Any battles America could of lost during WW2?

[Sheldrake]

Faulting the US for not winning the war by end of 1994 is an insult to the tropps that fought in the west at the time. First of all the US was not the only combatant. There were troops from the UK, Commonwealth, Free French, Free Polish to name a few.
Second, although there was difficulty breaking out of the beach heads and bocage country, the result was a great depletion of Wehrmacht strength in the area. As a result the time was more than made up.
Many of the supply issues stemmed from the fact that the armies by close of 1944 were farther ahead than forseen. The winter weather also came into play, swelling streams, softening cross country terrain and in general making large scale offensive movements problematic.
Perhaps there was a Home by Christmas deadline (or any other deadlne) in the official war plan circa 1944. Does anyone have links to support that?

No insult intended to anyone who served, as my father did, in the liberation of Europe in 1944-45. I am challenging the complacent assumption that the Anglo -American strategy was optimum - apart from egotistic spats by Montgomery and Patton. There is a German analysis which looks at the German withdrawal and argues that the allies allowed the Germans to slip away. "Ruckzug: The German Retreat from France, 1944 by Joachim Ludewig"
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ruckzug-German ... 081314079X

Alanbrooke was underwhelmed by Eisenhower's strategic thinking.

[Guaporense]

Nothing in reality is ever optimal.

The Anglo-American strategy was quite efficient overall: losing only 1,100,000 soldiers they managed to liberate Western Europe while the USSR lost over 5 million soldiers to "liberate" Eastern Europe.

[maltesefalcon]

Faulting the US for not winning the war by end of 1994 is an insult to the tropps that fought in the west at the time. First of all the US was not the only combatant. There were troops from the UK, Commonwealth, Free French, Free Polish to name a few.
Second, although there was difficulty breaking out of the beach heads and bocage country, the result was a great depletion of Wehrmacht strength in the area. As a result the time was more than made up.
Many of the supply issues stemmed from the fact that the armies by close of 1944 were farther ahead than forseen. The winter weather also came into play, swelling streams, softening cross country terrain and in general making large scale offensive movements problematic.
Perhaps there was a Home by Christmas deadline (or any other deadlne) in the official war plan circa 1944. Does anyone have links to support that?

No insult intended to anyone who served, as my father did, in the liberation of Europe in 1944-45. I am challenging the complacent assumption that the Anglo -American strategy was optimum - apart from egotistic spats by Montgomery and Patton. There is a German analysis which looks at the German withdrawal and argues that the allies allowed the Germans to slip away. "Ruckzug: The German Retreat from France, 1944 by Joachim Ludewig"
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ruckzug-German ... 081314079X

Alanbrooke was underwhelmed by Eisenhower's strategic thinking.

Mistakes were made. On both sides actually. There were losses. Market Garden comes to mind, but that was a joint operation. Other than that I would struggle to imagine the Allies losing the overall battle of Western Europe. Even a better performance of the Germans in Wacht am Rhein could not change that. A slower timeline for vistory than hoped for is not the same as a loss.
There is one battle that I can think of that the US may have lost if the Japanese had husbanded their resources better.
Guadalcanal.

[T. A. Gardner]

Guadalcanal was a no win for the Japanese. They couldn't put enough troops on the island in one shot to come close to the sort of odds they'd need to dislodge the Marines. The US also held Florida Island across the channel from Guadalcanal, most people forget that. It quickly became a major reason the Japanese couldn't hold the waters right off Guadalcanal during the daytime.
Florida was an excellent harbor and the US quickly pushed in a variety of smaller ships and craft that were permanently stationed there including PT boats, subchasers, landing craft, and other assorted small combatants. While this flotsam of war is often forgotten, it was key to making it impossible for the Japanese to use Daihatsu landing craft at Guadalcanal. It was also key to allowing the US to rapidly unload APD transports and other ships keeping the Marines supplied.
To win back Guadalcanal, the Japanese would have had to land at least 2 heavily reinforced divisions of infantry, and probably three. They eventually got one on the island but it never came close to making a dent in the Marine defense perimeter.
Even in the initial landings the Japanese had a defense force of about 1,000 men on the island versus upwards of 20,000 Marine and USN personnel landing on it.
The Japanese couldn't even risk coming in close to the Marine perimeter for bombardments due to the presence of 5" coast defense guns with radar.

Interestingly, Guadalcanal marks the first time in WW 2 that any combatant deployed chaff as a countermeasure. Yes, the Japanese figured out chaff and used it on nighttime bombing raids to protect their bombers...

[sitalkes]

Kasserine Pass could have been a disaster if the campaign had gone as Rommel planned it. He wanted to make a proper pincer attack at a strategic level but was prevented from doing so by his more cautious superior, who was put there to keep Rommel in his place (and follow orders) and refused to allow the troops which Rommel didn't control to participate at the time and at the scale needed. If the German and Italian forces had worked together properly they could have surrounded the American forces, instead all that happened was a spoiler attack that achieved nothing.

[Kingfish]

The US also held Florida Island across the channel from Guadalcanal, most people forget that. It quickly became a major reason the Japanese couldn't hold the waters right off Guadalcanal during the daytime.
Florida was an excellent harbor and the US quickly pushed in a variety of smaller ships and craft that were permanently stationed there including PT boats, subchasers, landing craft, and other assorted small combatants. While this flotsam of war is often forgotten, it was key to making it impossible for the Japanese to use Daihatsu landing craft at Guadalcanal. It was also key to allowing the US to rapidly unload APD transports and other ships keeping the Marines supplied.

You're thinking of Tulagi, which lies just off of Florida island.

AFAIK, the latter was never garrisoned, although the Marines did patrol it regularly.

[maltesefalcon]

My concept of a loss in Guadalcanal would require three things:
More Japanese on the island in the first place. They lost over 30000 troops in the battle. If they had even a third of that number on day one I think the 11000 strong initial landing force would have been in danger of being pushhed off the island.
Second. Aggressive but sensible fighting methods. Banzai charges into dug in troops were a waste of valuable manpower.
Third. Commitment from the Japanese to stay the course. The navy had made a good start. They could have turned the battle into the all out final coup de grace they wanted at Midway. Instead they decided they would not let Guadalcanal become the Verdun of the Pacific, as they had prioities elsewhere. Continued expansion should have taken a back seat to finishing off the existing allied naval forces while the time was right.

[T. A. Gardner]

You're thinking of Tulagi, which lies just off of Florida island.

AFAIK, the latter was never garrisoned, although the Marines did patrol it regularly.

http://www.lafavre.us/navy/florida-islands.html

Tulagi and other small islands off Florida, along with the coast of Florida were developed into a very large naval base to include ship repair facilities, a seaplane base, storage and warehouse space, a boat harbor for landing craft and PT boats, etc. The Japanese pretty much ignored it as a target.

As for starting with more troops on Guadalcanal, that was unlikely. The force the Japanese sent was about 500 infantry (a battalion sized infantry unit) and 1500 construction troops. There were about 900 IJN troops across the sound on islands just off Florida establishing a naval base there. These were typical numbers for a Japanese island occupation force at the time. I can't see the Japanese upping these numbers.

[Yodasgrandad]

Trying to say the Soviets had "won the war by December 1941" is equally insane. The Germans made a very successful 1942 summer offensive in Russia overrunning vast areas and actually making it to the Caucasus oil fields. They were on the Volga at Stalingrad, and the outcome of that battle was hardly certain in say August or September 1942.
The US also fought on a frontage / land and sea area that dwarfed the Eastern Front to near miniscule size, or are you forgetting the US fought across the entire Pacific, South West Pacific, in China, India, and Burma, across all of North Africa, across the entire Atlantic, and elsewhere?
Until 1944 the Russians were fighting on their own soil. They only needed build a mass land army and tactical air force for that purpose. They didn't have to ship their forces thousands of miles across oceans and supply them with everything thousands of miles from home.
Trying to claim the Soviets won WW 2 in Europe single handedly is to dismiss the very significant contributions of Western Forces that took millions of German casualties and POW's that otherwise probably would have produced an Eastern Front victory against the Soviet Union. Certainly the destruction of the Luftwaffe at the hands of Western air forces is something the Soviets couldn't have duplicated. They couldn't even manage the destruction of what Luftwaffe forces were supporting the Wehrmacht in the East.

While the US wasn't the only combatant in the West, it was the primary supplier of the arms and munitions necessary to build the Western armies. Almost half of all Commonwealth armor and mechanization was supplied by the US. The Free French, Poles, Brazilians (since you mention them), Chinese, etc., were equipped in whole or part with US materials. Hell, even the Soviet forces were dependent on US supplied trucks by 1944. One of the leading tank armies in Bagration and the destruction of AGC was wholly equipped with US materials including Sherman tanks.

It is absolutely absurd and wrong to chalk up victory against Germany to the Soviets alone. Yes, they paid in blood and did a big share of the fighting to defeat Germany, but they weren't pulling that load anywhere close to by themselves.

How did the Germans manage a Summer offensive in 1942?

Why couldn't the Soviet Air Force destroy the Luftwaffe, wouldn't they be able to churn out more planes and pilots etc?

[Carl Schwamberger]

How did the Germans manage a Summer offensive in 1942?

They built Army Group South up to full strength, & took advantage of Soviet miscalculation. STAVKA/Stalin thought the offensive was to be directed to Moscow & they positioned their strongest forces in the north and center. After the offensive started the Soviet leaders thought it a diversion & kept their reserves in the north for the summer.

Why couldn't the Soviet Air Force destroy the Luftwaffe, wouldn't they be able to churn out more planes and pilots etc?

Good question. In 1943 68% of the German air loses were in the west & Mediteranean. Why this was the case & why the German air force had to break off every major air campaign in the west in 1943, outside Germany, is a interesting point.

[Guaporense]

The US would have lost Sledgehammer had they attempted it (invade Europe through an amphibous invasion in 1942 in case of a Soviet collapse). The reason was that they lacked the naval infraestructure and the munitions to open up the Western front so early. So they would try to invade Europe quickly before the Wermacht could redeploy from the Eastern front.

The US could also have lost at Midway.

[Guaporense]

Why couldn't the Soviet Air Force destroy the Luftwaffe, wouldn't they be able to churn out more planes and pilots etc?

Good question. In 1943 68% of the German air loses were in the west & Mediteranean. Why this was the case & why the German air force had to break off every major air campaign in the west in 1943, outside Germany, is a interesting point.

The USSR lacked the resources to maintain an airforce ad strong as the WAllies while simultaneously deploying 550 divisions in Europe: The WAllies had a pre war GDP 3 times larger than the Soviet GDP and they allocated way more resources to their airforces. As result the WAllies were producing 110,000 aircraft in 1943 while the USSR was producing 33,000 aircraft.

[T. A. Gardner]

The US would have lost Sledgehammer had they attempted it (invade Europe through an amphibous invasion in 1942 in case of a Soviet collapse). The reason was that they lacked the naval infraestructure and the munitions to open up the Western front so early. So they would try to invade Europe quickly before the Wermacht could redeploy from the Eastern front.

Odds on favorite is they would have succeeded with Sledgehammer / Round up in late 1942 or early 43. Germany simply doesn't have the troops in place in France to cause it to fail. What the Allies couldn't have done is go beyond establishing a large beachhead lodgment in Southern France... Sort of a super sized Anzio.

The US could also have lost at Midway.

Not that that would have made any significant difference in the Pacific...

[Carl Schwamberger]

Why couldn't the Soviet Air Force destroy the Luftwaffe, wouldn't they be able to churn out more planes and pilots etc?

Good question. In 1943 68% of the German air loses were in the west & Mediteranean. Why this was the case & why the German air force had to break off every major air campaign in the west in 1943, outside Germany, is a interesting point.

The USSR lacked the resources to maintain an airforce ad strong as the WAllies while simultaneously deploying 550 divisions in Europe: The WAllies had a pre war GDP 3 times larger than the Soviet GDP and they allocated way more resources to their airforces. As result the WAllies were producing 110,000 aircraft in 1943 while the USSR was producing 33,000 aircraft.

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[Guaporense]

It's hard to understand? The USSR was too poor to defeat the Luftwaffe. Airforce is a very material intensive arm of the armed forces so the USSR which invested most of it's resources on it's ground troops, didn't have remotely enough resources to impose aerial superiority over the luftwaffe alone.