Hiroshima: a (probably overly long) exposé

[techumseh]

Originally posted by Ted Striker


Not really. Plus you overlook that whole OBSOLETE thingy. Those Japanese tanks were basically worthless and were not deployed as armor groups but scattered among the army as field pieces. Japanese had no idea how to use them.




No they don't. They are talking about the importance of Soveit era combined arms tactics and study the Manchuria campaign as a textbook way of executing that.

They could have f'ed up and still rolled that Kwangtung army.

But get real, it was a lopsided affair, get over it.

The Soviets fending off the Nazis when they were inside of Moscow, now THAT was extraordinary.

You lost this one Ted. Time to move on.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by techumseh


You lost this one Ted. Time to move on.

you haven't refuted his points you just ignored them.

[Ted Striker]

Word

I wasn't the one that gave up with, "whatever"

[monkspider]

Originally posted by Geronimo


If the atom bombs were less harmful than the firebombings then they do not deserve any special attention for their use. How can we condemn the US government for switching from a more harmful weapon to a less harmful one?

Furthermore, if the atom bombs were less harmful than the firebombings and the US populace believed that atom bombs were so terrrible that they could end a war all bythemselves how is this horrible? It was precisely this fear of atom bombs which prevented ww3 and I doubt anyone sees that as a bad thing.

In the final analysis if everything in your post is correct none of it makes a whit of difference. Use of the atom bombs was at worst no more immoral than the firebombs and in any case the war ended right after they were used.

So far Monkspider has revealed the truth about two widely believed myths.

1. The Mongols did not exist.
2. the atom bombs had no effect on the decision of the japanese government to surrender.

Such insights! Where can I find out aout the other misconceptions you have discovered?

Dude, you totally miss the point.

[DaShi]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


Two words: Leningrad and Stalingrad. These are examples of how bloody urban warfare was. That's why I said there's no pratical difference attacking an enemy entrenched inside a city or on an island.

Saying only that some urban battles were bloody says absolutely nothing about the the difference between urban anf island combat. I don't see how you can make that conclusion from this example.

Surely they could be wrong.

Not only I have the advantage of hindsight, but I am uninvolved. This is often a critcial advantage for finding the correct plan/action/etc, such as watching a game of chess.

Someone thinks highly of himself.

[techumseh]

Originally posted by Geronimo


you haven't refuted his points you just ignored them.

His own reference, the paper from the USMC college, refuted them. First, he claimed the Kwantung Army had NO artillery or tanks. When I provided numbers showing aproximate strengths, he claimed they were incorrect. Then he misleadingly quoted his source to attempt to refute my figures on the strength of the Kwantung Army, using figures from March, 1945. He conveniently failed to site the figures for August (the time of the Soviet attack) cited in the paper, which were very close to the ones I originally gave. When this "error" was pointed out, he grasped at the word 'obsolete' to justify his erroneous claim that the Soviet victory in Manchuria "... was no astonishing feat, and the Soviets would have been completely inept if they had not succeeded there."

His own source cites this quote: "to mount such a campaign after being bled for four years in Europe represented a major achievement." (see the complete sitation above) His attempts to minimize this accomplishment have been refuted by the the US Marine Corps University Command and Staff College, which he originaly cited (incompletely and selectively) to try to prove his case. This intellectual amnesia is proof of the weakness of his case. In any event, the issue is settled and he is not worth arguing with anymore.

[notyoueither]

You think T34-85's were properly matched by half their number of tin cans with 47mm cannons? The disperity of equipment forms a broader gulf than Case White (the German campaign in Poland).

What war did you read about?

[Ted Striker]

Originally posted by techumseh


His own reference, the paper from the USMC college, refuted them. First, he claimed the Kwantung Army had NO artillery or tanks. When I provided numbers showing aproximate strengths, he claimed they were incorrect. Then he misleadingly quoted his source to attempt to refute my figures on the strength of the Kwantung Army, using figures from March, 1945. He conveniently failed to site the figures for August (the time of the Soviet attack) cited in the paper, which were very close to the ones I originally gave. When this "error" was pointed out, he grasped at the word 'obsolete' to justify his erroneous claim that the Soviet victory in Manchuria "... was no astonishing feat, and the Soviets would have been completely inept if they had not succeeded there."

His own source cites this quote: "to mount such a campaign after being bled for four years in Europe represented a major achievement." (see the complete sitation above) His attempts to minimize this accomplishment have been refuted by the the US Marine Corps University Command and Staff College, which he originaly cited (incompletely and selectively) to try to prove his case. This intellectual amnesia is proof of the weakness of his case. In any event, the issue is settled and he is not worth arguing with anymore.

Now you're just being dishonest.

I said they had very few artillery or tanks, and those that they did have, were basically useless, and they had no idea how to use them anymore. That's fine, if you want to exaggerate. But Japanese armor in that case was basically useless.

The only thing you really have is that last quote from the link that I provided.

If the Soviets HADN'T have won in Manchuria, now THAT would have been an extraordinary event. Consider that the Japanese got whooped the first two times they went up against them in 1939 anyway, against a much different Soviet Army that was a much different force where the idea of Blitzkrieg wasn't even known about yet.


The Soviets were NHL All Stars, and the Kwangtung Army were the little kids from the Disney Movie the Mighty Ducks. Okay that's a wide exaggeration but you get the point, which is that there was an extreme mismatch. You're comparing a force that was at its height against a force which was at its worst.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by notyoueither
You think T34-85's were properly matched by half their number of tin cans with 47mm cannons? The disperity of equipment forms a broader gulf than Case White (the German campaign in Poland).

What war did you read about?

Yes, in fact the T-34s in this case were more useful than any of the heavier tanks would have been because of their excellent cross country mobility and lesser strain on the supply system for fuel and ammunition. They could easily dispatch the best of the Japanese tanks with their main armament as it was (even a .50 caliber machine gun could do so though at shorter ranges), and their armor was good enough to defend against anything but mobility kills vs the Japanese guns. The use of these tanks was optimal, not a disadvantage.

As for the "four years of being bled white", that might have been a factor had the Soviets been forced to deploy anything like their entire force. Instead they were able to pick their most useful elements at will and package them into a well balanced task group. This operation was a showcase of the best the Soviet Army had to offer and I in no way want to diminish that, but to compare it to say Okinawa which had a ratio of force to space at least an order of magnitude greater for the defender and was an amphibious operation is comparing apples and oranges.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by techumseh

His own reference, the paper from the USMC college, refuted them. First, he claimed the Kwantung Army had NO artillery or tanks.

No, Ted didn't.


In any case, as an examination of the Iraq-Iran combat would demonstrate, superiority in terms of either numbers of weaponry or type of weaponry counts for little if that weaponry keeps breaking down, your intelligence and morale is non-existent and instead of using the weaponry as intended, you are forced to use mobile warfare units as the equivalent of stationary bunkers, only without the protection afforded by walls of concrete and sandbag emplacements.


Anyone who wants to read about the effect of the atomic bombs on the state of mind of the members of the Japanese cabinet and of the emperor of Japan should read 'Japan's Longest Day' compiled by the Pacific War Research Society and William Craig's 'The Fall of Japan'.

Both are quite illuminating.

[techumseh]

Originally posted by molly bloom


No, Ted didn't.

Yes, he did.

The Japanese army in Manchuria at that time was basically a bunch of n00bs, with no armor or artillery whatsover, with a serious depletion of manpower, no elite units, and a lack of manpower.

[Ted Striker]

Maybe you missed this part:

The Japanese Army was short in more than manpower. They were severely deficient in aircraft, engineer support, communications and armor. What few tanks the Japanese did possess were armed with 57mm guns and were grossly overmatched by the Soviet T-34's.

Stop playing dumb. You know the difference between literal and figurative.

The point is that the little armor they did have was basically useless to them.

[DaShi]

Be nice Ted. He knows that his main argument is lost, and this is all he can get to save face. Let the man have his dignity.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by techumseh


Yes, he did.

I suspect you're being a little obtuse: since Ted's conversion to Eurocommunisticism, he's shown himself to be more than a little adept at the strategic employment of irony and sarcasm.


Exactly how serious (in an academic way) do you think Ted was being when he referenced 'n00bs' in the same paragraph as information on Japanese armour and artillery ?

My guess- not very.