The People Behind WWII

A news story about some of the secret behind-the-scenes work (signals intelligence and radio navigation) done by the Women’s Royal Canadian Naval Service (the Wrens) during WWII.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/d-day-code-breakers-women-1.5159789

@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.

Narvik wrote:

On top of that, the average and casual Italian at this point had a very low morale, since they by now knew that Italy would loose, even if the Axis won the war.

That statement rings false. Germany did not have plans to enslave Italy after the war. In his writings, Hitler pointed out that if a nation wants allies, it must establish a reputation for treating its allies well. It was a logical conclusion for the leader of any nation, and I have seen no evidence to suggest Hitler had deviated from that logic.

I agree Italian morale was low. There were several reasons for that.

Mussolini seized power through military means. His views were not necessarily representative of those of most Italians. Mussolini did not build a strong relationship with the Italian people after seizing office. He had no reason to rely on the Italian people to stick with him through thick and thin. Most Italians did not believe in Mussolini’s dream of a revived Roman Empire, and thought his foreign adventures were rather pointless. Italy was unprepared for war. It lacked a strong military culture and strong military traditions. Its army was not afforded the weapons which would have been necessary to destroy Britain’s Matilda tanks. Its military leadership was lacking. It’s hard to maintain high morale when it’s obvious that your opponent has a much better sense of what he’s doing than your own military has of what it’s doing.

Note that all four problems existed before Hitler came to power in Germany. It’s not as though Mussolini’s Italy had a great military tradition, which then collapsed once Hitler and Mussolini became allies. On the contrary: Italy’s military tradition and military preparedness were greatly lacking both before and after Hitler and Mussolini became allies.

The Barbarossa aspect of this could be argued two ways. Would a six week head start been to Germany’s benefit? The attack caught the Soviet Union completely off guard, and resulted in the rapid encirclement and surrender of millions of Soviet soldiers. Germany achieved a 10:1 exchange rate during Barbarossa.

The problem with starting all that six weeks earlier was that spring rains were worse than usual that year, and persisted later into the spring than expected. The effect of surprise would, at least initially, have been largely counteracted by muddy roads. That would have given the Red Army the chance to get the worst of the surprise over with, and at least begin the process of getting its legs back underneath itself, at a time when Germany could not take maximum advantage of the situation. It’s possible that they could have accelerated the beginning of Barbarossa by a week or two without running into the muddy roads problem. But not six weeks.

A second point to bear in mind is the value of not having the British military on the European mainland. Italy might have eventually been able to defeat the Greek army. But as Britain sent more and more reinforcements to Greece, the combined Anglo-Greek force would have quickly become too tough a nut for Italy to crack. Britain could draw troops not just from its home islands, but also from its enormous colonial empire. The last thing the Axis needed was for Egyptian or Indian soldiers to gain a stronghold in the Balkans. If that force grew strong enough Germany might eventually have been forced into a two front land war, even without American involvement. There was also–as I mentioned earlier–an absolute necessity to keep British bombers from bombing Romanian oilfields. Without that oil the German war machine could not function.

I don’t think that the invasion of Greece was responsible for the full six week delay in Barbarossa. If Hitler had gone for Greece only, maybe it would only have been a three to four week delay. That’s acceptable due to the late spring rains. Unfortunately for the Axis, the government of Yugoslavia was overthrown in a military coup. As Hoover pointed out in his book, FDR encouraged that coup by falsely promising members of the Yugoslav military that, if they overthrew their own government, the United States would provide military aid against German retaliation. With perfect foresight, the Germans would have allowed Yugoslavia to remain neutral, instead of pressuring it to join the Axis.

But let’s say their foresight wasn’t quite as good as that decision would have implied. The next-best decision would have been to launch Barbarossa even while mopping up opposition in Yugoslavia and/or Greece.

Your Grandfather did good ABWorsham, thanks for sharing.

@KurtGodel7:

@Red:

Perhaps the greatest A&A gameplay weakness is that tanks and aircraft don’t take attrition losses.  Historically, even very successful attacks severely depleted these forces.  Examples would be heavy losses in Poland and France as well as pilot/aircraft losses in several of the major early war IJN/USN encounters.Â

Aircraft were particularly prone to heavy attrition just operating.  And they were easy to target in suprise attacks at the outbreak of war.  But since the game allows them to be chosen last they don’t attrit.  Plus they can be held away from the front.  This is why the USSR’s air force is almost completely absent in the initial placement.

Perhaps the greatest A&A gameplay weakness is that tanks and aircraft don’t take attrition losses.

They do in my rules set!  8-) Every round of ground or naval combat begins with the dogfight phase. In the dogfight phase, all units present fire at their air combat values. Any hits you receive must be applied to air units. Once you have applied a single anti-air hit to one of your air units, you must apply additional hits to that same unit until it’s dead, or until combat ends. (The same is true if you apply an anti-land hit to one of your land units, an anti-naval hit to one of your ships, or an anti-sub hit to one of your submarines.)

There are other ways aircraft can be destroyed as well. In strategic bombing raids, there is one round of dogfight phase, followed by strategic bombers attacking their targets using their strategic bombing values. Strategic bombing raids do permanent damage. For every ten points of damage a production facility experiences in a strategic bombing raid, it is reduced by one level. While nations receive some money from territory income, most of their late game production will come from production facilities. A sufficiently powerful strategic bombing offensive can destroy all those facilities; as well as the underlying cities in which they would exist. The correct defense against a strategic bombing offensive is to build air superiority planes; such as piston fighters or jet fighters.

There is a second way of defending oneself from strategic bombing raids: airfield attacks. To initiate an airfield attack, send your planes to a space with enemy aircraft, and declare an airfield attack. There will be two rounds of dogfight phase. Any of your planes which survived that dogfight may launch one attack against enemy aircraft, using their land combat values.

Interesting. At one time I had an idea for a variant of A&A where unit placement was at the start of your turn and the purchase phase was at the end. The units purchased were considered “in production” and set aside until placement at the beginning of the next turn. While the units are in production the enemy can strategic bomb them before they even get deployed.

By doing this the intention was to make strategic bombing more important and more costly. The other difference was that interceptors defended at full combat value and escorts attacked at full combat value for one round. I have never play-tested this so it might be a game breaker. It seems kind of fun to me though.

Wow mallery29. Did not know that. My knowledge of US history is pre civil war to end of the war.

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!