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It was American manufacturing capability that defeated Japan (and largely Germany), far more than any other factor. Japan never had the production capacity, nor the resources, to win a war against us. ...
Yah, we - the US - out produced everybody, & from almost a standing start, by the end of the war. Even by the middle of the war - remember that WWII in ETO started 09/01/39 - we didn't get in until 12/07/41. Yes, the US produced ships, tanks, arty, airplanes, small arms, trucks, food. We sold or traded or Lend Leased to all the Allies, eventually. We raised 90 divisions - enough to make a difference, but a small enough number that we could train, equip, transport & deploy.
The UK provided Radar, Sonar, signals intercepts, decryption, a general staff that we modeled on, & Worldwide resources & personnel & bases. The USSR fought & bled & sustained enormous losses in military, civilians & materiel. They inflicted terrible losses upon the German military & their allies, & eventually swamped Germany altogether.
Yah, the US largely harried Japan back across the Pacific - but they committed their troops to a senseless war in China - & never could extract them. It took them until 1946 to get all their people (military & civilians) back out of China, Manchuria, Korea, Indochina, Philippines, Netherlands East Indies, etc. Germany managed their war effort better than Japan, although Hitler kept sacrificing units rather than letting them retreat to fight another day.
Looking @ the histories I've read so far, I think the USSR was irreplaceable in the ETO victory. UK was gun-shy, after the enormous losses in WWI. France & the Low Countries were overrun quickly, along with most of Europe. I think without the US, the war would have ground on for @ least another year. I don't believe that Stalin would ever have quit. He was determined to grind Germany into the dust.
Japan was simply not ready, & would never be ready. They relied upon spiritual strength to make up any deficiencies in men & materiel - that plus a number of their victories were gained @ the cost of throwing in the reserves & going for broke. Some of their victories in WWII had paper-thin margins - which worked until they squared off against the US production & manpower & rich natural resources.
(awakened a sleeping giant and filled him with a terrible resolve, in the words of Yamamoto).
He never actually said that. It was added to "Tora, Tora, Tora" by the producer to give a bit of an upbeat ending for US audiences. There is no mention of this anywhere prior to the release of the movie.
Looking @ the histories I've read so far, I think the USSR was irreplaceable in the ETO victory. UK was gun-shy, after the enormous losses in WWI. France & the Low Countries were overrun quickly, along with most of Europe. I think without the US, the war would have ground on for @ least another year. I don't believe that Stalin would ever have quit. He was determined to grind Germany into the dust.
Without the Soviets, we probably never could have beaten Germany. They Wehrmacht lost almost 5 million men on the Eastern Front, and as of D-Day they had over 3 million men fighting on the Eastern Front. In June of 44, they had 66 divisions dedicated to running backwards from Russia, and only 12 to defend France. Had they not been at war with the Russians, they would have had millions more troops to defend the French coast, and thousands more tanks. We'd never have made it ashore. Britain and the US would have had to pursue a negotiated peace, and Hitler and Stalin would have basically split continental Europe up between themselves.
Last edited by Mr. In-Between; 05-03-2016 at 11:52 PM..
As readers of this forum no doubt know, the American aircraft carriers stationed in the Pacific in December 1941 were fortuitously absent from Pearl Harbor on the morning of the 7th. But what if they hadn't been? Saratoga was in San Diego when the attack happened, so it seems a bit of a stretch -- even for an alternate-history thread -- to put her at Pearl Harbor on that fateful morning. But Lexington wasn't too far away, and Enterprise was even closer; indeed, she would have been there when the bombs fell if she hadn't been delayed by a storm the night before.
So, how do you think the war would have progressed if Enterprise and Lexington had been pounded into the muddy bottom of Pearl Harbor? (Assume that the Saratoga gets torpedoed at sea a few days later as she did in real life, and thus misses Coral Sea and Midway.) It seems to me that if Lexington were gone, we might not have attempted to save New Guinea, thus no Battle of the Coral Sea. Or, alternately, we might have; but it seems likely that Yorktown would have received the bombs that actually went to Lexington in addition to the ones fated for her, and thus she almost certainly would have been sunk. In real life, Enterprise and Yorktown (relocated from the Atlantic) were solely responsible for sinking all four Japanese carriers at Midway; what would have happened if one or both of them hadn't been there? (Would there even have been a Battle of Midway if we didn't have all three of the carriers used there, or would we have decided to preserve our remaining flattops and thus not contested the invasion?)
What are your thoughts?
The Japanese high command was well aware they couldn't win a protracted war with the U.S.
The idea was to make a deal not long after the war started and get the Americans off their back about Japan moving into China and Southeast Asia.
Unfortunately, the Japanese vastly underestimated the fury of the American people who didn't just want an end to the war but revenge.
Without the Soviets, we probably never could have beaten Germany. They Wehrmacht lost almost 5 million men on the Eastern Front, and as of D-Day they had over 3 million men fighting on the Eastern Front. In June of 44, they had 66 divisions dedicated to running backwards from Russia, and only 12 to defend France. Had they not been at war with the Russians, they would have had millions more troops to defend the French coast, and thousands more tanks. We'd never have made it ashore. Britain and the US would have had to pursue a negotiated peace, and Hitler and Stalin would have basically split continental Europe up between themselves.
They would have eventually gotten tired of being nuked.
Without the Soviets, we probably never could have beaten Germany. They Wehrmacht lost almost 5 million men on the Eastern Front, and as of D-Day they had over 3 million men fighting on the Eastern Front. In June of 44, they had 66 divisions dedicated to running backwards from Russia, and only 12 to defend France. Had they not been at war with the Russians, they would have had millions more troops to defend the French coast, and thousands more tanks. We'd never have made it ashore. Britain and the US would have had to pursue a negotiated peace, and Hitler and Stalin would have basically split continental Europe up between themselves.
Without the USSR, the US military estimate for required manpower was 213 US Army divisions, plus heavy AAF bomber force, plus built-up US Navy, plus UK & Commonwealth military & bases, plus any other Allies - Polish, French, & so on.
As to Hitler & Stalin - Hitler leased space in the USSR to train, equip & temporarily hide the revived Army & Air force Germany was forbidden to have, per WWI terms. They also bought raw materials from USSR - hard currency that the Soviets were glad to have. Stalin purged the Soviet military officer corps of political unreliables, & thus crippled the effectiveness of their military. He also signed a non-aggression pact with Hitler - planning to abrogate it @ the proper time, which never arrived. Stalin also wreaked considerable havoc in economic planning, moving ethnic populations about, destroying the Kulaks in Ukraine, wrecking agricultural output, taking & distributing cropland. The political paranoia @ the top led to purges, layers of competing secret services - army, political, naval, border guards, labor camps, work camps & massive waste of resources in a vain attempt to stifle all dissent. All of which led to hunger, forced marches, disease - & a lot of political disaffection in Russia. All of which made the USSR ripe for invasion by Germany.
Stalin was not going to leave Hitler in power anywhere, nor the Nazi regime, nor Germany as a potential threat in future. If Hitler didn't manage to conquer the USSR in the first 6 months of the campaign, he was never going to do it. The Soviets never bothered to count the cost during the war - they simply kept raising armies, training, equipping, & sometimes driving tanks & arty directly out of the factory & into combat.
What if US subs formed a wolfpack and sank the Nippon fleet the day after Pearl Harbor?
That woulda made Hirohito nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs!
That's one of my favorite responses to the Let It Happen On Purpose CTers. Twenty subs waiting for the IJN to launch their planes, then firing 120 torpedoes in the carriers. Thing would have gotten frisky.
That's one of my favorite responses to the Let It Happen On Purpose CTers. Twenty subs waiting for the IJN to launch their planes, then firing 120 torpedoes in the carriers. Thing would have gotten frisky.
Yah, except that US torpedoes early in the war were ineffective. The problem had to do with the sensors, as I recall. We fired a lot of duds early on, & likely lost crews because of that. See U.S. Torpedo Troubles During World War II | HistoryNet for details.
So no - it took us a long time to find & fix the problems - it was a regular cascade of issues. (& the Mark XIV torp had a long & ugly problem history anyway.)
All the more fun! ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY DUDS! The Japanese would freak, thinking we were counting coup or something. I can imagine what Nagumo and his flag officers would be trying to figure out what kind of trap we really meant to spring.
Meanwhile, very few of their planes come back, meaning the IJA air threat at the Solomons is greatly reduced.
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Hitler & Stalin
What if U.S. aircraft carriers had been sunk at Pearl Harbor?
