Bad ideas in war

[Andy_Ross]

I think that's spelled Garand.

It is but I think auto correct on my phone got at it

 

[SpitfireIX]

Some pretty bad naval ideas in this recent video by Drachifenel

Thanks for reminding me I need to finish that; I fell asleep while I was watching it the other night.

 

[sackett]

I think that's spelled Garand.

And pronounced gah-ŘAND with a garlicky accent. John (Jean? dunno, maybe) Garand was a French Canadian. Nobody who heard him talk was ever in doubt.

Sorry, Canadien. Je suis désolé.

 

[sackett]

In the 1930s, the "heavy fighter," a twin engined multiseat plane, often cannon-armed, was considered just the thing for shooting down bombers, and countries that could afford them added them to their inventories. For example, Bf 110/210/410 stayed stubbornly in production to the end. Other designs went to Valhalla pretty quickly or were put to work as night fighters or ground attack types. See Wiki for a good article on the heavy fighter.

Hell, even the P38 had a rough start in the Med. Was it exactly a heavy fighter? Maybe a light-heavy? Is this nomenclature game sometimes a bit daft?

 

[lobosrul5]

In the 1930s, the "heavy fighter," a twin engined multiseat plane, often cannon-armed, was considered just the thing for shooting down bombers, and countries that could afford them added them to their inventories. For example, Bf 110/210/410 stayed stubbornly in production to the end. Other designs went to Valhalla pretty quickly or were put to work as night fighters or ground attack types. See Wiki for a good article on the heavy fighter.

Hell, even the P38 had a rough start in the Med. Was it exactly a heavy fighter? Maybe a light-heavy? Is this nomenclature game sometimes a bit daft?

Twin-engine heavy fighters... if done properly... I don't think were that bad of an idea. Twin engine so its faster and can just out run a single engine fighter when needed, longer range, and mounting a cannon that can out range a 30 or 50 cal on a bomber. Great plan. But... they kept being used for dogfighting nad a rear or top firing turret (lookin at you RAF) were all bad ideas.

A semi-comical pair of videos I watched the other day on a subject I knew next to nothing about. The development of French inter-war planes... dear god what the actual F.

Rex's Hangar is essentially the air force equivalent of Drachinel. They've even worked together once or twice.

 

[Axxman300]

I guess I should throw in the bad idea that you (the invading force) will be welcomed as liberators by the locals. Seems the reason you're entering a country with an army is because the opposite is true.

As far as airborne assaults go, seems we and the British learned from Germany's mistakes. Our troops jump with their gear strapped to a lanyard which they release once the chute is open. Not perfect, but works well enough. We were fishing gear out of the water for two years in Panama that the 82nd dropped on their big combat jump.

The problem with the Germans jumping in to England would be no reinforcements. It would be a suicide mission. Kind of shocked they never tried it, but the RAF would have made short work of the Junkers after 1942.

Now I need to watch The Eagle has Landed again.

 

[GraculusTheGreenBird]

https://londonist.com/london/great-outdoors/london-has-a-central-park-in-fact-it-has-four

I am British, worked in London for 11 years, and have never heard of any of those parks.

Something like Hyde Park or Green Park would be far more appropriate for your OP, as that's what a Londoner would typically think of as a well known, large park in central London.

If you said to the average British person where is Central Park, they would reply New York. Not a small park in Essex, which is not even in London.

 

[Andy_Ross]

In the 1930s, the "heavy fighter," a twin engined multiseat plane, often cannon-armed, was considered just the thing for shooting down bombers, and countries that could afford them added them to their inventories. For example, Bf 110/210/410 stayed stubbornly in production to the end. Other designs went to Valhalla pretty quickly or were put to work as night fighters or ground attack types. See Wiki for a good article on the heavy fighter.

Hell, even the P38 had a rough start in the Med. Was it exactly a heavy fighter? Maybe a light-heavy? Is this nomenclature game sometimes a bit daft?

At the time small, single engine fighters were often slower than the bombers they were supposed to catch and armed with just a couple of machine guns.

More powerful and compact engines made the heavy fighter obsolete very quickly.
Some of them made good ground attack aircraft.

 

[catsmate]

Yes, don't know why I said it ha an intermediate cartridge.

My argument still stands though, it was an early attempt at an assault rifle in concept.

In the same way the BAR was intended. But the BAR was a far worse failure, operationally, because it never found a useful niche. At least the FG-42 was a useful rifle when fired semi-automatically.
If fact the Fallschirmjäger specifically rejected the intermediate round when it was offered.

 

[Andy_Ross]

In the same way the BAR was intended. But the BAR was a far worse failure, operationally, because it never found a useful niche. At least the FG-42 was a useful rifle when fired semi-automatically.
If fact the Fallschirmjäger specifically rejected the intermediate round when it was offered.

No, the BAR was an attempt at a light machine gun.

It was originally designed to be used for 'walking fire' to support an infantry attack, fired from the hip while advancing. It was fired as you crossed towards the enemy trenches as supporting machine gun fire from your own line had to stop when you went forward. It was supported at the butt by a leather stirrup on the belt to partly take the weight but also control recoil.

 

[HansMustermann]

Could this be a consequence of the German idea of "general staff"? As I understand it (not a historian) the general staff were experts in how to operate an army effectively. The goals came from above. Many of those setting the goals were rank amateurs and often could not even visualise what the goal was. This is a pattern I have seen in IT several times, "We don't know what we want but we need it tomorrow" etc

The problem basically is that, yes, they couldn't even understand what the strategic goal was even when they were told explicitly.

I mean, as an illustration, in early 1942 Hitler personally told his generals that if they don't take the oil fields this time, he might as well capitulate here and now. Halder nevertheless made the plan for '42 to completely ignore that and try again to take Moscow. Hitler had to ask another general to review that plan instead of just trusting him like last year, and correct them to actually go south-east.

(OK, Fall Blau was still a major screw-up and resulted in the Stalingrad disaster, but at least they were going roughly in the direction of their strategic objective this time.)

Or Rommel was told repeatedly that his only strategic objective is just to keep the Brits from overrunning the Italians, so Italy doesn't drop out of the war. He didn't have to take Suez. The mere presence of the Italian navy made the Brits essentially close all traffic through there anyway. Nope, he ignores it even when it comes as a direct order, and goes on a merry offensive.

(But, to be fair, he didn't understand logistics either, so it evens out)

So, yeah, that's what I call it a bad idea in war: going into a war for strategic resources and objectives, with generals who don't even understand what that means

 

[Andy_Ross]

(But, to be fair, he didn't understand logistics either, so it evens out)

His main problem being the RN severed his supply route.
if your main supply line is maritime you need to ensure you dominate the sea.

 

[Andy_Ross]

The problem basically is that, yes, they couldn't even understand what the strategic goal was even when they were told explicitly.

I mean, as an illustration, in early 1942 Hitler personally told his generals that if they don't take the oil fields this time, he might as well capitulate here and now. Halder nevertheless made the plan for '42 to completely ignore that and try again to take Moscow. Hitler had to ask another general to review that plan instead of just trusting him like last year, and correct them to actually go south-east.

(OK, Fall Blau was still a major screw-up and resulted in the Stalingrad disaster, but at least they were going roughly in the direction of their strategic objective this time.)

Or Rommel was told repeatedly that his only strategic objective is just to keep the Brits from overrunning the Italians, so Italy doesn't drop out of the war. He didn't have to take Suez. The mere presence of the Italian navy made the Brits essentially close all traffic through there anyway. Nope, he ignores it even when it comes as a direct order, and goes on a merry offensive.

(But, to be fair, he didn't understand logistics either, so it evens out)

So, yeah, that's what I call it a bad idea in war: going into a war for strategic resources and objectives, with generals who don't even understand what that means

Japan had the same problem.

 

[HansMustermann]

His main problem being the RN severed his supply route.
if your main supply line is maritime you need to ensure you dominate the sea.

Partially yes, but he had bigger problems with logistics. E.g., when he started his offensive from Mersa Brega (against direct orders), he stopped after a couple of days because he had run out of fuel. He had forgotten to even tell his logistics officers about it, much less wait for depots to be established, etc. The poor guys were scrambling to get whatever they could underway, without having even been told where they're going

 

[HansMustermann]

Japan had the same problem.

Indeed they did.

Edit: In fact, Japan had an even bigger problem, in that the army and navy only answered to the Emperor, but otherwise there was no coordination, and indeed there was rivalry between them. And the Emperor took a rather hands off and in fact absenteeist approach, which might be ok and even desirable approach in a monarchy, but is downright awful when he's the only link between the branches of the armed forces and the only one who could make them even talk to each other. And occasionally the navy told the the army occasionally to piss off, they're not getting supplies, or viceversa. I mean, they didn't even share research, and in fact guarded secrecy jealously even when both were working on the same thing.

Also, notice how I said they only answered to the Emperor? Yeah, they didn't answer to anyone in the actual government either. Government approval for the actions in China was only given retroactively. The government was actually initially telling the army to chill the hell down, but had no authority to do anything about it.

 

[HansMustermann]

Ok, time for another bad idea, in fact a whole bunch of them under one category: Albert Speer.

People often hear about how he massively increase production practically overnight. But what had actually happened was that he practically stopped producing spare parts, so of course the production of complete planes and tanks went up.

E.g., if something went wrong with a tank (say, the much maligned Panther final drive broke), you were supposed to ship the whole tank back to the factory to be fixed.

Operational readiness plummeted.

And not just for tanks. For example in late 44 (IIRC October?), out of IIRC 28 Me-163 rocket fighters, only 6 were actually usable, because of lack of spare parts. OK, so the Me-163 was itself a bad idea, but the lack of spare parts made even the ones built to be... err.... even more completely useless than they actually are.

But let's return to something I mentioned earlier: that Panther final drive. Well, the original design called for a more robust helical geared final drive. And they could build one all right. But Speer asked for a cheaper and simpler one instead, that could be made with untrained slave labour. He got his wish, and the Panther got... well, the drive we all know and love

But Speer could show his buddy Adolf, "look, line goes up!"

And the list goes on and on like Celine Dion's heart

 

[Wudang]

For want of a nail a shoe was lost.... etc

See also "Amateurs talk about tactics, but professionals study logistics."

 

[catsmate]

No, the BAR was an attempt at a light machine gun.

It was originally designed to be used for 'walking fire' to support an infantry attack, fired from the hip while advancing. It was fired as you crossed towards the enemy trenches as supporting machine gun fire from your own line had to stop when you went forward. It was supported at the butt by a leather stirrup on the belt to partly take the weight but also control recoil.

You're describing an assault rifle.
As you say Browning (and the US Army) intended it as an 'assault rifle' (for lack of a better term), fired from the hip (hence the sling) using automatic fire. This didn't work. Quite probably the Pedersen would have worked better.

The BAR was later used as a LMG because of the USA resistance to the Lewis (which the USN and USMC, and Coast Guard, retained), for financial and other reasons. It was a pretty lousy support weapon, and the US never upgraded it, or replaced it despite the various attempts (T20, T24 et cetera).

And finally, as a military rifle, firing aimed semi-automatic shots from the shoulder, it didn't work because it was too heavy

 

[Andy_Ross]

Ok, time for another bad idea, in fact a whole bunch of them under one category: Albert Speer.

People often hear about how he massively increase production practically overnight. But what had actually happened was that he practically stopped producing spare parts, so of course the production of complete planes and tanks went up.

E.g., if something went wrong with a tank (say, the much maligned Panther final drive broke), you were supposed to ship the whole tank back to the factory to be fixed.

Operational readiness plummeted.

And not just for tanks. For example in late 44 (IIRC October?), out of IIRC 28 Me-163 rocket fighters, only 6 were actually usable, because of lack of spare parts. OK, so the Me-163 was itself a bad idea, but the lack of spare parts made even the ones built to be... err.... even more completely useless than they actually are.

But let's return to something I mentioned earlier: that Panther final drive. Well, the original design called for a more robust helical geared final drive. And they could build one all right. But Speer asked for a cheaper and simpler one instead, that could be made with untrained slave labour. He got his wish, and the Panther got... well, the drive we all know and love

But Speer could show his buddy Adolf, "look, line goes up!"

And the list goes on and on like Celine Dion's heart

Panthers big problem was it required the removal of the turret and whole upper hull if it had to be replaced. Even if they were supplied it was a huge and king winded job to replace them.

Same with the Tigers.

US tanks had a bolt on final drive and British tanks had the final drive in the rear engine compartment.

T34 had a final drive at the rear and they shipped with a spare drive and gearbox because they were known to be a problem.

 

[HansMustermann]

Yes, I know that, but

A. ultimately most of that can still be traced to Speer, who wanted every single shortcut to show Adolf that "line goes up". There was no point in designing it for easier access if the minister of armaments says it's gonna go back to factory anyway, and you must make it cheaper.

B. A more robust final drive WOULD have reduced the times it has to go back to factory, but Speer said "no, make it cheap and crappy." I mean, even if you don't take it out in the field, less breakdowns = more operational readiness, right?

C. Yeah, it did need a lot more work than on a Sherman, but ultimately it was like that with other tanks too. I mean, since you mention the T-34, on the T-34/85 you literally had to take the turret off to service the suspension, since for the middle springs they were literally under the turret. They still preferred to just do that, rather than send it back.

BUT... and this is a big fat jiggly BUT... spending a day taking it apart in the field may not be optimal, but it's still better than it spending a couple of weeks going to the factory and back.

And you don't have to believe my opinion. The actual German troops on the front actually preferred to service it themselves if they could. Tanks sent back to the factory were first cannibalized for any parts they could use to repair other tanks themselves. Like, "yeah, about this tank we're returning... the suspension failed so hard, it also kicked the engine and transmission right out of it too"

Because quite obviously spending a day taking it apart and putting it back, while not optimal, beat NOT having a tank for a longer time.

D. Still doesn't have any excuse to also apply to airplanes, which had the same Speer problem, as I was saying in the message you quote. I mean, for the ME-163 I mentioned before, you could literally just carry the rear end off to access the engine. Literally it had a seam right behind the wings, and you could just pull out the whole outer skin behind the wings in one piece, do whatever maintenance you need, and then put it back; literally even easier than on a Sherman. But it got no spare parts either anyway.