Need some help with 3 hisotry questions.

One reason I kept suggesting where to look and methods rather than answers at least initially.

 

I suppose if the Battle of Pearl Harbor started the Pacific war, then it's reasonable to assume that the Battles of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were equally important in bringing it to a close.....

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Who are the nice guys who spend time and neurones and do not get a "thank you" for their efforts?
Martin, I caught you doing homework again, I thought you said you wouldn't do it any more

 

You know what they say - there's no fool like an old fool.....

 

I think we get caught doing the homework by the fact that we sometimes find the questions interesting and just want to answer if we know, or find out what it is if we don't! That's my excuse anyway.

 

You are too kind Michelle, next time my kids don't want to do their homework they will ask you and Martin

 

All right since we are doing this ungrateful topic 'which is the greatest'(battle,general,etc..) here's MHO.
If we take that European war was more important,more intense and globally more significant(as contemporary statesman agreed),and if we take into account the magnitude of battle and forces,three battles are Moskwa,Stalingrad and Kursk.
If we are to take it relatively,to cover all theaters and disregard the magnitude,then Battle for Britain,Moskwa,and Midway.
If I'm to choose my personal favorites for the thrill,unpredictability,importance and unexpected outcome of battles,than,Moskwa,Midway,Stalingrad.
Pearl Harbor even though a momentous historic event still didn't bring the Clingon Empire into the war,but the US.With that analogy we could say that most important battle in Europe was German destruction of Soviet armies in Byalistock salient on22.June 1941...US most important victory is Midway(especially dear to me because it was a rare occasion when the Americans were the underdogs and not prepared to win the battle with it's vastly superior forces).

 

I think strong cases can be made for the BOB and Moscow and as I've stated before PH. It's less clear to me that Midway, Stalingrad, or Kursk were the most important. In reverse order.

The Germans were loosing prior to Kursk they were unlikely to turn things around at Kursk and the Soviets launchd some operations (battles if you will) shortly afterward that arguably had greater effect.

Looking at Stalingrad - what happens if the Germans win? They are still overextended and now have to cross a river to continue their offensive. The writing is on the wall and like Kursk win or loose the battle they aren't going anywhere.

Midway has some of the same effects. IE win or loose the battle the Japanese still aren't going to win the war. However if the US looses big at Midway it may make the Germany first strategy even harder for the American (and Australian) public to support so it may have it's biggest effects in Europe.

Looking at the BOB if the British somehow manage to loose and are taken out of the war the effects are tremendous. However the British plan simply would not have allowed that to happen.

The battle of Moscow may indeed be the best candidate. If the Soviets loose Moscow it has drastic effects on thier rail net and may have significant effects on moral perhaps even resulting in a coup vs Stalin if he survives the battle.

 

So we agree about Moskwa(Moscow),that leaves BOB,Midway,Stalingrad and Kursk.
If Battle for Britain was lost(which still doesn't mean the island would be occupied,for it is an amphibious operation and the air battle doesn't necessarily decide it) and Britain was occupied,I'm almost sure Churchill wouldn't surrender.They would easily evacuate part of the army,gold reserves,machine tools for key war industries like airplanes,all key personnel(from cipher teams to essential workmen to pilots or scientists) ,what is left of fleet and airforce to let's say Canada and continue war effort from there relying on huge colonial empire for raw materials,manpower and much more.British Empire and its Commonwealth would not be beaten by occupation of British island.Hitler would pay a nasty price for a relatively small island with few natural resources.
Midway IMO would be a great danger for US if they lost.If last part of Pacific fleet was lost,Hawaii would be defenseless and taken,so later it would be nearly impossible do dislodge the Japs from their stubbornly defended perimeters without a single base to support the advance.Any fleet attempting to do so would be in great peril.Also Australia would be cut off and soon invaded.
If Stalingrad campaign was won by Germans it would have a disastrous consequences for the Soviets.First we must define what does it mean to win the Stalingrad campaign..For me it means to capture southern Russia,Azerbaidan,Armenia,Georgia and with it 3/4 of Soviet Unions oil production.Also it means contact with Turkey(which might be persuaded to join the war),Iran and weekly defended British controlled oil fields of middle east.Japan,I read somewhere allegedly promised Germany that if Blau was successful would attack SU from Manchuria. If it doesn't mean all this than at least rapid victory or isolation of the city and cutting oil supply lines from the south.Then panzer and mobile formations would be freed and could be kept in reserve waiting to counter attack Soviet breakthrough attempt.The latter were still clumsy and unsophisticated at the time and would result in catastrophic losses and demise of Red Army's shock power if met by powerful counter attacks.Also lack of three quarters of oil supply would seriously set back Soviet war effort.But if you ment victory as capture of heap of rubble that Stalingrad was, I agree that than it's meaningless and was practically done in reality..
If Citadelle succeeded and destroyed forces in Kursk bulge it would mean much trouble for the Soviets.Perhaps worst trouble would be preservation of German armored reserves which would allow von Manstein to conduct his notorious elastic defense with potentially decisive losses inflicted upon the Russians.Still I agree that Russians would still win the war even though much harder.Point is that before Kursk Germany already could not defeat Russia,but Russia could still fail in defeating the Reich.

 

Loss of Midway presume loss of fleet.After that I don't see what could save Hawaii from the Japs.If U're counting on ground forces on the islands..well,I just wouldn't be very optimistic.

 

Wake Island gave the Japanese a "moment of pause" for 2 weeks of fighting the Japanese lost 800 men and 2 destroyers a dozen or so planes either shot down or damaged. It was the first "toe to toe shooting match" and the Japanese almost lost.

I would classify Pearl Harbor as more of an "Event" than a "Battle", I would say the same about Doolittle's Raid, Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

I would compromise and agree that the events between 7 Dec. 1941 and 9 April 1942 as the same "Battle" and were completely defensive in nature.

Guadalcanal, 7 August 1942, would easily represent a shift to "Offensive Operations" and the beginning of the Island Hopping Campaign.

It's just my opinion though and I don't feel that it is more right than anyone else's.

Brad

 

The Japanese were already over extended. It's not even clear they had the logistics capabiltiy to launch an invasion of Hawaii at that point in time even without the intervention of the US fleet. PH would have had a very potent air component by the time the Japanese could have gotten there. Then there is the sheer number of ships the US built that start showing up in 43.

You've gone from a battle to a campaign. The fall of Stalingrad isn't going to lead to the fall of everything in the South west of the Urals.

The Soviets had several offenses ready to go it just means that the advance in that area is slowed a bit. Even if the Germans succeeded their armored reserves would have been gone at least for a while. Indeed the effort required to win the battle may have cost them even more casualties although a lot of the vehicle losses might have been repairable.

 

Indeed they did loose on the first try. I'd agree an important battle however I don't see it having a huge impact if it goes the other way.

That's not an unreasonable position.

It also was as or more important in breaking the back of Japanese air power than Midway was. I'm pretty sure the Japanese lost more pilots and air crew vs the 'canal than they did at Midway. Probably more planes as well.

I think the real value of this sort of thread is finding out why someone thinks a given event was important.

 

I would say that Stalingrad was the turning point of WW2 over Kursk. Taking the city with minimal losses and at the very least, reaching the oilfields and defending there would greatly hinder the Soviets and strengthen the German position.

Even if a "Kiev" sized pocket was formed after Kursk, the German Panzer divisions still had to fight millions more of the enemy and would be totally exhausted right after this operation. So winning the Eastern front even with a total Kursk victory is not perfectly likely.

And Kursk is the last operation where the German deployed large numbers of highly trained troops-it was the last of their professional force.

 

But taking the city doesn't mean that the force the Soviets used in the counter attack that cut off the Germans is destroyed. It may mean that it falls on a German force that is even more strung out and exposed with even fewer supplies. Victory at Stalingrad also doesn't mean they get to the oilfields.

 

The Soviets did not have sufficient counterattacking mobile forces to bring about the defeat of the fresh 6th Army in the summer of 1942. It would take the soviets until early winter to produce their first substantial assault force.

Do you remember Operation Mars, the precursor to Uranus that involved a similar amount of men and material? The soviets gathered this offensive force and unleashed it on Nov. 25th. It failed miserably and the offensive force was ground into dust with correspondingly very few German losses.

And this failed against a smaller and greatly weakened German force.

Even if the victorious and only slightly damaged German force defends the city against a Soviet attack, the Soviets would fail, miserably and even more so than the Soviet mobile forces at the 3rd battle of Kharkov. But Stalingrad is presumably over by late summer of 1942 so this scenario would not occur.

Second, the Germans, once they take Stalingrad, will be in their element once again in open field combat. This of course depends on how serious their personnel and material losses are and whether their logistical support is enough to supply another firepower for the next assault. But it is presumably late summer and they have until the end of fall to fight.

 

So the Germans were going to stop at Stalingrad? Winning also doesn't mean that they don't take significant losses there.

Then come the Soviet offenses. It's not clear that the Germans will be in any better position to stop them. Indeed they might be in a worse position. Now if they dug in after taking Stalingrad and switched over to the defense along at least a good portion of the line then maybe things are different but that doesn't seam consistent with the German behavior to date.

 

No, I'm saying that the already greatly weakened 6th Army annihilated Operation Mars with only the loss of 40,000 German troops. Even if the Soviets had large offensive forces in the summer of 1942, they would fail miserably against the fresh German 6th Army. Soviet operation Uranus would most certainly be chopped up along with Mars.

A quick defeat of Soviet forces in Stalingrad would presumably be the result of far lower German casualties, just like the urban fighting in other conquered Russian cities.