Top 15 Battles of WWII

[fudgums]

Found this article(http://www.strategypage.com/militaryforums/30-18346.aspx) and thought what were the my top 15 battles.


Based on my favorites/interesting
1. Battle of Bulge- My favorite

2. Battle of Normandy

3. Battle of Stalingrad

4. Rangoon

5. Poland 39

6. Battle of Midway

7.Anzio Beach

8.Battle of Leyte Gulf

9. Battle for Berlin

10. Battle of Britain

11.Guadalcanal

12. El Alamein

13. Kursk

14. Okinawa

15. Iwo Jima

Top 5- changers of the war

1. Battle of Midway- Turned the tide in the Pacific

2. Battle of Stalingrad- stopped Germany's advance into Soviet Union

3. Normandy- The beginning of the end for Germany in WWII

4. Leyte Gulf- Finished off the Japanese navy in WWII

5. Battle of Bulge- Germany's last offensive to win the War in the West.

Whats yalls.

[1pLUs44]

1. Guadalcanal

2. Bulge

3. Normandy

4. Midway

5. Iwo Jima

6. Saipan

7. Tarawa

8. Peleliu

9. Stalingrad

10. Kursk

11. Anzio

12. Salerno

13. Coral Sea

14. Leyte Gulf

15. Singapore.

Top 5 - War Changers:

1. Coral Sea -

2. Midway -

3. Guadalcanal -

4. North Africa -

5. Stalingrad -

[Nemisis]

Bulge
Iwo Jima
Britan
El Alemain
Kursk
Normandy
Okinawa
Stalingrad
Anzio
Monte Cassino

War changers

El Alemain-was the furthest Rommle advansed if I member correctly

Midway-If we had lost- we would have most likely lost the war in the pacific. Oh we may have kept Hawaii but still.

Stalingrad-stoped the German advance.

Sicily-Was the end of the begining for Germany

Normandy-Marked the begining of the end.

Bulge-If Germany had succeded then they would have reached Allied fule dumps on the coast and that would have allowed them to keep going. I doubt it would have won them the war; the soviets had gotten to far to stop them. And Germany may have been able to cut a corridor to the sea but she wouldn't have been able to throw us into the sea.

ya, I know I listed 16; it was kinda a tie.

[oakranger]

Battle of Normandy
Battle of Atlantic
Battle of Iwo Jima
Battle of Philippines
Battle of Britain
Battle of Kursk
Battle of El Alamein
Battle of Prussia
Battle of Stalingrad
Operation Market Garden
New Guinea campaign

[Nemisis]

What the hell is Prussia?

[fudgums]

Battle in 1944, dont know much about it though

[Saxman]

I'd have to rate Guadalcanal above Midway as far as importance. Not just for its strategic impact on the Pacific War itself, (to be frank, the US could have lost Midway but still won the war. Japan's fleet would have been over-extended trying to hold Midway for any significant length of time). It was the first (major, at least) naval invasion undertaken by the Allies so formed much of the groundwork for the planning and tactics of all the subsequent sea-borne invasions made by the Allies throughout the war.

[fudgums]

I'd have to rate Guadalcanal above Midway as far as importance. Not just for its strategic impact on the Pacific War itself, (to be frank, the US could have lost Midway but still won the war. Japan's fleet would have been over-extended trying to hold Midway for any significant length of time). It was the first (major, at least) naval invasion undertaken by the Allies so formed much of the groundwork for the planning and tactics of all the subsequent sea-borne invasions made by the Allies throughout the war.

Loosing Midway would open the Pacific to the continental 48. Also winning at Midway turned the tide of war as well as the first(I know coral sea but go with it) major US victory in the Pacific. Which brought morale up greatly(correct me if Im wrong there)

[Nemisis]

Yes, Japan would have been overextended but if japan had attacked one of our other carriers instead of the Yorktown twice then we would have had 0-2 carriers in the Pacific if I remember correctly. OK, .........again, we may have kept Hawaii but then again maby not. I'm not saying Japan could have landed on the U.S. coast and taken any real ammount of land. I think that the U.S. coast would have been WAY to heavily defended. AND we would have been able to throw carrier and land based aircraft into the mix (land based planes based there normaly and carrier based planes that were ment for carriers but there were none avaliable or not enough to take all of them), Where as Japan would have been able to use only Naval based planes.

[Motherland]

What the hell is Prussia?

Prussia was a Germanic empire that existed from the 1500's until the Unification of Germany in 1871. It was one of the most powerful German countries until the Unification and its capital (Berlin) became the capital of the unified German empire.

This is how Central Europe looked from 1815-1866, Prussia (marked in identified in German, 'Preußen') is dark blue (and the light blue to the east of it I think, just added later... the map says '1848-1851 zum Deutschen Bund', but not to what country)


The Battle of Prussia probably refers to fighting around Koenigsberg, today the Russian city of Kaliningrad (the original Prussian capital) and other areas of Eastern Prussia, though I can't say I've ever heard of a Battle of Prussia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prussia

I would have to say that the most interesting WWII battles for me are the Battles of Britain, Kursk, Stalingrad, El Alamein, and Berlin, and the Siege of Moscow.

[soda72]

I think Midway was a very important battle.  If the US had lost it could have impacted the out come of Guadalcanal. Assuming Japan didn't loose all four carriers, they could have been used to support the troop landings during the battle, which could have turned things in their favour.  A loss at Midway would have also meant that Hawaii would have been bombed around the clock.  This also could have given the Japanese an opportunity to launch an invasion on the islands.  However even if all that happened I couldn't really see the Allies losing the pacific war.  A negotiated settlement was out the question, after what happened at Pearl Harbor, so the US was certain to continue the war effort.  Our production capacity could not be matched by the Japanese.  The war may have been longer, but in the end it still would have been only a matter of time.

[Shifty]

I'd have to rate Guadalcanal above Midway as far as importance. Not just for its strategic impact on the Pacific War itself, (to be frank, the US could have lost Midway but still won the war. Japan's fleet would have been over-extended trying to hold Midway for any significant length of time). It was the first (major, at least) naval invasion undertaken by the Allies so formed much of the groundwork for the planning and tactics of all the subsequent sea-borne invasions made by the Allies throughout the war.

Dunno Sax, what if the Japanese had not even gone after Midway? Had they initially pursued a campaign in the South Pacific to cutoff Australia from the US instead of going for the knockout punch at Midway...
They would have had four more fleet carriers to throw into the Solomons. Not to mention the troops wasted in the Aleutions which was nothing more than a Battle of Midway sidebar.
I'm not convinced we could have had the same success in the Solomons had the Battle of Midway not taken place first. Just my opinion YMMV.

<S>

[Lusche]

Prussia was a Germanic empire that existed from the 1500's until the Unification of Germany in 1871. It was one of the most powerful German countries until the Unification and its capital (Berlin) became the capital of the unified German empire.

Nitpick mode: On

Prussia was never an empire. It was a territory/state that evolved from duchy to kingdom, but never into an empire, there never was a "Emperor of Prussia"
And as a kingdom, it became part of the new German Empire in 1871. with the new Emperor Wilhelm I also still being King of Prussia.

Hijack: Off

[Saxman]

The threat to Hawaii and the Continental 48 posed by the loss of Midway is SERIOUSLY exaggerated. Pearl Harbor only worked because the US didn't expect it, underestimated the Japanese, and serious fumbles at the top of the US military's chain of command.

Attacking Pearl or the continental US during a full wartime situation even with Midway in Japanese hands would have been near-suicide. The distance was too great (Japan's reach was over-extended just attacking Midway as it is) and Midway wasn't equipped as a staging area for fleet operations: before the war it was mainly a refueling stop for long-range civilian flights between the US and the Far East. The Japanese didn't have many aircraft that could make it from Midway to Hawaii, (~1500 miles) much less all the way to the US West Cost (~2800 miles away). To say Hawaii would have been "bombed around the clock" is ludicrous. Any land-based bombers that attempted such a mission would have been unescorted, and we all know just how well unescorted bombers fare against concerted fighter defenses. It would have taken very little to move the US fleet out of reach, anyway. Oh, this is also forgetting to mention that we had Japan's military codes broken so would have seen it coming long before the Japanese fleet could lift anchor. At best it could have served as a Japanese submarine base and a base for long-range reconnaissance planes, but definitely not as a practical staging point for strikes on the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, much less any significant offensive further west.

Dunno Sax, what if the Japanese had not even gone after Midway? Had they initially pursued a campaign in the South Pacific to cutoff Australia from the US instead of going for the knockout punch at Midway...
They would have had four more fleet carriers to throw into the Solomons. Not to mention the troops wasted in the Aleutions which was nothing more than a Battle of Midway sidebar.
I'm not convinced we could have had the same success in the Solomons had the Battle of Midway not taken place first. Just my opinion YMMV.

THAT is the importance of Midway: What it allowed to happen. But it wasn't actually the magical pivotal point of the war history makes it out to be. We could have lost Midway and still won the war. We could have won at Midway and still LOST the war. However the strategic results of Guadalcanal (more of Japan's experienced pilots were killed in the Solomons than at Midway, as LARGE numbers of Japan's experienced pilots were trapped on their ships when the carriers went down and were pulled from the water again) were far more significant.

[Motherland]

Nitpick mode: On

Prussia was never an empire. It was a territory/state that evolved from duchy to kingdom, but never into an empire, there never was a "Emperor of Prussia"
And as a kingdom, it became part of the new German Empire in 1871. with the new Emperor Wilhelm I also still being King of Prussia.

Hijack: Off

I've always thought that an Empire was a country that ruled over various lands/peoples (like Brandenburg being part of Prussia), not only a country that was ruled by an emperor. Like the British, Spanish empire etc, which were ruled by kings but controlled vast areas of land outside and many different peoples of their original area.