The Official WWII Technical Spergout Thread - Discuss Technology, Tactics, and Strategy, but not your alt-history fantasies

[The Ugly One]

Since WWII is the defining conflict of the 20th century with repercussions to the current day, it keeps coming in other threads, including US Politics, UK Politics, and both Russo-Ukrainian War threads. Being that it's a topic subject to much spergery, it tends to derail those threads. It doesn't seem like we have a dedicated thread to sperg about tank programs and war economies, and all things that affected the outcome of the war. However, this is not a thread for you to whine about how unfair it is that Hitler lost. This thread is only for discussing tactics (how battle was fought), technologies (what was used in battle), and strategies (what was the overall approach to choosing battles) in WWII.

On-Topic:

• Your pet theory of how Japan would have won if they'd used the Yamato to attack Los Angeles.
• Why Lend-Lease and the Battle of the Atlantic were completely irrelevant to the outcome of the war and the USSR did everything all by itself.
• Why Lend-Lease and the Battle of the Atlantic were the hinge on which the entire war turned and the ultimate reason Germany was completely overrun by the Allies.
• Why the outcome of the war was predeterimined by the simple fact that the Allies had more men and factories than the Axis.
• Why the outcome of the war was constaintly hanging on a knife edge of decisions and random events, any one of which could have radically changed what happened.
• Who your favorite/least favorite historian of WWII is
• Some obscure German weapons system you have an autistic fascination with.
• Why the T-34/Tiger I/Sherman/Matilda II is the most overrated tank in history
• Fall Blau - retarded spergout by the Fuehrer or strategic brilliance that failed due to underling incompetence?
• Operation Uranus - brilliant, tide-turning counteroffensive, or the pure, dumb luck of large numbers?
• France actually would have won if they'd extended the Maginot Line across the Ardennes
• How Stalin's purges fucked up various programs and operations.

Off-Topic:

• Why WWII happened - This isn't the thread to talk about Weimar, the Depression, Communism, hyperinflation, etc.
• The Holocaust - there's another thread for that
• The Jews - If you want to talk about the Jews here, you already talk about them everywhere, so you don't need to talk about them here.
• Moralfagging. Take your outrage over Dresden, Yalta, etc somewhere else.
• Whining. Upset that Churchill betrayed the white race by not capitulating in 1940? This isn't the thread for that.
• Alt-history speculation about how different the world would be if Hitler won/Patton rolled on to Moscow/we nuked Berlin/etc - there's another thread for that

 

[WelperHelper99]

Churchill was a solid tank. There, I said it.

 

[Nicholas II of Russia]

Imagine making such a gigantic and intimidating weapon but you have to make it go in rails.

Germany what were you thinking

 

[The Ugly One]

View attachment 6783996

Imagine making such a gigantic and intimidating weapon but you have to make it go in rails.

Germany what were you thinking

If they'd known what they were doing, they would have made it a hovercraft.

 

[KittyGremlin]

Your pet theory of how Japan would have won if they'd used the Yamato to attack Los Angeles.

That's a win for future Americans, not the Japanese.

 

[millais]

Did the Americans come up with the most comfortable and ergonomic infantry webbing and LBE gear?

 

[Jewthulhu]

The nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki aren't what ended the war.

The entirety of WWII up to that point more or less established that strategic bombing doesn't work. The Blitz didn't cause the British to surrender, the various raids on Berlin didn't cause the Germans to surrender, and few if any cite the Tokyo firebombings as the reason for the Japanese surrender. The nuclear bombings, at the end of the day, were just another strategic bombing. At the same time, the Japanese were clearly losing the war, an invasion of the home island looked imminent, and the Soviet Union just got involved with the invasion of Manchuria. If anything, the nuclear bombings were just one among many factors that caused the surrender.

That's not to sperg about it being "le evil warcrime." My issue is more about the implications the myth had on strategic doctrine afterwards.

 

[The Ugly One]

The nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki aren't what ended the war.

The entirety of WWII up to that point more or less established that strategic bombing doesn't work. The Blitz didn't cause the British to surrender, the various raids on Berlin didn't cause the Germans to surrender, and few if any cite the Tokyo firebombings as the reason for the Japanese surrender. The nuclear bombings, at the end of the day, were just another strategic bombing. At the same time, the Japanese were clearly losing the war, an invasion of the home island looked imminent, and the Soviet Union just got involved with the invasion of Manchuria. If anything, the nuclear bombings were just one among many factors that caused the surrender.

That's not to sperg about it being "le evil warcrime." My issue is more about the implications the myth had on strategic doctrine afterwards.

It's not as simple as the A-bombs ending or not ending the war. Recall that the sequence of events is:

July 26: Potsdam
Aug 6: Hiroshima
Aug 8: Soviet invasion of Manchuria, Yoshio Nishina's report on the scale of the A-bomb's destruction delivered to the government.
Aug 9: Nagasaki
Aug 10: Hirohito decides to surrender
Aug 15: Hirohito's declaration of unconditional surrender

We know from the telegrams, testimonies, and memoirs of the key people involved (Koichi Kido, Shiganori Togo, Kantaro Suzuki, Hirohito himself) that, Aug 6 alone did not push Hirohito over the edge (although the scale of the devastation wasn't known until a few days later), the A-bombs and the Soviet invasion of Manchuria were central in war cabinet discussions. Nagasaki didn't really change discussion much, Hiroshima drove home that America had A-bombs and was willing to use them, and it was already known by the time the Nagasaki bomb fell just what an A-bomb could really do.

We also know that, while elements of the war cabinet (such as Togo) felt that accepting Potsdam was inevitable, the consenus immediately after Potsdam was to keep fighting until either completely defeated or America would reconsider and accept a negotiated peace. However, the war cabinet flipped in the span of those four days. When we look at the record, both the USSR's attack and the A-bombs factor in significantly in various cabinet members' thinking.

Torashiro Kawabe's testimony sums it up pretty well:

In other words, since the atomic bomb and the Russian declaration of war were shocks in a quick succession, I cannot give a definite answer as to which of the two factors was more decisive in ending hostilities.

The inevitability of Japan's defeat was locked in, of course. The USA doesn't issue unconditional surrender demands while it still thinks there is a chance the enemy might prevail, nor does it relent once such a demand has been issued. Japan's navy was defeated, and we were scaling up A-bomb production. However, this really isn't ever the point of contention; there's nobody of any importance claiming that Japan might have won had it not been for the A-bombs. The argument has always been over whether Hirohito would have capitulated to Potsdam by the end of August with the Soviet invasion alone, or whether significantly more bloodshed would have been required to either break the war cabinet or trigger a popular revolt. Based on the records we have, we simply can't disentangle the invasion from the bombs.

 

[Jewthulhu]

It's not as simple as the A-bombs ending or not ending the war. Recall that the sequence of events is:

July 26: Potsdam
Aug 6: Hiroshima
Aug 8: Soviet invasion of Manchuria, Yoshio Nishina's report on the scale of the A-bomb's destruction delivered to the government.
Aug 9: Nagasaki
Aug 10: Hirohito decides to surrender
Aug 15: Hirohito's declaration of unconditional surrender

We know from the telegrams, testimonies, and memoirs of the key people involved (Koichi Kido, Shiganori Togo, Kantaro Suzuki, Hirohito himself) that, Aug 6 alone did not push Hirohito over the edge (although the scale of the devastation wasn't known until a few days later), the A-bombs and the Soviet invasion of Manchuria were central in war cabinet discussions. Nagasaki didn't really change discussion much, Hiroshima drove home that America had A-bombs and was willing to use them, and it was already known by the time the Nagasaki bomb fell just what an A-bomb could really do.

We also know that, while elements of the war cabinet (such as Togo) felt that accepting Potsdam was inevitable, the consenus immediately after Potsdam was to keep fighting until either completely defeated or America would reconsider and accept a negotiated peace. However, the war cabinet flipped in the span of those four days. When we look at the record, both the USSR's attack and the A-bombs factor in significantly in various cabinet members' thinking.

Torashiro Kawabe's testimony sums it up pretty well:


The inevitability of Japan's defeat was locked in, of course. The USA doesn't issue unconditional surrender demands while it still thinks there is a chance the enemy might prevail, nor does it relent once such a demand has been issued. Japan's navy was defeated, and we were scaling up A-bomb production. However, this really isn't ever the point of contention; there's nobody of any importance claiming that Japan might have won had it not been for the A-bombs. The argument has always been over whether Hirohito would have capitulated to Potsdam by the end of August with the Soviet invasion alone, or whether significantly more bloodshed would have been required to either break the war cabinet or trigger a popular revolt. Based on the records we have, we simply can't disentangle the invasion from the bombs.

I guess my contention is how the idea of the atomic bombings being decisive shaped later strategy. As I kind of alluded to, the concept of strategic bombings would possibly have been more seriously reassessed after WWII if not for the perceived success of the nuclear bombings. In terms of nuclear strategy, it's also why the idea of their use exclusively as city busters is so pervasive, at least in the west.

So at least in some ways, if not explicitly, some people in the west believed that the nuclear bombings won the war.

 

[The Ugly One]

I guess my contention is how the idea of the atomic bombings being decisive shaped later strategy. As I kind of alluded to, the concept of strategic bombings would possibly have been more seriously reassessed after WWII if not for the perceived success of the nuclear bombings. In terms of nuclear strategy, it's also why the idea of their use exclusively as city busters is so pervasive, at least in the west.

So at least in some ways, if not explicitly, some people in the west believed that the nuclear bombings won the war.

I think once the Cold War really got rocking, there was a motivation to minimize the role of the Soviet invasion of Manchuria, much like the Soviets wrote Lend-Lease, the Battle of the Atlantic, and Normandy out of the European Theater (with present-day leftist historians happy to oblige). So that's fair...the Cold War narrative was definitely that it was just the A-bombs, when the reality it was the prospect of facing the Russians while having A-bombs and the US Navy batter their homeland that really did it.

 

[Snekposter]

The nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki aren't what ended the war.

The entirety of WWII up to that point more or less established that strategic bombing doesn't work. The Blitz didn't cause the British to surrender, the various raids on Berlin didn't cause the Germans to surrender, and few if any cite the Tokyo firebombings as the reason for the Japanese surrender. The nuclear bombings, at the end of the day, were just another strategic bombing. At the same time, the Japanese were clearly losing the war, an invasion of the home island looked imminent, and the Soviet Union just got involved with the invasion of Manchuria. If anything, the nuclear bombings were just one among many factors that caused the surrender.

That's not to sperg about it being "le evil warcrime." My issue is more about the implications the myth had on strategic doctrine afterwards.

Yes and no. While their effect on morale wasn't anywhere near what had been hoped, the bombing campaigns did take a large toll on German production. You had something like 800k guys alone whose only jobs were to run around Germany fixing whatever the bombers broke, and to take down a single bomber from the ground it needed about three thousand 88mm shells due to the issues inherent in firing upwards at a quickly moving target, even with radar and automatic fuse-setting. There's a reason the Germans wound up burying so many production facilities under mountains, and it wasn't because they hated fresh air.

 

[Just Some Other Guy]

The strategic bombing worked perfectly at its actual goal: the destruction of the German airforce before Overlord.

This was the mission goal of the 8th, at least by mid 43. Destroying stuff on the ground is fine and all, but the fastest way to cripple the Germans was by killing experienced pilots. The best way to do that was forcing them to constantly intercept high altitude bomber formations with escorts.

 

[Jewthulhu]

I guess I was talking more about the idea of terror-bombing. Targeting civilians, infrastructure, etc. in order to degrade the will to fight.

Bombing C3I, ports, airfields, etc., is more effective. Not decisive, but I don't think anyone's arguing that.

Targeting production is a mixed bag in terms of success from what I understand.

 

[Just Some Other Guy]

Oh, yeah the terror bombing stuff was dumb. Whatever the Brits were getting up to had literally nothing to do with reducing Luftwaffe effectiveness.

 

[Dawdler]

Europe gained nothing from WW2 and it let to the rise of communism everywhere. What a stupid war.

 

[The Ugly One]

I guess I was talking more about the idea of terror-bombing. Targeting civilians, infrastructure, etc. in order to degrade the will to fight.

Bombing C3I, ports, airfields, etc., is more effective. Not decisive, but I don't think anyone's arguing that.

Targeting production is a mixed bag in terms of success from what I understand.

Britain tried that in the first couple years, as did Germany, and it was a waste of lives and resources (as is every war in its entirety, but I digress).

Later on, the USA introduced more focused strategic air raids with specific targets in mind. This was when Germany really had to scramble to repair things that air raids destroyed, divert costly 8.8cm guns to AA defense, and start building factories underground. For example, destruction of the Alkett factory was no accident and deprived Germany of the Pz III chassis used for their StuG AT vehicles, forcing them to cannibalize Pz IV production.

 

[Dawdler]

It almost feels as the point is not to squash military but the people ...

 

[Just Some Other Guy]

Britain tried that in the first couple years

Idk, they had quite the obsession with "dehousing" for pretty much the entire war. Morale bombing stayed a highlight of British "efforts".

Also on another note, the idea that the P-51 was needed to escort bombers and that the P-47 couldn't do it is a huge lie and resulted in the needless sacrifice of far too many bomber crews.

 

[Tenshi Eating A Corn Dog!]

My favorite technical of WW2 is this Jeep with four bazookas strapped together on a makeshift mount.

Really some stuff you'd expect from post-Toyota War Middle East / North Africa. Pretty neat and has some spiritual successors like this MLRS set up from the Iranians.

 

[The best and greatest]

Strategic bombing isn't necessarily important as a means of forcing political capitulation in and of itself, but rather quickens the speed at which Germany and Japan are defeated militarily.
Bombing cities and industrial centers might not have pushed the German people to surrender but it had a tangible impact on the war resources and material available to German forces on the frontlines which necessarily hastens their defeat at the hands of the allies. There's a reason we still build strategic bombers and it isn't for vanity. Knocking down a factory even for a few months means fewer numbers of tanks/aircraft being produced month to month and that fewer number of capable factory workers are available to produce them (This is especially important with regards to Germany who had very highly skilled craftsmen who took a lot of time to train)

Arguably the destruction of capable factory workers is more important than the destruction of a factory itself. Factories can be rebuilt in short order; it takes something like 20 years to birth and rear a child, put them through school and then an apprenticeship program before they're ready to build your panzers