Minor News:American Moves assests into the Gulf

[Mr Bean]

Or perhaps he is just getting ready for the inevitable. Or being smart by moving assets into position so when and IF we go into Iraq we don't have to wait weeks, months, whatever for forces to arrive in theater.

Well there are SOME Countries who run on the Doctrine of Holding your forces back until you acutal going to war and leaving only pre-postions spots ready to fight but not supplied for it


Hmm who am I thinking of? Why France of course

[Kuja]

Or perhaps he is just getting ready for the inevitable. Or being smart by moving assets into position so when and IF we go into Iraq we don't have to wait weeks, months, whatever for forces to arrive in theater.

Well there are SOME Countries who run on the Doctrine of Holding your forces back until you acutal going to war and leaving only pre-postions spots ready to fight but not supplied for it


Hmm who am I thinking of? Why France of course

And we all respect France as the fierce, battle-savvy country it is.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Fine, Stormbringer. Go and pout, while I feel jubilant that we are finally going to finish the job of '91.

The failure of the U.S. to depose Saddam in '91 illustrates a fundamental blot in American military thought since WWII. If you cut off the head, the body will be defenseless.

In 1944, before the Bulge, the American 12th Army Group under Gerneral Bradley, including the brilliant General Patton and his Third Army could have launched a blitzkrieg against the inventers of the tactic: Nazi Germany. While Field Marshal Montgomery of the British and Canadian 21st Army Group could've occupied Nazi forces in the North by plunging into the weakly defended Ruhr district and acted as the pivot in a Southern assault by the 12th Army Group through the virtually abandoned Saar district and then northeast to Berlin. Montgomery would've been furious, as would Churchill, but who cares? Does anyone feel Britian would've become a Soviet stooge because Eisenhower canned the Anglo wonderboy? Montgomery was a fool anyway.

One goal here was imminent: the severing of all road, air, rail, and radio links between Hitler's headquarters and the German armies in the field. For this, blitzkrieg was the ideal strategic option. Cutting off the German Army Groups H, B, and G from Hitler suicidal "stand and fight" orders and free from the possibility of retribuitions from the Nazi High Command, German commanding officers would've surrendered their out-manuvered armies. Unfortunately, Eisenhower was very conservative, and like Grant in the Civil War, employed "meat grinder" tactics (if tactics they may even be called) and believed an enemy defeated was an enemy annhiliated. If he had been willing to loose Patton and Bradley to take Berlin, the war in Europe could've been over in Autumn 1944.

However, American commanders, then and now displayed a failure to understand how and why one must strike at the head of a snake rather than along its body if one hopes for swift and complete success: Powell did not order the closing of the encirclement of the fleeing Republican Guard feeling that there was no sense in rising the death toll; an encircled army is a defeated one, and they would've surrendered without needing annhiliation, from there it would've been a swift march up the Tigris and Euphrates to sieze Baghdad. The "coalition" would not have been happy, but who cares? Most of them were useless anyway, and the British would've joined us in finishing the job.

Looks like Shrubby is going to attack regardless of how Iraq responds to the current resolution, what the inspectors find (if applicable) and regardless of what the Security Council mandates if the inspectors find anything objectionable. If Shrubby goes through with this an conquors Iraq without at least a token blessing from the SC the results could be rather messy. You heard it here first.

Prove it. Now the anti-Bush camp is reduced to whining about pessimistic predictions about what George hasn't even done yet. This is typical political scare tactics: don't judge your opponent's policies now, judge charactured stuff you made up about what you say your opponent might do.

Oh, joy. The UN, our modern League of Nations....

The UN has been nearly as dysfunctional as the League since its inception. The true political follies causing WWII were the appeasement strategies followed by Great Britian under Chamberlain; Germany was far from being prepared for war as it was in 1939. The Austrian units were far from assimilated and the Luftwaffe and Panzerkorps were a joke compared to height-of-war levels. The invasion of Czechloslovakia would've occupied most of the Wehrmacht and given the British and French time to prepare, as well as Poland. The war could never have happened as it did in real life.

[Sea Skimmer]

Or perhaps he is just getting ready for the inevitable. Or being smart by moving assets into position so when and IF we go into Iraq we don't have to wait weeks, months, whatever for forces to arrive in theater.

Well there are SOME Countries who run on the Doctrine of Holding your forces back until you acutal going to war and leaving only pre-postions spots ready to fight but not supplied for it


Hmm who am I thinking of? Why France of course

And we all respect France as the fierce, battle-savvy country it is.

They annihilated a four Iraqi brigades in 1991 for one death and only five or six wounded. There only death was a few hours before the cease-fire and was a man who picked up an unexploded cluster bomb let. When the French fight they fight very well, certainly as well if not better then there equipment allows. Its politics that make them a laughing stock.

[Illuminatus Primus]

They annihilated a four Iraqi brigades in 1991 for one death and only five or six wounded. There only death was a few hours before the cease-fire and was a man who picked up an unexploded cluster bomb let. When the French fight they fight very well, certainly as well if not better then there equipment allows. Its politics that make them a laughing stock.

They need to do better then Iraq. That's a turkey shoot for any Western nation. Their strategy is crap. They thought their Maginot Line would stop Hitler when he just did what the Germans did in WWI: go through Belgium. They let themselves get their Emperor surrounded and defeated the century before despite better technology. The Prussians handed their ass to them without breaking a sweat. Their military leadership has been in the gutter since the Little Corporal was sent off to Elba.

[Steve]

Third Army. Not Fifth Army. Patton commanded Third Army.

And you'd really have to sack Bradley and let Patton run the show, or find a general who would let Patton fight as wanted. Bradley was even worse than Grant; at least Grant approved of Sherman's March to the Sea, while Bradley frequently did his best to hold Patton up out of jealousy and hatred for his far superior subordinate.

Grant was borderline competent. Bradley was grossly incompetent and way out of his league. At least Monty had a knack for training soldiers and for set-piece battles.

[Steve]

But aside from that, your observations are quite good.

What we do now will be cleanup.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Sorry. I knew I'd probably make a mistake somewhere. But if Eisenhower had provided the neccessary supplies and support, and ordered the Twelveth Army Group to take Berlin, with the Third Army as its spearhead, then Bradley couldn't just say no.

Note: for my suggestion to work, Patton wouldn't even need to take Berlin, just isolate it and cut communications in and out, and it wouldn't be quite as dug-in for a sucidal last stand as it was when Soviets arrived in the real timeline.

Hell, it has the benefit of even letting us attempt to liberate Hungary and Poland, and all of Germany. Hell, if the Twelveth actually took Berlin and the western Army Groups had already surrendered, getting Donitz to surrender early wouldn't be too hard. Stalin's still in Eastern Europe and the Cold War is almost ended before it began. It's possible to shut Stalin out of Europe almost altogether, and if we persuade the Nationalists in China to leave the Communists in Manchuria alone, then the Cold War never occurs. Soviet Russia is stillborn as a world power, Tibet is never subjugated, and the Communist slaughters remain confined to the Siberian gulags and the Ukranian collective farms.

But Eisenhower had no vision, and Bradley was incompetant. *sigh*

[Sea Skimmer]

Fine, Stormbringer. Go and pout, while I feel jubilant that we are finally going to finish the job of '91.

The failure of the U.S. to depose Saddam in '91 illustrates a fundamental blot in American military thought since WWII. If you cut off the head, the body will be defenseless.

In 1944, before the Bulge, the American 12th Army Group under Gerneral Bradley, including the brilliant General Patton and his Fifth Army could have launched a blitzkrieg against the inventers of the tactic: Nazi Germany. While Field Marshal Montgomery of the British and Canadian 21st Army Group could've occupied Nazi forces in the North by plunging into the weakly defended Ruhr district and acted as the pivot in a Southern assault by the 12th Army Group through the virtually abandoned Saar district and then northeast to Berlin. Montgomery would've been furious, as would Churchill, but who cares? Does anyone feel Britian would've become a Soviet stooge because Eisenhower canned the Anglo wonderboy? Montgomery was a fool anyway.

And the fuel and ammunition for such a drive would come from where?

[Illuminatus Primus]

People have always argued that the supplies for a 1944 deep strike into the Third Reich's territory were not available. You fail to appreciate that Eisenhower's worries over supply had proven destructively excessive throughout the French campaign. Armored units had stripped down, improvised, and scrounged to such an extent that they were able to move quickly without either major ports behind them or the rather luxurious amounts of supplies that the supreme commander's staff said an American armored division required. The Twelveth Army Group didn't need to march to Warsaw now, they needed to cut off Berlin, and all they needed to travel was to round the Nazi's Army Group B east of Cologne to reach the Elbe, once there it was a matter of cutting off roads, siezing airfields and railroads and ordering Allied aircraft to destroy command centers and airfields and surviving railroads. Even a momentary delay to allow the supply lines to catch up (to placate Eisenhower's conservatism to a degree) could've still permitted a deep strike, but Eisenhower insisted in the politically correct, militarily timid "broad front" advance and insisted on wasting time slaughtering the Wehrmacht in the Falaise pocket, underlining his lack of vision.

[Sea Skimmer]

People have always argued that the supplies for a 1944 deep strike into the Third Reich's territory were not available. You fail to appreciate that Eisenhower's worries over supply had proven destructively excessive throughout the French campaign. Armored units had stripped down, improvised, and scrounged to such an extent that they were able to move quickly without either major ports behind them or the rather luxurious amounts of supplies that the supreme commander's staff said an American armored division required. Even a momentary delay to allow the supply lines to catch up (to placate Eisenhower's conservatism to a degree) could've still permitted a deep strike, but Eisenhower insisted in the politically correct, militarily timid wide-front advance and insisted on wasting time slaughtering the Wehrmacht in the Falaise pocket, underlining his lack of vision.

You cant change the reality of how much fuel and ammunition are needed to defeat the rather large armored force the Germans had on hand before the Bulge. And a narrow front attack makes its job far to easy.

By the time your done planning for a explotation force, a breakthrough force and forces sufficent to deal with those 1500 tanks and Assault guns getting ready for the Bulge you have an army wide attack.

[Illuminatus Primus]

You cant change the reality of how much fuel and ammunition are needed to defeat the rather large armored force the Germans had on hand before the Bulge. And a narrow front attack makes its job far to easy.

The Germans were unorganized and in disarray. The whole point of a narrow front strike is to end the war before allowing the Germans the respite they needed to launch the Bulge. Try as they might, the Germans had completely failed to make an organized defense against the tide closing in on them and the situation was so poor that it brought Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, German commander in the west to answer a desperate question from Hitler's headquarters as to what course to take with the remark: "Make peace, you fools! What else can you do?" It was the High Command's decision to apply the brakes on its own troops' progress that gave the Germans the wait they needed to regroup and reorganize for what would be the Battle of the Bulge.

By the time your done planning for a explotation force, a breakthrough force and forces sufficent to deal with those 1500 tanks and Assault guns getting ready for the Bulge you have an army wide attack.

Ignoring the fact the Bulge was not immient when the Allies had just reached the Meuse, Army Group G and the Nazi armor was still east of the Rhine in Northern Bavaria, and the Saar district was all but empty. The Twelveth Army can push through Saar, by-passing the German armor to the south, then move northeast to the Elbe and to Berlin while Monty is tying up the Germans in the Ruhr. The German commander left with the keys to the imploding Reich is persuaded to surrender in autumn '44, not Donitz in May '45. The Bulge is not going to be occuring as Patton and Wood are racing to Berlin. Annihiliation of the Nazi armies in the West is not neccessary; cut off German armies from Berlin thus sparing them from the Soviets and allowing them to save their troops and people by surrendering will suffice.

[Oberleutnant]

They need to do better then Iraq. That's a turkey shoot for any Western nation. Their strategy is crap. They thought their Maginot Line would stop Hitler when he just did what the Germans did in WWI: go through Belgium.

Can you explain to me how the hell do their earlier mistakes in WWII - which happened over sixty years ago - affect their current military capabilities or strategies? If the Gulf War was "turkey shoot for any Western nation", then doesn't that mean that French and American armies for example are equally capable?

I know that some French can be nationalistic assholes who believe in their cultural superiorty, but that doesn't make them special from any other nationality. Similar people *cough* Azeron *cough* can be found from the USA, for example. Don't diss the 'Frogs' just because they are French.

[Admiral Piett]

They need to do better then Iraq. That's a turkey shoot for any Western nation. Their strategy is crap. They thought their Maginot Line would stop Hitler when he just did what the Germans did in WWI: go through Belgium. They let themselves get their Emperor surrounded and defeated the century before despite better technology. The Prussians handed their ass to them without breaking a sweat. Their military leadership has been in the gutter since the Little Corporal was sent off to Elba.

Here an other one failing to understand the role of the Maginot line in the French strategy.The Maginot line was built to secure the southern flank and thus enable them to use their mobile troops elsewhere,more precisely in countering the expected german offensive in Belgium.They did not expect the main thrust taking place in the Ardennes and,like everyone else at the time,they were not able to counter the blitzkrieg tactics.No one in the french HQ expected the germans attacking the Maginot line.
Can you bother to explain me when they had "better technology" and what emperor you are speaking about?

[MKSheppard]

Can you bother to explain me when they had "better technology" and what emperor you are speaking about?

Well, the French had more tanks, and they were more powerful than the
German tanks....most of which were Panzer Is and IIs....

The Froggies had bigger guns and thicker armor on their tanks than
the Germans did on their tanks.

In many instances the germans had to call up their 88s to knock out
French tanks....since the 37mm ATGs the Germans had for standard
didn't work.

[Admiral Piett]

Well, the French had more tanks, and they were more powerful than the
German tanks....most of which were Panzer Is and IIs....

The Froggies had bigger guns and thicker armor on their tanks than
the Germans did on their tanks.

In many instances the germans had to call up their 88s to knock out
French tanks....since the 37mm ATGs the Germans had for standard
didn't work.

I am not discussing french tanks(one man turrets were not a good thing however).I am simply asking what empeor (I or III) he was speaking about and what technological superiority he was referring about.I interpreted that he meant that the frenchs had a technological advantages ove the prussians.They had some primitive machineguns if I recall correctly but the prussians had better rifles.

[MKSheppard]

They had some primitive machineguns if I recall correctly but the prussians had better rifles.

Sorry. Yeah, the Prussians had their needle-guns (the precursor to modern
bolt-action rifles).