More cherished delusions defeated by research.

[SKurj]

In war, a soldier is just another resource, whether he's a pilot or an infantryman, and often times they were treated as such by their opponents.  Is a murderer a murderer without a gun in his hand?  

SKurj

[Wmaker]

 

Originally posted by miko2d:
  First, that is completely opposite to what I was taught in Russia.    

Of course it is...Russian propaganda said all kinds of things what finns will do if they catch russian soldier alive. That's why many russian soldiers killed them selves when it was obvious they were going to end up captured. For example one russian fighter pilot bailed out over Finnish territory shot himself in the head to avoid capturing (I know, I know why bother to pull the ripcord anyway, but this is a true story...come to think of it it's not nice to watch ground closing at 200 km/h...much easier to shoot half of the head off). And when russian archives opened for inspection it was found that russians had claimed more air to air victories against finns in Winter War than
Finnish Air Force had planes, LOL! Our
main fighter during Winter War,Fokker D.XXI had kill to death ratio of 18 to 1. Too many kills in the archives come basically out of the fact that russian fighter pilots
made claims of planes they never shot down. That is why I really don't give any gredibility what so ever to them claiming that finns shot russians in chutes. It is said russians were ordered to do so. And if you think of it it really is logical tactic fighting against small country with small number of kick-ass pilots.

 

Originally posted by miko2d:
Second, Finland did not really fight in the war other then the original offensive when russian airforce was knocked out. They most likely had a secret agreement with russians.

If my grandfather were still alive I think he would SLIGHTLY disagree on this!!!   I give you change to take this one back...believe me finns were in war against the russians EVERY DAY during Continuation War!!! War is war even if the front stays the same for a long time!!! Claiming anything else is a discrace to all the veterans and young men who gave their lives during Continuation War!!! Even if big attacks weren't made on daily bases...men surely died/wounded every day. If that's not war...tell what is it then?

 

Originally posted by miko2d:
Not only did finns declined to advance against nonexisting resistance to put an end to the siedge, they did not let germans into the area despite several demands - read german generals' memoirs.

Finns' goal in Continuation War was to take back areas which were lost in the Winter War. Finns went over the old boarder because of couple of reasons...finns' personal reason was to gain land for stalling russian counter attack which would surely follow sooner or later. This was one of the big factors in saving our independence. IF finns had gone to Leningrad then what would have happened to all the population still alive in Leningrad?? Finns didn't have the resources to deal with problems like this. How we were supposed to be able to leave city as big as Leningrad behind our lines???
Should we have just shot all these people???
We didn't have any food to give them either, you know. And above all we had already reached our military goal: to take which rightfully belongs to us.

1Wmaker1
Lentolaivue 34

"Nobody respects a country with a poor army, but everybody respects a country with a good army. I raise my toast to the Finnish Army."

J. Stalin 1948



[This message has been edited by Wmaker (edited 02-03-2001).]

[Wmaker]

 

Originally posted by mrfish:
and i suppose the massive amount of bombs dropped by all sides on cities like dresden, tokyo and london were designed to kill combatants only?

- everyone was fighting a "total war" -

Finns bombed military targets only.

1Wmaker1
Lentolaivue 34

[RAM]

Wmaker ,let Miko alone. A stupid that says that we spanish should thank Hitler for putting Franco in the seat of power in Spain for 40 years is nothing short of an useless dork.


[This message has been edited by RAM (edited 02-03-2001).]

[Jigster]

Btw, there are only two zero deflection shots in ACM...

That means all of those pilots who couldn't do deflection shooting only had two certain shots  

------------------
 Moo! to fanatics, Neigh! to everyone else.
 -- Bessy
   
Dirty Turd Poop Group www.33rd.org

[miko2d]

 

Originally posted by RAM:
Wmaker ,let Miko alone. A stupid that says that we spanish should thank Hitler for putting Franco in the seat of power in Spain for 40 years is nothing short of an useless dork.

 I see, RAM - everyone who does not agree with you is a useless dork.
 So all the spaniards who supported Franko and won him a victory and kept him in power for all those years are useless dorks too! Well. Then I agree I am one and proud of it too.
 With my experience of living in communist country, if I had a chance of going back in time and participating in the Spanish Civil war, I would not be in the International Brigade.

 As for the Finland, I base my opinions on the memoirs of the german generals and western historians.

 Wmaker,
 I have the highest respect for Finland and it's people, especialy Mannerheim. I just do not believe that they are supermen. It is a wise pollicy of Mannerheim who prepared the defences and army for decades and was as ready as he could for the Soviet invasion, that saved Finland (with a lot of good luck, of course).

 I do believe that he betrayed Hitler, but who would blame him for that - why would he care about Hitler's success as long as Stalin guaranteed Finland's indepencence after WWII.
 I remember what Hitler did to jews and I know what Mannerheim said to Hitler about jews in his army.

 Hitler and Stalin were equally bad, so it was not in Finland's interests to have a "real war" just for Hitler's sake after it's own objectives were accomplished.

 Mannerheim saved his country from communists and kept if from WWII (or at least kept WWII from Finland) even though he had to cooperate with Hitler.
 Franko saved his country from communists and kept if from WWII even though he had to cooperate with Hitler.
 Pinochet saved his country from communists.

 I respect them all. RAM would disagree and call me a dork - much easier then reading a few books or respecting someone else's opinion.
 I cannot really condemn him, though - at his age I was as ignorant as him and brainwashed to boot, living in the great Soviet Union and ready to give up my life to bring communism to the people of Afganistan.

 miko

[This message has been edited by miko2d (edited 02-08-2001).]

[llbm_MOL]

I read an account about a Russian Pilot(forot who but I'm sure someone will chime in) that shot down a German, He then landed in a field and a couple of Russian soldiers were holding the guy captive. The Pilot then ran up to the German and strangled him to death. Can we get this in AH?

LLB OUT!!!!!!!!!!

[Skorpyon]

Whew... a hard turn down a totally different road... I hate it when someone else is driving!  Back to the subject of HOs and chute shooting.. (and these are PURELY my unsolicited opinions)..
1)HOs were obviously used, and in my mind it sort of makes sense.  I would always prefer to use ACM to get an advantageous shot at my opponent, but at the same time, I am not going to risk turning my 6 to him just to try to get a more "honorable" angle.  I would rather be shooting at the end of his a/c that doesn't have guns pointing at me, but if I have a better chance of getting a shot without taking the chance of losing my 6 to him, I will.  HOs are a gamble, and in AH, as I am sure it was in real life, some times you win, some times you lose.. except that in RL you are likely to only lose once.
2)Chute shooting... I have to simply LOL over this one.  There is NO comparison between RL and AH when it comes to this topic.  Think about it.  In real life, as "dishonorable" as it is (and I do agree it is), it makes perfect sense militarily... one less enemy to try to kill you or your comrades.  In AH, it makes NO sense at all.  You shoot a guy when he's doing the silk dance, and he gets back up to fight you even QUICKER than if you had left him alone.  On the rare occasion that I bail and pull the cord too soon, I HOPE that someone shoots my chute, so I can more quickly re-plane and come back to nail the cheap bastahhhd.  I feel chute shooting is lame, and a waste of precious ammo, so I don't do it... but more importantly, why would I want to return my enemy to the fight even quicker?  Makes no sense.  The only thing I think should be changed is I don't believe chute shooting should award any points to the shooter.  In AH there is absolutely no militaristic benefit to doing it (except maybe that the chutist can still communicate with his mates and act as a spotter), so the shooter should have to settle for the cheap satisfaction of shooting a harmless target.  That is, of course, unless HT and the crew decide to give chutists a sidearm to take potshots at the other guys with!  But I am afraid that will remain with rifle ports on the c47 (which there were in RL) on the list of things never modeled due to the low priority compared to all the other great stuff they are always working on.  Just my two well circulated pennies' worth....

Just read your post LLB.. I LIKE IT, I LIKE IT!!!  Another on the list of small additions I'd like to see.  
------------------
Skorpyon
~900th Bloody Jaguars~
"Feel the Sting......"

[This message has been edited by Skorpyon (edited 02-08-2001).]

[fd ski]

Chute strafing started 1st September 1939. Luftwaffe can never go on record with "they did it first".

Luftwaffe was the first chute strafing Airforce of the war.

End of the conversation.


------------------
Bartlomiej Rajewski
aka. Wing Commander fd-ski
Northolt Wing
1st Polish Fighter Wing
303 (Polish) Squadron "Kosciuszko" RAF
308 (Polish) Squadron "City of Cracow" RAF
315 (Polish) Squadron "City of Deblin" RAF

Turning 109s and 190s into scrap metal since 1998

Northolt Wing Headquarters

[Dune]

I've seen a video (Target Berlin from Discovery Channel, excellent video with interviews from both sides; Yeager, Anderson, Rall) where Pete Peterson of the 357th FG admits to shooting a LW pilot in his chute.

Peterson had seen the LW pilot shooting bomber crews as they were in their chutes.  So Peterson engaged the German and when he bailed, Peterson made a wide turn and killed him.  

40+ years later you can still see the anger in the man's face as he tells the story.

It happened.  And it happened on all sides.  

------------------
Col Dune
C.O. 352nd Fighter Group
"The Blue Nosed Bastards of Bodney"

"Credo quia absurdum est." (I believe it because it is unreasonable)
- The motto of the Republic of Baja Arizona

[This message has been edited by Dune (edited 02-08-2001).]

[Arfann]

Yo, guys, time for a reality ck.  Don't know how many of you have ever been in a real "shoot-em-up" war situation, but I have.

1. HO: Get yer sites on the enemy as quick as possible at whatever angle is available.

2. Chute shooting:
   A: The silk rider probably killed some of  your friends.
   B: If you let him live he'll be back to kill you or your countrymen.

"Honor" exists in war only until the lead starts flying. Then it's kill or be killed.

My .02 worth
GronK

[Arfann]

quote from Crash
"Firing at aircrew in their chutes is officially against U.S. Rules of engagement."

Ahh. Yesss.  The good old "Rules of Engagement". As in, when detecting a perimeter probe shout "Halt" two times, fire over their heads, then only return fire if they open fire.  RIIIIIIIGHHT! Like honor, sounds good 'til yer arse is on the line.

GronK

[RUQWICK]

Yeager made a statement in his first book that goes kinda like this. War is emoral and when war is declared it is total. All fighter pilots where ordered to strafe targets on the ground. At 30K it is a contest of skill and strength but on the deck it was all togther differant. when your orders tell you to scan the country side for targets they mean any target i.e. A truck convoy with troops, Traines, a single jeep running down a road even a pottato farmer plowing a feild becaude he is feeding troops.
Yeager told Anderson (quote) Man if where gonna do things like this we better be on the winning side.

enough said

RU  

[paintmaw]

Yes,,I am a chute shooter ,,, good to know its politically correct now .


[This message has been edited by paintmaw (edited 02-08-2001).]