The British victory was composed of equal measures of professionalism and luck, both essential factors in the prosecution of a war. On paper, Argentina appeared to have a decided edge, in men, materiel, planes, position, and supply lines. The Argentine advantage, however, was eroded away by the British forces as the war developed, the experience of the British military being a decisive factor.Hi 42RM,
I could go into detail, but watch the discovery channel's episode about the Folklands, in which British officers explain that had the Argentinians had more than a handful of WW II mines in Port Stanley or attacked the ships with their planes a little differently, the British would have lost and that they were running out of supplies, so had the Argentine forces held out for a few more days the fleet would have had to withdraw. Also the Argentine forces ran out of exocets, etc,
Yes, but his distorted version must not be allowed to stand alone.42RM, Its all wasted on the little twonk.
Agree.But to keep on track, Dowding was spot on with his handling of the Battle of Britain.
Had the ancient duds exploded, or better yet, had there been enough exocets there would have not been much left. Luck again rather than professionalism.
I am sure that Dowding's brilliant planning included relying on Polish and a Check ace (Frantisek, 17 kills druing the BoB, higher than that of Dowding trained British pilots who had been flying Hurricanes for years) of squadron 303, that entered service as late as August 31, 1940 to defeat the Germans. By the way, the Poles also had to train their own ground crews to repair Merlin engines in a Hurry.
There can be no justification for wasting over 1,100 mediocre fighter planes and nearly as many pilots, the French bombers, army and navy and 100 of the best fighters in Dunkirk and Ariel, in order to be left with more Spitfires and Hurricanes than pilots. Britain had a big pilot training expansion program that started in 1935, yet Dowding was left very short of pilots as early as 1940.
By the way Dowding did send only a handful of Spitfires to France almost immediately after war was declared (it was not so difficult to send planes and crews after all), which were involved in the Barking Creek Fiasco on Sept 6, 1939 that included Sailor Malan.
Hi MontyB,
There were plenty of excellent leaders:, Stillwell (the brightest American general who was given the least resources and stuck under Chiang and Mountbatten), .
Hi BritinAfrica,
The Japanese invaded Burma in a pretty short time with a smaller navy and many fewer planes than Monty had available. Why would you invade through the Jungle when you have the largest navy in the world and Rangoon is close to Indian ports.
But even if you decide to invade through the Jungle, the Japs attacked India and lost only because they had no air supply or support, so they arrived without food and with very few munitions (mortar shells, etc,), no artillery, etc, It is much easier to invade when you can count on airplane supply with a large number of cargo planes and support with bomber-fighters like the P-38, Airacobra, etc,
The only problem was that Roosevelt trusted Churchill completely with the invasion of Burma and Chuchill did nothing for years other than sacrifice a few guerrrilla fighters and mount a pretty stupid invasion that was stopped in the Box (the British placed all their forces in the worst possible place, sorrounded by mountains and had heavy casualties and stopped the invasion). In China Roosevelt also left the matter to Chiang, who was not only stupid but also paranoid and extremely corrupt.
Had the American Generals had a small fraction of the Indian troops and the billions of dollars in equipment, fuel, food, etc, sent to Africa, Stalin and Chiang, the war would have been over long before and with fewer casualties and much more effective participation from India and China.
Around 7,000 Airacobras were made, half of them sent to the USSR. I said that many Soviet aces preferred it over Soviet fighters (many of which had no mechanical computer to adjust several settings with one motion, so many Soviet pilots had to adjust 9 levers and knobs while fighting) and used it quite effectively after removing the machine guns and using only the 37 mm cannon (Pokrishkin, etc,). The British rejected it as unfit for service. Its 37 mm cannon could easily knock out the Japanese toy tanks and would have been quite useful for ground attack and against any Japanese planes other than the Ki-43 and Zero in 1942. The P-38 being more than a match for the best Jap fighters of the time and formidable for air support, even at long range.
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