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

[Bewolf]

Originally Posted by bongodriver

Well it was the only point with any validity with regards to an unfair image of the germans, did you not notice most of the other stuff mentioned was about Hitler and Nazism?.....or do you think that Hitler also is getting a rough deal here?

This article was not about the germans. It was about the british. I played enough Call of Duty like games and had too much fun flying a Tempests or Mustangs in IL2 to care too much if germans are getting killed in video games, I had too much fun doing that. It's just games, after all, and good entertainment on top.

Out of pure curiosuity..please could you explain to me your line of thought that made you attach certain criticism of british attitudes with a support for Hitler?

[ATAG_Dutch]

'It is surely time to consign the Nazis not to oblivion but at least to history'.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf...curity-history

I'm surprised at this comment from any journalist of any nationality or political persuasion, given the ongoing battle against the neo-nazi fraternity, in many nations including the UK.

(although I knew about the 'Spoons of the Third Reich' book some months ago. Kept me laughing for days!)

[Bewolf]

Originally Posted by Dutch_851

'It is surely time to consign the Nazis not to oblivion but at least to history'.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf...curity-history

I'm surprised at this comment from any journalist of any nationality or political persuasion, given the ongoing battle against the neo-nazi fraternity, in many nations including the UK.

With all due respect. You fight Nazis by removing the conditions that make their rise possible or more likely, not by showing people again and again that a man with a mustach and a swastika on his arm is bad news and using them to win an argument on a constant basis.

And now I have to go to the garage and get my car fixed. Laters no doubt =)

[bongodriver]

Out of pure curiosuity..please could you explain to me your line of thought that made you attach certain criticism of british attitudes with a support for Hitler?

When people suggest our Victory celebrations should be regarded as offensive to Germans it's easy to assume that said Germans forget what was really being fought against, so if the Germans feel so hard done by do they feel their war was just? the 'British' attitudes in regards to celebrating achievements in WWII seem no different to the celebrations of the USA's equivalents.....they just don't seem to be faced with the same criticism.

so with that in mind, could you explain to me why every time a Brit celebrates surviving a conflict and coming out on top (with help....nobody denies it), fighting against a widely aknowleged force for evil, we just get labeled as Nationalist idiots with an 'empire mentality'

[Kurfürst]

Originally Posted by RCAF_FB_Orville

Dunkirk (and to an extent the Norwegian Campaign) shows demonstrable precedent that air superiority alone cannot be a guarantor of operational success. Despite the immense tonnage of bombs dropped by the Luftwaffe at Dunkirk, against targets which were stationary for long periods of time, and at best extremely restricted in movement by the harbour.......a paltry 4 destroyers were sunk.

Not that I disagree with the idea that air superiority , but the Dunkirk record of bombers vs ships is a bit misleading, the bombers concentrated most of the time on the beaches (with dense concentration of troops) and the twon, and not ton the ships themselves. AFAIK the ships only received their attention in the last couple of days, and there were far more than just '4 destroyers' sunk.

It was the number of RN destroyers sunk by air attack, but two more were sunk by a Schnellboot and a U-boot, three on the the 29 May and another three on the 1 June. The French also lost a destoyer to air attack on the 1st, and two others to mine/S-boot in the previous days. However, 19 other destroyers were damaged and more or less rendered inservicable in a matter of days and about 200 smaller seacraft was also sunk.

[bongodriver]

With all due respect. You fight Nazis by removing the conditions that make their rise possible or more likely, not by showing people again and again that a man with a mustach and a swastika on his arm is bad news and using them to win an argument on a constant basis.

With all due respect how is that achieveable without resorting to techniques that they were infamous for, we fought a war for democracy and freedom of speech, even if that means you choose to be a Nazi. can you explain to me what constitutes the condition for cultivating a Nazi (appart from letting the French humiliate them)

[Sternjaeger II]

Blackdog, thanks for your input (I agree on both sides), on my part I'll do my best to keep it sober and polite.

Bongo, try and imagine for a second playing a videogame where you're a Nazi officer infiltrating in England and killing Tommies, would you play it?

I'll give you another example: I have no trouble playing with a sim and shooting down another aeroplane (even if, somewhere remotely in the back of my mind, there's always a "concern" in checking that parachutes pop out, and yes, I know it's a game, but after years of reading accounts of the dreadful missions of bomber planes I just can't help it... then sometimes I find myself strafing the parachutes.. go figure..), but I remember playing Hidden and Dangerous 2, a mission in Sicily, and having to shoot at Italian soldiers there.

For the first time in my life I felt a certain discomfort, it didn't last long and I was quickly sucked back in the game again, but it was there, and it was weird indeed..

[Kurfürst]

Originally Posted by Blackdog_kt

Personal opinion on the matter:

Germany couldn't win, some people high up knew it and some were delusional and thought they would. (go back a few pages and read the account of that military exercise).

Overall, they made a half-hearted attempt to force the UK to sue for peace and "close" down one front before starting the second one in the East. It didn't work, they moved on.

The UK couldn't take the fight back to the Germans either for quite some time and when it tried to, it got appalling results (cross-channel raids all the way until the Dieppe fiasco).

Long story short, given the benefit of hindsight and looking at the big picture, things were on a stalemate ever since Dunkirk and until 1942 at least and even then, the turning of the tides occurred mostly in the East (Stalingrad, N.Africa and the Pacific front).

The UK can call this a German defeat because it didn't meet the stated aims (conquering Britain), the other side can call it an effort doomed from the start and they would both be correct.

My personal belief is that most of the sane people in the German high command were looking to force Britain out of the war to secure their flanks before Barbarrossa, the conquering talk was mostly intimidating bravado and propaganda. The British didn't know it at the time so they acted like it was true (better safe than sorry after all) and that's why this registers as a victory to them. The Germans were divided between those who believed their own tale and thus considered it a defeat, and those who viewed it as a side-show from the start and didn't. I think all three opinions are valid for people who were engaged in the battle in whatever capacity.

+1

One of the best summaries I have read about it in while..

[bongodriver]

Bongo, try and imagine for a second playing a videogame where you're a Nazi officer infiltrating in England and killing Tommies, would you play it?

if they ever made one....absolutely, but it's not that different to playing clod as a LW pilot, or day of defeat as a German......all of which I have done....your point?

[Sternjaeger II]

Originally Posted by bongodriver

When people suggest our Victory celebrations should be regarded as offensive to Germans it's easy to assume that said Germans forget what was really being fought against, so if the Germans feel so hard done by do they feel their war was just? the 'British' attitudes in regards to celebrating achievements in WWII seem no different to the celebrations of the USA's equivalents.....they just don't seem to be faced with the same criticism.

so with that in mind, could you explain to me why every time a Brit celebrates surviving a conflict and coming out on top (with help....nobody denies it), fighting against a widely aknowleged force for evil, we just get labeled as Nationalist idiots with an 'empire mentality'

no, it's more a case of how selective celebrations are. Can you think of any recurrent celebrations linked to the successes in the Pacific? The Falklands or the victory against the IRA? Or any other conflicts for the matter? Not even WW1 gets as much covering and celebration than the Battle of Britain (even if poppies are ideally inspired to WW1).

Truth is that nobody (apart for the neonazi nutters) can dispute the Evil of Nazism, so it became "THE Evil" that brave Britain fought against, but it's again more done for the sake of national insecurity than anything else.

It got me thinking some time ago: out of all the European countries, Great Britain is the only one with SO much celebration about WW2, and for a buff like me and you it surely is paradise, but have you ever wondered why it doesn't happen as much in the rest of Europe?