Why has the West boycotted the parade by those who saved the world from Nazism.

Iwasfrozen

Elmer Blooker wrote: »

No doubt many Soviet troops were in American trucks as they advanced on Berlin but its more than likely they were in Soviet produced ZIS-5 trucks of which one million were produced.
I don't know how they travelled to Berlin on American trains? According to Antony Beevor's brilliant book Berlin. The Downfall the retreating Germans totally destroyed the rail network, also Poland had a completely different gauge system to the Soviet Union making locomotives unusable.
I don't know anything about that Zhukov quote but I wonder how the Red Army inflicted their first defeat on the Germans at the Battle of Moscow, before the US even entered the war, with "no explosives or powder, there was none to equip rifle bullets"

Did you read the quote? 1/3 of Soviet trucks were American built. Could the Soviets have built up that momentum with only 2/3s of their trucks? Possibly but doubtful.

Here's a list of US items given to the USSR from 1941:

The United States gave to the Soviet Union from October 1, 1941 to May 31, 1945 the following: 427,284 trucks, 13,303 combat vehicles, 35,170 motorcycles, 2,328 ordnance service vehicles, 2,670,371 tons of petroleum products (gasoline and oil), 4,478,116 tons of foodstuffs (canned meats, sugar, flour, salt, etc.), 1,900 steam locomotives, 66 Diesel locomotives, 9,920 flat cars, 1,000 dump cars, 120 tank cars, and 35 heavy machinery cars. One item typical of many was a tire plant that was lifted bodily from the Ford Company's River Rouge Plant and transferred to the USSR. The 1947 money value of the supplies and services amounted to about eleven billion dollars

It was estimated that US aid through the Persian corridor alone was sufficient by American standards to equip an army of six divisions. Six US divisions is roughly 1.2 million men.

The USSR was highly dependent on locomotives to move men and equipment from the Eastern provinces to fight Germany in the West. The USSR only produced 92 locomotives. 2,000, along with 11,000 rail cars were provided through lend lease. Also 14% of the Soviet Airforce, 19% of military planes, were American produced.

Could the Soviet Union have won the war without America? Maybe. But I personally doubt it. Stalin and Zhukov clearly didn't think so either.

Here's the extended quote from Zhukov:

"Speaking about our readiness for war from the point of view of the economy and economics, one cannot be silent about such a factor as the subsequent help from the Allies. First of all, certainly, from the American side, because in that respect the English helped us minimally. In an analysis of all facets of the war, one must not leave this out of one's reckoning. We would have been in a serious condition without American gunpowder, and could not have turned out the quantity of ammunition which we needed. Without American `Studebekkers' (trucks) we could have towed our artillery nowhere. Yes, in general, to a considerable degree they provided our front transport. The output of special steel, necessary for the most diverse necessities of war, were also connected to a series of American deliveries.
[...]
"We entered war while still continuing to be a backward country in an industrial sense in comparison with Germany.... It is now said that the Allies never helped us. However, one cannot deny that the Americans gave us so much material, without which we could not have formed our reserves and could not have continued the war. We had no explosives and powder. There was none to equip rifle bullets. The Americans actually came to our assistance with powder and explosives. And how much sheet steel did they give us! We really could not have quickly put right our production of tanks if the Americans had not helped with steel. And today it seems as though we had all this ourselves in abundance."

KomradeBishop

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

You weren't accusing them of procrastination in your last post, you were accused them of only joining the fight at the last minute so they could claim victory and a large share of the spoils.

But that wasn't the case, Germany declared war on the United States when Germany was at their zenith in 1941 after the Japanese attacked the American base at Pearl Harbour.

It's true America didn't commence the Normandy landings until 1944 when the Soviet Union was already winning the war. Now the Soviet Union may have already been winning the war in 1944 without American aid but given what I've read on the issue I don't believe that would be the case and I've provided statistics and quotations to support my position.

We could blame the Americans for procrastination or we could acknowledge that landing a million troops in another continent, surrounded by the enemy at all sides was a historically unprecedented ad extremely difficult move and could not have been possible had Germany been more powerful.

There was nothing stopping the US invading earlier - indeed they already had a full plan ready for invasion more than a year in advance - but they decided to díck around with Africa and invading Sicily/Italy instead.

The US were more than happy to let the Russians act as cannon fodder, and wait for Nazi/Russian forces to whittle each other down - with Russia suffering 12x the death rate of the Western Allies, and 62x the death rate of the US.

I mean look at this - comparatively fúck all deaths on the US side, and even then, only late in the war:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Front_%28World_War_II%29#/media/File:World-War-II-military-deaths-in-Europe-by-theater-year.png

The war was won with a vast vast amount of Russian's blood shed, taking out 6.5x more of the Nazi's - far more than from the Western allies.

Iwasfrozen

KomradeBishop wrote: »

There was nothing stopping the US invading earlier - indeed they already had a full plan ready for invasion more than a year in advance - but they decided to díck around with Africa and invading Sicily/Italy instead.

The US were more than happy to let the Russians act as cannon fodder, and wait for Nazi/Russian forces to whittle each other down - with Russia suffering 12x the death rate of the Western Allies, and 62x the death rate of the US.

I mean look at this - comparatively fúck all deaths on the US side, and even then, only late in the war:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Front_%28World_War_II%29#/media/File:World-War-II-military-deaths-in-Europe-by-theater-year.png

The war was won with a vast vast amount of Russian's blood shed, taking out 6.5x more of the Nazi's - far more than from the Western allies.

The Soviet Union was invaded. They were facing an existential threat and without American aid that threat could have been realized. Do you expect the death rates to be different? What I can say is death rates on the Soviet side would have been much higher without American aid.

Could the US have invaded a year earlier when Hitler was in a better position? Maybe but again I doubt it. Invading another continent on the other side of the world with a million men was an extremely difficult and unprecedented logistical challenging, something that had never been attempted before. And I wouldn't exactly call invading Italy and taking them out of the war "dicking around".

What exactly is your criticism? That America should have invaded earlier? That they should have committed more troops to the fight when they had already committed the second largest allied army in the field? Their capital was already winning the war and they were fighting on a second front with Japan.

KomradeBishop

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

The Soviet Union was invaded. They were facing an existential threat and without American aid that threat could have been realized. Do you expect the death rates to be different? What I can say is death rates on the Soviet side would have been much higher without American aid.

Could the US have invaded a year earlier when Hitler was in a better position? Maybe but again I doubt it. Invading another continent on the other side of the world with a million men was an extremely difficult and unprecedented logistical challenging, something that had never been attempted before. And I wouldn't exactly call invading Italy and taking them out of the war "dicking around".

What exactly is your criticism? That America should have invaded earlier? That they should have committed more troops to the fight when they had already committed the second largest allied army in the field? Their capital was already winning the war and they were fighting on a second front with Japan.

The Nazi's were already losing a year earlier than the Normandy landings - and yes, the Western Allies could have gone in for a proper second front a year earlier, they decided to invade Sicily/Italy instead (which shows they were more than capable enough of a proper mainland invasion in France) - attacking Italy was a pretty bad investment of resources/time, which since it delayed a proper invasion and second front, was effectively just dícking around while the Nazi's/Russians were slaughtering each other.

So (going back to the original point of contention) as far as manpower and actual human sacrifice/fighting/bloodshed goes with the aim of defeating the Nazi's (as well as actual death toll of Nazi forces), Russia's contribution vastly outweighs that of any other nation, and the Western Allies come into the mainland war - launching a proper second front - conspicuously late and when the Nazi's were already well on the way to being pushed back to defeat.

Iwasfrozen

KomradeBishop wrote: »

The Nazi's were already losing a year earlier than the Normandy landings - and yes, the Western Allies could have gone in for a proper second front a year earlier, they decided to invade Sicily/Italy instead (which shows they were more than capable enough of a proper mainland invasion in France) - attacking Italy was a pretty bad investment of resources/time, which since it delayed a proper invasion and second front, was effectively just dícking around while the Nazi's/Russians were slaughtering each other.

So (going back to the original point of contention) as far as manpower and actual human sacrifice/fighting/bloodshed goes with the aim of defeating the Nazi's (as well as actual death toll of Nazi forces), Russia's contribution vastly outweighs that of any other nation, and the Western Allies come into the mainland war - launching a proper second front - conspicuously late and when the Nazi's were already well on the way to being pushed back to defeat.

Ok so let's clarify our points of contention. I agree Russia's contribution outweighs any other nation's. No argument there.

However I disagree that America landed in France conspicuously late. In 1943 the trans-atlantic supply route was still patchy, air superiority had not yet been won, there were too few ships and landing craft, and there weren't enough armoured vehicles or paratroopers. An invasion in 1943 would have been quickly stalled and we could have ended up with another Dunkirk scenario.

My second point of contention is your claim that Germany was already on the road to defeat when the landings happened. I agree Germany was on the road to defeat but this was with the help of the American lend lease project. It's a bit obtuse to criticize America for invading in 1944 when the Soviets were winning when they were winning with the help of American equipment. Almost none of that 11 billion dollars in aid was ever returned or paid back btw.

Would the Soviet Union have been winning in 1944 without American aid? I doubt it and I've supplied statistics and quotes to back up that argument.

Elmer Blooker

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

Ok so let's clarify our points of contention. I agree Russia's contribution outweighs any other nation's. No argument there.

However I disagree that America landed in France conspicuously late. In 1943 the trans-atlantic supply route was still patchy, air superiority had not yet been won, there were too few ships and landing craft, and there weren't enough armoured vehicles or paratroopers. An invasion in 1943 would have been quickly stalled and we could have ended up with another Dunkirk scenario.

My second point of contention is your claim that Germany was already on the road to defeat when the landings happened. I agree Germany was on the road to defeat but this was with the help of the American lend lease project. It's a bit obtuse to criticize America for invading in 1944 when the Soviets were winning when they were winning with the help of American equipment. Almost none of that 11 billion dollars in aid was ever returned or paid back btw.

Would the Soviet Union have been winning in 1944 without American aid? I doubt it and I've supplied statistics and quotes to back up that argument.

I am still convinced that the Soviets would have won the war without US aid, it would have just have taken longer. And the decision to divide Germany into zones of occupation was obviously a political one so there was no question of who got to Berlin first, the Americans stopped at the River Elbe. I find it interesting that Britain received $31.4 billion aid under lend-lease- thats almost three times more than the Soviet Union received yet they contributed very little to the WW2 ground war. On the other hand the Eastern Front saw titanic battles like Stalingrad, Kursk, Bagration, Kharkov (which changed hands 4 or 5 times) Budapest and Berlin.
Ask yourself, how did the Soviet Union come from being routed by Finland in 1940 to being a world superpower within five years.
As for the $11 billion - the US economy did very well from WW2 and gave rise to the military-industrial complex but we won't go into that in this thread.

KomradeBishop

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

Ok so let's clarify our points of contention. I agree Russia's contribution outweighs any other nation's. No argument there.

However I disagree that America landed in France conspicuously late. In 1943 the trans-atlantic supply route was still patchy, air superiority had not yet been won, there were too few ships and landing craft, and there weren't enough armoured vehicles or paratroopers. An invasion in 1943 would have been quickly stalled and we could have ended up with another Dunkirk scenario.

My second point of contention is your claim that Germany was already on the road to defeat when the landings happened. I agree Germany was on the road to defeat but this was with the help of the American lend lease project. It's a bit obtuse to criticize America for invading in 1944 when the Soviets were winning when they were winning with the help of American equipment.

Would the Soviet Union have been winning in 1944 without American aid? I doubt it and I've supplied statistics and quotes to back up that argument.

They landed in Sicily/Italy, when they already had a plan to land in France (they chose Italy instead), so they had the resources to do it earlier than they did, with those resources being allocated elsewhere.
In the latter half of 43 they had more than enough e.g. Mustangs to achieve air superiority; their abundance of other resources I haven't verified in detail, but the devotion of resources to Sicily/Italy undoubtedly delayed any such devotion to the eventual invasion in France.

With the second point of contention, the supply of materials has nothing to do with what is being debated - it's with who was doing the actual fighting; the US mainland was pretty much completely untouched by war, so of course it was lending economic help to its allies.
It was the Russians whose troops were used as cannon fodder against the Nazi forces, and who wiped out by far the greatest majority of the Nazi armies; the US had far less literal skin in the game.

Iwasfrozen

Elmer Blooker wrote: »

I am still convinced that the Soviets would have won the war without US aid, it would have just have taken longer. And the decision to divide Germany into zones of occupation was obviously a political one so there was no question of who got to Berlin first, the Americans stopped at the River Elbe. I find it interesting that Britain received $31.4 billion aid under lend-lease- thats almost three times more than the Soviet Union received yet they contributed very little to the WW2 ground war. On the other hand the Eastern Front saw titanic battles like Stalingrad, Kursk, Bagration, Kharkov (which changed hands 4 or 5 times) Budapest and Berlin.
Ask yourself, how did the Soviet Union come from being routed by Finland in 1940 to being a world superpower within five years.
As for the $11 billion - the US economy did very well from WW2 and gave rise to the military-industrial complex but we won't go into that in this thread.

A conviction that seemingly puts you at odds with Stalin and Zhukov. The Soviet Union just didn't have the industrial base to reverse their initial losses on their own. The lend lease proect was similar in scale to the entirety of Axis production and similar in scale to the US militarys own deployment in Europe.

I've given you the facts and figures, the Russian war effort was reliant on locomotives but they only produced 92 during the space of the war, America gave them 2,000. But you'd rather ignore reality and claim Russia defeated Germany on their own.

Iwasfrozen

KomradeBishop wrote: »

They landed in Sicily/Italy, when they already had a plan to land in France (they chose Italy instead), so they had the resources to do it earlier than they did, with those resources being allocated elsewhere.
In the latter half of 43 they had more than enough e.g. Mustangs to achieve air superiority; their abundance of other resources I haven't verified in detail, but the devotion of resources to Sicily/Italy undoubtedly delayed any such devotion to the eventual invasion in France.

With the second point of contention, the supply of materials has nothing to do with what is being debated - it's with who was doing the actual fighting; the US mainland was pretty much completely untouched by war, so of course it was lending economic help to its allies.
It was the Russians whose troops were used as cannon fodder against the Nazi forces, and who wiped out by far the greatest majority of the Nazi armies; the US had far less literal skin in the game.

Are you really trying to imply America could have landed in France in 1943 because they landed in Italy in 1943? Take a look at the numbers that were involved in Operation of Overlord and the invasion of Italy.

I don't disagree the USSR did the majority of the actual fighting. That's not in contention. But berating the United States for invading France in 1944 when the Soviets were winning is disingenuous when the Soviets wouldn't have been winning in 1944 without American aid.

DarkyHughes

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

The Soviet Union was invaded. They were facing an existential threat and without American aid that threat could have been realized. Do you expect the death rates to be different? What I can say is death rates on the Soviet side would have been much higher without American aid.

Could the US have invaded a year earlier when Hitler was in a better position? Maybe but again I doubt it. Invading another continent on the other side of the world with a million men was an extremely difficult and unprecedented logistical challenging, something that had never been attempted before. And I wouldn't exactly call invading Italy and taking them out of the war "dicking around".

What exactly is your criticism? That America should have invaded earlier? That they should have committed more troops to the fight when they had already committed the second largest allied army in the field? Their capital was already winning the war and they were fighting on a second front with Japan.

I think I agree with you on this one.

The American's were not "dicking around", it was not in their interest to see Russia weakened. If it wasn't for the Americans fighting the Japanese & knocking them back Russia could have been facing a war on 2 fronts from the Nazi's on their West & Japan invading them through China from the South East. Instead because of America keeping the Japanese busy by island hoping (& very quickly) it was the Nazi's who ended up facing invasions from 2 fronts.

Although we might disagree here I'm not sure nobody's brought it up. I think if the West was just able to take Japan & the Nazi's out they wouldn't have minded keeping Mussolini in power aslong as he wasn't trouble making. The West & especially America seemed happy enough to let fascist dictators remain in power after WW2. Franco being the most obvious in Europe, Nixon said of him "General Franco was a loyal friend and ally of the United States."
And they overthrew or helped to overthrow lots of left-wing, not even socialist but just left-wing democratic parties that came to power in Latin America, Pinochet's regime in Chile was extremely brutal & there was other fascist junta's they backed & aided like ones that would go & invade the Falkland Islands. My enemies enemy is my friend has largely been the policy America adopted after WW2 no matter how brutal that regime they use is. Like backing Saddam against Iran in the 1980's & what would turn out to be Bin Laden & his buddies against Soviets, two policies that really came back to haunt them.

Iwasfrozen

DarkyHughes wrote: »

Although we might disagree here I'm not sure nobody's brought it up. I think if the West was just able to take Japan & the Nazi's out they wouldn't have minded keeping Mussolini in power aslong as he wasn't trouble making. The West & especially America seemed happy enough to let fascist dictators remain in power after WW2. Franco being the most obvious in Europe, Nixon said of him "General Franco was a loyal friend and ally of the United States."
And they overthrew or helped to overthrow lots of left-wing, not even socialist but just left-wing democratic parties that came to power in Latin America, Pinochet's regime in Chile was extremely brutal & there was other fascist junta's they backed & aided like ones that would go & invade the Falkland Islands. My enemies enemy is my friend has largely been the policy America adopted after WW2 no matter how brutal that regime they use is. Like backing Saddam against Iran in the 1980's & what would turn out to be Bin Laden & his buddies against Soviets, two policies that really came back to haunt them.

Well had Italy not been a member of the axis alliance I don't think America would have bothered overthrowing them. No more than they overthrew Franco. Is that what you mean?

During the Cold War the US was fixated on beating the USSR. Left wing governments had to be overthrown not because they were left wig per say, but because they were often allies of the Soviet Union.

DarkyHughes

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

Well had Italy not been a member of the axis alliance I don't think America would have bothered overthrowing them. No more than they overthrew Franco. Is that what you mean?

During the Cold War the US was fixated on beating the USSR. Left wing governments had to be overthrown not because they were left wig per say, but because they were often allies of the Soviet Union.

Yeah exactly. Fascism never seemed to bother America aslong as it didn't get in it's way.

Elmer Blooker

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

A conviction that seemingly puts you at odds with Stalin and Zhukov. The Soviet Union just didn't have the industrial base to reverse their initial losses on their own. The lend lease proect was similar in scale to the entirety of Axis production and similar in scale to the US militarys own deployment in Europe.

I've given you the facts and figures, the Russian war effort was reliant on locomotives but they only produced 92 during the space of the war, America gave them 2,000. But you'd rather ignore reality and claim Russia defeated Germany on their own.

I'm not ignoring anything. Its a well known historical fact that whole factories were dismantled as the Germans advanced and loaded on to train wagons and transported east towards the Urals. The Soviet Union underwent an astonishing industrial revolution during WW2.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Soviet_Union_(1927–53)#War_and_Stalinist_industrial-military_development

.... not insignificant but hardly decisive either.

(additional supplies from lend-lease accounted for about 10–12% of the Soviet Union's own industrial output).

Fratton Fred

DarkyHughes wrote: »

Yeah exactly. Fascism never seemed to bother America aslong as it didn't get in it's way.

Which made America no different to any other country.

DarkyHughes

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

Well had Italy not been a member of the axis alliance I don't think America would have bothered overthrowing them. No more than they overthrew Franco. Is that what you mean?

During the Cold War the US was fixated on beating the USSR. Left wing governments had to be overthrown not because they were left wig per say, but because they were often allies of the Soviet Union.

I think the USSR was always going to lose the Cold War. It just didn't have the economy power to compete with America for so long. So I don't think the US needed to overthrow the amount of regimes it did. Chile had a good strong democracy for decades they didn't needed the USSR for support.

DarkyHughes

Fratton Fred wrote: »

Which made America no different to any other country.

Yeah bu not many other countries where in positions to arm & finance fascist dictators like Saddam Hussein.

Iwasfrozen

DarkyHughes wrote: »

I think the USSR was always going to lose the Cold War. It just didn't have the economy power to compete with America for so long. So I don't think the US needed to overthrow the amount of regimes it did. Chile had a good strong democracy for decades they didn't needed the USSR for support.

I agree the USSR was always going to lose the Cold War but I disagree America didn't need to overthrow pro Soviet governments. American policy towards the USSR was encirclement, the US feared a cascade effect in the third world if communism was allowed to spread unchecked.

That could have left America and Western Europe isolated in a Marxist dominated world. But it is worth saying America was happy to work with left wing non-Marxist goverments if they opposed the USSR.

BlaasForRafa

DarkyHughes wrote: »

Yeah bu not many other countries where in positions to arm & finance fascist dictators like Saddam Hussein.

Saddam's army and air force mainly used soviet supplied equipment.

DarkyHughes

BlaasForRafa wrote: »

Saddam's army and air force mainly used soviet supplied equipment.

Sure, and I bet the Taliban was supplied by the Soviets as well when they were fighting each other.

DarkyHughes

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

I agree the USSR was always going to lose the Cold War but I disagree America didn't need to overthrow pro Soviet governments. American policy towards the USSR was encirclement, the US feared a cascade effect in the third world if communism was allowed to spread unchecked.

That could have left America and Western Europe isolated in a Marxist dominated world. But it is worth saying America was happy to work with left wing non-Marxist goverments if they opposed the USSR.

But that's really up to the people of those countries to elect what type of government they want not who ever the most dominant country in the world sees fit to elect. Plus there was also Candida, Australia & Japan along with the capitalist world.

And in reality there wasn't much socialism actually going on in most countries that called themselves Communist. After Lenin & Trotsky seized power in the October Revolution & dismantled the socialist institutions that had been created during the course of popular struggle their wasn't anything like traditional socialism anywhere. So most of the Soviet countries weren't all that different from Fascist countries. There was no political freedoms in either of them, and they had a lot of the same qualities as each other Cults of Personality, suppression of the press & free speech, secret police, death squads etc...

Iwasfrozen

DarkyHughes wrote: »

But that's really up to the people of those countries to elect what type of government they want not who ever the most dominant country in the world sees fit to elect. Plus there was also Candida, Australia & Japan along with the capitalist world.

And in reality there wasn't much socialism actually going on in most countries that called themselves Communist. After Lenin & Trotsky seized power in the October Revolution & dismantled the socialist institutions that had been created during the course of popular struggle their wasn't anything like traditional socialism anywhere. So most of the Soviet countries weren't all that different from Fascist countries. There was no political freedoms in either of them, and they had a lot of the same qualities as each other Cults of Personality, suppression of the press & free speech, secret police, death squads etc...

I don't want to get into the "it'a not real socialism" argument but you seem to be saying here the US should have sat back and allowed socialism to cascade in the developing world because people have voted for it. But it's not as simple as that. Often socialist militias with Soviet backing seized control of entire governments regardless of the will of the people. And then you have issues where countries were split in two, like Vietnam or Korea. One side received Soviet protection so the US needed to protect the capitalist side.

In summary, allowing socialist countries to exist in the third world was not an option when the Soviet Union was willing to fund terrorism all over the globe.

jimgoose

As it always is when the goddam Yanks are concerned, it's quite simple. Just start with the Wright Brothers and follow the development of the American fighter-plane. Particularly after Pearl Harbour. That'll tell you all you need to know about how Americans think, and why they will never be defeated.

BlaasForRafa

DarkyHughes wrote: »

Sure, and I bet the Taliban was supplied by the Soviets as well when they were fighting each other.

There's a difference between a guerilla movement and a national army. There's also a vast difference between the quantity of materiel a national army needs compared to what a guerilla movement needs. The Soviet Union supplied vast amounts of arms to Iraq http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/notes/2009/N3248.pdf

Maybe you should bother to try finding out some information before making snide comments.

Capt'n Midnight

jimgoose wrote: »

As it always is when the goddam Yanks are concerned, it's quite simple. Just start with the Wright Brothers and follow the development of the American fighter-plane. Particularly after Pearl Harbour. That'll tell you all you need to know about how Americans think, and why they will never be defeated.

First flight from a moving ship was from HMS Hibernia
First landing on a moving ship was HMS Furious
First purpose built carrier was HMS Hermes , full flight deck and hurricane bow.
First carrier with angled flight deck was British
First to us mirror landing system
First with centimetre radar / effective airborne radar
Invention of turbo-jet
First to use jets on carriers
Pearl Harbour was a repeat of an earlier attack on Taranto by the Royal Navy.
Royal Navy was doing operations at night years before the US.
And using armoured flight decks.
And then there's the Harrier Jump Jets
guess which country invented the steam catapult ?, and the ski jump ramp
and which staged the first large helicopter assault ?

The US has gone back the the madness of the F111 with "one size fits all"
Yes the F111 was very capable at what a small subset of the tasks it was supposed to do. Other smaller , cheaper aircraft had to be used to fill the gaps. I imagine the F35 will be similar. One to one it could probably take on harriers and A10's and F18's , but whether it would be a better investment than multiples of the others is a different question. Quantity has a quality of it's own.


Americans never defeated ? remember "Mission Accomplished" ?

All depends on whether you consider the war over when the enemy's army was beaten or when there is finally peace.

dubscottie

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Invention of turbo-jet

Eh.. No.. Frank Whittle was credited with the jet as he was the first to patent it.. The Germans were working on one as well but unlike the British, kept it hush hush..

Whittles was a centrifugal compressor design that only model jets and Dyson hovers use now.

The Germans were there first.
Axial compressor (as used by almost all jets today),

The HE 178 (worlds first jet, flew before Whittles) and the ME 262 (worlds first jet fighter, long before the Meteor).

Not to mention that the Mig 15 (powered by Rolls-Royce engines that the UK sold to the USSR) and F -86 both had the same swept wings.. From the ME 262......

Capt'n Midnight

dubscottie wrote: »

Eh.. No.. Frank Whittle was credited with the jet as he was the first to patent it.. The Germans were working on one as well but unlike the British, kept it hush hush..

That's why I said turbo-jet

The key innovation was to have air bypassing the core of the engine, as acknowledged by Hans von Ohain himself.

Axial compressors were well known due to steam turbines. And at small engine sizes / low production volumes centrifugal compressors can have advantages.


During WWII it wasn't about who had the best technology, it was what what can we do today. Germans and Americans had problems with torpedoes at the start of WWII , the Japanese didn't. One US sub was able to fire on three Japanese carriers it could have been another Midway. Russians knew the T34's turret had lots of problems. But rather than wait for a solution they kept building them and then later on change over. The Germans waited for new tanks to be available for Kursk, the resultant mechanical problems didn't help, even at the end of the war they were still adding finishing touches to aircraft, the Russians were driving tanks from the factory to the front line unpainted , they were even driving them from the Moscow Parade to the front line. German didn't tap in to female labour in the way that the UK and Russia did and by one estimate they needed another 12 million workers. Which they could have had if they hadn't killed and alienated so many people in the East. One Million Russians fought for the Axis (recruited on pain of death though) It could have been a lot more.

Too many cases where Germany could have won, but couldn't really because the ideology ruled out so many options, the really bad logistics. There's no point in building Panthers to beat T34's if they are out gunned and out numbered by the IS-2's. And that still leaves you with 40,000 T34's to deal with.

Billy86

darkpagandeath wrote: »

Anyone name the only 2 democracy's in the world to ever declare war on each other ?

I've never quite got this - I know England/Britain and Finland are apparently the correct answers, but https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_between_democracies

karma_

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Americans never defeated ? remember "Mission Accomplished" ?

Never mind that, Vietnam was a huge defeat for them.

Snickers Man

Wibbs wrote:

Utter and seemingly unashamed ignorant nonsense bollocks. Though popular enough among your "my pint/life is subsidised by the sweat of others" 22 year old Leftie.
....
Fcuk right off.

When you have this kind of nonsense where the soviets ground under Stalin's jackboot are lauded as somehow good, it really fcuking rankles. Stalin killed more of his own that that twat Hitler ever did and wasn't exactly friendly to Jews.

GTFOut of it and read some actual history boy.

Snickers Man wrote: »

The Soviets engaged, killed, defeated more German and collaborating troops than the Western Allies put together and for a longer time. That's a fact. It doesn't make Stalin a nice guy. Or even a good guy.

Stalin WAS a bastard. And what rankles with me is the notion that we should somehow be grateful to other countries for "defending" us from Hitler in WWII. By that token, the Poles should be "grateful" to the memory of Stalin for "liberating" them from the Germans.

Go into a Polish club and suggest drinking a toast to Stalin on a VE day anniversary. Dare ya!

I wonder if Wibbs ever took up the challenge to drink a toast to "Stalin the Liberator" in a Polish club. :D

This story here about how today's Poles are writing out of history the story of the Soviet's removal of German forces from Poland suggests that my impression a year or so back that such a commemoration would not be enthusiastically endorsed has some validity.