Guns on boats equals 5 years jail time

[Vipe6]

Originally Posted by Captain Bill

Vipe6, I am amazed at erroneous tripe you are pretending to pass off as history. Do you think that the war was only fought on the ground? Thousands of Americans died in Europe in the air campaigns and in the battle of the Atlantic well before D-Day. Do you really think that the soviets would have survived the early years of the war if not for the thousands of US sailors that died delivering gasoline and diesel fuel to Murmansk. I know a man still alive that survived several of those trips when sometimes a third of their convoy was lost to German U-boats. Yes the Russian people did a remarkable job of turning the Germans back with the help of the Russian winter and the crappy tanks, fuel and airplanes we sent them so that they could survive long enough to build their own superior tanks and aircraft. They were of course the same crappy tanks our men went to war in. If you knew your history you would also know that we did not enter the war in Europe when Japan attacked us at Pearl harbor on December 7, 1941, but only after Germany and Italy declared war on the US on December 11, 1941. Perhaps the soviet union could have defeated Germany on their own eventually. Perhaps it was our mistake not to let them do so. Of course they might not have stopped at the German border, at least then you would not have had to complain about what happened to eastern Europe. If you are going to try to pass yourself off as a historian at least you should know who was present at Potsdam. I,m sure Roosevelt enjoyed himself.

Actually the soviet t34 tank was far superior to the tanks the nazis used to invade the soviet union with. Besides, I did refer to the efforts delivered by the western allies. My post was about something completely different (that we had the entire war effort to thank to the us or something like that)

[Muckle Flugga]

Originally Posted by rognvald

So, Muckle,
Using your above logic, if you needed an extra 1/10 oz of gold to pay a debt to a creditor to avoid bankruptcy and you didn't have it, you would go broke. However, if someone gave you a 1/10 of an ounce of gold that saved you from bankruptcy, you would think it was not significant because it was a small amount. That's your logic above about US contributions to the war. Without the US and in spite of Russia, Europe today would be part of the extended German Empire. There is no mainstream historian that would argue that point to the contrary.

Well of course I didn't say any such thing, now, did I? But even so, you overstate the case. After Kursk the Germans were on the back foot every step of the way to Berlin. That was a clear year before D Day. Without question the allies in general including the US (and including the British, I might add, in case forgotten as it usually seems to be) were necessary and important to the war effort. So? The point being countered it seems to me is the idea that some (definitely not all, for example Dockhead) people from the US seem to have that they were the most instrumental nation in the conflict. They were not. That honour goes to the Russians, quite clearly. Ergo you could recast your statement just as easily to say the same about the British… whom you also seem to have forgotten? But neither were as important as the Russians. That is simply true. To deny this is to deny both the facts of history and their far greater sacrifice and contribution.

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by Going Walkabout

Allied bombing of Nazi controlled cities came after and only after Hitler started bombing London. Remember the evacuation of school aged children from London to the English countryside because of the nightly bombing by German V2's. No I suppose you don't. Lets not get facts in the way of anti American propaganda.

Actually it was not feasible till after the Battle of Britain was fought and won.. we were losing planes and pilots as fast as they were being built and trained.. if you survived more than a week you were an ace..
I think training flight time was 48hrs or something silly.
Canuck's, Aussies, Kiwi's, Indians and quite a few other cavalier young men including Yanks came over.. along with some 'Ace's' from the Spanish Civil War..
Hitler's rehearsal

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Moody46CC

. . . The Germans lost close to 200K at Stalingrad. I think they lost more in North Africa. After Operation Torch, Hitler foolishly sent reinforcements. I believe 275K surrendered in Tunisia. Some were Italians, but most were German.

German KIA in the whole North African campaign was less than 20,000. That's not a battle, but a whole campaign which went on for nearly three years.

German KIA in Stalingrad -- a single battle -- were about 200,000, and total German casualties were nearly a million, and more than a million people total died in the battle on both sides.

The North African campaign was fairly pointless -- many historians now believe it was conducted mainly to test out weapons and tactics. We learned in school that it was a stepping stone to the invasion of Italy, but this is obviously silly, and the invasion of Italy itself did little to influence the outcome of the war, as the Italian military did little but fight around the fringes.

We chose the softest bit (Churchill called it the "soft underbelly") and let the Soviets do the real fighting. An intelligent way to fight the war, by the way, letting those two bloody dictators maul each other almost into extinction while we stood practically unscathed on the sidelines.

[zeehag]

rodl i love how the trolls have to berate me for stating that which i see .. rodlmffao--they at their desks and me out here in the real international world being asked by folks of other nations why do the folks of usa have the attitude they do.
ugly american--YES! UGLY. the boozers and loozers of expatdom.
so is it jealousy or is it pure ignorance or narcissism that fuels your nonsense.
or is it your abject fear??

i know what a bully is-- a bully is someone who has to beat down the one describing the condition, situation, or wtf is being described, in a way in which the individual who experienced th e event or non event is supposed to be made to feel inferior to the napoleonic sized wasted dose of testosterone that needs to berate th e one who actually was there. inferiority complex, bully, small man. many names for the silent narcissist.

[Formosa Scott]

Originally Posted by Vipe6

My major gripe is the insistence of americans that everyone should do things their way.

Pot meet kettle.

[buzzstar]

If the war on the eastern front was already won, why did America lose so many merchant ships sending material aid to the Soviets on the Murmansk Run? [BTW, the Canadians were in it too.] Also why did Stalin keep whining for a second front?

This forum operates better when it is about cruising in boats. And yes, I realize am a culprit.

[Captain Bill]

Originally Posted by Going Walkabout

Allied bombing of Nazi controlled cities came after and only after Hitler started bombing London. Remember the evacuation of school aged children from London to the English countryside because of the nightly bombing by German V2's. No I suppose you don't. Lets not get facts in the way of anti American propaganda.

If you knew your history you would know that both sides had avoided bombing civilian population centers until an off course squadron to German bombers accidentally bombed London and Britain retaliated. You would also know that most school children were evacuated to the county side during the Blitz which predated the V2 rocket by several years.

[rognvald]

Originally Posted by Going Walkabout

Allied bombing of Nazi controlled cities came after and only after Hitler started bombing London. Remember the evacuation of school aged children from London to the English countryside because of the nightly bombing by German V2's. No I suppose you don't. Lets not get facts in the way of anti American propaganda.

Walkabout,
Don't forget. Hitler did not want to bomb the civilian targets/population in England. He knew from History that the English and German people shared a common culture and ethnicity from the original Celts(a Germanic Tribe) and the Angles and Saxons--two Germanic tribes that settled in SW England and beyond. Even today, the royal family is German: Saxe-Coburg. It was only when Churchill bombed civilian targets in Germany that the Germans responded in kind. Hitler did all he could to avoid war with England and would have preferred to have sued for peace, if possible. However, Hitler was not one to be trusted as he soon proved with the Russians. Much has been distorted about WWII by "revisionist" historians who twist the facts of History to conform to a political agenda. It is important to separate the wheat from the chaff.

[Formosa Scott]

Originally Posted by zeehag

rodl i love how the trolls have to berate me for stating that which i see .. rodlmffao--they at their desks and me out here in the real international world being asked by folks of other nations why do the folks of usa have the attitude they do.
ugly american--YES! UGLY. the boozers and loozers of expatdom.
so is it jealousy or is it pure ignorance or narcissism that fuels your nonsense.
or is it your abject fear??

i know what a bully is-- a bully is someone who has to beat down the one describing the condition, situation, or wtf is being described, in a way in which the individual who experienced th e event or non event is supposed to be made to feel inferior to the napoleonic sized wasted dose of testosterone that needs to berate th e one who actually was there. inferiority complex, bully, small man. many names for the silent narcissist.

So you're saying that you're a bully.

[Blue Crab]

I think waffle-eating is hyphenated. Jes sayin.😛

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Muckle Flugga

Well of course I didn't say any such thing, now, did I? But even so, you overstate the case. After Kursk the Germans were on the back foot every step of the way to Berlin. That was a clear year before D Day. Without question the allies in general including the US (and including the British, I might add, in case forgotten as it usually seems to be) were necessary and important to the war effort. So? The point being countered it seems to me is the idea that some (definitely not all, for example Dockhead) people from the US seem to have that they were the most instrumental nation in the conflict. They were not. That honour goes to the Russians, quite clearly. Ergo you could recast your statement just as easily to say the same about the British… whom you also seem to have forgotten? But neither were as important as the Russians. That is simply true. To deny this is to deny both the facts of history and their far greater sacrifice and contribution.

Actually the Germans were on the back foot, and could not have won, long before Kursk, in fact, after the attack on Moscow stalled out in December 1941. They had a slight chance of winning with a smashing blow against Moscow, taking advantage of horrible Soviet military leadership and disarray of the defense, but after that there was just no way -- for the simple reason that they could not produce enough materiel to fight an extended war. We have this stereotype of Nazi Germany as this industrial powerhouse, but it was not at all any kind of powerhouse. If you compare German war production with Soviet war production you see this clearly. The Soviets were outproducing the Nazis 10:1 in items of materiel like tanks, towards the end of the war. Once it turned into a protracted conflict, it was over for the Nazis, and Hitler himself knew and predicated that before Barbarossa even started. It was sheer stubbornness which led him to keep fighting, with the results we all know.

Thus the war was actually over shortly after Pearl Harbor, and before we were even seriously thinking about the European theater.

I worked on a book on this very subject, which was published some years ago.

[Miniyot]

Originally Posted by nauticalnomad

WTF....
The wars of the world even before WW2 were backed, manipulated or started by the US govt.. ...

So....Are you saying the U.S. started WWI??????

[rognvald]

"Napoleonic wasted sized dose of testosterone." Zee


Zee,
When you become a certain age, this dose becomes very costly! Good luck and good "T." Dr. Rognvald

[Muckle Flugga]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Actually the Germans were on the back foot, and could not have won, long before Kursk, in fact, after the attack on Moscow stalled out in December 1941. They had a slight chance of winning with a smashing blow against Moscow, taking advantage of horrible Soviet military leadership and disarray of the defense, but after that there was just no way -- for the simple reason that they could not produce enough materiel to fight an extended war. We have this stereotype of Nazi Germany as this industrial powerhouse, but it was not at all any kind of powerhouse. If you compare German war production with Soviet war production you see this clearly. The Soviets were outproducing the Nazis 10:1 in items of materiel like tanks, towards the end of the war. Once it turned into a protracted conflict, it was over for the Nazis, and Hitler himself knew and predicated that before Barbarossa even started. It was sheer stubbornness which led him to keep fighting, with the results we all know.

Thus the war was actually over shortly after Pearl Harbor, and before we were even seriously thinking about the European theater.

I worked on a book on this very subject, which was published some years ago.

Excellent, and I couldn't agree more, though with the caveat that "over" still meant a lot of fighting, so perhaps "outcome inevitable" or something like... I chose Kursk because that is the point at which all hope was lost even in the eyes of most Germans. There was absolutely no turning back after that, not even any hope of negotiated peace. But I agree in general with you for sure. So you are/were a historian, or is that just another string to your bow so to speak?