Split Thread WWII & Appeasement

HansMustermann said:
But let's address Bismarck. Hell, let's throw in Tirpitz too. And a completed Graf Zeppelin carrier. Why not? If we're going into fun alternate history scenario, let's dive in with glee like the Stuka.

You'll notice that what Bismarck manage to do was basically lead a small number of warships on a chase around the British Isles, trying to avoid a confrontation it couldn't win. When it was forced to actually stand and fight against just TWO battleships (the heavy cruisers only really joined at the end, after the Bismarck had lost its main guns), because that pesky aircraft disabled its rudder, yeah, it got blown to pieces. Even though by the end Rodney was shooting point blank at its thickest armour.

I'm not sure what even two of them could do against the whole home fleet, much less the combined all fleets in Britain. Which really is what would have been out, if Britain had to do an all out effort to keep off an invasion. They wouldn't have gone, "oh, let's keep our ships in port. We can't afford to lose a few."

Also bear in mind that this time they wouldn't just face a few obsolete carrier planes, but just about every bomber the Brits could put in the air from regular airstrips too.

The Bismarck also had several problems. I'm sure the more history versed folks here know them, but in case someone doesn't, here is a very relevant one: its AA guns couldn't depress below a certain angle, making it all but defenseless to torpedo bombing attacks. Which is how and why a few slow interwar carrier planes torpedoed it in the first place.

And even its armour wasn't as impenetrable as some people think. It wasn't the Yamato. Yeah, it was hard to sink, but it hadn't been all THAT hard to put out of action. A single close range 16" salvo from the Rodney blew upthe forward control post and killed most of the senior officers. A few more salvoes blew up its main turrets. And remember, this wasn't plunging attacks against the thinner roofs. The Rodney was closing as fast as it could and shooting at the thickest side armour.

All in all, the Bismarck was actually disabled pretty quickly when forced to stand and fight. Yes, the battle took a lot more time, but mainly because the Brits were determined to sink it already. For most of the shooting gallery that ensued, the ship was as good as no threat to anybody. It certainly wouldn't be in much of a position to support an invasion or anything.

Now some may object that it WAS only because being forced to stand and fight in close quarters, but really, that's also what you could expect if fighting to support an invasion in the Channel. I mean, sure, it probably could retreat to port and avoid being sunk, but that's back to square one: now the Royal Navy can sink those transports with impunity.
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ANy alternative World War 2 naval scenario, I DEMAND we include "Montana" class US Battleships....
 
jimbob said:
My theory is that the German commanders in their armed forces knew that they would need to neutralise both the RN and the RAF, and also knew that achieving both was unlikely, but that they also knew that saying no to Hitler would have been personally bad, so they instigated some pretty sketchy planning, so that they could report that they were doing something towards Sealion.
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They were also banking on the threat of Sealion forcing the British to negotiate, at no point was there ever a single clear operational plan for the invasion as the differing requirements of the navy and army couldn't be reconciled.
 
dudalb said:
ANy alternative World War 2 naval scenario, I DEMAND we include "Montana" class US Battleships....
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I assume on the UK side, in some kind of early entry into war of the USA?

Well, realistically the 16" guns would have done to the Bismarck the same that the Rodney already did in the real history: turn it into the world's most expensive buoy. Because essentially that was what the Bismarck was after the first few salvoes from the Rodney took out its weapons. It would need a lot more hits to actually sink, but basically it was just a buoy for most of the shooting gallery exercise.
 
HansMustermann said:
I assume on the UK side, in some kind of early entry into war of the USA?

Well, realistically the 16" guns would have done to the Bismarck the same that the Rodney already did in the real history: turn it into the world's most expensive buoy. Because essentially that was what the Bismarck was after the first few salvoes from the Rodney took out its weapons. It would need a lot more hits to actually sink, but basically it was just a buoy for most of the shooting gallery exercise.
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Actually, late 44 was the earliest that the USS Montana would have been ready.
In reality, the Montana class was cancelled in mid 1943,when it was clear that the Aircraft Carrier was the dominant Capital Ship,and Battleships were now in a supporting role. The "Iowa" class was to be the last US Battleship class to actually enter service.
 
dudalb said:
Actually, late 44 was the earliest that the USS Montana would have been ready.
In reality, the Montana class was cancelled in mid 1943,when it was clear that the Aircraft Carrier was the dominant Capital Ship,and Battleships were now in a supporting role. The "Iowa" class was to be the last US Battleship class to actually enter service.
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I know, but you demanded that the Montana be there in our alternate history Sealion scenario, so that's mid-41 at the latest. Hence in that alternate reality, the Montana would have to be started and completed very early, and the US would have to enter the war very early. And yet somehow that wouldn't deterr Germany from trying Sealion.
 
Politicians like Chamberlain don't always tell the truth with regard to things like appeasement. it's a bit like Brexit was supposed to give the NHS an extra £350 million a year which Farage just laughed off after the vote. Whenever a politician says that he or she has no plans to do something you can guarantee that's what will happen a few months later. I hope that's short enough.
 
theprestige said:
Jesus Christ, Henri, *everybody* knew Hitler intended to invade Russia. It was never a secret. The only question was when, where, and how. And Chamberlain could not have known that, because those things didn't get decided until *after he was dead*.

Seriously, what are you trying to get from this? What agreement are you looking for, here?
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There was an old TV documentary yesterday about the Channel Islands at war in which it mentioned that resistance fighters there were betrayed to the Gestapo by an Irishman called Paddy Doyle. Chamberlain obtained much of his information from our secret service, which was secret at the time, and not from Boys Own comics.
 
Henri McPhee said:
There was an old TV documentary yesterday about the Channel Islands at war in which it mentioned that resistance fighters there were betrayed to the Gestapo by an Irishman called Paddy Doyle. Chamberlain obtained much of his information from our secret service, which was secret at the time, and not from Boys Own comics.
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I dread to ask, but what does that have to do with anything?
More importantly, what does it have to do with what theprestige posted?
 
Henri McPhee said:
There was an old TV documentary yesterday about the Channel Islands at war in which it mentioned that resistance fighters there were betrayed to the Gestapo by an Irishman called Paddy Doyle.
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And 5000 Irish soldiers 'deserted' to enlist with the British Army, not to mention another 50,000 volunteers, so what exactly is your purpose in picking out a single pro-Nazi Irishman?
 
Garrison said:
And 5000 Irish soldiers 'deserted' to enlist with the British Army, not to mention another 50,000 volunteers, so what exactly is your purpose in picking out a single pro-Nazi Irishman?
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Henri really doesn't like the Irish, if his posts in other threads are anything to go by.
 
Henri McPhee said:
There is a difference between appeasement and a monumental misjudgement.
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So you post a non-sequitur, disappear from the thread for a couple of weeks, ignore all responses to your previous post and instead offer up another post unconnected to anything else that's been discussed.
 
There was a TV documentary yesterday about psychopaths which started of with Jimmy Savile, and then moved on to Robert Maxwell, and other corporate psychopaths at Enron and the Royal Bank of Scotland. It then moved on to Hitler. A TV historian made the controversial point that Chamberlain was fooled and conned by Hitler's charm. That is not strictly true if you investigate some of the things Chamberlain had said in private about Hitler before war was declared.

I'm not sure if Trump is a psychopath, but I do think he is like a chump. I'm pretty sure Kim Jong Un is a psychopath with his fingers on the nuclear button, and I've never like Mugabe.

I agree with this quote from the internet:

Harris’s defence of Chamberlain rests on the assertion that the Munich agreement, though a shameful betrayal of the Czechs, was the only practical course of action for the British government.
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Chamberlain was terminally ill at Munich. That does affect one's ability to negotiate effectively.
 
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