JRsec
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RE: What Battle or Conflict Stands Out in History?
(03-14-2015 04:11 PM)NIU007 Wrote: Both Germany and Japan would have had a very difficult time of it, especially Germany.
And your reasoning is what? The Luftwaffe would have been at full strength prior to the Battle of Britain and the Royal Navy would have had to move into the English Channel which would have made their surface fleet the primary target of the mid range Heinkels. Air power's supremacy over surface vessels was proven in WWII sustaining Billy Mitchell's findings twenty years earlier. Significant losses to the Royal Navy's surface fleet would have made Germany's surface fleet (Bismark, Tirpitz, Gneisenau, and Scharnhorst all the more formidable). Plus in the initial phases of the war the U-boat threat was essentially unchecked as the Aztec capabilities of finding them with sonar (really microwave transmissions and not sonar) was not yet in operation. Any kind of feint on behalf of the German Army would have brought the fleet within range and after dealing with that a landing supported by SS paratroopers would have met little resistance from organized British forces as most of them were in the expeditionary force trapped at Dunkirk. The establishment of Jagdstaffels in Ireland would have made the air superiority over England more obtainable. Remember that after Dunkirk the flotilla of military and private vessels evacuated the expeditionary force but they were disorganized and had abandoned much of their weaponry.
Now don't misunderstand my position, I'm quite glad things turned out the way they did, but in 1940 the Spitfires lacked the range or the numbers to have successfully defended a fleet in the Channel. Their time over the target would have been significantly reduced if not flying over their own airfields as they did during the Blitz and conversely the ME109's and Heinkels would have had the advantage that they lacked over English soil. IMO the whole lack of following up after Dunkirk pointed more to the lack of coordination between the military branches within Germany (an issue that would hinder them throughout the war).
As for the Japanese they had achieved air superiority over the target, and the US might not have risked their carriers at that point. There were Japanese operatives in Honolulu (a dentist for one who supplied the pictures of the anchorage of battleships at Pearl). The bases there were not yet built up to wartime levels and the Japanese had brought amphibious Marine divisions with them for a follow up invasion which accompanied with their strike on Attu would have placed the United States response efforts at bases in California. The lack of obtaining the destruction of our carriers is what led them to decide to withdraw.
(This post was last modified: 03-14-2015 05:31 PM by JRsec.)
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03-14-2015 04:29 PM |
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