Just finished reading a fascinating and brilliant book about a very dull American General (Lehey, bit that's not important) What is important is that the author of that book argues thusly: (paraphrasing here)
"The least important aspect of the whole of WW2 is the actual war fighting; there is no battle in the whole war that doesn't proceed exactly as the forces arranged beforehand predicts it would. Arguably there is only one; the Battle of France in May '40 which, had the French won, would obviously have caused the larger war not to have happened in the first place"
Historical research is genuinely groundbreaking stuff sometimes, and given the reams and reams books and studies of ww2 the fact that interesting and revisionist views of it are still being written is just endlessly fascinating
My favorite is the view that the Allied war effort was "a series of disasters, culminating in victory".
the fact that interesting and revisionist views of it are still being written is just endlessly fascinating
Apparently it was all Churchill's fault. He was bribed during the 1930s by "international bankers" to provoke Germany into war. There was a campaign to raise funds to out-bribe him, but that failed (apparently the "international bankers" were exceedingly cunning). The fake news media won't report it so most people don't know about it and just believe the conventional view that Hitler was a murderous genocidal monster.
Would the battles of Stalingrad and Kursk stand up to that analysis?
Surely the actual warfighting on the eastern front and the attritional wearing down of German resources and manpower as well as the destruction of German access to oil from the air bombardment had a huge part to play in the outcome of the war?
I'm not sure that is a particularly new view
I remember that series in the 1970s "The World at War". Most of the theme of that seemed to be that it was won by the side with the greatest industrial muscle and manpower, not by brilliant generals or masterful tactics.
just believe the conventional view that Hitler was a murderous genocidal monster
Was he not a murderous genocidal monster?
I'm just going by, say, the holocaust here.
Would the battles of Stalingrad and Kursk stand up to that analysis?
this is an interesting take on Kursk In essence saying the Germans didn't "lose" Hitler just lost his nerve. There is very little photograhic (none at all in fact) evidence from the Russian side to back up their claims of a victory at Prochorovka, and the ruskies loved photo's of knocked out tigers and considering they held the ground after the battle it does suggest a defeat.
I dunno. I sometimes think historical revisionism is a polite way of saying ‘academic trolling’
Would the battles of Stalingrad and Kursk stand up to that analysis?
Yes, Op Barbarossa is doomed to failure from the outset, The Germans simply aren't ever going to win. Same as for the Battle of Britain for example (regardless of subsequent myth making) the Luftwaffe cannot ever hope to beat the RAF, and the Invasion of the UK is a hopeless non-starter.
I sometimes think historical revisionism is a polite way of saying ‘academic trolling’
haha, yes agreed, but when it's based on actual evidence and not just on (as in this case) an academic hard-on for military paraphernalia, it does make for an interesting argument.
Just finished reading a fascinating and brilliant book about a very dull American General (Lehey, bit that’s not important) What is important is that the author of that book argues thusly: (paraphrasing here)
That has to be Phillips O'Brien.
I was just listening to him the other day on a James Holland and Al Murray podcast.
https://play.acast.com/s/wehaveways/wherethewarwaswon-part1
A really good listen.
James Holland has written some good revisionist stuff as well.
There are now a lot of discussion about the reality of what happened at Kursk, compared to the Soviet propaganda after the war.
Same as for the Battle of Britain for example (regardless of subsequent myth making) the Luftwaffe cannot ever hope to beat the RAF, and the Invasion of the UK is a hopeless non-starter.
There's a nifty little precis of how impossible a German invasion was in Derek Robinson's excellent A Piece Of Cake, I always wondered how true it was.
Was he not a murderous genocidal monster?
I’m just going by, say, the holocaust here.
That is the conventional view, for sure. However, I'm told that revisionists believe that Churchill and Roosevelt were the real monsters and Hitler was framed. Pity nobody back in the 1940s had cameras and stuff to record it all.
However, I’m told that revisionists believe that Churchill and Roosevelt were the real monsters and Hitler was framed.
Which revisionists are these? The one's with the tattooed foreheads?
Same as for the Battle of Britain for example (regardless of subsequent myth making) the Luftwaffe cannot ever hope to beat the RAF, and the Invasion of the UK is a hopeless non-starter.
This one I will disagree with. Hitler moved the focus on to bombing london just at the point the air defenses in the south where being overwhelmed because the German bombing of the airfields was meaning fewer and fewer planes could get into the air. If Hitler had continued the attacks on the air bases another 3 weeks we would have lost the battle for air superiority over the UK
There is also the theory that Hitler considered the brits aryan and was hoping for accommodation with britain ( fascists in the royal family / moesley) so delayed invasion because of this
Lots of mistakes on both sides. History is written by the winners
Which revisionists are these? The one’s with the tattooed foreheads?
Hard to tell. They wear strange looking hats that cover their faces.
the Invasion of the UK is a hopeless non-starter.
Pretty much. The troops were to be transported by Rhine barges, something like only 25% were powered and they would be towing the others. It's doubtful that they would of got across, even if the Germans had air superiority. The Royal Navy would of risked their destroyers, of which they had about 150, to sink them.
The myth of plucky Britain standing alone in 1940 is nonsense. The UK was a Global Superpower, with Global reach and huge Global resources.
If Hitler had continued the attacks on the air bases another 3 weeks we would have lost the battle for air superiority over the UK
still wouldn't be able to mount an invasion, no armour piercing bomb that could penetrate the deck armour of british capital ships, no torpedo bombers. Home fleet would arrive in the channel at dawn and it would be all over within 3 hours
This one I will disagree with. Hitler moved the focus on to bombing london just at the point the air defenses in the south where being overwhelmed because the German bombing of the airfields was meaning fewer and fewer planes could get into the air. If Hitler had continued the attacks on the air bases another 3 weeks we would have lost the battle for air superiority over the UK
This is also a bit of a myth. Even before the bombing of London, the RAF were not being overwhelmed. They only put 1 airfield out of action and that was for 24 hours.
The Luftwaffe were taking unsupportable losses in the daylight raids on the airfields.
Their biggest mistake was not hitting the radar stations.
The least important aspect of the whole of WW2 is the actual war fighting; there is no battle in the whole war that doesn’t proceed exactly as the forces arranged beforehand predicts it would.
Its not really a controversial view. At the scale the battles were being fought, especially in the European theater, every battle played out the way you would expect given the "pieces on the board before the game"
War at the scale of WWII becomes more about moving men and producing material than about the battles themselves.
Zoom in small enough and tactics matter. Take the naval battles in Pacific: Japan gets a stunning victory at Pearl Harbour. Then the still crippled US Navy rolls the dice at Midway and defeats a far superior Japanese force. On those days tactics mattered. But zoom back out and look at the Pacific Theater as a whole. Japan is doomed from the start as it has nowhere near the industrial power of the US to sustain and win a war.
From what I understand, Germany and Japan didn't think they would have to conquer Britain and the U.S., they thought the Allies would decide it was better to sue for peace than accept the enormous casualties involved in continuing fighting (FFS, Japan had a plot to assassinate Charlie Chaplin, thinking that would demoralize the American public). What people always seem to misunderstand is that the enemy will usually fight to the death when they face an existential threat rather than just capitulate. In a way, their early successes contributed to their defeat because they overestimated their own strength and underestimated the Allies until it was too late. I think Germany and Japan didn't actually realize they were losing until 1944, by which time it was too late to do anything but postpone the inevitable.
@Kulunk cheers. Will have a read at that tonight.
If Hitler had continued the attacks on the air bases another 3 weeks we would have lost the battle for air superiority over the UK
Don't think that was the case- our production of aircraft was outpacing losses and german aircraft manufacturing couldn't keep up with their losses or our rate of production.
The radar defences could predict formations so a/c were in the air waiting. Typically once over the UK, a BF109 had only a few minutes of flight at full power before it had to head home and about 1 minute's worth of ammo. They often had to abandon the bombers they escorted.
Our a/c could land, re-fuel and get back in the air.
One area that does force a change of opinion is the role of Bletchley- when people were writing up WW2 history in the 50s-70s this wasn't common knowledge. I think the Kursk offence was known about hence the Russians could plan a defence. They wouldn't declare that would they?
My Grandad was in the Civil Defence in London. In the days after D-Day he was going to be sent over to France as a medic but him and all the other Civil Defence/ARP people were summoned back to their stations on Churchill's orders. Then the V1s & V2s fell. My Grandad thought Churchill was a genius for this "hunch" the Germans would retaliate, rather than the fact he had good intel.
Errrr, have to disagree on Midway...although not on the eventual outcome of the war. It could easily have gone the other way...
By utter and pure fluke the Yanks found and destroyed 3 of 4 Japanese carriers in the space of 15 minutes. Nobody expected that to happen beforehand. While it may not have changed the eventual outcome of the war it is accepted that those 15 minutes did considerably shorten it (apart from by academic trolls that is 😀)...
Having read both Churchill’s ww2 history and Alanbrookes diaries I’m not a huge fan of Churchill. However, it is interesting that he says after Pearl Harbour he never really had any doubts about ultimate victory, just how long it takes and how many lives. A bit of hyperbole maybe but I think his point is fair...
Very little revissionism stands up to closer examination, especially the sweeping statements. History is indeed written by the winners but the fact is they won. There's still something of an obsession with WWII in the UK as this thread demonstrates. Everyone sems to have an opinion and voice it without much fact checking. And there are plenty of facts from both sides as there are so many people passionately reasearching and documents keep coming to the surface.
Perhaps the most important thing about the whole sordid mess for us is to learn from it. And yet the extreme right isn't being fought against with the same intesity as other terrorists despite more victims in many countries. We need to do more to stop history repeating itself.
Some of the things that jumped off the page as obvious revisions:
Their biggest mistake was not hitting the radar stations.
That was an objective and they did hit some, but not the mobile ones which continued to provide enough cover.
Then the still crippled US Navy rolls the dice at Midway and defeats a far superior Japanese force
Superior how? Sitting ducks given the imbalance in air power (mainly range).
Klunk forgets that the German rail guns and coastal batteries with the fire power of destroyers were in place by September 40 and that the channel was out of bounds to Capital ships both German and Allied for most of the war.
Edit to add:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Midway
Because a one liner that includes "sitting ducks" is an example of a misleading one-liner. Fact is the Japanese had a couple of aircraft carriers out of action and the Americans had the range to make a first strike.
Everyone sems to have an opinion and voice it without much fact checking.
That was an objective and they did hit some, but not the mobile ones which continued to provide enough cover.
Love this. Not a lot of fact checking going on there. there were no mobile radar units in 1940. There were very few attacks on the radar stations and only minor damage. They were critical to the RAF. The Luftwaffe simply did not understand how critical they were. If they had, they would of put a lot of effort in to destroy them.
Errrr, have to disagree on Midway…although not on the eventual outcome of the war. It could easily have gone the other way…
By utter and pure fluke the Yanks found and destroyed 3 of 4 Japanese carriers in the space of 15 minutes. Nobody expected that to happen beforehand. While it may not have changed the eventual outcome of the war it is accepted that those 15 minutes did considerably shorten it (apart from by academic trolls that is 😀)…
That's exactly the point I made, so no need to disagree 😉
Klunk forgets that the German rail guns and coastal batteries with the fire power of destroyers were in place by September 40 and that the channel was out of bounds to Capital ships both German and Allied for most of the war.
Apart from when 7 of them took part in D Day without loss, when the Atlantic Wall as at it's strongest.
They had no significant coastal batteries in 1940 that would of been capable of defeating the RN. Even later on, they would of struggled to hit a warship moving at 30 kts. Capital ships would not of been used in the Dover Strait due to the lack of searoom, however, in the Channel they would of happily torn any invasion barges to shreds, although I doubt they would of been needed to do that, as the destroyers would be a more effective means of doing so.
Love this. Not a lot of fact checking going on there. there were no mobile radar units in 1940. There were very few attacks on the radar stations and only minor damage.
FFS read a bit. The mobile station on the Isle of Wight was critical after Ventnor was destroyed:
Ventnor Chain Home Destroyed
Ventnor Chain Home had, during the opening stages of the war, given effective warning of large raids from July 11th. This included detecting the large force of German bombers flown on August 8th4, and the even larger force sent across the channel on August 11th5. However, on the 12th August, for the first time, the Isle of Wight was a prime target. The Chain Home station at Ventnor was one of four radar stations6 as well as Portsmouth docks and several airfields targeted for attack by the force of 100 Junkers Ju88s, 120 Messerschmitt BF110s and 25 Messerschmitt BF109s. A detachment of 20 Junkers Ju88s broke from the main formation and turned to attack the Chain Home Radar station at Ventnor. As they began their dive, spitfires from 152 Squadron intercepted, destroying some of the Ju88s before they could release their bombs. Fifteen, however, got through.
Each of the bombers were armed with four high-explosive bombs and many added to the confusion by strafing the area with machine-guns.Despite the efforts of local firemen, who were hampered by the lack of available water on the site, most of the service buildings had been destroyed.
Several delayed action and unexploded bombs were located in the site of the radar pylons, forcing the whole site to be evacuated and delaying the start of repairs. Luckily, only one soldier was injured in the attack. The radar station was put out of action, the only one in the country in the entire war to have been destroyed.
Something that is often overlooked- our munitions and weapons were made by employed people "doing their bit" (despite the strikes that took place in the war) vs German slave labour. Who had the bigger incentive to do a good job? There is evidence that where possible they sabotaged production- of course not many lived to tell the tale.
delaying the start of repairs.
The radar station was put out of action,
It wasn't "destroyed". It was badly damaged and "quickly repaired".
Where is the spec of this mobile chain home station? If they could use a mobile unit instead of huge pylons and wooden huts why wouldn't there of been a lot of them?
Very early in the battle, the Luftwaffe made a series of small but effective raids on several stations, including Ventnor, but they were repaired quickly. In the meantime, the operators broadcast radar-like signals from neighbouring stations in order to fool the Germans that coverage continued. The Germans' attacks were sporadic and short-lived. The German High Command apparently never understood the importance of radar to the RAF's efforts, or they would have assigned these stations a much higher priority. Greater disruption was caused by destroying the teletype and landline links of the vulnerable above-ground control huts and the power cables to the masts than by attacking the towers themselves.
@richmtb that’s a fair point which only occurred to me after I’d posted 😀. I think my point was more that Midway itself was not a foregone conclusion. Dan Carlin’s Supernova in the East podcast is great on this...
Klunk forgets that the German rail guns and coastal batteries with the fire power of destroyers were in place by September 40 and that the channel was out of bounds to Capital ships both German and Allied for most of the war.
LOL how the **** does a rail gun hit a moving target? good for shelling a static fort or bombarding a city not good at hitting a destroyer doing upwards of 40mph.
Naval engagements are interesting because there are always fewer pieces in play than a pitched land battle. So tactics definitely matter.
Coral Sea, Midway and Guadalcanal could all have played out differently and shortened or lengthened the war in the Pacific pretty significantly, but very little could have changed the eventual outcome of the war.
This is a great book about the naval battles off Guadalcanal
Apart from when 7 of them took part in D Day without loss, when the Atlantic Wall as at it’s stronges
I've visited la pointe du Hoc, it's a sea of craters, what with that and the commandos. By D-day the RAF, paratroppers, resistants, commandos had knocked out the heavy guns but shipping losses were still high, mainly down to torpedos. At least one gun had been moved back to a safer place and was taken by a handful of parras.
Check the guns the Germans had available by Septemeber 1940. A few seconds with Google confirms what I've stated, railways guns and batterys with destroyer guns. The two sides spent the war occasionally shelling across the channel but the wear rate discouraged over-using the guns which were needed in case capital ships turned up.
the fire power of destroyers
Missed that as well. What could the "firepower of a destroyer" do to a capital ship?
On the battle of britain - yes we could build more warplanes and most importantly when our planes were shot down the pilot usually parachuted to ground and thus could fly again unlike the Germans who ended up as POWS
The key point was the destruction of the runways allowing British planes to take off. 3 more weeks attacks on the airfields would have seriously reduced the British ability to get the planes and pilots in the air
I see Klunk has changed tactics and realising that the Germans did indeed have considerable firepower now claims the Germans were too incompetant to do the sums necessary to use them. They didn't even need to be able to hit anything with them. Both the admiralty and the Germans had taken the decision not to send capital ships down the channel as it would have been too high a risk.
Admit that this:
Home fleet would arrive in the channel at dawn and it would be all over within 3 hours
is revissionism of the highest order.
german coastal battery performance 😀
The guns started shelling the Dover area during the second week of August 1940 and continued firing until September 1944. Over a thousand rounds were fired but the German coast batteries only sank:
Sambut,[5] 7,219 BRT, 6 June 1944
Empire Lough, 2,824 BRT, 24 June 1944[6]
it's amusing to think that the the admiralty would consider the channel a no go area during an invasion.
I agree with much of what you are saying, TJ. The Germans could possibly have won the air war if they had continued it to the bitter end and accepted the almost toal loss of their own air force but they took to bombing other things. However, the airfields themselves weren't critical. Any big field was enough and they had plenty lined up. The ciritcal factors were pilots (and you are right, allied loses were lower), aircraft ( despite the lower losses the RAF stood to run out first), aircraft production (and the Germans failed to put the factories within range out of action which was a significant failing).
I’ve visited la pointe du Hoc, it’s a sea of craters, what with that and the commandos. By D-day the RAF, paratroppers, resistants, commandos had knocked out the heavy guns but shipping losses were still high, mainly down to torpedos. At least one gun had been moved back to a safer place and was taken by a handful of parras.
i don't know where to start.
The French Resistance was very ineffectual during WW2. They certainly didn't do significant damage to the Atlantic Wall.
Which shipping losses are you talking about? There were relatively very few Allied losses on D Day, when compared to the size of the fleet. More destroyers were lost to mines than anything else. None of the Battleships, Heavy Cruisers or Cruisers were lost.
What do you think created the craters at Pointe du Hoc? The gun emplacements were never finished before D-Day anyway. Besides, they were 155mm guns, not "railway guns" and their sole purpose was to shell the landing beaches, not to try and attack Capital Ships.
Check the guns the Germans had available by Septemeber 1940. A few seconds with Google confirms what I’ve stated, railways guns and batterys with destroyer guns.
What are these 1940 coastal defenses? I can find nothing on Google. All I know about is the Atlantic Wall, which wasn't started until 1942.
Please post a link I would love to hear about them.
The two sides spent the war occasionally shelling across the channel but the wear rate discouraged over-using the guns which were needed in case capital ships turned up.
Explain again how they were going to hit a moving target? They didn't have the complex fire control systems that were used by the Battleships.
Some good points absolutely ruined by the use of “would of”. Would have. It’s would have.
😅😱
aircraft ( despite the lower losses the RAF stood to run out first),
No they didn't. They were building more aircraft than Germany in 1940 and taking fewer losses.
A Lot of the Battle of Britain stuff completely misses the point and history that for fighter command it was fully integrated air defence system with data collection analysis and dissemination of the first order.
That's why the BoB was a draw for the RAF and not a defeat. (Slips in sneaky revision...)
IIRC the bloke behind (Dowding) it was a bit unpopular with other RAF bigwigs so eventually got booted/moved and replaced by a less effective cabal (YMMV). British management, right there.
