Greatest military blunder of WWII

[ToughOmbre]

Originally Posted by ccheese

What if Japan had made another raid on Pearl Harbor ? This time got the
sub pens, the fuel farm, the dry docks ?
What if they had not retreated when they had "Taffey 3"
bottled up ? Halsey was 800 miles away !

Good question !!

Charles

If the Japanese (specifically Nagumo) had any guts we would have been in a lot worse shape on December 7th. They might have even been able to catch a carrier or two (Enterprise for sure). A better Pearl harbor strategy by Japan might have extended the war, but the outcome eventually would be the same. Same for Leyte Gulf. If Kurita's forces pressed their advantage against Taffy 3, American casualties would have been far higher in the Phillipines and the war would certainly have been prolonged. But eventually there were destined to be mushroom clouds sprouting over Japanese cities.

[ccheese]

I like that part:

"But eventually there were destined to be mushroom clouds sprouting over Japanese cities."

Charles

[Macchi]

Personally I don't think Japan stood a chance, even if they'd sunk the entire U.S. Pacific fleet at Pearl, carriers and all. Every mistake they made after that was just another grain of sand falling in the hourglass of their eventual failure.

Germany on the other hand, could have pulled off a victory, so I'll pick over three things. Firstly, I don't believe Barbarossa itself to be a blunder, but feel the mistake was in the overconfidence behind it. The German counter-intelligence did such a great job of instilling paranoia in Stalin that he'd liquidated a good part of his own General Staff before 1941. The real blunder was Germany's deactivation of over 40 divisions from the Eastern Front in the autumn of 1941, believing that victory was foregone. Then there was the aspect of not having proper winter clothing and materials available through the 1941-42 season... perhaps also part of their overconfidence. I think the German Army splitting between Moscow and the Caucasus could have succeeded if their original force had been left intact and properly supplied for a slightly longer campaign. With the Russian Front won and closed, Germany would have secured monstrous supplies of raw materials, foods, and their all important oil. They could have then gone back and dealt with England for round two, more dangerous than ever. The failures of Dunkirk and the Battle of Britain were not deal breakers if Russia had been submitted. The worst Germany could have done from that point is a stalemate. With the bulk of the German Army back on the Western Front, D-Day would never have gotten past the beaches.

Second, aside from vanity, Germany no business being in North Africa, Greece, Crete, or (the eventual) Yugoslavia. These endeavors chewed up occupation troops and resources that could have been used elsewhere. Hungary, Romania and the Bulgaria alliances made sense only to the point they provided troops for Germany in the Russian campaign... which would all have been unnecessary if Hitler had not squandered his advantage from 1941.

Thirdly, there was Germany's failure around the Enigma system. Germany had a solution to Bletchley Park, despite not being aware the Allies were already reading their mail. The four wheel Enigma machine evolved to become a five wheel device. But because not every machine could be replaced at once, the four wheel units had to be able to read messages sent from the five wheel versions. The five wheel Enigma was essentially a fruitless evolution. If the two versions had been kept entirely separate, the Allies would have been deaf to German Intelligence traffic from mid 1943 onwards.

Beyond those, throw in a few Luftwaffe crumbs about Goring getting in the way of a good airforce, jet/rocket advances being ignored until it was too late and that Willy Messerschmidt probably should have shot in 1938. Everything was there for Germany to succeed. Thank goodness only hindsight is 20-20.

[Aussie1001]

Honestly i read some Americans saying back there at the start of the thread that Germany's first mistake was declaring war on the states. Rubbish in my opinion Germanys biggest mistake was not finishing the Battle of Britian. The English were stretched so tight with their airforce that another couple of moths at the most would have broken them and then with Uk subdued they would be free to concentrate their might on Russia who without the Atlantic convoys would have been up s**t creek would have been beaten and then Germany and Japan would have been free to take on the states. And don't say that they would not have fallen becuase at the time and indeed through out most of the war Germany was the leader with reguard to technologicial advances and the japs had the determination and the numbers and without scientist like Albert Einstine who was flown out to the states there would have been no A bomb...

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

I happen to disagree with that Aussie because even if they had destroyed the RAF they would not have been able to sustain an invasion of England and all it would have done was bogged down more forces than it allready was.

[timshatz]

Also disagree with Aussie on Einstien's contribution to the bomb. His major contribution was in two parts, one in the development of matter into energy (and vice versa) better known as E=M (the C square part is not absolutely needed to get your head around the thing).

Secondly, Einstien wrote two letters to FDR (not one as is generally thought) about the German Nuclear Potential (not a project, but the potential for creating a bomb). First one was an alert letter and is the one generally known. It said the Germans could build the bomb and the Western Democracies (specifically the US) better get on the stick. The second one was a more threatening one to FDR. It said that nothing had been done since the first letter had been written and if FDR didn't get cracking, Einstien would go public and let the world know what was going on. The Manhatten project started shortly thereafter (in a convoluted way, but it started).

But Einstein was not really a big deal in the Manhatten project. In truth, he was barely involved. The big names in the project were Oppenheimer, Groves, Lawrence, Kurti, Simon, to some extent- Fermi. The list is pretty long.

But Einstein's real gift to Physics was pretty much done by about 1920. Thereafter, he pretty much satisfied himself with working on the Unified Force or Field theory that all matter came down to one force that is the grand daddy of all forces.

Doubtless there are others who have a better line on it that I do on this board but Einstien really wasn't a biggie in the engineering of the actual bomb.

[Marcel]

Originally Posted by Aussie1001

my opinion Germanys biggest mistake was not finishing the Battle of Britian. .

Hmmm, maybe the biggest mistake of Germany was even starting the whole damned war or maybe earlier, alowing Hitler to become their head of state

[The Basket]

Originally Posted by Aussie1001

Honestly i read some Americans saying back there at the start of the thread that Germany's first mistake was declaring war on the states. Rubbish in my opinion Germanys biggest mistake was not finishing the Battle of Britian. The English were stretched so tight with their airforce that another couple of moths at the most would have broken them and then with Uk...

Did you know the RAF was stronger at the end of the BoB than the beginning?
Did you know that the RAF would simply have gone further north and continued fighting?
How many planes could the Luftwaffe lose before giving it up as a bad lot?
Had it gone longer then it would have been autumn and winter and few good flying days.
Even without airpower,the Germans would still have to invade.

[Hunter368]

Originally Posted by Aussie1001

Honestly i read some Americans saying back there at the start of the thread that Germany's first mistake was declaring war on the states. Rubbish in my opinion Germanys biggest mistake was not finishing the Battle of Britian. The English were stretched so tight with their airforce that another couple of moths at the most would have broken them and then with Uk subdued they would be free to concentrate their might on Russia who without the Atlantic convoys would have been up s**t creek would have been beaten and then Germany and Japan would have been free to take on the states. And don't say that they would not have fallen becuase at the time and indeed through out most of the war Germany was the leader with reguard to technologicial advances and the japs had the determination and the numbers and without scientist like Albert Einstine who was flown out to the states there would have been no A bomb...

There is several great threads on the BoB here, the Germans were never even close to winning the BoB. Also they never could of won the battle even if their navy got involved. Go read those threads and you will understand. Germans never would of won it in 39-40 with the weapons and numbers involved during that period.

[Aussie1001]

Hunter c'mon really where do you get your information read Ginger Lacy's autobiography for one. That should give you some idea on how tight they really were.

[Desert Fox]

Starting Operation Barbarossa stretched the Germans too far. Their supply lines were too long, and their forces were strewn across the globe, in not enough concentration to make any head way against the Allies. Attacking the Soviets was the straw that broke the camel's back in my opinion.

[Hunter368]

Originally Posted by Aussie1001

Hunter c'mon really where do you get your information read Ginger Lacy's autobiography for one. That should give you some idea on how tight they really were.

Trust me, it is a well covered subject. Go research it more. Go to the threads I told you to read. The books you have read have many half truths in them. Go read the threads. I have read countless books on BoB, I have read more books on BoB then years you have been alive. Do more research and you will see the RAF was no where close to being broken in BoB. She was stronger at the end of BoB then she was at the start of it.

Go read the threads, trust me its been covered to death already.

[Aussie1001]

I may sometimes open my mouth without thinking someting through however if you know Ginger Lacy was one of the top scoring aces of the battle of britian shooting down over 20 aircraft. IF he doesn't know then i don't know who does.

[Aussie1001]

Originally Posted by Hunter368

There is several great threads on the BoB here, the Germans were never even close to winning the BoB. Also they never could of won the battle even if their navy got involved. Go read those threads and you will understand. Germans never would of won it in 39-40 with the weapons and numbers involved during that period.

Ok this thing has got a few holes in it
1) The home guard in the bob were being trained to use pitch forks and shovels for weapons as there was a critical shortage of rifles and indeed almost everything due to dunkirk where all the equiptment was left behinde after being destroyed by the british themselves so the germans could not have it. The british therefore had little arms and armour in the way of armies.
sure they might have been one of the forerunners in navies at the time and maybe they did have an airforce that had so far taken everything the Germans could throw at it but i maintain that the BOB would have been lost if the germans had have kept up their air attacks...

[mkloby]

Originally Posted by Aussie1001

Honestly i read some Americans saying back there at the start of the thread that Germany's first mistake was declaring war on the states. Rubbish in my opinion Germanys biggest mistake was not finishing the Battle of Britian. The English were stretched so tight with their airforce that another couple of moths at the most would have broken them and then with Uk subdued they would be free to concentrate their might on Russia who without the Atlantic convoys would have been up s**t creek would have been beaten and then Germany and Japan would have been free to take on the states. And don't say that they would not have fallen becuase at the time and indeed through out most of the war Germany was the leader with reguard to technologicial advances and the japs had the determination and the numbers and without scientist like Albert Einstine who was flown out to the states there would have been no A bomb...

First off - what's with this anti-American vibe? Japan got rocked 6 ways to Sunday by starting a war with the US. The Germans had absolutely no effective way to take the war to the US across the Atlantic ocean.