Posted on 05/06/2015 4:29:56 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
In one sense, the Japanese were crazy. Your comparison to French doctrine of World War 1 could not be more on point. The French deluded themselves into believing that an offensive spirit, or elan could somehow overcome the physical laws of nature; that being no amount of elan will keep a machine gun bullet from killing a soldier. The Japanese thought exactly the same thing, only they called it seisin. If you really want to laugh at the French, you can point out that their tactical thought was no different than the Zulus who fought the British, believing that their witch doctors had magic spells that made their shields of grass and wattle impervious to British bullets.
Despite having the lessons of the Zulu wars and World War 1 to ponder, the Japanese plowed ahead in their belief that a warrior ethos was more than enough compensation for technological and industrial inferiority. Yeah, that was just plain crazy.
For the rest, it was a simple miscalculation of just how powerful the United States really was. Even Yamamoto did not realize just how many ships and planes the United States was going to crank out once it got fired up.
The real question of a "what if," which violates Henkster's Law, is whether the Japanese could have attempted to seize lightly defended British and Dutch colonies without attacking the Philippines, and triggering a war with the United States. Interesting question, but no, that wasn't how the Japanese were wired.
My curiosity finally got the better of me earlier today, so I tried a google search and hit paydirt immediately. It has made you famous! Or something...
I have a question for you, and I don’t think it violates Henkster’s Law. It’s not a “what if?” it’s a “did we?”
We’ll call it the George C. Patton Question:
Did we have sufficient power, even without using the A-bombs that were about ready, to kick the Russians back beyond the Crimea and Ukraine if we wanted to?
The Russians had millions of men on the line, and a gazillion tanks, I know, but we had one incredible blooded, veteran force, at its full capabilities. In my opinion it was the most powerful military force in history, bar none. And our country wasn’t even close to fully mobilized. We could have done a whole lot more if we would have had to.
Not that our leaders would have, if for no other reason than a reasonable fear that the Soviets might join forces with Japan in Asia, and extend the war indefinitely.
But could we have done it?
I’ll tell you right up front that I believe we could have kicked their tails in that short window of time before they got The Bomb.
If I remember right, Patton thought so too. And he wanted to do it.
RE: Patton’s question.
My snap judgement is no we could not with the forces at hand.
While I believe that the US had the Soviets outclassed in the air the Red Army would have outclassed the US Army in armor. M4 Shermans would not have matched up well with the T-34s and JS-2s and 3s of the Russians. I would have to give a slight edge to the Russians in artillery as well. Quantity has a quality all to itself.
While the US would have an edge on the Soviets regards logistics the Soviets would have the advantage of falling back on their homeland.
My 2 cents for what it is worth.
Regards
alfa6 ;>}
Thanks!
Maybe all it would have taken was a billion flyers dropped from aircraft telling the peoples of eastern Europe that if they would turn on their Soviet tyrant masters we would help them establish their own free governments.
I’m just sayin’...
Okay, with that last post I blatantly stepped over the line and broke Henkster’s Law all to pieces.
lol...
The canard foisted on a gullible west by surviving German generals is that the “Red Horde” was an armed mob that overwhelmed the Germans in a tidal wave of numbers. While the Red Army was something of a club that bludgeoned the Germans into submission, and they regularly bought victory at a fearsome blood price, they were not what the Germans portrayed them to be.
By 1945 the Red Army was an immense, well trained, experienced, well led, well equipped professional army willing to do anything to win. The question is not whether we would have pushed them back to the Urals, but whether they would have pushed us back to Dunkirk.
Me too. What the heck; it’s my law and I’ll break it if I want to.
Does a professional, well-discipled army rape two million or more women, and murder anyone and every one they feel like murdering?
I’ve read some of the accounts from eastern Germany and Berlin. The first wave of Russians were quite disciplined and relatively well-behaved. But the guys just behind them were a bunch of wild animals.
:-)
They behaved correctly in kicking the Germans out of their homeland. In the Eastern European countries they took some liberties that western armies did not, but discipline was rigorously enforced by means a western culture would not accept.
The wave of rape, pillage and murder was deliberately incited by the Commissars, and the army staff knew it affected discipline. But after the hardships the soldiers endured getting there, they felt entitled to a release. It also served the communists’ purpose of not just defeating the Germans, but humiliating and destroying them. I consider it an exception under the circumstances.
Yeah, like "advance into that gunfire or we will shoot you."
I consider it proof that they were no better than the SS.
Wait, I need to revise and extend that remark:
Yeah, like “advance into that gunfire or we will shoot you and torture and kill every single member of your family.”
Not really true. The Americans had lots of 90mm tank destroyers and tanks by the end of the war. We also had large numbers of 88mm German vehicles at our disposal along with vast numbers of good 76mm guns platforms. We would have complete air superiority in days and their tanks and artillery would have been liquidated by air power. The Soviets were bad to mass their forces which didn’t have to worry about strategic bombers by 1945.
If Germany had air superiority in the East, the Soviets never would have made it past Poland before we had overrun all of Germany.
Did the Soviets have the proximity fuze by this stage of the war, I wonder?
Because that was one of the reasons we decimated the Germans.
I read that they thought we had invented semi-automatic artillery.
Was our potential power that obscure, or were the Axis powers simply crazy?
“Without vision my people perish.”
Actual Patton Speech narrated by Ronald Reagan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLTUrbtCe-c
Must see.
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