Barbarossa is well planned & executed, much like the sickle cut was.

Wrong :what he passed to Japan had almost no value and it is possible (or even probable) that he was a double-agent working for MI5/MI6.

If he was a traitor, he would have been arrested, prosecuted and condemned .As he was not arrested, not prosecuted and not condemned, the conclusion must be that he was not a traitor . The public prosecutor would have a terrible job to prove that Sempil was a traitor .

And passing before the war information to Germany,or an other country was not prohibited unless the information was classified as secret and the person in question has signed the Official Secret Acts .

 

Why the hell do you think MI5 and 6 would waste years and agents surveiling an innocent, influential man and take his case to Churchill, if they were not convinced that he was a traitor and had plenty of evidence?

Like I said, had he not been a lord, his case would not have even arrived in Churchill's hands, he would have been shot. A better man, less respectul of blue blood would have shot Sempil and sacked Mountbatten after Dieppe.

 

Guys,
This variant of the battle for Russia has started on February 25 and now, after a month of bitter confrontations you have stalled at Crete, in the middle of the Mediterranean. Hurry up guys - you are running out of time.

 

Influential ??

Prove it .


Besides , Dieppe was a success,although the losses were higher than expected .

 

Do you know what is the house of lords? Perhaps you think that a poet is more influential.

It what sense was DIeppe a success?
if not as practice and morale booster for the LW and WM? All it taught the allies is that if after 3 years of being trounced, you execute a pointless operation, planned by an idiot, with ridiculous naval support against coastal guns and with enemy air superiority, you are trounced yet again.

Dieppe certainly did not boost British or Canadian morale and aggressiveness. There could not have been a worse waste of men, planes, landing craft, tanks, time, munitions, fuel, etc, to gain less or inflict less damage on the enemy. Those resources would have been invaluable if used in Sardinia and Corsica, together with those from Madagascar (2 fleet carriers and a large fleet) and Pedestal (4 carriers, 2 battleships and a huge fleet,) at the time. Instead of boosting axis morale in Dieppe, the loss of Sardinia and Corsica in August 1942 would have ruined Italian morale and worried Hitler a lot, forcing him to occupy Vichy France and reinforce the Med coast, which he simply had not the resources to do, while losing men by the thousands every day in the USSR. The rapid fall of Mussolini would have reduced the number of Italians in the USSR, spreading German forces thinner and the capitulation of Italy would have forced Hitler to occupy Italy earlier, further spreading his forces thin in France and the USSR.

The idea that a miserably failed raid provided invaluable knowledge for D-day is a phalacy (much like NASA inventing velcro, teflon or Tang, with which it had nothing to do, but was good propaganda to justify burning billions of dollars). D-day did not benefit at all from Dieppe and succeeded only because of colossal naval artillery, 14,000 planes and tens of thousands of airborne troops. Actually, Dieppe forced the Germans (and provided them years) to reinforce Normandy enormously, making D-day more difficult than if it had never taken place.
In contrast, capturing weak Sardinia around the time of Dieppe would have taken Hitler's attention away from the Atlantic and the uSSR and focused it on Italy.

 

The word I believe you are looking for is "fallacy".

Otherwise, the rest of the post was rather limp. Not very phallic at all.

 

the aim of Dieppe was to send an armed force to occupied France (something that succeeded),to hold this force as long as possible on the coast (which succeeded) and to bring this force back to Britain (which succeeded)

 

About Sempill:he became a Scottish Representative peer in 1935,at that moment the Lords had lost all power and the House of Lords was called the museum of the living deaths . And there are no proofs that Sempil ever opened his mouth when he was a Representative Peer ;

 

Orders like hold the coast as long as possible are meaningless. A goal is definite. As long as possible (1 second?) is not definite, It cannot be attained or not attained. Besides, the allies did not hold any coast, they were massacred before and after they landed.
Wasting over 3,000 men, 100 planes, a destroyer, 33 LC, tanks, etc, fighting just 1,500 Germans, killing 311, destroying 48 planes (only 23 FW, 25 Do 217) and sinking a sub chaser is a most tragic and pointless debacle. Just the 64 Spitfires lost or rather wasted fighting at the edge of their range, would have been invaluable fighting in Sardinia (where there were no FW 190 at the time) after the capture of the 1st airfield.

Although there were 10 destroyers in Dieppe, only six provided preliminary bombardment with 4" guns! I can imagine the Germans laughing at such incompetence.
Although the Germans were known to have a lot of fighters which could be deployed rapidly in Dieppe and although there was ridiculous naval artillery, incredibly, RAF provided only 8 squadrons of bombers, which included Boston (so inferior to the best British twin engine bombers and the B-25 or 26, that most were sent to the USSR, like the P-39). Why the hell send so few and inferior bombers, when planes can deliver the only massive munitions, RAF fighters have a limited combat time over Dieppe and when LW fighters can more easily deal with a few bombers?
Its hilarious that Churchill wanted the green Americans to get experience, wasting months in useless Africa, attacking the French and then the axis, but he sent a large, completely green, force straight into a fortified port, with atrong LW and supported by a few inferior RN destroyers (not even those with 4.7" guns and stronger AAA) and Boston.
Those tanks, LC, destroyers, bombers, fighters, transports, Canadians, rangers, commandoes, etc, would have been far more useful and much safer invading weak Sardinia and Corsica. together with the forces wasted in Madagascar (where disease killed more men than the Malagasy and Senegalese troops) and Pedestal. Sardinia would alse have been a good opportunity to use the excellent British landing ships, which were not used in Dieppe.

 

If they were formidable then why the issues you point out? If their magazines "ran out of shells" where did the additional rounds come from? The RN was hardly "trounced and kicked out of Crete". They actually acquitted themselves quite well although there were some communication issue that caused more losses than were necessary.

 

I specified that the gun magazines were small and rapidly ran out of shells, so they had to manhandle shells for the main magazine, quite a ways from the guns.
The AAA cruisers were quite expensive and had a lot of guns, the gun magazines, however were poorly designed. For the first minutes (while the gun magazines supplied the guns) AAA fire was quite formidable. However, sustained attacks rapidly depleted the gun magazines.

A similar situation to RN fleet carriers, quite expensive, good size and speed and well built, but rendered inferior by deploying in them outdated, slow Swordfish and Albacore biplanes and Skua and Fulmar (a twin seat, single engine fighter) years into the war. Only in 1942 did the fleet deploy useful Sea Hurricane and Wildcat in useful quantities. In contrast, even the minute Audacity performed quite well against Condor and U-boat during its short life, deploying a few Wildcats early in the war.

Little common sense trumped otherwise large budgets and good ship design.

How can a large force with AA and field artillery in Crete acquit itself well, trounced (repeatedly outflanked) by a small airborne force with a few light rifles for artillery and with limited supplies and air support (most of the planes were busy trouncing the RN). They performed so poorly that the small force, which arrived later saved them by covering their retreat (those performed well). They had to reinforce a lost force, to save many of them.
The top doomed everything by first evacuating all the planes, then refusing the commander's request to disable the empty airfields (which were very useful to the Germans) and finally by sending too late a few Hurricanes without informing AAA in Crete, so they (which were only seeing German planes for days) shot most Hurricanes down.

 

So what I get from this is that you don't know what you are talking about. Ready rounds are not stored in magazines.

Since you mention one was sunk of Crete just what ship are you talking about. I thought perhaps it was a Dido class CL but I don't see any of them being sunk off Crete by aircraft. Bonaventure was torpedoed by an Italian sub but you can't fault AA ammo handling in that case with any degree of rationality. Furthermore a quick look at navweapons does not support your claims.

 

Inferior to what? Are you suggesting that crippling Bismarck and a good portion of the Italian fleet was "useless"?

 

Now you are demonstrating that your reading comprehension is sub par as well. Or maybe you can tell me how man field artillery pieces the RN had during the Crete campaign? The British army did indeed have some AA guns, 8 3" guns and 20 40mm guns as well as a battery of 20mm guns not very many for the whole island was it? Note also that about a third of the British troops had no weapons at all and well over half of them were without heavy equipment having been evacuated from the mainland. There field guns were bit of hash as well less than 90 guns many captured Italian pieces without sights not. It would be interesting to know just how much ammo they had for them as well. The British were also lacking the transport to make the guns or indeed the infantry very mobile. The threat of landings both air and sea also tied up a significant number of British troops. All in all your conclusions are hardly justified.

 

Please read my statement again, it does not state at all that the RN had field pieces. The only mention of the RN refers to LW planes being busy trouncing the RN, so they could not support airborne troops adequately.
When thousands of British have guns and kill thousands of Germans, those without guns (if they do not panic) either take the guns of their fallen comrades or from fallen or captured Germans (standard practice in the USSR in 1941 and 42) or from shot down planes.
Even Greek civilians fought without guns, killing many Germans. Poorly supplied paratroopers are more vulnerable than infantry after a few hours.

 

I said that the RN deported themselves well. Your reply was with regards to this statement. So either you were saying that they had equipment they didn't have or you were padding your counter with completely irrelevant information.

The thousands that didn't have guns were already awaiting evacuation before the Germans attacked. They weren't near the battlefields so it's rather hard for them to pick up the weapons of fallen combatants not many planes were falling near them either nor is it quick/easy to convert an aircraft machine gun to ground mount and of course there are ammo issues. What you propose are tactics of desperation.

You have already convinced us you don't know what you are talking about, there's really no need for you to continue to do so.

 

That is a lame excuse, if you're ordered to hold at any cost, you forget about evacuating and redeploy the people where the fighting is taking place. After all there are no enemy tanks, fieldguns, etc, and only limited enemy supplies. In contrast the British have a good port, where they can deliver guns, supplies and reinforcements (rather than the military band, etc, that they delivered) at night. If a soldier dies defending the port, another one takes his place and gun.
It is a similar situation to Malaya, but without tanks and warships and enemy supplies and reinforcement by sea.
Under similar orders Soviet commanders would have used every person and warship, including sailors, civilians (to dig trenches, prepare machine gun nests, etc, and to fight). The British appear to have been more used to evacuation and surrender than to fighting to the end. Greek civilians stood their ground better with knives and farm implements, but were massacred after the British evacuated and surrendered.

 

I'd like to see a source for your "hold at any cost" order. In any case one simply doesn't throw away trained men for little or no gain. As for delivering reinforcements, guns, and supplies; where are these to come from? As it is the position in North Africa was damaged by sending troops to Greece. Are they to throw away North Africa in an attempt to hold Crete? Especially since Crete can't be held if they loose North Africa? The whole arming yourself with the weapons of the fallen is very questionable. It can sort of work if your forces are advancing. It doesn't work at all if you are falling back. Even if you are just defending a position it's a good way to loose more people for little gain.

 

The AA cruiser Calcutta, a converted C class, was sunk June 1, 1941 while covering the evacuation from Crete. Since this was a reuse of a WWI-era ship, I would say it was more economical than expensive. The converted cruisers - eight Cs and Delhi - shot down almost 1/3 of all aircraft credited to British cruisers in WWII - 31 of 97 - mostly by the original six which included Calcutta.

The other type sometimes referred to as AA cruisers are the Dido class, but I have never heard that they were more expensive than other warships of the time - anyone?

Exhaustion of AA ammunition was an issue for the fleet off Crete, most often cited with regard to the loss of the 6" cruisers Gloucester and Fiji.

 

http://www.my-crete-site.co.uk/freyberg.htm
THe NZ prime minister's message to Churchill.
"My government is of opinion that our troops should either be supplied with sufficient means to defend the island or that decision that Crete must be held at all costs should be reviewed."

This is regarding the fact that there were no planes, few guns, etc and that half the NZ div was in Egypt and half in Crete.

Isn't it funny how despite having 7 months to reinforce and prepare vital Crete for defense, idiotic Churchill sent a small expeditionary force to Greece, with ridiculous air support, sent part of O´Connor's successful Indian force from Libya all the way to IEA, which was isolated, unimportant and innocuous (much lower priority than Crete). He also withdrew the few planes from Crete, but Wavell prevented destruction of the airfields.

Churchill also sent a large force to invade strongly defended neutral Syria, shortly after more important Crete fell.

There were British, Indian, Free French, Polish, etc, troops in Britain, Cyprus (much less inportant than Crete), Palestine, Egypt, Jordan, Lybia (Benghazi, Bardia and Tobruk were much less important than Crete), etc, and 7 months to deploy them, install Radar, deploy the planes wasted hopelessly in Greece.

A small, well trained and equipped force was sent to Crete, but only when it was too late to defned and barely in time to support evacuation. As I commented, a hardly desperately needed military band was also sent.

I find it hillarious that Churchill expected a few planes and divisions to stop the axis in Greece and that he used divisions to promptly liberate Ethiopia, British Somalia, etc, instead of using them to secure valuable, defensible Crete.

Freyberg asked for evacuation of 10,000 men, who had no weapons and nothing to do in Crete, instead of putting them to work preparing defenses, training, etc,

It's also rather funny that the US had sent lots of small arms and ammo to Britain in 1940 (when British forces lost their small arms in France and Belgium and feared invasion) and that Britain captured enormous amounts pf rifles, NGs, cannon, ammo, tanks, in Egypt and LIbya from the italians and that Britian produced lots of subMG, Brent guns, rifles, mortars, etc, even Australia has sent large amounts of .303 ammo to Britian in 1940, yet few or none of those arrived in invaluable Crete.. So 10,000 men had no guns and 1,000 Greeks had to use 1880's rifles.