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Split Thread WWII & Appeasement

SpitfireIX said:
The Heinkel 111 P had a cruise speed of 190 mph with a full bomb load; the Do-17 was even slower. Additionally, the Gladiator's "maximum speed" was in level flight; it was even faster in a dive (as when diving to attack a bomber formation). So please explain again how the Gladiator wasn't fast enough.
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Just causing the bombers (particularly a Do-17) to perform evasive action at top speed for more than a few minutes could mean loss of airframe and likely aircrew because they had to ditch over the North Sea.
 
Captain_Swoop said:
He was cheered to the roof in parliament and in the streets. No one wanted a war with Germany at any cost. 1914-18 was still raw for a lot of people.
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But not in private. A number of people thought war with Germany was inevitable, but supported Chamberlin's deal because the UK needed more time to rearm.
World War One was raw for a lot of people..including Churchill. When Eisenhower got annoyed at Chuchiill's foot dragging on Operation Overlord, one of His British generls told Ike""you have to understand,when you argue in favor of a major land campaing n France, you are going up against the memories of The Somme and Ypres".
 
Captain_Swoop said:
He was cheered to the roof in parliament and in the streets. No one wanted a war with Germany at any cost. 1914-18 was still raw for a lot of people.
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But not in private. A number of people thought war with Germany was inevitable, but supported Chamberlin's deal because the UK needed more time to rearm,but though his peace in our time statement was ill advised.
World War One was raw for a lot of people..including Churchill. When Eisenhower got annoyed at Chuchiill's foot dragging on Operation Overlord, one of His British generls told Ike""you have to understand, you are going up against the memories of The Somme and Ypres".
 
Garrison said:
Yet again Henri dredges up a filler article from some newspaper website that's more interested in creating a headline than historical accuracy. The failure to gain even temporary air superiority in the Battle of Britain simply provided a good excuse for the German generals to scupper a plan they knew was impossible even as they wasted resources on preparations.
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That's (a bit) unfair on the Independent article.

Admittedly it's not remotely pertinent to the question of how Germany could have bombed Britain in 1938, but it's not the fault the article.
 
jimbob said:
That's (a bit) unfair on the Independent article.

Admittedly it's not remotely pertinent to the question of how Germany could have bombed Britain in 1938, but it's not the fault the article.
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True, can't really blame it for Henri's refusal to do any proper research.
 
Henri McPhee said:
You people talk as though weak little Germany's bombers and fighters were incapable of reaching the UK in 1938. The point is that RAF fighters were woefully inadequate in 1938. Chamberlain's priority was to put that right, which he did, and he also organised radar. Churchill just had a 'with what' strategy and he wanted to choose war before dishonour.

Von Manstein, who was one of Hitler's best generals, always maintained that an invasion of Britain would be risky, but necessary. Hitler himself seems to have been opposed to an invasion of the UK as long as the RAF was still operational, which thankfully it was in 1940.

There is a bit about Chamberlain's military advice on the internet. Chamberlain would have been foolish to ignore this:
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Coming back to this. No, they could reach the UK, it was just that the fighters couldn't get home again, which is usually considered a bit of a waste of resources if the goal is to gain air superiority.

I suspect it wouldn't have done much for morale either.

"Right chaps, it's come to the stage of the war where we need a pointless sacrifice, so I want you to fly to Britain and ditch in the sea on the way back. "
 
Book containing the largest list of records?

ETA: That was intended for the Trivia quiz thread, but somehow seems apt for this and no less irrelevant than many posts here
 
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jimbob said:
Coming back to this. No, they could reach the UK, it was just that the fighters couldn't get home again, which is usually considered a bit of a waste of resources if the goal is to gain air superiority.

I suspect it wouldn't have done much for morale either.

"Right chaps, it's come to the stage of the war where we need a pointless sacrifice, so I want you to fly to Britain and ditch in the sea on the way back. "
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And as mentioned above the bomber crews better not be planning on evading fighters or anti-aircraft guns if they didn't want to end up swimming home.
 
Garrison said:
And as mentioned above the bomber crews better not be planning on evading fighters or anti-aircraft guns if they didn't want to end up swimming home.
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That's true, and of course, not avoiding the fighters or anti-aircraft guns would be a good way of avoiding a swim unless they ended up being shot down over a body of water
 
Well i don't know about you guys , but i'm in awe of Henry. I have never seen anyone be so wrong so consistently on any topic. To keep plugging away and posting, with the odd jibe about others lack of understanding, shows a lack of self awareness that has me gripped.
 
kookbreaker said:
The Afrika Corp never changed their diet for the environment they were operating in: Sausage, Schnitzel and Sauerkraut for desert eating....
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So Jules Verne was right in Les Cinq cents millions de la Bégum when he had Professor Schultze pitying other countries where they didn't eat sausage and sauerkraut at every meal. He shouldn't have needed to build a cannon to wipe out France-Ville, but I guess he didn't want to emulate the French knights (after all they were French) in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

:blackcat:
 
Oi! What's wrong with Sausage, Schnitzel and Sauerkraut? If anyone asks me, Schnitzel is the greatest invention before sliced bread :p

Well, other than that the first two were becoming a bit of a rarity for the average German, on account that, you know, Hitler had blocked meat imports.
 
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Also, just to make it clear, EVERYONE before the war had this holy grail idea of the bomber that's too fast to be intercepted. You have to understand though that, just like the holy grail, it's a fundamentally impossible to achieve idea. Because, if you think about it, if you manage to actually make an airframe that's faster with two (or four) engines than an existing interceptor, you can take the same airframe, eliminate the extra bomb load and crew, and put cannons in its nose, and call it a fighter. Now you have a fighter that's just as fast.

And all countries in the world had done just that: make a twin engine fighter if the technology ain't there yet for a single engine to keep up with a given role.

E.g., while we talk about Hurricanes and Spits and so on, what the RAF ALSO had since 1937 was the Bristol Blenheim which had demonstrated a top speed of 307mph. It wasn't very agile as a fighter against escorted bombers by '40, but it could mess up an unescorted bomber real good. And as was proven later, it could use higher caliber auto-cannons in the nose, with none of the problems that initial experiments with putting them in the wings of lighter planes had.

I could give other examples, but basically everyone seems so enchanted by the really good fighters, that they forget that the UK had about two dozen different fighter models during and right before the war. Were they as good as Spit or a Hurricane? Well, no. But if you needed something to shoot bombers out of the sky in '38, you could jolly well ramp up production of those until someone designs a Spit.
 
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HansMustermann said:
Also, just to make it clear, EVERYONE before the war had this holy grail idea of the bomber that's too fast to be intercepted. You have to understand though that, just like the holy grail, it's a fundamentally impossible to achieve idea. Because, if you think about it, if you manage to actually make an airframe that's faster with two (or four) engines than an existing interceptor, you can take the same airframe, eliminate the extra bomb load and crew, and put cannons in its nose, and call it a fighter. Now you have a fighter that's just as fast.

And all countries in the world had done just that: make a twin engine fighter if the technology ain't there yet for a single engine to keep up with a given role.

E.g., while we talk about Hurricanes and Spits and so on, what the RAF ALSO had since 1937 was the Bristol Blenheim which had demonstrated a top speed of 307mph. It wasn't very agile as a fighter against escorted bombers by '40, but it could mess up an unescorted bomber real good. And as was proven later, it could use higher caliber auto-cannons in the nose, with none of the problems that initial experiments with putting them in the wings of lighter planes had.

I could give other examples, but basically everyone seems so enchanted by the really good fighters, that they forget that the UK had about two dozen different fighter models during and right before the war. Were they as good as Spit or a Hurricane? Well, no. But if you needed something to shoot bombers out of the sky in '38, you could jolly well ramp up production of those until someone designs a Spit.
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That wait would be fairly short since design was under way for years already and production started in 1938.
 
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