October 3rd: Italy's attempt at Empire

If you’re ever in the Tampa, FL area, take a couple of hours to visit the S.S. American Victory. Built in 55 days and launched in 1945, she hauled military cargo to the Philippines and China during WWII, and also served in Korea and Vietnam. She’s a floating museum and training ship for first responders now. The American Victory is one of three remaining Victory ships. Well worth the time!

@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 Barbarossa aspect of this could be argued two ways. Would a six week head start been to Germany’s benefit? The attack caught the Soviet Union completely off guard, and resulted in the rapid encirclement and surrender of millions of Soviet soldiers. Germany achieved a 10:1 exchange rate during Barbarossa.

The problem with starting all that six weeks earlier was that spring rains were worse than usual that year, and persisted later into the spring than expected. The effect of surprise would, at least initially, have been largely counteracted by muddy roads. That would have given the Red Army the chance to get the worst of the surprise over with, and at least begin the process of getting its legs back underneath itself, at a time when Germany could not take maximum advantage of the situation. It’s possible that they could have accelerated the beginning of Barbarossa by a week or two without running into the muddy roads problem. But not six weeks.

A second point to bear in mind is the value of not having the British military on the European mainland. Italy might have eventually been able to defeat the Greek army. But as Britain sent more and more reinforcements to Greece, the combined Anglo-Greek force would have quickly become too tough a nut for Italy to crack. Britain could draw troops not just from its home islands, but also from its enormous colonial empire. The last thing the Axis needed was for Egyptian or Indian soldiers to gain a stronghold in the Balkans. If that force grew strong enough Germany might eventually have been forced into a two front land war, even without American involvement. There was also–as I mentioned earlier–an absolute necessity to keep British bombers from bombing Romanian oilfields. Without that oil the German war machine could not function.

I don’t think that the invasion of Greece was responsible for the full six week delay in Barbarossa. If Hitler had gone for Greece only, maybe it would only have been a three to four week delay. That’s acceptable due to the late spring rains. Unfortunately for the Axis, the government of Yugoslavia was overthrown in a military coup. As Hoover pointed out in his book, FDR encouraged that coup by falsely promising members of the Yugoslav military that, if they overthrew their own government, the United States would provide military aid against German retaliation. With perfect foresight, the Germans would have allowed Yugoslavia to remain neutral, instead of pressuring it to join the Axis.

But let’s say their foresight wasn’t quite as good as that decision would have implied. The next-best decision would have been to launch Barbarossa even while mopping up opposition in Yugoslavia and/or Greece.

@DarthShizNit:

The Swede’s were just plain awesome in the age of musket lol. So many great commanders.

No doubt, The Great Northern Kingdom had an elite battle force.

Thanks Marc.  I often visit the BBC site but dont often go to the england section.  Missed this one!

Just noticed the German West losses I gave earlier is for  Sept 1939 to April 1945. It includes the 1940 losses, an extra 156,556.

**Heer Losses in the Polish, Norwegian, French, and Balkan Campaigns
(Organizationsabteilung d. Gen,Stb. d. OKH. 6 Feb 45, NARA T78, R414, F3226-3227

Losses in the Feldheer**
……KIA…WIA…MIA…Total
Poland …8,082…27,278…5,029…40,389
Norway …1,166…1,548 …1,091…3,805
France… 27,650…115,299…13,607… 156,556
Balkans…1,593…4,845…644…7,082
Total …38,491…148,970…20,371 …207,832

So the claims made in the Third Army  book are even further off!

Cool!!!  Wow, I wonder what kind of damage the Abrams could do going that fast!!!

@Upside-down_Turtle:

Yeah, I saw that show.  It’s partially what inspired this thread.

Tom Clancy said the Abrams can go 70+mph w/o a governor.  Is that really true?  It’s a lot higher than the “official” stats.

Man, 70+ tons going 70+mph…that’s a load going fast!  It’s faster than the Leopard’s “official” top speed.  However, it’s suposidly ad risk of destroying the drive train, but if that’s true, couldn’t you just somehow make it stronger?  I’m no mechanic, but I’m sure it could be done.

A 70 mph tank would kick @$$!  :-D

A year since the last post