Comments by "Geordiedog" (@geordiedog1749) on "Drachinifel" channel.

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  89.  @neutronalchemist3241  it’s opinion of facts so I disagree with your summation. That said, I don’t understand the first bit at all. After Pedestal Malta was resupplied by convoy not by submarine. It was operational by September although the Beauforts plus some FAA Applecores and Stringbags had 2 squadrons there already and just needed Ohios fuel to recommence offensive ops. Your points about Sirte 1&2 are lost in the fact that the RN had and absolute moral supremacy over the Italian navy from start to finish. Same as they did over the Kreigsmarine. The Regina Marina expected to lose every time they set sail. And generally did. Nothing proved this more than Vians actions at the 2nd Sirte which was an abject failure on the Italians part on a par with Barents Sea. 1st Sirte was a two convoys avoiding each other until the RN lost a couple of ships after choosing to run into a minefield which reduced the MSF which then went back to Gib but it would have had to anyway once Fleigerkorp X returned to Sicily later that year. Cherry picking this proves nothing. I like history to be reviewed but revisionism for its own sake is silly. I happen to really like Italians but trying to rewrite history to give a completely wrong narrative is daft. For eg…The Germans didn’t like or rate the Italians, including Rommel and cherry picking a quote won’t change anything. The Italian military occasionally (very) doing in a war what was expected isn’t cause for praise, it just meant they weren’t abject for once. There were a lot of good reasons for this but the outcome is the same. The Regina Marine were bossed from start to finish by the RN. Save a few wee submarine with limpet mines they were too anxious to fight. I’m no jingoistic patriot for the uk. But history is occasionally obvious. And this is such an occasion. Faced with the Death Cult that is the British Royal Navy they were cowed. In my opinion etc etc etc
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  105. Ok, the Fairey Fulmar....... so, first thing anyone needs to know about the Fulmar was it was the MOST successful FAA fighter of WWII. This was because it mainly fought against exactly the type of aircraft it had been designed to fight against and also because it effectively operated with fledgling radar direction. One of the main reason it worked so well in the early days of Radar was because it was a two seater. Having an observer/navigator/radio operator in a naval aircraft is a dead good idea for many reasons. Firstly, if you get disoriented over the ocean looking down is surprisingly unhelpful (Things you don’t hear in a naval aircraft no. 421: “Ah! I know where we are now. I recognise that wave down there!”). Getting lost was a major issue for operations over water and caused a lot of loses. A bespoke navigator helped this to be avoided immeasurably. Secondly, it enabled the initially tricky, messy business of directing and vectoring fighters to their targets by radar to be done more effectively as the second crew member could do the liaising with the carriers radar operator and then tell his pilot where to go. No, not that sort of ‘tell where to go’. The vectoring type of where to go... Lastly, observation, a vital role of the carrier aircraft (which were expected to multi task especially in the limited hanger space of armoured carries) was obviously more effective with four mk1 eye balls than with just the one pair. One odd thing with the Fulmars 2nd crew member was the omission of a defensive weapon. The Fairey Battle from which the Fulmar was derived had a Vickers K or GO (Gas Operated) in the rear (not that it helped although it did claim the 1st RAF air to air kill of the war). However, rather like most of the later Beaufighters, the observer was left defenceless. Well, almost. Fulmar observers were sometimes given a “Tommy Gun’ -according to some sources - to shoot back with. This very likely would have not been an actual Thompson .45 SMG, the term being used in a generic way to mean any sub machine gun. It was more likely a Lanchester 9mm SMG. The RN was actually much better prepared for WWII than the army in this area of ordinance having ordered several thousand Lanchesters for its personnel pre-war. The army had taken its time and held a competition with the (both excellent) Beretta and Suomi being the winners and an order for 20,000 Suomis was placed with Finland who were about to ship them to England when Uncle Joe came a callin’ so they decided to hang on to them, instead.
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