I don't know any soldiers I would boot, but I am very sure there are tons. I know also about military tactics and also that there are third way to eliminate the enemy, kind of supressing it. Don't know the word in English.

But if you are a fighter pilot, do you have those choises? No you don't. You can't only wound the soldier. You can't supress him. You can't capture him. You can only eliminate him by killing him. If he flies over your country, then you can gamble and let him go down to get captured.

Those are the choises. Or of course there is that sandbox choise "we just shoot planes down." It is good in gaming or if you fear yourself of being shot down.

I am glad someone got it exactly. You mentioned all those examples I was thinking will I have to write about. That kind of things has been done, and there is no point in judging from history instead of learning from it.

Exactly. It was very nasty. Now, if we want to learn more, the question is who was the bigger coward, the soldier who shot down chute pilots while totally hating to do it and sacrificed everything he had to stop the war or Knight of the Sky who had "honour" and did not shoot chutes? Just asking. Real WW2, no sandboxes.

Or of course we could keep things in kids level black&white and stop discussing. This is already too much for some I think.

So you say killing is right. I disagree but realise that sometimes it has to be done. I would never say killing is right (as in right and wrong).

Wrong? you don't know what wrong means...? Now you're just arguing about words. Pointless again.

If there are no planes left then the pilot is irrelevant. This is what is known as Air superiority. There will always be people to put into planes.

Would you throw a grenade into a barn full of unarmed POW soilders?

Or execute anyone and everyone who surrendered?

Talk all you like about 'kill everyone who could possibly kill you at somepoint in the future' that argument could also be used to justify bombing children. It's a flawed argument.

I simply think that in the cases where, as you put it, it has to be done, then it is not wrong (it's right).

It's not pointless, I honestly don't understand your point that "Even if killing someone is justified it is still wrong." Go look up a definition of wrong (you'll find several) and give me an example of where a justified killing (as you put it) is wrong. If you don't want to argue about the words, no problem.

Hmm, this was actually pointless from the very beginning besides the fun factor of writing and thinking out of the box. Carry on men, nothing to see here :lol:

WWII went on for 6 years, so no one quickly achieved air superiority, and a shortage of skilled pilots was a serious problem. As Oleg would say (and I'm not suggesting he agrees with any particular view, it's just a quote from him), it's not the plane, it's the pilot. So if Gunther Rall had been shot, the Germans would have had the same success by sticking a new recruit in a plane instead of him - obviously not.

Well now you're being silly. If a German pilot has bailed over France in BoB, he is going to get back in a plane and try to kill your side. That is not the same as a POW, not even close. And children... well that's silly.

I respect that your opinion is different to ours, but you're suggesting we're mad, irrational or just naive about war - yet as quoted a couple of pages ago, Dowding also thought that those bailing over friendly territory were a reasonable target. Or do you think he was a clueless idiot who knew nothing about war?

I give up.

If you can't understand that killing someone is not what should happen (even though it does) that human life is paramount, and should never be taken lightly, or that however you dress it up and for whatever reason it was done the act of killing is fundamentally wrong then I can't put it any simpler.

I would never condem anyone who fought in a war and killed someone, but homicide of any form is wrong. The moment it's right and no-one cares is the moment we're all fucked.

I'm not bothered that you see chute shooting as ok. I was adding balance to the thread and trying to stay away from opinion. I, like you have made my mind up on where I stand on it.

I'm going watching the football..

Yeah, air superiority, and part of that is forcing the enemy to use unskilled badly trained pilots. Quality counts too, as you know for sure.

And I am not talking about killing everyone. I have been specifically talking about eliminating the enemy. The enemy means enemy soldiers. Eliminating includes killing, supressing, capturing, whatever to make them not a threat. Forcing an enemy pilot to bail out is like forcing him to do a tactical retreat. Definetly he is not eliminated if bailed out over his lands. He is shooting at you, your friends, and your countrymen next day like in Battle of Britain.


Edit: And if we take "honour" into this, I would be interested to know what kind of honour standards Japanese had. Also I am interested of Polish pilots. Why they fought so mercilessly. At least there is no way I could say they were dishonourable right away. Maybe they had standards like "no mercy untill it is over".


Edit: If it would not be bad for the population inside the genre and if my current squadron would allow I would start fer sure a "chute shooters club" squadron :lol:


Edit: Will someone agro if I say "i lol when I shoot a chute" :lol: Such a pity I can't go taunt the squadron I am at war with :lol:

What if the POW escaped? or the child grew up to be a fighter pilot? It's still deciding to kill someone based on speculation.

I being deliberatly provocative to make you think about it from a different perspective. Where did I suggest that you were mad, irrational and naive?

I mentioned Churchill overuling RAF commanders earler in the thread so no I don't think Dowding was an idiot, just that I disagree with what he thought. And I don't have a problem disagreing with anyone and I'm not here to 'convert' anyone.

So what if we disagree? What's your problem with that?
you trying to win something here?