World War II

there is a argument out there that Germany should have attacked Russia before Europe, thus gathering all the natural resources available after defeating the Russians. It may have taken a year or so after conquest to get control to ensure a supply of resources but with that natural resource and a source of unlimited slave labour Germany could have easily attacked Europe exactly as it did and most likely win any war with the Brits.

All the past aside and the excellent discussion about developing weapons, it was this war and the big one previous that got the world into the productions factories that made our lives what they are today. Unfortunately the weapons race also guarantees that if we ever get a serious WW 3 we will not be around to talk about it

I recently read ' Stalin's Folly' by Konstantine Pleshakov that explores the theory that Stalin was shifting his forces from a defensive posture to an offensive one when the Germans attacked thus leading to their abject defeat during the early months of the conflict. Very interesting read from an authoritative Russian author who knows his stuff. Eastern Front students please note.

They went through Russia like a hot knife through butter in those early days, at least that is what I have read but that was the problem. The fuel and food supplies couldn't keep up with them because of the huge distances involved. It always sounded to me as if Stalin was caught completely unawares by the attack although he had had warnings from his spies and from us. If, as you say he was in the act of changing his forces around that might explain the disarray. Hitler expected the Russians to be weak opposition because the Red Army was poorly supplied and they had made a pigs ear of defeating Finland. Maybe it was the arrogance of the so called master race towards a bunch of Slav Bolsheviks that lost them the war?

If you think about it the Germans had won in similar fashion all over Europe. It was only in guerrila wars fought in difficult terrain where the Germans looked vulnerable. I think in the end they completely underestimated the distances and the way the Russians would fight for their own homeland! I did read somewhere that one of the main motivating factors behind the invasion was oil! Now where have we heard that before?

The problem with a "Russian First" strategy is that they didn't have a wide enough boarder with the USSR. Any build up in East Prussia would have been noticed and would have only allowed the northern front - not the central and southern ones. For the central front you need to attack from Poland and the Southern one requires going through Romanian. If you don't attack in all three places then the red army is more concentrated and thus slows you down more.

And it was when Hitler took western Poland (while give eastern Poland to the USSR) that the western allies (Britain, France) declared war on him.

If you look at the War, it's amazing how often little things made a huge difference. For example, when the Southern Front in Russia was about to take the oil fields, a special German unit went in disguised as Russian officers. They prevented the planned destruction of the oil fields by telling the Engineers that there was no signed authorisation for the destruction. Then the German army failed to overrun the oil fields and the Russians were able to use them for the rest of the war.

Tiny things can make a huge difference. Imagine if that telegram to Pearl Harbor (warning of a possible Japanese attack) had been flagged as urgent and they had been on alert. Imagine if the careers had been in the harbor or the Japanese had hit the oil reserves. Well every battle has those small things that could have gone differently and affected the outcome of the war.

Goodgulf

Some random thoughts.

Individual Russian units are fierce fighters. There is no quit in them. But they are often poorly lead and almost always badly supplied. Think of all those Lend Lease Studebaker trucks we gave them to mechanize their army.

My sense of it is that old uncle Adolf was more gambler than strategist. With training, advice, and experience he became a pretty good staff officer but first and foremost he was a politician. And like Napoleon he felt he needed military victories to maintain himself in power. You can talk 'Mien Kampf' all you want but I would say that he only had a hazy idea of his ultimate goals; but took advantage of any opportunity he saw when he saw it.

Field Marshal Manstein is one of the top five commanders of that conflict regardless of side. Thank the Gods that Hitler could not abide a rival.

Clausewitz's dictum about "no plan surviving contact with the enemy" and Wellington's comment about the "fog of war" rule here. For that matter in contemporary times; the 'W' people not seeing the evidence before their eyes regarding 911 is another good example of this. There are good reasons why it is referred too as 'The Art of War' rather than the science of war.

See Stalin's comment to Churchill and Harriman about oil and internal combustion engines. Or, for that matter, Churchill's acquisition of the oil fields of Iran to ensure that the Royal Navy & especially the Queen Elizabeth class battleships had a secure source of fuel. Hence British Petroleum. The Crowns controlling interest in Bushmills whiskey is another good example. Grin!

There is now hard evidence that Japanese Imperial Army planners told the cabinet that there was only a 9% chance of outright victory against the western powers and this was in the summer of 1941. My sense of it is that they choose to follow their code of honor rather than seek a meaningful accommodation with the west. To quote the old Klingon proverb: Today IS a Good Day to Die!

What your describing is War College level gaming. While in college I participated in playing a game called 'War in the Pacific' that required a large room, large flat table or two, and many walls to hang maps on. Especially you as a player need a couple of clip boards to hold all the paperwork. It took a couple of weeks to play out a tactical scenario and teams ranged in size from two to twelve. Not to mention a couple of umpires and a set of dice. Good stuff if you can find the time but in the current era I prefer PC based war gaming that does most of the 'scutt work' for you. Grin!

If we are talking might have beens-if the military had listened to Sir Frank Whittle then Britain would have had an invincible air force of jets by 1939; and total air superiority.
As far as I know the principle of the atomic bomb was widely understood but the resources it needed to make it a reality were probably beyond any country apart from the USA.

Good point jimism! Bravo!

As you say, the basic theory was known. Heck, it can be described to any high school class. But that's not the same as knowing how to make a nuclear weapon. There was still much to learn and there were some expensive and time-consuming surprises along the way. For example: There are two paths to an atomic bomb, uranium or plutonium. Nobody knew which one was the easiest (or even possible) so the Manhattan Project took both tracks. That sort of hard-learned knowledge was too basic to keep secret, so the rest of the world knew to emphasize plutonium. So Russia tested their first weapon in 1949, Brittan's first domestic weapon was tested in 1952. Not surprisingly, both of those were plutonium weapons.

Guy

One thing to remember is what the purge (or purges) did the officer corp. During one year most of those above the rank of colonel were killed or imprisoned - and only about a quarter of the colonels were left. I think it was Rokossovsky who went from being a hero of the state, an enemy of the state (imprisoned but not executed), to being hero of the state (leading troops during WWII).

Killing most of your own officers isn't the best way to build a military.



Ah - War in the Pacific - good memories of that. Currently we're using a quarter of a basement for our game. While the computer is good, there are times when you have to say "darn, I forgot to do something at the start of the impulse - mind if I do it now?" - and computers aren't that good when it comes that. Plus there's the getting together with friends that you've gamed with for decades. There's nothing like insulting an old friend to his face when he makes a bad move - trash talk isn't the same over the computer.

Goodgulf