Comments by "Jim Taylor" (@jimtaylor294) on "Why didn't the Germans just send up all their interceptors to stop the thousand bomber raids?" video.

Ironically AAA in the cities often had the undesirable result of debris raining back down on the city, damaging buildings & causing casualties. This happened in the UK, USA & elsewhere. (because like firing a pistol straight up in the air; what goes up [that doesn't have enough thrust for escape velocity] also comes back down) Putting most of the guns on the coast was far more effective, especially against the V-1 "Buzz Bombs".
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@graemesydney38 Precisely. Mythbusters found that - in a practical experiment - that even the small caliber stuff was deadly. It doesn't beg thinking about what damage the debris from 3.7" & 5.5" guns must have done.
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@johnpublic6582 Aye. Free Market Capitalism > Command Economy & Autarky. Everytime. The western allies after all even produced enough kit to be able to resupply the USSR.
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@graemesydney38 Indeed. If helmets were made bulletproof; they'd be too heavy to wear.
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^ Nope; that's backwards. The allies heavily relied upon private enterprise and industrialists (case in point Kaiser in the US; which revolutionized shipbuilding there by doing what civil servants thought to be impossible; such as mass producing Aircraft Carriers). The UK [due to political idiocy] dabbled in Command Economy and mass nationalization in the postwar era, having forgotten that it was private industry that'd done most of the work in WWII. The result was the stark decline of the 1970's, while countries that'd embraced the economic methods that'd defeated them in war, such as Japan, were setting world records for industrial efficiency and accomplishment, just as the UK & US had once done. The Germans by contrast had a Command Economy and vast civil service overseeing it from the 1930's, and it shows in how ludicrously inefficient they were, both prior to and during WWII.
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@averdadeeumaso4003 Kind of; though it depends against what you're trying to proof the helmet against. During the purely steel helmet era bulletproofing wasn't possible (excepting some add on protection for the helmet front that was used by trench spotters), but today it is indead possible to protect against smaller calibers. Against a .303 round or bigger caliber though; the kenetic power of the round would likely break the helmet wearer's neck, even if the round didn't penetrate the helmet.
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@sorsocksfake True; though one solution to a perception of no defence is - through the media - prove to the populace how they're being protected. (albeit while being careful to omit military secrets, and anything too useful to spies)
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^ doubt
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@tuttebelleke Point noted; though if .50 cal or bigger; it's safe to say that the wearer is toast; even if the helmet [hypothetically] was sufficiently armoured against the round. After all the kenetic shock to even the best chest body armour of handgun rounds is significant for the wearer. It does stop the round, but the wearer is still [at least] shaken up by the experiance. Worth noting too that the head has to be jolted by a far smaller amount to get [for lack of a better term] severe whiplash.
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@88porpoise Precisely. The BoB was going badly for the Germans. The Luftwaffe would have collapsed as an operational concern - through atrittion & exhaustion - if they hadn't switched targets.
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@Jose.AFT.Saddul Aye. War is controlled violence for a purpose; that being to support one's government's decisions, by force; with the best possible outcome being the opponent either surrenders, or dies. The former is always preferable, but often takes much longer than expected. The Germans didn't seek terms after the allies showed they could flatten them from the air far better than they had to others; Germany thus got a pounding, that it could have cried uncle on and spared itself further misery, but didn't. And it's worth noting: in WWI & II: the Germans were the first to bomb civilians from the air, shell coastal towns with Warships, shoot PoW's and massacre civilians in random reprisals, and a lot more besides. We spent both wars responding to German precident, re' the level of barbarism.
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As far as I know Harris had the nickname during the war. His approach also seems to have been very frank and up-front about what his aim was, which was to crush Germany with airpower, shorten the war, and achieve what the public at time wanted; which was to hit back at the germans and do so hard.
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Aye; and the majority of British civilians affected by the bombing raids / associated with others that were, cared not a jot about the "moral high ground", they wanted Germany pounded into dust. (as did everyone in the countries the Luftwaffe had pounded; albeit that only the Soviets had anything resembling an airforce left, and no long range bombers of useful payload nor enough speed [which is why they sent the RAF & USAAF bombing wishlists])
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A~and both at once... yeah Germany was screwed even by the force ratio alone. Then again they sowed the wind; they got the inevitable comuppance that goes with it.
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^ The fact that you had to crutch your statement with ad homeniem, demonstrates your claim is utter blarney XD.
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@Rachotilko Thanks. I did state to the other user words to the effect that modern helmets can offer more protection against smaller calibers, though apparently that wasn't enough for him XD. I don't see a helmet able to withstand AK-47, Rifle or larger rounds (or armour piercing versions of smaller rounds) ever existing.
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@sorsocksfake In war; control of the media is a given, and always has been. Case in point when the Battleship HMS Audacious hit a mine and sank. American civilians on the passing RMS Olympic were the only witnesses that weren't legally required to keep their mouths shut; as it was a closely guarded secret as to how many warships the Royal Navy did or didn't have, lest the Germans make use of such information. (as such Audacious's loss was kept a secret until after the war, with the Germans being fooled sufficiently to actually condemn their ship captain that'd laid the mines, for doing so in the wrong place [he never commanded a ship again]) Similarly: how many AA Guns the UK had, where and in what strengths was a state secret during WWII, and one of many military assets that deception was often employed as to their locations and quantity.
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^ Having seen what a 5.56mm round can do, and that a 7.62mm round is typically overpowered in most situations, I doubt anyone would want to test your theory that a .303 rifle round won't break the helmet wearer's neck. As far as I know nobody's done a ballistics gel dummy test to see what'd happen, but the fact that the similarly sized 7.62mm was known to kill people after passing through brick walls during The Troubles in N-Ireland, it's highly likely in my opinion. If I'd used 50 cal as the example; nobody would doubt it.
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@tuttebelleke One detail you omit re' the theoretical helmet; is that the weight itself would contribute to neck injury in the event of a round hitting the helmet. A bit like any heavily laden trolley or pallet truck; a heavy item once in motion requires greater applied effort to stop it as well. Not a problem re' regular helmets vs debris & shrapnel, as the typical army helmet is designed to be as light as possible for the task.
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@davidschwartz5127 Assuming you mean the AAA debris: New York is one example. They fired a battery of guns into the night sky at what they thought was a german bomber raid... only to find they'd been mistaken, and made a mess with all the ammo' debris that rained back down on the city. TheHistoryGuy has a video on it I think. Not that firing at phantom targets is rare though. HMAS Sydney once unloaded a ton of her AAA munitions at what the ship thought was a Japanese aircraft squadron at high altitude... yet turned out to be the Planet Venus.
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^ Citation needed The Army in my country told us otherwise, and if they say something isn't bulletproof, it isn't.
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^ Clichê & vacuous reply is clichê, and vacuous. Ding
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^ Projection XD
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When a boxer throws a punch; it's not considered unfair for the opponent to punch back harder, rather a instance of superior ability. The British and US - unlike Spain, Poland, Greece, Denmark, the Netherlands, France, the USSR et al - had superior ability, and the will to pound Germany into submission. That the allies hit Germany harder is a case in point not of allied capriciousness, but of German inferiority in this aspect of the war. (for had they possessed good four engine bombers in quantity and bombs like Grand Slam, they would have used them)
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Worth noting too that the British & French had a motive to bomb western-Germany in 1939 (in support of Poland, which was being pounded from the air by the Germans), yet shied away from it. That it took the Germans drawing first blood on the UK & France to elicit a counterstrike (France's was tokenistic but no small feat for a nation with a by-then largely kaput airforce), says a lot about their restraint, and what it took to bring the whirlwind that flattened Germany.
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^ Once again entirely false; demonstrably so too -_- . Repeating an evident falsehood doesn't make it true, lefties :P .
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^ Projection , and about as comical an example of the non-reality you leftie drones live in as could be hoped for ROTFL . The NSDAP were leftwing, had a Command Economy, a vast Civil Service to oversee it, and as mentioned in detail by the chap above, a system of nationalization re' businesses and a heavily cartelified supply sector which made operating as a business of any kind in Germany without party favour, impossible. Anyone whom denies the latter facts of the matter, among others, is the delusional one. For Capitalism in WWII: check out the western allies... whom not coincidentally won the war, while also resupplying the USSR.
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^ So~ not only going back on a past copping-out statement; but resorting to the Baffle Them with Bollocks cliche XD . Not that I expected any less. Lefties are as consumate liars as they're verbose and out of touch with reality.
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^ A~and reported for Spam XD . Always hilarious when lefties prove my points for me. For said points I refer to prior comments, as to repeat myself is as illogical as the leftie bot in this thread.
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@DoddyIshamel I'd just report him for spam at this point, as anyone that verbose / multi-comment prone is definitely a bot.
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^ More delusional word salad from the resident loony leftie. Seems to "think" - or computate - that debating is a game of attrition... and not what it actually is, where those whom preach the same old disproven rubbish over & over are [quite rightly] laughed out of the room.
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IMO he was right to take that approach; and that we had every right to strike back, especially as - unlike the Luftwaffe's other victims - we could strike back, and had the means to do so in-force.
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@allanpowell7208 I suppose; though as his profession was Bomber Command I've never seen it as a negative. Then again it's probably also because airforces' are very nickname prone. Few RAF pilots didn't end up with a nickname of some sort.
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In my view "Butcher" is purely pejorative (apart of course from it's original meaning as someone whom prepares meat & fish). I've never heard Harris referred to in said way though. In books & on TV I've only seen the 'Bomber' handle, and typically in line delivery / wording in text only interpretable as positive.
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