The Battle of Britain Was The First Defeat For The German Luftwaffe.

[Kongo-Otto]

Originally Posted by NedLynch

Britain was brought into WW1 not because of this plan, but because of the treaties that existed at the time.

Yes it was the Main reason for the war entrie of the UK.
At the Treaty of London 1839 or 1893 (can't remember, sorry) the UK garanteed the neutrality of Belgium.
Part of the Schlieffen Plan was the way thru Belgium and therefore, the Schlieffen Plan forced the UK into the WW1.

[bongodriver]

Originally Posted by Kongo-Otto

Well in case of the Italians i would dare to say, it was more 1 1/5 against 1, just in case you don't get it.

Wow...so now youre insulting the Italians and they were your friends.....

[NedLynch]

Originally Posted by bongodriver

It's OK I know what Anglo Saxon is all about too, but it's a little lost on me because I am 1/4 russian, 1/4 english and the rest is German, Irish and Dutch.

My point is there once was a bond and then came the slaughter of WW1 and WW2.

As a british veteran of D-Day in an interview said (again a little freely quoted): War is nothing but death and distruction and desease. There is no glory in war, in war everybody looses.
This veteran was part of airborne troops that took and held a vital bridge the night before the invasion.

[Kongo-Otto]

Originally Posted by bongodriver

Wow...so now youre insulting the Italians and they were your friends.....

No that's not an insult, that's a historical fact.
The Italians started two Major Operations (Africa and Greece) in both they have their butts whooped heavily by the Greeks and the UK and in both a german intervention was necessary to save them!

[bongodriver]

Originally Posted by Kongo-Otto

No that's not an insult, that's a historical fact.
The Italians started two Major Operations (Africa and Greece) in both they have their butts whooped heavily by the Greeks and the UK and in both a german intervention was necessary to save them!

Yay for the Germans....

[arthursmedley]

@Avro m8, salute! You've still got it! Just one little thread and wham!
Just like the good old days over at the 'zoo.

You know, there's hope for the Banana forum yet!

[Kongo-Otto]

Originally Posted by cheesehawk

Italy was getting its rear handed to it in France too, lol. Dreams of empire don't equate to ability to forge one!

IIRC 5 French Divisons blocked ~20 Italian Divisons.

[Sternjaeger II]

Originally Posted by bongodriver

What can I say......as far as I know it's our taxes paying to make amends for dresden and the likes, you seem to be misled over any non aknowledgement of the said raids by the British, we are fully aware of it and I don't think anybody deep down is proud of it, I'm afraid I'm at a loss why you brought market garden up at all in that case, even good commanders have made mistakes but I have already agreed with you Montgomery was a useless bellend.

I have no info on British taxes to repay for Dresden, do you have any links or reference to this?

It was brought up because the Allied command reckoned it shouldn't be done, unfortunately Montgomery was so insistent (even against the advice of his own men) because he reckoned his race with Patton was more important than the sake of his men. That's something to be ashamed of, leaving an obviously incompetent man, who won the war in North Africa only thanks to the American help, to decide on such a vast operation, with inadequate intelligence and without proper interforce coordination.

Originally Posted by fruitbat

As to the Bomber command raids, i don't think anyone now would say it was a good thing, but we are judging from todays standpoint and with hindsight, both of which were absent in the 40's.

You'd be surprised to hear what I have heard in certain circles, mate.

Originally Posted by bongodriver

Well heres a case where you are putting words in mouths, read this entire thread and you will not find a single suggestion from anybody that Britain would have fought the war alone and won it, the point we make is we just fought it, and we were fighting it without being provoked because it was the right thing to do, and we would have fought it to the last with or without help.

I was referring to the victories in North Africa, sorry for the misunderstanding.

Originally Posted by fruitbat

Don't think anyone will disagree much with this, save maybe the last part, Change aussies for USA.

well the Commonwealth part of the PTO was fought pretty much on their own.

Originally Posted by bongodriver

Oh really...and where exactly did your supplies come from? it's not like you were alone now, you already mentioned the Italians after all, yep thats right, we may have had our supplies from an ally, but it was our boots on the ground....alone, against the Germans and Italians....2 against 1 just in case you don't get it.

and yes by our boots I mean the comonwealth

lol with all respect for my own country, Italy was more of a burden to Germany than anything else. Our soldiers were brave and humane (and it's often recognised by British and Russians), but it wasn't enough.

Originally Posted by Dutch_851

You have a strange conception of air superiority Stern. Air superiority doesn't mean total exclusion of all nuisance hit and run jabo raids, or total prevention of night time city bombing.

The level of German incursion into British airspace lessened dramatically in 1941 and onward, as they spent more of their time shooting down our fighters and bombers on the ridiculous rhubarbs and circuses introduced once Dowding and Park were shoved out to the sidelines.

Air superiority is defined in the NATO Glossary as "That degree of dominance in the air battle of one force over another that permits the conduct of operations by the former and its related land, sea, and air forces at a given time and place without prohibitive interference by opposing air forces."
When the Battle of Britain was over you didn't have air superiority, until the Americans showed up.

As more and more of the Luftwaffe were pulled east, for obvious reasons, air superiority over France gradually moved in the Allies favour until by June 1944there was almost total air superiority over the Normandy beaches.

It's not a simple case of the Brits being hopeless until the Yanks arrived, but of course you know that.

the British were good at defending their mainland, but they could have suffered attacks of far superior entity without being able to put adequate opposition, had the battle carried on and Hitler concentrated all his forces towards Great Britain.

[t4trouble]

Who gained most out of the two world wars, i blame the Banks who fund all the wars and still do

[fruitbat]

Originally Posted by t4trouble

Who gained most out of the two world wars, i blame the Banks who fund all the wars and still do

I'm all for a bit of bank bashing.

if i could live my life without a bank account i would, lol.