ArbeitsSchu wrote:Just to get this clear: instead of demonstrating the power of the US Navy in the late 30s and early 40s by numbers, tonnage, armament, or even examples of skillful fleet handling by talented Captains and Admirals, people are choosing to cite pre-dreadnought and even pre-ironclad naval battles? Whilst I'm sure that sailing ships and upturned bathtubs of armour plate with zero freeboard were used with great vigour and panache, I'm not sure that its really indicative of how well a WW2 navy might fare against another Navy of the same period.
You can't disregard previous naval actions entirely just because the state of Naval Warfare evolved. Tradition matters. The US has always had a long standing tradition of sailing, going all the way back to the good ol days of being British colonies. That tradition is evident in the power of the US navy. We had a puny fleet of six frigates in the early years, but those six ships did surprisingly well. Much better than one would expect. They were for the most part well constructed, and even those captured by the Royal Navy had their accomplishments that made them noteworthy.
Germany on the other hand, doesn't really have a standing naval tradition. They never have. They've never been a naval power at any point in history I'm aware of. Tradition isn't a make all break all, but it's not something to be tossed out the window.
The US has a naval tradition, and had one in 1941 that gave it background and experience regardless of whether or not naval warfare had changed. Interestingly, what we lacked was a land war tradition. We won the revolution courtesy of 3000 miles of ocean, the War of 1812 we had our butts kicked, the Civil War was horribly executed from a strategic and operational standpoint, and Mexico and turn of the century spain don't make for very challenging opponents.
You can see how our lacking land war traditions and experience that worked out looking at Tunisia and the rapid build up of our armed forces prior. The US' greastest defense has always been and still is the fact that her immediate neighbors are not threatening to her (sorry Canada) and everyone who is has to cross thousands of miles of open water. That is not an easy obstacle to overcome especially when your landing forces then have to take over one of the largest countries by population and milage in the world. It was nearly impossible just to cross the English Channel in Fortress Europa! Heck, its hard to invade
Russia and there isn't a body of water in the way.
ArbeitsSchu wrote:See that bit about "luck"? That right there is one of the point of divergence I mentioned earlier. Sheer blind luck prevents the US losing its Pacific Carrier ability.
My buddy Karl might suggest luck (or rather the unpredictability of war) is an inescapable aspect of warfare that must always be considered.
Also, slightly more relevant to where I was going, if the Japanese nearly managed to destroy the Pacific Fleet by surprise,
No they didn't. They nearly managed to cripple it. American industry would have replaced those ships in short order (which we did, and then we built more). Destroying a fleet is also a separate matter from landing troops on foreign soil. And Germany isn't in the pacific it's in the atlantic. The Atlantic fleet wasn't harbored on an island surrounded by ocean. The operational game is completely different for Germany than Japan.
why is it so very very unfeasible that a Germany similarly intent on attacking the US would not be able to achieve a similar surprise.
In the land of "What if?" It's not entirely unfeasible.
After all, the US knew that the Japanese were belligerent and equipped for war and they still got caught with their collective pants down.
Yeah, we wrote the wrong date down on the calender book. The Japanese "surprise" was averted ruin courtesy of a flight of B-17's. Quite "lucky."
How is it then that people believe that a US aware of a Germany equipping for Naval supremacy and intent on belligerence would be capable of predicting the same sort of attack on the Atlantic coast?
In general in WWII, our interests were always more geared towards the threat of Germany. We were aware of the threat of Japan going back to the 20's (we even predicted with surprising accuracy how the Pacific campaign would play out in strategic and operation war games under the scenario Operation Orange). If Germany were gearing up, it's possible we'd be more attentive to what they were doing. In 1941 we were still reeling from the shock of the Blitz and how to deal with it, anticipating entry into the European theatre.
And yet, with all that surprise, the Japanese still couldn't pull off Taranto 2.0. History isn't so plain. British Ultra failed to predict the Ardennes offensive (or was that the Tunisia counter attack?), but one fowl up isn't indicative of the entirety of Ultra's war time record. Screwing up in one scenario doesn't mean you will in another.
Could Germany have destroyed the Atlantic fleet in a similar manner? In the land of "What if" yes. They could have invaded too. But in the land of "What if" anything is possible and it's really only good for playing around with historical ideas and counter factual exercises. The fact of reality is that no way two weiner dogs in hell was Germany going to achieve anything on a naval front given what they had in WWII. I doubt that even in the "What if" realm, a reasonably probable scenario could be created to allow it let alone an invasion of US soil.
