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Bombardment by proxy cells of US industry in WW2

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  • Bombardment by proxy cells of US industry in WW2

    As many of us know, the fact that German and Japanese industrial centers suffered constant bombardment from the air, whereas US industrial centers remained intact for the most part, was one deciding factor in the US and allies winning WW2. This meant that US industry could replace lost military equipment almost as fast as it was lost, whereas the Germans and Japanese had difficulty doing this.

    Now, let us suppose that, to deny the advantage of a large industrial sector to the Americans, Hitler and/or the Japanese Imperial military decided to use small "terrorist" cells inside the US to sabotage and disrupt industrial production. Some of these cells would even be large enough to resist attack by large criminal organizations such as the NY Italian Mafia. Initially, these cells would restrict themselves to just slowing down US industrial production through, for instance, theft of raw materials and causing workers to become too sick to work most of the time. If necessary, these cells could then expand their operations to include inciting racial tensions between Whites and Blacks, sowing fear among the general population, and even creating situations that would require significant troop deployments within the US, thereby diverting some US forces from theaters in Europe and the Pacific.

    Another ingredient to add to the soup would be if, for instance, Turkey decided to stop sending chromium to the US and instead shipped it to Nazi Germany, Japan, and the USSR. This would complicate things for US industry, as stainless steel - which includes chromium in its metallurgical composition - was a highly desirable material for military applications at the time.

    Given the social cohesion generated by the war effort in the US, the above would be a rather tricky undertaking, but if Hitler and/or the Japanese realized that soon the tide of war would turn, would they have tried this tactic in an effort to turn things around?

  • #2
    It would be a waste of time, effort, material and men on many levels.

    Just for a starter, look at the amount of destruction allied bombing did on a daily basis in Germany and compare the US and German economy at the time. You'd need entire Wehrmacht to go to the USA and still get mixed results. Assuming the home population wont hunt them as rabbits or deer.

    As for chromium, correct me if I am wrong, but I believe Turkey produced same amounts as USSR while British Empire outproduced USSR and Turkey combined (hint, look @ SA and Rhodesia)
    Last edited by Doktor; 13 Aug 13,, 10:31.
    No such thing as a good tax - Churchill

    To make mistakes is human. To blame someone else for your mistake, is strategic.

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    • #3
      Originally posted by Crocodylus View Post
      As many of us know, the fact that German and Japanese industrial centers suffered constant bombardment from the air, whereas US industrial centers remained intact for the most part, was one deciding factor in the US and allies winning WW2. This meant that US industry could replace lost military equipment almost as fast as it was lost, whereas the Germans and Japanese had difficulty doing this.

      Now, let us suppose that, to deny the advantage of a large industrial sector to the Americans, Hitler and/or the Japanese Imperial military decided to use small "terrorist" cells inside the US to sabotage and disrupt industrial production. Some of these cells would even be large enough to resist attack by large criminal organizations such as the NY Italian Mafia. Initially, these cells would restrict themselves to just slowing down US industrial production through, for instance, theft of raw materials and causing workers to become too sick to work most of the time. If necessary, these cells could then expand their operations to include inciting racial tensions between Whites and Blacks, sowing fear among the general population, and even creating situations that would require significant troop deployments within the US, thereby diverting some US forces from theaters in Europe and the Pacific.

      Another ingredient to add to the soup would be if, for instance, Turkey decided to stop sending chromium to the US and instead shipped it to Nazi Germany, Japan, and the USSR. This would complicate things for US industry, as stainless steel - which includes chromium in its metallurgical composition - was a highly desirable material for military applications at the time.

      Given the social cohesion generated by the war effort in the US, the above would be a rather tricky undertaking, but if Hitler and/or the Japanese realized that soon the tide of war would turn, would they have tried this tactic in an effort to turn things around?
      We put 117,000 people behind the wire just for being of Japanese descent. That was illegal and unconstitutional, but Roosevelt, who was no stranger to the illegal and unconstitutional (see 2nd New Deal and Court Packing Scheme), did it anyway. He also had people "disappeared" into loony bins for the duration. Think he wouldn't sanction much worse if the situation dictated it? Make no mistake, the US by the end of WWII was in many ways just as fascistic in terms of the melding of industry and government, and internal security, as some of our enemies.

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      • #4
        Originally posted by desertswo View Post
        We put 117,000 people behind the wire just for being of Japanese descent. That was illegal and unconstitutional, but Roosevelt, who was no stranger to the illegal and unconstitutional (see 2nd New Deal and Court Packing Scheme), did it anyway. He also had people "disappeared" into loony bins for the duration. Think he wouldn't sanction much worse if the situation dictated it? Make no mistake, the US by the end of WWII was in many ways just as fascistic in terms of the melding of industry and government, and internal security, as some of our enemies.
        Agreed. No different really, than Lincoln during the Civil War.

        Hell, conscientious objectors were tarred and feathered and ran out of town, assuming they weren't outright imprisoned...and these were pacifists!
        “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

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        • #5
          Originally posted by TopHatter View Post
          Agreed. No different really, than Lincoln during the Civil War.

          Hell, conscientious objectors were tarred and feathered and ran out of town, assuming they weren't outright imprisoned...and these were pacifists!
          You want to know just how ridiculous the internment of Japanese-Americans was? They weren't removed from Hawaii where in fact some had been involved in espionage, because they were "too important to the war effort"; which meant harvesting sugar cane and pineapples. They were only removed from "the West Coast" which was defined by geographic coordinates that just happened to run down the middle of Grand Avenue in Phoenix where I live. There are documented cases of Japanese-American families living on either side of that street, and some went into camps (ironically, not that far away), and others didn't, solely because of their address.

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          • #6
            You think that's looney? I have friends who live in the same apartment and vote in different districts. Bureaucracy at its finest ;)
            No such thing as a good tax - Churchill

            To make mistakes is human. To blame someone else for your mistake, is strategic.

            Comment


            • #7
              Originally posted by Doktor View Post
              You think that's looney? I have friends who live in the same apartment and vote in different districts. Bureaucracy at its finest ;)
              I knew a fellow officer in the Navy, a woman, who had grown up in a little town in Northern Arizona that was partially on the Navajo Reservation. It straddled the line of demarcation and on one side of the street Daylight Savings Time was observed (on the Federal property of the Reservation), but on the other, being part of Arizona which does not observe Daylight Savings Time, it wasn't. So, six months of the year, one side of the line was an hour ahead, and the other they were the same.

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              • #8
                Originally posted by Crocodylus View Post
                [SIZE=3][FONT=Franklin Gothic Medium]As many of us know, the fact that German and Japanese industrial centers suffered constant bombardment from the air, whereas US industrial centers remained intact for the most part, was one deciding factor in the US and allies winning WW2. This meant that US industry could replace lost military equipment almost as fast as it was lost, whereas the Germans and Japanese had difficulty doing this.
                You make a couple of fundamental errors. First, I think you vastly underestimate the size of the US production advantage. The entire Axis plus Vichy France in 1943 had a total GDP of 895 billion (in 1990 dollars). The US alone in 1943 had a GDP of 1.399 trillion. Total allied GDP in 1943 was 2.065 trillion. This leads to your second mistake, thinking industry on such a scale can be disrupted by terror cells.

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                • #9
                  Z,

                  We basically agree. As I said it would have been a waste of time, resources and highly trained men and women.

                  Another thing is how would the Axis infiltrate/recruit so many agents unnoticed in the USA when they failed to disrupt GB main island, which is closer, smaller and been in focus for a longer time.

                  There is not even an option to conduct ops similar to what the Brits did in Norway with the heavy water plant.
                  No such thing as a good tax - Churchill

                  To make mistakes is human. To blame someone else for your mistake, is strategic.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Originally posted by Doktor View Post
                    Another thing is how would the Axis infiltrate/recruit so many agents unnoticed in the USA when they failed to disrupt GB main island, which is closer, smaller and been in focus for a longer time.
                    They were actually working hard at this prior to the war. The German-American Bund was very active, often having pro-Hitler rallies, etc. One needs to understand that before the war, there were more than a few people in the US who thought Stalin and Hitler were all that and a bag of chips. It just depended on which way one's politics leaned as to which one preferred.

                    Regardless, everyone knows about the 117,000 interned in the US, but most are unaware that there were a number of people of both German and Italian descent who were similarly interned in Crystal City, Texas. The number wasn't anywhere near as large as what happened with Japanese-Americans, but it did happen, and one of those it happened to was Julius Kuhn, the leader of the German-American Bund.

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                    • #11
                      Still my case stands. Unnoticed part is there for a reason.

                      Just my 2 cents, but better case for the Axis is to heavily (and secretly) fund a candidate who will be less friendly to Britain then to waste resources on partisan/guerilla type of ops with little to no value. In the mean time there should be another operation to remove J.E. Hoover from the post ;)
                      No such thing as a good tax - Churchill

                      To make mistakes is human. To blame someone else for your mistake, is strategic.

                      Comment

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