How the US Planned to Destroy Britain Just a Few Years Before World War II

reply to post by stumason


Look I am not going to derail this thread and go blow by blow with you.
I will address one aspect of your reply and leave it at that.

British ships did NOT favor heavy armor. In fact its the exact opposite. They favored lighter armor for heavy guns. Ship tonnage was limited by the Washington treaty and therefore each ship had to comply with weight limits for its class. The British navy even before the treaty was in place opted to sacrafice weight of armor to increase speed and allow for larger gun calibers. This in theory allowed them to engage enemy ships at greater distances. A number of the Battle Crusiers lost at Jutland simply disappeared because German rounds penetrated the armor and hit the magazines. This is in fact what happened to HMS Hood against the Bismark and Prinz Eugen. A single round from Bismark struck Hood and smashed into its magazine. The resulting explosion sent Hood to the bottom in a short few minutes with only a handful of survivors. I said the designs were flawed and the armor weak. I did not mean weak in terms of construction I ment weak in terms of not being there. In fact several British designs used boiler water pumped into baffels to act as armor to suppliment the belts.
I said German tactics were poor. The Germans in WW1 relied on their superior gunnary capabillities and ranging. They stayed in fights far longer than they should have hoping to score decisive hits. Their ships were slower due to increased armor and had smaller guns. They could not run from the British very well so they simply slugged it out until they were smashed into scrap. Those are poor tactics, tactics based on the conditions but poor none the less.
Yes I know the Brits had more ships. I do not happen to have my Janes books in front of me so I could not pull the actual numbers. But again we are talking timing. If we are talking Post 1922 and the treaty is in place then the US was much closer to the UK in numbers and tonnage as the US had the same allowances under the treaty and the UK scrapped 28 capital ships to comply. HMS Hood was the only ship that had been completed AFTER WW1 at the time of the treaty being signed and as I have already pointed out it retained the low armor to gun ratio and went down very quick against Bismark. The British had to have a special allowance under the treaty to build a class of ships comparable to the Colorado class from the US and the Nagato class from Japan. So no the British fleet was not all practically new.
Look I dont mean to insult the Brits here I am an Anglo-phile myself but I felt the need to address the implications that Steveknows threw out there that somehow the US was incapable of conducting a major war in the late '20 early '30's without allies from Europe. Thats complete nonsense.
I did not intend for this to be as Flyer put it a My Dad can beat up your Dad situation. Its all speculation at any rate.



**EDIT Stu, I re-read your post and I think some of the disagreement here is in fact due to timeframe. You mention some things that seem to refer to the late 30's closer to WW2. I am speaking more toward the late 20's early 30's.

Hoover was President when these plans were drawn up. Hoover was a true humanitarian who had lived in London. My guess is the military drew up these plans as contingency plans without Hoover knowing about them. Someone crazy like a Dr Strangelove (Curtiss Lemay). What is pathetic is that MacArthur did this planning. Of course, MacArthur was a lousy general for allowing the Air Force to be destroyed on the ground in the Philippines, hours after Pearl Harbor had been attacked, and he knew what was happening. He also bungled Korea, when General RIdgway had to save the situation. MacArthur was known as 'dougout doug' for abandoning his soldiers, and leaving Wainright to surrender to the Japanese.
I think this is nothing more than a stupid general being stupid.

reply to post by Matt1951

The US forces in the Philippines held out longer than any other Allied force against the Japanese. The Japanese were allotted 5 weeks to capture the Philippines, we held them off for 5 months before the fall of Bataan & Corregidor.

That's much longer than the British in Singapore & Hong Kong, the Dutch in Indonesia, or the French in Indochina. Heck, the Japanese pushed the British all the way back to India before Field Marshal William Slim (aka the Viscount Slim) took control of the British 14th Army and kicked the Japanese back to China. If you ever get the chance I highly suggest reading his book about the fighting in Burma. It's called "Defeat into Victory". Very good book.

Hi,

Thanks for your interesting inputs. MacArthur allowed his planes to be destroyed on the ground, hours after he knew Pearl Harbor had been attacked - major catastrophe number 1.
He chose to withdraw from Manila, major catastrophe 2.
He jumped in a sub and ran away.

US troops fought very well in defending against the Japanese invasion. They had WWI ammunition, only half of which fired. No quinine, which was used to treat malaria, so many were ill. The Japanese were very surprised at the poor condition of the US soldiers when they surrendered.

MacArthur never should be forgiven for abandoning his troops.

Of course FDR was very cold blooded. He refused to resupply or aid MacArthur in the Philippines in any way. Yet telling them they had to fight on. As MacArthur pointed out in his autobiography, the US Navy was still fully capable of resupplying the US Army in the Philippines, even after Pearl Harbor. MacArthur also correctly points out, it would have been a lot easier to hold onto the Philippines, rather than have to reconquer it later.

reply to post by Matt1951

I recall hearing rumors that we also wanted to send a relief convoy to Wake Island, as well as another to the Philippines. IIRC the Wake Island convoy actually left harbor but a support ship of some sort (an oiler/oil replenishment vessel I believe) was so slow they just aborted the mission rather than risk being too late.

Mac dident voluntarily leave, he was ordered to leave by FDR himself. We fought as well as we could at Bataan given the circumstances. The Filipinos did well too considering half of them dident even have weapons or even basic training (the Filipino divisions werent expected to be combat ready until mid 1943ish.

reply to post by ChrisF231


The Filipinos fought bravely, and suffered greatly. They are a very brave people.

Originally posted by Matt1951
Hoover was President when these plans were drawn up. Hoover was a true humanitarian who had lived in London. My guess is the military drew up these plans as contingency plans without Hoover knowing about them. Someone crazy like a Dr Strangelove (Curtiss Lemay).

I doubt that. The fact is that before WWII, the US was always active in trying to assimilate Canada. Through the pioneering days of both of our countries, US forces (including Washington himself) tried to militarily invade Canada. Several attempts were made, but failed mostly due to militia resistance from the locals.

When military campaigns were seen as too aggressive, the US then started its attempts to simply assimilate our land. Specific examples would include US agents trying to pursuade Louis Riel into handing over what is now Manitoba or the attempt to assimilate what is now BC when it became evident that there was lots of gold to be found in BC and Alaska. Both were of massive strategic value since a US-controlled Manitoba would render the trans-Canadian railway useless and divide the land from coast to coast. In BC's case, it would mean that Canada would have no territory that included the Pacific coast and ultimately would have provided the US with an Alaska directly connected to the continental USA (and major strategic disadvantage for early Canada, hence why Vancover Island Colony and BC joined as a province of the confederation to counter such attempts).

Between Canadian confederation days and WWI, the US kept urging economic integration with Canada. This is why John A. MacDonald ended up serving so long as prime minister- because the opposition was deeply in favor of North American integration. MacDonald was fiercly nationalist and despised "manifest destiny".

I can see why Britain would have been an included target, due to our continuing relations as a close commonwealth nation. It wasn't until after WWII that our federal government lead us to believe that, for the sake of defense against the USSR, we needed closer CAN-US integration. Thus, mutual defense pacts and military industrial complex integrations were approved during the 50s.

NAFTA was the economic continuation, forced on us against our democratic will by that shill Mulroney. No wonder why Reagan and Mulroney danced and sang together; Canada got sold out without the American invasion and Britain was already overshadowed by the American empire.

Originally posted by carpooler
And as for the Manhattan Project, it was a turncoat Brit, Klaus Fuchs, who stole the American uranium floor sweepings, and funneled them to Stalin. So, if Stalin got the bomb, from a turncoat Brit, then the Brits must have had a pretty good handle on the science also, IMHOl And they never helped pay the freight for Hanford or Oak Ridge either.

It was from the Rosenburg spy couple and the Cambridge four (queer set of lefty's) that the USSR got the nuke data...

Originally posted by ChrisF231
reply to post by Matt1951

 

The US forces in the Philippines held out longer than any other Allied force against the Japanese. The Japanese were allotted 5 weeks to capture the Philippines, we held them off for 5 months before the fall of Bataan & Corregidor.

That's much longer than the British in Singapore & Hong Kong, the Dutch in Indonesia, or the French in Indochina. Heck, the Japanese pushed the British all the way back to India before Field Marshal William Slim (aka the Viscount Slim) took control of the British 14th Army and kicked the Japanese back to China. If you ever get the chance I highly suggest reading his book about the fighting in Burma. It's called "Defeat into Victory". Very good book.

edit on 23-9-2011 by ChrisF231 because: (no reason given)

That's wrong.

The Australian Army was the first to stop the Japanese army and push them back. The japanese wanted port morseby and never got it. They failed in thier objective

The Aussies were the first in the war to make them retreat after bloody fighting on the Kokoda Trail in New Guinea.

The kokoda track battle lasted 5 months and the defence of port morseby lasted just over 9 months in 1942 - 1943.

Don't make too much of a big deal over this. There were other War Plan (insert Colour here)s that the US had. Believe it or not I read all about this about a year ago while taking a dump. Was in a book called "uncle John's Bathroom reader". lmao

Originally posted by annonymous1234
Don't make too much of a big deal over this. There were other War Plan (insert Colour here)s that the US had. Believe it or not I read all about this about a year ago while taking a dump. Was in a book called "uncle John's Bathroom reader". lmao

no idea what you just said.

Originally posted by MikeboydUS
reply to post by ModernAcademia

 

Before the Six Day War in 1967, we had a plan to fight Israel. France was still their patron at the time.

After the war though, France abandoned them, and we took them in as a close ally in the Cold War.

These kinds of plans are not uncommon. We have CONPLANs even today that cover fighting anyone and everyone.

To fail to plan is to plan to fail.

edit on 22/9/11 by MikeboydUS because: (no reason given)

France did a runner when push came to shove? I refuse to believe it! good ole' france. Always doing its thing.

reply to post by steveknows


Stevedoesntknow

Originally posted by annonymous1234
reply to post by steveknows

 

Stevedoesntknow

Hey that's constructive annomymarse 123bore.

reply to post by steveknows


Australians won some stunning military victories in WWII.

reply to post by Dimitri Dzengalshlevi


American Presidents in the 19th century realized Britain would never attack the US as the US had Canada as a potential hostage. The reality is, that after the War of 1812 (as Americans call it) there never again was a serious threat of war between the UK and the US. Despite some huffing and puffing over the annexation of Texas, and slavery.

Ok heres a map tried posting direct but not masterd that one yet, showing American and British forces of that time..

Most of those were obtained under the "Lend-Lease Agreement", we lended the British weapons, tanks, navy vessels, etc and in return they "leased" us space to build navy or air bases in British colonies. NAS Bermuda, and NAS Argentia (Newfoundland) are two such examples.

However, the United States did occupy several French & Dutch colonies in the Caribbean for fear that the Germans would use them for U-Boat refueling/resupply stations. Half the French colonies sided with the Free French (mostly in Africa and the Pacific), and the other half sided with the Vichy French which posed some problems for us.

Well I guess the similar plans to attack exist today... as I assume defence plans exist in most nations to combat such threats.

From my experience there really seems little evidence to demonstrate a special relationship ever existed between the US and the UK..

At least the transfer of empirical power from Britain to the US occurred without resorting to war but it is no wonder the US kept armed forces in Britain.