cassander: the idea that getting to middle eastern oil would have saved hitler is nonsense. Other than iran (which was occupied by russia and the brits) the rest of the middle east didn’t produce very much oil yet. Extracting large amounts would have taken a huge amount of time, energy, and money that the germans didn’t have. then once extracted, it needed to be transported back to Germany to be refined, with tankers they didn’t have and ports they didn’t have. the axis did not...
Gavin Longmuir: Prof Hanson’s assessment in “The Second World Wars” was that the Axis never had a chance — out-numbered, out-manufactured, out-resourced by the combination of the US, the USSR, and the British Empire. By implications, there could have been many different paths — but all would have led to the same eventual outcome of German defeat. President Hoover’s assessment at the time was that Hitler & Stalin were destined to clash, and the smart course would...
Goober: Gavin: I’ve never figured out why historians always seem to almost lament previous isolationist phases of US history. They snootily describe them as short-sighted, selfish, provincial, and so forth. However, I couldn’t help but notice, even as a boy in grade school, that these isolationist times of US history also seemed to be the most prosperous times for people inside the US. And really, shouldn’t that be the goal? People act like the US was super selfish to want to avoid...
Altitude Zero: It’s good to have a mix of weapons systems, if only because it’s often very difficult to tell exactly what new weapons are going to be effective under the circumstances existing. In hindsight, it’s obvious that in WWII, Aircraft carriers, tanks, and submarines were going to be the decisive weapons, but it was far from obvious in, say, 1938. Almost nobody (not even the Japanese, despite Pearl Harbor) thought that aircraft carriers would be used in the way that they were,...
Gavin Longmuir: Goober: “It’s too much “eggs in one basket”, and doesn’t seem to recognize the very real possibility that one might be sunk.” Definitely agree with you there. However – “I would argue that they [aircraft carriers] are a key asset, period, even and especially against a peer opponent.” Good for posturing against a peer opponent, yes. But a peer opponent is going to be a nuclear power, just like China and Russia. Even the old apartheid South Africa developed a...
Goober: VXXC: You make excellent points. Warfare, starting in the early 20th century, was punctuated by all sorts of “massive technological advances via Wunderwaffe” that would render the old ways obsolete. Most of them panned out to be roughly equivalent to a flash in the pan. It’s the old folly of assuming a compliant enemy. Torpedos were supposed to obsolete battleships. The French Juene Ecole was the natural response to this assumption, and it turned out to be complete folly. Like...
Goober: “Aircraft carriers are certainly a key asset for any country which wants to act as the world policeman, and deal with non-peer adversaries who would not have the capability to sink a large naval vessel.” I would argue that they are a key asset, period, even and especially against a peer opponent. It’s just that against a peer opponent, you need to go into the war prepared to lose a few of them, and therein lies my only issue with the US carrier strategy. Any ship that is...
VXXC: “His entire thesis rests on the claim that ‘we have no defense against ballistic missiles’; this claim is just not true.” Very correct, there are a variety of defenses from CIWS to missiles to electronic. Luttwak goes into this extensively in The Logic of Strategy, which I am reading. A great example is The Torpedo Boat, debut 1870s. That was supposed to be the end of the Behemoths…but given small guns to shoot the boats and anti-torpedo boats combined with small fast boats to...
VXXC: Duty vs. Tasks: We need courage not intelligence to be entrusted with Duties. Intelligence is for performing TASKS. Duty requires COURAGE, moral and physical. Meet our Elites and their striving Managerial Class: We selected for intelligence and ended up with sociopaths dominating smart cowards. Yes, it’s true across the board in our elites and certainly in the Army. I saw and see nothing in the Air Force to indicate the pattern does not hold.
Gwern: “Carrell and West started by identifying which of the 1,314 incoming cadets had lower SAT scores and GPAs. These were the students most at risk of dropping out. They were assigned to special squadrons with a makeup of extra numbers of high-achievers.” I haven’t read the study in question, but as described, this is nothing but regression to the mean. You filtered out and selected extremes on a noisy measure (SAT/GPA) who were, however, admitted based on their strengths elsewhere,...
McChuck: Wow, it’s almost like the researchers and social engineers had never met actual human people before.
Gavin Longmuir: Goober: “I truly don’t see how we could possibly stomach the loss of one of these behemoths and her entire crew.” That is the key point. If some identified enemy sinks a carrier (eg China in the Taiwan straits), the only choices for the US would be to Go Nuclear or Go Home. Even with sock puppet Biden* in the loop, China would have to think long & hard before taking that risk. Aircraft carriers are certainly a key asset for any country which wants to act as the world...
Goober: One more point: The carrier still provides an important function that has yet to be replaced, and so carriers are still necessary. Since WWII, the folly of moving a fleet around without at minimum a CAP to protect against air strikes has been clear. Look at what happened to Prince of Wales and Repulse during the Force Z mission, or, for that matter, the fates of both Yamato and Musashi. You absolutely must have at minimum air cover, but preferably at least local air superiority to move your fleet...
Goober: I suppose a good proof-read would have helped my previous post. Apologies for the typos. I also left out the second reason the Harpoon does its P trajectory, which is to make its flight path a bit more evasive to anti-missile defenses right at the last minute, to make it harder to track and hit — but not impossible, simply because it sort of tracks a ballistic arc. It’s more of a “shuck, juke and jive to avoid being tackled” than it is a “ships can’t hit missiles on...
Goober: Isegoria, The War Nerd seems to be pretty contemptuous of the officer corps in the Navy. It’s just dripping off of him. While I can definitely see how a person could use a study of history to determine that complacency and being stuck in a rut through organizational inertia is definitely an issue in military hierarchy, I don’t see where he’s provided any actual evidence of this, outside of assertions that “they are doing nothing” and “they have no...
VXXC: If you can see a schoolhouse, know that you are doomed. As for the “tests” we failed, we failed all the tests, because we were conditioned to the system — by school. It was and is the schools that are our doom. Burn them, and have hope again.
Altitude Zero: If this doesn’t exist, someone is missing a great opportunity. Lots of horse fanatics out there, with lots of money
Isegoria: I’ve discussed horses and history before, but I don’t have a go-to book recommendation for horses in World War 2.
Isegoria: By the way, the War Nerd has been saying that this is how the carriers will die for a dozen years.
Borepatch: 19 is a pretty small sample. I guess it would have to be if you want the very old. But I’d be interested in what the margin of error is calculated to be.
Isegoria, may you have a rational yet funny Christmas! ;-)
Thank you kindly, Borepatch. In fact, I’ll try to keep things rational yet funny into the New Year.
..and that’s why I come here often.
Happy coming New Year!
Happy New Year to you, too, Tatyana. (S Novim godom!)