The Navy of God against Charis naval superiority

Dilandu wrote:
Well, French were of low opinion about the dive bombers. They thought (correctly), that dive bombers are nothing more than a temporary aberration of technology, and further progress in AA defenses would make them quickly outdated (and they were perfectly right).

French military was more interested in guided bombs, than dive bombers. By 1940, they already have one - BHT-38 - in final stage of development (Germans were able to capture French control system, and used it on their own guided weapons till the end of the war).

That is a fair point but, at that period, they were the only way to achieve precision bombing, failure to capitalise on that was criminal negligence.
Germans and Japanese proved this conclusively, to the Allies cost.

Again, the "bomber loons" weren't interested in precision, they wanted to commit mass murder of civilians as the be all and end all. See Barnes Wallis fight to be heard, the higher ups simply did not want to know and squashed anything that took away from their myopia of mayhem.

Also, failure to fund serious research on air launched rockets is proof of their puirblindness.
Far more accurate than bombs with stand off, thus also useful to degrade antiaircraft defences land or sea.
U.S. HVAAR was a superb, comparatively cheap tool British ground attack craft (if we had any in 1940!) could have decimated German columns with.

Sure, "dumb" rockets are not as good as mass producing FritX for precision (mass production and UK was way better than Germany at such and could have made it much more economical)
But HVAARs or similar were absolutely achievable before 1941 and had multiple uses.
US had better solid rockets but UK research from say 1933 onwards could have produced such...rather than "mega-bomber madness"
Such rockets may not be the best but a LOT of a cheaper, less effective weapon you actually have in inventory is miles better than "pie in the sky" you don't have

SilverbladeTE wrote:
Sure, "dumb" rockets are not as good as mass producing FritX for precision (mass production and UK was way better than Germany at such and could have made it much more economical)
But HVAARs or similar were absolutely achievable before 1941 and had multiple uses.

Well, USA did not need Fritz-X or Hs.293 analogue for naval warfare: they have Pelican and Her Majesty the ASM-N-2 Bat.

They build a radio-command kit for GP bombs, thought (the VB AZON).

But I see your point perfectly)

SilverbladeTE wrote:

phillies wrote:
Yamato almost destroyed our invasion of the Philippines, but the Japanese captain fortunately had morale failure. The IJN was extremely fond of complicated multipart plans, and that was one time the complicated plan almost worked.

Battle off Samar?
Guessing that's where I read of one of the two giants being napalmed since the small US carriers were armed for landing support, hm?

Yamato still SUCKED
Several aircraft carriers or cruisers would have been far far more useful of that colossal cost effort and metal
But hey, Japan's culture was even more insane and grandiose than the flipping Nazis
Unless you consider the huge vessels' worth as a torpedo and dive bomber "magnet" for every US aircraft in sight and thus sparing their comrades some hits :p

Military needs efficiency, in cost, reliability, and use.
A lesson completely failed to accept in recent years as corporates control the politicians and thus the procurements...sigh

Yes. There was nothing left in the way of the Japanese Navy; the Yamato would have wrecked the invasion if its captain had not routed.

If you are looking for a large waste on the part of the IJN, note their sub fleet as deployed. They could have wreaked havoc with attacks on shipping, but mostly made no such effort. There subs had good and bad points long range, superb torpedos/ slow to dive, limited maximum dive depth

Dilandu wrote:

SilverbladeTE wrote:Like...the Maginot Line.

Which actually worked perfectly. The enemy done exactly what he was supposed to do - tried to circumvent the Line on the North (which was what the Line main purpose: to funnel German advance toward Belgium, where it could be met with all forces of French field army). You could not blame the Line for the failure of French army to stop the enemy.

The French did defend the Ardennes. Their Ninth Army was, let us say, ill-led.

However, the French did think you could nat get an army through the Ardennes, because of their experience with the first and most important battle of the Ardennes, the one in 1914. The French tried to advance a foot and horse-drawn army through there, the hills running across the line of advance, and the wear on men and especially horses was catastrophic. They didn't appreciate how important mechanization was.

The notion that if stopped you cannot deploy off-road in woods is a mistake that usually only American armies make.

Dilandu wrote:

SilverbladeTE wrote:
Sure, "dumb" rockets are not as good as mass producing FritX for precision (mass production and UK was way better than Germany at such and could have made it much more economical)
But HVAARs or similar were absolutely achievable before 1941 and had multiple uses.

Well, USA did not need Fritz-X or Hs.293 analogue for naval warfare: they have Pelican and Her Majesty the ASM-N-2 Bat.

They build a radio-command kit for GP bombs, thought (the VB AZON).

But I see your point perfectly)

This one missed WW2 by a couple of years but would have eaten Yamato for breakfast if it could hit. The VB-13 Tarzon was basically a 12,000lb Tallboy with a new tail and a radio-guided unit.

phillies wrote:

Dilandu wrote:
The French did defend the Ardennes. Their Ninth Army was, let us say, ill-led.

However, the French did think you could nat get an army through the Ardennes, because of their experience with the first and most important battle of the Ardennes, the one in 1914. The French tried to advance a foot and horse-drawn army through there, the hills running across the line of advance, and the wear on men and especially horses was catastrophic. They didn't appreciate how important mechanization was.

The notion that if stopped you cannot deploy off-road in woods is a mistake that usually only American armies make.

Another case that proves:
Assumption is the mother of all **** ups

phillies wrote: The French tried to advance a foot and horse-drawn army through there, the hills running across the line of advance, and the wear on men and especially horses was catastrophic. They didn't appreciate how important mechanization was.

It should be noted, that German army was NOT exactly very mechanized. In fact, Germany was far behind French in mechanization - till the last days, German artillery was mainly horse-drawn, and supply line relied on horses quite a lot. While French army was completely mechanized, with hordes of trucks and armored tractors.

Basically, French assumption was... quite logical, considering this.

Dilandu wrote:

phillies wrote: The French tried to advance a foot and horse-drawn army through there, the hills running across the line of advance, and the wear on men and especially horses was catastrophic. They didn't appreciate how important mechanization was.

It should be noted, that German army was NOT exactly very mechanized. In fact, Germany was far behind French in mechanization - till the last days, German artillery was mainly horse-drawn, and supply line relied on horses quite a lot. While French army was completely mechanized, with hordes of trucks and armored tractors.

Basically, French assumption was... quite logical, considering this.

The bulk of the German Army was not mechanized. The divisions that were the spearhead thrusting through the Ardennes were a special case.

The French Ninth Army in the Ardennes had a large cavalry unit. Reports of its poor condition can be found if you read carefully the literature.

On the other hand, the Germans were also lucky. If they had attacked Russia a year later the Russians would have clobbered them fairly quickly.

I'm not sure that what happened to the Germans could be called luck. I've often wondered what might have happened if the roughly 850,000 men along with mechanized division kept in France could have been shipped east for Barbarosa in 1941... Could they have concentrated enough punch to knock out the Russians?

Don

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n7axw wrote:I'm not sure that what happened to the Germans could be called luck. I've often wondered what might have happened if the roughly 850,000 men along with mechanized division kept in France could have been shipped east for Barbarosa in 1941... Could they have concentrated enough punch to knock out the Russians?

Don

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No, because Germans were too inept in logistic to make it possible. They barely could support their existing army in USSR as winter came. If they tried to add more troops, their logistic would likely collapse, and they would suffer Stalingrad-scale defeat in early 1942.