nazi info real or fiction?
 

dear 1c i like when in 1il-2 sturmovik you insert LUFT 46 airplane secret airplane

i whant a little space in SOW over insert modern aircaft or experimental or strange airplane Exmple Hanaeubu III.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mvei3...eature=related

Please, no more ludicrous requests for bogus Nazi UFOs
 

Fiction :roll:

After seing successful jet fighter prototype in early war days and rocket technology which was just a dream for other countries, it is far from being fiction for me. Yes, it is possible i think.

In case you hadn't noticed, both rockets and jets were being worked on elsewhere.

The whole thing is utter drivel, based on 'evidence' cooked up in the 1950s to sell books to the gullible. Sadly, the internet provides an easy medium for nonsense like this to find more suckers...

Some anti-gravity thing? NO way.

But the US did do some pretty extensive research on saucer shaped aircraft (some got off the ground) and there were a lot of "strange sightings" of such aircraft in the 50's. In my mind, those things mean that the US got some knowledge out of WWII and tried to expand on it. How successful were the US scientists? We still don't know.

There are MANY problems that would need to be worked out with saucer shaped aircraft but also some advantages if you could work out the problems. Again though....who knows?

What is absolutely certain is that the US has put some pretty radical aircraft in the air since WWII. How much came from the Nazis? Hard to say, but we know we got a lot of rocket technology from them.

Also, I guess it is important to note that the Nazis put a ton of resources into "super weapons" that either never worked or did not return results commensurate with the resources devoted. Clearly, Germany had some very brilliant scientists working on their end whether their programs were productive or not.

Splitter

I guess that´s a bit too much even for a "what if..."

And what exactly are these supposed advantages?

True. But none of them have ever been shown to have worked on 'flying saucers'.

Actually, I think a lot of the later 'super-weapons' programs of Nazi Germany were driven more by ideological zeal and the forlorn hope for a 'war-winning-weapon' than by any real understanding of technological, logistic and military requirements. While the 'brilliant scientists' were still at work, the Nazi machine could use them as a symbol of hope, and no sane scientist would admit their aims were futile - a short trip to the Eastern front would be the likely result.

Stealth was a possible advantage. Also vertical take off/landing and rapid change of direction in flight. If the whole craft is a "lifting body" in any direction, the possibilities are promising. From what I understand, however, the proper propulsion and stability systems were not available. I have only seen real evidence of very short, low level flights from American saucers.

Would it surprise me to learn that the US has a flying saucer in some super secret "X" project? Not really. The US has thrown a lot of resources at different aircraft projects, some seemingly far fetched, in the last 50 years.

Invisible bombers were once a pipe dream. Is the Aurora spy plane real and functional? What exactly does it look like? Where did the technology originate? We dunno. Many things are possible.

Definitely the Nazis held onto some far fetched hopes for their super weapons. Some of these super weapons programs were years ahead of their time and some were pure fantasy. Most took away so many resources they helped the Allies win the war.

The Nazi rocket program was ahead of its' time clearly, but it put us (humans) in orbit around a decade later and lead directly to ICBM's. Nazi stealth programs were ahead of their time but probably led to some insights into stealth technology that put the US ahead in that race. Even their jet technology was ahead of the Allies but was used improperly for too long (blitz bomber vs. interceptor). Both American and Soviet swept wing fighters in Korea are thought to have their origins in WWII German designs. Was the X-15 a rocket plane and did the Germans actually field rocket planes in WWII?

Think about it, one of the biggest parts of the end game to WWII was the race between the Americans and Soviets to capture/attract German scientists. Both sides in what became the Cold War knew their was advanced knowledge there to be had for whoever got to it first.

Still, most of the programs were to make the Fuhrer happy and "keep hope alive"...which worked out well for the Allies. Thank goodness.

Splitter

AFAIK ... the only operational one was Canadian and by the early 60's the best it could do is get a few centimetres off the ground :D

This sort of ludicrous mythical "Indianna Jones" technology is more suited to a Xbox version of Crimson Skies then a serious flight sim.

Why would it be more stealthy - even accepting that such concepts were relevant during WW 2, which is unlikely - I've seen no evidence whatsoever that the Nazis understood stealth technology. And what has 'vertical takeoff' and 'rapid change of direction' got to do with the known characteristics of saucer-shaped aiircraft?

It doesn't surprise me that you wouldn't be surprised if the US had a flying saucer. It would surprise me if they did.
Was it? Can you back this statement up with evidence? I thought that the primary objectives during the 'end game' was to (a) destroy German military opposition, and (b) establish control over territory. Given that almost all significant military/technological advances made in the succeeding few decades were based on knowledge already in the hands of the Allies, chasing after a few scientists and technicians may have been a worthwile sideline, but it was hardly a priority.

Yes, the US 'captured/attracted' Werner Von Braun, and later landed a man on the Moon. But the Soviet Union didn't capture him, and still got a man into space before the Americans. Then again, they had been working on liquid-fuel rockets before the Nazis anyway.

I remember seeing footage of saucers with US markings hovering and going over some terrain, but I also remember most of them being tethered lol.

Agreed that for WWII technology there was never anything even close to functional and such things are better left to arcade type games.

Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe was a great game even it didn't go as far as to include saucers lol.

Splitter

Oh my, large questions maybe not suited to this forum.

RADAR was used during WWII. The Germans were developing the Horten bomber which was less visible to RADAR with it's design that was, surprise, not unlike the B2 Stealth bomber (which was not unlike the YB-49 right down to the wing span).

RADAR was a HUGE reason that the Brits won the Battle of Britain. The Germans knew this eventually and even employed their own RADAR systems. It is only logical that they would have been aware of the advantages of avoiding/delaying detection by RADAR.

Why would the Canadians, Americans, and Brits have put resources into saucer research after WWII if they did not think their were some advantages to the shape? would it be advantageous for an airship to be able to take off vertically? I guess so, we got the Harrier eventually. Would there be an advantage to an aircraft with a very low stall speed? I guess, many aircraft have that as a design element. Ability to rapidly change directions important? I guess, we even throw in vectored thrust these days.

If you do not know about the race to capture German scientists, it would be an interesting research project for you. No offense to the Russians on this board, but I am sure they are aware that there was a special antipathy between the Soviets and Germans in WWII. If any two sides fought an all out, no holds barred war, those two nations did. It would be an understatement to say that there was no love lost.

German scientists (and soldiers and many of importance) did everything they could to surrender to American or British forces rather than to Soviet forces. Quite frankly, they were afraid of what might befall them under the Soviets....probably because of the way the Germans had treated the Soviets during the war.

One of the biggest "prizes" that the Soviets garnered from the German technology and scientists/technicians they captured was their aircraft designs. There was a reason the Soviets beat the Americans to the punch in fielding the Mig 15 in Korea. It went back to what they captured in WWII from Germany. The Americans copied the soviet design later just like the Soviets copied the American nuclear and rocket technology (the rocket technology for the Americans was greatly enhanced by the Germans as you know).

Understand that the Americans and soviets did not trust each other. The Brits trusted the Soviets even less. The future Cold War was already brewing. Some Americans (and Brits) wanted to take the war all the way into the Soviet Union and get rid of Stalin. In Europe, the Brits and Americans raced the Soviets for the prizes of war at the end. The Soviets got to Berlin first....and then we had the Berlin airlift as a direct result a few years later.

There was real competition at the end of the war, once it was decided, to procure the best prizes in preparing for the future.

I'm an American and of course proud of my country over all. But, that doesn't mean that I can discount the effectiveness of the Axis powers in certain areas, like scientific advances. They weren't dummies and we were not ahead in all areas. The victors did all they could to reap the rewards.

Splitter

Did they? Can you actually give any evidence that they did?

Erm, is this the reason we (the Brits) supplied them with early jet engines...

True. If they'd tried it, the armed forces would have mutinied though. This 'continuation of war' was largely a fantasy at the time, and most popular amongst those who would rather have joined the Axis anyway. It has little to do with the military/political realities of the period.

Churchill and Roosevelt were largely in agreement on many things (oh, that's after the US finally decided to get into the war after leaving Churchill to deal with the Nazis by himself for a while). They both came from basically democratic countries with largely capitalist economies. Stalin was a communist and socialist. The two ideologies could not co-exist except in the presence of a bigger enemy: Hitler.

Churchill and Roosevelt/Truman listened to what Stalin espoused and understood his "purges". Therefore, they saw him as a threat going into the future. However, Churchill clearly saw the military potential of the Soviets post war. He could not be their friend but did not want to be their enemy. He attempted on several occasions to "make nice", but he was rather staunchly anti-communist.

WWII showed the old axiom that the enemy of my enemy is my friend on several occasions.

As to saucer research (BTW, no reason to debate this for this game other than as a curiosity, yes?), check out these links for a start. Wikpedia is NOT the end all and be all of research, but some of the important terms and names are there that can be used in further research:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Militar...haped_aircraft

http://www.crystalinks.com/silverbug.html

http://www.virtuallystrange.net/ufo/...o/avrocar.html

Their attempts at creating these craft seem absurd now in retrospect given their technology at the time. But they certainly thought there was enough there to be explored. All I can think is that at one time the world was flat and man could not fly, but science moves forward.

And yes, if the US and Brits tried to take the war to the Soviets as some wanted, they would probably have been as soundly defeated as Germany had been. History has shown that it is just about impossible to invade Russia and win.

The differing political and economic ideologies between the three "super powers" of the time were never resolved at the end of WWII. The West and East were too different and too distrustful of one another. The two factions (US and Britain vs. Soviet Union) deferred the coming inevitable fight. So over the next few decades, they fought proxy wars against one another and tried to intimidate the other side through military and economic advances. IE, the Cold War.

It's fascinating how allies during WWII would just a few years later become dire enemies.

Splitter

See the Sack AS-6 and XF5U

I thought disc-shaped craft experiments (especially during the 40's and 50's) were common knowledge. Heck, I think every conceivable shape has been tried at one point or another, think of all the flying contraptions that were built before aeronautics was fully understood

Splitter, are you not aware that Churchill lost the general election in July 1945? What he would have liked to have done at that point is of little consequence.

Adman, from what I can find (not a lot), the Sack AS-6 was a 'An extremely unconventional 1944 design with a saucer-shaped wing and a tractor propeller' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_..._World_War_Two. The Vought XF5U was an unusual design, but hardly a 'flying saucer' in the sense that the phrase is usually used. It was a propeller-driven aircraft, taking off and flying in the normal manner. The concept dates back to the late 1930s (http://findarticles.com/p/articles/m.../ai_n13498090/), and was first tried in the US. It therefore has little significance to 'Nazi flying saucers' either.

This then leaves the Avrocar:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avro_Canada_VZ-9_Avrocar
Effectively an early, very inefficient, hovercraft.

It appears then that all this supposed 'research' resulted in nothing resembling a 'flying saucer' except the Avrocar, which could hardly fly at all.

I don't think I have ever understood why Churchill was shoved to the side. He had been such an effective and popular leader during the war, even a hero to those of us not from Britain. Maybe he was just one of those people who were sent for a special purpose.

And yes, the research into saucer shapes seems to have been fruitless. I am not sure what was learned from it. I would only say that for 40+ years, the flying wing bomber concept was abandoned (to the best of my knowledge). Then the technologies and needs came together to give us the B-2 Stealth bomber.

So I have learned not to say "impossible" but rather "probably impossible right now" :). Another interesting thing I have noticed is that during the Cold War there were many "UFO" sightings around the world and now those seem to have gone way down. Maybe someone somewhere was playing around with government funds that have now dried up? I dunno, it's just a thought.

BTW, from what I understand, one of the criticisms of the AvroCar program was that they didn't develop the hover craft aspect and salvage something from the program so good observation!

Splitter

Bringing those planes into BATTLE OF BRITAIN would´t be appropriate I think, it was far too early in the war to have them flying along. Of course fantasy planes are cool because they never existed, but because they did not exist there is no way an accurate flight model can be simulated, right? after all it´s still a simulator, not a fantasy game.

there were some weird and disgusting things going on in the last years of the war, maybe it´s better not to dig up old bodies.
A note to the Hanaeubu III though, I dont think it would ever have flown, to get such thing up in the air would acquire a huge engine, which design had to be all new as well, the Hanaeubu would also be fitted with lots of protective armor adding to its weight.

Seconded.

some people really need to go anyway and brush up on their History...btw Oleg are can we have x-wing fighters with hyper-drives. I heard the Germans were working on them towards the end of the war ;)

well I think that's because the word "flying saucer" in modern culture conjures up ideas of anti-gravity, kind of like "UFO" conjures up ideas of alien craft, but that's simply not the definition of the phrase. A craft with a single circular shaped wing is a "flying saucer". I dont think anybody is claiming these craft were using an advanced technology (at least not any more advanced than a turbine engine) or that they were flyable. I think the question is was there an attempt to build such aircraft.

It's German, Its saucer shaped and it flew...

A.S 6V-1

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2067/...642c5e2fd5.jpg

It was however 1944..

I'd say that a 'flying saucer' had to be substantially circular in it's entirity, not just in it's wing, to meet the normal expectation of what was meant - this is why I say the Sack AS-6, and the Vought Flapjack weren't true 'flying saucers'. The Avrocar would have been, if it had ever flown properly. I've seen no evidence that anything else that shape was ever flown sucessfully.

'Flying saucers' are usually depicted as having a VTOL capability too, though I suppose this isn't strictly necessary.

SO true the Nazis didnt have the UFO's they were from outside our solar system. To think people think humans are smart enough to develop antigravity systems:(

Well if you actually read the nonsense about nazi UFO's they often claim it was stolen from crashed alien spacecraft. The same crazy people that claim the SR71 was "too advanced" for just 17 years after WWII and was built from stolen area 51 saucer technology.

Dung beetle! :grin:

Churchill's Demise
 

Thanks Splitter, nice of you to say so.
Churchill was head of a 'tri-partite' coalition government during the war years. After the war, a general election was held to reinstate one of the three main parties as the sole party of government.
Churchill was leader of the Conservative party, which was to the right of centre.
A swing to the left swept Britain following the defeat of the right wing Nazis and Faschists (except for Franco in Spain), which led to a Labour government being voted in headed by Clem Atlee.
I don't think Britain's respect for Winston himself ever waned, in fact in a poll only a couple of years ago he was voted 'Greatest Briton' of all time.
Cheers
Dutch

Thank you for the explanation. It's really rather unfortunate, but maybe he really was just sent here to perform the tasks he did.

I love hearing his speeches and reading about his quick wit. It seems he single handedly kept British spirits up especially before the US finally decided to pitch in (we have no excuse). What a bulldog. A great symbol for the country.

I think my favorite anecdote about him was when an acerbic woman at a dinner party declared that if he was her husband, she would poison his tea. His reply was that if she was his wife, he would drink it :). Lady Astor I believe.

True or not, there are a lot of those anecdotes about the man. Just seems like a guy with whom you would like to have a pint...or three.

Splitter

Couldn't agree more!
I'm sure you've already got some of this stuff, but here's a link to free downloads of many speeches.
Enjoy!

http://www.archive.org/details/Winston_Churchill

It's amazing when you think about it, Hitler, Stalin, Churchill, Hirohito, Mussolini, all in place at the same time in history. I'm not a 'crazy' but if there were ever an argument for fate existing then this would be it!

I think Churchill became a liability the moment WW2 ceased as by that time he was a serious alcoholic. He was the perfect wartime prime minister though.

quote: Winston Churchill:

" I have taken more out of drink, than drink has taken out of me."

Hmm, is that why he was again Prime Minister of Britain in 1951, at the age of 77?
He was already 71 at the general election in 1945.
If he did drink a bit, I'd say he bloody deserved it!:grin:

Maybe he just needed a few years to sober up!
Listen to his 'finest hour' speach.. he was very drunk! (it was late tho!)

I think that Churchill was so strongly identified as an icon of the wartime era, that when the war was over he was pushed aside as part of the war itself. That's not entirely bad in itself, if we believe the notions that he was in favor of continuing the war against the USSR.

Loss of life aside, i doubt that the western allies could not have won against USSR even with nukes. The rate of A-bomb production was so slow initially, that coupled with the the Soviet's disregard of casualties would not be a serious advantage, not to mention that most of the Soviet industry was already behind the Urals due to WWII. If the western allies attacked the Soviets and provoked them into all out war, it's very possible that face of Europe today and the history of the cold war era would be totally different. In that sense, i think that it's good we were spared a second round of hostilities between the former allies.

For future despots and dictators:

Rule number 1 - Do NOT invade Russia! It gets cold there, really cold. Then it gets muddy. And the place is HUGE. Plus, there are a lot of Russians and they are very tough and motivated.

:)

Splitter

:grin:
Well, all things considered, I think we all did a great job in taking this thread away from the daft notion of including ridiculous german saucer rubbish in 'Storm of War'.
Actually, the sim's title is also taken from a Churchill speech;
'to ride out the Storm of War, if necessary for years, if necessary alone'.*

Seems like we're doing just that....................:grin:


*Although It may not have been exclusively his!

Thats a fun video clip... I like this one too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xn4DW1uvsAE

If the next title is as biased as the previous one ... then we need the Haunebu for sure ...

The remaining Avro Aerocar now resides at the National Museum of the United States Air Force at Wright Patterson AFB, Dayton Ohio.

I've seen it.

It's laughable at best.

http://a.imageshack.us/img830/6443/avrocar.jpg

Seeing how the allied responded to the first sightings of ME262's like: "What the HELL was THAT?" it isn't weird to say that people perceive shapes and appearances differently.

Saucer shape... it doesn't matter if it has a propeller if it looks reasonably different from a typical airplane design of that time. It doesn't even matter if it's super or not - an experiment always has some purpose, even if that is just to see it doesn't really work well.

However, adding these planes has little value to the sim since their performance wasn't the best at that time. But the community could add them later on.

Generally I have nothing against a wide variety of planes. Even stuff like Lerche was very fun to fly in IL-2. The number of real hardcore simmers is much less than those are actually average players and enjoying even absurd planes just for the fun, not for showing off their elite skills by downing everything in sight with the perfect plane for that matter.
So I just hope SoW will be moddable. I don't care how absurd a plane is if it's fun to play the game.

Germany had to try and find some experimental uberweapon to save the day against the B-17s and Lancasters the Allies were producing by the hundred. The German economy was too small to give any hope of matching the Allies directly. Even if Germany had defeated Russia, they probably wouldn't have been able to integrate its resources well enough to expand production enough. So they had to search for new whizz-bangs and hope that one would work. The Allies had the luxury of not needing to do that, they had enough production capacity to defeat Germany with proven and evolutionary designs, if the Manhattan Project wouldn't end the war first.

German physicists presented the idea of an atom bomb to the armaments leaders in 1942, including Albert Speer. They were impressed, but turned the project down as it would take too long to complete.

Your point being? What did you expect? One single country winning against the whole world?

The manhattan project, amongst some others, was a shame for the military as it was mainly aimed at the slaughter of civillians. Being German myself I'm glad that Hitler didn't invest too much in the research of atomic or chemical weapons, unlike the allieds. Can you imagine V1's being used to propel atomic or chemical weapons? I would rather not imagine that. These "weapons" are no weapons, they are tools of plain murder, like the concentration camps were.

Further no one said that the experimental planes performed extremely well. Some products did perform exeptionally well, especially tanks (king tiger etc.) and also a number of planes. The problem was, like you mentioned, production rate and at the later phase of the war also material quality as well as lack of soldiers skilled and fit enough to put them to use.

But then again, some weird experiments existed, some of these with low success. I don't think it'd be bad to include them in the game but I think the developers should not invest a lot of time into that. I guess it'd be better to have good modding tools so that the community can up with planes on it's own.

No, you are wrong. The atomic bomb was not aimed at killing civilians. The Manhattan project was aimed directly at ending the war in Europe. The bombs weren't to kill civilians just for for fun and vengeance, they were to slap Hitler into surrendering and ending the wider loss of life that he had sole responsibility for starting.

I've said it before, but it was not noticed. The bombs are not like the concentration camps. Bombing is a weapon of war, a tragic and terrible one, but with the purpose of crippling the enemy state until it can't fight. The purpose is not to kill civilians, but that is an unavoidable consequence of bombing the places where they live and work. The concentration camps were built with the purpose of killing civilians. Some were siphoned off and used as expendable labour, but only because the German economy was desperately short of - well, everything actually, including labour. They are very different things. Both involved the deaths of civilians. But it is the byproduct of bombing and the purpose of the camps. It is not the same.

No Dozer,

the bombing of civilians is a war crime!
It really doesn't matter is they are "collateral damage" or attacked directly.
In our perfect hindsight we know how militarily meaningless 95% of the bombing were.
What brought germany to the knees in the end, regarding to bombing, was the destruction of the refineries and transport ways.
I.e. the fighter production was at its peak at 44-45, the panzer production had its peak at 44.
The night bombing by the raf was a pure terror weapon as not the industrial concentrations but the city centers were targeted.
Dresden, i.e. is not different from hiroshima or nagasaki, except it took longer, was even less a military target and the longevity of damage.

So...was Churchill a war criminal then?

If you take international law as it stood at the time, there might be a case to suggest this. Given Churchill's precipitate attempts to distance himself from the 'area bombing campaign' after the war, one might question whether he thought so himself.

The question is rather moot anyway. He's dead. Not much chance of bringing him to court. I can think of one or two more recent politicians that it might be worth looking at though...

they are both meant to get rid of a lot of people at concentrated places in a short time. Atomic bombs weren´t made to kill tanks or bridges, theyre meant for cities full of civilians why else would mankind invent such a weapon? We had weapons to destroy all the other except for whole cities in 1 blow, the A bomb was of course meant to do this, because it is useless against any other target, would you nuke a tank? or perhaps a key bridge? of course not. That would be a waste of the entire project and very expensive as well, and a regular bomb would do the job as well and with the same effect rendering the target either destoyed or heavily damaged, making it unfit to fullfill its task.

Now back on topic, I agree that they should not include these prototype fighters and bombers into the game, rather focus on historical planes ( and thats a very very lot of planes) and of course the most important, Overall Gameplay. Making it enjoyable not only the first week you play the game but also afterwards.

Correct.


Why are there nuclear warheads for artillery shells and torpedoes?

On the subject of War Crimes.

There are obvious ones, mass executions being a good example. Then it gets murky really fast, Area bombing isn't considered a war crime despite it being indescriminate it's also 'indirect'. I don't think Hirosima was a war crime either. It makes no difference what label you give to it, it was still a low point in history.

War crimes are something we invented so that we could execute some top brass and government types after we'd beaten them. However much the UN try to sanitise war by applying rules when it comes down to it it's all criminal. You just need to make sure you win because it's also highly subjective.

On the subject of Little Boy and Fat man.

If you want a generic A-bomb included in the game then fine, if you get off on dropping nukes then who am I to object to that?

But, if you want Little Boy and Fat man in the game then I say no way. They are too specific to be included in a form of entertainment.

Nuclear artillery shells are intended as last ditch weapons when you are in a situation where sacrificing your own troops, civilians or tracts of land (anything bombed will be largely be unuseable for a good while) is a thinkable strategy. In other words, it is for use on your own territory.

Nuclear torpedos are either intended as "land torpedoes" (the Soviet T-15, where you basically substitute the missile or long range bomber for a submarine), or as anti-submarine torpedoes (the ASTOR) to use on nuclear subs that you would otherwise have no chance of taking out. The first is just a marine version of a Hiroshima-type bomb, the other is a first strike weapon, to stop the enemy submarine from raining death on your own country. Neither are very practical, you are likely to loose whatever vessel is launching it.

There has been some movement to try to produce small, "tactical" nuclear warheads. Bush was arguing for a nuclear "bunker-buster". So far, the technical problem is to make nuclear weapons small enough to not be an city size destruction area weapon. That nuclear artillery shells and torpedoes exist does not mean they are a good idea. Cold war deterrent logic can make anyones head spin.

Nothing new. In the 60's Switzerland had it's own Nuclear program, it had exactly 2 goals.

1st: Being able to deliver a nuke to Moscow.
(That was sole reason we choose the Mirage3 back then)

2nd: Nuke our own country in case we're overrun.
Make sense, since we don't have an offensive army[or even the capability,lol].
Speaking of killing your own: The handgun each military officer carries is nothing but a "moral enforcer". ;)


Torps:
During the Cuba crisis, the Russian subs were equipped with nuclear torpedoes - the decision to fire them was up to the captain, no need for an ok from the politbüro.
Don't you think they would also work pretty well against a flotilla/carrier group?

My understanding of the tests that the US did on ships leads me to believe the answer to that last question was "yes and no". A detonation of a small nuke (what an oxymoron lol) near a vessel would wipe it out immediately. Further away and the ship provides occupants some protection from the initial blast, plus ships are tough structures. Radiation becomes a problem, but that doesn't mean that vessels not taken out by the blast are out of commission immediately.

Even radiation to certain levels can be dealt with. I know the US did studies on radiation levels and how to decontaminate and protect people from radiation. It was surprising how "close" one could be a nuclear blast and survive, even long term, if they had some limited protection.

My understanding also is that NATO had "plans" to use tactical nukes against Soviet armor. The paths that the Soviets were likely to use to invade Western Europe were limited. Deny those paths and the armor columns could get bottled up. Soviet armor was one of the biggest concerns because it was decent and very numerous. That's why so much US development went into tank busting (Apache, A-10, etc..).

On the flip side, the "nuclear tank" and artillery piece were abandoned a long time ago to my recollection. Too vulnerable, not enough range, and not effective enough plus very expensive.

I'm not sure if anyone (nations) still subscribes to the concept of a limited nuclear engagement. Those types of encounters would seem to lead to escalation in short order.

No google was used on these assertions, all done from memory so take it for what it is worth.

Splitter

Also from memory - the Chenobyl disaster did a lot to persuade some of the USSR's more hawkish generals that the prospects of a 'clean', limited, no-nukes conventional war were non-existant. So when Poland led the defection of Eastern European nations from glorious Marxism to degenerate capitalism, the consensus was that military intervention was not possible - even 'conventional' warfare would involve airstrikes on both side's nuclear power stations, the fallout from which would strike the whole world and probably bring in NATO as 'peacekeepers'. The Chenobyl distaster may have indirectly saved many more lives than it took!

I wish I could remember where I read this. Very probably a library book. Should maybe see if they have long-term records of what I've borrowed...

For those of you who don't know American history, there was a famous showman in the 19th century by the name of P.T. Barnum. He had a saying: "There's a sucker born every minute." This thread proves that axiom.

1st: They discovered fall-out before Chernobyl

2nd: Chernobyl was in 1986

3rd: The USSR collapsed in 1991

Conclusion: There were only 4 years left for the USSR. During that time they never had a realistic chance to win any war against the west.


We could also discuss how bad this Ukrainian disaster really was. The countermeasures in (W-)Europe were, maybe, a little over the top.
;)

Chernobyl fall out

IIRC in the UK water supplies in some Northern areas was affected as were livestock and crops.

http://images.dailykos.com/images/us...yl_fallout.jpg

And all this pertains to a WW2 flight simulator in what way?

Luthier is right, you guys are all mostly insane.

:rolleyes:

I think I've been misunderstood. The potential war that Chenobyl might have helped avert would have been a non-nuclear attack on Poland by the USSR, when Poland rejected Communism (followed by most of the rest of Eastern Europe). I think I remember reading that, prior to Chenobyl, the USSR's response would have been military intervention in Eastern Europe if that happened, without using nukes, and supposedly not giving any justification for NATO to intervene. But post-Chenobyl, they (the USSR groupthink) realised that even without nuclear weapons, each side would attack the other's nuclear power stations, causing world-wide damage and giving NATO reason to respond too.

Churchill was under pressure from the Americans to shift the bombing effort away from cities and towards oil supplies and transport to assist the assault on Germany.

Churchill was also under pressure from Stalin to increase the area bombing of cities, presumably as a scorched earth policy meant a more pliable destroyed Germany post war for Stalin to control.

In the end Churchill went with Stalin wishes, not the Americans, though he later seems to have had second thoughts about appeasing Stalin.

According to Speer, postwar, if Churchill had listened to the Americans and prioritized oil supplies as a target the war may have finished 6 months early.

First, I hope no one took my post which you quoted as me thinking Churchill was a war criminal. I was asking the question to someone who had made a certain assertion.

Second, I didn't realize the Stalin connection, but it fits. I do know (my understanding at least) that the Germans bombed a British city first, apparently by mistake. The Brits of course did not know this so they bombed Berlin. In reply, Hitler vowed to wipe English cities off the map starting with London.

That Stalin would want to continue to bomb cities is not surprising. He had big post-war plans for Europe. Obviously.

This all leaves me thinking of where the turning point in the war in Europe might have been. Every contest has moments where momentum turns, sometimes several.

Splitter

I'm reading through Barbarossa, by Alan Clark again. When I get to the right bit, I'll tell you when the turning point was. Somewhere near Stalingrad I should think.

Loock this strange photo are U.F.O.?
are aliens?
are secret tecnology?
are laser?
http://img383.imageshack.us/img383/8...hteriiitp7.jpg
http://img214.imageshack.us/img214/4...fighteric2.jpg
http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/7...nblasenrc1.jpg
http://img515.imageshack.us/img515/4...ightervnc0.jpg
http://img339.imageshack.us/img339/3...ighterirj8.jpg
http://img529.imageshack.us/img529/2...ghteriiyn2.jpg
http://img355.imageshack.us/img355/7...fighterma3.jpg

Nothing like detailed pictures to show a point. Too bad there aren't any....

Those are ice cristals in the air which reflect light. I've read it somewehere. So it's not a super weapon ;)

ice cristal? mmmmmmmmmmm:| the hight altidude the low and cold temperature formation ball of ice and refflect the light is possible response.

I think the inclusion of some experimental aircraft should open the door to all that people care to model. It's just a bit of fun after all...

To anybody who believes this,

I am the owner of a large bridge which I would like to sell, it is a magnificent specimen of it's kind, looks like a giant coat-hanger and spans Sydney Harbour.

It's all yours for the modest sum of $100,000. Please contact me via PM for further details.

hehe, I cracked up when I saw this!

So let me see if I understand your logic correctly..

Your saying the Germans were capable of making flying saucers because the Germans had made jets and rockets

Is that the jist of it?

Based on that logic the USA was also capable of making flying saucers..

WRT ROCKETS
Because Robert Goddard was making and flying rockets back in the 1920s. As a mater of fact many of Robert Goddards inventions (patents) ended up on the V2. Von Braun himself said

WRT JETS
Consider this.. it took the Germans years to work out the bugs in the Me262. Where as it only took months for the USA to build one (P80) once they were tasked to do so. I know a lot of folks belive the Me262 was 'delayed' due to Hitler wanting to convert it into a bomber.. but that is just not the case. Or would you have us belive it took the Germans a couple of years to figure out how to install bomb racks on the Me262? Silly right? Thus the fact of the mater is the jet engines were the core problem, so big a problem that the Germans were forced to convert the Me262 from a straight wing design to a swept wing design to shift the cg back due to the heavier than expected engines. I know I know a lot of folks also belive the Me262 was not only the first jet but the first swept wing design.. but that is not the case either. The wings were swept back to correct the cg

In summary, I think your logic is flawed upon closer inspection