Eucatastrophe: Difference between revisions
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** There's one crucial operation that saved Britain right after France fell. While most people who have heard of [[WW 2]] will know that Britain's navy was one of the strongest in the world they wouldn't realize the incredibly precarious position they were in. In May 1940, Britain's Indian and Far East (Southeast Asia) fleets were busy guarding against the Japanese, the U.S. was [[Heroic Neutral]], and Germany now had access to their own High Seas fleet, the Italian fleet, the French fleet, and it looked like they might gain access to Spain's ships and ports if Franco allied with Hitler openly. Britain's navy managed an amazing sneak attack wiping out the French fleet. This convinced Franco to not become an active ally to Hitler and the difference in naval strength and inability to use Spain as a launching zone convinced Hitler that an air attack against Britain would work best. |
** There's one crucial operation that saved Britain right after France fell. While most people who have heard of [[WW 2]] will know that Britain's navy was one of the strongest in the world they wouldn't realize the incredibly precarious position they were in. In May 1940, Britain's Indian and Far East (Southeast Asia) fleets were busy guarding against the Japanese, the U.S. was [[Heroic Neutral]], and Germany now had access to their own High Seas fleet, the Italian fleet, the French fleet, and it looked like they might gain access to Spain's ships and ports if Franco allied with Hitler openly. Britain's navy managed an amazing sneak attack wiping out the French fleet. This convinced Franco to not become an active ally to Hitler and the difference in naval strength and inability to use Spain as a launching zone convinced Hitler that an air attack against Britain would work best. |
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** Amazing as it was it was also a ''huge'' [[Shoot the Dog]] moment considering the French sailors had been their allies merely weeks earlier and ''1,300'' of them were killed in the process. As much as the practical benefit it was also a display in front of the whole world about how strongly Britain was committed to fighting. |
** Amazing as it was it was also a ''huge'' [[Shoot the Dog]] moment considering the French sailors had been their allies merely weeks earlier and ''1,300'' of them were killed in the process. As much as the practical benefit it was also a display in front of the whole world about how strongly Britain was committed to fighting. |
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** Then there's the [[wikipedia:Dunkirk evacuation|Dunkirk evacuation]]. A series of Allied military blunders in May 1940 allowed the Germans to break through the French front lines and catch the Allied troops totally unprepared. The British army, in particular, was in a terrible defensive position at that moment. If General Guderian, the German commander who led the breakthrough, had been allowed to follow up his success, he could have swept north and rolled up the entire British army. Instead, his own CO chewed him out for taking "foolish risks", and Guderian resigned on the spot. He was persuaded to rescind his resignation and resume command, but several days had passed by that point, and the opportunity had been lost. Britain evacuated their soldiers from the continent in one of [[ |
** Then there's the [[wikipedia:Dunkirk evacuation|Dunkirk evacuation]]. A series of Allied military blunders in May 1940 allowed the Germans to break through the French front lines and catch the Allied troops totally unprepared. The British army, in particular, was in a terrible defensive position at that moment. If General Guderian, the German commander who led the breakthrough, had been allowed to follow up his success, he could have swept north and rolled up the entire British army. Instead, his own CO chewed him out for taking "foolish risks", and Guderian resigned on the spot. He was persuaded to rescind his resignation and resume command, but several days had passed by that point, and the opportunity had been lost. Britain evacuated their soldiers from the continent in one of [[World War II/Awesome|WWII's most awesome operations ever]] (only D-Day qualifies as more awesome than Dunkirk), and the war continued. But its still a stretch to say the Nazis came amazingly close to winning [[World War Two]] outright. If the Dunkirk evacuation had failed, the Battle of Britain would never even have been fought. The British would have politely packed up and said "Well! That's that then! Cheerio!" |
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** Actually, there was a [[WW 2]] Eucatastrophe that outclassed even Dunkirk: the Battle Off Samar. Part of one of, if not ''the'' largest naval battles in history, this battle was a total mismatch: the Japanese Center Force, a battle group comprised of dozens of heavy cruisers, destroyers, battleships, all of which was led by the largest battleships ''ever constructed'', ''Yamato''; the American task force, "Taffy 3", was just a support force made up entirely of ships known as "tin cans"—because they lacked any armor. Six light escort carriers, three light destroyers, and three destroyer escorts (these destroyers had a few torpedoes each, and between two to four 5 inch guns, whose shells would literally ''bounce off the hulls'' of the Japanese ships). Taffy 3 was taken completely by surprise, but responded quickly, throwing up a smoke screen with the light destroyers while the carriers launched all of their planes, in spite of the fact that none of them were equipped to fight ships—in many cases, they ''didn't even have any bullets'', and would just fly straight at the bridges of enemy ships and look threatening. Then the captains of the light destroyers, of their own accord, charged straight at the Center Force, ignoring the fact that the many dozens of Japanese guns outranged theirs by miles. They closed the distance, launched torpedoes—their only effective weapon against the Japanese ships—and sank a few heavy cruisers. Then they continued forward, firing hundreds of five inch shells at the upper works of the heavy ships, whose [[Irony|armor-piercing shells went straight through the armorless light destroyers without doing much damage]]. Eventually, the light destroyers were pummeled to death, a carrier was critically damaged, and reinforcements were at least many hours away. Just as the Center Force was on the verge of total victory (which, on top of annihilating every American ship, meant that they could bombard the crap out of the American landing force and most of their supplies at Samar, which was critical), they turned around and retreated. What happened was the result of several unintentional bluffs and a single bad case of intel—the Center Force thought they were facing an ''entire American Fleet Carrier Battle Group'', due to the smoke screen concealing the carriers from view, hundreds of American planes swarming the Center Force like crazy (and looking like they were dropping bombs or torpedoes, but were in reality fuel tanks or depth charges), light destroyers charging a vastly superior force without hesitation and ''actually sinking or heavily damaging many ships'', and a Japanese intel report that an American fleet carrier force was supposed to be in the area at the time—causing the Japanese admiral to call for a withdrawal, believing that they could at best achieve a [[Phyric Victory]], especially considering the incorrect Japanese belief that battleships were still roughly equal or even greater than carriers. |
** Actually, there was a [[WW 2]] Eucatastrophe that outclassed even Dunkirk: the Battle Off Samar. Part of one of, if not ''the'' largest naval battles in history, this battle was a total mismatch: the Japanese Center Force, a battle group comprised of dozens of heavy cruisers, destroyers, battleships, all of which was led by the largest battleships ''ever constructed'', ''Yamato''; the American task force, "Taffy 3", was just a support force made up entirely of ships known as "tin cans"—because they lacked any armor. Six light escort carriers, three light destroyers, and three destroyer escorts (these destroyers had a few torpedoes each, and between two to four 5 inch guns, whose shells would literally ''bounce off the hulls'' of the Japanese ships). Taffy 3 was taken completely by surprise, but responded quickly, throwing up a smoke screen with the light destroyers while the carriers launched all of their planes, in spite of the fact that none of them were equipped to fight ships—in many cases, they ''didn't even have any bullets'', and would just fly straight at the bridges of enemy ships and look threatening. Then the captains of the light destroyers, of their own accord, charged straight at the Center Force, ignoring the fact that the many dozens of Japanese guns outranged theirs by miles. They closed the distance, launched torpedoes—their only effective weapon against the Japanese ships—and sank a few heavy cruisers. Then they continued forward, firing hundreds of five inch shells at the upper works of the heavy ships, whose [[Irony|armor-piercing shells went straight through the armorless light destroyers without doing much damage]]. Eventually, the light destroyers were pummeled to death, a carrier was critically damaged, and reinforcements were at least many hours away. Just as the Center Force was on the verge of total victory (which, on top of annihilating every American ship, meant that they could bombard the crap out of the American landing force and most of their supplies at Samar, which was critical), they turned around and retreated. What happened was the result of several unintentional bluffs and a single bad case of intel—the Center Force thought they were facing an ''entire American Fleet Carrier Battle Group'', due to the smoke screen concealing the carriers from view, hundreds of American planes swarming the Center Force like crazy (and looking like they were dropping bombs or torpedoes, but were in reality fuel tanks or depth charges), light destroyers charging a vastly superior force without hesitation and ''actually sinking or heavily damaging many ships'', and a Japanese intel report that an American fleet carrier force was supposed to be in the area at the time—causing the Japanese admiral to call for a withdrawal, believing that they could at best achieve a [[Phyric Victory]], especially considering the incorrect Japanese belief that battleships were still roughly equal or even greater than carriers. |
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* [[World War I]] had one that if anything looks even worse with the inclusion of economics, and it occurred pretty much at the tail end of the war in 1918. To wit: the entire Eastern front collapsed with the [[Romanovs and Revolutions|Bolshevik Revolution]] pulling Russia out of the war, forcing the surrender of Romania, and generally stranding any and all Allied forces in Eastern Europe in hostile territory (like the fate of the British Baltic sub fleet based in Finland caught between the Germans and the at-the-time pro-German Soviets), handing the Germans effective control of Eastern Europe and its resources, and even worse freeing up a few million veteran German and Austro-Hungarian soldiers to be shifted to the Western Fronts in Belgium/France, the Alps, and the Balkans. The Bulgarian and Turkish armies were suffering from heavy battering but were still fighting on and tying down hundreds of thousands of men, as was von Lettow Vorbeck in Eastern Africa. While the Turks and Bulgarians had been defeated by the time the transfer had been completed, Germany and Austria-Hungary still planned two massive strikes designed to break the back of the Western Allies and force them to capitulate as they had Russia and Romania with the Operation Michael in the West and the Austro-Hungarian Spring Offensive towards Venice against Allied forces that were greatly stretched thin. All the while the untried US military was still on the wrong side of the Atlantic. The result was that the Germans almost smashed their way into Paris and the Austro-Hungarians nearly breached the last defensible line before an evacuation would have been necessary. And within a few months, both enemies had been defeated in what must be one of history's greatest turnarounds. |
* [[World War I]] had one that if anything looks even worse with the inclusion of economics, and it occurred pretty much at the tail end of the war in 1918. To wit: the entire Eastern front collapsed with the [[Romanovs and Revolutions|Bolshevik Revolution]] pulling Russia out of the war, forcing the surrender of Romania, and generally stranding any and all Allied forces in Eastern Europe in hostile territory (like the fate of the British Baltic sub fleet based in Finland caught between the Germans and the at-the-time pro-German Soviets), handing the Germans effective control of Eastern Europe and its resources, and even worse freeing up a few million veteran German and Austro-Hungarian soldiers to be shifted to the Western Fronts in Belgium/France, the Alps, and the Balkans. The Bulgarian and Turkish armies were suffering from heavy battering but were still fighting on and tying down hundreds of thousands of men, as was von Lettow Vorbeck in Eastern Africa. While the Turks and Bulgarians had been defeated by the time the transfer had been completed, Germany and Austria-Hungary still planned two massive strikes designed to break the back of the Western Allies and force them to capitulate as they had Russia and Romania with the Operation Michael in the West and the Austro-Hungarian Spring Offensive towards Venice against Allied forces that were greatly stretched thin. All the while the untried US military was still on the wrong side of the Atlantic. The result was that the Germans almost smashed their way into Paris and the Austro-Hungarians nearly breached the last defensible line before an evacuation would have been necessary. And within a few months, both enemies had been defeated in what must be one of history's greatest turnarounds. |
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