Real time Discusion thread

  lordroel ,

  On today's WWII thread you have mentioned in terms of the German reaction to Operation Torch:

  Your talking about 5 divisions being moved to Tunisia but by the end of the month less than 2,000 troops.  Guessing that the 5 divisions take longer to move as their more like 50,000+ men but do you know how long at all?  Unless that 1,867 is a typo and the figure is say a order of magnitude higher as there's 2 vehicles for every 3 men which seems rather large?

  Earlier on the Hamburg raid:

  That is a ruinous loss, ~10% of the a/c that actually found the target or ~7% of the total force committed.  Shows how costly mass bombing was, generally for limited actual impact on Germany and its production.

  Steve

   On today's WWI post:

a) Now that's an interesting Pod. 


  If the Romanians had held and the reports of allied progress against Bulgaria are accurate - rather than inflated by the allied sources - its possible that Romania could have held out until Bulgaria was possibly forced to make peace.  This would isolate Turkey and make possible moves to liberate Serbia and open yet another front against the crumbling Hapsburg empire.

b)  On the US election results.

Across the pond, the delay frustrated European reporters confused by the electoral system. The New York times reported with some mischievous delight that multiple European editors had even written stern letters asking the Americans stop mucking about and publish the results. The correspondent in France wrote that Parisians had absolutely no idea who had won or why the Americans were unsure. What mattered more to them, however, was that America remain a friendly neutral to the Entente Powers, and under Wilson it would.

  From what I've read the Republicans were more pro-allied than the Democrats so it might have made little difference and possibly helped the allies but Wilson was the known factor and circumstances were to prompt a reversal of his policy of neutrality.

c)  Of course today we know the end is in sight, although it will take another 2 years and much more suffering and devastation as well as long lasting impacts such as the rise of the Bolsheviks in Russia.

  On the WWII post today and the fighting in N Africa you have

Possibly this should be into Libya as much of Libya is still under Axis control, although their forces are withdrawing towards Tripoli, the Libyan capital.

  In the Indian Ocean action with the minesweeper and tanker against the two raiders that's a very successful performance, albeit the lucky hit on the Japanese torpedo tubes quite possibly avoided a massacre.

  Steve

  I think the minority stance, including inside the US itself, is that of those it doesn't confuse.

  Not directly but then only a fool attacks an opponents strengths.  However it going to be bad for ~300k Germans in the next few months and for millions more over the next few years.