WWII's Top Mistakes - Great Britain

A

Ashes

Active member
Great Britain

The only major power to be in the war from the start to the finish and end up victorious.
But they made some pretty bad mistakes along the way.
What were the main ones?
 
For send 2 or 3 British's best battleships to Singapore and Japs sunk them.
 
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Fox said:
For send 2 or 3 British's best battleships to Singapore and Japs sunk them.
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A little correction:
1 Battleship - Price of Wales
1 Battle cruiser - Repulse

They didn't have any air cover and were doomed
 
I would say the Norwegian campaign was bad. The only good that came out of it was that they were able to rescue the King and Queen and Treasury. Otherwise it was a failure...
 
boris116 said:
A little correction:
1 Battleship - Price of Wales
1 Battle cruiser - Repulse

They didn't have any air cover and were doomed
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Thanks, Boris. I was trying to remember name of those battleships.
 
Well lets have a look at some of the points you raised, with out the failure at Dieppe would the Normandy landings have been a success?. What did Dieppe teach us or teach Britain who passed the information on. There was greater need for secrecy so on Overlord planning a very tight lid was kept on it until the day of the operation. Where ever the troops landed there was need for a working harbour so we built two and took them with us on D Day. As there was need for a lot fuel then a direct line was laid from Britain to Normandy across the channel. At Dieppe the the tanks got stuck in the shingle, so a great number of special tanks were designed known as Hobart's funnies. This included mat layers up the beach so that the the tanks and vehicles would not get stuck, there were the bridge layers to tanks over anti tank ditches, there were the Flail Tanks for clearing mines and barb wire., there were Crocodile tanks which were huge flame throwers and other ones which would fire a dustbin size shell a few hundred yard to demolish strong points, and the were DD tanks which would swim ashore with the landing craft. Now all these were offered to the Americans, they accepted a harbour but ignored the mooring instructions so that it smashed up on the first storm and they also took the DD tanks which they put to see many miles away from the beach in storm conditions so that there ships were out of range of and heavy guns and then wondered why they sank.
 
When we entered the war we were short of every thing from ships to planes to tanks to men, and chances had to be taken. Now the Norway expedition although a failure it also hurt the Germans. I think that one of our biggest errors was going into Greece and Crete. We stripped our forces in North Africa of men and materials to send to these places, but not in large enough quantities to win the battles, yet had we kept these men in North Africa and carried on at the Italian Army we might have taken the whole of North Africa before Rommel ever set foot in it.
 
LeEnfield said:
Well lets have a look at some of the points you raised, with out the failure at Dieppe would the Normandy landings have been a success?. What did Dieppe teach us or teach Britain who passed the information on.
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I believe, we are dicussing mistakes here, not the lessons learned from them:)

It was great that the Allies could make something good out of this failure, but the Canadians might disagree...
 
Discussing the mistakes and what was learnt from them are much the same thing, the problem is when you don't learn from your mistakes. Also you have try things to see what the out come will be, some things will fail and others will be a great success. In war you try new tactics and new weapons some will work some won't.

Also there were not only Canadians at Dieppe, mind you Hollywood have put quite a large number of Americans in that Battle from time to time.
 
LeEnfield said:
Discussing the mistakes and what was learnt from them are much the same thing, the problem is when you don't learn from your mistakes. Also you have try things to see what the out come will be, some things will fail and others will be a great success. In war you try new tactics and new weapons some will work some won't..
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No disagreement here. However, I don't believe the operation had the failure as its objective.

LeEnfield said:
Also there were not only Canadians at Dieppe, mind you Hollywood have put quite a large number of Americans in that Battle from time to time.
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The Canadians had the most casualties and were rightfully angry.
 
LeEnfield said:
When we entered the war we were short of every thing from ships to planes to tanks to men, and chances had to be taken. Now the Norway expedition although a failure it also hurt the Germans. I think that one of our biggest errors was going into Greece and Crete. We stripped our forces in North Africa of men and materials to send to these places, but not in large enough quantities to win the battles, yet had we kept these men in North Africa and carried on at the Italian Army we might have taken the whole of North Africa before Rommel ever set foot in it.
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Quick response:

(1) How can you argue that the British were short of ships in 1939? They even had more subs than German u-boats. [The Germans were the ones short of most everything -- I will provide my stats at a later date, if I remember].

(2) How can you argue that Norway was not a failure? The aim of the operation was to seize Norway and cut off Swedish iron ore shipments. The Germans sent the British and French forces packing.

Ollie Garchy
 
Most of the British Submarines were mainly for coastal use and did not have much of a range. the bigger ones were a mish mash of different ideas. you had large mine layers, or heavy gunned subs, you even had one that carried an aircraft in a hanger on its deck, but ocean going subs No there were hardly any, the Admiralty still favoured the big ship concept of fighting, and all the those were of a WW1 vintage. Nearly all the ships that Germany had at the start of WW2 were new ships and had been built inthe last decade, Most of the British ships were of WW1 vintage or older.
Yes Norway was failure, we did not have the planes, guns, tanks, or men to take on such mission, and what we had was woefully inquate to deal with German material, for the first few years we were playing catch up with design and equipment. Where we did over take you was in the heavy bomber design and production.
 
Ollie Garchy said:
Quick response:

(1) How can you argue that the British were short of ships in 1939? They even had more subs than German u-boats. [The Germans were the ones short of most everything -- I will provide my stats at a later date, if I remember].
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They were short of the right type of ships.
They had enough of certain types of ship, like battleships, cruisers, and even subs, what they didn't have was nearly enough escort vessels.
(2) How can you argue that Norway was not a failure? The aim of the operation was to seize Norway and cut off Swedish iron ore shipments. The Germans sent the British and French forces packing.
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He didn't.
He said it 'hurt' the Germans. In respect of the german surface navy this was true. The losses suffered were never really made good.
Also the Germans didn't send the Allies packing.
The landing had been successful, and a beach-head had been gained, but due to the German attack on France, the Allies were forced to withdraw.
 
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redcoat said:
The landing had been successful, and a beach-head had been gained, but due to the German attack on France, the Allies were forced to withdraw.
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(1) Just like the battle for France in 1940, I guess. A successful operation. The British withdrew after inflicting heavy losses. Joke aside, I am judging the operation by the intended strategic aim and not the propaganda interpretation. (Anyway, German KIA for "Weserübung": 1,317; British KIA: 1,896).

(3) "The Allies were forced to withdraw"? This is only technically true. A successful defence of Narvik was hardly possible owing to the threat it posed to German iron ore shipments. The dimensions of the conflict are in any case tiny.

(2) Raeder's fleet was a joke. Even Italy had a better surface fleet. (Nothing against Italy.) That the Nazis even sponsored the manufacturing of capital ships baffles the mind. This decision had more to do with keeping capacities alive and helping industry than any strategic plan. The losses during "Weserübung" had no real impact on the course of WWII since the German "navy" never really existed in the first place. The losses were (I was surprised by this) high on both sides: (I always thought that the three ships of the German navy went to the bottom...which is technically correct).

German Naval Losses:

1 heavy cruiser
2 light cruisers
10 destroyers
1 torpedo-boat
4 u-boats

British Naval Losses:

1 aircraft carrier
2 light cruisers
9 destroyers
6 subs

(3) Someone referred to the "German side" as if it was my side. It is not my side. I have no side other than my own (or that of my family). Hermann der Cherusker defeated the Romans around the time of Jesus. I might hold German citizenship, but I "ain't had nuttin' to do with it". Nor do I have anything to do with Bundeswehr actions in the Congo...coming soon. Or anything in between. I hold no real power and cannot make any decisions other than the usual and totally overrated electoral vote. While I often appear to take the German side, this is only because (1) I am more interested in German history than any other subject, (2) I hate victor's history, and (3) I like addressing contradictions.

Ollie Garchy
 
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