Author Topic: debunking the myth of the Spitfire  (Read 18450 times)

Offline LCADolby

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Re: debunking the myth of the Spitfire
« Reply #90 on: April 08, 2016, 05:01:47 AM »
Herr Hitler failed to read the history of that other little corporal that tried to cross The English Channel. I hear he came a cropper. 
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Offline nrshida

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Re: debunking the myth of the Spitfire
« Reply #91 on: April 08, 2016, 05:03:02 AM »
What ho Bruv old chap. Someone told me you were a father now. Congratulations. When do the baby's flying lessons commence? I heard you can get child-safe CH sticks now.

Still get to fly a bit here and there? Dont worry. The nappy changing phase only lasts 3-4 years tops. 5 if you're very unlucky. 

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Offline dirtdart

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Re: debunking the myth of the Spitfire
« Reply #92 on: April 08, 2016, 05:33:45 AM »
Hear hear Shida. I am glad to see that the bulletin boards are sporting his usual. The Spitfire was a fantastic airplane and I think the real expert you have to weigh against is that English naval officer I believe last name Brown who has many documentaries on the internet and The credibility of having flown the greatest variety of aircraft of any man ever and take his comments of the Spitfire so heart.
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Offline PJ_Godzilla

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Re: debunking the myth of the Spitfire
« Reply #93 on: April 08, 2016, 10:22:14 AM »
Some say revenge is a dish best served cold. I say it's usually best served hot, chunky, and foaming. Eventually, you will all die in my vengeance vomit firestorm.

Offline FBKampfer

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Re: debunking the myth of the Spitfire
« Reply #94 on: April 08, 2016, 12:50:08 PM »
Is that because the Germans are so uber and powerful and skilful? Wow. Must be the aryan DNA huh?

One factor I never see raised in these slightly dubious discussions is that the fight was by no means even because Germany essentially had a twenty year advance over everyone else with equipment and tactics. They started with no legacy weapons, a completely re-structured military a huge R&D budget and used the Spanish civil war and other naughtiness to test elements of a new approach as far removed from the previous trench warfare as possible. It was indeed innovative but let's not forget why it was motivated. In the interwar years Europe was fumbling with the concept of trying to move to a world peace philosophy - so outraged were most NORMAL people and governments about the horrors of the first world war. Just look at the arts movements and social developments of the day. Look at the policy of appeasement and that poor deluded fool Neville Chamberlain. Hitler and the other fascists took advantage of this movement to rearm with a vengeance while externally promising peace. The back-stabbing, lying, monotesticular, scumbag.

Britain did not have the capacity immediately after the BoB to counterattack anything interesting and Germany's U-boat blockade was to try and forestall the inevitable and Hitler bloody-well knew it. Had America stayed out it's highly likely Britain would eventually have closed the technological and tactical gap - even it it would have taken to the late 50s - and some kind of different landscape of Europe would have eventually announced. There is evidence for this if you compare equipment towards the closing of the war. They were never going to leave Hitler unmolested if they could. This was an ethical as well as political objection. Go listen to Churchill's speeches.

But by no means let any of those factors disturb your Luftwining, slightly racist, unobjective delusions that Nazi Germany was noble and uber alles and that Britain is and always was the bad guy in every possible scenario. A not uncommon point of view as it deserves to be, apparently.

Wrong, only their airforce, and infantry were largely modernized. Very few Panzer III's and IV's were fielded when Germany rolled up every major military power in Europe through 40 and 41. Only in 42 did Panzer III's really start to form sizeable portions of the panzerwaffe. Prior to that, they were heavily reliant on the already obsolete Panzer I and II's.

And large portions of their artillery arm remained obsolescent throughout the war. Only the leFH 18, 10,5cm K18, and 15cm K39 could be called truly modern designs, and not even all of them were the modernized version suited for mobile warfare. Some still had wooden spoked wheels.


Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that they were übernehmen, but saying Germany didn't start with any legacy weapons is only technically true.

The number one reason they performed as well as they did was their tactics. They were decades ahead of anyone else. Literally nobody else had even the slightest inkling of how to handle their equipment.

Number two was that they were willing to field new equipment the absolute instant it got off the assembly line. Only have 12 of the new Tigers? Perfect, gas em up and throw em at the Russians.

New 190 has problems with the cockpit temperatures? Use them anyway.


The German military is always made out to be far more robust than it actually was.


And the third reason they performed as well as they did was that they were motivated. Morale is huge.
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Offline nrshida

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Re: debunking the myth of the Spitfire
« Reply #95 on: April 08, 2016, 01:46:33 PM »
Wrong, only their airforce, and infantry were largely modernized. Very few Panzer III's and IV's were fielded when Germany rolled up every major military power in Europe through 40 and 41. Only in 42 did Panzer III's really start to form sizeable portions of the panzerwaffe. Prior to that, they were heavily reliant on the already obsolete Panzer I and II's.

And large portions of their artillery arm remained obsolescent throughout the war. Only the leFH 18, 10,5cm K18, and 15cm K39 could be called truly modern designs, and not even all of them were the modernized version suited for mobile warfare. Some still had wooden spoked wheels.


Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that they were übernehmen, but saying Germany didn't start with any legacy weapons is only technically true.

The number one reason they performed as well as they did was their tactics. They were decades ahead of anyone else. Literally nobody else had even the slightest inkling of how to handle their equipment.

Number two was that they were willing to field new equipment the absolute instant it got off the assembly line. Only have 12 of the new Tigers? Perfect, gas em up and throw em at the Russians.

New 190 has problems with the cockpit temperatures? Use them anyway.


The German military is always made out to be far more robust than it actually was.


And the third reason they performed as well as they did was that they were motivated. Morale is huge.




Blitzkrieg tactics are about as opposite to trench warfare as possible. I'm sure that contributed to its development. The dissolving of the German Army and Navy and Airforce after the treaty of Versaille paved the way for a later clean sheet of paper approach not accessible to other nations who retained the structures, doctrines and tactics they had.

I'm happy to be corrected by more knowledgeable people on details and specifics. However I think the point still stands and yet is seldom mentioned. Regardless of technique / equipment mixtures, many of those armies and airforces they rolled over where comparatively ill-equipped and ill-prepared and certainly old-fashioned in their tactics. In a period of potential and lasting peace they rushed into the vacuum and took advantage of that with aggression, subjugation and ultimately the extermination of uncountable innocent people.

Perhaps some people on this forum should bear that in mind when idolising the tools that did that work.

Debunking the myth of the Spitfire. Do me a lemon flavour.

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Offline Squire

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Re: debunking the myth of the Spitfire
« Reply #96 on: April 08, 2016, 08:13:08 PM »
Quote
Just as the Luftwaffe failed to force Britain to make peace, so the RAF with its own air campaign in the aftermath of the BoB failed to defeat Germany. 

Quote
There was no Luftwaffe to destroy in western Europe at that time

Sorry you have lost me as what your point was then. Also I don't see the relevance of what Tangmere Wing did or didn't do or Douglas Bader either.

Not achieving their 1940 objectives against England ensured that Germany would fight a disastrous two front war with Britain and the USA. That's what failure did to them. They would never be able to throw their entire weight East against the Soviets...and after Moscow 1941 that's what they had to do. The Eastern Front did not exist in a vacuum. The United States entry into the war did not take place in a vacuum. The fact that Britain was still in the war after 1940 had a long lasting impact on WW2...all of it bad for Germany.
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Offline Karnak

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Re: debunking the myth of the Spitfire
« Reply #97 on: April 08, 2016, 10:48:34 PM »
I would say that the effect the RAF had in 1941 is to keep some of the Luftwaffe out of Russia, thus easing the pressure on the USSR.  Whether the price the RAF paid was worth that is up for debate.

There may of also been some usefulness in showing people in the low countries that the Germans hadn't won yet and reminding the Germans themselves that wars have consequences.
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Offline Squire

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Re: debunking the myth of the Spitfire
« Reply #98 on: April 09, 2016, 02:07:00 AM »
It was entirely sound to conduct operations over Northern France in 1941 as they are gearing up for wider operations to come, they need to keep units battle seasoned, they need to try new tactics and aircraft and yes, they need to be seen to be fighting where they can. Would historians have viewed them kindly if they just sat back and did nothing for a few years? I would think not.

That said its true that the Luftwaffe did better on the kill-loss exchanges and there were a number of reasons for that. I take nothing away from them...but the idea though that it was some "Second BoB?"....no. Not even close.

There was sort of a "Second BoB 1940"...it happened over Malta in 1942. The Spitfire won there too.  :banana: < oh look I did a dancing banana of my own!
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Offline Zimme83

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Re: debunking the myth of the Spitfire
« Reply #99 on: April 09, 2016, 05:25:20 PM »
Sorry you have lost me as what your point was then. Also I don't see the relevance of what Tangmere Wing did or didn't do or Douglas Bader either.

Not achieving their 1940 objectives against England ensured that Germany would fight a disastrous two front war with Britain and the USA. That's what failure did to them. They would never be able to throw their entire weight East against the Soviets...and after Moscow 1941 that's what they had to do. The Eastern Front did not exist in a vacuum. The United States entry into the war did not take place in a vacuum. The fact that Britain was still in the war after 1940 had a long lasting impact on WW2...all of it bad for Germany.

Russia would have defeated Germany regardless of what was happening on the western front. By the time the Battle of Stalingrad was over there was still very Little action on the western front. Most important effect of D-day was that it prevented Russia from taking western Europe too... Almost 90 % of the German Soldiers were fighting in the East, the remaining 10% would not have changed the outcome.
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Offline Oldman731

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Re: debunking the myth of the Spitfire
« Reply #100 on: April 09, 2016, 07:57:47 PM »
Russia would have defeated Germany regardless of what was happening on the western front. By the time the Battle of Stalingrad was over there was still very Little action on the western front. Most important effect of D-day was that it prevented Russia from taking western Europe too... Almost 90 % of the German Soldiers were fighting in the East, the remaining 10% would not have changed the outcome.


Agreed.

That said, 60,000 trucks and all of the rest of the equipment we sent to the Bolsheviks, at significant cost to a lot of sailors, didn't hurt their chances any.

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Offline FLOOB

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Re: debunking the myth of the Spitfire
« Reply #101 on: April 09, 2016, 09:13:04 PM »
Russia and the Soviet Union are two different things you diddlying hillbillies. Half of the soviets didn't even speak russian in the 1940s.
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Offline Zimme83

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Re: debunking the myth of the Spitfire
« Reply #102 on: April 09, 2016, 09:54:52 PM »
And what was the Soviet union called Before the revolution...?

(Spoiler: Russia)

Soviet Union = Russia under communist rule (post ww2 also including Countries in Eastern Europe taken by Soviet forces during the war)
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Offline FLOOB

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Re: debunking the myth of the Spitfire
« Reply #103 on: April 09, 2016, 10:23:51 PM »
And what was the United States of America called before the revolution? "The English from the Great British Colonies in North America fought to victory on Iwo Jima." That would actually make more sense than your russia = ussr contention because americans actually speak english.

Russia wasn't a beligerent military in WWII because it didn't have a national military because it wasn't a nation. It was one of the united soviet socialist republics.

Suck on facts!

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Offline Zimme83

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Re: debunking the myth of the Spitfire
« Reply #104 on: April 09, 2016, 11:17:18 PM »
I don't have to.
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