History's most decisive battles

[El Dopa]

I fail to see how the Atlantic U-boat War compares in significance.

Because it would have allowed Germany to knock the UK out of the war if they won, freeing up troops and conceivably managing to cause the US to lose all interest in the Atlantic theatre/Europe.

Germany would therefore have been fighting a war on one front only, and Russia wouldn't have been supplied through the arctic convoys from the UK.

However, I agree that Stalingrad was the most significant battle of WW2.

[MisterD]

In fact, I'm rather of the opinion that if any single effort can be said to have carried the fate of the world on its shoulders, it could be Turing, et al's work on German ciphers, following on from the initial discoveries by Polish mathematicians in the 1930s, rather than any particular affair of steel, lead and gore.

Had that effort failed, or never occurred, Europe may well have remained in Nazi hands for good.

I'm with you half way on that, but reckon you should probably expand it to the whole back-room battle. Without radar, the BoB would have been very very different.

[El Dopa]

You stated the denial of Air power was such a great requirement. Why did the SAS back out at the last minute from destroying half the fleet on mainland Argentina..... read the book can't remember now

There were two mainland missions that I know of, one of which went ahead.

The one that went ahead - the helicopter landed once (in the right place) but the officer in charge thought it was the wrong place. The chopper ran out of fuel before the mix-up could be sorted.

The second one - a full-on airfield attack by a full SAS troop, was pulled because it was a suicide mission. And was made more so because the Argentinians reinforced the airfield defences and dispersed the planes a day or so before it was due to go ahead. Can't remember why - think they got wind that something might be on the way.

[doc]

Can't remember if the Falklands came before Desert Storm of after but either way Maggie was trying to keep up with Bush or Bush wanted to out do the Brits. It was after all more about ego and Maggie Thatchers pride. I see the Argintines are making noises again about the Falkland or as the call them the Maldives.
Your showing your age if you can't get the dates of those right. Either AAAD or your a juvenile.


Skyryder

Your showing your age if you can't get the dates of those right. Either AAAD or your a juvenile.

[MisterD]

2) The German equipment was only slightly better. Their organisation and command/control was FAR better.

Experience gained during the Spanish Civil War is pretty key in that regard...

[Skyryder]

Your showing your age if you can't get the dates of those right. Either AAAD or your a juvenile.

Probably both. Been grown up now I'm growing down. It's called free fall and a blast.

Skyryder

[Skyryder]

Without radar, the BoB would have been very very different.

The Germans were just begining to show some interest on British coastal radar stations. If they had continued with their attack instead of changing tactics it would have been only a matter of time before they realized their significance. Hitler issued orders for the bombing of London etc. The first of many mistakes he made.

Skyryder

[geoffm]

There is a lot of research showing that an invasion of the UK (Operation Sealion) would have failed. The Germans didn't have the logistics reqiured for an amphibious assault against defended positions of this magnitude. In any event, they would have required total air and sea superiority to get it to work, and they never got it. Compare the plans to use river barges in 1940 with the imense operation for D Day and the Pacific Campaign. There was over 2 years planning for D day, and the lessons learnt from earlier campaigns such as the Dieppe raids, and Operation Torch (North Africa). They had a friendly population with an active partisan movement, manmade harbours, undersea piplines, dedicated landing craft, total and complete air and sea superiority and overwhelming numbers, yet it was still a close thing. It wouldn't have worked if it wasn't for the ruse that the invasion was to be near Calais, and the huge losses that the Germans suffered on the Eastern Front.

Of battles, two in Vietnam would be Bien Den Phu, and the Tet offensive in 1968. The first because it was the beginning of the end of European power in South East Asia. It was theend of French control of Vietnam, and the start of US involvement,and it showed the European powers coudl be defeated.
Tet was important for propaganda reasons, it was a military victory for the US where they could use their firepower to effect, but on the home front it was the beginning of the end as the lies from the Pentagon became rather thin.
Geoff

[MisterD]

The Germans were just begining to show some interest on British coastal radar stations. If they had continued with their attack instead of changing tactics it would have been only a matter of time before they realized their significance. Hitler issued orders for the bombing of London etc. The first of many mistakes he made.

Skyryder

That's an interesting one, their focus on attacking fighter command's airfields was definitely working for them but IIRC it was an accidental drop of bombs by a German aircraft on London that caused Churchill to order a retaliation on Berlin and then Hitler lost his rag about it.

It's fascinating how many times Hitler's intervention was precisely the wrong decision....the obsession with Stalingrad just because it was named after his opponent when it should have been bypassed, the holding back of reserves after D-Day because nobody dared wake him up with the bad news....

[Mr Merde]

There seems to be a general fixation on barrles of the modern era.

There was a battle between the Romans and the Carthaginians that still makes modern battles pall into insignificance in the number of lives lost.

The romans put to the sword, basically hand to hand combat, 50.000 men in one day. Even in the goriest days of the first world war fatilities (not casualties) havent exceeded that number.

What about the Spanish hero El Cid, who basically halted the expansion of Islam in Europe in the 11th century.

The battles of Alexander who expanded the European theatre of operations as far as India. No other ruler has conquered such avast area even today.

Gengis Khan, whos expansion westwards had the whole of Europe scared shitless.

Look to the past and you will see the future.

Apart from his atrocities, Hitler was only emulating what napoleon had done 150 years earlier.

The Americans and their allies are currently fighting the same battle in Afganastan that the British tried and failed to do in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Apart from being a spiritual leader, Mohamad was also a warrior. He led an army that sucessfully gained his people a place to call their own.

What about Agincourt where an army of about 4000 men, ravaged by hunger and disease put paid to a French army that outnumbered them 5:1 and in doing so killed 10,000 of frances knights, their nobility.

Warfare and battles are nasty, vicious facets of human nature. Unfortunately we seem unable to exist with out them and every war seems to have been a precursor to some newer technology or some greater humanitarian endevour.

keep the discussion going. I am enjoying this tthread immensly, but please cast your thoughts a little wider.

Just a s a thought.

WW1 was esentially a family squabble that just snowballed.

Mr

[Skyryder]

There is a lot of research showing that an invasion of the UK (Operation Sealion) would have failed. The Germans didn't have the logistics reqiured for an amphibious assault against defended positions of this magnitude. In any event, they would have required total air and sea superiority to get it to work, and they never got it. Compare the plans to use river barges in 1940 with the imense operation for D Day and the Pacific Campaign. There was over 2 years planning for D day, and the lessons learnt from earlier campaigns such as the Dieppe raids, and Operation Torch (North Africa). They had a friendly population with an active partisan movement, manmade harbours, undersea piplines, dedicated landing craft, total and complete air and sea superiority and overwhelming numbers, yet it was still a close thing. It wouldn't have worked if it wasn't for the ruse that the invasion was to be near Calais, and the huge losses that the Germans suffered on the Eastern Front.

http://www.alternatehistory.com/gate...s/Sealion.html

I have not read this. I can remember as a kid one of my fathers friends, he was a British Marine (commando) telling me and my father that if Hitler had invaded they stood a very good chance of succeeding. I once came across a site that listed Englands defences at the time. They effectivelyl had no army or weapons that were capable of competing with the German infantry. I agree that any invasion might not have succeeded but this man was adamant that they would have done. He was there at the time.

Skyryder

[MisterD]

There seems to be a general fixation on barrles of the modern era.

Not surprising, it still living memory and most of us had relatives we knew that lived through the WW's - although I wonder how long it will be until they are viewed as a single conflict with a hiatus in the middle. After all the roots of WW2 are firmly in the ending of WW1...another discussion...

What about Agincourt where an army of about 4000 men, ravaged by hunger and disease put paid to a French army that outnumbered them 5:1 and in doing so killed 10,000 of frances knights, their nobility.

Did anyone else see the recent doco that put forward the theory that the result of this battle was less to do with the power of the longbow and rather more of a crowd disaster for the French army?

[Nefarious]

so who won?

[Swoop]

because the Brits were then able to enforce a naval blockade on the island

The air blockade wasn't as successful. Nightly runs by C-130s kept essential supplies arriving.

I'm surprised no ones mentioned the Battle of the Coral Sea. Without that the Japanese advance would have continued.

Or Midway...

I once came across a site that listed Englands defences at the time. They effectivelyl had no army or weapons that were capable of competing with the German infantry. I agree that any invasion might not have succeeded but this man was adamant that they would have done.

The British army had suffered massive losses at Dunkirk. Barely any medium guns were evacuated and soldiers were even leaving their rifles behind.
This caused two things to happen. A vaccum which the Axis powers could easily attack and almost walk over any defenders in Britain; also the re-equipment of the Army with more modern weaponry better suited to a more modern war. The RN and RAF was still able to stand in the way until that re-equipping was complete.

Turning point was Stalingrad. "Before then, nothing but victory, after Stalingrad, nothing but defeat".

[Mr Merde]

Not surprising, it still living memory and most of us had relatives we knew that lived through the WW's - although I wonder how long it will be until they are viewed as a single conflict with a hiatus in the middle. After all the roots of WW2 are firmly in the ending of WW1...another discussion...




Did anyone else see the recent doco that put forward the theory that the result of this battle was less to do with the power of the longbow and rather more of a crowd disaster for the French army?

Both my grandads were in WW1, a few of my uncles in WW2, my father in the Malayan conflict and the vietnam War (1968, 161 Bty 16 Fld Reg, RNZA)

I've seen the doco and read the theories. I personally side with them. It has been proven that the arrow of the day, even with the bodkin, wasnt capable of piercing the armour the french knights wore. It was a very narrow appraoch to the battle ground, very muddy and not suitable for cavalry. Put this together with the archers who could get something like 6 arrows a minute in the air
. Theyt would spook the horses. cause the knights to keep thier face plates down and when imbeded in the ground provide a deterent for the horses, like a field of sharp sticks waiting for them to place their hooves into.

By concentrating on the flanks the WELSH archers funneled the French into a very narrow front. I have read somewhere that a very large prtion of those killed actually drowned in the mud once unhorsed.

Mr