Questions About WWII Axis Powers Strategies

[Winston]

Momopi,
Since you're into military history, I was wondering if you could comment on the following.

I've studied WWII battles for a long time, but I find that there are some things related to strategy that don't make sense and seem foolish. It's as if the Axis powers were trying to lose and did not follow basic logic. Perhaps someone can shed light on this. Here are the questions.

1. I've never understood why in 1941, when England was a sitting duck and the last country in Europe still standing, why Hitler suddenly decided to invade Russia instead. This was very stupid and illogical. Hitler was on a roll and winning every battle. He did not need to squander his lead.

Russia is the biggest country in the world. There's no way a small country like Germany could occupy it. No matter how many battles you win in Russia, they will always retaliate eventually. It's an unwinnable war that will squander all your resources and armies.

Instead, why didn't Hitler send his 3 million man army to invade England in a D-Day type invasion, and finish it off so he can force Winston Churchill to surrender so he could stop begging Roosevelt to enter the war? He could have invaded Scotland too, and then march into England from there. Then, after conquering England, Hitler could fortify his conquests in Europe and build defenses to prevent any invasion from America.

That would have been the smart and sensible strategy, and the most logical one too. Squandering a 3 million man army in Russia was a total waste and senseless strategy. Why didn't he learn from Napoleon's mistake?

Basic logic says not to bite off more than you can chew, or create too many fronts in a war. But Hitler seemed more driven by emotion and delusion than logic.

However, Genghis Khan somehow got away with it. Under him, a small country like Mongolia was able to conquer the vast territories of Russia and China, making him the greatest conqueror ever, topping even Alexander the Great's conquests. How was Genghis Khan able to pull that off?

2. Why is it that when both Hitler and Stalin invaded Poland and occupied it in 1939, the Allies only declared war on Hitler and not on Stalin? What was their excuse or reasoning? Is it because they are impartial arbitrators of truth and justice? lol

3. Why didn't Hitler try to make Stalin an ally instead of an enemy? If Germany were allied with Russia, together they would be invincible against the allies. Why all the personal emnity between two dictators?

4. I don't understand Japan's strategy during WWII. Why did it attack Pearl Harbor? Why did it need to bring a giant like America into the war, when its objective was to conquer Asia? Why bring arouse a "sleeping giant" as the Japanese Admirals said in the movie "Tora Tora Tora"? Wasn't that highly detrimental to their goals? Were they trying to lose the war?

If they hadn't done that, America would not have had an excuse to enter the war, and the American public would not have supported it. Roosevelt's problem of looking for an excuse to enter the war would not have been solved.

5. Historians say that Japan was suffering under an oil embargo carried out by America, to punish it for its occupation of China and the Philippines. But I don't get this. How can the US block all oil shipments to Japan? Japan doesn't have to trade oil with America. Why can't Japan just get oil from any other country directly, such as the Middle East?

If it did that, it could then sink any US ship blocking oil tankers from reaching Japan, under the justification of self-defense, which would have been acceptable to the rest of the world. So why didn't it just do that? How could a US issued "oil embargo" block all oil from reaching Japan? Why couldn't Japan get around that? I don't get it. How can the US be "all powerful" like that? How can it prevent all oil in the world from reaching one country, without using any naval ships? Is the USA God? Wtf? Can anyone explain?

6. After Pearl Harbor, when America and Japan were officially at war, why did Hitler feel the need to declare war on America too? What did he have to gain from a war with America, which would be a costly distraction from his goals? Why declare war on a superpower unnecessarily and squander all your military resources? Isn't that self-destructive and nonsensical?

Was Hitler trying to lose the war and make Germany lose? Why were his decisions highly self-destructive? Why didn't he have someone coach him in basic chess strategy? Why didn't he read Sun Tzu's "Ancient Art of War"? Sun Tzu would never have made stupid decisions like that.

7. When the Japanese planes attacked Pearl Harbor and destroyed most of the American fleet except for the carriers, why did the Japanese suddenly withdraw? Did the Japanese commanders want to leave with their carriers intact, so they can claim the honor of a one-sided total victory?

It would have been smarter for them to continue attacking Pearl Harbor while waiting for the American carriers to return. They must have known that the US carriers would return to try to defend Pearl Harbor. So why didn't they wait for them to come? With an advantage in ships, and with the American carriers outnumbered, they had a great opportunity to destroy the US carriers and complete their victory.

At least that would have been far smarter than playing hide-and-seek later on in the Battle of Midway and let luck decide the outcome, which ended up not being in Japan's favor.

8. The Battle of Midway made no sense either, in several ways. (See the film "The Battle of Midway" or numerous documentaries about it to learn about it.)

First, with a 3 to 1 advantage over the Americans, why would the Japanese want to play hide-and-seek around Midway, and let luck decide the outcome of the decisive battle? That was really stupid. Instead, they should have just sailed toward Pearl Harbor again for another attack. Doing so would have FORCED the US carriers toward Hawaii to defend it, thereby drawing the US carriers OUT IN THE OPEN. Once out in the open, the Japanese would have an a great advantage in an open battle of planes and carriers, and would likely have won.

Either way, it would have been far better than the disastrous result they had at Midway, losing three carriers in five minutes because they were caught by American planes with bombs on their flight deck. Luck was not on their side at all. So why didn't they take advantage of their advantage in an open battle instead of relying on luck?

Second, the Japanese actions during the Battle of Midway were stupid and wasted valuable time. They could not decide whether to load their planes with bombs and attack Midway, or load them with torpedos and attack the American carriers. So they kept changing their plane armament from bombs to torpedos and then back to bombs, wasting valuable time in the process which got them caught flatfooted when the US planes arrived. After shooting down two or three US squadrons, they were caught with bombs on their flightdeck, which the next US squadron easily blew up, taking out three Japanese carriers. It was a terrible loss which turned the tide of the war in the Pacific.

Instead of this stupid mistake and waste of time, why didn't the Japanese just arm their planes with bombs? Bombs could have been used on BOTH Midway and the US carriers. There was no need to switch back and forth, wasting valuable time and exposing themselves to attack.

Even during the attack of Pearl Harbor, the Japanese planes used bombs to sink US ships in the harbor. So why couldn't they do that during Midway as well? Why all the switching back and forth between bombs and torpedos? What a waste of valuable time.

9. In the movie "Tora Tora Tora" about the attack of Pearl Harbor, which was historically accurate, the Japanese planes were able to drop bombs on the US ships from high up in the air, out of the range of the ship's cannons.

So why didn't they do that during Midway too? During the Battle of Midway, it seemed that planes on both sides had to get within close proximity of the carriers in order to drop torpedos or bombs, which often led to them being shot down by cannons. Why didn't they drop bombs from high in the air like they did during Pearl Harbor, to keep themselves out of the range of the ship's cannons?

10. Rather than attack that tiny island of Midway in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, why didn't the Japanese go for a bigger and more useful target instead, such as the naval ship building facilities in San Diego or along the West Coast of continental America?

Logically, the US fleet had to be constructed on the West Coast in order to fight in the Pacific. So their naval ship building facilities had to be on the West Coast, not the East Coast. The Japanese must have known that. Surely they could spot those facilities, or use spies to find them, so they could launch attacks on them. In doing so, they could greatly impair America's ability to rebuild their ships.

Once in the war, the Japanese should have gone all out and taken advantage of the situation, using the advantage they had after Pearl Harbor, instead of squandering it with withdrawal, overcaution and stupid guessing games. Why didn't they capitalize on their strategic advantage instead of playing guessing games? Surely they were versed in Sun Tzu's "Ancient Art of War" right? So why were their tactics so stupid? Were they trying to win the war or lose it?

Can anyone explain all these bad strategies of the Axis powers during WWII? Thanks.

[jtest28]

I find this video series very interesting.
The greatest story Never told Its up to 24 or 26 parts now.

[Devil Dog]

Winston, it's hard to take you seriously when you are basing so much of your arguments on things which happened in a movie. And it is easy to the a Monday morning quarterback when looking at any war.

[Taco]

There's a lot of things that don't make sense about WW II.

1. Why did the German's come within 20 miles of Moscow and then turn around go home.
2. Why did the German's have 300,000 British surrounded at Dunkirk and then let them all go.
3. Why did the US enter the war only after Germany attacked Russia? A. To save communism.
4. Why did the US drop the bomb on Nagasaki? A. Nagasaki had the most Christians of any city in Japan.
5. Why did Eisenhower kill 1.7 million German POW's after the war had ended?

If you consider for a moment that Winston Churchill, Eisenhower, Hitler and Stalin had the same "employer" then it starts to make sense.

Eight Signs the Illuminati Orchestrated WW2
http://henrymakow.com/eight_indications ... umina.html

[Winston]

Winston, it's hard to take you seriously when you are basing so much of your arguments on things which happened in a movie. And it is easy to be a Monday morning quarterback when looking at any war.

Dude, you aren't paying attention. The two movies I cited, "Tora Tora Tora" and "The Battle of Midway", portray the events of those battles with great historical accuracy. You can look them up on IMDB and see. I've also seen lots of documentaries on those battles as well, which I mentioned. You jumped the gun without thinking. Why do you think it's impossible for a film to be historically accurate? WWII literature says the same thing.

[Winston]

Great points Taco. Another suspicious point is, how did Germany conquer France in just five days? You'd think it should have taken a lot longer than that. France was a powerful country too, and had been for centuries. That just looks staged somehow.

But it's hard to believe that Hitler was just an actor. He was far too passionate and intense to be just pretending or putting on an act.

Here's another article about how the global elite controlled both sides of WWII, listing 20 anomalies.

[momopi]

Instead, why didn't Hitler send his 3 million man army to invade England in a D-Day type invasion, and finish it off so he can force Winston Churchill to surrender so he could stop begging Roosevelt to enter the war? He could have invaded Scotland too, and then march into England from there. Then, after conquering England, Hitler could fortify his conquests in Europe and build defenses to prevent any invasion from America.

In Sept 1939, the Royal Navy was the world's largest fleet with 15 battleships (+5 under construction), 7 aircraft carriers (+5 under construction), 66 cruisers (+23 under construction), 184 destroyers (+52 under construction), 60 submarines (+9 under construction), 45 corvettes (+9 under construction). The coastal defense forces had some 2,000 coastal craft, gunboats, torpedo boats, etc. To successfully invade Britain, the Germans would've had to achieve air and naval superiority over the RAF, RN Home Fleet, and the >1,000 gunboats and torpedo boats laying in wait.

2. Why is it that when both Hitler and Stalin invaded Poland and occupied it in 1939, the Allies only declared war on Hitler and not on Stalin? What was their excuse or reasoning? Is it because they are impartial arbitrators of truth and justice? lol

Enemy mine ("the enemy of my enemy is my friend"). Note that as soon as the common threat (Germany) was gone, UK and USSR became opponents in the Cold War.

3. Why didn't Hitler try to make Stalin an ally instead of an enemy? If Germany were allied with Russia, together they would be invincible against the allies. Why all the personal emnity between two dictators?

With exception to the German settlers in Russia, Russians were considered untemenschen (subhuman), to be exterminated. Actually, the Japanese screwed the Germans by signing and maintaining non-aggression pact with the Russians. Had the Japanese opted to go to war with Russia from the East, the Russians would've been hard-pressed to fight a two front war.

4. I don't understand Japan's strategy during WWII. Why did it attack Pearl Harbor? Why did it need to bring a giant like America into the war, when its objective was to conquer Asia? Why bring arouse a "sleeping giant" as the Japanese Admirals said in the movie "Tora Tora Tora"? Wasn't that highly detrimental to their goals? Were they trying to lose the war?
If they hadn't done that, America would not have had an excuse to enter the war, and the American public would not have supported it. Roosevelt's problem of looking for an excuse to enter the war would not have been solved.

There is a chain of events that lead to the attack on Pearl Harbor. In short:

- The Japanese invaded Manchuria in 1931 with plans to send 5 million Japanese colonists (unemployed, landless, and undesirables) there. The US was initially willing to tolerate the Japanese invasion at China's expense, provided that the Japanese did not escalate further.

- The Nazi's came to power in Germany and the Chinese went to them for assistance against Japan. Germany agreed to assist China to modernize 80 army divisions, as well as providing weapons, aircraft, tanks, and various technical assistance in exchange for Chinese resources & minerals.

- The Japanese was between a rock and a hard place. They knew that if they waited, the Chinese Army will only get stronger. But they also knew a full scale conflict with China would be very costly. Conflicts in 1937 spiraled into full scale war and the Japanese decided to take the initiative to invade, then force Germany to stop supplying military aid to China.

- The US was alarmed at the events and pushed back, building up forces in the Pacific and supplying military aid to China. US imposed embargo on Japan and demanded that Japan withdraw from China and Indochina, as precondition to normalizing relations. The Japanese took it as an ultimatum and decided to attack first.

Historians say that Japan was suffering under an oil embargo carried out by America, to punish it for its occupation of China and the Philippines. But I don't get this. How can the US block all oil shipments to Japan? Japan doesn't have to trade oil with America. Why can't Japan just get oil from any other country directly, such as the Middle East?
If it did that, it could then sink any US ship blocking oil tankers from reaching Japan, under the justification of self-defense, which would have been acceptable to the rest of the world. So why didn't it just do that? How could a US issued "oil embargo" block all oil from reaching Japan? Why couldn't Japan get around that? I don't get it. How can the US be "all powerful" like that? How can it prevent all oil in the world from reaching one country, without using any naval ships? Is the USA God? Wtf? Can anyone explain?

First, Japan did not invade PH until after they bombed Pearl Harbor, thus the invasion of PH was not a reason for the embargo.

In 1940 the 4 largest exporter of oil in the world was U.S., Iran, Romania, and Dutch East Indies. The US supplied Japan with 80%-93% of its oil prior to the embargo. Iran was occupied by the British and Saudi Arabia's infant oil industry was dominated by US companies. The Japanese opted to invade the Dutch East Indies for the oil.

6. After Pearl Harbor, when America and Japan were officially at war, why did Hitler feel the need to declare war on America too? What did he have to gain from a war with America, which would be a costly distraction from his goals? Why declare war on a superpower unnecessarily and squander all your military resources? Isn't that self-destructive and nonsensical?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lend-Lease

America was, in fact, providing massive aid to Germany's enemies.

7. When the Japanese planes attacked Pearl Harbor and destroyed most of the American fleet except for the carriers, why did the Japanese suddenly withdraw? Did the Japanese commanders want to leave with their carriers intact, so they can claim the honor of a one-sided total victory?
It would have been smarter for them to continue attacking Pearl Harbor while waiting for the American carriers to return. They must have known that the US carriers would return to try to defend Pearl Harbor. So why didn't they wait for them to come? With an advantage in ships, and with the American carriers outnumbered, they had a great opportunity to destroy the US carriers and complete their victory.
At least that would have been far smarter than playing hide-and-seek later on in the Battle of Midway and let luck decide the outcome, which ended up not being in Japan's favor.

The Japanese fleet was 4,000 miles away from home and the element of surprise was already gone after the attack. The fleet admiral decided not to take the risk and brought his fleet home. In retrospect he could have made better choices, such as attacking the oil storage and refinery in Hawaii, but hind sight is always 20/20. From operational perspective he achieved surprise, attacked the US fleet, and brought all his ships home with minimal losses.

8. The Battle of Midway made no sense either, in several ways. (See the film "The Battle of Midway" or numerous documentaries about it to learn about it.)
First, with a 3 to 1 advantage over the Americans, why would the Japanese want to play hide-and-seek around Midway, and let luck decide the outcome of the decisive battle? That was really stupid. Instead, they should have just sailed toward Pearl Harbor again for another attack. Doing so would have FORCED the US carriers toward Hawaii to defend it, thereby drawing the US carriers OUT IN THE OPEN. Once out in the open, the Japanese would have an a great advantage in an open battle of planes and carriers, and would likely have won.

The Japanese did not have a 3:1 advantage. Actually, the US had 3:2 advantage in aircraft. In retrospect, you might say that it was wrong for the IJN to disperse its fleet, but had they stayed together in a single battle group and got sunk together, you'd say that was a dumb decision as well. Like I said, hindsight is always 20/20.

9. In the movie "Tora Tora Tora" about the attack of Pearl Harbor, which was historically accurate, the Japanese planes were able to drop bombs on the US ships from high up in the air, out of the range of the ship's cannons.
So why didn't they do that during Midway too? During the Battle of Midway, it seemed that planes on both sides had to get within close proximity of the carriers in order to drop torpedoes or bombs, which often led to them being shot down by cannons. Why didn't they drop bombs from high in the air like they did during Pearl Harbor, to keep themselves out of the range of the ship's cannons?

In WW2 there were no laser guided PGM's, and high-altitude horizontal bombing had very poor accuracy. To attack ships there were generally 2 methods, dive bombing or torpedo bomber. In both cases, the aircraft is vulnerable to enemy AA guns.

At beginning of WW2, many Navy's still held the belief in big guns (Battleships). The AA (anti-aircraft) armaments on both Japanese and US ships in 1941 was far weaker compared to later in the war. For example, in 1941 the Japanese BB Yamato was equipped with 24 x 25mm AA, by 1945 it was equipped with 162 x 25mm AA.

10. Rather than attack that tiny island of Midway in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, why didn't the Japanese go for a bigger and more useful target instead, such as the naval ship building facilities in San Diego or along the West Coast of continental America?
Logically, the US fleet had to be constructed on the West Coast in order to fight in the Pacific. So their naval ship building facilities had to be on the West Coast, not the East Coast. The Japanese must have known that. Surely they could spot those facilities, or use spies to find them, so they could launch attacks on them. In doing so, they could greatly impair America's ability to rebuild their ships.

This was before nuclear power, and aircraft carriers ran on oil. A round trip between Japan and California is about 21,000 km. To attack the West Coast, the Japanese would have had to assemble a carrier strike group with oilers and various supporting ships. To avoid being discovered they'd probably have to avoid shipping routes (shortest distance routes). The Japanese fleet that attacked Pearl Harbor left on Nov 26th and launched attack on Dec 7th. So to get to California the Japanese fleet would probably have to cruise for few weeks to avoid detection by ship, submarine, and aircraft. If any ships are damaged, there were no friendly ports nearby.

The US also built ships on the East Coast and send them to the Pacific via Panama Canal. The Japanese had planned to attack the Panama Canal with I-400 class submarines, but the war ended before the plan was put in action.

[Winston]

Instead, why didn't Hitler send his 3 million man army to invade England in a D-Day type invasion, and finish it off so he can force Winston Churchill to surrender so he could stop begging Roosevelt to enter the war? He could have invaded Scotland too, and then march into England from there. Then, after conquering England, Hitler could fortify his conquests in Europe and build defenses to prevent any invasion from America.

In Sept 1939, the Royal Navy was the world's largest fleet with 15 battleships (+5 under construction), 7 aircraft carriers (+5 under construction), 66 cruisers (+23 under construction), 184 destroyers (+52 under construction), 60 submarines (+9 under construction), 45 corvettes (+9 under construction). The coastal defense forces had some 2,000 coastal craft, gunboats, torpedo boats, etc. To successfully invade Britain, the Germans would've had to achieve air and naval superiority over the RAF, RN Home Fleet, and the >1,000 gunboats and torpedo boats laying in wait.

Where are you getting that from? I've never seen Britain have an aircraft carrier. Also, if Britain had so many ships, then why did Churchill ask FDR to loan him a fleet of ships? FDR agreed and called it a charity gift to England to help them in the war.

Also, why didn't Hitler commandeer the French fleet and dominate the seas instead of relying only on U-Boats?

[momopi]

Where are you getting that from? I've never seen Britain have an aircraft carrier. Also, if Britain had so many ships, then why did Churchill ask FDR to loan him a fleet of ships? FDR agreed and called it a charity gift to England to help them in the war.
Also, why didn't Hitler commandeer the French fleet and dominate the seas instead of relying only on U-Boats?

1. In WW2 the Royal Navy operated a total of 64 aircraft carriers. In Aug 1945, the Royal Navy had 58 aircraft carriers in service.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ai ... Royal_Navy

The British Pacific fleet had 21 aircraft carriers in 1945:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Pacific_Fleet




2. The US traded 50 mothballed destroyers in exchange for leased land in Canada and UK possessions (islands). In effect, the UK got 50 ships and US to be guard dogs for said UK possessions, freeing Royal Navy's resources for European theater.

3. The French fleet was scuttled at Toulon and bombed at Algeria. These events are commonly shown in WW2 documentaries.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scuttling_ ... _in_Toulon

[Devil Dog]

Do not use your facts to refute Winston's impressions.

[Mr.Darcy]

"Enemy mine ("the enemy of my enemy is my friend"). Note that as soon as the common threat (Germany) was gone, UK and USSR became opponents in the Cold War. "

Came to refute this, I believe the soviets and germans allied not too long after they both invaded Poland. In addition, the Soviets invaded Finland afterwards too.

[momopi]

"Enemy mine ("the enemy of my enemy is my friend"). Note that as soon as the common threat (Germany) was gone, UK and USSR became opponents in the Cold War. "

Came to refute this, I believe the soviets and Germans allied not too long after they both invaded Poland. In addition, the Soviets invaded Finland afterwards too.

The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact (Treaty of Non-aggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) was signed on August 23, 1939. The invasion of Poland started on September 1st, 1939.

If you're referring to the German–Soviet Axis talks in October 1940, the discussion failed and Hitler invaded Russia.

[momopi]

Do not use your facts to refute Winston's impressions.

There's a book that I'd suggest Winston to read, Robert Aspin's "Tambu":




The book is long out of print (1979) but avail used for 39 cents + S/H:



The book illustrates the difficulties and consequences of making hard decisions with fog of war. It's a good read.

[Mr.Darcy]

"Enemy mine ("the enemy of my enemy is my friend"). Note that as soon as the common threat (Germany) was gone, UK and USSR became opponents in the Cold War. "

Came to refute this, I believe the soviets and Germans allied not too long after they both invaded Poland. In addition, the Soviets invaded Finland afterwards too.

The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact (Treaty of Non-aggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) was signed on August 23, 1939. The invasion of Poland started on September 1st, 1939.

If you're referring to the German–Soviet Axis talks in October 1940, the discussion failed and Hitler invaded Russia.

But they were not enemies at the time Britain and France declared war on Germany.

[Halwick]

momopi, you have an excellent sense of history and perspective. Couldn't have answered Winston's questions any better.

It's easy to ask these kind of questions and second guess the choices and decisions with 20-20 hindsight rather than with the information available AT THE TIME of the event.

I was amused at Winston's ignorance of the Royal Navy's aircraft carriers....and other statements. With the image you provided of the British aircraft carriers, he may refute it, stating he doesn't see any British flag or markings, therefore the image is a fake.

BTW, it's a little known fact that Germany had an aircraft carrier, the Graf Zeppelin, at the beginning of WWII, but never completed and utilized it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_air ... f_Zeppelin