WORLD AT WAR... DVD set

[BRUTAL64]

This is a must see for anyone that has no clue what WWII was about. This was first aired in 1974 and is so well done that I even find it spell binding now. I have studied WWII since I was a kid all the way into and including College.
It has footage from WWII that has been not seen by the public till then.
I'm on the Russian Front right now and it is incrediable.


THOSE WHO DO NOT LEARN FROM HISTORY ARE DOOMED TO REPEAT IT.:drink:

[Vettezuki]

This is a must see for anyone that has no clue what WWII was about. This was first aired in 1974 and is so well done that I even find it spell binding now. I have studied WWII since I was a kid all the way into and including College.
It has footage from WWII that has been not seen by the public till then.
I'm on the Russian Front right now and it is incrediable.


THOSE WHO DO NOT LEARN FROM HISTORY ARE DOOMED TO REPEAT IT.:drink:

I'm a WWII history buff of sorts. It is extraordinary just how massive that war was. BTW, if you ever get a chance, I think one of the best series ever was called "The Color of War." It was on the History Channel for a while. It turns out, there was towards the end of WWII actual color footage taken, some of the very first. It was somehow misplaced and only very recently rediscovered. It takes on a much more personal tone than the geopolitical POV of World At War. Highly recommended.

I've actually burnt out on war history a little bit. I have an empathetic streak and it really is just too much sadness to take in when you get down to what was really happening to individuals. I used to watch and read in more of an abstract way, somehow it impacts me a lot more now.

[BRUTAL64]

I'm a WWII history buff of sorts. It is extraordinary just how massive that war was. BTW, if you ever get a chance, I think one of the best series ever was called "The Color of War." It was on the History Channel for a while. It turns out, there was towards the end of WWII actual color footage taken, some of the very first. It was somehow misplaced and only very recently rediscovered. It takes on a much more personal tone than the geopolitical POV of World At War. Highly recommended.

I've actually burnt out on war history a little bit. I have an empathetic streak and it really is just too much sadness to take in when you get down to what was really happening to individuals. I used to watch and read in more of an abstract way, somehow it impacts me a lot more now.

Why can't I write like you. I can hear my Dad now,"Why can't you be more like Ben"?:laugh:

If you can check out World at War. It's worth the effort!:bigthumbsup:

[Vettezuki]

Why can't I write like you. I can hear my Dad now,"Why can't you be more like Ben"?:laugh:

If you can check out World at War. It's worth the effort!:bigthumbsup:

I think you write fine.

"I don't need quality in my thinking, I need naked." - BRUTAL64

[Vettezuki]

Doesn't this set include a lot of footage not included in the original World at War series because it was considered too shocking?

On another BTW, while I didn't go to see the film myself, there was Russian documentary that was made from captured German footage from the Eastern front. I did see some ads for it. It should make any sane person shudder.

"The Dark Knight," "Silence of the Lambs," fill in the blank . . . reality can be so . . so much worse.

[BRUTAL64]

Doesn't this set include a lot of footage not included in the original World at War series because it was considered too shocking?

On another BTW, while I didn't go to see the film myself, there was Russian documentary that was made from captured German footage from the Eastern front. I did see some ads for it. It should make any sane person shudder.

"The Dark Knight," "Silence of the Lambs," fill in the blank . . . reality can be so . . so much worse.

The Germans were killing EVERYTHING as they moved East. They were incredablity brutal as they went. Which cost Germany dearly when the Russians started moving the war west. Of course you know all that.;)

A Russian Documentary would be VERY interesting.

[Vettezuki]

The Germans were killing EVERYTHING as they moved East. They were incredablity brutal as they went. Which cost Germany dearly when the Russians started moving the war west. Of course you know all that.;)

A Russian Documentary would be VERY interesting.

It's a strange quirk of history. The Germans sort of beat themselves by creating enemies with their "mode of war". If they had entered and acted as they were originally greeted by the Ukranians, that is liberators from Stalin, it might have been largely a walk all the way through the east. Then they would have had unfettered access to nearly endless natural and human resources. It would have been a VERY different war then. We probably would have ended up not invading D-Day style, but nuking major German cities. As it was we did hada plan for blanketing Germany with Anthrax.

[BRUTAL64]

It's a strange quirk of history. The Germans sort of beat themselves by creating enemies with their "mode of war". If they had entered and acted as they were originally greeted by the Ukranians, that is liberators from Stalin, it might have been largely a walk all the way through the east. Then they would have had unfettered access to nearly endless natural and human resources. It would have been a VERY different war then. We probably would have ended up not invading D-Day style, but nuking major German cities. As it was we did hada plan for blanketing Germany with Anthrax.

Hitler looked at the Russians as SUB-human. They were to be used as slaves, at least the ones that were left. He wanted to kill off most of the population. He was looking at Russia as a place to populate with German expansion.

If Hitler had not made the Big three "Mistakes" we may have had to NUKE Germany.:nutkick:

[Vettezuki]

Hitler looked at the Russians as SUB-human. They were to be used as slaves, at least the one that were left.. He wanted to kill off most of the population. He was looking at Russia as a place to populate with German expansion.

If Hitler had not made the Big three "Mistakes" we may have had to NUKE Germany.:nutkick:

True dat. History is weird. We get a long far better with our vanquished enemies than with our former allies.

[BRUTAL64]

True dat. History is weird. We get a long far better with our vanquished enemies than with our former allies.

20 milliom Russians died by German hands (at least that is what the Russian claim. I think Stalin had a hand in some of those deaths.). Even with those numbers they were able to put up the largest land Army of WWII, if not of all time. Those frisky Russian.:judge:

[Vettezuki]

20 milliom Russians died by German hands (at least that is what the Russian claim. I think Stalin had a hand in some of those deaths.). Even with those numbers they were able to put up the largest land Army of WWII, if not of all time. Those frisky Russian.:judge:

People tend to fight pretty hard when they face extermination. They also aren't all that forgiving when the tide swings in their favor. This was part of the genius of the Roman and Mongol empire. Let your targets know your coming and what you're going to do. Give them the option to surrender. If they refuse, conquer them utterly, then absorb and assimilate . . . like the Borg. :judge:

[BRUTAL64]

People tend to fight pretty hard when they face extermination. They also aren't all that forgiving when the tide swings in their favor. This was part of the genius of the Roman and Mongol empire. Let your targets know your coming and what you're going to do. Give them the option to surrender. If they refuse, conquer them utterly, then absorb and assimilate . . . like the Borg. :judge:

When the Russians were able to go on the offensive, they were able to put 100 T-34 tanks per kilometer on the front line. 24,000 tanks for WWII itself. Tank building mofos!:judge:

[BRUTAL64]

Ben:
I was really enjoying our discussion about WWII. You have been the only person I know to keep up. :drink:

[Vettezuki]

Ben:
I was really enjoying our discussion about WWII. You have been the only person I know to keep up. :drink:

I could geek out on you til your eyes rolled back in your head. Some of it's a bit fuzzy now, but did you konw the T34 was based heavily on an American design that the then DOD passed on cuz it was too expensive and difficult to manufacture. We went with the Sherman for its mass production and cost effective nature. Around D-Day, the Germans fully expected the most advanced tanks in the world to roll off the American ships. They were surprised by two things. One, what a piece of crap they were (compared to the Panthers and Tigers) and two, just how fing many of them there were. We simply drowned them in steal and that works too.

Generally though, American war equipment had a couple major advantages over the typically more sophisticated German counterparts. Namely they were very simple and easy to repair, which is handy when people are shooting at you. They, especially the tanks; however, were very dangerous compared to the German models. An American tank crew didn't have much of a chance of getting out alive from the Shermans, where the German models had better armor, were diesel so they didn't just explode, and had better escape hatches. Actually, America didn't make a good tank til we teamed up with our German and British pals to make the M1, which is a bad motha.

[BRUTAL64]

I could geek out on you til your eyes rolled back in your head. Some of it's a bit fuzzy now, but did you konw the T34 was based heavily on an American design that the then DOD passed on cuz it was too expensive and difficult to manufacture. We went with the Sherman for its mass production and cost effective nature. Around D-Day, the Germans fully expected the most advanced tanks in the world to roll off the American ships. They were surprised by two things. One, what a piece of crap they were (compared to the Panthers and Tigers) and two, just how fing many of them there were. We simply drowned them in steal and that works too.

Generally though, American war equipment had a couple major advantages over the typically more sophisticated German counterparts. Namely they were very simple and easy to repair, which is handy when people are shooting at you. They, especially the tanks; however, were very dangerous compared to the German models. An American tank crew didn't have much of a chance of getting out alive from the Shermans, where the German models had better armor, were diesel so they didn't just explode, and had better escape hatches. Actually, America didn't make a good tank til we teamed up with our German and British pals to make the M1, which is a bad motha.

Yea, the was the point of the Sherman was to build simple and then drown the Germans in pure numbers. Yea, the GIs had a name for the Sherman but I can't remember it right now ( I think it ws something like the torch ). The cannon was a joke. Ole "Oddball" in Kelley's Heros said it best. Can't remember that now either. It was something about all he could do against a Tiger was let it punch holes in his Sherman.:drink:

One of the things that was showing up in a lot of what I read in some books, was that German soldiers would not even try to fix their equipment and the American GI was all over their stuff when it broke.

There are some stories about GIs putting bigger engines in thier jeeps from Nazi staff cars. :sm_laughing:

[Vettezuki]

Yea, the was the point of the Sherman was to build simple and then drown the Germans in pure numbers. Yea, the GIs had a name for the Sherman but I can't remember it right now. The cannon was a joke. Ole "Oddball" in Kelley's Heros said it best. Can't remember that now either. It was something about all he could do against a Tiger was let it punch holes in his Sherman.:drink:

One of the things that was showing up in a lot of what I read in some books, was that German soldiers would not even try to fix their equipment and the American GI was all over their stuff when it broke.

There are some stories about GIs putting bigger engines in thier jeeps from Nazi staff cars. :sm_laughing:


The Germans called the Shermans "Tommy Cookers". Come to think of it, we called them Jerry (especially the British.) Come to think of it wonder if there is any connection to the later Tom & Jerry. :huh:

As for the field guns, the German model was deadly accurate and could punch through anything, it also had an unbelievable number of moving parts. The American version which was sorta accurate and powerful enough to make a mess had like 5 moving parts. The Germans required technicians to fix their equipment. The operators couldn't touch it generally.

In reality though, pretty much except for the Nuke (kinda a big deal) and heavy bombers the Germans were equal, superior, or just plain generations ahead with all their equipment as far as function was concerned. There were some odd exceptions though. American submarines were actually better than the feared U-Boats.

The real interesting part most people don't know is that a lot of development on German weapons was halted in the late 30s and didn't resume until around 42 when they realized the war wasn't quite going to plan. They literally had world class scientists in trenches they had to recall to the Fatherland. To say nothing of the fact they were using a human resource to eliminate and educated technical class of Jews. Throw in the fact they had a bizaarely organized military industrial complex where information was NOT shared and they often worked at odds internally, we can only imagine what they might have developed and deployed had they worked continuously in a more cohesive manor from the late 30s. We might have seen things like fully functional Me-262s by 43, mass produced Sturmgewehr 44 assault rifles, etc.

There are other funny things like one of their big chiefs in charge of building up their Luftwaffe in the 30s insisted that if they were going to go to major war with the Soviet Union and the west they would absolutely need long range heavy bombers. Hitler disagreed. That guy died in a test flight for some other aircraft. They were never able to deliver the super heavy bomber blows like the US and UK could. The kinda thing that allowed the Soviets to move their entire industrial base behind the Ural mountains, which in itself is one of the greatest moving feats in the history of the world.

They were a strange mix of truly brilliant and really, really stupid.

[BRUTAL64]

The development of the Me 262 was going strong for a late 43 deployment. We would have been in a world of hurt if Hitler hadn't screwed that up to.
They were haveing problems with the turbine fin metal in the early engines and , of course, flame outs. What Hitler did was demand that the Me 262 be converted to a bomber. That delayed the Me 262 another year. Which was good for us.
Here's a list of some other planes the Germans were working on. Some were in the development stage and others were on the table for development.


The Bachem Natter Ba349 Manned Rocket
The Bachem Natter was projected as a small lightweight expendable interceptor, capable of destroying any enemy bomber using the least possible weapon expenditure. To achieve this objective, this ambitious project employed a vertical rocket-assisted takeoff followed by separate descent and landing of pilot and aircraft by separate parachutes.
It was believed that pilots having little or no experience would need only rudimentary flight and gunnery instruction, rather than spending valuable training resources on the finer points of flight training. Erich Bachem reasoned that, a reasonable number of such interceptors and launch sites could be installed around key industrial targets, to make attacking Allied bombers pay a prohibitively high price.

Heinkel He-162 Salamander Volksjager Nazi Jet Fighter
The prototype of the Heinkel He 162 turbojet-engine interceptor was flown for the first time on 6 December 1944, only 38 days after detail drawings had been issued to the factory. This prototype was lost in a fatal flying accident on 10 December, but the program was continued and revealed some aerodynamic problems, these being remedied in the third and fourth prototypes, both flown on 16 January 1945; first deliveries of aircraft for operational evaluation and service trials were also made during January 1945.
On 4 May 1945 one Gruppe of three squadrons, with a total of 50 aircraft was formed at Leck in Schleswig-Holstein, but British forces occupied the air field on 8 May and accepted the unit's surrender. A total of 116 He 162s was built, and more than 800 were in various stages of assembly when the underground production centers were captured.

Lippisch P-13a Ramjet Interceptor
The last desperate attempts by the Luftwaffe to stop the Allied bomber streams were exemplified by the demand: fighters, fighters, fighters - quick and simple to build, cheap and from easily accessible materials, small dimensions, superior speed compared to enemy escort fighters and firepower. Nearly all aircraft manufacturers and designers in the Third Reich put designs to paper along these lines. Even Dr. Lippisch's ideas during the last year of the war fit into this concept. Of his numerous variants, the Lippisch 13a was actually given serious consideration.
The Lippisch P.13a was an experimental ramjet-powered delta wing interceptor aircraft designed in late 1944 by Dr. Alexander Lippisch for Nazi Germany. The aircraft never made it past the drawing board, with testing of wind tunnel models showing the design had extraordinary stability into the Mach 2.6 range. As conventional fuel was in short supply at the end of the war, the ramjet was to be powered by powdered coal.
It was the end of the war that prevented further development beyond the un powered DM-1 test glider. After the war, Lippisch, working with American aircraft designer Convair, developed and tested the XF-92 based on his designs, leading to the eventual adoption of the F-102 Delta Dagger and its successor, the F-106 Delta Dart

Me P 1109 ScissorsWing (Oblique Wing)Top Secret Project
Twenty-five years before the Ames-Dryden AD-1 ScissorsWing experiment, and most probably a major inspiration for the same, this Messerschmitt Me-P-1109 was being developed in February 1944 as yet another 'last ditch' WWII effort to thwart the Allies.
The Ames-Dryden AD-1 scissor wing research aircraft tested a wing that could pivot fore and aft to form oblique angles up to 60 degrees. Tests revealed that the scissor wing decreased aerodynamic drag, permitting higher speeds and longer range. The concept was not new. Dr. Vogt designed the BV P 202, with a similar scissor wing that could pivot up to 35 degrees

The Horten Ho 229 Flying Wing
The first Horten wing (a glider as were many of their designs), flew in 1934 and their devotion to the design carried them on even after the war. What is truly amazing about their story is that often their work was done in secret, even from the Luftwaffe, who did not want a new design interfering with other types.
The final design they were working on during the closing days of the war was one that would be able to carry two atomic bombs to the U.S. and return. It was thought to be able to do over 600 mph.

The Focke-Wulf Triebflugel
In 1944, at Focke-Wulf, Professor Otto Pabst worked on an interesting fast vertical takeoff aircraft named the Triebflugel. Its purpose was to rise quickly from just about anywhere and attack the allied bombers.
Similar to a helicopter, it was powered by THREE large wing-like rotors but unlike a helicopter, the rotors turned around the fuselage. To preclude fuselage torque, the rotors were powered by small ramjets mounted on the tips and these were to be boosted to start speed by rockets. The landing gear casters in the tail were retractable.The use of the ramjet made it possible to use various cheap fuels.

The Nazi WWII Secret X-Plane-Huckebein Ta-183
The Nazi WWII Secret X-Plane-Huckebein was the officially recognized identifier however, soon thereafter it became known by the nickname Huckebein, after a cartoon raven who got others into trouble.
This was one of the last secret Nazi X-planes that were designed by the brilliant German designers and almost flown at the very end of WWII.. A scarcity of parts and constant bombing of the factories made things difficult as best.
The Allied forces crated and sent home the prototypes for 'evaluation'. Both the Russians and the Americans came out with a flying version in the late 1940


These are just a few of the planes the Germans were working on. Just think of what would of happened if they developed any number of these. Damn!

We haven't even got to the German Heavy Water project yet.:judge:

[Vettezuki]

. . .

We haven't even got to the German Heavy Water project.:judge:

One thing is clear. From debriefing scientists after the war, the Germans were no were near a nuke or really even quite on the right track. Turns out a couple of those dirty Jews would have been quite useful for that little project. All in all, let's be grateful they were dumb asses or we would have had to nuke'm.

[BRUTAL64]

One thing is clear. From debriefing scientists after the war, the Germans were no were near a nuke or really even quite on the right track. Turns out a couple of those dirty Jews would have been quite useful for that little project. All in all, let's be grateful they were dumb asses or we would have had to nuke'm.

Yes, Hitler didn't have them pursue it as they should have. They did have the brains to develope a nuke , just they were of the wrong faith.
Yes, I've always wonderned what would have happend if Hiltler did things as he should have. That just scares the HELL out of me.:drink:

[Vettezuki]

Yes, Hitler didn't have them pursue it as they should have. They did have the brains to develope a nuke , just they were of the wrong faith.
Yes, I've always wonderned what would have happend if Hiltler did things as he should have. That just scares the HELL out of me.:drink:

Their math was completely wrong-headed, particularly regarding critical mass. As I recall, the "funny" part is they thought it was much harder than it was in reality. Hip hip hooray. A nuke on the Tip of a V2 (which BTW they were able to launch from a sub!) would have been a bit much to deal with. Fortunately they got the as*es paddled.

[BRUTAL64]

Heisenberg warned the German government in the fall of 1941 that the Americans were pursuing a nuclear explosive (plutonium) that could be made in a chain-reacting pile. The warning resulted in receiving the highest priority for his work from Albert Speer, Hitler's minister of munitions.

Weizsäcker had stated how fortunate it would be for the position of science in Germany after the victory to help so significantly towards this end with atomic weapons. But there was no possibility of carrying out such a large undertaking in Germany before the end of the war.

The German scientists had produced nuclear fission in the laboratory. They had also been looking at nuclear fusion and U-235 separations and were approaching criticality in a nuclear pile in a cave at Haigerloch. Their nuclear program was inhibited somewhat by a lack of enthusiasm on the part of Adolph Hitler, who believed the time frame was too long, and even more so by a serious miscalculation in its early stages.

After the War, Heisenberg recounted "It was a new situation for us scientists in Germany. Now for the first time we could get money from our government to do something interesting and we intended to use this situation. The official slogan of the government was: We must make use of physics for warfare.... We felt already in the beginning that if it were possible at all to actually make explosives it would take such a long time and require such an enormous effort that there was a very good chance the War would be over before that could be accomplished.... We definitely did not want to get into this bomb business. I wouldn't like to idealize this; we did this also for our personal safety. We thought that the probability that this would lead to atomic bombs during the War was nearly zero. If we had done otherwise, and if many thousand people had been put to work on it and then if nothing had been developed, this could have had extremely disagreeable consequences for us."

On 26 February 1942, Heisenberg spoke at a Berlin conference organized to garner support for the fission project. Heisenberg reported that a reactor could be used to power submarines, and to generate "...a new substance (element 94) ...which in all probability is an explosive with the same unimaginable effectiveness as pure uranium-235."

Until 1942 Heisenberg headed a small reactor research group in Leipzig and advised a second, larger group in Berlin. Heisenberg built an early experimental pile in Leipzig, alternating layers of uranium and paraffin, to test the properties of a chain reaction. The Leipzig pile burned in a fire caused by a pyrophoric reaction of its powdered uranium with air.

Allied bombing of Berlin forced Heisenberg to move his materials to Haigerloch in Wurttemberg, Germany. In 1944 it was rented by the Kaiser-Wilhelm-lnstitut für Physik (Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics) in Berlin. The Atomkeller is a long, rectangular room, the walls are the rough, undisguised rock face. The whole tunnel reminds its original origin: an (uncompleted) railroad tunnel. The reactor prototype was once located at the end of this tunnel. The famous "B8"-experiment was carried out at the end of March and the beginning of April 1945. The reactor didn't become critical. Further calculations showed that a functioning nuclear reactor would have had to be about 1.5 times the size of this reactor. However, expanding the reactor was no longer possible in April 1945 due to the lack of both heavy water and additional quantities of uranium blocks.

The US Army Air Corps bombed the German nuclear production works near Berlin. Thus ended the German nuclear threat. Although General Groves was aware of this fact, he did not pass the information on to the scientists in the Manhattan Project.

In 1944, as Germany was falling, the Alsos Mission under Lieutenant Colonel Boris Pash and Samuel Goudsmit, its civilian scientist, gathered information on all aspects of Germany's advanced technology, particularly the development of atomic energy. The American intelligence force quickly nabbed all the German nuclear documentation and scientists they could find to keep them out of the hands of the Soviets. (Alsos was a thinly disguised code name; in Greek it means "grove.") The mission found that the Germans working on an atomic bomb under Werner Heisenberg were far behind the United States.

Hahn, who was involved with the desultory German effort to harness atomic power, was awarded the 1944 Nobel Prize (delayed in presentation until 1946) by an uninformed prize committee. Possibly anxious to defend the status of German science in the postwar years, he never bothered to correct the record.

A persistent historical debate still rages about the motivations of Hahn, Werner Heisenberg, and the other members of the German "Uranium Club." The 1993 book by the journalist Thomas Powers, "Heisenberg's War," argued that Heisenberg destroyed the German project from within. But Heisenberg, who was not a Nazi, compromised his principles by acquiescing in Nazi rule because he believed that it would return Germany to "its rightful place" as an economic and military leader in the world. Did he delay the German bomb project in order to prevent the Nazis from acquiring the bomb--as he claimed--or were they were not able to develop a bomb because they were unabile?

After the war Heisenberg maintained that he understood the principles of an atomic bomb, but that he had deliberately misled the German program into concentrating on reactors. In fact, under Heisenberg, everything was being done in Germany to develop atomic weapons.

After the war, Heisenberg and nine of his colleagues were interned at Farm Hall, a British country house. Hidden microphones recorded their reaction to the bombing of Hiroshima. Heisenberg did not understand bomb physics, and had vastly overestimated how much U-235 was needed. At Farm Hall Heisenberg had calculated that the amount of fissionable material necessary for a bomb was somewhere in the range of several metric tons

[Vettezuki]

. . . In fact, under Heisenberg, everything was being done in Germany to develop atomic weapons.

After the war, Heisenberg and nine of his colleagues were interned at Farm Hall, a British country house. Hidden microphones recorded their reaction to the bombing of Hiroshima. Heisenberg did not understand bomb physics, and had vastly overestimated how much U-235 was needed. At Farm Hall Heisenberg had calculated that the amount of fissionable material necessary for a bomb was somewhere in the range of several metric tons

This was basically what I was getting at.

[BRUTAL64]

This was basically what I was getting at.

Yep, that is what I had read a long time ago. I just thought it would be interesting to read the "offical" statements.:bigthumbsup:

"Their nuclear program was inhibited somewhat by a lack of enthusiasm on the part of Adolph Hitler, who believed the time frame was too long, and even more so by a serious miscalculation in its early stages".

[BRUTAL64]

I just watched the Battle of Bulge. They just glossed over it like it was hardley anything. Yea, 500,000 German troops aginst 85,000 green Alied Troops. Yea, hardley anything to speak about.:rolleyes2::censored:

[Vettezuki]

I just watched the Battle of Bulge. They just glossed over it like it was hardley anything. Yea, 500,000 German troops aginst 85,000 green Alied Troops. Yea, hardley anything to speak about.:rolleyes2::censored:

Yea a lot people do know how desperate things got there for a little while. It was pretty grim for the allies until the cloud cover broke and we were able to go after them from above. Then it was lights out.

[BRUTAL64]

Yea a lot people do know how desperate things got there for a little while. It was pretty grim for the allies until the cloud cover broke and we were able to go after them from above. Then it was lights out.

Just about everyone of Germany's Reserves were wiped out. Cut the war by 6 months. I've read differing numbers but about 7,000+ Alied troops were captured in the first few days.

What's the MOST famous word one of our Generals may have or may not have written when asked to surrender?:D

[Vettezuki]

Just about everyone of Germany's Reserves were wiped out. Cut the war by 6 months. I've read differing numbers but about 7,000+ Alied troops were captured in the first few days.

What's the MOST famous word one of our Generals may have or may not have written when asked to surrender?:D

What is "nuts" Alex?

[BRUTAL64]

What is "nuts" Alex?

Ok, that is correct. But, there are some doubters out there that say that was NOT what was written. DO you know what some people say what was really written?:huh:

[Vettezuki]

Ok, that is correct. But, there are some doubters out there that say that was NOT what was written. DO you know what some people say what was really written?:huh:


See from 48 seconds.
YouTube - Broadcast Yourself.

[BRUTAL64]

See from 48 seconds.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1PxnS48Jbk

:laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh:Perfect.

[BRUTAL64]

DRESDEN.

Ben, what are thoughts on the fire bombing?

[Vettezuki]

DRESDEN.

Ben, what are thoughts on the fire bombing?

It's one of those other things we don't talk about much because the reality is pretty damned ugly. We intentionally inflected mass horror on that city with two primary purposes:
1 - punish Nazi Germany
2 - (Perhaps more importantly) trouble was already brewing with the Soviets. It was our way of letting them know (before we used a Nuke in Japan) that we could level cities at will inside a couple days. We knew the Soviets would be there soon and would be able to see first hand what we could do very quickly.

It was a time of war and it was a legitimate military target as a major industrial rail hub. But looking back one could argue that it wasn't a strategically necessary attack to achieve the goal of Nazi surrender but had more to do with pay back and sending a message. Like Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the other fire bombed cities the real death toll is forever unknown, because a lot of people simply disappeared.

The Alllies in total incinerated millions of people, MANY of whom were only guilty of being born in a certain place at a certain time. I'm not saying it was the wrong approach, in fact sadly, it was probably the right approach, or at least the most effecient one to bring the enemy to their knees as rapidly as possible. It's damn clear the Japanese weren't about to surrender until it became crystal clear that they faced extermination with no hopes of winning . . . and even then there were some willing to go that far. But that's a different story.

[BRUTAL64]

It's one of those other things we don't talk about much because the reality is pretty damned ugly. We intentionally inflected mass horror on that city with two primary purposes:
1 - punish Nazi Germany
2 - (Perhaps more importantly) trouble was already brewing with the Soviets. It was our way of letting them know (before we used a Nuke in Japan) that we could level cities at will inside a couple days. We knew the Soviets would be there soon and would be able to see first hand what we could do very quickly.

It was a time of war and it was a legitimate military target as a major industrial rail hub. But looking back one could argue that it wasn't a strategically necessary attack to achieve the goal of Nazi surrender but had more to do with pay back and sending a message. Like Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the other fire bombed cities the real death toll is forever unknown, because a lot of people simply disappeared.

The Alllies in total incinerated millions of people, MANY of whom were only guilty of being born in a certain place at a certain time. I'm not saying it was the wrong approach, in fact sadly, it was probably the right approach, or at least the most effecient one to bring the enemy to their knees as rapidly as possible. It's damn clear the Japanese weren't about to surrender until it became crystal clear that they faced extermination with no hopes of winning . . . and even then there were some willing to go that far. But that's a different story.

Yes, it was a major rail hub. The problem with the bombing is the rail station was hardly damaged. They had it up and running in 3 days. According to people that lived thru the bombing, there were very few men and no troops in Dresden. Seemed a very cruel thing to do. But, I guess, during war anything to end it.