From: schuck@fraser.sfu.ca (Bruce Jonathan Schuck)
Subject: Re: Senate Interrogation
Reply-To: Bruce_Schuck@sfu.ca
Organization: Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, B.C., Canada
Distribution: can
Date: Sun, 15 Nov 1992 23:08:06 GMT

John G. Spragge <SPRAGGEJ@QUCDN.QueensU.CA> writes:

>In article <schuck.721767010@sfu.ca>, schuck@fraser.sfu.ca (Bruce Jonathan
>Schuck) says:
>>
>>John G. Spragge <SPRAGGEJ@QUCDN.QueensU.CA> writes:
>>
>>>If your defence can do more damage to the enemy than your offensive,
>>>then you'll obviously do better to defend rather than attack. History
>>>records many commanders who won by letting the enemy come to them.
>>
>>Would you be thinking of France in 1940 and the maginot line?

>Try Rommel's trick of luring the British tanks onto a mobile AT gun
>screen in the desert war (see Rommel, the Desert Fox by Morton),

Rommel didn't sit and defend for 4 years.

> the
>French (and American) navies use of the tactical defence (USS Constitution
>vs HMS Macedonian, also Villeneuve vs Calder in the 15/20 battle), the
>defence of Kursk and Stalingrad by Marshall Zhukov (contrasted with
>Timoshenko's failed offensive to recapture Kharkov in 1942). After
>the initial surprise of the blitzkrieg, most advances (from the
>German attack on Stalingrad to Alamein to the Russian offensives
>following the battle of Kursk) followed a successfully repelled enemy
>attack.

>Obviously, letting the enemy come to you does not always work. But when
>clear advantages exist for doing so, as in the Battle of Britain, it
>is ridiculous to assume you have some kind of obligation to attack.

In 1940 Britain stood alone. The Americans didn't enter the war until
1942 and it certainly couldn't have been anticipated that the Japanese
would attack Pearl Harbour. Russia wasn't brought into the war until
the following year, and that couldn't have been anticipated or counted
upon.

Are you seriously suggesting Britain should have defended *forever*?
It should *never* have attacked Germany itself?

It's damned unlikely Britain could have invaded France without the US
or without the drain on German men and materials the Russian front
caused.

Are you really suggesting Britain should have just sat there,
absorbing the bombs from German bombing raids, absorbing V-1 attacks,
absorbing the V-2 attacks that came later? Are you suggesting Britain
should have done nothing to disrupt life in Germany? 

What resources would have been available to the Afrika Corps if
Britain had not initiated a bombing campaign? What resources were
diverted from the Russian front because of air attacks on Germany?

Maybe Germany would have reached Moscow, instead of being stopped
short. Maybe Rommel would have made it to Cairo.

Imagine Germany deciding to attack Britain in 1941 or 1942 instead of
Russia, and imagine the resources available if Britain had not been
bombing Germany.

Imagine Britain just *defending* and the Japanese not attacking Pearl
Harbour, waiting in vain for the US to enter the war.

How many years could Britain have held out if it had just *defended*?

What would have been left of London? What would have been left of
other English cities if Germany had been able to build long range
bombers instead of fighters to defend itself from Allied air attacks,
night and day?

The allies didn't have the resources to invade France until 1944.
When could Britain have invaded France without US help? The answer is
probably never. 

How strong would Germany have become without attacks on German cities?
We'll never know....thankfully.


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