The most important Campaign / Battle.

[simon]

Time to try and start a new thread...

What do people think was the most important or significant campaign or battle of the Second World War, and why?

[Ricky]

Woah! That's an ambitious start...

Ok, probably the Battle of the Atlantic, the one thing that Churchill later claimed to have been most worried about. Ironically, if he had been less insistant on the (largely morale-boosting) bomber raids on Germany, and thus freed more long-range aircraft for maritime anti-submarine patrols, the 'U-boat menace' would probably have been reduced before 1943.
As it was, we were almost beaten, at some stages loosing shipping faster than we could replace it.

There is also, of course, the physical & pyschological victories / 'turning-points' of El Alamein & Stalingrad.

[simon]

Even then one book I read recently (By a very respected Author) stated that the Western Allies believed that by Summer 1945 (Assuming what was left of the Third Reich could hold out that long) they would lose dominance of the seas to the Germans and the Type XXI U-boats which were just entering service, the difference was that by that point with armies pushing in to Germany from every side, it just didn't bother them that much! Linking in to the bomber thread, this was one of the areas the work done by the Liberator especially, but also by the Wimpys, Sunderlands, and even the Coastal Command Fortresses goes largely forgotten (Not to mention a host of other types).

I forgot to mention, as this is a plane Website they should be aerial campaigns, exactly what counts as that is up to individuals to justify.

[simon]

Just to add, Churchill also stated that Britain came closer to defeat during the battle of the Atlantic than at any point during the Battle of Britain.

A good start...:)

[Tobz]

Couldn't agree more with that choice...

In second place, what about Taranto? Crippled the Italian navy and put them in fear of the RAF for the rest of their participation of the war, despite their far superior ships and the opportunity to decimate the RN in the med - which in turn could have lead to the fall of Malta and the loss of the North African campaign. Taranto was also observed by the Japanese and formed the basis for the attack on Pearl Harbour... (Maybe we shoud put the Stringbag into the best bomber catagory? Stringbags also had amongst the best success rate against the U boats operating from escort carriers and were fundamental to the closing of the 'Atlantic gap')

[simon]

For significance, what about Pearl Harbour?

Could an isolationist United States have been coaxed into the war without being attacked directly, if not (And I'm not sure that would have been easy or even possible), the implications for the war would have been serious, no Midway to stop the Japanese advance, no daylight bombing offensive, no US troops, ships and planes for Op Torch, and Operation Overlord would probably have been at best a repeat of Dieppe.

Personally I think one of the most significant was Midway. It was the first real check of Japanese aggression, it basically put the Japanese on the defensive for the rest of war, and the effective halving of the Japanese Carrier fleet meant that the Americans could breathe a bit easier in the Pacific, and made it far easier for Roosevelt to push his Germany First policy.

[simon]

Oh yeah, I don't think that the Italian Navy would have decimated the British in the Mediterranean in surface actions. The Italians lacked two things which were shown elsewhere to be absolutely crucial to modern naval warfare, Carriers and Radar.

Although the loss of Malta would have been a disasterous, possibly fatal blow for the Allies in the Mediterranean, it could have been partially remedied with the use of a large carrier force, and perhaps even retaken (Now there is one colossal "What if...?"!).

Also Radar, if the Japanese had possessed Radar on the 1st Carrier Division at Midway they probably would not have lost the Akagi, Soryu and Kaga, (And by extension also the Hiryu), since with radar they would have had between about 20 and 30 minutes warning of the USN Dauntlesses, which would have been enough time to get Zeroes up to their altitude.

To put this in perspective, even the Fairey Fulmar enjoyed considerable successes against the Regia Aeronautica, so a fleet protected by a couple of fleet carriers complete with fighters and their own torpedo / dive bombers could seriously mess up an Italian fleet whilst having potentially enough escorting planes to disrupt any aerial attack, and still mess up the efforts of the Luftwaffe to resupply the Afrika Korps.

Finally of course, Radar was also used by HMS Warspite (I believe) to score the longest ranged direct hit ever, hitting an Italian Battleship 5 miles away.

Without these two vital ingredients, I personally doubt the Italian Navy could have permanently pushed the Allied Navies out of the Mediterranean, if at all.

[Ricky]

Aerial campaigns?
How about the huge ground attack offensive before, during, and especially after the invasion of Northern France? It not only effectively disordered the German lines of supply (after D-Day, the Allies imported railway engines to France, as there were not enough left to supply the invading army!) but also denied the Whermacht much of their mobility. It is significant that the Battle of the Bulge, the last great German Offensive in the West, was deliberately launched during winter, when Allied planes would be less able to fly support missions.

[simon]

Heh! Heh! Like I said, it's up to you to say why you think it qualifies!

Kursk would be one example. Most people know of the tank and infantry battles on the ground, but there was also a massive air contingent on both sides. Does this mean it qualifies as an air battle as well? Well I think it does, but it's up to each person to justify their choice! ;)

[Ricky]

Welcome to Combined Operations!

I have to agree with Tobz about Taranto, it was not only a very great achievement and a sucessful raid, but it cemented the fact that even the strongest fleet was vulnerable to aerial assault.

Aircraft had sunk ships before - notably the sinking of a German cruiser by Blackburn Skuas - but this was the first large-scale attack of its type.

Followed swiftly of course by Pearl Harbour, Midway, and most of the other Pacific battles, all confirming the superiority of the carrier battle group.

[simon]

In terms of setting a precedent, and establishing once and for all the superiority of the Aeroplane over the Battleship, yes I'd definitely agree. Apart from a huge morale boost at a bad time and proving it could be done, what difference would it have made if Taranto hadn't happened? Would the two extra Battleships (Minus Radar) really have been able to push the Royal Navy out of the Med?

Again, at Pearl Harbour, apart from sinking a number of old Battleships and making a new enemy, what did the Japanese achieve? In the words of one American sailor they turned the Pacific Fleet from a a 20 knot fleet into a 30 knot fleet.

I would say both attacks were significant, but... I would be very interested in the views of Americans on the latter, without Pearl Harbour would the US have gone to war with both Japan and Germany, or even at all?

Midway by contrast was important too, it showed the Japanese could be beaten at a time when that seemed impossible, and if the US had lost at Midway it would potentially have put the whole of Australasia and Hawaii under threat. The Battle for the Atlantic was important, since without the vital supplies coming from the US Britain, and by extension the Soviet Union could not have survived.

[Ricky]

Greatest Aerial Campaigns -
This might be stretching it a bit, but how about the German invasion of Crete? Their paratroopers managed to sieze the ports & airfields, allowing reinforcements to flow in, thus capturing the entire island.
I admit that the tactic had been used before (Poland / Norway / Belgium / etc), but this was the first time when paratroop involvement was absolutely crucial, as Crete is rather difficult to get to by other means...

However, it was also the last such operation on any side (well, maybe Arnheim) owing to the incredibly high losses of Transport aircraft and paratroops on the German side. And the fact that, had the British (& Commonwealth) forces holding the island been at all prepared for such an attack, it would have been a dismal failure. Ironically their success in Crete was probably what preveted the Germans from attacking Malta, which became the all-important (strategically and in terms of morale) Allied bastion in the Med.

[simon]

I don't think that's stretching it at all. It did show that that where Paras were used alone, even against an unprepared enemy they would have to expect heavy casualties, over Crete I believe it was about 1/3rd killed or wounded among the Falschirmjager, which is very high. To put this in perspective at Omaha beach where the heaviest fighting was on D-Day, the US troops took about 10% casualties.

I spoke to an ex-TA Para who served in the 80s recently who said that the British army still expect to take about 30% casualties in a Combat Drop type operation.

I understood after Crete Hitler banned Goering from attempting any more similar operations due to the high casualties among the ground troops (Interestingly the losses of so many vital Ju52s is never mentioned as a factor, although these were probably at least as serious to Germany's long term prospects in the war).

[lucycat11758]

Yep! I have to agree. The most important battle/campaign was definately the battle of Midway!

[Ricky]

Well, Midway was definately the most important battle of the Pacific theatre - it completely changed the balance of power, denying the Japanese their superiority in carrier-based aircraft, the most important striking force in that theatre.

However, you could also argue that the Japanese decision to invade China was a factor in their inevitable defeat - although their entire naval forces were committed to the Pacific, they kept over two-thirds of their army (including their army air forces) in China. Even so, the re-capturing of Burma/Malaya etc and all those Pacific islands was very hard work. Imagine if they had has 2 or 3 times the men available...
However, I've kind of strayed off the 'Aerial campaign' thing again.

Oh, by the way, a personal question for Lucycat. Why 'Lucycat11758'?
Surely there cannot be 11757 other Lucycats?
:)

[lucycat11758]

well, LUCY is the name of my cat and believe it or not LUCYCAT was alreadt taken so I had to use my zipcode. This was after about 2 hours of trying to get an email address associated with aircraft! So I had to settle for that. I've used it so much that whenever something on line asks for a username I instinctively type in LUCYCAT!

[Mandrake]

Hello,My first post.
When you think about it, If the Battle of Britain was lost,Then surely the Battle of the Alantic,Well wouldn`t have been a battle.

[Ricky]

Well, arguably, if the Battle of Britain was lost, we (the British) would all now be members of the Reich.

And there are huge 'what if' senarios involved with that particular question. America would have been very unlikely to bother with anyone but the Japanese, as there would have been no real physical way (and no real excuse for Roosevelt to wield) that America could have got into Europe.
Would the Japanese even have gone to war with the USA, as they would have undoubtedly taken control of all the British colonies in the Pacific, along with the French & Dutch colonies?

And of course, the Germans would have had much more men & material to throw at the USSR, and with no bombing raids on their factories, railways, research centres etc they could posibbly have done a lot better. Maybe even force Stalin to negotiate.

Hmm, so, The Battle of Britain was potentially a war-winner for Germany (if they had not given up, and if they had followed their victory with an invasion of England).


Oh, Lucycat, cool name. :)

[simon]

I don't think the Battle of Britain needed to be won to prevent a German invasion. I really doubt the Germans could have carried off Sealion except as a symbolic gesture against a Britain that had already surrended. The logistics, equipment and military thinking behind a major sea-bourne invasion were beyond the abilities of the 1940 German Military.

However, before anyone rips me to shreds, two things I will add to that are that if the Wehrmacht had been able to get a sizable force ashore, there would have been little the British Army could have done to prevent defeat. As my Grandfather (who served with the army at the time) told me a few years ago, it wasn't just the Homeguard who had to train with pitchforks, there was such a shortage of such basics as rifles post-Dunkirk that the regular army had to as well. What I don't believe is that the Germans could have landed a big enough force.

The other thing I want to add is that I think it was absolutely vital that the RAF won the Battle of Britain. Without victory in summer 1940 I think there would have been little option for Britain but surrender. International confidence in the British ability to carry on fighting was virtually zero after Dunkirk and the fall of France, it was only victory in the Battle of Britain that convinced a sceptical international audience that Britain was worth backing.

That's my thoughts though...

[Ricky]

I agree that 'Operation Sealion' would have proved immensely difficult for the Germans. Even if they had effectively cleared the sky of the RAF, it would still be mild folly to commit to a seabourne invasion without smashing the Royal Navy first. (which is why I said 'arguably'! ;))

However, yes, once ashore, our rather crippling lack of weaponry - especially anti-tank weaponry - would have doomed us. That and the complete lack of any national defense strategy. And the order to employ 'every kind of frightfulness' (eg: home-made flamethrowers) against invading Germans would almost certainly have meant a rather bitter & nasty campaign. (can you tell that I have studied this...)

[simon]

One problem I find in considering this is that people always think of Sealion in terms of a full scale amphibious assault like Overlord was. Which it just wouldn't have been. There were no proper landing craft, just river barges that would have been beached, there could have been no second wave if the initial advance stalled. Casualties even in the event of an uncontested landing just from attempting to land in unseaworthy craft would have been high.

Other things people forget or fail to realise is that the Wehrmacht in 1940 was still largely dependant on horsedrawn transport for supplies, apart from the initial Panzer spearhears, and when you strap a couple of tonnes of Flak 88 to a horse chucked into the channel, even in August or September, they don't float very well!

I've read one or two fictional accounts of Sealion, and have been completely unconvinced. Stories of SS mountain troops scaling the Dover Cliffs, and He111s (In one account the type was specifically mentioned) blasting the Royal Navy from the water in precise high altitude attacks seem so far fetched as to be completely unbelievable.

Personally, I think Sealion would have been a disaster, the German Army in their few serious appraisals saw Sealion as just a big river crossing, which it was not and the Kreigsmarine lacked the warships to police the invasion corridor and more importantly the supply ships to resupply the land units. Please no-one suggest that the Luftwaffe could resupply the ground forces, the times that was tried (North Africa & Stalingrad) the Luftwaffe proved completely incapable of the task.

It is also worth remembering that the brief for the Luftwaffe changed a number of times throughout the Battle of Britain, but to take the one that they were most realistically capable of achieving, the destruction of Fighter Command's 11 Group, that still leaves what would have been the largely intact 10 and 12 Groups to resist the invading forces, plus the survivors of Park's 11 Group.

Apologees for the rant, oh and yeas, I can tell you've studied it...! ;)

[Ricky]

Yeah, the Heinkel 111 became a good torpedo bomber, used with much effect against the Russian convoys, but in 1940/1941 would have been very little use against warships. High-altitude bombing never proved very effective against naval targets - although I am sure many of you will be able to prove me wrong here! To pre-empt the obvious, yes, precision high-altitude bombing was used by the Japanese against the Prince of Wales and the Repulse, and yes, they did a lot of damage, but it was the torpedo bombers that (as so often happened) proved decisive.

Oh, hang on, this is the 'campaigns' stand, not 'best bomber'.
All right, how about the Japanese sinking of HMS Princve of Wales & HMS Repulse? Not only the first time that capital ships at sea had been sunk by aircraft, but also the operation that effectively sounded the end of possible British resistance (and even hope) in Malaysia, Singapore, and even Burma. Not only had Britain lost the means to defeat any further Japanese seabourne invasion/reinforcment attempts, but had suffered a huge blow to their morale, loosing two of their most modern battleships with hardly any loss to the enemy.

[simon]

Well, hate to disappoint you but I've got to agree entirely with you here, no major warship manouevring at sea has ever been sunk by high altitude level bombing alone.

In some cases (PoW and Repulse being one of them), high altitude bombing was a factor, but mostly it was torpedoes and divebombers when used effectively against ships at sea, and in those cases it was the torpedoes or divebombers that proved descisive.

Yeah, the sinking of the Prince of Wales and Repulse (Going to split hairs here but weren't they Battlecruisers rather than Battleships? Could be wrong though), signalled the end of British Naval presence in the Pacific, the Royal Navy didn't return to the Pacific as a significant force until late 1944, by which point as already discussed elsewhere, the Japanese airforces were mere shadows of their former selves.

Retrospectively it seems obvious that the Singapore Garrison did not need the two capital ships, the effectiveness of the Battleship and Battlecruiser in both world wars has in recent years been the subject of quite a bit of scrutiny and citicism, but at the time it seemed that if these two mighty symbols of British prestige couldn't hold out against the Japanese, what hope was there left.

Indirectly, the sinking of these two ships greatly contributed to the surrender, almost without a fight, of the whole Singapore Garrison.

[curmudgeon]

quote:Originally posted by simon


Yeah, the sinking of the Prince of Wales and Repulse (Going to split hairs here but weren't they Battlecruisers rather than Battleships? Could be wrong though),

Prince of Wales was Britain's newest battleship. It took part in the Bismark action when Hood was sunk. It still had shipyard workers on board at the time, completing the fitting out. Later it took Churchill to Nth America for a conference with Roosevelt.

Repulse was a battlecruiser, built during WW I and extensively modernised about 1930.

Battlecruisers were essentially battleships but with less armour above the water line.

Had proximity fuses been available in December 1941, even though the ships had limited AA capability, it is likely they would have fought off their attackers. Interestingly this battle was the first time capital ships at sea had been sunk by aircraft.

quote:

Indirectly, the sinking of these two ships greatly contributed to the surrender, almost without a fight, of the whole Singapore Garrison.


The Pacific campaign rested on transfer of forces by sea. Control of the sea and shipping lanes determined the campaign. By the time Singapore fell Japanese forces controlled significant parts of Indonesia, Singapore couldn't hold out as it was besieged in depth.

A good question is: if Britain had transferred some of its airforce to both the middle east and to India and Malaya, would the Japanese advance would have been stopped? The Japanese army had been defeated twice by the Russians and the Japanese army in China wasn't that mobile. Japanese advances were made under local air superiority. Japanese air superiority depended on the Zero. The Zero had range and manoeuvrability ... but limited hitting power and apparently burnt like a torch.

In 1941 the RAF was largely punching the air in Europe as all but token elements of the Luftwaffe were on the eastern front, and couldn't be withdrawn. The British area commander in Malaya was Popham (air force) but the equipment the air force had there was largely obsolete and the aircrew were (for the most part) second tier.

[simon]

As it was they both did remarkably well, all things considered, plus at least I was half right! ;)

As for Singapore, well there really wasn't a great seabourne threat and in any case it was the Japanese Army, not the Navy which captured Singapore. The excuses given at the time and still trotted out now were that the garisson commander wanted to spare the civilians (laughable considering the fate of Nanking), and that the guns were facing the wrong way (Against the non existant sea threat).

However I really shouldn't be too critical as the old saying goes, hindsight is always 20/20 and although Nanking was reasonably well publicised this was of course nothing compared to events in Europe and as with the German offensive through the "impassable" Ardennes in 1940, no-one seriously expected to be attacked by an exhausted and almost out of ammunition Japanese Army!

Would the Japanese have been stopped with superior airforces, well probably not. Except for a few example mainly along the Manchurian Border the Japanese mainly flew Oscars (Not Zeroes) as fighters, and almost up until about 1942/43 the only even remotely capable tactical bomber availablein any numbers to the Allies was the MkIV Blenheim, which was still mauled badly by the Japanese.

Seriously, although the RAF may have been punching air, the resources were still probably better expended over Europe and North Africa than in the far east, don't forget Singapore is regarded as part of the CBI (China-Burma-India) Theatre rather than the Pacific proper.

Otherwise as for equipment and aircrew, you're right on the nail, and as far as the RAF and FAA were concerned these remained largely 2nd rate/2nd line until early 1945.

[curmudgeon]

quote:Originally posted by simon

As it was they both did remarkably well, all things considered ...


Yes, but not QUITE well enough. Which is very important wrt ships.

quote:
As for Singapore, well there really wasn't a great seabourne threat and in any case it was the Japanese Army, not the Navy which captured Singapore. The excuses given at the time and still trotted out now were that the garisson commander wanted to spare the civilians (laughable considering the fate of Nanking), and that the guns were facing the wrong way (Against the non existant sea threat).
... no-one seriously expected to be attacked by an exhausted and almost out of ammunition Japanese Army!

The defeat at Singapore was a complex issue ... even at the time. A few radios or telephone lines could have made a lot of differences at the immediate time when the Japanese launched an attack relying almost entirely on momentum.
However, the fact the Japanese sea-borne forces had already obtained dominance, if not victory, through much of Indonesia meant Singapore was both unable to be supplied and unable to be relieved.

The Japanese army marched from Thailand into Burma, but the forces in Malaya and Indonesia were sea-transported. The extremely limited provision of resupply to landed Japanese forces would have been a surprise to Allied strategists, but usually the allied forces had been totally swept from the area and they had no idea of what was happening behind Japanese lines.

quote:Would the Japanese have been stopped with superior airforces, well probably not. Except for a few example mainly along the Manchurian Border the Japanese mainly flew Oscars (Not Zeroes) as fighters, and almost up until about 1942/43 the only even remotely capable tactical bomber available in any numbers to the Allies was the MkIV Blenheim, which was still mauled badly by the Japanese.

I would like to see this war-gamed. Say 10 squadrons of Spitfires with drop tanks and with war-hardened crews ... The sorts of equipment doing interminable 'rhubarbs' over France. The Japanese forces in Malaya and in Indonesia were transported by ship, mostly in weakly escorted convoys. Air cover was provided by building airstrips and using the long legs of the Zero to get fighter cover in.

The Japanese army travelled on roads where possible, infiltrating through jungle only to bypass strongpoints (jungle is a lot more impenetrable than rubber plantation). Disrupting road movement, even by aggressive overflights, might have allowed the British (UK, Indian Army, Australians) to have regained their balance. Reconnaisance may have raised the fog of war sufficiently to have made a difference too.

quote:don't forget Singapore is regarded as part of the CBI (China-Burma-India) Theatre rather than the Pacific proper.

Yes, but in pre-war planning Singapore and Pearl Harbour were seen as the two levers to crush Japanese forces in the Pacific.

Had Prince of Wales and Repulse remained, and had they been able to operate/seek refuge within 200 miles of the coast under shore-based air cover, life may have been different until the Japanese brought up some battleships.

[simon]

...or until the carriers already in the area caught them.

[Snick]

Midway. Had the Japanese won, the US would have had to refocus on defending it western shores instead of aiding in the defense of Europe. The P38 was made in the Bay area, the PBY in San Diego and I am sure other planes in the coast area as well. Loss of these facilities would have been very damaging to both fronts.

Single most important sea battle only (not involving an invasion fleet)? (And I am sure I will be toased for this) The sinking of the Bismark. She was the pride of Hitlers eyes. When she was sunk, that program ground pretty much to a halt (the Scharnhorst was alrady built or mostly built). But what if there had been 5 or 6 pocket battleships out there instead of one or two??? Just a thought..

[simon]

Interesting. Actually there was the Tirpitz, Bismark, Scharnhorst, Gneisenau (I think was a Battleship rather than a Cruiser) and Graf Spee.

Bismark became important mainly because of the destruction of the Battlecruiser HMS Hood (Which infuriated and embarrassed Churchill), and had it survived to the era of the CAM, MAC and Escort Carrier it would have been increasingly ineffective.

The problem with this is that really no Battleship, include the two Japanese Super Battleships ever achieved as much in terms of the destruction of enemy assets as the effort put in to building them in the first place.

Germany was better off building U-boats than Battleships, and when you look at the fate of the German Battleships versus what they managed to achieve (Very little really), against the fact that Doenitz's Wolfpacks very nearly starved Britain into surrender, it becomes quite easy to see which was the biggest actual threat, although to a Naval minded Britain the prestige of the Battleship made these very important targets.

[curmudgeon]

quote:Originally posted by simon

...or until the carriers already in the area caught them.


Not if they were foraying from refuges protected by shore-based modern aircraft ...

The first carrier-borne aircraft to match-it with current land-based aircraft was the F4 Phantom ... in the 1960s!

On another (later) posting - the threat of the few German capital ships kept much of the British home fleet tied up for most of the war. It was the fear of what a heavy cruiser, pocket battleship, or the real thing *could* do to a convoy or a sea lane that kept the protective cover in place. The fate of HMS Illustrious showed what happened if an aircraft carrier was placed within range of heavy artillery.

[Ricky]

Yeah, while the German battleships may not have contributed much in the way of a physical contribution to the war effort (save the destruction of Hood, the obliteration of at least one Russian convoy, and occaisional use as heavy artillery along the Baltic shore), they did manage to tie up a disproportionately large amount of Allied (well, British) resources until they were sunk. Frankly, the British Home Fleet would have been much better employed in the Med, the Pacific, even providing destroyers & cruisers for convoy escort across the Atlantic. And of course there are all the aircrew who were wasted trying to sink the German capital ships - Skuas against the Tirpitz, Swordfish against the Bismark during the 'Channel dash' (I always feel sorry for the crews of those ever-so-slightly obsolete Biplanes, pitted against the best of the German Navy. However, it was a Swordfish that later put the Bismark's rudder out of commission...)

Um, where was I?
Oh yes, in short, German Battleships did not achieve much destruction of our forces, but even by simply staying at anchor in a fjord they effectively prevented our Home Fleet from being any use at all to our war effort until 1944.

[simon]

I can remember reading a reference in a book that said the reason more Swordfish weren't shot down by the Bismark was that the German Battleship's Anti Air and aiming systems were calibrated against the speed of modern Torpedo bombers, so when the Swordfish attacked most of the Anti-Air fire was aimed harmlessly in front of them. In this case the relative obsolescence of the aircraft probably saved many of the crews.

[Mandrake]

Saw the film yesterday "Sink the Bismarck",Great film.In fact, I`ve been watching these great British B/w movies since a kid.All these years later,I can still watch them .Don`t get bored, not in the slightest.
Sorry, I`ll take off my rose tinted glasses.In fact I believe that no Swordfish got shot down during the attack on the Bismarck.I think the main reason being ,the Germans couldn`t bring their guns to bear.The stringbags simply flew to low.
Thinking about it, the AA guns were high up in the superstructure.Guess the Germans got a bit frustrated,so they let off the big guns now and again.

Two controversial questions.Was that torpedo a lucky hit?.Also did the Germans have time to set demolition charges?
Why do you need to blow up your own ship,When the British were bent on doing it for you?

[simon]

Most Battleships guns, especially the Dual Purpose Secondary turrets like on the Bismark (Dual Purpose meaning those designed to engage surface and air targets) could be trained downwards to engage low flying aircraft, this was deliberate as Torpedo bombers were considered the greatest aerial threat.

Also, firing off the big guns was part of a standard practice by Battleships, Cruisers and similar large ships when attacked by Torpedo Bombers. It's known as a Splash Barrage, the idea being that you aren't trying to actually hit the planes, but if you can get a shell to explode near enough one of the attacking planes then either the concussion or the physical splash from the water will catch the plane and destroy it, hopefully before it's launched its Torpedo.

Why would you want to destroy your own ship? Britain's pride had been hurt bad with the destruction of the HMS Hood. The damage to the rudder had crippled Bismark as she could not steer. Now imagine that another lucky hit had knocked out her engines. Now imagine that the Royal Navy had got a boarding party aboard. The propaganda boost that could have gained from capturing rather than destroying Bismark, as well as the serious blow to German pride would have been immense.

OK I know this may sound a bit far fetched but that's exactly the sort of reason scuttling charges were carried by every major capital ship.

[GregP]

I believe the most important action was the Russian front. From 1940 to 1943 the Russian front tied up anywhere between 60 and 78% of the german ground troops and 45 to 65% of the Luftwaffe. That's a LOT of troops and planes tied up for several years on one front.

If Hitler had not attacked the Soviet Union, those troops and equipment would have been free to fight the western allies and we might well not have won.

It would useful to remember that the Soviet Union suffered some 26 million casualties while the USA suffered about 400.000 dead. So on the Russian front, the Soviets suffered about 65 times as many casulaties as the USA.

At the end of the war, the Yak-3 and Yak-9 fighters has the highest power to weight ratio of any fighter series and near the lowest wing loading. The Soviet T-34 was the best tank of WWII and had the hardest-hitting armament and the toughest armor. Soviet cannons had about twice the muzzle energy of western designs.

Let's face it, the Soviet Union may have been a tough customer to figure out for the Allied political figures, but the Soviet Army and Air Force were second to none around 1944 and 1945. Ask the Luftwaffe and the millions of German ground troops who were wiped out to the last man trying to take Moscow.

The Soviet Union could not have done it without the Allied bombing of German industrial centers and Allied sinking of German ships and U-boats, and we could not have done it unless the Soviet Union had tied up more than half of the total German strength.

[simon]

Just to stoke the fires of healthy discussion a little bit here, but might it not be just as fair to say that whilst US and British military equipment may not have been that warmly recieved by the Russians, the behind the scenes work in supplying jeeps, trucks etc was just as vital to the Russian war effort as, say a shipment of Sherman Tanks, and probably the former would have been more useful to the Soviets?

So with that in mind, without Britain as a useful stop-over point, and bearing in mind the potential for an occupied or pro-Nazi Britain to be used as bases for anti-shipping aircraft or U-boats, without the facilities the UK offered as the Unsinkable Aircraft Carrier, the supply of US equipment to Russia would have been far more difficult, not to mention that a US invasion of continental Europe would have been almost impossible.

Is it fair then to suggest that had the RAF lost the Battle of Britain and had Britain subsequently sued for peace, the war in the East would have been far more difficult for the Russians, and the may well have lost the Battle for Moscow in Winter 1941?

Your comments of the millions of German troops wiped out to the last man trying to take Moscow are something of an exaggeration, Paulos's Sixth Army in Stalingrad numbered something in the region of 900,000, and that was the most powerful formation in the German Army at the time of its encirclement. The German Troops in the Battle for Moscow were given the famous "Last man, last bullet" order, and they did suffer horrendous casualties, but they weren't wiped out, they did hold and millions of Germans were not actually killed in that battle.

Edit: P.S. I personally would consider the Eastern Front as a whole to be a Theatre of War rather than a Campaign or Battle, but that's just personal choice.

P.P.S : Oh yeah, and as Barbarossa didn't happen until summer 1941, the Eastern Front as such didn't really exist in 1940, especially considering at that time the best of the German army was busy smashing up France and the BEF!

[Corsarius]

This is a pretty broad interpretation...

My vote is Taranto. Not for what it is (the destruction of the Italian fleet), but for what it proved.

It proved the carrier was greater than the battlewagon, and that torpedos could be used in a shallow harbour. This intelligence gave the Japanese the confidence to attack Pearl Harbour, as well as establishing the torpedo bomber as the prime naval aerial weapon of the war in all theatres. Without such a conflict, Pearl would not have happened, and battles would have been leaning more towards battleships slugging it out a la WWI.

I believe that the IL-4 was an excellent torpedo bomber, as well as an aircraft that bombed Berlin way back in '41. It's a pity that so much of the Soviet side of things is either trumped up with propaganda, or hidden beneath secrecy and paranoia. I find the eastern front in the air fascinating. The He111 and the Sparviero were renown as torpedo bombers, and the Avenger is considered to be by some the pinaccle of that type of aircraft during the conflict.

Of course, who cannot love the stringbag? A plane that was so good, it outlived it's own replacement.

[simon]

I agree with all the points you made here, bar one. Taranto definitely was important in establishing the effectiveness of the Torpedo bomber, but I don't think you can rate it as the Prime naval aerial weapon in all theatres.

Midway showed that the most effective method of attacking a ship, whether at sea or in port was by divebombing, whether a dedicated dive-bomber or with a fighter-bomber. This is especially true if you want many of your crews to survive. It is often forgotten that in terms of survival rates the only form of aerial attack that was more dangerous to its crews was the Japanese Kamikaze attack!

[parzifal]

I would agree broadly with the argument concerning the Battle of Britian being possibly the most crucial battle of the Second World War.

Without the victory there, NO other battle would probably have been fought with the paramters that we have. No Taranto, No Battle of the Atlantic, Russia on its own and doomed, No D-Day, Japan able to do almost what it willed in Asia, taking over the Britsih, French and Dutch Colonial Terriorties. An isolantionist USA hiding behinds its Monroe Doctrine, it is unlikely Japan would have needed to attack Pearl Harbour at all, therefore no Midway etc.

There is one battle though that mattered more than the Battle of Britian both militarily and politically and that was the Evacution of the BEF from Dunkirk in May 1940.

Simply put, had the Germans captured the 1/4 million British soldiers and held them to ransom then Churchill would have most likely been deposed (he had been in power on 3 weeks and was the second choice for prime Minister). He did not at that stage have the confidence of Parliament or the Country and there were still very powerful "peace lobbyists in the British Cabinet ie Lord Halifax".

People here seem to like playing "what if's", so I put forward what would have happened if the BEF had been captured? The answer is Britian would have went the way of Vichy France (held in thrall by the 3 million French soldiers and citzens held in Germany as insurance and cheap labour). Britain would have become a vassal state of the Greater Reich with all its associated horrors.

There would not have been a Battle of Britian or any other myraid of battles that people have discussed here. War is fought on many levels and all must be taken into account to get a glimpse of what and why things happened as they did.

[simon]

An interesting choice, and certainly one that qualifies as an aerial battle, in spite of the fact that what most people remember of Operation Dynamo was the naval side.

Would Britain have really gone the way of Vichy France? Well I'm not quite so sure, considering that unlike France mainland Britain had not actually been physically invaded we would have been in a far stronger position regarding peace negotiations, and quite probably would have got away without even being garissoned if a pro-Nazi Government and monarchy could have been agreed. The other thing is that Hitler respected the British, something he did not apparently feel toward the French, and all he wanted was that Britain acknowledged the German right to dominate the continent of Europe.

He did not want the Empire dismantled, far from it, outside of Europe he saw the British Empire as a great stabilising influence in the world, the Soviets were mere Slavic barbarians and the Americans degenerates of mixed descent (No offence intended, just trying to explain the Nazi international philosophy, and no, I don't agree with it at all!).

The Axis alliance outside of Europe was tentative at best, in all honesty with the Japanese attacking a country Germany was at peace with, indeed by that point possibly friendly with, Hitler may have declared war on Japan, not the US.

Imagine US Marines, British Army and Waffen SS fighting side by side through South East Asia, it could so nearly have happened...

[Ricky]

Hmmm... possibly, but probably not.
Hitler may have considered the Japanese to be slightly below the monkey in the scale of humanity, but he considered America to be a nation run by the Jews, who were total and utter anathema to him.
Yes, an alliance with the UK may well have been on the cards - as you say, Hitler respected the British, and after all, are we not Germanic (Anglo-Saxon)?

However, the guy was a pragmatist (the non-agression pact with Stalin being a case in point) so who knows...

;)

[simon]

As another case, consider the gradual errosion as the manpower situation got more desperate of who could be considered "Aryan" enough to join the SS. In 1939 the rules were very strict, down to height, facial features and having a tracable ancestry, by early 1945 it was more or less open to all comers, including ex-Russian POWs!

The British were considered Aryan, and so were those from the Low Countries, Scandinavia and, of course Germany and some other areas of central Europe. Interestingly in an attempt to justify the Axis alliance with Japan, a unit of the SS was devoted to the attempt to prove the Aryan ancestry of the Japanese, I don't know how they would have ever managed that one!

[GregP]

OK, my 2 cents worth.

I say the most important campaign was the Russian Front. It kept 65 - 75% of the German resources tied up for 3 years so the Western Allies (the Americans, English, Canadians, and a few French Resistance fighters) could gather their strength and finish off Germany with strategic bombing.

The real stats are:

1941 36%
1942 76%
1943 70%
1944 57%

That's ground troops. The aircraft and other equipment accounted for a bit more.

The Germans lost over 2.7 million men out of 3.25 million WWII casulaties on the Russian front.

So, that's why I nominate the Russina Front.

[simon]

For the record, like I said I think the Russian front was a Theatre of War, rather than a campaign or battle. A campaign or battle would be something like the battle for Moscow, the campaign for Stalingrad, etc.

I would also say that if the Russians had the foresight (Not that it would have taken a mystic to realise where Hitler was eventually going given the fact that Mein Kampf pretty much spelt it out), the Eastern front need never have happened and but for the idiocy of their leaders around September 1939, WWII could have been around 5 years shorter, and 26 million Soviet citizens need not have died.

But the debate is over the most important campaign or battle, so I repeat, what would have happened to the Soviet Union if there had been no resistance in the west, no strategic bombing offensive, no supplies via Iran, no supplies via the Baltic and the Soviet industry would have had to concentrate on supply the military as a whole (Including the inadequate supplies of food, trucks, clothing, etc), rather than just making guns for the troops? They would have been facing far nearer 95% of the German army and air force, and the whole war may have taken a very different turn.

The really important battles were fought and won very early on, although these took a long time to bear fruit. If Britain had lost the Battle of Britain, we almost certainly would have been obliged to sue for peace. No Arctic convoys, no Strategic Bombing offensive, no supply routes through Gibraltar or the Suez canal. Ultimately a Third Reich that extended as far west as the Atlantic coast, as far east as the Ural mountains, an unhappy USA unwilling and unable to do anything about it, oh and the Jews extinct in Europe and Western Russia.

Just to pick up on some of your earlier comments as well, the T-34 was by far not the best tank of WWII (Quite possibly not even the best in the Soviet Armoury as the Josef Stalin tanks were better), those were almost certainly the Tiger and King Tiger, however the T-34 was the most numerous and was available in numbers when it counted.

Oh yeah, and you also neglect to mention the Dutch, Belgian, and Norwegian resistance movements, the Australians, the Indians, South Africans, Rhodesians, free-Poles, free-Czechs, Co-belligerent Italians, and New Zealanders, and that's just off the top off my head.

I guess my point is that it's too easy to dismiss the contribution of the western nations, whether free or Nazi subjects, in terms of simple statistics because the Soviets lost the most people (Many millions of which were arguably of their own doing), but the political and geographical implications of continued resistance in the west at least matched the physical sacrifices of the Soviets, and for the first two years Stalin's government chose to stay out, and only got involved some time after they were invaded.

[GregP]

This is fun!

OK, the Russian Front was a theater of war.

Most important single battle? I have to defer my answer until I research a bit. No single battle ever won the big war, but there were many noteworthy battles.

In the Pacific, Midway was significant in taht after Midway, the Japanese never again regained the offensive.

On the Russian Front, Stalingrad was significant, as were anumber of other fierce battles. D-Day was significant since the germans never again managed to have the continent to themselves after that.

[simon]

A good sparring partner, I await your verdict, don't forget campaigns count too not just battles, but I draw the line at theatres...