Timeline of Incompetent Leadership Contest in WW II

samneanderthal

Active member
Timeline of the Incompetent Leadership Contest in WW II:
1) Stalin orders the powerful German communist party not to form a coalition with the social democrats, so that the Nazis can gain considerable force in parliament. Eventually Hitler becomes a dictator and the German communists have to leave the country or are arrested or murdered.
2) Stalin allows German officers to study in Soviet military academies with German teachers and the Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe to perform maneuvers in Soviet soil that are forbidden by the Versailles treaty, greatly strengthening the German forces.
3) In 1937 Japan invades China, ruining all the work that Germany had done strengthening Chiang, losing China’s 515 million people as an invaluable ally against Stalin and pinning down over a million Japanese troops in China and Burma for the duration of the war, without ever defeating Chiang nor the communists. The Japanese invasion forces Chiang to sign a non aggression pact with Stalin (his former enemy, because Stalin supplied the Chinese communists). Had Japan helped Chiang to eliminate the communists, a unified, relatively strong China attacking the USSR together with Japan and Germany would have doomed the USSR. China and Japan could have also easily liberated India from GB, weakening the latter considerably.
4) Baldwin opposes massive rearming and enforcement of the Versailles treaty, so that Germany quickly rearms and has far more planes than the UK and France together. Baldwin is followed by Chamberlain, another pacifist that allows Hitler to take Austria and Czechoslovakia and become much stronger.
5) Britain fails to take advantage of the massive, inexpensive labor force of India, so that in 1939 India, with 378 million people and plenty of ore produces less steel than Australia with 7 million people (1 and 1.2 million tons respectively).
6) Hitler ignores the brilliant secretary of economy Hjalmar Schacht, who in 3 years boosted the German economy, so Schacht resigns and Hitler gives his post to the incompetent Göring, who is heads the 4 year program and the Luftwaffe. Production under Göring and Todt is far a small fraction of what it will be during Speer’s leadership, in spite of Göring having plenty of imported material, qualified labor, fewer allied bombings, etc,
7) Stalin massacres 3 out of 5 field marshals and 84 generals, most colonels, etc, (30,000 Soviet officers in all) in the 1937-38 purges, among them is Tukhachevsky, perhaps the best and most experienced strategist in the world at the time. Stalin also murders millions of teachers, doctors, engineers, industrialists, farmers, politicians, etc, in the purges, who would have been very useful during the war.
8) Before WW II France spends a fortune building the Maginot line, but spends very little in high performance fighters and dive bombers. Instead of the Maginot line, It would have been much more advantageous a) to invest in 5,000 inexpensive 25mmHotchkiss antitank guns and instead of 1,000 useless, underpowered MS 406 planes, for France to build 500 planes with an additional engine and prop on the tail and wingtip tanks, b) to convince president Roosevelt to authorize the sale of 500 Curtiss P-36s (more powerful than the H-75s they bought), 300 P-40s, etc, c) to develop a good dive bomber and to convince the UK of moving all its available fighters to France as soon as the war is declared (the only way to defeat the Luftwaffe by eliminating the obsolete bombers, such as the Stuka, Hs 123, etc,)
9) Hitler Annexes Austria and the Sudetenland in 1938 and neither the allies nor Stalin do anything. Had Poland, France and the UK attacked Germany during the invasion of Czechoslovakia, the Czechs would have been valuable allies and Hitler would have fewer resources than he did after taking these countries.
10) Chamberlain rejects Stalin’s offer to form a coalition against Hitler in March 1939, inducing Stalin to sign the non aggression pact with Hitler.
11) Hitler signs the non-aggression pact with Stalin, deciding to share Poland and giving Stalin access to a lot of central Europe and Finland. Instead of attacking Poland together, it would have made much more sense to occupy friendly Iran and Iraq, expelling British and French forces and depriving Britain of much of its oil, and leaving a strengthened Poland as a buffer between the two powers.
12) Japan stupidly gets into a fight with the Soviets in Mongolia in 1939, but the imperial army is far from its supply centers and is trounced, so the Japanese in 1941, when the USSR is at war with Germany, are reluctant to attack the Soviets and condition their attack on Germany capturing Moscow (which doesn’t happen, because Japan fails to attack the USSR and Stalin send his Siberian troops to Moscow to stop the Germans).
13) Hitler attacks Poland in Sept. 1939, starting WW II and leaving the western front extremely vulnerable to allied attack. The Polish army is wiped out between Hitler and Stalin. France and the UK declare war on Germany, although they know they cannot attack Germany, even while most of the German airplanes, tanks and troops are in Poland. Why declare war when you cannot attack, but your ships can be sunk by submarines and your country bombed by airplanes? France & Britain should not have declared war, but simply rearmed and mobilized and declared war only when they could attack.
14) Stalin attacks weak Finland in the winter of 1939, which has mostly lumber and minerals (that the USSR already has in excess) with 450,000 troops!, but after having massacred all his high ranking officers (30,000 officers in total), Soviet leadership is extremely deficient. The weather (-40° C) and terrain are most difficult and the tiny Finnish army is extremely tough and efficient and receives aid from Germany and the rest of the world (although mostly in the form of obsolete equipment). Incredibly, Stalin’s offensive, led by the incompetent Voroshilov and Budyonny, is stopped with great losses. Stalin has only managed to lose resources, prestige and respect. Timoschenko replaces Voroshilov and manages to break through the Mannerheim line, forcing Finland to cede 10% of its territory in order to achieve peace. However, 3 days after Germany invaded the USSR, Stalin orders again the invasion of Finland, which has now a stronger and better equipped army (thanks to Germany) with 400,000 troops and the Soviets are stopped in their tracks and Finland even recovers the territory it had lost in 1939 (only to lose it again in 1944).
15) France and Britain do almost nothing to attack Germany for a year into the war, while Germany is vulnerable invading Poland, they simply wait and allow it to lick its wounds, strengthen its forces and mobilize them against France. Holland has a tiny and ill equipped army and air force and orders one hundred and fifty105 mm cannon from Germany, which naturally withholds delivery, because it intends to attack Holland (the Dutch ordered cannon from the country that they expected to fight!). Belgium has a very good army for the size of the country, but the air force is very weak and relies heavily on the Eben Emael fort, that a few dozen German paratroopers will take in a few days.
 
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16) Although the allies have overwhelming naval superiority, they send a ridiculous expeditionary force with very few planes to occupy Narvik in Norway. They intend to invade Sweden in order to stop Swedish iron ore from reaching Germnay. However, Hitler sends 1,000 planes, the army and his meager navy. The British sink or damage most of the German ships but send few planes and are defeated by the Germans (although they beat the hell out of the German navy, they lost!). The British execute the first massive evacuation of the war, a procedure that they will perfect in Dunkirk, Cherbourg, Crete, etc,
17) After sinking 1 German 1 battle ship, 2 cruisers, 10 destroyers, 6 submarines, a tanker and several transports, damaging 2 more cruisers and 6 destroyers, destroying most of the Kriegsmarine’s airplanes and leaving the crippled German fleet with very little fuel, the allies withdraw from Norway, which allows Hitler to send over 600 of the Luftwaffe planes in Norway to France. The French navy, which was far more powerful than the German navy lost only 1 destroyer in Norway. The British lost 1 aircraft carrier, 2 cruisers and 6 destroyers, a very small fraction of their forces. The loss of Norway allowed the Germans to ensure Swedish iron ore supplies and to attack allied shipping and Russia from bases in Norway. The failure to eliminate the few, poorly supplied German ships in 1940 in Norway would force the British navy to chase some of those ships as far as Uruguay.
18) Although the Dutch had 2 airplane factories (Fokker and Koolhoven) the conservative, austere government did not deem it appropriate to build a few hundred fighter planes. Although Holland has a greater population and is wealthier and more industrialized than Belgium, the latter has 22 divisions and Holland only 7 and poorly equipped.
19) Instead of wiping out the Allied planes in France (which did not include Spitfires) before invading it, Germany invades and has to face the Allied planes and provide ground support simultaneously, which causes loses of 2,000 German planes, which coupled with the 2,000 lost over Britain will cripple the Luftwaffe for operation Barbarossa, where the dismal air support over the huge front will be disastrous.
20) Germany invades Holland, Belgium and France (instead of respecting Holland’s neutrality, as Germany had in WW I) and advances rapidly thanks to Dowding’s stupid mistake of leaving his best fighters in the UK. Germany does not coordinate with Italy to invade France, so the French are free to concentrate their forces in the north. The overwhelming German air superiority completely demoralized the allied infantry exposed to continuous bombing along the German spearheads for days. Holland falls in 4 days, when the army surrenders in order to save other Dutch cities from the same fate as Rotterdam, which was demolished by a firestorm caused by Stukas and twin engine bombers. France falls and Hitler can now bomb British airplane factories, attack air fields in the UK, etc, Even during the Battle of Britain, Dowding leaves always half the planes in reserve.
21) Instead of capturing Malta, Tunisia & Egypt with German help, in order to enter the war in a very strong position in September 1939 or in June 1940, Mussolini stupidly invades the already defeated France in June 1940. Moreover, Mussolini wastes planes and men in France and in the battle of Britain, where his planes don’t stand a chance against Hurricanes and Spitfires. His planes would have been much more useful fighting the few biplanes in North Africa and Bombing Malta. Mussolini allows the British and French almost a year to gather and to recruit and train troops from New Zealand, Australia, South Africa and India and to transport them to Egypt. Only when the British have gathered over 40,000 troops does Italy invade Egypt and is defeated and it loses 130,000 men, hundreds of thousands of tons of equipment and nearly loses Libya, were it not for Churchill’s mistake of sending the troops uselessly to Greece, where they will be trounced.
22) When Churchill has 6 of his destroyers sunk and 18 destroyers damaged evacuating troops in Dunkirk, Roosevelt sends him 50 WW I American destroyers, which would have been invaluable defending the Philippines, Wake, Midway and the American Atlantic coast in 1941 and 42. So that Churchill can continue to lose destroyers evacuating troops from Greece, etc, while the Americans don’t have enough destroyers to defend extremely important assets.
23) After defeating France, Germany wastes 2,050 planes in the battle of Britain, instead of capturing invaluable Tangiers with much fewer losses, closing the Mediterranean to the British and securing access to Iranian and Iraqi oil for Germany and perhaps persuading the Turks to join the Axis.
24) Wartime Profiteering, the Ultimate Depravation in Greed & Corruption: Even in the American revolutionary, civil, Spanish-American and first world wars, profiteers greatly hampered the efforts of the brave American troops, exacerbating the conditions in which they had to sacrifice their lives. But before and during WW II there was an outrageous level of corruption. America was ill prepared for war in part because of extreme greed and corruption. Senator Truman realized that the huge investment that America made trying to catch up with the Axis was being very ineffectively used by corrupt industry and military. Truman started the Truman Committee to investigate corruption and inefficiency in 1940 but was allotted only U$ 15,000 to investigate billions of wasted dollars. During 3 years the committee uncovered a sickening, unprecedented level of corruption and had a big effect in reducing costs and increasing productivity. Examples of the harmful effects of corruption were the torpedoes the navy had when war broke out, the faulty Curtiss-Wright engines that caused brand new planes to be lost along with their crews, the Curtiss SB2C Hellbomber, which forced the navy to require 800 modification before it entered service and then to recall it for more modifications. The SB2C had a shorter range than the SBD it replaced. During the Battle of the Philippines’ Sea 45 SB2C were lost because they ran out of fuel on the way back. The SB2C was completely useless, since the Corsair could carry almost the same bomb load and then shoot down enemy planes after dive bombing. Senator Truman’s service to the US was invaluable and certainly justified the Presidency.
25) Instead of invading France, Hitler should have attacked the USSR in 1940, with an intact Luftwaffe and Wehrmacht. Stalin had killed 30,000 officers in 1937-38 and had not even replaced all of them in 1940. However, Hitler should have treated well the Soviet prisoners in order to encourage the Soviets to surrender and even to join the German forces. This way Hitler could have even used Soviet tanks and airplanes against Stalin. Moreover, Hitler should have ensured massive support for the invasion of Russia from Italy and Japan, avoiding the pointless and expensive invasion of Greece and Yugoslavia and the American and British possessions and ensuring Stalin’s defeat. France and Britain were terrified of Stalin and would not have attacked Germany while Stalin was being defeated.
26) Mussolini invades France after the German advances cause the French defenses to collapse and the British expeditionary force has left, but manages to advance extremely little, because the Italians do not coordinate the land and air forces efficiently, which will cause them to be defeated by the Greeks shortly thereafter.
27) Hitler begins the Battle of Britain in the worst possible way, by sending small waves of slow and vulnerable Stukas, twin engine bombers and Me-109’s, whose short range allows only for a few minutes of battle over GB. On the other hand, Churchill has just sacrificed pointlessly 509 fighters in the Battle of France and Belgium and can barely resist the German onslaught. Britain should have sent all its fighters to France or none of them. All of them would have downed thousands of German bombers, defended the allied bombers and primitive French fighters much better and stopped the German advance, saving France and sending no planes at all to France would have left a much stronger RAF to defend France (Dowding ignored the old adage “Divide and conquer” and Britain was extremely lucky to have won the Battle of Britain, in spite of Dowding’s mistake)..
 
28) Britain was Germany’s and Italy’s only enemy when France fell, his army was lousy and the air force had been decimated in France. Had Britain signed an armistice with Germany, GB could have concentrated in rearming, especially in building airplanes and in strengthening Iran, Iraq, Singapore, Indonesia, Burma, China, etc, with modern airplanes, tanks, Aircraft carriers and submarines. Most importantly, GB should have developed the military industry in India and China and trained pilots and troops in large numbers in these countries, so that Japan would not attack British territories and continue to fight China and chose to sue for peace with China and to attack the USSR instead. Germany could have attacked the USSR with many more airplanes (without the losses in the battle of Britain) so Germany could have advanced much more into the USSR. In 1943, after the USSR, Japan and Germany have lost most of their armed forces and are in a dire need for supplies, while Britain and India are much stronger, GB would declare war on Japan and Germany.
29) Mussolini had given Campioni orders not to engage the English fleet unless the odds were heavily in favor. This prevented Campioni from inflicting heavy damage on the slightly weaker British Fleet at the battle of Spartivento, in which the Italians disengaged even though they outgunned and outsped the British fleet. The Italians could have inflicted heavy damage on the British warships and then on the merchant convoy sailing for Malta that they were escorting.
30) Stupidly, Mussolini invades Greece (which didn´t have much to offer Italy, 9 million people and almost no industry and limited agriculture), but is soundly defeated (although the Greeks have almost no tanks or planes and only a few cannon that the British captured from the Italians in North Africa and gave to the Greeks!), and Italy is on the verge of losing Albania to Greece, so he asks Germany for help. Even more Stupidly, Hitler runs to Italy’s help and invades Greece and Yugoslavia, has to spread its forces even thinner and is left with fewer tanks, troops and planes for the next offensive and fewer neutral nations with which to trade. Most importantly, Germany must delay its next offensive, with disastrous consequences, because one month of good weather has been lost when Barbarossa starts.
31) Mussolini invaded Greece at the worst possible time. He had just given orders to demobilize 600,000 men for the autumn harvest and there were only 8 divisions in Albania (which had recently been reduced from 3 to 2 batallions. There were only 107 trucks avaialbel for the invasion, so that the tanks, etc, soon ran out of supplies. Mussolini was indeed lucky not to lose Albania, his only source of inexpensive oil. Had Churchill invaded poorly defended Sicily at the time with hundreds of thousands of troops in Greece and Albania and 600,000 demobilized, Sicily would have fallen more easily than Libya in operation Compass.
32) The Greek high command, keeping most of their divisions in Albania after forcing the Italians to retreat, so that when the Germans attacked from Bulgaria, they could rapidly advance into Greece. By the time they tried to relocate the forces, it was too late.
33) The British send their troops from Libya, where they are about to expel the Italians, to Greece, where they are completely useless and experience heavy losses.
34) Churchill refuses to sign an alliance with the USSR, proposed by Stalin in May 1941 (the same mistake that Chamberlain had done in 1939).
35) After losing 4,000 aircraft and many of his best pilots, lots of tanks, warships, and troops in Poland, Norway, Denmark, France, Belgium, Holland, the UK, Greece, Yugoslavia, Africa, etc, Hitler decides to invade the huge USSR, with millions of troops, tens of thousands of airplanes (though obsolete), tanks, cannon, 8 million troops and the worst weather in years. The German offensive advances fast at the beginning, capturing millions of Soviet prisoners, artillery, etc, Stalin, instead of withdrawing, regrouping and preparing a coherent counteroffensive, panics and orders an immediate counteroffensive on all fronts, with disastrous consequences.
36) The British high command prevents the general in charge of defending Crete from destroying the airfields, so that the German troops can land in their gliders and their fighter and planes and bombers have a place to land and Germany takes Crete.
37) Hitler lost many paratroopers in Crete. Mostly because they did not carry their weapons, but had to find separate containers carrying them. Instead of learning from this mistake, Hitler would never use paratroopers again, depriving his forces of an invaluable resource in the USSR, etc, In contrast, the Allies were impressed by the fact thousands of British and Greek troops in Crete were defeated by paratroopers and developed excellent airborne divisions that would render invaluable service during the war.
38) Although Stalin´s brilliant spies inform him of the strength and date of the imminent German attack, Stalin does nothing and is trounced, losing 3 million men, 21,000 airplanes, 20,000 tanks, tens of thousands of pieces of artillery and the most productive part of the USSR in the first 5 months.
39) Hitler wasted the incredible capacity of the Wehrmacht to wage the Blitzkrieg when he ordered extremely costly and lengthy sieges and city warfare in Kiev, Sevastopol, Smolensk, Leningrad, Stalingrad, dooming Barbarossa and the Axis. Had he simply bypassed these fortified cities, isolating huge armies, he would have defeated the USSR, especially if Japan, Italy and Finland had attacked jointly.
40) However, instead of concentrating his forces on an offensive that first captures the oil fields, linking up with Iran and Iraq, Hitler sends a large force to lay siege to Leningrad (all these forces will be useless for more than 2 years, achieving little more than tying down some Soviet force and starving to death hundreds of thousands of civilians), another huge force to lay siege to Sevastopol (which will be useless for 8 moths), and a third huge offensive to take Moscow. The Moscow attack is stopped, because Hitler fails to take advantage of the opportunity and sends Guderian to Kiev and Hoth to Leningrad, delaying the offensive enough time for the autumn rains and then the winter to hamper the offensive and because Stalin learns from his spies that Japan will not attack the USSR, unless Moscow falls, so he mobilizes hundreds of thousands of troops from Siberia and tosses them into the German offensive, which runs out of ammunition and fuel, so it stops and the Germans then withdraw and later on Hitler weakens the Baku offensive, by sending Von Paulus to take Stalingrad. Unfortunately, Germany hasn´t enough planes to support the Panzers’ advance and the weather is very harsh. Stalingrad will eliminate a third of a million German soldiers from the war (Hitler will not allow them to withdraw and maneuver in time),.
 
41) At the same time that Hitler invades the USSR, Germany is fighting in North Africa, further spreading its forces thinner and without hope of success.
42) Although Japan has not defeated the Chinese, Japan stupidly occupies Indochina in 1940 (with Vichy’s consent) and in 1941Roosevelt stupidly stops selling fuel and scrap iron to the Japanese, forcing them to drag America into the war, long before the US is ready to fight. Had Roosevelt continued selling oil and scrap iron to Japan, the latter would have attacked the USSR (as per the imperial army plan), allowing the US time to build up the navy, army and air force.
43) Japan stupidly decides not to attack the Soviets, until Moscow falls, but this never happens, because Stalin learns of this decision (through the spy Richard Sorge) and sends all his troops in Siberia and Mongolia to Moscow, stopping the German offensive and preventing Japan from attacking him.
44) Just when Germany is really busy and bogging down on all fronts, Japan decides to attack not the USSR (which is agonizing)), but the US, bringing yet another powerful enemy into the war with 130 million people and a fabulous industry. However, instead of concentrating all its forces and taking Hawaii and Panama, Japan attacks simultaneously Hawaii and invades Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines. Most of the allied navies and air forces are destroyed in the Pacific. Even after Japan attacked, the US did not declare war on Germany. Hitler stupidly does declare war on the US, although the Japanese never declared war on the USSR!
45) Instead of gathering the formidable Japanese fleet and invading Hawaii, effectively displacing the US from the Pacific, Japan attacks simultaneously Pearl Harbor, the Philippines, Malaya, etc, Japan fails to destroy any of the carriers in the surprise attack and galvanizes Americans to fight and produce without respite until Japan is defeated.
46) General Short orders all the planes to be placed on the airfields in Hawaii as close as possible so they can be guarded against sabotage by the Japanese living in Hawaii. Unfortunately, this makes them ideal targets, makes prompt scrambling impossible and maximizes the damage inflicted by the Japanese planes.
47) The US army installs a radar station in Oahu but has no command system to use the crucial information and rapidly scramble fighters to defend the invaluable fleet.
48) Falsely claiming low fuel, Fletcher withdraws the carriers covering the transport ships landing troops and equipment in Guadalcanal. Then during the battle of Savo Mikawa sinks the cruisers protecting the ships, but assuming that the carriers are in the area withdraws without sinking the transport ships, which would have effectively won the battle of Guadalcanal from the outset for Japan.
49) Although Japan forces the US into the war and the US cannot even fight Japan right away, Roosevelt assigns priority to Europe and continues giving away billions of dollars to the British and to Stalin, who together have many more men and resources than Germany, and who waste most of the aid. Churchill chooses to lose a lot of airplanes and thousands of pilots, gunners, etc, in order to murder children, women and the elderly in bombing raids on German cities, without much effect on the military. Actually, Hitler benefits when a half million unproductive Germans are murdered, leaving more food for his soldiers and factory workers. Had Roosevelt assigned priority to Asia, recovered Burma, used the immense resources of India, supplied the Chinese and kicked out the Japanese from China, Korea, Indochina, etc, and left all the submarines around Indonesia to sink all the tankers and rice transports, Japan would not have had any fuel or rice from Burma or Indonesia and would not have been able to fight. US bombers from China could wipe out the fleet and the factories, airfields, etc, Japan would have fallen by 1944. Then with the help of China and India the US should have invaded The USSR from Iran, Iraq, China, the Pacific and the arctic. It was absurd of the Americans to waste so much invaluable aid on the British and Soviet armies, which were very inefficient and in sending millions of soldiers to Britain and then France. The US should have concentrated on building massive amounts of much better tanks than the Sherman and P-47s and P-51s and trained American pilots and officers and Chinese and Indian troops.
50) While they are fighting in useless Libya, Tunisia, etc, the British lose Burma to the Japanese. Burma is the largest grain exporter in the world, a source of vital oil and the only artery to supply the Chinese nationalists from India. The British give 1,020 tanks, 540 planes airplanes, 1,400 pieces of artillery, many of them self propelled) and 196,000 troops (many from India, which is next to Burma and starving for lack of Burmese rice!) to Monty (much of the equipment came from the US) to fight Rommel with only 116,000 troops, 547 tanks, 470 planes, 580 antitank guns and 500 cannon in the useless desert in Africa. Great Churchillian strategy and logic. The Germans lose only 32,000 men and manage to escape because Monty is too afraid or too lazy to follow them and to wipe them out of Africa, so they continue fighting, until the Americans arrive in even larger numbers and with even more equipment. The Japanese get to use the valuable rice and oil from Burma for 2 years and isolate the Chinese nationalists, who can barely fight without supplies.
51) In early 1942 the British allow the Gneissenau, Sharnhorst and Prinz Eugen to sail from Brest to Germany along the English Channel. The British lose 42 planes trying to sink them, but the Germans lose no ships, only 22 planes.
52) During the battle of el Alamein I, Auchinleck (pronounced Afflek) had 150,000 troops, 1,114 tanks, over 1,500 airplanes, over 1,000 cannon etc, and was in strong defensive positions with plenty of time to mine fields, etc, yet instead of pulverizing the German and Italian attackers, who were short on fuel, ammunition and water and had 96.000 troops, 500 airplanes, 585 tanks, Auchinleck only managed to stop them, inflicting 17,000 casualties on them (against 13,250 British casualties) and allowing the rest to escape. Churchill was enraged and decided to replace him with the famously incompetent Gott, who, fortunately for Britain, was killed while travelling by plane to Cairo to receive the command, so Montgomery got the command.
53) During the battle of Alam el Halfa Montgomery stops Rommel´s advance but lets him escape.
 
54) During the battle of el Alamein II Montgomery has even more forces than Auchinleck, bombards the axis troops with a half million shells and 1,500 tons of bombs. After the battle Montgomery has close to 500 tanks and Rommel 50, yet Monty chooses to let Rommel escape yet again.
55) Because Auchinleck and Montgomery cannot stop Rommel from capturing the Suez Canal, unless they have far more men, tanks, artillery, antitank guns, etc, The allies have to keep Malta at all costs in order to prevent Rommel from receiving badly needed supplies. Just to supply and defend the Island from the German and Italian planes, surface boats, submarines, etc, The British will lose an alarming number of ships and airplanes. In just one convoy, only 4 ships limped to Malta out of 15. Defending and supplying Malta the British lost 2 aircraft carriers, 413 fighters, 40 submarines, 4 cruisers, 19 destroyers, etc,
56) In 1942 Yamamoto sends a small fleet to invade Port Moresby and loses a light carrier and has 2 fleet carriers put out of action for several months in the battle of the Coral Sea and has to cancel the invasion of Port Moresby. He also sends a fleet to the Aleutians to draw the Americans away from Midway (it doesn’t work). Then in Midway Yamamoto sends the 4 fleet carriers, 2 battleships and 15 support ships ahead and stays behind hundreds of miles with 2 light carriers, 5 battleships and 41 support ships (many cruisers, destroyers, submarines, etc,). The formidable rear fleet remains out of the battle, so he loses all 4 invaluable fleet carriers, effectively losing the war. Instead of sending fleets to Port Moresby and the Aleutians and fooling around with Midway, Yamamoto should gave gathered his formidable fleet and invaded Hawaii and destroyed the carriers. Without Pearl Harbor and carriers it would have been very difficult for the US to counter attack.
57) Anglo-American convoy PQ-17 From the US to the USSR in 1942 only 11 ships out of 35 arrived. The escort cruisers and destroyers left the convoy because they thought that German light cruisers were sailing toward the convoy (false alarm) and they sailed to intercept them.
58) The Allies launch operation Torch in the autumn of 1942, initially fighting against Vichy troops until the Americans bribe their generals and admirals, and they join the free French. Hitler has to relocate planes, which are desperately needed in Stalingrad, etc, to the African front, exacerbating conditions in Stalingrad, Where the Soviet troops now cross the Volga in large waves and Capture the German forces. Instead of simply skipping along the North African coast, building Air bases and cutting off Rommel’s and Italy’s forces, the allies venture inland and lose a lot of tanks and troops. In 1943, about a quarter million German troops and a smaller number of Italian troops die or are taken prisoner and all the German and Italian materiel is lost in Africa.
59) Churchill and Harris stupidly decide to spend a fortune and sacrifice invaluable crews, planes, fuel and bombs in a massive air campaign. They also convince the Americans to take part in the bombing. Unfortunately, there are no long range escorts, so losses are appalling during 1942 and 43. Close to a half million children, women and elderly people are killed in bombing raids, most Germany cities are ruined and the impact on the military is negligible. These bombers would have been much more useful fighting the Japanese in Burma, China, Korea, Indochina, etc, from the USSR and India and bombing the Japanese shipyards, ships, etc,
60) Stalin is pathologically afraid of German tanks and even though the Germans manufacture much fewer tanks than the USSR and have to send them to several countries and fronts, Stalin manufactures 67,000 T-34 tanks and about half as many among all the other types, 36,000 tank-busting Sturmoviks (airplanes) and 14 million 2.5 kg anti tank bombs. He also makes 6 million submachine guns and over a half million cannon, but for everything else, he relies pretty much on the American industry, which has the burden of supplying all the allies and itself on all fronts.
61) After failing on all fronts, in 1943 Hitler orders operation Citadel, which includes an attack on Kursk, where the Soviets have built thousands of antitank traps, have an incredible concentration of tanks, artillery, rockets, minefields, airplanes, troops, etc, (the most formidable fortification in history). So the German forces are practically wiped out and begin to withdraw rapidly toward Germany. Although Germany has hopelessly lost the war, Hitler refuses to concede defeat and dooms millions of people to their death, and incredibly, the German people do almost nothing besides a failed assassination attempt.
62) After defeating Rommel in Africa at a great cost, the Allies invade Sicily and then Italy. However, the mountainous terrain and the narrow peninsula make advancing very difficult and costly in allied lives, and almost to no avail, even when Germany capitulated, the Germans still held northern Italy, after over 50,000 allied casualties, so it was pointless.
63) Although after Kursk the Soviets have practically won the war, the US continued supplying them with lots of materiel until the end of the war, that they would never pay and even though Stalin refuses to declare war on Japan and attack it. Why?
64) In the Pacific, The Americans take Tarawa, a useless islet at a tremendous cost, bomb Wewak, destroying hundreds of valuable Japanese planes and then isolate its 200,000 Japanese troops. The Americans also attack Truck (the Japanese Pearl Harbor), devastating the fleet and planes. MacArthur insists on taking the Philippines, overruling Nimitz, who wants to bypass them, going straight to Japan. This single decision cost a lot of lives and time. General Lamay launches an extremely expensive series of massive raids that kill more people than the Hiroshima atomic bomb, but are ignored by the Japanese leadership, who cares little about Japanese lives.
65) General Lucas wastes the complete surprise of the Allied landings in Anzio and Nettuno on January 22, 1944. Instead of advancing rapidly and unopposed towards Rome, Lucas decides to consolidate his beachhead, allowing Kesselring time to move several divisions, occupy the hills around the beachhead and prepare formidable defensive positions. The Americans suffer 43,000 casualties before taking Rome.
66) In 1944 McArthur ignores Admirals King and Nimitz, who want to bypass the Philippines and invade Iwo Jima and Okinawa. The Japanese have over a quarter million troops and lots of airplanes, etc, in the Philippines, so the campaign is extremely costly and delays the capture of the important islands closer to Japan. While the Americans are invading Leyte, admiral Halsey took all the large and most of the small carriers on a wild goose chase trying to destroy the almost planeless Japanese carriers to the North, leaving a ridiculously weak force to protect the huge fleet of transport ships loaded with men. The Japanese attacked with a massive fleet, including the largest battleships ever built, the Musashi and the Yamato, which could have easily wiped out the transport ships and their precious cargo. However, the tiny defending force with a few submarines, torpedo boats, destroyers, and escort carriers with primitive wildcats and bombers put up such a ferocious defense and sank or damaged so many Japanese ships, that admiral Murita thought he was fighting Halsey’s main fleet and withdrew, wasting the effect of the successful decoy fleet and the last reserves of fuel the Japanese had, so that the Americans landed without losses to the Japanese navy and the Japanese navy was in effect neutralized for lack of fuel and airplanes.
 
67) While the Americans are invading Leyte, admiral Halsey takes all the large and most of the small carriers on a wild goose chase trying to destroy the almost planeless Japanese carriers to the North, leaving a ridiculously weak force to protect the huge fleet of transport ships loaded with men. The Japanese attacked with a massive fleet, including the largest battleships ever built, the Musashi and the Yamato, which could have easily wiped out the transport ships and their precious cargo. However, the tiny defending force with a few submarines, torpedo boats, destroyers, and escort carriers with primitive wildcats and bombers put up such a ferocious defense and sank or damaged so many Japanese ships, that admiral Murita thought he was fighting Halsey’s main fleet and withdrew, wasting the effect of the successful decoy fleet and the last reserves of fuel the Japanese had, so that the Americans landed almost without losses to the Japanese navy and the Japanese navy was in effect neutralized for lack of fuel and airplanes.
68) Chiang Kai-shek was so incompetent that in spite of having millions of men at his disposal and American armament, the Japanese offensive of 1944 with 360,000 men rapidly advanced in Nationalist China and almost occupied Kunming, Chiang’s capital, which had the airport that received all the American materiel flown over the Hump at great cost. The Americans had to transport by air two Chinese divisions from Myitkyina (Burma), which had been fed, trained and armed by the Americans in India to defend Kunming. Chiang hoarded most of the supplies, because he was afraid that if he gave them to his generals, they might overthrow him.
69) When the Americans see that Mao´s 3 million men fight much better than Chiang’s troops in 1944, they start supplying them generously, not realizing that they are delivering the most populated country to the communists. Had the atomic bomb not worked, the communists would have taken over the world in 1947.
70) In the winter of 1944 Hitler launches the Ardennes offensive, losing his best tanks and troops on the western front, while the Soviets are rapidly advancing on the eastern front, yet Hitler does not surrender.
71) The US spend 4.5 billion dollars building B-29 bases in China in order to bomb Japan, which are quickly captured in 1944 by the Japanese, who sweep aside Chiang Kai-shek’s army.
72) In late 1944 Finland and Romania become Germany’s enemies, and the Eastern front practically collapses, yet Hitler would not surrender. Japan had lost practically all its ships and boats, has no oil and is starving, but would not surrender. Both countries had lost hundreds of thousands to bombing raids, but that was irrelevant to their leaders.
73) Montgomery refused to chase Rommel’s 50 tanks after el Alamein II with 500 tanks, out of caution. Yet, a more experienced Montgomery throws caution out the window 2 years later and sends British, Polish and American paratroopers deep into German territory in Holland in order to capture bridges over the Rhine. The armor that is supposed to save the paratroopers has to travel through flooded country on roads that are defended by antitank artillery. The armor suffers heavy losses and is delayed and the paratroopers are surrounded by hundreds of German tanks and are trounced. The complete control of the air is used inefficiently to destroy the enemy tanks and antitank guns.
74) On January 1, 1945 Hitler launches operation Bodenplatte, which involves most of the Luftwaffe’s fighters (950 planes), including those in the eastern front. Many German AA batteries had not been notified and shot down dozens of German planes. The Germans managed to destroy several British and American planes on the ground and a few in the air, but lost close to 300 planes and over 200 pilots that they could not replace, while the allies readily replaced their planes and lost few pilots. When the allies enter Germany in operations Plunder and Varsity, the Luftwaffe can hardly oppose them.
75) In 1945 denial has become an epidemic and Japan and Germany continue to fight, losing troops, civilians and buildings more rapidly all the time. About 2.5 million Germans with very few airplanes, tanks, etc, face 6 million Soviets with impressive amounts of equipment and 1 million Germans face 4 million troops of the western allies, also with formidable equipment. Incredibly, the US continues to supply the USSR with massive amounts of free high octane fuel, materiel, food, explosives, etc, till the end of the war, although Germany is obviously defeated by 1944.
 
I disagree with a lot of you points
1) the alliance between communists an socialists :
-such alliance was very unlikely :for the communists,socialists were renegats,traitors :there only was one place at the left :for the communists
-it was also uncertain that the socialists would accept the offer of an alliance
-if such alliance was formed,it is uncertain that it could block Hitler
2) this strengthened the Reichswehr (importance being overestimated),but also the Red Army,and,it happened during the Weimar Republic:it was all over in 1933
3)The claim of a strong China,usefull against the SU,is a myth(there was an other factor hindering the Chinese recovery :the War lords)
4)It was not the mission of Britain to enforce Versailles,this was the mission of France,and the claim that the LW was stronger than the French +British Air Force,is questionable
5)It was impossible for India to produce more steel :there are also problems of raw materials,factories,...And,why should India produce more steel? Who should buy that steel ? (in a period of depression) Who should pay the production ?
6) About the Speer myth:read "the Wages of Destruction"(by A.Tooze);Todt was doing a good job :he laid the foundations for the increase of the German armaments production,but,of course,Speer claimed it all was his work .
 
I forgot :about your point 4(that Baldwin was not rearming) :well,this is wrong :the British rearmament followed the German :
British defense budget :
1935-1936:137 million £
1936-1937:187 million £
1937-1938:266 million £
1938-1939 :400 million £
 
1) The alliance was imminent, and prevented only by direct orders from Stalin.
2) It strengthened the Red Army so much that Stalin murdered or arrestered most of the officers who had contact with the Germans in 1937 (30,000 officers, including the Tukhachevsky, probably the best strategist at the time in the world.) Strange way to strenghthen your army. The few surviving soviet military leaders did not have a clue about modern warfare in 1941, sothey certainly learned a ot from the Germans.
3) China was strengthened considerably by Germany, who assisted in building a railroad system, gun and ammunition factories, training officers, etc, Japan greatly weakened China by invading Taiwan and Manchuria, but specially in the 1937 offensive, in which Chiang had to stop a major offensive intended to unite the country (fighting warlords and communists) in order to fight Japan, losing the best part of his army in doing so (including almost all the officers trained by Germany). Had Japan provided help to Chiang, instead of attacking him in 1937, Chiang and Japan could have benefitted enormously from their cooperation. Instead, China was an endless drain of men and equipment for Japan and provided few benefits. As a single example of Japanese stupidity in China. Japan killed a quarter million Chinese peasants just in reprisal for helping a dozen of American pilots to escape after the Doolittle raid. Greaty affecting food production in that area.
As a victor and signatary it was definitely Britain's duty to enforce the Versaille treaty, together with Italy (who was obviously interested in not enforcing it), the US (who didn't give a damm until itwas too late), etc, What was the poit of imposing extremely harch measure that ruined the German economy and brought Hitler to power, if Hitler was allowed to ignore the rearming limitations.
5) It was not only possible but profitable and necessary for India to produce at least 20 times more Steel. India has huge reserves of iron ore (it produced steel and of better quality than Britain millenia before Britain did). Factories had also to be built in Australia obviously and potential demand and the need for employing were smaller than in India. It is neither logical nor humane to waste the cheapest labor in the Empire and the raw materials. Cheap steel would have allowed Britain to build cheap tanks, ships, trucks, guns, etc,
For lack of this steel and armament factories in India, there was not a single tank in Malaya-Singapore and very few pieces of field artillery, antitank guns, etc, and only obsolete Buffaloes and biplanes when the Japanese took it with 200 toy tanks and aricraft carrier planes and with bombers flying all the way from Indichina. When the Japs attacked the British territories, there were only aging ships in the east fleet, so Churchill had to send the Prince of Wales and repulse, which were promptly sunk for lack of air cover. Does it make more sense to buy inferior armament from the US in 1939, 40 and 41 made with expensive labor and shipped all the way to Singapore, India, Egypt, etc, (Brewster Buffaloes, Lee tanks, P-40s, etc,) and paying cash before Lend -Lease is implemented than to employ millions of starving people producing ramament in 1938, 39, 40 and 41?
In the werstern hemisphere we tend to regard India as backward and ignorant, practically useless in the first part of the 20th century. The fact is that Agbar the great was using breech loaded steel cannon mounted on armoured elephants (tanks) centuries before Napoleon or Robert E. Lee used primitive muzzle loaded bronze cannon with limited mobility and range. India has a tremendous potential that was wasted by the British, who saw it mostly as a source of cannon fodder.
6) Other than the Autobahn, Göring and Todt could not have done a worse job in production. In 1938, 39, 40 and up to June 22 in 1941, Germany had resources from the USSR (on credit) and was practically not bombed, yet produced laughable amounts. For example in 1940 only a ridiculous 212 Stukas were produced by the mighty Reich, a fraction of those lost that year, so that the huge USSR was invaded in a 3,000 km front with many fewer Stukas than tiny France. A hopeless way to fight a war. The same is true with 88 and 105 mm cannon, trucks, tanks, Ju-88s, Bf-109s, etc,
 
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7) The results of the purges are much exagerated,and,your panegeric of Tuchatsjevski is questionable
8)the Maginot Line:is hindsight and questionable :when the decision was taken to build the ML(end 1929),there were no dive bombers,anti tank guns and P 36.
9) The Anschluss and Munchen :morally,Britain and France had no point :had the SudetenGermans the right to secede,yes or no ? The only way to prevent them to secede was a general war .If they seceded,would that be bad for Britain ,yes or no ?
10)There was no offer from Stalin to constitute an alliance against Hitler,because,such alliance was impossible due to the Polish refusal to collaborate with Stalin ,and,why should Stalin offer an alliance ? Btw:the Molotov -Ribbentrop pact had nothing to do with the "refusal" of Chamberlain for an alliance with Stalin .
11) is nonsens,Stalin wanted no war with Britain,and,there were no French forces in Iraq/Iran
12) is blahblah:The Far East never was stripped of troops,and,besides,Japan did sign (in april 1941) a non agression pact with the SU,because,it had other problems :the embargo by the US.Japan would have been stupid to attack the SU in 1941
13) is ignoring the following :Britain was willing to let Germany dominate Europe east of the Rhine,as long as it happened peacefully ,but Britain could not look the other side if there was a big war in Europe .
 
I am getting tired of giving basic information, please check before objecting.
Baldwin was prime minister 1935-37 and also 24-29 and once before and he was always opposed to arming.
Churchill had to lead alone a constant campaign for many years arguing against Baldwin and successfully increasing the military budget, had it not been for him Britain would have been in even worse shape in 1939.
 
The Sudetendeutsche have no more the right to secede than the Volgadeutsche, Danzigdeutsche, Wisconsindeutsche or Argentiniendeutsche.
Any growth of a very aggressive nation thereatens Britain and emboldens Hitler.
The strong Czech industry was instrumental in the German invasions and allowing Hitler to take it without a fight led to WW II starting in much better conditions for Germany than if France, Britain, Poland and Czechoslovakia had fought him in 1939.
 
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about point one :an alliance between socialists and communists to stop Hitler :this was the last thing Stalin would do .
1)there was no reason to prevent Hitler from taking power ,because,Hitler would eliminate the socialists,Hitler would fail to resolve the economic crisis(a communist dogma),and Hitler would be replaced by the communists.
2)there was no difference (for a communist) between Hitler and the capitalists:they both were enemies,and,you can do business with your enemies,but,the socialists were much more dangerous,they were concurrents,who were fishing in the same lake:if the socialists won votes at the election,this was at the cost of the communists.
You can compare this with the attitude of the catholic church during the reformation :Rome could do (and did) business with the Islam,but not with the protestants,if these became stronger,Rome became weaker .It was the same with socialists and communists:both claimed the title of the saviour of the working class,cooperation was impossible .
Besides,if Hitler was stopped,democracy (the Weimar Republic) was saved.Was the rescue of a democratic capitalist state a good thing for communism ?
 
Had the communists and Socialists excluded Hitler, the already strong communists would have gained considerable strength. Strengthening Hitler who had publicly stated his definite intention to eliminate communism and invade the USSR doomed the hundreds of thousands of German communists and ensured the invasion of the USSR. It's difficult to be more stupid. But if you insist on arguing nonsense, OK.
 
The Sudetendeutsche have no more the right to secede than the Volgadeutsche, Danzigdeutsche, Wisconsindeutsche or Argentiniendeutsche.
Any growth of a very aggressive nation thereatens Britain and emboldens Hitler.
The strong Czech industry was instrumental in the German invasions and allowing Hitler to take it without a fight lead to WW II starting in much better conditions for Germany than if France, Britain, Poland and Czechoslovakia had fought him in 1939.
Well,people in the thirties differed :they were thinking that the Sudeten had a right to secede (the selfdetermination of the peoples as stated at ....Versailles),as the people of Ireland,as the Baltics,as Finland ,as the people of the Alsace,of Slowakia,Croatia,as the inhabitants of the British colonies in 1776.To deny the Sudeten the right to secede,is to deny democracy .
Besides,it was not a British problem :Britain did not care about the Sudeten .
And,about the strong Czech industry:it was not instrumental .Besides,at Munich,Germany did NOT acquire the Czech industry,this was only in 1939.
 
I am getting tired of giving basic information, please check before objecting.
Baldwin was prime minister 1935-37 and also 24-29 and once before and he was always opposed to arming.
Churchill had to lead alone a constant campaign for many years arguing against Baldwin and successfully increasing the military budget, had it not been for him Britain would have been in even worse shape in 1939.
And,I am getting tired to answer posts with a History Channel level .Between 1935 and 1937,Baldwin was PM and Britain was rearming .Or are you disputing my figures ?
Between 1924 and 1929,Baldwin was PM and Britain was of course not rearming.Why should it ?
And,of course you are ignoring/concealing this,between 1924 and 1929,the chancellor of the exchequer,and the man who was paring down the military budget(less taxes =winning votes) was Churchill.Thus,again you are posting nonsens :Churchill did not increase the military budget.Never heard of the ten years rule ? Of course,not .
 
In 35-37 your figures are despite Baldwin, not thanks to him (thanks to Churchill). However, those figures are ridiculous when you consider the size, industry and resources of the British Empire and the fact that rearming was a good way to defeat depression, as demosntarted by Japan, Germany, Italy, etc,

For a quick but very informative view at Baldwin read the article about him in Wiki. Not only as PM, he held important positions between his PMships and always opposed arming and Churchill, the only British leader who understood Hitler and Stalin.

Nothing illustrates the British complete lack of preparation than the fact that poor, small, backward Japan had a much more modern navy than Britain (although the British had trained the Japanese navy only decades before), although Japan was not threatened by any country and Britain was. Japan had monoplanes in its carriers years before the British did. The British used the Swordfish throughout the war. Only Britain would think of building an excellent, very expensive carrier like the Illustrous that survived six 500 km bombs and still arrived in Malta to take more hits and survive and equipping it with cheap biplane torpedo bombers.
 
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Prove it,that it was thanks to Churchill,who had no official post .
These are the official figures of British military spending ,first column :military spending,second one:GDP(in millions of pounds)
1930 :118.6 4,6OO
1931:116,9 4,300
1932:112,9 4,200
1933:110,9 4,300
1934:116,3 4,500
1935:121,9 4,700
1936 :145,5 5,000
1937:195,2 5,300
1938:205,9 5,500
1939:266,2 5,900
 
Prove it,that it was thanks to Churchill,who had no official post .
These are the official figures of British military spending ,first column :military spending,second one:GDP(in millions of pounds)
1930 :118.6 4,6OO
1931:116,9 4,300
1932:112,9 4,200
1933:110,9 4,300
1934:116,3 4,500
1935:121,9 4,700
1936 :145,5 5,000
1937:195,2 5,300
1938:205,9 5,500
1939:266,2 5,900

I am, overall, a Churchill fan, but in this case I'll use his own quote -
I do not believe there is the slightest chance of it in our lifetime. As Chancellor of the Exchequar (1924-29), dismissing the idea of a war with Japan and cutting defense spending to pay for social programs.
 
I am, overall, a Churchill fan, but in this case I'll use his own quote -
I do not believe there is the slightest chance of it in our lifetime. As Chancellor of the Exchequar (1924-29), dismissing the idea of a war with Japan and cutting defense spending to pay for social programs.
'24-29 was the Roaring 20s, the world was in an economic boom & there really wasn't any threat on the horizon. It was only after the economic collapse of '29-30 that totalitarian govts came into power & the threat of War emerged as a real possibility.
 
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