Favorite WWII Ship

@Donostio

Very nice. I’d like to see the original picture of that letter.

In 1939 the Soviet Union seized the eastern half of Poland. In 1940 it followed that up by annexing Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and part of Romania. In addition it launched a war of aggression against Finland, seizing about 10% of Finland’s total land area. Inhabitants in conquered territories were treated brutally. For example in the east half of Poland 10% of the population was lost due to deportation or outright liquidation.

FDR did not meaningfully pressure the Soviets to renounce their strategy of territorial aggression. Moreover, he did not put serious pressure on Japan to abandon its policy of expansion in China–at least not in 1937 when the wave of expansion in question had been released. FDR’s hard line stance against Japanese expansion did not manifest itself until 1941.

FDR’s warlike opposition to Japanese aggression in China was not the result of a universalist policy of opposing aggressive territorial expansion in general. If it had been, he would have been equally assertive in opposing Soviet expansion. Nor was his opposition driven by a particularist concern for the Chinese: he waited four years between the start of the Japanese offensive in China before initiating his efforts to provoke war with Japan. Those efforts started in 1941, shortly after Germany had invaded the Soviet Union.

Prior to Barbarossa, German military planners had anticipated having to deal with 200 Soviet divisions. By the mid to late fall of '41 they had already encountered nearly double that number. During the winter of '41 - '42, the Soviets shipped an additional 100 divisions west across the Trans-Siberian railway. Prior to Pearl Harbor, Stalin had held those divisions in reserve on his eastern front, to defend against possible Japanese aggression. With Japan going to war against the United States, Stalin knew that Japan would be too preoccupied elsewhere to launch much of an attack against the U.S.S.R. The hundred divisions in question could therefore be used on the German front.

None of the above could have been accomplished, had the U.S. and Japan signed a mutually acceptable peace agreement. That is why FDR’s administration ignored Japan’s various peace proposals, while pursuing a policy of deliberately provoking Japan into doing what it ultimately did.

@Narvik:

That myth could have fooled me. I always believed that Hitler attacked Russia because he had promised to do so in his book Mein Kampf, written in 1920, long before Stalin was even remotely able to make plans about invading Germany

You will recall that Hitler was a soldier, who later became a politician. Like other democratically elected politicians, Hitler promised good things to his constituents. As a general rule, democratically elected politicians make many promises, but seldom deliver on those promises. (At least that’s been the pattern in my country, the United States.)

The Soviet Union was the most evil major regime in human history. Hitler’s pledge to bring that criminal regime to justice was a very lofty promise. Ridding the world of Soviet evil would have helped the world more than a cure for cancer. Unless you or someone you know was the victim of Soviet crimes against humanity, it’s hard to fully appreciate the full magnitude of the promise to rid the world of Soviet evil.

However, when a politician pledges to make the world a better place in some way, there is a good chance he’s being insincere. Was Hitler’s promise to make the world better (by destroying the evil of communism) just another hollow campaign promise from another democratically-elected politician? My sense is that Hitler’s promise to destroy communism was made sincerely, and that he really did intend to follow through on the commitment he’d made.

In 1940, Hitler thought he had the luxury of putting off that invasion until a later time. Sure, he would have invaded eventually. But in the meantime, his trade agreement with the Soviet Union was helping Germany wage war against Britain. So why not clean up the mess in the west now (for example by conquering Britain itself, or at least a good share of the British Empire), while putting off the invasion of the U.S.S.R. until some other time?

But the Soviet Union undertook a number of measures which, collectively, convinced Hitler he no longer had the time he’d once thought. A few months after the Nazi-Soviet Pact was signed, the U.S.S.R. invaded Finland. Finland’s Mannerheim Line was probably the best-defended terrain on the surface of the Earth. While the Germans found a way to go around the Maginot Line, the terrain left the Soviet invasion force with no choice but to plow straight through the Mannerheim Line. Such a feat was widely considered impossible, but the Soviets achieved it in only a few months’ time. After having conquered Finland’s defenses, Stalin allowed Finland to retain the bulk of its land. The Soviet government announced the Red Army had fought poorly in that war, and Hitler naively believed those propaganda claims. (Hitler was not normally one to gullibly accept communist lies. In this case, however, Soviet propaganda dovetailed with poor Russian performance in WWI, and with Hitler’s racial beliefs about Slavic inferiority.)

Shortly after his success against Finland, Stalin demanded a slice of Romania. The Romanians had no choice but to acquiesce to that demand, because their nation was far less well-defended than Finland had been. Germany was utterly dependent on Swedish iron ore, and on Romanian oil. With the Mannerheim Line conquered, Stalin was excellently positioned to take the rest of Finland, and to cut Germany off from its Swedish iron ore. With the Soviets having helped themselves to a large slice of Romanian land, and with them strongly hinting at a desire for another slice, the Romanian oilfields were also in jeopardy. During 1940 it had become increasingly clear that the primary focus of Soviet expansionism was westward, and not (as Stalin had claimed) southward.

Hitler began his preparations to invade the Soviet Union several months after the U.S.S.R. had begun gearing up to invade Germany. However, Germany proved quicker on its feet than the U.S.S.R. Partly that was because Germany had a better road and rail network than the Soviets. That was also partly because the Germans had fewer men and machines to ship; and needed to ship them over a much shorter distance than was the case for Soviet men and machines. Finally, Germany had the best-run military of any major participant in WWII. The competence gap between the Germans and Soviets was much larger than Soviet prewar planning had suggested. Germany invaded on June 22nd; whereas the Soviet troop movement to the front had been scheduled for completion on July 10th, 1941.

The Allies didn’t have “a” plan to wage the Battle of the Atlantic, and neither did the Germans.  The Battle of the Atlantic was a complex battle of attrition on a gigantic scale which lasted all the way from September 1939 to May 1945, and it was characterized by constant changes of plans and tactics and weaponry on both sides as it progressed, with each side trying to overcome every new enemy development with a suitable counter-development.  The campaign see-sawed several times, with one side or the other gaining the advantage at various points; some methods of waging the campaign became ineffectual as time progressed, but were highly effective in earlier stages and therefore were entirely correct to use at those points.

If you recognize someone as looking like Albert Kesselring in a drive thru, you might be a WW2 junkie.

I found a hypothetical scenario that pitted the Richelieu & Jean Bart against the 11" KM battlecruisers…suprisingly it was ugly for the French.  The scenario claimed to be using the Dunkerque and Strasbourg with 13" guns, but looking “under the hood” they were actually using the Jean Bart/Richelieu and their 15" guns.  Since the editor doesn’t work for me I did text edits to put in the actual French BC’s with their appropriate arms, ammunition quantities, and hull/flotation hit points.

The French get mauled!  It isn’t even close after playing it from both sides several times.  (No wonder the designer fudged in French BB’s with BC names…it was an attempt to balance the scenario.)  The heavier armour belt/turrets of the German boats seem to handle the 13" French guns, while the fast firing 11" German guns soon take out the turrets and/or magazine of the French ships.  In about 1/4 of the engagements one of my French boats pulled a “Hood” early in the exchange from about 13,000 yards (where the Kriegsmarine ships couldn’t even identify her yet but were reliably hitting.)  Boom! went the entire magazine.

I don’t know if there is some sort of artificial difference in the 3D model, if it is a reflection of the gunnery bonus for the Germans in the game, a particular range band, or even the 5.9" secondary guns of the KM scoring (vs. 5.1" for the French), but those quad turrets and thinner belt are proving a very brittle instrument of war.

And after you knock out the French guns, the stern chase is a breeze for the Germans!

Germany because of the SS’s elite training and morale stemming from their admirable mission to defend Europe from Bolshevism. Kurt is absolutely right about the Soviets planning to invade Europe, and yes, including Germany. This is why the Germans had such success at first by attacking a mere 2 weeks before the Soviets. All The Soviets’ airfields and other pertinent facilities and equipment was DIRECTLY behind the front lines in preparation for supporting the advancing army proceeding kilometers ahead. See Operation Groza(Thunderstorm). http://defence.pk/threads/operation-groza-soviet-invasion-of-western-europe-july-6-1941.293859/
Btw, the Germans would have won if they had implemented “total war” production practices that the British had done in 1940 and Soviet Union had done at the outbreak of hostilities with Germany. They did not do so until 1943 because they cared about citizens’ well-being and morale. This is why they were so far behind regarding equipment totals.

I played WaW once. Didn’t like it much. But I’ll give it another try if you think it is worth it.
  What do you like about it?
  Crazy Ivan