We all laugh at people who claim they have Hitler's Mauser...

[MountainBear]

THIS disabled sailor was who I had in mind when I made my merry quip...

View attachment 308867

tac

At the end, he was just a wooden leg with an admiral's hat on...

 

[Martini_Up]

You all should be thanking HG for helping lose the war. Without him, NAZI Germany very well may have won.

HG convinced Hilter to let Luftwaffe finish off the allies at Dunkirk which didnt happen so some 330,000 men escaped to live another day.

HG's Luftwaffe also failed the Battle of Britain and switched to terror bombing instead of strategic which allowed GB to rebuild it's RAF.

Regardless, it's a pimp's pistol all way around.

 

[wired]

You all should be thanking HG for helping lose the war. Without him, NAZI Germany very well may have won.

HG convinced Hilter to let Luftwaffe finish off the allies at Dunkirk which didnt happen so some 330,000 men escaped to live another day.

HG's Luftwaffe also failed the Battle of Britain and switched to terror bombing instead of strategic which allowed GB to rebuild it's RAF.

Regardless, it's a pimp's pistol all way around.

Germany's long range bomber force was totally inadequate in large part thanks to Goerring and to Hitler who never anticipated the war would last longer than 2 years. As bizarre as it sounds Germany was never on a total war footing until late in 1942 and was continuing on a with a consumer driven economy until late 42-43 . Once they figured out what was going on after Barbarossa ground to a halt they were a dollar short and a day late. In any case none of that mattered. It wasn't RAF or US air power or bombing that won the war and it wasnt the D Day invasion. It was the Red Army. Our participation only allowed us to take part in the negotiations at the end.

 

[DunRanull]

wired sez: It wasn't RAF or US air power or bombing that won the war and it wasnt the D Day invasion. It was the Red Army. Our participation only allowed us to take part in the negotiations at the end.
I sez:
The Red Army, the Jap decision not to attack Siberia, AND the Russian refusal to surrender their country in spite of the odds, AND Soviet commissars, slave labor, AND a whole lot of help and supplies from the USA. It is true that the Russians were willing to march into the meat grinder while America was putting it's pants on...
Hitler was his own worst enemy.

 

[Sgt Nambu]

You all should be thanking HG for helping lose the war. Without him, NAZI Germany very well may have won.

HG convinced Hilter to let Luftwaffe finish off the allies at Dunkirk which didnt happen so some 330,000 men escaped to live another day.

HG's Luftwaffe also failed the Battle of Britain and switched to terror bombing instead of strategic which allowed GB to rebuild it's RAF.

Regardless, it's a pimp's pistol all way around.

Germany's long range bomber force was totally inadequate in large part thanks to Goerring and to Hitler who never anticipated the war would last longer than 2 years. As bizarre as it sounds Germany was never on a total war footing until late in 1942 and was continuing on a with a consumer driven economy until late 42-43 . Once they figured out what was going on after Barbarossa ground to a halt they were a dollar short and a day late. In any case none of that mattered. It wasn't RAF or US air power or bombing that won the war and it wasnt the D Day invasion. It was the Red Army. Our participation only allowed us to take part in the negotiations at the end.

The idiot also assured Hitler and the Wehrmacht that they could supply the troops at Stalingrad. Not even close!

 

[CountryGent]

Ever read Albert Speer's "inside the Third Reich"? Hermann Goering and Liberace had some of the same taste it seems in clothes and decor and this PPK of his proves it. Yech!

LOL! I don't believe I ever heard Göring's tastes compared to Liberace, but the statement is exactly right.

As to his gilded Walther, meh, I wouldn't bid on it, particularly at that rate. But someone else is interested, that is their business.

 

[Brutus57]

wired sez: It wasn't RAF or US air power or bombing that won the war and it wasnt the D Day invasion. It was the Red Army. Our participation only allowed us to take part in the negotiations at the end.
I sez:
The Red Army, the Jap decision not to attack Siberia, AND the Russian refusal to surrender their country in spite of the odds, AND Soviet commissars, slave labor, AND a whole lot of help and supplies from the USA. It is true that the Russians were willing to march into the meat grinder while America was putting it's pants on...
Hitler was his own worst enemy.

Airpower won in the Pacific (the carrier war and then B-29s and atom bombs) and the pressure Germany had from night and day strategic bombing allowed the Red Army to achieve tactical air superiority in the East. Don't forget all the Lend Lease aircraft and tanks that enable the Red Army to survive 1942-43 German offensives.

Brutus Out

 

[RVTECH]

HG's Luftwaffe also failed the Battle of Britain

Yea and for one simple reason - no additional fuel tanks. By the time they got to the English Channel they had only about 20 minutes worth of gas to fight with. GB figured this out very quickly and simply kept them tied up in the air until they became rocks!

 

[tac]

Yea and for one simple reason - no additional fuel tanks. By the time they got to the English Channel they had only about 20 minutes worth of gas to fight with. GB figured this out very quickly and simply kept them tied up in the air until they became rocks!

As a student of the BoB, this is one very important element - for sure, planes need fuel or else......

One of the recent findings that contributed to the victory by the RAF and the defeat of the Luftwaffe was a basic misunderstanding of each other's TO&E.

The fact is that far from being appallingly outnumbered by the Luftwaffe, the actual numbers, derived from long-lost Luftwaffe archives, were not dissimilar, bearing in mind that they could, and did, put all their effort into one place at once, whereas Fighter Command was pretty much split up over the entire South of England, the Western Approaches and so on. Hence the development of AVM Leigh-Mallory's 'Big Wing' composite unit. Having effective RADAR also helped tremndously, as the RAF could be there waiting for the opposition to arrive

The Germans always assumed that RAF squadrons were made up of flights of nine aircraft, whereas in fact there were up to twelve.

The British always assumed that the Luftwaffe air combat units were made up the same as theirs - ie twelve fighters - whereas in fact there were only nine.

Add to this the very important issue of pilot attrition. A German shot down over UK either died or was captured.

A RAF flyer either died, or got back in another plane and carried on.

Getting shot down is never going to be pleasant, but getting shot down over your own country has to be a good option.

BTW, I wrote these pomes back in 1998 for the BoB dinner in our mess -

Dear Mrs Brown...

Dear Mrs Brown, your son is dead,
I didn't know him well.
I only saw him once or twice,
Before he fell.

At breakfast, just like all the lads,
He scoffed his jam-smeared bread.
"Just like mum's!" he joked to me,
And now he's dead.

I didn't see him hit at first –
Just a hint of fire.
Then suddenly, without a sound,
The flame became a pyre.

There was nothing we could do,
Two others went the same way too.
A silent crash, that noiseless flash.
Young Brown, went down.

So, Mrs Brown, this dreadful letter,
I really wish I'd known him better
But half a day's no time at all,
A good lad, so sad.

I'll miss him, just like all the others.
I'm going to write to all their mothers,
Until one day, just wait and see,
Some friend will do the same for me.

and..........

Battle of Britain – 1940

Twelve took off, young and bold.
An hour sped.
Six landed, tired and old.
The rest are dead.

Who knows their end?
Their lives expended.
What pain was theirs?
Least said, and soonest mended.

They died. We live, in debt.
We owe the price they paid.
That we walk in peace today
Was dearly bought, and dearly paid.

There were, of course, a goodly number of 'Camericans' - US flyers who enlisted as Canadians to join in.

Thank, Guys, you really DID make a difference.

tac