Biggest military blunders in history

Well the Dunkirk evacuation. A massive blunder on the German side, stopping their advances outside Dunkirk, allowing time for the British troops to be evacuated. It would of crushed British moral if the entire British Army was crushed there. The German army was ordered to halt and did not advance until it was too late. There are many theories why the German army halted. Some say the supply lines were too thin so they stopped to allow the supply lines to catch up, some say Hitler wanted to give the order to advance personally but a damaged communication line stopped the order from coming through or some say Hitler still wanted peace/alliance with Britain and so didn't want to crush their army into submission. (Since Hitler did offer Britain an alliance, since he respected the British Empire, but Britain turned him down) But on the plus it was a massive success of the British side.

Agreed

the invasion of the Soviet union.

Poltava!

Rode to certain death and pain!

Poltava!

Swedish soldiers met their bane!

Poltava!

Sacrificed their lives in vain!

Poltava!

Operation Market Garden, Operation Neptune (the Germans did horribly bad).

The invasion of Russia could definitely have been done a lot better.

At first the invasion of russia went well but once again Hitler's ego got in the way and he turned from moscow, the capital of russia and the central hub for the russian rail network (Would of destroyed russian leadership, moral and transport all at once) and turned to stalingrad because it had Stalin's name in it (its just luck it also had tank factories as well). Im a strong believer that if Hitler hadn't of taken a personal role in leading the army Germany could of won ww2. But i'm glad they lost, don't think the whole genocide thing would be great for the world.

To quote from ERB, Darth Vader vs Hitler "Didn't Napoleon let you know? When you invade Russia, better pack up some winter clothes!"

Noice

Barbarossa was one of the largest land invasions in human history and the Germans still failed. If the Germans did not swing south into Yugoslavia and Greece the winter would not have held back Operation Typhoon. The Germans were pretty close though.

"...Hitler was a one trick general.Although his plans took many forms,they all conformed to a single pattern. He would identify a weak point and then unleash the greatest force possible against it.It was good trick and worked well for several years. But once his enemies realized what Hitler was doing, the game was up...Churchill took the decision to hold in Egypt, goad Hitler's Italian allies in Africa, Intervene in Greece,launch commando raids on France and bomb Germany.the aim was to create a diffuse field of battle on which Hitler could not concentrate overwhelming force on a single weak spot. Instead he had to dissipate his forces to react to a number of small threats.Frustrated and unable to pull off his usual trick,Hitler lost interest and turned on Russia.

On the Eastern front the pattern was repeated.Hitler again achieved startling victories so long as the Russians continued to fight the war in a conventional way. When they too learned the same lesson as Churchill, they spread their forces across a wide front, launching a limited attack in one place, then in another.Again, Hitler was denied a single weak point that he could exploit." - Hitler: Military Commander by Rupert Mathews

Hopefully that clears up WW2 in Europe, I'd like to talk about the 6 day war and see what others think about it.

I'm with king joe. Operation Barbarossa was an incredibly stupid idea.

If the Germans couldn't defeat Britain in 1940, why start another front for the war the following year?

The decision to go to Stalingrad instead of Moscow. Army Group Centre was partially directed south. But also, the attempted Mongol invasion of Japan. At first I believe they sent 10,000 men on ships to invade Japan but were thrown back. Then they sent 50,000 on boats, a massive number for the 1200's, and they were all destroyed by the Kamikaze Hurricane on their way to Japan. I might be getting a little mixed up but I think that's how it went. I understand it's the 13th century, but they had to have SOME way to predict if a freaking hurricane is coming or not...

The dumber thing is that the Japanese thought a 13th-century hurricane would help prevent the inevitable in world war II.

Liberinsula wrote:

The dumber thing is that the Japanese thought a 13th-century hurricane would help prevent the inevitable in world war II.

Pickets Charge and the Battle of the Philippine Sea.

not reading through all the replies, so could have been said already, but i got a bunch:

1-the failure of the french at Agincourt to have any real leadership, which lead to them not using their crossbows, and, especially, not charging at the english while they advanced across the field into arrow range, while they where disorganized and the archers didnt have their stakes placed in the ground o protect from cavalry charges.

2-hitlers changing tactics in the battle of britian to the blitz, when the RAF was nearly destroyed. (for those that dont know, a german pilot jettisoned bombs on london to speed his craft, causing churchill to order retaliatory raids on berlin, causing hitler to order the blitz). if he had destroyed the RAF, he could have destroyed the royal navy. if he destroyed the royal navy, he could have invaded britian and won the war by being able to take russia 1v1, the USA not having a base in europe.

3-hitlers declaration of war on America. I dont care if he signed a treaty with japan, japan broke the treaty by not declaring war on the soviets (the treaty stated the japanese and germans would come to each others aid in war with america or russia. Japanese didn't declare war on soviets, or history could be very different, the elite siberian ski troops not being able to save moscow from the germans in winter of 41-42). if you argue that the japanese had signed a treaty with soviet uniion, what did the axis care for treaties????? hitler had already broken the ones hed signed with poland and russia.

4-this one is personal. it really didnt have a major impact on history, but it really rankles me cause of the idiocy. At midway, the USA had three carriers, the hornet, yorktown, and enterprise. one of the USA's most elite torpedoe squadrons, with probably the best torpedoe skipper in naval history (at least the best ive ever read about) was on the hornet. some ***** in the hornets high command decided to launch the fghters first, and use up all of their limited fuel circling the carrier, waiting for the bombers to form up, and someone (probably the same person) decided to make the bombers wait half an hour to take off. several people had calculated the correct position of the japanese fleet, but the same idiot sent them on a completely wrong course. the torpedoe bomebrs had no fighter protection to being with, the idiot thinking it best to keep them all with the dive bombers, despite evidense at the coral sea that pointed to the contrary.when the torpedoe skipper decided to pursue the correct course to the japanese fleet, the fighters continued with the dive bombers, and later crashed due to lack of fuel on the way back. well, the torpedoe bomebrs reached the japanese fleet, but not a single torp hit, the obsolete machines recked by japanese fighters. USA lost its best torpedoe captian there. had the idiot on the hornet used his aircraft correctly, the yorktown could have been saved, as the horents aircraft could have sunk/damaged the japanese fleet, preventing the yourktown from ahving to sail at half speed or whatever into the location it got sunk by the submarine.

needless ot say, the idiot was never put in charge of aircraft again. you canr ead all about it in a book called A Dawn Like THunder

eruth wrote:

3-hitlers declaration of war on America. I dont care if he signed a treaty with japan, japan broke the treaty by not declaring war on the soviets (the treaty stated the japanese and germans would come to each others aid in war with america or russia. Japanese didn't declare war on soviets, or history could be very different, the elite siberian ski troops not being able to save moscow from the germans in winter of 41-42). if you argue that the japanese had signed a treaty with soviet uniion, what did the axis care for treaties????? hitler had already broken the ones hed signed with poland and russia.

brits would have surrendered if they had been pushed into the scottish highlands and had every *** city with more than 3 people living in it burned to the ground by the luftwaffe. do you think germany would have surrendered in other circumstances than the ones they were put in? even if the brits didnt surrender, they would have most likely been overun if sea lion hadnt been stopped at the coasts, which i doubt it could have been had the germans won the batte of britian. And i'm not saying the japanese (please don't call them japs; japs basically means "asian people who can;t possibly be as good as us 'muricans simply cause they ain't white. it is a word that expresses a hundred years of rasisim. please don't use it. anyway, back to topic) should have invaded russia; im simply saying that germany had no obligation to declare war on the US because the japanese didn't declare war on russia.