October 3rd: Italy's attempt at Empire

Thank you both for the story and adjustment. Missed it, when first posted.

@RJL518:

The real question to be asked is how would a battle have gone if the Missouri and Iowa took on the Super-Battleships Yamato and Musashi.  
As Samuel Eliot Morison, author of the History of US Naval Operations in World War II, once said…“What a brawl that would have been!”
Even though the Yamato and Musashi had 18.1 inch guns compared to the 16 inch of the Iowa class, the Iowas were still faster and still had better range.  
But who knows.  
IMO it would have depended on the tactics and strategy of the captains in a great battle at that time.

And it was a match-up that nearly happened.  Yamato and two of the Iowa-class battleships, Iowa and New Jersey, missed each other by only a few hours in the area of the San Bernadino Straight during the closing stages of the Battle of Leyte Gulf.  And if Musashi hadn’d been sunk the previous day, there would have been the potential for a two-on-two fight.  I’d have given a lot to get tickets to watch a slugging match like that.

One interesting technical difference is that even though the belt armour of the Yamatos was thicker than that of the Iowas, its performance might not have been better by comparison.  Japanese industry wasn’t capable of producing 16-inch armour as a single block, so the Yamato belt armour was in two layers rather than monolithic, which reduced its effectiveness.  Also, the Class-A armour components of the Iowa’s defenses were more advanced than the grade of armour used on the Yamatos, and thickness-for-thickness had better resistance to penetration.  On the offensive side, the 16-inch AP shells fired by the Iowas were heavyweight designs, with a greater weight relative to their diameter than the 18.1-inch AP shells fired by the Yamatos (2,700 lb vs. 3,219 lbs), and they were fired at nearly the same muzzle velocity (2,500 ft/s vs. 2,600 ft/s) because the Iowa guns had longer barrels relative to their bore (50 calibers vs. 45 calibers).

The “just sit and wait for the Phony War to end in April 1940” option is a bit perplexing as an answer to “You are the German High Command!  What is your next Combat Movement?” because it seems to imply that the Phony War was operating on a fixed timetable, and that this timetable was in someone else’s hands.  The lack of action on land on the Western Front is certainly due in part to inaction by France and Britain (whose strategy was basically to sit around for a couple of years to built up their strength for a showdown, while simultaneously hoping that the Nazi regime would be overthrown by a coup), but it was also very much a deliberate choice by Germany.  The Wehrmacht needed to analyze the Polish Campaign, fix the tactical and operational elements that hadn’t worked as well as expected, plan the upcoming campaign against France and the Low Countries, rest and replenish its forces, give them more training, provide them with additional equipment, and redeploy them to the west.  Doing this properly took time, but Germany could afford to take the time to do the job right because of the lack of Anglo-French pressure on the western front. ( In other words, by sitting on their collective hindquarters France and Britain surrendered the strategic initiative to Germany, which gave the Wehrmacht the luxury of attacking at the time and place of its own choosing.)  Moreover, the time period during which these activities took place were the fall of 1939 and the winter of 1939-1940, which was conveniently timed because this meant that the Wehrmacht wouldn’t have to fight in the fall (manageable, but rainy and muddy) or in the winter (far less harsh in the West than in Russia, but still potentially nasty as veterans of the Battle of the Bulge will recall).  The late spring / early summer period chosen for the offensive in the West was much more congenial for military operations.

@Gargantua:

Whats a plan orange battle?

Plan Orange was a U.S plan to defeat the Japanese in a large Jutland type battle in between the war years.

@finnman:

@gnasape:

Looks like an episode of “Deadliest Warrior” on Spike TV!  Someone should contact them about doing this.

Best show ever, The SS just fought the veit cong.

Good show, not great show. Had the show had this face off ( Marine Raiders vs Waffen SS) it could hold the title: great show.

@Audacity:

Very interesting.  Can you direct us to published material about this?

I certainly can. My best source is “THE SS, Hitlers Instrument of Terror” by Gordon Williams. It was actually Himmlers idea to incorporate Muslims into SS units as an experiment. They used their new power to quickly murder “religious infidels” including Jews and were eventually given only police authority because of their lack of obediance to SS order. They had their own special collar tabs but were never issued an SS Honour cuff on the sleeve. Himmler had these units engaged in the Balkans, around Greece and a few other minor battles. They were actually fought VERY poorly and were taken off the front lines. For the rest of the war, the units that weren’t disbanded were used for anit-partisan activities and were “attached” to another SS unit but did not have the title SS.

It was a brief experiment that elated Himmler. Hitler has little to do with it as far as I know.

PS – thanks for all the Karma while I’ve been out sick for the last month. You guys rock.

The Winter War is an amazing tale of bravery on the Finns’ part.