Top 5 biggest mistakes

Hello Devilsadvocate,

I think you are missing out the point that I tried to make with my earlier post.
The atomic solution was a political solution not a military solution based on loss figures.
Immediate Unconditional Surrender = Atomic solution
Unconditional Surrender = garanteeing the imunity of the Japanes emperor - and continuing negotiations for maybe 1-2 month.
The Japanese despite some hardliners in the cabinet knew that the war was lost and surrender was inevitable.

In contra conclusion to your mathematical cassualty approach: if millions of Japanese were expected to die in an ongoing conventional war, then why should those Japanese Kamikaze and Bushido freaks give in just because of some 50-70000 dead civilians??
They gave in because they were already willing to surrender. It was the uncertainty in regards to the Emperors imunity that delayed the surrender.

Regards
Kruska

 

the top 5 mistakes of the war by Germany were;
1. Wasting too much money and resources on building new weapons instead of continuing the Tiger I and Tiger II programme.
2. Attack on Russia and not properly helping the army attacking Stalingrad.
3. Attack on Britain.
4. Poor defences at Omaha and other key beaches.
5. Not attacking the armament and fighter aircraft factories in Battle of Britain.

 

I think most people, including myself, would argue that the real problem was wasting too much money and resources on the Tiger I, Tiger II, and other such heavy tanks, instead of producing more Panzer IVs, or even putting money to the research and production of the Me-262 earlier in the war.

 

Jagdtiger, i dont think that putting more money in the Tiger I and Tiger II projects was a wrong....bcoz the Tiger I and Tiger II tanks were deadly opponents for all the tanks available to the allied forces. They simply had no match for these monsters, the main problem was that these monsters needed an engine upgrade. Ya, Me-262 were also the worthy machines requiring resources.

 

I don't really want to get deeply into this as it has been discussed so many times before. But in summary, the Tiger I and II may have both been deadly tanks, but they were unreliable pieces of machinery which the Germans wasted countless hours and reichmarks on. The Tiger I's transmission was prone to breakdown if preventative maintenace was not carried out regularly; it needed a high level of general technical maintenance; ice tended to freeze on the interleaved road wheels; and it was extremely difficult to recover a disabled Tiger from the battlefield. Also, it was big and bulky, the turret transverse rates were much lower than lighter allied tanks, and it was too large for many small bridges the Germans would run into. Then there is th problem of money and time. The Tiger I took twice as long and twice as much money to produce as a Panther did (and the Panther wasn't exactly cheep). All of these problems carry over to the Tiger II in a much harsher fashion. Also to say the allies had nothing close to equal with these tanks is silly. The late model Shermans (M4A3 76 or the M4A3E8), the Sherman firefly, and the Pershing are some that come to mind right away which could easily handle at Tiger I.

 

oh....
[moderator note: sentence deleted due to content]
see the Tiger I was prone to breakdowns but not that much like its been said...
the main thing was there was no match for those 88mm High-Velocity tank killer guns, and the Sherman Firefly and the Pershing had also to come in hordes to attack any type of German Tiger or Tiger II tanks...

if u r the biggest boxer of the world and fighting against 6 boxers at the same time, they all gonna [beat] ya....

that means the Tiger I and 2 were deadly tanks in battle and needed much more funds and improvements...

 

First of all, I don't think Germany ever had a chance to win WW2. When they declared war on the US after Pearl, they were doomed.

I think the Tiger I was generally a worthwhile investment, particularily in 1943 but no so much in 1944. Both the Panther and Tiger were high maintenance vehicles. But it was the Panther, not the Tiger I that was the greater failure in 1943- the early models broke down so often that Panther battalions were often rendered combat ineffective.

The Tiger II was a marginally useful vehicle and its combat regard was generally unimpressive. It spent most of its combat career breaking down before contacting the enemy. Neither vehicle was particularily expensive for the Germany- the Panzer arm, in the aggregate, didn't consume that many productive resources (up to 10% of Germany's output).

It was the German Air force arm (fighters, two engined bombers, V-1,V-2 rockets, etc. when there was no fuel for any of them) which consumed up to half of Germany's output. This was tremendously wasteful since the Luftwaffe wasn't "worth a penny" by 1944.

 

That is simply not true. As tank killers the 17lber and US 90mm gun were on a par with the 88. If the Germans had built a lot more Tigers early on then there is a very good chance that a fair number of Shermans would have been built with 90mm guns. More may also have been built with 105's and the HEAT round for it present in greater quantities as well.

 

What else do you think they could have done? And what difference do you think it would have made?

Again what could they have reasonably done to build up the beaches more? And what difference would it make?

They did as much as they were able to. Many were out of reach at least of escorted bombers.

 

To claim that the Japanese leadership were ready to surrender prior to the atomic bombing is a gross misstatement of the facts. As Richard Frank has shown in his book "Downfall", the Japanese leadership were ready to negotiate an end to the war, but the terms they were insisting on hardly constituted a "surrender". In addition, there was no consensus among the Japanese leadership as to what those terms should be exactly. There were factions among the Japanese government which demanded different terms, the only common attribute being that almost all were patently unacceptable to the Allies. So negotiations could hardly have proceeded on any meaningful basis, even had the Allies been willing to accept something less than unconditional surrender.

The Allies were justified in demanding an unconditional surrender because that was the only way they could be sure of purging the Japanese polity of the influence of the militarists. To agree to a negotiated settlement would be to betray all those who had fought and died to ensure the destruction of militarism; and it would inevitably lead to another Pacific war in the next generation.

As for the status of the Emperor, the Americans never did guarantee the status of the Emperor to the satisfaction of the Japanese, as some have claimed. When the Japanese decided to accept the Potsdam Declaration, they requested one condition; that the Emperor would continue to exercise full rights as a sovereign ruler. The American reply came back that the Emperor would be subject to the orders of the Supreme Allied Commander in Japan; this was hardly an acknowledgment that Hirohito would "exercise full sovereignty", as requested. For example, the Supreme Allied Commander could have ordered Hirohito to stand trial as a war criminal without violating the surrender terms. That never happened, of course, but solely because the Emperor cooperated with the occupation and proved himself useful to the occupiers.

The Japanese militarists were arguing that the entire Japanese population should be committed to die in order to "win" the war, but that obviously made no sense, even to the Japanese. Only when it became clear (because of the atomic bombs) that millions of Japanese might very well die in a futile attempt to continue the war, did everyone come to realize that the militarists were no longer talking about a hypothetical and very unlikely "beau geste", but a very practical and grim reality. That reality, made possible by the atomic bomb, and only that reality, was what convinced the Japanese leadership that they had no choice but to accept unconditional surrender. As Frank points out, the Japanese civilians were not exactly without influence in the matter; their growing unrest and dissatisfaction with the Japanese government was beginning to be noticed by their leaders, and it was this factor, coupled with the impossibility of defending against the atomic bombs, that convinced Hirohito that the war must be ended on whatever terms the Americans demanded.

The militarists gave in because they realized that without the support of the civilian population they couldn't continue the war. This happened, not because of 70,000 dead civilians, but because of the potential for future attacks and the effect they would have on the public, which the militarists could see all too clearly, and against which they had no defense.

So the "mathematical" model, imposed by the atomic bombs, solved everyone's problems; it gave the Japanese militarists a way of saving some face, by claiming they weren't really defeated in battle, but by a technology against which they couldn't contend. It created a situation where the Japanese leadership were forced to acknowledge that their last desperate strategy, that of inflicting casualties on the Americans so horrendous that the American public would demand negotiations to end the war, was irrelevant. And it allowed a a quick end to the war which did not include the millions of casulaties that so haunted Truman and his advisers. I think it also treanscended the terms "political" and "military" because it accomplished both political and military objectives for those who created it.

 

Devilsadvocate
To claim that the Japanese leadership were ready to surrender prior to the atomic bombing is a gross misstatement of the facts. As Richard Frank has shown in his book "Downfall", the Japanese leadership were ready to negotiate an end to the war, but the terms they were insisting on hardly constituted a "surrender". In addition, there was no consensus among the Japanese leadership as to what those terms should be exactly. There were factions among the Japanese government which demanded different terms, the only common attribute being that almost all were patently unacceptable to the Allies. So negotiations could hardly have proceeded on any meaningful basis, even had the Allies been willing to accept something less than unconditional surrender.

Why should it be a gross misstatement of the facts? In your followup you are even aquitting that "the Japanese leadership were ready to negotiate an end to the war, but the terms they were insisting on hardly constituted a "surrender". just as I stated:

1."knew that the war was lost and surrender was inevitable"
2."They gave in because they were already willing to surrender. It was the uncertainty in regards to the Emperors imunity that delayed the surrender.

The Allies were justified in demanding an unconditional surrender because that was the only way they could be sure of purging the Japanese polity of the influence of the militarists. To agree to a negotiated settlement would be to betray all those who had fought and died to ensure the destruction of militarism; and it would inevitably lead to another Pacific war in the next generation.

Justification will always be up to the victorious, but it doesn't proof anything about being just - it just proves the victors right to demand whatever he wants.

As for the status of the Emperor, the Americans never did guarantee the status of the Emperor to the satisfaction of the Japanese, as some have claimed. When the Japanese decided to accept the Potsdam Declaration, they requested one condition; that the Emperor would continue to exercise full rights as a sovereign ruler. The American reply came back that the Emperor would be subject to the orders of the Supreme Allied Commander in Japan; this was hardly an acknowledgment that Hirohito would "exercise full sovereignty", as requested. For example, the Supreme Allied Commander could have ordered Hirohito to stand trial as a war criminal without violating the surrender terms. That never happened, of course, but solely because the Emperor cooperated with the occupation and proved himself useful to the occupiers.

They didn't have to because they chose the political solution = The Atom Bomb.

The Japanese militarists were arguing that the entire Japanese population should be committed to die in order to "win" the war, but that obviously made no sense, even to the Japanese. Only when it became clear (because of the atomic bombs) that millions of Japanese might very well die in a futile attempt to continue the war, did everyone come to realize that the militarists were no longer talking about a hypothetical and very unlikely "beau geste", but a very practical and grim reality. That reality, made possible by the atomic bomb, and only that reality, was what convinced the Japanese leadership that they had no choice but to accept unconditional surrender. As Frank points out, the Japanese civilians were not exactly without influence in the matter; their growing unrest and dissatisfaction with the Japanese government was beginning to be noticed by their leaders, and it was this factor, coupled with the impossibility of defending against the atomic bombs, that convinced Hirohito that the war must be ended on whatever terms the Americans demanded.

So again it wasn't about the 50-70000 dead, it was about knowing the war was lost and surrender was inevitable

The militarists gave in because they realized that without the support of the civilian population they couldn't continue the war. This happened, not because of 70,000 dead civilians, but because of the potential for future attacks and the effect they would have on the public, which the militarists could see all too clearly, and against which they had no defense.

No you are totally wrong, it is not the militarists who gave in but the Emperor and as such they (The militarists) had no choice but to bow to his decree. and as such to accept the political solution forwarded by the allies of unconditional surrender backed by two A-bombs.

So the "mathematical" model, imposed by the atomic bombs, solved everyone's problems; it gave the Japanese militarists a way of saving some face, by claiming they weren't really defeated in battle, but by a technology against which they couldn't contend. It created a situation where the Japanese leadership were forced to acknowledge that their last desperate strategy, that of inflicting casualties on the Americans so horrendous that the American public would demand negotiations to end the war, was irrelevant. And it allowed a a quick end to the war which did not include the millions of casulaties that so haunted Truman and his advisers. I think it also treanscended the terms "political" and "military" because it accomplished both political and military objectives for those who created it.

No mathematical solution paved the way for unconditional surrender, but the decision by the Emperor to give in despite his imunity not being granted.
Since he knew : ."that the war was lost and surrender was inevitable" so why cause more losses? by what ever means of warfare.

You are correct about one very important fact though: The A-Bomb made it possible for the militarists to blah blah about not having been defeated and mirroring this atitude in their political and social mindset until today.

Regards
Kruska

 

Anyhow this thread is titled Top 5 biggest mistakes , since I do not regard the A-bomb solution as a mistake but a logical political consequenze to ensure an immediate unconditional surrender in favour for the allies,....... so what am I ...how on earth did I get into this thread??

Regards
Kruska

 

That's a bit of a false dicotomy. The a-bomb was a military solution to a military problem. Now military action is in iteself political but seperating the a-bomb from say the fire bombs or mining is not justifyable.

Convincing the militarist to surrender was critical. As it was there was an aborted coup when the Emperor announced the surrender. Political assasination was a bit of a tradition of the Japanese miliatry in the period from 1920-1945.

 

Hello Iwd,

well I am German so english isn't quite my mothertounge

You are off course correct but what I meant to stress is simply:

1. in order to receive an immediate unconditional surrender the US chose to forward the A-Bomb solution instead of further negotiating

Therefore I conclude that the usage of the A-Bomb was the chosen poltical solution and not negotiations or conventional warefare, or anything based on mathematical evaluations.

Simply because IMO no one at that time knew if and how this A-Bomb is going to work, respectivly how much damage is it going to inflict.

So this whole mathematics to me is just Bull.... made up way after the war since the essential data could not be brought up before its deployment.

No personal offence meant Devilsadvocate!

Regards
Kruska

 

No personal offense taken.

But you are wrong about the atomic bomb being a "political" decision divorced from military factors.

There were no negotiations going on between Japan and the US prior to the atomic bombs being dropped and, in fact, there was nothing to negotiate since Japan's political.military position and that of the US were completely incompatible; there never was any chance of negotiation until Japan dropped it's insistence on talking about "terms".

The record is quite clear, however. Truman clearly made his decision to use the atomic bombs only after a thorough exploration of the likely casualties each military option would cost both in terms of Japanese and American lives. Why you continue to insist that is BS, after I have posted the article (Was Dwindling US Army Manpower a Factor in the Atom Bombing of Hiroshima?) which documents these efforts, is beyond me.

As for the certainty of the bomb working, that is beyond question; the scientists were 99% certain the "gun" type device would work, they did not need to test it. They had already exploded the more sophisticated and complex "implosion" device, so there was little reason to think their calculations were flawed.

The number of casualties either type of bomb would produce was more conjectural because it was based on factors that no one could predict with any precision. But, if anything, the projections of atom bomb casualties actually overestimated the numbers, especially in the case of Nagasaki, so that the cost, in terms of Japanese casualties, of using the bombs may have been slightly lower than expected by Truman and his advisers. In any case, the projections were made before the event and weren't some post-war attempt to justify the decision. The numbers that the scientists and other experts developed overwhelmingly supported the humanity, as well as, the logic of the decision. And today, what we know with certainty, the historical facts still justify the decision.

 

Hello Devilsadvocate,

Quote: There were no negotiations going on between Japan and the US prior to the atomic bombs being dropped

I strongly feel you might have to rephrase that since this statement is totally reversing history in all aspects. Maybe you want to hint at "direct" negotiations, but the surrender condition presented to Japan certainly was a part of the negotiations.

I don't think that we need to argue about surrender and end to the war.

It is crystal clear that the Japanese militants were trying to bargain, the only question is for how long - unfortunatly we will never know. If Hirohito already conceeded or not "why not still try to bargain?" the fact that the military was afraid about a communist takeover in case of being ridded by their Emperor was also a main reason not to accept unconditional surrender.
Japan was already totally havoc due to the Bombing Raids and don't forget the extreme food and medical shortage and they were just as helpless towards those B-29s as against the A-Bomb.

So keep up the bombing runs while they want to negotiate, it would not have eased their position - in contra the people would have been even more against them since as you mentioned correctly (however only in conjunction with the A-Bomb) it showed clearly that they could not match the superiority in technology presented by the Americans.
Hell those Japanes felt that since Midway.

The US simply was not willing to negotiate any day longer as necessary and therfore took to the right conclusion of using the A-Bomb which would according to the expected results pay of in $$$ in contra to conventional bombings or even landwarfare and not in mathematical calculations on behalf of losses of live.

Afterall they had already paid tremendously for those two babes (4 Billion US$?) the Germans were out of the game, so naturaly one would use them
(get some practical experience too) and why should one use conventional bombs that amount to $$x if those two babes are already paid for and might just do the job.

Is that so hard to understand and to accept?

The (US) has had a lot of those calculative examples - see Germany,

Werewolfes Forresthunters poisened eggs forwarded by Nazi women, Alpenfestung, wonderweapons "of mass destruction" etc. etc. all Bull..... .

And if they would have dropped the A-bomb on Germany on Mai 4th 1945, those certain people would exactly have come up with that kind of mathematics to prove later that millions of Germans and Allies were spared because of those two A-bombs.
Fortunatly we know that Germany did surrender on the 8th so not much time left for millions to die in a continuing war.

And I say again there was no way to mathematically calculate this in 1945 besides being based on wild speculation on the effect of the nuclear as well the ones based on conventional warefare.

How many soldiers did the Russians loose while overrunning an intact army throughout the vast Manchuria? not anyway close as to those calculations brought up after the war in regards to the A-bombs.

Off course this will now be followed by the remark that the Japanese homeland would have been different from Manchuria. Why? because the civilian population had more kitchenknifes and poisend eggs? then those in Manchuria? Because the Japanes military on Homeland Japan would have been better equipt then those in Manchuria?

Come on! face it - the A-bomb was not a mathematically based option based on losses of live but if at all based on $$ and foremost a speedy unconditional surrender.


Anyway its already 0400 so mathematically I am already 60% behind my needs

Regards
Kruska

 

Perhaps it's a bit of a language problem but "negotiate" implies that both sides have some give and take. The US had delivered it's terms and there was no interest in negotiations. Japan either accepted them or they didn't. Once they were accepted then the details of the surrender had to be worked out and there was some negotiation there but unly after Japan agreed to unconditional surrender.

 

I read elsewhere that the Japanese were going through the Soviet Union, in presenting their terms for a negotiated peace, or conditional surrender, whichever fit best or accepted by the US. All the while the Soviets were massing on the Manchurian border with other things in mind. Probably in the Japanese military hardliners inner-circles, the negotiated peace was what they were working for. I really don't think anything other than an un-conditional surrender would suffice in US eyes. The "stab in the back" thing that the German Imperial Army claimed and clung to after WW1 had to be avoided in post-war Japan.

 

The stab in the back was legit,germany was stabbed in the back.

As for the bomb,IMO it was a military decision to use it with the hope that politics might result.