What Were They Thinking?

[Patroklos]

Rhine river barges.

Thats like poor gangstas putting rims on their 94 civics and declaring themselves the ****.

Doesn't make it so.

In any case the racial arguement while valid for Hitler is not for the military. No part of the Barbarossa campaign planning indicates they expected Russia to role over. In fact every account I have ever read contains nothing but dismay at the initial success.

[lord of the mark]

[QUOTE] Originally posted by Patroklos

Thats like poor gangstas putting rims on their 94 civics and declaring themselves the ****.

Doesn't make it so.

why i mentioned the swimming lessons, duh.

In any case the racial arguement while valid for Hitler is not for the military. No part of the Barbarossa campaign planning indicates they expected Russia to role over. In fact every account I have ever read contains nothing but dismay at the initial success.

hmm, I wonder why the generals thought it possible. I suspect wed have to analyze each one individually. Some probably simply werent smart enough, at least in terms of grand strategy. They may have misjudged soviet politics, and also misjudged how little Hitler was likely to offer the Soviets for a settlement even if he HAD taken Moscow in '41. Some may not have sincerely thought they could win, but did their duty Prussian style. Or didnt do their duty, such as Canaris.

I guess the biggest question mark would be Guderian, who was loyal, and probably the smartest of the bunch - but wasnt his smarts mainly operational/strategic, not grand strategic?

[Lord Avalon]

Originally posted by Arrian
They thought that if they succeeded in destroying the Pacific Fleet at Pearl, several things might work out:

1) Without our carriers, it would take us quite a while to be in a position to counterattack.

2) Given the time bought b/c of #1, they would be able to consolidate their holdings and then maybe look to cut a deal. They would be stronger, and hopefully well-dug-in in the Pacific. We'd have a very long, hard slog ahead (not that we didn't anyway, but even longer & harder).

I think they knew that if the didn't get our fleet (including the carriers), they were in deep ****. But they figured they were in deep **** already b/c of the resource embargos.

They could've chosen peace, of course. But they rolled the dice instead, in a high-risk, high reward play.

...

-Arrian

Actually, wasn't the USN more battleship-centric at the start of WWII? So they would have been the main target.

Because of all the battleships lost at PH, the USN became a carrier navy. (Also lucky that no carriers were in PH at the time of the attack, IIRC.)