There is a strong argument to be made that it was the landing of the army of William III at Torbay, Devon November 5/15, 1688 in the Glorious Revolution.Rockslinger said:
Hitler ordered Luftwaffe to spare Blackpool
- Thread starter jwmorrice
- Start date
It had to divert to Vladivostok. The aircraft was copied even down to a patch on the side, which seemed structural to the Soviets.oagre said:
Yes, to both. Perhaps the reason the P-51 is seen more as a USAAF fighter rather than an RAF fighter - besides the fact that is was built in the U.S. (because the RAF was concerned about British factories being bombed out of production) is that the USAAF Eighth Airforce had the daylight bombing mission (with certainly required fighter escort) while the RAF Bomber Command had the nightime bombing mission.Rockslinger said:
I recently read "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich". Although it is long (1000 pages) it is an absolutely engrossing chronicle of Hitler's rise and fall.
In particular, as I read the book it seemed there were three critical events which prevented Hitler's victory.
First, at Dunkirk the Germans squandered the opportunity to pulverize the remainder of the Allied forces. The book says this was because Hitler wanted the Luftwaffe to deliver the final blow, and this provided a delay which allowed the famous evacuation of the troops across the channel.
Second, the Germans didn't have radar and the British did. Had both sides been equal on this point, many (most) believe that Britain wouldn't have lasted very long during the famour aerial "Battle of Britain".
Third, a small act of civil disobedience in Serbia so enraged Hitler that he delayed the march on Moscow for 5 weeks so that he could bomb Belgrage into ruble. This delay was catastrophic as the German advance on Moscow was frozen mere miles from the city when the winter arrived.
This is just my recollection of the book. I'm no expert. But it is an excellent read (written in 1961)
fj
In particular, as I read the book it seemed there were three critical events which prevented Hitler's victory.
First, at Dunkirk the Germans squandered the opportunity to pulverize the remainder of the Allied forces. The book says this was because Hitler wanted the Luftwaffe to deliver the final blow, and this provided a delay which allowed the famous evacuation of the troops across the channel.
Second, the Germans didn't have radar and the British did. Had both sides been equal on this point, many (most) believe that Britain wouldn't have lasted very long during the famour aerial "Battle of Britain".
Third, a small act of civil disobedience in Serbia so enraged Hitler that he delayed the march on Moscow for 5 weeks so that he could bomb Belgrage into ruble. This delay was catastrophic as the German advance on Moscow was frozen mere miles from the city when the winter arrived.
This is just my recollection of the book. I'm no expert. But it is an excellent read (written in 1961)
fj
If memory serves, the P-51 was originally designed by the British and the design was sold to the Americans who played with it a bit.
Originally, they fitted it with a GM (Allison being GM's aircraft Engine maker) Engine and it was a dog.
Subsequently, someone had the idea to fit the P-51 with a Rolls Royce Merlin Engine and the plane was simply magnificent.
Originally, they fitted it with a GM (Allison being GM's aircraft Engine maker) Engine and it was a dog.
Subsequently, someone had the idea to fit the P-51 with a Rolls Royce Merlin Engine and the plane was simply magnificent.
Aircraft: The Soviets couldn't match the West in terms of engine technology. So they compensated by optimizing their planes for low level combat. 90% of combat on the Eastern Front was below 10,000 feet as it mainly involved tac air strikes on bridges and vehicle columns and fighter escort on those strikes. At 10,000 feet or below Russian planes like the Lavochkin and Yakovlev fighters were excellent and competitive or better with German designs. At over 10,000 feet, they were awful.Rockslinger said:
Unlike the US, the Russians liked light and maneuverable planes. The Soviets were given some P-47's to try out. "Vot zeess sort of bourgeois trash!" was the response. "Zeess heavier than bomber and cannot turn viss Messerschmidt fighter!" So the P-47's were scrapped!
OTOH, the Russians invented modern tank design with the T-34 tank. Their tank design was excellent throughout the war. Ditto their anti-tank guns and artillery.
It is hard for a Westerner like me to admit, but WW II in Europe was won on the bloody eastern front where the Russians paid for every inch of ground gained with a gallon of blood.fijiman said:
Another major factor is by sheer chance the Brits captured an intact "Enigma" code machine and crack the Nazi U-boat code. This was the beginning of a fairly quick end of the U-boat menace and kept the supply line to Britain open.
The Allison design was okay as a fast, low altitude tac air strike plane. There was even an early Mustang variant which was equipped as a dive bomber and dubbed the "American stuka"!james t kirk said:
The Merlin gave it an extra 30 mph speed and allowed the P-51 to take that speed to 30,000 feet and above. That made a good plane extraordinary.
But! The P-47 could take a hit and a hit and a hit and a hit. Its survivability along with its pilots is lengendary. Did you know that the top American ace (Robert S. Johnson?) in the European theatre flew a P-47? These P-47 pilots fought skilled German pilots in superior or equivalent planes and more often than not came out the victor because their planes could take unbelieveable punishment. BTW I heard that many top notch American pilots were removed from combat and returned to the States to train new pilots.oagre said:
Yup.Rockslinger said:
Kursk made D-day look like a Tea Party (no disrespect intended).
A million Russians squared off against a million Germans. Neither side took prisoners.
At the end of the day a few thousand Russians were still standing.
The Western Allies let the Russians and Germans duke it out and wear each other down. Stalin was screaming for a second front but he only got it when it looked like the Russians might march clear across Europe to the English channel.
Captain, see my post #27 in particular note the biography of Air Chief Marshal Sir Wilfrid Freeman at the bottom of the first link.james t kirk said:
That's not quite a fair statement, you've got to remember the nature of the Atlantic Wall, the problems of a major seaborne invasion, and in particular the limited nature of British (and even Dominion) forces by that point in the war.james t kirk said:
Due to the Cold War we never really appreciated the "Russian" & Ukranian sacrifice on the Eastern Front here in the West, nor at the same time how close the Germans came to winning it in between July 1941 and September 1942.Rockslinger said:
It is quite something to see and talk to people in Ukraine and Russia about the Second World War (The Great Patriotic War).
[Apropos to my own inner demons] My former grandfather-in-law was shot down and killed by the Luftwaffe, the day my former father-in-law was born.
Not really, if at all.Rockslinger said:
German aircraft were technically superior to most of what the Soviets put in the air. The Sturmovik and some of the Yak fighters were pretty good but on the whole the Soviets had nothing that even came close to the ME 262, Focke Wulf 190, advanced Messerschmitts, etc. Aircraft wasn't the Soviets' specialty during WWII.
Soviet artillery was probably on par with the Germans'. The real strength wasn't the quality, it was the quantity. The Soviets had so much artillery that the combined effect was truly devastating. Whereas the Americans became known for the coordination of their artillery, the Soviets were known for the crushing volume. They had Katusha rocket trucks but the Germans had Nebelwerfers (just nowhere near as many of them).
Overall, German armour was superior to the Soviets. The Soviets had some standouts such as the T-34 and its later heavy and super heavy assault guns, but overall German armour was technically superior. The Soviets had no tanks that could stand up to the Tigers and King Tigers. Yes, they had some assault guns later in the war with super heavy frontal armour and large caliber guns, but the Germans still destroyed them at a much higher kill ratio.
The T-34 is always brought up as an example of excellent Soviet tank design, which is true but the Germans quickly copied many of the T-34 design elements (widely spaced tracks and sloped armour being the most significant) and the Panther, Tiger, and King Tiger easily outclassed the T-34. When the T-34 was upgraded to the T-34/85 it became more of a threat but by that time the T-34 was nothing more than cannon fodder. In short, the T-34 was rapidly outclassed by subsequent German tank designs.
Assault guns (aka self-propelled anti-tank guns) weren't really tanks per se though they were similar. Throughout much of the war German assault guns (usually built on captured Allied tank chassis' or outdated German tank chassis') were superior to Soviet assault guns. Only at the end of the war did the Soviets have super heavy assault guns that required Tigers and King Tigers (or the German "jagr"/hunter assault gun equivalents) to take out.
Bottom line, if someone tells you Soviet armour was superior to the Germans overall, they don't know what they're talking about. In certain instances that may have been true (e.g., in 1941 when the T-34 first made its appearance on the road to Moscow), but overall German armoured forces decimated Soviet armour. What made the Soviets ultimately successful wasn't quality, it was quantity. When you can absorb a kill ratio of 10:1 or even as high as 20:1 in some instances, the saying "quantity has a quality all its own" holds very true. Which is typical of most analysis between German and Soviet armed forces during WWII. The major fault of German armour wasn't killing power, armour, or mobility but other factors such as being rushed into service, over designed, lack of tank recovery vehicles, being used in inappropriate roles (i.e., as defensive weapons rather than offensive), etc. But their core function performance was second to none.
All that being said, Soviet armour was still far superior to anything the Americans and Brits had (e.g., the Sherman was a joke and even the Firefly variant was extremely vulnerable to destruction at even long range; British armour design was a mess throughout the war).
If you're looking for an excellent resource on German Tiger tanks, get this book. Lots of statistics, including some shocking kill ratio data. It's an unbiased, academic study of the Tiger tank and sheds some light on the strengths and weaknesses of German armoured warfare: http://www.amazon.ca/Sledgehammers-...=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1235538292&sr=8-2
In addition, let's not forget the battle zones in North Africa, Italy, the Allies' supply line to Murmansk, bombing oil refineries in Romania and the air war over Germany proper. (I know, I know, the Loony Liberal Left say that bombing Germany in WW II is a war crime. Did anybody expect them to say anything positive about the West?) Also, the very threat of a second front in France tied up a million German troops and their equipment. Hitler actually tried to seek a separate peace with the West so he could concentrate solely on Russia. No, the West was not sitting on our thumbs.Aardvark154 said:
No, it really was.Philander13 said:
Take a look at the casualty totals: ~150,000 German casualties to ~2.25 million Allied casualties (a 15:1 casualty ratio!). That's an ass-whoopin' however you look at it. Not to mention the complete collapse of France in a handful of weeks. That's a humiliating embarrassment that the French have never, and will never, live down.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_france
Yes, the Allies had some heavy tanks that German tanks could not defeat in head to head battle. Especially some of the French tanks. But it wasn't tank design that won the day, it was tank tactics. Which the Germans were FAR superior in. Allied tanks were parceled out piecemeal as infantry support weapons whereas German tanks were massed at the schwerpunkt (focal point) of main attack. Combined arms tactics involving the Luftwaffe (Stukas in particular), artillery (88's in particular), and armour easily defeated (or bypassed) the dispersed Allied armour.
Did some of the Allied tanks prove to be far more of a test than expected? Yes. Did it significantly impact the end result? Not at all.
True, but at any given point in the war no less than 85% of German armed forces were fighting on the Eastern Front.Rockslinger said:
Saying the non-Soviet Allies played no major role in WWII is just as inaccurate as saying the Americans or British "turned the tide" against Germany.
From 1941 on, no nation did more to defeat Nazi Germany than the Soviet Union. Despite what American post-war propaganda might have you believe. Eisenhower himself admitted the war was won with Russian blood. And the British? Please. In a toe to toe, stand alone fight to the death with Germany (i.e., no Soviets, no Americans), the British would have gotten their asses handed to them on a silver platter. And yes, I'm well aware of the Battle of Britain. But you try fighting a battle with one hand tied behind your back and see how well you do.
Don't delude yourself about the British contribution. Know what it was and recognize it as such. But don't overestimate the contribution relative to the sacrifice of others.
True, though subsequent studies have shown that there might have been more to the German defeat than Soviet superiority. The northern German pincer made no progress at all but the southern pincer had broken through most of the Soviet defenses (granted, at enormous cost) and the German generals believed that a little more push would have won the day. However, Allied landings in Sicily at the same time diverted German forces and forced the Germans to end the battle.james t kirk said:
The biggest mistake the Germans made was attacking a position where the Soviets knew they were coming and prepared accordingly. The Soviets packed so many mines and anti-tanks guns into such small areas that they were literally running out of room.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_kursk
