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Rich

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Everything posted by Rich

  1. Peter Schenk's Operation Sealion is a much better purchase. I suspect Forcyzk decided the Germans would succeed and then did the research to "prove" it.
  2. Hint: He's making things up...again. Siebel never "said" any such thing. Meanwhile, since the ASB are out in force, I think the temporary response to the rest of his lunatic posting - because I have better things to do - is
  3. Well, the invasion part is handwaved... The problem with the causeway is that it might be going a bridge too far :D
  4. Wow! This thread has really started swirling round the drain now. Wallis Simpson and a reinstated KE VIII now. Perhaps we can move to the Germans suceeding by building a causeway across the Channel as was suggested - quite seriously - elsewhere.
  5. Really? Patton was all of two years and six days older than Montgomery. I wonder what Monty said about Alanbrooke, who was a year and four months older than Patton? Something on the order of "decrepit old codger"?
  6. No argument there, it's just Stuart claims that even if it had happened, it would have been no issue whatsoever... I know, shhh, don't tell him.
  7. He was a General of the Army. Active duty, since they are never retired. He was a former President, thus retired from the Presidency. So they used the active title rather than the retired title.
  8. Never mind, you're right, German torpedoes were 53.3cm and 45cm as well, for some reason I was thinking they were different, which would affect tube-launched types. However, I'm still unconvinced that more torpedoes would result in a successful Sealion given I don't think a lack of torpedoes was the reaason Sealion was not even attempted.
  9. Sorry, I thought that was nicer than saying you had missed the bloody obvious. You need to change Hitler's perceptions of the bloody obvious to even start to make it work. Could and did are two different things. Poles, even ethnic-German Volksdeutsche saw little recruitment until later in the war. What other "camp followers" were recruitable in German occupied territories that would have been useful and when? BTW, "roll", not "role". Why, yes, but the Germans made no such provisions in the Armistice. So you need to insert yet another POD. Sigh..."background noise" is exactly what intelligence estimates are based upon and what was occurring left them with belief they were not "assuring" the "core of the Italian position in the Mediterranean basin". Instead it was assuring an Italian perception of a British naval threat to them. That you perceive "no threat" simply demonstrates how valuable hindsight is in such assessments. So why should I talk about something as silly as a "British HUSKY against Sicily in the summer of 1940"? That may be the "level of trouble" your hindsight-driven thinking requires, but it is rather obvious that is not what the Italians required. Except MAS boats at best might double the inadequate number of MTB available to the Germans...which was not what they needed. How do you obtain Italian "navy crewmen" without demobilizing the RM? That is a non-starter on so many levels I am frankly astonished you are still flogging it. Um, the RM had just 8 aging minelayers/minesweepers along with 41 equally aging and nearly useless minsweepers, The "modern" Italian minesweeping force consisted of 3 seagoing and 2 coastal/riverine minesweepers. Meanwhile, the KM was not short of those. Mines could have helped, but the greater shortage was of minelaying vessels. I doubt very seriously the Italian torpedoes could be fired from German submarine or MTB mountings. The KM was not short of "light naval artillery". You still haven't twigged to the problem of using "special attack forces" I see. We have exhausted the issue with the CAI. You still want to move counters about a map. So Schleiswig-Holstein and Schleisen sail...big woop. What other vessels now do double-duty as "available for Sealion" and "improvement in North Sea diversionary forces"? Just what would Germany "bought or traded with Sweden or the Soviet Union"? With what foreign exchange? We've done to death your imaginary Siebel ferries...you would do as well to appeal for helpf rom the faeries. Fantasy.
  10. An interesting comparison to me is Montgomery and Dempsey versus Bradley and Hodges. In both cases the army commanders were greatly overshadowed by their army group commanders, while AFAICS the teamwork between 21st Army Group and Second British Army was much better. I would be very interested to see some evidence for this supposed difference in casualties between FUSA and TUSA.
  11. Emphatically yep. See, I should have read further down the thread before replying. Van Creveld's work is highly derivative from Numbers, Predictions, and War. While Harry's books are excellent, since his retirement he seems more interested in take long walks along the Anacostia River in Bladensburg to photograph eagles. I hope if I can get For Purpose of Service Test published that it will give a bit more understanding of the problems the American tankers faced. While I hesitate to comment on Christer's Ardennes book, since by supplying him raw data I may have inadvertently set him off down a garden path, I simply cannot agree that he "clears up myths" since he created more of them than anything. His "conclusions" regarding "concealed" American personnel and equipment losses are pure fantasy, without a shred of evidence to back them up. Unfortunately, while a decent study of tactical movements, as "analysis" it is at worst a boondoggle and at best superficial. The gold standards for the Battle of the Bulge remain Doc Cole's, Mac MacDonald's, Trevor, David, and moi's, and Danny Parker's.
  12. My apologies for being late coming back to this party. I somehow lost track of this thread while finishing up other things. Yes, it is an incredibly broad and difficult to answer question. In short, the German ground forces on average performed extremely well when it came to tactical and operational tasks. In terms of strategy and grand strategy they generally performed abysmally. I think you are confusing the well-known if misunderstood debate between Rommel, Geyr, and Guderian in April 1944 and conflating it with some kind of planned transfer of German generals from east to west, which I am not aware happened? I suspect they were well aware the rules had changed as early as February 1943 when FRUEHLINGSWIND failed to do anything to stabilize the Axis position in Tunisia, while inflicting significant casualties on Allied forces. Given the Axis enjoyed local air superiority, the handwriting was pretty much all over the wall. Nor did the Germans inflict tactical or operational surprises on American forces in the Hürtgenwald or Aachen that I am aware of? The Hürtgen was an example of horrible generalship by Hodges and Gerow, while the battle of Aachen destroyed one German division and crippled several others, without materially harming American strength. It was the later operations in November that so debilitated First Army. Arguably, while the outcome of the Ninth Army battles closing up to the Roer resulted in significant American casualties - and the Battle of Puffendorf set off the spiral of recriminations regarding American tanks - it also wrote down many of the units intended for the Ardennes offensive, so the result was a two edged sword for the Germans. Again, in the opening stages of the Bulge, it was not German tactical excellence that was displayed, but rather the lack of good sense by Hodges. Probably the finest performance during the opening stages was that of Robertson in extricating the 2d and 99th ID from what could have been a disaster worse than what befell the 106th ID. The only real tactical excellence displayed by German divisions was 18. VGD and to a lesser extent 26. VGD. Which "Kampfkraft study" is that? By Martin Van Creveld? Are you referring to Fighting Power? He simply piggy-backed his conclusions on Trevor's earlier work, with some rather odd interpretations of his own. Furthermore, the German replacement system suffered from significant flaws that were evident in the Great War, but never solved. Neither the German system of unit reconstitution or the American system of individual replacement were perfect and both had their unique flaws. I am not so sure that either the Germans or the Americans (and British) really paid that much attention to "estimating" their opponent generals or were much aware who they even were or what their backgrounds and capabilities were. Certainly the idea of a general staff officer being tasked with composing a dossier, a la the movie Patton, of an enemy general is more than faintly ridiculous. So, yeah, Threadjacker 2000™ firmly in hand and not afraid to use it...
  13. So then the July action off Calabria did not happen, the action of Cape Spada did not happen, in August Operation HURRY did not happen, in September Operation HATS did not happen, the raid on Benghazi did not happen, in October the reinforcement convoys to Malta did not happen, in November Operation JUDGEMENT did not happen, the action off Cape Spartivento did not happen, and in December the Mediterranean fleet did not bombard Albania? That is a lot of threats to the "core of the Italian position in the Mediterranean" and it is also what the Italians perceived them to be. Why? It's a simple three-letter word you continue to have difficulty with. What assistance could the Italians offer and get to the Germans that would make their preparations "adequate to the task" in September 1940? Something specific please rather than a hand wave of "MAS boats and navy crewmen". Piloting experience is measured in flight hours, combat experience is measured by flight hours in combat. So now are you arguing the Germans were not providing green replacements to Bf 109 units? BTW, yes it was "practical" to convert Italian air units to German aircraft...they actually did it after all. You might want to look into that.
  14. Oh good, then we can agree your inference Hitler would re-evaluate his strategic framework assumption was a non-starter? Sorry, but I have mentioned before you might be better served by not relying on Wiki. That article is pretty bad. The ROA were not Hilfswillige. It is rather more complex than that. Osttruppen were former prisoners of war or anti-communist volunteers from the various states of the Soviet Union. Most were identified by nationality or region. Russiches or Russian units were identified specifically as “Ost-Batallione”, “Ost-Abtielung”, “Ost-Batterie”, and so forth. Units of “Turkic” and other non-Slavic origin, such as Cossack’s, Ukrainians, Azerbaijanis, Georgians, Armenians, Tatars, and North Caucasians, were ethically more acceptable to the Nazi ideology and so were identified as such. They were armed and organized as battalions, companies, and batteries. Hilfswilliger were volunteer auxiliaries, usually recruited from Soviet prisoners of war, but also including French, Italians, and other nationalities. They were not armed. While Osttruppen were armed, they were almost exclusively infantry. In France, there was just a single Ost artillery battalion and two batteries organized. There was also an Ost bridge-building battalion, one or two pionier companies, and a couple of Cossack squadrons. The rest were infantry. None were used as anti-aircraft gunners. The Allies did not "employ" Italian forces in that sense. The Italians declared war on the Axis on 13 October 1943...they were co-belligerants, so it is not surprising they did so. That Churchill, who was principally responsible for the idiocy of attacking the French fleet for no reason was an idiot for doing so is indisputable. Unless and until Hitler completed a peace treaty with France, under the terms of the existing armistice he could not "take a page from Napoleon’s playbook" since Napoleon used treaty forces bound to the French Empire. It is not moving the goalpost to make two complimentary arguments. "It is difficult to see how Italian supplies and equipment would have made any difference [to operations] whatsoever." One argument. "It is difficult to see how such assistance could even have been possible." Second, complimentary argument. Have you not been reading the thread? Meanwhile, just how are the Germans supposed to make use of "Swedish equipment" without them either paying or trading for it? When virtually all German foreign exchange was already tied up in trade with Sweden, Turkey, and Spain? How do the Germans "leverage" or "compel" Sweden to do jack shit if Sweden doesn't want to? Why not "what if the Germans sold Graf Zeppelin to the Swedes, Spain, Portugal, Turkey, the U.S., or Brazil"? What if space aliens offered "Sealion material" for her? "If Sealion works"? Oh good grief...
  15. Yes Tanne West & Ost were prepared for the case of Finnish collapse/armistice and Finland sent out some peace feelers in early 1944 so Germans set everything up, including 91 ID. Aforementioned Prinz Eugen spent summer of 1944 in Finnish waters, ostensibly to support the Finnish war effort and show off Kriegsmarine naval power & goodwill; in reality, in preparation for possible execution of Tanne operations and/or German sponsored coup in Finland. Meanwhile, Finnish coast defence ship Väinämöinen was based on Åland too, nominally to defend it from Soviet incursions, in reality to cover the islands and/or capital from German seize attempts. Axis brotherhood~!!! Tanne West was cancelled because troops were deployed to stop Bagration, and also because Swedes regarded the islands as their unofficial protectoriate and made it clear they wanted no funny business. At that point of the war, German ability to bully Swedes was completely gone. Tanne Ost went on apparently due to Dönitz' insistence: not one of his brightest moments. After the war, whole debacle was conveniently written off as another stupid Hitler idea... Thanks for the reminder...I was being too lazy to look it up again.
  16. I checked the Treaty text, and France and Italy were exempt from the 'battleship building holiday' as their existing capital ships were outdated. However, both nations were broke after the war and ordered no new ships before Dunkerque in 1931. Excellent, I should have checked too - the devil is always in the details.
  17. Who knew you couldn't trust the Germans? IIRC, 91. Infanterie-Division (LL) was early on planned for a similar Tanne operation before cooler heads prevailed and it was sent to France?
  18. Because they were effectively complete already. And, yes, indeed the German shipbuilding programs were unimpressive. So then, which new ships did the Germans allocate resources to finish to replace losses? That the Germans did not have the capability to do all three and barely had the capability to crew vessels that were complete and ready to sail. Turbine was turned over intact to the Germans at Piraeus and it took them seven weeks to assemble a crew for her. I don't have a date for Audace's commissioning in German service, but I doubt it was any quicker. Only Audace's AA suite was augmented that I can find and that was hardly a major modification, just the addtiion of some Breda 20mm twin-mounts. Tor was not a Sleipner-class, she was Odin-class. Odin was captured intact and put into service in nine days, Balder was captured intact at the fitting out yards and was put into service in three months, Tor was "scuttled" in the, but suffered little damage and was raised and put into service in two months, facilitated by the simple fact she was scuttled in the fitting out yard. The notion the Norweigians would have taken longer is simply silly. The sole Sleipner-class captured was Gyller, which was also intact. ,All were facilitated into German service by the large numbers of KM sailors on the beach in Norway. Um, why should I "counter" when that is rather the point? Absent the false equivalency argument of course. The four Lions were suspended due to the outbreak of war, since they could not be completed before 1944. The dockyards were required for the more urgent need to recommission laid up ships and build ships needed more, like escorts. The Alaskas? Two were launched and work then began on the third, but there were only two slipways allocated for their construction and the limited need seen for them...it was 24 June 1943 when the last three were cancelled after all...meant the second slipway was allocated to other construction. In other words, the British and American building yards were not idle, they were just not used to build those ships. So which two French battleships were those? Lorraine? She was interned and kept her French crew at Alexandria until she joined the Free French in December 1942. Courbet and Paris? Because I must have been distracted when I typed that? It took an average of six weeks after the flush-deckers for the British to do a first refit to RN standards, not a year...I have no idea what I was thinking of. It varied a bit depending on whether or not they had been in USN commission recently or not or if they were direct from reserve. That initial refit involved removing the after 4-inch gun and replacing it with a 3-inch AA gun, which also cleared space for more depth charges and throwers. Two banks of torpedo tubes were removed. That was all the work done on Leeds, Ludlow,and Lewes, before they were sent to escort UK east coast convoys. The others also received additional work to reduce top weight - the after funnels were reduced in height and the main mast was removed (the first three already had one stack removed in US service, so effectively did not need this work), which implemented the RN's stricter standards on top weight. After those minimal changes were made the vessels were rotated through further modifications, including replacing the 3-inch with a 12-pdr and removal of two boilers to increase bunkerage and range as long-range escorts. Most were so modified and then later many had the two midships 4-inch replaced by AA guns and/or the remaining twin torpedo mounts were replaced by a single midships mount. Finally, at least 26 were fitted with hedgehog. Please compare that to what the Germans were capable of doing... Okay, thanks for clarifying and confirming that.
  19. Indeed, their concerns were tangible, otherwise they would not have acted. Whether or not their concerns and actions were well thought out is a different matter.
  20. Extensive rebuilds of the 20s'/30s for old battleships were almost never economical, but forced on navies by treaties. I am too lazy to check out when Italians were allowed to build new ships to replace old ones. I think Cavour-class reconstruction at least was still Treaty-bound. Dorias reconstruction only began in 1937, at that point they perhaps could have began building new ships instead? Maybe they just wanted to go with the 'devil we know'... The treaties effectively made the options reconstruction or replacement. Old tonnage could be scrapped and replaced by new tonnage. Most nations chose to rebuild the most modern of their vessels to save the sunk costs, while scrapping the most aged and replacing them.
  21. Sadly, the German Wiki entry appears to be just a repeat og the English Wiki entry, which also is no sourced. Warship No. 05 Protected Cruiser Gelderland probably answers the question, but I do not have a copy. However, the summary for it states "In 1939 Gelderland was replaced by the modern training ship Hr.Ms. Van Kinsbergen and the old armour deck cruiser was disarmed and conserved at the "Rijkswerf" (government’s shipyard) in Den Helder (the naval port in the north of Holland). In 1941 the German occupying forces declared the ship to be spoils of war and had it converted into Flakschiff Niobe. The anti-aircraft ship was sunk on the 16th of July, 1944 near the Finnish Kotka by the Soviet Air Force." I suspect that the Wiki entries conflate its Dutch service as a gunnery training ship with German service as a training ship. No, my reasoning is that with the few exceptions such as the Italian Ariete class, the large number of vessels touted were of limited usefulness, due to age, damage, or lack of completion. Furthermore, the Ariete class demonstrates the problem the Germans had. Despite being nearly complete - eight were all laid down before July 1042 and all eight were nearly complete when seized by the Germans, they had great difficulty in completing them and crewing them in a timely manner. Ariete, laid down in July 1942, was completed and commissioned in August 1943. Of the other seven, Spica was laid down in January 1942, but the Germans did not launch her until 30 January 1944 and did not commission her until September 1944. Stella Polare was laid down in April 1942, was launched 11 July 1943, but was not completed and commissioned by the Germans until January 1944. The others follow similar patterns. It was not lack of vessels to complete, repair, or simply take over that hampered the Germans, it was the ability to complete them, repair them, and man them. Well, exactly, did you think I was arguing something different? That impressive list of 49 TA (plus five Norwegian boats not given a TA number)? How many were actually useful vessels? Something like 39 of them, 4 of them in Norway. No, there is not too much to be worried about from that. Complete the analogy. The Germans captured possibly twice that number of incomplete, damaged, or aging vessels. They managed to repair, complete, or put into service about half those, and they ended up with perhaps 40 useful vessels after plundering the resources of Denmark, Holland, Norway, France, Yugoslavia, Greece, and Italy. The Allies received 50 old destroyers from the U.S. Most were in service within a year. They also got 34 CVE, 1 CL, 54 DE, 27 PF, 10 PG, and 9 SS, among other vessels. The RN also supplied 45 corvettes to its American, French, Dutch, Norwegian, and Greek allies. Sinking enemy vessels is not required to be useful, use is required to be useful. The extended delays in the KM getting those vessels into service...and in many cases even taking action to do so...limited their usefulness. Sorry, the "rule" has not been overtly expressed, but you keep pointing out the few large modern seagoing vessels in long term use by the Germans as if it demonstrates they were all similar. They weren't. Yes, tonnages vary, but at one point you were quoting an approximate standard load and in another full load. I prefer comparing the same or both if available for consistency.
  22. "Shortness of service"? Seriously? Over four decades is hardly a short service life. The point I was making was her lack of usefulness and the problems with hastily thrown together crews in unfamiliar ships and waters. And, yes, sure, we could go on listing the useless and limited duty ships taken over by the KM that they never found good use for...which is rather the point. Um, I didn't say it took them that long to turn a 43 year old ship into a Schwimmende Flakbatterie...but I do not find evidence the KM used her as a training ship? The Dutch used her as a gunnery training ship until 24 August 1939 when she was stricken from the navy list and disarmed. So you found the exception that proves the rule. Anyway, if she did act as a "convoy escort" it was for a remarkably short time, she was only in service for three months. Which of course is the whole point. Capturing this rather large assortment of incomplete, scuttled, and aging vessels did the Germans little good. Capturing even more ofthem would not improve that picture any. Ummm...yes, restating what I just said in your own words does not make what I said incorrect. They were not a series of a type of vessel, they were a serial designation of a hodge-podge of diverse vessels, most of them useless.BTW, Dubrovnik was 1,880 standard and 2,884 full load. Pigafetta (TA-44) was 1,935 and 2,580. TA-14 was Turbine, at 1,220 and 1,670. TA-31 was Dardo at 1,400 and 2,116. TA-43 was Beograd at 1,210 and 1,655. Again, exceptions don't prove rules. Actually, the Arietes were 745 tons standard and 1,110 full load. That the Germans were able to seize 13 nearly complete vessels meant they were the most modern and best they put their hands on, but it still took an average of 7 months for them to get the 13 they captured into service.
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