Top 5 biggest mistakes

Different standards, I would say. For the Allies, the priority is a matter of reducing losses of human life and material in their quest to destroy the Axis. For the Axis, I consider almost everything they did after 1941 to be a political and strategic blunder. ie. The Germans had a great defensive victory in Kharkov 1942 but it was still a blunder in the grand scheme of things for them as they still expending great amounts of national resources in their hopeless attempt to conquer Russia.

 

Hello Wolfy,

What does the fact: of loosing battles due to being outnumbered in almost every aspect such as the Wehrmacht towards the end of 1942?

have to do with mistakes?

It wasn't a mistake or a blunder on behalf of military leadership to my understanding that the Wehrmacht lost and retreated from Dezember 1942 onward - but a mathematical and logical consequence.

Even if Hitler had not gotten himself involved e.g. Kursk, and the Wehrmacht might have won this battle - then some month later they would have lost another one instead.

Germany was outnumbered and inferior in any aspect at the end of 1942 and onward. No matter how smart they would or could have been.

Regards
Kruska

 

Good point, I hadn't thought of that

 

Nation: Germany
Blunder: Invasion of Poland, September 1939
Explanation: By the time the invasion of Poland began, Germany had already annexed Austria and most of Czechoslovakia virtually for free. Hitler was hoping for no war to commence until at least 1945. With this free land came living space, industrial capabilities and manpower to bulk up Germany’s military assets before he could risk war with anyone. Especially with stagnant England and USSR not gearing up for war and modernizing their militaries. Hitler basically jumped the gun, and invading Poland proved to be a gamble he lost, poking the hornet’s nest one time too many and Germany was brought into war much sooner then hoped.

Nation: Germany
Blunder: Too few U-Boats, And no upgrades
Explantion: England is an Island nation, heavily dependant on sea carried resources. A naval blockade is often a prime tactic against such a foe. Both Adm. Doenitz (Commander of Germany’s U-Boat fleet) and Adm. Raeder (Commander of the entire Kreigsmarine) agreed on a minimum of 300 U-Boats to succeed with a naval blockade. Even restrains on neutral shipping to England, there was enough legitimate targets to sink to force the U.K. to it’s knees by mid 1940 and force a surrender had there been 100 U-Boats at sea at any given time hunting for merchant shipping. The U-Boat fleet was not ungraded until late in the war and U-Boat production was also very late, by the time the boats needed were being mass produced, they were already obsolete. While the Allies were able to stay in the war and improve their technology. German technology was held up by an excessive amount of bureaucracy influenced delays, So advanced technology simply came too late.

Nation: United States
Blunder: Too few Fleet Submarines
Explanation: In a similar position as Germany at war with Great Britain. The United States found the bulk of their surface Pacific fleet destroyed after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour. With their obsolete battleships destroyed, Their submarine bases were surprisingly untouched. Despite these developments few resources were devoted to the submarine, 40 Gato Class Submarines could be made with the same resources used to build and maintain 1 Battleship. With Japan’s general backwardness in anti-submarine warfare and the poor structure of their ocean travel, The United States could have stopped the Japaneses much sooner with a lot less bloodshed with an effective naval blockade by having an armada of submarines hunting in the vast pacific ocean.

Nation: United States / Britain/ Canada
Blunder: D-Day. June 6th 1944
Explanation: Hitler’s absolute control and interference within the Wehrmacht was reducing their fighting capabilities to shambles. As time went, Hitler would have been forced to devoted more troops from the Western Front to the Eastern Front as the Russians pushed very quickly towards the German mainland.. Leaving the Normandy Coast very thinly defended. With the Atlantic and the Mediterranean in Allied control with the U-Boat all but defeated. The Allies had carte blanc to land where they wished. And the much more poorly defended Italy would have been a better choice as well as having almost direct access to Germany.

Nation: United States
Blunder: Atomic Bombings August 6th & 8th 1945
[FONT=&quot]Explanation: Absolutely unnecessary in the position the United States was in. Japan literally had nothing left. Their entire country bombed to shambles, The United States Navy literally surrounding the Japanese mainland, Nothing was getting or out without having to go through U.S. Navy craft. Essentially succeeding in what the Germans had failed to do with England. Furthermore the targets for the Atomic bombs were of no military value. Troops would not be needed to land on the Japanese mainland as with Japan being surrounded, blockaded and their manufacturing in total shambles. They would have been forced to surrender or starve to death. All the Americans had to do at this point was wait them out. Unfortunately the die was cast and it led to the hostile tensions of the subsequent cold war.[/FONT]

 

I agree. Market Garden was a set-back, but it hardly qualifies as one of the greatest mistakes of the war.
In fact it was the least costly in in terms of casualties suffered of the Allied set-backs suffered during late 1944 in the European campaign.

There were three major campaigns in this period, the Lorraine(Metz) campaign under Patton, Hurtgen Forest under Bradley, and MG under Monty.
All three campaigns saw some success, they all gained ground, but they all ended the same way, with a solidification of the German defensive lines, ending any hope of a quick end to the war.
In human terms, Market Garden cost the Allies a total of approximately 17,200 casualties. Hurtgen Forest 32,000, and the Lorraine Campaign 52,182 battle casualties plus another 42,088 non battle casulties (fatigue, exposure and disease).

 

You are correct, Germany was stabbed in the back.
It was stabbed in the back by its own military leadership, who informed the Kaiser that the war was lost on the battlefield and that he must seek peace. After the civilian politicians had arranged the armistice, the military high command then turned around and heaped all the blame on the civilian government, washing their hands of all responsibility for the defeat their incompetence had brought about

 

Germany 1)believing that the UK was bluffing and attack Poland (but under the circumstances it was rational to believe they were bluffing ) 2)big ships instead of submarines 3)V1 + V2 instead of anti-aircraft rockets 4) no declaration of liberating the peoples of the USSR from communism at the start of Barbarossa 5) no capitulation after the success of Overlord (on the other hand:Hitler capitulating ?) 6)Failures of the plans to eliminate Hitler (but,even without Hitler,could they win ) USSR :failure of the winter offensive UK :Churchill's stop order to Wavell and instead sending (to little) reinforcements to Greece UK + France:not sending troops to Poland as signal to Hitler that war with Poland =war with UK and France Japan:not istauring convoy ( but had they the ships to protect the convoys ?)

 

1. German failure to devote enough resources to developing the atomic bomb first.
2. Luftwaffe's failure to recognize the importance of Britain's "chain home" radar system and destroy it during the Battle of Britain.
3. Wasting the Kriegsmarine's resources on fancy but worthless battleships instead of building more u-boats during 1940-1941 (which would have strangled Britain).
4. Barbarossa: even Hitler as much as admitted his mistake (at one point he even said to Guderian, "If i had known they had as many tanks as they did, i would have thought twice about invading.")
5. Hitler declaring war on the US. (there was no reason for him to do so, even according to the Axis agreements between Japan and Germany, and not declaring war on the US might have bought Hitler at least another 6 months).

 

That was more of a failure in terms of German intelligence. The Germans believed that British radar facilities were underground rather than above and removed radar towers from their target lists.

I doubt Britain would have been strangled. Building big battleships did indeed hurt the German economy and resources. The absurd "Z Plan" called for a navy of 365 ships, including 6 battleships and 4 aircraft carriers by 1944. A Navy estimate of mobilization requirements for the Z Plan dated 31 December 1938 called for 6,000,000 tons of oil, plus 2,000,000 tons of diesel fuel. This was higher than the total German oil consumption for 1938, and three times higher than German oil production for the year.

 

I'm not disagreeing completely here "marc780", but in some of the details perhaps.

1. Hitler knew little to nothing of science himself, and considered the field of physics to be (overall), a "Jew Science" anyway since in large part they dominated the field in Europe. Added to that his lead theoretical physicist, Noble Laureate Werner Heisenberg, assured him in late 1939 that the war would be long over before any nation could or would devote the time and money to making an explosive atomic device.

2. The Chain Home system was notoriously difficult to "knock out", the Nazis failing to do so may be a combination of their mis-reading radar’s worth, and the tough targets the system was.

3. The Nazis should probably have devoted more material toward the U-boat construction, but they could have never "starved" Britain. They might have been able to deter/slowdown its production of war material and weapons, but they could never "starve" Britain. The British diet would have been even more bland than it was, but it would have been far from starvation rations. If you mean "starve the manufacturing base", then I agree.

4. Barbarossa: I agree, but a minor point, that was said to Mannerheim during his meeting with him in Finland, not Guderian.

5. This was an error on Hitler's part, however the fact that he was not required to do so isn’t in play here really. This declaration allowed him to stop attempting to avoid sinking American flagged ships (which he had been doing), and allowed him to order his own Kriegsmarine to start shooting at and sinking American ships where-ever they were spotted. Which ironically ties in with your #3 concerning interdicting shipping to the British Isles. Incidentally, that order oncerning American ships went out the same evening he was formally requested to declare war on the USA by the Japanese ambassador; Dec. the 8th, three days before he instructed his own ambassador in DC to deliver the declaration of war on the USA.

 

Concerning Radar:the importance is much exagerated :when the german aircraft were behind radar,there was no mean to know their direction,speed,height :the radar could no look back

 

Of course, we are talking about rudimentary radar systems, but what they did do was provide the RAF crucial extra minutes to get into the air and precise coordinates to meet the oncoming German planes.

 

1. Hitler attacking Russia.
2. Goerings failure to destroy the RAF.
3. Yamamoto underestimating US forces at Midway.
4. Montgomery and "Market Garden".
5. Hitler "Ignoring" his Generals.

 

I wouldn't blame it all on Goering. British radar, faulty German intelligence, and British industrial power certainly had just as much of an impact if not more than Goering's change of strategy.

How did this affect the outcome of the war?

I would also say there was much more to the Japanese defeat than not believing carriers were in the area. Nagumo made some key strategic blunders.

 

You could even go so far as saying that Hitler invading the USSR wasn't a mistake. Since it is said that Hitler was well aware that communist Russia was eventually going to invade Germany so it could have been seen as a preemptive strike.

Tzu Sun teaches that preemptive strikes are the way to win wars, attack first while they are weak and unprepared, while your self are. This is in reality what Hitler did, he just like the many Generals throughout history found out, that the sheer territorial size of Russia is something never to underestimate nor their ecomical power, ot there sheer wieght of numbers. However even the last two examples do not gurantee victory since after all "You should never adance on sheer military power alone" as well as "numerical advantage confers no advantage. Tzu Sun.

 

1. Hitler shifting boming to the British Cities instead of finishing off the airfields and destroying the radar. The RAF was just not too far away away from capitulating.2. Germany's declaration of war with US.3. Germany's attacking Russia before total defeat of UK.4. Piecemeal attacks at Guadalcanal by stupid/arrogant japanese commanders.5. Operation Market Garden. Montgomery-what a pompous clown.Honerable mention:Hitler's wasting resources on the V2 instead of building a large amount of ME262's and a adequate submarine force to dominate the Atlantic.Stupid Japanese Banzi attacks.Lack of one sole commander of the 7th and 5th fleets at Leyte gulf.

 

Its not as simple as "Stop building this and start building this!" By the time the ME262 was geared for decent production. The Allies were knocking at Germany's door and factories were being leveled daily. Also with Submarines, it was somewhat of the same case; Germany's slave labour was really unlimited as long as Germany could support the slaves, and yet again the V-2 Rockets were largely made by slaves. German industrialists wouldnt trust Slaves with the making of U-Boats. Not to mention the ever dwindling amounts of U-Boat cadets to train.

"Your culture is stupid because I dont like it"- Thats basicly what I read. You cant call a very old cultural aspect stupid because it wasnt effective, that is bordeline ignorance.

 

I wasn’t calling the Japanese culture stupid. I don’t see how you can interpret my comment as that. A Banzi charge against US marines with machine guns is stupid. After the first time they were slaughtered doing this you would’ve thought they would have changed their tactics. But know, they did it throughout the Solomon’s. The banzi charge actually assisted the Marines in wiping the Japanese from the islands a little quicker than is they would not have had banzi charges. Look how long and how many casualties there were at Iwo. The commander there did away with the banzi charge.Hitler was obsessed with the V2 rocket and as a result the Me262 did not get the resources it should have. Were it to have got all the V2 resourced the war probably would have lasted another 6 months or more.IF more subs would have been built early in the war they could have isolated the US from most of the US supply convoys.