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Link Posted: 9/2/2024 5:04:46 PM EST
[#1]
Midway, with the US pilots flying F4U's and F6F's, would have been an absolute bloodbath for the IJN's fleet air arm, and TBF's would have laid waste to the fleet itself.
Link Posted: 9/2/2024 5:05:31 PM EST
[#2]
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Quoted:
You brought all the toys, but how many players are on your team?

US.mil at the start of the war wasn't ready and wouldn't be for some time.
View Quote


Now ask what if the US had all the same equipment they started the war with but was already mobilized like 1945.

Link Posted: 9/2/2024 5:17:14 PM EST
[#3]
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Quoted:


The Iowa's would have had very little impact.  Hellcats, P47's, Corsairs and Mustangs would have.
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I've sort of believed that the US would have accomplished more using the money/resources from the BB program and instead building more subs and actual functioning torpedoes.
Link Posted: 9/2/2024 5:21:03 PM EST
[#4]
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Quoted:

Not sure it would have made much of a political difference since there is ample evidence that the Bombing of Pearl Harbor was anticipated and allowed to get us into the war.

But on a tactical level we would have defeated Japan in 1942 and Germany by 1943.

Maybe even taken Russia and China for good measure.
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Why give a "We were attacked by surprise and slaughtered" speech when you could give a "They tried to attack by surprise, but we caught them and slaughtered them to a man" speech?
Link Posted: 9/2/2024 5:22:27 PM EST
[#5]
More important than weapons upgrades was leadership and experience.

Link Posted: 9/2/2024 5:23:52 PM EST
[#6]
Flip it around just slightly, give the Germans all 118 of their type XXI submarines and our convoys are toast.  We never get enough stuff to Europe before England is out of supplies and can no longer fight a defensive war.

 

Link Posted: 9/2/2024 5:23:59 PM EST
[#7]
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Quoted:
I've sort of believed that the US would have accomplished more using the money/resources from the BB program and instead building more subs and actual functioning torpedoes.
View Quote


The joke as I understand it. The torpedo design was just fine. It just had one tiny little defective component in it. As soon as that was fixed US Submarines became quite the deadly force.

I've also heard that the reason why those defects were not addressed until later in the war was entirely due to some stuffed shirts high up in Naval command.
Link Posted: 9/2/2024 5:26:19 PM EST
[#8]
Submarine torpedoes that actually worked, along with the better equipment on the Gato and Balao class subs would be a game changer in 1942.
Link Posted: 9/2/2024 5:35:43 PM EST
[#9]
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Quoted:

We would have gone through Russia or Africa.

More work and more expensive, but doable logistically.
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Not likely on the Russia part.
The Soviets were already taking our pilots as effectively temporary prisoners back when we were supposed to be "allies". Doubt they would have been cool with American troops marching through the motherland. Allies or not.

As Stalin, can you imagine the political implications of having a bunch of US troops wandering around spreading democracy through the Russian countryside? He would have rather let the Germans win.
Link Posted: 9/2/2024 5:36:03 PM EST
[#10]
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Quoted:


The joke as I understand it. The torpedo design was just fine. It just had one tiny little defective component in it. As soon as that was fixed US Submarines became quite the deadly force.

I've also heard that the reason why those defects were not addressed until later in the war was entirely due to some stuffed shirts high up in Naval command.
View Quote

The Mark 14 had lots of problems with it's design. The contact detonator could be improved by changing the firing pin to aluminum, it ended up being changed to a much better design. The magnetic detonator had to be totally redesigned so it could be adjusted to still work despite the Earth's magnetic field strength changing around the world. The depth control also had to be re-designed so the torpedo's stopped porpoising through the water, no they rarely broke the surface but would get as deep as 50 feet before coming back up.
None of the problems were known before the war because there was no testing done at all before the Mk 14 was adopted. And then yes, the fact that the officer in charge of the original design program before the war was in charge of the office that had to investigate and solve any problems once the war started denied that there was a problem once the problems were found did cause over a year of delay in trying to fix the problems.
Link Posted: 9/2/2024 5:37:57 PM EST
[#11]
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Quoted:


The Iowa's would have had very little impact.  Hellcats, P47's, Corsairs and Mustangs would have.
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Quoted:
Quoted:
Talking non-nuclear.

Say the US entered WWII with the weapons that it had at the end of the war.  Namely:

1.  B-29 Superfortress
2.  M26 Pershing
3.  Iowa Class Battleship
4.  Douglass A-1 Skyraider (OK, stretching it a bit with this one)

A.  How would the war have been different?
B.  What am I missing from the list above?


The Iowa's would have had very little impact.  Hellcats, P47's, Corsairs and Mustangs would have.

Iowas under the command of Willis Lee could have had great impact in the Solomons.  But the biggest factor there is Lee himself.

The majority of naval battles in the Pacific were surface actions.  The Japanese attacked at night when aircraft were largely incapable of targeting ships.
Link Posted: 9/2/2024 5:43:16 PM EST
[#12]
A lot shorter. Add into that the numerous Essex class Aircraft carriers, lowa-class battleships with Adv Radar range-finding and the P-38 Black Widow and P-51 the war would be short.

Not even talking about nukes.
Link Posted: 9/2/2024 5:44:37 PM EST
[#13]
It would have been short and sweet. Let’s assume for a second that we still get caught sleeping at Pearl, or FDR allows it for you conspiracy types.

The entire 1945 Carrier force sails across the ocean and asserts itself in the home islands. Japan 1941 planes are nuked by proxy shells and offer no contest on fleet attacks. With air superiority gained, canned sunshine arrives.

Or being that B29s operate well above any interceptor at that point of the war, just canned sunshine.

Hitler decides to stick to his 2 front war without getting uppity
Link Posted: 9/2/2024 5:44:58 PM EST
[#14]
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Quoted:

The Mark 14 had lots of problems with it's design. The contact detonator could be improved by changing the firing pin to aluminum, it ended up being changed to a much better design. The magnetic detonator had to be totally redesigned so it could be adjusted to still work despite the Earth's magnetic field strength changing around the world. The depth control also had to be re-designed so the torpedo's stopped porpoising through the water, no they rarely broke the surface but would get as deep as 50 feet before coming back up.
None of the problems were known before the war because there was no testing done at all before the Mk 14 was adopted. And then yes, the fact that the officer in charge of the original design program before the war was in charge of the office that had to investigate and solve any problems once the war started denied that there was a problem once the problems were found did cause over a year of delay in trying to fix the problems.
View Quote


Ah, well. I was going off of faintly recalled documentaries from decades ago.

It's a good lesson and shows the importance of testing your weapons before going into battle. Especially very complicated and expensive ones.
Link Posted: 9/2/2024 5:50:05 PM EST
[#15]
The Soviets would have murdered a few million more people that the Nazis didn't murder first. Chinese communists get to take control sooner without having to fight Japan for as long.  FDR would have died smiling knowing he had won the war for his communist brothers in arms.
Link Posted: 9/2/2024 5:50:19 PM EST
[#16]
We would have built a carrier that could handle B-29s. Nuked the Germany/Japan/ and probably fucking Italy for good measure.

Hitler would not have caved in until Der Fuerer Beunker glowed in the dark. Everyone else would have taken one look and noped the fuck out. Including Russia. Who would have never been involved, and never had the chance to be an asshole.
Link Posted: 9/2/2024 6:52:40 PM EST
[#17]
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Quoted:
The Soviets would have murdered a few million more people that the Nazis didn't murder first. Chinese communists get to take control sooner without having to fight Japan for as long.  FDR would have died smiling knowing he had won the war for his communist brothers in arms.
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If China hadn't had to fight Japan as long, the Nationalists may have won.
Link Posted: 9/2/2024 8:04:15 PM EST
[#18]
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Quoted:

The United States was always going to out tech, out produce, out man and out fund any of the worlds militaries of the time and since.

The United States has been the worlds "hit man" for the better part of 100 years. Now we have become the last obstacle to finish the globalists plans, so the hit man must be eliminated.
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You're not wrong.
Link Posted: 9/2/2024 11:11:21 PM EST
[#19]
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Quoted:
Pearl Harbor with antiaircraft ammunition with proximity fuzes would have had a nice effect.
That would have been a surprise.
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VT fuzes wouldn’t change anything if the ammunition was still locked up and the firing mechanisms removed from the guns.

Pearl Harbor was a failure of readiness, not hardware.  Give the leaders of 1941 the tech of 1945 and the result would be P-51s getting shot up on the ground and Iowa class battleships sinking at their moorings with watertight doors open.

Give the men in 1941 the training and leadership of 1945 and the Japanese would have been met by a swarm of P-40s on the way to attack a mostly empty harbor while the fleet set up a counterattack.
Link Posted: 9/2/2024 11:16:35 PM EST
[#20]
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Quoted:
The daily conventional bombings on Japan were killing as many people every day as each nuke did. Think Dresden type firestorms every day. The nukes was the shock to force surrender, which stopped the bombings.
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Quoted:
Quoted:
Quoted:
Perhaps the first sentence of the post needs to be reread.
You know that B-29's dropped things that weren't nukes, right?
The daily conventional bombings on Japan were killing as many people every day as each nuke did. Think Dresden type firestorms every day. The nukes was the shock to force surrender, which stopped the bombings.

Not really true.  The Tokyo raid in March 1945 killed more people than either nuke, but that was an exceptional case that proved difficult to replicate.
Link Posted: 9/2/2024 11:20:19 PM EST
[#21]
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Quoted:
Submarine torpedoes that actually worked, along with the better equipment on the Gato and Balao class subs would be a game changer in 1942.
View Quote
I agree.

Honestly, what significant role did US battleships play in WWII?  Seems like most of the duty was relegated to shore bombardment, which I'm sure the troops during the island campaigns enjoyed the support of 16" shells, but pre-invasion shelling didn't seem to be all that effective.

Seems like putting all that money, man-power, and resources into subs (and torpedoes) would have made a huge difference.
Link Posted: 9/2/2024 11:21:29 PM EST
[#22]
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Quoted:


Ah, well. I was going off of faintly recalled documentaries from decades ago.

It's a good lesson and shows the importance of testing your weapons before going into battle. Especially very complicated and expensive ones.
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Quoted:
Quoted:

The Mark 14 had lots of problems with it's design. The contact detonator could be improved by changing the firing pin to aluminum, it ended up being changed to a much better design. The magnetic detonator had to be totally redesigned so it could be adjusted to still work despite the Earth's magnetic field strength changing around the world. The depth control also had to be re-designed so the torpedo's stopped porpoising through the water, no they rarely broke the surface but would get as deep as 50 feet before coming back up.
None of the problems were known before the war because there was no testing done at all before the Mk 14 was adopted. And then yes, the fact that the officer in charge of the original design program before the war was in charge of the office that had to investigate and solve any problems once the war started denied that there was a problem once the problems were found did cause over a year of delay in trying to fix the problems.


Ah, well. I was going off of faintly recalled documentaries from decades ago.

It's a good lesson and shows the importance of testing your weapons before going into battle. Especially very complicated and expensive ones.

Ironically the reason why the Navy didn’t do full up testing of complete torpedoes was that they were very expensive and budgets were tight before the war.
Link Posted: 9/2/2024 11:24:42 PM EST
[#23]
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Quoted:
Midway, with the US pilots flying F4U's and F6F's, would have been an absolute bloodbath for the IJN's fleet air arm, and TBF's would have laid waste to the fleet itself.
View Quote


F6F??

F8F Bearcat would have absolutely slaughtered the IJN.

TBM-3s equipped with radar in the formation.

Link Posted: 9/2/2024 11:26:31 PM EST
[#24]
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Quoted:
A lot shorter. Add into that the numerous Essex class Aircraft carriers, lowa-class battleships with Adv Radar range-finding and the P-38 Black Widow and P-51 the war would be short.

Not even talking about nukes.
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P-38 Lightning or the P-61 Blackwidow?
Link Posted: 9/3/2024 5:11:11 AM EST
[#25]
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Quoted:
F8F Bearcat would have absolutely slaughtered the IJN.
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Debatable. The Bearcat had terrible range due to small fuel tanks (to keep weight down) and only four .50s on board (also to keep weight down).
Link Posted: 9/3/2024 5:58:12 AM EST
[#26]
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Quoted:

Many in the Japanese Navy and some in the Army knew it was a lost cause but supported the Emperor at all costs due to their social make up.

The Pearl Harbor attack was in no small part anticipated. The Japanese were in a way duped into taking the bait and attacking.

The USA was like a school yard bully taunting the Japanese into a fight with our oil and  trade embargos as well as out support of China. We were strangling Japan and they were against a wall.

It was hail Mary attack on America or lose in China. We would have eventually had boots on the ground in China anyway.

We pushed them into the attack based on their culture and war footing.

We always knew it would take millions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of lives (it didn't get that bad after all) to defeat Japan, but it was a foregone conclusion we would ultimately win.
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What a load of absolute revisionist commie horseshit. We bullied Japan into attacking?

I have read this subject extensively. The expectation is that Japan would back down on their imperial expansionist murder orgy in China, or at least, we'd stop logistically and economically enabling the slaughter of our ally China. That makes us a bully in your eyes?

And if they couldn't because of Bushido, then either the fight was going to come against an evil empire or we were going to have to forever retreat before any totalitarian aggressor.
Link Posted: 9/3/2024 6:13:07 AM EST
[#27]
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Quoted:


Pretty much.  The B-29 closes the North Atlantic Gap two years early, severely hammering the U-boat threat.

That's needed as the Pershing requires more shipping tonnage than the Sherman, though the Sherman Easy 8 w/ the 76mm becomes a very effective "light" tank in the mix, and the M3/M5 is dropped.

B-29s are escorted all the way to Berlin by P-51s from early 1942.

The japs are creamed from the start as we have a ridiculous number of carriers with F6Fs that outclass the Zero to begin with.

Now, if you allow everyone to start in late 41 w/ their 45 toys in quantity, the picture changes, particularly as at that point the Axis still had avgas.
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Quoted:
Quoted: We would have won sooner?


Pretty much.  The B-29 closes the North Atlantic Gap two years early, severely hammering the U-boat threat.

That's needed as the Pershing requires more shipping tonnage than the Sherman, though the Sherman Easy 8 w/ the 76mm becomes a very effective "light" tank in the mix, and the M3/M5 is dropped.

B-29s are escorted all the way to Berlin by P-51s from early 1942.

The japs are creamed from the start as we have a ridiculous number of carriers with F6Fs that outclass the Zero to begin with.

Now, if you allow everyone to start in late 41 w/ their 45 toys in quantity, the picture changes, particularly as at that point the Axis still had avgas.


I think going with a higher volume of Shermans and Stuarts would still be the right move.
Link Posted: 9/3/2024 6:15:20 AM EST
[#28]
VS JAPAN

By Sept 1945 we had made 3700+ B-29s, advanced areal mines, and over advanced 200 Gato/Balao/Tench class subs with undetectable (in 1941) surface/air search radars and functioning torpedoes that can dive deeper than Japanese depth charge settings (closer to 300 counting older subs).

Philippines and Formosa never fall, so you have truly massive islands to operate forward fleet and air basing with airborne and ground radars that can vector in jet interceptors to Japanese attacks.

Strategy:
1. 1700 B-29s to exclusively and continuously mine the hell out of the home islands all night long, the islands are completely strangled of supplies. (2000 for Europe)
2. 300 Submarines hunt and mine merchants.
3. 24 fleet carriers hunt down the Japanese surface fleet and raid island bases.
4. Japanese air power dies en masse by interception from vastly superior aircraft.
5. US supply lines protected by ~50 escort carriers and patrol aircraft with Radar. (50 more for the Atlantic)

Japan's Navy is ineffective on the offensive within days and cannot mount pyrrhic offensives within months.

Within 2 years, Japan capitulates from starvation and end-war levels of total industrial collapse. We don't even have to bomb one city nor invade one island.
Link Posted: 9/3/2024 6:33:33 AM EST
[#29]
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Quoted:


I think going with a higher volume of Shermans and Stuarts would still be the right move.
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Quoted:
Quoted:
Quoted: We would have won sooner?


Pretty much.  The B-29 closes the North Atlantic Gap two years early, severely hammering the U-boat threat.

That's needed as the Pershing requires more shipping tonnage than the Sherman, though the Sherman Easy 8 w/ the 76mm becomes a very effective "light" tank in the mix, and the M3/M5 is dropped.

B-29s are escorted all the way to Berlin by P-51s from early 1942.

The japs are creamed from the start as we have a ridiculous number of carriers with F6Fs that outclass the Zero to begin with.

Now, if you allow everyone to start in late 41 w/ their 45 toys in quantity, the picture changes, particularly as at that point the Axis still had avgas.


I think going with a higher volume of Shermans and Stuarts would still be the right move.

By 1945 the M24 was replacing the Stuart.  

The M4A3E8 with 76mm, HVAP ammo, and wet stowage was a good medium tank and much more reliable than the M26.
Link Posted: 9/3/2024 6:37:12 AM EST
[#30]
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Quoted:


F6F??

F8F Bearcat would have absolutely slaughtered the IJN.

TBM-3s equipped with radar in the formation.

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Quoted:
Quoted:
Midway, with the US pilots flying F4U's and F6F's, would have been an absolute bloodbath for the IJN's fleet air arm, and TBF's would have laid waste to the fleet itself.


F6F??

F8F Bearcat would have absolutely slaughtered the IJN.

TBM-3s equipped with radar in the formation.


If we’re going with stuff that just barely missed combat then the Navy gets FH Phantoms in the Pacific and the AAF gets P-80s in Europe.
Link Posted: 9/3/2024 6:40:52 AM EST
[#31]
VS Germany/Italy

30,000 heavy bombers not counting the B-29s. These bombers have radar bombing capability for night/clouds, chaff, and EW. The bombers have fully range escorts.

5x 3,000 plane heavy raids per day, every day, rain or shine, until Germany and Italy are rubble.

We unleash another 30,000 P-47s, B-25s, and B-26s to just go hog wild on all targets of opportunity in range.

All convoys get through as we have undetectable radar frequencies to hunt uboats. Every convoy gets MULTIPLE escort carriers with radar equipped aircraft carrying HOMING TORPEDOS. We have close to 1000 escorts available. The U-boats die en mass until they stop coming out of port.

Over 8 million personell in the US Army and we get to use the entire landing forces from the Pacific because we don't need it over there. We attack France in early 1942 before Hitler ever builds the Atlantic wall. We steamrolle into Germany with vastly superior tanks and an insane air support umbrella. We keep rolling using all that logistical might we had, plus we stop Lend-Lease... until we meet USSR forces somewhere around the current Russian borders. Poland, The Baltics, Belarus, and Ukraine are liberated by late 1942. Then we tell the Soviets to stay out of Europe or they are next.

We point at Italy and say "you're next." Italians hang Mussolini and surrender.

'Merica!
Link Posted: 9/3/2024 6:46:13 AM EST
[#32]
Anti-aircraft throw weight changed from 1939 to 1945 by a few orders of magnitude.

It got to the point that aircraft would have almost zero chance of getting close enough for hits.

Kamikaze attacks starting in 1939 would have definitely thrown a wrench in our plans.
Link Posted: 9/3/2024 6:47:06 AM EST
[#33]
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Quoted:

By 1945 the M24 was replacing the Stuart.  

The M4A3E8 with 76mm, HVAP ammo, and wet stowage was a good medium tank and much more reliable than the M26.
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Quoted:
Quoted:
Quoted:
Quoted: We would have won sooner?


Pretty much.  The B-29 closes the North Atlantic Gap two years early, severely hammering the U-boat threat.

That's needed as the Pershing requires more shipping tonnage than the Sherman, though the Sherman Easy 8 w/ the 76mm becomes a very effective "light" tank in the mix, and the M3/M5 is dropped.

B-29s are escorted all the way to Berlin by P-51s from early 1942.

The japs are creamed from the start as we have a ridiculous number of carriers with F6Fs that outclass the Zero to begin with.

Now, if you allow everyone to start in late 41 w/ their 45 toys in quantity, the picture changes, particularly as at that point the Axis still had avgas.


I think going with a higher volume of Shermans and Stuarts would still be the right move.

By 1945 the M24 was replacing the Stuart.  

The M4A3E8 with 76mm, HVAP ammo, and wet stowage was a good medium tank and much more reliable than the M26.


That’s true, I did not consider the M24. I always thought of it as a Cold War tank.
Link Posted: 9/3/2024 6:52:18 AM EST
[#34]
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Quoted:


The Iowa's would have had very little impact.  Hellcats, P47's, Corsairs and Mustangs would have.
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This.  As bad ass as the IA BBs are they were largely a waste of resources by leaders who were mentally stuck in WWI.

There were damn few instances of BB on BB fights because they were too valuable to be risked inside gun range of an opposing BB.  Mostly you see them being used as AA trucks for the fleet carriers, and any number of cheaper, faster to build ships could have been mounted with radar and 5" AA mounts.
Link Posted: 9/3/2024 6:59:56 AM EST
[#35]
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Quoted:



This.  As bad ass as the IA BBs are they were largely a waste of resources by leaders who were mentally stuck in WWI.

There were damn few instances of BB on BB fights because they were too valuable to be risked inside gun range of an opposing BB.  Mostly you see them being used as AA trucks for the fleet carriers, and any number of cheaper, faster to build ships could have been mounted with radar and 5" AA mounts.
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And yet, there's a rather large and vocal group of people who want to recommission the Iowas today.
Link Posted: 9/3/2024 7:08:11 AM EST
[#36]
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Quoted:
1 for 1 better tech wouldn't have made that much difference.

1945 production levels in 1940 would be game over quickly.
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This guy gets it.

America pre-WWII looks almost agritarian compared to 1945. The capacity to build unimpeded, combined with the increases in technology, might have been enough to prevent the war. I would have to go back and listen again but Dan Carlin talks about the sheer number of planes, tanks, etc the US was producing in the later part of 1943, and it's insane. Japan never had the manufacturing capacity to keep up. Germany was a little better off, but its manufacturing would have been crippled pretty quickly.
Link Posted: 9/3/2024 7:29:45 AM EST
[#37]
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Quoted:



If China hadn't had to fight Japan as long, the Nationalists may have won.
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I think an early end to WW2 frees up a lot of Soviet assets to assist the Chicoms.
Link Posted: 9/3/2024 7:40:31 AM EST
[#38]
It isn't just about the individual weapons.

It was all about the time and effort to convert peacetime industry to war production and building huge new factories (with all their equipment ) and training all the factory workers to fill those factories for three shifts.

More Amazing when you realize most of the existing factories were just clawing their way out of the depression years.

The armed forces of the time had very few people , very few bases that all had to be built up and equipped for training the new guys coming in.

The first years of the war was really just holding on and building and moving around men and equipment . This is seen as big ships , airplanes . tanks ,bombs and bullets and fuel but also includes spam in a can , buttons , toothbrushes , paper clips and carbon paper.

Takes some effort to stamp out a helmet and paint it green in some factory in Pittsburg but it is another whole thing to somehow get it to the poor SOB who is hitting a beach somewhere out in the pacific .

The whole history of WWII is very interesting to me .
Link Posted: 9/3/2024 10:18:16 AM EST
[#39]
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Quoted:


The joke as I understand it. The torpedo design was just fine. It just had one tiny little defective component in it. As soon as that was fixed US Submarines became quite the deadly force.

I've also heard that the reason why those defects were not addressed until later in the war was entirely due to some stuffed shirts high up in Naval command.
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I just watched a documentary on the MK14 debacle. The magnetic exploder was a fucking disaster, they ran too deep and the firing pin for the contact detonator was too heavy.  That and BUORD screamed that their baby wasn't ugly AF for years and stymied information dissemination and any real sort of testing program.
Link Posted: 9/3/2024 10:23:42 AM EST
[#40]
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Quoted:
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/proxy/EXl8XL6ASM_2iHzyBeNZzk2IqVp7QPenO_cNDJmmOWAYuwxUNeWz4xjeDTG-BPe56eT_xW27RLO3Oef9QLPtKLnq73waAMzVXomV1V9MSW0O0TF61A

T26e4 super pershings instead of Sherman's


German tanks.wouldve aiad what the mayor of Nagasaki siad  when the.bomb was dropped


What tye fuck was that
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Unfortunately it like the Pershing were too heavy for many bridges in Europe, where the Sherman was capable of crossing all of them

It would have been interesting to see a Super Pershing tangle with an E-75 or E-100 had they made it off the drawing board......that would have been a duel
Link Posted: 9/3/2024 10:33:55 AM EST
[#41]
A bunch of these would have helped in 1942Attachment Attached File
Link Posted: 9/3/2024 7:48:56 PM EST
[#42]
We are currently a long distance away from ever being able to mobilize on that level again.

Imagine inventors like John browning giving their patents to the government instead being paid in millions of dollars.

Current generation does not have the will to win or the courage to see it through till the end.

I prefer the Thompson to the grease gun.
Link Posted: 9/4/2024 5:30:28 AM EST
[#43]
What a load of absolute revisionist commie horseshit. We bullied Japan into attacking?
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It's not that simple, but the US went a long way into goading the Japanese to respond.

You really have to consider things from the Japanese perspective.  Japan as a nation made tremendous strides industrially (and militarialy) in a relatively short time (late 1800-early 1900's).  Despite these advancements, the US and Britain looked down on them and never treated them as equals. hell, consider the naval treaty, where Japan was limited by tonnage of ships.  Japan simply wanted to be seen as equals, but were never given the same level of respect.

The expectation is that Japan would back down on their imperial expansionist murder orgy in China
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The absolute same thing could have been said of the US imperial expansionist murder orgy migration westward in the 1800's, and the subsequent slaughter of Indians.  The Japanese felt their expansion was no different than what the US had done with Indians or what the British did in India, Australia, etc. In fact, Japanese leaders were somewhat confused they were considered naked aggressors, considering Britain and the US did essentially the same things in their colonial pursuits.

we'd stop logistically and economically enabling the slaughter of our ally China.
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What's ironic in all of this, the Japanese feared communism far more than they did the US...and the US involvement (and subsequent backing of Mao) in China directly led to China turning red.  In the 1940's, virtually the only curb against communist expansion in the Far East was the Japanese.
Link Posted: 9/4/2024 5:38:30 AM EST
[#44]
I would also argue that we wouldn't have known how to use 1945 weapons effectively without the lessons learned in 1942-1944.
Link Posted: 9/6/2024 5:27:30 PM EST
[#45]
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Quoted:


It's not that simple, but the US went a long way into goading the Japanese to respond.  

You really have to consider things from the Japanese perspective.  Japan as a nation made tremendous strides industrially (and militarialy) in a relatively short time (late 1800-early 1900's).  Despite these advancements, the US and Britain looked down on them and never treated them as equals. hell, consider the naval treaty, where Japan was limited by tonnage of ships.  Japan simply wanted to be seen as equals, but were never given the same level of respect.



The absolute same thing could have been said of the US imperial expansionist murder orgy migration westward in the 1800's, and the subsequent slaughter of Indians.  The Japanese felt their expansion was no different than what the US had done with Indians or what the British did in India, Australia, etc. In fact, Japanese leaders were somewhat confused they were considered naked aggressors, considering Britain and the US did essentially the same things in their colonial pursuits.  



What's ironic in all of this, the Japanese feared communism far more than they did the US...and the US involvement (and subsequent backing of Mao) in China directly led to China turning red.  In the 1940's, virtually the only curb against communist expansion in the Far East was the Japanese.
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Quoted:
What a load of absolute revisionist commie horseshit. We bullied Japan into attacking?


It's not that simple, but the US went a long way into goading the Japanese to respond.  

You really have to consider things from the Japanese perspective.  Japan as a nation made tremendous strides industrially (and militarialy) in a relatively short time (late 1800-early 1900's).  Despite these advancements, the US and Britain looked down on them and never treated them as equals. hell, consider the naval treaty, where Japan was limited by tonnage of ships.  Japan simply wanted to be seen as equals, but were never given the same level of respect.

The expectation is that Japan would back down on their imperial expansionist murder orgy in China


The absolute same thing could have been said of the US imperial expansionist murder orgy migration westward in the 1800's, and the subsequent slaughter of Indians.  The Japanese felt their expansion was no different than what the US had done with Indians or what the British did in India, Australia, etc. In fact, Japanese leaders were somewhat confused they were considered naked aggressors, considering Britain and the US did essentially the same things in their colonial pursuits.  

we'd stop logistically and economically enabling the slaughter of our ally China.


What's ironic in all of this, the Japanese feared communism far more than they did the US...and the US involvement (and subsequent backing of Mao) in China directly led to China turning red.  In the 1940's, virtually the only curb against communist expansion in the Far East was the Japanese.

Japan was acting kind of like we are concerned China will be acting in the near future. We made clear to them that if they invaded Manchuria, we would not sell oil or rubber to them.  They invaded and we cut them off.  As far as looking at it from their perspective, considering how it worked out, they really should have considered from our perspective.  

Times change

We didn't back Mao.  We backed the Kuomintang, that was headed by Chiang Kai-shek.
Link Posted: 9/7/2024 3:19:23 PM EST
[#46]
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It isn't just about the individual weapons.

It was all about the time and effort to convert peacetime industry to war production and building huge new factories (with all their equipment ) and training all the factory workers to fill those factories for three shifts.

More Amazing when you realize most of the existing factories were just clawing their way out of the depression years.

The armed forces of the time had very few people , very few bases that all had to be built up and equipped for training the new guys coming in.

The first years of the war was really just holding on and building and moving around men and equipment . This is seen as big ships , airplanes . tanks ,bombs and bullets and fuel but also includes spam in a can , buttons , toothbrushes , paper clips and carbon paper.

Takes some effort to stamp out a helmet and paint it green in some factory in Pittsburg but it is another whole thing to somehow get it to the poor SOB who is hitting a beach somewhere out in the pacific .

The whole history of WWII is very interesting to me .
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Along those lines, 334k in the US armed forces in 1939. 12.2 million by 1945.  Training privates is one thing, but you need your NCO and mid-level officers and a lot of them.  
https://www.nationalww2museum.org/students-teachers/student-resources/research-starters/research-starters-us-military-numbers
Link Posted: 9/7/2024 3:24:35 PM EST
[#47]
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I saw all that and dropped the heavy ass truth on my foot and now I have to hop around.
Link Posted: 9/7/2024 3:30:10 PM EST
[#48]
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Quoted:

What a load of absolute revisionist commie horseshit. We bullied Japan into attacking?

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Yes. Hirohito attempted diplomacy multiple times, but negotiations went poorly, and the expectation was that we would intervene militarily. From their perspective, Pearl Harbor was a preemptive strike with the long shot goal of hopefully making us incapable of going to war with them. Of course, that resulted in having the opposite effect, but they thought war was going to be a certainty, so they figured it was worth a shot.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hull_note
Link Posted: 9/7/2024 9:30:18 PM EST
[#49]
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Quoted:



Corsair, Mustang and P-47 all had first fights before the war started.
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Quoted:


The Iowa's would have had very little impact.  Hellcats, P47's, Corsairs and Mustangs would have.



Corsair, Mustang and P-47 all had first fights before the war started.

The Mustang wasn't the aircraft we think of until it got a Merlin engine.  And none were in full production.  IIRC the P38's at Pearl Harbor were actually YP38's.
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