Good Times

[neobaron]

"a. The point I agreed with was -- sorry for not following the setup, 'tis life -- was that the US did not play a part in the UK winning the BOB. (I think you agreed with that, in substance.)"

Not a direct role, no. It was Brit tac. and tenacity that paid off in the end, but the US contributions, volunteer or not, werent any "small" part, and were certainly not non-existant.

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"b. That clears up about the radar. So basically the Allies won the war of science."

In regards to RADAR, yes, the british (not the allies) had an early jump.

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"c. The British /were/ shipping aircraft to the mediterranean. My reference is:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASI ... 46-4631013
(Sorry it's not an on-line ref.)"

Shipping aircraft is easy... all they have to do is fly where they need to go. I'm talking about actual fighting men and their supplies... which would require boats... and going through the straits of gibralter would have been hell for any slow moving troop ship convoy.

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"d. Montgomery fought in Africa, after Auchinleck, who followed Wavell. I'm talking about Africa."

Yes, I know Montgomery is a hero for beating the Desert Fox, as it was put, but Rommels situation was already very dire by this time... short supplies, hard time controlling the italians who had a nasty tendency to split at the first sign of trouble... air support failing...

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"e. A timeframe: the German situation was dire in '41. Hopeless after Barbarossa, of course, on which we're agreed."

Ok.

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"f. The RAF "withdrawal": so are you saying that had the Luftwaffe kept on bombing industry, they would have lost the BOB? In that case, I am not qualified to argue, but I wish to understand what you're saying. So I'm (maybe) conceding that point."

Had the Luftwaffe kept on bombing the British industrial targets rather than its vengeance war tactics, the British would have been knocked out of the war... the lack of industrial muscle coupled with a failing air force commited to defending the industry rather than having relative freedom to pick its fights would have been a death knell, and would have given hitler the chance to actually carry out sea-lion, which would have been a very quick success due to the nature of the defense force on the actual island... Mostly comprised of town militias... very few combat-ready, or rather combat-capable units.

[The Beatles]

i. I concede part of f. to you: the collapse of the RAF. But I disagree about Sealion. Don't forget the entire BEF was on the island. Coastal defences were actually pretty good. Sealion didn't stand a good chance even supposing Luftwaffe dominance.

ii. I don't know if the British sent troops to the mideast, but planes are a huge aid in an of themselves. But I concede they probably sent no troops (I'm not sure, but if you know so, it's true).

iii. The US contributions prior to lend-lease were fairly bought. Aid is when you send something without it being paid for. In that respect, the US did not contribute to the UK's victory in the BOB.

iv. Yes, Rommel's situation was dire, he was still an excellent General. I think the point was that the UK won the war in Africa too, but as that's after '41, I'm not arguing on it.

[edit] BTW: what do you mean by "lack of industrial muscle"?

[neobaron]

Lack of industrial muscle = the production side of warfare being gone.

[Gen. Volkov]

1)Africa was a combined US-UK effort. Both countries had large numbers of troops there, and pratically all the warfighting equipment was US built.

2)Greece and Balkans may have been possible.

3)Raiding was certainly possible... ok some things, but definitely not take the fight to Germany in any real way.

Devari said that. Neo and I agree that German tanks were the best in the war, excepting maybe the Pershing. And yes, nothing without air support, which they had until Barbarossa.

Me-109 was more restricted by its range than anything else. Only 20 minutes over England before it had to go home.

The Lancaster had some success with night raids, and didn't need fighter escort, but the B-17 daylight strategic bombing is what truely did the damage. The RAF simply could not muster those numbers of planes or sustain those kinds of losses. So the US was instrumental in taking the war to Germany. Oh and I believe a significant proportion of B-17 crews were British.

iii. If you classify aid as something not bought, but given, then yes, I will concede that point.

Ummmm. Ok. Sea Lion would have worked without the RAF for support. The German army would have cut through the BEF like a hot knife through butter. Especially after they establish FABs to provide air cover.

[The Beatles]

(Neo: OT: Why would it have been gone if the RAF had kept defending British industry?)

Volkov:
1. OK

3. Yes take the fight at least to the borders of Germany on France, with Vichy support (which was covert, but existing).

4. Yep, so it wasn't as powerful as the Spitfire after all. Range is important too.

5. Oh, I agree that the true damage was due to B-* planes. I'm just saying that the RAF were clearly superior, as they could take the fight to Germany, and at the mean time all but repel the Luftwaffe over Britain. In any case I think we basically agree on this point.

On tanks: so do you disagree with these pages:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-34
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BT-8
?

[edit]The Tigers were developed in '43 and '44 respectively, so a bit out of the range of Barbarossa. So I guess I agree with your tank points, but with the proviso that they did not have any effect until they had to be used in the Western Front.


[edit2] Merged about 12 double posts in this thread...

[Gen. Volkov]

3. Vichy France was later crushed by the Germans. I believe after the Normandy landings. I don't think they would have hesitated to do so if the British were attacking from it.

4. I'm just talking a dogfight. The British didn't have to worry about range in the BOB. And the 109's range was later substantially increased.

5. I'll say that the RAF had the edge. I won't go so far as too say clearly superior, at least immediately following the BOB, later on of course, the RAF was pretty definitively superior.

Tanks. When the T-34 was first introduced, it was the best tank in the world, but soon after it found a rival and a better when the Panzer mk 4 (Panther) and the Tiger arrived on the Russian front. By then it was too late though. The Tiger and Panther didn't have a real effect until the Normandy invasion. That was when they started appearing in large numbers. The Germans biggest mistake was perhaps the fact that they produced so many different types of machines. If they had just stuck with the FW-190, and the Panther, for example, they could have produced alot more of them and perhaps have beaten the tide back. Both were "world-beaters", some of the best fighting machines on the battlefield.

[The Beatles]

3. True. Although it's still not impossible to contemplate raids on France, even without Vichy France support. Had Germany crushed VF, the entire French Empire in North Africa and the navy would have been at Britain's disposal.

4. Yeah, I'm not talking a dogfight, but combat effectiveness in the situation they were used in. Score for me.

5. In that they defeated the Luftwaffe, surely they were superior? Not overwhelmingly, true, but clearly. I think we agree on this basically.

We agree on Tanks too! Cool.

[Gen. Volkov]

3. Air raids certainly, but with France under Germany's bootheel I don't see much more than nuisance raids happening on the ground.

4. For combat effectiveness, I'll say the Spitfire is marginally better. 109's and Spitfires were exchanged at a pretty much equal rate, the big losses for the Germans were bombers and the Me-110, which utterly sucked as a fighter.

5. Yup, pretty much in agreement. They defeated them, but by the skin of their teeth. For awhile it was a close run thing.

*laughs*, cool we do agree on tanks.

[The Beatles]

BTW, Neo, I know for a fact they shipped pilots to Africa (Egypt and South Africa) for training, so they could get through the Mediterranean. Whether they also shipped troops I don't know. (I also know they diverted forces from Egypt to Greece.)

3. Not more than nuisance raids? With RAF superiority, hit-and-run nuisance raids could have gotten serious.

Cool, I guess we agree on everything now. I think I've held my point that the view often shared that the UK was entirely dependant on the US for not being defeated and for winning the war, is mistaken one.

[Gen. Volkov]

3. No, because then the RAF would have been the ones dealing with ranges and flight times and the Germans wouldn't have had to worry about it. They would have lost all the advantages they had over England, in addition to not being able to touch the heartland of German industrial production. They would have lost planes at pretty much the same rate endured by the Luftwaffe, as was seen when the B-17's started their daylight raids. Before the P-51 some units had over a 50% loss rate.

As to you point, I'll say this: not entirely dependent, no, but they could not have won the war without it. They may not have lost, but there was no way for them to really WIN.

[The Beatles]

3. What? France is real close to England, no range problem at all. The German range problems were in attacking London, not the coast.
Also, the RAF did bomb the German industrial heartland, the Ruhr, heavily. They did this all through '40 and '41, inflicting severe damage. So no to that argument.

Additionally, the RAF's night bombers had much lower casualty rates. The B-17's problems were going in daylight: much easier to pick off.

As for WIN: I partly agree. Given better economic resources, which they could have easily built up over a longer term from their Empire, but which for the short term the US provided, certainly they could have won the war. What's more, Germany had no foreign reserves to speak of, and was blockaded by the Royal Navy. So I disagree with your conclusion.

[Devari]

Small point - the Panzer IV and the Panther are quite different. The Panther was modelled after the Soviet T-34, whereas the Panzer IV was simply a continuation of the Panzer series. I was referring to tank superiority vs. Russia when it counted (Tiger II was WAY too late, and Tiger I only was about 1/4 or so of the tanks at Kursk) on the Eastern Front, more than anything. Panthers were, I believe, roughly as effective in the battlefield as Tiger Is, and cheaper/easier to produce. By roughly as effective, I mean that the Allied tank Sherman-to-Panther ratios used were 5:1, the same as Sherman-to-Tiger (I).

The Germans did have the best tanks, but they didn't have the production capacity of the Soviets, and they also had their best developments too late. Kursk was more or less the first time the Panthers and Tigers really saw combat, but they "technically" lost. Kursk was possibly the last chance the Germans really had before the Red Army tide started, and they just didn't have enough tanks to pull it off. In all, very few Tigers were produced compared to KV-1s and T-34s.

But, yes, the LATE German tanks were certainly the best of the war. Ironically enough, captured Panthers were VERY popular amongst the Soviet troops, who sought, contrary to regulations, to keep them in service as long as possible. The Tiger I also kicked the Soviet rear into gear, and they started to concentrate a LITTLE more on quality instead of quantity.


---Double-post merged by Beatles---

Oh, and yeah to Volk - if the Germans had just concentrated on Panthers, they probably would have been more successful. But it's that industrious, overengineering German spirit.

[The Beatles]

Amusing side-note: Stalin once said "Quantity has a quality all its own".

[Gen. Volkov]

Yup. The power of total economic control. Stalin sacrificed nearly every other aspect of the Soviet economy to turn his country in one vast war machine. And thus despite having fewer reachable resources and making less steel than the Germans, he still outproduced them.

Yeah you are right about the Panther and Panzer mk4. The Panther was the Panzer mk V.

And I never said that the Russians didn't have tank superiority at Kursk. My point was the Germans built the best tanks of the whole war, period. The Russians wiped out Germany's tanks at Kursk, but they actually lost more tanks than the Germans did. And that was with everything AGAINST the Germans. Nothing could take on a Tiger II head to head and live. Especially not the crappy Shermans. There are reports of one Tiger taking out an entire column of Ronsons.. I mean Shermans. (That was its nickname, cause it lit first time, every time, just like a Ronson lighter.)

3. Beatles, I'm talking about fighters, not bombers. In order to affect land battles the bombers would have had to fly during the day. For that you need fighter cover. Otherwise you suffer the horrible casualty rates the B-17's did. The Spitfire had longer range than the 109, but not THAT much longer. The Battles would be fought near the Vichy border according to you, which was in the south of France. Thus long flight times, not much loiter time. Same problem the Germans had.

And the RAF did hurt the Germans, but nothing near what the daylight raids did. Because you can SEE what you are hitting in the daylight. They could not have supported a daylight campaign, they simply didn't have the industrial capacity.

And this build up from their empire is ridiculous, because the Germans had nearly succeeded in blockading England with U-boat's again.

England could not have done it alone.

And lastly, it's a good thing the kill ratio for Panthers was only 4 to 1, otherwise we'd have been screwed.

[The Beatles]

The German blockade was not nearly so complete (although dangerous, yes). And the Allies too blockaded Germany in the Mediterranean and elsewhere. Britain got a lot of food from Africa, and a lot of oil from Baku (Syria) during the war, so it's no use scoffing at that.

And I can't pretend to know about the superiority of day raids vs. night raids, so I have to concede you that point. However, please answer me, asking as an amateur:
1. Why doesn't night precision-bombing (a la beams, especially with radar) work?
2. Why can't you use fighters as air support in land battles? Strafing is surely useful? I can understand some bombers for tanks, but basically can't fighters work?