“This is how history went after McCoy changed it … Because ALL this lets them develop the A-bomb first. With the A-bomb & with their V2 rockets to carry them, Germany captured the world.”

- Spock, from the Star Trek Episode, “The City on the Edge of Forever.”

In this episode we look at one of the most common “What If?” questions in history: the plausibility of the Axis powers (specifically Germany) winning the Second World War. Also, probably the most complicated. Could Germany have been better off waiting to start the war? What if Hitler’s strategic errors are removed from the equation? Was the Allied victory inevitable? While these and other questions at first glance to make such counterfactual assessments a rabbit hole way too deep, when the nature of the Second World War is examined closely and longstanding historical patterns in warfare are kept in mind, the reasoning for the Allied victory becomes clear and, consequently, potential paths the Axis powers could have taken for a different outcome.

“I had a feeling of the essential rightness of all. He was dead and I was alive; it could so easily have been the other way round; and that would somehow have been right too.”

- Richard Hillary, Royal Air Force pilot, reflecting on the first German plane he shot down

In this episode we look at the controversial claim made by US Army General S.L.A. Marshall in 1947, when he asserted that less than 25% of US riflemen fired their weapons at the enemy in WWII. What is usually called the ratio-of-fire statistic, Marshall’s thesis almost immediately influenced the US Army did undergo training reforms to ensure more of its troops fire their weapons, which have succeeded such by the Vietnam War, over 90% of troops were firing at the enemy. The ratio-of-fire statistic had proven to be influential outside military circles, having inspired numerous social scientists to accept the notion that soldiers have an innate reluctance to kill, despite whatever training or propaganda they are exposed to. Here we dig deeper to investigate the evidence for Marshall’s claim and explore why it has proven to endure despite the controversy and criticism surrounding it.

"AIR RAID ON PEARL HARBOR. THIS IS NOT DRILL."
– US Navy dispatch, December 7, 1941.

In this episode we look at one of the all-too frequent examples of a successful surprise attack in modern warfare. Most students of history are familiar with the basics: an (un)fortunate set of circumstances enabled Japanese carrier air forces to achieve complete surprise and inflict heavy damage to US military forces at the Hawaiian naval base. Here we dig a little deeper to investigate why the Japanese decided to go to war with the United States and ultimately why the attack failed to achieve the strategic goal set out by its planners. Seen mostly from the Japanese perspective, it is a tale of how pressures on policymakers and commanders often push them into making decisions against their better judgement and issuing vague military orders that result in sloppy execution.