Anti-Colonialism and American foreign policy

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MSimon
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Post by MSimon »

Diogenes wrote:
MSimon wrote:
Long Metal Objects floating in water are HUGE radar targets , especially from Aircraft. They are highly visible even when submerged to some depth.
Some one neglected to notify the Japanese. They often flew right over American fleets and totally missed SEEING them.

OTOH they excelled at night work from ships with binoculars. They often saw the American fleets visually before the Americans spotted the Japanese by radar.
Japanese radars during the war sucked. I'm not sure if the Japanese even put radar on aircraft, but their Ship radar was simply outclassed by ours.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.

Skipjack
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Post by Skipjack »

Apparently Goering was very uncooperative with Doenitz, and resented using aircraft to help the navy.
Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it ;) ), Goering for some reason had a huge influence on Hitler, despite him being rather unsuccessful.
On the other hand Doenitz with his really good successes could not get through to him. It might have had to do with Doenitz not really being a Nazi in the sense of being a believer in Hitlers mumbo jumbo cult. He was more in the tradition of the German WW1 navy and its ideals.
On the warships instead of subs: That was thanks to Speer, who Hitler- obviously in a moment of mental impotence- declared Reich Ruestungsminister (armament minister). Again I can only suspect it was because Speer bought into Hitlers mumbo jumbo and was a "good" party member. So Speer and Hitler wasted so many resources on large surface ships that never had many successes worth talking about, while the submarines were barely getting any funding or supplies. Doenitz was asking for ten times as many as he got. The German submarines, while excellently built and very sturdy, had to be used for jobs they were never designed for. Many were way to small to be used for long duration missions. The rough Atlantic was quite a challenge for these small boats.
It was way to late, when they finally got funding into new designs. At that time many of the best submarine captains had already fallen.
Helmut Walther was a genius submarine designer, but under the conditions later in the war, he could not deliver in time. The Type 21 never made it into the war, but was a really awesome design. It took about a decade until the Albacore introduced the new, better hull shape.

Diogenes
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Post by Diogenes »

MSimon wrote:
Diogenes wrote:
MSimon wrote: Some one neglected to notify the Japanese. They often flew right over American fleets and totally missed SEEING them.

OTOH they excelled at night work from ships with binoculars. They often saw the American fleets visually before the Americans spotted the Japanese by radar.
Japanese radars during the war sucked. I'm not sure if the Japanese even put radar on aircraft, but their Ship radar was simply outclassed by ours.

I'm not sure what you are telling me. If you are referring to my comment about being "highly visible", it is intended to be read from the context that radar visibility is what I meant.

As for the Japanese Planes flying over the American fleets and Missing them, Like I said, I'm not sure the Japanese even put radars aboard aircraft.

MSimon
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Post by MSimon »

The American radars had a lot of trouble with ground clutter at Guadalcanal.

Japanese with binoculars often performed better than American radar.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.

Diogenes
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Post by Diogenes »

Skipjack wrote:
Apparently Goering was very uncooperative with Doenitz, and resented using aircraft to help the navy.
Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it ;) ), Goering for some reason had a huge influence on Hitler, despite him being rather unsuccessful.
On the other hand Doenitz with his really good successes could not get through to him. It might have had to do with Doenitz not really being a Nazi in the sense of being a believer in Hitlers mumbo jumbo cult. He was more in the tradition of the German WW1 navy and its ideals.

Hitler, and other socialists, have always had a problem with Traditionalists or anyone else that opposed the New Order. They only trust the Party Apparatchiks, aka "true believers."
Skipjack wrote: On the warships instead of subs: That was thanks to Speer, who Hitler- obviously in a moment of mental impotence- declared Reich Ruestungsminister (armament minister). Again I can only suspect it was because Speer bought into Hitlers mumbo jumbo and was a "good" party member. So Speer and Hitler wasted so many resources on large surface ships that never had many successes worth talking about, while the submarines were barely getting any funding or supplies. Doenitz was asking for ten times as many as he got. The German submarines, while excellently built and very sturdy, had to be used for jobs they were never designed for. Many were way to small to be used for long duration missions. The rough Atlantic was quite a challenge for these small boats.
It was way to late, when they finally got funding into new designs. At that time many of the best submarine captains had already fallen.
Helmut Walther was a genius submarine designer, but under the conditions later in the war, he could not deliver in time. The Type 21 never made it into the war, but was a really awesome design. It took about a decade until the Albacore introduced the new, better hull shape.
Hitler's temperament was a serious problem. I understand that the German developer of the Me 262 was told not to use resources on any projects that didn't have immediate applications within a years time, but the fellow ignored this order. As a result, he produced the first functional Jet Fighter aircraft, and upon apprising Hitler of this advanced new fighter, Hitler supposedly said something like "Great. Now convert it into a bomber." (or some such.) This supposedly bunged up production while the company tried to figure out how to comply with this order.

Diogenes
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Post by Diogenes »

MSimon wrote:The American radars had a lot of trouble with ground clutter at Guadalcanal.

Japanese with binoculars often performed better than American radar.

I assume you are talking about Ship radar. Ground clutter is a problem for any radar, but aircraft hunting submarines in the middle of an ocean usually don't have much problem with it. The big steel hull shows up a lot clearer than the odd reflection from the wave caps, up to a certain depth. If the subs go deep enough, Radar can no longer spot them.

I guess what I am getting at is that airborne radar and aircraft was the perfect solution to the problem of submarines, or locating surface ships for that matter.

MSimon
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Post by MSimon »

I guess what I am getting at is that airborne radar and aircraft was the perfect solution to the problem of submarines, or locating surface ships for that matter.
Intel decodes were used to put the planes in the right area. Radar put them at the right point.

Saves a lot of fuel otherwise wasted in search.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.

djolds1
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Post by djolds1 »

Diogenes wrote:Hitler's temperament was a serious problem.
:twisted: Its very easy to construct WW2 scenarios where the Nazis win. Just have Hitler not be Hitler.
Diogenes wrote:I understand that the German developer of the Me 262 was told not to use resources on any projects that didn't have immediate applications within a years time, but the fellow ignored this order. As a result, he produced the first functional Jet Fighter aircraft, and upon apprising Hitler of this advanced new fighter, Hitler supposedly said something like "Great. Now convert it into a bomber." (or some such.) This supposedly bunged up production while the company tried to figure out how to comply with this order.
You're thinking of the He 280.
Vae Victis

Diogenes
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Post by Diogenes »

djolds1 wrote:
Diogenes wrote:Hitler's temperament was a serious problem.
:twisted: Its very easy to construct WW2 scenarios where the Nazis win. Just have Hitler not be Hitler.
I've made that point a few times, but I once had a discussion with a Friend that kept insisting Hitler was a genius, and would point out This Invasion or That Invasion, or whatever. I pointed out the Riddle of Dunkirk, Hitler's changing tactics in the Battle of Britain to bombing Cities instead of bombing the RAF (which was about to collapse) , and his then wheeling around to immediately attack Russia, and various other bits and pieces, but He insisted that Hitler was once a Genius, but somehow lost it. Dunno.

I did see a documentary called "High Hitler" about the theory Hitler was on Methamphetamines. They say virtually every characteristic of a Meth user was exhibited by Hitler. They have some eye witness reports, and Doctor's notes, etc.

Explains a lot.



djolds1 wrote:
Diogenes wrote:I understand that the German developer of the Me 262 was told not to use resources on any projects that didn't have immediate applications within a years time, but the fellow ignored this order. As a result, he produced the first functional Jet Fighter aircraft, and upon apprising Hitler of this advanced new fighter, Hitler supposedly said something like "Great. Now convert it into a bomber." (or some such.) This supposedly bunged up production while the company tried to figure out how to comply with this order.
You're thinking of the He 280.
You are absolutely right. Thanks.

TallDave
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Post by TallDave »

IntLibber wrote:By the same token, the fact that the KGB had the US and British governments thoroughly penetrated, and we had so little capability in the USSR, tells me that had we gone up against them we would have gotten our asses handed to us.
Seems unlikely. These police states are always hard to penetrate, but they're always surprisingly brittle too. Once air supremacy was established the race to Moscow would be on. I think Patton might have been drinking in Red Square by 1947.

If we'd had a President who was properly suspicious of the Soviets (as opposed calling Stalin "Uncle Joe") we might not have been so compromised. The Venona decrypts suggest a lot of that came right from the top.
n*kBolt*Te = B**2/(2*mu0) and B^.25 loss scaling? Or not so much? Hopefully we'll know soon...

CaptainBeowulf
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Post by CaptainBeowulf »

IIRC most of the German surface ships were built in the 1930s or early in the war. Those included the pocket battleships, the two heavy destroyers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, and the heavy battleships Bismarck and Tirpitz. Apparently they started building an aircraft carrier but abandoned it. I'm not that familiar with the naval side of German planning, but they certainly only launched subs in 1943-45. They did devote some resources to repairing the destroyers and the Tirpitz before those ships were finally destroyed.

From everything I've read Speer was actually a good choice. He was only made armaments minister in early 1943, after the Germans had squandered their advantage in military output at the beginning of the war. They failed to substantially increase their output between 1939-1942. Under Speer German war production expanded drastically, despite the Allied bombing campaign. He cancelled all civilian production and made workers work double shifts, etc. For instance, German output of tanks and tank destroyers rose from around 500 per month in late 1942 to 2000 per month in 1944. From what I've read, the Germans were unable to get the Type 21 and other U-boats into production mainly because of Allied bombing - the Allies wrecked the prototypes and dock facilities a number of times.

However, I agree with the statement that there are many scenarios where you can have the Germans win WWII, you just have to make Hitler not be Hitler.

Really, every scenario where the Germans could have avoided a disaster would have required a rational leader. Simply put, Hitler was quite irrational. He consulted astrologers. He relied on his "instincts" and "intuition". He based military decisions on his racist mumbo-jumbo; Germans soldiers would win this battle or hold that line because they were "racially superior" to their opponents and were capable of "triumph of the will".

As an example, many people in parts of the Soviet Union, including much of Ukraine, initially greeted the Germans as liberators. There is documented evidence of this, such as pictures of people turning out to line with streets holding flowers out to the German troops. Then, in the wake of the Wehrmacht came the Einsatzkommandos, who went around terrorizing and butchering the population. Anyone suspected of being a Jew or other kind of "undesirable" was deported or, frequently, massacred in situ and dumped into huge collective graves. There are various accounts of Wehrmacht officers being quite stunned at this behaviour, and even asking the Nazis to stop it. Some of them had been planning to recruit millions of anti-Bolshevik troops from the occupied areas. A couple of million extra infantry raised this way by the Germans could well have turned things around at Stalingrad or Kursk. Instead the Wehrmacht got a partisan guerrilla war behind its front as the Nazis attrocities turned the population against the Germans. For anything to have happened differently, Hitler would have had to not have been an insane bigot who believed in his own racist propaganda.

The early German victories can actually be explained quite easily:

1. Poland - just not prepared for mechanized war
2. Denmark/Norway - they had been trying to stay neutral and were obviously much smaller countries than Germany. When they were invaded it wasn't possible for Britain and France to deploy forces across the North Sea quickly enough to save them.
3. Western Europe 1940 - again, Holland, Belgium, and Luxembourg had been trying to stay neutral, so there were no prepared defenses there. Rommel, Manstein and some others proposed an aggressive plan to go through the Ardennes and hit the Allied armies at their "hinge" near Sedan when they deployed into Belgium, as the Germans correctly assumed they would. From there, the Germans intended to go through to the Channel and cut off half of the Allied front. It worked, in part because the Allies had drawn the wrong doctrinal lessons from their experiments with tanks and spread their armor out with their infantry, making too slow and too dispersed to deal with concentrated German tank formations. Also, the Allied commanders were too unimaginative and cautious. Hitler chose this plan because he always chose the most aggressive plan presented to him. At this point, that policy worked - later it led to disaster.
4. The Balkan campaign - again, Yugoslavia and Greece weren't prepared for mechanized warfare and Britain couldn't deploy troops quickly enough across the Meditteranean.
5. North Africa - Rommel was very capable.
6. Russia 1941 - the Soviet Army was basically decapitated because of Stalin's purges. The officers left were more afraid of not obeying Stalin's orders than of the Germans. So, Stalin ended up ordering them into various disasters before he wised up.

Hitler's behavior remained the same. He attacked Moscow in the winter despite the fact that his army was drastically unprepared for a winter offensive because it was the aggressive thing to do. He chose to keep attacking at Stalingrad because that was the aggressive thing to do, despite suggestions to make a local withdrawal. He chose to attack heavily entrenched Soviet forces at Kursk because it was the aggressive thing to do. He chose to throw away his last reserves in the futile Ardennes offensive because it was the aggressive thing to do. His actions were consistent, and utterly detached from military reality - they worked initially because the Germans were better prepared for war. I use this argument against anyone who suggests Hitler was a genius.

MSimon
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Post by MSimon »

He chose to attack heavily entrenched Soviet forces at Kursk because it was the aggressive thing to do.
His generals (some of them) wanted to do it 6 weeks earlier. Hitler wanted to bring up more force. The defense consolidated. The force was not enough.
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DeltaV
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Post by DeltaV »

MSimon wrote:The American radars had a lot of trouble with ground clutter at Guadalcanal.

Japanese with binoculars often performed better than American radar.
At the start of WW2, before radar took over, there was also another sort of detection in use, mainly for detecting aircraft: Acoustic Location and Sound Mirrors

CaptainBeowulf
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Post by CaptainBeowulf »

Yeah, Manstein wanted to attack at Kursk as soon as the spring thaw and rains were over and the mud was gone. Even then, the force may not have been enough. The Soviets were consolidating at Kursk from March on.

I believe a large portion of the extra force brought up was about 350 Panters, all of which broke down early in the battle. There were also some ridiculous tank destroyers, like Tiger variants with a gigantic gun and no secondary anti-infantry armament (like machine guns). Those things were swarmed by Russian infantry. So Manstein may have been right. The extra force brought up didn't really add much to the battle, and gave the Russians more time to prepare.

IIRC Guderian didn't want to attack at Kursk. He wanted to wait for the Russians to attack, see which direction their attack developed in, let it exhaust itself against German defenses, and then counter-attack and cut off the leading Soviet formations, and destroy them. He too was probably underestimating the reserves the Soviets had. However, his approach would still probably have resulted in less severe losses for the Germans.

Skipjack
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Post by Skipjack »

One should admit though that the kill ratio of the Germans versus the Russians at Kursk was quite impressive, despite the very obvious disadvantage in numbers.

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