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Baseball Primer Newsblog— The Best News Links from the Baseball Newsstand
Sunday, October 23, 2011
3 Godfathers ~ Futterman, Barbarisi and Costa, on the run discover a dying game.
During the first two games of the World Series, the Journal’s baseball staff reached out to players, managers, broadcasters, executives and a pair of economists to ask them what sorts of reforms they’d suggest.
NBC broadcaster Bob Costas contributed three ideas. Former baseball commissioner Fay Vincent had a strong recommendation, as did incoming Florida Marlins manager Ozzie Guillen. New York Mets starting pitcher R.A. Dickey liked the idea so much he submitted a multipart proposal by phone, then called back later with revisions.
1. The 99-Game Limit
“I got a good one,” Ozzie Guillen said before Game 1 of the World Series. “I want a 99-game season.” Guillen said he knows this is a pipe dream. Baseball needs its 162-game-per-team schedule (which doesn’t include the postseason) to maximize its revenues from tickets and television rights. Nonetheless, Guillen might get something along these lines. A person familiar with talks between baseball’s owners and players’ union over a new labor deal said players would be willing to play more double-headers in order to get more days off. Might we suggest nine extra days of vacation?
7. No. 9 to Cooperstown
Baseball still hasn’t come to terms with its steroids era and hasn’t told fans what to make of the records of the sluggers who may have taken them. Costas says putting former New York Yankee Roger Maris in the Hall of Fame might go a long way toward clarifying who the real home-run champion ought to be. Maris held the record for 37 years before it was broken by Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa. “I used to feel differently about this but I’ve changed,” he said.
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Unless those off-days are during the off-season, playing more DH will not shorten the season. So what's the point of this?
Nein-nein-nein!
Fo'! Fo'! Fo'!
Catfight!
I don't actually understand the significance of number nine in this piece, but it appeared to be an appropriate number to yell.
Players get more days off (which I guess is something they want)
Owners don't have to lose any games in the process.
Seems like a compromise. Assuming players want fewer games, they at least get more days off
Owners probably make less money from having doubleheaders, but not as much as they'd lose if they cut any games.
99% stupider for having read that.
Did anyone say anything about all the rare minerals we get from the rest of the world?
The Giants are #9 in losses, but #1 wins.
#9 in games over .500? The Detroit Tigers. The Tigers are also tied with the Reds for 9th place in pennants won. Detroit is also #9 in World Series won.
The 9-9-9 plan should be renamed the Detroit Tigers plan.
I'm up to continue that.
Where we left off - I believe it was snapper who had just argued that the overland trade between east asia and europe would nto be sufficient to meet the supply/economic trade needs in a war with the US once we choked off the seas with our subs because of a lack of infrastructure.
I think that's gotta be dead wrong. IIRC, the Russians have some heavy rail infrastructure set up in Sibera that was built in the coldwar but is robust enough to handle anything. That takes care of a lot of your supply needs, at least in the warm season. And I would imagine the internal infrastructure within China proper is pretty good, and that gets you all the way to Kashgar. The only hurdle is establishing good winter-proof rail/road over the pass between Tashkent and Kashgar, because once you get to Tashket it's basically a straight shot over the steppes to Europe. I think in a existential war footing, that can get built pretty quickly unless the U.S someone establishes complete air surperiority over Central Asia and bombs the hell out of it. Once you've linked up East Asia/Europe/Middle East overland, I think you get a stalemate between the Old World and the New World, since both sides would be largely self-sufficient/self-sustaining.
We don't need to get them from the rest of the world, with very few exceptions. The reason so much of our natural resources come from abroad, eg, rare earths, is because of environmental and health and safety regulation in the U.S. that inherently makes the third world country the lowest cost provider. In a war-footing, those issues fall away, and there's just a rapid spool-up of all the U.S. mineral deposits that have lain fallow for 50 years.
And you think this is somehow more clever than Jack Keefe?
Anyone ever play this or other games like Panzer Blitz?*
*Not that Panzer Blitz and Invasion: America are similar.
Used to be a major prestige number in hockey. Rocket Richard, Gordie Howe, Bobby Hull among others.
Yeah. I was a pretty serious board gamer. Worked as a playtester at SPI for a while.
Not that I played a lot of Invasion America. Interesting concept as I recall it (hidden combat values for units until they've been used IIRC) but not a quick enough game to play in one sitting and too big to leave set up for most people.
In baseball, that number is 25.
A number without a single HoF member has "prestige"? Or is this a belated homage to Marx Teixeira?
Or are you referring to the "I didn't do it, I did it only to recover from injuries, I thought it was Vitamin B-12" wing of the imaginary HoF?
Gretzky (99), as well.
Then, duplicate-digits took off.
11 (Messier), 22 (Bossy), 33 (Roy), 44 (Pronger), 55 (Murphy), 66 (Lemieux), 77 (Coffey/Bourque), 88 (Lindros)
http://www.flipflopflyin.com/flipflopflyball/info-retirednumbers.html
Asinine. Do people seriously not notice that Maris's career numbers don't put him within 10 miles of being a HOFer? And the writers had what, two decades, to put him in the HOF before McGwire and Sosa did their thing? If having the record wasn't enough to get him elected, then why would NOT having it be? Makes no sense at all.
Sammy Sosa?
You Got A Friend In Me?
Also Dickey suggests an extra fielder. It would be interesting to see where managers would place the extra fielder.
At first I was wondering what the 99% had to do with pension plans, before I realized that website just puts its newest articles on top. As a pension plan actuary who would benefit from there being more pension plans, I'll just say the signal to noise ratio of that article is concerning to say the least...
SimCity 4 has both minor league and major league stadiums, sometimes baseball ones!
The problem with gaming something like WWIII: America against the the World is that it will purely reflect the assumptions (which was the primary thing we were debating) you make going in...
I was clearly way wrong about the energy/oil issues (in the previous thread) and I see how US air power can own any battlefield... but I don't see how they can own EVERY battle field simultaneously.
Again, the volume of goods transported by sea is massive.
An average supertanker holds something like 2 million barrels of oil. An railroad tank car is <1000 barrels (max. 34,500 gal.).
That's 2000 tank cars to replace one single oil tanker. It can't be done.
China alone imports 5 million barrels of oil per day. Plus, over 2 million tons of iron ore per day. A RR car holds <100 tons.
Short People?
Short People?
Rednecks
A classic.
Which is the better album: Sail Away or Good Old Boys? I like the highlights on Good Old Boys more, but Sail Away feels like a more complete product.
Dickey's ninth fielder is an interesting hypothetical (of course it'll never happen). What do you do with the extra fielder? Short-centerfield like 10-man softball leagues? Five infielders spaced equidistantly? Four outfielders, two deep, two shallow? Put him thirty feet from home plate in bunting situations? Move him around every at-bat according to the current batter's tendencies (obviously the TLR solution)?
I would suggest the right rule patch is that a pitcher who comes out of a game for an injury before pitching the required minimum immediately must be put on the 7 day DL (or a longer DL as appropriate.) That's enough to counter fakery.
You need to think about the size and weight of what is being moved, and what it costs to move it.
You can build huge ships and scaling them up is pretty easy, and you don't even need that many people to run them. Oceans don't "wear out" from the weight of freight on them. You would need an incredible number of train cars, and use a huge amount of fuel and manpower to move things. You would also be replacing track a hell of a lot.
Ok, it "can" be done. But you're talking a massive railroad building effort crossing dozens of countries under war conditions.
You need to manufacture all that rail equipment: locomotives, cars, rails, switching equipment. Plus all the handling facilities. Then you have to install that equipment to build rail links from oil fields to refineries, and refineries to end users.
The U.S. isn't going to just sit around while you do this. There would certainly be strategic bomber and cruise missile strikes against key facilities. Not to mention the local populations in areas like Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, etc. that the U.S. is going to be inciting/ bribing/arming, to attack the lines of communications.
How long is this going to take, to build the largest rail infrastructure the world has ever seen? 5 years? I mean, there's only so much railroad building industry in place.
Meanwhile, it will only take a few months for the U.S. sub fleet to interdict the critical shipping (oil, iron ore, food).
In that 4.5 years, the economies in China, Japan and Europe are in free fall.
How long is this world coalition going to hold together in the face of massive economic hardship?
If the Chinese, Russians and Europeans are running the show, the Islamic world will be disgruntled, and could be wooed away. If Islam is a major driving force, the Indians and Christian/Animist Africans will be disgruntled and ripe for changing sides.
As long as the U.S. dominates the seas, and can protect the continental U.S., it can pick off nations one by one, and use divisions in the "Grand Alliance" to turn enemies into Allies.
Yes. There's a reason ocean transport is used whenever possible, it's really, really efficient.
As long as the U.S. dominates the seas, and can protect the continental U.S., it can pick off nations one by one, and use divisions in the "Grand Alliance" to turn enemies into Allies.
How are they going to hold these countries that they are taking down one by one?
If they take Canada they then have to hold it. Meanwhile they are also fighting Mexico to the South and fighting naval battles in at least two oceans and if they are going to stop shipping around the world then they need to be fighting naval battles all around the world. If they take Mexico they then have to hold it and fight it against Central America. Meanwhile there is all of Europe, Asia, and Africa up to something. What they doing during this time? Are they simply doing nothing but absorbing some naval bombardments and air force strikes? I doubt it. East Asia has probably invaded Alaska and is either helping Canada or trying to free Canada plus waging a naval battle in the Pacific. Europe is probably waging a naval battle against us and the North Atlantic is probably hotly contested. Meanwhile the factories of Europe are gearing up for an invasion and so are the land armies. Africa? Well, I don't know what the hell they are doing but I'm sure they are probably doing something that isn't going to help us.
Yup, the war is already over, and we lost. Watch our middle-class jobs continue to go bye byes, overseas. It's a done deal, getting doner every year.
No, it isn't.
The US has the best stuff but Germany had, by and large, the best stuff in WWII and they got clobbered. The sheer numbers of missiles and smart and dumb bombs being thrown at US intrastructure would seal things pretty quickly. I think the US could beat any country handily one-on-one but when you have lots of capable allies ganging up, it would get a lot harder.
Also, the Europeans and east asians for instance could make almost all the stuff we have in our current arsenal if they wee motivated to do so, which they would be in a WWIII scenario. One of the most useful things in a global fight a country can have is capable allies and the US wouldn't have any.
They're not. They're going to install friendly gov't's.
To "win" a war, the US doesn't need to occupy every single county in perpetuity. Just beat them enough to convince them that it's smarter to be on our side than against us.
That would take roughly 30 days with Canada and Mexico. It's unrealistic to imagine a scenario where they even try to fight us to begin with.
One of the most useful things in a global fight a country can have is capable allies and the US wouldn't have any.
They would after they beat the crap out of some countries and install friendly gov'ts.
And that has worked out pretty well in Iraq and Afghanistan. I didn't know you were a neo-con-kidding. you don't just knock over a government, install a puppet regime, and roll the tanks out of the country. That didn't happen in WWII, it didn't happen in the Gulf, and it wouldn't happen in WWIII.
That would take roughly 30 days with Canada and Mexico. It's unrealistic to imagine a scenario where they even try to fight us to begin with.
It's also unrealistic to have the World vs US but we're having that conversation anyway. You have to accept the opening conditions to have the conversation. The US has never invaded a country the size of Canada or Mexico*. To do invade both simultaneously while also waging naval wars all over the planet and defending against air and missile strikes at home is a pretty tough nut to crack. I doubt they get it done in 30 days.
*Okay they invaded Canada in the War of 1812 and that turned out pretty well for us :(
They would after they beat the crap out of some countries and install friendly gov'ts.
Unless America changes their tactics I doubt any new "ally" is going to be in any kind of position to help us. More likely they would be a drain upon us. We tend towards devestation and destruction of practically everything that is used to wage war when we invade countries. So you would have a massive rebuilding phase before they could even think about sending help to us. Then of course you have to convince the local population that not only is more war a good thing for them but to fight on the other side as well.
Or was Risk unrealistic?
You're overlooking a certain chain of events in the 1840's. The armed forces of the U.S. did indeed invade Mexico, pushing all the way into Mexico City and defeating the armies placed in their path. And the U.S. claimed possession of quite a substantial fraction of Mexico's former territory.
But the U.S. did not attempt to occupy, pacify, and rule all of Mexico. The portion of Mexico which became the U.S. consisted of (1) Texas, which had successfully seceded from Mexico a decade earlier, (2) California, which staged its own secessionist rebellion against Mexico under cover of the larger war, (3) New Mexico, whose old Spanish elites chose to settle precisely because it was so far from Mexico City and so little influenced by centralized power, either Spanish or Mexican, and (4) Arizona, Nevada, and parts of Utah and Colorado, which had very thin populations and were never all that thoroughly controlled by Spain or Mexico.
Not that it particularly undermines your larger point, but they never had the best long range bomber or aircraft carrier. Both of those really cost them. If they ever had the best fighter, they didn't for very long, and the T-34 was a better tank than anything the Germans had until the Panther/Tigers came out mid-war.
Or was Risk unrealistic?
The required Risk link
Much LARGER armies occupying prepared positions for the most part too. The Mexican war is seriously underrated as a first rate military campaign against a reasonably well equipped, numerically superior force defending it's homeland.
And the T-34 was still a better tank than those giant behemoths.
Not that it particularly undermines your larger point, but they never had the best long range bomber or aircraft carrier.
The German infantry had some of the best weapons in the war but they also had some of the crappiest equipment as well. Horse drawn carriages anyone? As you mentioned their air force was severely lacking and probably by late 1942 was obsolete. No radar at all. The Germans didn't need carriers and if they had built them they would have lost them pretty quickly. Germany didn't have colonies and they really didn't need to protect sea routes. You could say that was the Italians' job in the Mediterannean and even though they did a piss poor job of it the Axis didn't carriers in the Sea to do the job. They simply botched it.
Whaa? Interdicting the supply routes from US to England, pre-Pearl Harbor, would have been a lot easier with a few.
if they had built them they would have lost them pretty quickly.
Okay, but that doesn't really argue against the need.
Germany didn't have colonies and they really didn't need to protect sea routes.
Malta pretty much decimated the supply line to Rommel, and things would have been a lot tougher otherwise.
/sorry about threadkjacking the threadjack
How can you have a conversation about world war without nuclear weapons?
How and why Italy and Germany never even made an attempt to invade Malta is one of the great mysteries of the war. Once France fell, the British fleet had to abandon the central Med, leaving little more than a squadron of destroyers and a few subs at Malta. It was garrisoned by little more than a reinforced battalion, and the air force consisted of three obsolete biplane fighters. It would have taken little more than a a strongly worded letter to get the British out in July of 1940, but they didn't even try.
And how would they have kept them supplied? Hell, how would they have kept them afloat? Or even got them out into open seas. Were they going to attack US ships?
Okay, but that doesn't really argue against the need.
Well, I need to have sex with Scarlet Johansson. What the Germans needed was a navy almost as powerful if not more powerful than the Brits, access to the Atlantic ocean directly from German bases that was shielded from Allied forces, radar, foreign ports, and a powerful sea based air force. They didn't have any of that thus carriers would have been useless to them. They would have been a complete waste of resources. Building any capital ship at all would have been and was a complete waste of their resources.
Malta pretty much decimated the supply line to Rommel, and things would have been a lot tougher otherwise.
Like I said above they botch the Mediterranean but they didn't need carriers to do the job right there.
The shine had worn off airborne invasions by the time the Axis needed to do something about Malta. The airborne units had been decimated in previous uses, had I believe very little transports left for them, couldn't really launch an invasion against Malta, and Russia was sucking up all of their resources.
Rommel and Afrika Korps were at their best when the Axis made a concerted effort to neutralize Malta. The bombed the bejeezus out of Malta and shut it down to the point where the Axis could send transports to Africa but they couldn't sustain the attack. So Malta was refitted and resupplied and once again the Allies were able to shut down shipping in the Sea.
Because we're doing a thought exercise.
Though I probably just think that because I've never been able to wrap my head around all the intricacies of 20th century military logistics.
In the case of the lead-up to The Great War, a waste of resources AND a great way to alienate an otherwise neutral power.
but there was 9 month between the Fall of France and the Crete campaign. By the spring of 1941, Malta was seriously re-enforced and would have taken a major campaign, but in the summer of 1940 it would have been a cakewalk.
Maybe it was hubris, thinking the Italians would make short work of the British in Egypt, and Malta would "rot on the vine" so to speak. But after the Italian disaster in Dec 1940 and the subsequent arrival of Rommel, surely by then they would have recognized the need to eliminate it and they still had plenty of resources to do so.
It's prettty much required to have a topic worth discussing. If nukes are allowed, the scenario turns into a nobody-survives mutually-assured-destruction glassed planet in a matter of an hour or so. (We don't win; China and Russia have more than enough to blow up every major US city.)
but there was 9 month between the Fall of France and the Crete campaign. By the spring of 1941, Malta was seriously re-enforced and would have taken a major campaign, but in the summer of 1940 it would have been a cakewalk.
Maybe it was hubris, thinking the Italians would make short work of the British in Egypt, and Malta would "rot on the vine" so to speak. But after the Italian disaster in Dec 1940 and the subsequent arrival of Rommel, surely by then they would have recognized the need to eliminate it and they still had plenty of resources to do so.
North Africa was never part of Hitler's plan. He had a very classical central European military mindset. Anything that wasn't on the continent didn't matter. Rommel was sent in the middle of February and you are right that before that Malta could have been taken. Mussolini and the Italians really dropped the ball on that one. One could say the Battle of Taranto soured them on the idea of a major naval sortie but that happened in November of 1940. The more likely culprits are the handful naval engagements earlier in the year. Before that they had ample time to invade but they chose not too. I think Mussolini pulled a McClellan and was scared of shadow forces. The British had almost nothing on the island except for escaped French fighters and a handful of hurricanes. I think he thought that events outside of Italy would simply deliver Malta and North Africa to him so when that didn't happen he/they were screwed.
Once Hitler committed to fighting in North Africa he sent the Luftwaffe after Malta immediately and they largely neutralized it. But events outside of Malta forced the Germans to take a step back. More Italian failures in the Balkans, Crete, and the Soviet invasion buildup all took resources away from the area (plus of course during this whole time they had the Battle of Britain going). Once that happened they lost the upper hand and never were able to get it back.
EDIT: thank you.
I once played a game of risk where someone won by controlling Europe from the near beginning of the game. Well he was in Africa at the very beginning and then go pushed out and set up camp in Europe and managed to hold it for hours and eventually won. He defended all along the south and through Greenland (there was much of a force in Russia) and just waited everyone out. Took about 12 hours or more though, because no one really noticed the huge ####### force he had assembled before it was too late. Then we were all collectively waiting for him to make a move, but he just waited everyone out.
Wouldn't that knife cut both ways? If only a few slipped through and hit the major cities, we'd be eff'd.
They had control of Gibraltar and Suez, and so had control of the sealanes in and out. They also had destroyed the French fleet in Meirs-el-Kebir in Algeria, so they didn't have to worry about that. And the Italian navy was no match for even a stripped down British contingent.
The Germans could have taken Malta, like they took Crete, but then they would have had to find a way to make it useful once they got hold of it. With British air and sea superiority, and control of the two ends of the Mediterranean, it probably would have been more a burden than an asset. They were already kind of strung out in North Africa and any troops set aside for Malta would have been drawn from the Afrika Korps. And supplying Malta would have been difficult. The goal was to grab Suez, and possibly the oil fields of the middle east. Malta would have been a distraction.
It's funny. The Afrika Korp was sitting right in top of huge oil and natural gas fields in Libya and Algeria but didn't know it. Score one for good old American know-how.
I don't agreee. The Italian Navy was short on guts, experience, supplies, and training but the British were short on supplies and resources to do all the jobs it needed to do in the Mediterranean. If the Italians had the guts to do it they could have taken the initiative and kept the RN seriously off balanced and into a defensive posture. That isn't to say that the Italians could have taken the Rock or Alexandria but they could have taken Malta and controlled central Med.
The Germans could have taken Malta, like they took Crete, but then they would have had to find a way to make it useful once they got hold of it. With British air and sea superiority, and control of the two ends of the Mediterranean, it probably would have been more a burden than an asset. They were already kind of strung out in North Africa and any troops set aside for Malta would have been drawn from the Afrika Korps. And supplying Malta would have been difficult. The goal was to grab Suez, and possibly the oil fields of the middle east. Malta would have been a distraction.
At some point they would have found holding Malta untenable but not before they would have achieved what they wanted to achieve in North Africa. If the Germans/Italians had taken Malta the British would not have been able to take it back or to do really much against Malta. They simply didn't have the resources to spare to do that for a very long time. The Germans take Malta and the flow of resources to North Africa greatly expands. The pressure on Egypt thys great expands and thus the need for more and more resources to go to Egypt and nowhere else. But with Malta taken the run to Egypt becomes a lot more riskier and diverts more and more ships around the long way.
If my aunt had balls . . .
The Italians were never in the war from an emotional POV. The Italian fascists were never able to induce the same chauvinistic nationalism in their troops as the Nazis were able.
I'm not really understanding this. The US of the 1940's was roughly equivalent to the rest of the entire world when it came industry. American industry since then has greatly expanded not contracted.
But they lost, badly, in 6 years.
I'd say they lost badly in about 3 years. Pearl Harbor was in December of 1941 and the war in Europe was basically over by the spring of 1945. VJ day came in September but Japan was finished long before that.
For the most part the reason the war lasted so long is because it took America almost 3 years to enter it and the two main enemy combatants on the other side of the world to each other. Japan had really no business being the antagonist in this thing. If Germany hadn't been involved they probably get their butt kicked in under a year after Pearl Harbor and the war would probably get wrapped up or bogged down in Japan in under two years. Just how big of a difference was there between Japan and the USA? After Pearl Harbor when the Allies figured out there strategy the US decided that only about 25% of their manpower and resources would get sent to the Pacific. Despite this about 6 months after Pearl Harbor the Allies had turned the tide of war in the Pacific and had sent the Japanese reeling.
They simply didn't have the training nor the tradition to do it. Italy's armed forces were simply too young to wage wars against the traditional powerhouses of the world. Rommel could get them to fight well but he understood their strengths and weaknesses and proceeded accordingly.
In large part, this is because they didn't. Italy couldn't conquer Ethiopia for crying out loud.
Yes but the world has expanded even more so. China and the rest of east asia aside from Japan are now legitimate industrial centers. You could probably say the same about India at this point. None of those things were true in 1945. China dn India alone make up almost half of the worlds population.
Yes but the world has expanded even more so. China and the rest of east asia aside from Japan are now legitimate industrial centers. You could probably say the same about India at this point. None of those things were true in 1945. China dn India alone make up almost half of the worlds population.
The thing I don't understand is you saying that Germany, Italy, and Japan are roughly equivalent to America today. They are not they are not even close. America is still the #1 economy in the world and no one is even close to us. It has been awhile but I believe you would have to take the entire EU and combine them and you'd get a larger economy or you could take the next 4 or 5 largest ecnomies and combine them to get a larger economy. That isn't anything like what would happen if 1940's Germany, Japan, and Italy were to combine their economies. If you combined their economies they still wouldn't be the #1 economy of the world back then and the allies minus America would still have larger economies. Hell, the Allies minus Ameica and the Soviets would still have a larger economy.
You have this as the first point.
Second, the US Navy is significantly more powerful than all the rest of the world's navies combined. Probably by a factor of 2 or 3.
Third, the US is protected from any major combatant nations by oceans.
China could have 100 divisions as capable as America's 20 (they don't have one), and it wouldn't matter one damn. They can't walk across the Pacific.
Ballistic and cruise missiles and satellite technology have negated a lot of the advantage of this distance. Secondly, I'm assuming Mexico and Canada would be against us too and we share about 4000-5000 miles of border with them, combined. We would also have to worry about the other central and south American countries. And there would be all those little Caribbean islands where potshots could be taken at us. Even if we won all of the initial big setpiece battles, we'd still have to contend with guerrilla and unconventional campaigns everywhere. It would just be too much to bear. We couldn't be everywhere at once.
And this is proving what?
Second, the US Navy is significantly more powerful than all the rest of the world's navies combined. Probably by a factor of 2 or 3.
Third, the US is protected from any major combatant nations by oceans.
China could have 100 divisions as capable as America's 20 (they don't have one), and it wouldn't matter one damn. They can't walk across the Pacific.
I don't disagree that the US has the most powerful navy in the world and no else comes even close but that navy still isn't big enough that it could control the seas over all of the world at all times. As someone else mentioned we really don't know what impact capital ships are going to have in era of cruise missiles that can strike at any ship on the ocean from land. If some tiny nation like Korea can severely cripple a task force meant to shut down the Sea of Japan what good is that navy? Secondly, would the US Navy even have the balls to sail into the Sea of Japan? How about the Mediterranean? How about the Red Sea? Then in terms of invasion you have to remember that everybody is against America. No matter how vast the US Navy's reach is they can't bottle up all the North and South American ports. They can't stop all shipping all the time. Stuff will get through and the world doesn't need to land on enemy land. They can make landfall in Canada and have the Canadiens supply them. Or in Mexico or in South America.
If the US can't sail into the Sea of Japan, and I can't see how they could, then it is simply a matter of time before Japan, Russia, and China build a biggest enough fleet to send those 100 Chinese divisions plus all of Russia's and Japan's division over to North America. Plus you have to think of the flipside. Which is that while it may be true that China couldn't sail their 100 divisions over to America that it is also true that America couldn't send their 20 divisions to fight China. American landforces couldn't really afford to take the offensive because the risks would be too great. We would probably fight some strategic battles with Mexico and Canada and the Marines would run around the Carribbean but that is about it. We couldn't invade Europe or Africa or Asia or South America. We would be speding all of our time fortifying America and repairing and building up our air force and navy. 6 billion to 300 million means we're going to lose that race.
So anyway it wasn't like it was just Germany against all of Europe and it wasn't like all of Europe was fighting Germany at the same time. Germany moved East and took the East with the help of the Soviets and his Eastern European allies. While he was doing this the West did nothing. He then turned West and took France. While he was doing this the East did nothing. He then turned East and rumbled to the doorstep of Moscow. But this land grab didn't really mean anything. IF anything Hitler was simply moving deeper and deeper into the trap.
If you look on an old map Germany and their allies established borders already accounted for a great deal of the land mass in Europe.
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