Another wonderful obit

Tell that to the dead in Coventry.

Jesus you talk a load of fucking crap.

 

And aircraft weren't the only problem...

http://uboat.net/allies/merchants/warships.html

 

Ta (er, I think)

 

Yes. Oddly enough I'm reading "The wages of destruction" (Adam Tooze)
at the moment which deals with exactly that subject. Here's a clue
:"massive war production capacity" isn't a description he uses for the
German economy.

Er, no, they were in a worse state than the RAF (which, according to
you, was nearly destroyed) especially when it came to crews. The
empire training scheme was beginning to deliver RAF pilots while
Luftwaffe training was struggling.

Since all those structures are armoured, no, HE bombs aren't going to
bother them much. Firing HE at armour plate is usually a waste of time
(which is why battleship shells and anti-ship bombs are AP and, before
you ask,no, the Luftwaffe didn't have any AP bombs)

Because there's no need to take unnecessary risks if you don't have to
and the shore batteries *did* have AP shells. Attacking the invasion
fleet would be a very necessary risk.

Yes, for the merchant marine, no for the RN. The RN were more bothered
about the shore batteries than the Luftwaffe

What ? Some sort of justification for your number of 3,000 bombers.
Nope, didn't see that.

Cheers,

John

 

The Luftwaffe got lucky some of the time but, in general, flying an
unescorted bomber over England was not the key to a long life,

Cheers,

John

 

The armour plate was on the SIDES of the ships, bombs hit the decks
which were NOT armoured and go through into the important stuff below.

 

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the
drugs began to take hold. I remember John Anderton
<> saying something like:

Learn to snip, please.

Not much of an author then, is he? And more fool you for believing
everything he says. At its peak, Nazi Germany was capable of turning out
tanks, guns, planes and ammunition on a par with the US or the USSR.

Were they bollocks. Really, I don't know where you get this idea that
the RAF was somehow marvellously able to easily fend off the Luftwaffe.
The mere fact of its survival was largely because of Ultra and Dowding -
which I notice you snipped out as it doesn't agree with your notion.
I repeat, if it wasn't for Ultra and Dowding, the RAF *would* have been
wiped from the skies in the southern half of the country. Which makes
the way Dowding was treated after the war all the more scandalous.

Down to less than 600 operational fighters, get this .... IN THE ENTIRE
COUNTRY - I'd call that pretty fucked if that's all you have to defend
your skies, given the necessity of keeping fighter cover all along the
North East coast against Luftflotte 5 from Denmark and Norway. The RAF
at that point was losing ~100 fighters a week in the S.East and the
Spitfire factories were being heavily bombed in Southampton, so
replacement parts were becoming problematical, even allowing for
dispersal of manufacture.

Dowding himself was fearful that if the pressure kept up for another
fortnight, the RAF would be buggered.

What saved the day was the RAF raid on Berlin and Hitler's
foot-stamping, ordering punitive raids on London and other British cites
in revenge.

Beginning, perhaps, but buggerall in real terms compared to later.

They did. Plenty of them, for just such an event as attacking the RN in
the Channel.

They were worried about both and with good reason.


--
Dave
GS850x2 XS650 SE6a

"A scone and tea at half past three
Makes the day a little brighter
Keep your cakes and fancy tarts
And stick them up your shiter."

 

Battleships were armoured against "plunging fire"

so do 15" shells fired from several miles away

Oh yes they were (where they needed to be, anyway).

If they're AP they might, if they're HE, they don't

Cheers,

John

 

Not just England. I don't suppose there was a single mission flown by
any of the adversaries at any time where they expected less than 66%
losses for any unescorted bomber raid. If half came back it was A Good
Day.

 

Who says I do. His isn't the first book I've read on the subject and
it won't be the last.

Its peak most certainly wasn't in 1940 so how is that relevant ?

Not my idea at all. I haven't written the word "easily" in that
context anywhere. They were able to fend off the Luftwaffe, "easily"
didn't come into it. "marvelously" did, though.

Nope, I think Fighter Command's survival was mainly due to Dowding and
Ultra helped a bit.

Even without Ultra (but with Dowding) the RAF would, at best, been
forced to retreat from southern England. It wasn't going to be wiped
out because he wouldn't let it.

Without Dowding, yes Fighter Command might have been in trouble.

Well, yes.

Not really. Each fighter can, and did, fly multiple sorties in a day
whereas the bombers typically only flew one so 600 fighters translates

Britain produced ~1,900 single-seat fighters between July and October
(the Germans produced ~800) so they were building them faster than
they were being lost.

Nope, Fighter Command would have withdrawn north with 75% of it's
strength. that's not "buggered", that's "in trouble" at worst.

Then why, during the whole of 1940, didn't they use any ? Lots of
targets, some hit by HE bombs, *none* hit by AP.

Cheers,

John

 

On Fri, 15 Feb 2008 10:27:37 +0000, Phil Launchbury

snip>

Has war ever been declared over the 2nd Gulf War or the ongoing
conflict in Afghanistan? Come to that was it ever declared (by either
side) when that localised scuffle referred to as the Falklands War was
taking place?

 

Yes. The Throwback has declared that merkania is At War With Terror and
will conduct that war elsewhere out of preference.

 

What was he then one of them blokes who fires the anti aircraft guns?

Unsung heroes them blokes were, no heating in them guns, or weather
protection and you were expected to sit all night in one just in case. I
tell you the intent of the whole nation during those dark times when it
came to keeping supplies coming in from Ceylon was never written in no
history books nor could it ever be.

You are a wanker, you do know that don't you?

 

It was from The Times February 11, 2008

Lieutenant Colonel Alan Newson DSO DSC RM

http://tinyurl.com/3475fp

 

Just to add a bit to an interesting discussion.

British ship losses off the East Coast.

YEAR TORPEDO MINE AIRCRAFT
1939 17 61 10
1940 50 73 39
1941 32 18 38
1942 12 14 15
1943 3 8 7
1944 2 3 5
1945 6 4 3

Half and half day and night, though most convoys around the east coast
were at night. This gave rise to additional losses due to collision and
running aground on the sand bars.

Info from Ayer Tikus superb books on wrecks.


I've actually dived on an English ship, then dived on the German sub
that sunk it, then on the RN escort ship that sunk the sub which was
herself sunk by getting into difficulties while in the way of a convoy
at night.

 

Oh, nice swerve. So first you present a piece of erroneous history.
That's shot down and you pooh-pooh the shooting down. More information
is shown you to prove that you were, indeed, talking bollocks. And
still you don't acknowledge your mistake, but try another tack.

OK, genius. Spitfires and Hurricanes, well before the war, were armed
with Browning machine-guns. Now, who owned Browning? Oh yes: the US!
OK, so the guns were made under licence, but what's the difference?
The UK was buying US kit. I'm sure I could find other examples, but
frankly, you aren't worth the effort.

 

And they (and other Luftwaffe bombers) managed to sink a lot of ships
elsewhere. Think JU88, think Condor. Anderton's talking bollocks.

Indeed. The man's an idiot.

 

I've been offline for some time ;-)

See my latest comments to his assertions that the US refused to sell
arms to the UK. His position has been destroyed. For the rest, I'm
deliberately not participating because there are errors on both sides.

 

It is "buggered" if you are trying to defend invasion areas, because
your radius of operation and fighting time is severely reduced. Same
problem as the Luftwaffe fighters had when trying to fight over
London.

You make some good points, but you make as many mistakes as Grimly.