Why was the Luftwaffe defeated in the Battle of Britain?

[dazedandconfused]

The Yamato wasn't launched and ready for service until 1941, the Kriegsmarines Z-plan didn't commence until 29/01/1939. Schlachtschiff H (8x16 inch guns) was laid down in 1939 as was Schlachtschiff J. None of the other Battleships were even laid down before the end of the war.
In September 1939 the Royal Navy was still the largest navy in the world, by the start of the BoB it had only lost 2 Carriers (both obsolescent) one Battleship (the Royal Oak, hardly a major asset) and two Cruisers, not a 'pathetic' force. The British 15"/42 gun, as fitted to the Hood, Queen Elizabeth and Royal Sovereign classes) had a maximum range of 44150 yards and the 14"/45 (King George V class) about 51000 yds. The 16"/45 (Nelson Class) had a range of a mere 41690 yds, but a bigger punch when it hit. The range of the 40.6cm/52 guns designed for the German 'H' type was to have been 47025 yds, this is only 26.72 miles and would leave most major production centres in Britain well out of range, even if these ships (which were never built) were sat on our doorstep and the Royal Navy was totally out of the picture. If the Z-plan had actually begun, the Royal Navy had their own plans in place to counter these new German ships with the Lion class with its 16"/45 Mark II, III or IV guns. Of course, in theory, the Royal Navy still had the ability to revive the 18"/40 Mark I built for the Furious, but this would probably not have been necessary to defeat the Navy of a traditionally Continental power!

[Villers-Bocage]

The Royal Navy was mostly obsolescent, hence the speed with which the Japanese drove the British out of East Asia. To this day British veterans harbour ill will towards the Japanese for humiliating them so. They never recovered their honour because it was the Americans who fought and defeated the Japanese in the Pacific arena. In fact, the last time the Japanese emperor visited, British world war 2 veterans organized to show up and turn their backs on the official procession in England. The British Navy looked good with the numbers, but was in actual fact a flotilla of dinosaurs. During the course of the war the Americans lost almost double the number of aircraft carriers of all types that the entire British Navy possesed at the start of the war. So really, it's not so much about quantity as it is about quality. The Royal Navy was hopelessly obsolescent. If you wish to limit the discussion to the period upto the start of the war then I would say that the only country in the world which spent much time with Navies was Britain though to a much lesser extent given the naval treaties of the time, Japan did too. When I stated that a comparison with the US Navy and the Japanese Navy was in order, it should have been evident that the comparison would probably have taken place once those two belligerents had decided to take the building of Navies seriously. The Germans never took their Navy seriously, the most potent aspect of their Navy was their U-Boat force, and there ends the discussion over how seriously they considered building warships. Had they gone for a more balanced wartime arsenal that included a Navy, the plans that you speak of would have been the tip of the iceberg. In any case, despite German apathy at building a Navy plans were afoot to build H-class battleships displacing in excess of 140,000 tons fielding 80cm Gustav guns. Even today such a ship would outweigh the largest warships extant, the US Navy recent model Nimitz class aircraft carriers, that is how far ahead of their time the Germans were. Such battleships were intended to be immune to aerial attack for prolonged periods. With regard to the Japanese, by war's end they had begun construction of battleships employing 20.1 inch guns and were considering bores of 22.1 inches even, though by that point the war had taken most of their industrial energy out of them. Finally, the range for the German K12V and K12N long range cannons of 21 cm bore or slightly over 8 inches, was proven at 114 km or 71 miles. The whole assembly weighed at most 313 metric tonnes. The 80 cm Gustav gun was capable of throwing a 7 ton concrete piercing shell 37 km and a 4.8 metric tonne HE shell 47 km. The whole assembly weighed at most 1,350 metric tonnes versus weights of over 140,000 tons considered for the Super H Class battleships. The Yamato guns were hurling 18.1 inch projectiles weighing 1.45 metric tonnes to their full range of 45,000 yards. The Paris gun in fact went further than the K12 at 122 km. At 122km the shelling of Britain was possible from inside France. Mounted on a battleship, these guns would cover significant areas of Britain from the coast. The 80 cm Gustav was built at the lower end of it's range capabilities, because of it's status as a separate railway mounted gun emplacement. As part of a much larger firing platform such as a battleship, it's range could have been extended to it's true potential, a range exceeding that of it's proven 47 km for 4.8 tonne HE shells. More significantly, naval aviation would have increased German offensive capabilities in the air using the same basic aerial platforms available to them during the Battle of Britain. With a potent Navy to engage the Royal Navy, the Germans would have ripped the Brits to shreds with their U-boats given the fact that the surface warships would have had their hands full.

[dazedandconfused]

To this day British veterans harbour ill will towards the Japanese for humiliating them so.

In fact, the last time the Japanese emperor visited, British world war 2 veterans organized to show up and turn their backs on the official procession in England.

Well, having one Grandfather who was one of those veterans, and having been at that demonstration, I can tell you that you are talking out of your posterior. The ill will harboured towards the Japanese is down to the way in which they treated their Prisoners of War. You may have heard of a small thing called the Death Railway or Changi?? My Grandfather was on that railway and had no problem with the Japanese regarding the rapidity with which they defeated the British and Commonwealth forces. His problem there was with the Allied high command and their ineptitude.

They never recovered their honour because it was the Americans who fought and defeated the Japanese in the Pacific arena.

You've obviously never heard of the Fourteenth Army, the Burma campaign, Field Marshal Slim, the battles of Kohima and Imphal, the Chindits, the capture of Rangoon, or many of the other glorious chapters in the history of the 'Forgotten Army'

When you go home don't worry about what to tell your loved ones and friends about service in Asia. No one will know where you were, or where it is if you do. You are, and will remain "The Forgotten Army." – attributed to General Slim

When You Go Home, Tell Them Of Us And Say,
For Their Tomorrow, We Gave Our Today – The Kohima Epitaph

When I stated that a comparison with the US Navy and the Japanese Navy was in order, it should have been evident that the comparison would probably have taken place once those two belligerents had decided to take the building of Navies seriously.

In the case of the Japanese Navy, that would be pre-1936 when Navy Minister Admiral Nagano Osumi said, in the Imperial Diet, “...as a result of the coming no-treaty period we shall enjoy freedom of action in construction of warships in respect to category, quality and characteristics. With this freedom we may construct those ships particularly adapted for our national requirements, thereby gaining an advantage which obviates the necessity for numerical equality.”. For the Americans it would be 1941/42 when they realised that they could no longer keep their heads buried in the sand (polite version) and decided that they had to join the party, however late. As for the Germans never taking their Navy seriously, surely that is merely a justification of my point and a point against you? Oh, and the H class Battleships don't show how far ahead of their time the Germans were, they show that they, and Hitler in particular, whose pet naval project these were, were living in cloud cuckoo land to an ever greater degree.

With regard to the Japanese, by war's end they had begun construction of battleships employing 20.1 inch guns and were considering bores of 22.1 inches even, though by that point the war had taken most of their industrial energy out of them.

Not a lot of use then really. "I know, let's build an Aircraft Carrier the size of California and sail it into the Persian Gulf!" Sounds great when historians look at it in 60 years time, but it ain't gonna happen!
The Paris gun, if I remember rightly, had to have a series of larger shells built for it as firing it wore the bore so much. That meant that it could only be fired about (I think) twenty times before it needed a new barrel. It also took about an hour between shots. Taking the 14"/45 from the KGV class, it could fire two rounds per minute. That's per gun and they had ten. Let one of those loose on your Paris gunned evolutionary dead-end and I don't care how much armour it carried, it'd be a dead duck.

During the course of the war the Americans lost almost double the number of aircraft carriers of all types that the entire British Navy possesed at the start of the war.

The Royal Navy had what was considered adequate numbers of A/C's for its responsibilities. It was not really designed to fight in the Far Eastern theatre against a comparable enemy. Many British Admirals (Tom Phillips amongst them) believed that properly handled Battleships could defend themselves against air attack. The British, as well as the other to be Allied powers, considered the Japanese to be no threat due to their perceived inability to build anything as well as the 'west' could. This was a mistaken and Racist view, but it wasn't uniquely British. As to the Fact that the USN lost lots of Carriers, more fool them. The American reliance on an ability to produce their way out of trouble has been remarked many times by many people, I don't need to re-hash it here. I will state, however, that if their Naval Architects had switched to armoured flight decks like their RN counterparts they may not have lost so many Carriers, or, More importantly, so many men.

[Villers-Bocage]

Please explain to me how one talks out of one's posterior. Is this a practice commonly engaged in by British people? Anyway, that aside .... My original point regarding the German Navy was that it was never taken seriously by the high command. Perhaps you should reread my posts. If that is your point too, well and good for you, but to me it is self-evident that having a Navy is better than not having a Navy all other things being equal. If you could demonstrate to me otherwise, I would be willing to pay attention. Interesting what your grandfather has to say about why the veterans are such bad sports, but as I recall, Russian veterans who were tortured by the Germans don't bother turning their backs at processions involving German leaders. See, the way they see it is, they won the war. Additionally, you would be wise to note that no Japanese person ever complained about the treatment he received as a prisoner of war, since they considered that you were free to do to them as you pleased, once they became your prisoner of war. Clearly this shows that the Japanese at least expected the same treatment for their own as that which they dealt out to those they fought. They are Asians. They have a different war ethic. Their ethic is that if you refuse to fight to the death you are dishonourable. A little extreme perhaps, but an ethic they apply to everyone including themselves. And they apply that ethic to themselves without restraint. The British on the other hand, are known for their double standards. While it is quite acceptable for the SAS to go around slitting IRA throats in Italy, it would be quite inappropriate for suchlike similar activity to take place on British soil, at least when carried out by foreign agents. For someone to protest a nation fifty years after the fact, when the administration in question has changed over from that of an authoritarian state to that of a democratic state, is indicative of a sore loser. Exactly who was your grandfather protesting? The descendant of the man whose political power was castrated by General Tojo during World War 2. Your grandpa and his fellow veterans clearly haven't put much thought into their behaviour. In any case, the behaviour of the British Army in Iraq shows that the British are hardly civilized enough to be complaining about ill treatment of prisoners. The forgotten army you ask? Ah yes, the ones who fought the Japanese at the extremities of their empire in it's dying days. Very good, though I suggest that you not mention those piddly and pathetic incidents to Americans when they're talking about Iwo Jima and the true wrath and strenth of the Japanese. You only do yourself a disservice by talking about the pathetic exploits of the forgotten army. It is best they are forgotten indeed. You seem to think that at the moment one takes a decision to build a navy, at that very same moment a 'serious navy' materializes. What Britain had been building up for decades, you compare with Japanese industrial activity post 1936, put necessarily pre-1940. This would be amusing if wasn't so foolish and naive. It takes time to build a navy, yes time even after you've taken the decision. Once again, obsolescence is the real issue here, as opposed to numbers where the American Navy certainly easily bested those of Britain in the short period that was the war. I believe they built 78 escort aircraft carriers as one of their more impressive feats. The Japanese Navy was more into quality as opposed to quantity. By the way it was you who mentioned the H class battleships. That they were ahead of their time is evident in the fact that the ultimate variety of this class was intended to withstand aerial attack which would have prolonged the life of the battleship as a significant player on the world's oceans. It may be convenient for you to call it all cloud cuckoo land, but when Wernher von Braun took America to the moon, you would have come across as rather foolish making such statements. The entire German rocket program should be considered cloud cuckooland but for the fact that it worked .... You should not so quickly disparage that which you do not have; namely German genius and ingenuity. The Paris Gun was an example of World War 1 German brilliance. If it boggles your mind to think that the Germans could have bettered the Paris gun, then I doubt any amount of reasoning, whether from one's posterior or indeed, one's anterior would convince you. By the way, you can't let a 14 inch gun loose on this particular gun, since you would be out of range. Tut, tut, tut, minor detail, eh? The British had enough carriers for their needs you say? To that I would say that the needs you speak of do not include competence as evidenced by the way in which the Japanese drove the British, Dutch and American navies out of East Asia in the early years of the war. Whether or not they underestimated the Japanese, I can assure you that Britain could not possibly have dealt with Japan the way America did. Till the next time you demonstrate how one converses out of one's posterior ....

[dazedandconfused]

Your point re the British and Commonwealth veterans was that they turned their back on the Japanese Emperor due to their continuing sense of humliation at their defeat in WWII. I pointed out that this was an erroneous assertion, at which point you launched into a monologue on the respective attitudes towards surrender in the European and Asiatic mindsets, a topic in which I am well versed already, thank you. Russian veterans are hardly likely to have complained about their treatment by the Germans when they were POWs when their treatment on their return home was so similar. As for Japanese prisoners complaining about their treatment, that is a positively insulting and offensive statement. Japanese POWs were treated according to the Geneva Convention, although Japan was not a signatory. POWs held by Japan were not even treated as human beings. As for your assertion that it is pointless to protest a regime which has changed since WWII, that is not really the point. The protest was about the continuing unwillingness of the Japanese government and people to acknowledge that the treatment meted out to POWs during the war was barbaric and inhumane. This behaviour has its parallels in the same blindness shown to former 'Comfort Women' and the victims of Bio-warfare experimentation and various other incidents in Jpanese occupied countries before/during WWII (e.g. The Rape of Nanking.).
As for the comparison with the American Space programme, where the hell did that come from?? If we can drag in totally unrelated incidents we can be here forever. Britain outlawed slavery in 1838, you know.
I did not raise the H class battleships, re-read that post and you will find I brought up Schlachtschiff H, a designation referring to a specific ship as opposed to a ship class. And the Paris gunned ship would get one shot before the KGV was in range and beating the proverbial out of it. Hitting a moving ship in WWII was a hard job, even harder when you only get one shot and even harder when 45-55000 yds is the practical range for a gun as after which the targets are over the horizon and invisible. Tut tut,tut minor detail, eh? I would also mention that the Yamato and the Musashi were supposed to be proof against aerial attack, and we all know how that turned out. (If you don't, they sank).

[sid guttridge]

Hi V-B,

I would agree that Hitler was a gambler, but he was a very shrewd gambler, and certainly until 1940 a much shrewder gambler than his army general staff. It was Hitler who got his army to the shores of the Channel against his general staff's more cautious instincts. I agree that his good judgement and gambling parted company in 1940-41, but before then it was much more than luck that earned him his successes.

Goering was a very powerful driving force in Hitler's successes prior to 1940 and it was largely through Nazi political will, as personified by him, that Germany had a Luftwaffe capable of launching a Battle of Britain, even if it wasn't quite up to winning it.

I feel you are right that what made Germany threatening was a combination of Hitler and his army. It was the misfortune of the rest of Europe that a character like Hitler gained such absolute control of a Germany that was so well educated, industrially powerful and militarily competent, none of which characteristics were the gift of Nazism, but all of which were powerful tools in its hands.

Germany's armed forces were not overwhelmingly superior to those of Britain. Its army certainly was, but its air force could not impose itself on the RAF over the latter's own air space and its navy was very inferior. Germany had other challenges to face on the continent before confronting Britain, and its armed force were geared to these preliminary land operations. To have started devoting excessive resources to challenge the British in their chosen elements might have compromised German army expansion, which was always the key priority.

It wasn't its obsolescence that drove the Royal Navy from the Far East. It was largely absent already due to the pre-existing states of war with Germany and Italy. Even its major ship losses, the Prince of Wales and Repulse, were not attributable to Japanese naval superiority.

Nor was the Royal Navy as obsolescent as you suggest. For example, it was the first navy to instal shipboard radar and was the world leader in anti-submarine operations throughout the war.

Cheers,

Sid.

[greenhorn]

I wish there were moderators who could snip non relevant postings and dump them into
The allies against Germany
Soldatheim
GGMD...

Bit disappointing to click on and find no relevance to LUFTWAFFE!

[sid guttridge]

Hi Greenhorn,

One of the joys of Feldgrau is that most of its threads are allowed to grow organically and therefore much interesting stuff emerges off thread.

The down side is that this can clog up threads and, worst of all, many very fascinating discussions are difficult to find even with the Feldgrau Search engine.

Cheers,

Sid.

[greenhorn]

I hear you Sid, this is more of a petulant moan at FOGMM, sorry I mean old V-D.... he does come out with some clap trap.

Of course I hadn't realised that the Japanese had taken Singapore by seaborne assault.... Foolishly I thought they had cycled down the Malayan peninsula.

I noticed he mentioned that the US lost twice as many A/Cs as the UK had in 1939..... may be he ought to think why that might be...... wooden decks perhaps.... the British were so obsolete they used steel flight decks, unfortunately this seems to be SOP in the USN today..... well what do I know.

[dazedandconfused]

I'm glad it's not just me who thought that was FOGMM. I'm also glad it wasn't me pissing people off. Cheers, Greenhorn!!

[greenhorn]

I'm not sure, but he's out of the same mould (nuthouse).

FOGMM tried to rise again from the dead last year and was terminated again... can't remember his 2nd handle.....

[Villers-Bocage]

Let me restate some of my ponts. You didn't understand them. The only reason your grand-dad and his fellow veterans consider this an issue is because they are sore losers. European and Asian mindsets? Well too bad if it seemed like a monologue or even was, but the point is you have to keep it in mind. Russian prisoners don't complain about foreigners because their own kind don't treat them any better? Well I assure you that the millions of German soldiers who went into the Russian gulag system post-World War 2 can verify for you that the Russians do not equate Stalin with the Nazis. To be more precise they consider the Nazis very, very bad, whereas current day school history is somewhat ambiguous about Stalin and his exploits. What you say is as valid as claiming that Iraqis have the same view of being humiliated by Americans in Abu Ghraib as they have of being humiliated at the hands of Saddam. The Geneva convention is a set of rules for war best applied to those who sign those rules. My point is that the Japanese were hardly hypocritical. They didn't sign it, they didn't care if you signed it or not. They treated their prisoners of war as their culture dictated, and if you've got a problem with that, then you're a racist. A Japanese soldier who returned home alive from a battle he lost was traditionally not treated as a human being. He was dishonourable scum. The Japanese are consistent. That generation of British soldiers fails to understand the cultural context of their treatment as POWs. This is very distinct from Japanese crimes commited against civilians in Asia, specifically comfort women, and I denounce your racist statement equating Japanese culture with crimes against so called humanity. The Japanese had a certain way of treating their POWs at the time given the cultural context, they don't practice it any more, end of story. Don't waste your time protesting an administration that has nothing to do with that cultural context, but of course if you're sore about what happened, you will protest. Anyway, no-one's denying them their right to protest, even though they just look like losers, much as do British soldiers from the Korean war who boycott Korean products, even though almost 100 % of Korean products available on the world market today are South Korean and therefore originate from a country that was allied to America and Britain during the war. i.e. you can't boycott North Korean products if there aren't any to boycott. More racist attitudes. America on the moon was merely a reference to you talking about cloud cuckoo land which is high in the sky a little bit like space being in the sky. Capisce? The point was not to bring in a specific incident but rather to demonstrate that the Germans had some fancy schmancy projects going and most if not all generated results even if they didn't perhaps come to fruition. Britain outlawed slavery in 1838, eh? Big deal, the moral person would never have posessed slaves ten thousand years ago, leave alone in the nineteenth century. And is 1838 the first example of a region in the world where slavery did not officially exist. Not much of an achievement if you're trying to come up with a random achievement. Anyways .... The Schlachtschiff H was one specific design in a series that became known as the H-Class. The next generation. Surely it's not that hard to understand my use of the english language. The Paris gun get's only one shot. You said two hours per shot. The Paris gun had a range of 110 miles. In two hours the KGV would have to be doing 55 miles per hour, or alternatively the two combined doing 55 miles per hour at each other. Unlikely, but a hypothetical that would then be solved by saying that the Germans would move away and use their rear guns, not that that was the point of my argument. Over the horizon? This hypothetical has gone on too long, but if you must, the target would be sighted from the air and since there would be more than one of these battleships, with more than one of these guns, a fairly wide area would be saturated by the artillery. The point is that the guns far outranged the British guns being referred to. You continue to refuse to accept the fact that the Paris gun might have been improved. Perhaps whereby it fired faster etc. The Paris gun was circa World War 1. But even if it was still firing at the assumed rate, you'd assume the battleship in question wasn't floating around with just one gun, right? How's that for a minor detail and a tut, tut, tut to go with it. Regarding the Yamato and Musashi, all I can say is that nobody conceived them as proof of anything when lying around as sitting ducks waiting to be sunk. That's like saying it's unsinkable. It was supposed to be impossible to sink assuming their was some help from their own. I didn't claim the Germans were building an aerial PROOF battleship, because that would again suggest they were building a ship that could lie around all day in the water and receive 100 megaton hydrogen bombs and stay afloat, which of course is fairly ridiculous. And by the way, if you want to stay here forever, that's your choice, I don't see myself staying in anyone place forever, so I'm not sure how significant that remark of yours is. You don't have to read my posts, especially if you find them to be utter drivel. I mean why go to the same bar your avowed enemy goes to. It's not worth the trouble.

[Villers-Bocage]

Hitler could have been a shrewd gambler, but then I'm not really of that school of thought with regard to how history unfolds. Human history is after all more than a few thousand years, and every now and then someone does get to come along and gamble 'shrewdly'. It hardly means that Hitler planned his entire life story from the Beer Hall Putsch to becoming Fuhrer of Germany. Of all the evil bozos in human history who have managed to usurp authority, Hitler happened to be the one to have most destructive potential availble to him in terms of absolute authority. I mean even today there are those who consider Bush a bit of a bozo, but does that mean he or his family are shrewd gamblers who planned their entire life stories? I don't agree with that kind of free-will determination of one's own fate. Hitler got his Army to the shores of France? Yes okay, let's say he did, but that doesn't mean that his generals could not have done the same thing. Hitler gambled and got it quickly. His staff could have done it their way too, it just wouldn't have looked so glorious on the part of Hitler to have actually relied on their competence. Hitler had more than luck? Well yes, I agree that it's not as simple as random infintesimal probabilistic theory, but then that comes down to how you see the word 'luck'. I see a certain story in human history that get's repreated and Hitler was one of those bad guys who got 'lucky' if you will, for himself. There are other forces that effect the scales of probability and luck. Some might call them supernatural forces. Certainly over the thousands of years of human history, there are countless examples of others who have defied the odds, but you're right, it's not just luck, but it wasn't Hitler's talent, though he, as did other people, certainly did have his talents, oratory aside. Goering was indeed a talented individual. I called him a braggart because he did seem to come across as a bit full of himself at times. This would mean that rather than being incompetent, he might have been too prideful to accept advice from other members of his staff, despite knowing the validity of their contributions; and subsequently used his many and varied talents to ensure that Hitler did not 'fall' for any of the others in his retinue. Goering's star too rose and fell, but he certainly wasn't a blundering idiot and he certainly was no Hitler, though it was a tragic flaw of his that he was involved with such a contemptible character as Hitler. As to the misfortune of the rest of Europe, I would blame it on the World War 1 allies for setting up the context in which Hitler was able to come to power. The Germans were indeed well-educated, which is why I do not believe that in a natural transition from having a powerful Kaiser to another system of government, would Hitler ever have had the opportunity to wheel and deal his way to the top. But the Allies of World War 1 messed Germany around for their own selfish reasons and the world paid terribly for their folly years later during the course of World War 2. As regards the superiority of the German Army versus the other wings of their armed forces; well, that was somewhat my point in the sense that I took issue with the lack of attention paid to the Luftwaffe and the Navy. Resources would by definition have had to be diverted away, but this would not have been a problem but for the fact that Hitler was really interested in Barbarossa and not the Battle of Britain. So he gave the Luftwaffe a job that was clearly not theirs to fulfil. Even if he could claim credit for taking France, Hitler failed to recognize that in the short period before starting Barbarossa, it wasn't the smartest of things to send the Luftwaffe off on some cavalier mission to enslave the admittedly weak center of the British empire, since plans for that were never really made in the first place. Hitler always intended to take France; but he never thought that the British would so object to him monopolizing all of the fun committing crimes against humanity around the world. Once the British declared war on Germany though, the battle lines were drawn, and the egotistical Hitler decided he'd knock off the Brits by sending in the Luftwaffe, just because he woke up one morning upset that the British hadn't reacted the way he'd anticipated. So basically he should have made a proper choice between the Battle of Britain and Barbarossa. Either he should have stuck with what he was preparing for, the German Army in Barbarossa, or he should have put Barbarossa on hold, prepared the other wings of the German armed forces and then dealt with Britain first before moving on to Barbarossa instead of trying to fill his plate with as many enemies on the planet as possible. In the end, he sent his backups to try and finish the Brits off, something that in this case was extremely unreasonable of him to request as was often the case. Obsolescence of the British Navy? This is much rather a holistic view of things. The British failed to realize that with the current state of their naval arsenal, their fleet numbers were a case of poor quality quantity spread thin. If they had the same number of overwhelmingly superior quality ships present, they could have made a difference there. The British never really had a chance to face Japanese Naval superiority so losing a couple of battleships certainly wouldn't have been an example of that. Having said that, they were driven out of the Far East. As for the specific obsolescence of the Royal Navy, I was merely referring to the fleet it possessed rather than individual technologies, one of which, RADAR, the British happened to be at the leading edge of. Certainly RADAR would not have enabled them to defeat the Japanese without the Americans.

[Villers-Bocage]

My points about American aircraft carriers was merely to state their industrial prowess. For whatever reason they used wooden flight decks at the time, but that doesn't make building 70 plus escort carriers during the course of the war an easy task just because they had wooden flight decks. Steel flight decks? A logical evolutionary thang as they might say, since it's not like steel hadn't been used in ships before. Or am I wrong on that count too.

[sid guttridge]

Hi V-B,

The Japanese weren't hypocritical?

Are you serious?

They may not have signed the 1929 Geneva Convention, but they were still subject to the 1899 and 1907 Hague Conventions, which they had ratified on 13/13/1911, and they failed to obey them as regards the treatment of prisoners of war. This looks a lot like hypocrisy to me!

Furthermore, early in the war they let it be known through diplomatic channels that they would follow the 1929 Geneva rules regarding POWs. They didn't.

Not only that, but they had signed the 1925 Geneva Convention on chemical and biological weapons, and didn't obey that either.

What is more, the code you assert they lived by was not a universal, ancient Japanese tradition, but the comparitively recent and particular code of the very small minority who had been samurai. This code was foisted on the bulk of the population only when conscription was introduced in the late 19th Century.

And then, they surrendered en masse! This was a wise move, but hardly in keeping with the code you claim they followed unhypocritically!

Cheers,

Sid.