Britain was "junior partner" to US in fighting the Nazis

[hard2miss]

In conclusion it's not too far fetched to say that because of weak and gutless British and French leadership they managed indirectly to get themselves into a war no one wanted and need not have happened

I agree with the most part of your post and had it panned out how you say the world would be a different place, but thats exactly the attitude that got us bogged down in Iraq.

Sometimes giving peace a chance is worth the risk, given that it can go wrong in any event, your better off not being the one to actually start a war to save one starting if Iraq is anything to go on.

[hard2miss]

I disagree with that. The American industrial base may not be on a level as it was during the war but the capability to produce modern and efficient weapons of war is still very much there

 

The latest hi tech jet fighter can do the work of 50 of it's WW2 counterparts.

 

An Abrams tank is the most formidable weapon produced for land warfare in history. None of thes kinds of weapons need to be mass produced. In modest numbers their killing power is far and away beyond the scope of any weapons produced during WW2.

 

The Nimitz class aircarft carriers and the air power they carry is awesome to say the least.

 

Modern war is not about great big armies, thousands of planes and tanks.

It's about how much killing power a highly trained military using the latest technology can inflict on an enemy without even having to get close to him

I have watched documentories on that too and it really is an awsome viercle and the support network that supplies and repares them is second to none.

 

They recycle everything on that thing and its always getting dragged back in for upgrades.

[hard2miss]

It was not paid for by Government as you may call it, it was paid for by the sweat and blood of ordinary Americans, people who had just come out of a depression. Its not possible to get something for nothing, America didn't ask you to declare war on Germany, but Americans were in it before they came into it. Some fought as pilots in the Battle of Britain,and the US navy was active in the Atlantic sinking U Boats. Many others wore Canadian uniforms.

. You seem to know little about America at that time, It went from being totally unprepared to an incredible arsenal in less than two years and if you think that Americans, many of them expert hunters and gun owners, would lie down to a bunch of Krauts you are very much mistaken. I was 8 years old when the war started, and I remember what austerity and rationing was all about. But the austerity went on too long because Sheffield's beloved labour party wanted total control of people's lives. It would have been far better to open up markets and let the money move around creating jobs and opportunity. That would have been too much the American way, and is partly the reason I'm here enjoying the good life and not harping continuously about events that happened 70 years ago.

You know something I have always said that war is a good stimulas for the ecconamy and as things were teatering on the edge when George W was running the show I have always said that the wars we got into were more about taking American eyes off the economy and boosting it than what the actual war s were said to be about.

[donuticus]

You know something I have always said that war is a good stimulas for the ecconamy and as things were teatering on the edge when George W was running the show I have always said that the wars we got into were more about taking American eyes off the economy and boosting it than what the actual war s were said to be about.

 

I agree. Sadly human beings are at their most inventive when finding new ways to kill each other more efficiently.

[Harleyman]

You forgot " Von Ryans Express" with Frank Sinatra as a Colonel in the air corps, leading a bunch of Brits to safety from those nasty Krauts. He dies in the end, it would have been better if he'd died at the beginning. Saving Private Ryan was a serious attack on Montgomery, so was Patton. Monty was a hero to me, and I still consider him one. I can't understand Hollywood, most villains have English accents. In the Patriot, Mel Gibson maligned a British Aristocrat making him a tyrant. American history has the same man a hero. I don't blame Brits being upset about Enigma, I was upset too. But you don't have to waste your money at the cinema, and if you do don't blame the American public for it. They are really not that different from you. Just a bit luckier that's all ( Sorry, I had to get that little dig in, hope you have a sense of humor, spelt without a second u.

 

 

It wasnt until around seven years ago that I could bring myself to watch any war movie in the more modern genre category. Like many other Vietnam vets I went through a period of flashbacks which lasted on and off for several years

 

I wouldnt bother trying to explain what the effects of post combat syndrome/stress are to any of these jokers like natjack. They live in a world of their own and damned lucky they never had to go through any of that

 

'Platoon" and "Apocolypes Now" are rightly anti war. There was no glory only the struggle between war and ant-war and the madness of it

 

Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks paid respects to the WW2 soldiers in "Saving Private Ryan" and "Band of Brothers"

There was no gung ho glory in any of those productions merely the nastiness of war experienced by very ordinary men caught up in the whole damned mess.

 

I too was upset at the derogatory remark about Montgomery in "Ryan" He was indeed a great general and must have banged his head on the wall many times over the occasional decsions made by Eisenhower who was a very able administrator but not a soldier of any combat experience

 

We vets never got a welcome home. Someone in a crowd of anti-war demonstrators threw a can of soda at us when we arrived at San Francisco International airport.

 

Americans today may hate the war in Afganistan and Iraq but they have the intelligence to know that wars are started by politicians and solders sent to those places only do what they are called upon to do.

 

It's great to see how these vets are welcomed home these days. At least in the US anyway

 

It's not much use discussing war movies with natjack. I've given up. His intellectual level on such subjects seems to reach only to the likes of John Wayne and Errol Flynn

[MadnBad]

I was a sea cadet in 1946 on summer training at Prestwick airport, which was then a Naval Air Station. We were takn on a trip to the Gareloch where a lot of warships were waiting to be scrapped. There was a carrier with a big shell hole in her side, some japanese midget submarines and lots of destroyers, but there was also the Tirpitz upside down. She had finally beem hit by a 20000 pound bomb from a Lancaster bomber and had capsized. She had been towed like that from Tromso Fjord in Norway.

 

You're lucky you got to see those old ships before they went west, i'm very envious.

But you didn't see tirpitz she never left the spot she sank in, at least not in one piece anyway, i'd love to know what ship you did see but odds are the records are gathering dust in a navy storage depot somewhere.

She was sunk by tallboy bombs about 12000 pounds or five tons invented by barnes wallace of dambusters fame.

[Harleyman]

You know something I have always said that war is a good stimulas for the ecconamy and as things were teatering on the edge when George W was running the show I have always said that the wars we got into were more about taking American eyes off the economy and boosting it than what the actual war s were said to be about.

 

Not to mention the manufacture of body bags, caskets and artificial limbs

[MadnBad]

It's always a bit surprising how smart the Germans were in producing weapons like the V-2 and getting the first combat jet fighter the Me 262 fully operational but how shortsighted they were in other ways when it came to rearmament.

 

The day of the battleship was already over by the mid 1930s and yet they built these pocket battleships that may have been formidable warships but were sitting ducks from air attacks

 

The Royal Navy, the US Navy and the Japanese navy knew that the aircraft carrier was an essential part of any future war at sea yet Germany never had one under construction in 1939. It may be that they put their trust in submarine warfare instead.

 

The same goes for aircraft production. Their fighters were a match for any enemy but they never produced a long range four engined bomber. The Americans had started manufacturing the first four engined Boeing B-17s and the B-24s by the mid 1930s.

 

Since Hitler's main aim was to invade and occupy large areas of Russia its baffling that they never saw the need for anything bigger than 2 engined limited range bomber aircraft

 

The use of the battleship was percieved as suspect even as early as the great war but it wasn't proved definitive until pearl harbour and hms prince of wales and repulse, but they were still very powerful symbols.

Germany never really expected to be able to match britain at sea so they were unlikely to build unnecessary ships, but they were technologically ahead of the curve on just about everything.

We were just damn lucky that hitlers attention span was quite short in some cases regarding military advances, and of course attacking russia was his downfall.

On the subject at hand britain would not have fallen to the nazis without americas help but we would have had to seek a truce and eventually if the russians didn't manage to reduce his interest in world domination he would have turned his focus back to us.

But the threat of invasion was just about over after the battle of britain.

[Harleyman]

The use of the battleship was percieved as suspect even as early as the great war but it wasn't proved definitive until pearl harbour and hms prince of wales and repulse, but they were still very powerful symbols.

Germany never really expected to be able to match britain at sea so they were unlikely to build unnecessary ships, but they were technologically ahead of the curve on just about everything.

We were just damn lucky that hitlers attention span was quite short in some cases regarding military advances, and of course attacking russia was his downfall.

On the subject at hand britain would not have fallen to the nazis without americas help but we would have had to seek a truce and eventually if the russians didn't manage to reduce his interest in world domination he would have turned his focus back to us.

But the threat of invasion was just about over after the battle of britain.

 

As a WW2 buff i've often wondered what would have happened if England had been forced to sign a peace agreement with Hitler

 

I tend to think that it would have in many ways resembled the Vichy France kind of country.

 

Hitler had always imagined that an alliance with England would be one of his greatest achievments in fighting Bolshevism

 

We English and I still consider myself one are a pretty decent bunch overall. For fair play and the underdog but there would have been a lot of support for Hitler amongst the upper classes and no shortage of men willing to become part of a Vichy like government

 

There would have been no shortage in recruiting Aryan like Englishmen into the ranks of the SS either

The SS found willing recruits in all it's occupied countries even in Russia and England would have been no exception

 

Every country has the kind of men who volunteer for such units.

 

No doubt Hitler would have demanded that England supply many of the raw material and other resources needed to fight his war agains Russia much of it drawn from English posessions overseas

 

It would ony have been a matter of time before British Jews were rounded up sad to say

 

The Vichy French police cooperated willingly in arresting French Jews as did police in Holland, Scandinavia, Poland and Czechoslovakia

 

The decent British bobby would more than likely found it disgusting but there were always others who would have stepped into his shoes if he chucked his job in

[buck]

You're lucky you got to see those old ships before they went west, i'm very envious.

But you didn't see tirpitz she never left the spot she sank in, at least not in one piece anyway, i'd love to know what ship you did see but odds are the records are gathering dust in a navy storage depot somewhere.

She was sunk by tallboy bombs about 12000 pounds or five tons invented by barnes wallace of dambusters fame.

It was a story told by some matelots on a sub depot ship at the loch.Thy said their ship had been tied up so long it was resting on the Carnation milk cans they'd used. Of course we believed them. I was soon to find out the RN's love of Carnation milk. It didn't need refridgeration. Whatever it was that was a capsized battleship with four screws. The last time I saw a capsized battleship it was in Pearl Harbor while on a visit to USS Arizona. I hadn't realized that USS Oklahoma was still lying where she had capsized. Its a strange feeling standing over the Arizona with over 1000 men still entombed inside her, and the little slick of oil that continued to escape from her after 41 years.