The Raid At Dieppe

Hi 42RM
if infantrymen alone win wars, why did Britain have to abandon Norway after destroying most of the German navy? why did a half million allied troops with naval artillery to back them up and supply them not hold a piece of land between Pas de Calais and Dunkirk that was not well suited for the few German tin tanks? why did a few paratroopers defeat a large allied army in Crete with naval artillery to support them? why did 130,000 infantrymen surrender to a much smaller Jap force in Singapore? was it not because the enemy plane sank the ships, blew up the fortified defenses, etc,?
Was it not the planes that allowed the battleships to shell Normandy (Texas blasted a Panzer division with its 14" cannon) and who destroyed many tanks and all the trains, trucks, etc, carrying reinforcements and supplies to the coast?
The combined French, British, Canadian, Polish, Belgian, etc, armies in France were formidable and their tanks superior, yet the planes blasted a path for Guderian.

I know that the allied troops did not stand a chance in Dieppe in the face or air superiority and fortified positions, and intact lines to move reinforcements and supplies, because the allied ships supporting and supplying them would have been promptly sunk and the Gemrnas could have rushed a lot of troops, etc, to the area.

I believe we have been through this before, but since it obviously haven't stuck yet...
The British (along with the French and Polish allies) had to abandon Norway in order to concentrate their focus on the German invasion of France.

Fact is that when the British and allied forces withdrew from Norway, the city of Narvik had already been captured by Polish, French and Norwegian troops, the Norwegian 6. division had the German forces cornered on Bjørnefjell, and the commanding German general Dietl later admitted that it was a matter of just a few days before he either had to surrender or evacuate his troops over the border and into Swedish internment.

This was acomplished despite German air superiority.

Just look at Eben Emael and what the Germans did there.
 
Yes we went over this before, but you don't read. The allied navy was huge and would not have allowed Germany to take over Norway and control the North Atlantic with the few ships and submarines it had left and ensure its ore supply had German planes not been sinking its ships at will. France was a good excuse to safe face. Withdrawing from Norway allowed Hitler to send hundreds of planes to France.

The German army in Poland in 1939, the paras in Crete, Rommel in Gazala and the Japs in Singapore also admitted that they had no munitions to continue fighting. The allies just kept losing, because of airplanes and bluffing.
 
The German army in Poland in 1939, the paras in Crete, Rommel in Gazala and the Japs in Singapore also admitted that they had no munitions to continue fighting. The allies just kept losing, because of airplanes and bluffing.

As far as I am aware, crystal balls weren't issued to British Officers.
 
Seriously guys this is starting to get silly, you are seemingly spending more time attacking the messenger rather than the message.
 
Yes Monty, is getting silly
But how many times haven’t we given him a serious answer?
 
Only Sam got crystal balls

We are all wise after the event. As I told him, put yourself in their shoes with the information, men and equipment at hand.

Seriously guys this is starting to get silly, you are seemingly spending more time attacking the messenger rather than the message.

Damn right its getting silly, he's not the messenger of this nonsense, he's the author.
 
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Yes Monty, is getting silly
But how many times haven’t we given him a serious answer?

At some point though surely you will realise that these posts are adding nothing to the forum and in many ways are detrimental to getting new people involved.

In many ways the old adage "if you have nothing useful to say, then say nothing" applies and this applies to all of us.

Now of course this does not mean posts should go unchallenged but there is a point where responses go too far and I think this thread has reached that point.
 
At some point though surely you will realise that these posts are adding nothing to the forum and in many ways are detrimental to getting new people involved.

In many ways the old adage "if you have nothing useful to say, then say nothing" applies and this applies to all of us.

Now of course this does not mean posts should go unchallenged but there is a point where responses go too far and I think this thread has reached that point.

Monty, we've told him till we're blue in the face, yet he still comes out with all this absolute nonsense.

I would like nothing more then a serious and sensible discussion, yet all he does is attack without any form of proof, and that pisses me off
 
If you want to put out a fire you just stop fuelling it and if you want the topic to quieten down stop responding there is nothing to be gained by a 30 page thread when 29 pages are "no you are" posts.
 
If you want to put out a fire you just stop fuelling it and if you want the topic to quieten down stop responding there is nothing to be gained by a 30 page thread when 29 pages are "no you are" posts.

I understand your dislike for Churchill, however, to me and many others he was the right man at the time and I will not sit idly by while he attacks men like him, Hugh Dowding and Keith Parks with absolute rubbish. Yes, Churchill and many others made mistakes, but they were not the idiots he makes him and them out to be.
 
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Here we have some one who never lived through the conflict of WW2 who now knows more than any one else alive and will not listen to any form of arguments put forwarded. I must admit i have stopped commenting on his posts as it is a waste of time.
 
I understand your dislike for Churchill, however, to me and many others he was the right man at the time and I will not sit idly by while he attacks men like him, Hugh Dowding and Keith Parks with absolute rubbish. Yes, Churchill and many others made mistakes, but they were not the idiots he makes him and them out to be.

That's all great but do we need 100 posts repeating our stance knowing full well the other guy isn't going to change his position or would one or two suffice?

The beauty of forums is that you can pretty much stop a discussion at any stage by simply not responding as it takes at least two to keep a thread going.
 
Now I have seen many articles written about this raid where the Canadians suffered some very loses and although the raid did not achieve it's objectives, was it a total failure. From out of this failure came the successful D Day operation.
Now just what did they learn from this raid,
The need for secrecy, as many Officers had been going around London talking about this raid. So on D Day most people where not told until the day they went.
The need for harbours to unload the equipment hence the massive Mulberry Harbours.
The need to get huge amounts fuel ashore hence the undersea pipe line known as Pluto
There was a need for a whole range of of specialised tanks that became known as Hobart's funnies.
There was the DD type that swam ashore and this worked well when it was not asked to swim 12 miles to the shore like they did at Omaha beach.
There was the Flail Tank that would clear the mines and the barb wire.
There were tanks to destroy strong points by firing a huge mortar type round the size of dustbin a couple of hundred yards.
There were bridging tanks and other that carried cassions to fill in trenches or bridge flooded ditches.
There were flame thrower tanks which towed a large container of fuel behind them, the Germans would shoot the crews of these tanks if captured.
There was also the Sherman Firefly with a 17 pounder gun that could deal with a Tiger Tank.
The Americans refused all offers of this type of equipment except for the DD type of tank which they then total mis used by trying to get it to swim some 12 miles ashore in a heavy swell, I often wonder just how they would have got on if these had got ashore at Omaha beach.
So although the Canadian Raid was failure as such it did lead to a successfully D Day and saved thousands of lives

While I agree that the Dieppe Raid did provide valuable information for the D-Day planners I am not convinced that the price paid for that information by Canadian troops made it good value.

I am also not convinced that the information gathered was the difference between the success or failure of D-Day.
 
That's all great but do we need 100 posts repeating our stance knowing full well the other guy isn't going to change his position or would one or two suffice?

The beauty of forums is that you can pretty much stop a discussion at any stage by simply not responding as it takes at least two to keep a thread going.

I will not allow his toxic and unfounded comments to go unchallenged.
 
I am quoting fom a book written by R.W Thompson. who wrote
Lt-General H. D. G. Crerar, addressed his officers just after D.Day and said "I think it is most important that, at this time,all of you should realize what a vital part the gallant and hazardous operation of the raid in force on Dieppe has played in the conception, planning and execution of the vast Overlord Operation".
 
The most important lesson that could have been learnt from Dieppe was that Mountbatten and Churchill were willing to waste a lot of men and equipment without air superiority, so they should not be involved at all in the planning of overlord and they weren't. Unfortunately, Churchill continued to mess things up in Africa, Italy, the Dodecanese, etc, and Mountbatten was promoted instead of court mashalled.

Roosevelt was so frustrated with Churchill's preformance in Greece, Burma, Africa, etc, that he tried to meet separately with Stalin and plan the war. strangely, Stalin refused to meet without Churchill present. Although Churchill and Roosevelt met without Stalin several times.
My Take on Churchill in Churchillian: Never had so much help been given by so many (US, USSR, Canada, Poland, Holland, Norway, Free France, SA, NZ, Australia, etc,) to a man with so many resources, in order to achieve so little for so long and with so many fabulous and absurd speeches. This was not the end of Britain, nor the beginning, but quite the opposite.
 
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About the nonsense;-) on post 11 (by ...Sam,why am I not surprised) that WWII was won by airplanes,every single important battle
1)this would imply that the Red Air Force won the battle of Stalingrad
2)the following is from "tank tactics from Normandy to Lorraine)German tank losses by cause (44-45) a sample of 530 tanks
Gunfire(=artillery,TD,tanks) :43.2%
AIR ATTACK :7.5%
non enemy action (=mechanical failures) :43.8 %
3)the following is from 1jma.net/forum with as source Schneider:Tiger im Kampf I and II
losses of German Tigers in Normandy (june-august)
total:135,of which 17 by aircraft
4)the post of Sam would imply that the allied won the battle of the atlantic because of their aircraft,and that the role of the navy was insignifiant
5)while after a few days in june 1941,the LW had total air superiority (the Soviet air force was eliminated),at the end of the summer,the Germans were stopped,they were stopped again at the end of the autumn,and they were repelled in the winter
I could continue,but,why waste time ?
 
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