What If Germany As Won In Russia?

[jimbotosome]

I have heard it often argued by many that if Stalingrad had fallen then Russia would have fallen. I don't really buy this. The Russians would not have simply rolled over. Would Britain give up if London had fallen? Of course they wouldn't have, that's a ridiculous argument. Germany bombed the ying-yang out of London but all it did was fill the Brits with more and more resolve. I am convinced personally that the one and only reason Germany lost in Russia is because of the cold. The fact that the German tanks and artillery barrels cracked from the cold and that their equipment was always freezing to where they were effectively disarmed, cut off from supplies in one of the coldest winters ever.

But I now think Germany was done for when they invaded Poland. The rest seems to become academic. There is no way the US could have stayed out forever and when the American and British Air Forces linked up, then no matter what Hitler had done, or what battles they had won or how they had used this equipment or that equipment, it was a done deal.

I personally believe Rommel was the best general of the entire war, strategically, tactically and in character but he won his last battle at Kassarine Pass against US troops. Let's face it. Neither Britain nor America were really ready for a major war and Germany being a warring nation was and had prepared for eight years. Rommel drove the British across Africa and was ready to put them away until the air started changing the equation. Suddenly it was Rommel on the run from the British. Air power destroyed not only the strength of Rommel's armor but also his supply. If you had taken the entire German Army and Luftwaffe in the Eastern front, these two nation's air power would have still quickly destroyed it just as they did in France. The number of tanks, trucks and supply the RAF and USAAF would have destroyed is not limited. It is simply as much as the Germans could have mustered. It might have taken an extra six months if all the army’s and equipment on the eastern front was moved to the western front.

The German's had the British knocked down on the canvas in their conquering of France. If there had been a chance at all it would have been their. Their inability to defeat the British in the Battle of Britain meant the end of the entire empire even though it did seem that way. The Luftwaffe had enough trouble facing the RAF alone, to add in the USAAF, its “game over”. The entire war with Russia had a negligible effect on WWII.

[adamcotton]

Hitler failed to heed the experience of Napoleon, who also lost to Russia - or more accurately, the severity of the Russian winter - in 1812!

[Gotthard Heinrici]

(jimbotosome @ Nov 30 2005, 03:07 AM) [post=42288]I personally believe Rommel was the best general of the entire war, strategically, tactically and in character but he won his last battle at Kassarine Pass against US troops. Let's face it. Neither Britain nor America were really ready for a major war and Germany being a warring nation was and had prepared for eight years. Rommel drove the British across Africa and was ready to put them away until the air started changing the equation. Suddenly it was Rommel on the run from the British. Air power destroyed not only the strength of Rommel's armor but also his supply. If you had taken the entire German Army and Luftwaffe in the Eastern front, these two nation's air power would have still quickly destroyed it just as they did in France. The number of tanks, trucks and supply the RAF and USAAF would have destroyed is not limited. It is simply as much as the Germans could have mustered. It might have taken an extra six months if all the army’s and equipment on the eastern front was moved to the western front.

The German's had the British knocked down on the canvas in their conquering of France. If there had been a chance at all it would have been their. Their inability to defeat the British in the Battle of Britain meant the end of the entire empire even though it did seem that way. The Luftwaffe had enough trouble facing the RAF alone, to add in the USAAF, its “game over”. The entire war with Russia had a negligible effect on WWII.
[/b]

I cannot believe what you are saying Jimbo. Now I am be taking you up wrong but are you saying that the entire war with Russian had no effect on WWII??????

If that is what you said then you really should start reading about WWII now!!! First of all, compared to Barbarossa and the casualties inflicted there, the entire North African Campaign was a sideshow. The bombing offensive against the Reich was not succeeding until mid to late 1944 and only then because the synthetic oil plants were systematically destroyed. German production figures actually INCREASED in 1943 and 1944 in the face of massive bombing of german cities.

And as for the assertion that Germany had been preparing for 8 years well the leadership might have been but they were ill prepared in terms of weaponry, other than the Luftwaffe. By the way, the US and British Bomber offensives might have had a small problem in that the entire Luftwaffe fighter arm would have been waiting for them given that there was no Russian Campaign. You have this assertion as the Bomber barons did that with a concerted effort , strategic bombing could bring Germany to its knees. It didnt happen in WW2, it didnt happen in Vietnam, at no time has Heavy Strategic Bombing decisively won a war. and in order to utilise Tactical Air Power you need a foothold in France otherwise that will fail as the Battle of Britain failed.

Dont be fooled, the Germans lost the war BECAUSE they invaded Russia. If the Wehrmacht did not invade Russia then there would have been an extra 120 divisions PLUS 3 extra Luftflotte to face the Allies and Normandy would have been a massacre. The Wehrmacht was bled dry on the Eastern Front.

[Kiwiwriter]

(jimbotosome @ Nov 29 2005, 10:07 PM) [post=42288]
I personally believe Rommel was the best general of the entire war, strategically, tactically and in character but he won his last battle at Kassarine Pass against US troops. Let's face it. Neither Britain nor America were really ready for a major war and Germany being a warring nation was and had prepared for eight years. Rommel drove the British across Africa and was ready to put them away until the air started changing the equation. Suddenly it was Rommel on the run from the British. Air power destroyed not only the strength of Rommel's armor but also his supply. If you had taken the entire German Army and Luftwaffe in the Eastern front, these two nation's air power would have still quickly destroyed it just as they did in France. The number of tanks, trucks and supply the RAF and USAAF would have destroyed is not limited. It is simply as much as the Germans could have mustered. It might have taken an extra six months if all the army’s and equipment on the eastern front was moved to the western front.

[/b]

Rommel had great tactical flair and grasp of mobility and movement, was superb at handling men and building morale, but he lacked strategic grasp (as seen by plunging into Egypt after Gazala) and did not handle logistics well, either (also seen at Crusader and the plunge into Egypt). That being said, he remains one of the great generals of that time, and all time.

[jimbotosome]

(Kiwiwriter @ Nov 30 2005, 10:25 AM) [post=42315]Rommel had great tactical flair and grasp of mobility and movement, was superb at handling men and building morale, but he lacked strategic grasp (as seen by plunging into Egypt after Gazala) and did not handle logistics well, either (also seen at Crusader and the plunge into Egypt). That being said, he remains one of the great generals of that time, and all time.
[/b]

You know Kiwi, I have always thought Bradley was the best. He seemed to be one of the few that had a throttle on his ego and had deep concern about his men. I sincerely believe he was also a fantastic tactician as Ike said about him, but after reading the Rommel Papers, I believe he would be hard to top even for generals like Brad.

[jimbotosome]

(Gotthard Heinrici @ Nov 30 2005, 05:39 AM) [post=42300]
I cannot believe what you are saying Jimbo. Now I am be taking you up wrong but are you saying that the entire war with Russian had no effect on WWII??????

If that is what you said then you really should start reading about WWII now!!! First of all, compared to Barbarossa and the casualties inflicted there, the entire North African Campaign was a sideshow. The bombing offensive against the Reich was not succeeding until mid to late 1944 and only then because the synthetic oil plants were systematically destroyed. German production figures actually INCREASED in 1943 and 1944 in the face of massive bombing of german cities.

And as for the assertion that Germany had been preparing for 8 years well the leadership might have been but they were ill prepared in terms of weaponry, other than the Luftwaffe. By the way, the US and British Bomber offensives might have had a small problem in that the entire Luftwaffe fighter arm would have been waiting for them given that there was no Russian Campaign. You have this assertion as the Bomber barons did that with a concerted effort , strategic bombing could bring Germany to its knees. It didnt happen in WW2, it didnt happen in Vietnam, at no time has Heavy Strategic Bombing decisively won a war. and in order to utilise Tactical Air Power you need a foothold in France otherwise that will fail as the Battle of Britain failed.

Dont be fooled, the Germans lost the war BECAUSE they invaded Russia. If the Wehrmacht did not invade Russia then there would have been an extra 120 divisions PLUS 3 extra Luftflotte to face the Allies and Normandy would have been a massacre. The Wehrmacht was bled dry on the Eastern Front.
[/b]

Now don’t start putting keypresses on my keyboard, I never said it had no effect, I said it made no difference to the outcome. You sound like a tank-o-file.

What’s a Tank?
The tank in WWII was of no consequence to the outcome of the war. This is illustrated by the fact that Germany had so much more effective tanks than did the Allies. Germany could not send its entire forces into Africa and let the Allies waltz into Berlin and take over. Germany was more concerned with Germany than Egypt. It is my belief that the Eastern Front kept the US out of the war. FDR would have had to have found a way to intervene if he didn’t think he had time when Hitler got preoccupied with Russia. Then the bombing would have simply started sooner and more emphasis would have been placed on aircraft production in the US. In addition, much of the production would not have been wasted on the Russians who ran their tanks at German tanks like idiots. The US Army (and the Brits to a degree) were green and inexperienced in modern warfare. The Russians were just human disregarding idiots.

Skeet Shooting.
Luftwaffe targeting really didn’t get cranked up until “Big Week” which virtually erased them. Had it have started in 1942, the Luftwaffe would not have lasted so long. Germany’s tactical air sucked. The Stuka might as well have been a Cessna Skyhawk since it was completely incapable of protecting itself. This is why they disappeared quickly even when it was only the RAF patrolling. They should have called it the “Skeet” instead. Imagine turning tactical air (P-47s and Typhoons) loose on the German airfields in 1942, or rolling flocks of say 25 B-17or B-24 bombers over each Luftwaffe air field. It would have destroyed their entire inventory of aircraft at each air field, flak guns, fuel, men, etc, on a single pass. The Luftwaffe would have been gone in the middle of 1943. The African campaign was actually a distraction to the air campaign of the Allies. It ironically kept the Luftwaffe in France alive for a while but it devastated the Africa Korps.

Too Much Trust in Historians and Not Enough Scrutiny
The gross under-scoping of tactical air is why history has such an unfounded fascination with tanks. To tank-o-file historians (most of them) tanks are steel killing monsters to be terrified of but in “real history” (that which most historians know little about) tanks were large steel boxes in which would later be salvaged for their steel after the crew inside that had burned to death were extracted and buried. These were usually seen following an unexpected explosion that killed all the infantry and equipment beside it followed by the sound of a plane doing a barrel row back into a climb to restart the process. To say you could bring up more heavy tanks to the ETO/MTO/ATO so that their crews too could be burned alive, does not change the outcome of the war. I think that what you don’t truly appreciate is just how incredibly vulnerable to a tank is to a patrolling fighter/bomber. It is MORE vulnerable than a man is to a tank because a tank has no way to stop the plane from destroying it, and even if it is hidden, someone is eventually going to see it and radio its position in to the fighter/bombers. So this would even less logical than saying that the Germans could have brought more foot soldiers with KAR98s to take on Shermans loaded with HE rounds after their armor was gone. It might take the Shermans a little longer to slaughter all the additional soldiers but it would NOT change the result. That's what I mean by saying it would simply be academic. That is the history of WWII.

Kein Blitzkrieg?
Even if you had wiped out the British and Americans in Africa, you still would not have stopped the forces that invaded Normandy and ran across it like the Germans had left it on D-Day. Hitler agreed with Rommel in 1943 that the war was lost. Rommel knew that air supremacy had stopped forever the “German Blitzkrieg” because without Germany's tactical air of, we would never have heard of such a phenomenon. Rommel had an air advantage when he drove Monty across North Africa to Egypt. The opposite was true when Monty returned him the favor. If the RAF erased the Luftwaffe in North Africa, then imagine what would have happened if Hitler would have sent the remaining Luftwaffe there and the US had entered the war.

Strategic Air, the Fastest Way?
There is a chance to debate whether an emphasis on strategic air was the best one, I personally think it was not the most optimum but it was effective so it didn’t necessitate finding an alternative. If you had instead taken the strategic bombers and bombed the German lines, there is no number of workers that could have kept up with the demand for replacement tanks, nor enough citizens to replace the soldiers killed by this form of absolute domination. They simply could not have produced 1000s of pieces of equipment and 10s of thousands of men each week. Even if you had simply used tactical fighter/bombers instead of strategic bombers, then you could still make the argument that it would have outpaced their industry capabilities and resources to maintain such an enormous output, much less have any men left in the country to replace the millions and millions that would have died on the single front. He who rules the sky, rules every aspect of war. Imagine bringing the B-29s over from the Pacific and letting them have their way of the Panzer divisions and poor exposed "soon to meet their maker" Tigers that would sit below their bomb bay doors. God what a massacre that would be! The only general I have read that ever admitted/emphasized this was Rommel. Rommel told his boy Manfred in 1943 that the US and Russia would defeat Germany and someday be at war with each other. He told him that the US would win. His boy claimed that Russia had better armor than Germany how could the US beat them? He responded to his boy “We had better armor than the US”. I can think of no other statement so apropos.

A foothold in France?
Your comment about needing a foothold in France to use tactical air is not even close to being true. Go look at the mind boggling numbers of tactical air annihilations that took place before the first tactical air field was placed in France. Perhaps Angie can correct or back me up on this but I don't think the first tactical wing was even located in France until at least after Cherbourg was conquered. Heck starting D-Day, 50% of the Panzer Lahr division in a dire hurry to get to the beaches and destroy the Allies on those beaches was destroyed itself in 80 hours as well as the other 50% were delayed in moving 12 hours worth of distance (according to Rommel). That was just from a portion of US Ninth TAC. The RAF were doing pretty much the same to the German tank divisions around Caen, they simply had more to kill. It was a shooting gallery. Imagine when they got the first TAC air fields into France. That's when Patton took off like a scalded dog across Normany. Monty had to wait a little longer for his RAF to erase all the German armor in front of him. It was simply numbers, the tactics with the Brits were virtually the same. I believe with sincerity that the reason the British front moved so much slower was due to the ratio of TAC to armor. The US had an advantage on both of those numbers (facing less armor and had more TAC air) and Patton used it to become a hero blasting across France as fast as a Sherman could run in open country.

El-Numero Uno!
I sincerely believe that THE NUMBER ONE most disparately errant and under-scoped statistic in WWII was the number of German tanks actually destroyed by ground forces, other tanks and artillery on the ETO/MTO and ATO. Most historians are virtually clueless though you begin to see it clearly when you “read-between-the-line”. The PR typically goes to what they, by tradition or otherwise, decide to emphasis. You have too look for yourself to see the reality behind their rhetoric.

Vietnam?
Vietnam air dominance was limited by politics and politics alone. Had the US have not been afraid of an escalating conflict in Vietnam and Korea, these would have been EXTREMELY short conflicts with MASSIVE enemy casualties. I would encourage you to go read about these conflicts. There was BOTH tactical and strategic dominance in these conflicts. Much as today, the biggest risk to US soldiers is the country's affinity to playing politics with soldier’s lives.

[Kiwiwriter]

(jimbotosome @ Nov 30 2005, 03:25 PM) [post=42323]

You know Kiwi, I have always thought Bradley was the best. He seemed to be one of the few that had a throttle on his ego and had deep concern about his men. I sincerely believe he was also a fantastic tactician as Ike said about him, but after reading the Rommel Papers, I believe he would be hard to top even for generals like Brad.
[/b]

Bradley also gets higher marks than he deserves, mostly because of Karl Malden's Oscar-winning portrayal of him in "Patton," where he is the real hero.

Bradley had many fine qualities, logistics being one of them. However, he was less tolerant of subordinates than Patton was (as opposed to the movie) and quicker to fire them. More importantly, he lacked a firm grip on his battles, waffling indecisively at Falaise and sulking in his headquarters in Luxembourg during the Bulge, more concerned about his battles with Monty and Patton than with the situation at the front. If he made more of an effort to address the crisis in the early days of the Ardennes Offensive, he probably would not have had half of his command temporarily taken from him. His dislike of the British also made him turn down their offer of specialized tanks for D-Day, which probably made the mess at Omaha worse.

The "GI General" reputation came from an Ernie Pyle column, and that stuck all the way through the movie, but there's no indication it was actually deserved. He was not revered, admired, or even hated by the men he led.

That being said, I agree with Maj. Kenneth Macksey's assessment: "He exhibited the qualifications needed for high command, planned shrewdly, executed those plans with determination, and...pressed every advantage. However, only rarely was his command forced into precipitate difficulties: unlimited resources were at his disposal -- he was neither in a position to lose the war nor the peace until the German Ardennes Offensive caught him as far off balance as it caught eveyr other senior Allied leader. This was Bradley's most testing our, when the difficulties of re-knitting a torn frotn had to be reconciled with the pressures exerted by the conflicting demands of those surrounding him with a plethora of advice. Thereafter his exploitation of every opportunity during the final invasion of Germany showed him as the sound soldier he undoubtedly was."

[jimbotosome]

Kiwi,

I didn't rate my impression of Bradley on the Patton movie. I am not that shallow. I have read one of his books and about to read another. I found him very reserved and humble which was extremely rare for a general on the Allied side (maybe he was the one and only). The US was forced to be "over-sensitive" to the British. Not only were the officers "officially" forbidden to criticize the British, but also the French and any other ally in WWII. It was a directive that was handed down during TORCH being promised if they did it, they would immediately be busted down to their permanent rank and shipped stateside.

They only thing I remember Bradley resenting about the British was the exaggerated favor that Ike gave them being afraid to appear "biased" toward his own countrymen like Monty was to his. Ike believed that it was better to offend his own as he had the ability to win back trust from them. For instance Bradley told Ike that Market Garden was far to risky to even be considered, but Ike agreed but gave in to Monty because he didn't want to "upset the apple cart" and said "besides, what if it does work?".

Yes, I know Malden's character in Patton is full of crap, so is Scott's. Bradley in his own writings had a terrific relationship with Patton and a lot of respect for him. Patton was very popular with other officers, peers and superior but everyone knew he had "foot-in-mouth" disease and always said, "that's just Georgie!".

But your comment on the "indecision" of the Falaise gap is a gross error. I would "hang fire" on continuing to spread that false rhetoric because Ike in his autobiography made it clear in "no uncertain terms" that the agreement with Monty was absolute and that the Americans would stop at the road to "Argentan" for fear of getting into each others sector, and hitting each other with their own artillery, so they agreed they would meet there at that marker (the road itself) and neither would encroach the other. Bradley had no choice whatsoever. Why people say otherwise is astonishing to me. This was agreed on before the operation and Monty said he could pull off his end of the deal no problem and even boasted about it. Bradley was "royally" pissed that he had to pull the plug on Patton as he knew it offered the Germans an exit from the pocket. Patton begged Ike to let him push on but Ike said Monty kept promising to get it closed. I believe I read where Monty even claimed responsibility saying he had underestimated the ability of the Canadians to achieve the Falaise objective. It’s a travesty to put that one on Bradley. That’s adding insult to injury.

But you also seem to indicate his struggles with Monty were because he didn't like British. Actually had tremendous respect for Tedder and be believed he was one of the best Generals in the war. I don't find bigotry in Bradley at all. His disdain for Monty was not the same as a disdain for the British. He knew that Monty would try to do the same thing in Europe that did in Sicily and North Africa, which was to insist he be given "control" all armies and make sure his armies got there first. This is something no general would accept. Imagine if he had done the same thing to Monty. Do you think Monty would have been seen as "pro-American" in his responses to that? Since the Americans first entered WWII, Bradley saw Monty as wanting to "use" them and take all the glory to the British. This caused real problems in North Africa especially at the end where Monty wanted the US to be his troops "reserve" force in case they were needed at the victory front where the Germans were already "decimated". This is why Patton took off like a bandit in Sicily to get Palermo and then to Messina to make sure Monty didn't pull another stunt like that. It left a very bitter distrust of Monty in the mouths of Patton and Bradley.

That's not a bias, nor is it anti-British. It is an obligation to maintain fairness and justice for your men that were sacrificing their lives. You try to steal their glory and you commit a horrible offense to them. Everyone who served should get equal glory. Today we pretty much do that. Even a cook in WWII is admired as a hero today by people that know anything about WWII.

Your comment on Bradley at the Battle of the Bulge is also a little startling. As far as not seeing it coming, not even Ike could be blamed for that. When the offensive had threatened to divide his corps, the offensive had all but completely stalled out. Ike insisted on putting two of his divisions under Monty to prevent them from being cut off from supply. Bradley didn’t want to do this firstly because the offensive had already failed and because he knew Monty would do something like resist giving them back as he had done after the invasion, or even worse, try to take credit for the Bulge victory causing a tremendous insult to the Americans that fought and died in it. But Ike insisted and so Bradley gave up command of those divisions to Monty. Monty, true to form, and making Bradley a prophet, took credit for “rescuing the Americans" from there "error at the Bulge” in a BBC interview. Both Ike and Bradley were incensed and Bradley threatened to resign if nothing was done about it. Ike tried to clarify Monty’s error but the British press wouldn’t hear of putting the fire out. Churchill seeing a virtual disaster on hand, stepped in with his famous speech to parliament, rebuking the British for taking credit for taking credit for what he claimed was a wholly American victory.

I guess I just don't see Bradley the way you see him at all. In fact you might say were are opposite ends of the spectrum in our impressions of him.

[Gotthard Heinrici]

First of all Jimbo, I will gladly apologise if my remarks to your post were taken out of context. Now having said that, first of all its tank o PHILE and no I’m not that and I’d gladly ask you to bring proof of how you came to that conclusion based on my previous post. At no point do I make reference of the Tank as a weapon of complete significance, indeed I don’t make reference to panzers in my post. As you say “don’t start putting keypresses on my keyboard”

I make no reference to one particular branch of an armed service because I truthfully believe that no one arm was capable of winning the war on its own. You seem to be of the opinion that air power is all you need and although I don’t disagree that Air Power is important and indeed is invaluable for any war to be won, its not the only way to win it. I am not an advocate of Walter Weaver or Marshal Douhet

Now lets see what you wrote about “Whats a Tank?”

Pretty sweeping statement isn’t it??? Tank was of no consequence. That’s like me saying that the Air Force is only as good as the weather its allowed to operate in. you get bad days of weather, the planes don’t fly. Take all the B-29’s, P-47’s, Mustangs you want. If it isn’t good weather they don’t fly!!!!!!

That statement above is hogwash, but so is your assertion that the Tank was of no consequence. It didn’t win the war on its own, but neither did airpower. Nor did seapower. THEY ALL COMBINED TO DO IT.

I don’t appreciate your judgement of the Russians as Human Disregarding Idiots. I abhorred Communism and all it stood for but the Russians lost too many men to be denied respect. Just remember that the war in the East was a battle of annihilation never at any time did the US or Allies face numbers of Germans like the Russians did. Oh yeah, if you really think they were idiots well your country spent 50 years telling the rest of the world how dangerous they were. So who were the bigger idiots??? And as for your assertion about them being “human disregarding” well I’ve 2 Battles that you should look back upon before being so arrogant : Gettysburg and Bull Run. You may think I’m being inflammatory but I find that your attitude towards Russia and its achievements appalling. I often wonder if the US or the British would have had the stomach to endure a siege like Leningrad or a war of annihilation like Stalingrad. And while we go on about the slaughter of Falaise, remember that the Russians completed an even more remarkable operation called “Bagration” which destroyed an entire Army Group and forever destroyed the germans hopes for settlement in the East.

I take your point about the German Tactical Air Power sucking and compared to the Allied side it was a non-entity. The US air Force and RAF were exceptional in this role and as the campaign in Normandy and your assertions prove. However lets just think for a moment that Russia was not invaded (you are making the point that Russia had no influence on the outcome of the war) in June 1941 the luftawffe had a grand total of 2598 of which 1939 were serviceable. The US wasn’t in the war and wouldn’t have been in it until Dec anyway. Do you think that any of these aircraft might have been diverted to North Africa??? I am not including the 1700 aircraft or so that were deployed elsewhere in this. I think another 3 or 400 aircraft might have changed things in North Africa, and remember that even with the max resources that the RAF could spare in 1941 and 1942, Rommel with only 4 German Divisions, came close to chasing the English out of North Africa. So much for airpower alone! With the additional logisitical support and increased land forces, Germany would have driven Britain out of Egypt. But I digress.

I’m not going to go into which historians make the Tank an important weapon. And I do agree with you that tanks are sitting ducks to Tactical Air Power, but war is not a simple case of “Rock, Scissors, Stone”. Tanks are an important element of ground forces just as infantry, Artillery, Anti-Aircraft are. It is a combined force that stands the greatest chance of victory, yes even tanks have their place and they along with superb air support helped Blitzkrieg achieve such spectacular results.

You say that the British and Americans would not have been stopped crossing the Channel even with the addition of an extra 120 Divisions and 3 additional Luftflotte and I say you’re wrong. The Allies had 3 years of virtually no german interference to build up that invasion force and it took a long hard slog (as Sapper will testify) to break through the defences. I’m saying that those bombers would have faced a Luftwaffe that would also have had 3 years to re-equip itself and rest and prepare for it. Against a depleted Luftwaffe the 8th and 9th Air Forces lost a total of 49,000 men (source www.usaaf.net) and that was against an airforce that was primarily facing Russia and did not enjoy air superiority over France). You are basing your assumptions on the casualties suffered by the Luftwaffe during the “Big Week”. Because most of the decent pilots died in Russia those planes were manned by very few experienced pilots with little or no training. Its men against boys. Against a fully manned Luftwaffe that didn’t get involved in Russia the pilots would have been better trained and much more capable. Russia was a factor, Jimbo.

You are right about the Tactical Air Power situation in France Jimbo and I fully accept your remarks that it didn’t need a base in France to operate. I apologise for such an off the cuff remark.

You might have a gripe about the lack of respect Air Power is awarded in WWII but I have a similar gripe and that is the disproportionate lack of significance that the Eastern Front is awarded when the History of WWII is studied. It galls me to see people talk about the importance of Alamein and D-Day and in the same breath IGNORE the goings on in Russia and the East. It riles me because it did have an effect and I will make no apologies for making this assertion. I am not belittling anything that happened in the West, indeed Russia would surely have fallen without the help of the West and Germany would surely have triumphed. It is when people succumb to generalisations like “human disregarding idiots”. If I have reading to do about Vietnam and Korea (which I have studied) then you Jimbo really need to start reading about the Eastern Front.

Now as to the Vietnam connection. I used that as an example of how even with total air superiority the US failed to defeat the VC and North Vietnamese. You have said that it was down to politics and politics alone. I refer you to an article in the airpower journal in Summer 1990 entitled “Using a sledgehammer to kill a Gnat, The Air Force's Failure to Comprehend Insurgent
Doctrine during Operation Rolling Thunder

Here is a passage from it:

THE Vietnam War is still, to this day, a great source of irritation in the entrails of US military strategists. Numerous studies have focused upon political, military, and societal concerns in attempting to unravel the mystery that made the Princess of the Iron Fan an alias for Uncle Sam. The enigma of a war won by an enemy that lost every battle of significance is a concept seemingly unfathomable to the dictates of reason.
Many works have laid the blame for the US defeat on political restrictions imposed upon the military, specifically the US Air Force.1 This contention is still held by many of the Air Force high command who served during the conflict. An assertion that embodies this attitude was stated by Lt Gen Joseph Moore, 2d Air Division commander in 1969, not long after the abandonment of operation Rolling Thunder. Moore contended that the Air Force "was not effective in knocking out the will to fight ... of the North Vietnamese, because we weren't allowed to hit those targets that would have done that."2
Whether his contention is true or not is immaterial. His statement may have a certain degree of validity, but one must remember that war is a means of achieving a political end. To deny this basic truth is to deny any purpose for the existence of the military other than gratuitous violence. In war, the political and the military are inextricably intertwined. Faulting one without acknowledging the other indicates that the military does not understand its subordinate role as a means to a goal. As long as there are wars, there will be political restrictions upon military actions and targets.
So that explanation Jimbo is a horse that doesn’t run. EVERY war is bound by the same principles.

The link can be found here: http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchro...apj/4sum90.html

Airpower doesn’t always work. The US airforces bombing of Laos to stop the movement along the Ho Chi Minh Trail is a case in point. At one stage Laos suffered 42000 bombing missions in one year 1970 and this was kept up. It became the most bombed nation in History. 2 Million Tons of Bombs fell on this country. Did it stop the VC, not at all!!!

[Lt. Winters]

Hey Guys, This really has nothing to do with your forum but I was just wondering what are you guys favorite Companys, Battalions and such? Im new to this so Im not really sure how it works.