Comments by "doveton sturdee" (@dovetonsturdee7033) on "War Stories" channel.

  1.  @erichvonmanstein6876  Presumably, you didn't read these earlier comments I posted? 'Hardly worth talking about. In 1940, the operational ships of the German navy consisted on one heavy cruiser, three light cruisers, and seven destroyers. The Royal Navy had some seventy cruisers and destroyers within five hours' steaming of Dover, at the same time.' 'Actually, in September, 1940, they had 63 U- boats, of which 27 only were operational front line boats, and on average 13 were at sea on any one day during the month.'
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  2.  @garyseeseverything8615  I think the Russians might question your opinion. By the way, between June 1939 & June 1941, the Germans had had two years during which they had ample opportunity to conquer Britain, yet oddly seem to have been unable so to do.
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  3.  @dutchhoke6555  The Germans only had around 5,000 paratroops in September, 1940, and only just over 220 operational transport aircraft. Moreover, how long are such lightly armed units likely to survive unless quickly relieved by ground troops. The German navy in September, 1940 was almost non-existent. All it could muster was one heavy cruiser, three light cruisers, and about a dozen destroyers and large torpedo boats. The Luftwaffe had not been trained in anti-shipping operations, and had just failed badly at Dunkirk. In fact, in the whole of WW2, it sank 31 RN destroyers, and no RN warship larger than a light cruiser. The RN, by the way, had around 70 light cruisers and destroyers within 5 hours of the Dover Straits, supported by some 500 smaller warships.
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  4.  @CharlieDexter99  Tirpitz was a modern battleship, built to an obsolete design. Moreover, Tirpitz only even became operational in early 1942. The Type VII & Type IX U-boats were little more than developments of the last boats built by the Kaiser's navy. They were adequate, but far from technologically superior to Allied boats. The Luftwaffe had aircraft intended to operate as a tactical airforce in support of ground forces. They failed to acquire and long range strategic bomber such as the Lancaster, Halifax, Fortress, or Liberator.
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  5. Yamato. Absolutely no question.
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  6. How many Australian, New Zealand, Indian, and South African troops were available in the British Isles in 1940? To all intents and purposes, apart from Canadian troops and some aircrew, Britain was on her own. Oh, and the US didn't 'jump in when she knew who the winner was.' She was attacked in December 1941 by Japan, and Germany subsequently declared war on her. In December, Were you off school the day history was taught?
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  7. I think the term which best applies is 'Clickbait.'
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  8. Total number of ME264s? Three. Their development was abandoned in 1943.
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  9.  @walterCronkitesleftshoe6684  I'm not sure whether to thank you or curse you!! I constantly come across posts from Poles about the Bismarck action in which they seem to think that Piorun was the only allied warship involved, and get really annoyed when I tell them what actually happened. Pointing out that Piorun was the only ship froim Vian's force not to fire her torpedoes at Bismarck usually causes great annoyance. However, compared to some of the comments from other sources, such as the one who confidently assured me that the British Raj murdered 100 million Indians, they are quite rational.
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  10.  @peace-now  Very good. Now explain how one Australian division and one Indian division successfully helping to defeat the Italian tenth army in North Africa from December 1940 were helping to defend Britain from German invasion between July & September, 1940. Aside from a small number of Australian ships in the Mediterranean, and seven Canadian destroyers in Home Waters, the Royal Navy was entirely British crewed., I fear that you will never become the reincarnation of Von Clausewitz.
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  11.  @peace-now  My attitude shows only that I have a detailed knowledge of the subject, as you would expect of someone with a First in Modern History. Feel free to answer the question I posed, instead of simply throwing your toys out of your pram.
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  12.  @peace-now  Please tell me when I said that Britain's allies 'didn't matter.' I simply explained, on a site about Operation Sealion, that in 1940 their contributions were still almost entirely in the future. The facts, of course, agree with me. The only bias here is your own.
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  13. That your considered opinion is it? I enjoy reading the opinions of intellectuals and academics. You, sadly, appear to be neither.
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  14. You must mean the outdated design, obsolete armour layout, AA guns incapable of hitting a cow's backside with a frying pan, and non-working radar? Worked wonderfully a few days later, didn't it.
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  15.  @TTTT-oc4eb  So, in your world, your mighty Bismarck did not have the obsolete incremental armour system, did not have largely useless 5.9 inch low angle secondary armament, did not have AA guns which failed to protect her from the attacks of Swordfish torpedo bombers, and her wondrous radar did not fail after she loosed a few 15 inch rounds at one of Wake-Walker's cruisers. Perhaps in your mind, she didn't sink at all?
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  16.  @lordvadar6104  'Your assessment of the Kriegsmarine's capabilities is faulty'. Actually, it is quite correct. When the Royal Navy had some 70 destroyers and light cruisers within 5 hours steaming of Dover, backed up by around 500 other smaller warships, without even calling upon the destroyers of the Home Fleet, mainly at Rosyth, the Germans were never going to defend an invasion force of barges being towed in pairs by tugs & trawlers with the seven operational destroyers, a similar number of Wolf/Mowe class torpedo boats, and a handful of minesweepers. The FW200 might have been a useful reconnaissance aircraft, but was never capable of conversion to a heavy bomber, and the FW190 was only introduced in August, 1941. 'Had Goering stayed with the original plan of gaining air superiority over England then operation Sea lion would have taken place.' Indeed, it might have been attempted. You now need to explain how it would seek to avoid the RN, available in the strength referred to above. 'The German submarine fleet held the allied merchant marine fleet in check, the supply line from North America was severely restricted by their activities.' Aside from your exaggerated assessment of the capabilities of the U-boat fleet later in the war, you now need to explain how a fleet of 63 boats, of which 27 were operational, and, on any one day, only 13 at sea, during September, 1940, would achieve much at all of benefit to any invasion attempt.
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  17. Thank you for posting the link. It shows how indoctrinated the teaching of many schools has become in pursuit of biased political beliefs. Just to educate you about the WW2 Bengal Famine, during WW2 around 2.5 million Indians joined the allied cause. Do you really believe that the 'white supremacist drukard pyschopath Churchill' would have allowed the famine and risked mass insurrection in India in 1943? Ask your teacher to answer that. Actually, the Bengal Famine had a number of causes, among which were the number of refugees from Japanese held areas, the inability to import food from those same areas, stockpiling by hoarders and, perhaps worst of all, the Bengal administration, which tried to minimise the crisis. The worst that could be said of Churchill was that he should have known what was taking place, but didn't. After all, in 1943, he had little else to worry about. You could also add the refusal of FDR to allow the transfer of merchant shipping, by the way. What is without dispute, except by those who choose to blame Churchill for everything since the Black Death, is that once he did find out, he transferred food distribution to the British Indian Army, and had grain convoys diverted from Australia to India. I appreciate, of course, that you won't want to believe any of this, as it doesn't suit the agenda, and clearly the indoctrination is strong in you. In reality, colonialism in the British was almost entirely driven by trade, rather than any ambition to conquer. In 1801, the Population of Britain and Ireland was 10.5 million, and that of India was 159 million. Britain was also in the middle of a major war with the greatest military power in Europe. Do you, or the fool who wrote the nonsense you recommended, really wish to maintain the fantasy that Britain embarked, or was remotely capable of embarking, on the kind of imperial conquests that are suggested? Cetainly, there was a belief in cultural superiority at the time. Perhaps not surprising when western explorers found in the New World, and in much of Africa societies at a neolithic level of development, and, in Australia and New Zealand a mesolithic, hunter-gatherer level of society. Such a view was not restricted to Europeans. Gandhi, when a young lawyer in South Africa, believed that Africans were an inferior form of Humanity, and should not be accorded voting rights. Oh, and the bombing of German cities. Put simply, in words you might possibly understand, please explain why it is perfectly acceptable to kill the man who fires a shell which kills one of your soldiers, but somehow unacceptable to kill the 'civilian' who makes the shell in the first place? In short. There are no civilians in an industrial war. Do try to understand.
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  18. No. In the Atlantic, the KGVs were as fast, better armed and armoured. The Nelsons were better armed and armoured. In May 1941, the US had no battleship anywhere near as fast, though the Colorados were better armed and armoured. This would, however, change once the Washingtons became operational, but after Bismarck's sinking.
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  19.  @TTTT-oc4eb  You are quite correct about the difference in armour between the KGVs and Bismarck. To comfirm this :- Belt Armour : KGV 14 inches. Bismarck 12.6 inches. Nelson 14 inches. Deck Armour: KGV 6 inches. Bismarck 4.7 inches. Nelson 6.25 inches. ( The KGVs had AoN armour, by the way. Bismarck still had the outmoded incremental system ). Weights of broadside : KGV 15,900 lbs. Nelson 18,432 lbs. Bismarck 14,112 lbs. Radar assisted fire control. The British system worked. The German one collapsed when the guns fired, as it did when Bismarck fired at a British cruiser. Optical Fire Control. German fire controls were accepted as being quicker to obtain targets, whereas British ones were better at maintaining a hold on the target. As Rodney was to demonstrate. Bismarck's optical controls failed totally on 27 May, 1941. Bismarck did have an edge of about 1 to 1.5 knots over a KGV, which would have enabled her to flee from an engagement, had her AA armament not been so inept at dealing with torpedo aircraft. When did the alleged inferior seakeeping qualities of the KGVs ever hinder their operations, by the way?
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  20.  @TTTT-oc4eb  Oh dear. The thing about you Wehraboos is that you are impervious to facts. If any of the figures concerning weights of broadside or armour thicknesses are inaccurate, you are going to write to a whole host of writers and publishers, I fear. Ok then. Bismarck's belt armour was wonderful. Totally impervious to anything. No wonder many other navys did not switch to AoN instead. Oh, wait a minute. They did. Her deck armour was equally impenetrable. The hit from PoW which left her down by the bows and unable to utilise her forward fuel tanks, forcing her to make for St. Nazaire at reduced speed, didn't really happen, did it? Her guns were wonderful. Even though we can never be sure as on 27 May she never, unlike Rodney, managed to hit anything. Despite her fantastic optical targeting equipment. Obviously, Rodney couldn't possible have knocked out most of her armament and her bridge in the first 20 minutes of the action. It was all propaganda spread by those British cads and bounders. Even today, many people are unaware that Rodney & KGV were both actually sunk. 'Multiple battleships got their radar knocked out by their own guns.' But surely not the invincible Bismarck and her wonder radar, after firing one or two salvoes at a cruiser? Indeed, KGV's 284 did fail as a result of parted solder. Guess what? She used her 279 instead. You have convinced me. Bismarck did not sink, but escaped to France, to live a long and happy life as a cruise liner. Happy now?
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  21.  @TTTT-oc4eb  'Why are you even spending so much time on this?' Because I can. After a First in Modern History, I enjoyed a long career in Logistics Management, and had a number of books and articles published about my specialist field, and main interest, that of 20th Century Naval History. The royalties from those, and a nice pension, enabled me to retire early. Since then, I have indulged myself in responding to you Wheraboos and Sealion 'Would haves' about the wonders of the German armed forces in WW2. I am sure you know what a 'would have' is? Those who pontificate about how the mighty Luftwaffe 'would have' destroyed the Royal Navy had Sealion been attempted, yet are unable to explain how less than capable the Luftwaffe actually was in hitting ships at all in 1940. You might believe that Bismarck's armour was made of Mithril, and totally impervious to enemy shells, but survivors, such as Mullenheim-Rechberg knew differently. I wonder if you are aware of his accounts of Bismarck losing internal communications early in her last battle, or of the accounts of her being a mass of internal fires by the time she sank? Or are they just British propaganda as well? Finally, you might account for Bismarck's total failure on her one and only mission. Sent to disrupt supply convoys, she lasted less than three weeks, and didn't even see one. Not what one would have expected of a wonder weapon, was it?
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  22.  @johnmadara1252  No, they didn't. France & Britain formed an alliance with Poland, to the effect that both would declare war if Germany invaded Poland. It was an attempt to prevent a wider European war by putting an end to German military aggression.
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  23. Yet it was. A small fire was started, which had nothing to do with Hood's sinking.
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  24.  @solrosenberg4529  True, but that was a consequential effect, and not relevent to the situation in 1940.
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  25. George Santayana Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
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  26.  @aresee8208  Aside from the fact that the Commonwealth and Empire did receive the grateful thanks of the British, you don't need to repeat my words. What you do need to try to explain is how less than two Commonwealth divisions could have repelled an invasion, in the unlikely event that German forces managed to evade the huge presence of the Royal Navy in Home Waters. In 1940, the British were largely reliant upon their own resources, although distant expressions of goodwill and promises of future support were, I am sure, much appreciated.
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  27.  @aresee8208  And as I explained, the British did fully acknowledge the contribution made by the Commonwealth & Empire to Allied victory in WW2 (and WW1, come to that). I am sorry that the efforts the British made in 1940 cause you such annoyance, but facts cannot be changed.
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  28. I expect that the families of the 55,000 American casualties of Patton's shambolic campaign in Lorraine might have a rather different view of him.
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  29. You are correct. But I wonder how many people have even heard of Tunny?
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  30.  @glenn9229  Yes there were. There was also a Canadian division, and around 5,000 New Zealand troops. In other words, the land defence of Britain, some 34.5 divisions in September, 1940, consisted almost entirely of British troops.
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  31. In 1940? The Commonwealth was largely vocal support from a distance.
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  32. 'The Royal Navy was easily the 3rd most powerful navy in the world in 1939.' This would only be a correct statement were you to remove the '3rd' from it. Perhaps your knowledge of the naval war in the west, where carriers played a supporting but not pre-eminent role, is somewhat lacking?
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  33. Do you actually know what happened in Tunisia?
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  34.  @patavinity1262  Upset? How does posting a few verifiable facts equate to 'upset?'
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  35.  @patavinity1262  Oh, sorry. Sometimes it isn't always clear to whom any particular comment is addressed. I apologise.
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  36.  @OleLeik  I think you mean that the Bismarck, undamaged, had the speed to avoid action against better armed and armourred ships? Much like the manner in which Scharnhorst & Gneisenau acted during Operation Berlin when faced by convoys protected by unmodernised WW1 battleships, in fact. Bismarck was not built as a raider, by the way. The Bismarcks were built as responses to the French Richelieus, as part of the Franco-German naval race which began in the days of the Weimar Republic. She effectively lost her raison d'etre once the British declared war on Germany.
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  37. Why do you people even bother to comment? As Mark Twain said ' Better to Remain Silent and Be Thought a Fool than to Speak and Remove All Doubt.' Alas, too late in your case.
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  38. By 'comically bad' do you refer to Churchill's time in the trenches of the Western Front? Or his role as Minister of Munitions under Lloyd George from 1917 - 1919? Which wars do you believe Churchill 'mongered? Certainly Churchill regarded white Europeans as superior. He was, after all, born in 1874, and thus failed to follow the rules of the 21st century. Mind you, the same thing applied to Gandhi, born in 1869, who regarded Africans as an inferior breed of Human Being. Perhaps your indoctrinators failed to mention that?
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  39. The idea od invasion was abandoned in late 1940. Until June 1941, Genial Uncle Joe and adolf had a non-aggression pact. A problem of dates here, I suggest?
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  40. Indeed. The Afrika Korps at the time was a Corps within the Italian First Army, and consisted of 15 & 21 Pz. Divs., 90 Light Div., and 164 Inf. Div. It was defeated by 8th Army at Mareth, and crushed at Wadi Akarit. I am sure that George would have read reports of both actions, even though not involved.
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  41.  John Cornell  I hadn't read that, but I have never believed that, subsequently, there was ever a 'Race to Messina' as depicted in the ludicrous movie. Certainly, there was no Montgomery-led pipe band, arriving to be humiliated by Patton (or was it George C. Scott?). I suspect that there was some, albeit unintentional, accuracy, in the movie, however, in that it depicted events as Patton imagined them to have been, rather than as history shows that they were. Ladislas Farago's book (Patton - Ordeal & Triumph) on which the movie was based, is adored by Pattonites, but I recall reading it long ago and concluding that it was nearer to a hagiography than an academic study. Montgomery, however, had one shameful condition which has always rendered him unacceptable to many people. He was not American.
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  42.  @walterCronkitesleftshoe6684  Fair enough. I had noticed the similar (lack of) style, but hadn't appreciated the connection.
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  43. No, it seems you have missed the point. One Canadian division was in Britain, and, indeed, briefly in France until General Weygand told Alan Brooke that the French army was no longer capable of organised resistance, and the Reconstituted BEF was withdrawn. By September, there were also two Australian & New Zealand Brigades in Britain. All but two of the 34.5 operational divisions at that time were British. Of course there was a Commonwealth, and it played an increasingly significant role, but not as early as 1940, when, by & large, it provided staunch, but rather distant, support.
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  44. No, they weren't. Not in 1940 anyway.
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  45.  @fnqbloke  No. You should. It might enlighten you.
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  46. No, they weren't. There was no conscription in India. Moreover, there were no Indian troops in Britain in 1940. Are really as badly educated as you appear to be, or is it simply the result of indoctrination?
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  47.  @anishachowhan9630  'Indians fought with distinction throughout the world, including in the European theatre against Germany.' Thank you for your wikipedia cut and paste. Of course Indian troops fought with distinction in North Africa, Italy, & Burma later in the war. But not at the time of the Battle of Britain, which this video is about. Oh, and the Bengal Famine. Just to correct the last sentence by means of actual facts, as opposed to indoctrinator myths & falsehoods. :- Actually, the Bengal Famine had a number of causes, among which were the number of refugees from Japanese held areas, the inability to import food from those same areas, stockpiling by hoarders and, perhaps worst of all, the Bengal administration, which tried to minimise the crisis. The worst that could be said of Churchill was that he should have known what was taking place, but didn't. After all, in 1943, he had little else to worry about. You could also add the refusal of FDR to allow the transfer of merchant shipping, by the way. What is without dispute, except by those who choose to blame Churchill for everything since the Black Death, is that once he did find out, he transferred food distribution to the British Indian Army, and had grain convoys diverted from Australia to India. I appreciate, of course, that indoctrinators won't believe any of this, as it doesn't suit their agenda, but the documents and archives from the period rather contradict their allegations.
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  48.  @anishachowhan9630  These would be the 'facts' which told you that 2.5 million Indian soldiers were 'forced to fight for Britain,' would they, even though there was never conscription in India? 'And all I know is wrong' Quite correct. All you 'know' is wrong. Your indoctrinators must be very proud of you for repeating everything that they programmed into you. 'What are you trying to defend?' Nothing, I am simply correcting errors with facts.
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  49.  @nickdanger3802  K6, the mule handlers who operated in France, were part of the Royal Indian Army Service Corps. Professional soldiers, in other words. The Quit India movement began in August, 1942. The two events were entirely unrelated. The movement lasted for less than two months. The movement was opposed by the Viceroy's Council, the All India Muslim League, the Hindu Mahasabha, the princely states, the Indian Imperial Police, the British Indian Army, the Indian Civil Service, and many leading Indian businessmen. 2.5 million Indians fought on the Allied side in WW2, none of whom were conscripted. At the time of the Battle of Britain, which it seems constantly necessary to remind people this video was about, Gandhi had stated his support for the fight against racism and for the British war effort, stating he did not seek to raise an independent India from the ashes of Britain. Yey again, the issue of relevance arises.
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  50. Feared by whom? In the North Atlantic, the ship most feared by the average U-Boat commander was the Black Swan class sloop, especially when part of a Support Group. Aircraft carriers in the war in the west were a part of a fleet, not the core of it.
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