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What if Japan never attacked Pearl Harbor?
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a425couple
Dec 7, 2016, 6:46:29 PM12/7/16
to
>From the news feed:
75 years ago, what if Japan never attacked Pearl Harbor?
By Ishaan Tharoor December 7
Few events in World War II were as defining as the Japanese assault on Pearl
Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. The "date which shall live in infamy" - as President
Franklin D. Roosevelt famously put it - prompted the American entry into the
war, subdued an entrenched isolationist faction in the country's politics
and, in the long run, prefigured Washington's assumption of the role of
global superpower.
2,403 Americans died and 19 vessels were either sunk or badly damaged in the
attack, which involved more than 350 warplanes launched from Japanese
carriers that had secretly made their way to a remote expanse of the North
Pacific. It caught the brass in Hawaii by surprise and stunned the nation.
"With astounding success," Time magazine wrote, "the little man has clipped
the big fellow."
But the big fellow would hit back. Japan's bold strike is now largely seen
as an act of "strategic imbecility," a move born out of militarist,
ideological fervor that provoked a ruinous war Japan could never win and
ended in mushroom clouds and hideous death and destruction at home.
Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the Japanese naval commander, hoped his plan to
attack on Pearl Harbor would deliver a fatal blow to American capabilities
in the Pacific and persuade Washington to push for a political settlement.
Otherwise, he knew that his country stood no chance against the United
States in a protracted war, according to Steve Twomey, author of a new book
on the tense build-up to Pearl Harbor.
Twomey documents Yamamoto's initial opposition to engaging the United
States: "In a drawn-out conflict, 'Japan's resources will be depleted,
battleships and weaponry will be damaged, replenishing materials will be
impossible,' Yamamoto wrote on September 29 to the chief of the Naval
General Staff. 'Japan will wind up 'impoverished,' and any war 'with so
little chance of success should not be fought.'"
But with war a fait accompli, Yamamoto conceived of a raid that would be so
stunning that American morale would go "down to such an extent that it
cannot be recovered," as he put it. Unfortunately for him, the United States
was galvanized by the assault - and had its fleet of aircraft carriers
largely unscathed. A plane carrying the Japanese admiral would be shot down
over the Solomon Islands by American forces in 1943 with the U.S.
counter-offensive already well underway.
Could it have gone differently? No modern conflict has spawned more
alternative histories than World War II. In the decades since, writers,
Hollywood execs and amateur historians have indulged in all sorts of
speculation: What the world would look like if the Axis powers triumphed, or
if the Nazis crushed the Soviets, or if the United States had not deployed
nuclear weapons, or if Roosevelt had chosen not to enter the war at all.
But even if Japan had not attacked Pearl Harbor, it's quite likely that the
two sides would have still clashed.
The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the USS Arizona on Dec. 7, 1941,
pushed the U.S. into World War II. But the battleship wasn't supposed to be
docked at the harbor on that date. The Post's Michael Ruane takes us back to
that fateful day in American history. (Claritza Jimenez, Michael Ruane/The
Washington Post)
Japan's will to power
For imperial Japan, the United States posed a fundamental obstacle to its
expanding position in the Pacific. Here was a resource-hungry island nation
eager to assert itself on the world stage in the same way European powers
had done in centuries prior. By the summer of 1941, it had seized a
considerable swath of East Asia, from Manchuria and Korea to the north to
the formerly French territories of Indochina further south, and was
embroiled in a bitter war in China.
American sanctions attempted to rein in Tokyo: Washington slapped on
embargoes on oil and other goods essential to Japan's war machine. The price
to have them lifted - a Japanese withdrawal from China, as well as the
abandonment of its "tripartite" alliance with Germany and Italy - proved too
steep and humiliating. So Japan calculated further expansion in order to
access the resources it needed.
"Our increasing economic pressure on Japan, plus the militaristic cast of
the government ... and their partial loss of face in China, spelled a
probable resumption of their policy of conquest," mused a lengthy essay in
the Atlantic, published in 1948. "In what direction would the Japanese
strike, and against whom?"
Japan opted not to venture into Soviet Siberia; in 1939, Japanese troops had
suffered a chastening defeat at the hands of a combined Soviet and Mongolian
army and its forces were already bogged down on various fronts in China.
The decision was made to target the vulnerable British and Dutch colonies in
Southeast Asia - what's now the independent nations of Burma, Singapore,
Malaysia and Indonesia. The Japanese knew this would likely spur a greater
response from the United States, which then controlled the Philippines and
other scattered island possessions in the Pacific.
"Unwilling to give up what it wanted - greater empire - in return for the
restoration of lost trade, unwilling to endure the humiliation of swift
withdrawal from China, as the Americans wanted, Japan was going to seize the
tin, nickel, rubber, and especially oil of the British and Dutch colonies,"
wrote Twomey.
The rest is history. Some observers, though, reckon that American policy
could have forced imperialist Japan's hand.
Abe to become first Japanese leader to visit Pearl Harbor
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will visit Pearl Harbor with President
Obama, becoming his country's first leader to travel to the site of the
Japanese attack 75 years ago that drew the United States into World War II.
(Reuters)
"Never inflict upon another major military power a policy which would cause
you yourself to go to war unless you are fully prepared to engage that power
militarily," wrote American historian Roland Worth Jr., in "No Choice But
War: The United States Embargo against Japan and the Eruption of War in the
Pacific." "And don't be surprised that if they do decide to retaliate, that
they seek out a time and a place that inflicts maximum harm and humiliation
upon your cause."
Roosevelt's battle with the isolationists
Meanwhile, in the United States, President Roosevelt faced widespread public
opposition to entering the war. The memory of World War I - a struggle many
Americans believed wasn't worth fighting - still loomed large in the
political imagination. Roosevelt faced off a 1940 election challenge by
pandering to anti-war voters.
"I have said this before, but I shall say it again and again and again," he
declared on the campaign trail in Boston in October 1940. "Your boys are not
going to be sent into any foreign wars."
But Roosevelt was steadily trying to engage in the conflicts abroad, no
matter his rhetoric. He was an avowed anti-fascist and was preoccupied more
by Nazi aggression in Europe than Japanese inroads in Asia.
His political opponents fretted that he would push toward a greater
confrontation. This included figures from the America First movement, a big
tent coalition of isolationists, nationalists, pacifists and, indeed, some
anti-Semites, who wanted the United States to cling to a policy of
neutrality and weren't that bothered by an ascendant fascism in Europe.
Charles Lindbergh, the legendary aviator, was one of the more prominent
champions of the America First cause.
"The pall of the war seems to hang over us today. More and more people are
simply giving in to it. Many say we are as good as in already. The attitude
of the country seems to waver back and forth," Lindbergh wrote in his diary
on Jan. 6, 1941. "Our greatest hope lies in the fact [that] eighty-five
percent of the people in the United States (according to the latest polls)
are against intervention."
In March 1941, Roosevelt persuaded Congress to pass the Lend-Lease Act,
which "loaned" arms and ships to the beleaguered Allies in Europe. U.S.
warships engaged Nazi submarines in the Atlantic and protected convoys
bearing relief supplies to the British. Months of secret diplomacy with
British Prime Minister Winston Churchill already bound Roosevelt's
administration to the Allied cause, but the United States was not yet
formally in war.
The attack on Pearl Harbor in December gave Roosevelt all the ammunition he
needed. Germany, in alliance with Japan, declared war on the United States
four days later, saving Roosevelt the trouble of having to do it himself.
FDR's 'Infamy' speech
The day after the attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, President Franklin
Delano Roosevelt delivered a formal address to the joint Congressional
session on Dec. 8. Here's an excerpt of the now-famous speech. (Jenny
Starrs/The Washington Post)
The isolationists were defeated. "I can see nothing to do under these
circumstances except to fight. If I had been in Congress, I certainly would
have voted for a declaration of war," Lindbergh lamented. Other politicians
in Congress, mostly Republicans, would soon lose elections and become an
irrelevant wing of the party.
Without the American entry into World War II, it's possible Japan would have
consolidated its position of supremacy in East Asia and that the war in
Europe could have dragged on for far longer than it did. The U.S.'s role in
the war forced Nazi Germany to commit a sizeable troop presence in Western
Europe that it would have otherwise diverted to the withering invasion of
the Soviet Union. It helped turn the tide of battle.
For decades since, though, conspiracy theories have surrounded Roosevelt's
role in the build-up to Pearl Harbor, with a coterie of revisionist
historians alleging he deliberately bungled military coordination and
obscured intelligence in order to provoke the crisis that led to war. Most
mainstream historians dismiss these claims.
"He was totally caught off guard by it," Roosevelt biographer Jean Edward
Smith told NPR this week. "The record is clear. There was no evidence of the
Japanese moving toward Pearl Harbor that was picked up in Washington."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/12/07/75-years-ago-what-if-japan-never-attacked-pearl-harbor/?utm_term=.2b8621cc5a60
75 years ago, what if Japan never attacked Pearl Harbor?
By Ishaan Tharoor December 7
Few events in World War II were as defining as the Japanese assault on Pearl
Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. The "date which shall live in infamy" - as President
Franklin D. Roosevelt famously put it - prompted the American entry into the
war, subdued an entrenched isolationist faction in the country's politics
and, in the long run, prefigured Washington's assumption of the role of
global superpower.
2,403 Americans died and 19 vessels were either sunk or badly damaged in the
attack, which involved more than 350 warplanes launched from Japanese
carriers that had secretly made their way to a remote expanse of the North
Pacific. It caught the brass in Hawaii by surprise and stunned the nation.
"With astounding success," Time magazine wrote, "the little man has clipped
the big fellow."
But the big fellow would hit back. Japan's bold strike is now largely seen
as an act of "strategic imbecility," a move born out of militarist,
ideological fervor that provoked a ruinous war Japan could never win and
ended in mushroom clouds and hideous death and destruction at home.
Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the Japanese naval commander, hoped his plan to
attack on Pearl Harbor would deliver a fatal blow to American capabilities
in the Pacific and persuade Washington to push for a political settlement.
Otherwise, he knew that his country stood no chance against the United
States in a protracted war, according to Steve Twomey, author of a new book
on the tense build-up to Pearl Harbor.
Twomey documents Yamamoto's initial opposition to engaging the United
States: "In a drawn-out conflict, 'Japan's resources will be depleted,
battleships and weaponry will be damaged, replenishing materials will be
impossible,' Yamamoto wrote on September 29 to the chief of the Naval
General Staff. 'Japan will wind up 'impoverished,' and any war 'with so
little chance of success should not be fought.'"
But with war a fait accompli, Yamamoto conceived of a raid that would be so
stunning that American morale would go "down to such an extent that it
cannot be recovered," as he put it. Unfortunately for him, the United States
was galvanized by the assault - and had its fleet of aircraft carriers
largely unscathed. A plane carrying the Japanese admiral would be shot down
over the Solomon Islands by American forces in 1943 with the U.S.
counter-offensive already well underway.
Could it have gone differently? No modern conflict has spawned more
alternative histories than World War II. In the decades since, writers,
Hollywood execs and amateur historians have indulged in all sorts of
speculation: What the world would look like if the Axis powers triumphed, or
if the Nazis crushed the Soviets, or if the United States had not deployed
nuclear weapons, or if Roosevelt had chosen not to enter the war at all.
But even if Japan had not attacked Pearl Harbor, it's quite likely that the
two sides would have still clashed.
The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the USS Arizona on Dec. 7, 1941,
pushed the U.S. into World War II. But the battleship wasn't supposed to be
docked at the harbor on that date. The Post's Michael Ruane takes us back to
that fateful day in American history. (Claritza Jimenez, Michael Ruane/The
Washington Post)
Japan's will to power
For imperial Japan, the United States posed a fundamental obstacle to its
expanding position in the Pacific. Here was a resource-hungry island nation
eager to assert itself on the world stage in the same way European powers
had done in centuries prior. By the summer of 1941, it had seized a
considerable swath of East Asia, from Manchuria and Korea to the north to
the formerly French territories of Indochina further south, and was
embroiled in a bitter war in China.
American sanctions attempted to rein in Tokyo: Washington slapped on
embargoes on oil and other goods essential to Japan's war machine. The price
to have them lifted - a Japanese withdrawal from China, as well as the
abandonment of its "tripartite" alliance with Germany and Italy - proved too
steep and humiliating. So Japan calculated further expansion in order to
access the resources it needed.
"Our increasing economic pressure on Japan, plus the militaristic cast of
the government ... and their partial loss of face in China, spelled a
probable resumption of their policy of conquest," mused a lengthy essay in
the Atlantic, published in 1948. "In what direction would the Japanese
strike, and against whom?"
Japan opted not to venture into Soviet Siberia; in 1939, Japanese troops had
suffered a chastening defeat at the hands of a combined Soviet and Mongolian
army and its forces were already bogged down on various fronts in China.
The decision was made to target the vulnerable British and Dutch colonies in
Southeast Asia - what's now the independent nations of Burma, Singapore,
Malaysia and Indonesia. The Japanese knew this would likely spur a greater
response from the United States, which then controlled the Philippines and
other scattered island possessions in the Pacific.
"Unwilling to give up what it wanted - greater empire - in return for the
restoration of lost trade, unwilling to endure the humiliation of swift
withdrawal from China, as the Americans wanted, Japan was going to seize the
tin, nickel, rubber, and especially oil of the British and Dutch colonies,"
wrote Twomey.
The rest is history. Some observers, though, reckon that American policy
could have forced imperialist Japan's hand.
Abe to become first Japanese leader to visit Pearl Harbor
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will visit Pearl Harbor with President
Obama, becoming his country's first leader to travel to the site of the
Japanese attack 75 years ago that drew the United States into World War II.
(Reuters)
"Never inflict upon another major military power a policy which would cause
you yourself to go to war unless you are fully prepared to engage that power
militarily," wrote American historian Roland Worth Jr., in "No Choice But
War: The United States Embargo against Japan and the Eruption of War in the
Pacific." "And don't be surprised that if they do decide to retaliate, that
they seek out a time and a place that inflicts maximum harm and humiliation
upon your cause."
Roosevelt's battle with the isolationists
Meanwhile, in the United States, President Roosevelt faced widespread public
opposition to entering the war. The memory of World War I - a struggle many
Americans believed wasn't worth fighting - still loomed large in the
political imagination. Roosevelt faced off a 1940 election challenge by
pandering to anti-war voters.
"I have said this before, but I shall say it again and again and again," he
declared on the campaign trail in Boston in October 1940. "Your boys are not
going to be sent into any foreign wars."
But Roosevelt was steadily trying to engage in the conflicts abroad, no
matter his rhetoric. He was an avowed anti-fascist and was preoccupied more
by Nazi aggression in Europe than Japanese inroads in Asia.
His political opponents fretted that he would push toward a greater
confrontation. This included figures from the America First movement, a big
tent coalition of isolationists, nationalists, pacifists and, indeed, some
anti-Semites, who wanted the United States to cling to a policy of
neutrality and weren't that bothered by an ascendant fascism in Europe.
Charles Lindbergh, the legendary aviator, was one of the more prominent
champions of the America First cause.
"The pall of the war seems to hang over us today. More and more people are
simply giving in to it. Many say we are as good as in already. The attitude
of the country seems to waver back and forth," Lindbergh wrote in his diary
on Jan. 6, 1941. "Our greatest hope lies in the fact [that] eighty-five
percent of the people in the United States (according to the latest polls)
are against intervention."
In March 1941, Roosevelt persuaded Congress to pass the Lend-Lease Act,
which "loaned" arms and ships to the beleaguered Allies in Europe. U.S.
warships engaged Nazi submarines in the Atlantic and protected convoys
bearing relief supplies to the British. Months of secret diplomacy with
British Prime Minister Winston Churchill already bound Roosevelt's
administration to the Allied cause, but the United States was not yet
formally in war.
The attack on Pearl Harbor in December gave Roosevelt all the ammunition he
needed. Germany, in alliance with Japan, declared war on the United States
four days later, saving Roosevelt the trouble of having to do it himself.
FDR's 'Infamy' speech
The day after the attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, President Franklin
Delano Roosevelt delivered a formal address to the joint Congressional
session on Dec. 8. Here's an excerpt of the now-famous speech. (Jenny
Starrs/The Washington Post)
The isolationists were defeated. "I can see nothing to do under these
circumstances except to fight. If I had been in Congress, I certainly would
have voted for a declaration of war," Lindbergh lamented. Other politicians
in Congress, mostly Republicans, would soon lose elections and become an
irrelevant wing of the party.
Without the American entry into World War II, it's possible Japan would have
consolidated its position of supremacy in East Asia and that the war in
Europe could have dragged on for far longer than it did. The U.S.'s role in
the war forced Nazi Germany to commit a sizeable troop presence in Western
Europe that it would have otherwise diverted to the withering invasion of
the Soviet Union. It helped turn the tide of battle.
For decades since, though, conspiracy theories have surrounded Roosevelt's
role in the build-up to Pearl Harbor, with a coterie of revisionist
historians alleging he deliberately bungled military coordination and
obscured intelligence in order to provoke the crisis that led to war. Most
mainstream historians dismiss these claims.
"He was totally caught off guard by it," Roosevelt biographer Jean Edward
Smith told NPR this week. "The record is clear. There was no evidence of the
Japanese moving toward Pearl Harbor that was picked up in Washington."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/12/07/75-years-ago-what-if-japan-never-attacked-pearl-harbor/?utm_term=.2b8621cc5a60
Rich Rostrom
Dec 8, 2016, 9:32:03 AM12/8/16
to
"a425couple" <a425c...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> 75 years ago, what if Japan never attacked Pearl Harbor?
This actually breaks down into three questions:
> 75 years ago, what if Japan never attacked Pearl Harbor?
What if Japan did not attack Pearl Harbor when it initiated
the Pacific War? (I.e. attacked only Malaya, the East Indies,
and the Philippines.)
Answer: the U.S. goes to war, not as enthusiastically as
historically, but still willing. Admiral Kimmel commands
the Pacific Fleet. The war is operationally somewhat
different.
What if Japan did not attack the United States, but only
Britain and the Netherlands (their colonies)?
Answer: this requires Japan to take the chance that the
U.S. will not intervene from the Philippines, which the
Japanese viewed as a great danger. However, if the U.S.
is not attacked, it will be very hard for Roosevelt to
do anything.
What if Japan did not attack the U.S. or the British and
Dutch colonies?
Then Japan must back down from its war in China, or try
to get along with almost no oil imports.
--
The real Velvet Revolution - and the would-be hijacker.
http://originalvelvetrevolution.com
Dave Smith
Dec 8, 2016, 3:10:04 PM12/8/16
to
On 2016-12-07 6:46 PM, a425couple wrote:
>> From the news feed:
> 75 years ago, what if Japan never attacked Pearl Harbor?
> By Ishaan Tharoor December 7
I suppose it would have delayed American entry in the war to the point
>> From the news feed:
> 75 years ago, what if Japan never attacked Pearl Harbor?
> By Ishaan Tharoor December 7
where Japan and Germany may have become unstoppable. When you address
only the the attack on the American territory of Hawaii you neglect the
that issue of Pearl Harbor being only one of part of a much larger
operation. It seems that it was designed to knock out the American
Pacific fleet and to scare the US away from getting involved in the rest
of their dirty work in the western Pacific.
Japan was likely to clash with the US at some point unless it stopped
its aggression in China and Manchuria. They were desperate for materials
that were being denied to them by the European controlled colonies. When
they found that they were unable to continue their war and China and
still use diplomacy to gain access to materials they needed they
launched the attack on Pearl Harbor and at the same time sent troops to
the Aleutians, Hong Kong, Indochina, Borneo, New Guinea, Burma, the
Philippines (a former American territory and still a major concern) and
dozens of islands across the Pacific.
mtfe...@netmapsonscape.net
Dec 9, 2016, 3:31:06 PM12/9/16
to
Dave Smith <adavid...@sympatico.ca> wrote:
> On 2016-12-07 6:46 PM, a425couple wrote:
> >> From the news feed:
> > 75 years ago, what if Japan never attacked Pearl Harbor?
> > By Ishaan Tharoor December 7
> I suppose it would have delayed American entry in the war to the point
> where Japan and Germany may have become unstoppable.
Well, they were "stoppable" by the respective oceans. At some point, FDR's sub-
> On 2016-12-07 6:46 PM, a425couple wrote:
> >> From the news feed:
> > 75 years ago, what if Japan never attacked Pearl Harbor?
> > By Ishaan Tharoor December 7
> I suppose it would have delayed American entry in the war to the point
> where Japan and Germany may have become unstoppable.
hunting might have forced a war with Germany, but absent a Japanese attack on
American possessions, it would be hard to see the US public (much less Congress)
support military action against Japan.
Mike
Dave Smith
Dec 9, 2016, 6:08:01 PM12/9/16
to
Pacific fleet at anchor stuck in the minds of Americans, but they struck
the Philippines the next day. While the country may have been
independent at the time, it was still important to the US.
mtfe...@netmapsonscape.net
Dec 9, 2016, 7:42:39 PM12/9/16
to
Dave Smith <adavid...@sympatico.ca> wrote:
> On 2016-12-09 3:31 PM, mtfe...@netMAPSONscape.net wrote:
> > Dave Smith <adavid...@sympatico.ca> wrote:
> >> On 2016-12-07 6:46 PM, a425couple wrote:
> >>>> From the news feed:
> >>> 75 years ago, what if Japan never attacked Pearl Harbor?
> >>> By Ishaan Tharoor December 7
> On 2016-12-09 3:31 PM, mtfe...@netMAPSONscape.net wrote:
> > Dave Smith <adavid...@sympatico.ca> wrote:
> >> On 2016-12-07 6:46 PM, a425couple wrote:
> >>>> From the news feed:
> >>> 75 years ago, what if Japan never attacked Pearl Harbor?
> >>> By Ishaan Tharoor December 7
> > Well, they were "stoppable" by the respective oceans. At some point, FDR's sub-
> > hunting might have forced a war with Germany, but absent a Japanese attack on
> > American possessions, it would be hard to see the US public (much less Congress)
> > support military action against Japan.
> >
> Perhaps the attack on Pearl Harbor and the sinking of most of the
> Pacific fleet at anchor stuck in the minds of Americans, but they struck
> the Philippines the next day. While the country may have been
> independent at the time, it was still important to the US.
The PI were still a US colony, scheduled for independence in 1946. The
> > hunting might have forced a war with Germany, but absent a Japanese attack on
> > American possessions, it would be hard to see the US public (much less Congress)
> > support military action against Japan.
> >
> Perhaps the attack on Pearl Harbor and the sinking of most of the
> Pacific fleet at anchor stuck in the minds of Americans, but they struck
> the Philippines the next day. While the country may have been
> independent at the time, it was still important to the US.
Japanese didn't really like the idea of having the US fleet so close to
the territories she needed (Malaysia, DEI, etc.) At best, it would be a
safe harbor for any British reinforcements. The US actually expected an
attack in the PI for that reason. Had the PI actually been independent,
I doubt the Japanese would have hit PH.
Mike
The Horny Goat
Dec 9, 2016, 8:08:06 PM12/9/16
to
On Fri, 09 Dec 2016 15:31:03 -0500, mtfe...@netMAPSONscape.net wrote:
>Well, they were "stoppable" by the respective oceans. At some point, FDR's sub-
>hunting might have forced a war with Germany, but absent a Japanese attack on
>American possessions, it would be hard to see the US public (much less Congress)
>support military action against Japan.
Some years ago some wise guy on soc.history.what-if produced
>Well, they were "stoppable" by the respective oceans. At some point, FDR's sub-
>hunting might have forced a war with Germany, but absent a Japanese attack on
>American possessions, it would be hard to see the US public (much less Congress)
>support military action against Japan.
calculations suggesting that if you DRAINED the Atlantic Ocean and
built a network of interstates across it that Germany would have a
hard time supplying enough trooops to successfully invade the United
States in the summer of 1942 given the size of the US Army in 1942
(which of course was much smaller than the USA of 1944-45).
He was assuming the supply trucks would not come under attack until
they were within aircraft range of the front...(sice obviously if you
drain the Atlantic the US Navy is going to be entirely in the
Pacific!)
It was pretty funny but he made his point.
Haydn
Dec 10, 2016, 11:01:50 AM12/10/16
to
mtfe...@netMAPSONscape.net wrote:
> Well, they were "stoppable" by the respective oceans.
However outlandish they may read today, sketchy Axis outlines for a huge
> Well, they were "stoppable" by the respective oceans.
post-war (meaning, after the final victory over Britain and USSR)
expansion of the Spanish Navy have survived.
Franco's Armada would have commissioned four state-of-the-art
battleships, two oceanic carriers and a host of smaller warships,
largely built in Italian yards with substantial injections of German
technology.
Clearly, the build-up would have only made sense in the context of a
combined German-Italian-French-Spanish European Atlantic Fleet to take
on the US Atlantic Fleet. Not as a prelude to an invasion, but as a
deterrent to keep the US out of New Order Eurasia - and its dealings
with pro-Axis South American countries.
Haydn
Kenneth Young
Dec 10, 2016, 12:42:24 PM12/10/16
to
In article <o2go86$1j31$1...@gioia.aioe.org>, mrbrid...@hotmail.com
Italians had built successful oceanic carriers. I am also wondering how
this program was to be paid for and why they assumed Franco would agree
to this
(Haydn) wrote:
> four state-of-the-art
> battleships, two oceanic carriers and a host of smaller warships,
> largely built in Italian yards with substantial injections of
> German technology.
Now that is interesting,especially as neither the Germans or the
> four state-of-the-art
> battleships, two oceanic carriers and a host of smaller warships,
> largely built in Italian yards with substantial injections of
> German technology.
Italians had built successful oceanic carriers. I am also wondering how
this program was to be paid for and why they assumed Franco would agree
to this
John Dallman
Dec 10, 2016, 5:30:05 PM12/10/16
to
In article <memo.20161210...@kenney.cix.co.uk>,
the Graf Zeppelin are not totally convincing.
> I am also wondering how this program was to be paid for and why
> they assumed Franco would agree to this
With the British and the USSR out of the way, they might well have felt
he wouldn't have a lot of choice but to fully join the Axis.
John
ken...@cix.co.uk (Kenneth Young) wrote:
> Now that is interesting,especially as neither the Germans or the
> Italians had built successful oceanic carriers.
The Germans, at least, were sure they could do it, although the plans for
> Now that is interesting,especially as neither the Germans or the
> Italians had built successful oceanic carriers.
the Graf Zeppelin are not totally convincing.
> I am also wondering how this program was to be paid for and why
> they assumed Franco would agree to this
he wouldn't have a lot of choice but to fully join the Axis.
John
Geoffrey Sinclair
Dec 11, 2016, 10:43:48 AM12/11/16
to
"a425couple" <a425c...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:o2a6q...@news3.newsguy.com...
rise of the US was being accelerated whether the US fought or not.
The fighting gave the US military real credibility as a fighting force.
In Japanese terms of course it was 8 December.
> 2,403 Americans died and 19 vessels were either sunk or badly damaged in
> the attack, which involved more than 350 warplanes launched from Japanese
> carriers that had secretly made their way to a remote expanse of the North
> Pacific. It caught the brass in Hawaii by surprise and stunned the nation.
So basic fact insertion, the only point that might be in addition was
the majority of the 68 civilians included in the killed total were probably
due to friendly fire.
Should that read via a remote expanse, 200 miles from Oahu is not
that remote.
> "With astounding success," Time magazine wrote, "the little man has
> clipped the big fellow."
>
> But the big fellow would hit back. Japan's bold strike is now largely seen
> as an act of "strategic imbecility," a move born out of militarist,
> ideological fervor that provoked a ruinous war Japan could never win and
> ended in mushroom clouds and hideous death and destruction at home.
Essentially if Japan was to win going to war in 1941 was about
the best chance, but it relied on the war in Europe going better
for the axis, and US attitudes, essentially factors largely outside
Japan's control.
> Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the Japanese naval commander, hoped his plan to
> attack on Pearl Harbor would deliver a fatal blow to American capabilities
> in the Pacific and persuade Washington to push for a political settlement.
> Otherwise, he knew that his country stood no chance against the United
> States in a protracted war, according to Steve Twomey, author of a new
> book on the tense build-up to Pearl Harbor.
This is incorrect, Yamamoto did not consider Pearl Harbor alone
to be enough, it was the strike designed to give the Japanese
a relatively free hand to occupy the initial war objectives in
South East Asia.
If Yamamoto had a free hand he would have done more than
strike at Pearl Harbor if Japan was only at war with the US. His
plan was to keep striking the US while Japan had superiority as
seen at Midway and Guadalcanal in the hope of forcing negotiations.
Yamamoto is on record as warning US morale and resolution
was strong, much more than Russia in 1904 or China.
> Twomey documents Yamamoto's initial opposition to engaging the United
> States: "In a drawn-out conflict, 'Japan's resources will be depleted,
> battleships and weaponry will be damaged, replenishing materials will be
> impossible,' Yamamoto wrote on September 29 to the chief of the Naval
> General Staff. 'Japan will wind up 'impoverished,' and any war 'with so
> little chance of success should not be fought.'"
Is this 1940? There is plenty of Yamamoto's words showing he had
a very accurate appreciation of Japan's chances against the US.
> But with war a fait accompli, Yamamoto conceived of a raid that
> would be so stunning that American morale would go "down to
> such an extent that it cannot be recovered," as he put it.
That would be an oversell and can be compared to his other
writings which made it clear the US was not that fragile.
Also the Pearl Harbor idea was around in January 1941, well
before war became inevitable. It was developed as war became
more likely.
> Unfortunately for him, the United States was galvanized by the
> assault - and had its fleet of aircraft carriers largely unscathed.
No carriers damaged, some carrier planes shot down.
> A plane carrying the Japanese admiral would be shot down
> over the Solomon Islands by American forces in 1943 with the U.S.
> counter-offensive already well underway.
Can it be pointed out allied counter offensive given the balance
of forces in theatre at the time?
> Could it have gone differently? No modern conflict has spawned more
> alternative histories than World War II. In the decades since, writers,
> Hollywood execs and amateur historians have indulged in all sorts of
> speculation: What the world would look like if the Axis powers triumphed,
> or if the Nazis crushed the Soviets, or if the United States had not
> deployed nuclear weapons, or if Roosevelt had chosen not to enter
> the war at all.
> But even if Japan had not attacked Pearl Harbor, it's quite likely that
> the two sides would have still clashed.
Given what Hitler wanted very little of the world would have escaped
and Japan had a military that was willing to take what it could get.
> The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the USS Arizona on Dec. 7, 1941,
> pushed the U.S. into World War II. But the battleship wasn't supposed to
> be docked at the harbor on that date. The Post's Michael Ruane takes us
> back to that fateful day in American history. (Claritza Jimenez, Michael
> Ruane/The Washington Post)
Where exactly was the Arizona supposed to be? Sunday was the
day most of the USN tried to be in port when at peace.
> Japan's will to power
>
> For imperial Japan, the United States posed a fundamental obstacle to its
> expanding position in the Pacific. Here was a resource-hungry island
> nation eager to assert itself on the world stage in the same way European
> powers had done in centuries prior.
Now if this article had been from say a non US publisher what is the
chance the above European would be replaced by US, the move into
the interior of North America, the war with Spain, the Monroe doctrine?
As for resource hungry that really overstates it, Australia used about the
same amount of oil on a tenth the population. It was an excuse more
than a necessity or if you like the near current economic thought, control
of raw materials.
> By the summer of 1941, it had seized a
> considerable swath of East Asia, from Manchuria and Korea to the north to
> the formerly French territories of Indochina further south, and was
> embroiled in a bitter war in China.
Back to simple summary, and northern summer of course. And the
time line ignores the escalation of sanctions and Japanese actions
through 1940 and 1941. By the way should Manchuria and Korea
be formerly Chinese territories, or Korea formerly Korean to stay
consistent?
> American sanctions attempted to rein in Tokyo: Washington slapped on
> embargoes on oil and other goods essential to Japan's war machine. The
> price to have them lifted - a Japanese withdrawal from China, as well as
> the abandonment of its "tripartite" alliance with Germany and Italy -
> proved too steep and humiliating. So Japan calculated further expansion
> in order to access the resources it needed.
US sanctions alone were not enough, the British and Dutch had to agree.
And those were the terms, as opposed to stopping the war in China?
On 9 April 1941 a group of private citizens, with help from the Japanese
Ambassador, proposed a solution as
These principles, or points, were:
(a) Respect for the territory, integrity, and sovereignty of all nations;
(b) Non-interference in the internal affairs of others;
(c) Equality, as of commercial opportunity;
(d) No change in the Pacific status quo except by peaceful means.
This was considered acceptable enough for the US.
On 3 May the official Japanese reply was for a neutrality pact like
the one signed with the USSR on 13 April, the reply was handed
over on 7 May. On 9 May came the idea from Tokyo that China
should sign a treaty like the one in place with the Japanese
version of the Chinese government.
Positions hardened when Japan occupied southern French Indo
China in July.
Japan was not going to give up on the tripartite pact, the US wanted
assurances about what that meant in terms of Japan's actions if the
US ended up at war with Germany, none were given.
> "Our increasing economic pressure on Japan, plus the militaristic cast of
> the government ... and their partial loss of face in China, spelled a
> probable resumption of their policy of conquest," mused a lengthy essay in
> the Atlantic, published in 1948. "In what direction would the Japanese
> strike, and against whom?"
So if someone is probably going to keep attacking is it a good idea
to trade them relevant resources? Or the sanctions are the reason,
without them Japan would have stayed at peace?
> Japan opted not to venture into Soviet Siberia; in 1939, Japanese troops
> had suffered a chastening defeat at the hands of a combined Soviet and
> Mongolian army and its forces were already bogged down on various
> fronts in China.
The neutrality pact of April 1941 was a good clue.
> The decision was made to target the vulnerable British and Dutch
> colonies in Southeast Asia - what's now the independent nations of
> Burma, Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia. The Japanese knew
> this would likely spur a greater response from the United States,
> which then controlled the Philippines and other scattered island
> possessions in the Pacific.
The Philippines did not have a great deal of war resources as such
though hemp for rope was important enough for Manila to be an
interchangeable word for rope.
> "Unwilling to give up what it wanted - greater empire - in return for the
> restoration of lost trade, unwilling to endure the humiliation of swift
> withdrawal from China, as the Americans wanted, Japan was going to
> seize the tin, nickel, rubber, and especially oil of the British and Dutch
> colonies," wrote Twomey.
>
> The rest is history. Some observers, though, reckon that American policy
> could have forced imperialist Japan's hand.
The alternative of course is the charge US oil powered Japan's
warships when they attacked Pearl Harbor etc. And the passive
keeps being moved to Japan, the active to America.
So as expected with a general article a simple background of the
history, with things like Japan wanting the US to pressure China
to agree to Japan's terms omitted, the US was for a negotiation
between the two with the US being more the broker.
> Abe to become first Japanese leader to visit Pearl Harbor
> Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will visit Pearl Harbor with President
> Obama, becoming his country's first leader to travel to the site of the
> Japanese attack 75 years ago that drew the United States into World War
> II.
> (Reuters)
>
> "Never inflict upon another major military power a policy which would
> cause you yourself to go to war unless you are fully prepared to engage
> that power militarily," wrote American historian Roland Worth Jr., in "No
> Choice But War: The United States Embargo against Japan and the
> Eruption of War in the Pacific." "And don't be surprised that if they do
> decide to retaliate, that they seek out a time and a place that inflicts
> maximum harm and humiliation upon your cause."
So retaliate, you caused it, rather than take action, they decided it.
An interesting attitude that keeps implying the US pushed Japan, not
Japan pushed the US by actions like aligning with the Nazis and moving
into Indo China.
So if the Japanese were passive then trading freely with them must
mean they would have stayed peaceful, despite the major expenditure
on the military.
> Roosevelt's battle with the isolationists
>
> Meanwhile, in the United States, President Roosevelt faced widespread
> public opposition to entering the war. The memory of World War I - a
> struggle many Americans believed wasn't worth fighting -
How about the world believed it was not worth fighting.
> still loomed large in the
> political imagination. Roosevelt faced off a 1940 election challenge by
> pandering to anti-war voters.
Pandering? Not acknowledging their views? Was the Republican
candidate pandering as well?
> "I have said this before, but I shall say it again and again and again,"
> he declared on the campaign trail in Boston in October 1940. "Your
> boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars."
Quite correct if peace could be maintained. If Japan accurately
measured what the US could do, the announced naval building
programs were a good clue, along with aircraft production, figures
for which were still being openly published in 1941.
> But Roosevelt was steadily trying to engage in the conflicts abroad, no
> matter his rhetoric. He was an avowed anti-fascist and was preoccupied
> more by Nazi aggression in Europe than Japanese inroads in Asia.
So FDR wanted into the war instead of FDR wanted to help
the good guys win.
Europe was more developed and after 1940 much harder for
the US to defeat Germany. Plus posed the risk of Britain
falling and the RN and French fleets becoming neutral or
worst case German controlled.
> His political opponents fretted that he would push toward a greater
> confrontation. This included figures from the America First movement, a
> big tent coalition of isolationists, nationalists, pacifists and, indeed,
> some anti-Semites, who wanted the United States to cling to a policy of
> neutrality and weren't that bothered by an ascendant fascism in Europe.
>
> Charles Lindbergh, the legendary aviator, was one of the more prominent
> champions of the America First cause.
>
> "The pall of the war seems to hang over us today. More and more people
> are simply giving in to it. Many say we are as good as in already. The
> attitude of the country seems to waver back and forth," Lindbergh wrote in
> his diary on Jan. 6, 1941. "Our greatest hope lies in the fact [that]
> eighty-five percent of the people in the United States (according to the
> latest polls) are against intervention."
So as things stood in January 1941, with it down to Germany versus
Britain in popular short hand the US did not want to become involved.
In June 1941 lots of communist leaning people became more interested
in helping the allied war effort. In July Japan's occupation of more
territory also pushed public opinion.
> In March 1941, Roosevelt persuaded Congress to pass the Lend-Lease Act,
> which "loaned" arms and ships to the beleaguered Allies in Europe. U.S.
> warships engaged Nazi submarines in the Atlantic and protected convoys
> bearing relief supplies to the British.
But the incidents with U-boats were months in the future in March
1941, along with the convoy escorts, partly triggered by the US taking
over the security of Iceland and Greenland.
> Months of secret diplomacy with
> British Prime Minister Winston Churchill already bound Roosevelt's
> administration to the Allied cause, but the United States was not yet
> formally in war.
There was no binding, there were agreements in terms of material
help and joint war plans and aims worked out for if the US became
involved. Like the British pre WWI the US idea was to avoid bindings.
> The attack on Pearl Harbor in December gave Roosevelt all the ammunition
> he needed. Germany, in alliance with Japan, declared war on the United
> States four days later, saving Roosevelt the trouble of having to do it
> himself.
Somehow it seems the invasion of the Philippines is not good enough.
> FDR's 'Infamy' speech The day after the attack on Pearl Harbor on
> Dec. 7, 1941, President Franklin
> Delano Roosevelt delivered a formal address to the joint Congressional
> session on Dec. 8. Here's an excerpt of the now-famous speech. (Jenny
> Starrs/The Washington Post)
>
> The isolationists were defeated. "I can see nothing to do under these
> circumstances except to fight. If I had been in Congress, I certainly
> would have voted for a declaration of war," Lindbergh lamented. Other
> politicians in Congress, mostly Republicans, would soon lose elections
> and become an irrelevant wing of the party.
Quoting their attitudes in 1940 and 1941 versus the new reality would
be a good campaign tactic.
> Without the American entry into World War II, it's possible Japan would
> have consolidated its position of supremacy in East Asia and that the war
> in Europe could have dragged on for far longer than it did.
By definition less allied force should see a prolonged war, against
that is the large merchant shipping losses off the America's in 1942
and associated long term effects on allied war making abilities.
South East Asia represented 80% of the worlds rubber and 66% of the
world's tin supply. The temptation for the Japanese to impose trade
sanctions on the US in a reversal of the 1940 and 1941 ones would
have been high.
Also present were at least come iron and aluminium mines, along
with lead, antimony and tungsten.
>The U.S.'s role in
> the war forced Nazi Germany to commit a sizeable troop presence in Western
> Europe that it would have otherwise diverted to the withering invasion of
> the Soviet Union. It helped turn the tide of battle.
It is generally agreed if Germany did not defeat the USSR by the
end of the 1942 summer campaign the result was probably going
to be the USSR winning.
So the US commitment of 4 divisions to England by the end of
August 1942 played a big part in German army deployments? The
the over 30 commonwealth divisions in England and the Middle
East played no part. Nor did the need for occupation troops in
all the conquered territory play a part (and this was a big one),
Only the US forces. Yes this was written for a US audience.
On 15 June 1942 there were 31 German divisions in the
west and south, plus 12 in Norway, mostly guarding against
western attack. Out of around 233 divisions. The US had 1
infantry division in Iceland and 1 infantry and 1 armoured in
England as of end May.
What the western allies did in 1942 to turn the tide was ship
resources and weapons to the USSR, but the amount and
delays involved meant a limited impact.
So FDR could have saved the USSR by staying at peace and
deploying a corps or two into Iceland in 1942? Thereby forcing
major changes to the German army dispositions?
In April 1944 the Germans had 238 divisions, 81 in the west
and south (including around 14 in Yugoslavia), plus 19 in Norway.
The US had 28 in England and the Mediterranean. Part of the
German deployments were replacements for Italian and Vichy
French forces.
> For decades since, though, conspiracy theories have surrounded Roosevelt's
> role in the build-up to Pearl Harbor, with a coterie of revisionist
> historians alleging he deliberately bungled military coordination and
> obscured intelligence in order to provoke the crisis that led to war. Most
> mainstream historians dismiss these claims.
Ah yes the generalist confronted with a lot of detail makes the
generalist "most dismiss" the conspiracy claims leaving the
reader who wants to believe still able to say they have support.
The revisionists mostly concentrate on the claims FDR knew the
Japanese plan to attack Perl Harbor. The claims about sanctions
provoking Japan do exist, along with similar claims for today
regarding places like Iran, North Korea and Russia.
> "He was totally caught off guard by it," Roosevelt biographer Jean Edward
> Smith told NPR this week. "The record is clear. There was no evidence of
> the Japanese moving toward Pearl Harbor that was picked up in Washington."
So FDR is charged with failing military co-ordination, what ever that
means, MacArthur using his air force, leaving his supplies in Bataan?
Kimmel and Short having more integrated plans?
FDR obscured intelligence is interesting, he ordered some message
suppressed? Or ordered specific interpretations become official?
> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/12/07/75-years-ago-what-if-japan-never-attacked-pearl-harbor/?utm_term=.2b8621cc5a60
Geoffrey Sinclair
Remove the nb for email.
news:o2a6q...@news3.newsguy.com...
> >From the news feed:
> 75 years ago, what if Japan never attacked Pearl Harbor?
> By Ishaan Tharoor December 7
>
> Few events in World War II were as defining as the Japanese assault on
> Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. The "date which shall live in infamy" - as
> President Franklin D. Roosevelt famously put it - prompted the American
> entry into the
> war, subdued an entrenched isolationist faction in the country's politics
> and, in the long run, prefigured Washington's assumption of the role of
> global superpower.
It could be pointed out with Europe committed to self destruction the
> 75 years ago, what if Japan never attacked Pearl Harbor?
> By Ishaan Tharoor December 7
>
> Few events in World War II were as defining as the Japanese assault on
> Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. The "date which shall live in infamy" - as
> President Franklin D. Roosevelt famously put it - prompted the American
> entry into the
> war, subdued an entrenched isolationist faction in the country's politics
> and, in the long run, prefigured Washington's assumption of the role of
> global superpower.
rise of the US was being accelerated whether the US fought or not.
The fighting gave the US military real credibility as a fighting force.
In Japanese terms of course it was 8 December.
> 2,403 Americans died and 19 vessels were either sunk or badly damaged in
> the attack, which involved more than 350 warplanes launched from Japanese
> carriers that had secretly made their way to a remote expanse of the North
> Pacific. It caught the brass in Hawaii by surprise and stunned the nation.
the majority of the 68 civilians included in the killed total were probably
due to friendly fire.
Should that read via a remote expanse, 200 miles from Oahu is not
that remote.
> "With astounding success," Time magazine wrote, "the little man has
> clipped the big fellow."
>
> But the big fellow would hit back. Japan's bold strike is now largely seen
> as an act of "strategic imbecility," a move born out of militarist,
> ideological fervor that provoked a ruinous war Japan could never win and
> ended in mushroom clouds and hideous death and destruction at home.
the best chance, but it relied on the war in Europe going better
for the axis, and US attitudes, essentially factors largely outside
Japan's control.
> Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the Japanese naval commander, hoped his plan to
> attack on Pearl Harbor would deliver a fatal blow to American capabilities
> in the Pacific and persuade Washington to push for a political settlement.
> Otherwise, he knew that his country stood no chance against the United
> States in a protracted war, according to Steve Twomey, author of a new
> book on the tense build-up to Pearl Harbor.
to be enough, it was the strike designed to give the Japanese
a relatively free hand to occupy the initial war objectives in
South East Asia.
If Yamamoto had a free hand he would have done more than
strike at Pearl Harbor if Japan was only at war with the US. His
plan was to keep striking the US while Japan had superiority as
seen at Midway and Guadalcanal in the hope of forcing negotiations.
Yamamoto is on record as warning US morale and resolution
was strong, much more than Russia in 1904 or China.
> Twomey documents Yamamoto's initial opposition to engaging the United
> States: "In a drawn-out conflict, 'Japan's resources will be depleted,
> battleships and weaponry will be damaged, replenishing materials will be
> impossible,' Yamamoto wrote on September 29 to the chief of the Naval
> General Staff. 'Japan will wind up 'impoverished,' and any war 'with so
> little chance of success should not be fought.'"
a very accurate appreciation of Japan's chances against the US.
> But with war a fait accompli, Yamamoto conceived of a raid that
> would be so stunning that American morale would go "down to
> such an extent that it cannot be recovered," as he put it.
writings which made it clear the US was not that fragile.
Also the Pearl Harbor idea was around in January 1941, well
before war became inevitable. It was developed as war became
more likely.
> Unfortunately for him, the United States was galvanized by the
> assault - and had its fleet of aircraft carriers largely unscathed.
> A plane carrying the Japanese admiral would be shot down
> over the Solomon Islands by American forces in 1943 with the U.S.
> counter-offensive already well underway.
of forces in theatre at the time?
> Could it have gone differently? No modern conflict has spawned more
> alternative histories than World War II. In the decades since, writers,
> Hollywood execs and amateur historians have indulged in all sorts of
> speculation: What the world would look like if the Axis powers triumphed,
> or if the Nazis crushed the Soviets, or if the United States had not
> deployed nuclear weapons, or if Roosevelt had chosen not to enter
> the war at all.
> But even if Japan had not attacked Pearl Harbor, it's quite likely that
> the two sides would have still clashed.
and Japan had a military that was willing to take what it could get.
> The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the USS Arizona on Dec. 7, 1941,
> pushed the U.S. into World War II. But the battleship wasn't supposed to
> be docked at the harbor on that date. The Post's Michael Ruane takes us
> back to that fateful day in American history. (Claritza Jimenez, Michael
> Ruane/The Washington Post)
day most of the USN tried to be in port when at peace.
> Japan's will to power
>
> For imperial Japan, the United States posed a fundamental obstacle to its
> expanding position in the Pacific. Here was a resource-hungry island
> nation eager to assert itself on the world stage in the same way European
> powers had done in centuries prior.
chance the above European would be replaced by US, the move into
the interior of North America, the war with Spain, the Monroe doctrine?
As for resource hungry that really overstates it, Australia used about the
same amount of oil on a tenth the population. It was an excuse more
than a necessity or if you like the near current economic thought, control
of raw materials.
> By the summer of 1941, it had seized a
> considerable swath of East Asia, from Manchuria and Korea to the north to
> the formerly French territories of Indochina further south, and was
> embroiled in a bitter war in China.
time line ignores the escalation of sanctions and Japanese actions
through 1940 and 1941. By the way should Manchuria and Korea
be formerly Chinese territories, or Korea formerly Korean to stay
consistent?
> American sanctions attempted to rein in Tokyo: Washington slapped on
> embargoes on oil and other goods essential to Japan's war machine. The
> price to have them lifted - a Japanese withdrawal from China, as well as
> the abandonment of its "tripartite" alliance with Germany and Italy -
> proved too steep and humiliating. So Japan calculated further expansion
> in order to access the resources it needed.
And those were the terms, as opposed to stopping the war in China?
On 9 April 1941 a group of private citizens, with help from the Japanese
Ambassador, proposed a solution as
These principles, or points, were:
(a) Respect for the territory, integrity, and sovereignty of all nations;
(b) Non-interference in the internal affairs of others;
(c) Equality, as of commercial opportunity;
(d) No change in the Pacific status quo except by peaceful means.
This was considered acceptable enough for the US.
On 3 May the official Japanese reply was for a neutrality pact like
the one signed with the USSR on 13 April, the reply was handed
over on 7 May. On 9 May came the idea from Tokyo that China
should sign a treaty like the one in place with the Japanese
version of the Chinese government.
Positions hardened when Japan occupied southern French Indo
China in July.
Japan was not going to give up on the tripartite pact, the US wanted
assurances about what that meant in terms of Japan's actions if the
US ended up at war with Germany, none were given.
> "Our increasing economic pressure on Japan, plus the militaristic cast of
> the government ... and their partial loss of face in China, spelled a
> probable resumption of their policy of conquest," mused a lengthy essay in
> the Atlantic, published in 1948. "In what direction would the Japanese
> strike, and against whom?"
to trade them relevant resources? Or the sanctions are the reason,
without them Japan would have stayed at peace?
> Japan opted not to venture into Soviet Siberia; in 1939, Japanese troops
> had suffered a chastening defeat at the hands of a combined Soviet and
> Mongolian army and its forces were already bogged down on various
> fronts in China.
> The decision was made to target the vulnerable British and Dutch
> colonies in Southeast Asia - what's now the independent nations of
> Burma, Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia. The Japanese knew
> this would likely spur a greater response from the United States,
> which then controlled the Philippines and other scattered island
> possessions in the Pacific.
though hemp for rope was important enough for Manila to be an
interchangeable word for rope.
> "Unwilling to give up what it wanted - greater empire - in return for the
> restoration of lost trade, unwilling to endure the humiliation of swift
> withdrawal from China, as the Americans wanted, Japan was going to
> seize the tin, nickel, rubber, and especially oil of the British and Dutch
> colonies," wrote Twomey.
>
> The rest is history. Some observers, though, reckon that American policy
> could have forced imperialist Japan's hand.
warships when they attacked Pearl Harbor etc. And the passive
keeps being moved to Japan, the active to America.
So as expected with a general article a simple background of the
history, with things like Japan wanting the US to pressure China
to agree to Japan's terms omitted, the US was for a negotiation
between the two with the US being more the broker.
> Abe to become first Japanese leader to visit Pearl Harbor
> Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will visit Pearl Harbor with President
> Obama, becoming his country's first leader to travel to the site of the
> Japanese attack 75 years ago that drew the United States into World War
> II.
> (Reuters)
>
> "Never inflict upon another major military power a policy which would
> cause you yourself to go to war unless you are fully prepared to engage
> that power militarily," wrote American historian Roland Worth Jr., in "No
> Choice But War: The United States Embargo against Japan and the
> Eruption of War in the Pacific." "And don't be surprised that if they do
> decide to retaliate, that they seek out a time and a place that inflicts
> maximum harm and humiliation upon your cause."
An interesting attitude that keeps implying the US pushed Japan, not
Japan pushed the US by actions like aligning with the Nazis and moving
into Indo China.
So if the Japanese were passive then trading freely with them must
mean they would have stayed peaceful, despite the major expenditure
on the military.
> Roosevelt's battle with the isolationists
>
> Meanwhile, in the United States, President Roosevelt faced widespread
> public opposition to entering the war. The memory of World War I - a
> struggle many Americans believed wasn't worth fighting -
> still loomed large in the
> political imagination. Roosevelt faced off a 1940 election challenge by
> pandering to anti-war voters.
candidate pandering as well?
> "I have said this before, but I shall say it again and again and again,"
> he declared on the campaign trail in Boston in October 1940. "Your
> boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars."
measured what the US could do, the announced naval building
programs were a good clue, along with aircraft production, figures
for which were still being openly published in 1941.
> But Roosevelt was steadily trying to engage in the conflicts abroad, no
> matter his rhetoric. He was an avowed anti-fascist and was preoccupied
> more by Nazi aggression in Europe than Japanese inroads in Asia.
the good guys win.
Europe was more developed and after 1940 much harder for
the US to defeat Germany. Plus posed the risk of Britain
falling and the RN and French fleets becoming neutral or
worst case German controlled.
> His political opponents fretted that he would push toward a greater
> confrontation. This included figures from the America First movement, a
> big tent coalition of isolationists, nationalists, pacifists and, indeed,
> some anti-Semites, who wanted the United States to cling to a policy of
> neutrality and weren't that bothered by an ascendant fascism in Europe.
>
> Charles Lindbergh, the legendary aviator, was one of the more prominent
> champions of the America First cause.
>
> "The pall of the war seems to hang over us today. More and more people
> are simply giving in to it. Many say we are as good as in already. The
> attitude of the country seems to waver back and forth," Lindbergh wrote in
> his diary on Jan. 6, 1941. "Our greatest hope lies in the fact [that]
> eighty-five percent of the people in the United States (according to the
> latest polls) are against intervention."
Britain in popular short hand the US did not want to become involved.
In June 1941 lots of communist leaning people became more interested
in helping the allied war effort. In July Japan's occupation of more
territory also pushed public opinion.
> In March 1941, Roosevelt persuaded Congress to pass the Lend-Lease Act,
> which "loaned" arms and ships to the beleaguered Allies in Europe. U.S.
> warships engaged Nazi submarines in the Atlantic and protected convoys
> bearing relief supplies to the British.
1941, along with the convoy escorts, partly triggered by the US taking
over the security of Iceland and Greenland.
> Months of secret diplomacy with
> British Prime Minister Winston Churchill already bound Roosevelt's
> administration to the Allied cause, but the United States was not yet
> formally in war.
help and joint war plans and aims worked out for if the US became
involved. Like the British pre WWI the US idea was to avoid bindings.
> The attack on Pearl Harbor in December gave Roosevelt all the ammunition
> he needed. Germany, in alliance with Japan, declared war on the United
> States four days later, saving Roosevelt the trouble of having to do it
> himself.
> FDR's 'Infamy' speech The day after the attack on Pearl Harbor on
> Dec. 7, 1941, President Franklin
> Delano Roosevelt delivered a formal address to the joint Congressional
> session on Dec. 8. Here's an excerpt of the now-famous speech. (Jenny
> Starrs/The Washington Post)
>
> The isolationists were defeated. "I can see nothing to do under these
> circumstances except to fight. If I had been in Congress, I certainly
> would have voted for a declaration of war," Lindbergh lamented. Other
> politicians in Congress, mostly Republicans, would soon lose elections
> and become an irrelevant wing of the party.
be a good campaign tactic.
> Without the American entry into World War II, it's possible Japan would
> have consolidated its position of supremacy in East Asia and that the war
> in Europe could have dragged on for far longer than it did.
that is the large merchant shipping losses off the America's in 1942
and associated long term effects on allied war making abilities.
South East Asia represented 80% of the worlds rubber and 66% of the
world's tin supply. The temptation for the Japanese to impose trade
sanctions on the US in a reversal of the 1940 and 1941 ones would
have been high.
Also present were at least come iron and aluminium mines, along
with lead, antimony and tungsten.
>The U.S.'s role in
> the war forced Nazi Germany to commit a sizeable troop presence in Western
> Europe that it would have otherwise diverted to the withering invasion of
> the Soviet Union. It helped turn the tide of battle.
end of the 1942 summer campaign the result was probably going
to be the USSR winning.
So the US commitment of 4 divisions to England by the end of
August 1942 played a big part in German army deployments? The
the over 30 commonwealth divisions in England and the Middle
East played no part. Nor did the need for occupation troops in
all the conquered territory play a part (and this was a big one),
Only the US forces. Yes this was written for a US audience.
On 15 June 1942 there were 31 German divisions in the
west and south, plus 12 in Norway, mostly guarding against
western attack. Out of around 233 divisions. The US had 1
infantry division in Iceland and 1 infantry and 1 armoured in
England as of end May.
What the western allies did in 1942 to turn the tide was ship
resources and weapons to the USSR, but the amount and
delays involved meant a limited impact.
So FDR could have saved the USSR by staying at peace and
deploying a corps or two into Iceland in 1942? Thereby forcing
major changes to the German army dispositions?
In April 1944 the Germans had 238 divisions, 81 in the west
and south (including around 14 in Yugoslavia), plus 19 in Norway.
The US had 28 in England and the Mediterranean. Part of the
German deployments were replacements for Italian and Vichy
French forces.
> For decades since, though, conspiracy theories have surrounded Roosevelt's
> role in the build-up to Pearl Harbor, with a coterie of revisionist
> historians alleging he deliberately bungled military coordination and
> obscured intelligence in order to provoke the crisis that led to war. Most
> mainstream historians dismiss these claims.
generalist "most dismiss" the conspiracy claims leaving the
reader who wants to believe still able to say they have support.
The revisionists mostly concentrate on the claims FDR knew the
Japanese plan to attack Perl Harbor. The claims about sanctions
provoking Japan do exist, along with similar claims for today
regarding places like Iran, North Korea and Russia.
> "He was totally caught off guard by it," Roosevelt biographer Jean Edward
> Smith told NPR this week. "The record is clear. There was no evidence of
> the Japanese moving toward Pearl Harbor that was picked up in Washington."
means, MacArthur using his air force, leaving his supplies in Bataan?
Kimmel and Short having more integrated plans?
FDR obscured intelligence is interesting, he ordered some message
suppressed? Or ordered specific interpretations become official?
> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/12/07/75-years-ago-what-if-japan-never-attacked-pearl-harbor/?utm_term=.2b8621cc5a60
Geoffrey Sinclair
Remove the nb for email.
Haydn
Dec 11, 2016, 1:35:38 PM12/11/16
to
Kenneth Young wrote:
> Now that is interesting,especially as neither the Germans or the
> Italians had built successful oceanic carriers. I am also wondering how
> this program was to be paid for and why they assumed Franco would agree
> to this
The German economic strategy for New Order Europe would entail an
> Now that is interesting,especially as neither the Germans or the
> Italians had built successful oceanic carriers. I am also wondering how
> this program was to be paid for and why they assumed Franco would agree
> to this
imperial division of labor on a continental scale. Resources and trained
manpower from all over the heartland would have been "rationally"
allocated or shifted or withdrawn to pursue the aims of the German elite
and their affiliated classes in each European country. Which by the way
is more or less what the Germans are doing now through the European
Union. Now they are doing that basically in agreement with the US,
although there are frictions and Trump seems much less willing to keep
up that policy than Clinton would have been. In an Axis victorious
post-WWII world, they would have done that against the US, to prevail
over America in the final race for global hegemony.
So it is fully conceivable that by starving and killing by brutal
exploitation some million Russian and Polish farmers and workers, and
squeezing more money out of the French and Italian middle class - sounds
familiar? - the Germans might have found the wherewithal to build a mint
new Spanish Navy to join up with its Axis partners and start
"remembering the Maine" the other way.
Haydn
Haydn
Dec 11, 2016, 1:39:38 PM12/11/16
to
John Dallman wrote:
> In article <memo.20161210...@kenney.cix.co.uk>,
> ken...@cix.co.uk (Kenneth Young) wrote:
>
>> Now that is interesting,especially as neither the Germans or the
>> Italians had built successful oceanic carriers.
>
> The Germans, at least, were sure they could do it, although the plans for
> the Graf Zeppelin are not totally convincing.
The German deck catapult and landing system as developed for the Graf
> In article <memo.20161210...@kenney.cix.co.uk>,
> ken...@cix.co.uk (Kenneth Young) wrote:
>
>> Now that is interesting,especially as neither the Germans or the
>> Italians had built successful oceanic carriers.
>
> The Germans, at least, were sure they could do it, although the plans for
> the Graf Zeppelin are not totally convincing.
Zeppelin was rather bad. To save time and money, instead of developing
their own system for their own fleet carrier under construction the
Italians just copied the German system, which moreover had to be
adjusted to the different layout and features of their hull.
The result was that when US Navy specialists checked out the unfinished
Italian carrier in 1945, they judged the deck catapult and landing
system faulty and dangerous for the pilots themselves. Obviously both
Axis navies suffered from a severe lack of experience in carriers.
However, had they had the time - and hopefully, some British blueprints
and expertise - to improve, they would have improved, like the Russians
and the Chinese have done over time.
Haydn
Rich Rostrom
Dec 12, 2016, 4:06:30 PM12/12/16
to
"Geoffrey Sinclair" <gsinc...@froggy.com.au> wrote:
A very long exercise in nitpicking, taking offense where
none was meant, and misconstruing anodyne language as
badly as possible.
...
> > Japan's will to power
> >
> > For imperial Japan, the United States posed a fundamental obstacle to its
> > expanding position in the Pacific. Here was a resource-hungry island
> > nation eager to assert itself on the world stage in the same way European
> > powers had done in centuries prior.
>
> Now if this article had been from say a non US publisher what is the
> chance the above European would be replaced by US, the move into
> the interior of North America, the war with Spain, the Monroe doctrine?
None. Japan's imperial ambitions paralleled the transoceanic empire
building of Britain, France, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, and
most recently Germany and Italy, not the frontier growth of the U.S.
And the Monroe Doctrine was _anti_-imperialist.
> > By the summer of 1941, it had seized a
> > considerable swath of East Asia, from Manchuria and Korea to the north to
> > the formerly French territories of Indochina further south, and was
> > embroiled in a bitter war in China.
>
> Back to simple summary, and northern summer of course. And the
> time line ignores the escalation of sanctions...
Mentioned in the next sentence, for heaven's sake.
> and Japanese actions through 1940 and 1941.
I.e., seizing a considerable swath of East Asia?
> By the way should Manchuria and Korea be formerly
> Chinese territories, or Korea formerly Korean to
> stay consistent?
Well. actually, Indochina was still French. So in writing
that sentence, the author perpetrated an _abominable_
falsehood, for which he should be flogged to death, or
perhaps impaled and burned alive. Or maybe he was just
careless.
> > Roosevelt's battle with the isolationists
> >
> > Meanwhile, in the United States, President Roosevelt faced widespread
> > public opposition to entering the war. The memory of World War I - a
> > struggle many Americans believed wasn't worth fighting -
>
> How about the world believed it was not worth fighting.
Since this paragraph is about the U.S. political climate,
that is irrelevant.
> > still loomed large in the
> > political imagination. Roosevelt faced off a 1940 election challenge by
> > pandering to anti-war voters.
>
> Pandering? Not acknowledging their views?
Two phrases with the same meaning.
> Was the Republican candidate pandering as well?
Yes.
> > "I have said this before, but I shall say it again and again and again,"
> > he declared on the campaign trail in Boston in October 1940. "Your
> > boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars."
>
> Quite correct if peace could be maintained.
Which he already knew was unlikely. His policies already
included preparations for anticipated participation in
"foreign wars". Even Roosevelt's biggest fans acknowledge
he was being deceptive.
> > But Roosevelt was steadily trying to engage in the conflicts abroad, no
> > matter his rhetoric. He was an avowed anti-fascist and was preoccupied
> > more by Nazi aggression in Europe than Japanese inroads in Asia.
>
> So FDR wanted into the war instead of FDR wanted to help
> the good guys win.
He "wanted into the war" so the good guys would win.
> > In March 1941, Roosevelt persuaded Congress to pass the Lend-Lease Act,
> > which "loaned" arms and ships to the beleaguered Allies in Europe. U.S.
> > warships engaged Nazi submarines in the Atlantic and protected convoys
> > bearing relief supplies to the British.
>
> But the incidents with U-boats were months in the future in March
> 1941, along with the convoy escorts, partly triggered by the US taking
> over the security of Iceland and Greenland.
The Navy (at Roosevelt's insistence) transferred 25% of the Pacific
Fleet to the Atlantic starting in April. U.S. warships were patrolling
far out into the Atlantic (the old battleships NEW YORK and TEXAS were
assigned to guard Denmark Strait in alternate shifts; BISMARCK passed
through during a shift change). US forces were deployed to Iceland on
5 July.
> > Months of secret diplomacy with British Prime
> > Minister Winston Churchill already bound
> > Roosevelt's administration to the Allied cause,
> > but the United States was not yet formally in war.
>
> There was no binding, there were agreements in terms of material
> help and joint war plans and aims worked out for if the US became
> involved. Like the British pre WWI the US idea was to avoid bindings.
Umm. The U.S. was not _formally_, _openly_ committed to
fight on the Allied side - not "bound" in the sense of
required by an irrevocable pledge in writing - but
the Roosevelt administration (which was not the U.S.)
was as committed as it could be.
> > The attack on Pearl Harbor in December gave Roosevelt all the ammunition
> > he needed. Germany, in alliance with Japan, declared war on the United
> > States four days later, saving Roosevelt the trouble of having to do it
> > himself.
>
> Somehow it seems the invasion of the Philippines is not good enough.
Some historians question whether the U.S. would have
declared war because the Philippines were invaded.
However, that is irrelevant - Pearl Harbor did happen,
and did resolve this issue roughly as FDR wanted.
> > The isolationists were defeated. "I can see nothing to do under these
> > circumstances except to fight. If I had been in Congress, I certainly
> > would have voted for a declaration of war," Lindbergh lamented. Other
> > politicians in Congress, mostly Republicans, would soon lose elections
> > and become an irrelevant wing of the party.
>
> Quoting their attitudes in 1940 and 1941 versus the new reality would
> be a good campaign tactic.
In fact the Republicans did very well in the 1942
elections, gaining 47 House seats and 9 Senate seats.
One of the few Republican losses was Jeannette Rankin
of Montana, the only vote against the declaration of
war. Rankin however was highly atypical for a Republican:
she had been a suffragette, the first woman Representative
in 1917, was an outspoken pacifist, and a lifelong
Progressive.
> > The U.S.'s role in the war forced Nazi Germany to
> > commit a sizeable troop presence in Western Europe
> > that it would have otherwise diverted to the
> > withering invasion of the Soviet Union. It helped
> > turn the tide of battle.
...
> So the US commitment of 4 divisions to England by the end of
> August 1942 played a big part in German army deployments? The
> the over 30 commonwealth divisions in England and the Middle
> East played no part. Nor did the need for occupation troops in
> all the conquered territory play a part (and this was a big one),
> Only the US forces. Yes this was written for a US audience.
The point of this paragraph is that the entry of the
U.S. caused Germany to change its strategies and
deployment. Yes, there were 30 BCE divisions in Britain
and the Middle East, and German forces were deployed to
defend against them or oppose them, and to garrison
occupied Europe. But all these threats and needs had been
accounted for. When the U.S. entered the war, that was a
_new_ threat. The U.S. had well over 2M men under arms in
December 1941 - a very large addition to Allied troop
strength, which the Germans responded to. This included
sending additional troops to the Atlantic coast.
> So FDR could have saved the USSR by staying at peace and
> deploying a corps or two into Iceland in 1942? Thereby forcing
> major changes to the German army dispositions?
Don't put up straw men.
> > "He was totally caught off guard by it," Roosevelt biographer Jean Edward
> > Smith told NPR this week. "The record is clear. There was no evidence of
> > the Japanese moving toward Pearl Harbor that was picked up in Washington."
>
> So FDR is charged with failing military co-ordination, what ever that
> means, MacArthur using his air force, leaving his supplies in Bataan?
> Kimmel and Short having more integrated plans?
>
> FDR obscured intelligence is interesting, he ordered some message
> suppressed? Or ordered specific interpretations become official?
More strawman argument. The author made no such insinuation or
accusation.
The quoted essay is a fairly good popular summary of the
events leading up to Pearl Harbor. It does no good to
read obscure implications into every passage.
A very long exercise in nitpicking, taking offense where
none was meant, and misconstruing anodyne language as
badly as possible.
...
> > Japan's will to power
> >
> > For imperial Japan, the United States posed a fundamental obstacle to its
> > expanding position in the Pacific. Here was a resource-hungry island
> > nation eager to assert itself on the world stage in the same way European
> > powers had done in centuries prior.
>
> Now if this article had been from say a non US publisher what is the
> chance the above European would be replaced by US, the move into
> the interior of North America, the war with Spain, the Monroe doctrine?
building of Britain, France, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, and
most recently Germany and Italy, not the frontier growth of the U.S.
And the Monroe Doctrine was _anti_-imperialist.
> > By the summer of 1941, it had seized a
> > considerable swath of East Asia, from Manchuria and Korea to the north to
> > the formerly French territories of Indochina further south, and was
> > embroiled in a bitter war in China.
>
> Back to simple summary, and northern summer of course. And the
Mentioned in the next sentence, for heaven's sake.
> and Japanese actions through 1940 and 1941.
> By the way should Manchuria and Korea be formerly
> Chinese territories, or Korea formerly Korean to
> stay consistent?
that sentence, the author perpetrated an _abominable_
falsehood, for which he should be flogged to death, or
perhaps impaled and burned alive. Or maybe he was just
careless.
> > Roosevelt's battle with the isolationists
> >
> > Meanwhile, in the United States, President Roosevelt faced widespread
> > public opposition to entering the war. The memory of World War I - a
> > struggle many Americans believed wasn't worth fighting -
>
> How about the world believed it was not worth fighting.
that is irrelevant.
> > still loomed large in the
> > political imagination. Roosevelt faced off a 1940 election challenge by
> > pandering to anti-war voters.
>
> Pandering? Not acknowledging their views?
> Was the Republican candidate pandering as well?
> > "I have said this before, but I shall say it again and again and again,"
> > he declared on the campaign trail in Boston in October 1940. "Your
> > boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars."
>
> Quite correct if peace could be maintained.
included preparations for anticipated participation in
"foreign wars". Even Roosevelt's biggest fans acknowledge
he was being deceptive.
> > But Roosevelt was steadily trying to engage in the conflicts abroad, no
> > matter his rhetoric. He was an avowed anti-fascist and was preoccupied
> > more by Nazi aggression in Europe than Japanese inroads in Asia.
>
> So FDR wanted into the war instead of FDR wanted to help
> the good guys win.
> > In March 1941, Roosevelt persuaded Congress to pass the Lend-Lease Act,
> > which "loaned" arms and ships to the beleaguered Allies in Europe. U.S.
> > warships engaged Nazi submarines in the Atlantic and protected convoys
> > bearing relief supplies to the British.
>
> But the incidents with U-boats were months in the future in March
> 1941, along with the convoy escorts, partly triggered by the US taking
> over the security of Iceland and Greenland.
Fleet to the Atlantic starting in April. U.S. warships were patrolling
far out into the Atlantic (the old battleships NEW YORK and TEXAS were
assigned to guard Denmark Strait in alternate shifts; BISMARCK passed
through during a shift change). US forces were deployed to Iceland on
5 July.
> > Months of secret diplomacy with British Prime
> > Minister Winston Churchill already bound
> > Roosevelt's administration to the Allied cause,
> > but the United States was not yet formally in war.
>
> There was no binding, there were agreements in terms of material
> help and joint war plans and aims worked out for if the US became
> involved. Like the British pre WWI the US idea was to avoid bindings.
fight on the Allied side - not "bound" in the sense of
required by an irrevocable pledge in writing - but
the Roosevelt administration (which was not the U.S.)
was as committed as it could be.
> > The attack on Pearl Harbor in December gave Roosevelt all the ammunition
> > he needed. Germany, in alliance with Japan, declared war on the United
> > States four days later, saving Roosevelt the trouble of having to do it
> > himself.
>
> Somehow it seems the invasion of the Philippines is not good enough.
declared war because the Philippines were invaded.
However, that is irrelevant - Pearl Harbor did happen,
and did resolve this issue roughly as FDR wanted.
> > The isolationists were defeated. "I can see nothing to do under these
> > circumstances except to fight. If I had been in Congress, I certainly
> > would have voted for a declaration of war," Lindbergh lamented. Other
> > politicians in Congress, mostly Republicans, would soon lose elections
> > and become an irrelevant wing of the party.
>
> Quoting their attitudes in 1940 and 1941 versus the new reality would
> be a good campaign tactic.
elections, gaining 47 House seats and 9 Senate seats.
One of the few Republican losses was Jeannette Rankin
of Montana, the only vote against the declaration of
war. Rankin however was highly atypical for a Republican:
she had been a suffragette, the first woman Representative
in 1917, was an outspoken pacifist, and a lifelong
Progressive.
> > The U.S.'s role in the war forced Nazi Germany to
> > commit a sizeable troop presence in Western Europe
> > that it would have otherwise diverted to the
> > withering invasion of the Soviet Union. It helped
> > turn the tide of battle.
> So the US commitment of 4 divisions to England by the end of
> August 1942 played a big part in German army deployments? The
> the over 30 commonwealth divisions in England and the Middle
> East played no part. Nor did the need for occupation troops in
> all the conquered territory play a part (and this was a big one),
> Only the US forces. Yes this was written for a US audience.
U.S. caused Germany to change its strategies and
deployment. Yes, there were 30 BCE divisions in Britain
and the Middle East, and German forces were deployed to
defend against them or oppose them, and to garrison
occupied Europe. But all these threats and needs had been
accounted for. When the U.S. entered the war, that was a
_new_ threat. The U.S. had well over 2M men under arms in
December 1941 - a very large addition to Allied troop
strength, which the Germans responded to. This included
sending additional troops to the Atlantic coast.
> So FDR could have saved the USSR by staying at peace and
> deploying a corps or two into Iceland in 1942? Thereby forcing
> major changes to the German army dispositions?
> > "He was totally caught off guard by it," Roosevelt biographer Jean Edward
> > Smith told NPR this week. "The record is clear. There was no evidence of
> > the Japanese moving toward Pearl Harbor that was picked up in Washington."
>
> So FDR is charged with failing military co-ordination, what ever that
> means, MacArthur using his air force, leaving his supplies in Bataan?
> Kimmel and Short having more integrated plans?
>
> FDR obscured intelligence is interesting, he ordered some message
> suppressed? Or ordered specific interpretations become official?
accusation.
The quoted essay is a fairly good popular summary of the
events leading up to Pearl Harbor. It does no good to
read obscure implications into every passage.
Geoffrey Sinclair
Dec 13, 2016, 9:19:30 AM12/13/16
to
"Rich Rostrom" <rros...@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:rrostrom-BE0D04...@news.eternal-september.org...
As for offence, you are looking at a mirror, I have long
figured out that news tailors its examples of good and
bad etc. depending on the audience. The interesting
thing is how people react when it is pointed out.
I rarely bother with foreign news sites, I do not need to, the
economics of news means lots of Australian news is
repackaged, mostly from the US and the BBC, with News
Corp owning most newspapers and syndicating.
One network runs lots of foreign news bulletins verbatim, if
you can speak Korean, Indonesian, Chinese (Hong Kong
and mainland), Russian, Polish, Ukrainian, Macedonian,
Croatian, Serbian, Portuguese, Japanese, Punjabi, Hindi,
Dutch, Urdu, Tamil, Thai, Sinhalese (Sri Lanka) and
Bangladesh, for a recent day's listing. The pictures can
explain a lot, along with their ideas of story importance.
>> > Japan's will to power
>> >
>> > For imperial Japan, the United States posed a fundamental obstacle to
>> > its
>> > expanding position in the Pacific. Here was a resource-hungry island
>> > nation eager to assert itself on the world stage in the same way
>> > European
>> > powers had done in centuries prior.
>>
>> Now if this article had been from say a non US publisher what is the
>> chance the above European would be replaced by US, the move into
>> the interior of North America, the war with Spain, the Monroe doctrine?
>
> None.
Really, how much non US/Canada news have you been consuming?
Strangely enough using foreigners as examples of bad is a quite
common technique.
> Japan's imperial ambitions paralleled the transoceanic empire
> building of Britain, France, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, and
> most recently Germany and Italy, not the frontier growth of the U.S.
> And the Monroe Doctrine was _anti_-imperialist.
So the Philippines had a rail link, along with Cuba?
And while the US marketed the Monroe doctrine as anti imperialist
who was doing the various interventions in places like central
America?
Does frontier growth cover the changes in territory from Mexico
to US?
Simply put I repeat, news tailors itself to the audience, the worst
kind of course simply tells people what they want to hear, the good
kind more tells people what they do not want to hear, but you temper
things by deciding what examples of good and bad to use.
>> > By the summer of 1941, it had seized a
>> > considerable swath of East Asia, from Manchuria and Korea to the north
>> > to
>> > the formerly French territories of Indochina further south, and was
>> > embroiled in a bitter war in China.
>>
>> Back to simple summary, and northern summer of course. And the
>> time line ignores the escalation of sanctions...
>
> Mentioned in the next sentence, for heaven's sake.
Really
"American sanctions attempted to rein in Tokyo: Washington slapped on
embargoes on oil and other goods essential to Japan's war machine."
So reading this makes it clear sanctions grew over time? How?
Why was it deleted and a claim made, if the sentence was so clear
simply leaving it in would be enough.
>> and Japanese actions through 1940 and 1941.
>
> I.e., seizing a considerable swath of East Asia?
I note the tone of the article was Japan passive, US active. And
the East Asia expansions were into northern Indo China which
was disliked but liveable, then southern Indo China, which was
classified as a big problem by the allies.
>> By the way should Manchuria and Korea be formerly
>> Chinese territories, or Korea formerly Korean to
>> stay consistent?
>
> Well. actually, Indochina was still French. So in writing
> that sentence, the author perpetrated an _abominable_
> falsehood, for which he should be flogged to death, or
> perhaps impaled and burned alive. Or maybe he was just
> careless.
Essentially I read a it as a generalist trying for temporary expertise,
which is a lot of news output. The instant expert for the article's
paragraphs or minutes of the interview.
Inevitably they use language that reflects their state of knowledge
while trying to be comprehensive.
For someone in Korea today what do you think they could make
of the former France but no former Korea? News is now very
international, and no it is not the one article, it is the steady
series of such assumptions.
>> > Roosevelt's battle with the isolationists
>> >
>> > Meanwhile, in the United States, President Roosevelt faced widespread
>> > public opposition to entering the war. The memory of World War I - a
>> > struggle many Americans believed wasn't worth fighting -
>>
>> How about the world believed it was not worth fighting.
>
> Since this paragraph is about the U.S. political climate,
> that is irrelevant.
You mean the US opinion formed in isolation without any input
from outside? The opposition to a new major war was more
widespread.
>> > still loomed large in the
>> > political imagination. Roosevelt faced off a 1940 election challenge by
>> > pandering to anti-war voters.
>>
>> Pandering? Not acknowledging their views?
>
> Two phrases with the same meaning.
Pander, gratify or indulge (an immoral or distasteful desire or habit).
Acknowledge, accept or admit the existence or truth of.
Concise Oxford Dictionary.
There are the facts in a report and there are the adjectives around
those facts providing a tone. Photographs/pictures are often the
best editorial material.
>> Was the Republican candidate pandering as well?
>
> Yes.
Not sure I agree.
>> > "I have said this before, but I shall say it again and again and
>> > again,"
>> > he declared on the campaign trail in Boston in October 1940. "Your
>> > boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars."
>>
>> Quite correct if peace could be maintained.
>
> Which he already knew was unlikely. His policies already
> included preparations for anticipated participation in
> "foreign wars". Even Roosevelt's biggest fans acknowledge
> he was being deceptive.
Deceptive means he must have concluded there would be a US
military involvement in the European war at least. Not working on
the WWI memory that the arrival/threat of the US had been enough.
And yes the above sentence is a simplification. Noted the
claim below the threat of US Action in1942 had a major effect
on the German army?
I agree as of early 1941 there were few scenarios where the
US avoided fighting, the 1945 result indicates the axis powers
needed the bigger reality check and before the shooting
starts there is always that small chance of avoiding war.
>> > But Roosevelt was steadily trying to engage in the conflicts abroad, no
>> > matter his rhetoric. He was an avowed anti-fascist and was preoccupied
>> > more by Nazi aggression in Europe than Japanese inroads in Asia.
>>
>> So FDR wanted into the war instead of FDR wanted to help
>> the good guys win.
>
> He "wanted into the war" so the good guys would win.
So FDR was certain to fight in your opinion, or alternatively
was sure the US would somehow become dragged in.
>> > In March 1941, Roosevelt persuaded Congress to pass the Lend-Lease Act,
>> > which "loaned" arms and ships to the beleaguered Allies in Europe. U.S.
>> > warships engaged Nazi submarines in the Atlantic and protected convoys
>> > bearing relief supplies to the British.
>>
>> But the incidents with U-boats were months in the future in March
>> 1941, along with the convoy escorts, partly triggered by the US taking
>> over the security of Iceland and Greenland.
>
> The Navy (at Roosevelt's insistence) transferred 25% of the Pacific
> Fleet to the Atlantic starting in April. U.S. warships were patrolling
> far out into the Atlantic (the old battleships NEW YORK and TEXAS were
> assigned to guard Denmark Strait in alternate shifts; BISMARCK passed
> through during a shift change). US forces were deployed to Iceland on
> 5 July.
So an entire paragraph pointing out I was right, given the transfer
was in April, the Bismarck was in May and the move to Iceland in July,
and of course the first incidents. The original sentence was so
simplified it became misleading.
USS Niblack fired an embarrassing pattern of depth charges when
it picked up a closing sonar contact when rescuing survivors on
10 April, near Iceland.
The USS Greer was on convoy escort duty on 4 September 1941
when it tracked a U-boat and was involved in an exchange of fire.
>> > Months of secret diplomacy with British Prime
>> > Minister Winston Churchill already bound
>> > Roosevelt's administration to the Allied cause,
>> > but the United States was not yet formally in war.
>>
>> There was no binding, there were agreements in terms of material
>> help and joint war plans and aims worked out for if the US became
>> involved. Like the British pre WWI the US idea was to avoid bindings.
>
> Umm. The U.S. was not _formally_, _openly_ committed to
> fight on the Allied side - not "bound" in the sense of
> required by an irrevocable pledge in writing - but
> the Roosevelt administration (which was not the U.S.)
> was as committed as it could be.
And that commitment was unofficial, hedged by things like
the isolationists along with the US view on the worth of the
various Commonwealth etc. forces. There was no binding
agreement, and we are in agreement.
By the way it appears either a number of allied warship
wrecks from the Battle of the Java Sea have moved or they
have been salvaged/stripped. The USN noted a couple of
years ago parts of the USS Houston wreck had been
removed.
>> > The attack on Pearl Harbor in December gave Roosevelt all the
>> > ammunition
>> > he needed. Germany, in alliance with Japan, declared war on the United
>> > States four days later, saving Roosevelt the trouble of having to do it
>> > himself.
>>
>> Somehow it seems the invasion of the Philippines is not good enough.
>
> Some historians question whether the U.S. would have
> declared war because the Philippines were invaded.
Agreed, the trouble is then claiming FDR pushing for war
but hey, lets just hand the Philippines to Japan, ignore the
US military dead there in the hours after Pearl Harbor.
Alaska had a population of around 60,000 pre WWII, sell
it to Japan to give them a place to expand perhaps? The
climate of the two would average out to temperate.
> However, that is irrelevant - Pearl Harbor did happen,
> and did resolve this issue roughly as FDR wanted.
FDR did not want a war with Japan, his aims were to contain
Nazi Germany, Japan would hurt that effort.
>> > The isolationists were defeated. "I can see nothing to do under these
>> > circumstances except to fight. If I had been in Congress, I certainly
>> > would have voted for a declaration of war," Lindbergh lamented. Other
>> > politicians in Congress, mostly Republicans, would soon lose elections
>> > and become an irrelevant wing of the party.
>>
>> Quoting their attitudes in 1940 and 1941 versus the new reality would
>> be a good campaign tactic.
>
> In fact the Republicans did very well in the 1942
> elections, gaining 47 House seats and 9 Senate seats.
The Republicans yes, but the isolationist ones? So were
the isolationists knocked out as candidates or knocked out
at the ballot box, despite the increase in Republican numbers?
> One of the few Republican losses was Jeannette Rankin
> of Montana, the only vote against the declaration of
> war. Rankin however was highly atypical for a Republican:
> she had been a suffragette, the first woman Representative
> in 1917, was an outspoken pacifist, and a lifelong
> Progressive.
It is illustrative of how political parties and their elected
representatives change over time.
>> > The U.S.'s role in the war forced Nazi Germany to
>> > commit a sizeable troop presence in Western Europe
>> > that it would have otherwise diverted to the
>> > withering invasion of the Soviet Union. It helped
>> > turn the tide of battle.
> ...
>
>> So the US commitment of 4 divisions to England by the end of
>> August 1942 played a big part in German army deployments? The
>> the over 30 commonwealth divisions in England and the Middle
>> East played no part. Nor did the need for occupation troops in
>> all the conquered territory play a part (and this was a big one),
>> Only the US forces. Yes this was written for a US audience.
>
> The point of this paragraph is that the entry of the
> U.S. caused Germany to change its strategies and
> deployment.
So in the December 1941 to say April 1942 considerable
German army strength, which is what the article mentions,
was pulled out of the east to act as a defensive force
against the perceived US threat.
Not the the Mediterranean against the real threat to
Rommel and his supply lines?
Can you give the number on how many troops were moved?
Excluding the refits for formations hurt in the east.
In June 1941 the Luftwaffe in the west had around 510 aircraft,
in July 1942, around 560.
> Yes, there were 30 BCE divisions in Britain
> and the Middle East, and German forces were deployed to
> defend against them or oppose them, and to garrison
> occupied Europe. But all these threats and needs had been
> accounted for. When the U.S. entered the war, that was a
> _new_ threat. The U.S. had well over 2M men under arms in
> December 1941 - a very large addition to Allied troop
> strength, which the Germans responded to. This included
> sending additional troops to the Atlantic coast.
So how many were sent? Understand we are talking meaningful
numbers of combat troops. And you need to exclude Norway
as Hitler was having intuitions encouraged by allied raids.
I noted in June 1942 there were 31 German divisions in the
west and south, in June 1941 it was 42, or if you count the
formations moved east in late June and early July 51.
So if the German strength in the west was 31 divisions in June
1942, how big a jump in the average quality?
>> So FDR could have saved the USSR by staying at peace and
>> deploying a corps or two into Iceland in 1942? Thereby forcing
>> major changes to the German army dispositions?
>
> Don't put up straw men.
No, it is pointing out if 4 divisions made a big change, then 6
should have forced an even bigger change.
>> > "He was totally caught off guard by it," Roosevelt biographer Jean
>> > Edward
>> > Smith told NPR this week. "The record is clear. There was no evidence
>> > of
>> > the Japanese moving toward Pearl Harbor that was picked up in
>> > Washington."
>>
>> So FDR is charged with failing military co-ordination, what ever that
>> means, MacArthur using his air force, leaving his supplies in Bataan?
>> Kimmel and Short having more integrated plans?
>>
>> FDR obscured intelligence is interesting, he ordered some message
>> suppressed? Or ordered specific interpretations become official?
>
> More strawman argument. The author made no such insinuation or
> accusation.
Why do you delete the text then announce contradictory conclusions?
"For decades since, though, conspiracy theories have surrounded Roosevelt's
role in the build-up to Pearl Harbor, with a coterie of revisionist
historians alleging he deliberately bungled military coordination and
obscured intelligence in order to provoke the crisis that led to war. Most
mainstream historians dismiss these claims."
Was the text I was responding to. The claims make little sense
except when a generalist needs a quick summary that FDR was
not perfect, like everyone else.
> The quoted essay is a fairly good popular summary of the
> events leading up to Pearl Harbor. It does no good to
> read obscure implications into every passage.
Yes it was a good popular summary of some US opinion, including
passive Japan, active US and plenty of simplifications instead of
the relevant evidence. Seems largely based around the new book
with standard history additions but with the belief of a more active
FDR and a more passive Japan.
news:rrostrom-BE0D04...@news.eternal-september.org...
> "Geoffrey Sinclair" <gsinc...@froggy.com.au> wrote:
>
> A very long exercise in nitpicking, taking offense where
> none was meant, and misconstruing anodyne language as
> badly as possible.
Either this group exists to note WWII accurately or not.
>
> A very long exercise in nitpicking, taking offense where
> none was meant, and misconstruing anodyne language as
> badly as possible.
As for offence, you are looking at a mirror, I have long
figured out that news tailors its examples of good and
bad etc. depending on the audience. The interesting
thing is how people react when it is pointed out.
I rarely bother with foreign news sites, I do not need to, the
economics of news means lots of Australian news is
repackaged, mostly from the US and the BBC, with News
Corp owning most newspapers and syndicating.
One network runs lots of foreign news bulletins verbatim, if
you can speak Korean, Indonesian, Chinese (Hong Kong
and mainland), Russian, Polish, Ukrainian, Macedonian,
Croatian, Serbian, Portuguese, Japanese, Punjabi, Hindi,
Dutch, Urdu, Tamil, Thai, Sinhalese (Sri Lanka) and
Bangladesh, for a recent day's listing. The pictures can
explain a lot, along with their ideas of story importance.
>> > Japan's will to power
>> >
>> > For imperial Japan, the United States posed a fundamental obstacle to
>> > its
>> > expanding position in the Pacific. Here was a resource-hungry island
>> > nation eager to assert itself on the world stage in the same way
>> > European
>> > powers had done in centuries prior.
>>
>> Now if this article had been from say a non US publisher what is the
>> chance the above European would be replaced by US, the move into
>> the interior of North America, the war with Spain, the Monroe doctrine?
>
> None.
Strangely enough using foreigners as examples of bad is a quite
common technique.
> Japan's imperial ambitions paralleled the transoceanic empire
> building of Britain, France, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, and
> most recently Germany and Italy, not the frontier growth of the U.S.
> And the Monroe Doctrine was _anti_-imperialist.
And while the US marketed the Monroe doctrine as anti imperialist
who was doing the various interventions in places like central
America?
Does frontier growth cover the changes in territory from Mexico
to US?
Simply put I repeat, news tailors itself to the audience, the worst
kind of course simply tells people what they want to hear, the good
kind more tells people what they do not want to hear, but you temper
things by deciding what examples of good and bad to use.
>> > By the summer of 1941, it had seized a
>> > considerable swath of East Asia, from Manchuria and Korea to the north
>> > to
>> > the formerly French territories of Indochina further south, and was
>> > embroiled in a bitter war in China.
>>
>> Back to simple summary, and northern summer of course. And the
>> time line ignores the escalation of sanctions...
>
> Mentioned in the next sentence, for heaven's sake.
"American sanctions attempted to rein in Tokyo: Washington slapped on
embargoes on oil and other goods essential to Japan's war machine."
Why was it deleted and a claim made, if the sentence was so clear
simply leaving it in would be enough.
>> and Japanese actions through 1940 and 1941.
>
> I.e., seizing a considerable swath of East Asia?
the East Asia expansions were into northern Indo China which
was disliked but liveable, then southern Indo China, which was
classified as a big problem by the allies.
>> By the way should Manchuria and Korea be formerly
>> Chinese territories, or Korea formerly Korean to
>> stay consistent?
>
> Well. actually, Indochina was still French. So in writing
> that sentence, the author perpetrated an _abominable_
> falsehood, for which he should be flogged to death, or
> perhaps impaled and burned alive. Or maybe he was just
> careless.
which is a lot of news output. The instant expert for the article's
paragraphs or minutes of the interview.
Inevitably they use language that reflects their state of knowledge
while trying to be comprehensive.
For someone in Korea today what do you think they could make
of the former France but no former Korea? News is now very
international, and no it is not the one article, it is the steady
series of such assumptions.
>> > Roosevelt's battle with the isolationists
>> >
>> > Meanwhile, in the United States, President Roosevelt faced widespread
>> > public opposition to entering the war. The memory of World War I - a
>> > struggle many Americans believed wasn't worth fighting -
>>
>> How about the world believed it was not worth fighting.
>
> Since this paragraph is about the U.S. political climate,
> that is irrelevant.
from outside? The opposition to a new major war was more
widespread.
>> > still loomed large in the
>> > political imagination. Roosevelt faced off a 1940 election challenge by
>> > pandering to anti-war voters.
>>
>> Pandering? Not acknowledging their views?
>
> Two phrases with the same meaning.
Acknowledge, accept or admit the existence or truth of.
Concise Oxford Dictionary.
There are the facts in a report and there are the adjectives around
those facts providing a tone. Photographs/pictures are often the
best editorial material.
>> Was the Republican candidate pandering as well?
>
> Yes.
>> > "I have said this before, but I shall say it again and again and
>> > again,"
>> > he declared on the campaign trail in Boston in October 1940. "Your
>> > boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars."
>>
>> Quite correct if peace could be maintained.
>
> Which he already knew was unlikely. His policies already
> included preparations for anticipated participation in
> "foreign wars". Even Roosevelt's biggest fans acknowledge
> he was being deceptive.
military involvement in the European war at least. Not working on
the WWI memory that the arrival/threat of the US had been enough.
And yes the above sentence is a simplification. Noted the
claim below the threat of US Action in1942 had a major effect
on the German army?
I agree as of early 1941 there were few scenarios where the
US avoided fighting, the 1945 result indicates the axis powers
needed the bigger reality check and before the shooting
starts there is always that small chance of avoiding war.
>> > But Roosevelt was steadily trying to engage in the conflicts abroad, no
>> > matter his rhetoric. He was an avowed anti-fascist and was preoccupied
>> > more by Nazi aggression in Europe than Japanese inroads in Asia.
>>
>> So FDR wanted into the war instead of FDR wanted to help
>> the good guys win.
>
> He "wanted into the war" so the good guys would win.
was sure the US would somehow become dragged in.
>> > In March 1941, Roosevelt persuaded Congress to pass the Lend-Lease Act,
>> > which "loaned" arms and ships to the beleaguered Allies in Europe. U.S.
>> > warships engaged Nazi submarines in the Atlantic and protected convoys
>> > bearing relief supplies to the British.
>>
>> But the incidents with U-boats were months in the future in March
>> 1941, along with the convoy escorts, partly triggered by the US taking
>> over the security of Iceland and Greenland.
>
> The Navy (at Roosevelt's insistence) transferred 25% of the Pacific
> Fleet to the Atlantic starting in April. U.S. warships were patrolling
> far out into the Atlantic (the old battleships NEW YORK and TEXAS were
> assigned to guard Denmark Strait in alternate shifts; BISMARCK passed
> through during a shift change). US forces were deployed to Iceland on
> 5 July.
was in April, the Bismarck was in May and the move to Iceland in July,
and of course the first incidents. The original sentence was so
simplified it became misleading.
USS Niblack fired an embarrassing pattern of depth charges when
it picked up a closing sonar contact when rescuing survivors on
10 April, near Iceland.
The USS Greer was on convoy escort duty on 4 September 1941
when it tracked a U-boat and was involved in an exchange of fire.
>> > Months of secret diplomacy with British Prime
>> > Minister Winston Churchill already bound
>> > Roosevelt's administration to the Allied cause,
>> > but the United States was not yet formally in war.
>>
>> There was no binding, there were agreements in terms of material
>> help and joint war plans and aims worked out for if the US became
>> involved. Like the British pre WWI the US idea was to avoid bindings.
>
> Umm. The U.S. was not _formally_, _openly_ committed to
> fight on the Allied side - not "bound" in the sense of
> required by an irrevocable pledge in writing - but
> the Roosevelt administration (which was not the U.S.)
> was as committed as it could be.
the isolationists along with the US view on the worth of the
various Commonwealth etc. forces. There was no binding
agreement, and we are in agreement.
By the way it appears either a number of allied warship
wrecks from the Battle of the Java Sea have moved or they
have been salvaged/stripped. The USN noted a couple of
years ago parts of the USS Houston wreck had been
removed.
>> > The attack on Pearl Harbor in December gave Roosevelt all the
>> > ammunition
>> > he needed. Germany, in alliance with Japan, declared war on the United
>> > States four days later, saving Roosevelt the trouble of having to do it
>> > himself.
>>
>> Somehow it seems the invasion of the Philippines is not good enough.
>
> Some historians question whether the U.S. would have
> declared war because the Philippines were invaded.
but hey, lets just hand the Philippines to Japan, ignore the
US military dead there in the hours after Pearl Harbor.
Alaska had a population of around 60,000 pre WWII, sell
it to Japan to give them a place to expand perhaps? The
climate of the two would average out to temperate.
> However, that is irrelevant - Pearl Harbor did happen,
> and did resolve this issue roughly as FDR wanted.
Nazi Germany, Japan would hurt that effort.
>> > The isolationists were defeated. "I can see nothing to do under these
>> > circumstances except to fight. If I had been in Congress, I certainly
>> > would have voted for a declaration of war," Lindbergh lamented. Other
>> > politicians in Congress, mostly Republicans, would soon lose elections
>> > and become an irrelevant wing of the party.
>>
>> Quoting their attitudes in 1940 and 1941 versus the new reality would
>> be a good campaign tactic.
>
> In fact the Republicans did very well in the 1942
> elections, gaining 47 House seats and 9 Senate seats.
the isolationists knocked out as candidates or knocked out
at the ballot box, despite the increase in Republican numbers?
> One of the few Republican losses was Jeannette Rankin
> of Montana, the only vote against the declaration of
> war. Rankin however was highly atypical for a Republican:
> she had been a suffragette, the first woman Representative
> in 1917, was an outspoken pacifist, and a lifelong
> Progressive.
representatives change over time.
>> > The U.S.'s role in the war forced Nazi Germany to
>> > commit a sizeable troop presence in Western Europe
>> > that it would have otherwise diverted to the
>> > withering invasion of the Soviet Union. It helped
>> > turn the tide of battle.
> ...
>
>> So the US commitment of 4 divisions to England by the end of
>> August 1942 played a big part in German army deployments? The
>> the over 30 commonwealth divisions in England and the Middle
>> East played no part. Nor did the need for occupation troops in
>> all the conquered territory play a part (and this was a big one),
>> Only the US forces. Yes this was written for a US audience.
>
> The point of this paragraph is that the entry of the
> U.S. caused Germany to change its strategies and
> deployment.
German army strength, which is what the article mentions,
was pulled out of the east to act as a defensive force
against the perceived US threat.
Not the the Mediterranean against the real threat to
Rommel and his supply lines?
Can you give the number on how many troops were moved?
Excluding the refits for formations hurt in the east.
In June 1941 the Luftwaffe in the west had around 510 aircraft,
in July 1942, around 560.
> Yes, there were 30 BCE divisions in Britain
> and the Middle East, and German forces were deployed to
> defend against them or oppose them, and to garrison
> occupied Europe. But all these threats and needs had been
> accounted for. When the U.S. entered the war, that was a
> _new_ threat. The U.S. had well over 2M men under arms in
> December 1941 - a very large addition to Allied troop
> strength, which the Germans responded to. This included
> sending additional troops to the Atlantic coast.
numbers of combat troops. And you need to exclude Norway
as Hitler was having intuitions encouraged by allied raids.
I noted in June 1942 there were 31 German divisions in the
west and south, in June 1941 it was 42, or if you count the
formations moved east in late June and early July 51.
So if the German strength in the west was 31 divisions in June
1942, how big a jump in the average quality?
>> So FDR could have saved the USSR by staying at peace and
>> deploying a corps or two into Iceland in 1942? Thereby forcing
>> major changes to the German army dispositions?
>
> Don't put up straw men.
should have forced an even bigger change.
>> > "He was totally caught off guard by it," Roosevelt biographer Jean
>> > Edward
>> > Smith told NPR this week. "The record is clear. There was no evidence
>> > of
>> > the Japanese moving toward Pearl Harbor that was picked up in
>> > Washington."
>>
>> So FDR is charged with failing military co-ordination, what ever that
>> means, MacArthur using his air force, leaving his supplies in Bataan?
>> Kimmel and Short having more integrated plans?
>>
>> FDR obscured intelligence is interesting, he ordered some message
>> suppressed? Or ordered specific interpretations become official?
>
> More strawman argument. The author made no such insinuation or
> accusation.
"For decades since, though, conspiracy theories have surrounded Roosevelt's
role in the build-up to Pearl Harbor, with a coterie of revisionist
historians alleging he deliberately bungled military coordination and
obscured intelligence in order to provoke the crisis that led to war. Most
mainstream historians dismiss these claims."
except when a generalist needs a quick summary that FDR was
not perfect, like everyone else.
> The quoted essay is a fairly good popular summary of the
> events leading up to Pearl Harbor. It does no good to
> read obscure implications into every passage.
passive Japan, active US and plenty of simplifications instead of
the relevant evidence. Seems largely based around the new book
with standard history additions but with the belief of a more active
FDR and a more passive Japan.
mtfe...@netmapsonscape.net
Dec 15, 2016, 12:22:07 AM12/15/16
to
Geoffrey Sinclair <gsinc...@froggy.com.au> wrote:
> That would be an oversell and can be compared to his other
> writings which made it clear the US was not that fragile.
> Also the Pearl Harbor idea was around in January 1941, well
> before war became inevitable. It was developed as war became
> more likely.
An attack on PH was envisioned by Hector Bywater in 1925, though that
> That would be an oversell and can be compared to his other
> writings which made it clear the US was not that fragile.
> Also the Pearl Harbor idea was around in January 1941, well
> before war became inevitable. It was developed as war became
> more likely.
attach was to be by sub-lain mines. Bywater and Yamamoto were known
to be in the same area; they were both supposedly in Washington when
Yamamoto was attached there, and they may have spoken. Certainly,
post-war Japanese officials stated the book was "influential".
> > For imperial Japan, the United States posed a fundamental obstacle to its
> > expanding position in the Pacific. Here was a resource-hungry island
> > nation eager to assert itself on the world stage in the same way European
> > powers had done in centuries prior.
> Now if this article had been from say a non US publisher what is the
> chance the above European would be replaced by US, the move into
> the interior of North America, the war with Spain, the Monroe doctrine?
imperial powers; just a few generations later.
> As for resource hungry that really overstates it, Australia used about the
> same amount of oil on a tenth the population. It was an excuse more
> than a necessity or if you like the near current economic thought, control
> of raw materials.
gladly accepted, of course.
> Back to simple summary, and northern summer of course. And the
> time line ignores the escalation of sanctions and Japanese actions
> through 1940 and 1941. By the way should Manchuria and Korea
> be formerly Chinese territories, or Korea formerly Korean to stay
> consistent?
was accepted as such, if not formally recognized.
> US sanctions alone were not enough, the British and Dutch had to agree.
> Japan was not going to give up on the tripartite pact, the US wanted
to give in to most Japanese terms if they would simply agree to
let the US attack Germany (remember, the Tripartite Pact wasn't
binding if an Axis nation attacked first. ) This pretty clearly
indicated the US wanted to focus its attention on the European
conflict.
> The Philippines did not have a great deal of war resources as such
> though hemp for rope was important enough for Manila to be an
> interchangeable word for rope.
for if they left it alone.
> So if the Japanese were passive then trading freely with them must
> mean they would have stayed peaceful, despite the major expenditure
> on the military.
> > But Roosevelt was steadily trying to engage in the conflicts abroad, no
> > matter his rhetoric. He was an avowed anti-fascist and was preoccupied
> > more by Nazi aggression in Europe than Japanese inroads in Asia.
> So FDR wanted into the war instead of FDR wanted to help
> the good guys win.
the European war, though there's no real evidence he wanted to
fight the Japanese at the same time.
> So as things stood in January 1941, with it down to Germany versus
> Britain in popular short hand the US did not want to become involved.
https://www.princeton.edu/csdp/events/Berinsky101107/BerinskyManuscript101107.pdf
which indicates that a gradually rising portion of the US population favored
a more active role in aiding Britain (over 50% for the first time in Sep
of 1940, and relatively steady rise afterwards.
> > In March 1941, Roosevelt persuaded Congress to pass the Lend-Lease Act,
> > which "loaned" arms and ships to the beleaguered Allies in Europe. U.S.
> > warships engaged Nazi submarines in the Atlantic and protected convoys
> > bearing relief supplies to the British.
> But the incidents with U-boats were months in the future in March
> 1941, along with the convoy escorts, partly triggered by the US taking
> over the security of Iceland and Greenland.
vessels into internationally recognized war zones, in violation of pretty
every neutrality agreement.
> There was no binding, there were agreements in terms of material
> help and joint war plans and aims worked out for if the US became
> involved. Like the British pre WWI the US idea was to avoid bindings.
> > The attack on Pearl Harbor in December gave Roosevelt all the ammunition
> > he needed. Germany, in alliance with Japan, declared war on the United
> > States four days later, saving Roosevelt the trouble of having to do it
> > himself.
> Somehow it seems the invasion of the Philippines is not good enough.
no.
> It is generally agreed if Germany did not defeat the USSR by the
> end of the 1942 summer campaign the result was probably going
> to be the USSR winning.
Soviets. The US was responsible for something like half the Soviet small
ammo, and sizeable portions of its fuel, including more than half their
aviation fuel, scrap, etc. 15% of Soviet aircraft were supplied by the
Western allies, more than 400K vehicles of all sorts, 1900 locomotives,
an enormous amount of foodstuffs, etc.
That doesn't include British contributions to the Soviet war effort
which, while smaller, came at perhaps the most critical time. But it
is doubtful the UK would have provided that without assurances from the
US that they would be replaced.
> What the western allies did in 1942 to turn the tide was ship
> resources and weapons to the USSR, but the amount and
> delays involved meant a limited impact.
half their aviation fuel, for example.
Mike
Geoffrey Sinclair
Dec 15, 2016, 9:35:10 AM12/15/16
to
<mtfe...@netMAPSONscape.net> wrote in message
news:o2t2qr$44d$1...@haven.eyrie.org...
Philippines than in Hawaii. The port strikes were envisioned there.
There were translations into Japanese and it was read by a
large number of IJN personnel.
Heard about the 1935/36 book by Lieutenant-Commander Isimaru
Tota, published in English and Japanese, Japan must Fight Britain?
Including the idea of striking the RN when it is still at peace time
stations.
Yamamoto asked for a Pearl Harbor feasibility study in January 1941.
> Bywater and Yamamoto were known
> to be in the same area; they were both supposedly in Washington when
> Yamamoto was attached there, and they may have spoken. Certainly,
> post-war Japanese officials stated the book was "influential".
The opening Japanese naval strike versus Russia in 1904.
How about the RN planned carrier based torpedo bomber strike on the
High Seas Fleet in port, planned but the war ended.
Also of course in the 1920's Pearl Harbor was an important port
but not the home port of the Pacific fleet, that came about in 1940.
We could add the various USN fleet problems in the 1930's.
Yamamoto noting in mid 1940 torpedo bombers using surprise
could be very effective.
Then a real example, Taranto in November 1940.
>> > For imperial Japan, the United States posed a fundamental obstacle to
>> > its
>> > expanding position in the Pacific. Here was a resource-hungry island
>> > nation eager to assert itself on the world stage in the same way
>> > European
>> > powers had done in centuries prior.
>
>> Now if this article had been from say a non US publisher what is the
>> chance the above European would be replaced by US, the move into
>> the interior of North America, the war with Spain, the Monroe doctrine?
>
> Actually, Japan's actions were not THAT dissimilar from other actions by
> imperial powers; just a few generations later.
No dispute there, as long as the US is one of those powers, and of course
we can go back through history for other examples, say the Hittites?. The
point I was making is about the choice of good and bad examples and how
that depends on the intended audience.
>> As for resource hungry that really overstates it, Australia used about
>> the
>> same amount of oil on a tenth the population. It was an excuse more
>> than a necessity or if you like the near current economic thought,
>> control
>> of raw materials.
>
> More of an oil shortage; they needed it for their armies. Other materials
> gladly accepted, of course.
Oil for the navy and merchant shipping though the latter could use
coal. The army was not a big user, mostly the IJAAF and it was
small until it grew in the late 1930's.
The idea of controlling your idea of vital raw materials was the
one being acted on.
>> Back to simple summary, and northern summer of course. And the
>> time line ignores the escalation of sanctions and Japanese actions
>> through 1940 and 1941. By the way should Manchuria and Korea
>> be formerly Chinese territories, or Korea formerly Korean to stay
>> consistent?
>
> Korea was recognized by the international community as Japanese.
> Manchuria was accepted as such, if not formally recognized.
Manchuria I thought was not accepted so much as no one was
willing to take it off Japan.
The description as of 1938 would be Korea part of Japanese
Empire, Manchuria Chinese territory under Japanese rule or
occupation, Indo China French.
The modern article is my problem with the formerly French line.
>> US sanctions alone were not enough, the British and Dutch had to agree.
>
> To be fair, they were unlikely to oppose the US at that time, considering.
Quite true but also quite true in an article aimed at the US
market the need for others to act as well was dropped, which
also fits into the theme Japan passive, US active, unless we
add US active pushing the British and Dutch.
In 1940/1941 the British essentially delegated their relations
with Japan to the US, as part of the plan to convince Japan
it could not attack the British and their allies without involving
the US. That worked but the plan was Japan was rational
enough to calculate the odds and everyone coming to an
agreement to avoid war. Mostly on allied terms of course.
>> Japan was not going to give up on the tripartite pact, the US wanted
>
> Which is, IMO, a key, and underrecognized point. The US was willing
> to give in to most Japanese terms if they would simply agree to
> let the US attack Germany (remember, the Tripartite Pact wasn't
> binding if an Axis nation attacked first. ) This pretty clearly
> indicated the US wanted to focus its attention on the European
> conflict.
Yes, though the US did want some sort of end to the war in China,
if you want to be mercenary about it because of US trade, or more
ethically the loss of life, including people like US missionaries.
>> The Philippines did not have a great deal of war resources as such
>> though hemp for rope was important enough for Manila to be an
>> interchangeable word for rope.
>
> It was, however, a strategic position which Japan would have to account
> for if they left it alone.
Manila Harbour was important. Most of the rest was the US
forces present, as those forces grew so did the risks of the
US effectively intervening at a time of its choosing.
>> So if the Japanese were passive then trading freely with them must
>> mean they would have stayed peaceful, despite the major expenditure
>> on the military.
>
> They likely would have stayed neutral with respect to the US.
So the US would keep sending supplies to the Japanese via
trade and to the allies via trade and Lend Lease? And the
Japanese were sure enough of this? And the new owners
would be sending back all the rubber and tin the US wanted,
including US ships making the voyages? Thereby enabling
the Japanese to use their shipping elsewhere?
The claim I was replying to was,
""Never inflict upon another major military power a policy which would cause
you yourself to go to war unless you are fully prepared to engage that power
militarily," wrote American historian Roland Worth Jr., in "No Choice But
War: The United States Embargo against Japan and the Eruption of War in the
Pacific." "And don't be surprised that if they do decide to retaliate, that
they seek out a time and a place that inflicts maximum harm and humiliation
upon your cause." "
The active is transferred to the US, the passive or retaliation to the
Japanese. It also implies keeping the trade going meant no war.
>> > But Roosevelt was steadily trying to engage in the conflicts abroad, no
>> > matter his rhetoric. He was an avowed anti-fascist and was preoccupied
>> > more by Nazi aggression in Europe than Japanese inroads in Asia.
>
>> So FDR wanted into the war instead of FDR wanted to help
>> the good guys win.
>
> In this case, there wasn't much difference. He really did want into
> the European war, though there's no real evidence he wanted to
> fight the Japanese at the same time.
I agree there were few scenarios where the US could avoid
fighting and FDR was trying to avoid a war with Japan while
trying to keep Japan as contained as possible given the treaty
Japan had with Germany.
>> So as things stood in January 1941, with it down to Germany versus
>> Britain in popular short hand the US did not want to become involved.
>
> There's diagram on page 226 of
> https://www.princeton.edu/csdp/events/Berinsky101107/BerinskyManuscript101107.pdf
>
> which indicates that a gradually rising portion of the US population
> favored
> a more active role in aiding Britain (over 50% for the first time in Sep
> of 1940, and relatively steady rise afterwards.
Thanks for that, so Lindbergh was wrong in his 85% opposed in
January 1941 or was quoting the results of a sub question, like
a specific military action.
I note the question in the paper is aid otherwise Britain loses,
not quite the same as simply aid.
>> > In March 1941, Roosevelt persuaded Congress to pass the Lend-Lease Act,
>> > which "loaned" arms and ships to the beleaguered Allies in Europe. U.S.
>> > warships engaged Nazi submarines in the Atlantic and protected convoys
>> > bearing relief supplies to the British.
>
>> But the incidents with U-boats were months in the future in March
>> 1941, along with the convoy escorts, partly triggered by the US taking
>> over the security of Iceland and Greenland.
>
> While direct attacks weren't going on, the US was in fact escorting
> vessels into internationally recognized war zones, in violation of pretty
> every neutrality agreement.
Really, which ones before the Iceland convoys?
The US was active in policing its neutrality zone and letting the
everyone know about belligerent warships and axis merchant
ships in the zone, of course only the allied navies could really
use that information most of the time.
I do not know of any convoy duties beyond those for US ships
until the move to Iceland and Greenland.
Part of the British campaign in Ethiopia was all about having
the Red Sea declared safe enough for US shipping.
>> There was no binding, there were agreements in terms of material
>> help and joint war plans and aims worked out for if the US became
>> involved. Like the British pre WWI the US idea was to avoid bindings.
>
> Well not FDR's idea, judging by his actions.
Simply put FDR lacked the power to make anything binding and,
like the British earlier, plenty of political reasons to keep it that
way. Including keeping options open.
>> > The attack on Pearl Harbor in December gave Roosevelt all the
>> > ammunition
>> > he needed. Germany, in alliance with Japan, declared war on the United
>> > States four days later, saving Roosevelt the trouble of having to do it
>> > himself.
>
>> Somehow it seems the invasion of the Philippines is not good enough.
>
> It would not have been enough to get a declaration of war against Germany,
> no.
Nor was Pearl Harbor. The statement implies Germany would not
declare war without the Pearl Harbor strike.
>> It is generally agreed if Germany did not defeat the USSR by the
>> end of the 1942 summer campaign the result was probably going
>> to be the USSR winning.
>
> That would depend on the willingness of the US to continue to supply the
> Soviets. The US was responsible for something like half the Soviet small
> ammo, and sizeable portions of its fuel, including more than half their
> aviation fuel, scrap, etc. 15% of Soviet aircraft were supplied by the
> Western allies, more than 400K vehicles of all sorts, 1900 locomotives,
> an enormous amount of foodstuffs, etc.
Of this only a fraction was despatched by the end of 1942 and even
less had arrived and it was the Commonwealth contributions
providing much of the material to the end of 1942. Their factories
were mobilised their forces more static compared to the US
changing over to war production and undertaking major military
expansions.
It seems around 2% of the total aid tonnage was sent in 1941,
by the end of 1942 around 14% of the total aid tonnage had
been sent and then add weeks to months before it arrived in
the USSR, noting the route across the Pacific was non combat
cargo and then came shipment across Siberia.
No rail cars before the second half of 1943, no locomotives
until 1944.
And without major US losses and operations there would be
more US equipment for others.
> That doesn't include British contributions to the Soviet war effort
> which, while smaller, came at perhaps the most critical time. But it
> is doubtful the UK would have provided that without assurances from the
> US that they would be replaced.
As far as I can tell the British were quite committed to supporting
Russia in 1941/42 it clearly kept the Germans largely away from
Britain and the Middle East and was inflicting large losses.
The situation is complicated by for example the RAF unloading
its P-39 order onto Russia. Which was officially carried against
British Lend Lease, along with some P-40s as well as far as
I know.
And of course the need to reinforce the Far East given Japan
looking like going to war.
>> What the western allies did in 1942 to turn the tide was ship
>> resources and weapons to the USSR, but the amount and
>> delays involved meant a limited impact.
>
> See above; I doubt the Russians would have fared as well without
> half their aviation fuel, for example.
http://www.oilru.com/or/22/360/
Says around 18% of avgas. Around 2.1 million US and 0.57
million tons Commonwealth fuel received. Of that around
300,000 tons by mid 1942. Versus 4.4 million tons of avgas
produced by the USSR, but of course the USSR fuel supply
fluctuated, including a dip in 1942 and western fuel usually
had higher octane ratings. Which means it was the fuel of
choice for operations, leaving the USSR fuel for training and
non combat aircraft. So it is not simply a tonnage issue.
Note the US equipment for Soviet refineries.
Why not simply take some from the British controlled Middle East
refineries? I have seen claims the British did this given aviation
fuel was under Lend Lease but against that is simply the issue
of location. Even before Lend Lease (but after June 1940) the
Middle East fuel was usually not sent to Britain.
Simply put in 1941 the Germans attacked all along the line
with an almost entirely German force (ignoring Finland),
in 1942 it attacked on half the front and needed 4 axis allied
armies The point of maximum strain on the USSR economy
is usually considered to parallel that on the military, the end
of 1942 and early 1943. If the USSR was still around at the
end of the northern winter of 1942/43 it was probably going
to stay around.
After that comes the allies attempting to allocate resources to
achieve the most efficient victory that can.
Certainly Lend Lease had an impact on the USSR war effort,
things like explosives, better quality fuels, refinery equipment,
rails, food and so on before we talk about military hardware,
the point is most of it arrived in 1943 or later.
news:o2t2qr$44d$1...@haven.eyrie.org...
> Geoffrey Sinclair <gsinc...@froggy.com.au> wrote:
>
>> That would be an oversell and can be compared to his other
>> writings which made it clear the US was not that fragile.
>
>> Also the Pearl Harbor idea was around in January 1941, well
>> before war became inevitable. It was developed as war became
>> more likely.
>
> An attack on PH was envisioned by Hector Bywater in 1925, though that
> attach was to be by sub-lain mines.
As apparently at that time there were more USN ships based in the
>
>> That would be an oversell and can be compared to his other
>> writings which made it clear the US was not that fragile.
>
>> Also the Pearl Harbor idea was around in January 1941, well
>> before war became inevitable. It was developed as war became
>> more likely.
>
> An attack on PH was envisioned by Hector Bywater in 1925, though that
> attach was to be by sub-lain mines.
Philippines than in Hawaii. The port strikes were envisioned there.
There were translations into Japanese and it was read by a
large number of IJN personnel.
Heard about the 1935/36 book by Lieutenant-Commander Isimaru
Tota, published in English and Japanese, Japan must Fight Britain?
Including the idea of striking the RN when it is still at peace time
stations.
Yamamoto asked for a Pearl Harbor feasibility study in January 1941.
> Bywater and Yamamoto were known
> to be in the same area; they were both supposedly in Washington when
> Yamamoto was attached there, and they may have spoken. Certainly,
> post-war Japanese officials stated the book was "influential".
How about the RN planned carrier based torpedo bomber strike on the
High Seas Fleet in port, planned but the war ended.
Also of course in the 1920's Pearl Harbor was an important port
but not the home port of the Pacific fleet, that came about in 1940.
We could add the various USN fleet problems in the 1930's.
Yamamoto noting in mid 1940 torpedo bombers using surprise
could be very effective.
Then a real example, Taranto in November 1940.
>> > For imperial Japan, the United States posed a fundamental obstacle to
>> > its
>> > expanding position in the Pacific. Here was a resource-hungry island
>> > nation eager to assert itself on the world stage in the same way
>> > European
>> > powers had done in centuries prior.
>
>> Now if this article had been from say a non US publisher what is the
>> chance the above European would be replaced by US, the move into
>> the interior of North America, the war with Spain, the Monroe doctrine?
>
> Actually, Japan's actions were not THAT dissimilar from other actions by
> imperial powers; just a few generations later.
we can go back through history for other examples, say the Hittites?. The
point I was making is about the choice of good and bad examples and how
that depends on the intended audience.
>> As for resource hungry that really overstates it, Australia used about
>> the
>> same amount of oil on a tenth the population. It was an excuse more
>> than a necessity or if you like the near current economic thought,
>> control
>> of raw materials.
>
> More of an oil shortage; they needed it for their armies. Other materials
> gladly accepted, of course.
coal. The army was not a big user, mostly the IJAAF and it was
small until it grew in the late 1930's.
The idea of controlling your idea of vital raw materials was the
one being acted on.
>> Back to simple summary, and northern summer of course. And the
>> time line ignores the escalation of sanctions and Japanese actions
>> through 1940 and 1941. By the way should Manchuria and Korea
>> be formerly Chinese territories, or Korea formerly Korean to stay
>> consistent?
>
> Korea was recognized by the international community as Japanese.
> Manchuria was accepted as such, if not formally recognized.
willing to take it off Japan.
The description as of 1938 would be Korea part of Japanese
Empire, Manchuria Chinese territory under Japanese rule or
occupation, Indo China French.
The modern article is my problem with the formerly French line.
>> US sanctions alone were not enough, the British and Dutch had to agree.
>
> To be fair, they were unlikely to oppose the US at that time, considering.
market the need for others to act as well was dropped, which
also fits into the theme Japan passive, US active, unless we
add US active pushing the British and Dutch.
In 1940/1941 the British essentially delegated their relations
with Japan to the US, as part of the plan to convince Japan
it could not attack the British and their allies without involving
the US. That worked but the plan was Japan was rational
enough to calculate the odds and everyone coming to an
agreement to avoid war. Mostly on allied terms of course.
>> Japan was not going to give up on the tripartite pact, the US wanted
>
> Which is, IMO, a key, and underrecognized point. The US was willing
> to give in to most Japanese terms if they would simply agree to
> let the US attack Germany (remember, the Tripartite Pact wasn't
> binding if an Axis nation attacked first. ) This pretty clearly
> indicated the US wanted to focus its attention on the European
> conflict.
if you want to be mercenary about it because of US trade, or more
ethically the loss of life, including people like US missionaries.
>> The Philippines did not have a great deal of war resources as such
>> though hemp for rope was important enough for Manila to be an
>> interchangeable word for rope.
>
> It was, however, a strategic position which Japan would have to account
> for if they left it alone.
forces present, as those forces grew so did the risks of the
US effectively intervening at a time of its choosing.
>> So if the Japanese were passive then trading freely with them must
>> mean they would have stayed peaceful, despite the major expenditure
>> on the military.
>
> They likely would have stayed neutral with respect to the US.
trade and to the allies via trade and Lend Lease? And the
Japanese were sure enough of this? And the new owners
would be sending back all the rubber and tin the US wanted,
including US ships making the voyages? Thereby enabling
the Japanese to use their shipping elsewhere?
The claim I was replying to was,
""Never inflict upon another major military power a policy which would cause
you yourself to go to war unless you are fully prepared to engage that power
militarily," wrote American historian Roland Worth Jr., in "No Choice But
War: The United States Embargo against Japan and the Eruption of War in the
Pacific." "And don't be surprised that if they do decide to retaliate, that
they seek out a time and a place that inflicts maximum harm and humiliation
upon your cause." "
Japanese. It also implies keeping the trade going meant no war.
>> > But Roosevelt was steadily trying to engage in the conflicts abroad, no
>> > matter his rhetoric. He was an avowed anti-fascist and was preoccupied
>> > more by Nazi aggression in Europe than Japanese inroads in Asia.
>
>> So FDR wanted into the war instead of FDR wanted to help
>> the good guys win.
>
> In this case, there wasn't much difference. He really did want into
> the European war, though there's no real evidence he wanted to
> fight the Japanese at the same time.
fighting and FDR was trying to avoid a war with Japan while
trying to keep Japan as contained as possible given the treaty
Japan had with Germany.
>> So as things stood in January 1941, with it down to Germany versus
>> Britain in popular short hand the US did not want to become involved.
>
> There's diagram on page 226 of
> https://www.princeton.edu/csdp/events/Berinsky101107/BerinskyManuscript101107.pdf
>
> which indicates that a gradually rising portion of the US population
> favored
> a more active role in aiding Britain (over 50% for the first time in Sep
> of 1940, and relatively steady rise afterwards.
January 1941 or was quoting the results of a sub question, like
a specific military action.
I note the question in the paper is aid otherwise Britain loses,
not quite the same as simply aid.
>> > In March 1941, Roosevelt persuaded Congress to pass the Lend-Lease Act,
>> > which "loaned" arms and ships to the beleaguered Allies in Europe. U.S.
>> > warships engaged Nazi submarines in the Atlantic and protected convoys
>> > bearing relief supplies to the British.
>
>> But the incidents with U-boats were months in the future in March
>> 1941, along with the convoy escorts, partly triggered by the US taking
>> over the security of Iceland and Greenland.
>
> While direct attacks weren't going on, the US was in fact escorting
> vessels into internationally recognized war zones, in violation of pretty
> every neutrality agreement.
The US was active in policing its neutrality zone and letting the
everyone know about belligerent warships and axis merchant
ships in the zone, of course only the allied navies could really
use that information most of the time.
I do not know of any convoy duties beyond those for US ships
until the move to Iceland and Greenland.
Part of the British campaign in Ethiopia was all about having
the Red Sea declared safe enough for US shipping.
>> There was no binding, there were agreements in terms of material
>> help and joint war plans and aims worked out for if the US became
>> involved. Like the British pre WWI the US idea was to avoid bindings.
>
> Well not FDR's idea, judging by his actions.
like the British earlier, plenty of political reasons to keep it that
way. Including keeping options open.
>> > The attack on Pearl Harbor in December gave Roosevelt all the
>> > ammunition
>> > he needed. Germany, in alliance with Japan, declared war on the United
>> > States four days later, saving Roosevelt the trouble of having to do it
>> > himself.
>
>> Somehow it seems the invasion of the Philippines is not good enough.
>
> It would not have been enough to get a declaration of war against Germany,
> no.
declare war without the Pearl Harbor strike.
>> It is generally agreed if Germany did not defeat the USSR by the
>> end of the 1942 summer campaign the result was probably going
>> to be the USSR winning.
>
> That would depend on the willingness of the US to continue to supply the
> Soviets. The US was responsible for something like half the Soviet small
> ammo, and sizeable portions of its fuel, including more than half their
> aviation fuel, scrap, etc. 15% of Soviet aircraft were supplied by the
> Western allies, more than 400K vehicles of all sorts, 1900 locomotives,
> an enormous amount of foodstuffs, etc.
less had arrived and it was the Commonwealth contributions
providing much of the material to the end of 1942. Their factories
were mobilised their forces more static compared to the US
changing over to war production and undertaking major military
expansions.
It seems around 2% of the total aid tonnage was sent in 1941,
by the end of 1942 around 14% of the total aid tonnage had
been sent and then add weeks to months before it arrived in
the USSR, noting the route across the Pacific was non combat
cargo and then came shipment across Siberia.
No rail cars before the second half of 1943, no locomotives
until 1944.
And without major US losses and operations there would be
more US equipment for others.
> That doesn't include British contributions to the Soviet war effort
> which, while smaller, came at perhaps the most critical time. But it
> is doubtful the UK would have provided that without assurances from the
> US that they would be replaced.
Russia in 1941/42 it clearly kept the Germans largely away from
Britain and the Middle East and was inflicting large losses.
The situation is complicated by for example the RAF unloading
its P-39 order onto Russia. Which was officially carried against
British Lend Lease, along with some P-40s as well as far as
I know.
And of course the need to reinforce the Far East given Japan
looking like going to war.
>> What the western allies did in 1942 to turn the tide was ship
>> resources and weapons to the USSR, but the amount and
>> delays involved meant a limited impact.
>
> See above; I doubt the Russians would have fared as well without
> half their aviation fuel, for example.
Says around 18% of avgas. Around 2.1 million US and 0.57
million tons Commonwealth fuel received. Of that around
300,000 tons by mid 1942. Versus 4.4 million tons of avgas
produced by the USSR, but of course the USSR fuel supply
fluctuated, including a dip in 1942 and western fuel usually
had higher octane ratings. Which means it was the fuel of
choice for operations, leaving the USSR fuel for training and
non combat aircraft. So it is not simply a tonnage issue.
Note the US equipment for Soviet refineries.
Why not simply take some from the British controlled Middle East
refineries? I have seen claims the British did this given aviation
fuel was under Lend Lease but against that is simply the issue
of location. Even before Lend Lease (but after June 1940) the
Middle East fuel was usually not sent to Britain.
Simply put in 1941 the Germans attacked all along the line
with an almost entirely German force (ignoring Finland),
in 1942 it attacked on half the front and needed 4 axis allied
armies The point of maximum strain on the USSR economy
is usually considered to parallel that on the military, the end
of 1942 and early 1943. If the USSR was still around at the
end of the northern winter of 1942/43 it was probably going
to stay around.
After that comes the allies attempting to allocate resources to
achieve the most efficient victory that can.
Certainly Lend Lease had an impact on the USSR war effort,
things like explosives, better quality fuels, refinery equipment,
rails, food and so on before we talk about military hardware,
the point is most of it arrived in 1943 or later.
Rich Rostrom
Dec 16, 2016, 9:56:30 PM12/16/16
to
"Geoffrey Sinclair" <gsinc...@froggy.com.au> wrote:
> Simply put in 1941 the Germans attacked all along the line
> with an almost entirely German force (ignoring Finland),
In 1941, the Axis attacked the USSR with 15 armies.
> Simply put in 1941 the Germans attacked all along the line
> with an almost entirely German force (ignoring Finland),
12 German:
AOK Norwegen
Army Group North
XVIII Army
IV Panzer Army (at this time "Gruppe")
XVI Army
Army Group Center
III Panzer Army
IX Army
IV Army
II Panzer Army
Army Group South
VI Army
I Panzer Army
XVII Army
XI Army
2 Romanian:
III Romanian Army
IV Romanian Army
(both in AG South)
1 Finnish: Karelian Army
12/15 is 80%, and 80% is not "almost entirely".
> In 1942 it attacked on half the front and needed 4
> Axis allied armies
Five, actually: 2 Romanian, 1 Finnish, 1 Italian,
and 1 Hungarian.
But as noted correctly, Soviet resistance had become
much stronger, limiting the scope of Axis offensives.
Actually that change might be said to have begun by
October 1941; after then Army Group Center attacked
toward Moscow, while Army Group South advanced to
Kharkov and Rostov, but Army Group North made no
further offensive moves.
In 1942, AG North _and_ AG Center stayed defensive,
while only AG South attacked.
And of course in 1943, there was only one small
spasm of Axis offense, though it involved two
Army Groups (Center and South) because it occurred
at the border between them.
Alan Meyer
Dec 18, 2016, 1:40:41 AM12/18/16
to
On 12/11/2016 10:43 AM, Geoffrey Sinclair wrote:
...
In my view, Japanese militarism was determined to start a war in 1941,
any war. At best it was destined to bog down and ruin Japan - something
already underway in the never ending, never decisively winnable war in
China. At worst, if it attacked the U.S., it was doomed to the flaming
defeat and destruction it actually suffered.
The real question, I think, is what would have happened in Europe if
Japan had not attacked Pearl Harbor? Would the U.S. have gone to war
against Germany? When? Would Germany have won if the U.S. did not go
to war?
Germany would have done much better without the U.S. in the war. It
might have blunted the British air campaign. It would surely have been
able to commit more forces, especially air forces, in the East. But
would it have won? We don't know for sure, but I think the most likely
answer to that was given by Geoffrey Sinclair in the above quote from
his post.
The German invasion of the USSR was checked at Moscow and Stalingrad,
and decisively turned back in 1943, before the U.S. did very much either
to defeat Germany or to aid the USSR.
I'd like to believe that the U.S. would have entered the war in Europe
at some point even if Hitler (I almost said "Germany", but it was always
and only Hitler) didn't stupidly decide to honor his pact with Japan.
But even if Japan didn't attack, Hitler didn't declare war, and the U.S.
continued to dither, Japanese and German imperialism were both headed
for failure. The key difference would be that the USSR would have
defeated Germany without a powerful Western and democratic counterforce
at the end. It would have been a worse ending for Germany and the west
than what actually transpired.
But, as with all alternate history questions, we have no certain
answers. It's at least possible that Hitler would have achieved a
stalemate in Russia and conceivable that he would have won, perhaps with
an atom bomb.
All the detail questions are fascinating, but I've probably said enough
for one post.
Alan
...
> It is generally agreed if Germany did not defeat the USSR by the
> end of the 1942 summer campaign the result was probably going
> to be the USSR winning.
...
> end of the 1942 summer campaign the result was probably going
> to be the USSR winning.
In my view, Japanese militarism was determined to start a war in 1941,
any war. At best it was destined to bog down and ruin Japan - something
already underway in the never ending, never decisively winnable war in
China. At worst, if it attacked the U.S., it was doomed to the flaming
defeat and destruction it actually suffered.
The real question, I think, is what would have happened in Europe if
Japan had not attacked Pearl Harbor? Would the U.S. have gone to war
against Germany? When? Would Germany have won if the U.S. did not go
to war?
Germany would have done much better without the U.S. in the war. It
might have blunted the British air campaign. It would surely have been
able to commit more forces, especially air forces, in the East. But
would it have won? We don't know for sure, but I think the most likely
answer to that was given by Geoffrey Sinclair in the above quote from
his post.
The German invasion of the USSR was checked at Moscow and Stalingrad,
and decisively turned back in 1943, before the U.S. did very much either
to defeat Germany or to aid the USSR.
I'd like to believe that the U.S. would have entered the war in Europe
at some point even if Hitler (I almost said "Germany", but it was always
and only Hitler) didn't stupidly decide to honor his pact with Japan.
But even if Japan didn't attack, Hitler didn't declare war, and the U.S.
continued to dither, Japanese and German imperialism were both headed
for failure. The key difference would be that the USSR would have
defeated Germany without a powerful Western and democratic counterforce
at the end. It would have been a worse ending for Germany and the west
than what actually transpired.
But, as with all alternate history questions, we have no certain
answers. It's at least possible that Hitler would have achieved a
stalemate in Russia and conceivable that he would have won, perhaps with
an atom bomb.
All the detail questions are fascinating, but I've probably said enough
for one post.
Alan
Geoffrey Sinclair
Dec 18, 2016, 10:40:57 AM12/18/16
to
"Rich Rostrom" <rros...@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:rrostrom-BC8FDD...@news.eternal-september.org...
> "Geoffrey Sinclair" <gsinc...@froggy.com.au> wrote:
>
>> Simply put in 1941 the Germans attacked all along the line
>> with an almost entirely German force (ignoring Finland),
>
> In 1941, the Axis attacked the USSR with 15 armies.
Interesting, so after I noted I was ignoring Finland it is put back in.
>
>> Simply put in 1941 the Germans attacked all along the line
>> with an almost entirely German force (ignoring Finland),
>
> In 1941, the Axis attacked the USSR with 15 armies.
> 12 German:
>
> AOK Norwegen
4 to 5 divisions.
> Army Group North, XVIII Army, IV Panzer Army (at this time
> "Gruppe") XVI Army
>
> Army Group Center, III Panzer Army, IX Army, IV Army,
> II Panzer Army
>
> Army Group South, VI Army, I Panzer Army, XVII Army,
> XI Army
>
> 2 Romanian: III Romanian Army, IV Romanian Army
> (both in AG South)
>
> 1 Finnish: Karelian Army
>
> 12/15 is 80%, and 80% is not "almost entirely".
Well done, change the basis of the count and announce errors.
>
> 1 Finnish: Karelian Army
>
> 12/15 is 80%, and 80% is not "almost entirely".
The German 11th Army, along with the Romanian forces, did
not attack until 2 July. Also in 1941 the Romanians tried for
a form on the Finnish plan, retake the areas the USSR recently
took of the country then largely halt. Hitler offered extra territory
to be placed under Romanian administration so they went to
Odessa.
Third Army was the force that moved into the USSR, becoming
part of 11th Army's attempt to take Crimea.
http://www.worldwar2.ro/arr/?article=6
And associated articles. Some of which at least appear to be
the same as in the book Third Axis, Fourth Ally.
Fourth Army moved to invest Odessa after the initial objectives
had been obtained and that seems to have occupied most of
the Romanian army over time. After that it did not do a lot in
1941. Though of course the problem is forces were shuffled
amongst the various Romanian commands.
Note by the way the Romanian cavalry and mountain brigades
were large, to the point of being considered divisions.
So I do not normally count all the Romanian forces in the
first summer campaign for the same reason as Finland,
they were largely operating on a set of restricted war aims.
Only the third army advanced well into pre war USSR with
two corps and ended up being used in secondary roles,
along with the Hungarian units committed. Though as you
can see fights came to them.
You want to count them go ahead. I would put it down
to about 1 army when it came to invading the USSR and
2 when it came to restoring the 1939 borders.
>> In 1942 it attacked on half the front and needed 4
>> Axis allied armies
>
> Five, actually: 2 Romanian, 1 Finnish, 1 Italian,
> and 1 Hungarian.
Finland forces they are put back in.
> But as noted correctly, Soviet resistance had become
> much stronger, limiting the scope of Axis offensives.
>
> Actually that change might be said to have begun by
> October 1941; after then Army Group Center attacked
> toward Moscow, while Army Group South advanced to
> Kharkov and Rostov, but Army Group North made no
> further offensive moves.
time, after that there was not a lot of objectives to its east.
In many ways it had the better supply thanks to coastal
shipping, but the worse terrain and the earlier winter.
> In 1942, AG North _and_ AG Center stayed defensive,
> while only AG South attacked.
force wise it was around half the front, even more once the
Caucasus was reached.
> And of course in 1943, there was only one small
> spasm of Axis offense, though it involved two
> Army Groups (Center and South) because it occurred
> at the border between them.
to mention them, then note they came under 2 army groups.
sctvguy1
Jan 5, 2017, 7:05:21 PM1/5/17
to
On Mon, 12 Dec 2016 16:06:27 -0500, Rich Rostrom wrote:
> The Navy (at Roosevelt's insistence) transferred 25% of the Pacific
> Fleet to the Atlantic starting in April. U.S. warships were patrolling
> far out into the Atlantic (the old battleships NEW YORK and TEXAS were
> assigned to guard Denmark Strait in alternate shifts; BISMARCK passed
> through during a shift change). US forces were deployed to Iceland on 5
> July.
What if the New York and Texas were there, what chance could they have
> The Navy (at Roosevelt's insistence) transferred 25% of the Pacific
> Fleet to the Atlantic starting in April. U.S. warships were patrolling
> far out into the Atlantic (the old battleships NEW YORK and TEXAS were
> assigned to guard Denmark Strait in alternate shifts; BISMARCK passed
> through during a shift change). US forces were deployed to Iceland on 5
> July.
had against the Bismarck and Prinz Eugen? Didn't those ships have 12"
guns?
Geoffrey Sinclair
Jan 6, 2017, 9:22:46 AM1/6/17
to
"sctvguy1" <sctv...@invalid.net> wrote in message
news:o4mmc9$1j7$1...@dont-email.me...
Of the US WWII battleships only Arkansas had 12 inch guns.
New York and Texas were sister ships, both commissioned in 1914. They
had ten 14 inch guns. Both were modernised between the wars, the rebuilt
Texas design displacement was 28,700 tons and managed 19.72 knots
at 29,589 tons using 25,402 IHP. Not the IHP, it was fitted with
reciprocating
machinery, which made sustained top speed a problem.
In short Bismarck should be able to disengage but would be outnumbered 2
to 1 if it stayed to fight.
The USN 14 inch gun fired a 1,500 pound shell to 34,300 yards at 30 degree
elevation.
The German 15 inch gun fired a 1,764 pound shell to 38,880 yards at 30
degree elevation.
The difference in range is small given the situation, the chances of hits at
that range and Bismarck wanting to preserve ammunition.
news:o4mmc9$1j7$1...@dont-email.me...
New York and Texas were sister ships, both commissioned in 1914. They
had ten 14 inch guns. Both were modernised between the wars, the rebuilt
Texas design displacement was 28,700 tons and managed 19.72 knots
at 29,589 tons using 25,402 IHP. Not the IHP, it was fitted with
reciprocating
machinery, which made sustained top speed a problem.
In short Bismarck should be able to disengage but would be outnumbered 2
to 1 if it stayed to fight.
The USN 14 inch gun fired a 1,500 pound shell to 34,300 yards at 30 degree
elevation.
The German 15 inch gun fired a 1,764 pound shell to 38,880 yards at 30
degree elevation.
The difference in range is small given the situation, the chances of hits at
that range and Bismarck wanting to preserve ammunition.
Kenneth Young
Jan 6, 2017, 9:23:06 AM1/6/17
to
In article <o4mmc9$1j7$1...@dont-email.me>, sctv...@invalid.net (sctvguy1)
wrote:
> What if the New York and Texas were there, what chance could they
> have had against the Bismarck and Prinz Eugen? Didn't those ships
> have 12" guns?
The chance of taking serious damage was there and enough to deter
surface raiders for long enough for the convoy to scatter. Have you heard
about the RN AMC whose name I can not spell. One hit from a 14 inch gun
mission killed Bismark.
wrote:
> What if the New York and Texas were there, what chance could they
> have had against the Bismarck and Prinz Eugen? Didn't those ships
> have 12" guns?
surface raiders for long enough for the convoy to scatter. Have you heard
about the RN AMC whose name I can not spell. One hit from a 14 inch gun
mission killed Bismark.
The Horny Goat
Jan 6, 2017, 12:10:24 PM1/6/17
to
On Thu, 05 Jan 2017 19:05:19 -0500, sctvguy1 <sctv...@invalid.net>
wrote:
Given FDR intended US units in the Atlantic to primarily be (before
Pearl Harbor at least) spotters for the Royal Navy I would have
thought destroyers (who are faster than battleships) to have done a
better job than cruisers or battleships.
Reuben James and Kearsage were considered abberations - not
unfortunate accidents.
wrote:
Pearl Harbor at least) spotters for the Royal Navy I would have
thought destroyers (who are faster than battleships) to have done a
better job than cruisers or battleships.
Reuben James and Kearsage were considered abberations - not
unfortunate accidents.
The Horny Goat
Jan 6, 2017, 12:16:02 PM1/6/17
to
On Fri, 06 Jan 2017 09:23:05 -0500, ken...@cix.co.uk (Kenneth Young)
wrote:
Well the major hit that doomed Bismarck was the one to the rudder
which by restricting her mobility made her a MUCH easier target to
locate.
wrote:
which by restricting her mobility made her a MUCH easier target to
locate.
Rich Rostrom
Jan 6, 2017, 6:32:39 PM1/6/17
to
"Geoffrey Sinclair" <gsinc...@froggy.com.au> wrote:
> "sctvguy1" <sctv...@invalid.net> wrote in message
> "sctvguy1" <sctv...@invalid.net> wrote in message
> > On Mon, 12 Dec 2016 16:06:27 -0500, Rich Rostrom wrote:
> > What if the New York and Texas were there, what chance could they have
> > had against the Bismarck and Prinz Eugen?
At the time, the US was neutral, so neither side would
> > What if the New York and Texas were there, what chance could they have
> > had against the Bismarck and Prinz Eugen?
automatically open fire. I don't know what the orders
of the US BBs were; I'm pretty sure BISMARCK was under
orders not to start anything with any US ships.
So probably there would not have been a battle.
Of course BISMARCK might mistake the US ship for a British
battleship and open fire.
In that case...
BISMARCK was new; NEW YORK and TEXAS were among the oldest
battleships in service, even though modernized. I would say
BISMARCK would have a major edge over either US ship.
> Of the US WWII battleships only Arkansas had 12 inch guns.
included in lists of battleships, even though the US Navy
didn't do so.
> ...Bismarck should be able to disengage but would be
> outnumbered 2 to 1 if it stayed to fight.
TEXAS and NEW YORK were never there at the same time.
While one was on patrol, the other was back in the US,
refitting, refueling, and so on.
> The USN 14 inch gun fired a 1,500 pound shell to
> 34,300 yards at 30 degree elevation.
>
> The German 15 inch gun fired a 1,764 pound shell to
> 38,880 yards at 30 degree elevation.
>
However, BISMARCK's shells are 17.6% heavier. I think
that matters a lot. Still, it should be noted that
BISMARCK was significantly damaged by a single 14" hit
from PRINCE OF WALES. So engagement would pose a risk
for BISMARCK.
> ...given the situation, the chances of hits at
> that range and Bismarck wanting to preserve ammunition.
Very good point. BISMARCK's mission is to break out into
the Atlantic and disrupt commerce, not engage other battleships.
Her logical course is to break off contact as quickly as
possible.
BISMARCK has 8-10 knots advantage, and can run at top
speed for long stretches, whereas (as Mr. Sinclair
noted) the US ships had reciprocating engages, which
literally fall apart if run flat out for more than
brief periods.
So... unless the two ships stumble into each other in
thick weather, and starting shooting at close range,
the most likely result is that BISMARCK evades the
America, possibly with a few long range shots exchanged.
Geoffrey Sinclair
Jan 8, 2017, 10:38:44 AM1/8/17
to
"Rich Rostrom" <rros...@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:rrostrom-6A79C9...@news.eternal-september.org...
> "Geoffrey Sinclair" <gsinc...@froggy.com.au> wrote:
>
>> "sctvguy1" <sctv...@invalid.net> wrote in message
>> > On Mon, 12 Dec 2016 16:06:27 -0500, Rich Rostrom wrote:
>
>> > What if the New York and Texas were there, what chance could they have
>> > had against the Bismarck and Prinz Eugen?
>
> At the time, the US was neutral, so neither side would
> automatically open fire. I don't know what the orders
> of the US BBs were; I'm pretty sure BISMARCK was under
> orders not to start anything with any US ships.
>
> So probably there would not have been a battle.
Yes, quite clearly, Bismarck was much faster than an old US battleship,
>
>> "sctvguy1" <sctv...@invalid.net> wrote in message
>> > On Mon, 12 Dec 2016 16:06:27 -0500, Rich Rostrom wrote:
>
>> > What if the New York and Texas were there, what chance could they have
>> > had against the Bismarck and Prinz Eugen?
>
> At the time, the US was neutral, so neither side would
> automatically open fire. I don't know what the orders
> of the US BBs were; I'm pretty sure BISMARCK was under
> orders not to start anything with any US ships.
>
> So probably there would not have been a battle.
if the USN would put a cruiser or two or similar on Bismarck's tail with
open radio beacons it might provoke a reaction.
> Of course BISMARCK might mistake the US ship for a British
> battleship and open fire.
>
> In that case...
>
> BISMARCK was new; NEW YORK and TEXAS were among the oldest
> battleships in service, even though modernized. I would say
> BISMARCK would have a major edge over either US ship.
you find they are quite similar. Also we know from the engagement
with Hood and Prince of Wales Bismarck's shells were prematurely
detonating.
>> Of the US WWII battleships only Arkansas had 12 inch guns.
>
> And the ALASKA class "large cruisers", which are usually
> included in lists of battleships, even though the US Navy
> didn't do so.
an 11 inch belt, the Alaska a 9 inch.
Arkansas came in at 26,100 tons, 562 x 93.25 feet, twelve 12
inch guns, 20.5 knots.
Alaska was 27,500 tons, 808.5x90.75 feet nine 12 inch guns,
33 knots.
In terms of guns Arkansas took until the 1940/41 work before its
main battery's maximum elevation was changed from 15 to 30
degrees. It fired a 740 pound AP round to around 23,900 yards
at 15 degrees elevation, so up to low to mid 30,000 yards at 30
degrees.
The Alaska class maximum elevation was 45 degrees, firing a
940 pound AP round to what looks like a maximum range of
38,000 yards.
>> ...Bismarck should be able to disengage but would be
>> outnumbered 2 to 1 if it stayed to fight.
>
> TEXAS and NEW YORK were never there at the same time.
> While one was on patrol, the other was back in the US,
> refitting, refueling, and so on.
> So... unless the two ships stumble into each other in
> thick weather, and starting shooting at close range,
> the most likely result is that BISMARCK evades the
> America, possibly with a few long range shots exchanged.
Iceland/Greenland. Otherwise any sort of open water and
Bismarck evades the US battleship, then comes what US
cruisers are present and what they do.
Rich
Jan 8, 2017, 3:23:33 PM1/8/17
to
On Sunday, January 8, 2017 at 7:38:44 AM UTC-8, Geoffrey Sinclair wrote:
> In terms of guns Arkansas took until the 1940/41 work before its
> main battery's maximum elevation was changed from 15 to 30
> degrees. It fired a 740 pound AP round to around 23,900 yards
> at 15 degrees elevation, so up to low to mid 30,000 yards at 30
> degrees.
Insofar as I know, the Arkansas, Texas, and New York never had a modification
> In terms of guns Arkansas took until the 1940/41 work before its
> main battery's maximum elevation was changed from 15 to 30
> degrees. It fired a 740 pound AP round to around 23,900 yards
> at 15 degrees elevation, so up to low to mid 30,000 yards at 30
> degrees.
to increase main battery elevation beyond 15 degrees, despite what many
publications say. The 12" AP Mark 15 in all Mods weighed 870 pounds.
Geoffrey Sinclair
Jan 9, 2017, 10:30:29 AM1/9/17
to
"Rich" <Rich...@msn.com> wrote in message
news:da0ce790-84ea-4e22...@googlegroups.com...
Many many publications.
Friedman notes the New York and Texas were refitted/rebuilt before
the US decided on increasing the main gun elevation, but did get better
fire controls and aircraft, the prerequisites for exploiting the greater
range.
New York and Texas were BB-34 and 35, Friedman explicitly states the
rebuilds from BB-36 onwards received the increased elevation.
Since Texas is still around it is easy enough to look, the answer is 15
degrees, note 2 of,
http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNUS_14-45_mk10.php
It is therefore very probable both New York and Arkansas had
15 degree elevation all their careers.
> The 12" AP Mark 15 in all Mods weighed 870 pounds.
My typo, the HC round in the Arkansas was 740 pounds, the AP 870.
(Mark 7/0 to 7/19)
For the Alaska the AP round was 1,140 pounds, the HC 940 pounds.
(Mark 8/0)
news:da0ce790-84ea-4e22...@googlegroups.com...
Friedman notes the New York and Texas were refitted/rebuilt before
the US decided on increasing the main gun elevation, but did get better
fire controls and aircraft, the prerequisites for exploiting the greater
range.
New York and Texas were BB-34 and 35, Friedman explicitly states the
rebuilds from BB-36 onwards received the increased elevation.
Since Texas is still around it is easy enough to look, the answer is 15
degrees, note 2 of,
http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNUS_14-45_mk10.php
It is therefore very probable both New York and Arkansas had
15 degree elevation all their careers.
> The 12" AP Mark 15 in all Mods weighed 870 pounds.
(Mark 7/0 to 7/19)
For the Alaska the AP round was 1,140 pounds, the HC 940 pounds.
(Mark 8/0)
Haydn
Jan 9, 2017, 10:31:09 AM1/9/17
to
Geoffrey Sinclair wrote:
> In terms of guns Arkansas took until the 1940/41 work before its
> main battery's maximum elevation was changed from 15 to 30
> degrees. It fired a 740 pound AP round to around 23,900 yards
> at 15 degrees elevation, so up to low to mid 30,000 yards at 30
> degrees.
At what elevation would Arkansas's and Bismarck's guns, respectively, be
> In terms of guns Arkansas took until the 1940/41 work before its
> main battery's maximum elevation was changed from 15 to 30
> degrees. It fired a 740 pound AP round to around 23,900 yards
> at 15 degrees elevation, so up to low to mid 30,000 yards at 30
> degrees.
reloaded? In 1940, Warspite's could fire at 26 degrees elevation, but
the guns would be reloaded at 20. The reconditioned Italian dreadnoughts
of the Cavour class could fire at 27 degrees, but they were reloaded at
15 degrees (the difference helps explain why the British would shoot
faster).
Haydn
Geoffrey Sinclair
Jan 9, 2017, 11:26:25 AM1/9/17
to
"Haydn" <mrbrid...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:o506ru$1bjp$1...@gioia.aioe.org...
loaded at 0 degrees, the later 14 inch gun ships at 1 degree.
Similar for the 1920's 16 inch gun USN battleships.
Bismarck loaded at 2.5 degrees.
The mark II RN 15 inch gun turret allowed elevation from -5 to +30
degrees with loading from -5 to +20 degrees, these were fitted in
Hood and there were modifications made to give the earlier turrets
similar abilities. The original mark I mountings allowed -5 to +20
degrees elevation and loading at any of these angles.
Warspite in WWII had the mark I/N turrets allowing elevation from
-4.5 to +30 degrees and loading at up to 20 degrees.
The Cavour class loading angle I have is 12 degrees. The 15
inch guns on the Littorio class loaded at 15 degrees.
King George V loaded at 5 degrees, as did the 10 USN WWII
16 inch gun battleships.
On the elevation issue John Campbell, Naval Weapons of World War
Two, says 15 degrees maximum elevation for New York and Texas.
news:o506ru$1bjp$1...@gioia.aioe.org...
> At what elevation would Arkansas's and Bismarck's guns, respectively, be
> reloaded? In 1940, Warspite's could fire at 26 degrees elevation, but the
> guns would be reloaded at 20. The reconditioned Italian dreadnoughts of
> the Cavour class could fire at 27 degrees, but they were reloaded at 15
> degrees (the difference helps explain why the British would shoot faster).
New York, Texas, Oklahoma, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Arizona
> reloaded? In 1940, Warspite's could fire at 26 degrees elevation, but the
> guns would be reloaded at 20. The reconditioned Italian dreadnoughts of
> the Cavour class could fire at 27 degrees, but they were reloaded at 15
> degrees (the difference helps explain why the British would shoot faster).
loaded at 0 degrees, the later 14 inch gun ships at 1 degree.
Similar for the 1920's 16 inch gun USN battleships.
Bismarck loaded at 2.5 degrees.
The mark II RN 15 inch gun turret allowed elevation from -5 to +30
degrees with loading from -5 to +20 degrees, these were fitted in
Hood and there were modifications made to give the earlier turrets
similar abilities. The original mark I mountings allowed -5 to +20
degrees elevation and loading at any of these angles.
Warspite in WWII had the mark I/N turrets allowing elevation from
-4.5 to +30 degrees and loading at up to 20 degrees.
The Cavour class loading angle I have is 12 degrees. The 15
inch guns on the Littorio class loaded at 15 degrees.
King George V loaded at 5 degrees, as did the 10 USN WWII
16 inch gun battleships.
On the elevation issue John Campbell, Naval Weapons of World War
Two, says 15 degrees maximum elevation for New York and Texas.
Mario
Jan 9, 2017, 7:08:12 PM1/9/17
to
Geoffrey Sinclair 17:26, lunedì 9 gennaio 2017:
> The mark II RN 15 inch gun turret allowed elevation from -5
> to +30 degrees with loading from -5 to +20 degrees, these
> were fitted in Hood and there were modifications made to give
> the earlier turrets similar abilities. The original mark I
> mountings allowed -5 to +20 degrees elevation and loading at
> any of these angles.
What possible reason to shoot at -5°?
--
oiram
> The mark II RN 15 inch gun turret allowed elevation from -5
> to +30 degrees with loading from -5 to +20 degrees, these
> were fitted in Hood and there were modifications made to give
> the earlier turrets similar abilities. The original mark I
> mountings allowed -5 to +20 degrees elevation and loading at
> any of these angles.
--
oiram
Phil McGregor
Jan 10, 2017, 12:05:44 AM1/10/17
to
On Mon, 09 Jan 2017 19:08:10 -0500, Mario <ma...@mario.mario.invalid> wrote:
>What possible reason to shoot at -5°?
Last ditch close in defence vs Torpedo Boat Destroyers and actual Torpedo Boats?
>What possible reason to shoot at -5°?
Though one wonders how they'd get that close!
Phil
Author, Space Opera (FGU); RBB #1 (FASA); Road to Armageddon;
Farm, Forge and Steam; Orbis Mundi; Displaced (PGD)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Email: asp...@tpg.com.au
Rich Rostrom
Jan 10, 2017, 12:05:44 AM1/10/17
to
Mario <ma...@mario.mario.invalid> wrote:
> What possible reason to shoot at -5°?
The ship rolls, and sometimes lists. -5 deg
> What possible reason to shoot at -5°?
elevation may actually be +10 deg.
Geoffrey Sinclair
Jan 10, 2017, 10:40:46 AM1/10/17
to
"Mario" <ma...@mario.mario.invalid> wrote in message
news:o518kv$15v2$2...@gioia.aioe.org...
No verified answer but consider the range of WWI torpedoes and
the stories of the USN destroyers off Guadalcanal being so close
to IJN battleships they opened fire with 20mm guns and noted the
IJN main guns could not depress enough to hit the destroyer. Also
as has been noted the ship will roll.
Warspite used 15 inch shrapnel shells to oppose a torpedo attack
at Jutland.
In terms of loading angles note the RN 15 inch mark 1/N turret had
a firing cycle of 30 seconds and could elevate the guns at 5 degrees
a second, so loading angle was not a big cause of slow fire. The
Italian Cavour class firing cycle was also 30 seconds, Littorio 45
seconds.
Seems all the RN battleships in WWII had a 30 second firing cycle,
though of course the difference between the loading and firing angle
needs to be accounted for. The Yamato firing cycle was around 30
seconds at 3 degrees elevation, around 41 seconds at 41 degrees.
In any case reading the stories of surface engagements the firing
was often, probably usually, slower than the firing cycles, especially
at long range or at night or in bad weather.
news:o518kv$15v2$2...@gioia.aioe.org...
the stories of the USN destroyers off Guadalcanal being so close
to IJN battleships they opened fire with 20mm guns and noted the
IJN main guns could not depress enough to hit the destroyer. Also
as has been noted the ship will roll.
Warspite used 15 inch shrapnel shells to oppose a torpedo attack
at Jutland.
In terms of loading angles note the RN 15 inch mark 1/N turret had
a firing cycle of 30 seconds and could elevate the guns at 5 degrees
a second, so loading angle was not a big cause of slow fire. The
Italian Cavour class firing cycle was also 30 seconds, Littorio 45
seconds.
Seems all the RN battleships in WWII had a 30 second firing cycle,
though of course the difference between the loading and firing angle
needs to be accounted for. The Yamato firing cycle was around 30
seconds at 3 degrees elevation, around 41 seconds at 41 degrees.
In any case reading the stories of surface engagements the firing
was often, probably usually, slower than the firing cycles, especially
at long range or at night or in bad weather.
Kenneth Young
Jan 10, 2017, 11:53:49 AM1/10/17
to
In article <G5udnUplmrODUOnF...@westnet.com.au>,
observation of shell splashes. Microwave radar allowed radar ranging on
shells. The problem was that observed range was not the same as gun range
due to several variables including atmospheric conditions and wear of the
gun barrel. Small automatic guns used tracer to allow observation of fire.
gsinc...@froggy.com.au (Geoffrey Sinclair) wrote:
> especially
> at long range or at night or in bad weather.
Before microwave radar the only methods of fire control needed visual
> especially
> at long range or at night or in bad weather.
observation of shell splashes. Microwave radar allowed radar ranging on
shells. The problem was that observed range was not the same as gun range
due to several variables including atmospheric conditions and wear of the
gun barrel. Small automatic guns used tracer to allow observation of fire.
Haydn
Jan 11, 2017, 12:07:41 PM1/11/17
to
Geoffrey Sinclair wrote:
> In terms of loading angles note the RN 15 inch mark 1/N turret had
> a firing cycle of 30 seconds and could elevate the guns at 5 degrees
> a second, so loading angle was not a big cause of slow fire. The
> Italian Cavour class firing cycle was also 30 seconds, Littorio 45
> seconds.
In the battle off Calabria, during the battleships duel Warspite's 8
> In terms of loading angles note the RN 15 inch mark 1/N turret had
> a firing cycle of 30 seconds and could elevate the guns at 5 degrees
> a second, so loading angle was not a big cause of slow fire. The
> Italian Cavour class firing cycle was also 30 seconds, Littorio 45
> seconds.
guns would fire salvos of one gun per tower, two rounds at Cesare and
two at Cavour every 30 seconds. Cesare's 10 guns would fire "turret
group" salvos, an average of five rounds every 80 seconds, at Warspite.
On the Italian ships their own fire was perceived as definitely slower.
Cavour's rate of fire was even slower because it was trailing Cesare and
the latter's smoke hampered Cavour's gunnery (against Royal Sovereign).
BTW I stand corrected on Warspite's maximum elevation angle - my mistype
- and I'm checking on the Cavour class loading angle (12 or 15).
> In any case reading the stories of surface engagements the firing
> was often, probably usually, slower than the firing cycles, especially
> at long range or at night or in bad weather.
Haydn
The Horny Goat
Jan 12, 2017, 1:19:20 AM1/12/17
to
On Mon, 09 Jan 2017 19:08:10 -0500, Mario <ma...@mario.mario.invalid>
wrote:
wrote:
>> The mark II RN 15 inch gun turret allowed elevation from -5
>> to +30 degrees with loading from -5 to +20 degrees, these
>> were fitted in Hood and there were modifications made to give
>> the earlier turrets similar abilities. The original mark I
>> mountings allowed -5 to +20 degrees elevation and loading at
>> any of these angles.
>
>What possible reason to shoot at -5°?
That was my first thought as well. Somehow I didn't think (a) Somali
>> to +30 degrees with loading from -5 to +20 degrees, these
>> were fitted in Hood and there were modifications made to give
>> the earlier turrets similar abilities. The original mark I
>> mountings allowed -5 to +20 degrees elevation and loading at
>> any of these angles.
>
>What possible reason to shoot at -5°?
pirates or (b) fishing were the answers.....
Geoffrey Sinclair
Jan 12, 2017, 9:56:45 AM1/12/17
to
"Haydn" <mrbrid...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:o55odb$7nr$1...@gioia.aioe.org...
> Geoffrey Sinclair wrote:
>
>> In terms of loading angles note the RN 15 inch mark 1/N turret had
>> a firing cycle of 30 seconds and could elevate the guns at 5 degrees
>> a second, so loading angle was not a big cause of slow fire. The
>> Italian Cavour class firing cycle was also 30 seconds, Littorio 45
>> seconds.
>
> In the battle off Calabria, during the battleships duel Warspite's 8 guns
> would fire salvos of one gun per tower, two rounds at Cesare and two at
> Cavour every 30 seconds.
Sounds right, Warspite seems to have had a reputation of being a
>
>> In terms of loading angles note the RN 15 inch mark 1/N turret had
>> a firing cycle of 30 seconds and could elevate the guns at 5 degrees
>> a second, so loading angle was not a big cause of slow fire. The
>> Italian Cavour class firing cycle was also 30 seconds, Littorio 45
>> seconds.
>
> In the battle off Calabria, during the battleships duel Warspite's 8 guns
> would fire salvos of one gun per tower, two rounds at Cesare and two at
> Cavour every 30 seconds.
well drilled gunnery ship.
> Cesare's 10 guns would fire "turret group" salvos, an average of five
> rounds every 80 seconds, at Warspite. On the Italian ships their own fire
> was perceived as definitely slower. Cavour's rate of fire was even slower
> because it was trailing Cesare and the latter's smoke hampered Cavour's
> gunnery (against Royal Sovereign).
guns would result in wider shell dispersal as the shells interfered with
each other in flight.
It sounds like the Cesare was waiting for the fall of shot before
firing again.
>> In any case reading the stories of surface engagements the firing
>> was often, probably usually, slower than the firing cycles, especially
>> at long range or at night or in bad weather.
>
> Indeed.
second, table is range in yards, time of flight in seconds, average
horizontal velocity in yards per second.
5000 \ 6.15 \ 813.01
10000 \ 13.06 \ 765.70
15000 \ 20.91 \ 717.36
20000 \ 29.79 \ 671.37
25000 \ 39.86 \ 627.20
30000 \ 51.27 \ 585.14
35000 \ 64.59 \ 541.88
36500 \ 69.2 \ 527.46
Haydn
Jan 12, 2017, 5:31:39 PM1/12/17
to
Geoffrey Sinclair wrote:
> Turret groups, presumably all the forward turret guns fired then all the
> aft
> guns would result in wider shell dispersal as the shells interfered with
> each other in flight.
The turret groups were three. It took about 40 seconds for a shell to
> Turret groups, presumably all the forward turret guns fired then all the
> aft
> guns would result in wider shell dispersal as the shells interfered with
> each other in flight.
fly from the muzzle to the target. The first salvos were fired at 29,000
(Cesare) and 31,000 (Cavour) meters range as the two fleets were drawing
closer and the loudspeakers around the battleships were shouting out the
traditional artillery battle cry, "Long Life the King". That was extreme
range for the 12.6-in guns - pre-war regulations stated the optimal
combat range for that cannon should have been 19 - 21,000 meters. At
about 30,000 meters, observation of the fall of shot was not easy.
The first salvos were fired to "warm up the guns" and calculate the
adjustments and deviations required to get on target more accurately.
The second group of salvos (range, 26,400 meters) followed up the first
salvo that had fallen nearest the target, but with corrections of +/-800
meters.
At 26,000 meters range Warspite was simultaneously shot at by the heavy
cruiser Trento with its 8 8-in guns (24 HE and 8 AP rounds, second,
third and fourth salvos adjusted +1,000 meters. The third salvo was
judged on target). While the British destroyers clearly spotted the
cruiser opening up on Warspite, the latter mistook the cruiser's shot
for that of Cavour. Which is a little odd because an 8-in HE shell burst
in the water raised a water column 48 meters high lasting 6,5 seconds,
whereas a 12.6-in's was 60 meters high and lasted 10 seconds. Data the
British were fully cognizant of.
As for the Italian shell dispersal, recent researches prove that has
been somewhat exaggerated in post-war accounts. British reports of enemy
shot falling rather wide of the mark turn out to mostly refer to
"adjustment" salvos. Accounts also "evolved" over time. Contemporary
British reports may speak quite well of the Italian gunnery and its
limited shell dispersal - later into 1941, in a memo for his officers
Cunningham would grudgingly praise the Italian destroyers' gunnery,
rating it as better than that of his own DDs. But later accounts (from
the London Gazette's onwards) take on a much less lenient attitude.
Actually shell dispersal was probably similar on both sides: the
Italians assessed Warspite's shell dispersal as "less than 400 meters",
but the 12.6-in guns' dispersal was 267 meters at a range of 21,000 meters.
In fact the real problem appears to be that the 12.6-inch guns would
fire at targets far beyond their optimal combat range. At 25,000 meters
distance a 15-inch shell could pierce through the Cavour class' vertical
armor belt - horizontal protection could be perforated at virtually any
distance. By contrast, at such ranges Warspite and her sister
battleships were largely safe from 12.6-inch, let alone 8-inch AP rounds
(although HE shells might cause severe superstructure damage). So the
Italians could not let the British get too close, but for that very
reason they could not hope to destroy any British battleships.
Haydn
The Horny Goat
Jan 12, 2017, 6:12:43 PM1/12/17
to
On Thu, 12 Jan 2017 17:31:37 -0500, Haydn <mrbrid...@hotmail.com>
wrote:
>In fact the real problem appears to be that the 12.6-inch guns would
>fire at targets far beyond their optimal combat range. At 25,000 meters
>distance a 15-inch shell could pierce through the Cavour class' vertical
>armor belt - horizontal protection could be perforated at virtually any
>distance. By contrast, at such ranges Warspite and her sister
>battleships were largely safe from 12.6-inch, let alone 8-inch AP rounds
>(although HE shells might cause severe superstructure damage). So the
>Italians could not let the British get too close, but for that very
>reason they could not hope to destroy any British battleships.
Would that be the same kind of 15" British naval gun that sits in
front of the Imperial War Museum in London?
The cabbie who took me there when I was in London last June insisted
it was "Big Bertha" to which I said "I rather doubt it could even
reach Paris since that's a naval gun and any ship big enough to mount
one of those wouldn't go up the Seine and besides that any British
naval captain that shelled Paris during WW1 would be in an
unbelievable amount of trouble!"
In other words, how much did the standard 15" naval gun change between
WW1 and WW2? I imagine the ammunition changed quite a bit but did the
actual barrel?
wrote:
>In fact the real problem appears to be that the 12.6-inch guns would
>fire at targets far beyond their optimal combat range. At 25,000 meters
>distance a 15-inch shell could pierce through the Cavour class' vertical
>armor belt - horizontal protection could be perforated at virtually any
>distance. By contrast, at such ranges Warspite and her sister
>battleships were largely safe from 12.6-inch, let alone 8-inch AP rounds
>(although HE shells might cause severe superstructure damage). So the
>Italians could not let the British get too close, but for that very
>reason they could not hope to destroy any British battleships.
front of the Imperial War Museum in London?
The cabbie who took me there when I was in London last June insisted
it was "Big Bertha" to which I said "I rather doubt it could even
reach Paris since that's a naval gun and any ship big enough to mount
one of those wouldn't go up the Seine and besides that any British
naval captain that shelled Paris during WW1 would be in an
unbelievable amount of trouble!"
In other words, how much did the standard 15" naval gun change between
WW1 and WW2? I imagine the ammunition changed quite a bit but did the
actual barrel?
John Dallman
Jan 12, 2017, 6:41:57 PM1/12/17
to
In article <uf2g7cdnp53ulejf5...@4ax.com>, lcr...@home.ca
British 15" ships.
> The cabbie who took me there when I was in London last June insisted
> it was "Big Bertha"
Utter nonsense. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bertha_(howitzer)> is
a short-barrelled howitzer.
> In other words, how much did the standard 15" naval gun change
> between WW1 and WW2? I imagine the ammunition changed quite a bit
> but did the actual barrel?
The same physical guns served in both wars. They weren't permanently
installed on the ships; when they needed relining, they would be
exchanged for another set and sent to a factory. It was an old-fashioned
design by WWII, but it still worked very well. It was one of those
designs that are just right.
The ammunition didn't change that much. Later shells were more
streamlined and there were variations in the explosives they were filled
with, but gun and shell design were fairly well-developed in 1911 when
the 15" entered service.
John
(The Horny Goat) wrote:
> Would that be the same kind of 15" British naval gun that sits in
> front of the Imperial War Museum in London?
Exactly so. Those are BL 15 inch Mark I guns, the type used on all the
> Would that be the same kind of 15" British naval gun that sits in
> front of the Imperial War Museum in London?
British 15" ships.
> The cabbie who took me there when I was in London last June insisted
> it was "Big Bertha"
a short-barrelled howitzer.
> In other words, how much did the standard 15" naval gun change
> between WW1 and WW2? I imagine the ammunition changed quite a bit
> but did the actual barrel?
installed on the ships; when they needed relining, they would be
exchanged for another set and sent to a factory. It was an old-fashioned
design by WWII, but it still worked very well. It was one of those
designs that are just right.
The ammunition didn't change that much. Later shells were more
streamlined and there were variations in the explosives they were filled
with, but gun and shell design were fairly well-developed in 1911 when
the 15" entered service.
John
Kenneth Young
Jan 12, 2017, 11:14:35 PM1/12/17
to
> In other words, how much did the standard 15" naval gun change
> between
> WW1 and WW2? I imagine the ammunition changed quite a bit but did
> the
> actual barrel?
The mountings were modified for greater elevation and more aerodynamic
> between
> WW1 and WW2? I imagine the ammunition changed quite a bit but did
> the
> actual barrel?
AP shells were introduced. The ships without increased elevation could
fire supercharge but as far as I know Vanguard was the only ship with
modified mountings that was issued with supercharge. The barrels remained
the same as RN practice was to fit complete spare barrels when guns
needed relining. Spare 14 inch barrels were mounted on proof mountings
for coastal defence and on WW1 railway mounts.
Geoffrey Sinclair
Jan 13, 2017, 10:20:01 AM1/13/17
to
"Haydn" <mrbrid...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:o58vp1$1c7q$1...@gioia.aioe.org...
> Geoffrey Sinclair wrote:
>
>> Turret groups, presumably all the forward turret guns fired then all the
>> aft guns would result in wider shell dispersal as the shells interfered
>> with
>> each other in flight.
>
> The turret groups were three.
And also,
>
>> Turret groups, presumably all the forward turret guns fired then all the
>> aft guns would result in wider shell dispersal as the shells interfered
>> with
>> each other in flight.
>
> The turret groups were three.
"Cesare's 10 guns would fire "turret
group" salvos, an average of five rounds every 80 seconds"
turret.
So can you please specify exactly how many shells in a salvo
and from which guns on which turrets?
If the firing cycle information is correct then at maximum elevation
the firing cycle would be under 40 seconds.
> It took about 40 seconds for a shell to fly from the muzzle to the target.
> The first salvos were fired at 29,000 (Cesare) and 31,000 (Cavour) meters
> range as the two fleets were drawing closer and the loudspeakers around
> the battleships were shouting out the traditional artillery battle cry,
> "Long Life the King". That was extreme range for the 12.6-in guns -
> pre-war regulations stated the optimal combat range for that cannon should
> have been 19 - 21,000 meters. At about 30,000 meters, observation of the
> fall of shot was not easy.
that there is another figure of 32,150 yards at 30 degrees.
The guns were originally 12 inch bored out to 12.6 inch, 13.4% more
muzzle energy but at a cost of increased droop and dispersion.
Also most references say Cavour was held back to engage Malaya
when it came within range.
> The first salvos were fired to "warm up the guns" and calculate the
> adjustments and deviations required to get on target more accurately. The
> second group of salvos (range, 26,400 meters) followed up the first salvo
> that had fallen nearest the target, but with corrections of +/-800 meters.
the range had closed over a nautical mile, so around 2 or more minutes
before firing again.
> At 26,000 meters range Warspite was simultaneously shot at by the heavy
> cruiser Trento with its 8 8-in guns (24 HE and 8 AP rounds, second, third
> and fourth salvos adjusted +1,000 meters. The third salvo was judged on
> target).
I note most accounts say 3 eight gun salvos. And the 8 inch guns were
set close together in their turrets.
I note you are using the Italian observations rather than the RN reports
of where the shells landed.
> While the British destroyers clearly spotted the cruiser opening up on
> Warspite, the latter mistook the cruiser's shot for that of Cavour. Which
> is a little odd because an 8-in HE shell burst in the water raised a water
> column 48 meters high lasting 6,5 seconds, whereas a 12.6-in's was 60
> meters high and lasted 10 seconds. Data the British were fully cognizant
> of.
would only complicate the battleship gunnery spotting, also the cruiser
was rather needed to keep the RN cruisers at bay. So it is possible
to mistake the shell splashes for a while. Especially if they think the
second Italian battleship is firing.
> As for the Italian shell dispersal,
turrets fired at once it risked dispersal.
> recent researches prove that has been somewhat exaggerated in post-war
> accounts.
not evidence.
For example the Wiki article uses Green, Jack & Massignani,
Alessandro (1998). The Naval War in the Mediterranean, 1940-1943,
Chatam Publishing, London. ISBN 1-885119-61-5 to claim,
"Overall, Allied gunnery proved superior, while the Italian salvoes
were too widely dispersed due to technical reasons that were not
to be overcome until the end of the conflict."
> British reports of enemy shot falling rather wide of the mark turn out to
> mostly refer to "adjustment" salvos.
for accuracy and deliberately dispersed to find the range and
bearing as quickly as possible.
> Accounts also "evolved" over time. Contemporary British reports may speak
> quite well of the Italian gunnery and its limited shell dispersal - later
> into 1941, in a memo for his officers Cunningham would grudgingly praise
> the Italian destroyers' gunnery, rating it as better than that of his own
> DDs.
judgement added by someone else?
Cunningham is on record of noting good and bad performance on
both sides. Some RN cruisers were bad enough that being their
target was relatively safe.
Wartime assessments have problems when fleets engage, often
misidentifying whose salvo just arrived given multiple ships firing,
that tends to skew ideas about accuracy.
Note at Calabria the RN only had 6 inch gun cruisers, the Italians
had a number of 8 inch, giving the Italian ships an edge in terms of
long range fire.
> But later accounts (from the London Gazette's onwards) take on a much less
> lenient attitude.
senior allied commanders present, or written in their names.
> Actually shell dispersal was probably similar on both sides: the Italians
> assessed Warspite's shell dispersal as "less than 400 meters", but the
> 12.6-in guns' dispersal was 267 meters at a range of 21,000 meters.
a longer range using the Italian impressions of dispersal versus the
theoretical or gunnery range figure dispersal for the Italians?
Dispersal is a function of many things, the quality and temperature of the
shells and propellant, the distance between the shells in the salvo, the
accounting for the change in temperature of the guns as they repeatedly
fire (steel has a rather high thermal expansion factor, plus loss of
strength,
leading to barrel droop), the accuracy of the turret training and elevation
systems, the wear and increasing wear in the barrels and so on. Including
how close the range is to the gun's maximum range.
The reality of naval gunnery at range is hitting was always going to
be the exception.
> In fact the real problem appears to be that the 12.6-inch guns would fire
> at targets far beyond their optimal combat range. At 25,000 meters
> distance a 15-inch shell could pierce through the Cavour class' vertical
> armor belt - horizontal protection could be perforated at virtually any
> distance. By contrast, at such ranges Warspite and her sister battleships
> were largely safe from 12.6-inch, let alone 8-inch AP rounds (although HE
> shells might cause severe superstructure damage). So the Italians could
> not let the British get too close, but for that very reason they could not
> hope to destroy any British battleships.
really hurt the Italian ships with minimal risk in return. Though in
reality
hits do damage that can hurt even without penetration, note the effect
of Warspite's hit despite non penetration.
So the obvious Italian response is to close the range to where their
guns can penetrate. Use the superiority in numbers of cruisers etc.
Long range is simply asking to be much luckier than the British given
the probable effects of hits.
Now I know the fact the RN had a battleship superiority versus an
Italian cruiser superiority meant had the Italians closed the range the
battleship duel would have gone from 2 to 1 in Italian favour to 1 to
1 to 2 to 3 against. With the need for the Italian 8 inch gun cruisers
to largely engage the RN battleships. So I have no problems in the
decision to keep away from Malaya and Royal Sovereign. At 2 to
1 the luck equation shifts more to the Italian side but note most
references say only Cesare engaged, to avoid the confusion of
2 battleships firing at the same target.
Once the Italian battleships lost their speed superiority disengagement
was a sensible action.
Haydn
Jan 22, 2017, 6:25:34 PM1/22/17
to
Il 13/01/2017 16:19, Geoffrey Sinclair ha scritto:
> So can you please specify exactly how many shells in a salvo
> and from which guns on which turrets?
Turret I (3 shells) / II + III (4 shells) / IV (3 shells).
> So can you please specify exactly how many shells in a salvo
> and from which guns on which turrets?
> Think of it this way, the cruiser was unlikely to do much damage and
> would only complicate the battleship gunnery spotting, also the cruiser
> was rather needed to keep the RN cruisers at bay. So it is possible
> to mistake the shell splashes for a while. Especially if they think the
> second Italian battleship is firing.
aboard Warspite. Prior to the engagement they were quite sanguine about
the outcome of the battle, but things were not unfolding as they had
forecast.
Before the clash of the battleships, Warspite had been engaged by two
light cruisers, Di Barbiano and Di Giussano. At 3.27 pm a 6-inch shell
hit Warspite on the weather deck, knocking out a twin QF 4 in gun and
spraying the deck with splinters up to the funnel. The flash of the hit
was clearly spotted by the Italians. Immediately afterwards Warspite
steered away from the Italians, as detected by the latter's range
finders ("enemy hauls to starboard by 180 degrees, escapes our fire").
After the war, the Italian Navy asked the Royal Navy about that flash
and the answer was that it had been one of Warspite's seaplanes set
ablaze by a gun blast and dropped off board. Lately this has been proved
untrue, beyond any doubt. On the day of the battle Warspite only had one
of its two seaplanes, and that aircraft was flying above the two fleets
to observe and direct Warspite's fire. The Admiralty post-war simply
ascribed to Warspite an incident that would instead take place on Malaya
a little later, at 4.08 pm - to cover up the minor damage suffered at
the hands of the Italians. An entire chapter in a book just published by
the Italian Navy Historical Office is devoted to the intriguing story of
the "missing seaplane".
Later during the battleship clash phase, Warspite was hit by an 8-inch
shell fired by the heavy cruiser Trento. A RCNC battle damage report
found at TNA and dated July 31st, 1940 carefully describes all damage
suffered by Warspite (and points out any structural weaknesses to be put
right) but puts it down to "aerial bombs", which turns out to be
incorrect. No Italian planes inflicted that damage as demonstrated also
by the Mediterranean Fleet's Bombing Survey of August 1940.
The RCNC report mentions an explosion over the aft section that wiped
out the AA weapons and their crews on the roof of Turret X, knocked out
a 40 mm Pom Pom (and blew up its ammunition) and a 10 ton crane and
caused minor splinter damage on deck. The largest splinter found aboard
was made of alloy rather than steel, 6 inches long and 4 inches wide,
1/4 inch thick. This corresponds with the magnesium alloy cap of an
8-inch HE shell, and the description matches perfectly what the Italian
sailors saw on Warspite at 3.57 pm - a bright flash aft, and a pall of
blue smoke over that spot (40 mm shells contained Lyddite, picric acid,
which when burning gives off blue smoke). There's even photographic
evidence of the hit - a snap taken from aboard Italian ships, hazy and
dark because of the anti-reflection filter applied to the lens, but
showing a blast on the sea horizon and smoke all around the flash.
Besides, precisely when the shell burst Warspite lost radio touch with
its seaplane - and the aerial was located right in the area of the
explosion.
At 3.58, Warspite tacked again to starboard, as if to pull away from
enemy fire. Italian Ro. 43 seaplanes spotted British destroyers (Nubian
and Mohawk) heading for the Italian fleet apparently to attack it -
their battleship must have been in trouble and in need of relief.
By the way, those hits must have killed and/or wounded some sailors.
Their names are still unknown as far as we know.
> Can you be more specific, the comment "recent research" is
> not evidence.
>
> For example the Wiki article uses Green, Jack & Massignani,
> Alessandro (1998). The Naval War in the Mediterranean, 1940-1943,
> Chatam Publishing, London. ISBN 1-885119-61-5 to claim,
has gone past it. There are a number of articles, all in Italian
language, and a new book centered upon the battle off Calabria and
related sea and ground operations. Quando Tuonano I Grossi Calibri (When
The Big Guns Thunder), Italian Navy Historical Office, 2016. I am the
author of one of the chapters (on the desert war June to November 1940 -
I served in the Army, not in the Navy).
The book comes with the best most detailed - large size, foldable - maps
of the action ever drawn and printed, with captions in both Italian and
English, the fruit of a massive painstaking work. I've been privately
told that during a meeting of Italian and US Navy top rank officers,
they pulled the maps out of the folder of a copy of the book and had fun
"replaying" the battle on them.
> So Cunningham wrote the word "grudgingly" or is that a value
> judgement added by someone else?
>
> Cunningham is on record of noting good and bad performance on
> both sides. Some RN cruisers were bad enough that being their
> target was relatively safe.
forced him to use in his writings a tone he probably would not have
subscribed. The London Gazette account of various actions in the
Mediterranean would have been even harsher on the Italians if he had not
adamantly refused to allow some particularly derogatory expressions to
be put into the text. In a letter written to the Admiralty from Bishop's
Waltham, where he lived in retirement, he made it clear he didn't want
to see his name associated with verbal abuse levelled at his wartime
enemies.
> Let me understand this, you are quoting Warspite in action and at
> a longer range using the Italian impressions of dispersal versus the
> theoretical or gunnery range figure dispersal for the Italians?
Italian dispersal was a major problem of that navy, trial data seem not
to support that tenet and battle conditions data are, let's say, open to
debate. And while trial and battle conditions performances may well
differ, it's unlikely the difference is enormous.
> Think about what you have just written. At long range Warspite can
> really hurt the Italian ships with minimal risk in return. Though in
> reality
> hits do damage that can hurt even without penetration, note the effect
> of Warspite's hit despite non penetration.
>
> So the obvious Italian response is to close the range to where their
> guns can penetrate. Use the superiority in numbers of cruisers etc.
was more apparent than real. 8-inch heavy cruisers were quite vulnerable
to light cruiser fire, as shown by the not negligible damage on Bolzano.
One Italian light cruiser division could not even take part in the
battle, and was sarcastically dubbed "the peacetime division" by the
other crews.
Closing the range too much meant the chances of seriously hurting the
enemy battleships improved, but the stake became too high. Italy only
had two battleships operational by that time, both inferior to their
British counterparts, and Campioni led the fleet aggressively.
Calculated risk is one matter, recklessness is another.
> Once the Italian battleships lost their speed superiority disengagement
> was a sensible action.
punch, the battleship resumed firing sailing at the same speed as
before, and only withdrew a few minutes later when it actually slackened
speed. Another complex, and usually overlooked, cruiser and destroyer
action followed up.
The point is that throughout the battle the British also steered away
("withdrew") a couple times and sometimes appeared unsteady. They
expected a Trafalgar on the cheap, but when they didn't get the walkover
they expected they showed some signs of nervousness under fire.
Haydn
Geoffrey Sinclair
Jan 23, 2017, 11:20:22 AM1/23/17
to
"Haydn" <mrbrid...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:o63eke$4ob$1...@gioia.aioe.org...
> Il 13/01/2017 16:19, Geoffrey Sinclair ha scritto:
>
>> So can you please specify exactly how many shells in a salvo
>> and from which guns on which turrets?
>
> Turret I (3 shells) / II + III (4 shells) / IV (3 shells).
So all 10 guns fired at once is what the above reads. Which
>
>> So can you please specify exactly how many shells in a salvo
>> and from which guns on which turrets?
>
> Turret I (3 shells) / II + III (4 shells) / IV (3 shells).
means maximum dispersion.
>> Think of it this way, the cruiser was unlikely to do much damage and
>> would only complicate the battleship gunnery spotting, also the cruiser
>> was rather needed to keep the RN cruisers at bay. So it is possible
>> to mistake the shell splashes for a while. Especially if they think the
>> second Italian battleship is firing.
>
> It is possible the appreciation mistake was caused by some confusion
> aboard Warspite. Prior to the engagement they were quite sanguine about
> the outcome of the battle, but things were not unfolding as they had
> forecast.
as far as I can tell Malaya could only elevate to 20 degrees and was slower,
thanks to Warspite's rebuild. Royal Sovereign also had 20 degree elevation
and was slower again. Note both ships should have been provided with
super charges, that is the ability to use extra propellant to increase
range,
but only a limited number of such charges were carried.
Ah I see, the British, go from self confident to a nervous mess when the
resolute Italians show their steel.
Nothing to do with pushing 3 to 1 Italian cruiser superiority and probable
destroyer superiority, nothing to do with the need to keep the RN
battleships
sort of close together.
And of course the big one, those nervous British always rushing ahead
of two of their battleships, showing how they were becoming so worried.
Try the British were confident they were better but until there were
engagements they did not know how much better (in their eyes). As
time went on it became clear Italy was a classic European enemy, the
high command was unwilling to lose many ships.
> Before the clash of the battleships, Warspite had been engaged by two
> light cruisers, Di Barbiano and Di Giussano. At 3.27 pm a 6-inch shell hit
> Warspite on the weather deck, knocking out a twin QF 4 in gun and spraying
> the deck with splinters up to the funnel. The flash of the hit was clearly
> spotted by the Italians. Immediately afterwards Warspite steered away from
> the Italians, as detected by the latter's range finders ("enemy hauls to
> starboard by 180 degrees, escapes our fire").
with Neptune taking minor damage from a hit or near miss. Warspite also
engaged the Di Barbiano and Di Giussano which were thought to be
making for Eagle and Gloucester, 10 miles in the rear.
Actually the British are quite clear, no hit, and Warspite deliberately
did a full circle and an S curve to allow Malaya to catch up since it was
clear the Italian Battleships were in the area and if the Italians were
really trying for Eagle distances had to close up.
> After the war, the Italian Navy asked the Royal Navy about that flash and
> the answer was that it had been one of Warspite's seaplanes set ablaze by
> a gun blast and dropped off board. Lately this has been proved untrue,
> beyond any doubt.
RN covered it up. For apparently the only time in the entire Mediterranean
naval war the RN decided to put together a conspiracy that continues to
this day.
And the obvious point is why?
> On the day of the battle Warspite only had one of its two seaplanes, and
> that aircraft was flying above the two fleets to observe and direct
> Warspite's fire.
for 2 and used them on 21 June.
> The Admiralty post-war simply ascribed to Warspite an incident that would
> instead take place on Malaya a little later, at 4.08 pm - to cover up the
> minor damage suffered at the hands of the Italians. An entire chapter in a
> book just published by the Italian Navy Historical Office is devoted to
> the intriguing story of the "missing seaplane".
Italian reports are the accurate ones. So the British reports of
extra hits are obviously correct and the Italians hid the extra
damage, correct?
> Later during the battleship clash phase, Warspite was hit by an 8-inch
> shell fired by the heavy cruiser Trento. A RCNC battle damage report found
> at TNA and dated July 31st, 1940 carefully describes all damage suffered
> by Warspite (and points out any structural weaknesses to be put right) but
> puts it down to "aerial bombs", which turns out to be incorrect. No
> Italian planes inflicted that damage as demonstrated also by the
> Mediterranean Fleet's Bombing Survey of August 1940.
bomb the fleet and did score one hit and some near misses.
> The RCNC report mentions an explosion over the aft section that wiped out
> the AA weapons and their crews on the roof of Turret X, knocked out a 40
> mm Pom Pom (and blew up its ammunition) and a 10 ton crane and caused
> minor splinter damage on deck.
the cranes just aft of that, then comes the catapult area with its at least
50 feet of width, then the after structure then X turret, so that hit has
caused damage over around 130 feet of ship, from pom pom to the
machine guns on X turret. But missing the after fire control and the
catapult itself. Also note the turret AA guns would be on the centre
line, the crane maybe as much 30 to 40 feet from the centre line and
the pom poms say 10 feet.
If the ammunition of one pom pom went up it should have shredded the
funnel along with the nearby pom pom mounting, lifeboats etc. Many
dead sailors as well.
I do not have the data for the Italian 8 inch gun but at 20,000 yards a
British 8 inch shell is descending at around a 28.5 degree angle, at
25,000 yards around 43 degrees. Yet this hit is essentially able to
cause damage over a horizontal distance of 130 or so feet with
major impact at the start and end but apparently not in the middle,
plus carve a damage path maybe 30 feet wide.
> The largest splinter found aboard was made of alloy rather than steel, 6
> inches long and 4 inches wide, 1/4 inch thick. This corresponds with the
> magnesium alloy cap of an 8-inch HE shell,
Nor does it fit any Italian bomb.
> and the description matches perfectly what the Italian sailors saw on
> Warspite at 3.57 pm - a bright flash aft, and a pall of blue smoke over
> that spot (40 mm shells contained Lyddite, picric acid, which when burning
> gives off blue smoke). There's even photographic evidence of the hit - a
> snap taken from aboard Italian ships, hazy and dark because of the
> anti-reflection filter applied to the lens, but showing a blast on the sea
> horizon and smoke all around the flash.
a flash from firing or even the sun, above all once again the Italian
reports are correct, the British tell all sorts of lies.
> Besides, precisely when the shell burst Warspite lost radio touch with its
> seaplane - and the aerial was located right in the area of the explosion.
aerial was right aft, not on the masts and it was transmitting at the time
and then stopped mid message. On the other had with 130 feet of
damage (out of 640 feet overall length) I suppose the after mast was in
real trouble.
> At 3.58, Warspite tacked again to starboard, as if to pull away from enemy
> fire. Italian Ro. 43 seaplanes spotted British destroyers (Nubian and
> Mohawk) heading for the Italian fleet apparently to attack it - their
> battleship must have been in trouble and in need of relief.
was deliberately trying to stay close to Malaya, we know the Italian
cruisers opened fire again at 15:58 but hey it must be the covered up
hit, not only that but within seconds of the hit the British destroyers
were mounting a counter attack. Talk about real time communications.
You want so much for the Italians to hit anything they report is believed
and then the facts are arranged to suit.
> By the way, those hits must have killed and/or wounded some sailors. Their
> names are still unknown as far as we know.
>> Can you be more specific, the comment "recent research" is
>> not evidence.
>>
>> For example the Wiki article uses Green, Jack & Massignani,
>> Alessandro (1998). The Naval War in the Mediterranean, 1940-1943,
>> Chatam Publishing, London. ISBN 1-885119-61-5 to claim,
>
> Greene & Massignani's is a good book but outdated. Since 1998 research has
> gone past it. There are a number of articles, all in Italian language, and
> a new book centered upon the battle off Calabria and related sea and
> ground operations. Quando Tuonano I Grossi Calibri (When The Big Guns
> Thunder), Italian Navy Historical Office, 2016. I am the author of one of
> the chapters (on the desert war June to November 1940 - I served in the
> Army, not in the Navy).
>
> The book comes with the best most detailed - large size, foldable - maps
> of the action ever drawn and printed, with captions in both Italian and
> English, the fruit of a massive painstaking work. I've been privately told
> that during a meeting of Italian and US Navy top rank officers, they
> pulled the maps out of the folder of a copy of the book and had fun
> "replaying" the battle on them.
the above hits on Warspite.
>> So Cunningham wrote the word "grudgingly" or is that a value
>> judgement added by someone else?
>>
>> Cunningham is on record of noting good and bad performance on
>> both sides. Some RN cruisers were bad enough that being their
>> target was relatively safe.
>
> Cunningham was a gentleman and a honorable man, but propaganda sometimes
> forced him to use in his writings a tone he probably would not have
> subscribed. The London Gazette account of various actions in the
> Mediterranean would have been even harsher on the Italians if he had not
> adamantly refused to allow some particularly derogatory expressions to be
> put into the text. In a letter written to the Admiralty from Bishop's
> Waltham, where he lived in retirement, he made it clear he didn't want to
> see his name associated with verbal abuse levelled at his wartime enemies.
to denigrate the Italians,
So Cunningham wrote the word "grudgingly" or is that a value
judgement added by someone else?
You do know while the British rated the Italian infantry as poor they
rated the artillery as very good? Similarly they rated the Italian
intelligence system better than the German.
But apparently the RN carried out a wartime to today systematic
conspiracy to denigrate the Italian navy, including faking where
sailors died, plus ensuring none of the crews involved has spoken
out about the cover up, ever.
>> Let me understand this, you are quoting Warspite in action and at
>> a longer range using the Italian impressions of dispersal versus the
>> theoretical or gunnery range figure dispersal for the Italians?
>
> I just reported the figures.
> While the common wisdom goes that the Italian dispersal was a major
> problem of that navy, trial data seem not to support that tenet and battle
> conditions data are, let's say, open to debate. And while trial and battle
> conditions performances may well differ, it's unlikely the difference is
> enormous.
even more so if the guns are close together, and that is what is
being reported as the Italian firing.
>> Think about what you have just written. At long range Warspite can
>> really hurt the Italian ships with minimal risk in return. Though in
>> reality
>> hits do damage that can hurt even without penetration, note the effect
>> of Warspite's hit despite non penetration.
>>
>> So the obvious Italian response is to close the range to where their
>> guns can penetrate. Use the superiority in numbers of cruisers etc.
>
> The superiority in number of cruisers (and in caliber of some of them) was
> more apparent than real. 8-inch heavy cruisers were quite vulnerable to
> light cruiser fire, as shown by the not negligible damage on Bolzano. One
> Italian light cruiser division could not even take part in the battle, and
> was sarcastically dubbed "the peacetime division" by the other crews.
Liverpool was something more than an Italian light cruiser and I am
unsure how badly the gunnery system on Gloucester was hurt in the
bomb hit.
Naval technology was stretched to provide a battery of 8 inch guns
with armour and fleet speed in the 1920's and 1930's, in the Italian
case aggravated by the decision to go for high speed.
The British had five 6 inch gun cruisers, the Italians a nominal six 8 inch
and eight to ten 6 inch guns ones. (Out of seven and twelve in the entire
fleet)
Also involved in the convoy and fleet screening were 33 out of 54 modern
Italian destroyers but not all were present during the battle, versus 16
British.
> Closing the range too much meant the chances of seriously hurting the
> enemy battleships improved, but the stake became too high. Italy only had
> two battleships operational by that time, both inferior to their British
> counterparts, and Campioni led the fleet aggressively.
> Calculated risk is one matter, recklessness is another.
hurting the Mediterranean fleet ensuring Italian superiority? The
need to attrition the RN to help the invasion of Britain?
With a single 8 inch shell doing that much damage to Warspite?
The stakes were high for Mussolini, he needed an intact fleet as
part of his bargaining position with Hitler.
>> Once the Italian battleships lost their speed superiority disengagement
>> was a sensible action.
>
> The action went on after the hit on Cesare. Seconds after taking the
> punch, the battleship resumed firing sailing at the same speed as before,
> and only withdrew a few minutes later when it actually slackened speed.
> Another complex, and usually overlooked, cruiser and destroyer action
> followed up.
it took for the damage to actually cause the shut down of power and
the way the main turrets were still working.
However note Warspite being hit by an 8 inch shell immediately shows
such major damage (despite no loss of speed or main armament) that
2 British destroyers in the area launch an immediate counter attack,
thereby proving the Warspite was hit.
> The point is that throughout the battle the British also steered away
> ("withdrew") a couple times and sometimes appeared unsteady. They expected
> a Trafalgar on the cheap, but when they didn't get the walkover they
> expected they showed some signs of nervousness under fire.
If the British were steering away all the time there never would have
been a battle. Or it would have been all British battleships present.
Both sides engaged and withdrew depending in the local tactical
situation, the RN cruisers were outnumbered for a start, Warspite
could have been isolated so kept turning to ensure Malaya was
not too far away, with speed reduced the Italian battleships were
at risk of being caught by 3 British ones. And so on.
However the British are nervous under fire, apparently the Italians
when they turn away are not. Not only that the British go in supremely
self confident and within minutes are doing self doubt.
Why does your account read like wartime propaganda?
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