Dowding's Costly Blunder in the Battle of France

Mary Seacole did as much work out there as Florence Nightingale but did not have the push that Florence had. Still Mary became a firm friend of Queen Victoria
 
It seems that Mary did more, she used all her own resources for years and went bankrupt. At least the people she helped were grateful and continued gathering funds to help her for year.
 
samneanderthal said:
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,
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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.

Britain also used the press much more efficiently than Argentina, giving the impression of even-handedness, truthfulness, even humbleness in advancing its claims, when in reality the military manipulated the few reporters assigned to the fleet by feeding them exaggerated but believable reports about the large numbers of British troops, ships, and planes being sent to the South Atlantic. While the Argentine press releases were discredited almost from the first day of the campaign, Britain's official government press office was regarded by most westerners as the only news source that was even partially veracious. In other words, Britain won the psychological war, and by doing so, gave an enormous boost to its military position. As the war progressed, even Argentina began believing British claims. This was, of course, precisely what Britain intended.

The sinking of the Argentine ship General Belgrano not only removed from the seas Argentina's most powerful warship, but also effectively marked the end of the naval war in the Falklands; thereafter, Argentina kept its ships within sighting distance of the mainland.

Argentina seemed to have a large advantage in air power at the beginning of the conflict, but never was able to use its large numbers of fighter-bombers to establish control of the air space over the Falklands. Instead, twenty British Sea Harriers flying round the clock effectively knocked the Argentine Air Force out of the sky in the first two weeks of the shooting war. The slower Harriers showed an uncanny ability to outmanoeuvre the faster but clumsier Skyhawks and Mirages, shooting down the Argentine planes in an astonishing ratio of about fifteen British kills for every one for Argentina.

The Argentine Air Force demonstrated immense bravery and tenacity in attacking the British fleet, which was bottled up in Falkland Sound with no room to manoeuver. But its best efforts were thwarted by a high number of dud bombs, including six that actually hit British ships, by the myriad of antiaircraft missiles thrown at the attacking Argentine jets, and by the short amount of combat time (2-10 minutes) that each Argentine plane actually had over the target areas. Essentially, each Argentine aircraft had to line up over the combat zone, quickly dump its bombs and missiles, perhaps turn around once for a strafing run, and then head back to home base, or run the risk of running out of fuel. This left the Argentine craft at an enormous disadvantage in pursuing the Sea Harriers, in picking better targets, in avoiding missiles. In the end, Argentina lost perhaps one-half to two-thirds of its serviceable combat planes, depending on which claims one chooses to believe; more importantly, the Argentines lost a large percentage of its trained fighter pilots, a resource that will be far more difficult to replace than the aircraft themselves.

On land Argentina fared little better. Brigadier General Menendez, who had spoken out against the original Argentine invasion, was simply the wrong man to be defending the Argentine beachhead. He consistently showed himself incapable of making the simplest military judgements. His strategy, his placement of troops, his supply lines, his responses to British actions, all demonstrated woeful military incompetence. Paradoxically, President Galtieri recognised Menendez's deficiencies on his only visit to the islands, but refused to replace him, on the grounds his removal might demoralise the Argentine populace and soldiery.

The British forces were allowed to land at San Carlos Bay virtually unopposed. Argentine troops at Goose Green were reinforced by Menendez, but provided with no further support when they most needed it. Once Goose Green fell, Menendez seemed to pursue a persistent policy of retreat, falling back from entrenched positions at the least sign of pressure from the advancing British. As a result, he soon found himself besieged at Puerto Argentino / Port Stanley, encircled by land and cut off by sea, with no air support whatsoever. At the end, his soldiers broke and ran before the final British attack.

Contributing to the Argentine defeat on land was the dichotomy between the Argentine enlisted men and their elitist officers, many of whom never moved from their relatively plus surroundings in Port Stanley, while the men in the trenches were struggling to find something hot to eat and something warm to wear. A number of the intermediate officers abandoned their units under British military pressure, leaving them in charge of their sergeants or corporals. The vast gap between the privileged officer class and the poorly trained conscripts that comprised much of the Argentine army resulted in a demoralisation of the forces in the field, and a tendency for them to crumble before the relentless British onslaughts.

Contributing to this was Argentina's poor supply chain: while goods and war materiel piled-up in Port Stanley, the soldier in the field received less and less in food, clothes, and weaponry as the war progressed. He felt abandoned by his own people, and consequently did not fight as well as he could have fought, had he been properly maintained and directed. The fault for the military debacle must lie directly with the heads of the Argentine armed services.

Argentina made a very poor showing indeed: with better officers, better supply lines, with more aggressive tactics, Argentina could have at least fought the British to a standstill, and perhaps driven them off the beaches at Port San Carlos. But they did not
 
42RM, Its all wasted on the little twonk.

But to keep on track, Dowding was spot on with his handling of the Battle of Britain.
 
BritinAfrica said:
42RM, Its all wasted on the little twonk.
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Yes, but his distorted version must not be allowed to stand alone.

BritinAfrica said:
But to keep on track, Dowding was spot on with his handling of the Battle of Britain.
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Agree.
It was "Stuffy" Dowding who created Fighter Command from the ground up from 1936 to 1940. It was Dowding who created the Dowding System of the radar early warning defence against incoming hostile aircraft--the system which is still effectively in use today throughout the world. It was Dowding who laid down the master plan and the strategic principles which were the secret of the successful defensive actions called 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.
 
samneanderthal said:
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.
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Ok here is an attempt to change direction, did anyone do anything right in your opinion?

So far you seem determined that the German, British, Italian, Russian, French Command were wrong on pretty much everything, further to that Churchill, Hitler and Stalin were wrong so how about this for a change of pace who was right?
 
Hi MontyB,
There were plenty of excellent leaders: Mannerheim and many Finnish generals, the Greeks, dozens of German field marshals and generals (Manstein, Guderian, Rommel, Hoepner, Hoth, List, Leeb, Richthoffen, Gallant, etc,), O´Connor, Slim, several Poles (one closed the Falaise pocket for Monty), Bradley, Stillwell (the brightest American general who was given the least resources and stuck under Chiang and Mountbatten), Sprague, Spruance, Niemitz, Rokossovski, Pokrishkin, etc,
They all made mistakes but were much more often right than wrong.
 
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samneanderthal said:
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), .
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You talk so much crap its unbelievable. Under Stillwell the Chindits suffered more casulties after Wingate was killed. Stillwell had no idea of the conditions that the Chindits had to fight in, he also had the habit of crediting Chindit successes to his Chinese troops.

Stilwell insisted that the Chindits capture several well-defended Japanese positions. The Chindits had no support from tanks or artillery and this led to heavier casualties than before. Some have considered these operations to be abuse. Chindits were badly misused by U.S. General “Vinegar Joe” Stilwell (who hated the British and in turn, has come to be reviled by the British; one English documentary of late continues this, referring to him as an “unsavory character”). The surviving Chindits, wracked by disease, malnutrition and atrocious losses, were only evacuated by executive order weeks later.

When US General Joseph Stilwell began to use the Chindits as assault infantry at Moguang – a role for which they were ill-suited – a more forceful commander could have stood against Stilwell and prevented needless bloodshed. Of the 5,000 casualties endured by the Chindits during the second expedition, 3,800 had become so under Stillwell.

Calvert against Stilwells orders pulled what remaining troops out

Stilwell was recalled by President Roosevelt.
 
The hole situation in the eastern theater was absurd. Mountbatten, a handsome, aristocratic retard who conceived the iceberg aircraft carrier, pink ship camouflage, Dieppe, etc, Was simultaneously above and below Stillwell. In this British Alice in Wonderland nightmare, Stillwell who insisted on mounting a major offensive to liberate Burma (as Churchill had promised Roosevelt) was consistently denied the resources to attack and had to train a Chinese division and had to waste years and thousands of troops and billiions of dollars building the most expensive and useless road in history, the Burma road, which took so long to build that it was not needed when it was finished.
It is indeed a shame when the British empire with millions of Indians and Billions of dollars of American equipment has to rexsort to guerrilla tactics (Chindits, which were made possible only by extremely costly American air supply)
Had Roosevelt ignored Churchill and instead of extracting an empty promise to liberate Burma ASAP, sent Stillwell half the American suppplies sent to Monty simply to stop Rommel (instead of wiping him out). Burma would have fallen in 1942 and China would have been supplied through Rangoon. By the way the British geniuses left 800,000 tons of AMerican supplies destined for China in the docks of Rangoon that the Japanese appreciated very much. It didn't occur to them to burn them, dump them in the sea, etc,. Great allies.
The US had to spend a fortune supplying China over the Hump for years, courtesy of Churchill.
 
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It is obvious that Sam also is a psychiatrist,because he KNOWS (how ?No body knows,but,Sam's ways are inscrutable)that Mointbatten was a retard .
 
it is spelled nonsense

Stilwell also had to deal with the surreal situation in China. Roosevelt was sending Chiang billions in L-L materiel but Chiang was hording it. He was affraid that his generals would use it to fight against him.
The massive autumn Japanese offensive destroyed the very expensive airfields America had built for the B-29s and an American officer had to blow up whole warehouses full of cannon, ammunition, etc, to prevent the Japs from capturing it.
Like I said, had Stillwell received the equipment given to Monty and Chiang, he would have kicked the Japs out of Asia. Chiang's recruits starved by the hundreds of thousands and would have been very glad to fight for the US for rice. Britain also let. Britain let millions of Indian civilians starve, when Japan took over Burma, the main rice exporter in the world. There was enough grain, but British bureaucracy did not distribute it. It was only interested in recruiting Indians, not in feeding them.
 
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1)Prove that Stillwell could expell the Japanese out of Asia (Btw:where would they go? IMHO,Japan is a part of Asia)
2)Prove that there was enough grain,but that the British refused to give it to the Indians
 
Its obvious that numbnut has never been in jungle conditions, and doesn't have a clue as usual what he's talking about. Have you ever even tried moving regimental size formations through thick jungle that can take a week to move half a mile?

Oh by the way neantherdal, you spelled Falklands wrong. you need to get your own act in order before criticising others.

Where is your checkable proof that Mountbatten was a retard you silly little man.

Its quite obvious that neanderthal is a Anglophobe and refuses to credit British commanders with any skill whatsoever.

I have one wish for him however, "May you live in interesting times."
 
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.
 
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samneanderthal said:
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.
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Pardon me, but I seem to recall another post in some thread where you kind off dismissed the Aircobra off as being almost airworthy on pair with an acordion in a dogfight....?
 
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 ground support, even at long range.
 
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samneanderthal said:
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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But still, I remember you dismissed most Soviet fighters as utter rubbish, given the fact that the Finnish air force was ablo to score heavy numbers with their obsolete fighters.
If the Aircobra was only marginally better than a Polikarpov I-15 there would be no sense in sending them to the Burma theatre either...
 
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