USA rushes in to prevent 1940 German invasion of the UK

[phylo_roadking]

Jon, if you look back there hasn't been a single reference BY ME in this thread to the Galapagos or any other issue apart from how the US might intervene in the event of a German invasion of mainland UK in 1940. Some of us ARE trying hard to remain on-topic, despite two pages'-worth of attempts to derail it. So this -

Gentlemen, please take your ongoing Galapagos quarrel elsewhere.

..shouldn't be in the plural, if you don't mind. If you check - the quarrelling as you put it has been somewhat one-sided...

[Jon G.]

Who started isn't important; it's on purpose I didn't mention any names in my admonishment, above.

Here is the Galapagos thread:

http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 4&t=150312

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi Jon G.,

I accept your point that this is not helping the thread.

However, I would reiterate that clarity is vital in communication and no thread can run effectively without it.

It is also important for a thread's (and AHF's) credibility that sources be checked. On this occasion I am happy to confirm again that, on checking his claimed source, Phylo was correct that Churchill's telephone calls to Roosevelt could, indeed, be censored by specially commissioned British telephone operators with the PM's approval in order to prevent "loose talk costing lives".

Cheers,

Sid.

[Tsofian]

This is a very long and winding thread and I probably missed reading a number of posts that say the same thing I'm about to:

I believe the place the US could have been decisive in 1940 was the Med. If the USN Atlantic Fleet sails into the Med they and the Royal Navy will overwhelm the Italian Navy and be able to cut the supply lines to Africa. The larger carrier airgroups of the US forces offer a more capable assortment of aircraft then those of the RN and they would be facing Italian aircraft that are more on a par with the then current USN ones than the BF-109 and Type Zero would be. The TBD is a strong plane in 1940, not the obsolescent one it will be a year later. The US destroyers are armed with dual purpose 5 inch guns which, even without radar and VT fuzes will be far more effective than RN AAA was at this time.

An early end to the African campaigns would cause interesting ripples across the rest of the World War

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi Tsofian,

But surely, on the real time line the US Navy proved unnecessary in the Mediterranean?

I think the original question, as posed, is based on a false premise. If the Germans were already established ashore in the UK, as it posits, they were more than likely to over run the British Isles before the US could intervene.

Besides, what could the US intervene ashore with? The US Army was small and in the disorganized early throes of expansion.

Cheers,

Sid.

[Tsofian]

Hi Sid
I agree the US Army in 1940 was entirely unready to intervene anywhere against any major force. I'm not sure the US was unnecessary in the Med. Wasp was certainly very useful flying Spitfires to Malta. Plus Torch, and the subsequent invasions used a lot of USN resources. Plus those events are all more than two years away. Clearing Africa before 1943 would have been a huge advantage for the British Empire. Additionally if the US intervention even looks like it is going to happen before 3 July Churchill will have no reason to attack the French Fleet. I can easily see The French African Colonies going over to Free France as soon as the US enters the War (since there are not the lives of over 1,000 French sailors to lay at Churchill's feet). Germany would be forced to collapse Vichy in 1940. This almost certainly means that Russia doesn't get invaded in 1941 and Japan doesn't launch its war against the Allies that year either.

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi Tsofian,

I tend to regard the extended North African Campaign as a blessing to the Anglo-Americans.

If the Italians had been expelled from Libya in late 1940/early 1941 There would have been no American troops with combat experience at all and only the few Britons who had endured three weeks of defeat in May 1940. Thus when it came to invading the continent of Europe later in the war, it would be with entirely raw armies. Can you imagine the result if the defeats at, say, 2nd Tobruk and Kasserine had occurred on the beaches of Normandy instead? There would have been no coming back.

The North African Campaign gave significant numbers of British, and later American, troops and staffs the chance to raise their games against the much more experienced Germans before undertaking an invasion of Europe. The Canadians also appreciated the importance of combat experience and sent a corps to Italy in 1943 so that some of their troops on D-Day in Normandy would have a better experience that the one day at Dieppe had given them.

Cheers,

Sid.

[Tsofian]

Sid
I absolutely see your point.

[Carl Schwamberger]

Hi Sid
I agree the US Army in 1940 was entirely unready to intervene anywhere against any major force. ...

Well, there was a Marine Expeditionary Brigade on the east coast.

[Carl Schwamberger]

Hi Tsofian,

I tend to regard the extended North African Campaign as a blessing to the Anglo-Americans.

If the Italians had been expelled from Libya in late 1940/early 1941 There would have been no American troops with combat experience at all and only the few Britons who had endured three weeks of defeat in May 1940. ...

Well, when Op Neptune kicked off 6th June 44 there were exactly seven US Army Army divisions in the ETO with combat experience. Less than 10% of total Army ground combat strength. Every other combat unit sent to the ETO was green as grass. For Op Neptune US 1st Army did not even include Corps commanders with any experience fighting the Germans. Collins & Gerow had zero combat time in the ETO.

The only way to get combat experince is to get units into combat. The Allied operations in the ETO 1942-43 did not do much for that. By 6th June the US had more veteran divisions in the Pacific.

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi Carl,

The lessons of combat can lead to modifications in tactics and equipment and can be disseminated widely by blooded personnel to units not yet engaged. The Germans had Lehr units for this purpose and the British had similar demonstration units for assimilating combat experience. No doubt the USA, which tended to be a quick learner, had something similar.

However, without the initial blooding of some units such an empirical institutional learning process cannot even begin.

As you say, "The only way to get combat experince is to get units into combat" and this is what the North African Campaign provided for both British and Americans. The Canadian deployment to Italy in the second half of 1943 tends to indicate that they saw the blooding of some units in North Africa by the British and Americans as an advantage they also wanted to acquire.

Cheers,

Sid.

[Carl Schwamberger]

Hi Carl,

The lessons of combat can lead to modifications in tactics and equipment and can be disseminated widely by blooded personnel to units not yet engaged. The Germans had Lehr units for this purpose and the British had similar demonstration units for assimilating combat experience. No doubt the USA, which tended to be a quick learner, had something similar.

I dont know about the Commonwealth, but the German system drew sucess from salting new formations with combat veterans. Where that was not practical the unit generally had a inferior combat record.

& in the case of the US Army it did not work very well. Unlike the Army Air Force there was no effective system for bringing combat veterans back to the US, or anywhere else, to train the new soldiers & units. The dissemination of battlefield reports proved less useful for preparing green units. While the US Army did make some doctrinal changes from the combat experience of Africa not all that was positive. ie: the adoption of towed TD battalions. Saying that the limited combat experience of seven ground combat divisions, spread over 18 months assisted the other 60+ sent to Europe in 1944-45 sounds a bit like a consolation prize

As it was the US Army sent a bit over 60 ground combat divisions to France, & exactly four Inf Div had more than a few weeks of combat experince. Two others, the 82 AB & 2d AD had a few day or weeks combat in Africa, Sicilly, & Italy. As it was the US 1st Army in Normandy was fighting predomintly with manuver units, support units, battalion through division & corps HQ that had never been near combat.

[stg 44]

I dont know about the Commonwealth, but the German system drew sucess from salting new formations with combat veterans. Where that was not practical the unit generally had a inferior combat record.

& in the case of the US Army it did not work very well. Unlike the Army Air Force there was no effective system for bringing combat veterans back to the US, or anywhere else, to train the new soldiers & units. The dissemination of battlefield reports proved less useful for preparing green units. While the US Army did make some doctrinal changes from the combat experience of Africa not all that was positive. ie: the adoption of towed TD battalions. Saying that the limited combat experience of seven ground combat divisions, spread over 18 months assisted the other 60+ sent to Europe in 1944-45 sounds a bit like a consolation prize

Did the US really face enough combat to be able to afford to rotate veterans? They had a hard time rotating units out of Italy once combat there was at full blast; the German success in rotating combat vets or at least finding some for new divisions was that they just had so many combat vets to actually use in new formations to do so; the US would have been forced to break up divisions in combat and replace them with large sections of green replacements or whole new subunits to rotate units through combat; if they rotated divisions out of theater then they'd just be replacing them with green divisions anyway. As with every army they just had to face combat to gain the experience and they did blood their units in very favorable circumstances with the exception of Normandy historically.

[Carl Schwamberger]

I dont know about the Commonwealth, but the German system drew sucess from salting new formations with combat veterans. Where that was not practical the unit generally had a inferior combat record.

& in the case of the US Army it did not work very well. Unlike the Army Air Force there was no effective system for bringing combat veterans back to the US, or anywhere else, to train the new soldiers & units. The dissemination of battlefield reports proved less useful for preparing green units. While the US Army did make some doctrinal changes from the combat experience of Africa not all that was positive. ie: the adoption of towed TD battalions. Saying that the limited combat experience of seven ground combat divisions, spread over 18 months assisted the other 60+ sent to Europe in 1944-45 sounds a bit like a consolation prize

Did the US really face enough combat to be able to afford to rotate veterans? ...

The US Marines did use veterans as a portion of the cadre for their 3-6th Divisions. Drawn from the 1st, 2d Div & independant battalions. The Navy transfered experienced officers & petty officers to new ships. The US Army did move men from fully trained units to new units in the US & did it wholesale, but brought insignificant numbers of veterans from overseas back to the US. Most that were used that way were medically unfit for combat and were in the formal schools and not in newly formed combat units. Neither did the Army make those transfers in useful numbers overseas in the war zones.

They had a hard time rotating units out of Italy once combat there was at full blast; the German success in rotating combat vets or at least finding some for new divisions was that they just had so many combat vets to actually use in new formations to do so; the US would have been forced to break up divisions in combat and replace them with large sections of green replacements or whole new subunits to rotate units through combat;

The losses of the veteran units in combat led to unexpected numbers of green replacements going into those few units. Replacements in that quantity required weeks out of combat to prepare them, otherwise the units ability eroded. Some had some months of down time to train back up to a ready level. The 1 ID, 36 ID, 82 AB, 1 AD, 2 AD, had extended periods out of combat. There are other examples, particularly in the Pacific. Others did not have those opportunities. Either way the operations in the ETO were not organized to integrate large numbers of new replacements or cross level veterans into new units.

Navy ships crews were routinely broken up, usually during refit, and redistributed. It varied, sometimes as little a 10% of the crew were withdrawn, other times over half.

if they rotated divisions out of theater then they'd just be replacing them with green divisions anyway. ...

The Marines usually returned veterans to the US as individuals vs units. In some cases the the incomplete units linked to veterans overseas and completed training there. IIRC the 4th marine Regiment was reformed entirely overseas. I dont see why it would be necessary to rotate entire divisions back to the US as a unit

... As with every army they just had to face combat to gain the experience and they did blood their units in very favorable circumstances with the exception of Normandy historically.

You need to read the unit histories a bit more. Normandy was no exception. There are more than a few that went into first combat under less than favorable circumstances. The first that jumps to mind was the 36th Inf Div that went ashore first at Salerno & straight up against the veteran Pz Grenadiers there. The 36th ID arrived in Africa in April 1943 & went into combat first in Sept that year. That left four months to swap cadres with a veteran division and do the same training they were doing while waiting in Africa.

Bottom line was the US Army was not thinking in these terms & did not take advantage of the possibility.