daveshoup2MD wrote: ↑11 Jan 2022, 04:53
John T wrote: ↑10 Jan 2022, 23:45
daveshoup2MD wrote: ↑09 Jan 2022, 23:27
4. The evacuations of the British expeditionary forces in Norway, France, and Greece demonstrates the capacity of the British
navy in
shore to ship operations over the beach, which is the point of the comparison with amphibious assault; the British did not evacuate any significant ground force elements from Malaya in 1942 or Malta at any point in 1940-45, that I am aware of - please detail such if I am mistaken.
Sorry, I mixed up Malta with Crete.
Regarding the Malaya peninsula and Island of Singapore, British losses in the peninsula were obvious before the retreat across straight of Johor.
Of the mentioned withdrawals only Narvik could be described as somewhat successful.
To drag army troops out of the water and into RN ships leaving equipment, unit cohesion, and morale at the beach doesn't say much of the amphibious capacity.
daveshoup2MD wrote: ↑09 Jan 2022, 23:27
1. When on the defensive, and when mobile reserves are limited but construction equipment and construction materials are in supply, building multiple defensive lines is rational;
So it had nothing to do with a perception that warfare should be static and fought by front lines as in the Great war?
daveshoup2MD wrote: ↑09 Jan 2022, 23:27
... and the mobile forces that did exist - and which only became stronger and more numerous as the summer and autumn went on - had demonstrated their abilities in terms of mobile warfare in France in the 1940 campaign, notably at Arras, and similar organizations demonstrated their abilities against Axis light infantry, even dug in, the same year in Egypt (Sidi Barrani); neither would be a direct parallel, largely because Axis armor and artillery would be extremely limited in comparison, but both make it clear British tankers and motorized infantry and artillery were quite capable of overrunning Axis infantry, even with - as at Arras - armor and heavy artillery in support.
3. In Singapore, the British forces faced an enemy that had control of the air and of the sea, and their forces were penned on an island without any room to maneuver, rear areas of note, or line of supply and reinforcement; plus, Malaya and Singapore were expendable for the British in 1942; England was not, in 1940 or ever.
May I present Churchills view on the expendable Singapore
https://winstonchurchill.org/publicati ... singapore/
Churchill asked Ismay that a plan be made at once while the battle in Johore was going forward. He outlined what the plan should comprise. Among the ten elements of the plan, Churchill included: “(i) Not only must the defence of Singapore Island be maintained by every means, but the whole island must be fought for until every single unit and every single strong point has been separately destroyed. (j) Finally, the city of Singapore must be converted into a citadel and defended to the death. No surrender can be contemplated, and the Commander, Staffs and principal officers are expected to perish at their posts.”
The interesting part is that you cite the British excuses why they lost Singapore,
mix up Italians in Sidi Barrani with Germans,
and try to make the British attack at Arras a success.
To me, the arguments provided show how bad the state of the British army where.
And the almost religious belief "But when defending England" they would not find any new excuses for failure.
And all of a sudden get their act together.
On the other hand, I see the same lack of self-awareness from Winston in sending a small force to Greece, with the intention to Prop up the Greeks.
The dreamland of make-believe, that when reality hits, ends in a string of excuses.
Cheers
/John T
The withdrawal from Malaya to Singapore was largely across the Causeway, was it not?
Getting any manpower out of France and Greece (and off Crete) were pretty significant achievements, especially in the face of the available Axis air power and the relative paucity of the RAF in terms of covering all three evacuations; so, no, actually, they were impressive displays of capacity of the RN to organize complex operations on the fly, in very fluid operational situations, and mange them successfully - although the reality the men were evacuated absent much equipment certainly reinforces the point that amphibious withdrawals are the only operation more challenging than an amphibious assault.
The British Army commanders, from the battalion level to the CIGS, had literally just seen that mobile warfare was the reality they faced, so no, not at all (regarding the "refight WW I" comment). Field fortifications, especially against a light infantry force (which is what the German expeditionary force would be, in anything resembling the reality of Q3/Q4, 1940), however, are very effective, and the British understood that, hence the various field fortifications they built in 1940.
Churchill was mistaken about what could be done in Singapore with what the British had on hand, hence the point that a realistic appraisal of the situation would have been to not reinforce failure; that being said, an
ad hoc landing by a half dozen German light infantry division equivalents in England in the autumn of 1940 would have given the British every advantage and the Axis none.
As examples, the British attack at Arras penetrated 10 miles against German tanks, heavy artillery, and motorized infantry, which if the equivalent had taken place in September, 1940 somewhere in England, would have presumably crushed any German infantry beachhead perimeter and put the British mobile forces well into what would have passed for the German rear areas on the same beachhead; not a recipe for success for sustaining a beachhead when the Germans had no NGFS capacity.
Actually, Sidi Barrani was cited because in 1940, along with Arras, it is an obvious example of British armor/mobile forces on the attack against an Axis defending force. Given that, it is much better evidence for the British ability to mount a division+ scaled counterattack against Axis light infantry in 1940 than there any example of the German ability to mount an amphibious operation against a prepared Allied force the same year - since there is not any.
Yes, the He 111 was pressed into service at Demyansk and Stalingrad as emergency transports, but that was not an indicator of the flexibility of the He 111, it was an indicator of the basic lack of capability in the Luftwaffe.
