended to have that attack take place.
Gharlane, as much as I love you and the vat you lie in, this is
nonsense.
I can accept that the US government wanted to be attacked, yes. I
don't know that it was wise, but the high-handed way we were
treating the Japanese was not consistent with a policy aimed at
peaceful relations. OK.
But specifically wanting "that attack"? As JMS said, only an
idiot would allow such a huge chunk of the fleet to be sunk at
the opening of the war. It would have been just as much of a
cassus belli if the Japanese planes had been met by ships on
alerts and the mother of all CAPs.
--
Jason Larke- jla...@uu.net- http://www.nnaf.net/~jlarke Send mail for PGP key
I don't speak for UUNET or MCI Worldcom. I speak for Odin. And he's *pissed*.
"The Rock can't say I quit, because the Rock only talks in the third person."
"People change, and smile: but the agony abides."-T.S. Eliot, The Dry Salvages
To...@fred.net
: I think it's a steaming load of horse hockey. No President who, according to
: that piece, wants to provoke a war does so by having the lion's share of the
: fleet he would USE in that war against that power sent to the bottom of the
: ocean.
*ding*
Moreover (and I've picked this up from the Alternate History NGs), Pearl
Harbor could have been much MUCh more crippling to the US if the IJN went
after oil reserves and other vital areas. Luck had something as well, as
one or two carriers were out of port at the time.
--
To...@Fred.Net http://www.fred.net/tomr
* Faith Manages...... But Willow is in Tech Support
* "Hello, girls.... I'm the Easter Bunny!" - Janet Reno, "South Park"
"Y'know what's stupid? An anti-drug commercial, then a commercial for
WebMD." - Jeremy Soria
Mary Kay Bergman 1961-1999 - http://www.wackyvoices.com
Ronald P. Peterson
the Roswell truths. :)
Lurker #2
Arkham (arkha...@yahoo.com) wrote:
: On one episode (can't remember which one), somebody listed off all the
Tom Holt
The message <8fs33c$c...@news.csus.edu>
from ghar...@ccshp1.ccs.csus.edu (Gharlane of Eddore) contains
these words:
> And you honestly believe that "YES, MINISTER" isn't, as well as being
> entertaining, unconsciously in line with the Official Stance of
> persuading the cattle that "their" government is amusing, ineffectual,
> and harmless? Even as it takes more bread from their mouths and
> more self-sufficiency from their lives?
It's perhaps worth noting that "Yes Minister"'s most prominent fan
was Margaret Thatcher; who once had her scriptwriters concoct a short
Yes-Minister pastiche for her to play with Nigel Hawthorne and Derek Fowlds,
two of the show's stars, at a party conference.
Tom Holt
The message <20000515222232...@nso-da.news.cs.com>
from andrewm...@cs.com (Andrew Swallow) contains these words:
> The only thing most politicians can do is talk, lie (cover-up) and allow their
> civil servants to spend other people's money.
Would that this were true... Politicians can't solve real problems,
sure; but they can invent imaginary problems and then 'solve' them,
dramatically, on live TV, especially when there's an election in the
offing. Politicians can *create* real problems with knee-jerk
reactions, short term patches and their own personal bigotries. To
quote from Andrew's favorite show, 'Yes Minister', the typical
politician thinks like this when faced with a serious issue
"1. Something must be done
2. This [ie the first, easiest quick fix that comes to hand] is something
3. Therefore we will do this."
A substantial proportion of high-ranking civil servants (for example,
the guys I was at school with) are soul-dead, self-centred,
short-sighted, bottom-feeding inadequates; but at least they do very
little and do it very slowly. This is infinitely preferable to the
activities of most politicians, who want to Change The World, *now*,
by stomping on some unfashionable minority whose humiliation or
eradication will win the politicians in question column inches and votes.
Inertia sucks, but it has its merits; given a choice between bleeding
to death slowly and comfortably and being ripped to death by wild
dogs, which would you choose?
Tom Holt
The message <8fsdre$4ki$1...@solaria.cc.gatech.edu>
from ro...@cc.gatech.edu (Ronald P. Peterson) contains these words:
> You forgot links that show how Elvis and JFK are still alive. Nor any of
> the Roswell truths. :)
As we all know by now, Elvis and JFK were abducted by aliens from the
same species whose scout-ship crashed at Roswell. Recently, they came
back and added Princess Di to their collection.
They don't style themselves 'the finest toxic waste disposal agency
in the galaxy' for nothing, you know.
Jane E. Nicholson
>A substantial proportion of high-ranking civil servants (for example,
>the guys I was at school with) are soul-dead, self-centred,
>short-sighted, bottom-feeding inadequates; but at least they do very
>little and do it very slowly. This is infinitely preferable to the
>activities of most politicians, who want to Change The World, *now*,
>by stomping on some unfashionable minority whose humiliation or
>eradication will win the politicians in question column inches and votes.
>
>Inertia sucks, but it has its merits; given a choice between bleeding
>to death slowly and comfortably and being ripped to death by wild
>dogs, which would you choose?
>
I think the metaphor were better served if the second option was being treated
by an inept surgeon who used a dirty bandage to stop the bleeding, hence
creating complications later.
Jane Nicholson
Tom Holt
The message <3921ce54...@news.iconz.co.nz>
from jnich...@iname.com (Jane E. Nicholson) contains these words:
Nah. That'd only fit the good politicians. And both of them died long ago.
Andrew Swallow
>And a big part of that was Churchill's decision to send two cruisers
>to help out Singapore in spite of them having no decent air support
>at all. It's amazing that up until this point, no one seems to have
>understood the lessons of Taranto except the Japanese. Churchill
>more than anyone else should have realized what unchallenged air
>power can do, even though the Naval staffs hadn't appreciated it
>yet.
The idea that a tiny force can kill a very large force is practically a fairy
tale. This had to be demonstrated the hard way.
Andrew Swallow
Jane E. Nicholson
Don't they at least have to _look_ like they're doing something helpful?
Jane Nicholson
Iain Rae
Battlefleet, 20 odd Sea Harriers saw off the Argentinian air forces. The
Rawalapindi managed to hold off two german Battlecrusers long enough for
her convoy to escape.
Adm Philips decision to sail from Singapore to attack was correct based
on the information he had, if he'd had better intelligence and sailed 24
hours earlier he'd have caught the Japanese troopers unloading and a
battleship and battlecruiser would have played merry hell with the
Invasion. That would have stopped The japanese and there might have been
a chance to save Burma or Malaya. I'd rather have fought the Japanese
from there than India.
The thing everyone seems to forget is that Philips was operating in an
area which was half again as far away from the nearest air base as the
range of the best know torpedo bomber or dive bomber, high level bombing
was ineffective against fast warships and since he knew that the
majority of the Japanese Carrier fleet was otherwise occupied it looks
on paper like a more than acceptable risk.
If either of the RN's two best Admiraly were in charge (Cunningham or
Somerville) things might have turned out slightly differently but you'd
need someone of their caliber and sheer bloody mindedness to either sail
off and fight as a fleet in being or go charging off after the Japanese
fleet when they hadn't found them at the landing sites.
I suspect that either of them would have insisted on having a carrier in
place to replace Victorious, even if it was only a small one like Eagle.
Steven Dalla Vicenza
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[ Some characters may be displayed incorrectly. ]
First the episode is midnight on the firing line. Second the document
is technically true but is heavily biased against Roosevelt. It has a
fierce isolationist slant. The fact is that since the battle of
Tsushima Straits (Russo-Japanese war) the American brass in the pacific
knew a war with Japan was inevitable. The Russians had lost their major
fleet bases in the Pacific the Chinese fleet wasn't bloody well
effective (Battle of the Yalu Sino-Japenese war) The only reason they
would need the freakin'' huge fleet they had including the largest
Carriers in the world and Battleships that could go toe to toe with the
Bismarck and win is if they planned to challenge British interests in
S.E. Asia and American Interests in the Pacific. To pick a fight is one
thing. Knowing that the fight is inevitable and timing it so it will
have maximum positive effect in the long-term and minimum harm in the
short term. The Japanese still were the ones who decided to attack this
riles me that people blame Roosevelt for the deaths. Its just like when
people are killed by terrorists and the Government is blamed for not
caving in to all demands.
Gerard J Keating (Ireland)
> could have seen this coming, but they still got caught off
> guard.
>
> The biggest difference between genius and stupidity
> is that genius has it's limits.
>
kind of like this disaster in the Netherlands over the weekend, most people
would think it unwise to to allow a warehouse with one hundred tonnes of
fireworks to operate in the centre of a town...
gerard
Stephen C. Smith
military was pretty much of a joke. I'm about done reading a biography of George
Patton; he was intensely frustrated between the World Wars because service in the
military was almost considered dirty work. Those who couldn't do anything else went
into the service. Patton was a military genius who studied history in depth (as
depicted in the movie), but was frustrated that those above him making decisions
lacked his knowledge and insight. He foresaw the value of the tank in battle but,
believe it or not, up until WW2 conventional army theory still believed the cavalry
was the best means of attack!
So the people running the U.S. military in 1941 were marginally competent at
best. Pearl Harbor and our subsequent experiences in WW2 changed a lot of thinking
about how we run our army.
Stephen
On 15 May 2000 15:48:33 -0600, "Arkham" <arkha...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>On one episode (can't remember which one), somebody listed off all the
>famous sneak attacks in history, including Pearl Harbor.
>
>Not being American, I'm not that familiar with the finer details of your
>history, so I was surprised to come across this page:
>http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/6315/pearl.html
>
>I know that JMS is a big WW2 buff and was wondering what his - or
>anybody's - take was on this.
>
>
Visit the FutureAngels Web site
http://www.futureangels.com
Complete coverage of the Anaheim Angels farm system
A Baseball America Online Affiliate
Keith Wood
Jms at B5 wrote:
>
> I think it's a steaming load of horse hockey. No President who, according to
> that piece, wants to provoke a war does so by having the lion's share of the
> fleet he would USE in that war against that power sent to the bottom of the
> ocean.
>
> jms
I've looked into this whole debate, and I think that the truth is
somewhere between the points.
1) FDR did what Bush did -- each let invaders keep going with their
absorption of conquered territory until suddenly it was time for a war.
2) FDR (through Stimson) permitted US Pacific forces to grow weak
(where they had been the strongest US force extant at the time of FDR's
inauguration). There is no indication that this was intended to invite
an attack, so much as a sign that FDR was willing to sacrifice the
Philippines and the entire Western Pacific region, if necessary.
3) The Japanese, backed into a corner by the US (as allies of the UK),
had no choice but to open hostilities with the US. Hawaii was the
logical point (though the Aleutians were actually invaded).
4) The declaration of war by the Japanese had originally been timed to
take place PRIOR to the arrival of Imperial forces over Oahu. The
Purple Code (I kid you not, and no, I haven't heard of a "Green Code"),
however, was unwieldy and difficult to decode -- the final delivery of
the message to the American government took place after Washington was
notified of the attack.
5) FDR was quick to use the attack on Oahu as justification for
entering the European War, against Japan's allies in Germany and Italy.
Records show that the FDR Administration was far more involved in the
European War effort than in the Pacific (or Aleutians) until FDR died.
FDR may not have asked for Pearl Harbor, but he would have been sunk
without it.
Steven Dalla Vicenza
[ Your display is set for the "US-ASCII" character set. ]
[ Some characters may be displayed incorrectly. ]
Granted but the Fleet lost Battleships and cruisers all the Major
engagements, Coral Sea, Midway and the Philippine Sea were fought with
aircraft carriers. the USN knew that in a war between themselves and
the Japanese that there Battleships wouldn't count for anything. They
were out gunned by the much larger Japanese Battleships. they lost
little of strategic significance in the raid.
Jms at B5 wrote:
>
> I think it's a steaming load of horse hockey. No President who, according to
> that piece, wants to provoke a war does so by having the lion's share of the
> fleet he would USE in that war against that power sent to the bottom of the
> ocean.
>
> jms
>
Joseph DeMartino
although there are others. (There's a variation on this theme that claims
Churchill knew all about the attack and deliberately refused to warn the
Americans.)
1) NOBODY wanted to get into a war with Japan. They were the wrong enemy,
in the wrong ocean, at the wrong time. Roosevelt certainly thought we would
have to get into the war in Europe, and was doing his best to nudge his
reluctant electorate in that direction, but he didn't want to fight the
Japanese. Churchill also knew that the Axis had to be defeated in Europe
before anything could be done elsewhere, because Germany was the greater
threat.
2) Being attacked by Japan *didn't* "get us into WWII" against the Axis.
Not a word was said about Germany or Italy on December 8, 1941. Roosevelt
asked for, and got, a declaration of war against Japan *only.* (Hitler did
him the enormous favor of declaring war on the United States a few days
later. Otherwise Roosevelt would have had a real problem diverting men and
supplies to the Army for eventual operations in Europe, away from the Navy
and Marine Corps which were already fighting in the Pacific. And Churchill
would have been in no position to ask for further help in Europe with the
U.S. embroiled in its own war on the other side of the globe.) Eventually
the U.S. would certainly have been drawn into the general alliance against
all three Axis powers, but that would have taken time, time Chruchill and
Roosevelt would not have wanted to waste.
3) The theory assumes that only a *defeat* at Pearl Harbor (and in the
Phillipines, and the British and Dutch far eastern colonies, all of which
were attacked as part of the same operation) would serve Roosevelt's ends.
How so? Obviously if FDR had known about the attack in advance his best
course would have been to *warn* the Army and Navy, have every anti-aircraft
gun manned, the carriers pre-positioned for a counter-stroke, and hit the
first attack wave on its way in. A simultaneous attack on the Japanese
carriers by U.S. Naval aviators and Army Airforce pilots would have crippled
*Japan's* offensive fleet instead of our own. The *fact* of the failed
Japanese attack would have been enough to get us into the war. And it
certainly would have looked better in the papers and the history books (not
to mention being better for the military and civilian personnel in Hawaii)
if we had started the war with a victory rather than a defeat - and that
surely could have been the outcome if FDR had known what he is supposed to
have known.
Given that he could have chosen between the two outcomes with the
information supposedly at his fingertips, why would he have chosen defeat
and unnecessary sacrifice over a clear cut victory which would *still* have
gotten us into the war? (Although, again, into the *wrong* war, not the war
against the Germans that FDR deemed necessary.) It certainly wasn't to
protect the secret of our penetration of the current Japanese Naval code -
we hadn't penetrated it, only some obsolete military codes and the Japanese
*diplomatic* code - interestingly designated "Purple" by U.S.
cryptographers. (We *did* later penetrate the Japanese Naval code, JN-25,
and used our knowledge to good effect at Midway. On a related matter - and
contrary to something said on "B5" - Churchill did *not* learn about the
planned German bombing of Coventry through an Ultra intercept and keep
silent to protect Ultra security. I forget if there *was* no such warning,
or if it was transcribe and decrypted much too late to be of any use, but
there was no deliberate withholding of a warning from the citizens of that
city. Another conspiracy theory with no basis in fact or common sense.
There were any number of ways to "launder" Ultra intelligence so that it
appeared to come from other sources. It would not have been difficult to
attribute a warning to the French Resistance, agents in Germany or even a
"just in time" warning from the British Radar network.)
Whatever "evidence" the conspiracy theorists come up with, they can't
overcome the fundamental problem that what they're suggesting *makes no
sense*, and that given the same foreknowledge the participants could have
acted in exactly the opposite way and reached their goal by an easier path.
Regards,
Joe
Steven Dalla Vicenza
[ Your display is set for the "US-ASCII" character set. ]
[ Some characters may be displayed incorrectly. ]
Gharlane of Eddore wrote:
>
> In <JCxT4.40257$55.7...@news2.rdc1.on.home.com>
> "Arkham" <arkha...@yahoo.com> writes:
> >
> > On one episode (can't remember which one), somebody listed off all
> > the famous sneak attacks in history, including Pearl Harbor.
> >
> > Not being American, I'm not that familiar with the finer details
> > of your history, so I was surprised to come across this page:
> > http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/6315/pearl.html
> >
> > I know that JMS is a big WW2 buff and was wondering what his - or
> > anybody's - take was on this.
>
> The fact of the matter is that the U.S. was in a massive, ugly
> depression in the 1930's, and living hugely beyond its means.
Keynesian economics is the only way to jump start the economy. Hitler
Revamped the German economy by putting it on a war footing and making it
economically self sufficient. The New Deal was the best possible
solution to the problem because America was disinterested in the affairs
of Europe when the Unemployment rate was something like 20-30%.
>
> Without a consensual degradation of the U.S. quality of life,
> there was no way to re-rail the derailed economy; and the only
> way to get people to go along with that sort of thing was to create
> an enemy, because most politicians are far too inept to inspire
> the governed to work toward a positive project. Human beings
> have been selectively bred for efficiency in group projects
> relating to hunting and killing, to the simplistic impetus of
> hatred; the Crusades were created to "free the Holy Land from
> the Paynim Heathen..." KrystallNacht was created to get the
> Nasty Jews moved out of cities where Good Germans lived...
> and Pearl Harbor seems to have been purposely set up to create
> such outrage that the U.S. citizenry would consent to massive
> taxation and deprivation in the name of "defending democracy"
> from the Japanese Menace.
> ( A hugely inflationary War Economy creates the kind of price
> spiralling that makes everything look strong and healthy,
> and stops the populace from realizing that prices, while
> trailing income rises, are ending up HIGHER. )
Yeah but the depression sent prices crashing through the floor.
> As for Pearl Harbor, it's been widely accepted for years that
> our "government," at the highest levels, specifically intended
> to have that attack take place.
> Note that the folks in the Japanese Embassy in Washington D.C.
> had been tasked with delivering the declaration of war *prior*
> to the attack, and were kept waiting for hours, purposely ignored,
> so that the White House could claim it was a "sneak attack."
Again darn fine thing they did. the axis needed to be slapped around.
> Note that, on the heels of this situation, the U.S. began putting
> Japanese citizens in internment camps EXACTLY THE WAY THE GERMANS
> WERE CONCENTRATING JEWISH FOLKS.
But without the Zycron-B
> In short, the majority of the information you found on that Web
> site is news only to "Liberals" who haven't studied much real
> history.
> In the meantime, bear in mind that only a "government" can start a
> war, and that since you can NOT effectively invade a nation where
> all the citizens are armed, the simplest deterrent to war is the
> kind of thing that was built into the U.S. Constitution; remember
> that the Constitution sought to make it difficult-to-impossible to
> maintain a standing army, and tried to insure that every citizen
> was armed. You don't *need* an army when no one can invade and
> hold your territory; and nukes and biowar notwithstanding, there's
> no point in war if you're not prepared to attempt to garrison and
> hold the enemy's territory.
Okay untrained militia versus professional army, their is only one way
this is going.
>
> Governments *need* to have wars going on, in order to stay in charge;
> whether it's wars against the Heathen Paynim, the Nasty Evil Drug
> Peddlers, the Asian Peril, or so-called "Assault Rifles," is largely
> immaterial; a government can't "justify" taxation without something
> to do, and since most governments aren't content to just take five
> percent of your salary to build roads and fund a few police departments,
> they will always feel a need to create New Evils To Combat, so they
> have an excuse to turn you upside down and shake out your pockets.
> =================================================================
> || ||
> || " A libertarian is a person who believes that no one has ||
> || the right, under any circumstances, to initiate force ||
> || against another human being or to advocate or delegate ||
> || its initiation. Those who act consistently with this ||
> || principle are libertarians whether they realize it or ||
> || not. Those who fail to act consistently with it are ||
> || _not_ libertarians, regardless of what they may claim." ||
> || ||
> || -- L. Neil Smith, a LP Presidential Candidate ||
> || ||
> =================================================================
I'm not even touching this one. I am far too cynical for libertarianism.
Greywind
Andrew Swallow wrote:
>
> In article <8fq6aq$2...@news.csus.edu>, ghar...@ccshp1.ccs.csus.edu (Gharlane
> of Eddore) writes:
>
> >Subject: Re: Pearl Harbor remark on B5
> >From: ghar...@ccshp1.ccs.csus.edu (Gharlane of Eddore)
> >Date: 15 May 2000 18:55:57 -0600
> >
>
> [Snip of some nice conspiracy theories.]
>
> I am too much of a fan of 'Yes Minister' to take conspiracy theories seriously.
>
> The only thing most politicians can do is talk, lie (cover-up) and allow their
> civil servants to spend other people's money. To actually run the country,
> they would have to stop talking and listen.
>
That's a very dangerous view to take. If you care to do a little
research, look into the history of disarming of citizens... Right
now the government is trying it's best to remove the right to keep
and bear arms.. Everyone likes free speech but it's foundation rests
on arms.
Keith Wood
Ron Jarrell wrote:
>
> Gharlane of Eddore <ghar...@ccshp1.ccs.csus.edu> wrote:
> > Note that the folks in the Japanese Embassy in Washington D.C.
> > had been tasked with delivering the declaration of war *prior*
> > to the attack, and were kept waiting for hours, purposely ignored,
> > so that the White House could claim it was a "sneak attack."
>
> No, the Japanese Embassy called and asked to delay their appointment.
> The Japanese military had stupidly not *sent* the documents until
> almost the last minute, so that the embassy wouldn't spill the beans.
> They wanted to attack just moments after the US was informed. The
> Japanese delivered the first part of the document, but hadn't finished
> decoding the last part, which they didn't get until the end, and had,
> in fact, lost part of in their piles of undecoded incoming dispatches.
> They destroyed a lot of their code gear just a *little* too soon.
You are both partly right and partly wrong.
1) The Purple Code (no, I know of no "Green Code"), used by the
Japanese, was unwieldy and difficult to decrypt. The message came in
several parts over a couple of days, and the final element (including
the declaration of war) was not ready for presentation until after the
attack force was over Oahu. The Imperial delegation WAS made to wait
when they arrived, but this was because the reports were already coming
in from the Pacific.
2) The Purple Code (no, I STILL know of no "Green Code") had been
broken by the use of the first electronic decryption project ("Magic"),
and the White House had a copy of the complete message before the
attack. Whether this was in time to have launched an effective defense
is not clear.
3) FDR's "day of infamy" speech before Congress implies that HE
declared war against Japan, making no reference to the Japanese
declaration of war.
Jason Larke
>>>>> <ia...@civ.hw.ac.uk> said:
IR> The difference was that the Japanese had Yamamoto who had
IR> learned from Taranto, unfortunately for Japan he wasn't
IR> commanding the strike as he'd have done what Cunningham would
IR> have in his position, fly off a second strike on Perl and go
IR> hunting for the carriers.
It's hard for me to blame Nagumo for what he did at Pearl. He'd
launched an astonishingly risky strike and gotten 85% of a
perfect score in exchange for trivial losses. Now he was left
with dwindling fuel states and not much intelligence about what
might be out there on the central pacific. Trying to push his
luck could have cost him everything.
For example- what if he launched another strike, and an attack
from US carrier aircraft hit while his planes were away and his
fighter strength diminished? It's not unlikely that hits might
have been scored on 1-3 carriers. Normally that wouldn't be a
problem, but he's deep in enemy waters and low on fuel; he can't
mess around with cripples. Can you imagine having to scuttle two
of the Emperors's finest CVs? And having to explain it?
He walked away from the table with a lot of money in his
pocket. Tactically it made sense. Strategically it was all wrong,
but then, so was the entire war (for Japan, that is).
Arkham
"Ronald P. Peterson" <ro...@cc.gatech.edu> wrote
> You forgot links that show how Elvis and JFK are still alive. Nor any of
> the Roswell truths. :)
Must have slipped my mind. Here you go:
Travers Naran
news:20000515194216...@ng-bj1.aol.com...
> I think it's a steaming load of horse hockey. No President who, according
to
> that piece, wants to provoke a war does so by having the lion's share of
the
> fleet he would USE in that war against that power sent to the bottom of
the
> ocean.
Most of the historians I've ever read, all of whom don't buy the conspiracy,
point out the ships that sank were border-line "obsolete". The newer ships
were out with almost all the carriers on maneuvers in the Pacific. They
then further argued that because of the older ships being lost, America
could invest in a newer fleet. Of course, this was explained as being
"lucky".
The critical, decrypted "purple" dispatch sent to the Japanese embassy was
sitting in someone's in tray when such dispatches were usually in the White
House and Pentagon early every morning. Why? America was expecting war in
the Philipines. The government wanted to know when Japan was going to
declare war so the "purple" dispatches were given top priority. Apparently,
the purple dispatches were all delayed that weekend. Countless historians
and authors have complained what a bad piece of luck that was.
I could go on with the "luck" both good and bad. That's an awful lot of
luck involved.
WWS
To...@Fred.Net wrote:
>
> This post on 15 May 2000 17:42:51 -0600 would probably sound more commanding if Jms at B5 wasn't wearing the Yummy Sushi Pajamas:
> : I think it's a steaming load of horse hockey. No President who, according to
> : that piece, wants to provoke a war does so by having the lion's share of the
> : fleet he would USE in that war against that power sent to the bottom of the
> : ocean.
>
> *ding*
>
> Moreover (and I've picked this up from the Alternate History NGs), Pearl
> Harbor could have been much MUCh more crippling to the US if the IJN went
> after oil reserves and other vital areas. Luck had something as well, as
> one or two carriers were out of port at the time.
All 3 were out of port, that's the only reason the US Navy wasn't totally
crippled. If the Japanese had come back with a second strike, as
Yamamoto had planned for them to do, Pearl would have been incredibly
devastated as there were no defenses left after the first strike.
Inexplicably, the Japanese decided they had done enough for the day
and turned back.
What conspiracy fans forget about war is that pure chance and bad decisions
made at the time have more of an effect on the final outcome than all the
best made plans in the world.
--
_________________________________________________WWS_____________
Think parochially, post globally -- Peter McDermott
Iain Rae
>
> >>>>> On 16 May 2000 06:51:34 -0600, Iain Rae
> >>>>> <ia...@civ.hw.ac.uk> said:
>
> IR> The difference was that the Japanese had Yamamoto who had
> IR> learned from Taranto, unfortunately for Japan he wasn't
> IR> commanding the strike as he'd have done what Cunningham would
> IR> have in his position, fly off a second strike on Perl and go
> IR> hunting for the carriers.
>
> It's hard for me to blame Nagumo for what he did at Pearl. He'd
> launched an astonishingly risky strike and gotten 85% of a
> perfect score in exchange for trivial losses. Now he was left
> with dwindling fuel states and not much intelligence about what
> might be out there on the central pacific. Trying to push his
> luck could have cost him everything.
>
> For example- what if he launched another strike, and an attack
> from US carrier aircraft hit while his planes were away and his
> fighter strength diminished? It's not unlikely that hits might
> have been scored on 1-3 carriers. Normally that wouldn't be a
> problem, but he's deep in enemy waters and low on fuel; he can't
> mess around with cripples. Can you imagine having to scuttle two
> of the Emperors's finest CVs? And having to explain it?
Yes, for the same reason that Nelson deliberately risked his entire
fleet at Trafalgar and flouted the standing orders to form a line of
battle (for which others had been executed) if you think you can beat
the opposition then you must risk everything in order to do so. You can
only afford to be conservative in defense.
The guy that planned the attack on Taranto stated in the planning
documents that it was unlikely that the Mediterranean fleet carrier
(Hermes at the time) would survive for long in the face of Superior
forces and that the attack on Taranto should go ahead as soon as
possible. Cunningham wanted a second attack to go in but the crews were
exhausted as there had been a hanger fire on the second carrier(i think
Eagle) and they physically couldn't do any more. The fact that
Illustrious was almost sunk a couple of weeks later confirms this.
Yamamoto is on record as disagreeing with his government over the war
but planned the attack anyway, from memory I think he said that if he
could destroy all the US fleet it would give them 5 years to prepare
their defenses.
If the entire pacific fleet had been destroyed then there would have
been enough of a vacuum that Midway would have fallen and the new
building Carriers would have covered most of any losses at Perl.
John W. Kennedy
>
> "John W. Kennedy" wrote:
> >
> > Though a Rotschild you may be
> > In your own capacity
> > As a company, you've come to utter sorrow,
> > But the liquidators say:
> > Never mind, you needn't pay,
> > So you start another company tomorrow!
> > -- "Utopia, Limited"
> >
> > --
> > -John W. Kennedy
> > -jwk...@attglobal.net
> > Compact is becoming contract
> > Man only earns and pays. -- Charles Williams
>
> I think you've got the wrong address, I think you want to go one thread
> back and then right at the lights.
Something evil was going on with my server yesterday, and several of my
posts were somehow sent to a thread other than the one I was replying
to. This one belonged on the "winding up" discussion.
--
-John W. Kennedy
-jwk...@attglobal.net
Compact is becoming contract
Man only earns and pays. -- Charles Williams
Iain Clark
"Greywind" <hj...@home.com> wrote in message
news:3920D64D...@home.com...
Not wanting to get into a big discussion about this, but putting aside the
historical context, surely you can have free speech without needing a legal
right to own guns?
Iain
--
"Signs, portents, dreams...next thing
we'll be reading tea leaves and chicken entrails."
WWS
Travers Naran wrote:
>
> "Jms at B5" <jms...@aol.com> wrote in message
> news:20000515194216...@ng-bj1.aol.com...
> > I think it's a steaming load of horse hockey. No President who, according
> to
> > that piece, wants to provoke a war does so by having the lion's share of
> the
> > fleet he would USE in that war against that power sent to the bottom of
> the
> > ocean.
>
> Most of the historians I've ever read, all of whom don't buy the conspiracy,
> point out the ships that sank were border-line "obsolete". The newer ships
> were out with almost all the carriers on maneuvers in the Pacific. They
> then further argued that because of the older ships being lost, America
> could invest in a newer fleet. Of course, this was explained as being
> "lucky".
>
> The critical, decrypted "purple" dispatch sent to the Japanese embassy was
> sitting in someone's in tray when such dispatches were usually in the White
> House and Pentagon early every morning. Why? America was expecting war in
> the Philipines. The government wanted to know when Japan was going to
> declare war so the "purple" dispatches were given top priority. Apparently,
> the purple dispatches were all delayed that weekend. Countless historians
> and authors have complained what a bad piece of luck that was.
>
> I could go on with the "luck" both good and bad. That's an awful lot of
> luck involved.
Point is, that's the way war always is! It makes us very uncomfortable
to realize that luck plays such a huge roll at major historic turning
events, but it almost *ALWAYS* does - sometimes it's just more obvious
than others. You want to know what the most bizarrely lucky string of
events to occur during the entire war was? Happened about 6 months later
during the battle of Midway, when, in the middle of a naval battle that
appeared to be about even, (maybe tilted towards the Japanese) a bizarre
series of events and confluences allowed the US carrier air wings to
destroy 4 major Japanese carriers in 15 minutes. This broke the back
of the Japanese fleet and they withdrew, the loss of this battle broke
the back of the Japanese Navy, and the loss of the Japanese Navy broke
the back of the Japanese Empire. The turning point of the entire war
happened right there - Japan was never on the offensive again, after
that point. And even the commanders involved on both sides credit those
15 minutes more to bizarre luck (good for the Americans, real bad for the
Japanese) than to anything else. Change any one of dozens of individual
decisions made by dozens of different people at the time, and the outcome
could have been decidedly different. (Things like a flight of dive
bombers getting hopelessly lost on their way to the battle, and then
figuring out where they should be and showing up late, but just at the
exact moment that the Japanese fighter screen had dropped down low and
left all the carriers defenseless from high altitude attack - and so on)
That's the way history works. (and why it's so damned hard to predict
the future)
Iain Clark
"WWS" <wsch...@tyler.net> wrote in message
news:3922F3D9...@tyler.net...
> That's the way history works. (and why it's so damned hard to predict
> the future)
It's also the reason why conspiracy theories arise IMO. They're not
deliberately "invented" as such, merely "deduced" by attributing undue
significance to coincidences and accidents. The human brain loves to see
patterns in things, and finds randomness unsatisfying and implausible.
Andrew Swallow
DeMartino" <Joseph-D...@worldnet.att.net> writes:
> On a related matter - and
>contrary to something said on "B5" - Churchill did *not* learn about the
>planned German bombing of Coventry through an Ultra intercept and keep
>silent to protect Ultra security. I forget if there *was* no such warning,
>or if it was transcribe and decrypted much too late to be of any use, but
>there was no deliberate withholding of a warning from the citizens of that
>city.
The bombing of Coventry was a major change in German tactics. Before this they
had bombed either England's coastal defences or London. Coventry is a long way
from both. The antiaircraft guns and fighter planes were deployed on the
assumption this would continue. This deployment meant that the defences could
be easily outflanked by simply flying to the left of them.
An Ultra message was decoded saying a large attack was planned for that night.
But the Germans had been very crafty, they used a code name for the target.
Hence, the Air Ministry spent the day trying to work out which area of London
had something to do with the moon.
The German's also used a new design of radio beacons to guide their aircraft.
Coventry may have been out of range of the old ones. These gave the target
away but the RAF did not know if the Luftwaffe was using then or simply testing
the transmitters.
Andrew Swallow
Andrew Swallow
>That's a very dangerous view to take. If you care to do a little
>research, look into the history of disarming of citizens... Right
>now the government is trying it's best to remove the right to keep
>and bear arms.. Everyone likes free speech but it's foundation rests
>on arms.
>
British towns have been disarmed for over a hundred years. This has not
affected our right to insult the government. On the other hand the citizens of
totalitarian countries, including the Soviet Union, have some of the highest
gun ownership in the world.
Andrew Swallow
Andrew Swallow
<tna...@direct.ca> writes:
>
>Most of the historians I've ever read, all of whom don't buy the conspiracy,
>point out the ships that sank were border-line "obsolete". The newer ships
>were out with almost all the carriers on maneuvers in the Pacific. They
>then further argued that because of the older ships being lost, America
>could invest in a newer fleet. Of course, this was explained as being
>"lucky".
'Obsolete' i.e. the ships with faulty engines and leaking hulls. So the
captains of the seaworthy vessels had taken their ships out to sea. So the
only ships the Japanese got were the ones that could not run away.
Andrew Swallow
Tom Holt
The message <3920B764...@home.com>
from Steven Dalla Vicenza <scda...@home.com> contains these words:
> > In the meantime, bear in mind that only a "government" can start a
> > war, and that since you can NOT effectively invade a nation where
> > all the citizens are armed, the simplest deterrent to war is the
> > kind of thing that was built into the U.S. Constitution; remember
> > that the Constitution sought to make it difficult-to-impossible to
> > maintain a standing army, and tried to insure that every citizen
> > was armed. You don't *need* an army when no one can invade and
> > hold your territory; and nukes and biowar notwithstanding, there's
> > no point in war if you're not prepared to attempt to garrison and
> > hold the enemy's territory.
> Okay untrained militia versus professional army, their is only one way
> this is going.
Indeed; the way it went in (for example) Afghanistan.
Tom Holt
The message <8eBU4.2240$86.3...@news2-win.server.ntlworld.com>
from "Iain Clark" <iain.c...@virgin.net> contains these words:
> Not wanting to get into a big discussion about this, but putting aside the
> historical context, surely you can have free speech without needing a legal
> right to own guns?
Also not wanting to get into a big discussion about this, but;
history teaches us, no you can't.
James Bell
> In article <3920D64D...@home.com>, Greywind <hj...@home.com> writes:
>
> >That's a very dangerous view to take. If you care to do a little
> >research, look into the history of disarming of citizens... Right
> >now the government is trying it's best to remove the right to keep
> >and bear arms.. Everyone likes free speech but it's foundation rests
> >on arms.
> >
>
> British towns have been disarmed for over a hundred years. This has not
> affected our right to insult the government.
This is because your government *chooses* to allow you the right to insult it.
What would it be in your power to do if the government decides to recind that right
as well as any others it sees fit?
> On the other hand the citizens of
> totalitarian countries, including the Soviet Union, have some of the highest
> gun ownership in the world.
That's easy to say. Where can we find that data, please? Thanks.
Jim
Tom Holt
The message <20000517181600...@nso-fc.news.cs.com>
from andrewm...@cs.com (Andrew Swallow) contains these words:
> In article <3920D64D...@home.com>, Greywind <hj...@home.com> writes:
> >That's a very dangerous view to take. If you care to do a little
> >research, look into the history of disarming of citizens... Right
> >now the government is trying it's best to remove the right to keep
> >and bear arms.. Everyone likes free speech but it's foundation rests
> >on arms.
> >
> British towns have been disarmed for over a hundred years.
Untrue. Until 1968, gun ownership was quite widespread in the UK, up
to which point certain categories of firearm were effectively
unrestricted, and even the more 'dangerous' varieties were registered
but freely available. Confiscation only started in 1988, at which
point there were 1.5 million licensed gun owners in the UK;
approximately one household in ten.
Pål Are Nordal
>
> The message <8fsdre$4ki$1...@solaria.cc.gatech.edu>
> from ro...@cc.gatech.edu (Ronald P. Peterson) contains these words:
>
> > You forgot links that show how Elvis and JFK are still alive. Nor any of
> > the Roswell truths. :)
>
> same species whose scout-ship crashed at Roswell. Recently, they came
> back and added Princess Di to their collection.
>
> They don't style themselves 'the finest toxic waste disposal agency
> in the galaxy' for nothing, you know.
Sadly, that all came to an end in 2258, when they were slapped with a lawsuit.
--
Donate free food with a simple click: http://www.thehungersite.com/
Pål Are Nordal
a_b...@bigfoot.com
Andrew Swallow
<lemmi...@zetnet.co.uk> writes:
> British towns have been disarmed for over a hundred years.
>
>Untrue. Until 1968, gun ownership was quite widespread in the UK, up
>to which point certain categories of firearm were effectively
>unrestricted, and even the more 'dangerous' varieties were registered
>but freely available. Confiscation only started in 1988, at which
>point there were 1.5 million licensed gun owners in the UK;
>approximately one household in ten.
>
Most of those guns were in the countryside. Mainly because that is where the
rabbits were. I was careful to say towns.
It is not accidental that the traditional weapon used by a British bank robber
is a sawn off shot gun. Simply because that is what he could get.
Andrew Swallow
Tom Holt
The message <20000517203234...@nso-fc.news.cs.com>
from andrewm...@cs.com (Andrew Swallow) contains these words:
> I was careful to say towns.
But careless enough to say 'disarmed for over a hundred years', or
words to that effect.
> It is not accidental that the traditional weapon used by a British bank robber
> is a sawn off shot gun.
Untrue. Try getting your facts from the Home Office statistics rather
than reruns of 'The Sweeney'
WWS
Wrong-0. The Americans were very lucky that the three major carriers
were out of harbor (and owe a great debt to, iirc, Commander Spruance
who insisted on not letting his carrier get bottled up in a harbor,
although everyone else at his level thought he was being needlessly
paranoid) What was left at harbor was *all* of America's Pacific
Fleet battleships, which at the time were still believed to be the
decisive element of any naval task force. *No One* at the time
believed they were obsolete. The explanation given above that it
wasn't really so bad is heavy on hindsight at best, and shameless
retcon at worst.
If the Japanese had launched their second strike (as they should
have) and completely wiped out Pearl and all its defenses, the
Japanese fleet could have come in close and just waited for the
carriers to try to come back, or have forced them to head for
San Diego, thus ceding the Pacific to Japan for good. The
Japanese commanders failure to do this (and failure to percieve
this as necessary) is inexplicable, and gave away any strategic
advantage that the attack had gained. Hard to explain how
Roosevelt and his supposed co-conspirators talked the Japanese
into committing an act of gross stupidity at the moment of
their greatest triumph.
--
__________________________________________________WWS_____________
Frank McKenney
> What people also tend to forget is that, up until World War II, the U.S.
>military was pretty much of a joke.
--snip--
> So the people running the U.S. military in 1941 were marginally competent at
>best. Pearl Harbor and our subsequent experiences in WW2 changed a lot of thinking
>about how we run our army.
It's an odd thing, and I'm not sure it's strictly American/British, but
respect for (and support of) The Military seems to fall off after a
conflict, and only pick up again _after_ the next conflict begins. It's
as if we resented (and delayed, and maybe stopped) paying for the local
Fire Department until we saw the houses around ours going up in flames.
When we don't see an immediate need for military force, we seem to
gradually lose our understanding of the need for, and then our respect
for, the armed services. For a description of the current Congressional
attitude toward the U.S. armed forces, see Stephanie Gutman's "The
Kinder, Gentler Military: Can America's Gender-Neutral Fighting Force
Still Win Wars?". Not reassuring.
Frank McKenney, McKenney Associates
Richmond, Virginia / (804) 320-4887
E-mail: frank_m...@mindspring.com
Frank McKenney
>Granted but the Fleet lost Battleships and cruisers all the Major
>engagements, Coral Sea, Midway and the Philippine Sea were fought with
>aircraft carriers. the USN knew that in a war between themselves and
>the Japanese that there Battleships wouldn't count for anything. They
>were out gunned by the much larger Japanese Battleships. they lost
>little of strategic significance in the raid.
Steven,
I make no claim to being a scholar, or even a "history buff", but my
impression is that right up to Pearl Harbor (and probably a few months
afterwards (;-)) the Conventional U.S. Navy Thinking was that
battleships were the heart of the fleet. Opposing fleets would pull up
and shell each other to death, and the bigggest and mostest guns won.
Sort of the aquatic version of WWI trench warfare (;-),
Per this line of reasoning, the disaster at Pearl Harbor might have been
the _only_ thing that could have gotten through to the Navy leadership
and made them take the aircraft carrier seriously ("when all you have is
lemons, ...").
The idea that "Battleships wouldn't count for anything" is _our_ view
looking backwards, well after the facts. As far as I can tell it did
not represent the official (or unofficial) attitude or thinking of the
U.S. Navy at the time.
Corrections and updates from those who have studied the matter will be
appreciated (okay, suffered (;-)).
Frank McKenney
Shaz
> If the Japanese had launched their second strike (as they should
> have) and completely wiped out Pearl and all its defenses, the
> Japanese fleet could have come in close and just waited for the
> carriers to try to come back, or have forced them to head for
> San Diego, thus ceding the Pacific to Japan for good. The
> Japanese commanders failure to do this (and failure to percieve
> this as necessary) is inexplicable, and gave away any strategic
> advantage that the attack had gained. Hard to explain how
> Roosevelt and his supposed co-conspirators talked the Japanese
> into committing an act of gross stupidity at the moment of
> their greatest triumph.
Kinda like the Minbari at the Battle of the Line.
Good lord, I just got this back on topic, inasmuch as we have one! <G>
Shaz
Iain Rae
>
> In <3920975b.2877519@news>, home...@futureangels.com (Stephen C. Smith) writes:
> > What people also tend to forget is that, up until World War II, the U.S.
> >military was pretty much of a joke.
> --snip--
> > So the people running the U.S. military in 1941 were marginally competent at
> >best. Pearl Harbor and our subsequent experiences in WW2 changed a lot of thinking
> >about how we run our army.
>
> It's an odd thing, and I'm not sure it's strictly American/British, but
> respect for (and support of) The Military seems to fall off after a
> conflict, and only pick up again _after_ the next conflict begins. It's
> as if we resented (and delayed, and maybe stopped) paying for the local
> Fire Department until we saw the houses around ours going up in flames.
>
http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/43.html
> When we don't see an immediate need for military force, we seem to
> gradually lose our understanding of the need for, and then our respect
> for, the armed services. For a description of the current Congressional
> attitude toward the U.S. armed forces, see Stephanie Gutman's "The
> Kinder, Gentler Military: Can America's Gender-Neutral Fighting Force
> Still Win Wars?". Not reassuring.
>
There has been much in the UK press recently about the British Troops
deployed to Sierra Leone (sp) this includes 600 Marines in the Commando
Carrier Ocean. It's Ocean's first active deployment. During the 50's and
60's the RN had 3 such carriers but they were scrapped because the then
government couldn't see a need for them. There were howls of anguish in
the MOD at the time that this capability was being thrown away along
with the big carriers. Now 20 years later we're having to rebuild the
capability but we have lost a generation of knowledge in building the
dammed things.
> Frank McKenney, McKenney Associates
> Richmond, Virginia / (804) 320-4887
> E-mail: frank_m...@mindspring.com
--
John W. Kennedy
>
> What people also tend to forget is that, up until World War II, the U.S.
> military was pretty much of a joke.
Hardly that. The US had long had a policy of minimizing the standing
army, beyond what was necessary for Amerind suppression and a
professional officer corps, but it was effective enough in crisis.
> believe it or not, up until WW2 conventional army theory still believed the cavalry
> was the best means of attack!
That is simply not true. The US still had a little operating cavalry in
those days (for mobility in mountainous terrain), but WWI had
demonstrated very neatly that the day of cavalry as a major force was
over.
WWS
"Gerard J Keating (Ireland)" wrote:
>
> > the fact is that they just blew it. In hindsight, a blind dog
> > could have seen this coming, but they still got caught off
> > guard.
> >
> > The biggest difference between genius and stupidity
> > is that genius has it's limits.
> >
>
> kind of like this disaster in the Netherlands over the weekend, most people
> would think it unwise to to allow a warehouse with one hundred tonnes of
> fireworks to operate in the centre of a town...
That must have been an incredible explosion, yes, amazing that they
would allow so many people so close to it. Mexico had something
similar happen a while back. (oh, hell Mexico has something similar
happen every 6 months)
I remember a amateur video I saw broacast once of an explosion like
this several years ago - it was of a fire and explosion at a Thiokol
plant in Nevada, which made rocket engines. Fortunately, this plant
was out in a desert by itself, several miles from the nearest structure.
A fire had started, and some guy had heard about it on a police scanner
and drove up to an overlook on a nearby range peak, about a mile
away. Great view of the plant. The fire was originally small, but
at some point all of a sudden the plant personel realized they weren't
going to stop it and "abandoned ship", as it were. Luckily they had
about 15 minutes, some drove, some ran, but everyone got as far away
from it as they could. (Even on foot, you can get a long way in 15
minutes if you're motivated enough) And so amazingly, no one was killed.
Because what the camera caught next was a detonation that was the next
best thing to a nuke you'd want to see. The most impressive part was
the 2 - 3 foot tall ground wave you could see rolling away through the
desert floor in an expanding circle, and the way you could see the
camera jar badly when that wave reached the cameraman, a mile away.
Next day, there was a photo of the aftermath - a very large and
important installation had been reduced to a few patches of
concrete foundation, with an especially large crater in the middle.
I kind of wonder if that's what the Netherlands explosion looked
like.
Terry Rubenstein
Tom Holt wrote:
Nonsense. Canadians have no such constitutional right and yet we have no problem bitching at/about our government. I believe the same can be said about the Brits. This need to have guns to protect yourself from your own government only seems to exist in countries that were born out of revolution, there is a built in paranoia.
James Bell
I'll repeat the question I asked earlier in the thread, which went unanswered: What would it be in your power to do if the government decides to recind that right (free speech) as well as any others it sees fit?
Jim
Gharlane of Eddore
> military was pretty much of a joke.
>
In 1940, even after demonstrations to the contrary, we still had high-
ranking Naval brass insisting that an airplane could never be a danger
to a ship at sea; we had Cavalry officers in the U.S. Army who still
wore spurs at work, and maintained that mules and horses were the
best travel option in rough country; we had a military largely
convinced that the only really effective use of aircraft would be in
scouting, and a good many generals looking for an excuse to burn
all the airplanes and put their pilots on the ground, supervising
infantry platoons, so they'd be of some use....
We still had senior Navy types who were convinced that submarines
would never amount to a hill of beans, despite their use in WWI
and huge technical improvement...
--snip--
>
> So the people running the U.S. military in 1941 were marginally competent
> at best. Pearl Harbor and our subsequent experiences in WW2 changed a
> lot of thinking about how we run our army.
>
Actually, I tend toward the belief that they were hugely competent,
and largely quite professional, just hamstrung by their training
and the diversion of budget from manufacturing, technology, and
defense issues to things like the "Civilian Construction Corps"
in the 1930's, and the re-tasking of large components of the U.S.
Military, such as the Army Corps of Engineers, on civilian projects
that should have been bid by entirely civilian operations.
In <8g0qe5$vi7$1...@slb6.atl.mindspring.net>
frank_m...@mindspring.com writes:
>
> It's an odd thing, and I'm not sure it's strictly American/British, but
> respect for (and support of) The Military seems to fall off after a
> conflict, and only pick up again _after_ the next conflict begins. It's
> as if we resented (and delayed, and maybe stopped) paying for the local
> Fire Department until we saw the houses around ours going up in flames.
>
See Kipling's poem about the "Thin Red Line," and the civilians'
attitudes toward the military in and out of peacetime... this
problem will probably never go away.
>
> When we don't see an immediate need for military force, we seem to
> gradually lose our understanding of the need for, and then our respect
> for, the armed services. For a description of the current Congressional
> attitude toward the U.S. armed forces, see Stephanie Gutman's "The
> Kinder, Gentler Military: Can America's Gender-Neutral Fighting Force
> Still Win Wars?". Not reassuring.
>
Dang straight. We have a huge number of major military units which
are non-deployable ( or deployable only at fractional strength ) due
to "non-deployable personnel." I.e. you can't send a pregnant lady
into combat, and it's accepted that you can't deploy a lady with
very young children at home.
My problem with this is best exemplified by the uniform referred to
as "Maternity BDU's."
"BDU" is "Battle Dress Uniform," the modern jargon phrase for "fatigues."
If you're not fit for battle, you shouldn't be wearing BDU's like a
Halloween costume; you should be assigned to duties you can handle
reliably. Women are better multiple-process trackers than men,
and have better long-term stress stability; no one expects women to
achieve the same upper-body strength as men without extra training
and conditioning, just as they don't expect little guys to carry
huge loads of ammo. There are *differences* between men and women,
and we ignore these differences at our peril.
Historically, the U.S. military has been receptive to, and effective
in, employing personnel with different capacities.
This is why, in the traditional army, the littlest guys were trained
with BAR's ( "Browning Automatic Rifles," for those who don't
gloat over Military TLA's. ( Three-Letter Acronyms ) ) ... the
BAR's are bigger and heavier than normal rifles, harder to move;
so they're a relatively stationary target... so you put a LITTLE
guy on one, and assign him a BIGGER than average guy to tote his
ammunition.. the big guy can move around and dodge, but the little
guy will have to stay fairly localized, and it's only good sense
to use a guy who will be a SMALLER target....
My point is that you can NOT just legislate "equality" when people
are *not* "equal." You use people where they can do their best work
and aid in the common goal, *NOT* pull down the capacity of the
unit by requiring special consideration and treatment. I see no
reason not to put women in the cockpits of fighter aircraft, since
they've proven they can be very very good indeed at that sort of
thing; and the physical selection criteria for pilots is so stringent
that anyone who makes it, man, woman, or whatever, is going to be a
humdinger anyway. ( The U.S. military, even in its current debilitated
state, still fields the finest, best-trained pilots in the world. )
But ground-combat troops tend to be drawn primarily from a personnel
pool that isn't predicated on the type of physical and mental capacity
of combat pilots; younger people with less specialist goals, and
immediate personal priorities involving marriage and family. This
selects strongly for younger women who are just starting families,
and the result is Not Good.
While there might be a long-term solution in terms of birth-control
contracts and scheduling duty assignments to provide for periods of
maternity, and this *is* being attempted, the complexity of the
management issues involved is simply not a good use of operational
time; that's tax money, personnel time, and operational capacity
going down the tubes on child care and "non-deployable personnel."
My suggestions in the matter would be to discourage female enlistments
for the enlisted grades, and to practice massive personnel rotation
among junior female officers, to insure they get the widest possible
field experience, specifically including combat; and then fast-track
them toward specialist assignments ( primarily combat aircrew ) and
management and command-staff training; this would put experienced,
qualified personnel into stateside chain of command, and rear-area
support units in the field, thus freeing up more readily replaceable
and assignable males for roving assignments. I see nothing at all wrong
with a large percentage of Pentagon management with dual X chromosomes,
as long as they've fulfilled training requirements with no soft grading
just because they're women... and of course, seen some combat.
This would be a vastly higher-yield approach than the top-down
legislated "equality" we're seeing in the "feminized" U.S. military.
Women in the U.S. military academies, dang straight. They *belong*
there; the U.S. is going to be in a world of hurt in a few more years,
and we simply cannot afford to waste any of our top potential merely
on the basis of plumbing. ( Any more than we can on the basis of
skin color or nationality of last name. ) Either we're Americans,
members of an egalitarian society where anyone can get what he or
she earns, or we're not going to make it against the authoritarian
socialist organizations chipping away at us from all sides.
Other comments on "readiness" of the U.S. military; at some point,
someone needs to get really serious about looking at what we're giving
our guys to fight *with.* Beginning in the 1950's, the U.S. Army
began a radical shift in combat philosophy, diverging strongly from
the "citizen-soldier" concept, and aping the Asian and European
approach to training and equippage. We stopped teaching our soldiers
basic marksmanship, and looked around for rifle designs that were
basically long-nosed pistols. The .223 Remington cartridge was
basically a light hunting load, specifically optimized for keeping
coyotes out of the chicken coop, and zapping prairie dogs before
they dug enough holes to break the legs off all your cattle.
It was *not* for hunting, not for killing things the size of deer,
or men.
And yet, we ended up pressuring Armalite Corporation to task their
best designer, Eugene Stoner, to trim down a *real* rifle to make
something light and cheap that would shoot .223 Remington.
Stoner redesigned his classic Armalite-10, a .308-based rifle
with considerable respectability, to yield a selectable-fire
rifle, the M-16, that could be used like a spray-gun in combat
situations. This was the first U.S. "Conscript Gun," a firearm
designed for use by minimally trained personnel with limited
marksmanship competence; since their odds of hitting anything
was danged poor to start with, they'd need something that acted
like a machine gun just to stand a chance of hitting anything.
( In combat, the *primary* use of an automatic weapon is not
anti-personnel, but rather area interdiction; laying down
spurts of unaimed fire to keep the enemy pinned down. )
The M-16, as issued for the first couple of decades of its existence,
was probably the least lethal rifle the U.S. has ever fielded; it
was a tacit acknowledgement that our soldiers weren't arms-competent
civilians expecting to go home, or professional military technicians
in control of their tools; it was a bald-faced statement that our
fighting men were incompetent draftees, and would henceforth be
equipped with mildly dangerous bullet hoses like the guys from eastern
Europe and Russia and China.
( In recent years, of course, technological improvements have made it
possible to actually hit things reliably with M-16 type rifles, and
they are now being used by national match teams... but it took nearly
forty years to reverse-engineer the design into a rifle that could
hit the target at over 300 yards, and they *still* don't have enough
impact energy to do the job. They're for plinking and varmints, for
small game; *not* for fighting wars. )
Similarly, we've tossed aside our sidearms. In 1911, the people at
Colt Manufacturing licensed a brilliant design from the well-known
Mormon engineer, John Moses Browning. ( Nothing like being a member
of a religious minority hounded from Illinois to Utah by religious
bigots to give you an appreciation for good weapons design. )
The Colt Model 1911 .45 ACP was one of those timeless, perfect designs.
A decade or two later, they decided to upgrade the design, and the
best they could come up with by way of improvement was a couple of
fiddling changes in the safety system and cosmetics. The Model 1911
and Model 1911A1 were our official military sidearm until 1985, nearly
three-fourths of a century.
The U.S. stopped using the M1911 after a decade or two of fiddling
around, looking for a "better" sidearm. The decision was made to
go to the 9mm "Parabellum" cartridge, although this provided no
real benefit; ...possibly because it was the standard military pistol
cartridge of most of the NATO nations. ( The 9mm is smaller,
about a .36 caliber; all things being roughly equal, it does tend
to have a higher impact energy, but tends not to be quite as
effective, due to the smaller size, unless you use expensive
high-shock ammo. )
The primary reason given for the U.S. choice of 9mm was "cheapness;"
the ammo is smaller, and costs less. ( Of course, if you have to shoot
twice as many rounds to do the job, you've just lost money; but this
point seems to have escaped the evaluation boards. )
The competition and selection trials were a wonder to behold; a
number of excellent 9mm pistols were submitted, but for *some* reason,
the U.S. decided to go with the 9mm Beretta, mechanically the worst
design, and ergonomically the least shootable, out of the whole
submission procedure. ( Urban Myth has it that the choice had
something to do with the U.S. needing to butter up Italy to get
some missile bases in place there, but this is Just Hearsay. )
We *could* have gone with the SIG, the Colt, the Browning, even
the Glock, and had a vastly superior tool. ( Colt and Browning
both created and submitted special designs, excellent machinery. )
Instead, we got clunky, inaccurate, temperamental, *dangerous*
pistols.
For a time the U.S. Marine Corps was arbitrarily replacing Beretta
slides every X hundred rounds, because so many of them broke and
hit people in the face. ( This is *not* the case now, and has not
been for several years; the current Beretta is a good alloy, with
good heat treats, and I want to make it clear that I am *not*
asserting that it is a dangerous product. ) This had something to
do with why the SEAL teams switched over to SIG pistols, and many
officers in many services have chosen to carry "personal sidearms."
Since this is hitting 250 lines, and it's coming up on the end of
my "lunch hour," , I'm going to cut this short, wipe the figurative
rabid foam off my figurative chin, and wind this up; but I'm good
for hours on this subject.
My point is that we literally placed our troops at RISK by procuring
weapons on what appears to have been political, rather than engineering,
considerations. Our troops are in the field with light, relatively
gutless rifles that are only now, after FOUR DECADES, beginning to
become useful (within stringent power limits) for anything but
"spray and pray" operations at short distances; with clunky pistols
that were *not* the best choice ( in my admittedly biased opinion! )
and which are hard to shoot accurately without far more training than
the average soldier is likely to see.
One of our nation's premier manufacturing companies, Colt, pulled up
stakes and moved to ARGENTINA back around '89, probably to get away
from lawsuits and dependence on government contracts that were being
used as bargaining chips to rent real estate in foreign nations; and
almost certainly to dodge the negativity coming from federal legislation
on civilian sales of Colt light rifles based on the Stoner design.
( And I'm sure everyone here is aware of the fact that Smith & Wesson
was bought by a BRITISH organization, and due to the political climate,
recently signed an agreement with the U.S. "government" to get out
from under the lawsuits long enough to sell the corporation to
anyone fool enough to want it... )
And this is my major point: We're gutting our military, we're gutting
our defense-related industry, and we're giving away the lives and
efforts of our fighting men and women, reneging on our promises to
the few hold-out nations who are actually on our side ( vide the
ongoing abandonment of Taiwan ) ... and we wonder why our military
is unready? Every single day, some politician gives away more of
what our military fought for, more of what our founding fathers
risked and died for, and tosses away more of our military in the
name of "equality" or in the name of "diplomacy."
The U.S. doesn't really need a lot of nukes, but it *does* need
tough, well-conditioned b*st*rds who know how to shoot their M-14's,
( or preferably, AR-10's, but they never had the brains to buy a
bunch of those! )
and are in good enough shape to carry them twenty miles through a
muddy forest and then use them. And all we've *got* is aging
nukes whose yield is dropping off due to isotopic decay.
Yeah, we have a slight problem with our military's readiness level.
My suggestion is, use the Kennesaw, Georgia laws as a model for the
nation; require every single household in the U.S. to possess at
least one firearm and ammunition. At that point, we become as hard
to invade as Switzerland, and we can trim back our military and start
to re-form it, possibly along classical military lines.
Okay, I'll shut up now. Presuming you've even read this far!
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( merge the two " + " characters for 3-D effect. (c) GoE, 1997 )
WWS
James Bell wrote:
>
> Terry Rubenstein wrote:
>
> > Tom Holt wrote:
> >
> > > The message <8eBU4.2240$86.3...@news2-win.server.ntlworld.com>
> > > from "Iain Clark" <iain.c...@virgin.net> contains these words:
> > >
> > > > Not wanting to get into a big discussion about this, but putting aside the
> > > > historical context, surely you can have free speech without needing a legal
> > > > right to own guns?
> > >
> > > Also not wanting to get into a big discussion about this, but;
> > > history teaches us, no you can't.
> >
> > Nonsense. Canadians have no such constitutional right and yet we have no
> > problem bitching at/about our government. I believe the same can be said
> > about the Brits. This need to have guns to protect yourself from your own
> > government only seems to exist in countries that were born out of revolution,
> > there is a built in paranoia.
Hell, the average American high school student body has more weapons and better
combat training than some third world countries.
>
> I'll repeat the question I asked earlier in the thread, which went unanswered:
> What would it be in your power to do if the government decides to recind that
> right (free speech) as well as any others it sees fit?
Well there's always the old fertilizer mixed with diesel in the van trick.
Although I think making all of the oppressor's computers chant ILOVEYOU
in unison has a lot more panache, and is a lot cleaner.
--
_________________________________________________WWS_____________
You need to read the Monkeywrench gang. Or watch Fight Club.
Andrew Swallow
frank_m...@mindspring.com (Frank McKenney) writes:
>The idea that "Battleships wouldn't count for anything" is _our_ view
>looking backwards, well after the facts. As far as I can tell it did
>not represent the official (or unofficial) attitude or thinking of the
>U.S. Navy at the time.
>
There is an old saying. Generals prepare to fight the last war. The same
applies to admirals. In WW1 there was no major aircraft carrier battle -
bomber air craft had insufficient bomb loads and flight decks took a bit of
designing. Hence the admirals would not have expecting their big war ships to
be destroyed by little aircraft. Twentieth century battles are about high
ranking officers learning how to use the new weapons.
Andrew Swallow
Andrew Swallow
frank_m...@mindspring.com (Frank McKenney) writes:
>
>When we don't see an immediate need for military force, we seem to
>gradually lose our understanding of the need for, and then our respect
>for, the armed services. For a description of the current Congressional
>attitude toward the U.S. armed forces, see Stephanie Gutman's "The
>Kinder, Gentler Military: Can America's Gender-Neutral Fighting Force
>Still Win Wars?". Not reassuring.
>
Do you mean as in 'Report dated 2150 - Rape as a weapon of War'? How the xxxx
used the raping of captured US female soldiers to beat the much stronger
American Army - by destroying its morale?
Andrew Swallow
Andrew Swallow
>> It is not accidental that the traditional weapon used by a British bank
>robber
>> is a sawn off shot gun.
>
>Untrue. Try getting your facts from the Home Office statistics rather
>than reruns of 'The Sweeney'
Odd that tv and films would chose to use the wrong weapon. A normal hand gun
is much more believable.
Andrew Swallow
Andrew Swallow
>
>I'll repeat the question I asked earlier in the thread, which went
>unanswered: What would it be in your power to do if the government decides
>to recind that right (free speech) as well as any others it sees fit?
>
>Jim
1. Ignore the government. (Politicians hate being ignored.)
2. Go on strike.
3. Warn the foreigners to supply weapons strictly on cash on delivery terms.
The replacement government will not be paying arms bills.
Andrew Swallow
Andrew Swallow
frank_m...@mindspring.com (Frank McKenney) writes:
>
>It's an odd thing, and I'm not sure it's strictly American/British, but
>respect for (and support of) The Military seems to fall off after a
>conflict, and only pick up again _after_ the next conflict begins. It's
>as if we resented (and delayed, and maybe stopped) paying for the local
>Fire Department until we saw the houses around ours going up in flames.
>
>When we don't see an immediate need for military force, we seem to
>gradually lose our understanding of the need for, and then our respect
>for, the armed services.[snip]
There is probably more than one reason for this. The first is simple cost
minimisation.
My second reason is a more complex one. The military has two main tasks -
defence and attack. Defence from whom? Currently the British Army is
defending Britain from attach by the Irish Republic. The US Army is defending
the USA from attack by only 2 countries Canada and Mexico. None of these
countries are a major military threat.
Defence against all other countries is performed by the Navy and Air Force.
The US and UK Armies are there for the other military task - attack. At one
months notice the British Army can invade a South American country - see the
Falklands War. At one weeks notice the US Army can invade a Caribbean Country
- see the Grenada War.
Since we are not planning to invade anyone at the moment, a major attack weapon
is a dangerous luxury. When the war has started - a major attack weapon, such
as the army, is needed. The popularity of the military goes up appropriately.
Andrew Swallow
My views are my own. They may not be the same as the views of my employer or
my government.
Iain Rae
> frank_m...@mindspring.com (Frank McKenney) writes:
>
> >
> >It's an odd thing, and I'm not sure it's strictly American/British, but
> >respect for (and support of) The Military seems to fall off after a
> >conflict, and only pick up again _after_ the next conflict begins. It's
> >as if we resented (and delayed, and maybe stopped) paying for the local
> >Fire Department until we saw the houses around ours going up in flames.
> >
> >When we don't see an immediate need for military force, we seem to
> >gradually lose our understanding of the need for, and then our respect
> >for, the armed services.[snip]
>
> There is probably more than one reason for this. The first is simple cost
> minimisation.
>
> My second reason is a more complex one. The military has two main tasks -
> defence and attack. Defence from whom? Currently the British Army is
> defending Britain from attach by the Irish Republic. The US Army is defending
> the USA from attack by only 2 countries Canada and Mexico. None of these
> countries are a major military threat.
>
Damn did we give up Gibralta already? then there's the Fallands, the south
sandwich Islands and all those little flyspecs in the pacific which are sill
Imperial pink. Not to mention all the dependant Territories and treaty obligations
like Belezie (sp).Also bear in mind that in the last century the Army and Royal
Marines have had people on active service overseas for all but half a dozen or so
years
>
> Defence against all other countries is performed by the Navy and Air Force.
>
> The US and UK Armies are there for the other military task - attack. At one
> months notice the British Army can invade a South American country - see the
> Falklands War.
Could, we no longer have enough ships to transfer that number of troops that
distance and support them, screen them from attack etc. Certainly we don't have
the merchant ships to carry the supplies. and we no longer have the troops to
spare. Ironically if the Argentinians had waited 6 months they would have owned 2
of the key ships used against them.
Andre Lieven
> Arkham wrote:
>>
>> On one episode (can't remember which one), somebody listed off all the
>> famous sneak attacks in history, including Pearl Harbor.
>>
>> Not being American, I'm not that familiar with the finer details of your
>> history, so I was surprised to come across this page:
>> http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/6315/pearl.html
>>
>> I know that JMS is a big WW2 buff and was wondering what his - or
>> anybody's - take was on this.
>
> That accusation's been around a long time. Roosevelt had a lot
> of enemies, and still does. Check out Pat Buchanon for one who
> subscribes to this.
Well, I wouldn't listen to that nut. <g>
Seriously, there has been a lot of discussion of whether or not the
President had any fore knowledge of any sort of Japanese attack, in the
pages of United States Naval Institute Proceedings. I subscibe to that
journal, and the best information now available, strongly suggests that
no one, including Roosevelt knew that anything was coming. Or, that
they worked at getting Japan to attack them, aside from the pathetic
ploy with a sailing boat in the Philippines ( can't remember the boat's
name just now ).
>
> There were an incredible number of warnings about the attack. In
> retrospect, it's natural to find it hard to believe that the Navy
> could know so much and still be so lackadaisacal in it's security
> and fail to take the situation seriously.
Twenty years of peace time, and an increasing concentration on the
Atlantic, where an undeclared war was going on. Ask anyone aboard the
USS Reuben James, and the Kearny. Both torpedoed by U Boats.
> The problem with this
> scenario is that any one of a hundred different things could have
> derailed it totally. What if the inexperienced radar operator
> would have had a phone?
He did have one, connected to his reporting HQ.
> What if he had questioned the assurance
> that he was just seeing a flight of B-17's?
JO's of that time, did not question their orders. Good ones now,
might inquire, but will not disobey, either.
> What if he *Hadn't* decided to knock off and go home when his shift was up?
Orders again...
> What if anyone in command at Pearl had decided to put up even minimal
> airborne screens as they should have, given the tension of the situation?
That depends on what you would define as " minimal airborne screens ".
Remember, that back in 1941, there were no such things as airborne
radar early warning planes. So, to screen out the area, and do a
surface search, Admiral Kimmel had stated that he would need around 180
B-17's, then the longest ranging aircraft available. IIRC, there were
not 180 B-17's in total US inventory at that time. So, his request was
not a possible one to fill at that time.
Otherwise, what could have been done, in providing an airborne screen ?
Rotating shifts of fighters could have been useful, except for the
following:
Back then, aircraft had short service lives, and wear and tear did
take a much heavier toll on planes. So, flying them almost continuously
would have greatly diminished the flightworthy number of aircraft, day
in and day out. So, a couple of weeks into such a scheme, Pearl Harbor's
flightworthy fleet ( as small as it was ) of fighters would have been
halved. With more attrition as time went on. Remember, too, that *all*
such supplies had to come from the continental US, which, at that time
was out of range of most aircraft. So, any replacement fighters, *if
at all available*, would have to come on a merchant ship.
Beyond that, if a shift of fighters had been kept up, how many might that
have been ? With the endurances of fighters then in service, P-40's,
and lesser craft, a flight a day would have been doing well. Dividing
that number, with flight times, and available planes, and a shift might
well have not been more than 12-16 fighters. The first Japanese attack
wave was some 180 planes, including well over a dozen A6M Zero fighters,
flown by the cream of the IJN's pilots, who would have made short work
of a small group of obsolescent planes aloft.
> It's natural to want to blame a conspiracy, because we
> hate to believe that absolute sheer stupidity can have such
> a huge impact on our history, and by extension our lives.
But, it would be blinding one's self to what is, to try to hide in
mythical conspiracies. Most of which are far more improbable than
the truth.
> But the fact is that they just blew it. In hindsight, a blind dog
> could have seen this coming, but they still got caught off guard.
I have to disagree with the " blind dog " comment. A Blind dog,
holding a copy of Walter Lord's " Day Of Infamy " might have been
able to see it coming, if he had had a reading eye human. But, the
events of the first week of December of 1941 were a busy time,
all over the planet. For instance, the Soviet offensive in front of
Moscow had just started, and upon it hinged whether or not the
USSR would be able to fight off the Nazi invasion. As the main force
that fought Germany on land was the Red Army, this was a matter of
great consequence to the UK, and the US.
Plus, far less was known about a myriad of the Japanese Navy's
capabilities, at that time. The very existance of six full fleet carriers
was not yet understood ( understandable, as two of them had just
been commissioned into the IJN ), nor was their employment as a
separate force understood, either. At that time, US doctrine called
for the US carriers to work as an outer scouting force, limited to
attacks on other carriers. Even after Dec 7th, it was to be another
near two years before the US Navy would put a carrier task force to
sea that was as powerful as the Kido Butai's six carriers.
The US fought most of their 1942 carrier battles, with their carriers
fighting alone, in single carrier task forces. This led to greater
US losses, as one carrier both is less able to project her powers,
and defend herself, and her escort. So, two very small attacks
caused fatal damage to the Yorktown at Midway. Had all three carriers
fought as one force, those attacks would have been far less effective,
in the face of a three carrier combat air patrol, and three screens
worth of A/A fire.
Pearl Harbor was, on many levels, a great surprise to all. Even to
Japan, where they expected to lose at least one carrier in the doing.
>
> The biggest difference between genius and stupidity
> is that genius has it's limits.
> --
> _________________________________________________WWS_____________
>
> See Battlefield Earth for proof of that proposition.
Andre
--
" The noblest achievement of the imagination is to make time run some
other way, and terminate in beauty and forgivness "
David Gelernter, " 1939 "
Jon Niehof
> it or not, up until WW2 conventional army theory still
> believed the cavalry was the best means of attack!
final defense of the Phillipines, in case anyone was wonder
(*not* during the Mexican-American war, despite what my high
school history book said...sigh..).
Of course, bear in mind that the tanks in WWI weren't
horribly effective--they tended to get bogged down in mud
and such, and the trenches didn't help any. It took serious
foresight to understand the eventual value of the tank.
--Jon, N9RUJ jnie...@calvin.edu www.calvin.edu/~jnieho38
Close the world...txen eht nepO
Serial Experiments Lain
David C.
>
> There were an incredible number of warnings about the attack. In
> retrospect, it's natural to find it hard to believe that the Navy
> could know so much and still be so lackadaisacal in it's security and
> is that any one of a hundred different things could have derailed it
> totally. What if the inexperienced radar operator would have had a
> phone?
This whole thing was the focus of a segment of a program on The History
Channel.
The radar operator (they were all inexperienced - radar was only
invented the year before!) did notify his superiors. The problem here
was that radar was a brand new invention. It had never before been used
by the US as part of an early-warning system (the British were using it
against Germany, but that's another story). The top brass in the
Pentagon didn't trust it. So when they got the reports, they took no
action until they could be confirmed independantly.
After the attack, needless to say, the entire chain of command quickly
grew to respect this technology that, had they believed it, would have
allowed the US to be prepared for the attack.
We see the same thing all the time. When something is invented, only
the techs who invented it know how it works. Everybody else mistrusts
it. And with good reason - new inventions usually don't completely live
up to their promises. Once the invention is field tested for a while,
however, people grow to trust it.
It's unfortunate that the US didn't have time to grow to trust radar
before they were attacked.
In other words, it can be chalked up to people not trusting new tech,
pig-headed beaureaucracies, and a national feeling of invinceability.
Conspiracy theories are fun, but they don't really make sense when there
is plenty of evidence that can explain everything without the
conspiracy.
> In hindsight, a blind dog could have seen this coming, but they still
> got caught off guard.
What did Sheridan say about "armchair quarterbacking"? After a war is
over and people have time to recover from their wounds, you find all
kinds of people who insist that they could have done a better job if
they were in charge.
(Got to have something B5-related in this message :-)
-- David
Andre Lieven
> WWS wrote:
>>
>> Iain Rae wrote:
>> >
>> > Ron Jarrell wrote:
>> > >
>> > > Combine that with stupid Naval intelligence reports that placed that
>> > > feet thousands of miles away in its home port (My favorite comment out
>> > > of a transcript of a naval briefing runs along the lines of "So, you're
>> > > saying we don't actually have any idea where those carriers are."
>> > > "Well, No, sir. But the last time we lost them like these they were in
>> > > Tokyo Bay, so we're assuming that it's just happened again") and they
>> > > were unprepared for the level of what happened. FDR's gov't knew the
>> > > Japanese were up to something. In fact, I'm perfectly willing to
>> > > accept, and agree there's support for, the concept that he was hoping
>> > > they'd try to start something, and had arranged US policy in that
>> > > direction. I'm don't agree with interpretations of it that have him,
>> > > Churchil like, calmly standing by with the core of the pacific fleet
>> > > completely helpless - he was caught flatfooted by the Japanese. They
>> > > just completely outmanevered us, and did correctly what he might well
>> > > have wanted them to try, and fail miserably at.
>> >
>> > The difference was that the Japanese had Yamamoto who had learned from
>> > Taranto, unfortunately for Japan he wasn't commanding the strike as he'd
>> > have done what Cunningham would have in his position, fly off a second
>> > strike on Perl and go hunting for the carriers.
>> >
>> > Bear in mind that we were probably more concerned about the Japanese
>> > build up that you guys. We'd been expecting to have to fight the
>> > Japanese since the 20's and were assuming that anything that happened
>> > would happen the following spring. As it was we came off a lot worse
>> > than you did.
>>
>> And a big part of that was Churchill's decision to send two cruisers
>> to help out Singapore in spite of them having no decent air support
>> at all. It's amazing that up until this point, no one seems to have
>> understood the lessons of Taranto except the Japanese. Churchill
>> more than anyone else should have realized what unchallenged air
>> power can do, even though the Naval staffs hadn't appreciated it
>> yet.
>
> It's a much bigger tale of woe than that, you have things almost exactly
> backwards. Firstly they were a KGV class battleship (Prince of Wales)
> and a WWI vintage Battlecruiser (Repulse), actually Repulse was an
> "Aunt" of one of the Japanese battlecruisers supporting the Malayan
> landings at the time (Kogo I think).
Sort of half correct. The Kongo, built at Vickers, IIRC, was built
from 1912-1914, and was delivered to Japan before the killings at
Sarajevo. There are pictures of her afloat in the yard, with the
HMS Princess Royal, a Lion class battlecruiser, abuilding next to her.
Japan also built three more Kongo's at home, and all were in service
by 1916. In the 20's and 30's all four were seriously reconstructed
and by 1940, all were really small fast balanced battleships.
>
> Churchill wanted to send two battleships to do to the Japanese what
> Tirpritz was doing to the home fleet, i.e. tie it up in harbour. This
> was completely unrealistic as Repulse really was WWI vintage (no major
> work had been done on her since 1919)
Actually, some had, though she was, as of 1939, the most poorly
equipped, as far as A/A defences go, capital ship in the Royal Navy,
as her primary A/A guns were six 4 inch singles. But, in the early
30's, her refit included a range of improvements from her 1919
state. Had WW2 held off for another couple of years, she would have
been rebuilt as her sister, Reknown, was, with better armour, and a
dual purpose A/A battery.
The real difference between the Tirpitz's effect on the RN, and the
failure of Force Z to do the same, was more about the geography
of the two areas where this was going on. The Tirpitz was athwart
a prime passage used to convoy to the USSR, and was such that any
surface forces faced formidable air, and submarine opposition.
Neither factor was present at Singapore, and the IJN was much more
powerful in carriers, and fast battleships then was the RN, as well
as Japan's forces were all in one theatre.
> and POW was built to treaty specs
> (good 14" guns but with poor loading equipment, limited displacement and
> hence speed but probably the best armour layout of any of the 1930's
> vintage battleships) and had never had time to properly work up.
She was in good enough a commission as of that December. She surely
had had more time to work up in, as did Shokaku, and Zuikaku had.
>
> THe Admiralty wanted to send a more balanced fleet of 6 R class
> battleships (15" guns but slow and heavily armoured)
Actually, there were only five R's built, and one had been lost in
1939. The plan was to eventually form a fleet based on the 4 R's,
and the two Nelson class battleships, which could well tactically
combine with the R's.
> and supporting
> corvettes as a shipping protection fleet. With two carriers and a
> couple of crusisers being sent on in time of need. This fleet would fall
> back on an atoll in the middle of the Indian Ocean and the other ships
> were supposed to operate out of Dutch territories. Even by the start of
> the war the Admiralty had written Singapore off as a base of operations
> against Japan, because the Malayan mainland could not be properly
> defended against a land attack unless there was a considerable increase
> in the air and troop defences. There are a whole series of reports
> covering this, throught the tewnties and thirties, at the time the
> Japanese attacked there were about 20 Brewster Buffalo fighters covering
> Malaya and 4 1919 vintage torpedo bombers. The lack of good carrier
> aircraft was a real problem for us, the Air ministry tended to put the
> Fleet Air Arm at the back of the queue.
Correct. No one, neither the RN or the USN was ready for the quality
of the carrier aircraft available to the Japanese carriers.
> The various legends about the guns are;
> They didn't cover the mainland.
> They didn't have the right ammunition.
> THe naval officers didn't know how to use them against land troops.
>
> Well, Naval gunnery has been used to support troops since god knows
> when, the gus were copies of or taken from cruisers and used the same
> ammo as the ships guns. As for not covering the mainland they were
> designed to defend the Naval base not the whole island. Singapore is a
> very poor fortress, as there is no water supply you aren't going to hold
> out for very long.
>
> Force Z itself was desperately unlucky, the carrier Victorious should
> have gone with them but grounded off Bermuda,
Correct, though the carried was the Indomitable.
> the admiralty was supposed
> to recall them from Malaya in the event of war but didn't, if the
> Japanese had waited a week then there would have been a more balanced
> fleet with Dutch and US ships. Finally, much like the Japanese carriers
> at midway, the battleships were not spotted, it was the wake of one of
> the escorting ships, another half hour and they'd have got away with it.
> THe main thing that the Japanese had going for them was that the Betty
> way outperformed anything that any allied torpedo bomber could do.
Plus, Admiral Tom Phillips was convinced that a well handled battleship
at sea could defend herself from air attack. He died finding out that
he was wrong. But, he was not alone in being wrong, in that. Churchill
thought so, too.
>
> If you want a detailed account of the whole sorry mess see Battleship:
> the Loss of the "Prince of Wales" and the "Repulse" by Middlebrook
> http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0140234691/qid=958486520/sr=
> 1-2/026-6347204-3859455
An excellent book. I own a copy, of course.
>>
>> _________________________________________________WWS_____________
> --
> Iain Rae
> Computing Officer
> Dept. Civil & Offshore Engineering
> Heriot-Watt University
Andre
Kay Shapero
JaB> I think it's a steaming load of horse hockey. No President who,
JaB> according to
JaB> that piece, wants to provoke a war does so by having the lion's
JaB> share of the
JaB> fleet he would USE in that war against that power sent to the
JaB> bottom of the
JaB> ocean.
Somebody knew something ahead of time - or there would have been at least one
air craft carrier in the harbor. Instead, it was suddenly ordered to divert
course away from Pearl just hours before the attack. (I've known about this
one since I was a kid - one of my mom's friends was on board said carrier
when it happened...)
Andre Lieven
> This post on 15 May 2000 17:42:51 -0600 would probably sound more commanding
> if Jms at B5 wasn't wearing the Yummy Sushi Pajamas:
> : I think it's a steaming load of horse hockey. No President who, according
> : to that piece, wants to provoke a war does so by having the lion's share
> : of the fleet he would USE in that war against that power sent to the
> : bottom of the ocean.
>
> *ding*
>
> Moreover (and I've picked this up from the Alternate History NGs), Pearl
> Harbor could have been much MUCH more crippling to the US if the IJN went
> after oil reserves and other vital areas. Luck had something as well, as
> one or two carriers were out of port at the time.
Actually, there were three US carriers in the Pacific Fleet at the time.
The Saratoga was in Bremerton, in port. The Lexington was underway, with
her task force, delivering planes to Midway, as was the Enterprise,
returning to Pearl Harbor, with her arrival having been delayed from
the evening of Dec. 6, as heavy seas slowed down her force, as her
destroyers couldn't refuel from her in those waters. So, the force slowed
down, to conserve the destroyer's fuel, until the force found calmer
waters.
Also remember, that perwar US doctrine had the carriers as supporting
ships, only, *not* as the core of the fleet. That came after the attack,
as the carriers were all that was left that could sail. In that light,
the US floundering to work out good carrier force doctrine all through
1942 makes far more sense. In every carrier battle of 1942, the US
carrier forces were operated piece meal, and were thus far less effective
than they could have been. Which directly contributed to the losses
of both the Yorktown, and the Hornet.
Also, were the US intending to be that soon involved in a war with
Japan, with carriers, one might ask why the Ranger never sailed into
the Pacific, why the Wasp didn't until the summer of '42, after
Midway, and why the Yorktown was in the Atlantic, as of Dec 7th.
Answer ? Because no one expected to fight Japan that soon, and no
one expected to have to use the carriers as the only capital ships.
Against these basic facts, conspiracies fall to dust.
> --
> To...@Fred.Net http://www.fred.net/tomr
>
> * Faith Manages...... But Willow is in Tech Support
> * "Hello, girls.... I'm the Easter Bunny!" - Janet Reno, "South Park"
>
> "Y'know what's stupid? An anti-drug commercial, then a commercial for
> WebMD." - Jeremy Soria
>
> Mary Kay Bergman 1961-1999 - http://www.wackyvoices.com
Jon Niehof
> justification for entering the European War, against
> Japan's allies in Germany and Italy.
Um, perhaps that had something to do with Germany declaring
war on the US? IIRC, the sequence was something like:
-Pearl Harbor
-US declares war on Japan/Japan declares war on US (I think
Japan's declaration still came in after the US)
-Germany declares war on US
-US declares war on Germany
Germany pulled the US into the European war. Of course, FDR
surely wanted that, but they made the first move.
> Records show that the FDR Administration was far more
> involved in the European War effort than in the Pacific
> (or Aleutians) until FDR died.
The European war had to be wrapped up first; Britain was in
immediate danger. When the air photos from the death camps
came in, that sealed the decision--the European war had to
be ended as soon as possible.
Jon Niehof
> a little research, look into the history of disarming of
> citizens... Right now the government is trying it's
> best to remove the right to keep and bear arms..
> Everyone likes free speech but it's foundation rests on
> arms.
As my roommate points out, however, by the time we have to
take up arms to overthrow an oppressive government, said
government will have already banned BB guns, so there's not
much point to keeping the right to bear arms--it'll be taken
away long before we need it.
Greywind
Tom Holt wrote:
>
> The message <8eBU4.2240$86.3...@news2-win.server.ntlworld.com>
> from "Iain Clark" <iain.c...@virgin.net> contains these words:
>
> > Not wanting to get into a big discussion about this, but putting aside the
> > historical context, surely you can have free speech without needing a legal
> > right to own guns?
>
> Also not wanting to get into a big discussion about this, but;
> history teaches us, no you can't.
Um.. if you read his message, he doesn't want to review
history... History supports an armed population. It
does not support gun control advocates who think that
governments are benign entities..
Andre Lieven
> Andrew Swallow wrote:
>>
>> In article <39214B5A...@tyler.net>, WWS <wsch...@tyler.net> writes:
>>
>> >And a big part of that was Churchill's decision to send two cruisers
>> >to help out Singapore in spite of them having no decent air support
>> >at all. It's amazing that up until this point, no one seems to have
>> >understood the lessons of Taranto except the Japanese. Churchill
>> >more than anyone else should have realized what unchallenged air
>> >power can do, even though the Naval staffs hadn't appreciated it
>> >yet.
>>
>> tale. This had to be demonstrated the hard way.
>>
>> Andrew Swallow
>
> Oh I don't know, 21 Swordfish did quite well against the Entire Italian
> Battlefleet, 20 odd Sea Harriers saw off the Argentinian air forces. The
> Rawalapindi managed to hold off two German Battlecrusers long enough for
> her convoy to escape.
All of which point out the fogs of war, and particular circumstances.
Had the Taranto attack gone in in the daytime, the Swordfish planes
would have been mowed down, as they were when six of them tried to
attack the German Fleet in the Channel, in January of '42. That they
attacked at night, and against a fleet safely in port, made all of the
difference.
As for the Sea Harriers " seeing off " the Argentine Air Force, do tell
that to a crewmember of The Sheffield, Coventry, Antelope, Ardent, and
the merchant ship Atlantic Conveyor. Add in damaged ships, and that list
goes way up.
>
> Adm Philips decision to sail from Singapore to attack was correct based
> on the information he had, if he'd had better intelligence and sailed 24
> hours earlier he'd have caught the Japanese troopers unloading and a
> battleship and battlecruiser would have played merry hell with the
> Invasion. That would have stopped the Japanese and there might have been
> a chance to save Burma or Malaya. I'd rather have fought the Japanese
> from there than India.
In the light of the close actions fought in the Solomons, one can
imagine the sight of POW and Repulse, with their screen of a mere three
small destroyers, facing massed batteries of Long Lance torpedoes...
As well as the Kongo and Haruna which were not far away. While Phillips
had a bare superiority in guns ( 10x14 inch, and 6x15 inch, v/ 16x14 inch ),
he would have faced a massive inferiority in supporting ships, all of
which were armed with torpedoes much more powerful, and long ranged
then anyone on the Allied side suspected.
> The thing everyone seems to forget is that Philips was operating in an
> area which was half again as far away from the nearest air base as the
> range of the best know torpedo bomber or dive bomber, high level bombing
> was ineffective against fast warships and since he knew that the
> majority of the Japanese Carrier fleet was otherwise occupied it looks
> on paper like a more than acceptable risk.
Not if he had considered Japanese equivalents of torpedo armed
Wellington aircraft ( which were operating from Malta at that time ).
>
> If either of the RN's two best Admiraly were in charge (Cunningham or
> Somerville) things might have turned out slightly differently but you'd
> need someone of their caliber and sheer bloody mindedness to either sail
> off and fight as a fleet in being or go charging off after the Japanese
> fleet when they hadn't found them at the landing sites.
The best of admirals ( and Cunningham was likely the best Allied naval
commander ), cannot do much with grossly insufficient forces, *and* a
well armed and determined enemy.
>
> I suspect that either of them would have insisted on having a carrier in
> place to replace Victorious, even if it was only a small one like Eagle.
Well, you would mean an Illustrious class ship, as Victorious was.
Eagle would have been far too slow for Force Z. At her best speed then
was about 23 knots, while Force Z was capable of 28. Hermes would have
been little better, at 25 knots, and her air group was a paltry 12 planes.
Even Eagle could only operate about 21 planes, far short of some 40
aboard a then Illustrious class ship.
> --
> Iain Rae
> Computing Officer
> Dept. Civil & Offshore Engineering
> Heriot-Watt University
Andre
Andre Lieven
> Jms at B5 wrote:
>>
>> I think it's a steaming load of horse hockey. No President who, according to
>> that piece, wants to provoke a war does so by having the lion's share of the
>> fleet he would USE in that war against that power sent to the bottom of the
>> ocean.
>>
>
> I've looked into this whole debate, and I think that the truth is
> somewhere between the points.
>
> 1) FDR did what Bush did -- each let invaders keep going with their
> absorption of conquered territory until suddenly it was time for a war.
FDR had little choice, as popular opinion was greatly against involvement
in any war, until Pearl Harbor.
>
> 2) FDR (through Stimson) permitted US Pacific forces to grow weak
> (where they had been the strongest US force extant at the time of FDR's
> inauguration). There is no indication that this was intended to invite
> an attack, so much as a sign that FDR was willing to sacrifice the
> Philippines and the entire Western Pacific region, if necessary.
And, that FDR needed to reinforce the very weak US naval forces operating
in the Atlantic. Until he did so, in 1940, all the LantFlt had was the
three oldest battleships, far more obsolete than any UK ship ( for the
record, they were the Arkansas, Texas, and New York ), two smaller
carriers ( Ranger-held to be unfit for Pacific operations-, and Wasp )
and a few cruisers and destroyers.
>
> 3) The Japanese, backed into a corner by the US (as allies of the UK),
> had no choice but to open hostilities with the US. Hawaii was the
> logical point (though the Aleutians were actually invaded).
Well, Japan backed itself into a corner, from which they had two choices:
retreat or attack everyone. One would have been a blow to pride, and
the other was madness, barely possible only if Germany won it's wars.
>
> 4) The declaration of war by the Japanese had originally been timed to
> take place PRIOR to the arrival of Imperial forces over Oahu. The
> Purple Code (I kid you not, and no, I haven't heard of a "Green Code"),
> however, was unwieldy and difficult to decode -- the final delivery of
> the message to the American government took place after Washington was
> notified of the attack.
Yep.
>
> 5) FDR was quick to use the attack on Oahu as justification for
> entering the European War, against Japan's allies in Germany and Italy.
> Records show that the FDR Administration was far more involved in the
> European War effort than in the Pacific (or Aleutians) until FDR died.
Actually, both Germany and Italy declared war against the US, and
then the US declared war on them ( Dec 10/Dec 11 ). Had Hitler not
done so, FDR could well have been in a great pickle, as popular
opinion was hot agaist Japan ( as was Admiral King, COMINCHUS ),
while FDR saw that winning against Japan would mean little, if
Germany won in Europe. He was greatly relieved at Hitler's folly.
>
> FDR may not have asked for Pearl Harbor, but he would have been sunk
> without it.
Or, something *like* it.
Andre Lieven
>
> Granted but the Fleet lost Battleships and cruisers all the Major
> engagements, Coral Sea, Midway and the Philippine Sea were fought with
> aircraft carriers. The USN knew that in a war between themselves and
> the Japanese that there Battleships wouldn't count for anything. They
> were out gunned by the much larger Japanese Battleships. they lost
> little of strategic significance in the raid.
Sure, we know that *now*. No one knew that, *then*. Do read some of the
US Navy's doctrine of up to late '41.
Further, the US battle line was superior to the 10 Japanese battleships,
and the two Yamato's could well be taken care of by *10* US 16 inch gunned
fast battleships ( North Carolina, South Dakota, and Iowa classes ).
The Japansese battle line ( four Kongo's, two Yamashiro's, two Ise's,
and two Nagato's ) were all comparable to similar Allied capital ships.
On average, they were somewhat faster.
The entire US doctrine and stretegy was overthrown by the results of
Pearl Harbor. They had to make up new ideas, based on what was left to
them to work with, and that was carrier task forces. Had the US Navy
had to face the full carrier force that hit PH, no US force of 1942
would have won that fight. The US was lucky, in that they only had to
face portions at any time ( two of six at Coral Sea, and four of six
at Midway ). At no time in 1942 was the US Navy able to sail a fleet
of even four carriers together.
Read " War Plan Orange " available from the US Naval Institute.
>
> Jms at B5 wrote:
>>
>> I think it's a steaming load of horse hockey. No President who, according to
>> that piece, wants to provoke a war does so by having the lion's share of the
>> fleet he would USE in that war against that power sent to the bottom of the
>> ocean.
Quite correct.
>>
>> jms
>>
>> (jms...@aol.com)
>> B5 Official Fan Club at:
>> http://www.thestation.com
>> (all message content (c) 2000 by
>> synthetic worlds, ltd., permission
>> to reprint specifically denied to
>> SFX Magazine)
Andre Lieven
> "Jms at B5" <jms...@aol.com> wrote in message
> news:20000515194216...@ng-bj1.aol.com...
>> I think it's a steaming load of horse hockey. No President who, according
>> to that piece, wants to provoke a war does so by having the lion's share of
>> the fleet he would USE in that war against that power sent to the bottom of
>> the ocean.
>
> point out the ships that sank were border-line "obsolete".
Only when seen from the then future. At the time, and that's the only
call that matters, they were the core of the Pacific Fleet, and the
carriers were their support ships. The refitted survivors of Pearl
Harbor were very useful, both in the Pacific landings and in the
Atlantic, too. Plus, several were participants in the last ever battle
between opposing forces of battleships.
> The newer ships were out with almost all the carriers on maneuvers in
> the Pacific. They then further argued that because of the older ships
> being lost, America could invest in a newer fleet. Of course, this was
> explained as being "lucky".
Wrong. The only two new US battleships in commission, as of Dec 7, 1941
were still working up in the Atlantic, as that was a better area to
do that in, for new ships, and it continued as such, all through the war.
The first fast battleship to sail with a US Pacific carrier force was the
North Carolina, and that was in August of 1942.
Also, all the new battleships were under construction as of Pearl
Harbor. The seven that were ordered after Dec 7, 1941, were all
cancelled before any could be completed ( Two Iowa's and all five
Montana's ).
Not losing any carriers at PH, was, " lucky ". Though, it was not
seen for that, at that time. That view came with later knowledge and
experience.
>
> The critical, decrypted "purple" dispatch sent to the Japanese embassy was
> sitting in someone's in tray when such dispatches were usually in the White
> House and Pentagon early every morning. Why? America was expecting war in
> the Philipines. The government wanted to know when Japan was going to
> declare war so the "purple" dispatches were given top priority. Apparently,
> the purple dispatches were all delayed that weekend. Countless historians
> and authors have complained what a bad piece of luck that was.
>
> I could go on with the "luck" both good and bad. That's an awful lot of
> luck involved.
What would you say if I told you that the very first bomb to be dropped
on Leningrad would kill the only elephant in the zoo ? It happened.
Luck is a major part of any war, and more of it in a longer war.
Andre Lieven
> Jason Larke wrote:
>>
>> >>>>> On 16 May 2000 06:51:34 -0600, Iain Rae
>> >>>>> <ia...@civ.hw.ac.uk> said:
>>
>> IR> The difference was that the Japanese had Yamamoto who had
>> IR> learned from Taranto, unfortunately for Japan he wasn't
>> IR> commanding the strike as he'd have done what Cunningham would
>> IR> have in his position, fly off a second strike on Perl and go
>> IR> hunting for the carriers.
>>
>> It's hard for me to blame Nagumo for what he did at Pearl. He'd
>> launched an astonishingly risky strike and gotten 85% of a
>> perfect score in exchange for trivial losses. Now he was left
>> with dwindling fuel states and not much intelligence about what
>> might be out there on the central pacific. Trying to push his
>> luck could have cost him everything.
>>
>> For example- what if he launched another strike, and an attack
>> from US carrier aircraft hit while his planes were away and his
>> fighter strength diminished? It's not unlikely that hits might
>> have been scored on 1-3 carriers. Normally that wouldn't be a
>> problem, but he's deep in enemy waters and low on fuel; he can't
>> mess around with cripples. Can you imagine having to scuttle two
>> of the Emperors's finest CVs? And having to explain it?
>
> Yes, for the same reason that Nelson deliberately risked his entire
> fleet at Trafalgar and flouted the standing orders to form a line of
> battle (for which others had been executed) if you think you can beat
> the opposition then you must risk everything in order to do so. You can
> only afford to be conservative in defense.
Or, if you have a stated need for the risked forces elsewhere.
>
> The guy that planned the attack on Taranto stated in the planning
> documents that it was unlikely that the Mediterranean fleet carrier
> (Hermes at the time)
Nope. It was the Eagle. Nor have I, in some thirty years of deep
study on WW2, and the naval war, ever seen such a document.
> would survive for long in the face of Superior forces
> and that the attack on Taranto should go ahead as soon as possible.
What superior forces ? Illustrious and her cruisers were as fast as
anything in Taranto harbour that night, and they were at sea, and fully
ready to sail. To warm up a steam powered ship ( as all then were )
you needed several hours of boiling water to superheat, before you
could sail in hot pursuit. By such time, Illustrious would have been
200 miles away, and quite safe.
> Cunningham wanted a second attack to go in but the crews were
> exhausted as there had been a hanger fire on the second carrier(i think
> Eagle) and they physically couldn't do any more.
You're confusing two disparate events. The original plan to attack
Taranto would have used both Illustrious and Eagle. But, a hangar fire
aboard Eagle damaged her, and enough of her planes, to remove her from
the attack, which was timed with a full moon for the attacking aircraft.
There was no second attack, but the 21 planes attacked in two separate
waves, with most carrying torpedoes being in the first wave of 12.
> The fact that
> Illustrious was almost sunk a couple of weeks later confirms this.
Wrong. First, the time separating the two events was two months,
and at the time of Taranto, the Luftwaffe had not come to the Med.
It was Ju-87's that seriously damaged the Illustrious, though she was
not in danger of sinking, nor did her propulsion plant get hit.
> Yamamoto is on record as disagreeing with his government over the war
> but planned the attack anyway, from memory I think he said that if he
> could destroy all the US fleet it would give them 5 years to prepare
> their defenses.
Nope. He did say that, if ordered to attack in '41, before the US's
new ships would be ready to fight, that he could " raise havok "
with the US for six months. More than that he refused to guarantee.
>
> If the entire pacific fleet had been destroyed then there would have
> been enough of a vacuum that Midway would have fallen and the new
> building Carriers would have covered most of any losses at Perl.
But, not for two years, as the first new CV, Essex, only commissioned
on Dec.31, 1942. After a ship first commissions, it still needs months
of working up and training. So, any force based on post CV-8 carriers
would not have made a difference until late 1943, at the very earliest.
Do have a look at the article in What If, ( ed: Robert Cowley ) on the
likely results of losing the carriers at Midway. It would have been
far worse, had they been lost six months earlier.
> --
> Iain Rae
> Computing Officer
> Dept. Civil & Offshore Engineering
> Heriot-Watt University
Andre
Harry
> Not wanting to get into a big discussion about this, but putting aside the
> historical context, surely you can have free speech without needing a legal
> right to own guns?
Certainly starting to wonder off track here, but if one of the
bill of rights, which guaranteed the citizens that the right to
keep and bare arms shall not be abridged, can be abridged,
ignored, and worse, then certainly another part of the bill
of rights can also be treated the same way, particularly if
the citizens are made defenceless. The important thing to note
here is that the constitution provides ways to modify itself
so it can grow and adapt with the time. If the second
amendment was really as outdated as some claim, them the logical
and proper way to impose gun control on the citizens would be
to amend the constitution to take away this part of the bill
of rights. No gun control advocate has yet shown the courage
to do this, rather they disregard the bill of rights and impose
their will on people in direct violation of the bill of rights.
In such as system free speech might not be far behind.
As I say, this is off track, so I will post no more on this to
the B5 newsgroup, but didn't want the statement to look like it
was an unopposed "truth".
Andre Lieven
> In article <003f01bfbfac$f7be7ec0$3c9742d8@TraversNaran>, "Travers Naran"
> <tna...@direct.ca> writes:
>
>>Most of the historians I've ever read, all of whom don't buy the conspiracy,
>>were out with almost all the carriers on maneuvers in the Pacific. They
>>then further argued that because of the older ships being lost, America
>>could invest in a newer fleet. Of course, this was explained as being
>>"lucky".
>
> captains of the seaworthy vessels had taken their ships out to sea. So the
> only ships the Japanese got were the ones that could not run away.
????? The Pacific fleet that was anchored in Pearl Harbor on Dec 7, 1941,
was the portion that had been to sea during the week, being peacetime and
all, and had returned for the weekend. There wasn't a significant
combatent ship that was there, that wasn't in full running order, with
both water tight hulls, and fully working engines.
All ships do have to come into port at some time, you know.
>
> Andrew Swallow
Andre Lieven
> Travers Naran wrote:
>>
>> "Jms at B5" <jms...@aol.com> wrote in message
>> news:20000515194216...@ng-bj1.aol.com...
>> > I think it's a steaming load of horse hockey. No President who, according
>> > to that piece, wants to provoke a war does so by having the lion's share
>> > of the fleet he would USE in that war against that power sent to the
>> > bottom of the ocean.
>>
>> point out the ships that sank were border-line "obsolete". The newer ships
>> were out with almost all the carriers on maneuvers in the Pacific. They
>> then further argued that because of the older ships being lost, America
>> could invest in a newer fleet. Of course, this was explained as being
>> "lucky".
>>
>> sitting in someone's in tray when such dispatches were usually in the White
>> House and Pentagon early every morning. Why? America was expecting war in
>> the Philipines. The government wanted to know when Japan was going to
>> declare war so the "purple" dispatches were given top priority. Apparently,
>> the purple dispatches were all delayed that weekend. Countless historians
>> and authors have complained what a bad piece of luck that was.
>>
>> I could go on with the "luck" both good and bad. That's an awful lot of
>> luck involved.
>
> to realize that luck plays such a huge roll at major historic turning
> events, but it almost *ALWAYS* does - sometimes it's just more obvious
> than others. You want to know what the most bizarrely lucky string of
> events to occur during the entire war was? Happened about 6 months later
> during the battle of Midway, when, in the middle of a naval battle that
> appeared to be about even, (maybe tilted towards the Japanese) a bizarre
> series of events and confluences allowed the US carrier air wings to
> destroy 4 major Japanese carriers in 15 minutes.
A small nit and then a big one... The small one is, that McClusky's
dive bombers from the Enterprise, along with the timely arrival of the
additional squadron from the Yorktown, fatally damaged three, not four
carriers, the Akagi, Kaga, Soryu. The Hiryu survived that attack, and
launched two depleted attacks against the Yorktown, which left her in
a sinking condition.
The big nit... No matter what Japan had done, no matter how lucky and
skilled they had been in 1942, absent a European Axis victory, meaning
Germany defeating the USSR, there was NO way that Japan was going to
win, against the US. Had Japan sunk every US carrier in 1942, by 1945
there were going to be ten new battleships ( and, had things in '42 gone
really bad, likely more ), two ( ditto ) battlecruisers, twenty plus
( final tally was 24 ) Essex class fleet carriers, nine light carriers,
17 Baltimore/Oregon City heavy cruisers, 29 Cleveland class light cruisers,
plus seven A/A light cruisers, and some 90 escort carriers. Not to mention
hundreds of destroyers and subs.
Against that, Japan added, during the war, two battleships, seven fleet
carriers ( most smaller than an Essex ), about four light carriers, and
about six escort carriers. Plus, *no* heavy cruisers, five light cruisers,
and a couple dozen destroyers. Japan went to war with some twenty five
years of hardware. All of it being less than what the US started with,
and far less than the US commissioned during the war.
The only real question was, how close to the Home Islands was the US
going to be, when they got their first pair of A Bombs ?
> This broke the back
> of the Japanese fleet and they withdrew, the loss of this battle broke
> the back of the Japanese Navy, and the loss of the Japanese Navy broke
> the back of the Japanese Empire. The turning point of the entire war
> happened right there - Japan was never on the offensive again, after
> that point. And even the commanders involved on both sides credit those
> 15 minutes more to bizarre luck (good for the Americans, real bad for the
> Japanese) than to anything else. Change any one of dozens of individual
> decisions made by dozens of different people at the time, and the outcome
> could have been decidedly different. (Things like a flight of dive
> bombers getting hopelessly lost on their way to the battle, and then
> figuring out where they should be and showing up late, but just at the
> exact moment that the Japanese fighter screen had dropped down low and
> left all the carriers defenseless from high altitude attack - and so on)
Notwithstanding, it was a phenominal piece of luck, in part made from
the determination of Cmdr McClusky to find the Kido Butai, and a good
estimate of what they would have done, after launching their Midway
strike force. He was lucky, but he was also very good. Ditto for Admiral
Spruance, who still could have lost his task group, after that point,
had he not been smart.
>
> That's the way history works. (and why it's so damned hard to predict
> the future)
> _________________________________________________WWS_____________
>
> Think parochially, post globally -- Peter McDermott
John C. Anderson
from "Iain Clark" <iain.c...@virgin.net> contains these words:
> Not wanting to get into a big discussion about this, but putting aside the
> historical context, surely you can have free speech without needing a legal
> right to own guns?
Also not wanting to get into a big discussion about this, but;
history teaches us, no you can't.
>>
Also not wanting etc. ..., free speach in modern society has little or nothing
to do with private gun ownership. They still protest loudly in many nations
without guns.
John C. Anderson: Tala...@aol.com
Arkham
the
> > > historical context, surely you can have free speech without needing a
legal
> > > right to own guns?
> > Also not wanting to get into a big discussion about this, but;
> > history teaches us, no you can't.
> Nonsense. Canadians have no such constitutional right and yet we have no
> problem bitching at/about our government.
Hell, sometimes we even throw Kraft Dinner (not including the box) at our
Prime Minister.
Andre Lieven
> Andrew Swallow wrote:
>>
>> In article <003f01bfbfac$f7be7ec0$3c9742d8@TraversNaran>, "Travers Naran"
>> <tna...@direct.ca> writes:
>> >
>> >point out the ships that sank were border-line "obsolete". The newer ships
>> >were out with almost all the carriers on maneuvers in the Pacific. They
>> >then further argued that because of the older ships being lost, America
>> >could invest in a newer fleet. Of course, this was explained as being
>> >"lucky".
>>
>> captains of the seaworthy vessels had taken their ships out to sea. So the
>> only ships the Japanese got were the ones that could not run away.
>
> were out of harbor (and owe a great debt to, iirc, Commander Spruance
At the time of Pearl Harbor, never mind six months later, Spruance was
a much higher rank than Commander.
Also, about Dec 7, 1941, he was in command of Admiral Halsey's
escorting cruisers. Thus, he was far down the chain of authority over
the missions of the Pacific fleet's carriers.
> who insisted on not letting his carrier get bottled up in a harbor,
> although everyone else at his level thought he was being needlessly
> paranoid)
As has been noted, the Lexington and Enterprise were out on missions
to ferry Marine F-4's to Wake and Midway. The Saratoga was in refit
at Bremerton.
> What was left at harbor was *all* of America's Pacific
> Fleet battleships, which at the time were still believed to be the
> decisive element of any naval task force. *No One* at the time
> believed they were obsolete. The explanation given above that it
> wasn't really so bad is heavy on hindsight at best, and shameless
> retcon at worst.
Correct.
>
> If the Japanese had launched their second strike (as they should
> have) and completely wiped out Pearl and all its defenses, the
> Japanese fleet could have come in close and just waited for the
> carriers to try to come back, or have forced them to head for
> San Diego, thus ceding the Pacific to Japan for good.
This would have been quite impossible for any Japanese commander to
do. The Kido Butai did not have the logistical support, such as attending
tankers, to be able to stay near Hawaii for more than a day. They could
have rearmed their planes, and launched a second full strike, in the
afternoon, before retiring to rendezvous with their tankers on the
way home.
> The Japanese commanders failure to do this (and failure to percieve
> this as necessary) is inexplicable,
Not only quite explicable, but inevitable.
> and gave away any strategic
> advantage that the attack had gained. Hard to explain how
> Roosevelt and his supposed co-conspirators talked the Japanese
> into committing an act of gross stupidity at the moment of
> their greatest triumph.
> __________________________________________________WWS_____________
Gharlane of Eddore
On debilitation of the peacetime military....
In <20000518205533...@nso-cr.news.cs.com>
andrewm...@cs.com (Andrew Swallow) writes:
>
....<deletia>
>
> My second reason is a more complex one. The military has two main tasks -
> defence and attack. Defence from whom? Currently the British Army is
> defending Britain from attach by the Irish Republic. The US Army is
> defending the USA from attack by only 2 countries Canada and Mexico.
> None of these countries are a major military threat.
>
....<deletia>
Obviously a man who's never spent an evening in the Los Angeles Barrio....
-- Or experienced the stark terror of being in a U.S. shopping mall on
a day when the Canadians have managed to remember which way is south
long enough to find an American city.
Geoduck
Lieven) wrote:
>Keith Wood (k...@bctv.com) writes:
(snip)
>Actually, both Germany and Italy declared war against the US, and
>then the US declared war on them ( Dec 10/Dec 11 ). Had Hitler not
>done so, FDR could well have been in a great pickle, as popular
>opinion was hot agaist Japan ( as was Admiral King, COMINCHUS ),
>while FDR saw that winning against Japan would mean little, if
>Germany won in Europe. He was greatly relieved at Hitler's folly.
(snip)
And it's moderately interesting to remember that this was the only
time that Hitler officially declared war on *anyone*. Everyone else he
just attacked.
--
Geoduck
geo...@usa.net
http://www.olywa.net/cook
Iain Rae
> >>
> >> >And a big part of that was Churchill's decision to send two cruisers
> >> >to help out Singapore in spite of them having no decent air support
> >> >at all. It's amazing that up until this point, no one seems to have
> >> >understood the lessons of Taranto except the Japanese. Churchill
> >> >more than anyone else should have realized what unchallenged air
> >> >power can do, even though the Naval staffs hadn't appreciated it
> >> >yet.
> >>
> >> The idea that a tiny force can kill a very large force is practically a fairy
> >> tale. This had to be demonstrated the hard way.
> >>
> >> Andrew Swallow
> >
> > Oh I don't know, 21 Swordfish did quite well against the Entire Italian
> > Battlefleet, 20 odd Sea Harriers saw off the Argentinian air forces. The
> > Rawalapindi managed to hold off two German Battlecrusers long enough for
> > her convoy to escape.
>
> All of which point out the fogs of war, and particular circumstances.
> Had the Taranto attack gone in in the daytime, the Swordfish planes
> would have been mowed down, as they were when six of them tried to
> attack the German Fleet in the Channel, in January of '42. That they
> attacked at night, and against a fleet safely in port, made all of the
> difference.
>
was planned to maximise the chances of success, the Channel dash was
more of a cluster fucked up pierhead jump, throw anything we can get at
them and hope something sticks. If I could remember more about the
relative strengths of the Luftwaffe and RAF at the time I might try to
argue that you proved my point but from the German side.:)
> As for the Sea Harriers " seeing off " the Argentine Air Force, do tell
> that to a crewmember of The Sheffield, Coventry, Antelope, Ardent, and
> the merchant ship Atlantic Conveyor. Add in damaged ships, and that list
> goes way up.
I think they'd be more inclined to hear why 40 years or so after the FAA
started putting radar sets into aircraft the nearest FAA AEW aircraft
were parked in a museum hanger in Yeovilton with the radar sets
lumbering round the North sea in geriatric LRMP aircraft and where were
the RAF who had stated that they could provide AEW and fighter cover in
any possible conflict. Sheffield and Coventry were both lost acting as,
or with radar pickets because there was no AEW available. The loss of
the Sheffield in particular shouldn't have happened, she shouldn't have
been operating her SCOT unit, and should have reacted to the warnings
from, I think, Glasgow. As for the harriers in this case they were
pulled off from investigating a contact which could have been the Super
Etendarts dropping down for their low level run, then mind bogglingly
tasked with identifying what turned out to be the CAP which had just
taken off from Hermes.
In terms of fighter-figher activity the harriers won hands down, I
forget the exact figures but I think they got 2 for no losses in a half
dozen or so exchanges and the Mirage fighters's basically didn't take
any more part in the war.
Where the Harriers were used properly the general reaction of the
Argentinians was to drop any bombs/tanks/missiles, turn and run, on
paper the Harriers come out way on top with most of the losses being
attributed to a mid air and a deck handling accident.
At the end of the Falklands you had a carrier task group which was
offically over strength in terms of harriers and could have continued
fighting for another month or so (Invincible stayed on until Illustrious
finished fitting out) against an argentinian air force which was having
trouble putting together strikes because of the damage to their
aircraft. Yes there were losses but by in large these were amongst the
warships which had been tasked with covering the merchant ships and the
troops ashore, there was nothing like the carnage amongst the Harrier
pilots and thence the ships that was predicted by the experts in the
national press.
WWS
Iain Rae wrote:
Don't leave off the British sub which scored the biggest kill of the war!
iirc, that was the biggest (maybe only) kill by a sub since 1945.
(excepting the games that get played under the ice that no one talks
about)
--
WWS
Andrew Swallow wrote:
>
> In article <8fueas$l5c$1...@freenet9.carleton.ca>, dg...@freenet.carleton.ca
> (Andre Lieven) writes:
>
> >>
> >> 3) The Japanese, backed into a corner by the US (as allies of the UK),
> >> had no choice but to open hostilities with the US. Hawaii was the
> >> logical point (though the Aleutians were actually invaded).
> >
> >Well, Japan backed itself into a corner, from which they had two choices:
> >retreat or attack everyone. One would have been a blow to pride, and
> >the other was madness, barely possible only if Germany won it's wars.
> >>
>
> Taking the assumption that the people in the White House were not mad, Japan
> could have taken a very different strategy. Japan could simply have conquered
> all of China except Hong Kong. Britain would then have left Japan alone -
> Churchill was fully aware that fighting 2 wars at the same time was a very bad
> strategy. Next get the USA to join the European war, on either side. The US
> military would then have removed most of its forces from the Pacific and sent
> them to Europe. Distracted by Europe could then be talked into lifting the oil
> embargo.
>
> If the above diplomatic strategy had been used, I wonder how much of Asia would
> still be under Japanese control today?
Japan conquered as much of China as they could control - you realize how big China
is, and how many men it would take to control it all? As far as the rest of that
plan, it ignores the fundamental arrogance of the militarists and their
unshakeable
belief that they could whip any army or navy they ran into. Not unlike the
beliefs
of the secessionists in the American south - ludicrous to depend on that in
hindsight.
Shaz
"J. Potts" <nav...@xnet.com> wrote in message
news:8g3vf2$p90$1...@flood.xnet.com...
<snipped>
Thanks for posting that. It's been a long time since I read it and I love
Kipling. It's interesting to see how his tone changed when his son was
killed. Before it was all dulce et decorum est pro patria mori (to use the
title of Owen's famous poem), after that...
The Politician
I could not kill, I dared not rob
Therefore I lied to please the mob
Now all my lies are proved untrue
And I must face the men I slew.
What tale will serve me here among
Mine angry and defrauded young?
(cited from memory, so forgive errors!)
Because his son's body wasn't found (until a few years ago, actually!)
Kipling was one of the major movers behind the War Graves Commission. I will
never forget walking around a British War cemetery in the middle of the
Tunisian desert. Dust and sand for miles around us, and here, in this little
patch, green grass and flowers and trees. It truly was 'some corner of a
foreign field that is forever England'. I read the names, walked around the
cemetery, and sobbed. I'd never done that before over people I never knew.
I'd like to give a good shaking to the mindless (and historically
uninformed) lout who daubed 'Why glorify war?' on the Cenotaph in Whitehall
during the recent anti capitalist riots in London. If he thinks that's
glorifying it, he needs some major re-education.
Shaz
Von Bruno
stand up against a fully-equipped modern military?"
Actually, the US government not too terribly long ago commissioned a study that
determined that in the case of large scale civil unrest (such as a Civil War)
that around one-quarter to one-third of the US forces would not follow orders
that called for them to engage their fellow Americans in battle. And that is
simply more than enough to upset the chain of command and throw the military
into confusion and weaken their abilities substantially.
Aloha,
Von Bruno
Keith Wood
Andre Lieven wrote:
>
> Keith Wood (k...@bctv.com) writes:
> > > > > Not wanting to get into a big discussion about this, but putting
> > > > > aside the historical context, surely you can have free speech
> > > > > without needing a legal right to own guns?
> >
> > > > Also not wanting to get into a big discussion about this, but;
> > > > history teaches us, no you can't.
> >
> > > Nonsense. Canadians have no such constitutional right and yet we
> > > have no problem bitching at/about our government.
> >
> > . . .so long as your government chooses to permit it.
>
> The issue here is the completely untested ( thus, remaining an article of
> pure faith, in a religious sense )
It's been tested. Ever hear of the Warsaw Ghetto? Tiennanmen Square?
The Soviet Union?
> idea that only the 250 million guns, the very guns that kill twelve *kids* *a day*
Are you unaware that this is number is false? Or do you consider a
20-year-old drug dealer to be a "kid"? How about a 19-year-old rapist?
The actual number is 1.7 per day, under the age of 14.
> Oh, and the nations of Eastern Europe got rid of their Communist
> gov't's *without* that Amendment, too.
Kind of. When the governments grew weak enough, the people took the
guns from the government and finished the job.
> > If they ever choose otherwise, then what will you do?
>
> Vote them out.
This, of course, assumes free and impartial elections. What guarantee
do you have that there will be such?
> We here in Canada have never had a need, percieved or
> otherwise, to take up arms against ourselves.
I suggest that you talk to the Toronto police before you make such a
statement.
> We have only done so
> against foreign enemies, such as when we waxed your forces, *twice*.
Which, of course, explains why we won both wars . . ? What's wrong with
this picture?
> ( 1777, 1812-1814 ) One side benefit is that, we *don't* have 1.3
> children a day ( the proportionate share of your 12 a day ) dying to
> sudden lead inhalation.
Nope. Check your stats on bicycle and choking, though.
> Thus, *our* schools don't *need* metal
> detectors, and all that psychologically comes with sharing educations
> with a fortress mentality.
Funny, the Toronto police disagree with you. And when I was in
Michigan, the TV station I did news for had a policy of NOBODY going to
the Canadian side of Sault Ste Marie without a Canadian police escort,
because of the violent crime rate there.
> Martina McBride covers that part of it very well, in the video of her
> song " Love's The Only House ".
>
> There are many ways to construct a democratic society. Do not be deluded
> into thinking that *only* the US formula works. That would be untrue.
Actually, I prefer the Swiss form of democracy.
Keith Wood
"John C. Anderson" wrote:
> Ir really is remarkable how many people misread the second ammendment.
> "A well regulated militia being necessary to the secrity of a free State;..."
> That's the part that all the gun nuts and the NRA always ignore. WELL REGULATED
> MILITIA.
"Well regulated" means "trained and equipped to a defined standard."
Why didn't you know that?
Keith Wood
The Reverend Jacob Corbin wrote:
>
> Greywind wrote:
>
> > Um.. if you read his message, he doesn't want to review
> > history... History supports an armed population. It
> > does not support gun control advocates who think that
> > governments are benign entities..
>
> Utter bullshit. Give me a single instance of a heavily-armed population rising up
> and overthrowing their oppressors.
"When in the course of human events . . ."
Keith Wood
The Reverend Jacob Corbin wrote:
>
> Keith Wood wrote:
>
> >
> > > Nonsense. Canadians have no such constitutional right and yet we
> > have no
> > > problem bitching at/about our government.
> >
> > . . .so long as your government chooses to permit it.
> >
> > If they ever choose otherwise, then what will you do?
>
> What a load of tripe. What will the guns be good for against a serious
> totalitarian regime: killing one or two jackbooted fascists so the rest
> have an excuse to come in and shoot you? What a great way to be free.
> Sign me up.
I notice that you completely dodged the actual issue. But then, the
facts ARE against you, so what other choice do you have?
> The gun-fetishists suffer from the primate delusion that words are weak and
> paltry things that pale in the face of a good old 30-aught-6 when exactly
> the opposite is true. A man who can speak well is worth millions of
> gun-toting clods. (Ever heard of Jesus? He seemed to manage quite well in
> those dark pre-firearm days.)
Lessee, "Reverend," if I recall correctly, Jesus and many of his
followers were killed by the government for what they said and believed.
Try another example.
> And millions of people speaking all at once
> tend to be quite effective deterrents against fascism, inasmuch as they
> make it impossible for fascists to find a climate in which to thrive.
There were about 100,000,000 people killed by their own governments
during the past century over idealogy or simply for the convenience of
the government. There is genocide underway in several parts of the
world RIGHT NOW. Certainly you can't expect any reasonable person to
believe that nobody has ever spoken out against it . . ?