Posted on 01/17/2020 10:52:34 AM PST by ProtectOurFreedom
In May 1941, the new German battleship Bismarck was a huge, state-of-the-art warship, equipped with the latest long-range heavy cannon, new stereoscopic range-finders that promised unprecedented accuracy, new ship-based radar, and an intricate system of armor-plating and honey-combed water-tight compartments that rendered her virtually unsinkable. If Bismarck broke out into the vast, indefensible shipping lanes of the North Atlantic, it could wreak catastrophic havoc with the war-sustaining convoys coming across the ocean [from the U.S.]
In 1941 England, it was believed that this single weapon might determine the very course of the war in Europe. Where the entire Luftwaffe had been unable to cripple Britain’s warfighting capability with its aerial assault in the summer of 1940 and bring her to the negotiating table, now—in the spring of 1941—a single warship was threatening to do that very thing.
As the Bismarck and the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen headed towards the open waters of the Atlantic Ocean through the Denmark Strait, they were intercepted by the British battleships Hood and Prince of Wales. Those two ships were all that stood between Britain’s invaluable but vulnerable shipping lanes and what they thought was national survival. In the next few minutes, perhaps the most famous and consequential surface engagement of all time occurred. The big ships fired on each other, their 14- and 15-inch guns booming.
Hood — the pride of the British navy — was struck by a perfectly-aimed salvo from Bismarck and exploded violently, breaking in two and sinking with just three survivors out of a crew of more than 1,400. After 10 minutes of fighting, "The Mighty Hood" was gone. Prince of Wales, despite suffering significant damage herself from Bismarck’s guns, scored some telling blows of her own, such that Bismarck was forced to disengage and head to home for repair.
(Excerpt) Read more at realclearhistory.com ...
Among the many mistakes Herr Hitler made, this one had to be one of his worst. After the attack on Pearl Harbor he should have said something like: “The people of the great German Nation proudly stand in support of our courageous Japanese ally. We will do all we can to make sure justice prevails in the Pacific.” But he should have stopped short of declaring war.
By then end of WWII, the United States had more ships in its Navy than ALL the ships of the rest of the world combined!
Among the many mistakes Herr Hitler made, this one had to be one of his worst. [declaring war on the US]
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I agree.
But I think his other biggest mistake — tied for #1 with the declaration of war against US — was not listening to Rommel after France.
Rommel basically said: your next move should be the Suez and beyond. Let’s make the Mediterranean a German Lake and let’s ensure a supply of oil. But I’m going to need major military resources.
Instead, Hitler scrimped on resources for Rommel, wrecked his Luftwaffe over Britain, destroyed his armies in Russia and proved to the world what the German General Staff always knew: he was just a hot-headed corporal who made some early bold moves against temporarily weak-minded enemies.
A victory of CAPITALISM.
By 1940 only Air Craft carriers were capital ships. Thus of the Axis powers only Japan had capital ships.
Big part of the reason the Axis lost the war.
No one really knows for sure about that, especially once the U.S. entered the war after Pearl Harbor. The battle of Stalingrad ended in February of '43, so it's anybody's guess what would have happened. That division he sent to Greece may have been decimated by the Russians just as easily. And even if he had managed to take parts of Russia, he would have never been able to conquer the whole territory quickly. There were no guarantees for Hitler when it came to Russia.
A good case made here concerning these ‘pocket battleships’ but over in the Pacific, the same calculus would apply IN SPADES to the IJN’s (Japanese Imperial Navy) giants, Yamato & Musashi. Both ships cost Imperial Japan resources that, in 20/20 hindsight, should have gone into aircraft carriers and/or defending cruisers.
Ironically, Japan PROVED the case against these powerful ships when operating away from friendly air cover. The same UK Battleship that had the first fight with the Bismark [May 1941], HMS Prince of Wales, was now stationed at besieged Singapore on 08 December of the same year. It was the major unit of a six ship force to move against the Japanese Imperial Navy (Task Force Z). The force commander declined RAF support, thinking his advanced ack-ack would be sufficient. On the 10th of December, a single torpedo made a lucky hit that doomed this ship and its battlecruiser companion, HMS Repulse, when they were slowed and succumbed to an increased air attack.
Billy Mitchell, already 4 years dead, had his proof, air power had sunk the battleships!
“At the time, only Yamamoto and Halsey understood the extent to which the day of the large capital ships had passed.”
There were other aviation admirals, but essentially you’re right. It’s clear in hindsight that the day of the battleship had passed, but the shape of carrier aviation was built in the interwar years where the weapons payload was insufficient, accurate bomb aiming required new dive bombing tactics, and the range of the aircraft was short. Events during the war stripped off quite a few battleships when there already weren’t enough of them to fill all the tactical needs (read Washington Naval Treaty). Carriers, ready or not, had to fill the gaps.
Early carrier actions like Coral Sea are almost inept on both sides. Well, slightly less inept on the Japanese side. Even Midway had a “come as you are” feel to it.
U.S. tanks were repaired in the field. Hitler has no such repair capabilities set in place for his tanks.
Agreed, the pilots training and hard practice was way overrated and a waste of valuable time.
Hitler was a waste. The strategic waste wasn't the Bismarck, it was Barbarossa, or more broadly, his war of conquest itself. Had the silly bastard not wanted to re-fight WWI and win, Germany would have wound up economically and politically dominating Eurasia and ultimately der veldt, orbiting astronauts by 1940, a lunar base by 1960, then on to Mars by the mid-1970s. The world (other than the victims of the Holocaust and the millions killed in combat or as its consequence) got off light.
[True, but irrelevant - Hitler could not avoid declaring war on the US. He would have lost face if - as he expected, based on publicly leaked Rainbow plans - the US declared war on him. First.]
Re: Hitler: His military experience stopped at Corporal.
Even though the Tirpiz did not directly sink ships, the vast amounts of recources that the Brits used to try to kill it off and of course the scattering of a Russia bound convoy were a lot of ships were lost still count.
God helps those that help themselves...............
God helps those that help themselves...............
To me the amazing thing about the carrier story in WWII is the story of carrier numbers.
The Japanese had 10 carriers in 1941. We had 7.
At the end of the war, we had something like 95 (counting some smaller escort “carriers”) or 70 (counting only the larger ones).
Although the Battle of Midway deserves to be called The Day The Japanese Lost the War, and though the Americans who fought and died at Midway deserve all the praise and honor we can heap on them... the fact is, even without Midway, those 95 carriers would have totally destroyed the Japanese Navy.
I have a question that I’ve always wondered about and want to ask here: was the island-hopping really necessary? We DID destroy the Japanese Navy. Couldn’t we have just skipped a bunch of islands (including the Phillipines) and only taken those close enough to Japan to enable our heavy, island-based bomber force to launch bombing runs against Japan?
Just a question I’ve always wondered about, not trying to start an argument.
But it seems likely to me that an extra division would have changed Stalingrad from a loss to a win.
“Hitler scrimped on resources for Rommel”
I rather think the Royal Navy (Taranto) and RAF had something to do with that. The Germans were relying on the Italian Navy and merchant fleet to move the tonnage that Rommel needed each month. Neither was up to the task. The Afrika Corps was was basically only 3 divisions plus the Italian contingent. And for all their efforts the Luftwaffe & the Italian merchantmen were unable to keep them re-supplied.
There is also the lack of port capacity along the coast of North Africa. Rommel rolled the dice to capture Alexandria long after he had lost the capacity to do so. All his supplies were coming from Tunis, hundreds of miles to his rear. None of the ports between Tunis & Alexandria could handle the tonnage.
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