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#1
October 21st 03, 12:57 PM
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"Cub Driver" wrote in message ... Without that oil the gains made in China would collapse, the attack south was always meant to be a limited operation to secure resource I don't think that an attack waged on a 4,000-mile front could fairly be called limited. It was intended to be a six-month operation, followed by a lifetime occupation of a defense zone too vast to be challenged by the U.S. navy. But the hoped-for brevity of the war doesn't suggest that it was minor. After all, Germany invaded and occupied most of continental Europe in nine months. That wasn't limited! It was a limited operation in that its goal was not to defeat the C'wealth or the USA strategically, it was to simply push them back outside the planned area of fortifications and then dig in. A limited operation does not have to be minor, it just has to have well defined limits. 
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#2
October 22nd 03, 10:48 AM
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The book title, by the way, is Flyboys: A True Story of Courage, by James Bradley. After initially being put off by the moral equivalence (oh sure, the Japanese murdered, cooked, and ate bits of seven American fliers off Chichi Jima, but hey! Americans behaved badly at the Battle of Wounded Knee!), I've decided it's worth the read. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS...f=nosim/annals all the best -- Dan Ford email: www.danford.net/letters.htm#9 see the Warbird's Forum at www.warbirdforum.com and the Piper Cub Forum at www.pipercubforum.com
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#3
October 22nd 03, 11:08 AM
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A limited operation does not have to be minor, it just has to have well defined limits. Shucks, by that definition, the U.S. fought World War II as a limited operation. a) defeat Germany b) defeat Japan What limits could be better defined than those? all the best -- Dan Ford email: www.danford.net/letters.htm#9 see the Warbird's Forum at www.warbirdforum.com and the Piper Cub Forum at www.pipercubforum.com
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#4
October 21st 03, 06:07 AM
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#5
October 21st 03, 06:58 AM
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"Hugo S. Cunningham" wrote in message ... Perhaps they would have done better to take a defensive attitude toward the US fleet at Pearl Harbor while seizing the oil fields in Indonesia. Pearl Harbor vaporized isolationist sentiment in the USA, while a far-off colonial war might not have. IMO opinion that was their best credible move, but not a good one - they had no good options, given the revulsion the Japs had generated in the USA over Nanking and the atrocity prone nature of the Japanese military, attacking south where these atrocities would inevitably be directed against whites (the race would have mattered a lot back then), throw in the fact that it would be a pretty clear defiance of the purpose of the embargo and the US would probably have come in anyway. The big difference is that the US fleet would have been intact and the PI would have been a lot more secure, also the USA might not have been at war with Germany (unless Hitler repeated his idiot declaration). Honestly, Japans best bet was probably to side with the Allies against Germany and hope that by supporting them, they could buy silence on the Chinese front, but I doubt it was politically feasible in Japan or USA.
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#6
October 22nd 03, 08:42 PM
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In article , The Black
Monk writes wrote in message ... In article , "Bill Silvey" wrote: Then there was the fact that the Reds did nothing while Japan massacred hundreds of thousands of Chinese in the '30s. Stalin only declared war on Japan *after* Japan had lost, just to gain Kamchatka. 100% fact. russia fought japan until the german invasion of russia. you don't have to look in obscure sources to find out about it. readers of rec.aviation.military are undoubtably familiar with the accounts of the flying tigers in china. these books describe the russian conflict with china in this period, both as mercenaries for china and direct conflict on the soviet border. Indeed. At Khalkyn Gol between May and September 1939 the Japanese were crushed by Zhukov, sustaining over 80,000 casualties to the Russians' 11,130. Within a single week the Japanses lost 25,000 men. The entire Japanese 6th army was completely destroyed. The Battle of Khalkin Gol was Zhukov's illustration of Deep Penetration tactics. The use of deception tactics, extremely fast tanks and mechanized forces to outflank an opponent's defenses, and the combination of aerial, airborne, and ground troops lead to the complete destruction of the Japanese 6th Army and to Japan's loss of a sphere of influence in the Mongolian and Far Eastern regions. This battle also featured the first successful use of air-to-air missiles. Five Polikarpov I-16 Type 10 fighters under the command of Capt. Zvonarev claimed destruction two Mitsubishi A5M by RS-82 unguided rockets. It depends on your definitions. Aerial rockets had been used in WW I, to destroy balloons rather than enemy heavier-than-air craft. See: http://www.firstworldwar.com/atoz/leprieur.htm Historians describe a conflict within the Japanese military about whether to attack the USSR or the USA. The complete defeat att he hands of the Soviets made that decision: Pearl Harbor happened because the Japanese chose to attack the weaker foe. BM -- Peter Ying tong iddle-i po!
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#7
October 22nd 03, 12:09 AM
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"John Mullen" wrote in message ...
Yep, there still wasnt any oil in Siberia and that was the limiting factor for Japan. Accepted. I still think it's an interesting thought experiment to imagine what happens if Germany and Japan get their act together and do some proper joint planning either before or even during the war. The Panama Canal comes to mind. John I think that Germany would only have had a chance if it had done what Spengler envisioned it should do - become the leader of Europe. Had Germany attacked the USSR with the motive of liberating its captive peoples - through establishing friendly semi-puppet republics as was done following Russia's collapse during World War I - it is likely that Moscow would have fallen. And if I recall correctly, Stalin would have been ready to offer terms had Moscow been taken. Intelligent, not fanatic, leadership would have accepted such terms, which would have meant the gain of the Baltics, Ukraine, and probably the Caucuses. Had the Germans been statesmen they would not have had to contend with resistence in eastern Europe, indeed they would probably have had several 100,000 more allied troops. It is likely that even within Russia some friendly troops cpuld be had. Not Vlasov's sullen war criminals, but free cossacks from the Don, Terek or Kuban fighting willingly against their oppresors. If the Germans had wanted to make the war into a crusade for Europe (naturally at the expense of a few unfortunates - the French and Poles) they would have stood a chance of winning. Instead, of course, Hitler's war was a crusade only for his grotesque and evil ideology, as bad as if not worse than the Bolshevism he fought. In this world, the British would not have held onto the middle east with its oil, and the world would have been a much different place for the past fifty years. This alternative strategy is not as far-fetched as it seems. Elements in the Wehrmacht were outraged at the Nazi mistreatment of Eastern Europeans, and even within the Nazi party there was for example Rosenberg, an ethnic German from Estonia, who envisioned an allied puppet Ukraine stretching from "Lviv to Saratov" (there as an interesting article about this in the Ukrainian Weekly a year or so ago). Unfortunately, rather than statesmen Germany was led by madmen. Hitler's racial theories prevented him from making Germany a leader of Europe in the manner that America would later be. As Spengler predicted in 1936, Hitler's sick reich didn't last 10 years. BM
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#8
October 22nd 03, 12:25 AM
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"The Black Monk" wrote in message om... "John Mullen" wrote in message ... Yep, there still wasnt any oil in Siberia and that was the limiting factor for Japan. Accepted. I still think it's an interesting thought experiment to imagine what happens if Germany and Japan get their act together and do some proper joint planning either before or even during the war. The Panama Canal comes to mind. John I think that Germany would only have had a chance if it had done what Spengler envisioned it should do - become the leader of Europe. Had Germany attacked the USSR with the motive of liberating its captive peoples - through establishing friendly semi-puppet republics as was done following Russia's collapse during World War I - it is likely that Moscow would have fallen. And if I recall correctly, Stalin would have been ready to offer terms had Moscow been taken. Intelligent, not fanatic, leadership would have accepted such terms, However intelligent leaders would not have embarked on such a war in the first place. The lessons of history are clear enough on the wisdom of invading Russia and frankly the possible gains were never going to be worth the cost. which would have meant the gain of the Baltics, Ukraine, and probably the Caucuses. The Caucasian oil fields were never really achievable. Even had the German forces got across the mountains the Soviets had ample time to blow up the facilities. Keith
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#9
October 22nd 03, 12:28 AM
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"The Black Monk" wrote in message om... "John Mullen" wrote in message ... Yep, there still wasnt any oil in Siberia and that was the limiting factor for Japan. Accepted. I still think it's an interesting thought experiment to imagine what happens if Germany and Japan get their act together and do some proper joint planning either before or even during the war. The Panama Canal comes to mind. John I think that Germany would only have had a chance if it had done what Spengler envisioned it should do - become the leader of Europe. Had Germany attacked the USSR with the motive of liberating its captive peoples - through establishing friendly semi-puppet republics as was done following Russia's collapse during World War I - it is likely that Moscow would have fallen. And if I recall correctly, Stalin would have been ready to offer terms had Moscow been taken. Intelligent, not fanatic, leadership would have accepted such terms, which would have meant the gain of the Baltics, Ukraine, and probably the Caucuses. Had the Germans been statesmen they would not have had to contend with resistence in eastern Europe, indeed they would probably have had several 100,000 more allied troops. It is likely that even within Russia some friendly troops cpuld be had. Not Vlasov's sullen war criminals, but free cossacks from the Don, Terek or Kuban fighting willingly against their oppresors. If the Germans had wanted to make the war into a crusade for Europe (naturally at the expense of a few unfortunates - the French and Poles) they would have stood a chance of winning. Instead, of course, Hitler's war was a crusade only for his grotesque and evil ideology, as bad as if not worse than the Bolshevism he fought. In this world, the British would not have held onto the middle east with its oil, and the world would have been a much different place for the past fifty years. This alternative strategy is not as far-fetched as it seems. Elements in the Wehrmacht were outraged at the Nazi mistreatment of Eastern Europeans, and even within the Nazi party there was for example Rosenberg, an ethnic German from Estonia, who envisioned an allied puppet Ukraine stretching from "Lviv to Saratov" (there as an interesting article about this in the Ukrainian Weekly a year or so ago). Unfortunately, rather than statesmen Germany was led by madmen. Hitler's racial theories prevented him from making Germany a leader of Europe in the manner that America would later be. As Spengler predicted in 1936, Hitler's sick reich didn't last 10 years. BM this has been said a thousand times before in a hundred books . the truth is if they were reasonable thoughtful men they wouldn't have been nazies .
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#10
October 22nd 03, 02:20 PM
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"raymond o'hara" wrote in message .net...
"The Black Monk" wrote in message om... "John Mullen" wrote in message ... Yep, there still wasnt any oil in Siberia and that was the limiting factor for Japan. Accepted. I still think it's an interesting thought experiment to imagine what happens if Germany and Japan get their act together and do some proper joint planning either before or even during the war. The Panama Canal comes to mind. John I think that Germany would only have had a chance if it had done what Spengler envisioned it should do - become the leader of Europe. Had Germany attacked the USSR with the motive of liberating its captive peoples - through establishing friendly semi-puppet republics as was done following Russia's collapse during World War I - it is likely that Moscow would have fallen. And if I recall correctly, Stalin would have been ready to offer terms had Moscow been taken. Intelligent, not fanatic, leadership would have accepted such terms, which would have meant the gain of the Baltics, Ukraine, and probably the Caucuses. Had the Germans been statesmen they would not have had to contend with resistence in eastern Europe, indeed they would probably have had several 100,000 more allied troops. It is likely that even within Russia some friendly troops cpuld be had. Not Vlasov's sullen war criminals, but free cossacks from the Don, Terek or Kuban fighting willingly against their oppresors. If the Germans had wanted to make the war into a crusade for Europe (naturally at the expense of a few unfortunates - the French and Poles) they would have stood a chance of winning. Instead, of course, Hitler's war was a crusade only for his grotesque and evil ideology, as bad as if not worse than the Bolshevism he fought. In this world, the British would not have held onto the middle east with its oil, and the world would have been a much different place for the past fifty years. This alternative strategy is not as far-fetched as it seems. Elements in the Wehrmacht were outraged at the Nazi mistreatment of Eastern Europeans, and even within the Nazi party there was for example Rosenberg, an ethnic German from Estonia, who envisioned an allied puppet Ukraine stretching from "Lviv to Saratov" (there as an interesting article about this in the Ukrainian Weekly a year or so ago). Unfortunately, rather than statesmen Germany was led by madmen. Hitler's racial theories prevented him from making Germany a leader of Europe in the manner that America would later be. As Spengler predicted in 1936, Hitler's sick reich didn't last 10 years. BM this has been said a thousand times before in a hundred books . the truth is if they were reasonable thoughtful men they wouldn't have been nazies . Of course! BM
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