A Coda on Churchill v. US
In a nutshell: they were both right and both wrong. Churchill was right that an invasion of northwest Europe in 1943 (let alone 1942) would have been an epic disaster, and the Americans were wrong to believe it was possible, let alone wise. The US was right that a maritime strategy would not defeat Hitler, or would take so long that (a) millions more would die, and/or (b) Hitler would develop nukes, and/or (c) the Soviets would end up ruling all of Europe, and Churchill was wrong to think that a maritime strategy could work in any reasonable time frame.
In the event, the battle over strategy between the Brits and Americans resulted in a wise compromise. The Americans got their invasion, but in mid-1944 when Allied strength had waxed and German strength had waned. The British cooled American rashness, and the Americans overrode British reluctance. (Though Churchill fought against the cross-Channel assault until the very end.)
So the Dieppe raid was a cynical British trick to persuade the US to send millions of troops for a proper seaborne invasion.
As a Brit, I’m flattered you think we’re so devious and cynical.
I’d also observe that Stalin (and his stooges on the British left) was propagandising for the opening of a second front, almost from the day after Barberossa.
But this is not my area of expertise. Maybe people can be wrong and right at the same time. It used to be possible to think that way, but we live in an age of black and white.
Comment by philip — March 26, 2023 @ 5:13 pm
No one discusses the option of skipping the North African campaign and southern Italy grind. The Allies could have seized Sardinia in late 1942 and invade southern France by the end of 1943, unhinging German defenses in the north.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRnrlVYtZTA
Comment by Carlton Meyer — March 27, 2023 @ 5:18 pm
Churchill had been an infantry battalion commander on the western front in WW1, so he was personally familiar with how headlong human wave attacks into defended positions went. He had also previously been in charge of naval strategy, so he was probably aware that the naval blockade would have collapsed Germany on its own with or without the constant allied western front offensives. His WW2 views were probably informed by both experiences, so while he wasn’t right, he wasn’t being idiotic. He was probably also right about the Dardanelles too – that came within a hair’s breadth of success.
China’s situation does resemble Japan’s pre-WW2 in a number of ways. Japan occupied much of China (in fact 50% of the IJA was in China, 25% in Burma and 25% in the Pacific). This gave Japan interior lines to some extent although there was no way of getting food or fuel to the islands, the Japanese ones included, that did not entail running the gauntlet of submarines. Japan like China now also had a cargo-cult navy that looked a lot more effective than it was – tinderbox aircraft carriers, overgunned cruisers, a lot of welded hulls to save weight.
One similarity the west now shares with Japan then is that Japan had actually reduced or shut down a number of its aircraft production lines by 1941, because all the orders had been fulfilled. So they couldn’t replace their naval bombers once they’d used up the reserve stock, because they weren’t being made. It’s a little-noticed counterfactual that, even if the IJN had *not* lost 47% of its aircraft carrier tonnage at Midway, its carrier fleet would have been of severely reduced use anyway. They weren’t building B5N2s (Kates) at the required rate, and they’d stopped building D3As (Vals) altogether. They probably had enough in hand to operate three, maybe four carriers tops, which is what they did around the Solomons. It was 1944 before they had the aircraft – new types: B6 Jill, D4 Judy – to fly from the new hulls they were building and converting.
The west faces a similar situation today AIUI. I don’t think Tomahawks, AV8As or NLAWs are still being made, and if you wanted to put an OOP weapon back into production, this relies on the continuing available of the subcomponents. This must be why Putin is apparently resorting to reissuing T-55s in Ukraine (https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2023/03/24/those-t-55-tanks-the-russians-are-pulling-out-of-storage-they-were-obsolete–in-1973/). If he tried to restart T-80 production, it’s probably not possible, even with his geeks reprogramming washing machine microprocessors.
There was an episode in the ’73 Arab Israeli war where one Israeli Centurion destroyed 35 T-55s. The likelihood must be that once they go up against Challenger IIs and Abrams, T-55s will be the next thing Putin runs out of.
Comment by Green as Grass — March 28, 2023 @ 5:20 am
@philip. I have no idea where that came from. A little sensitive, methinks.
And yes, people can be wrong and right at the same time. The eventual compromise that ended in an invasion in 1944 was a tacit admission of that by both sides.
Comment by cpirrong — March 28, 2023 @ 12:07 pm
@Green as Grass. In Japan there was a debate between the “Northerners” (mainly from the Army) who wanted to concentrate on China and the “Southerners” (mainly from the Navy) who wanted to go into the Dutch East Indies, the Philippines, etc. The Southerners basically wanted to escape the problem the Chinese face now–dependence on seaborne imports of essential materials. In the end, they couldn’t sustain a defense of such an outer island chain and were eventually strangled anyways. If the Chinese attacked Taiwan, they would be starting from an even weaker position than Japan found itself in in January 1942.
The US has restarted Tomahawk production. It is adopting the Naval Strike Missile as its over-the-horizon weapon (100 nm range). AV8s are being replaced by F35Cs. JASSM gives another long range strike capability. But for all of this we are talking years of procurement to build up adequate stocks.
The thought of sending T55s into combat against any modern tank- or ATGM-equipped force is insane. If they were helpless against a 105mm gun firing conventional shot or HEAT, think of what 120mm depleted uranium rounds would do to them?
Comment by cpirrong — March 28, 2023 @ 12:26 pm
The Abrams has a piece of laser kit that, provided there is a line of sight, can work out the GPS co-ordinates of a target up to 5 miles away. These can then be passed to friendly artillery, which destroys the target. The whole process takes perhaps a minute.
Any T-55-equipped unit trying to advance against *one* Abrams would probably be destroyed by supporting artillery at that sort of range. I will be genuinely surprised if we see any Challenger or Abrams versus T-55 battlefield face-offs, because I doubt the T-55s will survive to get into range of the Abrams’ gun, never mind its own.
The overmatch is comparable to that between the T-55 itself and the lozenge-shape Mark I tanks of 1916.
Comment by Green as Grass — March 29, 2023 @ 2:36 am
The Americans needed North Africa before hitting the continent of Europe. The troops needed to learn how to fight and the incompetent officers needed weeding out.
Comment by Andrew Stanton — March 29, 2023 @ 8:31 am
Winnie was a twit who screwed up almost everything he touched. Gallipolli was his bright idea. Italy was his bright idea. Dieppe was his bright idea. Firing Keith Parks was his bright idea. Night bombing was his bright idea. The Ruhr Dams was his bright idea. The great Bengal famine was his bright idea. He drove Alan Brooke, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, close to insane with his meddling in things he knew nothing about (“Action this day”). He was a scoundrel, a cheat and a drunk. He was however a master bullshitter and proof that it’s not what you know, it’s who you know. As a youth he earned a high reputation for bravery, and that’s when it ended.
Comment by Michael van der Riet — March 31, 2023 @ 2:53 am