American military commanders were divided.

MacArthur wanted to invade the Philippines.

Nimitz wanted to invade Saipan.

Hap Arnold wanted B-29s based in China to bomb Japan.

In the end, the Joint Chiefs went with All of the Above.

Welcome to the history of the 20th century.

The 20th century.

Music The Episode 436. Too Good to be true.

In the bell-apok days of this podcast, we talked about modern technology and how it changed the way nations fight wars.

One of the differences we discussed involved the lifespan of military equipment.

I cited as an example the British warships of the 19th century.

A typical ship of that time had a service life of about 30 years before it was considered too old, at which time it might be converted to a training ship, or sold, or broken up.

In 1906, the Royal Navy launched its battleship HMS Dreadnought, a revolutionary ship that made virtually all

older battleships obsolete. In 1920, Dreadnought was put up for sale as scrap. It was itself

obsolete in just 14 years, even though it cost quite a few more quid than those older ships.

Similarly, artillery guns, tanks, and aircraft got increasingly sophisticated, increasingly

expensive, and, if anything, became obsolete sooner.

By the 1940s, it was common practice among the major arms manufacturing nations that by the time

the newest generation of weapon was being produced in quantity, it was time to begin working on the

design of the next generation. One of the less appreciated reasons why Germany was such a military juggernaut at the

beginning of the Second World War involves procurement cycles. You'll recall that Hitler began

German rearmament in secret. It took more than a year for France and Britain to learn about

...