History thread [split] from "New Rule - Promoting Terrorism"

[GUBU]

Absolutely right.  FDR asked for sacrifices of American civilians that Hitler would not dare to do.  Bad memories of the post-WWI food riots, I guess?

I often wonder what would have happened if Hitler had not declared war on the US.  On Dec. 8 the country was unified in its hatred of Japan and the desire for revenge and most people didn't give a flying fuck about Germany.  FDR did not even make an attempt to get congress to declare war on Germany when he addressed congress.   I imagine at some point an incident would have been manufactured but its hard to imagine what that would have been.  I asked my dad about it one time and he said that every one he knew after Pearl Harbor wanted to kill Japs.  He ended up in North Africa and Italy so he didn't get his wish.

Overlord wouldn't have happened. The war in Europe would have been c 2 years longer and Soviet forces would have overrun most of the continent.

The suimple fact is that Germany effectively lost the war on 30/01/1933.

[Anomalocaris]

Absolutely right.  FDR asked for sacrifices of American civilians that Hitler would not dare to do.  Bad memories of the post-WWI food riots, I guess?

I often wonder what would have happened if Hitler had not declared war on the US.  On Dec. 8 the country was unified in its hatred of Japan and the desire for revenge and most people didn't give a flying fuck about Germany.  FDR did not even make an attempt to get congress to declare war on Germany when he addressed congress.   I imagine at some point an incident would have been manufactured but its hard to imagine what that would have been.  I asked my dad about it one time and he said that every one he knew after Pearl Harbor wanted to kill Japs.  He ended up in North Africa and Italy so he didn't get his wish.

Overlord wouldn't have happened. The war in Europe would have been c 2 years longer and Soviet forces would have overrun most of the continent.

The suimple fact is that Germany effectively lost the war on 30/01/1933.

That’s far too complacent a view.  The contribution of the US and UK direct aid to the Soviet effort is vastly understated and underestimated.   At the same time the impact of western air effort and later ground efforts upon the ability of their german armed forces to wage war effectively on the eastern front is also understated and underestimated.

The notion of the irresistibility of Soviet juggernaut is somewhat exaggerated.   It is probably fair to say without western material aid to the USSR, the Soviet army would not have had the stretgic mobility to conduct deep penetration attacks that proved so destructive of the german combat power in 1944.   Without in the British and american air war against Germany proper, the USSR would not have been able to gain air superiority over the eastern front.    

Without the US in the war, Germany likely would have been able to fight the USSR at least to a stand still.  Soviet Union might have been far more efficient and effective in mobilizing her material resources for war, it remains that Germany had far greater material resources and much more advanced industrial base.    It might have been true the USSR had far more manpower than Germany, but USSR was still burning through her greater manpower at a higher rate than the Germans, and would have ran out of man power first had the war continued much as in 1942, when germany’s Retained air superiority and still possessed superior strategic mobility on land.

[GUBU]

Overlord wouldn't have happened. The war in Europe would have been c 2 years longer and Soviet forces would have overrun most of the continent.

The suimple fact is that Germany effectively lost the war on 30/01/1933.

That’s far too complacent a view.  The contribution of the US and UK direct aid to the Soviet effort is vastly understated and underestimated.   At the same time the impact of western air effort and later ground efforts upon the ability of their german armed forces to wage war effectively on the eastern front is also understated and underestimated.

The notion of the irresistibility of Soviet juggernaut is somewhat exaggerated.   It is probably fair to say without western material aid to the USSR, the Soviet army would not have had the stretgic mobility to conduct deep penetration attacks that proved so destructive of the german combat power in 1944.   Without in the British and american air war against Germany proper, the USSR would not have been able to gain air superiority over the eastern front.    

Without the US in the war, Germany likely would have been able to fight the USSR at least to a stand still.  Soviet Union might have been far more efficient and effective in mobilizing her material resources for war, it remains that Germany had far greater material resources and much more advanced industrial base.    It might have been true the USSR had far more manpower than Germany, but USSR was still burning through her greater manpower at a higher rate than the Germans, and would have ran out of man power first had the war continued much as in 1942, when germany’s Retained air superiority and still possessed superior strategic mobility on land.

I'm predicating my conclusions on two facts a) US lend lease was at full steam long before the US formally entered the war and b) the German economy was so weak it never once managed to outpace UK production during the war.

[Minimalist]

Something along the lines of the Lusitania would have happened and been blown up into a full casus belli.

[CapnAwesome]

Like I said what classifies as "terrorism" is subjective. How would you define the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Seeing how they were primarily aimed at the civilian population in order to force the Japanese government to surrender, falls in line with the definition  of terrorism.

the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims.

I've found that if the group in question has differing political views, people will call them terrorists. I'd say that you need to commit acts of terrorism against civilians to be a terrorist.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

The ABC-1 Conference established the "Germany First" policy. The Atlantic Conference confirmed it. We were going to war with Germany, no later than July 1, 1945, by the best estimates I've seen.

[Minimalist]

FDR was dead by then.... and the Russians would have been on the French Riviera.

[Fake Messiah]

It's amazing that the ones justifying the nuclear bombing of innocents are the same ones speaking on how evil the bible is (which none of you think is real btw).

Hey people are flawed, petty, unjust, violent but God is supposed to be supreme and perfect, yet all he can do is resort to genocide. If he was so supreme he could have just said something smart or resort to some superior way to spread his message instead of infanticide, bloodthirst, cannibalism, ethnic cleansing, animal sacrifice and other genocides he is described of doing.

Now, using the atom bomb was a horrible thing but was it right or wrong? There were some that said Japan was on the brink of surrender and that bomb was unnecessary like Admiral William Daniel Leahy and apparently General MacArthur. If you ask me I think they should have gone with the idea that scientists from Los Alamos had and that was to demonstrate the bomb in front of Japanese officials. But like the saying goes "It's easy being a general after the battle."
Also, other Japanese cities were bombed much heaver (if you discount radiation) in tons of TNT, like Tokyo.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

FDR was dead by then.... and the Russians would have been on the French Riviera.

Yeah, my bad. I mean July 1, 1942.

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It's amazing that the ones justifying the nuclear bombing of innocents are the same ones speaking on how evil the bible is (which none of you think is real btw).

Hey people are flawed, petty, unjust, violent but God is supposed to be supreme and perfect, yet all he can do is resort to genocide. If he was so supreme he could have just said something smart or resort to some superior way to spread his message instead of infanticide, bloodthirst, cannibalism, ethnic cleansing, animal sacrifice and other genocides he is described of doing.

Now, using the atom bomb was a horrible thing but was it right or wrong? There were some that said Japan was on the brink of surrender and that bomb was unnecessary like Admiral William Daniel Leahy and apparently General MacArthur. If you ask me I think they should have gone with the idea that scientists from Los Alamos had and that was to demonstrate the bomb in front of Japanese officials. But like the saying goes "It's easy being a general after the battle."
Also, other Japanese cities were bombed much heaver (if you discount radiation) in tons of TNT, like Tokyo.

Gen. Anami didn't think the first bomb was as bad as reports said. His second in command had to visit both cities and report back before he understood what a "rain of ruin" really meant. One plane, one bomb, one city. 

Until Nagasaki the Japanese were not going to surrender. 

As for a demonstration, setting a bomb off on a desert island could have impressed the actual observers, but it's doubtful that reports of a big bang and a bunch of flattened palm trees would have any impact with the war faction back home. 

And you're right, the March 16th(?) fire bombing of Tokyo killed more people than either bomb.

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I've searched the archives, others have looked as well, and there's little talk of using radiation (direct or as fall-out) as a force multiplier for the bombs. They considered them very powerful incidenaries and blast weapons. I may have mentioned that we had ten reserved for the invasions, tactical use weapons, and our guys would have gone through, or close to, Ground Zero after every bomb.

[Anomalocaris]

FDR was dead by then.... and the Russians would have been on the French Riviera.

Yeah, my bad. I mean July 1, 1942.

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Hey people are flawed, petty, unjust, violent but God is supposed to be supreme and perfect, yet all he can do is resort to genocide. If he was so supreme he could have just said something smart or resort to some superior way to spread his message instead of infanticide, bloodthirst, cannibalism, ethnic cleansing, animal sacrifice and other genocides he is described of doing.

Now, using the atom bomb was a horrible thing but was it right or wrong? There were some that said Japan was on the brink of surrender and that bomb was unnecessary like Admiral William Daniel Leahy and apparently General MacArthur. If you ask me I think they should have gone with the idea that scientists from Los Alamos had and that was to demonstrate the bomb in front of Japanese officials. But like the saying goes "It's easy being a general after the battle."
Also, other Japanese cities were bombed much heaver (if you discount radiation) in tons of TNT, like Tokyo.

Gen. Anami didn't think the first bomb was as bad as reports said. His second in command had to visit both cities and report back before he understood what a "rain of ruin" really meant. One plane, one bomb, one city. 

Until Nagasaki the Japanese were not going to surrender. 

As for a demonstration, setting a bomb off on a desert island could have impressed the actual observers, but it's doubtful that reports of a big bang and a bunch of flattened palm trees would have any impact with the war faction back home. 

And you're right, the March 16th(?) fire bombing of Tokyo killed more people than either bomb.

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I've searched the archives, others have looked as well, and there's little talk of using radiation (direct or as fall-out) as a force multiplier for the bombs. They considered them very powerful incidenaries and blast weapons. I may have mentioned that we had ten reserved for the invasions, tactical use weapons, and our guys would have gone through, or close to, Ground Zero after every bomb.

The Japanese had no way of knowing how many bombs the US was capable of producing, but they did have their own bomb program and did have an idea of what it might take to build a bomb.  throughout the war they underestimated American industrial resources and effecicency with which it can be focused on war effort.  I recall Japanese analysis after Hiroshima dismissing the possibility that such a weapon can be produced en mass.

It should be kept in mind that for the Japanese, the ultimate bottomline is the preservation of the imperial system and sovereignty of the 4 home islands.  Just before the bomb the Soviets declared war and the prospect of a postwar allied division of japan similar to the joint occupation and division of Germany might seem like an increasingly inevitable outcome if the Soviets became further involved.   Also, the more involved the Soviets become, the more power they will have to veto any peace terms that might otherwise to agreeable to the Americans.   Division of japan or joint occupation involving the Soviets almost certainly mean the end of the imperial system.