Barbarossa or Pearl Harbour which was more flawed?

[ljadw]

Of course not ,but,to win the war,US had to parade at Tokyo,while the IJA never was thinking about a parade at Pennsylvania Avenue .
Japan was in the situation of the South during the Civil War : the North had to conquer the South,while if the South did continue the war,there was a chance that the North would give up .

It was the same for Germany :Germany was not obliged to conquer Britain and the US to win the war,but,Britain and the US were obliged to conquer Germany to win the war .

[flakbait]

Too, with little competent long term planning using realistic RATIONAL logic, both totalitarian governments actually squandered or too late utilized many of their best assets simply because there was very little in the way of truly OPEN criticism/ debate even within their own militaries, let alone from outside it. Cannot remember whom said it but a often ignored quote still rings true: "The FASTEST way to fail dismally is to surround yourself with `yes men` whom only agree no matter how foolish the idea proposed..." Both governments were historically not noted for tolerating disagreement to any real degree...we should all be truly grateful they could not, and thus self-crippled their own plans and dreams of conquest before the 1st shots were even fired.

[OpanaPointer]

Japan had to win the war they started, the opening gambit guaranteed the US would not accept a stalemate.

[doogal]

Both deeply flawed in multiple ways.... can only be compared as a fashion of strategic suicide ..... pearl harbour was a tactical / surgical (or so it was believed by the Japanese high command)strike with limited aims, that had a huge strategic downside owing to the Japanese not understanding how the US would react:
Barbarossa: sheer madness we cant cross the English channel owing to not having a navy that could contribute sufficiently due to its lack of size so why not fight the Russians as I don't know what else to do with my victorious army, and it will bring Britain to the table !!!! eventually maybe ????

Im sure the attack on pearl harbour and operation Barbarossa sounded like good ideas at the time. to someone ......

[OpanaPointer]

Barbarossa: A plan to subjugate a large part of a continent.

Pearl Harobr: A raid intended to give time to build a defense zone against a superior enemy.

Hard to compare the two.

[bronk7]

good question here......Germany and Japan attack the GIANTS....Germany making a 2 front war....Japan attacking the super giant....I would go with Japan as the slightly bigger ''mistake'' because of it being an island without much natural resources and without the number of ships to sustain a war against the MIGHTY USA...

[bronk7]

It IS ultimately fortunately for the rest of the world that both countries DID NOT carefully prepare for LONG TERM drawn out conflicts with only largely `ad hoc` preparations, no rapid replacement and/ or upgrading of military equipment, thank you Adolf and Tojo !

how would have Japan done this??long term preparation?...I thought their production capability was much, much lower than the US?

[OpanaPointer]

It IS ultimately fortunately for the rest of the world that both countries DID NOT carefully prepare for LONG TERM drawn out conflicts with only largely `ad hoc` preparations, no rapid replacement and/ or upgrading of military equipment, thank you Adolf and Tojo !

how would have Japan done this??long term preparation?...I thought their production capability was much, much lower than the US?

About one fiftieth of the US economy's full potential. During WWII we doubled the production of consumer goods while producing war material on top of that.

Japan didn't have any chance of making long term preparations because national policy was, all to frequently, not being made by the government, but by militarists who were hunting glory. The government made no decision to start the China Incident, they just accepted the results of renegade action by troops in Manchuria and later at the Marco Polo Bridge.

[flakbait]

For an island nation utterly dependent up on her civilian maritime fleet to bring in almost every raw material both her economy and military needed to function, her leaders` all but complete disregard for building effective escort ships was at best ultimately not wise, especially when considering Great Britain`s then on going struggle against the German U boat onslaught. If anything, 1 would think that it might have been pursued at a much higher priority by the Imperial Navy , but like almost every major naval power, escorts just perhaps weren`t `glamourous` or important enough yet (except perhaps for Great Britain) at this point. Likewise developing effective and well drilled anti- submarine tactics when compared to the emphasis placed up on her navy`s aviation and surface combat skills were again dismal. And think that in the face of Imperial Japan`s major "logic" in going to war to secure the raw resources of SE Asia including the Dutch East Indies oil production, think it was strange that she started the war off with such a shortage of tankers to bring the supplies of this commodity back to Japan. Likewise the disjointed lack of enforced convoying until her shipping losses became serious is mystifying and too considering the vast distances involved in even just patrolling let alone carrying out effective combat missions her almost complete disinterest in developing more modern 4 engine bombers is surprising at very least. By the way, am NOT saying effectively addressing any and/ or even ALL of these things would have prevented Imperial Japan from ultimately losing the Pacific War, AM simply saying that deciding to IGNORE basic combat lessons that were at that very time on going elsewhere in the world and were directly applicable to Imperial Japan`s own situation does seem rather incompetent from a military point of view, or to put it another way: no one is required to learn a single thing from the mistakes of your enemies. The lessons of history (in this case the WW1 German U boat campaign) do not have to be either learned nor applied. Feel free to repeat them as necessary to your own peril...

[detaf]

The germans miscalculated the strenth of the usa.

[OpanaPointer]

The germans miscalculated the strenth of the usa.

Hell, we did too.

[flakbait]

To say that both the Nazi and Imperial Japanese leaderships SIMULTAINIOUSLY and catastrophically `miscalculated` the strength of the USA is an example of raising understatement to an art form...

[OpanaPointer]

To say that both the Nazi and Imperial Japanese leaderships SIMULTAINIOUSLY and catastrophically `miscalculated` the strength of the USA is an example of raising understatement to an art form...

The Japanese refused to accept the reality of the situation, so "miscalculated" would be generous. As for the Germans, in both WWI and WWII the people in charge decided they could beat their currently engaged enemies before the US military had a chance to be effective. Hitler blamed the weakness of the US to "judiazation" and "negrification". (SP? on both words, not items I usually use.)

[flakbait]

How FAST he `forgot` about a certain gentleman named Jesse Owens whom soundly beat Nazi Germany`s finest `Ubermen` and not just once, but in several events...

[Konig_pilsner]

Flakbait,

I see you back from your hiatus, bringing your characteristic factless opinions to a factual forum.

To say that both the Nazi and Imperial Japanese leaderships SIMULTAINIOUSLY and catastrophically `miscalculated` the strength of the USA is an example of raising understatement to an art form...

Garbage, and in the case of Germany it is clearly the opposite. A post like this might awaken Qvist who would actually spend the time to squash you like he did me when I was a rookie.

How FAST he `forgot` about a certain gentleman named Jesse Owens whom soundly beat Nazi Germany`s finest `Ubermen` and not just once, but in several events...

Perhaps you should spend the five seconds it would take to Google who won the 1936 Olympics before you cheery pick. Quick spoiler... Germany won (and it wasn't close).