Questions regarding the Soviets and WWII

[clackers]

I don't know how you reached this conclusion since orange called for the relief of both Guam and the Philippines.

Because Pearl Harbor changed everything. Orange went out the window.

With the battlewagons sitting at the bottom of the harbour, Wainwright in the Philippines was going to end up in Japanese custody. There was going to be no force to relieve him in 1942, no decisive battle sought. Or 1943. It would have to wait until the Essex class carriers and Iowa class battleships came into service.

When they did, the path of Plan Orange was followed.

In this sense, MacArthur's return to the Philippines with the Army, and his long slogs up New Guinea and New Britain irrelevant. They could have been bypassed and isolated. Japan was reached from the Central Pacific according to the arc drawn out by the original Navy planners.

[clackers]

I don't think Zhukov's contribution to Stalingrad had been settled by historiography. Zhukov was the operational commander of Mars which seemed to be the Soviet main effort in size and firepower. Some scholars allege it makes no sense that Zhukov would draft Stalingrad plans but went to oversee Mars. What I don't see is evidence for either view.

You can see evidence for that latter view in the second reference in post 29, Triple C.

Uncovering this (and the revisionism to associate Zhukov with victory at Stalingrad) in Zhukov's Greatest Defeat got Glantz banned from the Soviet archives.

[1979]

You can see evidence for that latter view in the second reference in post 29, Triple C.

Uncovering this (and the revisionism to associate Zhukov with victory at Stalingrad) in Zhukov's Greatest Defeat got Glantz banned from the Soviet archives.

well...he did say we not Vasilevski ;)
Marshal Georgy Zhukov - YouTube

[zraver]

Because Pearl Harbor changed everything. Orange went out the window.

With the battlewagons sitting at the bottom of the harbour, Wainwright in the Philippines was going to end up in Japanese custody. There was going to be no force to relieve him in 1942, no decisive battle sought. Or 1943. It would have to wait until the Essex class carriers and Iowa class battleships came into service.

When they did, the path of Plan Orange was followed.

In this sense, MacArthur's return to the Philippines with the Army, and his long slogs up New Guinea and New Britain irrelevant. They could have been bypassed and isolated. Japan was reached from the Central Pacific according to the arc drawn out by the original Navy planners.

The path of orange took two directions- Guam and the Phillipines which is what happened. Nor was the Philippines isolated when the landings were made. There was still sea and air service to Japan and from there to the rest of the Japanese occupied areas. Taking the Philippines in fact cut Japanese possessions nearly in half and denied them any pretense of the oil and rubber from Malaysia and Singapore.

[clackers]

The path of orange took two directions- Guam and the Phillipines which is what happened.

This is what I said. Except that in the actual war, Pearl Harbor meant there could be no relief of the Philippines, it had to be a later reconquest.

See for example, War Plan Orange - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

There's even a computer game on the topic:

Matrix Games - War Plan Orange: Dreadnoughts in the Pacific 1922 - 1930

[clackers]

Nor was the Philippines isolated when the landings were made.

The Philippines followed a different, competing arc.

It was an Army-led campaign, with MacArthur starting from New Guinea, not from Hawaii as Nimitz and the Marines did.

You could also argue that invading Formosa would have been useful, but like the Philippines, it was in fact unnecessary.

[clackers]

well...he did say we not Vasilevski ;)
Marshal Georgy Zhukov - YouTube

Thanks for posting that, 1979.

I love it ... as they say, "Victory has many fathers, failure is an orphan".

[zraver]

The Philippines followed a different, competing arc.

It was an Army-led campaign, with MacArthur starting from New Guinea, not from Hawaii as Nimitz and the Marines did.

You could also argue that invading Formosa would have been useful, but like the Philippines, it was in fact unnecessary.

Doesn't matter.

Did WPO call for both Guam and the Philippines to be relieved? Yes it did. Nimitiz has no more and no less claim than Mac to following the spirit of WPO. Nor was the Philipines as wasted campaign. The drive across the pacific to reach Japan and the drive to liberate the Philipines and thus cut Japan off from raw materials both served the strategic interests of the US. The two drives complimentared one another. The US could be strong in both areas, Japan could not.

[Triple C]

You can see evidence for that latter view in the second reference in post 29, Triple C.

Uncovering this (and the revisionism to associate Zhukov with victory at Stalingrad) in Zhukov's Greatest Defeat got Glantz banned from the Soviet archives.

I don't question Zhukov's responsibility for Mars. I am not sure if the case was proven beyond reasonable doubt that Zhukov did not contribute substantially to Uranus.

[clackers]

The drive across the pacific to reach Japan and the drive to liberate the Philipines and thus cut Japan off from raw materials both served the strategic interests of the US.

Broadfronts make sense against an opponent able to move reserves between areas of a front, but in the Pacific the Japanese were scattered out over a vast perimeter, and the garrisons left stuck on their islands without the shipping to redeploy them, or even resupply them.

They could be defeated in detail at the Allies' choosing by an efficient single thrust strategy aimed at Luzon or Formosa, and by 1943 there was very little the Japanese could do to stop it. Mitscher's carriers would have made a mess of them wherever they sortied.

'The violence of inter-service rivalry in the United States in these days had to be seen to be believed and was an appreciable handicap to their war effort', reported a British observer during the war.

Of course, the IJN and IJA were worse, the Army not only building its own planes but operating its own troop transports and submarines.

But fundamentally, the US two axes strategy resulted from selfish interservice politics, not objective military reasons.

At the Quadrant Conference, the British CIGS questioned its wisdom.

In his memoirs, Air Force general 'Hap' Arnold wrote:

We continued operating in our inefficient way, with first three, then two commands ... both working towards the same end - the defeat of Japan, with overlapping lines of communication, overlapping air operations, overlapping sea operations, and finally, overlapping land Army operations. In my opinion, that was one hell of a way to run a war.

As academic Louis Morton wrote: "The logical solution, was of course to name a single commander for the entire Pacific with separate air, ground and naval commands."

For me, that would have been Chester Nimitz, not MacArthur, although Big Mac (with his string puller Richard Sutherland) would probably unavoidably end up the ground commander under such a system.

Service interests and personality problems stopped the JCS even debating this sensible arrangement, but I would have thought that's why you have Marshall and Roosevelt, on behalf of the nation, sorting out these feuding children!

[clackers]

I don't question Zhukov's responsibility for Mars. I am not sure if the case was proven beyond reasonable doubt that Zhukov did not contribute substantially to Uranus.

Triple C, many people were involved in the planning of all the Winter Offensives.

A key time at Stavka was September 26th, 1942, described by Glantz in his Mars book:



During the day, key Stavka members and representatives of the General Staff met in the
General Staff building. There they assessed the military situation in various
front sectors, studied front commanders' proposals for future actions, calculated
the relative force strengths and correlations of forces along key axes,
discussed military options, and formulated draft plans. Other General Staff
officers busily studied proposals and plans, prepared detailed estimates of the
situation, surveyed available strategic reserves, assessed manpower and equipment
availability and military and industrial production rates, and performed
a host of other duties necessary to harness the power of the Red Army in the
service of prospective offensive action. Late in the evening, key military figures
adjourned to the Kremlin, where they met with Stalin to discuss strategic
options in sessions that lasted until the wee hours of the morning.

... Debate was not a new phenomenon in Stavka planning circles. What was
new, however, was the degree of debate and its vigor and freshness. While
Stalin's opinion, quite naturally, had dominated discussions in earlier months,
the elusiveness of victory and the sharpness of recent catastrophic defeats
conditioned Stalin to listen more respectfully to the most capable of his military
experts. By now he had also developed a keen understanding of the
strengths, weaknesses, and personal quirks of each member of his military
entourage. Ironically, despite the harsh experiences of the first year of war,
that entourage had changed little. Each member brought to the group unique
personal perspectives born of combat experience and valuable biases that
needed to be aired and debated in full. Now, in the fall of 1942, Stalin finally
understood that these discussions were essential for victory.

The key figures in Stalin's closest circle of advisors were Stavka members
G. K. Zhukov, 1st Deputy Minister of Defense and Deputy Supreme
High Commander, A. M. Vasilevsky, Deputy Minister of Defense and Chief
of the General Staff, and N. F. Vatutin, Deputy Chief of the General Staff
and Voronezh Front commander. Others in the General Staff, including
S. P. Ivanov, Chief of the General Staff's Operations Directorate, Stavka
representatives like Red Army Artillery Chief N. N. Voronov, and front
commanders like I. S. Konev (Western), A. I. Eremenko (Stalingrad), and
Vatutin (Voronezh and then Southwestern) also played key roles in the strategic
debate.

Prior experience and the unique personalities of these key figures shaped
the debate and produced a plan for what would become the most ambitious
and comprehensive strategic offensive the Stavka and General Staff had yet
proposed. Strategic realities and the exigencies of on-going combat meant
that Stavka attention was riveted, first, on the massive German force lodged
deep in southern Russia and, second, on the still looming threat posed by
German forces in the Rzhev salient to Moscow. Reality dictated that German
forces in southern Russia be defeated and the threat to Moscow eliminated.
The vital question was how to accomplish this. Here, the personal
histories and biases of Stalin's entourage were key.

The result?

On the evening of 26 September, Stalin announced to his commanders,
"You may continue to plan your offensive. Conduct two efforts. Zhukov will
control the Rzhev operation and Vasilevsky the operation at Stalingrad." During
the following days, the General Staff developed outline plans for two twophase
operations, each assigned the code name of a planet (see Map 2). The
first operation, Zhukov's Operation Mars, would commence in mid-October
with the immediate objective of encircling German Ninth Army forces in the
Rzhev and Sychevka salient. Two to three weeks later, it would be followed
by an attack along the Viaz'ma axis by the Western Front's central sector
armies designed to link up with victorious forces of Operation Mars and
envelop all forces of German Army Group Center. The second phase of
Zhukov's operation was possibly code-named Jupiter. Vasilevsky's initial
operation, code-named Uranus and tentatively set for mid-November, was
designed to envelop German Sixth Army in the Stalingrad region. His second
phase, Operation Saturn, would begin in early December with the
objective of enveloping all of German Army Group B, pinning its remnants
against the Sea of Azov, and cutting off the safe withdrawal of German Army
Group A from the Caucasus.

But the historiography is fascinating:

Zhukov mentions [Mars] in his memoirs as a passing reference
within the context of the Stalingrad operation but without referring to it by
name. The few paragraphs he devotes to it are only partial in their coverage
and dismiss the operation as a diversion to keep German reserves away from
the larger and more significant Stalingrad operation. The other two Soviet
front commanders say nothing about the operation. General Purkaev wrote
no memoirs, and General Konev, conveniently, began his memoirs with events
in January 1943. Nor did the Soviet army commanders of Mars write their
memoirs. The only Soviet army-level unit history about an army that participated
in the operation, 31st Army, skips the period entirely. Fragmentary
references to the operation appear only in corps-, division-, and brigade-level
unit histories.

[1979]

it has bean several years since i have read zhukov memoirs but he devoted more space to mars, than he did to the failure to close the salient
in early 1942.

[clackers]

it has bean several years since i have read zhukov memoirs

As I understand it, 1979, there have been several versions, heavily revised by Communist party officials.

Even Zhukov complained on their publication: "That book, it is not mine."

Those doctoring it for three years included Brezhnev, who insisted on including 'the fiction that Brezhnev took part in an incident on the southern front.'

Anglo-American histories are also always written with political and target audience constraints, but it seems that the pressures on Soviet texts were for so many years in another league again.

[zraver]

B

But fundamentally, the US two axes strategy resulted from selfish interservice politics, not objective military reasons.

Disagree. Nimitz for the most part was operating out of Pearl with an aim at Japan. Mac was operating out of Australia aimed at the Philippines. Both had vital responsibilities aimed at completely different but equally important strategic objectives.

So lets play what if...

Its July 1942, Nimitz just beat the Japanese at Midway, Mac is fighting in New Guinea and troops are marshaling for the invasion of Guadalcanal. FDR ask you which way to go- back Nimitz and aim at Japan, back mac and secure Australia and then aim at the Philippines or both?

[clackers]

So lets play what if...

Its July 1942, Nimitz just beat the Japanese at Midway, Mac is fighting in New Guinea and troops are marshaling for the invasion of Guadalcanal. FDR ask you which way to go- back Nimitz and aim at Japan, back mac and secure Australia and then aim at the Philippines or both?

Nimitz. Concentrate overwhelming power with one command. Let Australia sit there. :-)