WW2 "What if?"

[xl_target]

Esdee suggested that we have some discussions on WW2 topics so I thought there might be some discussion on an article posted in the March 1942 issue of Life magazine.
Here Life proposes several scenarios where it might be possible for a combined German/Japanese attack and occupation of the US mainland.

http://books.google.com/books?id=K04EAA ... &q&f=false

What do you think about Life's scenarios? Was there a possibility that they could have come to pass?

[spin_drift]

It possibly could have been possible if Hitler had not attacked USSR and waited for the V1,V2 and the fighter jet (i forgot what it was called) programs to mature and be in production in full swing and also i believe that the Nazis were trying to get Mexico to attack USA from the south and if that would have materialized ... then yes..

A combined German/Japanese would not have worked... to much area to cover...

[nagarifle]

one fact to be reminded of that in the USA there were lots of supporters of the NAZIs, who whould have helped. but behind every bush there is a barrel pointing at them USA was the sleeping bear until the japs woke them up, how about the USA air raid in to Japan soon after the perl harbour?

[Mark]

IMHO, propaganda and fear mongering to get the population to support the war.

Hitler at his best could not get his troops across what, 20 miles of water? Now think of the logistics of THOUSANDS of miles.

Also, to put things into perspective Germany is slightly larger than the state of New Mexico but slightly smaller than the state of Montana.


There are 50 states in the USA, most are smaller but also realize it is claimed there are more Poles living in Chicago than in Warsaw.

Anyway, IMHO it may not have been as much as what the Russian did but the fact remains the Yanks did give the Krauts an ass whipping as well, it it would have been exponentially worse had our homeland been actually under threat of invasion.

[timmy]

Actually, the Japanese did launch attacks on the US mainland. They sent incendiary balloons over the continental US. There used to be one of these balloons in the South Dakota state museum in Pierre, but I can no longer find a picture of it.

Of course, these were nothing but terror weapons, and posed no actual invasion threat.

The Japanese parceled out their military like a pharmacist measures out a prescription. Their forces were entirely stretched too thin, and when they became engaged a war of attrition with the USA (Guadalcanal), they did not have the means to prosecute such a battle. Not only did Guadalcanal reveal their inability to prosecute military campaigns on the scale the USA would apply, but the same occurred on the naval front, as well: the US Navy lost many ships at Guadalcanal, and at the beginning of the war, there was a point where the famous Enterprise was the only operational carrier in the Pacific. However, at that time, American shipyards had a number of the Essex class carriers on the ways, whereas when the Japanese lost 4 of their 6 large fleet carriers at Midway, they had no way of even making good their prewar strength, much less surpassing it. On the aviation front, The Japanese had the justly famous Zero naval fighter -- they went to war with a 1000 hp fighter and nothing really in development to replace it, where the US was already testing 2000 hp fighters that could fly over 400 mph -- the Corsair.

The Japanese didn't even have the ability to invade Hawaii, only make a raid (and a somewhat effective raid) on Pearl Harbor.

I'd like to digress here:

About Pearl Harbor, Fuchida begged Nagumo for a 3rd attack, but Nagumo, always cautious and not a naval aviator himself, refused. It is pretty commonly agreed that the Japanese, apart from a great loss of life, did not "break" the US Naval power in the Pacific. For one thing, they did not get the US carriers, which were out on missions at the time. (Without checking, I believe that Halsey was returning after having delivered aircraft to Wake Island when the attack occurred, for one thing.) The carriers were the chief targets of the naval aviators who planned the attack.

Within the Japanese Navy, as with the US Navy, there was a division between "battleship admirals" and "carrier admirals." Right on the heels of Pearl Harbor, the Japanese put to an end the notion of battleships vs aircraft, when their aircraft supporting the invasion of Malaya destroyed the Prince of Wales and the Repulse, which the British had sent up the Malay Peninsula to oppose Japanese landings. But still, the debate had raged on.

Here, I will digress within the digression and confess that I do subscribe to the "failure of the big gun" train of thought, which holds that battleships had become ineffective before WW1 -- this was the point that Jackie Fisher was trying to address in his attempt to revamp the Royal Navy. The US Battle Fleet of slow (nominally ~21 knots, but of the US "Standard" battleships, the Oklahoma couldn't do much more than 19 knots with her VTE plant) battleships. The US Battle Line had been predicated on the "Plan Orange" which the USN had started well before WW1, and which was pretty much followed in the Pacific War. The idea that these ships were built to was to have slow battleships with heavy armor and gunpower (all battleships are designed as compromises between the competing requirements of speed, armor protection, and gun power). The idea was that the US Fleet would enter Japanese waters to protect our colonial empire in the Philippines, and in that mission, engage in a destructive battle with the Japanese Fleet. In this idea, there would be no need to seek out the Japanese for battle - they would be forced to seek battle. From the American point of view, battleships needed to be well armored and have heavy guns to survive a battle far from base. The rise of carrier-based airpower had made even the concept of the big gun obsolete by the outbreak of WW2.

Secondly, the Japanese failed to destroy the Pearl Harbor facilities, especially the "tank farm," or massive reserve of fuel oil for the fleet. Pearl Harbor was relatively new as a base for the full US Battle Fleet, which was normally stationed at San Pedro, California. (It was the advance of the Fleet ordered by FDR as a response to continuing and increased Japanese aggression in China, as well as fears of what Japan's next move would be, that caused FDR to threaten Japan by moving the Fleet to Pearl Harbor. It is well to remember that, in 1941, the USA was the Saudi Arabia of the world -- exporting more oil than any other nation -- and Japan's chief source of oil for its industry and war machine. Everyone knew that Japan's energy alternatives to the shut down of US oil was either to stand down from their empire building or to take the oil rich areas of the Dutch East Indies and Brunei.) Had the Japanese destroyed the tank farm and fleet facilities, rather than concentrating on the ancient relics on "Battleship Row" in their first two attacks, or had they mounted the third attack on those facilities as Fuchida wanted, the ability of the USA to project significant naval power into the Pacific would have been delayed by perhaps another year.

Here, I would like to make the point that an invasion isn't just putting men in a boat and having them land on a foreign shore. This is essentially what the Japanese were doing in the latter stages of Guadalcanal, as the US cut off the Tokyo Express supply line. Back in 1588, Philip II of Spain sent the Duke of Medina Sidonia in command of the Spanish Armada to control the English Channel and let his mighty armies pass over to England. 6 fireships and stormy weather defeated his plan -- not the British naval actions apart from those fireships. Back in 1805, Napoleon knew he needed to enforce control of the Channel to pass his Grand Army over to England, and Nelson's defeat of Villeneuve at Trafalgar put an end to that plan, as well. Trying to send an invasion fleet over to the Oahu, much less the US mainland, was far beyond the Japanese ability at any time during the War -- they simply didn't have the control of the sea to implement this.

Furthermore, recall that most of the Japanese Army was busy on the Asian Mainland. One only has to look at the power they could project to Guadalcanal to see what their abilities were. Can you imagine them projecting that "drop in the bucket" power all the way to Hawaii, or even more, to the Continental USA? I cannot.

xl, you may find this article interesting. Recall that the US Navy planned a 6 ship class of battlecruisers, 2 of which were converted to aircraft carriers from their advanced state of construction, the Lexington and the Saratoga -- after the Washington Treaty of naval limitation. I have seen one of the 16" guns intended for these ships at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland:

http://usforting.com/wp-content/uploads ... und-31.jpg

When the two ships were completed as carriers, they were each armed with 8 eight inch guns in 4 turrets as a protection from cruiser night attacks. When WW2 started, it was recognized how useless these guns were and they were removed for replacement by 5" 38 dual purpose mounts. The Navy gave the 8" mounts to the Army for Oahu's coastal defense, as outlined in this article:

http://www.eugeneleeslover.com/ENGINEER ... turret.pdf

Consider the efforts the US engaged in to get a landing force ready for Japan. We were talking about a million man invasion force to deal with the Japanese homeland. The Japanese had nowhere near that about of force available for an attack on the USA, or a way to transport them and supply them. I don't see the Japanese being able to do much more than they did in WW2: lobbing a few rounds from a sub's deck gun ashore.

Now, to the Germans. Kaiser Bill had a plan drawn up for such an invasion during the days of Teddy Roosevelt, when Teddy balked the Germans in Venezuela. (In fact, the Germans had been meddling around in North America at the time, as well. Sick and tired of the USA telling Mexico what to do, Porfirio Diaz (remember, he was the one who said, "Poor Mexico, so far from God, and so near to the United States") began to turn away from US business control of Mexico and turn to Europeans, including a significant connection to Germany, for financial and commercial support. Diaz's efforts earned him US backing for Francisco Madero's ultimately successful attempt to depose Diaz, which was the curtain-raiser for the Mexican Revolution. You will recall that later, it was the Zimmerman Telegram -- I HIGHLY recommend Barbara Tuchman's excellent, short book on this -- offering Mexico an alliance in 1916 that was a major factor in bringing the USA into WW1.

Also, before the outbreak of WW2, Mexico had had enough of US and British influences and, under President Lazaro Cardenas, nationalized the oil companies. (This is a whale of a story, itself!!) The US, under FDR, didn't do a whole lot about it, but the British played the same cards they usually did and tried to clamp down on Mexico thru trade embargos. Cardenas then began selling oil to Hitler and Mussolini, which had a salutary effect on British attitudes.

So, there was precedent for Germany messing about in the Western Hemisphere. Germany enjoyed good relations with Argentina through Juan Peron, and it must be kept in mind that the British trade from the Rio de la Plata was more extensive than from New York! But did Germany have the ability to project power over to the USA?

I have gotten into a few online discussions of the German plan back during Kaiser Bill's day. These were the days when Germany had a large fleet of predreadnought battleships and the US had a considerable, but smaller fleet. I still do not think that the Germans could have mounted a viable effort to invade the USA then, when their abilities to project power that far were much more considerable.

One might well ask the question: If Hitler couldn't mount an invasion across 35 miles of English Channel, how could he manage an invasion across 3500 miles of Atlantic Ocean? To such a threat, I think that British Admiral St. Vincent's famous response to the threat of Napoleonic invasion would to quite nicely as my response: "I do not say they cannot come, my Lords, I only say they cannot come by sea."

Even if Hitler had the massive army that invaded the Soviet Union available, how would he get those forces across 3500 miles of ocean? To turn back to Hitler's attempted invasion of Britain, during that time, we famously follow the battle between the Luftwaffe and the RAF over England. What is not often discussed was the British bombing campaign against German landing craft being made ready in the Channel ports. The Germans were scraping together every river and harbor scow available for the invasion, much like what the British had recently cobbled up for the evacuation of Dunkirk. Just getting those forces, which were but a fraction of what Hitler sent against the Soviets in 1941. Just how would Germany get those troops to New York City?

Another point, though minor, is one I've discussed, researched, and thought about considerably over the years: One thing about the British is that they love to exaggerate the forces arrayed against them. One of the finest examples of this concerns the German battleship Bismarck (and, Tirpitz, as well). To begin this, if you study German naval rearmament from the days of the Weimar Republic to WW2, you have to come to the conclusion that there was no greater group of buffoons and lotus-eaters than the German Admiralty. Why, even their WW1 Naval ambitions, spurred on by their kooky Kaiser, had little foundation on reality, Risk Theory and all. One might begin this with the observation that the Germans never really had a grasp of the idea of sea power, despite Kaiser Bill insisting that all of his officers read Alfred Thayer Mahan.

Here's a few ideas for you on German naval power: "pocket battleships" as commerce raiders? False! They were planned as offensive weapons that could counter the French Dantons -- predreadnoughts -- and threaten French communications with Algeria and the rest of North Africa. For this, they needed the long range of diesels. In fact, the diesels on the 3 that were built proved troublesome in service. They also vibrated so considerably that fire control from the sighting tops was affected. They were, in effect, nothing more than heavy cruisers with 6 x 280 cm guns, and cruiser-scale armor, and with a slow speed for a cruiser, to boot. Having only 6 main guns made for a tricky business when fighting more that two enemy vessels, which is exactly the weakness Harwood employed against Graf Spee to put her out of the war at the Battle of the River Plate.

German cruisers: German heavy cruisers were another inferior effort -- all of them. Their steam turbine plants (like those of "the twins", Scharnhorst and Gneisenau) were unreliable and had short range. (note that here, in the 30s, is where US technology began to overtake British in shipbuilding. USN high pressure steam plants operated at much higher pressures than the British installations, and were much more reliable than the German -- which was just what the USN needed to deploy a fleet across the vast reaches of the Pacific.) Look at the figures for the German heavies: they required 16,000 to 19,000 tons to put 8 x 203 cm guns to sea, where the Americans were mounting 9 x 8" guns on the 10,000 - 12,000 ton New Orleans class and Wichita in the same period, each of which was superior to any German heavy and of which there more than twice as many as the Germans had.

German Battleships: As I said, the British made a big ballyhoo of Bismarck, and even though Bismarck was a fine ship, it cannot be denied that she was a WW1 design, directly descended from Baden and Bayern, Kaiser Bill's last dreadnoughts. You will recall that the British defeated the attempt to scuttle Baden at Scapa Flow after WW1, and the British subsequently tested Baden's design in live fire trials. Their conclusion was that the design was not superior to the last British dreadnought class at the time, the Revenges.

All you need to do is check out the armoring scheme on Bismarck to see how the armor deck is deployed -- it was state of the art in WW1. This is why, when Bismarck met King George V and Rodney, she was easily and quickly put out of action -- the control circuits, fire fighting, and most every other essential service was located above the armor deck, though Bismarck's extensive compartmentation made it difficult to sink.

I'm sure this could be controversial in some circles, but I strongly consider Bismarck to be inferior to contemporaries, USS North Carolina and USS Washington. (In fact, the US Navy would have been well served to stop battleship construction after those two were built.)

The German Navy was a solution in search of a problem. I believe that the correct course of action, which should have been learned from WW1, would have been for Germany to build a large fleet of U Boats (Germany had surprisingly few at the outset of the war) and build light cruisers for surface raiders. Light cruisers are cheap and many can be built. The lesson of German sea power of WW1 was that these two vessels were their effective weapons. Indeed, I have read a number of historians who date the beginning of the demise of the British Raj with the Emden's shelling of the Chennai oil installations in WW1. In addtion, Emden tied down practically all of British shipping in the Indian Ocean for a time, including the transport of vitally needed troops for the Western Front. Her effect was all out of proportion to her size. Konigsberg in the Rufiji delta also had a similar effect, as did the German light cruisers in the South Atlantic.

You will, of course, object by noting that submarines and light cruisers are not suitable for establishing control of the sea necessary for an invasion of the USA. I would reply that this is correct -- I just don't see a German invasion being feasible under any conceivable circumstances.

-- Fri Aug 05, 2011 15:32 --

There are 50 states in the USA, most are smaller but also realize it is claimed there are more Poles living in Chicago than in Warsaw.

Your factoid is true, Mark. Of course, Once the Nazis got done completely destroying Warsaw, and the Bolsheviks finished waiting for them to do it and entered the city, I have read that they only found three (3) people alive in Warsaw...

But I think your larger point is what the Polish population might do about a German invasion. I will tell you that my Great Uncle was a Hallarczyk, a Pole who volunteered to fight as part of General Stanisław Haller's "Blue Army" fighting in France. The idea sprang from that great Polish hero, statesman, and pianist, Ignacy Jan Paderewski.

My Dad and his brothers all served. I think any of my family would know how to give such goons a proper reception.

[hamiclar01]

the fact remains the Yanks did give the Krauts an ass whipping as well,

Cough Cough.... Kasserine... Cough.. Omaha... Cough...the Normandy hedgerows...Cough..'Garden"...Anzio...

Darn! I've got the underdog cough!

I'd better duck

Talking of a threat to the US from an army that couldn't sail across the channel from Calais to hit Dover, is a pretty wild flight of fancy.

BTW, the Bismarck Baden derivation is now disputed ("Anatomy of the Ship - The Battleship Bismarck", Jack brower). Though she (or he, if we be pedantic) was another chain of the ship in being philosophy that frustrated the Royal Navy, like her sister/brother Tirpitz, the Emden and of course, the cheekiest of them all, the Goeben

[timmy]

hamiclar: Kasserine was undoubtedly a defeat of the US Army. One could point to the behavior of Major General Lloyd Fredendall here, although I will accept that he was not the only issue in that battle.

However, you are citing Omaha and the Normandy hedgerows in this list, and I was under the impression that the outcome of both of these battles was not a German victory, no matter how messy they may have been. In this, your implication is rather like the German claims to have won the Battle of Jutland -- they inflicted a lot of damage, but they were forced to leave the field to their enemy. I see that as an indication of defeat.

Next, you cite Anzio. (My Dad was there.) I submit that you have not told the whole word on the matter. I am recalling that Anzio was not, at its root, an American idea. Rather, it sprang from the mind that had devised another such amphibious attack in WW1 on Turkey. As such, it was part of a larger picture, devised by this same gentleman, to attack the "Soft Underbelly" of Germany in an attempt to preserve the post war dominance of the Mediterranean by a power that was not America.

To speak more plainly, Anzio was a plan devised by Churchill that had a much larger strategic picture in mind, and this larger prize caused Churchill to insist on a plan that was not sufficiently supplied and which ignored the realities of the situation by underestimating German capability. This last issue smacks of a lack of intelligence that brings up other examples of the same fault, like the Allied Norwegian campaign and Marketgarden.

The Americans (Army Commander Mark Clark and Divisional Commander Lucien Truscott -- I see Clark as less than competent, though he was a favorite American commander of Churchill, who called him "The American Eagle", but Truscott -- my Dad's divisional commander, was a different story altogether. Read his history for a picture of a very interesting individual!) rejected Anzio, but Churchill insisted.

Yes, the beaches were not defended, and yes, Churchill whined that he intended to land a wildcat and only got a beached whale, but yes, the Germans responded to the threat with their customary efficiency and soon had the beachhead contained. It was always my Dad's feeling that, had Lucas pushed inland rather than stopping to consolidate the beachhead, the Germans would have cut them off and swatted them like a fly. I think that there's a lot of merit to this viewpoint.

So I am seeing Churchill's plan, Alexander as the Theater Commander, Clark as the Army Commander, Lucas (and later, Truscott) as Corps Commander, the British 1st Infantry, and the US 3rd Infantry. It was easy to put Lucas on the spot to carry Churchill's water in this matter, so that's what was done. However, the forces intended were not sufficient to address the objective. I will grant you, however, that when the breakout finally occurred and the Gustav line was cracked, Mark Clark preferred to go down in history as the "conqueror of Rome" rather than to bag the Germans who were abandoning the Gustav line. In this, he passed up the opportunity to crack the whole Italian theater and put Hitler into a very nasty spot. Whether Clark could have succeeded in this isn't the point -- he had a good opportunity and passed it up for reasons flimsier than Churchill's original objective.

So I am wondering what your citation of Anzio in your list indicates.

[hamiclar01]

However, you are citing Omaha and the Normandy hedgerows in this list, and I was under the impression that the outcome of both of these battles was not a German victory,.

The point my friend, is the concept of "whipping kraut asses".

I remember speaking to a tankman, a Major General in the Indian army who taught Gotthard Heinrichi's defence of the Vistula at the academy as an example of good troop handling. Heinrichi was withdrawing, remember.....so technically he is not a victor. Kesserling/Vietenghoff/Senger und Etterlin didn't theoretically win either, but they made a mockery of Churchill's "soft underbelly" hypothesis.

[Mark]

An issue that always seems to crop up for me is that any political or strategic opinion posted on the internet needs to have about 3 qualifiers included or someone is going to misinterpret and quite possibly take an issue with something inferred. And so I always resolve to not post anything unless I can eloquently state my point in as many different ways so it cannot be misinterpreted.

Anyway, I was in a hurry but thought I could pound out a quick reply and get away with it. So let me add a few additional beliefs/observations that I have. First, in both world wars a heck of a lot of fighting (and dying I might add) was done before the US ever got involved. Rather than point out specific examples (since the Poles have been mentioned, not only were they ferocious fighters but are most of you aware the Poles were the ones who first cracked the Enigma machines, don't ask me how but they did it using mathematical reasoning with paper and pencil! WTH!!! Talk about some intense philosopher/mathematicians!)

So while I was not meaning to denigrate any other countrymen (and this should properly include German individuals as well) who had accomplished individual or group acts of valor and battlefield success, the America of the 1940's was pretty much an unstoppable force.

Not to mention had any of these scenarios in Time been happening, my money would be on the first A Bomb not being dropped on Hiroshima.....

Timmy, that was an awesome write up you did, thank you for taking the time to do it.



Mark

[xl_target]

Incredible! Timmy! A kindred soul. You've been reading the same books that I have over the years? I had a big write up written but it is so similar that I will have to re-write it when I get home to leave out what you have covered. I have a slightly different take on some of this stuff but the end result is the same.

Cough Cough.... Kasserine... Cough.. Omaha... Cough...the Normandy hedgerows...Cough..'Garden"...Anzio...

While Omaha Beach was bloody, the result was that the Germans were pushed off the beaches and a beachhead established. Remember, this was supposed to be part of Hitler's "impregnable Atlantic Wall". That's was a huge loss for the Germans.

I would consider the "Krauts whipped" during the battle of Normandy. Remember what happened as a direct result of the Battle of Normandy? Once the Allies were able to fine tune their tactics (Culin "Rhino" plow, Operation Cobra, etc) and start pushing through Normandy, they were able to start closing the "Falaise Pocket" on retreating German troops and round up tens of thousands of them. After that the rest of the German troops in Normandy, the ones who could escape, were forced to quit Normandy and head back to Germany.
Chronology:
June 6th - D Day - Allies land on the beaches of Normandy
End of June - Cherbourg captured
July - US troops bogged down in the bocage
July 19th - Caen liberated
July 25th - Opertain Cobra Commences
July 27th - Most organized resistance to Operation Cobra collapses
July 31st - Bradleys troops freed from the bocage
August - The Falaise pocket traps huge number of German troops who end up surrendering. German troops retreat across the Seine and are now out of Normandy.

Once across the Seine, the warfare changes from an Infantry battle to one of maneuver allowing allied tanks to pour into Brittany.



Kasserine were definitely a setback for the Allies. The untried US 1st Armored Div was lured in by Rommell and decimated. Still, Rommell never made it to the sea as was his intention. He stopped something like 4 miles short. It was not the fighting ability of the allies that stopped him, it was logistics. He ran out of Fuel! If he had made it to the sea, he would have separated the US and British forces and the war would have been prolonged for a while more. The end result would have still been the same, unconditional surrender for Germany. It just would have taken longer.

Market Garden was a British operation and a combination of poor planning and poor intelligence.
Anzio was a confused mess. When Truscott's Division was chosen for the operation, he told Clark that the position was a death trap. Clark agreed and canceled the operation, but Churchill revived it.


From D-Day on, with a few brief pauses, it is one continuous retreat for the Germans in Europe.

[timmy]

BTW, the Bismarck Baden derivation is now disputed ("Anatomy of the Ship - The Battleship Bismarck", Jack brower). Though she (or he, if we be pedantic) was another chain of the ship in being philosophy that frustrated the Royal Navy, like her sister/brother Tirpitz, the Emden and of course, the cheekiest of them all, the Goeben

I do have that installment of "The Anatomy of the Ship" and here's what I've found:

Bismarck's protection followed the general layout of the Scharnhorst class. It has been stated many times that Bismarck was just a rework of the Scharnhorst class, and differed little in principle from that of the Bayern class laid down in December 1913. Although the Bismarck class and the Bayern class shared some similarities, such as the size and layout of the main armament, experience gained with Bayern led to several improvements in Bismarck. Bismarck was a larger, faster vessel with up-to-date guns. Bayern displaced 32,200 full load tonnes, while Bismarck displaced 49,406 full load tonnes. Busmarck's pwer plant generated 150,150shp at 30.8kts while Bayern's generated 52,000shp at 25kts.

Mr. Brower is saying a lot of nothing here. Of course, the guns are updated. Of course, technology has improved the powerplant. It is very superficial to say that the similarity in armament distribution is the only similarity, however. (4x2 turret distribution was a WW1 standard and not applied to any battleship built after the Washington Naval Conference, generally agreed to be the dividing line between 1st generation and 2nd generation dreadnoughts, other than Bismarck and Tirpitz.)

What I am talking about here is the armor distribution and Bismarck's resulting effectiveness as a fighting vessel, and this is the reason why Bismarck was hard to sink, but easy to put out of action. It is also the reason why I consider Bismarck an inferior design to the US North Carolinas, South Dakotas, and Iowas, and the French Richelieus. A very strong case can be made that Bismarck was inferior to the British King George Vs, as well. Remember that the KGVs were designed within treaty limits of 35,000 tons, while Bismarck flagrantly cheated and profited from the extra tonnage -- but not much! (Note here that the British and the Americans had dual purpose secondaries, but Bismarck had separate 5.9" surface secondaries and 4.1" antiaircraft secondaries -- thus wasting a lot of the advantage conferred by the extra tonnage.) The British designers, at the time of the KGV, were the best in the world. I will say that the Americans, who designed the North Carolinas at the same time, came up with a better design and better ship, but they had an advantage in technology and infrastructure that gave the USN ships better range and 16" guns, rather than the planned 14". When the naval treaties expired, the Americans had the infrastructure to alter the design to carry 3x3 16", rather than the planned 3x4 14". The Americans were also not facing war in 1939, either. Neither British or American planners knew they would be involved in war in 1939 and 1941, respectively, but the British did know that they had to put hulls in the water more quickly than the Americans.

So, here's what I'm talking about regarding armor -- Nathan Okun addresses Bismarck here:

http://www.combinedfleet.com/okun_biz.htm

Note this paragraph:

While the armor protection scheme of the BISMARCK is similar to its contemporaries in most respects, as indicated above, the amidships hull armor scheme protecting the ship's "vitals" - magazines, boilers, engine rooms, electrical generator rooms, power and communication switchboards, gun plot rooms (for range-keeping electro-mechanical computers and stable elements/gyroscopes), and so forth - was definitely unique to German warships in WWII. This portion of an armored warship is generally termed the "Citadel" because it represents the 'core' of the armored "castle" in the hull. This armor scheme was a "beefed-up" version of the scheme used before and during WWI by German and many foreign battleships, which was abandoned by every other nation except Germany immediately after the last ships designed before or during that war were finished (note the enormous change between the HMS HOOD, which was the last WWI-type battleship/battle-cruiser built by Britain, and the HMS NELSON and HMS RODNEY, which were designed just after that war as HOOD-sized "modern" battleships, but later reduced in size and speed because of the restrictions of the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922). Germany seems to have been the most reactionary of all nations in its large warship designs, which is strange after it had built the very radical and advanced "Pocket Battleships" of the DEUTSCHLAND (later LUTZOW) Class in the late 1920's and early 1930's.

Here is a picture of the armoring scheme I'm talking about:



Above, note how the armored decks of the 3rd generation battleship designs, Iowa, King George V, and Yamato, have the armored protection above the belt, while Bismarck still has the old 1st generation "turtle deck" horizontal protection intersecting the main belt at the bottom.

In discussing the design of HMS Renown (1893), a second class British predreadnought battleship, DK Brown notes:

The middle deck at the top of the main belt was 2in thick at the centre but sloped down at 45°, 3in thick, at the sides to meet the lower edge of the belt. The sloping edge of the deck provided a very strong support to the belt but, more important, any intact shell which penetrated the main belt would be slowed in doing so and then hit the 3in slopes at 45°, which it would be unlikely to penetrate. This style of protection was used in every British ship up to Hood and every German ship up to Bismarck where it did fairly well in her final, close range action.

Brown is here noting the revolutionary aspect of Renown's design, and points out that Bismarck's old style armor scheme did its job in protecting the citadel. This is high praise for Renown, but Tony Gibbons outlines what it meant for Bismarck:

Unfortunately, the retention of a basic design from World War I meant the retention also of several vital flaws: the rudders and steering gear were poorly protected, and the location of the main armoured deck towards the lower edge of the belt (at a time when other major powers had shifted it towards the upper edge of the belt) left most of the ship's communications and data transmission systems exposed. Both these factors played a crucial role in Bismarck's loss

(In all fairness to Bismarck, there is truth and lack of facts regarding the rudders, since Prince of Wales was also lost ultimately due to the same reason. Recent dives have shown that one Japanese torpedo wrecked one of the propellors, causing the shaft to whip about it its tunnel and largely destroy the watertight integrity of most of the ship's stern. Rudders were a weak point of all capital ship designs. However, Bismarck's stern was weak -- a German design fault going back to WW1, and Ballard's research disclosed that the entire stern of Bismarck did fail.)

This sort of design is fine when ships are fighting at close range in the North Sea. However, the experience at Jutland showed that plunging fire from longer ranges made better horizontal protection mandatory. All the British designs of the 1st Generation were canceled, with the famous exception of HMS Hood, which can for all intents and purposes be termed a 32 knot version of the Queen Elizabeth class.

The Germans had no way of building 2nd Class designs, like the British (Nelson and Rodney were shrunken G3 designs, intended to keep the protection of the G3s, but reduced in tonnage and speed to meet the Washington Treaty requirements. Thus, they were called the "Cherry Tree Class," because they were chopped down by Washington -- seriously.) So the Germans built on the basis of their WW1 designs.

I realize, hamiclar, that these arguments may seem obscure, but they are a first step in understanding how naval designs progressed. This has been a painful thing for me to understand over the years, myself, but my suggestion would be to wean yourself away from "bookstore battleship books" and move on to more scholarly work. A good starting point would be the series of books by William H. Garzke and Robert O. Dulin. They have one on British, French, Dutch, and Soviet battleships in WW2 (I have that one) and one on Axis and Neutral battleships (German, Italian) and one on US Battleships. (I don't have those two yet, but I've read them.) These authors will give you some real details that "consumer level" books leave out. Also, Norman Friedman's book on US Battleships is good. Anything you find by British authors DK Brown, John Roberts, or NJM (John) Campbell, pick up. Campbell has a standard work on Jutland I highly recommend, though it is a bit dated. DK Brown was one of the RN's top engineers -- these guys will take you back to older designs and up to the present. Also, Campbell's encyclopedia on naval weapons (guns, torpedos, etc) is a standard as well. I have a number of these and enjoy them over and over, for there's so much detail, you will never run out of something interesting to watch.

If you don't want to build a collection, you can find good information in the Conway series on the Ship. I am thinking of Steam, Steel, and Shellfire (1805-1905) and The Eclipse of the Big Gun (1906-1945). The chapters in these books are written by authors I've named and also others of their caliber. One other book I would single out as exceptional and recommend highly is DK Brown's Warrior to Dreadnought. It only deals with British ships, but as the British built the best warships of this period, it gives a great overview by a premier expert. Having visited Warrior yourself, you will eat up that part, as I did.

But back to the point, Brower isn't really saying much of value in his words.

Bismarck was not a technological wonder, as the British put out. It was a dire threat to convoys and needed to be destroyed, however, and so was a very serious issue. Tirpitz was a great example of the "fleet in being" principle. Posing a threat to the Murmansk Run convoys, the needed to destroy it. If you read about the condition of Scharnhorst at the end, before being sent out on the final mission where it was destroyed by Duke of York, you'll see that, along with Tirpitz's story, these ships were in a sad state for quite some time. In fact, about the time Raeder was sacked and Donitz took over the entire navy as Grand Admiral, Hitler was going to decommission all cruisers and battleships and have whatever armament he could grab deployed on land. Donitz talked him out of it, but it sounds to me like one of Hitlers few sensible ideas at that point in the war. When Scharnhorst went out to the end, much of the radar wasn't working, which is why Duke of York was able to come up in the dark and blow it out of the water, essentially.

The point my friend, is the concept of "whipping kraut asses".

I remember speaking to a tankman, a Major General in the Indian army who taught Gotthard Heinrichi's defence of the Vistula at the academy as an example of good troop handling. Heinrichi was withdrawing, remember.....so technically he is not a victor. Kesserling/Vietenghoff/Senger und Etterlin didn't theoretically win either, but they made a mockery of Churchill's "soft underbelly" hypothesis.

[/quote][/quote]

Yes, I do understand that, but simply handling troops doesn't really qualify for a refutation of that point.

Regarding Normandy, there were 5 beaches, 2 American and 3 British Empire. 4 of the 5 and 1 of 2 of the American beaches went pretty well. The results at one were bloody and difficult. Once the breakout was achieved, the Americans ran into a bad situation in the hedgerows and the British at Caen. But neither situation lasted and the result was the Falaise Pocket, and the Germans running pell mell as fast as they could go to the Siegfried Line. Had Allied forced had enough supplies, namely fuel, they would have bagged the lot and the western approaches of Germany would have been as naked as a jaybird -- war over. The Germans knew this, if Hitler didn't, which is why the result of this, von Stauffenberg et al tried to blow Hitler up.

OK, in Italy, you have a good point: the Germans fought a good battle which in no way won them the war. After the Americans pulled out of Italy to land in France and fight up the Rhone, Italy was a sideshow that wasn't going to determine anything about the war's final disposition, anyway. The whole Italian thing north of Rome had to do with continuing the inertia of a campaign that was no longer the "only show in town" for Britain and the USA, which is had been up until Normandy and Southern France landings. Rather, Churchill still had this pet notion of exploiting the Ljubljana Gap and allowing Britain to dominate the Balkans post war -- about as likely an event as bird dogs flying.

The end result of the whole thing was that a nation run buy goons, with the approval of the majority of the population (at least, until they couldn't rob Jews and the rest of occupied Europe of their weath) and that had bedeviled Europe for 80 years with wars and whining about not having a place in the sun, had just about been bombed, shot, and yes, even raped into the stone age by the allies, and sent into two corners to consider the error of its ways. And Europe as been quiet ever since.

In my book, Germany's ass was whipped, and several nations had a major hand in accomplishing that, including the USA.

Regarding Goeben, that vessel certainly played a huge role in WW1, though not due to the fighting record. Goeben's record was largely political, and I think it fair to say that, ultimately, Goeben was responsible for the fall of two empires, the Russian and the Ottoman. One could argue that the demise of each was inevitable, perhaps, but Goeben was a more proximate cause than such speculations.

When it comes to ships, I would heartily agree that the German 1st generation battlecruisers were infinitely superior to their British counterparts (unlike the comparison of battleships). However, I'd note that, while Souchon was following orders to refuse battle with Arky Barky's battlecruisers and even Troubridge's 4 old armored cruisers, he certainly did engage in a shooting match with the Tsar's dreadnought Imperatritsa Ekaterina. The Russian 12"/52s were noted for accuracy and on that day, Souchon pedaled as fast as he could to get away from the tsarist ship.

-- Fri Aug 05, 2011 19:25 --

I want to add here, xl, that I'm sorry I didn't follow your example, and I wish that you had followed mine: I wish you would have put in your own words what you thought, regardless if it had been said, because I would very much have liked to have read it. I have to admit, once I start a post, I pretty much see it through, though I did take in a few subsequent replies this time, I didn't see your post.

I did want to add a bit on the Italian Campaign. Churchill was keen on keeping the Empire going. Although Roosevelt and Churchill were portrayed as buddies (and maybe they were) FDR was every bit as cagey as Churchill -- and made a lot fewer mistakes, IMO. The world toward the end and after WW2 was not buddies Britain and the USA vs the Soviet Union. It was three players in the ring, Churchill, FDR, and Stalin, and it was every man for himself. As Britain was the weakest of the parties by far, and as the great bulk of the British Empire was going to be exposed to the USA and not the Soviet Union, FDR worked with Stalin to break up the Empire.

A lot of Americans fault FDR for this policy and as a Pole, a lot of my feelings weren't in his favor over the betrayal of Poland by Britain and the USA. But in the end, no American was in favor of fighting the Soviets after the war in Europe was over, outside of a few wingnuts like Patton. That dog was simply not going to hunt, as the saying goes. Some point out that the USA had the atom bomb -- not! We used up what we had against Japan, and by November 1945, had made 11 more. As horrific as Hiroshima and Nagasaki were, anyone who reads about what the Nazis did to the Soviet people during WW2 can recognize 11 atom bombs being a drop in the bucket to the Soviets, even if we could have gotten all of them there.

At the end of the war, the USA had about 50 divisions in Europe, and the Soviets about 300. Some people say that American Sherman tanks weren't much of a match for the German Tiger tanks. They weren't, but the Germans didn't make that many Tigers and they weren't too reliable. On the other hand, the Soviets had lots of T-34s, more than enough to take care of our Shermans! There wasn't going to be a US-Soviet war at the end of Europe, thank goodness.

So, FDR traded a war that wouldn't be fought for a free hand with the British Empire. It was access to those markets that a lot of America's post-war prosperity was built. Don't think so? What happened to the Iranian oil fields that Jackie Fisher had secured for the Royal Navy, to assure plenty of oil for the Queen Elizabeth class dreadnoughts? I can tell you what happened to a little bit of it before 1979: I burned it in my 1965 Pontiac GTO.

Churchill wanted to keep the Balkans for Britain and maintain Britain's dominance over the Mediterranean. He wanted to contest Central Europe with the Soviets, but the USA was willing to write off a war-torn patch of Europe for greener fields with lots of natural resources.

[xl_target]

The point my friend, is the concept of "whipping kraut asses".

I would call having to surrender unconditionally, an "ass kicking".

[hamiclar01]

i. Timmy, we must dispute the Bismarck/Baden controversy further, particularly as I now must look deeper into my evidence to support my point. Let's pick it up privately. I am sure my edition of the "Anatomy"writes otherwise, because I stood up when I read this point.

ii. Mark, we need a devil's' advocate to further discussions. What happens if everybody agrees? A lot us, though not being "experts", have read enough to have opinions of their own.

iii. XLtarget, with respect, "ass kicking", "whipping kraut assess" is disappointing and to me carries very Jerry Bruckheimer-ish connotations. I thought we were serious students of history.

[shooter]

Interesting article. I became interested in alternate history after reading a book (for got name) in which the south Africans invent the time machine and send agents back in time to supply AK 47 to the confedetare army. They didnt want slavery to end.

So the south wins the war. And CSA and USA are 2 countries. This plotline was corney but the point is how after the war the circumstances happen where slavery ends even in the south.

Somethimes i think of how plato predicted how govts. change and systems change and wonder how much our govt's actions actually contribute to changing world history.

for eg. circa 1500 bc saw democracy fail in north india and how ineffective it was and gradually replaced by monarchy as a more stable form of govt.

re: 'ass whipping' :
none of us was present during the wars. we all read books and form our own opinions. This not only depends on people who wrote the books but also on us. 10 people reading the same book will have different views.

However we do know that after the usa joined the wars, there was a change in the tide of victories. Now one can claim it was just timing, they joined when the tide was turning. but the fact it happened twice......!!

re Poles: they werent allowed to fly in battle of britain and the glorious british werent happy to trust their plane to polish pilots. At last they did and the poles performed brilliantly causing that remark from churchill.

[hamiclar01]

However we do know that after the usa joined the wars, there was a change in the tide of victories. Now one can claim it was just timing, they joined when the tide was turning. but the fact it happened twice......!!

Err, let me clarify: I am not revising history. There is no ambiguity as to who won the two world wars, and the important US role in it, even among the engagements I mention. Hollywood and Discovery channel takes great pains to spread this message to everybody anyway.

"Ass shipping", my opinion, is an incongruent term to describe certain historical events.
Imagine Pyrrhus telling the Romans, " I whipped your ass, though you killed most of my men doing so".

I'd love to look up my "Anatomy" series for Bismarck , but my library is in a shipping container, en route distant lands. I'll get to it, one day