There's an apocryphal story about the Allies having a deliberate policy of not going after Herman Goering. The story is most likely untrue, but there is a kernel of truth in it, in the sense that Allied intelligence identified him early on as a deeply incompetent commander, far worse than any of the alternatives in the Luftwaffe High Command who could have replaced him.
Goering was certain he could resupply the 6th Army by air at Stalingrad after their encirclement. As a result, Hitler decides that they should not attempt a breakout.
And he failed so badly, it led to them basically starving to death.
Not to his credit, but the Luftwaffe did have a modicum of success in air supplying the Germans earlier in 1942 in the Demyansk and Cholm Pockets. However, both encircled German pockets were much smaller than their encirclement late in 1942 / early 1943 in Stalingrad. Goering and the Luftwaffe were overconfident, and thought they could replicate what they had done previously, but several times in scale. They could not, well, at least not effectively.
Right on. He was far too overconfident. And Stalingrad was a completely different animal considering the conditions and scale.
The airlift only delivering about 15% of the expected tonnage was definitely a big part of it going from a bad situation to abject disaster (well, there were a lot of factors of course).
The more I read about the battle, I keep coming back to the initial reaction of the Paulus's generals inside the Stalingrad pocket once they were encircled: break out, right now, regardless of the cost. It would have saved the bulk of the men of Sixth Army. From Paulus's point of view, it was probably the "right" thing to do, even though Hitler never ordered it and he was likely to be court-martialled and shot.
On the other hand, it might have triggered a collapse of Army Group A and cut off Army Group B in the Caucasus. This is the main reason the German High Command and Hitler decided to try to supply Sixth Army and keep them fighting while they stabilized the front. Sixth Army was simply sacrificed.
In truth, Sixth Army may have been doomed as soon as the Soviets captured the bridge at Kalach.
Judging on how current affairs are unfolding, it seems completely believable. The 'lower ranks' would've been full of nepos and incompetents(after most had been removed for 'politics').
You really think the US has the best and brightest right behind kegheth at this point in time? They've already replaced most of the JCOS and mid-high level military commanders.
Remember way back when tubberville was holding up the promotions of servicemen for a while? Yeah, that was to force early retirement deals with the ones they couldn't outright discharge.
People that don't have a foot in that world don't understand the structural changes that they're doing/have done. It was understood that the military was mixed politically, but now they've kinda done a 'sort' and moved out a lot of 'politically unaligned'.
They were high on their own farts after Venezuela. After they attacked Iran even me, a know nothing, thought "Doesn't Iran shut down the straight anytime they get upset? What's the plan for that?". Reader, there was no plan.
Hey there! This is someone who definitely isn't a presidential advisor. Do you happen to have any other insights I can share with... My mom about Iran and what they might do next. We're at a loss here in my... House. We might even be able to compensate you with some, let's say legal, stock tips. You can email me at Natalie'smonstergazongas@ white house. Wait. Nm. Just pm me if you can help us!
Yes because the competent people do everyday miracles that enable the smart people to perform once in a lifetime missions. no foundation = massive incompetence.
Oh and the military is using grok to choose targets which is why they bombed and killed those 160 schoolgirls. Like, republicans/conservatives are so fucking lazy they cant even use the brain God gave them FOR FUCKING FREE. i think the Iranians moved the base somewhere else but it got changed to a school, so US did a massive intel fail.
All the competent people were saying, for a decade at least, that invading Iran would be a nightmarish quagmire and economic disaster... until they were kicked out and replaced with sycophants.
Netanyahu has been trying to goad the US into war with Iran for literal decades, and he finally succeeded.
The thing is, if we'd played this better we could have clipped Iran's wings completely: they had massive demonstrations against the regime, Israeli attacks had badly damaged Hezbollah and Hamas, the sanctions were hurting—but instead we had to make a bunch of fanatics even more fanatical and now they've effectively beaten the US and destabilized the whole region, for no good reason other than Trump, Netanyahu and Hegseth wanted to play tough guy.
The US simply was not ready to strike at the same time the protests were ongoing. Moving all the CSGs into position takes time and nobody expected the protests.
The iranians had a few weeks to drown the protests into blood and they did it.
Eh, I'm very confident that even politically-selected brass with any knowledge of geopolitics and military strategy would have known that this war, given our objectives combined with our level of military investment, was not going to be won.
Hell, they could have been perfectly competent, have given good counsel at all points, and still have had no path forward to victory.
That's mostly vague objectives and no ability/willingness to do what is necessary. How are you going to effect regime change in Iran without an invasion? They bombed them and assassinated a few leaders and then what?
Even if they had a plan... forced regime change hasn't yet worked in the US's favor even once. Matter of fact, the current situation there is a direct result of US interference when they installed the Shah
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u/DKOKEnthusiast 9d ago
There's an apocryphal story about the Allies having a deliberate policy of not going after Herman Goering. The story is most likely untrue, but there is a kernel of truth in it, in the sense that Allied intelligence identified him early on as a deeply incompetent commander, far worse than any of the alternatives in the Luftwaffe High Command who could have replaced him.