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

[MD_Titus]

Originally Posted by swiss

So the expedition force was just too fast for the Germans. ok.

No. not what i said.

however, nor were they let go to help further a peace settlement. Part tactical bungle in not encircling and destroying the panicked and fleeing BEF, part speedy reaction on the part of the navy and the often over emphasised little boats, and part luck - didn't some pursuing wehrmacht units run too low on fuel to press on - as well as the wehrmacht's desire to deny us port access to evacuate.

[MD_Titus]

as a side note, is it a general tactic for teutonic fantasists to bring up defeats that the british (in this case) or the allied (in general) forces suffered when they faced with an incontrovertible defeat of their beloved? i'm seeing a certain theme... you know, "well, maybe you think that happened but you see this was done/happened to/carried out by [insert name here], and worse too! so there, we still won". as if it's a game of one-up-manship in atrocities or defeats suffered.

[Kurfürst]

Originally Posted by MD_Titus

No. not what i said.

however, nor were they let go to help further a peace settlement. Part tactical bungle in not encircling and destroying the panicked and fleeing BEF, part speedy reaction on the part of the navy and the often over emphasised little boats, and part luck - didn't some pursuing wehrmacht units run too low on fuel to press on - as well as the wehrmacht's desire to deny us port access to evacuate.

It also had a bit to do that there was still a largely intact French army south of the Benelux. The Wehrmachts main and most immidiate concern was them, not 250 000 odd British troops who were leaving for good and would be out of the game for a good time, wheter they were encircled & destroyed or not. The French had in comparison IIRC had about 2 million troops mobilized who were not going to home. France was not yet defeated.

Either way, the British would be neutralized, destroying them would be a bonus, but at the cost of entering into a bloody vernichtungschlact in the Dunkerque pocket, that would certainly lead to significant losses, most importantly amongst the armored units, fighting on unfavourable terrain. They were needed intact for future operations. In the end it would risk the victorious outcome of the whole campaign - and this was the main concern of Rundstedt, who order the stop of units, and Hitler who approved it. Any political consideration at the time was secondary to military ones - France had to be defeated first.

[MD_Titus]

Originally Posted by Kurfürst

It also had a bit to do that there was still a largely intact French army south of the Benelux. The Wehrmachts main and most immidiate concern was them, not 250 000 odd British troops who were leaving for good and would be out of the game for a good time, wheter they were encircled & destroyed or not. The French had in comparison IIRC had about 2 million troops mobilized who were not going to home. France was not yet defeated.

Either way, the British would be neutralized, destroying them would be a bonus, but at the cost of entering into a bloody vernichtungschlact in the Dunkerque pocket, that would certainly lead to significant losses, most importantly amongst the armored units, fighting on unfavourable terrain. They were needed intact for future operations. In the end it would risk the victorious outcome of the whole campaign - and this was the main concern of Rundstedt, who order the stop of units, and Hitler who approved it. Any political consideration at the time was secondary to military ones - France had to be defeated first.

of course! i was forgetting that massive elephant in the room there, my gratitude kurfurst.

[Sternjaeger II]

Originally Posted by MD_Titus

no, i'm not actually, i'm putting myself in a position of occupying europe and keeping it. to do that i wouldn't leave a belligerent country off my shores.

you are giving assessments of the situation as if you were playing Risk, the situation was a tad more complicated than that.

after 1949 it became fact that bombing civilian population centres was unjustifiable. you're applying hindsight here. on the other hand it was always considered a bit unsporting to abuse or kill large sections of your own population, the occupants of invaded lands (to some degree anyway) or prisoners of war.

ah ok, so you're confirming what I was saying: the killing of civilians before 1949 was ok, so you're implying that the killing of Jews was right? All in all the Nazis considered them their enemy, and to pursue their cause they wanted to eliminate them.. Do you realise the nonsense you're saying to justify the killing of civilians perpetrated by the Allies?

i do like the way you switch between contextual "fact" and historical revisionism, and all the while taking it off the simple topic of "was the battle of britain a defeat for the luftwaffe" and putting words into people's mouths that they simply did not say.

hey, I was going on topic, your friends then start changing topic and then blame me for going off topic. Read my comments re. the BoB, I've exposed them more than once.

so, to sum up - yes. it was. it was not a draw either at the time or in retrospect.

you're summing it up on assumptions, not on facts.

jesus man, why did BoB veterans in the luftwaffe show each other their appendix scars? is that the act of a force that drew, that was not pressed into a shoddy plan beyond it's capability, that on the biggest day of operations was appalled to see the supposedly shattered and destroyed RAF put many times it's reported strength into the air against them... how is that not a defeat of the tactical and strategic aims of seelowe?

apart for the scar thing which I didn't get, you're making assumptions again. The Germans fought until 1945 even when they really were doing it against all odds, do you reckon that the situation in 1940 was such a blow for morale? Who's delusional now?

you don't deny that the axis committed war crimes, and boy were some of them BIGGIES. but you do a hell of a lot to gloss over them and instead discuss the allies war crimes. and don't do the "won't somebody think of the children" schtick, it's pathetically transparent.

yeah, you already said that killing kids is fine, if it's a good cause. I don't see how this puts you in a better position than Nazis frankly.

how about bombing factories that happen to be in the middle of population centres? surely that's justifiable by your standards?

one thing is collateral damage, another is intentional attack of civilian targets. Do you know that the Americans refused to bomb Germany civilian targets when Harris asked for help?

solve the war amiably? by subjugating the country with military might and an invasion? that's amiable?? oh just lol.

"hey boys they let us escape, let's make friends! those bombs they were dropping on our boats and the strafing runs were just some friendly joshing about, no harm done eh lads"!

you might have heard that there were secret meetings and tentative agreements between Germany and some of your political and royal family members. Germany was hoping to find another Quisling in the UK, and occupy it like they did with Norway.

Saving the life of 300k soldiers was a huge sign of wanting a truce: the Stukas could have made a slaughterhouse of Dunkirk.

as for enlisting the help of the japanese to attack russia... um, seeing as they had a sound thumping at the hands of the red army freshly in their minds, and pretty much ignored the soviets for the length of the war.

seriously.

the plans were the work of a madman with all the strategic and logistical sense of a woodlouse, who enlisted a heroin addicted transvestite to conduct a reduction of british aircover over the channel to allow an unprecedented and unprepared for amphibious invasion, and operated a divide and rule strategy amongst his own staff officers that was inefficient at best, and at worst downright destructive. if you want to convince yourself that it was a case of getting drop tanks in time, or being able to knock russia out of the war in a year then fine, i'll leave you to your teutonic knights fantasy.

you obviously aren't capable of a sober view on the matters. Calling historical character names or disputing renown theories and possible scenarios is just banter, you have no idea how close you were to a very different scenario in the end of 1940.

[MB_Avro_UK]

Hi all,

I'm the creator of this thread.

A couple of German posters have decided to post that the British Army in WW2 was not as 'good' as the German Army.

I'm pleased to hear it.

The British and Commonwealth armies were drawn from volunteers and eventually conscripts.They were not products of the fanatical Hitler Youth.

The German Army of today has thankfully no resemblance to the German soldiers of 1940. In fact, they resemble the British Army of 1940.

Democratic soldiers are not fanatics.


The Battle of Britain enabled pilots from democracies across the world to give the Nazis a 'bloody nose'. And that's a fact.

And thanks to these pilots, we are free to post what we like.

Another German comment here is that Britain and France caused WW2 by declaring war on Germany in September 1939. Hmmm...let's examine the facts shall we?

Who invaded Poland? Who caused the death of 20% of the Polish population?

Who invaded the rest of Europe?

Was it America?

Was it England?

No. It was Germany.

And which country (Shall we guess?) invaded Russia and killed 10 million + of their people.

In other words, try not to take the moral high ground.


Now, let's have as beer. Prost!



Best Regards,
MB_Avro

[arthursmedley]

Avro, at last! How do you do it? Sixty-nine pages in nine days!

Legendary!!!!!

[Skoshi Tiger]

Originally Posted by MB_Avro_UK

Another German comment here is that Britain and France caused WW2 by declaring war on Germany in September 1939. Hmmm...let's examine the facts shall we?

Best Regards,
MB_Avro

+1
Lets go back to original British declaration of war

Originally Posted by WC

""I am speaking to you from the Cabinet Room at 10, Downing Street. This morning the British Ambassador in Berlin handed the German Government a final note stating that unless we heard from them by 11 o'clock that they were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Poland, a state of war would exist between us. I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received, and that consequently this country is at war with Germany.
You can imagine what a bitter blow it is to me that all my long struggle to win peace has failed.

Yet I cannot believe that there is anything more or anything different that I could have done and that would have been more successful. Up to the very last it would have been quite possible to have arranged a peaceful and honourable settlement between Germany and Poland.

But Hitler would not have it. He had evidently made up his mind to attack Poland whatever happened; and although he now says he put forward reasonable proposals which were rejected by the Poles, that is not a true statement. The proposals were never shown to the Poles nor to us; and though they were announced in the German broadcast on Thursday night, Hitler did not wait to hear comments on them, but ordered his troops to cross the Polish frontier next morning.

His action shows convincingly that there is no chance of expecting that this man will ever give up his practice of using force to gain his will. He can only be stopped by force and we and France are to-day, in fulfilment of our obligations, going to the aid of Poland, who is so bravely resisting this wicked and unprovoked attack upon her people.

We have a clear conscience. We have done all that any country could do to establish peace, but a situation in which no word given by Germany's ruler could be trusted and no people or country could feel themselves safe had become intolerable. And now that we have resolved to finish it, I know that you will all play your part with calmness and courage."

Britain and France were bound in a treaty with Poland and were obliged to come to their aide. Hitler and the German high command knew this. They either hoped that Britain and France would not honour their alliance OR they were provoking them into war. Which one was it?

[Theshark888]

How could the Germans make the same mistake as 20 years before by opening a two-front war? Instead of blaming the victorious allies or the Jews, hitler should have known that what he was doing was recreating the same war/same result again!!!

Bismarck was rolling in his grave twice during the twentieth-century!

Stern-
Americans refused to join Harris, not because of being noble, but because the USAAF was trained to bomb pinpoint targets, not population centers. The weather in Europe would modify this somewhat.

Avro-
Don't get me started on the behavior/actions of the German Army in Afghanistan

[Kobold10]

Originally Posted by MB_Avro_UK

Hi all,

I'm the creator of this thread.

A couple of German posters have decided to post that the British Army in WW2 was not as 'good' as the German Army.

I'm pleased to hear it.

The British and Commonwealth armies were drawn from volunteers and eventually conscripts.They were not products of the fanatical Hitler Youth.

The German Army of today has thankfully no resemblance to the German soldiers of 1940. In fact, they resemble the British Army of 1940.

Democratic soldiers are not fanatics.


The Battle of Britain enabled pilots from democracies across the world to give the Nazis a 'bloody nose'. And that's a fact.

And thanks to these pilots, we are free to post what we like.

Another German comment here is that Britain and France caused WW2 by declaring war on Germany in September 1939. Hmmm...let's examine the facts shall we?

Who invaded Poland? Who caused the death of 20% of the Polish population?

Who invaded the rest of Europe?

Was it America?

Was it England?

No. It was Germany.

And which country (Shall we guess?) invaded Russia and killed 10 million + of their people.

In other words, try not to take the moral high ground.


Now, let's have as beer. Prost!



Best Regards,
MB_Avro

True words.... WW 2 was a total bloody mess and a clash of ideologies! And it was Germany starting the war. We shall never forget that Europe was very close to disapear as a center of culture and innovation. (Beside the fact that we were very innovative in killing each other!) The roots of conflict of WW 2 was WW1, ore to mention it with Brithish words the 2nd 30 years war. Especially the phase after WW I was the "trigger-phase" that enabled the NAZIS to start with their dirty work. -planning a new war-
I think we all should respect each other and do what flight enthusiasts can do best: Fly on our PC´s and respect those who had to suffer and pay the ultimate prize for freedom. The battle of Britain was fore shure the first major defeat of NAZI Germany-Austria. But it was not a fatal defeat. It paved the way for all the things that happened afterwards. From the perspective of the pilots of that time there was no right or wrong. All served their country with great enthusiasm. It was the fault of the politicans to find a sollution of jumping out the road that led to war. - And they failed- I totally agree that we all should have a beer and stop sensless discussions who was wrong or right. Let´s start playing and thank god that whenever we shoot at each other nobody is hurt, because it´s simply a game. Prost!