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Did America win the war for the Allies in WW2?
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Beylerbeyi View Drop Down
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Posts: 1355 		  Quote Beylerbeyi Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: Did America win the war for the Allies in WW2?
    Posted: 24-Oct-2008 at 12:13
Graham,
 
I see how you got the figures. I don't really think it reasonable to count the population of France on the German side, just because they were occupied. You might argue back that India was occupied by the British, but plenty of Indians volunteered to fight for Britain, and the populace weren't in any way rebellious.
 
Yes, Germany had more trouble with the populations and land it controlled than the others. I don't claim otherwise. But they controlled these populations and the Allies (including Soviets) could not use them either.
 
Naval power is ESSENTIAL for amphibious invasions. (Except in the rare case of small scale invasion from the air.) If the Germans had had naval superiority at any time in the war, not only would D-Day not have taken place, Britain would have been invaded in 1940. Invasions over water are about navies more than anything.
 
What you write is obvious, but what I meant was as I wrote in the following sentence above, naval power is useless if you are facing the whole Wehrmacht in Normandy. If Wehrmacht wasn't being destroyed in the USSR, Normandy landings would not have taken place.
 
Why do you think Germany would have controlled North Africa and the Middle East? They totally failed there in real life, when they only had the Commonwealth to fight.
 
It did not say that Germany would have controlled NA and ME. But it was not impossible at all that Germany (and Italy) could have accomplished that if they were fighting only the UK and not the USSR.
 
I don't know how long a neutral USSR would have continued to trade with Germany for Reichmarks, since they couldn't buy anything with them. Germany would have had to pay with exports, which means reducing its productive capacity for its own ends. Germany might have controlled Europe, but it was broke.
 
I would in fact have thought that the possibility of revolt in Germany, and surrender, after say ten years of close blockade have been quite high - just as in 1918.
 
This could have happened. And this (blockade) is where sea power is important. Not so much in invasion. UK would have tried to blockade Germany with the surface fleet, and Germany would have tried to blockade the UK with its submarines without the USSR. I think a stalemate would have resulted.
 
They're all plausible, except that I can't see stalemate if the US joins in on the German side.
 
US joining Germany??? What have I been writing? I was not even drunk. Anyway, I edited it, it should have been 'US joining Britain against Germany'. Without the USSR, would still result in a stalemate. As it is impossible to invade Europe from the land when facing all of the Heer.
 
I also think that Britain (or Britain/US) being first to develop nuclear weapons is a certainty, no matter how long it took. No-one else had the raw materials, not even the US unless she attacks or is allied to Canada.
 
I don't know. USSR built a bomb in 1948, IIRC. China built a bomb. India did, Pakistan did. It does not seem impossible to me that Germany would build one (even a year after the Allies would not have mattered much) when they controlled all of Europe and maybe the Middle East and North Africa.
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Posts: 2120 		  Quote Maharbbal Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 24-Oct-2008 at 15:50
bey, Russia's and China's bomb mostly arisen from technological transfer (to say it clearly in the case of the SU: espionage).
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Posts: 5221 		  Quote Temujin Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 24-Oct-2008 at 19:05
Soviet Union did not get the bomb by espionage, it was given by them by a smart person that thought equality of force is a good thing.
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Posts: 2120 		  Quote Maharbbal Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25-Oct-2008 at 01:21
hmmm ideological reasons are often involved in a spy's decision to act, it is still espionage. You wouldn't say that it wasn't espionage had the guys been paid.
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Posts: 3113 		  Quote Sarmat Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 27-Oct-2008 at 14:28
I think we already went a bit off topic.
 
So, I want to summarize my opinion. I don't think that the USA won the whole war for the allies.
 
However, I do believe that the USA defeated Japan. At the same time the USSR defeated Germany. It could also be said that the USA provided substantial help to the USSR by fighting in North Africa, Italy and finally invading France in 1944 and aslo by the lend-lease prorgam, while the USSR invasion to Manchuria helped to finish off Japan (unfortunately this operation doesn't get enough attention in the Western sources, while according to some Japanese sources the Soviet attack in Manchuria was actually a more important factor that influence the Japanese decision to surrender than the nuclear bombings).
However, I do believe that the USSR could and would finish Germany without the American help and the USA would be able to do it to Japan without the Soviet help.
 
So, if one asks whether the USA won the war for the Allies, my answer is no. But if one asks, did the USSR win WWII for the allies, my answer is no as well.
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Posts: 150 		  Quote Husaria Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 28-Oct-2008 at 03:14
Can anybody help me with some Links for Soviet Production And American Production figures?
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Posts: 5221 		  Quote Temujin Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 28-Oct-2008 at 18:45
some selective numbers.

most produced US tank: Medium M4 ("Sherman") 48.064 mass-production starting from 1942

most produced Soviet tank: T-34 39.698 mass production starting from 1941

the US is leading here, but the Soviet Union also produced significant nubmers of T-26, T-70 (both light tanks) and Su-76 (assault gun), with production numbers bewteen 8-12.000. the only other US tank produced in very large numbers is the Light M3 ("Stuart") with 14.000 and its upgrade the Light M5 with 9.000.


most produced US plane: Consolidated B-24 "Liberator" 19.203 (four-engined strategic bomber) mass-production starting in 1941

most produced Soviet plane: Ilyushin Il-2 Shturmovik 36.134 (single-engined ground attack plane) mass-production starting in 1941

the US also produced in significant numbers (10-15.000 each): B-17 (four-engined strategic bomber), B-25 (two-engined tactical bomber), F4U (carrier-borne fighter/ground attack plane), F6F (carrier-borne fighter plane), P-38 (two engined fighter plane), P-39 (fighter plane), P-40 (fighter plane), P-47 (fighter plane), P-51 (fighter plane), TBF (carrier-borne Torpedo bomber)
the Soviet Union also produced in significant nubmers: Yak series of fighter planes (all types: 36.732, of that Yak 9 alone 16.769), La-5 fighter plane 10.000, Pe-2 two-engined tactical bomber 11.426,

then there were also naval ship construction, of which the US outproduced anyone else by far, alone 10 new fleet-carriers produced (Essex-Class) as well as 9 light carriers (Independence Class), 8 battleships (South Dakota & Iowa Class) and 2 battlecruisers (Alaska Class) and finally 12 heavy cruisers (Baltimore Class). not to mention the smaller ships like light cruisers and destroyers and subs. during ww2 the Soviets only major surface ship production amounted to 6 Cruisers.

US also had the Manhattan Project which also used up massive industrial ressources and capacities.


Edited by Temujin - 28-Oct-2008 at 18:52
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Posts: 4221 		  Quote pikeshot1600 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 28-Oct-2008 at 22:38

Thanks to Temujin for the research.

The only correction I can make to those weapons systems is that the Essex Class carriers numbered 24, 14 of which saw active combat service.  The others were completed either before shakedown and training were finished (3), or after the war ended (7).

EDIT:  The Essex Class supported an air group of 90 to 105 planes whose configuration changed several times during the war.
 
The Independence Class were a stop gap due to CV losses at Coral Sea, Midway and the Solomons in 1942.  However, cramped and unsuitable as they were, being converted from light cruiser hulls, they provided about the equivalent of another four or five Essex air groups. 
 
Destroyers are sometimes dismissed as "small ships."  Nothing could be further from the truth as they carried out many duties, some extremely hazardous, and provided often needed in-shore fire support.  Four classes of modern destroyers were completed from 1942 to 45 totaling 396 ships.  The destroyer was, and still is, the workhorse of any blue water navy.
 
The production of transports (Liberty ships, oilers, refrigeration ships, etc.), was over 33,000,000 tons.
 
EDIT:  In addition, 141 (some say 130) escort carriers were either converted from merchantmen, or purpose built (122) in the US for convoy antisubmarine duty.  Something like 36 or 38 were built for the RN to add to their six merchant conversions.  These escort carriers could support an air group of 24 to 30 planes.
 
    


Edited by pikeshot1600 - 29-Oct-2008 at 19:20
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Posts: 7035 		  Quote gcle2003 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29-Oct-2008 at 12:23
Originally posted by Chilbudios

It's unfair incidentally to the Poles to say they sold them to Britain, as someone suggested.
By selling this information they helped the Allies against Germany, which was also the aggressor of Poland. It is not like they presented this information at a conference on cryptography.
So what did they get paid for it? 
 
Why do you think Germany would have controlled North Africa and the Middle East?
The hypothesis was of no/neutral USSR and that could mean stronger forces deployed on other fronts.
So the USSR is out but Italy is still in?
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Posts: 1900 		  Quote Chilbudios Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29-Oct-2008 at 12:31
Originally posted by gcle2003

So what did they get paid for it? 
I already told you how. Please contemplate the polysemantism of the verb "to sell":
 
So the USSR is out but Italy is still in?
I just explained his scenario because you were (and still are) building straw men.
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Posts: 4489 		  Quote Spartakus Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29-Oct-2008 at 13:57
Originally posted by Chilbudios

Originally posted by gcle2003

So what did they get paid for it? 
I already told you how. Please contemplate the polysemantism of the verb "to sell":
 


I really do not understand your sense of humor.......or it is not?
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Posts: 7035 		  Quote gcle2003 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29-Oct-2008 at 14:03
Originally posted by red clay

You can't build bombs with heavy water. More accurately, heavy water is used to slow down nuclear reactions in nuclear plants and in the production of plutonium and enriched uranium. Without uranium (from which plutonium is produced) you couldn't build a fission bomb. Canada had uranium. The Congo had uranium. Canada had a plutonium production plant. Even the US didn't produce and plutonium till 1953, and it depended on Canadian uranium anyway.
 
 
The Hanford works Reactor B went online 9/26/1944.  It was the first plutonium production plant in the world.  By mid 1945 Uranium was being mined at 3 sites in the US.
Whatever - my sources may have been unreliable. The point however was made in the context of a UK vs Germany one of one alternative scenario. The important point therefore that Britain was a lot more likely to develop the bomb by itself than Germany was.
 
Only the US had the resources to build the Bomb.
They had them first. They weren't the only ones to have them. If they'd stayed out of the war, Britain was the next most likely to build it first.
 ... 
In regards to the statement about shermans and stuart tanks,  "who else would they sell them to?"  The Sherman and Stuart were specifically designed for rapid and mass production mainly because they had been ordered by the UK.  The US didn't produce these things on a purely speculative basis, good gravy man.
I don't think anyone suggested they were built on spec. Rephrasing the question, if the UK hadn't ordered them, then who would have? Who else had the creditworthiness to induce the manufacturers to invest?
 
Ship building, the Kaiser co. was producing Liberty ships at a rate of 7 to 10 a week!
But one can make the same point as about the tanks. The Liberty ships (at least their predecssors) were ordered by the British in 1940. That was before the US entered the war, and presumably would have still happened even if the US never entered it. On the other hand no US shipyards would have taken orders on credit from the Germans (especially since they would have been sunk as soon as they left US waters).
 
WWII was just that a World War.  It required the full efforts of all the Allied Powers to win it. 
True of the actual historical situation, of course.
 No one country would have been able to go it alone. 
Especially Germany, the smallest and poorest of the powers involved.
 The USSR might have been able to force Germany back and out of Russia but that's about it.
 
I'm seeing some first class half-assing being done by people who usually are the first to start screaming for sources.  Wow!
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Posts: 7035 		  Quote gcle2003 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29-Oct-2008 at 14:09
Originally posted by Chilbudios

Originally posted by gcle2003

So what did they get paid for it? 
I already told you how. Please contemplate the polysemantism of the verb "to sell":
The first 6 definitions there are
transitive verb
1: to deliver or give up in violation of duty, trust, or loyalty and especially for personal gain : betray —often used with out<sell out their country
2 a (1): to give up (property) to another for something of value (as money) (2): to offer for sale
> b: to give up in return for something else especially foolishly or dishonorably <sold his birthright for a mess of pottage
> c: to exact a price for <sold their lives dearly
3 a: to deliver into slavery for money
> b: to give into the power of another <sold his soul to the devil
> c: to deliver the personal services of for money
4: to dispose of or manage for profit instead of in accordance with conscience, justice, or duty <sold their votes
5 a: to develop a belief in the truth, value, or desirability of : gain acceptance for <trying to sell a program to the Congress
> b: to persuade or influence to a course of action or to the acceptance of something <sell children on reading
6: to impose on : cheat
I still think that in any of those senses to say the Poles sold the breakthrough to the Allies in unfair to the Poles.
 
So the USSR is out but Italy is still in?
I just explained his scenario because you were (and still are) building straw men.
I'm unaware of it. What position did I falsely attribute to whom?
 
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Posts: 1900 		  Quote Chilbudios Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29-Oct-2008 at 14:44
Originally posted by gcle2003

I still think that in any of those senses to say the Poles sold the breakthrough to the Allies in unfair to the Poles
Not at all. They provided the codes to Allies because the Poles wanted the Allies to eventually use these codes against Nazi Germany (it is a typical "do ut des" case). It was not charity, it was not a random choice, it was not a symposium on cryptography. I find rather unfair to elude the transactional nature of this "gift", to suggest that it was altruism, random chance or anything else.
 
I'm unaware of it. What position did I falsely attribute to whom?
Beylerbeyi's scenario held that not having a USSR on the Eastern Front, Nazi Germany would have benefited of considerable more forces on other fronts. Your remark "Why do you think Germany would have controlled North Africa and the Middle East?" thus ignores his position (and was said many times in the thread, that if no USSR/US the Axis powers checked by them would have much more resources to defend/assault on other fronts). Your second question " So the USSR is out but Italy is still in?" comes as a reply to my attempt of explaining his scenario, so your question suggests that either a) I was arguing about something else (and I didn't) or b) his scenario would have some other what-if premises but USSR being out (and it didn't).
 
 


Edited by Chilbudios - 29-Oct-2008 at 14:59
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Posts: 7035 		  Quote gcle2003 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29-Oct-2008 at 14:51
Originally posted by Maharbbal

Where did you get the figures from for total UK shipbuilding? 400,000 tons is only about 15-20 ships. Anyway the British started from a high base with the world's largest merchant fleet (IIRC about 20 million tons). They could have lost tonnage equal to their whole 1939-45 production without it being catastrophic.
 


sarmat posted the figures... 6 millions plus 20, it's 26, that's the equivalent of four years of very good hunting for the u-boats... tough definitely, but doable.
What's the six million? Does it include shipping built for the British by neutral countries?
 
And actually that's five years of the U-boats' best ever month, before hunting techniques had reached the sophistication they did later.

not mentioning that's submarine warfare is submitted to a law of increasing returns (what the enemy allocates to rebuilt what you've sunk are resources that won't be used in building material made to track you down, thus allowing to sink some more ships.
Doesn't have the impact you might think. The materials 'made to track you down' don't amount to very much in bulk. Certainly it takes a lot less material to find and sink a submarine than it does to build one.


for a good idea of a successful submarine campaign look at the more difficult and less intense one the US launched against Japan, by 1945 the Japs had to built their planes in wood!!!
One of the most successful of all WW2 warplanes, the Mosquito, was built of wood.
Originally posted by Hermann Goering, January 1943

In 1940 I could at least fly as far as Glasgow in most of my aircraft, but not now! It makes me furious when I see the Mosquito. I turn green and yellow with envy.

The British, who can afford aluminium better than we can, knock together a beautiful wooden aircraft that every piano factory over there is building, and they give it a speed which they have now increased yet again. What do you make of that?
 
 

A point I should have made earlier is that Britain increased its domestic food production by much more than that. When you look at pre-1939 figures for British food imports you have to remember that much British arable land was lying fallow, partly because of the Depression, largely because imports were cheaper.
 
well civil unrest would have arisen as the stocks of PG tips were drunk away, but that's another matter.
I assume that's a joke, or your source is Asterix.

anyway, the fact remains that even if they hadn't starved to death the British war production would have been very seriously affected. You make it sound as if there was no way on earth for the Brits to loose the war.
No, I said early on that Germany might have won the war in the early stages. However, if it doesn't win fast, it loses in the end, mostly on economic grounds.
There's no reason to suppose they would have been deprived of oil. Oil was harder to get for the Germans.

well, Romania ain't exactly far... not mentioning that part of the production was synthetic
As it could well have been for the British. Britain is an island largely made of coal and salt. The only reason the Germans made more use of synthetic oil was because they needed it more.

You exaggerate the US contribution to the Battle of the Atlantic, though it was of course impactful. The key factors were tactical with the improvement in the convoy situation, and technical, with the breaking of the codes by which U-boats communicated[1] and the development of sonar (ASDIC) which was as critical to the sea war as radar was in the Battle of Britain.
C'mon no offense to the courage of the English sailors nor indeed of the European ones (since many French, Dutch, Norwegians etc were serving in the merchant navy), but the US contribution to the victory in the Atlantic was just huge.
Undeniably. But that again is true of the actual history, it doesn't necessarily affect the one on one scenario. The point was that ASDIC was developed without US help, the codes were broken without US help, the computers that were developed to process them in useful time were developed with out US help, and the convoy system was perfected without US help. And those are the things that won in the Atlantic (along with air and surface superiority of course).
Even if we don't tke into account the numerous subs sunk by the Yanks, the filling of the black hole with US planes, etc. The Brits would have lost the battle cause at one point the u-boats simply would not have found any ship let to sunk. Here it is useful that the sole US ship production in terms of tonnage for the 1941-5 period equals nearly 150% of the UK's existing merchant fleet plus the ships built between 1939 and 1941.
More than the  Liberators, the  Catalinas, the escort carriers, etc what won the Battle of the Atlantic was the overwhelming production capacities of the US shipyards.
Which, as has been pointed out already, were producing ships for Britain well before the US entered the war.
 
Moreover at least several hundred Catalinas were built in Canada for the RAF, many of them before the US entered the war. The first Catalinas were in fact ordered (from the US) for the RAF before the war even started, in July 1939. I64 Liberators were also ordered for the RAF before the war started as were 120 for the French: these were diverted to Britain after the fall of France. Most of the first Liberators were built for the RAF.
 
As with other things, this happened before the US joined the war, and essentially depended on Britain's ability to pay for what they ordered, a fundamental ability that Germany could not match.


US absence wouldn't have made any difference to the numbers of U-boats the Germans had.
Well they did sink something like 200 or 300 IIRC.

I make the same answer. You can't just wish America away, you can only make her neutral.


Well, if you really don't want to turn the US into a lake or a desert, that's fine, just lets say that they banned any export towards the UK.
Why on earth would they do that? Historically they happily built weapons for Britain while they were still neutral, (as indeed they had done in 1914-17). You might as well assume the English Channel was dry land as assume US arms manufacturers would turn down eays money.
 
The US got rid of Italy? Why do you think the British were given command of the operation?


Always thought Ike was in charge...
I guess you probably did. In fact he was for a while, until first Wilson then Alexander replaced him, after he moved in Jan 1944 to take control of Overlord. British casualties in the Italian campaign came to just under 200,000 whereas US casualties were little more than half that, at about 115,000.


Edited by gcle2003 - 29-Oct-2008 at 14:56
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Posts: 7035 		  Quote gcle2003 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29-Oct-2008 at 15:11
Beylerbeyi, mostly I agree with you. A few comments however.
Originally posted by Beylerbeyi

What you write is obvious, but what I meant was as I wrote in the following sentence above, naval power is useless if you are facing the whole Wehrmacht in Normandy. If Wehrmacht wasn't being destroyed in the USSR, Normandy landings would not have taken place.
Somewhere in what seems now to be dim pre-history I said the same thing. I don't think Britain could have dislodged Germany from western Europe, if Germany wasn't fighting elsewhere. It looks to me like a stalemate with a couple of variations that follow below.
  
I would in fact have thought that the possibility of revolt in Germany, and surrender, after say ten years of close blockade have been quite high - just as in 1918.
 
This could have happened. And this (blockade) is where sea power is important. Not so much in invasion. UK would have tried to blockade Germany with the surface fleet, and Germany would have tried to blockade the UK with its submarines without the USSR. I think a stalemate would have resulted.
[/QUOTE]
I don't think there would have been a stalemate at sea. It's a lot easier to use surface and air superiority to stop shipping getting into the North Sea or across the Mediterranean than to use submarines to stop shipping crossing the Atlantic. The big difference is being able to see where the targets (i.e. the merchant ships) are.
 
I also think that Britain (or Britain/US) being first to develop nuclear weapons is a certainty, no matter how long it took. No-one else had the raw materials, not even the US unless she attacks or is allied to Canada.
 
I don't know. USSR built a bomb in 1948, IIRC.
1949. However they did discover they had reasonable uranium resources which they didn't know about to start with. That means the USSR had a better chance to build bombs that the Germans did, but it still leaves Britain ahead of Germany.
China built a bomb. India did, Pakistan did. It does not seem impossible to me that Germany would build one (even a year after the Allies would not have mattered much) when they controlled all of Europe and maybe the Middle East and North Africa.
Europe didn't have the necessary resources. Neither diod the Middle East or North Africa, though again I can't see why you think Germany would have controlled them, since Germany was weaker in the key elements of air and sea superiority.
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Posts: 7035 		  Quote gcle2003 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29-Oct-2008 at 15:19
Originally posted by Chilbudios

Originally posted by gcle2003

I still think that in any of those senses to say the Poles sold the breakthrough to the Allies in unfair to the Poles
Not at all. They provided the codes to Allies because the Poles wanted the Allies to eventually use these codes against Nazi Germany (it is a typical "do ut des" case). It was not charity, it was not a random choice, it was not a symposium on cryptography. I find rather unfair to elude the transactional nature of this "gift", to suggest that it was altruism, random chance or anything else.
I still think 'selling' degrades the act. And I think your definitions make my point.
 
I'm unaware of it. What position did I falsely attribute to whom?
Beylerbeyi's scenario held that not having a USSR on the Eastern Front, Nazi Germany would have benefited of considerable more forces on other fronts. Your remark "Why do you think Germany would have controlled North Africa and the Middle East?" thus ignores his position (and was said many times in the thread, that if no USSR/US the Axis powers checked by them would have much more resources to defend/assault on other fronts).
Je did say that Germany wold have controlled NA and the ME, and has since said so again. So how can my response be called a straw man? A 'straw man' argument is when someone invents a position, attributes it to an opponent who doesn't hold it, and then goes on to demolish it. In fact I din't do any of those things, I merely asked for further explanation..
Your second question " So the USSR is out but Italy is still in?" comes as a reply to my attempt of explaining his scenario, so your question suggests that either a) I was arguing about something else (and I didn't) or b) his scenario would have some other what-if premises but USSR being out (and it didn't).
(b) is correct. His scenario had - but not explicitly - the extra assumption that Italy was still involved. In his later post he accepts that and makes it explicit. Which is OK with me as long as it's clear what is being assumed.
 
I'm not sure you know what a 'straw man' argument is.
 


Edited by gcle2003 - 29-Oct-2008 at 15:22
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Posts: 1900 		  Quote Chilbudios Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29-Oct-2008 at 15:57
Originally posted by Gcle2003

I still think 'selling' degrades the act. And I think your definitions make my point.
I don' think they do, some definitions cover only the transaction part e.g. "to give up (property) to another for something of value (as money)".
 
I find degrading to suggest they just gave the information away, it diminishes the actual role they had, it shadows the deliberate action of Polish authorities to give this information in exchange for a future and for the security of their country.
Probably from a pro-Western position this is OK. The Westerners did it, the Poles just happened to have the information and gave it away like some wussies they were.
 
Je did say that Germany wold have controlled NA and the ME, and has since said so again. So how can my response be called a straw man? A 'straw man' argument is when someone invents a position, attributes it to an opponent who doesn't hold it, and then goes on to demolish it. In fact I din't do any of those things, I merely asked for further explanation..
 
I'm not sure you know what a 'straw man' argument is.
You now create straw men against your earlier claims. Read more carefully. Your own link says:
" 1. Person A has position X.

2. Person B ignores X and instead presents position Y. ".

He said there's no USSR. Your ignored his position as proven by the question and the argument which followed "Why do you think Germany would have controlled North Africa and the Middle East? They totally failed there in real life, when they only had the Commonwealth to fight" . Your argument (a Y position) thus ignores the initial premise (a X position), and the conclusion you drew at that stage of the discussion (suggested by the question you asked) it is based on the "real life" premise, not on his premise.
I'll rephrase a bit that succession of replies to illustrate the straw man as in the Wiki article you invoked:
A:  Let's imagine there's no USSR. Germany probably would have controlled NA and ME.
B:  They couldn't. They failed there in real life.
 
(b) is correct. His scenario had - but not explicitly - the extra assumption that Italy was still involved. In his later post he accepts that and makes it explicit. Which is OK with me as long as it's clear what is being assumed.
 He didn't say Martians were involved either. We discuss here on WWII. Some of us built arguments on a what-if premise. If he didn't say "Italy is out" why would you assume such a thing? And why would I believe Italy is out (you asked me, not him)? Such assumptions (Y positions) are becoming straw men.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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Posts: 1355 		  Quote Beylerbeyi Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29-Oct-2008 at 17:32

Greetings,

on the Italy issue, I wanted to clarify the scenarios I was discussing, since I thought that people were discussing different scenarios. I would have done this more carefully if I'd knew people would place so much importance upon them. Anyway, I was minimising the variables, so when USSR and USA are out, everything else stays the same. No need to assume Italy would be out.
 
Graham,
 
I don't think there would have been a stalemate at sea. It's a lot easier to use surface and air superiority to stop shipping getting into the North Sea or across the Mediterranean than to use submarines to stop shipping crossing the Atlantic. The big difference is being able to see where the targets (i.e. the merchant ships) are.
 
I meant a general stalemate, where neither Britain nor Germany would be able to force the other side to surrender by naval blockade alone, at least not within a decade.
 
1949. However they did discover they had reasonable uranium resources which they didn't know about to start with. That means the USSR had a better chance to build bombs that the Germans did, but it still leaves Britain ahead of Germany.
 
I don't dispute that UK and USSR were likely to produce nukes before Germany. Where I am not sure is that a. Germany could not have produced any nukes and b. the nukes would have forced a German surrender before Germany responds in kind (or with a comparable strategic mass bombardment programme- they don't have to have nukes to kill millions, they could have used gas, bio agents, or napalm).
 
Europe didn't have the necessary resources.
 
I found the following list of uranium mines in wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_uranium_mines
As I suspected, there are Uranium mines in Europe. If the Germans were desperate they would have found them and used them. I still agree that they would have greater difficulty producing nukes compared to other belligerents (except Italy and Japan), but I remain unconvinced that they were totally incapable of producing nukes, let alone other means to destroy cities. 
 
Neither diod the Middle East or North Africa, though again I can't see why you think Germany would have controlled them, since Germany was weaker in the key elements of air and sea superiority.
 
Again, I did not say that Germany would have controlled the ME and NA. I wrote that Germany could have controlled the said areas (in one case I wrote 'possibly', in the other I wrote 'maybe'). I think without the Russian front, a victory in North Africa is quite possible. Also if the need arose, Germany could have pushed through Turkey into Syria, Palestine and eventually Egypt.
 
This part gets rather speculative, because USSR may feel obliged to intervene if Germany attacked Turkey. Hey, since it's about Turkey I'll speculate a bit, for fun. Even if USSR did not join the war, everybody would have supplied Turkey like there is no tomorrow if Germany attacked. I believe Germans would be able to take Istanbul, Ankara and all of Western Turkey. And once they cross the Taurus mountains and take Iskenderun/Antakya, they would have reached Syria, which is perfect tank terrain, next stop would have been the Suez canal in the Southwest and Basra in the East, Turkey and Britain could possibly have made a stand in Kurdistan. Turkey supported by USSR is likely to hold its ground, I am not sure if Britain could/would have supplied Kurdistan all the way from India, through Iran, which I assume would be partitioned like it was during the war. Germany and Britain would have fought the Iran-Iraq war in there. Too much to speculate who would win that, but I think Britain would have stopped the Germans at the Zagros mountains at least.
 
If Turkey refused to surrender after losing Istanbul and Ankara, then the government would have fallen back to the mountains of Eastern Turkey, to Sivas or Erzurum, and get supplies from Trabzon and by land from USSR. I think they would have survived. Tanks and planes wouldn't do the Germans much good in a -30 Celcius snowstorm in mountain passes at 3000 m above sea level...


Edited by Beylerbeyi - 29-Oct-2008 at 17:35
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Posts: 7035 		  Quote gcle2003 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29-Oct-2008 at 18:46
Originally posted by Chilbudios

Originally posted by Gcle2003

I still think 'selling' degrades the act. And I think your definitions make my point.
I don' think they do, some definitions cover only the transaction part e.g. "to give up (property) to another for something of value (as money)".
 
I find degrading to suggest they just gave the information away, it diminishes the actual role they had, it shadows the deliberate action of Polish authorities to give this information in exchange for a future and for the security of their country.
Probably from a pro-Western position this is OK. The Westerners did it, the Poles just happened to have the information and gave it away like some wussies they were.
Contributing to the struggle against Hitler was not being 'wussie'. 'Selling' implies they only did it for what they could get. Which is simply untrue.
 
Je did say that Germany wold have controlled NA and the ME, and has since said so again. So how can my response be called a straw man? A 'straw man' argument is when someone invents a position, attributes it to an opponent who doesn't hold it, and then goes on to demolish it. In fact I din't do any of those things, I merely asked for further explanation..
 
I'm not sure you know what a 'straw man' argument is.
You now create straw men against your earlier claims. Read more carefully. Your own link says:
" 1. Person A has position X.

2. Person B ignores X and instead presents position Y. ".

He said there's no USSR. Your ignored his position as proven by the question and the argument which followed "Why do you think Germany would have controlled North Africa and the Middle East? They totally failed there in real life, when they only had the Commonwealth to fight" . Your argument (a Y position) thus ignores the initial premise (a X position),
No. I was talking about the actual situation before the USSR got involved, when Germany (and Italy) had no-one to fight except Britain and the Commonwealth. What happened when the USSR was not involved is very pertinent to what happened when the USSR was not involved.
and the conclusion you drew at that stage of the discussion (suggested by the question you asked) it is based on the "real life" premise, not on his premise.
I'll rephrase a bit that succession of replies to illustrate the straw man as in the Wiki article you invoked:
A:  Let's imagine there's no USSR. Germany probably would have controlled NA and ME.
B:  They couldn't. They failed there in real life.
That's simply not what I said. I asked a question. I asked why he thought they would have probably controlled those areas wthout the USSR being involved, when, factually, they failed to control those areas when the USSR was not involved.
 
You should have completed the sentence - 'they failed there in real life when the USSR was not involved'.
 
I wasn't presenting some argument that he had not put forward and then demolishing it, because (a) he had put it forward and (b) I didn't demolish it.
 
(b) is correct. His scenario had - but not explicitly - the extra assumption that Italy was still involved. In his later post he accepts that and makes it explicit. Which is OK with me as long as it's clear what is being assumed.
 He didn't say Martians were involved either. We discuss here on WWII.
Well, actually no we're not discussing WWII in this subthread. We're discussing what might have happened in a one-on-one conflict between Britain and Germany, under the minimum assumption that Germany's blitkrieg against the continental west European coountries had succeeded.  When discussing North Africa an awful lot depends on what is assumed about Italy's position. Beylerbeyi himself seems to have recognised this because later he specified that Italy was still considered fighting alongside Germany.
 Some of us built arguments on a what-if premise. If he didn't say "Italy is out" why would you assume such a thing? And why would I believe Italy is out (you asked me, not him)? Such assumptions (Y positions) are becoming straw men.
Again, all I did was ask a question - I said 'so USSR is out but Italy is in' or something similar. Asking a question about the assumptions being made is not assuming anything.
 
In fact if anyone here is attributing assertions to the other side, it's you since you're claiming I made assumptions I never made.
 
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