The Second World War.

[Rogerbh]

Originally Posted by scoundrel

The victory of the Allies over the Axis in WW2 was not inevitable.

Exactly - this was start of that interesting discussion with my brother. He started with the premise that in war games, it is very hard to lose if you played the Axis. You only had to maintain the one enemy at a time scenario. The political impracticality that the Axis could coordinate and agree on fighting in such a way didn't seemed to come into play when you only had one player as the Axis and one as the Allies.

Its a good thing that real wars are seldom run by just two rational sides.

Now with all this crap about Russia maintaining a sizable tactical nuclear arsenal is being played up as a threat to the US and NATO. http://au.ibtimes.com/articles/57283...m#.VGiTlxF0wuU I think the current discussion shows that Russia would be dumb not to maintain such a number of these weapons with China sitting right next to it. The Chinese presence didn't even seemed to be mentioned in what I have been reading.

The lessons of WWII are not lost to some people.

[scoundrel]

Originally Posted by Rogerbh

Now with all this crap about Russia maintaining a sizable tactical nuclear arsenal is being played up as a threat to the US and NATO. http://au.ibtimes.com/articles/57283...m#.VGiTlxF0wuU I think the current discussion shows that Russia would be dumb not to maintain such a number of these weapons with China sitting right next to it. The Chinese presence didn't even seemed to be mentioned in what I have been reading.

The lessons of WWII are not lost to some people.

This article sounds to me like the US military-industrial complex wants to keep the American people afraid, so that they will support the misallocation of their taxes into increased spending on nuclear weapons; in better times I would say that increased spending on public healthcare was an obvious higher priority than increased military spending, but in 2014 I would argue that paying down some of the national debt would also be a good thing to do.

This alarmist talk about Russia's nukes is reminiscent of President Kennedy and his foolish talk about the non-existent "missile gap" between the USA and the Soviet Union in 1960. It doesn't really matter how old your missile is as long as it works when it lands, flies accurately, and the enemy cannot intercept it. Neither will it matter how many nukes your enemy has once he has enough of them to wipe out everything on your national soil bigger than an ant; both Russia and the USA are in this happy position. What must also be remembered that if Russia were to fire all her missiles into the USA and the USA (theoretically) did not shoot back even once, Russia would survive about seven days before the radioactive dust came to her across the Atlantic and the North Pole on the prevailing winds, and all her people would be dead quite soon once the dust arrived.

If I were a US citizen, I would vehemently oppose my government spending one solitary bean on a new generation of nuclear bombs; however it does make sense to look after the ones already in the locker and keep them in good condition. Any military investment should be in stuff which will get used; for example, has the US Navy rectified the strange ommission which became apparent in the 1980s when the Iranians laid floating contact mines in the Arabian Sea and Uncle Sam had to ask the British to send minehunters, because the USN didn't possess a single one?

Military spending was a hot topic in the 1930s of course, when Britain and France should have been re-arming (as should America) but were very slow to react to the German re-armament. The Russians did invest in modernising their forces, but were undermined by their internal politics; the loss of Tukhashevsky was a particular blow to them later. They also deployed their forces badly, failing to mobilise before the German invasion. But at least they re-armed. It was really only in the run-up to Munich that Britain began in the last light of the day the work which should have begun in the morn's morn. We did not drop the Ten Year Rule until 1932 and we did not even begin tentatively to re-arm until 1935.

But in 2014 it is more likely China than Russia which might be a future danger to US security; and it is not spending on nuclear bombs which will secure the safety of the sea lanes in the Pacific and of America's allies, such as South Korea, Japan and the Philippines. Possibly America's indebtedness to China will be her best defence; after all, in the event of a war, China could kiss goodbye to an awful lot of money.

[pipeman500]

Originally Posted by Mal Hombre

The same goes for the US Space programme,To Me the whole business of Space exploration carries the stench of the Concentration Camps and Slave Labour Factories of the Third Reich.

Operation Paper-clip was nothing to be proud of IMHO Von Braun should have done time or been executed as a War Criminal not because of the use of the V2 but because of the use of slave labour.

Correct me if I'm wrong but .I believe he was a good Nazi

[scoundrel]

Originally Posted by pipeman500

Operation Paper-clip was nothing to be proud of IMHO Von Braun should have done time or been executed as a War Criminal not because of the use of the V2 but because of the use of slave labour.

Yes; he was at least as guilty as the directors of IG Farben.

Correct me if I'm wrong but .I believe he was a good Nazi

That depends on what you mean. He was not in good standing with the Nazi Party. Albert Speer had been obliged to protect him from Himmler, who wanted to prosecute him as a sabateur; his real crime was that he refused to obey when Himmler attempted to subordinate his rocket program to the management of the SS. He was held in a Gestapo prison cell for two weeks, until Speer protested that the rocket program was unable to proceed without von Braun. Von Braun's release was entirely temporary and on the grounds that he was indespensible to the success of the rocket program; the charges (capital in nature) were to be resumed after Germany's final victory in the war.

[risen]

To return to the 14th November 1940 blitz on Coventry here is a piece on the subject in the Coventry Telegraph.

My own family story of that night: My grandfather, already seriously ill was in bed in his daughter and son in laws house when a high explosive bomb (the majority were incendiaries) hit the property. He was found amongst rubble in the back garden by my uncle who was on ARP duties.

He was taken to an undamaged nearby house. Quite soon after that house took an almost direct hit from a parachute mine which took the roof off with major damage to the terrace of properties.

He was again found by my uncle and once the raid subsided in the early hours was taken in a commandeered truck to Kenilworth cottage hospital. With that hospital inundated by casualties from Coventry he was taken to Warwick hospital which was similarly inundated.

He died in his eldest surviving sons cottage in Warwick almost two weeks later.

His eldest son had died on the forced march after the British surrender at the siege of Kut in what is modern day Iraq in 1916. He is commemorated on the Basra memorial 37km west of the city. His next eldest son was in the 'fighting fifth' in The First World War and died in the early 30's having been left crippled in battle. His third eldest son had died of peritonitis at age 7 before the first war began. His nephew died on the notorious sinking of the Royal Oak in Scapa Flow.

[SanteeFats]

On the anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor I want to salute all of those that joined and served, plus those that were KIA, WIA, or MIA. So many from both sides it really brings tears to my eyes.
Let us not forget the innocents that perished in all the camps both in the European and Pacific theater.

[rustler]

In an article in the paper here a while ago, it appears that Oslo Council bought a number of steel plates after the war from the salvagers of the German battleship Tirpitz, which was then being broken up where she lay in Håkøya, outside of Tromsø.
The plates, each weighing about 5 tons and being some 2 inches thick by 12 feet by 6 feet, are used in road construction and maintenance. They have been in use ever since, and being of specially hardened armoured steel, probably from the inner part of the wreck, are virtually indestructible, so will be in use for many more years to come.






I wonder how many people who drive over them every day realise?

[scoundrel]

A fitting end to the Tirpitz that her hull plates are still a match for anything the Norwegian traffic can hurl at them. She was hugely influential in hamstringing the Royal Navy in home waters, the Western Approaches and the Arctic for most of WW2. In many ways her inactivity and aloofness from the reach of the Home Fleet was far more damaging to Britain and the Allies than her activity would have been. The one and only operational voyage of KMS Bismarck was a shocking and traumatic experience to the Royal Navy but in the end Germany was the loser. In cold blood, it was worth losing HMS Hood and suffering severe damage to HMS Prince of Wales in return for sinking the Bismarck. It would likewise have been worth losing any one or two British capital ships in return for destroying KMS Tirpitz.

In September 1939, the RN possessed 15 battleships and battlecruiser, only two of which were built after WW1. The oldest four were totally unmodernised and were coffin ships if they met a modern capital ship opponent. It also possessed 7 aircraft carriers, of which only one (Ark Royal) was modern: but by the mercy of providence 5 more fleet carriers with powerful engines and armoured flight decks were under construction and all participated in the war. HMS Illustrious especially; we would have been made love to, prison style, without her, and the killer blow she struck the Italians at Taranto. But of this powerful but far from all-powerful fleet, at least three battleships (none of them the coffin ship Revenge class) and one carrier had to be tied up in British home waters at all times, almost entirely because Tirpitz was out there, somewhere. Three battleships and a modern fleet carrier could have made a lot of trouble for Britain's enemies if they were free to be sent around the place.

[palo5]

Originally Posted by scoundrel

Three battleships and a modern fleet carrier could have made a lot of trouble for Britain's enemies if they were free to be sent around the place.

Sent around the place?

Not sent around like these two, please

[scoundrel]

Originally Posted by palo5

Sent around the place?

Not sent around like these two, please

I did consider Force Z, Comrade Palo. But actually it was sunk by about 80 Japanese G4M Betty bombers, operating without fighter escorts at ranges where a fighter escort would have been difficult, even using the Japanese naval Zero fighter. Force Z was intended to have a fleet carrier, but the ship ran aground in the Caribbean and there was no replacement available. A year later and at the worst the British would have been able to attach a light carrier to replace the one grounded. As it was, Churchill fatally miscalculated and sent the surface ships alone, thinking that their presence would deter Japan from thinking that Britain's eastern possessions were ripe for the taking. In the early years of WW2, Churchill was a tactical dinosaur.

In April 1942, 18 Bettys from the very self-same wing, aircraft which had almost certainly helped to sink Force Z, attacked the USS Lexington. Not one of them managed to launch a torpedo; and 17 out of 18 were shot down by Lexington's F4F Wildcat fighters. No one survived from the 17 bombers shot down. The Fairey Fulmar naval fighters used by the British at this time would have been much less efficient than the Wildcat, which was faster and better armed; but it had a long range and the errant carrier (HMS Indomitable) had modern radar. Its presence would have made a lot of difference to force Z.

During the night of 9-10 December 1941, Force Z passed within 20 miles of a pair of Japanese heavy cruisers, and had the British been equipped with radar, the Japanese could not have gone undetected in circumstances which were greatly to their disadvantage. The next day, those 80 odd Betty bombers, which came at intervals in waves about 15-20 strong, would have been opposed by fighters faster and more agile than them and armed with 8 light machine guns. It only took 12 Grumman Wildcats to massacre a wave of these unarmoured and distressingly (for their own side) flammable bombers when they tried to attack USS Lexington. I suspect that with a fleet carrier in attendance, Force Z could have not only survived, but also achieved some of Admiral Phillip's objectives and severely compromised General Yamashita's seaborne components during the Malayan campaign.

Three battleships (not counting Repulse or Prince of Wales) plus one modern fleet carrier would have been a major factor in the Far East war in 1941-2. They might have made a world of difference to the gallant Admiral Doorman, who lost his cruisers and his own life in a desperate attempt to defend Java from seaborne invasion by forces which were simply too strong for his damaged and eclectic collection of light cruisers and destroyers. They might have enabled the US forces to defend at least the southern end of the Philippines and possibly evacuate Bataan and Corrigidor. They would certainly have booted serious arse in Ironbottom Sound in the Guadalcanal campaign when losses to their own carriers forced Admiral King (who hated Britain) to ask for Britain to send him a carrier to support his Pacific fleet, and we British felt unable to do it. That refusal damaged Anglo-American relations and cost America a lot during the Guadalcanal campaign. If it had not been for the Tirpitz threat, Britain could certainly have lent Admiral King a carrier. So I think my point holds good.