Biggest Mistakes the Allies made iyo.

[Alexander's Horse]

Originally posted by Geronimo


Taking Berlin would have meant thousands of additional western allied casualities

Not necessarily - the German armies in the West were collapsing. It could have been done but Eisenhower did not grasp the strategic and symobolic importance of capturing Berlin, whereas Stalin did - he feigned disinterest - which the Americans naively believed - but then ordered his best generals to take it and set Zhukov and Koniev in a race to do so.

[Admiral]

Russian troop deployment summer of '41. Stalin should have at least considered the possibility of a defensive war against Germany, and had some sort of defensive-in-depth set up, such that much of the Soviet army was trapped in Barbarossa.

French conception of tank warfare. France had tanks spread through infantry divisions as mobile fire support, but with the result that German tank divisions were much more mobile, and with a much stronger anti-armor capability. This may have proved decisive, as the allies were unable to shift enough forces to even really slow the German advance out of Belgium.

Complete lack of attention to anti-submarine capabilities in the pre-war. England had a serious problem with them in 1917, and yet basically neglected the field for all of the pre-war period.

[Dis]

Originally posted by Cruddy
Well, putting the West Coast fleet into Pearl Harbour strikes me as a no brainer...

... that's with hind sight, of course. I daresay there's plenty more US ones but I'll stick to what I know.

British ones

1) Singapore defences - guns couldn't traverse towards causeway and were only supplied with AP ammo anyway.

2) Singapore (again) - not training infantry for jungle warfare (only Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders did).

3) The Dambusters raid - killed 10s of 1,000s of civilians but had almost no impact on German war production.

4) Refusing to fit 17 pdr gun into Sherman (Firefly was the fruit of efforts by junior officers, not officially sanctioned). Churchill was harangued in Parliament about this ("Please display a Tiger and one of ours for comparison".) His lame answer was that not a tank could be spared.

5) Propaganda leaflet drops. Complete waste of effort.

6) Lack of decent naval fighters. Seafire was good at low level but had a crummy range.

etc, etc, etc

The U.S. always brings most of it's fleet in before christmas time, we still do it today.

And the battleships getting destroyed at Pearl Harbour was a good thing. The people dying was bad of course. But it taught the U.S. the effectiveness in air power, and forced the U.S. to utilize aircraft carriers.

[Urban Ranger]

Re: Biggest Mistakes the Allies made iyo.

Originally posted by Zkribbler
Failing in intelligence permitting Axis sneak attacks: Pearl Harbor, Operation Barbarosa, Battle of the Bulge.

AFAIK, at least several intelligence sources (including a Soviet and a Chinese one) found out about Tora! Tora! Tora! and passed the info to the US. They ignored it, though.

Bulge is no biggie IMO. The Nazis would still be doomed if they managed to drive the Western Front back.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Admiral
Russian troop deployment summer of '41. Stalin should have at least considered the possibility of a defensive war against Germany, and had some sort of defensive-in-depth set up, such that much of the Soviet army was trapped in Barbarossa.

He was deploying to attack the Nazis.

Originally posted by Admiral
French conception of tank warfare. France had tanks spread through infantry divisions as mobile fire support, but with the result that German tank divisions were much more mobile, and with a much stronger anti-armor capability.

The Soviets were the same during the early stages of the War. By Kursk, however, they had learned to rely on massed armor charges.

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by Alexander's Horse


Not necessarily - the German armies in the West were collapsing. It could have been done but Eisenhower did not grasp the strategic and symobolic importance of capturing Berlin, whereas Stalin did - he feigned disinterest - which the Americans naively believed - but then ordered his best generals to take it and set Zhukov and Koniev in a race to do so.

What Eisenhower grasped didn't matter. The partitioning of Germany was decided upon months before at Yalta by the politicians. In fact Germany was originally divided into 4 zones, one for each of the major allied powers. There wasn't a definite plan to re-assemble Germany either. The French, British, and Americans created the FRG only after the Soviets declared their zone to be a sovreign nation.

[molly bloom]

Imagining that the Japanese were incapable of doing certain things because of their race.


Imagining they were unbeatable on land- had they asked the Russians they could have told them otherwise.

[Admiral]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


He was deploying to attack the Nazis.

Precisely. The mistake was that even as he was preparing to break the nonaggression pact, he never considered that Hitler might be doing the same.

[Bosh]

First off, you've got the Beglian's cowardly and generally despicable surprise surrender, which left gaping holes in the allied line and made it much easier for the Germans to encirlce the allies and very nearly led to the annihilation of the BEF.

Stalin's idiotic orders for his soldiers to hold their ground at all costs during Barbarossa, which made it vastly easier for them to be encircled.

[lord of the mark]

1. UK using too much of the RAF for bombing raids on Germany instead of on antisub warfare. While the raids did some damage, the planes would have been much more strategically effective in ASW.

2. US not sharing the Norden bombsight with the UK - could have improved the effectiveness of UK bombing raids.

3. UK putting troops in Greece, instead of winning North Africa, as mentioned above.

4. Fletcher screwing around at Coral Sea, which could have been a more decisive victory

5. MacArthur failing to launch his PI based bombers against Japs airforce in Taiwan as soon as news of Pearl came in, resulting in them being destroyed on the ground.

6. US navy using second rate torpedoes early in the war.

7. US failing to implement blackouts in first months of war, which helped German coastal uboat efforts.


Thats just to start with.

[Bosh]

1. MacArthur failing to launch his PI based bombers against Japs airforce in Taiwan as soon as news of Pearl came in, resulting in them being destroyed on the ground. (see above)
2. MacArthur's criminally-negligent efforts to prepare the armed forces available in the Philippines for the Japanese invasion.
3. MacArthur's abysmal generalship during the Japanese invasion of the Philippines.
4. MarArthur's failure to move supplies to Bataan, where they were needed during the Japanese invasion of the Philippines.
5. MacArthur's cowardly flight from the Philippines, leaving the troops under his command to suffer during the Bantaan Death Marth.
6. MacArthur's idiotic and egotistical efforts to retake the Philippines, which diverted resources from efforts to get the US within range of the Japanese home islands and prolonged the war.
7. MacArthur's failure to purge the Japanese government of fascist scum post-war.
8. MacArthur's general ass-hattery.

[Kuciwalker]

I'm getting the sensation that Boshko doesn't entirely approve of MacArthur... I'm not sure where... it's very faint, but I can definately feel it.

[Bosh]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
I'm getting the sensation that Boshko doesn't entirely approve of MacArthur... I'm not sure where... it's very faint, but I can definately feel it.

That's the tip of the iceberg of my feelings for the veteran-murdering fascist POS

[Zkribbler]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten

On a moral level, the firebombing of Dresden, Toyko and other Japanese cities. This mistake didn't affect the outcome of the war, but did result in the unnecessary deaths of hundreds and thousands of civilians.

What exactly was unnecessary about bombing Japan's capital and largest urban area?

Because they were essentially civilian, not military targets.

The Nazis made the same mistake when the shifted their emphasis from trying to destroy the RAF to bombing London.

[GePap]

Didn't the Japanese Strike the Phillipinnes at almost the exact same time as Pearl Harbor? Besides, what would strikes vs Formosa have done? Gotten the bombers shot up in the air, then to come back to decimated bases?

On Berlin- the Germans would have gladly surrendered to the western allies, but politically it would have been inpractical, and in the end only accerbated tensions between the western allies and the USSR immidiately. Given that the Soviets had fought the vast bulk of the land war vs. the Nazi's, they saw Berlin as their prize and their alone- who knows how they might have reacted had tyhe western allies sought to deny them that prize.

Also, the USSR was NOT planning to invade Germany. I don't know where people get this.