America's greatest MUST WIN military victory of all time?

IPukeOregonGrellow said:

YellowSnow said:

IPukeOregonGrellow said:

YellowSnow said:

YouKnowIt said:

only revolutionary war battles should be included in the poll... WW2 ..we still be USA ... just not US OF MF A ... Civil war ... nah same as ww2 ... maybe Baltimore cuz the bloody brits wanted to take us back ...

Agree on Revolutionary War vs WWII stuff. Midway was clearly out most consequential victory of WWII, but even if we had lost or had it been strategically inconclusive, the Japanese still never had the capacity to invade the west coast. They would have taken Hawaii at the most and we could have won it back in a year or two if needed.

Hard to say if the Revolution would have ended with a loss at Saratoga. It certainly gave us a chance to win by convincing France of the viability of our cause. In some ways Trenton was even more critical because Washington had been getting his ass kicked since Long Island earlier in the year.

Still, I have to go with Gettysburg. If Lee wins a major victory in Pennsylvania, it probably would have been politically impossible for the North to carry on the war, in spite of Grant's victory at Vicksburg.

Midway wasn't about land as much as it was about the Japanese wanting to wipe out the carriers they missed at Pearl Harbor. If they do that, America doesn't have the firepower to beat Japan. As it turned out, Japan hosed themselves by getting their carrier fleet wiped out in five minutes.

Gettysburg was great, but it was Lee throwing a wild haymaker punch that he knew he had little chance of landing.

I'd vote Antietam though. No victory there, odds are Lee takes most of Maryland and possibly DC. Also, No Emancipation Proclamation, no true setting the playing field of what the Civil War is about, and the SEC wins another Natty.

Disagree on both points. A loss at Midway would have been disastrous and Japan's defensive perimeter would have been much stronger with all or most of our carriers sunk. But those ships and pilots were all replaceable in time. We put something like 24 Essex class carriers to sea before the end of the war and thousands of well trained pilots. Where as Japan had like 1/10 th of our industrial capacity and could never recover once they lost those 4 flat tops.

Antietam was still early in the game. It would have delayed the Emancipation Proclamation but short of his army marching on Washington, the body counts which so demoralized the North hadn't piled up to the extent they had by mid 1863 (post Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville).

Hard disagree.

In 1942, it took 12-15 months to build one aircraft carrier. If Japan wiped out our? fleet, it would've been a minimum of two years before we? could have done anything in the Pacific, during which time Japan would take whatever land and resources they wanted. There may not be more of a spectacular backfire.

And Antietam was early. But the SEC needed it to be a quick war if they wanted to win. The goal of Antietam was flip Maryland and Kentucky, get England and France to recognize them and begin a march on Warshington. All of which went went up in flames.