WW2 But With Todays Technology??

"If you could take hardware from today back and fight a war like that, there's just so many ways you could utterly devastate the enemy "

But they could devastate you back. Remember, the Germans could have used WMD too - want to risk nerve gas on the streets of London and Paris?

"it's hard to start. I mean if you wanted to just go all out - One stealth bomber and a few Nukes"

Lol! Yeah, the French and Poles and the Czechs would be delighted about that. Not an option.

High tech doesn't always mean you win. Look at Vietnam. Look at the Russians in Afghanistan (and no, it wasn't the Stinger that won it). Look at the fall of the Roman Empire...

Look at Iraq, come to that - the insurgents aren't using much above WWII technology, but it's going to take more than a few months to defeat them.

Wembly,
About the Stealth bomber with nukes, if you look at what I was saying, I DID say basically that wasn't an option, however IF it was... well go figure.
And about the "high tech isn't always best" thing, no it's not, nor did I say it was. But when you're comparing 1940s hardware to stuff we have now, there really isn't much to debate, unlike more mordern wars, you'd be comparing Spitfires to F-18s ect.
Other than that, if you look at the original question, it didn't just meantion jets and bombs. Look at our intellegence capabilities, compared to what we had then. Look at how modern soldiers are armed, or dressed, compared to then. Look at the navy then and now.
There's really nothing much to discuss. If one side (Ally or German), have modern tech back then, and the other side didn't, the outcome is crystal clear.

I am wonder, does the original question imply that the -modern- side, also had historical records? Coz if they did, then of course they'd know all the strategic targets etc etc.

Computer/Lazer FCs are attempts to mass produce great shooters, while PGMs are attempts to mass produce skilled bombing. Many such people existed in WW-II.

All the tech that goes into 'Netcentric warfare' and higher tech intell, are just attempts to 'mass produce' the successful descision making the Germans had with 'Auftragstaktik'in WW-II . Rather than have to groom soldiers who excell in that 'art form' for years, as the germans did, you design it into a box or machine and hope it makes up for the difference.It remains to be seen if it will work, I don't expect it will. US intelligence assessments of late ,have been far from 'spectacular.

No one has ever won a war from the air, sooner or later you have to send in the troops.

DreadNaught,

An experienced fighter pilot/historian and former acquaintance of mine once told me that the key to understanding the economic fraud of WWII (sell lives to build machines to stoke the economic furnace and blow away the dead ash of excess older populace) was that WWII in ETO could have been _over in days_ using **just the technology of the time**.

How?

The Germans had four or five primary transformation/rectification stations IN ALL OF GERMANY supplying conditioned electrical power through huge dynamos. Masses of copper and brass weighing upwards of 20 tons. Rare metal which was in extremely short supply even if you could afford to be rebuilding them every 4th or 5th day.

These stations were in turn OBVIOUS targets because of the power lines leading to and from them like the center strands of a spider's web. Unmistakable to Allied photorecce. No way to bury them. No way to hide their presence based on prewar civil maps.

Take these out, using whatever element of 'dawn raid + suicide return or internment run' _visually precise_ sacrificial attacks (from under 10,000ft) you want. And Germany is back to fighting the war by torch and coal driven smelter.

Try casting a 5-10 ton turret by hand. Try machining a 10-15 ton hull turret race by hand. Try lifting the turret into place within the race. BY HAND.

All so that you can start over on the next tank, by hand. Again.

Wanna /guess/ how many hours even a simple Pz.III/IV would run? Wanna bet how long the Germans would believe in a Hitler whose speeches about the indomitable superiority of the Aryan Race they could only listen to via battery powered radios, by candlelight?

The only thing that nukes buy you is _quicker horror_ than what we called 'Area Bombing' and the British drolly labeled 'Dehousing' while the German civillian populace more appropriately called /The Terror/.

It got so bad by 1944 that parachuting pilots _of either side_ feared landing among them without soldiers present to 'guarantee the rules of war' (beaten to a pulp and then ripped apart, still screaming.).

And why should aircrew be 'specially treated' when to attack civillian population centers /at all/ violates the Hague ten ways to Sunday and to do so without 'due notification', twenty more?

Had we not been into the art of blood for blood on a brutally animalistic level, we might not have 'won' the war. But we sure as hell could have ended Germany's ability to prosecute their own side of it.

The difference then being that armistice occupying soldiers of that era would think nothing of 'taking the hill' with any woman they wanted. Or shelling a village to the ground at the first sign of snipers or IED. And with Allied control of electrical power, telephone service and automobiles, _even if_ the Germans were as ultimately debased as the Iraqi's clearly are, slaying because they like the sport of it, they would have had a helluva time coordinating their efforts as we returned them to an Agrarian subsistence level of existence.

Acceptance being the only alternative to being slaughtered to an age ceiling (10 for males? 15 for girls?) until they learned to get off all fours and walk like men again.

But you see, WWII wasn't about winning. It was about making a profit. Which is a good thing, because for the U.S. especially, we have spent the last 60 odd years 'paying back' the blood money we made in the continued protection of a feudal city-state confederation called NATO. And through the elevation of Japan to a point where her economy /owns/ ours.


KPl.

Originally posted by ch1466
And through the elevation of Japan to a point where her economy /owns/ ours.

Whats is this 1988 ? It might have looked like it was heading that way over a decade ago


USA----------------------Japan
GDP (purchasing power parity)
$12.37 trillion--------- $3.867 trillion

GDP - real growth rate
3.5%---------------------2.1%

link

The Economic Japanese Bubble popped a long time ago, followed by a long economic stagnation. You might have made more sense if you were talking about China but then that wouldnt really fit into your theory.

www.time.com...



[edit on 23-3-2006 by ShadowXIX]

Originally posted by ch1466
The Germans had four or five primary transformation/rectification stations IN ALL OF GERMANY supplying conditioned electrical power through huge dynamos. Masses of copper and brass weighing upwards of 20 tons. Rare metal which was in extremely short supply even if you could afford to be rebuilding them every 4th or 5th day.

Complete and utter BS, you are completely wrong, once again you are talking gobbly gook. I'm not even sure if you know what you're saying half the time Actually I know you don't




[edit on 23-3-2006 by rogue1]

I do think people are sorta missing the point of the thread... the question was basically how long would it take to win... from that I would assume you're throwing out all the questions of politics and economy and just asking how quick you could deminish enemy troops or just screw them over enough into submission.
Surely based purely on that, there's not much question?

Umm... i would say at most it would take three weeks and we would be at the advantage because we faught thme in history and we know how they operate as long as ther was no uprising yea! it would take three weeks at most.

Originally posted by DreadNaught
And about the "high tech isn't always best" thing, no it's not, nor did I say it was. But when you're comparing 1940s hardware to stuff we have now, there really isn't much to debate, unlike more mordern wars, you'd be comparing Spitfires to F-18s ect.

In my original point I did compares WWII planes with modern ones. F-18s are even more expensive than Tornadoes - could the RAF have won with 4 F-18s instead of over 500 Spitfires and Hurricances?
I think they'd run out of missiles very quickly - and how do you avoid having them destroyed on the ground?

Also technology is just one factor. Do you seriously think the Italian army could have won with better equipment? Gett outta here...

4? who said there would only be 4?

There was no stipulation about numbers, just, new hardware verses old, that was the original theme of the thread.

Originally posted by DreadNaught
I do think people are sorta missing the point of the thread... the question was basically how long would it take to win... from that I would assume you're throwing out all the questions of politics and economy and just asking how quick you could deminish enemy troops or just screw them over enough into submission.
Surely based purely on that, there's not much question?

Are we talking from the INvasion of Poland or a bit later like 1942. In 1939 the German Army was a shadow of what it would be in 1942. Also, Germnay could easily be attacked from France in 1939 using modern weapons. There wouldn't hvae been any phony war. There wuold hvae been a dirtect armoured drive through the Maginot Line and straight to Berlin. The German's would have had nothing able to stand up to an M1 or any other modern tank.

Weeks at most, no more. howeer if it were 1942 when the Germans held alot more territory and were battle hardened it could drag on for years.

Originally posted by DreadNaught
I think the assumption of the thread was only one side has modern gear.
I was working on the assumption that total destruction was not wanted. With what we have now, if you just ordered air strikes on strategic targets as oppossed to a simple Nuclear strike,

Ok, fair enough!

Assuming the Nukes are not in play and that only one side has the modern weapons, the war is still going to be over before it really begins or you wind up fighting an insurgency.

Remember the initial air strikes of the 1991 Gulf War? That is about how I inagion such a conflict would begin. The side with the Technology advantage would established in a matter of hours. Once air superiority is achieved by one side, they would most likely unleash an all out bombing assult with GPS and maybe Laser guided Smart Bombs. under such an assualt, the Military and government inferstructure on the ground would qiuckly collaps. As organized military forces collaps, what is left of the country would either surrender, or reorginize into gurrilla forces, which would go underground. If underground gurrilla forces emerge, you will get an insugency simular to what is going on in Iraq. How long that would last is anyone's guess! As we are seeing, advanced weapons aren't the key to beating an insurgency.

Tim

"4? who said there would only be 4? There was no stipulation about numbers, just, new hardware verses old, that was the original theme of the thread. "

That was my point. In terms of cost, 4 F-18 = over 500 Spitfires.

Unless you have the modern economics to pay for expensive high-tech stuff, the technology is irrelevent. And if you can afford 100 F-18 you could get 10,000 spirfires which might be rather more effective!

So it's really not the technology that makes the difference.

One F-18 may be better than one Spitfire, but you don't convert on a one-to-one basis.

I'm equally sceptical about the Sherman-tank-in-medieval-times idea. Obviously you'd get surprise effect at first, but as soon as that wears off you are in trouble. Tankers do not like dealing with dismounted infantry.

Technology is only a small part of it. Tactics and the calibre of troops and commanders has a lot to do with it.

Originally posted by Wembley

"4? who said there would only be 4? There was no stipulation about numbers, just, new hardware verses old, that was the original theme of the thread. "

That was my point. In terms of cost, 4 F-18 = over 500 Spitfires.

Unless you have the modern economics to pay for expensive high-tech stuff, the technology is irrelevent. And if you can afford 100 F-18 you could get 10,000 spirfires which might be rather more effective!

So it's really not the technology that makes the difference.

One F-18 may be better than one Spitfire, but you don't convert on a one-to-one basis.

I'm equally sceptical about the Sherman-tank-in-medieval-times idea. Obviously you'd get surprise effect at first, but as soon as that wears off you are in trouble. Tankers do not like dealing with dismounted infantry.

Technology is only a small part of it. Tactics and the calibre of troops and commanders has a lot to do with it.

LOOK, at what I am saying. NOTHING in the orginal question mentioned economy or polotics... if we could fight WW2 Germany with what we have NOW. There's no debate.

[edit on 24-3-2006 by DreadNaught]

Originally posted by rogue1
Complete and utter BS, you are completely wrong,

Well i prove you wrong five times a day given i only respond to one of your posts. Do you have a real objection or are these the same type you normally raise ( with never a fact in sight) when responding to me? Please post a source as to why you disagree as I'd rather not bother Ch with this kind of nonsense.

once again you are talking gobbly gook.

I can assure you it's has far more to do with what you do not know that it has with what he does. English is not even my first language and it understand EXACTLY what his saying ( well not always the first time ) so what is your excuse?

I'm not even sure if you know what you're saying half the time

Actually I know you don't

Now when i do not understand what is going on i normally shut up and try learn from my superiors. I suggest you do the same for ONCE.

Stellar

The Germans had four or five primary transformation/rectification stations IN ALL OF GERMANY supplying conditioned electrical power through huge dynamos. Masses of copper and brass weighing upwards of 20 tons. Rare metal which was in extremely short supply even if you could afford to be rebuilding them every 4th or 5th day.

These stations were in turn OBVIOUS targets because of the power lines leading to and from them like the center strands of a spider's web. Unmistakable to Allied photorecce. No way to bury them. No way to hide their presence based on prewar civil maps.

WTF ?????

ok - i will bite , if these so called transformers are so " obvious " - please cite thier location ????

you have jumped the shark this time with you invented " facts "

the idea that where were only 5 * 20 ton distribution transformers for the entirity of nazi germany is chuffing insane

look here : this is the transformer farm for one town of 100 thousand :

external image

this one site is over 7 acres - and has 12 transformers - each between 3 and 9 tons - thats just for part of the capacity for one town

and you are telling us that 5 plants totalling 100 tons can service a country of 60 million

as i said - you have jumed the shark , and stellar is actually clapping

the ball is in your court - i wanna see how you attempt to spin this


Mod edit: resized the picture, it was way too wide...


[edit on 2006/3/25 by Hellmutt]

Originally posted by ignorant_ape
as i said - you have jumed the shark , and stellar is actually clapping

the ball is in your court - i wanna see how you attempt to spin this

No, i was not clapping as that is something i will leave to the children among us. I said that he is old enough to defend or correct himself when the situation dictates. I would obviously like to see what he will add to the topic but i think it's abit early to start acting the way you are.

Stellar

The notion that the germans [placed in a situation like Saddam was in], would sit back and wait until the Americans built up enough to attack them is silly. Thats was the big gamble in the 1990 build up. Saddam should have only paused at the Saudie boarder to regroup his forces and continued down the coast.There would have been squat any one could have done to prevent him.

The Germans would not wait, they would drive down the coast and occupy all the ports, preventing any build up. Faced against such small superior forces the best approach would be to attack en mass occupy all the airfields and ports and the Americans would have no place to launch any attack from.

ShadowXIX,

It's the trade disparities and leveraged debt that wrecks the nominal purchasing power. America is in a downwards spiral like all 'empires' wherein economic colonial states whose populations invest heavily own the relative production levels and the means by which that manufactured good is purchased here.

Amphora back in Roman when (the goods as the cardboard box in which it is delivered).

High tech and Automotive today.

As soon as you begin the consumerist trend whereby you are buying more than you sell, you initiate a process by which _inevitably_ you make your dependent (say conquered tribute) states stronger than you are. Until their economies no longer depend on your commercial market. And they dump you like bad cheese for fear of being dragged down with you.

China is merely the loan shark who will come around after it's all over. It was Japan that played crack-coc aine-for-free in getting U.S. here.

Indeed, as far as that goes, the simple fact is that we WOULD have been better off, with Japan as insularly self absorbed as they are, to have let them 'come out' in a Chinese reclamation process similar to what we did to the Native Americans. Such would have allowed the dominantly aggressive culture to gain national gravitasse, deflating their midget complex, while fixating upon fufilling their own version of Manifest Destiny as a pagoda covering the Asiatic world.

For at least a century.

The alternative, making the Home Islands and Germany into agrarian utopias, completely starved of industrial capacity, only works for a socialist system whereby make work can still find even distribution through a command economy. Because capitalism is like an aggressive cancer, it must create more clones of itself to live. But eventually as it becomes ever more metabolically unstable while consuming it's host-societies resources, it reaches a point where competition requires that it eat itself. Or conquer someone else to begin the process all over again.

Since we _were_ 'too good' to consume Japan and her existing economic system is nothing if not maxxed out on protectionism, the result was a mouse-eats-elephant scenario in which we are only now realizing what a hollow figurehead power we are.

As the Dragon awakes to fight the shell of what is left.


KPl.

Originally posted by rogue1
...
Are we talking from the INvasion of Poland or a bit later like 1942. In 1939 the German Army was a shadow of what it would be in 1942. Also, Germnay could easily be attacked from France in 1939 using modern weapons. There wouldn't hvae been any phony war. There wuold hvae been a dirtect armoured drive through the Maginot Line and straight to Berlin. The German's would have had nothing able to stand up to an M1 or any other modern tank. ...

An M1 or any other tank would react exactly the same as a Sherman to a StuKa-dropped 250kg bomb on its roof - not favourable