Comments by "John Burns" (@johnburns4017) on "Was Germany's Defeat Inevitable in WW2? Turning Point? And more... TIK Patreon Q&A 4" video.

  1. Randisides Excellent post indeed. Right after the retreat at Dunkirk, up until early 1941, the British had: • Destroyed the German surface fleet. • Neutralised most of the French fleet by sinking or starving it of fuel. • Disabled a major part of the Italian fleet. • Freely moving around the Mediterranean. • Starving Germany of food and resources with the effective Royal Navy blockade. • Beat the Luftwaffe over Dunkirk. • Beat the Luftwaffe in the misnomer the Battle of Britain as Britain was never threatened. • Pushed the Italians out of East Africa. • Decimated the Italian army in North Africa. • Were about to take all the southern Mediterranean coast. • Germany was being bombed from the air with raids of over 100 bombers - 150 over Nuremberg - using the new navigational device, Gee. • A massive air bombing fleet was being assembled. • A matter of weeks after the US entered WW2 the RAF launched a 1,000 bomber raid on Cologne. • The RAF shot down over 700 German fighters over Continental Europe in 1941. After the small BEF (only 9% of all allied forces in France) left France in June 1940, the British went on the rampage. So much so Franco implied to Hitler the British would win and he would not join in with Germany, fearing British occupation of Spanish territory. The Turkish ambassador stated Britain will win as it has a pool of men in its empire to create an army of 45 million (later an army of 2.6 million moved into Burma). In 1941 the British: • Suppressed an uprising in Iraq; • Beat the Vichy French in Syria; • Secured Iran and the oil by invading. The British determined where the battlefields with the Axis were going to be. After France 1940 Germany never had a significant campaign victory over the British Commonwealth ever again in WW2. The Germans FAILED: • To win the Battle of Britain in 1940; • To win the Battle of the Atlantic in 1940/41; • To control the eastern Atlantic ; • To control the Mediterranean in 1940/41; • To control North Africa and the Middle East in 1940/41. The British Commonwealth stopped the Nazis/Axis achieving all this well before the USA joined WW2 or even sent Lend Lease. Even the expensive pyrrhic victory in Crete meant little in the end to the Nazis because the Royal Navy still dominated the eastern Mediterranean with Crete not leading to any campaign winning difference.
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  2. After the fall of France, the Germans had access to the industry of Northern Italy, France, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands, however were not able to use it to match either the Soviets or the British in war production. The success of the Royal Navy blockade was instrumental in starving Germany of vital resources and food both animal and human. French production of planes destined for Germany was minuscule. France was not capable to produce as pre-war the French imported coal from Britain for its power generation. With the successful Royal Navy blockade the main source of coal was from Germany. Germany could not increase its production to overcome the French shortfall. The amount of food produced in continental Europe fell. The production of meat and dairy products in countries such as Denmark was dependant on imported grain and animal feed from the Americas. This was now not available. The level of food available from the dairy industry collapsed as did food production in general. In the rest of Europe food production had been based on chemical fertilizer. Huge levels of the chemicals used for fertilizer production were diverted to the manufacturing of explosives. French workers were on subsistence rations. Electricity was widely not available in France. The country had been dependant on motorized transportation. With no fuel with road & rail vehicles seized by the Germans, milk was poured away in farms and other produce put back into the ground unable to reach towns or cities. Most of French oil imports came from abroad. Once France fell oil products came from Romania and synthetic oil made in Germany, and so little it made little difference to the dire situation. The oil output was not enough for the needs of the German forces alone and to keep the Italian navy operational, which threatened to suspend all operations in February 1941 unless Germany provided 250,000 tons of fuel due to the dire shortage. France reverted to a horse and cart economy. The occupied countries were a drain on the German economy. The USSR had the natural resources that would enable Germany to out-produce Britain and America. Hitler turned to the USSR which was also a key step in his broader strategy. The invasion of the USSR was brought forward. The urgency of Hitler's aggression was also down to his awareness of the threat posed to Germany by the emergence of the USA as a global superpower. The USA has access to vast resources inside the USA, a land stolen by moving west, from indigenous people and the Mexicans. Hitler took this precedence looking east to emulate the USA, and match them economically. None of the German generals thought that the USSR could initially stand up to an invasion of over 3 million men in June 1941, however they knew they had to defeat the USSR by Christmas or they would fail as Germany had few resources and committed all reserves. This was another gamble. The USSR did stand up to the Germans and were able to marshal their industrial and military resources to last. The British were pushing the Germans back in Operation Crusader in the North African desert in late 1941. British forces had secured Syria from the Vichy French and Iraq was secured from a German inspired revolt keeping the Germans away from the oil fields of the Middle East and ensuring the war was conducted in Europe and the strip on the southern Mediterranean coast. British and Soviet forces invaded Iran with the Soviets committing 1,000 tanks, to secure the British oil refinery at Aberdan and the railway from the Gulf to the Soviet border. The German advance was stopped dead at Moscow in December 1941, with 40% of the tanks used supplied by the British with the Soviets launching their new T-34 tank of which Germany had no answer. With German industry being bombed by the RAF, being totally outproduced by the British & Soviets, desperately short of all resources because of the Royal Navy blockade, Germany now winning the war was a remote proposition. No more quick win gambles could be played. The gamble in France worked, the gamble in the USSR failed. The defeat at Moscow was in the same month the USA came into the war when Japan attacked the British Empire & the USA and Germany declared war on the USA. In the first year the USA entered WW2, 1942, the USSR outproduced the USA.
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  3. Randisides "For me the turning point was when the UK refused to surrender." Not quite so. Germany was in no position to force a surrender of any kind, as they had not overwhelmed British forces. Britain had a superior navy and air force. Hitler failed to get Britain to make peace.
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  4.  @TheImperatorKnight  Lend lease only really came in, in 1943. USA supplies to the British was only 10% of British needs and about 5% of Soviet.
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  5.  @nadiafriesen971  "The RAF was about to collapse before London was targeted" You have watching too many crap American History Channel documentaries.
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  6.  @DouglasMoran  The British developed counter measures for the magnetic mines, without capturing one. By running a wire around the ship. The British are very clever people.
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  7. @roflastc Only one third of the British army was in France.
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  8.  @jamestheotherone742  The Germans had no capability of launching a successful invasion of the UK. None.
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  9.  @scottwillie6389  Britain was still very much a world power in 1945, economically and militarily.
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  10.  @Rik79Duc  Lend leased was about 10% of British needs and 5% of Soviet. Significant but not so essential that if it was stopped the Germans would win.
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  11. "Adam Tooze in 'The Wages of Destruction' makes a pretty good case that Germany had lost the war by the time it invaded France. If they didn't invade the USSR they'd run out of resources and lose. And if they did invade they lose to the Russians militarily. " Tooze wrote that the Germans invaded the USSR to gain the resources of the east to build a large air force to counter the British RAF. Roosevelt in May 1940 declared the USA would build 50,000 planes per year, with British production on top. These planes were coming Hitler's way with or without US pilots. That was a volume of planes Hitler knew he could not match.
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  12.  @dondajulah4168  The Soviet-German pact of 1939 was a stop gap measure by the USSR. They wanted a pact with France and Britain, but Britain scuppered it. The pact was to keep the Germans away while the USSR built up forces.
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  13.  @WilliamJones-Halibut-vq1fs  Any expanson by the USSR was purely defensively based. They were seeing the aggressive build up of German forces.
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  14.  @scottwillie6389  You are confused.
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  15.  @simplicius11  Wrote: "And this is a ridiculous claim. Britain and the US would never be able to invade Europe if they met the Germans at their full force. What they met was a dying corpse of the German army. And they had terrible problems even with that shadow." Normandy had 22% less casualties than predicted and was ahead in territory gained at D-Day plus 90. The problem was Eisenhower gaining control of the ground forces, passed to him from Montgomery, as from then onwards it became a shambles.
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  16.  @scottwillie6389  WW2 did not destroy the British as a world power, it just introduced another, the USA.
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  17.  @jamestheotherone742  Barbarossa was not planned in June 1940, it only got the go ahead in Feb 1941.
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  18.  @roberthansen5727  The British would not resist a German invasion? Are you serious?
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  19.  @Shinji72  You are saying that 2 wrongs make a right. Mexico may have stolen land (more the Spanish) but that does not negate the fact that the USA stole land.
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  20.  @Volvo-f2y  The 1945 Atlee government got many things right considering the circumstances the country was in. Unfortunately Churchill got back in, in 1951 (with Atlee having more votes than Churchill) undoing much of the good of Atlee, regressing the country. Churchill and his backward mob went back to 1930s ideas. Churchill and the Tories were so vindictive and spiteful they immediately demolished the 1951 Festival of Britain buildings, many were architecturally very advanced.
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  21.  @bobmartin9742  What if, what if, what if!!!!!! Find out.
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  22. Axial-flow turbo-jet engines give greater thrust than centrifugal engines. The Meteor had the centrifugal while the 262 had the axial-flow, hence why the 262 was faster in July 1944 when both were introduced operationally. During WW2 the technology was not there to perfect the axial-flow engine. It was for centrifugal (the British did not adopt their more powerful Metrovic axial-flow engine because of reliability and longevity). The Germans did not put a lot of R&D in centrifugal engines, being behind in this strain of jet technology. Centrifugal outperformed the best piston engines of the time. The Germans used the axial-flow out of desperation, which put their own pilots at great risk.
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  23.  @WilliamJones-Halibut-vq1fs  wrote: "left wing peacenik," We have one here. Yes we do.
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  24.  @chuckyxii10  The US thought Germany would lose to the USSR and the British. In a war of attrition Germany would lose to the British. In May 1941, before Barbarossa and the USA entering into the war, the Italian fleet could not sail due to oil shortages. The Royal Navy surrounded Europe throttling it. This was when Germany was openly trading with the USSR. The Soviets never had enough resources.
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  25.  @vandeheyeric  Tooze looks at the war from an economic stance. He was right, Germany's economy was far too small. Tooze says that in 1939, Germany taking on just the British empire would mean German defeat. Looking at the state of play then, he was right. Germany's victory in France was a shock, even to the Germans. A gamble that paid off. As Tooze points out, a gamble that could have easily gone the other way meaning the end of Germany. That put them in an artificial position of superiority. After France, the Germans never had a campaign victory over the British (the British were minor players in France having only 9% of allied forces). Germany had spectacular gains, but nothing conclusive, however were continually being pushed back - in short, they were always losing but putting up a good fight. Geography played to their advantage, in that the British could not get at them on the Continent, apart from the air. The time they did lock horns on the ground was in the desert which the Germans, despite being with their allies, lost.
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  26. You are What Iffing.
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  27.  @simplicius11  I am not into What Ifs
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  28.  @davidrendall2461  "If Germany could have deployed even 150 odd U-boats" What Iffing again.
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  29.  @summer20105707  Hitler could not do anything on the western front. He was impotent against the British, who had the world's largest navy and large air force which was getting bigger by the hour.
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  30.  @Volvo-f2y  They hid their heads in the sand. To his credit Churchill kept shouting in the Commons about Hitler rearming. He was regarded as a nut by some.
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  31. Randisides There has been a tradition in the world of downgrading Britain's contribution to WW2, especially in the USA. The British fought a highly technological and industrial war and did so very efficiently. Britain used not only her vast empire but her even larger trading empire to great effect - an army of 2.6 million marched into Burma. The British, with its massive navy, surrounded the Axis, from the Med (cutting off both entrances to the sea) to the Eastern Atlantic, starving them of natural resources, and ensuring where the battles would be fought. Steel not flesh was the slogan. The British assessed that having massive armies is highly inefficient. The larger the army the higher the casualties. Britain deliberately chose to keep numbers of front line troops as low as possible building machines and using technology advances instead - the BEF in France was the first army were men never marched - fully motorised. The Kangaroo was the first armoured personnel carrier developed in WW2 from adapted tanks, saving many lives, in contrast to the horrendous US casualties. The policy worked, despite fighting for the duration, the only major country to do so, and all around the globe, the country had only lost around 440,000, which is half the British dead of the 1914-1918 war, which lasted two years less. Germany and the USSR lost considerably more troops than they had in WW1. From the war came amazing British inventions: the cavity magnetron, electronic computer, the world’s most advanced jet engines, anti-submarine electronics, the proximity fuse, as well as the Liberty ship (a Sunderland design), to name but a few. Massive developments in manufacturing, with a staggering 132,500 aircraft and over one million military vehicles. Canada alone produced more wheeled vehicles than Germany. From the first American servicemen arriving in Britain in 1942, until VE Day, the British provided the USA with 31% of all their supplies in the European Theatre of Operations. Britain's war effort was astonishing – backed by their insistence in continuing the fight in 1940. The British made an enormous contribution to winning the war, being the key agents. This had a positive effect on the future of the world. The declinist view of Britain in the war must be dispelled for good.
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  32.  @wudzah  You really do not have a clue.
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  33.  @wudzah  You still do not have a clue.
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  34.  @wudzah  Some mothers ......
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  35.  @wudzah  That figures.
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  36. @aBoughtLemon You have an uncanny ability not to recognise simple facts.
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  37. Turning points of WW2? The Germans were stopped: • In 1940 the British stopped the Germans in the west at the Battle Britain. • In Dec 1941 the Soviets stopped the Germans in the east at Moscow. The Germans on the run: • Late 1942 at El Alemein. • Late 1942 at Stalingrad. All before lend lease came fully on-line and before the USA had boots on the ground against Germany.
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  38. The great dictator They tried in the west against the British and failed. They were trying in North Africa and getting nowhere.
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  39. Mighty Mole Such a vivid imagination.
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  40.  John Cornell  The British were ahead of the Germans in jet engines. ;)
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  41.  John Cornell  The Me 262 was flying operationally, it was a lashed up plane, and engine, a few days before the Meteor. The British would not dream of putting a plane like that into the sky. The British could have had a jet plane operationally in the sky in 1941/42, but it may have been as bad a as the Me262. The first proper turbojet plane to fly was the Gloster E.28/39 in May 1941. It was no hair-dryer like the 1939 Heinkel or like the 1940 Italian motorjet, it was a full purpose designed body and turbojet engined plane. The Germans dropped jet R&D as their 1939 effort was so poor. They resumed when the found out the British had a jet planes in the air.
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  42.  John Cornell  The British would not deploy the Meteor over German held territory. The Germans were desperate. The 262 was not better than than Meteor. There is a myth that the Germans were way ahead of the British in jet engines and planes in WW2, when the opposite is true. The WW2 German jet engines were extremely unreliable with low performances and very high fuel consumption. The German axial-flow turbojets never worked as they wanted being developed up to 1953 by the French to obtain a usable engine. The French lost a lot of time playing around with the German engines, instead of working with the British. The French and Soviets after WW2 tried to improve the German axial-flow engines and largely failed. The Germans did not invent the axial-flow turbojet, they based everything on Frank Whittle's patents. The British Metropolitan-Vickers F.1 axial-flow engine was running on a test bed in 1941. The F.2 was an axial-flow being an extremely advanced design using a nine-stage axial compressor, annular combustor, and a two-stage turbine. It powered a Meteor in November 1943. It was considered unreliable and never saw use during the war, hence why the British went for the reliability, controllability and quick development of the centrifugal turbojets. The Metro-Vick F.3 was the first ever turbofan in 1943. Metro-Vick developed the F.9 Sapphire, however left the jet business in 1947 giving all their designs to Armstrong Siddeley, who commercially produced the Armstrong Siddeley Sapphire engine, which was licence built in the US as the J-65. The British in order to get a usable and reliable jet engine, with the technology of the time, went for a centrifugal design rather than the troublesome axial-flow design. This design produced less thrust than an axial-flow but was quicker to develop and reliable outperforming the best piston engines planes at the time. It took 5 months to develop, while the first reliable axial-flow engine was the 1950 Rolls Royce Avon, which took 5 years to get right. The Avon is still in production as a ground based gas turbine, with the aero version in production for 30 years. In 1945 the French made and tested some German designed turbo jets made with quality steel unavailable to German industry in WW2. They ran for 25 hours instead of the 10 hours of the Germans engines that used poorer quality steel. Not much better. The German axial-flow engines failed because of heavy design flaws. The centrifugal compressor used by the first British Meteor plane was fine and much more reliable, but unable to reach high compression ratios. This limited performances. Centrifugal compressors were used up to the 1960s. In 1945 the team from the French ATAR laboratory plus some BMW and Junkers engineers, were engaged by the French SNECMA research bureau, with the objective to build a new reliable and performing axial-flow turbojet. The BMW 003/Jumo004 was considered unusable. It was tested on the first French jet aircraft, the 1946 So6000 Triton, overheating and exploding. The plane only flew with a Rolls Royce Nene centrifugal turbojet. The ATAR project took 6 years to produce the first acceptable axial-flow turbojet (ATAR 101 B1), produced in 1953. So 8 years research and developments by the French using the German jet engines as the base. It was installed on the first French jet fighter, the Dassault Ouragan. The French lost a lot of time because the German jets had poor efficiency and some concept fails. Essentially in the combustion chambers and fresh air circulation to reduce the external temperature of the engine. The BMW jet was known for overheat problems which precluded fuselage installation. The question at the end of WW2 was: what is the most efficient way to produce jet fighters? The answer was clearly not adopting the German design of engine and fuselage. The build costs for a jet engine were much higher than a piston engine, with the fuel consumption near 3x. The centrifugal compressor the British adopted in some planes was the best choice with 1944-45 technology, more compression pressure was not an advantage when the hot turbine was unable to resist higher temperatures. The German turbojets had big overheat problems as the engine would not work in an enclosed fuselage for single engined fighters. This defect was immediately noted by the French on the 1946 "SO 6000 Triton" prototype, and by the Soviets on the 1946 Mig 9. The Soviets quickly replaced the BMW 004B2 by the centrifugal Rolls Royce Nene which worked without problems, dismissing the BMW engine for fighter planes. The Rolls Royce Nene was copied to the last nut by the USSR being installed in the Mig 15 being used effectively in the Korean war. The Meteor was the first proper fully developed jet plane introduced operationally. The 262 was slightly faster than the Meteor F3, but extremely unreliable. The British would never put into the sky such an undeveloped plane as the me262. The British could have had a jet fighter operational in 1941, but it may have been as bad as the me262. The Germans advanced R&D on jets after they interrogated captured British RAF men. They learned the British were advanced in jet technology and flying prototype planes. Until then the Germans had no intention of mass producing jet planes. The rushed together Me262 started claiming kills on 26 July 1944, the Meteor claimed its first V1 kill a few days later on the 4 August 1944. But the Meteor was a proper fully developed jet plane, not a thrown together desperate effort as the me262 was. The me262 fuselage was similar to a piston plane with the pilot over the wings obscuring downward vision, while the Meteor was a proper new design fuselage specifically for jet fighters with a forward of the wings pilot position giving superior pilot vision, as we see in planes today. The cockpit was very quiet. The sweptback wings of the me262 were to move the engines further back for better weight distribution, not for aerodynamic reasons as is thought the case. The me262's airframe was based on piston engine planes, even with an initial rear tail wheel. The tricycle landing gear was only introduced when it was found the thrust of the jet engines would scorch the runway surface as the exhaust faced downwards. The Meteor's airframe was designed purely for jet propulsion even with a high tail to prevent thrust interfering with the tail which could affect control. Centrifugal compressors were not obsolete being used in turboprops. Between a turbo jet and a turboprop, the only difference is the turbine, not the compressor. The last centrifugal compressor jet engine still in service on a handful of commercial aircraft like the Fokker 27, is the Rolls Royce Dart turboprop. A very reliable engine made in 27 versions, but with high fuel consumption to modern engines. The Rolls Royce Dart Turboprop turbo jet engine was produced the longest, being a comparable design turbojet to the likes the Rolls Royce Nene. The rugged engine was produced from 1946 up to 1987.
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  43.  @mightymole3363  It was not the US atomic programme. It was allied. The British figured out how to make the bomb - the MAUD Committee. Oswald was locked up.
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  44.  John Cornell  Frank Whittle patented both centrifugal and axial flow engines, Ohain copied Whittles patents making a centrifugal engine however it failed. Germany adopted axial flow rather than Ohain`s failure. Whittle realized that centrifugal jet engine designs were easier and it worked giving engines that outperformed the best piston planes. Metropolitan Vickers went ahead with axial-flow R&D being well ahead of the Germans. Rolls Royce took on Whittle's design improving it. The USA got Whittle's designs post war. France tried to make the BMW jet engine work properly and reliable wasting years while Armstrong Siddeley went ahead with the Metropolitan design. RR made the Derwent and Nene, RR then made the excellent axial-flow Avon, the first proper and reliable axial-flow engine, taking nothing from German failures. The USSR tried to get the German Jumo to work but gave up when they got the RR Nene, Czechoslovakia were given some me 262's by the Soviets after WW2, they dropped the plane quite soon. All modern jet engines owe their existence to the British designs not the German failures.
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  45.  John Cornell  The Me 262 first flew in 1942, well over a year after the Gloster 'Whittle' of May 1941. The Meteor was in RAF service from 1944 to 1984, also used by Argentina, Australia, Egypt, France, Belgium, Israel, Syria, etc. The Meteor set the world air speed record in 1945 and again in 1946 and the London - Copenhagen - London record in 1950. The Meteor also set an endurance record of 12 hours and 3,600 miles being refuelled by a Lancaster tanker in 1949 and several times height records using Armstrong Siddeley Sapphire engines in 1948.
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  46.  John Cornell  The Germans were not ahead at any point in jet airframe or engine technology. That is myth mainly spread by Americans. Americans dismiss the British saying the Germans invented the turbojet engine. The 262 was like any piston engine plane with the pilot over the wings giving poor visibility. They only adopted the tricycle undercarriage because the trust scorched runways, as they were using a tail wheel. The Meteor was an all new design with pilot forward of the wings (it was known for being 'very' quiet inside). The tail was high to clear the jet thrust.
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  47.  John Cornell  The Meteor was operational in July 1944 hunting down V1s. The 262 was operational in July 1944 damaging a Mosquito recon plane on 26 July. The 262 beat the Meteor to operational service by a matter of days. The Meteor was not allowed to fly over enemy territory for fear of the Germans getting hold of one. The 262 was incomplete in many, many ways. If the throttles were opened too quickly the engine stalled. The Meteor was a complete plane with the pilot having no fear of mechanical failure when operating the plane. The 262 has been built up to be a something it just was not.
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  48.  John Cornell  "Yes they were and they PROVED it in WW2." John It best you read my posts on this. You are wrong, just wrong. The Germans were desperate throwing a plane into the air with an incomplete, in R&D, engine. Allied air power meant the British could hold back, they were not desperate.
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  49.  John Cornell  "Had the Germans won the war the the Me 262 would have been further refined like the Meteor was." They would have dropped it. No one else thought it worth taking up in any way after WW2. Piston engine fuselage. The Meteor showed the way forward. The Germans could not make a compete and reliable engine in WW2. They only lasted a few hours then burnt out.
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  50.  John Cornell  ♦ German engineer Ohain did not design a reverse flow engine. His engine had a centrifugal compressor and a radial inflow (centrifugal turbine - a design never used in any production engine - this was a patent filed by Whittle). Ohain even commented on its unusual design when he read Whittle's patent prior to filing his own: From Ohain's biography: "When I saw Whittle’s patent I was almost convinced that it had something to do with boundary layer suction combinations. It had a two-flow, dual entrance flow radial flow compressor that looked monstrous from an engine point of view. Its flow reversal looked to us to be an undesirable thing, but it turned out that it wasn't so bad after all though it gave some minor instability problems." ♦ Whittle's reverse flow design is the basis for almost all turboprop engines in production. ♦ Britain had axial-flow engines running in 1941 - the same time that Franz had his Jumo running. The Metrovick F.2 flew in a Meteor in 1943. The F.2 transpired into the Sapphire which the US built under licence as the J-65 and then modified it as the J-47. ♦ Westinghouse in the US was given a Whittle engine, and plans for improvements. They made such a hash of it that Whittle had to go to the US to assist. The US government gave the project to GE who made the I-16 which transpired into the first US built jet engine. The US licensed the Ghost for the P-80/T-33 and the RR Nene. The Nene was used by the Soviets in the MIG 15. ♦ Ohain's engine was not produced being shelved by 1943. No engine was built using his design. ♦ Whittle also R&D'd axial-flow engines. The metallurgy was not advanced enough at the time. Whittle's engines produced far more thrust than the German axial-flows and far more reliable. ♦ The PT-6, PWC 100/150 are derivatives of Whittle's designs being still produced. ♦ • Whittle's centrifugal-flow engines were built under licence in the US after WW2 - the J-33, J-42 and J-48. • The Olympus was the world's first 2 shaft turbojet and the first to exceed 10,000 pounds of thrust. • The 1950 Avon was the first reliable axial-flow engine. Also the longest produced gas turbine in history being still in production as a land based generator. • The RR Conway was the world's first turbofan. • The RB-211 was the world's first 3 shaft turbofan. • The Rolls Royce Trent was the world's first turboprop to fly. • British axial-flows led the post war world in technology and power. • The axial-flow Sapphire was built in the US as the J-65. The GE J-47 was based on the Sapphire. Frank Whittle invented the modern turbojet. .
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  51.  John Cornell  "you sound similar to the folks who insist the Panther and Tiger tanks were failures." They were excellent tanks for the time. The failure was strategic. The resources it took to make and maintain them, in a country short of everything, could have been more effective directed elsewhere. However, no one copied the Panther after WW2, despite its well balanced design. No one copied the Tiger either.
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  52.  @WilliamJones-Halibut-vq1fs  There is a myth that the Germans were way ahead of the British in jet engines and planes in WW2, when the opposite is true. The WW2 German jet engines were extremely unreliable with low performances and very high fuel consumption. The German axial-flow turbojets never worked as they wanted being developed up to 1953 by the French to obtain a usable engine. The French lost a lot of time playing around with the German engines, instead of working with the British. The French and Soviets after WW2 tried to improve the German axial-flow engines and largely failed. The Germans did not invent the axial-flow turbojet, they based everything on Frank Whittle's patents. The British Metropolitan-Vickers F.1 axial-flow engine was running on a test bed in 1941. The F.2 was an axial-flow being an extremely advanced design using a nine-stage axial compressor, annular combustor, and a two-stage turbine. It powered a Meteor in November 1943. It was considered unreliable and never saw use during the war, hence why the British went for the reliability, controllability and quick development of the centrifugal turbojets. The Metro-Vick F.3 was the first ever turbofan in 1943. Metro-Vick developed the F.9 Sapphire, however left the jet business in 1947 giving all their designs to Armstrong Siddeley, who commercially produced the Armstrong Siddeley Sapphire engine, which was licence built in the US as the J-65. The British in order to get a usable and reliable jet engine, with the technology of the time, went for a centrifugal design rather than the troublesome axial-flow design. This design produced less thrust than an axial-flow but was quicker to develop and reliable outperforming the best piston engines planes at the time. It took 5 months to develop, while the first reliable axial-flow engine was the 1950 Rolls Royce Avon, which took 5 years to get right. The Avon is still in production as a ground based gas turbine, with the aero version in production for 30 years. In 1945 the French made and tested some German designed turbo jets made with quality steel unavailable to German industry in WW2. They ran for 25 hours instead of the 10 hours of the Germans engines that used poorer quality steel. Not much better. The German axial-flow engines failed because of heavy design flaws. The centrifugal compressor used by the first British Meteor plane was fine and much more reliable, but unable to reach high compression ratios. This limited performances. Centrifugal compressors were used up to the 1960s. In 1945 the team from the French ATAR laboratory plus some BMW and Junkers engineers, were engaged by the French SNECMA research bureau, with the objective to build a new reliable and performing axial-flow turbojet. The BMW 003/Jumo004 was considered unusable. It was tested on the first French jet aircraft, the 1946 So6000 Triton, overheating and exploding. The plane only flew with a Rolls Royce Nene centrifugal turbojet. The ATAR project took 6 years to produce the first acceptable axial-flow turbojet (ATAR 101 B1), produced in 1953. So 8 years research and developments by the French using the German jet engines as the base. It was installed on the first French jet fighter, the Dassault Ouragan. The French lost a lot of time because the German jets had poor efficiency and some concept fails. Essentially in the combustion chambers and fresh air circulation to reduce the external temperature of the engine. The BMW jet was known for overheat problems which precluded fuselage installation. The question at the end of WW2 was: what is the most efficient way to produce jet fighters? The answer was clearly not adopting the German design of engine and fuselage. The build costs for a jet engine were much higher than a piston engine, with the fuel consumption near 3x. The centrifugal compressor the British adopted in some planes was the best choice with 1944-45 technology, more compression pressure was not an advantage when the hot turbine was unable to resist higher temperatures. The German turbojets had big overheat problems as the engine would not work in an enclosed fuselage for single engined fighters. This defect was immediately noted by the French on the 1946 "SO 6000 Triton" prototype, and by the Soviets on the 1946 Mig 9. The Soviets quickly replaced the BMW 004B2 by the centrifugal Rolls Royce Nene which worked without problems, dismissing the BMW engine for fighter planes. The Rolls Royce Nene was copied to the last nut by the USSR being installed in the Mig 15 being used effectively in the Korean war. The Meteor was the first proper fully developed jet plane introduced operationally. The 262 was slightly faster than the Meteor F3, but extremely unreliable. The British would never put into the sky such an undeveloped plane as the me262. The British could have had a jet fighter operational in 1941, but it may have been as bad as the me262. The Germans advanced R&D on jets after they interrogated captured British RAF men. They learned the British were advanced in jet technology and flying prototype planes. Until then the Germans had no intention of mass producing jet planes. The rushed together Me262 started claiming kills on 26 July 1944, the Meteor claimed its first V1 kill a few days later on the 4 August 1944. But the Meteor was a proper fully developed jet plane, not a thrown together desperate effort as the me262 was. The me262 fuselage was similar to a piston plane with the pilot over the wings obscuring downward vision, while the Meteor was a proper new design fuselage specifically for jet fighters with a forward of the wings pilot position giving superior pilot vision, as we see in planes today. The cockpit was very quiet. The sweptback wings of the me262 were to move the engines further back for better weight distribution, not for aerodynamic reasons as is thought the case. The me262's airframe was based on piston engine planes, even with an initial rear tail wheel. The tricycle landing gear was only introduced when it was found the thrust of the jet engines would scorch the runway surface as the exhaust faced downwards. The Meteor's airframe was designed purely for jet propulsion even with a high tail to prevent thrust interfering with the tail which could affect control. Centrifugal compressors were not obsolete being used in turboprops. Between a turbo jet and a turboprop, the only difference is the turbine, not the compressor. The last centrifugal compressor jet engine still in service on a handful of commercial aircraft like the Fokker 27, is the Rolls Royce Dart turboprop. A very reliable engine made in 27 versions, but with high fuel consumption to modern engines. The Rolls Royce Dart Turboprop turbo jet engine was produced the longest, being a comparable design turbojet to the likes the Rolls Royce Nene. The rugged engine was produced from 1946 up to 1987.
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  53.  @WilliamJones-Halibut-vq1fs  ♦ Ohain did not design a reverse flow engine. His engine had a centrifugal compressor and a radial inflow (centrifugal turbine - a design never used in any production engine - this was a patent filed by Whittle. Ohain even commented on its unusual design when he read Whittle's patent prior to filing his own: From Ohain's biography: "When I saw Whittle’s patent I was almost convinced that it had something to do with boundary layer suction combinations. It had a two-flow, dual entrance flow radial flow compressor that looked monstrous from an engine point of view. Its flow reversal looked to us to be an undesirable thing, but it turned out that it wasn't so bad after all though it gave some minor instability problems." ♦ Whittle's reverse flow design is the basis for almost all turboprop engines in production. ♦ Britain had axial-flow engines running in 1941 - the same time that Franz had his Jumo running. The Metrovick F.2 flew in a Meteor in 1943. The F.2 transpired into the Sapphire which the US built under licence as the J-65 and then modified it as the J-47. ♦ Westinghouse in the US was given a Whittle engine, and plans for improvements. They made such a hash of it that Whittle had to go to the US to assist. The US government gave the project to GE who made the I-16 which transpired into the first US built jet engine. The US licensed the Ghost for the P-80/T-33 and the RR Nene. The Nene was used by the Soviets in the MIG 15. ♦ Ohain's engine was not produced being shelved by 1943. No engine was built using his design. ♦ Whittle also R&D'd axial-flow engines. The metallurgy was not advanced enough at the time. Whittle's engines produced far more thrust than the German axial-flows and far more reliable. ♦ The PT-6, PWC 100/150 are derivatives of Whittle's designs being still produced. ♦ • Whittle's centrifugal-flow engines were built under licence in the US after WW2 - the J-33, J-42 and J-48. • The Olympus was the world's first 2 shaft turbojet and the first to exceed 10,000 pounds of thrust. • The 1950 Avon was the first reliable axial-flow engine. Also the longest produced gas turbine in history being still in production as a land based generator. • The RR Conway was the world's first turbofan. • The RB-211 was the world's first 3 shaft turbofan. • The Rolls Royce Trent was the world's first turboprop to fly. • British axial-flows led the post war world in technology and power. • The axial-flow Sapphire was built in the US as the J-65. The GE J-47 was based on the Sapphire. Frank Whittle invented the modern turbojet.
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  54.  @WilliamJones-Halibut-vq1fs  The Heinkel jet was more of a hair dryer. They stopped jet R&D after, it was so bad.
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  55.  @WilliamJones-Halibut-vq1fs  No German jet was useful as they were incomplete designs. The French using the best metals available after WW2 took 8 years to get the German design workable.
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  56.  @WilliamJones-Halibut-vq1fs  You are right in that the British were not behind in jets, actually being ahead.
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  57.  @WilliamJones-Halibut-vq1fs  The 262s overall performance was poor.
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  58.  @WilliamJones-Halibut-vq1fs  The swept wings of the 262 was by accident, as they had to move the wings backwards for the engine to give weight balance. Look at the Miles 52, and its development, which the Bell X plane was based on to the break the sound barrier.
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  59.  @WilliamJones-Halibut-vq1fs  WW2 did not start in 1941.
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  60. paul Robinson They Germans tried to annihilated the British at Dunkirk and failed. The British won the Battle of Dunkirk.
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  61.  @paulrobinson4256  The British won the Battle of Dunkirk. The British BEF was only 9% of the total allied forces in France and the Low Countries. The German advance was halted in France as the British with a vastly inferior force stopped them at Arras. Some German soldiers turned and ran. Directive 13, issued by German Supreme Headquarters on 24 May 1940 stated specifically for the annihilation of the French, English and Belgian forces in the Dunkirk pocket. The Luftwaffe was ordered to prevent the escape of the British forces across the English Channel. The German southern advance was stopped at Arras by the British with a numerically inferior force. The Germans never moved much further after. The Germans could not have taken Dunkirk, they would have been badly beaten in and around the town. The Luftwaffe was defeated over Dunkirk by the RAF with the first showing of the Spitfire en-mass. More German than allied planes were destroyed in the Dunkirk pocket. The first defeat of the Nazis in WW2 was in the air by the British over Dunkirk. Only six small warships were sunk at Dunkirk by the Germans as the effectiveness of the Luftwaffe blunted. The British were retreating after the French collapsed in front of them - a programme already in motion, a programme already in motion before the Germans showed up, as General Gort saw the disjointed performance of the French forces in front of him. If the French collapsed the small BEF had no hope against the large German force heading west. The French were still in front of the British when General Gort decided to take the men back to England, as he did not trust the French in a joint counter-attack. French General Wiegand held a meeting to arrange a counter-attack and never invited General Gort head of the BEF. Gort was under the command of Weigand. Gort heard of the meeting and rushed to be a part. He got there after the French and Belgians had left. He ordered the evacuation having no faith in the elderly French leaders. All armies retreat and regroup when the need is there. There happened to be a body of water in the line of the retreat. Were they to move down the English coast and enter France further west with more men from England? The Germans did not know what was to be the next British or allied move. The Germans could not have taken Dunkirk and they tried. The British retreat operation was carried out as planned and in orderly fashion. All bridges to Dunkirk were destroyed by the allies. The British counter-attack at Arras was with outdated Matilda 1 tanks, which only had machine guns, and a few of the brand new Matilda 2 tanks. The Germans fled in droves. In desperation the Germans turned a 88mm AA gun horizontal and it worked against the Matilda 2 - their conventional anti-tank weapons and tanks could not penetrate the tank. The Matilda 2 would roll over German gun emplacements killing the gunners. Rommel thought he had been hit by a force three times the size, which made them stop and rethink. The Germans countered with their superior numbers pushing back the British who fell back towards Dunkirk. The British resolve and the new Matilda 2 made the Germans sit up and think about a street fight in Dunkirk against a consolidated force still with its weapons and the new Matilda 2 - the 88mm would be useless in Dunkirk streets while the Matilda 2 would be in its element, and the Matlida 2 would have easily destroyed the Panzer mk3s. The Matilda 2 could knock out any German tank at the time, while no German tank could knock it out. The Germans were expecting the Matilda 2 to be shipped over in numbers and for all they knew many were in Dunkirk. The Germans could not stop the tanks coming as the British controlled the skies with a CAP and the waters of the Channel. Not a good prospect for the Germans. A Dunkirk street fight was a fight the German troops were untrained and unequipped for and unwise to get involved in. Von Rundstedt and von Kluge suggested to Hitler that German forces around the Dunkirk pocket cease their advance and consolidate and also to prevent an Allied break out from Dunkirk. Hitler agreed with the support of the Wehrmacht. German preoccupation rightly was with an expected attack from the fluid mainly French and some British forces to the south of the German line, not from dug-in Dunkirk which was too much of a formidable consolidated opponent, taking substantial resources to seize. The German column had Allied troops to each side and in front and there was soft marshland to the south west of Dunkirk unsuitable for tanks. If German forces had engaged in a street battle for Dunkirk, they would be vulnerable on their weak flank from the south. In short the fast moving panzers were now static; German forces attacking Dunkirk in a battle of attrition would have been largely wiped out. The German columns were consolidating their remaining armour and the important resupply from Germany, which was slow as it was via horses, for an expected attack by the British and French from the south. The Germans attacked on a remarkably narrow front. They had over-stretched their supply lines. The Germans had no option but to stop, being more concerned at defending from the mainly French forces in the south which were viewed as a greater threat than Dunkirk. French general Weigand implemented his creation of hedgehogs to attack German lines from the sides, with success - hedgehogs were adopted post war by NATO being a part of the tactics until the 1970s. The Germans were thinking, are the British retreating to England from Dunkirk to move down the English coast and re-enter France further south with fresh forces, including Canadians and the new Matilda 2 tanks, which they feared, and join up with the French forces there? The British could easily do that as they controlled the Channel. This would create one large difficult to combat force. They saw the resolve of outnumbered British forces at Arras. German generals were trying to figure out what was happening. None thought that British troops would retreat to England and stay there. The British never did that sort of thing. The Germans could divert most of their forces south and risk a Dunkirk breakout and then risk being attacked from their rear fighting on two fronts, or stay and consolidate, which they needed to do, awaiting a French/British attack from the south and use some forces and the Luftwaffe to attack Dunkirk, which they did. German forces resumed their attack on Dunkirk for 6 days and failed to seize the port. The plan to break out of the Dunkirk Pocket using British, Belgian and French forces was abandoned as Gort had no confidence in the French. All military school studies since, knowing what the German and allied positions and situations were in 1940, have shown it would have succeeded. The Germans were defeated at the Battle of Dunkirk. They tried militarily to seize the port but failed. Only because the British did not trust the French and moved back to England did the Germans eventually occupy the town. The Germans did not let the British get away that is misguided myth, they tried and simply could not seize Dunkirk.
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  62.  @paulrobinson4256  Triumph in the face of adversity. Backs to the wall. The propaganda was never rescinded. Then it became true, until historians started to look at the records.
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  63. @The Savage You obviously cannot read and comprehend too well.
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  64. Tooze said Germany entered a war it could not win.
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  65.  @twirlipofthemists3201  Tooze makes it abundantly clear Hitler was a gambler. His gamble against France won to a point beyond his widest dreams. Hitler knew he needed the resources of the east to counter the large economy of the British empire, who were also building up forces from its empire. Tooze makes it clear Hitler was preoccupied with the British Empire and what that massive organisation would do next. Germany was continually attempting to get Japan to attack the British, to divert British forces away from German forces. The USA was not of immediate concern, the British were, as they were at war with Germany. The Americans were not. Tooze makes it clear that Hitler guaranteed Japan that Germany would declare war on the USA if they attacked the British. As the British were of no immediate concern of the Japanese, why should they? while the USA was, Japan continually refused. Giddy with victory after France, being a gambler, he thought every roll of the dice would come up six, so embarked on a massive gamble against the USSR to gain eastern resources to primarily counter the British air threat. His luck ran out.
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  66.  @chuckyxii10  Just about everything you wrote was wrong. The USA thought Germany would be defeated without them being involved. 1hr 13mins: https://youtu.be/79KU997m9o4?t=4388 You must stop making things up based on Hollywood films.
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  67.  @vandeheyeric  The BEF was only one third of the British Army. Most retreated home ready to continue the fight. All equipment losses were made up by September being replaced by the latest equipment - much of that left in France was little more than WW1 designs. The Army also stood at 2 million regulars with one million Home Guard.
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  68.  @vandeheyeric  What drivel. This one has been indoctrinated by US Cold War propaganda. Unable to shake it off as well. Sad really.
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  69. The imminent concern of Germany was to get resources to fend off the coming air war with Britain. Wages of Destruction. Adam Tooze: Planning for Barbarossa.. Tooze Page 454: "Critical stores would be reserved above all for the main strike force of 33 tank and motorised infantry divisions. If the battle extended much beyond the first months of the attack, the fighting power of the rest of the German army would dwindle rapidly." "Fundamentally the Wehrmacht was a "poor army". The fast striking motorised element of the German army in 1941 consisted of only 33 divisions of 130. Three-quarters of the German army continued to rely on more traditional means of traction: foot and horse. The German army in 1941 invaded the Soviet Union with somewhere between 600,000 and 740,000 horses. The horses were not for riding. They were for moving guns, ammunition and supplies." "The vast majority of Germany's soldiers marched into Russia, as they had in France, on foot." "But to imagine a fully motorised Wehrmacht, poised for an attack on the Soviet Union is a fantasy of the Cold War, not a realistic vision of the possibilities of 1941. To be more specific, it is an American fantasy. The Anglo-American invasion force of 1944 was the only military force in WW2 to fully conform to the modern model of a motorised army." Page 455: "the chronic shortage of fuel and rubber" "the fuel shortage of 1941 was so expected to be so severe that the Wehrmacht was seriously considering demotorisation as a way of reducing its dependency on scarce oil." "Everything therefore depended on the assumption that the Red Army would crack under the impact of the first decisive blow." Page 456: "a new Soviet industrial base to the east of the Urals, which had the capacity to sustain a population of at least 40 million people." "Soviet industrial capacity was clearly very substantial." "Franz Halder recorded Hitler's ruminations about the Soviets' immense stock of tanks and aircraft." Reading further Tooze gives the misgivings of the German generals of the invasion. All were negative. Page 460: "As late as the Spring of 1941, the Foreign Ministry was still opposing the coming war, preferring to continue the alliance with the Soviet Union against the British Empire." "If the shock of the initial assault does not destroy Stalin's regime, it was evident in February 1941 that the Third Reich would find itself facing a strategic disaster." Page 452: "the Germans had already conscripted virtually all their prime manpower. By contrast, the Red Army could call up millions of reservists." Why did Germany invade the USSR in a rushed ill-conceived plan? Page 431: "the strongest arguments for rushing to conquer the Soviet Union in 1941 were precisely the growing shortage of grain and the need to knock Britain out of the war before it could pose a serious air threat." "Meanwhile, the rest of the German military-industrialised complex began to gird itself for the aerial confrontation with Britain and America." Germany rushed to invade the Soviet Union, with an ill-equipped army with no reserves in anticipation of a massive air war with Britain and the USA, hoping they could win the Soviet war within weeks. The coming air war: Roosevelt promised 50,000 plane per year production in May 1940, of which a substantial amount would be in the RAF. Germany could not compete with the level of aircraft at the UKs disposal. Whether the planes had US and UK pilots or just UK pilots they were coming Germany's way. And the only way they could really get at each other was by air. Germany feared mass bombing, which came - the bomber in the late 1930s was perceived as a war winning weapon. The Germans knew the lead time for aircraft was 18 months from order to delivery. That meant in late 1941/early 1942, these planes would be starting to come into service in great numbers. Germany needed the resources of the east to compete. If the population was too big they would eliminate the population - the precedence was the American move to the west expanding the USA, taking lands from the natives population and Mexican and eliminating the population. War Production: Keegan, World War Two, chapter War Production: - Germany was third behind the USA, then the UK in GDP, in 1939. Germany = UK in capital goods production in 1939. - UK economy grows 60% during WW2. - Hitler says to Guderian, re: USSR, "had I known they had so many tanks as that, I would have thought twice before invading" Tooze, Preface, xxiii: Combined GDP of the UK and France exceeded Germany & Italy by 60%. - page 454: "It was poor because of the incomplete industrial and economic development of Germany". Interesting: http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/research/workingpapers/publications/twerp603.pdf Snippets: "Soviet exceeded German GDP in 1940" "The Allies won the war because their economies supported a greater volume of war production and military personnel in larger numbers. This was true of the war as a whole, and it was also true on the eastern front where the Soviet economy, of a similar size to Germany's but less developed and also seriously weakened by invasion, supplied more soldiers and weapons." "the technological key to Soviet superiority in the output of weapons was mass production. At the outbreak of war Soviet industry as a whole was not larger and not more productive than German industry. The non-industrial resources on which Soviet industry could draw were larger than Germany's in the sense of territory and population, but of considerably lower quality, more far-flung, and less well integrated. Both countries had given considerable thought to industrial mobilisation preparations, but the results were of questionable efficacy. In both countries war production was poorly organised at first and productivity in the military-industrial sector had been falling for several years. The most important difference was that Soviet industry had made real strides towards mass production, while German industry was still locked into an artisan mode of production that placed a premium on quality and assortment rather than quantity. Soviet industry produced fewer models of each type of weapon, and subjected them to less modification, but produced them in far larger quantities. Thus the Soviet Union was able to make considerably more effective use of its limited industrial resources than Germany." "Before the war Soviet defence industry was in a state of permanent technological reorganisation as new models of aircraft, tanks, and other weapons were introduced and old ones phased out at dizzying rate." The USSR had access to oil and more natural resources and far more men. Making their ability to produce far greater than Germany, which actually happened.
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  70.  @vandeheyeric  About one third of the equipment at Dunkirk was successfully taken back to England. The BEF was only one third of the British Army. In about a month all units were fully re-equipped with factories turning out the latest armaments 24/7. The regular army had near two million with the Home Guard one million. Right after the retreat at Dunkirk, up until early 1941, the British had: • Destroyed the German surface fleet. • Neutralised most of the French fleet by sinking   or starving it of fuel. • Disabled a major part of the Italian fleet. • Freely moving around the Mediterranean. • Starving Germany of food and resources with the effective Royal Navy blockade. • Beat the Luftwaffe over Dunkirk. • Beat the Luftwaffe in the misnomer the Battle   of Britain as Britain was never threatened. • Pushed the Italians out of East Africa. • Decimated the Italian army in North Africa. • Were about to take all the southern Mediterranean coast. • Germany was being bombed from the air with raids   of over 100 bombers - 150 over Nuremberg - using   the new navigational device, Gee. • A massive air bombing fleet was being assembled. • A matter of weeks after the US entered WW2 the RAF launched  a 1,000 bomber raid on Cologne. • The RAF shot down over 700 German fighters over   Continental Europe in 1941. After the small BEF (only 9% of all allied forces in France) left France in June 1940, the British went on the rampage. So much so Franco told Hitler the British would win and he would not join in with Germany, fearing British occupation of Spanish territory.  The Turkish ambassador stated Britain will win as it has a pool of men in its empire to create an army of 45 million (later an army of 2.6 million moved into Burma). In 1941 the British: • Suppressed an uprising in Iraq; • Beat the Vichy French in Syria; • Secured Iran and the oil by invading. The British determined where the battlefields with the Axis were going to be.  After France 1940 Germany never had a significant campaign victory over the British Commonwealth ever again in WW2. The Germans FAILED: • To win the Battle of Britain in 1940; • To win the Battle of the Atlantic in 1940/41; • To control the eastern Atlantic ; • To control the Mediterranean in 1940/41; • To control North Africa and the Middle East in 1940/41.  The British Commonwealth stopped the Nazis/Axis achieving all this well before the USA joined WW2 or even sent Lend Lease. Even the expensive pyrrhic victory in Crete meant little in the end to the Nazis because the Royal Navy still dominated the eastern Mediterranean with Crete not leading to any campaign winning difference.
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  71. What if. What if. What if.
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  72.  @twirlipofthemists3201  Britain winning the Battle of Britain was not hypothetical.
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  73.  @wudzah  The conflict after Normandy by the western allies was less than Stalingrad? Oh boy!
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  74. @aBoughtLemon Western allies were in Italy. Eisenhower's broad front strategy moved at a snail's pace.
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  75. @aBoughtLemon I gave facts. Simple.
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  76. @aBoughtLemon I wrote FACTS. Get used to it. Anyone who knows WW2 history can seec hat. You are saying thay are not. Prove it.
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  77. @aBoughtLemon I think we one here.
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  78.  @henrikandreason7261  Ridiculous what ifs. The British were not defeated at Dunkirk. They won the Battle of Dunkirk. Taking the troops back was decided before the Germans faced the British in full force. They were filtering back. Whole units with their equipment went back. The propaganda is that Germans swept in and pushed the British off the Continent who were lucky not to have lost all their men. The reality is very different. At no time did the Germans have the upper hand in the Battle of Britain. The RAF had more fighters at the end of the battle than at the beginning. The Germans were way down on planes and pilots at the end - an attrition rate they could not sustain. Hoping to gain air superiority over the large RAF, who could base planes out of German air range was a silly idea.
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  79.  @arnepietruszewski9255  British industrial output was equal to Germany's. The British produced more planes than Germany in WW2. In 1941 the British were building more aircraft than Germany, Japan and Italy combined, 5,000 more than the USSR and 5,000 less than the USA. Overall the planes they produced were superior. Canada alone produced more wheeled vehicles than Germany. The first 1,000 bomber raid was in May 1942, a few months after the USA came into WW2. Lend lease only started to make an impact in 1943. The two largest economies in the world were the British empire and the USA. The USA supplies about 11% if British supplies, mainly raw materials and machines tools and about 5% of Soviet - British War Production by Postan 1951. Hardly earth shattering. If Germany and Italy thought they could seize Malta they would have. Planes based in Malta were reaking havoc with Italy's merchant fleet. Try to seize Malta then the RN comes in from two directions. On the US entering WW2, it was about the British defending the USA and teaching them how to wage war. The British provided vital assistance to the USN. In early 1942 the British had to lend the USN 24 anti-submarine vessels, and crews, a Fleet Air Arm Squadron to protect New York Harbour with the Royal Navy moving over defending the eastern seaboard of the USA, as the Americans concentrated on any perceived follow up attack by the Japanese in the Pacific. The USN was totally unprepared for war, despite every warning, ending up being far more dependent on the Royal Navy than they would have liked. Even the aircraft carrier HMS Victorious was loaned to the USA to operate in the Pacific as they only had one carrier, temporarily renamed USS Robin (after Robin Hood). The British and Soviets had decided the course of the war with the Battle of Britain and the Battle of Moscow - Germany was stopped in the west and in the east and going nowhere in North Africa. The Germans were going nowhere from Dec 1941, the Battle of Moscow. The war was essentially won in 1938 and 1940, when in British made a planned switch to a war economy, five years ahead of Germany, and in 1940 the British refused to make peace. In 1941 the British were building more aircraft than Germany, Japan and Italy combined, 5,000 more than the USSR and 5,000 less than the USA. In 1942 the USA was a liability. Shipping losses to U-boats had fallen steadily throughout 1941 only to reach spectacular levels with the entry of the USA into the war - up to summer of 1942 the US lost 600 vessels from the Caribbean to Newfoundland.  All major historical authorities, Morrison, Roskill, Churchill, Bauer and even General Marshall agreed this was entirely due the incompetence of the US Navy and the stupidity of Admiral King. The correspondence between King and Marshall can be found in Bauer's history and ends in effect, with an army general correctly advising a US Admiral on maritime tactics. The USAAF in the UK was receiving approximately 70% of its supplies locally until 1943 - it is in the USAAF history. The story of the USA 'coming to the rescue’ of the UK is propaganda story that suited both the British and the USA at the time. The reality was very different, starting with the Arcadia conference in late 1941, where the British subtly forced US to model its war economy and planning on the British system.  The reality was the USA knew nothing about managing a modern war learning everything from the British. In 1939 the US army was the 19th largest in the world about the same size of Romania and smaller than Portugal. They never even had a tank, never mind a tank corps. Had things been different and the British been really up against it, the Tizard mission may have gone to the USSR, not the USA. The British had a workable design for a nuclear bomb from the ‘Tube Alloys’ project. Britain and the USSR would have won, maybe using the A-Bomb with the USA a minor player on the world stage today - similar to China, being a large manufacturing country.
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  80.  @arnepietruszewski9255  Total opinionated nonsense. You lack an understanding of the big picture. Do not get your history from Hollywood or bad History Channel documentaries.
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  81.  @jackharter660  Americans always say we supplied the war. Then when they are told well er, er...about 4% to the USSR and about 11% to the UK. Then then say but what we provided was essential. You can't make this up.
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  82.  @jackharter660  Harrison. University of Warwick. He went into the Soviet economy. 4% Not much in the whole scale of matters.
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  83.  @jackharter660  Again.... The USA provided 4% of Soviet supplies and approx 11% of British. Do you understand percentages?
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  84.  @jackharter660  Only one third of British Army was in France. All losses were made up by September with the latest designs. By September the regular army was two million strong with one million Home Guard.
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  85.  @jackharter660  We all know what 4% means.
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  86.  @jackharter660  The USA supplied only 4% of Soviet supplies and approx 11% of British. What don't you understand about that? Your maths lessons were a failure.
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  87.  @jackharter660  You have little idea of of WW2 economics. Economies win wars. The Sten was an economic weapon that did exactly what it was supposed to do, and more. It was made by the millions, super cheaply. It was so simple a childrens' toy company stamped them out. The design principle of economy of manufacture, ease of manufacture, as few parts as possible of the AK-47 all came from the Sten. Later in the war when German industry was pushed, they copied the Sten, as did the French. Troops liked the Sten as it was small and light. Rifles were a nuisance and something they rarely used. I recall talking to one ex British para. He liked the Sterling, the successor of the Sten, as it was small and light. Both the Sten and Sterling were used extensively by many nations and are still used today. Not bad for cheap, economic throw-away designs not meant to last after a war.
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  88.  @jackharter660  Please read again brainless one.
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  89.  @jackharter660  You are some sort of nut. Boy do the Yanks breed them.
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  90.  @jackharter660  In English please?
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  91.  @brianlong2334  You are confused. Era is 1939-1945, not 1949. Germany had to demotorise as they had no oil or rubber. British Army in 1940 was 2 million with 1 million Home Guard. British Indian Army was 2.6 million. Allied shipbuilding was greater than U-Boat sinkings. New ships bigger, better and faster. A convoy of newer ships did not need escorts as they were too fast for U-Boats.
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  92.  @brianlong2334  That was 2.9 million regulars. 1 million Home Guard. Once again the era is 1939-1945 - much confusion. In 1944 British Indian Army was 2.6 million. Germany had to demotorise as the war went on. The RN blockade starved them of resources. Britain produced more planes than Germany in WW2. Once again, allied shipbuilding was greater than Germany U-Boat kills. U-Boats were being sunk successfully. Even Canada produced more wheeled vehicles than Germany. There you go... Mate.
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  93. Number Muncher Any more fantasies?
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  94. Jim Glass "With Britain secure and the USA using it as an unsinkable aircraft carrier " The USA performed poorly in Europe. 50,000 casualties in the Lorraine, 33,000 at Hurtgen Forest, 100,000 at the Battle of the Bulge, for starters. They were losing so many men by high ranking incompetence they had to pour men destined for the Far East into Europe. So many the British had more men on the ground against the Japanese than the USA. 2.6 million marched into Burma. BTW, by 1946 B-29s would not have been any use as most targets had gone.
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  95.  @jimglass1290  In 1946 the Germans were nowhere near the Caucasus.
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  96. The British won the Battle of Dunkirk. They achieved their aims. The Germans never.
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  97.  @ralfrath-new  Understand strategic aims against tactical. A battle emerged called - The Battle of Dunkirk. The British won it.
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  98.  @ralfrath-new  You are very confused.
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