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 Peregrine wrote:

It's not that simple. First of all, the ME-262 can't even get that high, and the rocket planes can only get there for a very brief moment before they become gliders. Then the interceptor has to actually get into position to attack, which is easier said than done. If the bombers don't fly right over the rocket interceptor's launch position it doesn't have the range to intercept. If the bombers are identified too late the interceptors can't reach them in time, a very real threat given that they would be operating at the extreme edge of their performance limits. And then even if the interceptors get there they have to face the fact that the B-36 is more maneuverable than a fighter of that era at 40,000' and is armed with far superior guns.

B-36 wasn't fully operational even by Korean war, so I think it is very unlikely it would have been of much use in any plausible WW2 scenario.
I think the "US will nuke Germany anyway" scenario is always vastly overblown in these discussions. Actual conventional bombing of Germany during WW2 was equivalent to about 100 Hiroshimas.

Backfire wrote:
B-36 wasn't fully operational even by Korean war, so I think it is very unlikely it would have been of much use in any plausible WW2 scenario.

Only after US priorities changed to manufacturing an endless swarm of shorter-ranged bombers using the UK as an unsinkable aircraft carrier. Remember, the B-36 was originally designed for the specific purpose of bombing Germany directly from the US if the UK fell. Once it was obvious that the UK was not going to fall the B-36 became a much lower priority. In a hypothetical scenario where the UK is out of the war priorities don't change and the B-36 is probably ready significantly earlier.

Shouldn't we be talking about the B-29? The late war bomber that was actually used?

 Xenomancers wrote:
Shouldn't we be talking about the B-29? The late war bomber that was actually used?

No, because if you change the entire premise of the war then you change which weapons are developed to fight it. The B-29 was used because it was good enough for the job and the B-36 was needed. If the UK is no longer available as an unsinkable aircraft carrier to bomb Germany from then the B-36 becomes the priority because the B-29 can't do the job.

 Peregrine wrote:

Backfire wrote:
B-36 wasn't fully operational even by Korean war, so I think it is very unlikely it would have been of much use in any plausible WW2 scenario.

Only after US priorities changed to manufacturing an endless swarm of shorter-ranged bombers using the UK as an unsinkable aircraft carrier. Remember, the B-36 was originally designed for the specific purpose of bombing Germany directly from the US if the UK fell. Once it was obvious that the UK was not going to fall the B-36 became a much lower priority. In a hypothetical scenario where the UK is out of the war priorities don't change and the B-36 is probably ready significantly earlier.

B-36's engine issues were very acute and were never truly solved because the engine was designed to be tractor configuration, but B-36 used them as pushers. Even in the 50's SAC struggled to maintain adequate supply of R-4360 engines for its fleet. Given this, seems extremely doubtful B-36 would have been war-ready before 1948 even assuming best case scenario, much less 1945 as sometimes suggested.

Its rather moot that the US can bomb Germany when there is a lot of evidence that they wouldn't be bombing Germany in the event that the German's do not actively attack the US.

If Britain sinks there is little motivation for the US to enter the war. Isolationism was very strong at the time, and the only reason the US got involved was because of Pearl Harbor. And we only got involved in Europe because Germany immediately declared war on the US right after the attack. If Germany does the sensible thing and lets the US and Japan duke it out then the US has no reason for attacking Germany. At the time the German Reich might not have been particularly well liked, but they weren't the definition of evil at that time. The Soviets were actually closer to holding that title. If the Germans and Soviets ended up fighting on the eastern front, its even entirely possible that the Germans might receive aid from the US to fight Communism.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
Shouldn't we be talking about the B-29? The late war bomber that was actually used?

No, because if you change the entire premise of the war then you change which weapons are developed to fight it. The B-29 was used because it was good enough for the job and the B-36 was needed. If the UK is no longer available as an unsinkable aircraft carrier to bomb Germany from then the B-36 becomes the priority because the B-29 can't do the job.

Ideally you don't want to do intercontinental strategic bombing anyways though right? Not only is it way more resource intensive - it would also be less effective because of things like in predictability of weather. More than likely we would have just turned north Africa into our unsinkable aircraft carrier. Otherwise if that wasn't an option I don't think strategic bombing would have been effective. It was barely effective enough with England being the launch point.

 KTG17 wrote:
Hitler/Germany had a huge issue with oil. As a matter of fact, the invasion of western Europe and Norway and all had a huge impact on oil reserves. That is why they stopped pushing into Moscow and went to south in Operation Blue or Case Blue whatever it was called. Once Hitler knew the war wasn't going to end quickly, oil became a priority. But Germany would have run out of oil even if it has not invaded Russia.

People tend to think Hitler was mad and over-ruling his generals all the time but the truth is the vast majority of his generals were only looking at the war in a tactical sense from battle to battle, and not strategically.

It is a popular misconception that Hitler dragged German General Staff to Barbarossa crying and screaming, but it is completely incorrect. It may have been somewhat true on Battle of France, which lots of the generals were dreading beforehand "oh feth, there is no way we can pull this gak off". However Soviet Union was seen as militarily quite weak. Western military analysts too believed that Germany would defeat Soviet Union.
Operation Barbarossa was based on the idea that Red Army should be destroyed. Once it was out of the way, Germans could march to where they wanted and take Moscow, Leningrad, Caucasus etc.
And that plan worked beautifully! Red Army was almost completely wiped out in short time. But by the time that was achieved, Stalin had another army on the field...nobody in Germany, or in the West, had foreseen that. Military strength of the Soviet Union was far greater than anyone would have thought possible - I think they had like 50% of all the tanks in the world.

I am skeptical of the "Germans were treated as liberators" claim. Sure thing, some 'White' minded natives were happy to see Communist regime driven out. But it is much exaggaration to think entire population was waiting for Soviet yoke to be thrown off. When Finns conquered Karelia during 1941-42, the native population - who were ethnic cousins of the Finns, with mutually intelligeble language, and who had horribly suffered in Stalin's purges - were completely apathetic. Finns were expecting that the Karelians would rise up together with their brothers, and nothing like that happened. So I very much doubt that anything like that was going to happen in Ukraine or Russia either.

An argument could be made that Germany might have managed to win some Soviets over to their side with the right propaganda and public management. Of course Germany grand strategy called for the annihilation or removal of non Germans, so they didn't really try that hard. The heavy hand of the German War machine instead had the opposite effect with people throwing support behind Stalinist Russia, not necessarily because they suddenly liked Stalin or the Soviet State, but because the alternative looked apocalyptic. Emphasis on "looked" mind you.

 LordofHats wrote:
An argument could be made that Germany might have managed to win some Soviets over to their side with the right propaganda and public management. Of course Germany grand strategy called for the annihilation or removal of non Germans, so they didn't really try that hard. The heavy hand of the German War machine instead had the opposite effect with people throwing support behind Stalinist Russia, not necessarily because they suddenly liked Stalin or the Soviet State, but because the alternative looked apocalyptic. Emphasis on "looked" mind you.

Yup. The Nazis did a terrible job of public perception. A smart ethnic cleanser would wait till you'd actually won to start the purge.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
An argument could be made that Germany might have managed to win some Soviets over to their side with the right propaganda and public management. Of course Germany grand strategy called for the annihilation or removal of non Germans, so they didn't really try that hard. The heavy hand of the German War machine instead had the opposite effect with people throwing support behind Stalinist Russia, not necessarily because they suddenly liked Stalin or the Soviet State, but because the alternative looked apocalyptic. Emphasis on "looked" mind you.

Yup. The Nazis did a terrible job of public perception. A smart ethnic cleanser would wait till you'd actually won to start the purge.

We should note, German policy was not new. Germany treated the East like it's African colonies in WW1. WW2 treatment was worse, but only by degree.

The BBC was asked to not give the impression that Soviet resistance would last longer than two months in their broadcasts at the time.

I don't know how many of you have already seen it, but Soviet Storm is a twenty-part docuseries on the Eastern Front that is available with English commentary. I'd recommend it. Also the BBC docuseries When Hitler Fought Stalin.

EDIT - No, Hitler is not unfairly blamed for anything.

 ChargerIIC wrote:

Tyran wrote:
I just don't see how Germany is supposed to achieve a truce with the UK. I mean, we are talking about a nation whose response to being bombed was to fight harder.

Even if the British Expeditionary Force had been destroyed in Dunkirk, it wouldn't have changed the strategic situation of the war.

I thought the same way - that's how it's presented in high school history books certainly, but reading memoirs of the time period really does show Neville Chamberlain in favor of peace rather than continued armed conflict. I don't think anyone would have blamed the British - America was not yet a heavy military presence in the war and France was clearly lost. Setting up a truce to buy a decade of rearming and recovery probably seemed like a good idea - after all there was a good chance that the Nazis would be destroyed by within if left to thier own devices. Remeber that the Cold War hadn't occurred yet and nobody alive truly understood what a 10 year military standoff could be like.

It wasn't Chamberlain you need to concern yourself with, but timing and Churchill. The German high command was on a roll in 1940 Hitler was unstoppable politially. It was only after the Battle of Britain that German staff began to vocalise second thoughts. By which time Hitler had already tried to subdue Britain and failed.
From early 1941 there was numerous attempts by senior German officials to contact the British government via Madrid. Churchill was promised a coup removing Hitler and a return to 1871 borders in france and a retreat from Poland in return for peace. Churchill flatly refused.
Churchill was himself very hawkish he didn't start wars but was happy to continue them especially post Blitz. Had Chamberlain or Halifax been in control in early 1941 there would have been a peace settlement and Hitler would have been removed. I strogly suspect the entire Nazi party would have been replaced by a Wehrmacht coup, and allowing for who was in control of the wehrmacht at the time, elections would have followed..

 ChargerIIC wrote:

Losing the British Expendintary force at Dunkirk would have been an unmitigated disaster. It's unlikely that Germany could have ever invaded the British Home Isles in their current state, but the British/polish/french surivovrs of Dunkirk were the veteran core around which the Africian and Equropean fronts were established. Moreover, Britian was already at the brink when it came to finding soliders. Wipe 330,000 soldiers off the pages of history and that really changes things.

Over half as many as the UK lost in casualties.

 ChargerIIC wrote:

When it comes to using the bombing of Britian as an example of british resolve, that mostly shows Hitler's misunderstanding of how terror tactics work. The threat of constant attack worked only as long as there was somewhere to retreat to - an critical component that lead to Dunkirk in the first place. Once the British civlians, on their lone island, were faced with no ability to avoid danger they became as resolved as their military counterparts.

Very true.
- Give your opponent a bridge of gold by which to retreat.
- When in death ground, fight.

 ChargerIIC wrote:

The same thing happened in the late days of Berlin, where the eastern Berlin citizens would commit themselves in deadly street to street fighting, often attacking tanks and other vehicles in hand to hand combat attacks. The Russians made it clear that surrender wasn't going to happen and for that part of the city the resistance was bitter and resolute. On the other hand, the Russians complained that the American/European push had faced very little resistance, with their policy of accepting surrender having been well known. Despite the fact that the US Marines often failed to honor any surrender terms (a stated policy at the time), the Germans still flocked to American lines to turn over their weapons and request food.

The British were preferred choice to surrender to, by no means a certain thing but the option with the best chances, = however not many Germans realised this as thoughts on surrender could not be vocalised. Some did and went out of their way to surrender to British soldiers.

 ChargerIIC wrote:

Hitler should have looked at 'bottling' Britian instead of invading it, but that wasn't in line with his philosophy.

Operationally others realised though. The U Boat campaign was largely about bottling Britain. It is said that the UK was two convoys away from loss at the height of the Battle of the Atlantic. I don't believe that. Two convoys away from a catastrophic shortage is possible. Russia had several catastrophic shortages, but they carried on, so did Germany itself. The U-boat almost starved out Britain but the rations never actually failed and had actual starvation occurred the British would likely have fought on anyway, one way or another.
The U-boats failed to redline the civilian populace, though they got close, it would have taken a lot more to flatline them. When things get really gak people find hidden reserves. The UK nearly ran out of tea, but wasn't resorting to eating rats. Leningrad was, and it held.
Th U-boats were competently led and the achievable goals of bottling Britain were effectively met for a while.


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 soundwave591 wrote:

Tyran wrote:


Even if the British Expeditionary Force had been destroyed in Dunkirk, it wouldn't have changed the strategic situation of the war.

except wouldnt it have been likely that the British would have sacked Churchill?

Chamberlain was in power when that mess started, and the transition occurred during the Dunkirk campaign, he would have survived it.


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 Ketara wrote:


The idea that the 1918 Treaty of Versailles was the 'near-total subjugation of the losing side' has been one of the greatest propaganda coups of the Nazis and anti-war campaigners to still survive. It was nowhere near as bad as the terms of the 1918 Treaty of Brest-Litovsk which the Germans imposed on Russia for peace. Frankly, it was basically a re-run of the 1871 Treaty of Versailles; in which part of France was temporarily occupied by the German forces, Alsace-Lorraine got swapped around like Pokemon Cards, and the French had to foot a massive reparations bill. The difference is that the French knuckled under, paid up, and picked themselves back up again without feeling the need to fight their neighbour a second time.

Whereas the Germans used it being visited back on them as an excuse for WW2. Then in trying to assess why the world wars happened and ensure that large-scale conflict didn't happen again, various peace campaigners seized upon the Nazi rhetoric and promulgated it throughout the West from before WW2 and long past it.

The Treaty of Versailles was really nothing particularly exceptional for terms of surrender in historical context. It wasn't overly cruel or taxing; despite what your average History GCSE might tell you. Certainly not a 'near-subjugation of the losing side'.

I bought that lie also.

Versailles was draconian and unfair, but not to the extent of treatise at the time when looked at in comparison.
There was a difference however, and that was that the German army was not defeated. In November 1918 the Germans marched home from the trenches under their own banners. The German army never surrendered or was facing defeat in the field, the economy was defeated.
Hitler made great play of this, and on blaming the economic defeat on Jews. There was just enough truth in that to bite, some economic leaders in Germany were Jews, but Jews did not control the German economy.


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 Iron_Captain wrote:


Its an interesting proposition. Many Russians were very patriotic.....however quite a few of them were basically rounded up and forced to fight with squads of machine guns behind their backs.

Those were penal battalions, made up of criminals and political prisoners. Basically, people Stalin wanted dead and instead of letting them rot in a camp he figured he could just send them on suicide missions and still get some use out of them. Normal army units were absolutely not like that. The NKVD did have units in place to prevent unauthorised retreats in unreliable regular units as well (keep in mind the army at this point was mostly untrained conscripts, not soldiers, so some of course got scared and fled when exposed to enemy fire), but there they would just send people back to their unit or arrest them in case of desertion. People were normally only executed after a court martial.
Don't believe the portrayal of the Red Army you see in Western movies or video games. It is very inaccurate and quite frankly insulting.

 Orlanth wrote:

 ChargerIIC wrote:

When it comes to using the bombing of Britian as an example of british resolve, that mostly shows Hitler's misunderstanding of how terror tactics work. The threat of constant attack worked only as long as there was somewhere to retreat to - an critical component that lead to Dunkirk in the first place. Once the British civlians, on their lone island, were faced with no ability to avoid danger they became as resolved as their military counterparts.

Very true.
- Give your opponent a bridge of gold by which to retreat.
- When in death ground, fight.

Hitler did not favour terror bombings against Britain. In fact, he specificially ordered Luftwaffe to NOT carpet bomb cities without his explicit permit. Hitler well knew how much bad PR Zeppelin "baby killing" bombings had brought Germany during WW1. Also, ideologically, he didn't hate Britain in same way as he hated USSR or "international Jewry". He saw British Empire as 'master race' of their own, just slightly misguided. Terror bombings were adopted only after strategic target bombings had already failed.

 Orlanth wrote:

 KTG17 wrote:

Also, I recently heard that Khrushchev may have had a hand in Stalin's death. Even if not directly by murdering, but not helping in his final moments/days. Going to see if I can't dig up more info on that. If anyone has heard the same let me know.

Amongst others one of the nice benefits of Stalin's death is you got a twofer' with Beria.

There is no proof that Stalin was poisoned; Radzinski speculated that it might have been possible, however he is prone to over-speculating and even then, stopped short claiming it as a fact.
Of course, it is not impossible or anything, but Stalin was an old man with very unhealthy lifestyle, so his death is hardly mysterious.

No. Uncle 'dolf was obsessed with crushing stalingrad simply because it was named after Stalin. It was like he somehow believed in some almost voodoo like principle where crushing a city named after Stalin would somehow magically defeat Stalin himself. He threw away tremendous resources on the style for stalingrad when every competent advisor begged him to just bypass the damn city and take Moscow. Hitler refused to abandon the effort to capture stalingrad and literally threw away vast numbers of soldiers and resources until Paulus surrendered to safe at least a few of his men.

Hitler seemed to believe "grand gestures" and "mythic heroism" would win a war rather than sound, logical tactics and strategies. He may actually have been a good imperial general in warhammer 40,000, but in the real world he was a disaster. Real war is not a Wagner opera, Hitler seemed to feel otherwise. He deserves all the blame he gets.

Technically speaking, Paulus never formally surrendered (just bringing up because it's one of those neato history things). He went to sleep and woke up to find the Soviet troops inside his headquarters. His own immediate command elements had defacto stopped fighting and it created a somewhat odd situation in the immediate moment as German troops hadn't surrendered, and thus were still armed, but simply weren't fighting Soviet troops anymore who were inside the command head quarters with them. A Russian general, whose name I forget, who went to accept surrender received none. German troops simply gave up their arms and pointed him to Paulus.

Even after the German soldiers at the location surrendered their arms, Paulus refused to issue a formal surrender, or to tell his men to stand down. In fact his only order at the time was to explicitly forbid his men from killing themselves, which was tantamount to ordering them to fight and die, or surrender, as they saw fit. Paulus himself was taken into custody without ever surrendering himself.

 LordofHats wrote:
Technically speaking, Paulus never formally surrendered (just bringing up because it's one of those neato history things). He went to sleep and woke up to find the Soviet troops inside his headquarters. His own immediate command elements had defacto stopped fighting and it created a somewhat odd situation in the immediate moment as German troops hadn't surrendered, and thus were still armed, but simply weren't fighting Soviet troops anymore who were inside the command head quarters with them. A Russian general, whose name I forget, who went to accept surrender received none. German troops simply gave up their arms and pointed him to Paulus.

Even after the German soldiers at the location surrendered their arms, Paulus refused to issue a formal surrender, or to tell his men to stand down. In fact his only order at the time was to explicitly forbid his men from killing themselves, which was tantamount to ordering them to fight and die, or surrender, as they saw fit. Paulus himself was taken into custody without ever surrendering himself.

The Soviets would not have accepted a surrender. They had offered Paulus opportunities to surrender earlier on, but he refused those (or rather, he had wanted to surrender but was denied by higher command). By the 31st January, the Soviets were in almost total control and it had become too late for surrendering. Because surrendering would have meant that Paulus still had any authority he could surrender. But by that point he did not, he was merely a Soviet prisoner. The general did not come to accept a surrender, he only came to inform Paulus of the fact that he had been captured and placed in custody. But yes. Technically Paulus therefore never surrendered.

IDK about that. There's definitely an account from a German Staff officer reciting a Soviet general requesting Paulus' formal surrender and Paulus refusing to do so... or maybe I'm confusing that with the general asking Paulus to order his troops to stand down and Paulus refusing to do so? I'd have to go back and look.

EDIT: And you are correct Captain it would be the later. Paulus refused to order German forces still fighting in the North of the city to surrender when requested, but no one ever explicitly asked for his surrender after his capture.

Well, the details of Paulus' actions aside, the salient point that Hitler was obsessed with the capture of stalingrad to the point of insanity and wasted a vast amount of men and material on it remains.

 LordofHats wrote:
IDK about that. There's definitely an account from a German Staff officer reciting a Soviet general requesting Paulus' formal surrender and Paulus refusing to do so... or maybe I'm confusing that with the general asking Paulus to order his troops to stand down and Paulus refusing to do so? I'd have to go back and look.

The account of Paulus' aide (Whilhelm Adan) who was present in the room at the moment only says that the general told them that they were his prisoners and were to prepare themselves for departure at 9:00 AM. The commander who arrived at 9:00 did ask Paulus to tell the remaining northern German pocket of troops to surrender, but Paulus did refuse that arguing that since he had been taken prisoner he was no longer their commander. Maybe you were thinking of that. It is the commander of that northern pocket (General Strecker) who surrendered the remains of the 6th army two days after Paulus was captured.


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 Techpriestsupport wrote:
Well, the details of Paulus' actions aside, the salient point that Hitler was obsessed with the capture of stalingrad to the point of insanity and wasted a vast amount of men and material on it remains.

True dat. And not just Stalingrad, but Leningrad and to a lesser extent Moscow as well. All of those weren't valuable targets. Basically, a major problem with the German strategy was they were focused too much on decisive pushes to take critical cities and other objectives. But in Russia there are no critical objectives you can take. There are always more cities, airfields and bases where the defenders can retreat to. And the countryside is so vast that just holding the cities doesn't mean you control much. The Germans had a big problem in that Soviet authority was just being re-established behind their backs in the countryside (and even in some cities, such as Odessa) as soon as the German army had passed. This meant that partisan activity could be centrally coordinated and that the Germans basically were fighting a two-front war within Russia itself.

To be fair, people often overlook that Stalingrad was a strategically valuable city, and not just for it's name. The city was a vital river crossing, a major entry point for British and American aid through the Persian Corridor, and a major industrial base in it's own right. There were in fact valid reasons to target Stalingrad, and Leningrad and Moscow for that matter. And it's not like Hitler was the only one who thought so. His intractability became a problem, not in the selection of targets so much as his refusal to withdraw when prudent, a problem that was arguably shared across the Wehrmacht. Even Manstein thought the city could hold well into the winter of 1942. He didn't give up until arial resupply failed and the Germany military remained dedicated to fighting around the city until Army Groups A and B came under threat of being surrounded themselves.

Arguably Hitler's choices were irrelevant.

1942 and Case Blue, which were not wholly his conception and had the support of the German military after the push to Moscow stalled out, represented the point that the German military machine reached it's limit and had entered a realm where it was no longer capable of victory. The lines were stretched too thin. A Soviet breakthrough somewhere was inevitable.

Also Hitler personally underestimated both the Russian nation and the Russian people. In his view on Russia, it was a case of

“We have only to kick in the front door,” Adolf Hitler said, predicting a swift victory in Russia, “and the whole rotten Russian edifice will come tumbling down.”

Hitler based a great deal of his strategic thinking on the fantasy of racial superiority and inferiority. He views the so called "Aryan" German people as "The master race" and it was simply, naturally inevitable that they crush and dominate the so called "subhumans" like the Slavics and "mongoloid Russians".

He viewed German victory over those he deemed inferior races as a matter of natural law. He based his strategy on the premise that the German people were racially superior and the other nations were filled with inferior races and it was simply natural the superior races would win.

Admittedly both America and British was guilty of similar attitudes towards the Japanese, believing the smaller Japanese people to be no threat to them. Once evidence to the contrary was made painfully clear, however, america and England ceased to base military strategy on such thinking.

Hitler did not. No matter now many times Russians proved themselves equal to the Germans on the battlefield, Hitler continued to believe that "Aryan superiority" would inevitably triumph as a matter of natural law.

He was not unfairly blamed for nazi germany's defeat. If there was any unfairness of blame in the matter of he nazis, I would say that Heinrich Himmler is not blamed enough for the holocaust and other nazi atrocities.

 Techpriestsupport wrote:

Admittedly both America and British was guilty of similar attitudes towards the Japanese, believing the smaller Japanese people to be no threat to them. Once evidence to the contrary was made painfully clear, how ever, america and England ceased to base military strategy on such thinking.

Did anybody in America or Britain ever base strategy on that? I've never heard of anything like someone hinging a strategy around Japanese being physically inferior to Caucasians. Certainly there was racial prejudices, but I never heard of anybody basing American/British strategy around the pseudoscience of racial deficiencies. That seems to have been almost entirely the purview of Nazi Germany, and the Japanese themselves as well.

I think he's referencing the interwar politics, where Japan was openly derided along racial lines. Japan wanted to have equal footing with other great powers when the League of Nations was forming and pushed for the adoption of language supporting race neutrality in the organization's dealings. This was nixed by Woodrow Wilson, who proceeded to publicly chide the Japanese delegation for suggesting it (EDIT: Australia kindasorta joined in). The Washington Naval Treaty was seen as a further slight not just for the 5:5:3 naval tonnage ratios but because the American delegation made US cooperation conditional on the end of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance. These events paved the way for Japan's rejection of the London Naval Treaty and growing hostility toward the US and Britain.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Techpriestsupport wrote:

Admittedly both America and British was guilty of similar attitudes towards the Japanese, believing the smaller Japanese people to be no threat to them. Once evidence to the contrary was made painfully clear, how ever, america and England ceased to base military strategy on such thinking.

Did anybody in America or Britain ever base strategy on that? I've never heard of anything like someone hinging a strategy around Japanese being physically inferior to Caucasians. Certainly there was racial prejudices, but I never heard of anybody basing American/British strategy around the pseudoscience of racial deficiencies. That seems to have been almost entirely the purview of Nazi Germany, and the Japanese themselves as well.

American pilots were trained early on to attack Japanese planes from the sides because the Japanese perportedly bad no peripheral vision. The British believed the Japanese could not see very well at night, and thus incapable of night time operations, another "slanty eye" stereotype. Many military instructors assured recruits a Japanese soldier could be knocked out or even killed with a single normal punch from an american or British soldier.

on a related note the US army officially considered blacks inferior to whites and suited only for less intellectually demanding tasks. The tuskegee airmen disproved this. The american military revised its policies in the face of solid evidence.

 Techpriestsupport wrote:
The american military revised its policies in the face of solid evidence.

Hitler kinda did that as well, actually, in his own twisted way. His racial beliefs explain a lot of the crazy, destructive orders Hitler gave towards the end of the war. He had a very social darwinist view of things.
In his view, if the Germans were defeated by or surrendered to the supposedly inferior Russians, that meant those Germans had proven themselves to be even more inferior and therefore not worthy to be part of the 'master race' or to continue living. If Germany could not win the war, Germany should be destroyed and belong to the 'stronger Eastern nations' that had defeated it. Thankfully, Speer and others who were responsible for carrying out those orders often were a bit more sensible, but beliefs such as these did play a big part in the refusals to allow troops to retreat even when retreat would have been strategically sound. Hitler wanted his troops to win, or die trying. If they could not win then clearly they were not worthy enough.

A notable tangent to this is that Hitler was essentially deteriorating mentally and physically during his reign. Some attribute this to advancing syphilis, others to prolonged use of meth amphetamines, some wonder if he had Parkinson's.

Regardless of the actual reason, his ability to deal with reality was notably deteriorating as the war dragged on. The fact was the huge tanks he favored such as the tiger were losing out in the long run to smaller, easier to mass produce, maintain and replace tanks like the T-34 and the Sherman. His response was to demand larger tanks like the king tiger, an utter disaster in terms of cost vs effect, and even the utterly inane Maus tank that was never going to be more than a joke.

But Hitler was making bad decisions free on day one. WW2 was the age of the submarine and the aircraft carrier. Hitler demanded battleships like the Bismarck. He never authorized a carrier and he underfunded the uboat program.

He wasn't that great a military mind to begin with, and whatever was eating his brain only exacerbated his lack of rational military thought. He demonstrated clear paranoia in blaming everyone else for his failures and ineptness.

Hitler was at fault for the failure in the east. He was to blame for nazi germany's failure, but so we're he people who supported him. There's plenty of blame to go around, but no one is being unfair to Hitler.

 Techpriestsupport wrote:
No. Uncle 'dolf was obsessed with crushing stalingrad simply because it was named after Stalin. It was like he somehow believed in some almost voodoo like principle where crushing a city named after Stalin would somehow magically defeat Stalin himself. He threw away tremendous resources on the style for stalingrad when every competent advisor begged him to just bypass the damn city and take Moscow. Hitler refused to abandon the effort to capture stalingrad and literally threw away vast numbers of soldiers and resources until Paulus surrendered to safe at least a few of his men.

Moscow and Stalingrad are almost 1000km apart...

'Case Blue', German offensive of 1942, was developed by OKH, not Hitler. It was based upon the ruse that Soviets surely believed that Germans would attempt to retake Moscow, but instead strike to the South, conquer Caucasus region and its enormous oil and coal resources. Maikop, Groznyi and Baku produced about 90% of Soviet petroleum so to capture them would be enormous boon for German war industry, and crippling strike on USSR.
The ruse worked perfectly: bulk of the Red Army reserves were defending Moscow and subsesquently southern fronts were much weaker, allowing Germans to make huge gains.
However Germans never managed to deliver similar hammer-blows to Soviet forces as they had in previous year. Soviets had learned to retreat when threatened by encirclement and the massive maneuvering victories of 1941 were not repeated.

Then Hitler made a gamble - he split the offensive in two, directing one to capture Stalingrad and other for oilfields. Gamble failed - 6th Army was too weak to capture Stalingrad and whilst Maikop was captured, before retreat Soviets had destroyed the oil fields so throughly Germans never managed to put them back to operation.

Realistically one could say 6th Army did capture Stalingrad. By October of 1942 the entire city infrastructure was either destroyed or in German hands. Issue was there were still reds everywhere and the Germans never managed to clear the city cause the Red Army kept throwing bodies into it. One way to look at it is the world's most drawn out, and ultimately futile, clean up operation because neither side was willing to quit and one had more bodies to throw at the problem

 Techpriestsupport wrote:

But Hitler was making bad decisions free on day one. WW2 was the age of the submarine and the aircraft carrier. Hitler demanded battleships like the Bismarck. He never authorized a carrier and he underfunded the uboat program.

Well, the Naval decisions of Germany weren't really Hitler's doing. Everybody, not just Germany, at the time the Bismarck and Tirpitz were built still believed naval warfare would revolve around Battleships. Once the Bismarck went down, Hitler did abandon Plan Z and shift towards Karl Dönitz's plan for U-boats. He can't really be blamed for the early focus on Battleships, everybody was focused on battleships at the time. The Germans, the British, and even the Japanese. The U-boat program wasn't really underfunded so much as it was just late to the party.

Really the only people to embrace Carriers was the US and Japan, and even Japan still built the Yamato and Musashi.