I Refuse To Fly WW2 CoD German Aircraft. Why?

[Hood]

Originally Posted by 5./JG27.Farber

Have you lost your mind?

England (including all other countries, Scotland, wales and Northern Ireland, as was appropriate at this time to refer to them simply as England) and France declared war on Germany.

Dispite numerous peace offers of Germany (or the 3rd Reich if you prefer), we the English (British) declined, even when Hitler offered to step down... These peace offering and nogotiations even encluded Rudolf Hess (2nd deputy of Germany) flying to Scotland to reason with the Duke of Hamilton.... In short NSDAP Germany went to great lengths not to war with England. Through the situation England which found the situation of events distasteful - waged war on Germany upon the will of only one man - Winston Spencer Churchill - Lord of the Admiralty.

...

"Victory, Victory at all costs!" A victory that cost the English (yes Im English but I was not there) an Empire! An Empire that was put up as collatoral for the massive and extorsionate loans from the USA and other countries.

Winston Spencer Churchill, syphilis sufferer, was a Veteran of the colonial wars (he had to do the exam 3 times at sandhurst to become an officer because he failed it twice!) in India and Africa. He was fighting for Englands (Britians) sake, for an Empire he "cashed in" to fight the Germans! Only Great Britain was to rule the world - having the largest empire in the world EVER!

What ever you believe (and I am not pro NSDAP or anything else but a human being!) you must consder the historical importance from before and after this time!


In short patriotism is for C****!

My considered but non-medical opinion is that you're either completely mad or a complete fool. WW2 may very well have had its roots in WW1 but ultimately it was started by Germany's invasion of Poland and Britain doing what she said she'd do for Poland and thereafter France. I believe it was Chamberlainthat declared war with the support of Parliament but I can't be bothered to research it.

Now of course we could have had an armistice with Germany, and left most of Europe in German hands until they'd finished with Russia before starting on us, but I can't quite bring myself to believe that any pact with Germany would have been honoured.

But anyway I have no idea what this has to do with the original post. Avro, as a Brit I'm happy to fly Luftwaffe planes and through it now have some great German and Austrian friends. In fact I prefer Luftwaffe aircraft to RAF aircraft though the Spit is the most beautiful plane ever.

Hood



BBC

1939: Britain and France declare war on Germany
Britain and France are at war with Germany following the invasion of Poland two days ago.
At 1115 BST the Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, announced the British deadline for the withdrawal of German troops from Poland had expired.

He said the British ambassador to Berlin had handed a final note to the German government this morning saying unless it announced plans to withdraw from Poland by 1100, a state of war would exist between the two countries.

Mr Chamberlain continued: "I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received and consequently this country is at war with Germany."

Similarly the French issued an ultimatum, which was presented in Berlin at 1230, saying France would be at war unless a 1700 deadline for the troops' withdrawal was adhered to.

King George has called upon "my people at home and my peoples across the seas". He continued: "I ask them to stand calm, firm and united in this time of trial. The task will be hard. There may be dark days ahead and war can no longer be confined to the battlefield. But we can only do the right as we see the right and reverently commit our cause to God."

A War Cabinet of nine members has been set up with two new ministers, including Winston Churchill as First Lord of the Admiralty, the post he held at the outbreak of World War I. Lord Hankey becomes Minister without Portfolio.

Anthony Eden will take over as Dominions Secretary with special access to the War Cabinet. Mr Eden resigned from the post of Secretary of Foreign Affairs last year because he disagreed with the policy of appeasement.

The National Service (Armed Forces) Act has been passed making all men between 18 and 41 liable for conscription. The armed forces have already been mobilized for war and in July the first Territorial Army conscripts were called up.

Latest reports from Poland say the Germans have bombed a number of towns and cities, some with little or no strategic importance. About 1,500 are reported to have been killed or injured in the attacks on Friday and Saturday.

In his broadcast to the nation, Mr Chamberlain spoke of his sadness that "the long struggle to win peace" had failed.

He continued: "I cannot believe that there is anything more or anything different that I could have done and that would have been more successful."

Yesterday there was anger in the House of Commons over the Government's apparent delay in taking action against Germany.

Labour's deputy leader Arthur Greenwood had accused the Prime Minister of vacillating when "Britain and all that Britain stands for are in peril".

Today's declaration of war was received with rousing cheers. As Mr Chamberlain informed the House Britain could not take part in a five-power conference proposed by Italy while Poland was being invaded.

It has also been received with great enthusiasm in the Polish capital, Warsaw, where crowds took to the streets outside the British and French embassies cheering and singing.

[5./JG27.Farber]

Originally Posted by Hood

My considered but non-medical opinion is that you're either completely mad or a complete fool. WW2 may very well have had its roots in WW1 but ultimately it was started by Germany's invasion of Poland and Britain doing what she said she'd do for Poland ...

Yes Poland, the Polish that were good enough to fight and die for the Glorious British Empire and then whom were left under Soviet control.... BETRAYED by the English! The Soviets that exterminated the Polish officer Corps? AKA - The Katyn massacre

It might have been Chamberlain that declared war but as he resigned in the face of war it was left to the new PM to conclude the fact!

as for the BBC - forget it. They are a media organisation "independant of the government" apparently. Reporting of non facts is not a crime of news broadcasters. They can print what they like.

Originally Posted by Hood

But anyway I have no idea what this has to do with the original post

Quite allot if you care to read it again:

Originally Posted by MB_Avro_UK

Hi all,

I regard myself as educated. I have a good university degree, I went to what is regarded as a 'good' school and I enjoy all periods and aspects of history. I value reasoned and at times unreasoned debate!

As regards Cliffs of Dover, I cannot bring myself to 'fly' German aircraft. I used to fly German aircraft in il2 1946 against Russian aircraft online without a problem. Maybe this was a Cold War hang-over??

Perhaps the problem is caused by an 'enemy' attacking my home?? Yes, I realise that it's not real and it all comprises digital ones and noughts etc. But overflying Dover, Brighton and Manston with such good maps does bring it home to me.

How would our German members here feel about an RAF Bomber Command and US 8th bomber assault on their country as a simulator? Would a few German members fly Lancasters and B-17s?

What are the opinions of today's Neutrals?

And as I have mentioned in a previous thread, this post is in no way a condemnation of today's Germany. Germany is my second home. Britain and Germany lost their way in 1914 because of politicians and again in 1939. And our beer tastes the same And we have the same Royal Family

And many of us have similar DNA

How's the Euro at the moment



Best Regards,
MB_Avro.

Please dont pretend this is all cut and dry of the baddies versus the goodies.


For your records,

• my Grandmothers brother (fathers mother) was a stoker on an LCT at Dieppe - KIA
• My Grandfather was a a rating on a Royal Navy (converted trawler) minesweeper 1943+ including D-Day - survived (although its partner sister ship was blown to smitherenes with the loss of all hands whilst dragging a cable and cutter over sea mines!)
• My fathers uncle was a Bomber pilot (Jack Roberts - DFM) who worked his way from Sterlings and Hampdens to mosquito intruder squadrons. (of which I can find no trace online in any free archieves) - Survived
• My fathers mother was a WRAF plotter - Survived

Peace.

[bongodriver]

Once the Soviets decided to betray the west and take what chunk of europe it could I don't think there was much Britain could have done about it.

[Hood]

Originally Posted by 5./JG27.Farber

For your records,

• my Grandmothers brother (fathers mother) was a stoker on an LCT at Dieppe - KIA
• My Grandfather was a a rating on a Royal Navy (converted trawler) minesweeper 1943+ including D-Day - survived (although its partner sister ship was blown to smitherenes with the loss of all hands!)
• My fathers uncle was a Bomber pilot (Jack Roberts - DFM) who worked his way from Sterlings and Hampdens to mosquito intruder squadrons. (of which I can find no trace online in any free archieves) - Survived
• My fathers mother was a WRAF plotter - Survived

Peace.

What your relatives did have no bearing on how misguided your post is, though I'd love to know what they'd say if they read it.

The original post was nothing to do with the rights and wrongs, but with flying aircraft used by the "enemy" whichever side the "enemy" fought for.

As for "peace", what does that mean? Acceding to the demands of a bonkers leader freeing him up to annexe large parts of Europe and exterminating entire races, or does it mean making the ultimate sacrifice to protect your country, its people and those that you are allied with?

I think you can shove your version of peace so far up the dark place that it tickles your nose.

Hood

ps for your records, one grandfather stepped on a mine but lived and one taught pilots to fly Spits. I think they'd both laugh at you, or worse.

pps Over and out as I don't think I can contribute more in the face of obstinate stupidity.

[5./JG27.Farber]

Originally Posted by Hood

What your relatives did have no bearing on how misguided your post is, though I'd love to know what they'd say if they read it.

I included it purley for the people, who like you, like to jump on the "what my ancestors did in the war and why I am pround and right!" crowd who think war is glorious and rightous! The people that use the argument "my ancestors took part so I have a right to say what I think!". Well my ancestors took part and here is what I think!

Originally Posted by Hood

The original post was nothing to do with the rights and wrongs, but with flying aircraft used by the "enemy" whichever side the "enemy" fought for.

As for "peace", what does that mean? Acceding to the demands of a bonkers leader freeing him up to annexe large parts of Europe and exterminating entire races, or does it mean making the ultimate sacrifice to protect your country, its people and those that you are allied with?

I think you can shove your version of peace so far up the dark place that it tickles your nose.

Hood

ps for your records, one grandfather stepped on a mine but lived and one taught pilots to fly Spits. I think they'd both laugh at you, or worse.

pps Over and out as I don't think I can contribute more in the face of obstinate stupidity.

Im sad for you. I think they would all agree wars a waste.

Why didnt you make any reasoning or point of the Polish officer corps massacre by the Soviets? Why dont you feel troubled by the betrayel of Poland by England and France? These things that lead to the war mean nothing for the glory of England? What about the war crimes of the British of Hamburg and Dresden?

"He who fights monsters should see to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."
— Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil

and let us not forget:

“That was mere foreplay. Where they have burned books, they will end in burning human beings.” (German: “Das war Vorspiel nur. Dort, wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen.”)
- Heinrich Heine, Almansor (1821)

You say that the second world war was fought to preserve freedoms! Yet you deny me these freedoms! You sir are the evil. You have become what you hate!

Originally Posted by Hood

As for "peace", what does that mean?

It means I dont wish anybody any harm.



So Avro Uk, fly what makes you happy for what ever reasons because you are free to do so!

[MB_Avro_UK]

Does anyone know the pressure of the front tyres of an Octavia? In general
terms. I'll make my own assessment if there are no replies. Thank you all.

How does it compare to a Superb?

And were Skoda tanks the best?

Best Regards,
MB_Avro.

[=CfC= Father Ted]

MB_Avro_UK, you are clearly deluded:

our beer does NOT taste the same!

[5./JG27.Farber]

Originally Posted by MB_Avro_UK

Does anyone know the pressure of the front tyres of an Octavia? In general
terms. I'll make my own assessment if there are no replies. Thank you all.

No but I hear Skoda are a VW now. So win win! Previously the jokes of like when does a Skoda do 60 mph? - when it drives of a cliff! are no more!

Originally Posted by MB_Avro_UK

How does it compare to a Superb?

And were Skoda tanks the best?

Best Regards,
MB_Avro.

Whats a superb and no...

Originally Posted by =CfC= Father Ted

MB_Avro_UK, you are clearly deluded:

our beer does NOT taste the same!

I can also bear witness and NO its now where near.

Becks for the win! (at least for import in UK)

[WTE_Galway]

Originally Posted by MB_Avro_UK

And were Skoda tanks the best?

Best Regards,
MB_Avro.

Hi Avro,


Not sure.

But here is a nice picture of a Skoda car being run over by a Sherman tank.

[Blackdog_kt]

I'm from Greece. We lost 10% of our population during the axis invasion and subsequent occupation.

Most of these casualties were not the result of initial combat actions, but of the Wermacht stealing the country's entire food production and shipping it to the eastern front, with the end result that during the winter of '41 people were dying in the streets of cities out of starvation.

Also, a compulsory loan was exacted, whereby the occupied Greek state was forced to print money en masse for the occupying troops to use. Essentially, money was printed so the occupation troops could be rich when they were on leave, but it drove inflation sky high, to the point that a few slices of bread on the streets of Athens were priced at 1 billion drachmas during that winter.

Apart from a couple of airstrips constructed or expanded for use by the luftwaffe (the old Athens airport and the currently used Thessaloniki airport), the rest of the country's civilian infrastructure was blown back to the stone age and all means of production either seized or destroyed. Apart from the first two installments that the Nazi government paid back, the rest of the loan was never returned and neither did the Greek state receive any war reparations whatsoever.

Finally, some archeological digs were started and it is somewhat unclear if, what kind of and how many antiquities were stolen and if so, whether they have been returned.

The countryside was a different story. Food shortages were not as pronounced, but the villages were under frequent reprisal raids to discourage aiding the guerrilla fighters.

As a side note, the Greek guerrilla groups had mostly liberated the countryside by as early as 1943, leaving the axis troops to only control the big cities. A few hours to the north Serbian and Yugoslav groups were also successful, to the point that parts of Yugoslavia were the only occupied territories to be declared an active front. In both cases, this was happening at the same time that the guerrilla groups were fighting both the axis and each other in a civil war based on political beliefs (royalists vs communists usually). All of this tied up valuable units that would have been otherwise used on the Eastern Front. In fact, the entire operation Marita (the assault on the Balkans) delayed the start of Barbarossa and possibly made a real difference, if we take into account the fact that the Wermacht was stopped about 20kms outside Moscow.

However, all this came at a high price in lives and a lot of that was civilians and non-combatants. In many cases entire villages were leveled and hundreds of people summarily executed as reprisals. Also, most of these war crimes committed during the occupation were not the work of NSDAP instruments lke the SS and Gestapo, but perpetrated by regular Wermacht troops under the orders of well known high command Generals.

This started as early as the battle on the Bulgarian border, when a machine gunner was captured after inflicting heavy losses to an attacking Wermacht detachment. The Wermacht officer ordered the man to be brought to him, saluted him and then ordered his execution to boost the morale of his own troops. This is the first documented execution.

In Crete, the paratroopers leveled the Cretan village of Kandanos right after the battle, to punish the Cretan civilians for their tenacious defence, leaving behind an inscribed plaque to discourage further resistance actions.

In Athens, unarmed citizens went up in open revolt against the forced worker conscription policy and were fired on by carabinieri. However they succeeded and Greece was the only occupied country that wasn't forced to send workers to the factories building tanks and aircraft for the axis, maybe because they thought they would sabotage everything.

Finally, the villages of Kalavryta and Distomo were leveled, men between the ages of 12 and 60 were executed and other civilians locked into the church and set on fire.

On top of all that, Greece also had 2 squadrons of fighters (335 and 336 sqd) and a light bomber squadron (i think that was 33 sqd, usually operating with mixed crews of Greek officers as pilots/navigators and Commonwealth troops as aircrew/gunners) operating under RAF command in N.Africa and then over Italy (for example, the bombers took part in the battle of Monte Casino shortly after switching from Blenheims to Martin Baltimores, the fighters were active in the battle of El Alamein, etc), ground troops that fought in the Middle East and Italy, a commando detachment that took part in the battle of the Dodecanese along with British troops, as well as numerous warships operating in the Mediterranean and as convoy escorts in the Indian ocean, a Flower class corvette that was part of the D-Day fleet, numerous merchant ships running the U-boat gauntlet and getting sunk in the Atlantic daily, loads of civilian fishing trawlers transporting allied operatives around the occupied Balkans and even a guerrilla held and maintained airport smack in the middle of axis occupied territory (the Serbs had one too and they used it to evacuate 600 downed airmen from the Ploesti raids, with terrible risk of reprisals for their civilians), which was so well camouflaged that JG27's 109s operating from Athens were unable to inflict any serious damage to it despite numerous ground attack sorties. That airport was eventually taken over by axis ground troops and the head of the guard (which was manned by the armed branch of the Greek communist party) stayed back until he exhausted his ammo and got killed, in order to allow the British SOE operatives to escape and plan further actions against the occupying forces.

What am i getting at you'll ask?

Well, if anybody should be feeling bad about flying axis it should be Greeks

Despite all that, i have no problem flying on the Axis team. I fly sims to experience a specific part of history that i like, so that i can further understand and study it. I don't feel guilty at all. If anything, i get an even better appreciation of what our grandpas did back then when i see how superior the 109Fs they faced over El Alamein were against their Hurricane Mk.IICs, or how outclassed their PZL24s would have been against an onslaught of 109Es during that April of '41.

There are a few other posters on this board that i know to be Greek and they also mostly fly axis aircraft. Heck, i was flying blue on IL2:1946 mod maps that had me flying over a scaled down depiction of Greece and i still had no apprehensions about it.

That being said, it doesn't mean it's the same for everyone. Some people will get a more emotional response, so understandably it will be harder for them to fly on the "enemy" team.

By the way, i think it was Krupi on these boards who once commented about a scheduled multiplayer event when the time was adjusted to allow US players an easier participation: "Damn Yanks telling me when i can bomb my homeland, what's next?". I hadn't laughed that hard in quite a while

For me the answer is simple. Each one should fly what they are comfortable with, understand there is no shame in that and finally, realize that other players might have a different feeling about it all and not judge them negatively. We're here to learn, appreciate the efforts of people on all sides and have fun while doing it, not relive the hatred that caused that mess in the first place