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It's really a weird thing to gloat on. I mean, at least if Churchill and Stalin had suddenly died but Roosevelt lived on, then Hitler could have declared himself the last man standing 
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May 19, 2024 21:20
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ContinuityNewTimes posted:Was Hitler... An rear end in a top hat? Hitler was a petty rear end in a top hat. When he called the Austrians to the Berghof to present an impossible set of demands that led to justifying the Anschluss, he not only forbade smoking during the meetings, but kept Kurt Schuschnigg from smoking throughout. Schuschnigg, in the best of times, smoked 3 packs a day. Pointless, passive-aggressive torture, as kleiner Adolf had already won.
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May 20, 2024 01:32
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Yaoi Gagarin posted:Hitler gloated and said it was the miracle of Brandenburg just as he had always predicted This is Germany's strategic position at Roosevelt's death:  So, lol, lmao.
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May 20, 2024 15:15
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The part of the war where to my recollection the Allied offensive was slowing down to avoid risking running into another as they divided up what was left of the Axis holdings truly had the chance to turn things around at any moment.
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May 20, 2024 15:44
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Ehh on the surface there were some parallels but lol at using the seven years war as a reference during a modern industrial war
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May 20, 2024 16:07
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"Mein Führer, our Armees are advancing fast on both fronts! The Westfront is advancing toward east, and the Ostfront is advancing toward west! Sieg heil!"
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May 20, 2024 16:08
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madeintaipei posted:Hitler was a petty rear end in a top hat. When he called the Austrians to the Berghof to present an impossible set of demands that led to justifying the Anschluss, he not only forbade smoking during the meetings, but kept Kurt Schuschnigg from smoking throughout. Schuschnigg, in the best of times, smoked 3 packs a day. Pointless, passive-aggressive torture, as kleiner Adolf had already won.  -Heil Hitler! Smoking is forbidden here! -This is sheer fascism!
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May 20, 2024 18:57
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On the subject of fascists: why didn't Franco join the Axis? Was it just that Spain was too drained from the civil war? Or was it something else?
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May 20, 2024 19:12
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Countries have their own interests out of purely ideological alignment. Spain was a mess after the Civil War and the potential benefits were pretty limited for Spain (gibraltar, maybe some colonial concessions in North Africa?) with significant risks (overseas colonies, Allied-supported internal unrest, direct invasion of Spain, etc).
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May 20, 2024 19:31
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Wikipedia says Spain was reliant on trade with the US, which I am inclined to believe.
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May 20, 2024 20:34
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Bear in mind that fascists didn't automatically get along with other fascists. The worldview wasn't "we're going to convert everyone to fascism and then live happy fascist lives", it was "our country is inevitably going to come into conflict with every other country eventually, and all alliances are purely alliances of convenience that will dissolve as soon as our common enemies are defeated, if not before." There's no particular ideological reason why fascist Germany should ally with fascist Italy/Japan, in other words. The alliances were viewed as mutually-beneficial in the moment, largely (IIRC) because those countries had all been cut out of international trade.
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May 20, 2024 20:42
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It's also important to remember that different flavors of fascism weren't always perfectly aligned and working towards the same goals. Franco got what he wanted in the 20s and 30s and going to bat for Hitler wouldn't have gotten him anything he didn't already have. Even Italy mostly got in because Mussolini wanted a slice of a post-war occupation of France and to leverage the alliance for his own aspirations in the eastern Med. That said, you do see some oddball stuff like volunteers going east to fight the glorious crusade against Communism, but I frankly kind of expect that was viewed by the Falangists as a useful pressure valve to vent their crazies into someone else's war to go get killed off. edit: TooMuchAbstraction posted:Bear in mind that fascists didn't automatically get along with other fascists. The worldview wasn't "we're going to convert everyone to fascism and then live happy fascist lives", it was "our country is inevitably going to come into conflict with every other country eventually, and all alliances are purely alliances of convenience that will dissolve as soon as our common enemies are defeated, if not before." There's no particular ideological reason why fascist Germany should ally with fascist Italy/Japan, in other words. The alliances were viewed as mutually-beneficial in the moment, largely (IIRC) because those countries had all been cut out of international trade. Yeah, they also had profoundly local concerns. A good modern example is how Trump and Orban make a lot of noise about how they think each other is a great dude, but at the end of the day their end goals are distinctly parochial rather than being part of some grander movement. edit 2: honestly talking about "fascism" as one thing is a mistake entirely. It's a loose tarp that we throw over a whole series of extreme right wing movements that arose in the inter-war period for related reasons, but there's no inherent commonality there other than a distaste for the political left and a feeling that democratic capitalism as it existed pre-WW1 had failed. Cyrano4747 fucked around with this message at 20:48 on May 20, 2024 |
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May 20, 2024 20:45
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I forget his name but wasn't there a Nazi admiral who did what he could to convince Spain to stay out of the war?
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May 20, 2024 20:57
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Canaris. Head of Naval Intelligence. In short the conversation was "Should we offer to join the war?" "Jesus no we are going to lose so hard, stay the hell out of it for your own good".
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May 20, 2024 21:16
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What is the best book on Imperial Japan in the 30s and WWII from a political or political economy perspective? Like a Pacific Wages of Destruction kind of deal. Just finished thread favorite Shattered Sword and it whetted my appetite for what was going on in Japanese political and business leadership during that time.
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May 20, 2024 21:30
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Smiling Knight posted:What is the best book on Imperial Japan in the 30s and WWII from a political or political economy perspective? Like a Pacific Wages of Destruction kind of deal. Just finished thread favorite Shattered Sword and it whetted my appetite for what was going on in Japanese political and business leadership during that time. Seconding this request!
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May 20, 2024 21:38
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The committee responsible for booking the graduation speaker for Eton in 1944 aimed high. https://x.com/yuanyi_z/status/1792647120031207655
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May 20, 2024 22:20
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This got buried on the last page, so I'm asking again. Is "The Demon of Unrest" by Erik Larson a good book on the leadup to the civil war? Audible recommended it for me.
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May 20, 2024 22:50
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two fish posted:On the subject of fascists: why didn't Franco join the Axis? Was it just that Spain was too drained from the civil war? Or was it something else? Spain didn't have much to gain from joining the war and a lot to lose. Notably they needed to import food and oil, and their rail system was pretty bad so they relied on coastal shipping a lot. This meant that getting blockaded by UK/US fleets would be a complete disaster for the country even without factoring in that Germany would want to move (and supply) significant land and air forces to take Gibraltar. Franco did say he was willing to join if Hitler would ship him food, oil, and give him big chunks of Vichy France's colonial holdings, but Hitler couldn't afford to deliver the first two, and early in the war wanted Vichy as an ally. By the time Hitler gave up on keeping Vichy France as an ally and ordered them occupied, Western Allied troops had landed in France's colonies and it was obvious Germany couldn't offer them to Spain. It's not really clear whether this was a genuine offer from Franco either, he might have just been asking for something he knew Germany would be unable or unwilling to supply as a way of saying 'no' without directly 'no'. Joining the Axis would probably have been a disaster for Franco - the food and fuel issues would be an economic disaster and could well reignite the civil war. The Allies could land forces and equipment to support any revolts that broke out and could shut down any Spanish shipping in the Atlantic (including coastal shipping), and while taking Gibraltar is a big deal in board games, it's not clear that it would have done much for the Axis in real life. Pantaloon Pontiff fucked around with this message at 01:34 on May 21, 2024 |
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May 21, 2024 01:29
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Let's say Franco had joined and Germany was allowed to bring troops in and go for Gibraltar. Would Torch have even been possible? Would the allies have had to land further down the coast of West Africa and fight their way up (which I believe was proposed at one point). Would they have forgone Torch and maybe just invaded Spain? Curious what the possibilities are had Franco joined the Axis.
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May 21, 2024 02:35
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D-Pad posted:Let's say Franco had joined and Germany was allowed to bring troops in and go for Gibraltar. Would Torch have even been possible? Would the allies have had to land further down the coast of West Africa and fight their way up (which I believe was proposed at one point). Would they have forgone Torch and maybe just invaded Spain? Curious what the possibilities are had Franco joined the Axis. Forget Torch. Resupplying Malta now becomes that much harder, and any efforts to help the Desert Rats/troops in North Africa against the Italians has to go around Africa first.
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May 21, 2024 04:09
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is that actually true? the strait is like 10-15km wide. just because you hold Gibraltar doesn't mean you can throw a chain across like the golden horn
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May 21, 2024 04:24
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Yaoi Gagarin posted:is that actually true? the strait is like 10-15km wide. just because you hold Gibraltar doesn't mean you can throw a chain across like the golden horn No, but there'd be hostile air cover and small craft all over the place, nearby bases for the Italian navy, etc, and that would put Allied operations at a huge disadvantage.
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May 21, 2024 04:27
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Yaoi Gagarin posted:is that actually true? the strait is like 10-15km wide. just because you hold Gibraltar doesn't mean you can throw a chain across like the golden horn Wikipedia article really only talks about anti-aircraft defenses on Gibraltar during ww2, but the shore guns they most likely would have had in place would easily cover the entire straight. They also had an airfield with over 600 planes in addition to any of the naval forces that were usually there. I strongly doubt the Axis had the capability to force the straight so there might as well have been a chain. Or the allies if positions had been reversed, at least early in the war. Makes sense Torch wouldn't have happened, but the allies were dead set on getting troops in battle with Germans to take pressure off the soviets and for general propaganda reasons. If Torch wasn't an option because Spain had joined and Gibraltar was taken or even just neutralized where would the blow have fallen?
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May 21, 2024 04:31
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Yaoi Gagarin posted:is that actually true? the strait is like 10-15km wide. just because you hold Gibraltar doesn't mean you can throw a chain across like the golden horn you ever look at an aerial picture of gibraltar?
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May 21, 2024 04:33
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D-Pad posted:Wikipedia article really only talks about anti-aircraft defenses on Gibraltar during ww2, but the shore guns they most likely would have had in place would easily cover the entire straight. They also had an airfield with over 600 planes in addition to any of the naval forces that were usually there. I strongly doubt the Axis had the capability to force the straight so there might as well have been a chain. Or the allies if positions had been reversed, at least early in the war. 
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May 21, 2024 04:42
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D-Pad posted:Wikipedia article really only talks about anti-aircraft defenses on Gibraltar during ww2, but the shore guns they most likely would have had in place would easily cover the entire straight. They also had an airfield with over 600 planes in addition to any of the naval forces that were usually there. I strongly doubt the Axis had the capability to force the straight so there might as well have been a chain. Or the allies if positions had been reversed, at least early in the war.
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May 21, 2024 05:00
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I think the chief issue with stringing a chain across the Strait of Gibraltar is the engineering involved with making a 10 mile long chain that could hold up warships. You wouldn't technically need to hold Gibraltar itself to do it, there's at least 12 more miles of strait to choose a place for blocking. Gibraltar itself is just a very defensible peninsula on a very nice bay for docking ships in, it's not even technically the point where the strait is the shortest. But the base could be a thorn in the side of any prospective Spanish blockade of the mediterranean.
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May 21, 2024 05:03
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I've been watching the old World at War documentary, and it's quite interesting to compare what is and isn't incluced compared to modern documentaries on those events (showing the dead throughout and not mentioning amphetamine use in the Fall of France episode spring to mind). There were a few things I'd never heard before that I was curious about, particularly: 1. In an episode covering U-Boats its mentioned that they had cracked the British ship codes and knew exactly when things such as departure times were. What exactly were the Nazis reading, just the merchant marine codes or the whole Royal Navy and for how long? 2. It's offhandedly said that there was confidence that the uranium bomb was going to work but the plutonium bomb, which would be easier to manufacture, needed testing. How true is that, and if the physics had been wrong and they couldn't get the plutonium to work, how much longer until a second bomb was ready? *Edit* 1. HisMajestyBOB posted:Merchant codes, so they had pretty decent intelligence on convoy shipping. IIRC it was mostly 1940 and maybe early 1941. Chamale posted:This is true. The uranium bomb design was extremely simple, so they didn't do a full-scale test before dropping it on Hiroshima. However, uranium-235 is difficult to refine; by late 1945, the US could only purify enough for one Little Boy every two months. So if they couldn't get the plutonium bomb to work at all, that's an estimate of how long it might take to get a second uranium bomb ready. The physics of the plutonium bomb were well-understood by 1945, but the big challenge was getting the detonators to go off with the microsecond precision needed for the nuclear reaction to initiate efficiently. Alex Wellerstein has written about similar topics, like this post called What If The Trinity Test Had Failed? Thank you both very much! Arbite fucked around with this message at 06:43 on May 21, 2024 |
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May 21, 2024 05:06
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Arbite posted:2. It's offhandedly said that there was confidence that the uranium bomb was going to work but the plutonium bomb, which would be easier to manufacture, needed testing. How true is that, and if the physics had been wrong and they couldn't get the plutonium to work, how much longer until a second bomb was ready? This is true. The uranium bomb design was extremely simple, so they didn't do a full-scale test before dropping it on Hiroshima. However, uranium-235 is difficult to refine; by late 1945, the US could only purify enough for one Little Boy every two months. So if they couldn't get the plutonium bomb to work at all, that's an estimate of how long it might take to get a second uranium bomb ready. The physics of the plutonium bomb were well-understood by 1945, but the big challenge was getting the detonators to go off with the microsecond precision needed for the nuclear reaction to initiate efficiently. Alex Wellerstein has written about similar topics, like this post called What If The Trinity Test Had Failed? Chamale fucked around with this message at 05:32 on May 21, 2024 |
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May 21, 2024 05:17
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Nessus posted:Going through mountains and deserts is easy, right? / 
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May 21, 2024 05:20
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Nessus posted:Was Turkey feeling Ally-curious? Could roll up through Greece. Going through mountains and deserts is easy, right? The problem would be without access to the Mediterranean your supply chain would have to go around Africa and I don't think allied logistics were up to that at the time.
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May 21, 2024 05:21
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Arbite posted:I've been watching the old World at War documentary, and it's quite interesting to compare what is and isn't incluced compared to modern documentaries on those events (showing the dead throughout and not mentioning amphetamine use in the Fall of France episode spring to mind). Merchant codes, so they had pretty decent intelligence on convoy shipping. IIRC it was mostly 1940 and maybe early 1941.
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May 21, 2024 05:27
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D-Pad posted:The problem would be without access to the Mediterranean your supply chain would have to go around Africa and I don't think allied logistics were up to that at the time. Trading Japan for Spain probably would've gone better for ol' Adolf, but I'm sure he would have declared war on our rootless cosmopolitan corruption sooner than later, and the US was probably just delighted to keep shoveling goods
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May 21, 2024 05:45
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Jobbo_Fett posted:Forget Torch. Resupplying Malta now becomes that much harder, and any efforts to help the Desert Rats/troops in North Africa against the Italians has to go around Africa first. Troops in North Africa were supplied and deployed from the far side of Africa without the hypothetical, it was only Malta convoys that went from Gibraltar.
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May 21, 2024 06:14
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Pantaloon Pontiff posted:Troops in North Africa were supplied and deployed from the far side of Africa without the hypothetical, it was only Malta convoys that went from Gibraltar. Exactly. Losing Gibraltar likely means losing Malta, which would have made things harder on the British in North Africa, but probably not fatally so. And in the scenario where Gibraltar falls, my personal feeling is that Torch still happens, just in Morocco first.
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May 21, 2024 06:18
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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Quackles posted:
Not a claymore, 1/5
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May 21, 2024 06:31
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PittTheElder posted:Exactly. Losing Gibraltar likely means losing Malta, which would have made things harder on the British in North Africa, but probably not fatally so. The thing with the scenario is that it's vague. When are you thinking of Spain joining the Axis and what does Germany do differently to entice them, how does Portugal respond, how does Vichy France (including the fleet) respond to Germany giving Spain French territory? Does Spain join before or after Barbarossa, or are you postulating Gay Black Hitler who doesn't invade the USSR? How do the massive diversions of resources to Spain (food and oil to bribe Franco, plus German military units for operations) affect other developments? It's possible that Torch becomes something like 'landing troops to support formerly-Vichy colonies fighting against the Axis and Portugal, aided by the formerly neutral French fleet, and landing equipment to supply the Second Spanish Civil War that is drawing German forces away from the middle east and Russia', but I think the whole thing veers into wild speculation.
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May 21, 2024 06:49
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Arbite posted:I've been watching the old World at War documentary, and it's quite interesting to compare what is and isn't incluced compared to modern documentaries on those events (showing the dead throughout and not mentioning amphetamine use in the Fall of France episode spring to mind). The Germans were reading a lot of Royal Navy codes; they broke the 'Administrative Code', used for general traffic, in 1935 (a year after it was introduced). The Naval Cipher, used for secret communications between ships and shore, was broken in 1938. Unfortunately, the British didn't introduce new ciphers immediately at the start of the war, allowing the Nazis to keep reading Royal Navy traffic for a good few months until a new version was introduced. However, this was soon broken, allowing the Germans to keep reading messages. This state of affairs continued, with the British introducing new ciphers and the Nazis breaking them until June 1943, when Enigma evidence showed that the Germans were reading the most up-to-date version of the Naval Cipher. The Italians also had a lot of success against RN codes. One of their intelligence officers had managed to get access to an RN codebook in the run-up to the war. This, combined with a lot of hard work, gave them good coverage. Notably, they were able to read the 'SYKO' code system used for aircraft spotting reports almost as quickly as the British could.
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May 21, 2024 07:03
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Gibraltar isn't even the closest part of the strait. You could pretty easily take Gibraltar, but if not you could just use guns and mines to close the strait.  So convoys have to go around Africa to reach Egypt... until Sicily was cleared and Italy invaded the vast majority of them did. The convoys to Malta were absolute carnage. What actually changes is that Torch hits Spain and now the Allies have other strategic options for the war (eg. main effort into into France with "Super Dragoon" etc)
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May 21, 2024 09:07
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