Oh dear, here we go again.
Ahh, but Damien, you're just so much fun to talk with.... and I really mean that!!!
Damien435 said:
But how many heavy bombers did the Luftwaffe have? To my knowledge none. Well, the Amerika Bomber but I don't think anything ever came of that. And the allies not only had a huge technological advantage over the Soviets at this time but we also had a numerical advantage, the Germans did not have near the numbers of the combined British/American Air Forces.
They never had heavy bombers. But their fleet of medium bombers was second to none, and it very nearly succeeded in beating the Royal Air Force... among others. It did totally defeat the Soviet Air Force, as well as the Polish Air Force. At the beginning of the war, right up until about early 1944, the German bomber force was among the best, although it is true that they would have been more effective if they'd had some heavies.
Damien435 said:
But how much good would all that ignoring do if the allies were bombing their supply lines and troop concentrations? They can ignore their own lack of air support easily enough when the enemy has even less, but when the enemy has overwhelming air superiority it becomes much harder.
The Soviet supply lines would have been so short that they would have been virtually impossible to interdict. By the same token, defending them would have been as easy for the Soviets.
Damien435 said:
At the end of WWII weren't there like 1.5 million more men in the United States Armed forces? For some reason I keep getting this picture in my head saying that the US had 17.5 million troops at the end of the war and the Soviets had 16 million. Can someone who might be more familar with this subject enlighten me?
Actually, you have me there. The only statistics that I remember offhand was that the US had the biggest navy, both in men and number of ships. The Soviets had the biggest army by quite a margin. The funniest thing to me about the end of war statistics was the figures that I saw for the allied navies. Anyone care to hazard a guess as to which country had the second biggest navy in number of ships at the end of WW II?
Damien435 said:
But once again, the Allies had the numbers to back up that superiority. But let's not forget that the Mig-15 came out only a few years after the war so clearly the Soviet's were already designing some more advanced aircraft at the end of the war.
They did indeed, But the Russians had already managed to completely overcome one deficit in forces, and they were still building up their forces right up to the bitter end. Do you really believe that the Allied juggernaut would have been as difficult for the Soviets to counter, now that they were ready for a war, had ample experience, mountains of supplies, were quite rested, and had some of the best commanders of the Second World War? remember what they did to the Japanese after the German surrender. They went over under around and right through the Japanese Kwantung Army like it was made of cheesecake, and the Kwantung army was the largest one the Japanese had left. The Soviets defeated them in less than a week.
Damien435 said:
No, did I say they would? If I did it was a slip up.
No problem.
Damien435 said:
Personally, I think you are grealy underestimating the effect of airpower in on warfare in the 20th century, the RAF saved Britain from invasion, not the Army, it was the Army Air Corps, not the 3rd Army, that saved the troops surrounded at Bastogne, and the Allied Bomber Command put a greater dent on the German war machine than anything else at the time, would have been more effective if we would have bombed Germany's ally/pupet Switzerland.
Sometimes I do have that prejudice. But remember that airpower today and airpower in 1945 were very different. In spite of all the bombing raids that the Allied and Axis forces launched, nobody ever managed to stop the other side from producing war materiel during the entire war. The Germans tried to do it to the Russians and British. Failed both times. The Allies tried to do it to the Germans. They failed as well. I remember seeing an air photo of a German factory that had been bombed to smithereens during a night raid. In spite of the fact that there were hundreds of bomb craters in the image, and the fact that manyof the buildings had been destroyed, the factory was still in production. Airpower never succeeded in stopping the North Vietnamese from resupplying along the Ho Chi Minh Trail, and that was in the 70's. It is only since the invention of smart weapons that airpower has become definitive in a battle, but it still cannot win one. Only boots on the ground can do that. Airpower can help ground troops win a battle, but it cannot win the battle for them. (Airpower can now be used to deny the other side the use of an area or region, or part of a battlefield, but that will only give you a stalemate. To win, you have to occupy that area.) (Oh-oh... I think I'm starting to monologue. Bad sign):drunkb:
Damien435 said:
But Patton also remembered that before the war the Soviet Union was thought of as being the greatest evil in the world, he foresaw the Cold War, and he knew we had the bomb so if push came to shove we could have obliterated every major Russian city. Not something I would be very fond of but an option none the less. I do agree though that many people at that time and to this day underestimate the Soviet's, in WWII the only nation to suffer more casualties than the Soviet Union was China. (according to some estimates.)
The US did not have enough bombs to do that until much later. If push had come to shove, Patton could have popped a few nukes in the hopes that the Soviets would have blinked. But they did not blink when they faced either the Japanese or the Germans, so somehow, I do not think that Americans would have bothered them greatly.
Damien435 said:
And I already said that blind patriotism, not necessarilly facts were the basis of my argument. I am trying to use facts to justify my beliefs so your attempts to convince me otherwise will be futile. Make a nice prapaganda poster and you might persuade me.
My artistic skills go right up to the ability to draw a semi-competent stick-man. Stick women are beyond me. As for a propaganda poster... yagottabekidding!!!
Damien435 said:
Oh yeah, and if you haven't done so already take the time to read my signature and then laugh as it all makes sense now.
(Our other arguments that is.)
I always liked your sig. In fact, I was kinda pissed that I never thought of it.
Have a good one...
Dean.