I'm pretty retarded when it comes to war knowledge, so tell me this

I'm pretty retarded when it comes to war knowledge, so tell me this..

WW2 went on for 6 years...why, within those 6 years, did no one attack the capital directly? Why didn't the Brits/US/Soviets just rush from one side straight into the capital of Germany?

It's always hard for me to imagine people living normally during war. I can't imagine that during these 6 years, people in Berlin were just ok living day to day. Germany is quite small, so I don't get how it took them so long?

Other urls found in this thread:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Bagration.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_the_Great
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleonic_Wars
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_War
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Berlin_in_World_War_II
twitter.com/NSFWRedditImage

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I'm guessing it's too dangerous to fall into ambushes, get flanked and/or to have supply lines cutoff.

Wow you're stupid

I know I am.

How I see it. WW2 could have ended in 12 hours or a day.

You're incredibly stupid. But in case I misread you, and those ellipses don't mean that you're 13 years old, you need to get to a place you want to attack. Which means you need to push back enemy lines. Which means now you are fighting a war, with a front line, and battles that take place along said front line as it shifts and moves, with the exceptions of rare breakthroughs.

Why wouldn't they just gather the entire allies into one spot and shoot in for the capital?

For instance..
French/American/British/Soviet Airforce all gather on one front...and shoot straight for the capital.

The German airforce and anti-air weaponry would be overwhelmed.

That would be suicidal to gave all your men in one spot.

Outnumber them with an overwhelming formation on one front while conducting a "fake war" on the other front, in order to split the troops into two.

This is like bad WWI-era tactics that would have failed even in their time.

To move armies, you need supplies. To move supplies, you need roads. If the enemy flanks your army and roads, it will fail and die horribly. To avoid the enemy flanking and killing all your men, you need to spread out your army. Now you have a frontline.

That's what the soviets did in en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Bagration.

Then their logistics train ran out.

Because then they'd get surrounded and cutoff. They could never stop advancing or else they would be destroyed. Eventually they would risk getting stuck somewhere for a little bit too long and that would be it.

How would it be suicidal if they'd overwhelm any incoming attack anyway?

I hope this is a troll. You fucking leaf.

Nations don't send their entire Army to war. They keep troops home to maintain National Security.
If the allies had tried to do that, the would have to cross open ground while being harassed by artillery, planes, infantry, and tanks. And when they finally reach Berlin after suffering heavy losses, they would then have to besiege the city.

I'm specifically talking about the air force.

i agree OP, they should have coated the B52s in invisibility paint and just drop a atomic bomb in the heart of berlin

Look up "elastic defense"

You can't just do a Zerg rush in real life. ( not without consequences) like others have said, it's easy to get surrounded, ambushed and cut off.

If you push in like you suggest, your path will be very narrow. All the enemy forces you rushed passed will just cut off your supply route. Then you run out of bullets, food, gas, and other necessities. Logistics is a very important aspect of war.

Nah man. I wish. I'm just very stupid when it comes to war.

The city would have fallen in an instant and thus the war would have been won. Why not just rush the goal directly in exchange of a few causalities?

To get your men into that formation you need infrastructure, at the same time you have the enemy killing your men, flanking your men, encircling your men, bombing your men.

That's eventually what happened, across a broader front, after years of warfare to establish logistics, a coherent frontline, and to prevent flanking maneuvers to cut off said advance.

Imagine a 12 step process, that produces a cake. You're asking, why don't we just put it in the oven to begin, even though you haven't mixed the ingredients.

Airforces during WW2 lacked the range or capability to defeat the entirety of a coherent and well armed agressor state.

You're not stupid, you simply lack knowledge on a complete and absolute level that is astounding. Spend a day or two reading about Alexander's campaigns, and then napoleon, then the US civil war, and then WW1 + 2 to understand anything you're talking about. You're like a toddler trying to make sense of a machine shop asking "why can't they just fix the thing".

>WWII
>B-52
Pick one dumbass.

No bully Canada.

It went on so long because nations 'tread lightly'. As in, its not like they attack pearl harbor monday. we declare war tuesday. we move troops wednesday. attack thursday. come home friday. Its a very long process. There's politics, and people saying we shouldnt get involved. Theres smartly positioning people. As for your 'why didnt we just bomb ____'. its like saying why dont we just bomb Afghanistan and the Middle East after 9/11. You cant just act on impulse to these things.

I feel like it was a joke, hence the "invisible paint".

>they'd overwhelm any incoming attack anyway?

you greatly underestimate the strength of the axis army and airforce. It took like what, 5, 6 nations?? to defeat them...If Hitler didnt poke russia they might not even have lost.

the enemy never sleeps and would be able to have some sort of idea as to what the enemy is up to at all times via reconnaissance. troop movements are more complex and take more time the larger the unit. an army is only as capable as its supply lines allow it to be. you can't just offroad a whole army and expect them to be extremely mobile. traffic jams even happen when moving troops. moving large concentrations of troops in such a manner as you proposed just isn't economic, and leaves the attackers more prone to a stalemate, and possible flanking/encirclement. this kills any army

Do you know about operation Market Garden? If the spearhead ever slows down, the point risks getting out of supplies and flanked.

I read the idea but the question is why you'd take this over a rush that'll end the war in a day or so.

How can you get "ambushed" when you overwhelm the other force? It's like preventing a horde of lion from attacking a gazelle or else it'll be "surrounded, ambushed and cut off" by 2 other gazelles.

What supply route? They're in planes. Just drop off the bombs and go back to your country, refuel, then come back again.

How so? They just start from a safe point.

Don't get me wrong. I know that I'm wrong, I just don't understand why.

Flight ranges are pretty limited, and bombers are very susceptible to anti-air weaponry without ground support

You clearly don't understand the concept or didn't read it carefully if this is even a question

Ther problem i see here is that you're not able to even imagine a defensive war and sure as hell not one of that scale

Try to listen in school or read the fucking book
There is so much you don't know that it's pointless to talk to you about that topic but to give you an answer to help

>germany is fairly Big
>you can't just run to the capital catch the flag and run back, that ain't no game drop your battlefield thoughts
>how do you live right now or have you the last years canada is in war with Afghanistan
>airplanes haven't bin baned and they have bin op as fuck

Fucking leafs don't know shit about anything

Even if I could restate my point in a way that you might be able to process with your meager facilities, you don't have enough knowledge to understand why you're wrong.

You need significant amounts of information to be stuffed into your head before you could even comprehend why you are wrong.

If a car was out of fuel, and you tried to explain that to a caveman, you'd be correct, but the explanation would make no sense, as the caveman couldn't even comprehend the car.

You're the same way with warfare. You can't explain why someone's understanding of calculus is wrong if they can't understand algebra in the first place. I hate this phrase:but please educate yourself using the following links

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_the_Great

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleonic_Wars

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_War

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I

That's what I don't get.
Just be done with it.

You declare war? Ok.
Day 1-2 = prepare troops
Day 4-5 = bomb capital
Day 5-7= come back home

Why are they "threading lightly"?

That's because it wasn't done in the way I described. I'm saying, what if they just put entire the force of the allies air force in one spot while having a "distraction war" on the other front? Push through everything and bomb Berlin. End of war.

They move in the air, no? If we're speaking about the airforce. Just take planes and fly away. Keep your food or whatnot in the backseat of your plane.

You are either retarded and/or extremely ignorant.

A) Ambushes against larger foes are extremely effective

B) You do realize the RAF and USAAF conducted round the clock bombing campaign from 1943 till the end of the war. It did jack shit against German production (in fact, German vehicle and armaments production increased). The only success of the bombing campaign was the destruction of synthetic fuel production by late 1944 which hampered movement of German mechanized units.

God damn OP is stupid.

You can easily get flanked. You make it seem as if you would know where every enemy unit is. As you rush forward, the enemy units that are spread out that you pass will come in from the sides and rear.

The allies did bomb Berlin, just like the Germans bombed Britich cities. The airforce cannot take and hold ground, ground forces do. It would be useless, they built bomb shelters for a reason. You would just destroy buildings, and it wouldn't be enough to make the Germans surrender.

You are also forgetting the German Luftwaffe were incredibly skilled. They could shoot down bombers and other planes, as well as anti aircraft batteries shooting at you too.

This is bait.

Anti-war weaponry would be overwhelmed as well, wouldn't it?

You're right.

"you can't just run the capital"
Why? Overwhelm any ambush or defense and you can.

The war with Afghanistan is in Afghanistan. I'm in Canada. There's no attack on Canada.

People were at war with Germany. Why not just raid Berlin and be over with?

Yeah, I know, but please don't use Wikipedia as a source.

Not to mention, you're just sending me a link to the entire war..I don't need to know everything, just the logistics.

I suggest you buy Hearts of Iron and see how your zerg rush goes

...

I'm both. Retarded and ignorant, because I don't get it at all.

Agreed. srs.

Why not drop an atomic bomb on Berlin then?

You make it sound like the German Luftwaffe would be able to defend itself against a full force allies' airforce attack.

Trust me, I wish it was but it's not. I truly am as retarded as I sound.

I imagine there's a lot of politics involved when going into war. It's not that simple to win a war by just attacking their capital.
Do you watch game of thrones? Daenerys could possibly take over westeros with her dragons, but she doesn't.

I gave you the wiki link because you DO need to read EVERYTHING. Your current conversational style betrays a complete lack of knowledge on warfare, current and past, which can only be remedied by LARGE AMOUNTS OF READING if you actually want to learn anything.

Dropping a bomb won't end a war. There are specific goals and criteria that have to be met. Dropping a bomb would just make it worse. Are you fuckin stupid?

The Fact you think you can prepare that many troops in 1-2 days and get across the world in a day is pretty telling.

They didn't have modern tech, they couldn't just get in a jet and be there in a few hours. Even today some 1st world countries struggle to be able to get a full brigade anywhere in the world in 48 hours.

As i said you are clearly not capable of thinking about a topic like this
Im sorry leafy but you're mnot smart enough for this

Let bombers fly to berlin and level it
>get shot down by AA guns
Push with tanks and infantry
>get shot at by artillery, planes and heavy mg fire even if possible to break the first defensive lines there would be an issue to get new supplies to your troops

Germany was the most dangerous country just imagine the usa with soldiers who are capable of doing theire job and highly trained

I say it again drop the topic you're to stupid for this

I tried to play it, I couldn't get into it. Everything was so complicated and complex.

You're off on what I'm suggesting though.

So you want to attack the whole German border everywhere at the same time?

Supply lines and logistics.

Taking the entire army and making a fuck you rush to the capital would result in a disaster because an army always needs to be connected to a supply line.

Soldiers need ammunition and supplies to fight, tanks need oil and maintenance, airplanes need places to safely land. Take away all of that and your offensive push will fall flat as your fighting efficiency decreases and the enemy is able to encircle you.

Even if you somehow miraculously took Berlin in a 12 day push (which is literally impossible), taking the capital doesn't mean the war is over. The Germans had other administrative hubs, it's not like chess if you take the king out you automatically win. If the enemy is still willing and able to fight, the war isn't over.

Why? Is it because she's retarded?

I already told you I'm retarded. You think I'd get through it and understand everything?

If the capital is dead, the war is over, no?

AA guns would be shut down by the 1000000000000000000000000 planes coming in. They wouldn't even have time to get them all, let alone fire at them without being shut down.

Again, the soviets did this in Operation Bagration. It worked. You need to spend about 100 hours reading about basic military science.

If you can't read those simple ass articles and build an understanding, then we can't answer your question here either.

>implying Germany had not surrendered before the atomic bomb was an option.

I'm sure they would have had it been an option. Also I'm breddy sure there were more casualties in Dresden caused by conventional bombs than both jap bombs combined (someone pls verify, I may be wrong).

You're pathetic and iseriously hope your shithole of a country burns to ashes

>Anti-war weaponry would be overwhelmed as well, wouldn't it?
Not really, flak cannons were notoriously good, and so was the Luftwaffe. Remember, bombers are for offense, fighter planes are for defense. Your all of your offensive bombers would be no good against a very competent airforce and loads of flak cannons

How much time does it take for a commercial airplane with hundreds of passengers to get from somewhere like Paris to Berlin? Why would it take much time for war planes?

Yeah, while conducting a "distraction" war on the other front so that their men are split in two, makes it much easier.

What supply line is connected to airplanes? Just drop the bombs contained in the airplanes and return to your base.

Hitler and the whole NSDAP would be dead. Why would they keep fighting?

An army of 200 can beat an army of 3000 because of homeland. they could lay a single bomb that you would sent your 500 men into and they would die.

If your men are surrounded there is no cover they die.

Manpower doesnt surpass tactics and strategy.

I was right about to say this. The Germans surrendered in may, the atomic bomb was ready for testing in July according to the web page I went to.

Lets say that, if the Allies manage to take Berlin, Germany surrenders. This is in reality a ridiculous proposition, Germany had many important cities and Hitler and his top leaders could simply have escaped somewhere else. They died or were captured in Berlin because by then everything else had fallen. So, assuming they unconditionally surrender if Berlin falls, lets take your proposal of just rushing for it and seeing what happens:

Men can't just kill it each other, they need tools to do it efficiently in a war. By this point in time, these tools were rifles, by now semi automatic, some automatic guns, rockets, tanks, airplanes, etc. Germany is big and strong, you are going to need all these things to beat them. Soldiers need uniforms, helmets, crude armor, food, medicine, etc. Supplies need fuel, ammunition, and maintenance. If you are going to rush for the capital, you need to find a way to get supplies to your troops so they always have what they need. Invading Germany by Sea would mean needing a port. The port that would be best suited for rushing to Berlin would be Hamburg. Land a massive army of US, UK, and remnants of the other Allied Armies there, capture the city, and just rush for Berlin from there, sending supplies to Hamburg. You would have to keep your navy busy protecting these supplies, and Britain, so good luck with that. Your forces would have to fight the best of the German Army getting to Berlin, and let us assume then that they just don't get tired. Well, at this point, all the Nazis have to do is retake Hamburg while you run around rushing to Berlin, and they cut off your supplies. Then they wait until you are out of ammo and your forces begin to starve. Congratulations, they wiped out your entire army. Especially because a battle for Berlin would be so long cutting off supplies at any point would be devastating. The only way to do it is by spreading out your forces, having many ports, many roads, many ways to keep your men ready.

Ok, well it worked. Why didn't they do it earlier?

I feel the same way (srs). Sorry for making you read things that are so pathetic, I truly wish I was joking right now but I'm legit retarded.

You really think the Luftwaffe would be able to hold off the ENTIRE allies' airforce power concentrated into one point?

A fucking bait thread has more than 60 replies, while political discussion usually has less than 20, this is really Sup Forums 2.0 now.

They bombed Berlin before, the leaders just went underground like everyone else. It doesn't work, and they can't use the atom bomb because it wasn't ready before the Germans surrendered in may.

Well, what about combining manpower + strategy? Put the entire airforce against them with a competent strategy and it's goodbye Berlin.

Forget the on-foot soldiers. It would all be planes. That way, there's no "supplies" and no "routes" or whatever would usually hold back the on-foot soldiers.

Just raid everything. Destroy the capital. Saturate it with bombs everywhere with the planes.

have you seen the movie 300? the spartans actually had the upper hand because their enemy was only attacking them from one side. yes, the spartans lost in the end, as would the nazis in this given situation, but the offense would take many more casualties.

>why didn't they do it earlier
See the part where you need to read about history. People have written thesis on less ambitious topics.

You are like a child who needs to go to school.

The 3 reasons my retarded brain could understand up until now is this..

1. Leaders would just hide underground
2. Leaders could just escape cities
3. Killing off the capital doesn't win the war

How will the planes reach Berlin? They need to go through hundreds of miles of German territory with plenty anti air and the Luftwaffe.

I didn't see 300 but what if it was a stealth raid?

I completely agree.

...

Define your "stealth raid".

Hence you should read the wikipedia articles from before.

>stealth raid
and by that you mean...?

Overwhelm them.

Airplanes need cover from AA fire and other airplanes.

If you send a shitload of bombers at a city and it's AA defenses are still intact you will lose a lot of airplanes and the cost/reward ratio will be fucked.

Airplanes also need airbases that are not under threat. Your master strategy of bumrushing the capital is retarded because what stops the enemy from going around your massed army and fucking over your strategic locations? Factories, airbases, administrative centers, oil fields, ore mines, all of this would be fucked in favor of a retarded coin toss attack that will cost many lives and probably result in literally no territorial gain.

Gather the entire air force in one point but tell absolutely no one about the plan. Just individually gather them as units, then instruct them to attack Berlin.

Like that, no information would be leaked and Germany wouldn't have seen it coming at all and even if they did with their radars or whatever, it would have been too late.

it would be more like
>allie's entire air force vs. nazi anti-aircraft

So the Allies lose their entire air-force but they bombed Berlin which has caused a lot of damage and civilian deaths. The German troops are at the borders and since the Allies don't have an air force anymore the Wehrmacht together with the Luftwaffe wins.
Good job on bombing Berlin.

Basically put, armies couldn't do this because they would run out of supplies too quickly, the enemy armies would get in their way, and moving too quickly into enemy territory give you a huge tactical disadvantage as the enemy can attack you from literally every angle, in a war were small tactical advantages won entire battles. You couldn't get to the capital quickly enough before the nearest enemy army scrambled and decimated you with bombs, artillery, men and armour. Also the enemy could go guerrila and destroy yor entire army without taking a scratch.

Also you couldn't just bomb the enemy capital because they have anti air weapons and they defend strategically important sites.

Where are you going to store all those planes? You can't possibly keep them at one airfield.

Also, to overwhelm them you would need to get them all in the air at the same time. Only a few planes can take off at once. That means you would have planes circling in the air waiting for the other planes to launch, wasting fuel. Wasting fuel means they can't reach their target.

Bombing your enemies capital doesn't win you the war.

>You really think the Luftwaffe would be able to hold off the ENTIRE allies' airforce power concentrated into one point?
Yes, especially supported by flak cannons.

Firstly, a large attack of ALL of the allies forces would have been well known by the Germans ahead of time, due to a large contingent of spies and whatnot. This is a good reason as to why wars are fought with much smaller operations instead of just large battles with a bunch of forces, the element of surprise would be nonexistent against a nation with a large intelligence contingent.

Secondly, the allies wouldn't be able to launch all of their air forces at once. It takes a great amount of time to launch planes, whether by sea or land. Because of this, all of the planes would be traveling to the destination via waves, which would be MUCH easier to take down with fighter planes and flak cannons as opposed to smaller, more discrete bombing operations.

Thirdly, if all of their forces attacked Berlin and they somehow impossibly DID destroy everything, it would be a pyrrhic victory at best. Many, many allied men would die due to the previously mentioned air force and flak cannons, along with tons of wasted resources and planes. On top of that, the central command for Germany would definitely be able to escape the sieged Berlin and establish command elsewhere. This is why wars are one by taking non-capital cities with smaller pushes first, it is really dumb to do zerg rushes

i'm not quite understanding your logic. Just bombing Berlin doesn't win you the war. Berlin was bombed plenty of times between 1940 and 1945.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Berlin_in_World_War_II

They did that, they were called night bombings.

And they were ineffective because, surprise surprise, you can't aim a bomber's payload for shit during the night.

>it would have been too late

Cities were relentlessly drilled in air raid defense. Every man woman and child was expected to know their place in a minute's notice as soon as air raid sirens went off.

kys
Seriously. If you're not trolling, sterilize yourself to eliminate the risk of your genes being passed on. For the greater good of humanity please.

Well that would happen today and that's how we fight today but back then the plane was just invented. Tech is your answer to your question

People like OP are becoming way too common.

The lack of critical thinking here makes me want to kill myself.

You're right but that's assuming that the required amount of force would leave the countries defenseless.

BUT!
Do you really think Germany would go hit other countries while his country is facing the entire airforce?

What country would Germany attack anyway? The most logical idea would be retreat all the forces and put them into your country to defend yourself.

Nazi Anti-Aircraft wouldn't be able to defend itself against the entire allies airforce.

The Luftwaffe would have to retreat to defend Berlin. And even if the Luftwaffe doesn't do that, the AA from the other countries will take care of it.

You guys are implying that the anti air weapons would be enough to stop the entire airforce.

Why do only a few planes can take off at once? You'd have planes at every level.

Pic for last comment.

>You guys are implying that the anti air weapons would be enough to stop the entire airforce.

Well if they're so bunched up, Several Flak 88 guns (Which have large shells that can shoot shrapnel) can possibly damage several planes in one shot, and Its not only AA guns, but AIrplanes too

Man, that would be any flak cannon operator's dream

Good first point.

For the second point: that's why you overwhelm them with numbers.

Good third point.

Yeah, I get that now.

Hmm...good point but why did so many die in Dresden?

That's not nice man. I know I'm very stupid when it comes to war, but I don't think I should commit suicide or kill myself. I'm a voluntary working at senior homes, doing what I can do make them happy.

I don't think it's a lack of critical thinking per se, I'm just very ignorant about war. I really know nothing about it. I'm sure you'd have difficulties understanding nursing if I tried to teach you.

Pushing through enemy lines with tanks was a new tactic, and it was implemented by the Germans. The allies were shit at war to be quite Frank and honest as well, fäm.

What I'm saying is how are they going to all take off at the same time? They can't. It's too many planes and you couldn't possible get them into the air at the same time.

Once this happens, they go in waves towards their target and are easily defeated or they loiter in the air and waste fuel.

Hmm.

If Flak cannons are as strong as you're implying they are, you're right, that strategy would fail.

But I have a hard time imagining the Flak cannons not getting shutdown.

I mean...once one missile goes off, the planes on the lower levels target it or vice versa.

It's not like they have 100000000 Flak cannons, not to mention they need to reload.

Why would it be hard to get them into the air at the same time?

One goes off after the other, those in front slow down so that those in the back catch up a bit and eventually create an entire air of planes.

They could put 200 plane stations and one goes off after the other.

This. The whole time Germany was bombing London we were kicking them to death in North Africa. As long as an army can fight it doesn't matter how many houses in the capital you destroy.

Flack guns don't shoot missiles. They shoot a shell that flies in the air and explodes causing shrapnel to damage or destroy everything within a certain radius of the play. All you would see from the air, if anything at all would be a muzzle flash. Also, bombers fly up so high they couldn't see the guns on the ground.

Dresden was devastated because it was not equipped for war.

Dresden was a historical and cultural hub and of little strategic significance. No major railways, no industrial strength, no major military bases. The Germans did not outfit Dresden with much defenses because they didn't anticipate the Allies would be barbaric enough to unleash a hellstorm upon such a harmless city.

>Shutting down enemies defensive AA with planes
That will end well.

Then keep doing that and help those people, but don't have kids. It's probably better that way.