Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: LTARGlok on April 20, 2008, 10:15:39 PM
-
I was watching a video online of some US B-17's bombing Germany, and found one segment of the video interesting. In it, the narrator said that during an attack on a German Air Field, the bombers did not drop their usual load of large incendiary or high explosive bombs. Instead, they dropped much more numerous and smaller anti-personnel bombs on the Air Field.
Now why would they choose to do that? Were the German Ground Crews a much more valuable target to destroy than the actual facilities?? Seems like a rather mean thing to do to the ground personnel. Does this sound like an accurate historical account to you?
Here is a link to the video:
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=7d2_1186653940
.
-
Again, I'm not a proclaimed expert on this, but I think one of the greatest things that Germany had going for it late in the war was the amount of experienced people it had. And when you consider the damage we were doing to the industrial efforts at the source, taking out the experienced crews seems like the next logical choice.
-
"mean"? Was it not war?
-
Area denial is a valid tactic in time of war. I didn't realise that we were using it in WWII.
Not only does it take out ground crew but it damages equipment, and slows the progress of repair crews.
-
Oh good god. It was what is termed as TOTAL WAR!
Us or them is how it was looked at from the public and the military/governments viewpoint back then. It is a far different thing from what we see these days and have seen since the 60's.
I don't think any people could have stated it better than the two I am about to quote here. History should have taught us that we do not let wars be fought in the court of public opinion. If you are to win then you shouldn't give a rats prettythang about what the world thinks about you.
"I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, for vengeance, for desolation. War is hell." - William Tecumseh Sherman
"Every attempt to make war easy and safe will result in humiliation and disaster." - William Tecumseh Sherman
"War means fighting, and fighting means killing." - Nathan Bedford Forrest
-
"mean"? Was it not war?
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.
.
-
What does one take for a red,white,and blue headache?
-
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.
They kept the planes flying, the planes were piloted by men who used them to attack us. Seems pretty simple. Would you like a drawing? :)
-
I doubt that this sort of tactic would have been considered chivalrous in WW I.
The Germans also bombed Paris. The first raid was on 21st of March, when two Zeppelins caused 23 deaths and injured 30. Although the Zeppelins continued to raid Paris, London was actually a preferred and easier target.
http://www.firstworldwar.com/airwar/bombers_zeppelins.htm
-
Seems like a rather mean thing to do to the ground personnel.
:rofl
Imagine something mean happening in war.
Where do they come from?
-
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.
.
:huh
-
Seems like they were trying to take out equipment just as much as personnel, like Sik1 said.
-
LTARGlock here is a real revelation for you.
There is no chivalry in war, never was, never will be.
WWI was probably one of the most barbaric wars ever fought by mankind. With the introduction of the machine gun, and poison gas, not to mention the living conditions of the men on the front lines, WWI was horrific to say the least.
-
Next we will be hearing that supply convoys were not legitimate targets as they were not the fighting front line troops. :rolleyes:
Btw, the Germans had similar bombs.
-
Woulda made more sense to bomb the facilities then smother the place in anti personnel mines to hamper repair crews working. Just covering the air base in anti personnel mines probably wouldn't achieve much.
The RAF's JP233 runway denial system used to do a similar thing with the bomblets it uses, some destroy the runway, the rest would smother the area in mines to stop any repairs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JP233
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v312/matzos/jp233-2.jpg)
-
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.
Life isn't fair, war is definitley not fair.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
lazs
-
War: kill people & break stuff.
Wouldn't be nearly as effective if it turns into:
War: hurt people's feelings & break stuff.
-
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.
-
War: kill people & break stuff.
Wouldn't be nearly as effective if it turns into:
War: hurt people's feelings & break stuff.
:lol
Sig material
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
Yes.... as history shows....
German bombers off course dropped on London.
Brits in turn bombed Berlin.
-
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.
-
It would be even meaner if they shot them and watched them bounce off the rocks into the gorge.. :cool:
-
It would be even meaner if they shot them and watched them bounce off the rocks into the gorge.. :cool:
I think we make em kiss a pig- right on the lips. I know I'd quit fighting if they threatened to make me kiss Jane Fonda.
-
At least it was a military target and not like bombing London.
Or Dresden
-
or fire bombing Tokyo.
-
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.
Oh let's be chivalrous???? WTF! Do you think the Red Baron was being chivalrous when he taught his pilots how to come in on someone from the sun? Don't think so there buddy.
Chivalry only existed in some tournament BS back in the middle ages when knights were in stinky, bulky armor and could barely read the rules of the tourney. Then it promptly died when they hit the battlefield.
War sucks and people die...even a so called "non-combatant".
-
The concept of the limited, professional army type of war went out the window in the late 1800s. Up until then you basically fielded a professional army numbering in the tens of thousands. It took a lot of work to field that army. The army was equipped with expensive and difficult to (hand) produce weapons. It was supplied as best you could for a single extended campaign. There would be some limited resupply but not much, with living off the land accounting for much of the rest.
You then marched your army to war. It fought a handful of battles, perhaps one major one, that pretty much decided the war. Then the two cousins -- prince fluffy shirt and duke dandy pants -- negotiated a peace giving up a province or two and that was that. Civilians were largely unmolested as a rule (well, at least in more modern times), or at worst had their food stocks depleted when they crossed paths with an army.
Then, you had the arrival of the industrial age with mass production, nationalism and conscription. The US Civil War was a tipping point. Suddenly, you can crank out large numbers of troops (using conscription and mass training techniques) move them to the front using steam power (railroads and ships), supply them on campaigns using steam power, crank out munitions in absurd quantities and fight devastating wars over many years where millions die in a constantly refilled meat grinder until one side reaches total exhaustion and the war ends.
With an industrial war there are no longer civilians. Civilians are absolutely essential for keeping the ranks filled with men, and the supply lines filled with bread and bullets (and planes, torpedoes, centmetric radar valves, ball bearings, food, armor plate, canvas ammo pouches, helmets, tanks, optical sights, pressure bandages, shoe laces, machine guns, machine gun tripods... etc) Even someone who drives a civilian bus supports the war effort transporting troops and workers behind the lines. The truly innocent do exist, the children and pacifists, but by and large modern history suggests that the civilians buy into the war and support it from the start to even a bad finish.
Now, when you have millions dying on the battlefield instead of tens of thousands it becomes a lot easier to justify targeting enemy civilians if it promises to save the lives of your soldiers. Break their will to fight and end the war. Kill them and leave the factories empty. Destroy the factories themselves. Blockade the island and starve them to the peace table…whatever. Shorten the war a year and you save hundreds of thousand or even millions of your citizens lives. If you are the non aggressor, the difference between a soldier (drafted to fight a defensive war) and the civilian population of an aggressor become very blurred indeed.
A modern industrial war simply cannot function without the country's civilian population and supply and production infrastructure. No less valuable than the divisions and fleets doing the fighting.
So, IMO in a total industrial war targeting civilians – OK. Shooting pilots in parachutes over their home territory – OK. Machine gunning the Japanese troops in the water of the Bismarck Sea – OK (many actually did make landfall in the combat zone). Attacking military support personnel – obviously OK.
But all is not lost! The key for civilians is to be very conservative about the people you elect and support since if you make the wrong choices, your nights may be filled with the drone of Merlin engines and the pop of incendiaries. As exciting as the fall of France and Poland (to name a few) might have been, you better hope the boys in black in Berlin have their stuff together for the big finish. You can always take to the streets and end the war yourself.
The nuclear age of course, changes this with MAD. And, you have to wonder if we have embraced technology to the point that a total conventional industrial war is even doable today. Once you burn through your jets and missiles and high tech MBTs and subs the replacement rate will have to be pretty slow. Perhaps you then revert to 1916 on the Western front.
In 4th generation warfare like we have had in Vietnam and Iraq, targeting civilian populations not only fails to serve a military function but has a negative impact on achieving a positive outcome. There is no war production to speak of, except for the manufacturing of insurgents and insurgent supporters and bombing and abusing civilians only facilitates that process.
Charon
-
But when you consider that NO WAR IN THE HISTORY OF ALL MANKIND HAS EVER BEEN WON WITHOUT THE USE OF TOTAL WAR.
Utter garbage, yet again. Even when you put it in capital letters.
One off the top of my head:
Peninsula Campaign and the Napoleonic War - France defeated, French civilians left alone - British soldiers hanged for stealing chickens from the local population.
Your policy of total war significantly helped the British and Allies in Spain - the Guerrilleros were so riled up by the atrocities committed by the French against Spanish civilians, they forced the French to spend huge amounts of time defending their supply lines from partisans.
Or are you going to claim the Peninsula war and defeat of Napoleon was a battle and doesn't count as you do with the Falklands? :rofl
-
France defeated, French civilians left alone - British soldiers hanged for stealing chickens from the local population.
With all due respect, I believe the chickens surrendered.
-
Would you feel any better if they were bombed with regular GP bombs? Whats the difference? Dead is dead. Maybe we were thinking of using the captured facility one day?
AP bomb: Kills people with shrapnel; damages-beyond-use airplanes, vehicles, tents and support equipment.
GP bomb: Kills people with shrapnel, concussion, flying bricks, flying airplane parts, flying car parts and flying pieces of support equipment; destroys-beyond-use the entire facility.
-
Getting back at their tormentors!Most of the AAA crews were teenagers,up to and including the modern day Pope.
IronDog
-
The use of bomblets for runway destruction has been a continuing doctrine since early WW2. It seems that using conventional bombs on runways makes a hole that can be filled and covered up. The repairs could be done in a day. The act of turning the surface of a runway into rubble is actually much more impacting. Destroying the ground support equipment would also be a serious plus. Killing the airmen who might have been working on the runway was a perk.
-
total war or not, it sickens me what we "humans" are capable of,
nothing changed, just look around today, same hate, same breed.
-
The concept of the limited, professional army type of war went out the window in the late 1800s. Up until then you basically fielded a professional army numbering in the tens of thousands. It took a lot of work to field that army. The army was equipped with expensive and difficult to (hand) produce weapons. It was supplied as best you could for a single extended campaign. There would be some limited resupply but not much, with living off the land accounting for much of the rest.
You then marched your army to war. It fought a handful of battles, perhaps one major one, that pretty much decided the war. Then the two cousins -- prince fluffy shirt and duke dandy pants -- negotiated a peace giving up a province or two and that was that. Civilians were largely unmolested as a rule (well, at least in more modern times), or at worst had their food stocks depleted when they crossed paths with an army.
Then, you had the arrival of the industrial age with mass production, nationalism and conscription. The US Civil War was a tipping point. Suddenly, you can crank out large numbers of troops (using conscription and mass training techniques) move them to the front using steam power (railroads and ships), supply them on campaigns using steam power, crank out munitions in absurd quantities and fight devastating wars over many years where millions die in a constantly refilled meat grinder until one side reaches total exhaustion and the war ends.
With an industrial war there are no longer civilians. Civilians are absolutely essential for keeping the ranks filled with men, and the supply lines filled with bread and bullets (and planes, torpedoes, centmetric radar valves, ball bearings, food, armor plate, canvas ammo pouches, helmets, tanks, optical sights, pressure bandages, shoe laces, machine guns, machine gun tripods... etc) Even someone who drives a civilian bus supports the war effort transporting troops and workers behind the lines. The truly innocent do exist, the children and pacifists, but by and large modern history suggests that the civilians buy into the war and support it from the start to even a bad finish.
Now, when you have millions dying on the battlefield instead of tens of thousands it becomes a lot easier to justify targeting enemy civilians if it promises to save the lives of your soldiers. Break their will to fight and end the war. Kill them and leave the factories empty. Destroy the factories themselves. Blockade the island and starve them to the peace table…whatever. Shorten the war a year and you save hundreds of thousand or even millions of your citizens lives. If you are the non aggressor, the difference between a soldier (drafted to fight a defensive war) and the civilian population of an aggressor become very blurred indeed.
A modern industrial war simply cannot function without the country's civilian population and supply and production infrastructure. No less valuable than the divisions and fleets doing the fighting.
So, IMO in a total industrial war targeting civilians – OK. Shooting pilots in parachutes over their home territory – OK. Machine gunning the Japanese troops in the water of the Bismarck Sea – OK (many actually did make landfall in the combat zone). Attacking military support personnel – obviously OK.
But all is not lost! The key for civilians is to be very conservative about the people you elect and support since if you make the wrong choices, your nights may be filled with the drone of Merlin engines and the pop of incendiaries. As exciting as the fall of France and Poland (to name a few) might have been, you better hope the boys in black in Berlin have their stuff together for the big finish. You can always take to the streets and end the war yourself.
The nuclear age of course, changes this with MAD. And, you have to wonder if we have embraced technology to the point that a total conventional industrial war is even doable today. Once you burn through your jets and missiles and high tech MBTs and subs the replacement rate will have to be pretty slow. Perhaps you then revert to 1916 on the Western front.
In 4th generation warfare like we have had in Vietnam and Iraq, targeting civilian populations not only fails to serve a military function but has a negative impact on achieving a positive outcome. There is no war production to speak of, except for the manufacturing of insurgents and insurgent supporters and bombing and abusing civilians only facilitates that process.
Charon
Well said. :aok
-
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.
Go read a history book about why we dropped the A bombs on the Japanese. You might understand what I'm talking about.
Before you jump to conclusions, I'm not saying we should have nuked them, just dropped several 52 loads of conventional bombs on them.
-
So you can't shoot at a guy in uniform/military gear? Dam! I missed that memo. :o
-
In 4th generation warfare like we have had in Vietnam and Iraq, targeting civilian populations not only fails to serve a military function but has a negative impact on achieving a positive outcome. There is no war production to speak of, except for the manufacturing of insurgents and insurgent supporters and bombing and abusing civilians only facilitates that process.
Charon
It seems to be well said. He's well spoken.
But of course, he leaves out an important point. An EXTREMELY important point.
We lost in Vietnam. We lost in Korea.
-
We lost in Korea.
I didn't realize Korea had been unified under Communist rule. :huh
-
I didn't realize Korea had been unified under Communist rule. :huh
I didnt realize war could be won or lost.
-
The Korean war isn't over, it's just been sitting there under a cease fire for the last 50 years. That's why the UN still has a multi national force in place in South Korea.
-
Laser always comes off like a squeaker when he talks history. ;)
-
Are the communists still ruling on the Korean peninsula? Yes?
Then that means we lost the korean war.
Sometimes the missteps in logic around here are astounding.
-
United Nations Security Council Resolution 82, adopted on June 25, 1950, recalling General Assembly Resolution 293, which found the Government of the Republic of Korea to be the lawfully established government over the area that the United Nations Temporary Commission on Korea found to constitute Korea. The Council noted with grave concern the attack on the South by North Korea. The Council determined that this action constituted a breach of the peace and called for the immediate cessation of hostilities. The Council further called upon North Korea to withdraw their armed forces to the 38th parallel. The Council then requested the United Nations Commission on Korea to communicate its recommendations on the situation, observe the withdrawal of North Korean forces from the 38th parallel and to keep the Council informed on the execution of this resolution.
Sorry, I missed the part that says removal of the North Korean government was the official goal of the war.
-
Is the democraticly elected government still ruling on the Korean peninsula?? Yes?
That means we won the Korean war??
Right back at ya.
Once again that war has never been concluded. North and South Korea are still technicaly at war. They have been under a cease fire.
-
If they were wearing the uniform then they were fair game. War is true hell on earth....
-
It seems to be well said. He's well spoken.
But of course, he leaves out an important point. An EXTREMELY important point.
We lost in Vietnam. We lost in Korea.
Korea wasn't 4th generation warfare. It was the last, basically conventional war we fought on such a scale. However, it wasn't an industrial total war either, given Korea's limited manufacturing base. And, the fact that the commies had the A-bomb, that whole MAD thing I noted, prevented it from being a total war at the sources of production inside the Soviet Union and China. I believe MacArthur lost his job over that point, and we're alive to post on this message board as well.
Vietnam was a combination of conventional war and 4th Generation warfare. But, as with Korea the sources of production were in the Soviet Union and China for the conventional aspect. And, the fact that the commies had the A-bomb, that whole MAD thing I noted, prevented it from being an industrial total war at the sources of production inside the Soviet Union and China. And, we did a fairly poor job of winning the hearts and minds leading to failures on the 4th generation front in keeping down the support for the insurgency in the south. I rather think if we had put our will to it we could have won the conventional aspect, but would have wound up where we are today in Iraq after "Mission Accomplished<tm>."
Fourth generation warfare (4GW) is combat characterized by a blurring of the lines between war and politics, soldier and civilian, peace and conflict, battlefield and safety. The military doctrine was first defined in 1989 by a team of American analysts, including William S. Lind, used to describe warfare's return to a decentralized form. In terms of generational modern warfare, the fourth generation signifies the nation states' loss of their monopoly on combat forces, returning in a sense to the uncontrolled combat of pre-modern times. The simplest definition includes any war in which one of the major participants is not a state but rather a violent ideological network. While this term is similar to terrorism and asymmetric warfare, it is much narrower. Classical examples, such as the slave uprising under Spartacus or the assassination of Julius Caesar by the Roman senate, predate the modern concept of warfare and are examples of the type of combat modern warfare sought to eliminate. As such, fourth generation warfare uses classical tactics—tactics deemed unacceptable by the preceding generations—to weaken the advantaged opponent's will to win.
Lind is a smart guy. He has a lot of insightful stuff to comment on over at SFFT.
BTW, in either of the above scenarios targeting civilians would make sense if it would break their will to fight. However, I believe history has determined that is hard to accomplish and, in the case of Vietnam (and now Iraq) a disastrous policy for the 4th generation aspects.
Here are two of his perspectives:
Air strikes and 4th generation warfare
http://www.sftt.org/cgi-bin/csNews/csNews.cgi?database=DefenseWatch%202007.db&command=viewone&id=172
This is a perspective on our nearness to victory in Iraq (in 4th generation terms)
http://www.sftt.org/cgi-bin/csNews/csnews.cgi/csNews.cgi?database=homeWilliamLind12008.db&command=viewone&op=t&id=9&rnd=467.0628257725822
Charon
-
Korea wasn't 4th generation warfare. It was the last, basically conventional war we fought on such a scale. However, it wasn't an industrial total war either, given Korea's limited manufacturing base. And, the fact that the commies had the A-bomb, that whole MAD thing I noted, prevented it from being a total war at the sources of production inside the Soviet Union and China. I believe MacArthur lost his job over that point, and we're alive to post on this message board as well.
Charon
MAD really did not yet truly exist at the time of the Korean War. The United States still had a HUGE advantage in nuclear weapon stockpiles at that time. A nuclear exchange would have definitely resulted in a defeat for both Russia and China, even in the worst case scenario. However, the cost would have been so high that the victory would have been rather Pyhrric in nature. The amount of radioactivity released into the upper atmosphere by just the American nuclear weapons alone would have had devastating effects to the ecology of the entire planet. Although scientists really did not yet fully understand such consequences back then.
But the United States would not have been destroyed, while China and Russia would clearly have been. So it would not have really been MAD yet. China had no nuclear weapons themselves yet, so they could not have retaliated. Would the Russians have then attacked if only China was struck, knowing that they then faced annihilation themselves? That is really a tough one to judge. Stalin would have been crazy to have done so. But who knows, maybe he would have?
MacArthur's plan called for 29 Atomic Bombs to be dropped along the Korea/China border, which he said would effectively "isolate" the battlefield, creating a nuclear wasteland that would have effectively sealed off North Korea from resupply. While Truman rejected this plan, as the war dragged on, and Eisenhower was elected President in November of 1952 promising to end the war, nuclear weapons did play a major role in eventually ending the combat.
According to published reports, on May 19 1953 the Joint Chiefs of Staff recommended direct air and naval attacks on China that included the use of nuclear weapons, in order to bring the stalemate to an end. The very next day, the National Security Council endorsed the JCS recommendations. Eisenhower still held out for a negotiated settlement, however.
Secretary of State Dulles traveled to India at that time, and past on a communication to the Chinese through Nehru that if speedy progress was not made in peace talks towards an end to fighting, that the United States would begin attacks on China. However, he allegedly made no threat in that communication of Nuclear Weapons being used, as the Joint Chiefs had recommended. Although there are some historians who believe that Eisenhower may have actually done so.
The United States had a big nuclear weapons advantage at that point in the war in terms of firepower, as we had already begun deploying much more powerful Hydrogen Bombs, while Russia had yet to even test its first Hydrogen device. The US had also already begun a major escalation of the air war in North Korea that May, and later into June. On May 13th 1953 the Toksan Dam was destroyed by a dramatic strike by 58th Fighter-Bomber Wing. Three days later, the Chasan Dam was also destroyed. This resulted in the destruction of over 13,000 acres of planted rice fields, and many miles of both roads and railways. Because experts had felt that the loss of these key irrigation systems could lead to massive civilian starvation, they had not been previously targeted earlier in the war.
As the war dragged on into June of 1953, the air battle reached its peak of the entire war. On June 15th, 910 combat sorties were flown against North Korea in a single day.
So this all needs to be taken into context, when you consider that the armistice was signed just a month later that July. The United States was clearly ratcheting up its attacks, and threatening to do much more if the fighting did not end. And with this all being directed by a new President who had been one of America's greatest military leaders, it was no longer in the interests of either China or Russia to continue the fighting.
And many folks do not even realize that Eisenhower deployed many nuclear weapons in South Korea starting in 1958, almost 5 years after the fighting had ended. He did that to emphasize to the communists that any renewed fighting in Korea would quickly go nuclear in nature if they ever chose to attack South Korea again. At its peak, there were 450 total nuclear weapons deployed, and they were not totally withdrawn from South Korea until 1991.
I personally believe myself that it was fear of America's nuclear might that both brought the fighting to an end, and also prevented it from ever flaring up again.
.
-
total war or not, it sickens me what we "humans" are capable of,
nothing changed, just look around today, same hate, same breed.
Yup but it is necessary to stop folks like hitler............
-
Is the democraticly elected government still ruling on the Korean peninsula?? Yes?
That means we won the Korean war??
By that logic we should have stopped the moment that Allied forces hit the german border.
-
By that logic we should have stopped the moment that Allied forces hit the german border.
:huh So, you never heard Roosevelt utter the words "unconditional surrender"?
-
By that logic we should have stopped the moment that Allied forces hit the german border.
Better yet, I guess since we didn't occupy London in the 1700's, we lost the Revolutionary War too. And we didn't occupy Berlin in 1918, so we lost World War I. And we lost the Spanish American War, since we never went to Madrid. And . . .
-
I have and will always will state that any weapon or any tactic you can use to disable or kill an enemy and take away his will to fight or support the war effort is a valid one... Kill sailors,soldiers, marines,airmen, ground crews, food supplies, fuel lines, lawyers, doctors, nurses, lemonade stand workers... WHATEVER just win the war as fast as possible
-
Is the democraticly elected government still ruling on the Korean peninsula?? Yes?
That means we won the Korean war??
Right back at ya.
Once again that war has never been concluded. North and South Korea are still technicaly at war. They have been under a cease fire.
United Nations Security Council Resolution 84, adopted on July 7, 1950, having determined that the attack on the Republic of Korea by the forces from North Korea constituted a breach of the peace The Council recommended that the members of the United Nations furnish such assistance to the Republic of Korea as may be necessary to repel the attack and restore peace and security to the area.
The attack on the ROK was repelled.
Peace and security was restablished.
United Nations Security Council Resolution 84 was fulfilled.
-
I have and will always will state that any weapon or any tactic you can use to disable or kill an enemy and take away his will to fight or support the war effort is a valid one... Kill sailors,soldiers, marines,airmen, ground crews, food supplies, fuel lines, lawyers, doctors, nurses, lemonade stand workers... WHATEVER just win the war as fast as possible
Therefore, I have heard of military campaigns that were clumsy but swift, but I have never seen military campaigns that were skilled but protracted.
No nation has ever benefited from protracted warfare.
from ; the art of war by;Sun Tzu
-
All this talk of war is making thirsty and hungry.
Beer and wings or Death!