https://defence-journal.com and https://csio-ops.com Heading CSIO-Ops (https://csio-ops.com) and Mazendorf , (website - mazendorf.com ) a company providing management and human resource services .Major Agha H Amin was commissioned in 11 Cavalry (FF) in March 1983. He commanded an independent tank squadron ,which under his command won a corps tank subcalibre firing competition ,defeating seven armoured regiments, an honour unprecedented and to date unrivalled . His recommendations to group holding and striking corps as army commands published in citadel magazine in 1998 , was adopted by Pakistan Army in 2004-7.He served as MTO of a brigade headquarter , GSO 3 Research Trial and Publications and Instructor Class C at school of armour. Retired from army in March 1994. He carried out CASA 1000 survey to bring power to Pakistan from Central Asia and was issued a written commendation by SNC Lavalin Canada, Canadas largest consulting company and worlds fifth largest consulting company. He was invited by US Army center of military history to deliver a presentation on US Afghan war in 2007. He is a member of two think tanks , orbat and Alexandrian Defense group of Canada. In addition he also worked as Assistant Editor Defence Journal, Pakistan and Executive editor Globe , Pakistan. He was first editor of JOURNAL OF AFGHANISTAN STUDIES financed by Denmark's foreign ministry , based in Kabul, in 2004-5.He is author of over 200 books available on Amazon books .In addition his articles were published in PAKISTAN ARMY JOURNAL , CITADEL journal of command and staff college Quetta and various Pakistani newspapers and magazines.Presently heading MAZENDORF FZE LLC in UAE. mazendorf.com Supervisors: Professor Hafiz Tariq (Statistics professor ) a truly great man Address: https://csio-ops.com
Adina Beg , Lahore decadent and hopeless ,
Sir Michael O Dwyer , and the IMF
IMF CREDIBILITY ALS... more Adina Beg , Lahore decadent and hopeless , Sir Michael O Dwyer , and the IMF
IMF CREDIBILITY ALSO HIGHLY DUBIOUS AS ITS ROLE IN OVERSEEING PAKISTANI STATE ASSETS PRIVATISATION PROVES
Major A.H Amin (Retired)
Adina Beg , Lahore decadent and hopeless , Sir Michael O Dwyer , and the IMF IMF CREDIBILITY ALSO HIGHLY DUBIOUS AS ITS ROLE IN OVERSEEING PAKISTANI STATE ASSETS PRIVATISATION PROVES • October 2024 • DOI: • 10.13140/RG.2.2.11668.51846 • Agha H Amin
The credit for handing over the provinces of Lahore and Multan ,to Hindu Marathas, squarely, belongs to an Arain , from Sharqpur, near Lahore , Adina Beg . Without doubt a great service to the cause of Islam in Indo Pak history . So much for the illustrious traditions of people from Lahore and surrounding country.
Khan Bahadur Latif Qureshi of Baghbanpura , father of late Omar Shafi (Friday Times) my grandfathers dearest friend from New Delhi where my grandfather (family went to Delhi from Rawalpindi in 1902 for government service) was serving in ministry of Defence and Qureshi sahib in the Viceroy house. When partition took place , Qureshi sahib, came to his ancestral town Lahore , but found it pathetically depressing and missed New Delhi , as his many letters to my grandfather revealed ! My grandfather had taken the ministry of Defence to Rawalpindi , alongwith his senior and dearest friend Wing Commander Milroy Hayes of the RAF !
It is a historic fact that the great writer Saadat Hassan Manto , worshipped in Bombay , as a great literary icon, died of depression when he migrated to Lahore.
Sir Michael Odwyer , was disgusted with Lahore’s pathetic performance in first world war and in a speech , probably at Kasur , stated that , Lahore was so pathetic in the war effort , that after the war he would transfer the capital of Punjab to Kasur !
Sadly , the IMF , seems to love Lahore or the rulers of Pakistan from Lahore . A dangerous parallel , exists , where the Hindu Marathas loved the Mughal governor Adina Beg from Lahore (Sharqpur nearby).
The IMF , is notoriously famous for being a , petty , super power tool , which employs, “Soft Power” to , weaken and sometimes breaks countries.
When my brother was studying in a famous and respected American ,Clark university at Worcester ,Massachussets , there was a complete course in his B.A syllabus , dealing with controversial and ulterior role of the International Monetary Fund. And yet we in Pakistan have raised IMF to the level of God !
I am a pensioner and I don’t own any property in Pakistan. Not even a bicycle . My pension is about 100 USD . Yet every day we hear a man from Lahore , an Arain by coincidence ,like Adina Beg , threatening , people , that he would put them in jail if they don’t file income tax return ! My national bank manager told me that Pakistan’s tax collection authorities will close bank accounts of pensioners who don’t file income tax return !
What alternative do poor pensioners have if this character imported from Holland closes account of poor pensioners drawing about 32,000 Rupees ! We will be left with no choice but to migrate to Afghanistan ,Iran or even India !
IMF dealings in Pakistan by and large are questionable and dubious.One recent example is privatization of Islamabad airport, as the link below shows:---
IMF CREDIBILITY ALSO HIGHLY DUBIOUS AS ITS ROLE IN OVERSEEING PAKISTANI STATE ASSETS PRIVATISATION PROVES
Govt outsources Islamabad airport to ‘favoured’ bidder Other consortium claims arbitrary exclusion from bidding process
DAULAT KHAN BHATTI , IMPRESSIVE PHSIQUE , FAMOUS FOR BRAGGING BUT IRRESOLUTE AND CORRUPT SURRENDE... more DAULAT KHAN BHATTI , IMPRESSIVE PHSIQUE , FAMOUS FOR BRAGGING BUT IRRESOLUTE AND CORRUPT SURRENDERS KANDAHAR TO THE PERSIANS ON 11 FEBRUARY 1649 October 2024 DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.36414.91206 Agha H Amin
Social Media Platforms like LinkedIn too politically correct and biased
October 2024
DOI: 10.1314... more Social Media Platforms like LinkedIn too politically correct and biased October 2024 DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.22180.49280 Agha H Amin
I have been a member of LinkedIn since about 2010. Groups I created exceed 8000 members and one group has over 13,000 members.
By and large linkedin has been an unethical and controversial platform :---
• Their financial dealings are unethical. In one instance they charged me over 400 USD . • It has been reported by many reputed members that Linkedin is poorly staffed , having low paid , rudimentary educated employees and has been banning members over trivial matters. • It has been reported by many members that linkedin is unethically using members Identification documents , which it claims to collect , on pretext of verifying them. • Recently they blocked a US veteran Kurt Bergstrom personally known to me , with some totally minor pretext. • Quality of discussion on linkedin is extremely low and it appears that about half the members on linkedin , are fictitious BOTs. • As a job search platform Linkedin has “ZERO UTILITY”, and most job seekers I know report “ZERO RESULTS” , of success with linkedin. • Linkedin is notorious for bombarding members with mails insisting that they subscribe to paid memberships. • Linkedin is notorious in red flagging content , but the poster , whose content is red flagged , cannot even see , which content was RED FLAGGED. • One can write a book on LINKEDIN FAILURES ,and LINKEDIN SCAMS , but this is just an introduction.
Clausewitz summarised with examples from military history, 2024
TOTALLY FALSE CLAIM OF INDIAN OFFICIAL HISTORY THAT, PAKISTANS 23 DIVISION COMMANDER, THROUGH CON... more TOTALLY FALSE CLAIM OF INDIAN OFFICIAL HISTORY THAT, PAKISTANS 23 DIVISION COMMANDER, THROUGH CONSTANT PROBING, HAD DISCOVERED ,THAT ONLY A DUMMY MINEFIELD, EXISTED IN FRONT OF 5 ASSAM POSITION.
How Luck or Chance aided 23 Divisions Chak Pandit attack in Chhamb
Pakistani tank attack from the south on 6th December 1971 5th December saw 23 Division failing miserably at Mandala complex because general Eftikhar and his staff failed to appreciate the crucial significance of Mandala South which 23 Division could have captured on night 4th 15th December 1971. The greatest character attribute of general Eftikhar was inexhaustible resolution and persistence While his failure opposite Mandala, was more due to his own mental blocks and his staff's failure to track and control the divisions lower formation, 66 Brigade being the most notoriously cowardly led brigade,rather than enemy resistance, Eftikhar decided to regroup and attack from the south. This was the most brilliant decision of general Eftikhar . But to brilliance , we must add a factor known as "chance" or "luck" . How the direction of attack was chosen?
Many histories ,most significant being Indian official history of 1971 war including Praval etc, falsely claim that a minefield gap between Jhanda and Barsala had been discovered by Pakistan's 23 Division.This was an absolutely false claim as proven by the most credible Pakistani account written by colonel saeed of 23 Division.
Saeed stated that general Eftikhar wanted to attack from the direction of far south i.e the new Pakistani attack thrust originating from the area between Dhau Sirhali and Barila However when his staff pointed out that,the distance of the tank march was too long to cover in one night , general Eftikhar reduced it and selected Bakan , as the launching point , for the 2 Armoured Brigade thrust towards Chak Pandit.
October 2024 DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.18549.79841 Agha H Amin
Second World War -A Strategic Summary
October 2024
DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.10266.04809
Agha H Amin
... more Second World War -A Strategic Summary October 2024 DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.10266.04809 Agha H Amin
Second World War -A Strategic Summary • October 2024 • DOI: • 10.13140/RG.2.2.10266.04809 • Agha H Amin
Second world war history has always been subject to massive exaggerations and white washes, unduly presenting, a particular state’s role as most decisive and more heroic than any other state.
This short book aims at reaching the harsh , but hard truth , by actually , placing the actual , material odds , and the tangible numerical facts of the war , in perspective.
There are two ways to judge a campaign or a battle . The number of formations or divisions involved and the number of fatal casualties suffered. These two factors are the most accurate gauge of judging a battle or a campaign.
When we read books by western authors , the above mentioned issues are hoodwinked and camouflaged , while heavy sounding , pedantic , analysis is employed to glorify , what Britain or the USA did .
However , the critical reader can judge the scenario , very clearly , if he digs into the facts of a battle or a campaign , particularly , size of forces involved and the casualties suffered.
In order to understand , second world war, the first world war, has to be broadly understood.
The character of the war’s main actors in first world war has to be understood :--
France:-- France was not overrun by the Germans in first world war but was the principal battle ground of first world war. France and Britain had been bled white on the battlefields of France in first world war.France was saved first by British Army’s arrival in France , but more importantly by the American arrival in France in 1917. More than US Army , it waUS military and financial aid that saved Britain and France in first world war.
Britain:-- Britain’s entry on French side and arrival of British forces including commonwealth forces saved France in the first three years of first world war , but by 1917 both Britain and France were unable to make the decisive difference. They were saved by US intervention and massive US economic and military aid.Britain’s navy played a most decisive role in economic blockade of Germany , but the harsh fact that it was US entry in first world war that turned the tables cannot be denied.
United States of America :-- USAs entry in first world war , tipped the balance against Imperial Germany and led to the final German defeat in First World War.Churchill admitted in 1936 that , if USA had not entered the war in 1917 , Britain and France would have made peace with Germany without completely defeating the Germans.
Russia:-- Russia also played a major role in Germany’s defeat by forcing the Germans to deploy some eighty divisions on the Eastern front. However the true Russian contribution in first world war was snidely hijacked by western historians, who unjustly claimed all the glory of defeating Imperial Germany. Ludendorf admitted that the USA “became the deciding factor in the war”.
Britain and France were not enthusiastic to fight the fast rising Nazi Germany in the years preceeding second world war and had made best efforts to appease Nazi Germany.
USSR in the east was a much reformed and , much stronger player than Czarist Russia , and the main cause of German concerns in any future war.
The USA had been practicing an isolationist policy since 1918 , but FDR ,the president of USA viewed Nazi Germany, as the most serious potential geopolitical , strategic threat to the USA.
In the final analysis as we discuss , it was this perception held by FDR , which led to his decision to support USSR and Britain by the Lend Lease program, which saved Britain and USSR in the second world war.
We hear much chatter about US Lend Lease aid to the USSR , but British writers always downplay the fact that British commonwealth received 31 Billion US Dollars aid in Len Lease scheme , whereas USSR just received just something over 11 Billion US dollars.
In other words , US role in saving Britain in second world war was far more crucial than US role in saving the USSR !
Such is the British intellectual dishonesty , that the very term “LEND LEASE” , finds no place, as an “Index entry” in major military works by Liddell Hart and J.F.C Fuller ! If any one is intellectually honest to admit the true significance of the US “Lend Lease” scheme , it is the German side !
President FDR of the USA was of the firm conviction that it was in absolute strategic interest of the USA to assist both Britain and USSR with the “Lend Lease” Scheme.
“Lend Lease” scheme was the most decisive strategic decision of the second world war.
Polish Campaign Keeping in view German superiority in tanks and organisation of tanks Polish defeat was a foregone conclusion.
The most lesson that the Germans learnt in Poland was , that tanks must avoid built up areas. 4th Panzer Division lost 57 out of 120 tanks in one days battle against Poles in built up area.
Britain and France declared war on Germany on 3rd September 1939 ,but the French shamelessly did nothing although they had 85 divisions facing just 33 German divisions out of which 25 divisions had poorly trained reservist units. French musketeers lost 1,433 casualties in this war called phoney war which lasted for eight months. Norway and Denmark Wars These were minor affairs in terms of troops involved and casualties. In Norway Germans lost 2,375 killed in ground operations and 2,375 at sea.Allies lost 2500 killed at sea and 1,869 in land operations.The more serious cost for Germans was the fact that they had to deploy 300,000 troops to guard Norway against future allied attacks till 1945. Denmark was an even more mickey mouse affair. Copenhagen was captured by just 1400 German soldiers , with just 56 casualties.Ironically future allied air raids killed 4,000 Danish civilians. The Danish had a strong ultra right element and 11,200 Danish fought as part of the Nordland Division against the USSR, sustaining 2,500 fatal casualties. France This was the first decisive campaign of second world war , and most crucial , as this led Hitler to draw the wrong lessons. Germans won it by fluke.
Tangibly all the major material factors stood against the Germans , but Germans defeated Britain and France because of superior doctrine and organisation.
Tangibly there was no reason why the Germans should have won ! 136 German divisions faced 149 allied divisions.
Their opponents however were phenomenally dumb at the doctrinal and organisation level !
Germans had 2,700 armoured fighting vehicles against 3000 allied armoured vehicles.
The Germans however won because their doctrine , and thus their resultant organisation was superior. Their tanks were concentrated in armoured divisions and corps while French and British tanks were distributed in penny packets.
In airpower Germans were superior having plus 2,000 bombers against the Allied 800 and 4,000 fighters against 2,500.
In 1940 out of 2,285 tanks the three French Armoured Divisions had just 468 tanks. To further compound this organizational disaster the French Armoured Divisions were haphazardly dispersed.
France was conquered at a low human cost by the Germans, when you compare their losses with first world war battles.
German victory in France was a fluke. Neither German General Staff , nor Hitler expected such a decisive victory.
Even Guderian as per German post surrender debriefings called the Ardennes plan a crime against his panzers.
Hitler was not trained as an officer.This led to various pros and cons.The biggest positive factor was that Hitler was open to new ideas and reform , like it was Hitler who accepted the concept of Blitzkrieg , while whole German Army high command was against it.
The negative part of Hitler was his inability to see the larger picture.The most unexpected victory in France led Hitler to the “fatally dangerous conclusion” that German Army could also knowck out USSR , like France.
Hitler failed to understand that the frontages and logistics were almost 15 times larger than France and ,German Army was simply not capable of repeating its French campaign performance in Russia.
As this map above illustrates, the frontages on which German tank formations advanced were extremely small as compared to Russia, that is 100 km versus 1600 Km .
Hitler has been much praised for his intuition and his revolutionary decision to accept Guderians ideas about concentrating tanks , and accepting the 1940 Manstein plan. But here his ranker greatness ended .
The conclusions that Hitler drew about how he would repeat German tanks , French performance in Russia were disastorous conceptually and German failure in Russia in 1941 was a foregone conclusion.
The callously criminal way , in which Hitler diluted and reduced his tank formations in Russia was discussed in detail by Liddell Hart and Albert Seaton , the only two truthful westerners, who wrote about the Russo German war. This dilution has been hoodwinked and intellectually dishonestly ignored by later self styled western experts like Glantz and Clark etc. We will discuss this in some detail in next chapter of this short book.
STRATEGIC EVALUATION German victory in France was a great operational success but nothing substantial strategically .
• The British falsely claim that they were the real contenders and opponents of Germany , but factually speaking this is absolute nonsense. • Germany’s real strategic rivals and contenders were the USSR and USA , who were untouched and unaffected by German victory and France.USA and USSR were certainly alarmed , but not affected. • It was Britain which was in great desperation , isolated , without much strategic clout and , strategically irrevelevant. • The most crucial strategic decision in this situation had nothing to do with Britain , as British writers falsely claim,but with the USA. • The most crucial strate...
Mickey Mouse role of the British controlled and created Indian Army in Second World war
October 2... more Mickey Mouse role of the British controlled and created Indian Army in Second World war October 2024 DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.24054.82245 Agha H Amin
If Britain’s role in WW 2 was marginal , Indian role was that of a Mickey Mouse who had near zero influence. Indian role in second world war was much exaggerated by Indo Pak historians. If the hard facts of the war are studied, Indian Army role in the war was near zero and nominal. The biggest index are the fatal casualties .Indians suffered 24,338 fatal casualties in actual battle which comes to 0.24 % of the total second world war casualties. The Burma campaign which has been massively exaggerated by British and Indian writers was actually a marginal affair of second world war. The Japanese firstly did not have any strategic plan to invade India . The late 1943 Japanese invasion of British India was an adventurist gamble of an over ambitious Japanese general , whose perception was totally divorced from the harsh reality of the actual military situation and was bound to fail. In strategic terms Burma campaign did not figure anywhere among the decisive battles of world war two.The real Japanese battles were fought in the Pacific theatre against the USA. Indian casualties in Burma , the much trumpeted theatre of war never exceeded,8500 killed . Indian casualties in North Africa and Italy were even lower.
4th Indian Division involved in heaviest fighting sustained about 3,718 fatal casualties from its induction in WW2 till ceasefire.
Indian Army units were never trusted with tanks in North Africa and Italy barring one unit 13 Lancers which was assigned most secondary roles. Indian units were used in mostly holding roles.
Chinese Role in Second World War
October 2024
DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.10633.04964
Agha H Amin
Chine... more Chinese Role in Second World War October 2024 DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.10633.04964 Agha H Amin
Chinese role in the second world war was heroic and their human cost much heavier than USA, UK , India or Japan , but their influence on the strategic outcome of second world war was very limited .
True that China never actually invaded Japan , but China forced Japan to commit the largest part of its army in fighting against China.In 1945 there were over twenty five Japanese divisions in China whereas Japanese army at its greatest height never exceeded nine divisions in Burma.
Some 1.2 million Japanese troops,were committed to face China in the war. The Japanese lost 396,000 killed in the fighting against China.
China suffered 3.2 million, with more than out which 1.3 million were fatal. The number of Chinese civilian fatal casualties is unknown.
Why China failed to play a decisive role was because Japanese land forces were committed in China , while the real Japanese war was the naval war , with USA . Hence absence of Japanese infantry committed to face Chinese forces , was of no consequence or influence in the Japanese main war with the USA.
China was substantially helped by the USA in surviving the Japanese onslaught during second world war.
In the final stages of the war in 1945 , the Soviet invasion of Manchuria greatly helped China in its war against Japan.
Certainly China’s role in the second world war was not strategically decisive.
Japanese Role in Second World War
October 2024
DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.19441.08801
Agha H Amin
Japa... more Japanese Role in Second World War October 2024 DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.19441.08801 Agha H Amin
Japan’s role in Second World War was most secondary but much overrated ! A primary reason for this were British exaggerations.It is true that Japan’s initial campaigns were very dramatic and unexpected , but there the suspense ended. Japan achieved no major strategic victory although it did capture Burma,Malaya,Indonesia and Philipines. It remained under severe strategic threat of the USA from 1942 and waged a very desperate struggle to blunt US attacks. Its 1943-44 gamble against British India was a massive miscalculation and pre programmed to fail , because of overwhelming British numerical, material and logistic superiority. Japan was pitched against the USA , which was far superior to Japan, numerically , industrially and technically. Japanese were never serious US contenders for victory against USA. It is true that Japan was able to defeat the USA in the initial campaigns of WW 2, but Philippines was, not a strategic victory and winning there had no significant impact to improve Japanese chances of victory. Japanese waged the war fanatically with total disregard for death , but this fanaticism in no way helped them in defeating the Americans. The main issue in the war was which side’s industry produced more aircraft carriers and Japanese industry was no match to the USA , in producing aircraft carriers. The Japanese industry took much longer to build aircraft carriers,the most important weapon of the war as compared to US industry. Thus Japanese cause was doomed after they lost four carriers at battle of Midway. Industrially they could never recover from this loss. The industrial potential of the US armaments industry may be gauged from the fact that during Second World War US industry alone produced some 52% of world wide (including both allies and the axis powers) aircraft production, 36% of all artillery, 48% of all vehicles and 61% of all ship building! In this situation Japan , simply had no chance to win against the USA. The odds against japan were overwhelming.In the west they faced China , which had formidable manpower reserves and was a US ally , armed and supported by the USA and Britain. In Burma , the terrain was simply too adverse and the British Indian army that the Japanese faced was too materially and logistically superior to the Japanese. In the east Japan was pitched against USA and US mainland was too far away and Japanese simply did not possses the potential to attack it. Note that Japan had declared war on the USA and Britain in defensive desperation after they had imposed economic embargo on Japan. In strategic terms the Japanese never came anywhere near strategically challenging or defeating the USA.This was simply impossible because of massive US material superiority. Even in simple land warfare Japanese failed to inflict significant casualties on the Americans. In all the USA suffered round figure of 50,000 fatal casualties against Japanese but suffered over 170,000 fatal casualties against Germans in North Africa and Europe. One may safely conclude that the real strategic contender of the USA was Germany , but here also the most decisive role in defeating Germany was not paid by the USA but by the USSR.
Britains Marginal and much exaggerated Role in Second world war
October 2024
DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.... more Britains Marginal and much exaggerated Role in Second world war October 2024 DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.32024.00005 Agha H Amin
British role in second world war ,was ,most insignificant and inferior at 2.66 percent of total fatal casualties. The brilliant British historian A.J.P Taylor , most accurately ,summed up WW 2 as below :-- ““Soviet Russia did most of the fighting against Germany, sustained nine tenth of the casualties and suffered catastrophic economic losses” while “the Americans made great economic gains and had a trifling number of casualties fighting against Germany” and that "Roosevelt was the only one who knew what he was doing: he made the United States the greatest power in the world at virtually no cost ”. Britain’s back was broken in first world war and Britain was in no position to decide what course , second world war would take. Later popular propaganda massively exaggerated Alamein and Normandy , but the harsh fact remains that these were never the decisive battles , that defeated Germany. The North African campaign , made exaggeratedly famous because of Rommels charisma , was strategically speaking a Mickey mouse affair . North Africa was never a major German war objective , but became famous because Rommel defeated the British repeatedly by tactically superior generalship. Alamein , much trumpeted by the cheap ,British propaganda , was a Mickey mouse battle which just involved two German tank divisions.
Britain’s much exaggerated North African campaign led to no strategic result which could in any way have influenced the outcome of the second world war. North Africa was followed by invasion of Siciliy and Italy which were operational stalemates and had no influence on the final outcome of the second world war. British role in the Burma Campaign was also massively exaggerated. Burma was the western limit of Japanese offensive operations and invading India was never the Japanese objective of WW 2. The much exaggerated (by British) invasion of Burma took place , not because the Japanese state wanted it , but because an over ambitious and unbalanced Japanese general Renya Mutaguchi , whose ideas were opposed by Japanese high command , by over enthusiasm and false reasoning convinced the Japanese high command to agree to his “IMPOSSIBLE” plan to attack Imphal Kohima. The odds which the British Indian Army faced in Burma were never as severe as those faced by the Japanese army fighting against them.Logistically the British were on an extremely sound footing with more than one million Indians maintaining the lines of communication and manning the supply and transport echelons consisting of almost unlimited supplies of American stores and equipment.
On the other hand the Japanese were at the far end of a precarious and almost non existent line of communications comprising more than 600 miles of dirt roads which were almost totally non functional from April May to September due to heavy monsoons. They had extremely limited manpower resources to reinforce their army or to replace their casualties,while Britain had whole of India's vast population of people eager to fight for a monthly salary of thirty or forty rupees minus the comfort girls consisting largely of Korean and Chinese girls, which was perhaps the only advantage the Japanese had over the Indians !
In addition the British had complete air superiority and immense air supply potential thanks to the US aircrafts and could switch or regroup whole divisions from one sector to another hundreds of miles away in just few hours,or could aerially deliver supplies to formations whose line of communications was threatened by the enemy or temporarily disconnected because of adverse weather or terrain . The Japanese had no such luxuries and survived on dry rations without being resupplied for weeks and months.The essential question in Burma was not of fighting prowess or greater valour but of space logistics and terrain,and all three favoured the British Indian Army. Numerically the British Indian Army outnumbered the Japanese by two or three to one as a rule of the thumb in most battles.
The 14th Army which fought the Burma campaign has been called the largest single army in the world.lts battlefront of 700 miles was almost as long as the Russian front in Germany and roughly 700,000 out of the total approximately one million troops of the South East Asia Command under which 14th Army fought were Indian Army troops. The actual battle front over which actual battles were fought was however very short since the terrain was so adverse that few troops could be actively fielded to fight in a highly adverse jungle terrain devoid of any communications.
Casualty wise the Burma campaign was a much smaller affair than the major campaigns of Second World War. In Burma Indians got an opportunity to handle tanks.Thanks to Slim's positive attitude towards Indians and shortage of British replacements Indians were trusted with tanks and the 254 Indian Tank Brigade (Grants and Stuarts) and 255 Indian Tank Brigade(Shermans) were formed.
British share in total fighting in the second world war may be gauged from the fact that Britain lost just 2.66 % , among total allied casualties in the war.
Indian share in fighting was even lower with Indian fatal casualties in fighting being just 0.24 % of the total allied casualties.
If you read the British propaganda filled narratives you start thinking that Germany would have won second world war , if they had defeated Britain.
Nothing can be farther from the truth !
The real German adversary was never Britain but the USSR and the real power behind the USSR was the USA and never Britain .
Second world war would have continued even if Britain had been overrun by Germany , because the decisive theatre was the USSR .
USSR would have defeated Germany even if the allies had not invaded France . Only it would have prolonged the war by two years.
USA invaded North Africa directly without using Britain as a launching pad or base.The whole British claim that USA could not have won the war without British help is a blatant lie.
American Role in Second World war
October 2024
DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.20489.66407
Agha H Amin
The ... more American Role in Second World war October 2024 DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.20489.66407 Agha H Amin
The most crucial and decisive role in defeating Germany was played by the USSR and the USA .British role was marginal , but much exaggerated and falsely magnified. Americans won the war by superior strategy and industrial might , coupled with their invincible geographical location . Geographically it was impossible for Germany or Japan to invade the USA. This eliminated the threat of any direct MILITARY physical threat to the USA. The most crucial USA strength was its financial and industrial might .This was translated into action by the “LEND LEASE” program of president FDR. Lend Lease aid enabled Britain to defeat the Germans in the , North African mickey mouse back water and enabled Britain to defeat Japan in Burma. Maximum lend lease aid was given to Britain which was totally bankrupt in 1941.Britain received 31 Billion USD aid as below :-- USSR received 11.3 Billion USD Dollars as below :-- As the above figures illustrate , Britain received more than double the amount of USSR but hardly did one twentieth of fighting that the USSR did , because Britain was morally and spiritually drained and saved by the natural sea ditch of English Channel. Lend Lease enabled the USSR to defeat Germany in 1943 , 1944 and 1945 , specially the US logistic support in shape of vehicles and fuels. USA direct military role however was not decisive . This was also the US design , because vast bulk of German Army was deployed against the USSR. Land warfare US role was limited and the USA sustained mickey mouse fatal casualties of just 2.94 % in the second world war.This clearly means that direct US military role never exceeded 2.94 % .
RUSSIAS ROLE IN SECOND WORLD WAR AND ITS LIONS SHARE IN FIGHTING AND WINNING THE WAR
October 2024... more RUSSIAS ROLE IN SECOND WORLD WAR AND ITS LIONS SHARE IN FIGHTING AND WINNING THE WAR October 2024 DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.29297.70244 Agha H Amin
BATTLE OF POLAND AND FRANCE-JUDGING WHAT REALLY HAPPENED
October 2024
DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.19231.... more BATTLE OF POLAND AND FRANCE-JUDGING WHAT REALLY HAPPENED October 2024 DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.19231.37280 Agha H Amin
most decisive strategic decision that saved Britain and helped (USSR) Russia in winning the secon... more most decisive strategic decision that saved Britain and helped (USSR) Russia in winning the second world war October 2024 DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.30975.42402 Agha H Amin
second world war history as written by west europeans is a highly dubious and subjective affair
O... more second world war history as written by west europeans is a highly dubious and subjective affair October 2024 DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.15037.06888 Agha H Amin
Pakistans grand strategic failures-This is a 2013 assessment , but it has become prophetic in 202... more Pakistans grand strategic failures-This is a 2013 assessment , but it has become prophetic in 2022. When published in 2013 this book was much ridiculed and criticized by Pakistanis. In 2022 sadly all the assessments made in this book in 2013 are the ABSOLUTE TRUTH.
Chinese Intelligence chief on Afghan Border five months before Soviet invasion
October 2024
DOI: ... more Chinese Intelligence chief on Afghan Border five months before Soviet invasion October 2024 DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.13768.94729 Agha H Amin
NOTE ADDRESSED TO JEMADAR TAJ MOHAMMAD KHAN OF 8TH CAVALRY ON COMPLETION OF 28 YEARS SERVICE ON H... more NOTE ADDRESSED TO JEMADAR TAJ MOHAMMAD KHAN OF 8TH CAVALRY ON COMPLETION OF 28 YEARS SERVICE ON HIS RETIREMENT BY COMMANDING OFFICER 8TH CAVALRY -18TH SEPTEMBER 1920 October 2024 DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.11933.93926 Agha H Amin
JEMADAR TAJ MOHAMMAD KHAN OF 8TH CAVALRY AS A SOWAR BEFORE FIRST WORLD WAR
October 2024
DOI: 10.1... more JEMADAR TAJ MOHAMMAD KHAN OF 8TH CAVALRY AS A SOWAR BEFORE FIRST WORLD WAR October 2024 DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.16337.95840 Agha H Amin
REGRET YOUR HUSBAND KILLLED IN ACTION ON 16 DECEMBER 1971
October 2024
DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.28082... more REGRET YOUR HUSBAND KILLLED IN ACTION ON 16 DECEMBER 1971 October 2024 DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.28082.00961 Agha H Amin
Adina Beg , Lahore decadent and hopeless ,
Sir Michael O Dwyer , and the IMF
IMF CREDIBILITY ALS... more Adina Beg , Lahore decadent and hopeless , Sir Michael O Dwyer , and the IMF
IMF CREDIBILITY ALSO HIGHLY DUBIOUS AS ITS ROLE IN OVERSEEING PAKISTANI STATE ASSETS PRIVATISATION PROVES
Major A.H Amin (Retired)
Adina Beg , Lahore decadent and hopeless , Sir Michael O Dwyer , and the IMF IMF CREDIBILITY ALSO HIGHLY DUBIOUS AS ITS ROLE IN OVERSEEING PAKISTANI STATE ASSETS PRIVATISATION PROVES • October 2024 • DOI: • 10.13140/RG.2.2.11668.51846 • Agha H Amin
The credit for handing over the provinces of Lahore and Multan ,to Hindu Marathas, squarely, belongs to an Arain , from Sharqpur, near Lahore , Adina Beg . Without doubt a great service to the cause of Islam in Indo Pak history . So much for the illustrious traditions of people from Lahore and surrounding country.
Khan Bahadur Latif Qureshi of Baghbanpura , father of late Omar Shafi (Friday Times) my grandfathers dearest friend from New Delhi where my grandfather (family went to Delhi from Rawalpindi in 1902 for government service) was serving in ministry of Defence and Qureshi sahib in the Viceroy house. When partition took place , Qureshi sahib, came to his ancestral town Lahore , but found it pathetically depressing and missed New Delhi , as his many letters to my grandfather revealed ! My grandfather had taken the ministry of Defence to Rawalpindi , alongwith his senior and dearest friend Wing Commander Milroy Hayes of the RAF !
It is a historic fact that the great writer Saadat Hassan Manto , worshipped in Bombay , as a great literary icon, died of depression when he migrated to Lahore.
Sir Michael Odwyer , was disgusted with Lahore’s pathetic performance in first world war and in a speech , probably at Kasur , stated that , Lahore was so pathetic in the war effort , that after the war he would transfer the capital of Punjab to Kasur !
Sadly , the IMF , seems to love Lahore or the rulers of Pakistan from Lahore . A dangerous parallel , exists , where the Hindu Marathas loved the Mughal governor Adina Beg from Lahore (Sharqpur nearby).
The IMF , is notoriously famous for being a , petty , super power tool , which employs, “Soft Power” to , weaken and sometimes breaks countries.
When my brother was studying in a famous and respected American ,Clark university at Worcester ,Massachussets , there was a complete course in his B.A syllabus , dealing with controversial and ulterior role of the International Monetary Fund. And yet we in Pakistan have raised IMF to the level of God !
I am a pensioner and I don’t own any property in Pakistan. Not even a bicycle . My pension is about 100 USD . Yet every day we hear a man from Lahore , an Arain by coincidence ,like Adina Beg , threatening , people , that he would put them in jail if they don’t file income tax return ! My national bank manager told me that Pakistan’s tax collection authorities will close bank accounts of pensioners who don’t file income tax return !
What alternative do poor pensioners have if this character imported from Holland closes account of poor pensioners drawing about 32,000 Rupees ! We will be left with no choice but to migrate to Afghanistan ,Iran or even India !
IMF dealings in Pakistan by and large are questionable and dubious.One recent example is privatization of Islamabad airport, as the link below shows:---
IMF CREDIBILITY ALSO HIGHLY DUBIOUS AS ITS ROLE IN OVERSEEING PAKISTANI STATE ASSETS PRIVATISATION PROVES
Govt outsources Islamabad airport to ‘favoured’ bidder Other consortium claims arbitrary exclusion from bidding process
DAULAT KHAN BHATTI , IMPRESSIVE PHSIQUE , FAMOUS FOR BRAGGING BUT IRRESOLUTE AND CORRUPT SURRENDE... more DAULAT KHAN BHATTI , IMPRESSIVE PHSIQUE , FAMOUS FOR BRAGGING BUT IRRESOLUTE AND CORRUPT SURRENDERS KANDAHAR TO THE PERSIANS ON 11 FEBRUARY 1649 October 2024 DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.36414.91206 Agha H Amin
Social Media Platforms like LinkedIn too politically correct and biased
October 2024
DOI: 10.1314... more Social Media Platforms like LinkedIn too politically correct and biased October 2024 DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.22180.49280 Agha H Amin
I have been a member of LinkedIn since about 2010. Groups I created exceed 8000 members and one group has over 13,000 members.
By and large linkedin has been an unethical and controversial platform :---
• Their financial dealings are unethical. In one instance they charged me over 400 USD . • It has been reported by many reputed members that Linkedin is poorly staffed , having low paid , rudimentary educated employees and has been banning members over trivial matters. • It has been reported by many members that linkedin is unethically using members Identification documents , which it claims to collect , on pretext of verifying them. • Recently they blocked a US veteran Kurt Bergstrom personally known to me , with some totally minor pretext. • Quality of discussion on linkedin is extremely low and it appears that about half the members on linkedin , are fictitious BOTs. • As a job search platform Linkedin has “ZERO UTILITY”, and most job seekers I know report “ZERO RESULTS” , of success with linkedin. • Linkedin is notorious for bombarding members with mails insisting that they subscribe to paid memberships. • Linkedin is notorious in red flagging content , but the poster , whose content is red flagged , cannot even see , which content was RED FLAGGED. • One can write a book on LINKEDIN FAILURES ,and LINKEDIN SCAMS , but this is just an introduction.
Clausewitz summarised with examples from military history, 2024
TOTALLY FALSE CLAIM OF INDIAN OFFICIAL HISTORY THAT, PAKISTANS 23 DIVISION COMMANDER, THROUGH CON... more TOTALLY FALSE CLAIM OF INDIAN OFFICIAL HISTORY THAT, PAKISTANS 23 DIVISION COMMANDER, THROUGH CONSTANT PROBING, HAD DISCOVERED ,THAT ONLY A DUMMY MINEFIELD, EXISTED IN FRONT OF 5 ASSAM POSITION.
How Luck or Chance aided 23 Divisions Chak Pandit attack in Chhamb
Pakistani tank attack from the south on 6th December 1971 5th December saw 23 Division failing miserably at Mandala complex because general Eftikhar and his staff failed to appreciate the crucial significance of Mandala South which 23 Division could have captured on night 4th 15th December 1971. The greatest character attribute of general Eftikhar was inexhaustible resolution and persistence While his failure opposite Mandala, was more due to his own mental blocks and his staff's failure to track and control the divisions lower formation, 66 Brigade being the most notoriously cowardly led brigade,rather than enemy resistance, Eftikhar decided to regroup and attack from the south. This was the most brilliant decision of general Eftikhar . But to brilliance , we must add a factor known as "chance" or "luck" . How the direction of attack was chosen?
Many histories ,most significant being Indian official history of 1971 war including Praval etc, falsely claim that a minefield gap between Jhanda and Barsala had been discovered by Pakistan's 23 Division.This was an absolutely false claim as proven by the most credible Pakistani account written by colonel saeed of 23 Division.
Saeed stated that general Eftikhar wanted to attack from the direction of far south i.e the new Pakistani attack thrust originating from the area between Dhau Sirhali and Barila However when his staff pointed out that,the distance of the tank march was too long to cover in one night , general Eftikhar reduced it and selected Bakan , as the launching point , for the 2 Armoured Brigade thrust towards Chak Pandit.
October 2024 DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.18549.79841 Agha H Amin
Second World War -A Strategic Summary
October 2024
DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.10266.04809
Agha H Amin
... more Second World War -A Strategic Summary October 2024 DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.10266.04809 Agha H Amin
Second World War -A Strategic Summary • October 2024 • DOI: • 10.13140/RG.2.2.10266.04809 • Agha H Amin
Second world war history has always been subject to massive exaggerations and white washes, unduly presenting, a particular state’s role as most decisive and more heroic than any other state.
This short book aims at reaching the harsh , but hard truth , by actually , placing the actual , material odds , and the tangible numerical facts of the war , in perspective.
There are two ways to judge a campaign or a battle . The number of formations or divisions involved and the number of fatal casualties suffered. These two factors are the most accurate gauge of judging a battle or a campaign.
When we read books by western authors , the above mentioned issues are hoodwinked and camouflaged , while heavy sounding , pedantic , analysis is employed to glorify , what Britain or the USA did .
However , the critical reader can judge the scenario , very clearly , if he digs into the facts of a battle or a campaign , particularly , size of forces involved and the casualties suffered.
In order to understand , second world war, the first world war, has to be broadly understood.
The character of the war’s main actors in first world war has to be understood :--
France:-- France was not overrun by the Germans in first world war but was the principal battle ground of first world war. France and Britain had been bled white on the battlefields of France in first world war.France was saved first by British Army’s arrival in France , but more importantly by the American arrival in France in 1917. More than US Army , it waUS military and financial aid that saved Britain and France in first world war.
Britain:-- Britain’s entry on French side and arrival of British forces including commonwealth forces saved France in the first three years of first world war , but by 1917 both Britain and France were unable to make the decisive difference. They were saved by US intervention and massive US economic and military aid.Britain’s navy played a most decisive role in economic blockade of Germany , but the harsh fact that it was US entry in first world war that turned the tables cannot be denied.
United States of America :-- USAs entry in first world war , tipped the balance against Imperial Germany and led to the final German defeat in First World War.Churchill admitted in 1936 that , if USA had not entered the war in 1917 , Britain and France would have made peace with Germany without completely defeating the Germans.
Russia:-- Russia also played a major role in Germany’s defeat by forcing the Germans to deploy some eighty divisions on the Eastern front. However the true Russian contribution in first world war was snidely hijacked by western historians, who unjustly claimed all the glory of defeating Imperial Germany. Ludendorf admitted that the USA “became the deciding factor in the war”.
Britain and France were not enthusiastic to fight the fast rising Nazi Germany in the years preceeding second world war and had made best efforts to appease Nazi Germany.
USSR in the east was a much reformed and , much stronger player than Czarist Russia , and the main cause of German concerns in any future war.
The USA had been practicing an isolationist policy since 1918 , but FDR ,the president of USA viewed Nazi Germany, as the most serious potential geopolitical , strategic threat to the USA.
In the final analysis as we discuss , it was this perception held by FDR , which led to his decision to support USSR and Britain by the Lend Lease program, which saved Britain and USSR in the second world war.
We hear much chatter about US Lend Lease aid to the USSR , but British writers always downplay the fact that British commonwealth received 31 Billion US Dollars aid in Len Lease scheme , whereas USSR just received just something over 11 Billion US dollars.
In other words , US role in saving Britain in second world war was far more crucial than US role in saving the USSR !
Such is the British intellectual dishonesty , that the very term “LEND LEASE” , finds no place, as an “Index entry” in major military works by Liddell Hart and J.F.C Fuller ! If any one is intellectually honest to admit the true significance of the US “Lend Lease” scheme , it is the German side !
President FDR of the USA was of the firm conviction that it was in absolute strategic interest of the USA to assist both Britain and USSR with the “Lend Lease” Scheme.
“Lend Lease” scheme was the most decisive strategic decision of the second world war.
Polish Campaign Keeping in view German superiority in tanks and organisation of tanks Polish defeat was a foregone conclusion.
The most lesson that the Germans learnt in Poland was , that tanks must avoid built up areas. 4th Panzer Division lost 57 out of 120 tanks in one days battle against Poles in built up area.
Britain and France declared war on Germany on 3rd September 1939 ,but the French shamelessly did nothing although they had 85 divisions facing just 33 German divisions out of which 25 divisions had poorly trained reservist units. French musketeers lost 1,433 casualties in this war called phoney war which lasted for eight months. Norway and Denmark Wars These were minor affairs in terms of troops involved and casualties. In Norway Germans lost 2,375 killed in ground operations and 2,375 at sea.Allies lost 2500 killed at sea and 1,869 in land operations.The more serious cost for Germans was the fact that they had to deploy 300,000 troops to guard Norway against future allied attacks till 1945. Denmark was an even more mickey mouse affair. Copenhagen was captured by just 1400 German soldiers , with just 56 casualties.Ironically future allied air raids killed 4,000 Danish civilians. The Danish had a strong ultra right element and 11,200 Danish fought as part of the Nordland Division against the USSR, sustaining 2,500 fatal casualties. France This was the first decisive campaign of second world war , and most crucial , as this led Hitler to draw the wrong lessons. Germans won it by fluke.
Tangibly all the major material factors stood against the Germans , but Germans defeated Britain and France because of superior doctrine and organisation.
Tangibly there was no reason why the Germans should have won ! 136 German divisions faced 149 allied divisions.
Their opponents however were phenomenally dumb at the doctrinal and organisation level !
Germans had 2,700 armoured fighting vehicles against 3000 allied armoured vehicles.
The Germans however won because their doctrine , and thus their resultant organisation was superior. Their tanks were concentrated in armoured divisions and corps while French and British tanks were distributed in penny packets.
In airpower Germans were superior having plus 2,000 bombers against the Allied 800 and 4,000 fighters against 2,500.
In 1940 out of 2,285 tanks the three French Armoured Divisions had just 468 tanks. To further compound this organizational disaster the French Armoured Divisions were haphazardly dispersed.
France was conquered at a low human cost by the Germans, when you compare their losses with first world war battles.
German victory in France was a fluke. Neither German General Staff , nor Hitler expected such a decisive victory.
Even Guderian as per German post surrender debriefings called the Ardennes plan a crime against his panzers.
Hitler was not trained as an officer.This led to various pros and cons.The biggest positive factor was that Hitler was open to new ideas and reform , like it was Hitler who accepted the concept of Blitzkrieg , while whole German Army high command was against it.
The negative part of Hitler was his inability to see the larger picture.The most unexpected victory in France led Hitler to the “fatally dangerous conclusion” that German Army could also knowck out USSR , like France.
Hitler failed to understand that the frontages and logistics were almost 15 times larger than France and ,German Army was simply not capable of repeating its French campaign performance in Russia.
As this map above illustrates, the frontages on which German tank formations advanced were extremely small as compared to Russia, that is 100 km versus 1600 Km .
Hitler has been much praised for his intuition and his revolutionary decision to accept Guderians ideas about concentrating tanks , and accepting the 1940 Manstein plan. But here his ranker greatness ended .
The conclusions that Hitler drew about how he would repeat German tanks , French performance in Russia were disastorous conceptually and German failure in Russia in 1941 was a foregone conclusion.
The callously criminal way , in which Hitler diluted and reduced his tank formations in Russia was discussed in detail by Liddell Hart and Albert Seaton , the only two truthful westerners, who wrote about the Russo German war. This dilution has been hoodwinked and intellectually dishonestly ignored by later self styled western experts like Glantz and Clark etc. We will discuss this in some detail in next chapter of this short book.
STRATEGIC EVALUATION German victory in France was a great operational success but nothing substantial strategically .
• The British falsely claim that they were the real contenders and opponents of Germany , but factually speaking this is absolute nonsense. • Germany’s real strategic rivals and contenders were the USSR and USA , who were untouched and unaffected by German victory and France.USA and USSR were certainly alarmed , but not affected. • It was Britain which was in great desperation , isolated , without much strategic clout and , strategically irrevelevant. • The most crucial strategic decision in this situation had nothing to do with Britain , as British writers falsely claim,but with the USA. • The most crucial strate...
Mickey Mouse role of the British controlled and created Indian Army in Second World war
October 2... more Mickey Mouse role of the British controlled and created Indian Army in Second World war October 2024 DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.24054.82245 Agha H Amin
If Britain’s role in WW 2 was marginal , Indian role was that of a Mickey Mouse who had near zero influence. Indian role in second world war was much exaggerated by Indo Pak historians. If the hard facts of the war are studied, Indian Army role in the war was near zero and nominal. The biggest index are the fatal casualties .Indians suffered 24,338 fatal casualties in actual battle which comes to 0.24 % of the total second world war casualties. The Burma campaign which has been massively exaggerated by British and Indian writers was actually a marginal affair of second world war. The Japanese firstly did not have any strategic plan to invade India . The late 1943 Japanese invasion of British India was an adventurist gamble of an over ambitious Japanese general , whose perception was totally divorced from the harsh reality of the actual military situation and was bound to fail. In strategic terms Burma campaign did not figure anywhere among the decisive battles of world war two.The real Japanese battles were fought in the Pacific theatre against the USA. Indian casualties in Burma , the much trumpeted theatre of war never exceeded,8500 killed . Indian casualties in North Africa and Italy were even lower.
4th Indian Division involved in heaviest fighting sustained about 3,718 fatal casualties from its induction in WW2 till ceasefire.
Indian Army units were never trusted with tanks in North Africa and Italy barring one unit 13 Lancers which was assigned most secondary roles. Indian units were used in mostly holding roles.
Chinese Role in Second World War
October 2024
DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.10633.04964
Agha H Amin
Chine... more Chinese Role in Second World War October 2024 DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.10633.04964 Agha H Amin
Chinese role in the second world war was heroic and their human cost much heavier than USA, UK , India or Japan , but their influence on the strategic outcome of second world war was very limited .
True that China never actually invaded Japan , but China forced Japan to commit the largest part of its army in fighting against China.In 1945 there were over twenty five Japanese divisions in China whereas Japanese army at its greatest height never exceeded nine divisions in Burma.
Some 1.2 million Japanese troops,were committed to face China in the war. The Japanese lost 396,000 killed in the fighting against China.
China suffered 3.2 million, with more than out which 1.3 million were fatal. The number of Chinese civilian fatal casualties is unknown.
Why China failed to play a decisive role was because Japanese land forces were committed in China , while the real Japanese war was the naval war , with USA . Hence absence of Japanese infantry committed to face Chinese forces , was of no consequence or influence in the Japanese main war with the USA.
China was substantially helped by the USA in surviving the Japanese onslaught during second world war.
In the final stages of the war in 1945 , the Soviet invasion of Manchuria greatly helped China in its war against Japan.
Certainly China’s role in the second world war was not strategically decisive.
Japanese Role in Second World War
October 2024
DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.19441.08801
Agha H Amin
Japa... more Japanese Role in Second World War October 2024 DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.19441.08801 Agha H Amin
Japan’s role in Second World War was most secondary but much overrated ! A primary reason for this were British exaggerations.It is true that Japan’s initial campaigns were very dramatic and unexpected , but there the suspense ended. Japan achieved no major strategic victory although it did capture Burma,Malaya,Indonesia and Philipines. It remained under severe strategic threat of the USA from 1942 and waged a very desperate struggle to blunt US attacks. Its 1943-44 gamble against British India was a massive miscalculation and pre programmed to fail , because of overwhelming British numerical, material and logistic superiority. Japan was pitched against the USA , which was far superior to Japan, numerically , industrially and technically. Japanese were never serious US contenders for victory against USA. It is true that Japan was able to defeat the USA in the initial campaigns of WW 2, but Philippines was, not a strategic victory and winning there had no significant impact to improve Japanese chances of victory. Japanese waged the war fanatically with total disregard for death , but this fanaticism in no way helped them in defeating the Americans. The main issue in the war was which side’s industry produced more aircraft carriers and Japanese industry was no match to the USA , in producing aircraft carriers. The Japanese industry took much longer to build aircraft carriers,the most important weapon of the war as compared to US industry. Thus Japanese cause was doomed after they lost four carriers at battle of Midway. Industrially they could never recover from this loss. The industrial potential of the US armaments industry may be gauged from the fact that during Second World War US industry alone produced some 52% of world wide (including both allies and the axis powers) aircraft production, 36% of all artillery, 48% of all vehicles and 61% of all ship building! In this situation Japan , simply had no chance to win against the USA. The odds against japan were overwhelming.In the west they faced China , which had formidable manpower reserves and was a US ally , armed and supported by the USA and Britain. In Burma , the terrain was simply too adverse and the British Indian army that the Japanese faced was too materially and logistically superior to the Japanese. In the east Japan was pitched against USA and US mainland was too far away and Japanese simply did not possses the potential to attack it. Note that Japan had declared war on the USA and Britain in defensive desperation after they had imposed economic embargo on Japan. In strategic terms the Japanese never came anywhere near strategically challenging or defeating the USA.This was simply impossible because of massive US material superiority. Even in simple land warfare Japanese failed to inflict significant casualties on the Americans. In all the USA suffered round figure of 50,000 fatal casualties against Japanese but suffered over 170,000 fatal casualties against Germans in North Africa and Europe. One may safely conclude that the real strategic contender of the USA was Germany , but here also the most decisive role in defeating Germany was not paid by the USA but by the USSR.
Britains Marginal and much exaggerated Role in Second world war
October 2024
DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.... more Britains Marginal and much exaggerated Role in Second world war October 2024 DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.32024.00005 Agha H Amin
British role in second world war ,was ,most insignificant and inferior at 2.66 percent of total fatal casualties. The brilliant British historian A.J.P Taylor , most accurately ,summed up WW 2 as below :-- ““Soviet Russia did most of the fighting against Germany, sustained nine tenth of the casualties and suffered catastrophic economic losses” while “the Americans made great economic gains and had a trifling number of casualties fighting against Germany” and that "Roosevelt was the only one who knew what he was doing: he made the United States the greatest power in the world at virtually no cost ”. Britain’s back was broken in first world war and Britain was in no position to decide what course , second world war would take. Later popular propaganda massively exaggerated Alamein and Normandy , but the harsh fact remains that these were never the decisive battles , that defeated Germany. The North African campaign , made exaggeratedly famous because of Rommels charisma , was strategically speaking a Mickey mouse affair . North Africa was never a major German war objective , but became famous because Rommel defeated the British repeatedly by tactically superior generalship. Alamein , much trumpeted by the cheap ,British propaganda , was a Mickey mouse battle which just involved two German tank divisions.
Britain’s much exaggerated North African campaign led to no strategic result which could in any way have influenced the outcome of the second world war. North Africa was followed by invasion of Siciliy and Italy which were operational stalemates and had no influence on the final outcome of the second world war. British role in the Burma Campaign was also massively exaggerated. Burma was the western limit of Japanese offensive operations and invading India was never the Japanese objective of WW 2. The much exaggerated (by British) invasion of Burma took place , not because the Japanese state wanted it , but because an over ambitious and unbalanced Japanese general Renya Mutaguchi , whose ideas were opposed by Japanese high command , by over enthusiasm and false reasoning convinced the Japanese high command to agree to his “IMPOSSIBLE” plan to attack Imphal Kohima. The odds which the British Indian Army faced in Burma were never as severe as those faced by the Japanese army fighting against them.Logistically the British were on an extremely sound footing with more than one million Indians maintaining the lines of communication and manning the supply and transport echelons consisting of almost unlimited supplies of American stores and equipment.
On the other hand the Japanese were at the far end of a precarious and almost non existent line of communications comprising more than 600 miles of dirt roads which were almost totally non functional from April May to September due to heavy monsoons. They had extremely limited manpower resources to reinforce their army or to replace their casualties,while Britain had whole of India's vast population of people eager to fight for a monthly salary of thirty or forty rupees minus the comfort girls consisting largely of Korean and Chinese girls, which was perhaps the only advantage the Japanese had over the Indians !
In addition the British had complete air superiority and immense air supply potential thanks to the US aircrafts and could switch or regroup whole divisions from one sector to another hundreds of miles away in just few hours,or could aerially deliver supplies to formations whose line of communications was threatened by the enemy or temporarily disconnected because of adverse weather or terrain . The Japanese had no such luxuries and survived on dry rations without being resupplied for weeks and months.The essential question in Burma was not of fighting prowess or greater valour but of space logistics and terrain,and all three favoured the British Indian Army. Numerically the British Indian Army outnumbered the Japanese by two or three to one as a rule of the thumb in most battles.
The 14th Army which fought the Burma campaign has been called the largest single army in the world.lts battlefront of 700 miles was almost as long as the Russian front in Germany and roughly 700,000 out of the total approximately one million troops of the South East Asia Command under which 14th Army fought were Indian Army troops. The actual battle front over which actual battles were fought was however very short since the terrain was so adverse that few troops could be actively fielded to fight in a highly adverse jungle terrain devoid of any communications.
Casualty wise the Burma campaign was a much smaller affair than the major campaigns of Second World War. In Burma Indians got an opportunity to handle tanks.Thanks to Slim's positive attitude towards Indians and shortage of British replacements Indians were trusted with tanks and the 254 Indian Tank Brigade (Grants and Stuarts) and 255 Indian Tank Brigade(Shermans) were formed.
British share in total fighting in the second world war may be gauged from the fact that Britain lost just 2.66 % , among total allied casualties in the war.
Indian share in fighting was even lower with Indian fatal casualties in fighting being just 0.24 % of the total allied casualties.
If you read the British propaganda filled narratives you start thinking that Germany would have won second world war , if they had defeated Britain.
Nothing can be farther from the truth !
The real German adversary was never Britain but the USSR and the real power behind the USSR was the USA and never Britain .
Second world war would have continued even if Britain had been overrun by Germany , because the decisive theatre was the USSR .
USSR would have defeated Germany even if the allies had not invaded France . Only it would have prolonged the war by two years.
USA invaded North Africa directly without using Britain as a launching pad or base.The whole British claim that USA could not have won the war without British help is a blatant lie.
American Role in Second World war
October 2024
DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.20489.66407
Agha H Amin
The ... more American Role in Second World war October 2024 DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.20489.66407 Agha H Amin
The most crucial and decisive role in defeating Germany was played by the USSR and the USA .British role was marginal , but much exaggerated and falsely magnified. Americans won the war by superior strategy and industrial might , coupled with their invincible geographical location . Geographically it was impossible for Germany or Japan to invade the USA. This eliminated the threat of any direct MILITARY physical threat to the USA. The most crucial USA strength was its financial and industrial might .This was translated into action by the “LEND LEASE” program of president FDR. Lend Lease aid enabled Britain to defeat the Germans in the , North African mickey mouse back water and enabled Britain to defeat Japan in Burma. Maximum lend lease aid was given to Britain which was totally bankrupt in 1941.Britain received 31 Billion USD aid as below :-- USSR received 11.3 Billion USD Dollars as below :-- As the above figures illustrate , Britain received more than double the amount of USSR but hardly did one twentieth of fighting that the USSR did , because Britain was morally and spiritually drained and saved by the natural sea ditch of English Channel. Lend Lease enabled the USSR to defeat Germany in 1943 , 1944 and 1945 , specially the US logistic support in shape of vehicles and fuels. USA direct military role however was not decisive . This was also the US design , because vast bulk of German Army was deployed against the USSR. Land warfare US role was limited and the USA sustained mickey mouse fatal casualties of just 2.94 % in the second world war.This clearly means that direct US military role never exceeded 2.94 % .
RUSSIAS ROLE IN SECOND WORLD WAR AND ITS LIONS SHARE IN FIGHTING AND WINNING THE WAR
October 2024... more RUSSIAS ROLE IN SECOND WORLD WAR AND ITS LIONS SHARE IN FIGHTING AND WINNING THE WAR October 2024 DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.29297.70244 Agha H Amin
BATTLE OF POLAND AND FRANCE-JUDGING WHAT REALLY HAPPENED
October 2024
DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.19231.... more BATTLE OF POLAND AND FRANCE-JUDGING WHAT REALLY HAPPENED October 2024 DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.19231.37280 Agha H Amin
most decisive strategic decision that saved Britain and helped (USSR) Russia in winning the secon... more most decisive strategic decision that saved Britain and helped (USSR) Russia in winning the second world war October 2024 DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.30975.42402 Agha H Amin
second world war history as written by west europeans is a highly dubious and subjective affair
O... more second world war history as written by west europeans is a highly dubious and subjective affair October 2024 DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.15037.06888 Agha H Amin
Pakistans grand strategic failures-This is a 2013 assessment , but it has become prophetic in 202... more Pakistans grand strategic failures-This is a 2013 assessment , but it has become prophetic in 2022. When published in 2013 this book was much ridiculed and criticized by Pakistanis. In 2022 sadly all the assessments made in this book in 2013 are the ABSOLUTE TRUTH.
Chinese Intelligence chief on Afghan Border five months before Soviet invasion
October 2024
DOI: ... more Chinese Intelligence chief on Afghan Border five months before Soviet invasion October 2024 DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.13768.94729 Agha H Amin
NOTE ADDRESSED TO JEMADAR TAJ MOHAMMAD KHAN OF 8TH CAVALRY ON COMPLETION OF 28 YEARS SERVICE ON H... more NOTE ADDRESSED TO JEMADAR TAJ MOHAMMAD KHAN OF 8TH CAVALRY ON COMPLETION OF 28 YEARS SERVICE ON HIS RETIREMENT BY COMMANDING OFFICER 8TH CAVALRY -18TH SEPTEMBER 1920 October 2024 DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.11933.93926 Agha H Amin
JEMADAR TAJ MOHAMMAD KHAN OF 8TH CAVALRY AS A SOWAR BEFORE FIRST WORLD WAR
October 2024
DOI: 10.1... more JEMADAR TAJ MOHAMMAD KHAN OF 8TH CAVALRY AS A SOWAR BEFORE FIRST WORLD WAR October 2024 DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.16337.95840 Agha H Amin
REGRET YOUR HUSBAND KILLLED IN ACTION ON 16 DECEMBER 1971
October 2024
DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.28082... more REGRET YOUR HUSBAND KILLLED IN ACTION ON 16 DECEMBER 1971 October 2024 DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.28082.00961 Agha H Amin
SULAIMANKE - SITUATION ON MORNING 12 SEPTEMBER 1965 January 2022 DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.17536.71682... more SULAIMANKE - SITUATION ON MORNING 12 SEPTEMBER 1965 January 2022 DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.17536.71682 Project: MILITARY HISTORY Agha H Amin
PETER THE NOT SO GREAT IS SURROUNDED • November 2021 • DOI:10.13140/RG.2.2.23014.55367 • Project:... more PETER THE NOT SO GREAT IS SURROUNDED • November 2021 • DOI:10.13140/RG.2.2.23014.55367 • Project: • MILITARY HISTORY • Agha H Amin
A CIA which cannot do its real job and fabricates and churns sensational reports about killing no... more A CIA which cannot do its real job and fabricates and churns sensational reports about killing non entities November 2020 DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.34031.46249 Project: How History Moves Agha H Amin
Gunners were tall mostly over 6 feet as old guns required considerable man handling and the Briti... more Gunners were tall mostly over 6 feet as old guns required considerable man handling and the British were very particular about their gunners in British Indian army • February 2021 Gunners were tall mostly over 6 feet as old guns required considerable man handling and the British were very particular about their gunners in British Indian army February 2021 DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.19085.05602 Project: Military History Agha H Amin
ONE OF THE FIRST INDO PAK PILOTS TO BREAK THE SOUND BARRIER November 2020 DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.32... more ONE OF THE FIRST INDO PAK PILOTS TO BREAK THE SOUND BARRIER November 2020 DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.32838.70726 Project: How History Moves Agha H AminAgha H Amin
Can India and Pakistan make peace October 2011 DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.32698.41922 Project: MILITARY... more Can India and Pakistan make peace October 2011 DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.32698.41922 Project: MILITARY HISTORY Agha H Amin
Ambushed in Bolan-Baluchistan Military Review Ambushed in Bolan-Baluchistan Military Review May 2... more Ambushed in Bolan-Baluchistan Military Review Ambushed in Bolan-Baluchistan Military Review May 2020 DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.14243.48163 Project: MILITARY HISTORY Agha H Amin
failed jihad at constantinople September 2020 DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.28546.91849 Project: How Histo... more failed jihad at constantinople September 2020 DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.28546.91849 Project: How History Moves Agha H Amin
AFGHAN WAR ISI ,MI , CMI AND MAJOR GENERAL HAMID GUL AFGHAN WAR ISI ,MI , CMI AND MAJOR GENERAL H... more AFGHAN WAR ISI ,MI , CMI AND MAJOR GENERAL HAMID GUL AFGHAN WAR ISI ,MI , CMI AND MAJOR GENERAL HAMID GUL July 2012 DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.28533.52963 Project: MILITARY HISTORY Agha H AminAgha H Amin
ABU DHABI AIRPORT DRONE ATTACK A USA AIR DEFENCE FAILURE
January 2022
DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.32832.... more ABU DHABI AIRPORT DRONE ATTACK A USA AIR DEFENCE FAILURE January 2022 DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.32832.66565 Project: MILITARY HISTORY Agha H Amin
#sikhs #ambush #general #Gough at #ramnaggar
February 2021
DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.31589.32483
Proje... more #sikhs #ambush #general #Gough at #ramnaggar February 2021 DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.31589.32483 Project: Military History Agha H AminAgha H Amin
CRIMINALLY BAD MILITARY HISTORY
December 2020
DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.33536.25603
Project: How Histo... more CRIMINALLY BAD MILITARY HISTORY December 2020 DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.33536.25603 Project: How History Moves Agha H Amin
TOP CLASS BOOK ON US POLITICAL CORRUPTION AND VIETNAM WAR
corruption has always won in history
... more TOP CLASS BOOK ON US POLITICAL CORRUPTION AND VIETNAM WAR
corruption has always won in history
TO BUILD AS WELL AS DESTROY
Author Gawthorpe Andrew Publisher: Cornell University Press, PUBLISHED IN 2018 ISBN:9781501709456, ISBN:1501709453 ISBN:9781501712098 , ISBN:1501712098 ISBN:9781501712807 ,ISBN:1501712802
COVID 19 SHOWS THE STATES CHARACTER AT ITS LOWEST DEPTH AND REAL FACE OF MODERN STATES
November 2... more COVID 19 SHOWS THE STATES CHARACTER AT ITS LOWEST DEPTH AND REAL FACE OF MODERN STATES November 2020 DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.15386.47048 Project: Military History Agha H Amin
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Sir Michael O Dwyer , and the IMF
IMF CREDIBILITY ALSO HIGHLY DUBIOUS AS ITS ROLE IN OVERSEEING PAKISTANI STATE ASSETS PRIVATISATION PROVES
Major A.H Amin (Retired)
Adina Beg , Lahore decadent and hopeless , Sir Michael O Dwyer , and the IMF IMF CREDIBILITY ALSO HIGHLY DUBIOUS AS ITS ROLE IN OVERSEEING PAKISTANI STATE ASSETS PRIVATISATION PROVES
• October 2024
• DOI:
• 10.13140/RG.2.2.11668.51846
• Agha H Amin
The credit for handing over the provinces of Lahore and Multan ,to Hindu Marathas, squarely, belongs to an Arain , from Sharqpur, near Lahore , Adina Beg . Without doubt a great service to the cause of Islam in Indo Pak history . So much for the illustrious traditions of people from Lahore and surrounding country.
Khan Bahadur Latif Qureshi of Baghbanpura , father of late Omar Shafi (Friday Times) my grandfathers dearest friend from New Delhi where my grandfather (family went to Delhi from Rawalpindi in 1902 for government service) was serving in ministry of Defence and Qureshi sahib in the Viceroy house. When partition took place , Qureshi sahib, came to his ancestral town Lahore , but found it pathetically depressing and missed New Delhi , as his many letters to my grandfather revealed ! My grandfather had taken the ministry of Defence to Rawalpindi , alongwith his senior and dearest friend Wing Commander Milroy Hayes of the RAF !
It is a historic fact that the great writer Saadat Hassan Manto , worshipped in Bombay , as a great literary icon, died of depression when he migrated to Lahore.
Sir Michael Odwyer , was disgusted with Lahore’s pathetic performance in first world war and in a speech , probably at Kasur , stated that , Lahore was so pathetic in the war effort , that after the war he would transfer the capital of Punjab to Kasur !
Sadly , the IMF , seems to love Lahore or the rulers of Pakistan from Lahore . A dangerous parallel , exists , where the Hindu Marathas loved the Mughal governor Adina Beg from Lahore (Sharqpur nearby).
The IMF , is notoriously famous for being a , petty , super power tool , which employs, “Soft Power” to , weaken and sometimes breaks countries.
When my brother was studying in a famous and respected American ,Clark university at Worcester ,Massachussets , there was a complete course in his B.A syllabus , dealing with controversial and ulterior role of the International Monetary Fund. And yet we in Pakistan have raised IMF to the level of God !
I am a pensioner and I don’t own any property in Pakistan. Not even a bicycle . My pension is about 100 USD . Yet every day we hear a man from Lahore , an Arain by coincidence ,like Adina Beg , threatening , people , that he would put them in jail if they don’t file income tax return ! My national bank manager told me that Pakistan’s tax collection authorities will close bank accounts of pensioners who don’t file income tax return !
What alternative do poor pensioners have if this character imported from Holland closes account of poor pensioners drawing about 32,000 Rupees ! We will be left with no choice but to migrate to Afghanistan ,Iran or even India !
IMF dealings in Pakistan by and large are questionable and dubious.One recent example is privatization of Islamabad airport, as the link below shows:---
IMF CREDIBILITY ALSO HIGHLY DUBIOUS AS ITS ROLE IN OVERSEEING PAKISTANI STATE ASSETS PRIVATISATION PROVES
Govt outsources Islamabad airport to ‘favoured’ bidder
Other consortium claims arbitrary exclusion from bidding process
Salman SiddiquiOctober 09, 2024
https://tribune.com.pk/story/2501764/govt-outsources-islamabad-airport-to-favoured-bidder
October 2024
DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.36414.91206
Agha H Amin
https://csio-ops.com/
October 2024
DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.17225.97120
Agha H Amin
October 2024
DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.22180.49280
Agha H Amin
I have been a member of LinkedIn since about 2010. Groups I created exceed 8000 members and one group has over 13,000 members.
By and large linkedin has been an unethical and controversial platform :---
• Their financial dealings are unethical. In one instance they charged me over 400 USD .
• It has been reported by many reputed members that Linkedin is poorly staffed , having low paid , rudimentary educated employees and has been banning members over trivial matters.
• It has been reported by many members that linkedin is unethically using members Identification documents , which it claims to collect , on pretext of verifying them.
• Recently they blocked a US veteran Kurt Bergstrom personally known to me , with some totally minor pretext.
• Quality of discussion on linkedin is extremely low and it appears that about half the members on linkedin , are fictitious BOTs.
• As a job search platform Linkedin has “ZERO UTILITY”, and most job seekers I know report “ZERO RESULTS” , of success with linkedin.
• Linkedin is notorious for bombarding members with mails insisting that they subscribe to paid memberships.
• Linkedin is notorious in red flagging content , but the poster , whose content is red flagged , cannot even see , which content was RED FLAGGED.
• One can write a book on LINKEDIN FAILURES ,and LINKEDIN SCAMS , but this is just an introduction.
How Luck or Chance aided 23 Divisions Chak Pandit attack in Chhamb
Pakistani tank attack from the south on 6th December 1971 5th December saw 23 Division failing miserably at Mandala complex because general Eftikhar and his staff failed to appreciate the crucial significance of Mandala South which 23 Division could have captured on night 4th
15th December 1971. The greatest character attribute of general
Eftikhar was inexhaustible resolution and persistence
While his failure opposite Mandala, was more due to his own mental blocks and his staff's failure to track and control the divisions lower formation, 66 Brigade being the most notoriously cowardly led brigade,rather than enemy resistance, Eftikhar decided to regroup and attack from the south.
This was the most brilliant decision of general Eftikhar . But to brilliance , we must add a factor known as "chance" or "luck"
.
How the direction of attack was chosen?
Many histories ,most significant being Indian official history of 1971
war including Praval etc, falsely claim that a minefield gap between Jhanda and Barsala had been discovered by Pakistan's
23 Division.This was an absolutely false claim as proven by the most credible Pakistani account written by colonel saeed of 23
Division.
Saeed stated that general Eftikhar wanted to attack from the direction of far south i.e the new Pakistani attack thrust originating from the area between Dhau Sirhali and Barila However when his staff pointed out that,the distance of the tank march was too long to cover in one night , general Eftikhar reduced it and selected Bakan , as the launching point , for the 2 Armoured Brigade thrust towards Chak Pandit.
October 2024
DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.18549.79841
Agha H Amin
October 2024
DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.10266.04809
Agha H Amin
Second World War -A Strategic Summary
• October 2024
• DOI:
• 10.13140/RG.2.2.10266.04809
• Agha H Amin
Second world war history has always been subject to massive exaggerations and white washes, unduly presenting, a particular state’s role as most decisive and more heroic than any other state.
This short book aims at reaching the harsh , but hard truth , by actually , placing the actual , material odds , and the tangible numerical facts of the war , in perspective.
There are two ways to judge a campaign or a battle . The number of formations or divisions involved and the number of fatal casualties suffered. These two factors are the most accurate gauge of judging a battle or a campaign.
When we read books by western authors , the above mentioned issues are hoodwinked and camouflaged , while heavy sounding , pedantic , analysis is employed to glorify , what Britain or the USA did .
However , the critical reader can judge the scenario , very clearly , if he digs into the facts of a battle or a campaign , particularly , size of forces involved and the casualties suffered.
In order to understand , second world war, the first world war, has to be broadly understood.
The character of the war’s main actors in first world war has to be understood :--
France:-- France was not overrun by the Germans in first world war but was the principal battle ground of first world war. France and Britain had been bled white on the battlefields of France in first world war.France was saved first by British Army’s arrival in France , but more importantly by the American arrival in France in 1917. More than US Army , it waUS military and financial aid that saved Britain and France in first world war.
Britain:-- Britain’s entry on French side and arrival of British forces including commonwealth forces saved France in the first three years of first world war , but by 1917 both Britain and France were unable to make the decisive difference. They were saved by US intervention and massive US economic and military aid.Britain’s navy played a most decisive role in economic blockade of Germany , but the harsh fact that it was US entry in first world war that turned the tables cannot be denied.
United States of America :-- USAs entry in first world war , tipped the balance against Imperial Germany and led to the final German defeat in First World War.Churchill admitted in 1936 that , if USA had not entered the war in 1917 , Britain and France would have made peace with Germany without completely defeating the Germans.
Russia:-- Russia also played a major role in Germany’s defeat by forcing the Germans to deploy some eighty divisions on the Eastern front. However the true Russian contribution in first world war was snidely hijacked by western historians, who unjustly claimed all the glory of defeating Imperial Germany. Ludendorf admitted that the USA “became the deciding factor in the war”.
Britain and France were not enthusiastic to fight the fast rising Nazi Germany in the years preceeding second world war and had made best efforts to appease Nazi Germany.
USSR in the east was a much reformed and , much stronger player than Czarist Russia , and the main cause of German concerns in any future war.
The USA had been practicing an isolationist policy since 1918 , but FDR ,the president of USA viewed Nazi Germany, as the most serious potential geopolitical , strategic threat to the USA.
In the final analysis as we discuss , it was this perception held by FDR , which led to his decision to support USSR and Britain by the Lend Lease program, which saved Britain and USSR in the second world war.
We hear much chatter about US Lend Lease aid to the USSR , but British writers always downplay the fact that British commonwealth received 31 Billion US Dollars aid in Len Lease scheme , whereas USSR just received just something over 11 Billion US dollars.
In other words , US role in saving Britain in second world war was far more crucial than US role in saving the USSR !
Such is the British intellectual dishonesty , that the very term “LEND LEASE” , finds no place, as an “Index entry” in major military works by Liddell Hart and J.F.C Fuller !
If any one is intellectually honest to admit the true significance of the US “Lend Lease” scheme , it is the German side !
President FDR of the USA was of the firm conviction that it was in absolute strategic interest of the USA to assist both Britain and USSR with the “Lend Lease” Scheme.
“Lend Lease” scheme was the most decisive strategic decision of the second world war.
Polish Campaign
Keeping in view German superiority in tanks and organisation of tanks Polish defeat was a foregone conclusion.
The most lesson that the Germans learnt in Poland was , that tanks must avoid built up areas. 4th Panzer Division lost 57 out of 120 tanks in one days battle against Poles in built up area.
Britain and France declared war on Germany on 3rd September 1939 ,but the French shamelessly did nothing although they had 85 divisions facing just 33 German divisions out of which 25 divisions had poorly trained reservist units. French musketeers lost 1,433 casualties in this war called phoney war which lasted for eight months.
Norway and Denmark Wars
These were minor affairs in terms of troops involved and casualties. In Norway Germans lost 2,375 killed in ground operations and 2,375 at sea.Allies lost 2500 killed at sea and 1,869 in land operations.The more serious cost for Germans was the fact that they had to deploy 300,000 troops to guard Norway against future allied attacks till 1945.
Denmark was an even more mickey mouse affair. Copenhagen was captured by just 1400 German soldiers , with just 56 casualties.Ironically future allied air raids killed 4,000 Danish civilians.
The Danish had a strong ultra right element and 11,200 Danish fought as part of the Nordland Division against the USSR, sustaining 2,500 fatal casualties.
France
This was the first decisive campaign of second world war , and most crucial , as this led Hitler to draw the wrong lessons. Germans won it by fluke.
Tangibly all the major material factors stood against the Germans , but Germans defeated Britain and France because of superior doctrine and organisation.
Tangibly there was no reason why the Germans should have won ! 136 German divisions faced 149 allied divisions.
Their opponents however were phenomenally dumb at the doctrinal and organisation level !
Germans had 2,700 armoured fighting vehicles against 3000 allied armoured vehicles.
The Germans however won because their doctrine , and thus their resultant organisation was superior. Their tanks were concentrated in armoured divisions and corps while French and British tanks were distributed in penny packets.
In airpower Germans were superior having plus 2,000 bombers against the Allied 800 and 4,000 fighters against 2,500.
In 1940 out of 2,285 tanks the three French Armoured Divisions had just 468 tanks. To further compound this organizational disaster the French Armoured Divisions were haphazardly dispersed.
France was conquered at a low human cost by the Germans, when you compare their losses with first world war battles.
German victory in France was a fluke. Neither German General Staff , nor Hitler expected such a decisive victory.
Even Guderian as per German post surrender debriefings called the Ardennes plan a crime against his panzers.
Hitler was not trained as an officer.This led to various pros and cons.The biggest positive factor was that Hitler was open to new ideas and reform , like it was Hitler who accepted the concept of Blitzkrieg , while whole German Army high command was against it.
The negative part of Hitler was his inability to see the larger picture.The most unexpected victory in France led Hitler to the “fatally dangerous conclusion” that German Army could also knowck out USSR , like France.
Hitler failed to understand that the frontages and logistics were almost 15 times larger than France and ,German Army was simply not capable of repeating its French campaign performance in Russia.
As this map above illustrates, the frontages on which German tank formations advanced were extremely small as compared to Russia, that is 100 km versus 1600 Km .
Hitler has been much praised for his intuition and his revolutionary decision to accept Guderians ideas about concentrating tanks , and accepting the 1940 Manstein plan. But here his ranker greatness ended .
The conclusions that Hitler drew about how he would repeat German tanks , French performance in Russia were disastorous conceptually and German failure in Russia in 1941 was a foregone conclusion.
The callously criminal way , in which Hitler diluted and reduced his tank formations in Russia was discussed in detail by Liddell Hart and Albert Seaton , the only two truthful westerners, who wrote about the Russo German war. This dilution has been hoodwinked and intellectually dishonestly ignored by later self styled western experts like Glantz and Clark etc. We will discuss this in some detail in next chapter of this short book.
STRATEGIC EVALUATION
German victory in France was a great operational success but nothing substantial strategically .
• The British falsely claim that they were the real contenders and opponents of Germany , but factually speaking this is absolute nonsense.
• Germany’s real strategic rivals and contenders were the USSR and USA , who were untouched and unaffected by German victory and France.USA and USSR were certainly alarmed , but not affected.
• It was Britain which was in great desperation , isolated , without much strategic clout and , strategically irrevelevant.
• The most crucial strategic decision in this situation had nothing to do with Britain , as British writers falsely claim,but with the USA.
• The most crucial strate...
October 2024
DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.24054.82245
Agha H Amin
If Britain’s role in WW 2 was marginal , Indian role was that of a Mickey Mouse who had near zero influence.
Indian role in second world war was much exaggerated by Indo Pak historians. If the hard facts of the war are studied, Indian Army role in the war was near zero and nominal. The biggest index are the fatal casualties .Indians suffered 24,338 fatal casualties in actual battle which comes to 0.24 % of the total second world war casualties.
The Burma campaign which has been massively exaggerated by British and Indian writers was actually a marginal affair of second world war.
The Japanese firstly did not have any strategic plan to invade India . The late 1943 Japanese invasion of British India was an adventurist gamble of an over ambitious Japanese general , whose perception was totally divorced from the harsh reality of the actual military situation and was bound to fail.
In strategic terms Burma campaign did not figure anywhere among the decisive battles of world war two.The real Japanese battles were fought in the Pacific theatre against the USA.
Indian casualties in Burma , the much trumpeted theatre of war never exceeded,8500 killed . Indian casualties in North Africa and Italy were even lower.
4th Indian Division involved in heaviest fighting sustained about 3,718 fatal casualties from its induction in WW2 till ceasefire.
Indian Army units were never trusted with tanks in North Africa and Italy barring one unit 13 Lancers which was assigned most secondary roles. Indian units were used in mostly holding roles.
October 2024
DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.10633.04964
Agha H Amin
Chinese role in the second world war was heroic and their human cost much heavier than USA, UK , India or Japan , but their influence on the strategic outcome of second world war was very limited .
True that China never actually invaded Japan , but China forced Japan to commit the largest part of its army in fighting against China.In 1945 there were over twenty five Japanese divisions in China whereas Japanese army at its greatest height never exceeded nine divisions in Burma.
Some 1.2 million Japanese troops,were committed to face China in the war. The Japanese lost 396,000 killed in the fighting against China.
China suffered 3.2 million, with more than out which 1.3 million were fatal. The number of Chinese civilian fatal casualties is unknown.
Why China failed to play a decisive role was because Japanese land forces were committed in China , while the real Japanese war was the naval war , with USA . Hence absence of Japanese infantry committed to face Chinese forces , was of no consequence or influence in the Japanese main war with the USA.
China was substantially helped by the USA in surviving the Japanese onslaught during second world war.
In the final stages of the war in 1945 , the Soviet invasion of Manchuria greatly helped China in its war against Japan.
Certainly China’s role in the second world war was not strategically decisive.
October 2024
DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.19441.08801
Agha H Amin
Japan’s role in Second World War was most secondary but much overrated !
A primary reason for this were British exaggerations.It is true that Japan’s initial campaigns were very dramatic and unexpected , but there the suspense ended.
Japan achieved no major strategic victory although it did capture Burma,Malaya,Indonesia and Philipines. It remained under severe strategic threat of the USA from 1942 and waged a very desperate struggle to blunt US attacks.
Its 1943-44 gamble against British India was a massive miscalculation and pre programmed to fail , because of overwhelming British numerical, material and logistic superiority.
Japan was pitched against the USA , which was far superior to Japan, numerically , industrially and technically.
Japanese were never serious US contenders for victory against USA. It is true that Japan was able to defeat the USA in the initial campaigns of WW 2, but Philippines was, not a strategic victory and winning there had no significant impact to improve Japanese chances of victory.
Japanese waged the war fanatically with total disregard for death , but this fanaticism in no way helped them in defeating the Americans.
The main issue in the war was which side’s industry produced more aircraft carriers and Japanese industry was no match to the USA , in producing aircraft carriers. The Japanese industry took much longer to build aircraft carriers,the most important weapon of the war as compared to US industry. Thus Japanese cause was doomed after they lost four carriers at battle of Midway. Industrially they could never recover from this loss.
The industrial potential of the US armaments industry may be gauged from the fact that during Second World War US industry alone produced some 52% of world wide (including both allies and the axis powers) aircraft production, 36% of all artillery, 48% of all vehicles and 61% of all ship building!
In this situation Japan , simply had no chance to win against the USA. The odds against japan were overwhelming.In the west they faced China , which had formidable manpower reserves and was a US ally , armed and supported by the USA and Britain. In Burma , the terrain was simply too adverse and the British Indian army that the Japanese faced was too materially and logistically superior to the Japanese.
In the east Japan was pitched against USA and US mainland was too far away and Japanese simply did not possses the potential to attack it.
Note that Japan had declared war on the USA and Britain in defensive desperation after they had imposed economic embargo on Japan.
In strategic terms the Japanese never came anywhere near strategically challenging or defeating the USA.This was simply impossible because of massive US material superiority.
Even in simple land warfare Japanese failed to inflict significant casualties on the Americans.
In all the USA suffered round figure of 50,000 fatal casualties against Japanese but suffered over 170,000 fatal casualties against Germans in North Africa and Europe.
One may safely conclude that the real strategic contender of the USA was Germany , but here also the most decisive role in defeating Germany was not paid by the USA but by the USSR.
October 2024
DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.32024.00005
Agha H Amin
British role in second world war ,was ,most insignificant and inferior at 2.66 percent of total fatal casualties.
The brilliant British historian A.J.P Taylor , most accurately ,summed up WW 2 as below :-- ““Soviet Russia did most of the fighting against Germany, sustained nine tenth of the casualties and suffered catastrophic economic losses” while “the Americans made great economic gains and had a trifling number of casualties fighting against Germany” and that "Roosevelt was the only one who knew what he was doing: he made the United States the greatest power in the world at virtually no cost ”.
Britain’s back was broken in first world war and Britain was in no position to decide what course , second world war would take.
Later popular propaganda massively exaggerated Alamein and Normandy , but the harsh fact remains that these were never the decisive battles , that defeated Germany.
The North African campaign , made exaggeratedly famous because of Rommels charisma , was strategically speaking a Mickey mouse affair . North Africa was never a major German war objective , but became famous because Rommel defeated the British repeatedly by tactically superior generalship.
Alamein , much trumpeted by the cheap ,British propaganda , was a Mickey mouse battle which just involved two German tank divisions.
Britain’s much exaggerated North African campaign led to no strategic result which could in any way have influenced the outcome of the second world war.
North Africa was followed by invasion of Siciliy and Italy which were operational stalemates and had no influence on the final outcome of the second world war.
British role in the Burma Campaign was also massively exaggerated. Burma was the western limit of Japanese offensive operations and invading India was never the Japanese objective of WW 2.
The much exaggerated (by British) invasion of Burma took place , not because the Japanese state wanted it , but because an over ambitious and unbalanced Japanese general Renya Mutaguchi , whose ideas were opposed by Japanese high command , by over enthusiasm and false reasoning convinced the Japanese high command to agree to his “IMPOSSIBLE” plan to attack Imphal Kohima.
The odds which the British Indian Army faced in Burma were never as severe as those faced by the Japanese army fighting against them.Logistically the British were on an extremely sound footing with more than one million Indians maintaining the lines of communication and manning the supply and transport echelons consisting of almost unlimited supplies of American stores and equipment.
On the other hand the Japanese were at the far end of a precarious and almost non existent line of communications comprising more than 600 miles of dirt roads which were almost totally non functional from April May to September due to heavy monsoons.
They had extremely limited manpower resources to reinforce their army or to replace their casualties,while Britain had whole of India's vast population of people eager to fight for a monthly salary of thirty or forty rupees minus the comfort girls consisting largely of Korean and Chinese girls, which was perhaps the only advantage the Japanese had over the Indians !
In addition the British had complete air superiority and immense air supply potential thanks to the US aircrafts and could switch or regroup whole divisions from one sector to another hundreds of miles away in just few hours,or could aerially deliver supplies to formations whose line of communications was threatened by the enemy or temporarily disconnected because of adverse weather or terrain .
The Japanese had no such luxuries and survived on dry rations without being resupplied for weeks and months.The essential question in Burma was not of fighting prowess or greater valour but of space logistics and terrain,and all three favoured the British Indian Army.
Numerically the British Indian Army outnumbered the Japanese by two or three to one as a rule of the thumb in most battles.
The 14th Army which fought the Burma campaign has been called the largest single army in the world.lts battlefront of 700 miles was almost as long as the Russian front in Germany and roughly 700,000 out of the total approximately one million troops of the South East Asia Command under which 14th Army fought were Indian Army troops.
The actual battle front over which actual battles were fought was however very short since the terrain was so adverse that few troops could be actively fielded to fight in a highly adverse jungle terrain devoid of any communications.
Casualty wise the Burma campaign was a much smaller affair than the major campaigns of Second World War.
In Burma Indians got an opportunity to handle tanks.Thanks to Slim's positive attitude towards Indians and shortage of British replacements Indians were trusted with tanks and the 254 Indian Tank Brigade (Grants and Stuarts) and 255 Indian Tank Brigade(Shermans) were formed.
British share in total fighting in the second world war may be gauged from the fact that Britain lost just 2.66 % , among total allied casualties in the war.
Indian share in fighting was even lower with Indian fatal casualties in fighting being just 0.24 % of the total allied casualties.
If you read the British propaganda filled narratives you start thinking that Germany would have won second world war , if they had defeated Britain.
Nothing can be farther from the truth !
The real German adversary was never Britain but the USSR and the real power behind the USSR was the USA and never Britain .
Second world war would have continued even if Britain had been overrun by Germany , because the decisive theatre was the USSR .
USSR would have defeated Germany even if the allies had not invaded France . Only it would have prolonged the war by two years.
USA invaded North Africa directly without using Britain as a launching pad or base.The whole British claim that USA could not have won the war without British help is a blatant lie.
October 2024
DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.20489.66407
Agha H Amin
The most crucial and decisive role in defeating Germany was played by the USSR and the USA .British role was marginal , but much exaggerated and falsely magnified. Americans won the war by superior strategy and industrial might , coupled with their invincible geographical location . Geographically it was impossible for Germany or Japan to invade the USA. This eliminated the threat of any direct MILITARY physical threat to the USA. The most crucial USA strength was its financial and industrial might .This was translated into action by the “LEND LEASE” program of president FDR. Lend Lease aid enabled Britain to defeat the Germans in the , North African mickey mouse back water and enabled Britain to defeat Japan in Burma. Maximum lend lease aid was given to Britain which was totally bankrupt in 1941.Britain received 31 Billion USD aid as below :-- USSR received 11.3 Billion USD Dollars as below :-- As the above figures illustrate , Britain received more than double the amount of USSR but hardly did one twentieth of fighting that the USSR did , because Britain was morally and spiritually drained and saved by the natural sea ditch of English Channel. Lend Lease enabled the USSR to defeat Germany in 1943 , 1944 and 1945 , specially the US logistic support in shape of vehicles and fuels. USA direct military role however was not decisive . This was also the US design , because vast bulk of German Army was deployed against the USSR. Land warfare US role was limited and the USA sustained mickey mouse fatal casualties of just 2.94 % in the second world war.This clearly means that direct US military role never exceeded 2.94 % .
October 2024
DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.29297.70244
Agha H Amin
October 2024
DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.19231.37280
Agha H Amin
October 2024
DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.30975.42402
Agha H Amin
October 2024
DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.15037.06888
Agha H Amin
October 2024
DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.13768.94729
Agha H Amin
October 2024
DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.11933.93926
Agha H Amin
October 2024
DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.16337.95840
Agha H Amin
October 2024
DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.28082.00961
Agha H Amin
Sir Michael O Dwyer , and the IMF
IMF CREDIBILITY ALSO HIGHLY DUBIOUS AS ITS ROLE IN OVERSEEING PAKISTANI STATE ASSETS PRIVATISATION PROVES
Major A.H Amin (Retired)
Adina Beg , Lahore decadent and hopeless , Sir Michael O Dwyer , and the IMF IMF CREDIBILITY ALSO HIGHLY DUBIOUS AS ITS ROLE IN OVERSEEING PAKISTANI STATE ASSETS PRIVATISATION PROVES
• October 2024
• DOI:
• 10.13140/RG.2.2.11668.51846
• Agha H Amin
The credit for handing over the provinces of Lahore and Multan ,to Hindu Marathas, squarely, belongs to an Arain , from Sharqpur, near Lahore , Adina Beg . Without doubt a great service to the cause of Islam in Indo Pak history . So much for the illustrious traditions of people from Lahore and surrounding country.
Khan Bahadur Latif Qureshi of Baghbanpura , father of late Omar Shafi (Friday Times) my grandfathers dearest friend from New Delhi where my grandfather (family went to Delhi from Rawalpindi in 1902 for government service) was serving in ministry of Defence and Qureshi sahib in the Viceroy house. When partition took place , Qureshi sahib, came to his ancestral town Lahore , but found it pathetically depressing and missed New Delhi , as his many letters to my grandfather revealed ! My grandfather had taken the ministry of Defence to Rawalpindi , alongwith his senior and dearest friend Wing Commander Milroy Hayes of the RAF !
It is a historic fact that the great writer Saadat Hassan Manto , worshipped in Bombay , as a great literary icon, died of depression when he migrated to Lahore.
Sir Michael Odwyer , was disgusted with Lahore’s pathetic performance in first world war and in a speech , probably at Kasur , stated that , Lahore was so pathetic in the war effort , that after the war he would transfer the capital of Punjab to Kasur !
Sadly , the IMF , seems to love Lahore or the rulers of Pakistan from Lahore . A dangerous parallel , exists , where the Hindu Marathas loved the Mughal governor Adina Beg from Lahore (Sharqpur nearby).
The IMF , is notoriously famous for being a , petty , super power tool , which employs, “Soft Power” to , weaken and sometimes breaks countries.
When my brother was studying in a famous and respected American ,Clark university at Worcester ,Massachussets , there was a complete course in his B.A syllabus , dealing with controversial and ulterior role of the International Monetary Fund. And yet we in Pakistan have raised IMF to the level of God !
I am a pensioner and I don’t own any property in Pakistan. Not even a bicycle . My pension is about 100 USD . Yet every day we hear a man from Lahore , an Arain by coincidence ,like Adina Beg , threatening , people , that he would put them in jail if they don’t file income tax return ! My national bank manager told me that Pakistan’s tax collection authorities will close bank accounts of pensioners who don’t file income tax return !
What alternative do poor pensioners have if this character imported from Holland closes account of poor pensioners drawing about 32,000 Rupees ! We will be left with no choice but to migrate to Afghanistan ,Iran or even India !
IMF dealings in Pakistan by and large are questionable and dubious.One recent example is privatization of Islamabad airport, as the link below shows:---
IMF CREDIBILITY ALSO HIGHLY DUBIOUS AS ITS ROLE IN OVERSEEING PAKISTANI STATE ASSETS PRIVATISATION PROVES
Govt outsources Islamabad airport to ‘favoured’ bidder
Other consortium claims arbitrary exclusion from bidding process
Salman SiddiquiOctober 09, 2024
https://tribune.com.pk/story/2501764/govt-outsources-islamabad-airport-to-favoured-bidder
October 2024
DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.36414.91206
Agha H Amin
https://csio-ops.com/
October 2024
DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.17225.97120
Agha H Amin
October 2024
DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.22180.49280
Agha H Amin
I have been a member of LinkedIn since about 2010. Groups I created exceed 8000 members and one group has over 13,000 members.
By and large linkedin has been an unethical and controversial platform :---
• Their financial dealings are unethical. In one instance they charged me over 400 USD .
• It has been reported by many reputed members that Linkedin is poorly staffed , having low paid , rudimentary educated employees and has been banning members over trivial matters.
• It has been reported by many members that linkedin is unethically using members Identification documents , which it claims to collect , on pretext of verifying them.
• Recently they blocked a US veteran Kurt Bergstrom personally known to me , with some totally minor pretext.
• Quality of discussion on linkedin is extremely low and it appears that about half the members on linkedin , are fictitious BOTs.
• As a job search platform Linkedin has “ZERO UTILITY”, and most job seekers I know report “ZERO RESULTS” , of success with linkedin.
• Linkedin is notorious for bombarding members with mails insisting that they subscribe to paid memberships.
• Linkedin is notorious in red flagging content , but the poster , whose content is red flagged , cannot even see , which content was RED FLAGGED.
• One can write a book on LINKEDIN FAILURES ,and LINKEDIN SCAMS , but this is just an introduction.
How Luck or Chance aided 23 Divisions Chak Pandit attack in Chhamb
Pakistani tank attack from the south on 6th December 1971 5th December saw 23 Division failing miserably at Mandala complex because general Eftikhar and his staff failed to appreciate the crucial significance of Mandala South which 23 Division could have captured on night 4th
15th December 1971. The greatest character attribute of general
Eftikhar was inexhaustible resolution and persistence
While his failure opposite Mandala, was more due to his own mental blocks and his staff's failure to track and control the divisions lower formation, 66 Brigade being the most notoriously cowardly led brigade,rather than enemy resistance, Eftikhar decided to regroup and attack from the south.
This was the most brilliant decision of general Eftikhar . But to brilliance , we must add a factor known as "chance" or "luck"
.
How the direction of attack was chosen?
Many histories ,most significant being Indian official history of 1971
war including Praval etc, falsely claim that a minefield gap between Jhanda and Barsala had been discovered by Pakistan's
23 Division.This was an absolutely false claim as proven by the most credible Pakistani account written by colonel saeed of 23
Division.
Saeed stated that general Eftikhar wanted to attack from the direction of far south i.e the new Pakistani attack thrust originating from the area between Dhau Sirhali and Barila However when his staff pointed out that,the distance of the tank march was too long to cover in one night , general Eftikhar reduced it and selected Bakan , as the launching point , for the 2 Armoured Brigade thrust towards Chak Pandit.
October 2024
DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.18549.79841
Agha H Amin
October 2024
DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.10266.04809
Agha H Amin
Second World War -A Strategic Summary
• October 2024
• DOI:
• 10.13140/RG.2.2.10266.04809
• Agha H Amin
Second world war history has always been subject to massive exaggerations and white washes, unduly presenting, a particular state’s role as most decisive and more heroic than any other state.
This short book aims at reaching the harsh , but hard truth , by actually , placing the actual , material odds , and the tangible numerical facts of the war , in perspective.
There are two ways to judge a campaign or a battle . The number of formations or divisions involved and the number of fatal casualties suffered. These two factors are the most accurate gauge of judging a battle or a campaign.
When we read books by western authors , the above mentioned issues are hoodwinked and camouflaged , while heavy sounding , pedantic , analysis is employed to glorify , what Britain or the USA did .
However , the critical reader can judge the scenario , very clearly , if he digs into the facts of a battle or a campaign , particularly , size of forces involved and the casualties suffered.
In order to understand , second world war, the first world war, has to be broadly understood.
The character of the war’s main actors in first world war has to be understood :--
France:-- France was not overrun by the Germans in first world war but was the principal battle ground of first world war. France and Britain had been bled white on the battlefields of France in first world war.France was saved first by British Army’s arrival in France , but more importantly by the American arrival in France in 1917. More than US Army , it waUS military and financial aid that saved Britain and France in first world war.
Britain:-- Britain’s entry on French side and arrival of British forces including commonwealth forces saved France in the first three years of first world war , but by 1917 both Britain and France were unable to make the decisive difference. They were saved by US intervention and massive US economic and military aid.Britain’s navy played a most decisive role in economic blockade of Germany , but the harsh fact that it was US entry in first world war that turned the tables cannot be denied.
United States of America :-- USAs entry in first world war , tipped the balance against Imperial Germany and led to the final German defeat in First World War.Churchill admitted in 1936 that , if USA had not entered the war in 1917 , Britain and France would have made peace with Germany without completely defeating the Germans.
Russia:-- Russia also played a major role in Germany’s defeat by forcing the Germans to deploy some eighty divisions on the Eastern front. However the true Russian contribution in first world war was snidely hijacked by western historians, who unjustly claimed all the glory of defeating Imperial Germany. Ludendorf admitted that the USA “became the deciding factor in the war”.
Britain and France were not enthusiastic to fight the fast rising Nazi Germany in the years preceeding second world war and had made best efforts to appease Nazi Germany.
USSR in the east was a much reformed and , much stronger player than Czarist Russia , and the main cause of German concerns in any future war.
The USA had been practicing an isolationist policy since 1918 , but FDR ,the president of USA viewed Nazi Germany, as the most serious potential geopolitical , strategic threat to the USA.
In the final analysis as we discuss , it was this perception held by FDR , which led to his decision to support USSR and Britain by the Lend Lease program, which saved Britain and USSR in the second world war.
We hear much chatter about US Lend Lease aid to the USSR , but British writers always downplay the fact that British commonwealth received 31 Billion US Dollars aid in Len Lease scheme , whereas USSR just received just something over 11 Billion US dollars.
In other words , US role in saving Britain in second world war was far more crucial than US role in saving the USSR !
Such is the British intellectual dishonesty , that the very term “LEND LEASE” , finds no place, as an “Index entry” in major military works by Liddell Hart and J.F.C Fuller !
If any one is intellectually honest to admit the true significance of the US “Lend Lease” scheme , it is the German side !
President FDR of the USA was of the firm conviction that it was in absolute strategic interest of the USA to assist both Britain and USSR with the “Lend Lease” Scheme.
“Lend Lease” scheme was the most decisive strategic decision of the second world war.
Polish Campaign
Keeping in view German superiority in tanks and organisation of tanks Polish defeat was a foregone conclusion.
The most lesson that the Germans learnt in Poland was , that tanks must avoid built up areas. 4th Panzer Division lost 57 out of 120 tanks in one days battle against Poles in built up area.
Britain and France declared war on Germany on 3rd September 1939 ,but the French shamelessly did nothing although they had 85 divisions facing just 33 German divisions out of which 25 divisions had poorly trained reservist units. French musketeers lost 1,433 casualties in this war called phoney war which lasted for eight months.
Norway and Denmark Wars
These were minor affairs in terms of troops involved and casualties. In Norway Germans lost 2,375 killed in ground operations and 2,375 at sea.Allies lost 2500 killed at sea and 1,869 in land operations.The more serious cost for Germans was the fact that they had to deploy 300,000 troops to guard Norway against future allied attacks till 1945.
Denmark was an even more mickey mouse affair. Copenhagen was captured by just 1400 German soldiers , with just 56 casualties.Ironically future allied air raids killed 4,000 Danish civilians.
The Danish had a strong ultra right element and 11,200 Danish fought as part of the Nordland Division against the USSR, sustaining 2,500 fatal casualties.
France
This was the first decisive campaign of second world war , and most crucial , as this led Hitler to draw the wrong lessons. Germans won it by fluke.
Tangibly all the major material factors stood against the Germans , but Germans defeated Britain and France because of superior doctrine and organisation.
Tangibly there was no reason why the Germans should have won ! 136 German divisions faced 149 allied divisions.
Their opponents however were phenomenally dumb at the doctrinal and organisation level !
Germans had 2,700 armoured fighting vehicles against 3000 allied armoured vehicles.
The Germans however won because their doctrine , and thus their resultant organisation was superior. Their tanks were concentrated in armoured divisions and corps while French and British tanks were distributed in penny packets.
In airpower Germans were superior having plus 2,000 bombers against the Allied 800 and 4,000 fighters against 2,500.
In 1940 out of 2,285 tanks the three French Armoured Divisions had just 468 tanks. To further compound this organizational disaster the French Armoured Divisions were haphazardly dispersed.
France was conquered at a low human cost by the Germans, when you compare their losses with first world war battles.
German victory in France was a fluke. Neither German General Staff , nor Hitler expected such a decisive victory.
Even Guderian as per German post surrender debriefings called the Ardennes plan a crime against his panzers.
Hitler was not trained as an officer.This led to various pros and cons.The biggest positive factor was that Hitler was open to new ideas and reform , like it was Hitler who accepted the concept of Blitzkrieg , while whole German Army high command was against it.
The negative part of Hitler was his inability to see the larger picture.The most unexpected victory in France led Hitler to the “fatally dangerous conclusion” that German Army could also knowck out USSR , like France.
Hitler failed to understand that the frontages and logistics were almost 15 times larger than France and ,German Army was simply not capable of repeating its French campaign performance in Russia.
As this map above illustrates, the frontages on which German tank formations advanced were extremely small as compared to Russia, that is 100 km versus 1600 Km .
Hitler has been much praised for his intuition and his revolutionary decision to accept Guderians ideas about concentrating tanks , and accepting the 1940 Manstein plan. But here his ranker greatness ended .
The conclusions that Hitler drew about how he would repeat German tanks , French performance in Russia were disastorous conceptually and German failure in Russia in 1941 was a foregone conclusion.
The callously criminal way , in which Hitler diluted and reduced his tank formations in Russia was discussed in detail by Liddell Hart and Albert Seaton , the only two truthful westerners, who wrote about the Russo German war. This dilution has been hoodwinked and intellectually dishonestly ignored by later self styled western experts like Glantz and Clark etc. We will discuss this in some detail in next chapter of this short book.
STRATEGIC EVALUATION
German victory in France was a great operational success but nothing substantial strategically .
• The British falsely claim that they were the real contenders and opponents of Germany , but factually speaking this is absolute nonsense.
• Germany’s real strategic rivals and contenders were the USSR and USA , who were untouched and unaffected by German victory and France.USA and USSR were certainly alarmed , but not affected.
• It was Britain which was in great desperation , isolated , without much strategic clout and , strategically irrevelevant.
• The most crucial strategic decision in this situation had nothing to do with Britain , as British writers falsely claim,but with the USA.
• The most crucial strate...
October 2024
DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.24054.82245
Agha H Amin
If Britain’s role in WW 2 was marginal , Indian role was that of a Mickey Mouse who had near zero influence.
Indian role in second world war was much exaggerated by Indo Pak historians. If the hard facts of the war are studied, Indian Army role in the war was near zero and nominal. The biggest index are the fatal casualties .Indians suffered 24,338 fatal casualties in actual battle which comes to 0.24 % of the total second world war casualties.
The Burma campaign which has been massively exaggerated by British and Indian writers was actually a marginal affair of second world war.
The Japanese firstly did not have any strategic plan to invade India . The late 1943 Japanese invasion of British India was an adventurist gamble of an over ambitious Japanese general , whose perception was totally divorced from the harsh reality of the actual military situation and was bound to fail.
In strategic terms Burma campaign did not figure anywhere among the decisive battles of world war two.The real Japanese battles were fought in the Pacific theatre against the USA.
Indian casualties in Burma , the much trumpeted theatre of war never exceeded,8500 killed . Indian casualties in North Africa and Italy were even lower.
4th Indian Division involved in heaviest fighting sustained about 3,718 fatal casualties from its induction in WW2 till ceasefire.
Indian Army units were never trusted with tanks in North Africa and Italy barring one unit 13 Lancers which was assigned most secondary roles. Indian units were used in mostly holding roles.
October 2024
DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.10633.04964
Agha H Amin
Chinese role in the second world war was heroic and their human cost much heavier than USA, UK , India or Japan , but their influence on the strategic outcome of second world war was very limited .
True that China never actually invaded Japan , but China forced Japan to commit the largest part of its army in fighting against China.In 1945 there were over twenty five Japanese divisions in China whereas Japanese army at its greatest height never exceeded nine divisions in Burma.
Some 1.2 million Japanese troops,were committed to face China in the war. The Japanese lost 396,000 killed in the fighting against China.
China suffered 3.2 million, with more than out which 1.3 million were fatal. The number of Chinese civilian fatal casualties is unknown.
Why China failed to play a decisive role was because Japanese land forces were committed in China , while the real Japanese war was the naval war , with USA . Hence absence of Japanese infantry committed to face Chinese forces , was of no consequence or influence in the Japanese main war with the USA.
China was substantially helped by the USA in surviving the Japanese onslaught during second world war.
In the final stages of the war in 1945 , the Soviet invasion of Manchuria greatly helped China in its war against Japan.
Certainly China’s role in the second world war was not strategically decisive.
October 2024
DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.19441.08801
Agha H Amin
Japan’s role in Second World War was most secondary but much overrated !
A primary reason for this were British exaggerations.It is true that Japan’s initial campaigns were very dramatic and unexpected , but there the suspense ended.
Japan achieved no major strategic victory although it did capture Burma,Malaya,Indonesia and Philipines. It remained under severe strategic threat of the USA from 1942 and waged a very desperate struggle to blunt US attacks.
Its 1943-44 gamble against British India was a massive miscalculation and pre programmed to fail , because of overwhelming British numerical, material and logistic superiority.
Japan was pitched against the USA , which was far superior to Japan, numerically , industrially and technically.
Japanese were never serious US contenders for victory against USA. It is true that Japan was able to defeat the USA in the initial campaigns of WW 2, but Philippines was, not a strategic victory and winning there had no significant impact to improve Japanese chances of victory.
Japanese waged the war fanatically with total disregard for death , but this fanaticism in no way helped them in defeating the Americans.
The main issue in the war was which side’s industry produced more aircraft carriers and Japanese industry was no match to the USA , in producing aircraft carriers. The Japanese industry took much longer to build aircraft carriers,the most important weapon of the war as compared to US industry. Thus Japanese cause was doomed after they lost four carriers at battle of Midway. Industrially they could never recover from this loss.
The industrial potential of the US armaments industry may be gauged from the fact that during Second World War US industry alone produced some 52% of world wide (including both allies and the axis powers) aircraft production, 36% of all artillery, 48% of all vehicles and 61% of all ship building!
In this situation Japan , simply had no chance to win against the USA. The odds against japan were overwhelming.In the west they faced China , which had formidable manpower reserves and was a US ally , armed and supported by the USA and Britain. In Burma , the terrain was simply too adverse and the British Indian army that the Japanese faced was too materially and logistically superior to the Japanese.
In the east Japan was pitched against USA and US mainland was too far away and Japanese simply did not possses the potential to attack it.
Note that Japan had declared war on the USA and Britain in defensive desperation after they had imposed economic embargo on Japan.
In strategic terms the Japanese never came anywhere near strategically challenging or defeating the USA.This was simply impossible because of massive US material superiority.
Even in simple land warfare Japanese failed to inflict significant casualties on the Americans.
In all the USA suffered round figure of 50,000 fatal casualties against Japanese but suffered over 170,000 fatal casualties against Germans in North Africa and Europe.
One may safely conclude that the real strategic contender of the USA was Germany , but here also the most decisive role in defeating Germany was not paid by the USA but by the USSR.
October 2024
DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.32024.00005
Agha H Amin
British role in second world war ,was ,most insignificant and inferior at 2.66 percent of total fatal casualties.
The brilliant British historian A.J.P Taylor , most accurately ,summed up WW 2 as below :-- ““Soviet Russia did most of the fighting against Germany, sustained nine tenth of the casualties and suffered catastrophic economic losses” while “the Americans made great economic gains and had a trifling number of casualties fighting against Germany” and that "Roosevelt was the only one who knew what he was doing: he made the United States the greatest power in the world at virtually no cost ”.
Britain’s back was broken in first world war and Britain was in no position to decide what course , second world war would take.
Later popular propaganda massively exaggerated Alamein and Normandy , but the harsh fact remains that these were never the decisive battles , that defeated Germany.
The North African campaign , made exaggeratedly famous because of Rommels charisma , was strategically speaking a Mickey mouse affair . North Africa was never a major German war objective , but became famous because Rommel defeated the British repeatedly by tactically superior generalship.
Alamein , much trumpeted by the cheap ,British propaganda , was a Mickey mouse battle which just involved two German tank divisions.
Britain’s much exaggerated North African campaign led to no strategic result which could in any way have influenced the outcome of the second world war.
North Africa was followed by invasion of Siciliy and Italy which were operational stalemates and had no influence on the final outcome of the second world war.
British role in the Burma Campaign was also massively exaggerated. Burma was the western limit of Japanese offensive operations and invading India was never the Japanese objective of WW 2.
The much exaggerated (by British) invasion of Burma took place , not because the Japanese state wanted it , but because an over ambitious and unbalanced Japanese general Renya Mutaguchi , whose ideas were opposed by Japanese high command , by over enthusiasm and false reasoning convinced the Japanese high command to agree to his “IMPOSSIBLE” plan to attack Imphal Kohima.
The odds which the British Indian Army faced in Burma were never as severe as those faced by the Japanese army fighting against them.Logistically the British were on an extremely sound footing with more than one million Indians maintaining the lines of communication and manning the supply and transport echelons consisting of almost unlimited supplies of American stores and equipment.
On the other hand the Japanese were at the far end of a precarious and almost non existent line of communications comprising more than 600 miles of dirt roads which were almost totally non functional from April May to September due to heavy monsoons.
They had extremely limited manpower resources to reinforce their army or to replace their casualties,while Britain had whole of India's vast population of people eager to fight for a monthly salary of thirty or forty rupees minus the comfort girls consisting largely of Korean and Chinese girls, which was perhaps the only advantage the Japanese had over the Indians !
In addition the British had complete air superiority and immense air supply potential thanks to the US aircrafts and could switch or regroup whole divisions from one sector to another hundreds of miles away in just few hours,or could aerially deliver supplies to formations whose line of communications was threatened by the enemy or temporarily disconnected because of adverse weather or terrain .
The Japanese had no such luxuries and survived on dry rations without being resupplied for weeks and months.The essential question in Burma was not of fighting prowess or greater valour but of space logistics and terrain,and all three favoured the British Indian Army.
Numerically the British Indian Army outnumbered the Japanese by two or three to one as a rule of the thumb in most battles.
The 14th Army which fought the Burma campaign has been called the largest single army in the world.lts battlefront of 700 miles was almost as long as the Russian front in Germany and roughly 700,000 out of the total approximately one million troops of the South East Asia Command under which 14th Army fought were Indian Army troops.
The actual battle front over which actual battles were fought was however very short since the terrain was so adverse that few troops could be actively fielded to fight in a highly adverse jungle terrain devoid of any communications.
Casualty wise the Burma campaign was a much smaller affair than the major campaigns of Second World War.
In Burma Indians got an opportunity to handle tanks.Thanks to Slim's positive attitude towards Indians and shortage of British replacements Indians were trusted with tanks and the 254 Indian Tank Brigade (Grants and Stuarts) and 255 Indian Tank Brigade(Shermans) were formed.
British share in total fighting in the second world war may be gauged from the fact that Britain lost just 2.66 % , among total allied casualties in the war.
Indian share in fighting was even lower with Indian fatal casualties in fighting being just 0.24 % of the total allied casualties.
If you read the British propaganda filled narratives you start thinking that Germany would have won second world war , if they had defeated Britain.
Nothing can be farther from the truth !
The real German adversary was never Britain but the USSR and the real power behind the USSR was the USA and never Britain .
Second world war would have continued even if Britain had been overrun by Germany , because the decisive theatre was the USSR .
USSR would have defeated Germany even if the allies had not invaded France . Only it would have prolonged the war by two years.
USA invaded North Africa directly without using Britain as a launching pad or base.The whole British claim that USA could not have won the war without British help is a blatant lie.
October 2024
DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.20489.66407
Agha H Amin
The most crucial and decisive role in defeating Germany was played by the USSR and the USA .British role was marginal , but much exaggerated and falsely magnified. Americans won the war by superior strategy and industrial might , coupled with their invincible geographical location . Geographically it was impossible for Germany or Japan to invade the USA. This eliminated the threat of any direct MILITARY physical threat to the USA. The most crucial USA strength was its financial and industrial might .This was translated into action by the “LEND LEASE” program of president FDR. Lend Lease aid enabled Britain to defeat the Germans in the , North African mickey mouse back water and enabled Britain to defeat Japan in Burma. Maximum lend lease aid was given to Britain which was totally bankrupt in 1941.Britain received 31 Billion USD aid as below :-- USSR received 11.3 Billion USD Dollars as below :-- As the above figures illustrate , Britain received more than double the amount of USSR but hardly did one twentieth of fighting that the USSR did , because Britain was morally and spiritually drained and saved by the natural sea ditch of English Channel. Lend Lease enabled the USSR to defeat Germany in 1943 , 1944 and 1945 , specially the US logistic support in shape of vehicles and fuels. USA direct military role however was not decisive . This was also the US design , because vast bulk of German Army was deployed against the USSR. Land warfare US role was limited and the USA sustained mickey mouse fatal casualties of just 2.94 % in the second world war.This clearly means that direct US military role never exceeded 2.94 % .
October 2024
DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.29297.70244
Agha H Amin
October 2024
DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.19231.37280
Agha H Amin
October 2024
DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.30975.42402
Agha H Amin
October 2024
DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.15037.06888
Agha H Amin
October 2024
DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.13768.94729
Agha H Amin
October 2024
DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.11933.93926
Agha H Amin
October 2024
DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.16337.95840
Agha H Amin
October 2024
DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.28082.00961
Agha H Amin
January 2022
DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.32832.66565
Project: MILITARY HISTORY
Agha H Amin
Galeotti's Russia Analysis
• July 2021
• DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.23245.15842
• Project:
• geopolitics
• Agha H Amin
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/352996914_Galeotti's_Russia_Analysis
February 2021
DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.31589.32483
Project: Military History
Agha H AminAgha H Amin
December 2020
DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.33536.25603
Project: How History Moves
Agha H Amin
corruption has always won in history
TO BUILD AS
WELL AS DESTROY
Author
Gawthorpe Andrew
Publisher: Cornell University Press, PUBLISHED IN 2018
ISBN:9781501709456, ISBN:1501709453
ISBN:9781501712098 , ISBN:1501712098
ISBN:9781501712807 ,ISBN:1501712802
November 2020
DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.15386.47048
Project: Military History
Agha H Amin