Author Topic: Killing German Ground Crews?  (Read 1786 times)

Offline cpxxx

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Re: Killing German Ground Crews?
« Reply #15 on: April 21, 2008, 04:33:03 AM »
I remember reading a biography of one American leading ace. Can't remember which. But he said they were told to strafe everything that moved and lots of stuff that didn't move on the ground in Germany. He felt bad about it but realised it was war.

Attacking ground crews is perfectly legitimate. Aircraft needs lots of maintenance. If the ground crew is dead it won't fly for long.

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Offline Tango

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Re: Killing German Ground Crews?
« Reply #16 on: April 21, 2008, 06:40:54 AM »
Thats the problem with todays wars. Too many times people have seen surgical strikes spareing innocent lives and seem to forget that some wars need to be decisive instead of humane.

Carpet bombing Bagdad at the beginning of the war would have done alot more to prevent alot of the problems we are seeing in Iraq now. They would have known what we are capable of doing.
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Offline DREDIOCK

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Re: Killing German Ground Crews?
« Reply #17 on: April 21, 2008, 07:48:23 AM »
Thats the problem with todays wars. Too many times people have seen surgical strikes spareing innocent lives and seem to forget that some wars need to be decisive instead of humane.

Carpet bombing Bagdad at the beginning of the war would have done alot more to prevent alot of the problems we are seeing in Iraq now. They would have known what we are capable of doing.

Well put.

Plus to answer the original question.
Since they tended to move around aot  there werent as many "hardened" airfeilds back then. And it doesnt takew as much to destroy a plane on the ground as it would say, a brick building.
Therefore you didnt need such heavy ordinance as you would for a brick building

Plus. anything, even a penny being dropped from 10,000+ feet is going to cause damage if it hits something.

Dropping the smaller ord probobly has several purposes.
You could drop alot more individual bombs thus increasing your chances of hittting something as well as killing the enemy.

Look at it this way in game.

You can take up a bomber with ALOT of small ord. and any one of those bombs is more then enough to destroy a plane on the ground.
 But it takes alot more of that same ord to destroy a building in a city.
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Offline SkyRock

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Re: Killing German Ground Crews?
« Reply #18 on: April 21, 2008, 07:50:16 AM »


Carpet bombing Bagdad at the beginning of the war would have done alot more to prevent alot of the problems we are seeing in Iraq now. They would have known what we are capable of doing.
I guess killing 1000's of innocent is what we are looking for?  Kinda sounds like another entity's MO.

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Offline lazs2

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Re: Killing German Ground Crews?
« Reply #19 on: April 21, 2008, 08:06:03 AM »
I think the problem with the germans was not that they had so many good mechanics and ground crew but so few.

You have to put it in perspective.  the germans were still using a million horses at the end of the war.. they had something like 400 different vehicles and only one in 100 germans had and experience with cars much less trucks or planes.. they moved at horse drawn pace.   The japs had much the same problem and when we took over some jap airfields there were lots of aircraft and vehicles with very minor problems like fuel system that were grounded..  An American field would have canabalized the wrecks for parts because Americans were far more used to working on vehicles and most Americans drove and maintained their own vehicles and even farm equipment.

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Offline texasmom

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Re: Killing German Ground Crews?
« Reply #20 on: April 21, 2008, 08:32:53 AM »
War: kill people & break stuff.

Wouldn't be nearly as effective if it turns into: 

War: hurt people's feelings & break stuff.
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Offline Shuffler

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Re: Killing German Ground Crews?
« Reply #21 on: April 21, 2008, 08:34:59 AM »

But were the airfield personnel really killing the US Airmen in the skies??   After all, they were only support people, and not the actual combatants taking to the air.

I doubt that this sort of tactic would have been considered chivalrous in WW I.

At least it was a military target and not like bombing London.
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Offline Jackal1

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Re: Killing German Ground Crews?
« Reply #22 on: April 21, 2008, 08:39:42 AM »
War: kill people & break stuff.

Wouldn't be nearly as effective if it turns into: 

War: hurt people's feelings & break stuff.

 :lol

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Offline lasersailor184

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Re: Killing German Ground Crews?
« Reply #23 on: April 21, 2008, 08:56:29 AM »
I guess killing 1000's of innocent is what we are looking for?  Kinda sounds like another entity's MO.

Possibly.  But when you consider that NO WAR IN THE HISTORY OF ALL MANKIND HAS EVER BEEN WON WITHOUT THE USE OF TOTAL WAR, you need to think to yourself, "Am I just going to dick around in a foreign country for a while?  Try to make friends?  Or am I going to win this diddlying war?"



Btw, attacking military personnel is not Total War.
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Offline bcadoo

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Re: Killing German Ground Crews?
« Reply #24 on: April 21, 2008, 09:16:10 AM »
I guess killing 1000's of innocent is what we are looking for?  Kinda sounds like another entity's MO.

I wouldn't call the ground crews 'innocents' exactly.  And anyway we had to drop small ones because we hadn't developed 'the big one' yet, but if we had rest assured we would've nuked their butts too.
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Offline SIK1

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Re: Killing German Ground Crews?
« Reply #25 on: April 21, 2008, 09:22:48 AM »
At least it was a military target and not like bombing London.

You do realise that the allies bombed cities as well. The images of Dresden burning comes to mind.
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Offline Airhead

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Re: Killing German Ground Crews?
« Reply #26 on: April 21, 2008, 09:43:14 AM »
Carpet bombing Bagdad at the beginning of the war would have done alot more to prevent alot of the problems we are seeing in Iraq now. They would have known what we are capable of doing.

Yup. If we woulda just flat out leveled Baghdad and killed every man, woman and child there we would have won the war quickly and our kids would be home by now.

You're voting for McCain, right?

Four more years?

Great.

Offline Shuffler

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Re: Killing German Ground Crews?
« Reply #27 on: April 21, 2008, 09:44:40 AM »
Yes.... as history shows....

German bombers off course dropped on London.

Brits in turn bombed Berlin.
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Offline GtoRA2

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Re: Killing German Ground Crews?
« Reply #28 on: April 21, 2008, 09:53:29 AM »
I wonder how Ltardglok feels about allied airmen shooting german pilots in their chutes.

Kinda sounds like he thinks WW2 was fought with white scarves and lances or some toejam.

Offline midnight Target

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Re: Killing German Ground Crews?
« Reply #29 on: April 21, 2008, 10:04:08 AM »
It would be even meaner if they shot them and watched them bounce off the rocks into the gorge..  :cool: