Florida State Seminoles

[innocentbystander]

Congresswoman AOC was arrested by Capitol police today

[DooKSucks]

Ha. You're the best/worst type of stupid: you're so stupid you think you're intelligent.

Japan (without any secured ground position) just landed on the beaches (D-Day style) and attacked Manchuria in 1931

Wrong. Japan owned a major railroad in Manchuria and had boots on the ground along with controlling the neighboring Korean Peninsula. Japan manufactured an attack on the railway as grounds to move more troops into Manchuria and install a puppet government. There were no major amphibious landings, you fucking dolt. The Japanese were able to ship troops in through ports and use the troops available in Korea.

Officially, I think Japan and China were at war in 1937 (and stayed at war another 8 years) but Chinese were dying for 14 full years. Japan basically took the entire East coast of China. And held much of it until the United States started helping the Chinese. That is mostly because the British were of no fucking use.

China was separate from Manchuria and the Japanese war with the Chinese started in earnest in 1937. The Japanese controlled most of its gains until the end. The Soviets mowed through a million or so Japanese in Manchuria in less than two weeks at the end of the war because the Japanese army lacked adequate supplies, armor and air cover. It was a slaughter.

The British had no real ability to get much support there once the Japanese attacked and started the Pacific war, and the British didn't have anything to spare even if they could get there. The British had troops tied down defending its Asian possessions, troops in Africa and troops in the British isles. They had no means by which to help.

We sent supplies to China, but the warring factions (Mao's Communist and Chang's Nationalists) that had agreed to a cease fire in their civil war so that they could both fight the Japanese never worked well together and were constantly engaging in skullduggery with regards to each other. Plus, they both lacked the Japanese army's capabilities, and getting supplies to the Chinese factions required flying over the Himalayas, a herculean task for that era, since there were no major ports available.

We all know that Singapore fell because the British general in charge was a fucking idiot. He surrendered his army of some 65,000 (many from India as well as Australia) garrisoned there to Japan's attacking force of 30,000. Japan used bicycles to transport that army through fields of rubber tree plants. They were completely outnumbered and outgunned by His Majesty's army and (well) Japan still took Singapore. That was that. That was after they sunk the HMS Repulse and the HMS Prince of Wales for good measure. Hong Kong fell like nothing.

The Japs had 30,000 or so troops, and the Brits had close to 100,000 troops (I think it was around 90,000, maybe a bit less or more, but far more than 65,000). The Japanese troops were battle hardened and fought through the jungle of the Malayan peninsula because British defenses were traditionally fixed positions designed to deal with a head on amphibious / naval attack. Plus, the Brit forces were far from crack troops. The best troops were in Africa and the British isles. To top it off, the British thought that the Japanese would come down the Malayan peninsula from a different point, and as a result the Japanese had a short crossing point that was largely unharassed. By this time, the British navy couldn't get much in the way of supplies there due to the Japanese navy's strength, and the strength of the Japanese air power overwhelmed the second rate offerings the British had available there and the few reinforcements sent. Plus, the British didn't have much in the way of radar available.

When the HMS Prince of Wales went down on Dec 8th, the allies had all of 3 functional "capital ships" in the entire of the Pacific Ocean to engage the Japanese, USS Hornet, USS Yorktown, and USS Enterprise. That was it. The surviving battleships were limping (crawling) back to San Francisco to be repaired. That was all we had for a fighter screen to prevent an invasion of California. Without Capital ships, the entire Continent of Australia was in immediate and legitimate, jeopardy.

As far as a West Coast invasion goes, the Japs took the Aleutians but that didn't give them much of anything that they could use. If the Japanese had taken Midway (instead of losing all 4 of their heavy carriers, thank you code breakers) then from that position, they were within legitimate striking distance of California, Oregon, and lower Washington State. I think such an invasion was probably unthinkable for the Japanese UNLESS Hitler had succeeded in ending the entirety of the His Majesty's Royal Navy and they had their eyes set on Washington. A two-prong attack or no attack. But that East Coast Blitz was never going to happen until Sealion happened first. And that never happened.

Battleships were still considered the "capital ships" by many at this time, but the naval tacticians on the leading edge like Yamamoto knew that carriers were the real means by which to effectively project power. Obviously, as the war progressed, people began to realize how useless the battleships were becoming in modern naval warfare, and people had already learned that submarines were an effective -- and comparatively cheap -- method by which to harass enemy shipping and enemy fleets. Be that as it may, that had nothing to do with the damn Japanese inability to conduct amphibious operations. The Japanese had no means by which to transport, supply, protect and land enough divisions to land on the American mainland. Ships had far more limited ranges and our land based aircraft and batteries combined with our sub fleet would have wiped them out, to say nothing of the lack of adequate Japanese landing craft. Even if the Japanese had landed, the Japanese would have lacked the ability to receive adequate re-supply, sustained air cover and would have been pushed back fairly easily. Also, in case you can't read a fucking map like you can't read a fucking history book, the Aleutians are far closer to mainland Japan, and those landing forces weren't all that large. Even the Allies needed short distances from staging areas to perform large scale amphibious operations on the scale of the Japanese invading the American mainland.

Midway as a staging area for an amphibious landing on the American mainland? You really are a goddamned fool. 1) the Japs would have had to deal with our forces sailing / flying out from Hawaii to attack them. 2) Midway is literally only a few square miles and lacked enough anchorage and port facilities to handle an invasion fleet. The allies needed most of southeastern England and all of the ports in the region to support the allied invasion of Europe. There is no way the Japs could have used Midway to stage an invasion of Hawaii much less the American mainland.

[Jungle Rat]

I'm surprised you gave this idiot the time.

[hedge]

Damn, DS schooled IB...

[Jungle Rat]

[hedge]

I wonder how IB feels about this latest attempt to keep the man down?

Marco Rubio has introduced the Unborn Child Support Act creating child support obligations from conception (if the mother requests it).

https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/356 ... onception/

Under the bill, mothers would be able to request child support from the month of conception onward, but would not be required to do so.

Mothers would also be able to choose whether to collect child support payments retroactively through the month of conception, including if paternity is only established after the birth of the child.

[innocentbystander]

I wonder how IB feels about this latest attempt to keep the man down?

Marco Rubio has introduced the Unborn Child Support Act creating child support obligations from conception (if the mother requests it).

https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/356 ... onception/

Under the bill, mothers would be able to request child support from the month of conception onward, but would not be required to do so.

Mothers would also be able to choose whether to collect child support payments retroactively through the month of conception, including if paternity is only established after the birth of the child.

wear a condom

[sardis]

And I think they are proud of that.

[innocentbystander]

Ha. You're the best/worst type of stupid: you're so stupid you think you're intelligent.

Japan (without any secured ground position) just landed on the beaches (D-Day style) and attacked Manchuria in 1931

Wrong. Japan owned a major railroad in Manchuria and had boots on the ground along with controlling the neighboring Korean Peninsula. Japan manufactured an attack on the railway as grounds to move more troops into Manchuria and install a puppet government. There were no major amphibious landings, you fucking dolt. The Japanese were able to ship troops in through ports and use the troops available in Korea.

Officially, I think Japan and China were at war in 1937 (and stayed at war another 8 years) but Chinese were dying for 14 full years. Japan basically took the entire East coast of China. And held much of it until the United States started helping the Chinese. That is mostly because the British were of no fucking use.

China was separate from Manchuria and the Japanese war with the Chinese started in earnest in 1937. The Japanese controlled most of its gains until the end. The Soviets mowed through a million or so Japanese in Manchuria in less than two weeks at the end of the war because the Japanese army lacked adequate supplies, armor and air cover. It was a slaughter.

The British had no real ability to get much support there once the Japanese attacked and started the Pacific war, and the British didn't have anything to spare even if they could get there. The British had troops tied down defending its Asian possessions, troops in Africa and troops in the British isles. They had no means by which to help.

We sent supplies to China, but the warring factions (Mao's Communist and Chang's Nationalists) that had agreed to a cease fire in their civil war so that they could both fight the Japanese never worked well together and were constantly engaging in skullduggery with regards to each other. Plus, they both lacked the Japanese army's capabilities, and getting supplies to the Chinese factions required flying over the Himalayas, a herculean task for that era, since there were no major ports available.

We all know that Singapore fell because the British general in charge was a fucking idiot. He surrendered his army of some 65,000 (many from India as well as Australia) garrisoned there to Japan's attacking force of 30,000. Japan used bicycles to transport that army through fields of rubber tree plants. They were completely outnumbered and outgunned by His Majesty's army and (well) Japan still took Singapore. That was that. That was after they sunk the HMS Repulse and the HMS Prince of Wales for good measure. Hong Kong fell like nothing.

The Japs had 30,000 or so troops, and the Brits had close to 100,000 troops (I think it was around 90,000, maybe a bit less or more, but far more than 65,000). The Japanese troops were battle hardened and fought through the jungle of the Malayan peninsula because British defenses were traditionally fixed positions designed to deal with a head on amphibious / naval attack. Plus, the Brit forces were far from crack troops. The best troops were in Africa and the British isles. To top it off, the British thought that the Japanese would come down the Malayan peninsula from a different point, and as a result the Japanese had a short crossing point that was largely unharassed. By this time, the British navy couldn't get much in the way of supplies there due to the Japanese navy's strength, and the strength of the Japanese air power overwhelmed the second rate offerings the British had available there and the few reinforcements sent. Plus, the British didn't have much in the way of radar available.

When the HMS Prince of Wales went down on Dec 8th, the allies had all of 3 functional "capital ships" in the entire of the Pacific Ocean to engage the Japanese, USS Hornet, USS Yorktown, and USS Enterprise. That was it. The surviving battleships were limping (crawling) back to San Francisco to be repaired. That was all we had for a fighter screen to prevent an invasion of California. Without Capital ships, the entire Continent of Australia was in immediate and legitimate, jeopardy.

As far as a West Coast invasion goes, the Japs took the Aleutians but that didn't give them much of anything that they could use. If the Japanese had taken Midway (instead of losing all 4 of their heavy carriers, thank you code breakers) then from that position, they were within legitimate striking distance of California, Oregon, and lower Washington State. I think such an invasion was probably unthinkable for the Japanese UNLESS Hitler had succeeded in ending the entirety of the His Majesty's Royal Navy and they had their eyes set on Washington. A two-prong attack or no attack. But that East Coast Blitz was never going to happen until Sealion happened first. And that never happened.

Battleships were still considered the "capital ships" by many at this time, but the naval tacticians on the leading edge like Yamamoto knew that carriers were the real means by which to effectively project power. Obviously, as the war progressed, people began to realize how useless the battleships were becoming in modern naval warfare, and people had already learned that submarines were an effective -- and comparatively cheap -- method by which to harass enemy shipping and enemy fleets. Be that as it may, that had nothing to do with the damn Japanese inability to conduct amphibious operations. The Japanese had no means by which to transport, supply, protect and land enough divisions to land on the American mainland. Ships had far more limited ranges and our land based aircraft and batteries combined with our sub fleet would have wiped them out, to say nothing of the lack of adequate Japanese landing craft. Even if the Japanese had landed, the Japanese would have lacked the ability to receive adequate re-supply, sustained air cover and would have been pushed back fairly easily. Also, in case you can't read a fucking map like you can't read a fucking history book, the Aleutians are far closer to mainland Japan, and those landing forces weren't all that large. Even the Allies needed short distances from staging areas to perform large scale amphibious operations on the scale of the Japanese invading the American mainland.

Midway as a staging area for an amphibious landing on the American mainland? You really are a goddamned fool. 1) the Japs would have had to deal with our forces sailing / flying out from Hawaii to attack them. 2) Midway is literally only a few square miles and lacked enough anchorage and port facilities to handle an invasion fleet. The allies needed most of southeastern England and all of the ports in the region to support the allied invasion of Europe. There is no way the Japs could have used Midway to stage an invasion of Hawaii much less the American mainland.

Ok.

I have LOTS of bones to pick with your response (particularly about Midway where you left out the most important aspect from Japan's point of view) but will save it for later. Your response was intelligent and wasn't overly asshole-ish like you can be. So, I'll just say ok and thank you.

[aTm]

The Japanese couldn't even resupply and support their invasion of the Solomon's, which in Pacific terms was right next door to their main naval base at Truk and a major base/port that they had already captured at Rabaul. One single airbase at Henderson Field on Guadalcanal left them powerless to land troops and supplies by day, even though they had naval superiority in the area. The IJN was using warships at night to ferry in IJA troops onto Guadalcanal. The Japanese never had the logistical ability to build from scratch huge forward naval bases/supply hubs like the US did at Majuro and Ulithi in the middle of a war and geography itself would also be against them. I'm not sure it would be possible to support and supply a real naval invasion from West to East across the pacific even if you gave the invaders control of Anchorage and Pearl Harbor.

[aTm]

The Japanese problem with a war vs the United States and the reason Midway was such a blow, was that Japan had to already have everything they needed and ready to go at the start of the war, and they would be absolutely unable to replace anything they lost. You lose 4 fleet carriers and Midway, and baby those ships are gone and replacements are not coming back for years. The United States on the other hand, could expend almost their entire Pacific carrier force in battle, to the point where after the Battle of Santa Cruz Islands during the Guadalcanal campaign in 1942, only one fleet carrier was left in the fleet, USS Enterprise. But in the next year 7 more brand new ones were launched, and about as many more again the year after that. Japan was never interested in invading the US and knew they couldn't possibly do it. Their only options were really to make the US give up and stop trying, and their operations in the Aleutians and Midway were not about invading, but about denying the United States the ability to bomb Japan again.

[Jungle Rat]

Gas under 4 bucks down here. Filled up last week. Might have to again later this week. Wonder how much I'll save this time?

[innocentbystander]

The Japanese couldn't even resupply and support their invasion of the Solomon's, which in Pacific terms was right next door to their main naval base at Truk and a major base/port that they had already captured at Rabaul. One single airbase at Henderson Field on Guadalcanal left them powerless to land troops and supplies by day, even though they had naval superiority in the area. The IJN was using warships at night to ferry in IJA troops onto Guadalcanal. The Japanese never had the logistical ability to build from scratch huge forward naval bases/supply hubs like the US did at Majuro and Ulithi in the middle of a war and geography itself would also be against them. I'm not sure it would be possible to support and supply a real naval invasion from West to East across the pacific even if you gave the invaders control of Anchorage and Pearl Harbor.

All of that was probably true. But that wasn't really the goal for Midway.

The "goal" at Midway for the Japanese was to lure the American aircraft carriers into a trap. That was the goal, to trap them. The Japanese knew we only had 3 CVs (and really we only had 2 because the Yorktown was already beat to shit.) They also knew that those 3 CVs, they were floating around somewhere in the North Pacific. So they wanted to lure us towards Midway. Trap the Enterprise, Hornet, and Yorktown, and sink them. Sink all three heavy CVs, and now the United States of America has NO FIGHTER SCREEN (except land based aircraft) to protect the West Coast from invasion. And if they sunk all three CVs, then Nagumo would have had all the time in the world to take Midway by land invasion and the only airbases we would have had to protect the West Coast from Japanese bombing, was Hawaii.

What they didn't know was that we had broken their code. We knew (kinda-sorta) where their 4 heavy CVs were and they didn't really know where our 3 heavy CVs were. If they had known that, then Admiral Nagumo should have done one of two things: #1) RUN AWAY or #2) keep all his Zeros in ready status on the flight decks to engage our "encumbered" tactical bombers, fight us where the Japanee had total and complete air-superiority. He fucked up and kept "wasting time" on the flight decks by arming his planes with different ordinance (torpedoes then bombs then back again.) That was because he kept thinking he could find our CVs and sink them. The only thing his planes should have been armed with is bullets. Nothing else, bullets and gasoline. And stay with his own CVs. Shoot down ALL our planes because they had no real naval support when they came at him from the sky.

They sunk our battleships at Pearl partially with bombs but mostly with torpedoes (fitted with wood buoyancy.) Pearl Harbir is not deep (just 30 feet in some spots) so the torpedoes needed to stay shallow when dropped from their Zeros. But the Japanese learned how to do all that (refit torpedoes for buoyancy) from watching the British butcher the Italian Navy battleships at Taranto in 1940 using just 16 World War I style bi-planes (launched from the HMS Invincible) dropping torpedoes in the Taranto harbor. They watched, studied, and learned. We did NOT use torpedoes. We sunk all 4 carriers with 500 pound bombs.

Even the best pilot in the world in 1942 can't really fly a single engine plane all that well if it is encumbered with a 500 pound bomb. Our pilots over Midway were just ducks in the air.

Thank God Almighty above that Nagumo was a fuck-head and wasted all that time encumbering his planes, needlessly. If he was pure defense, if all he did was command his 300 pilots to do nothing other than screen the CVs to keep our over-loaded planes from getting on top of his CVs, then what would have happened is we would lost ALL our planes (eventually) and he still would have had all 4 CVs. Then (if he was good at math and could figure out the Enterprise and Hornet were defenseless) only THEN, go out looking for them.

Worst case scenario is we lose all 3 CVs and they lose nothing. In that case we would have lost Midway and now Japan has an airstrip on an island at the midway point (from Tokyo to San Francisco) to launch long large heavy bombers. With all 4 heavy CVs steaming towards San Francisco, they could offer heavy bombers genuine fighter escort as they run bombing raids on our West Coast harbors sinking our ships as they are assembled. If that happens, FDR places a call to Winston Churchill to inform him that the "Germany First" strategy was now kaput, California was in real jeopardy of invasion and we have Steven Spielberg's 1941 movie and the battle for Los Angeles for real. And (perhaps) WWII takes 4 more years to end.

Our total victory at Midway saved our asses. We never had to worry about protecting our harbors (where we assembled ships) from bombing. We can't build 7 CVs in 1942 in California if Japan is constantly dropping bombs on them.

[innocentbystander]

The Japanese problem with a war vs the United States and the reason Midway was such a blow, was that Japan had to already have everything they needed and ready to go at the start of the war, and they would be absolutely unable to replace anything they lost. You lose 4 fleet carriers and Midway, and baby those ships are gone and replacements are not coming back for years. The United States on the other hand, could expend almost their entire Pacific carrier force in battle, to the point where after the Battle of Santa Cruz Islands during the Guadalcanal campaign in 1942, only one fleet carrier was left in the fleet, USS Enterprise. But in the next year 7 more brand new ones were launched, and about as many more again the year after that. Japan was never interested in invading the US and knew they couldn't possibly do it. Their only options were really to make the US give up and stop trying, and their operations in the Aleutians and Midway were not about invading, but about denying the United States the ability to bomb Japan again.

Yes I agree. But once again, we had to keep Midway and sink all their CVs.

[aTm]

The "goal" at Midway for the Japanese was to lure the American aircraft carriers into a trap.

Yes, to prevent them from bombing Japan like Hornet had done in the Dolittle Raid, it had nothing to do with clearing out carriers in prep for an invasion. Simultaneously, the Japanese also started a huge offensive\reign of terror\biological and chemical weapon campaign in China and the sole goal of that was to destroy and deny use of any airfields and infrastructure that could land carrier launched bombers returning from bombing Japan. Japan was not concerned with invading the United States as a future goal at all. They were concerned with keeping the United States out of their hair so they could get what they needed from Indonesia and Indochina for the resources they needed to finally end their primary war effort which was their never ending China war.

[DooKSucks]

The "goal" at Midway for the Japanese was to lure the American aircraft carriers into a trap.

Yes, to prevent them from bombing Japan like Hornet had done in the Dolittle Raid, it had nothing to do with clearing out carriers in prep for an invasion. Simultaneously, the Japanese also started a huge offensive\reign of terror\biological and chemical weapon campaign in China and the sole goal of that was to destroy and deny use of any airfields and infrastructure that could land carrier launched bombers returning from bombing Japan. Japan was not concerned with invading the United States as a future goal at all. They were concerned with keeping the United States out of their hair so they could get what they needed from Indonesia and Indochina for the resources they needed to finally end their primary war effort which was their never ending China war.

Bingo

[aTm]

Japan had no hope of ever using long range bombers on the US. Midway is over 3000 miles from California. The United States spent more money, personnel, effort in the B-29 project than what we put into the entire Manhattan Project just to build a long range bomber capable of bombing Japan from Tinian and Saipan which is half the distance from Japan ass Midway is to California. Japan had no prayer of ever having air superiority over the US because we would never run out of planes or pilots before they did, even if they solved all the technical problems just to get to the point to fly the mission. Just like ships, any bombers or carrier fighters they lost in such a mission could never come back, while any of our interceptors that they shot down would be replaced with 5 more in a month. The entire west coast would be filled with unsinkable carriers in the form of airstrips with fighters.

[aTm]

Also the US definitely used torpedoes, they just sucked due to design and manufacturing flaws. Even if our torpedo bombers hit a ship the torpedo might not explode. In addition, it just so happened that the war broke out at a time when our primary torpedo bomber (Devastators) really needed to be replaced (first time a few of the new replacement Avengers flew in combat was at Midway), while the US dive bomber (Dauntless), was basically a brand new top-of-the-line plane that was able to operate for the whole war.

That said, the torpedo bombers played a huge role at Midway. They essentially were sacrificial lambs that distracted the Japanese CAP enough that the dive bombers were able to make their runs almost unopposed.

[innocentbystander]

Also the US definitely used torpedoes, they just sucked due to design and manufacturing flaws. Even if our torpedo bombers hit a ship the torpedo might not explode. In addition, it just so happened that the war broke out at a time when our primary Torpedo bomber really needed to be replaced (first time a few of the new replacement Avengers flew in combat was at Midway), while the US dive bomber, was basically a brand new plane that was able to operate for the whole war.

That said, the torpedo bombers played a huge role at Midway. They essentially were sacrificial lambs that distracted the Japanese CAP enough that the dive bombers were able to make their runs almost unopposed.

Yes agree with all of this.

[DooKSucks]

Actually, I listened to a lecture from the Naval War College the other night that discussed Midway. The speaker explained that the sacrificial lamb theory is mostly bunk actually. I found that interesting.