How do wars start?

Good points, after Germany committed to full unrestricted submarine warfare to besiege the UK, the USA had to intervene in that course of events or lose its key ally.

so foolish of Kriegsmarine and H to lose the battlecruisers and makes First/Second Happy Time seems like a diversion of resources, then there may have been a more credible medium/long term threat to the allied lifeline without these unsustainable efforts

With a timely and immediate entry of the US into the Atl. war (as actually occurred), they deployed tons of planes and ships, and technology, that wasn’t effective at first but needed to mature and develop to defeat the submarine threat on one hand, while demolishing the Japanese Navy with the other.

I plan on visiting Fredericksburg this year.

@pfc_pander:

I enjoy reading anything I can about Saipan in the Mariana Islands.  My grandfather was a BAR man apart of the marines 2nd division.  He died when I was about 10 and he never liked to talk much about it.  So anytime I can learn something about Saipan I jump at the chance.  If anyone has any recommendations for any books about the 2nd marines on Saipan I would greatly appreciate it.

This movie…

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0284200/

…includes colour footage of the Battle of Saipan (wartime Kodachrome footage, not computer-colorized black and white footage).

Not sure if I saw that one. Will look tomorrow. Tell me how far to look back.

Hi Mallery. When I said a war weary North I meant there would have been less fervour from some of the electorate if things had not gone as well in the West.if the South had realised the importance of it and allocated better resources and a better Army of Tennessee commander,
then it is possible Lincoln may not have won relection.
As for Louisiana and Tennessee voting as it did, I think the fact those states were under occupation and any or all its Southern leaning voters were under arms or trying to avoid attracting the enemy’s attention, may have helped the result. I am not sure but could a Southerner have voted how he wanted anyway? Did they have representation? Am interested to know, but cannot find any evidence of figures.

The Panzer IV is getting a lot of love in this poll. The Panzer III in the early years of the war was the German’s tank killer tank with it’s long 50mm gun. The early versions of the Panzer IV had a short 75mm gun.

I’ll be posting the mid war years 41-43 tanks soon.

@SilverBullet:

yeah, if germany never attacked russia, england woulda fell, hitler just didnt have the patience to wait england out and had 2 use all his pretty toys and the only target left for his tanks was russia. and germany still had a small chance to win even after they attacked russia, but lets face it, hitler wasnt a general and he made mistakes that say, rommel or other generals wouldnt have made.

Its not that easy, Germany did not have the Oil, Raw Materials, and Food Stuffs to sustain itself for a long war.  Russia had sufficent quantities of all 3.  Germany invaded Russia when it did cause of economic neccesity.  Also, cause of the massive industrial/military advancements in the Soviet Union after the disaster in Finand, if Germany waited another year or 2, the Russian military would of been strong enough to handle Germany’s.