World War III ?

[red indian]

Pleased to be of service BJ......

I tried hard to keep it as concise as i could, I could have added a lot more.Lets keep up the good work we are doing on our American cousins and continue to enlighten them as best we can!!!

 

[gig1965]

And another thing:
Monty was by no means slow.
Monty was an aggressive general....but compared to Patton
any other general would seem conservative.

And lets not forget the man who REALLY defeated Rommel in Africa.
Not Monty......Auchenmech fought him to a standstill which was in
actuality a defeat( Rommel did not have the resources to wage a
batttle of attrition). That defeat (or lack of victory ) of Rommel
was at El Alamain and was the beginning of the end of Rommel.

 

[shark]

The only problem I see with the US selling arms to Great Britain is that we were never paid in full.The only country to pay its WW2 debts to the US is Finland.
As for the US making a profit,are we again expected to be the world's Santa Claus?
Kurchatovium is right...if China thought they could get away with taking Taiwan,they would have done so.Also realize that Taiwan knows the Chinese ideas about them,and are set to defend.

 

[BigJim]

The only problem I see with the US selling arms to Great Britain is that we were never paid in full.The only country to pay its WW2 debts to the US is Finland.
As for the US making a profit,are we again expected to be the world's Santa Claus?
Kurchatovium is right...if China thought they could get away with taking Taiwan,they would have done so.Also realize that Taiwan knows the Chinese ideas about them,and are set to defend.

Come 2007 you'll have it in full. On top of that 50 years worth of interest means we'll have paid back about forty times the amount borrowed in the first place. 😀

 

[BigJim]

Re: Pleased to be of service BJ......

I tried hard to keep it as concise as i could, I could have added a lot more.Lets keep up the good work we are doing on our American cousins and continue to enlighten them as best we can!!!

Onward and downward my friend!

 

[red indian]

Just a few bits.........

Gig makes a good contribution, this is often the way with battles, sometimes it can seem a commander is getting beaten but is in fact winning, but these things can not be known untill years later in some cases. Churchill and Gen Alan Brooke thought a change was needed and brought in Montgomery (who was the second choice btw) because they thought Auchinleck (not sure who Auchenmech is!!??)was too cautious and unwilling to mount a serious attack quickly. How ever once installed Monty did much the same as Auchinleck!! to churchills dismay.

Shark the point i was making is that I often hear this "we saved your sorry limey asses" stuff wich is complete nonsense for the reasons I give and its important to remember that who evers "sorry ass" it was you did save it was to a considerable extent a commercial success for the U.S. I have no gripe with that, but not many Americans seem to be aware of it, or the fact that on the other hand the U.K. bankrupted itself deliberately for the good of europe.

Btw gig Monty WAS a very cautious commander, and drove the Americans up the wall with his arrogance and vanity and was lucky to have stayed the course thro WW2, at one stage Churchill and Gen Brooke offered his head to Ike because he was causing so much trouble, but Ike very generously declined in the interests of unity.

 

[Neutron]

Actually..

Read Samuel Eliot Morrison. Britain did not adopt Convoys in either war until prompted by the US. They were mortally opposed to it.
The Eastern Seaboard was a tragedy. I realize it. Mostly that had to do with two things.


There weren't any available escorts for coastal convoys.
AND the authorities didn't seem to realize YES we were in a war.

Read your history. The Eastern Seaboard blitz was blunted in less than 3 months and had material effect on the war.

Tron

 

[red indian]

WOW!!!!!!

I feel very proud!!! I stuck my neck out writing all that, and old Neuty can only find a few minor points to pull me up on!!! so maybe i do know a little bit of history then Neuty??😀

 

[Biggles of 266]

Re: Are you feeling unwell Neutron???

Many American sailors died in the U boat blitz because of American refusal to act on advice from the British regarding convoy techniques and their insistance on keeping the entire eastern seabord lit up like a fair ground.

This reminds me of a story I've heard about Vietnam. I met a guy who was a forward tracker with the Australian army on the ground and in hostile territory. He said that at night the Australians would bury themselves under bushes, while the Americans would build bonfires and drink all night. Guess who was found with their throats cut in the morning?

 

[Strelnikov]

Since we're beating up on each other...

I'll throw a punch myself.

"Counter-terrorism experts are now saying that Osama Bin Laden may be hiding secret messages in pornographic websites. You know what that means? Clinton could find this guy before Bush does."
-Jay Leno


Strelnikov

 

[BigJim]

I'm beginning to feel like the world's biggest history dunce here. And seeing as we're all throwing punches, but I'm the only one here at the moment........

*lamps himself mightily in the Hampstead Heaths*

 

[Neutron]

red indian..

I never doubted you at least read history. But I think you need to delve deeper. By the way I agree with what you said about Monty. Personally I can't STAND McCarthur but us Americans drool over the guy.

Oh and I didn't ding you on minor points. The Brits were against convoys in both WWs. In both cases they were adopted at US insistence. Convoying was NOT a British tactic in any war. To them it wasn't practical.

Also Big Jim. You can't backdate current American Military might to prior to WW2. Frankly the US had the worlds 5th largest Army. Effectively the 5 largest Navy and hadn't built large ships in years. We had no real Air Force. Churchill wanted American potential. In 1939 and 1940 America was a,ion in waiting. not in fact.

Tron

 

[red indian]

One of my favourite Churchill quotes......

about Montgomery...."In defeat, unbeatable, in victory, unbearable!" Churchill hated him so much he issued orders that when Monty was to receive his Field Marshall Baton he would not be allowed a big ceremony and wanted him to be given it in the field, "I will not have him filling the mall!".....cant see that happening to an American General.

 

[BigJim]

Re: red indian..

Frankly the US had the worlds 5th largest Army. Effectively the 5 largest Navy and hadn't built large ships in years. We had no real Air Force. Churchill wanted American potential. In 1939 and 1940 America was a,ion in waiting. not in fact.

Tron

The US Army Air Force had about 3 times as many heavy bombers as the RAF.Granted, the Fortress was so badly designed that it could'nt hold a third of the Lancaster's bomb load and the crews were so sub-standard that they could only hit the right nation in daylight, but the US always did win wars of numerical superiority, rather than technical quality. If you don't believe me, you could always ask the Canadians.........and the Brits you nailed in the Gulf.

 

[shark]

Numerical superiority? I wasn't aware that we outnumbered the Japanese in WW2 and the Chinese in Korea.

Talking about killing off allies,I seem to recall a pisspoor idea of an attack on Dieppe...............................

 

[BigJim]

Numerical superiority? I wasn't aware that we outnumbered the Japanese in WW2 and the Chinese in Korea.

Talking about killing off allies,I seem to recall a pisspoor idea of an attack on Dieppe...............................

You mean between us, you guys and the South Koreans we didn't have numerical superiority?

And of course there was a little matter of the A-Bomb which was designed by a 70/30 US and Brit team of scientists who were assisting Oppenheimer.😀 And of course that technological jump was worth more than all the armies of the world. One plane could do the job of 500 with that thing on board.

 

[red indian]

Dieppe........

Yes.. a complete disaster, many lives lost, (mainly canadian) it just went to show what a tough job overlord was going to be, contrary to American veiws that it was going to be a pushover.

 

[shark]

Even according to Chinese web archives,the Chinese alone outnumbered the UN forces until the 4th campaign in Korea.

Thinking about it,if the technical quality of the US military was so bad,they would not have been able to hit the troops you mentioned. Those incidents were a matter of human error and lack of communication.......human problems.

Since we're on the military snafu kick,let's also include the battle at the bridge at Arnheim in WW2.Exactly how smart is it to stop an armored advance in mid-battle for an hour or more to have tea? In later years,even British troops called this act inexcusable,and had a definite bearing on that plan's failure.

British archives also show that the Lusitania sinking was largely the fault of Churchill.It was his decision to stop giving warnings to oceangoing vessels about U-boats in their travel area.It was also his feeling that a few of these ships being sunk would accelerate the entry of the US into WW1.Your own archives,not ours.

Just for my own purposes,why do so many of red indian's posts conjure up visions of pee wee herman riding his bike?

 

[BigJim]

If you ask me, Churchill didn't commit an oversight. He deliberatley let the Lusitania be sunk to bring you guys in.

 

[Strelnikov]

Lusitania was sunk in 1915. We didn't enter the war until 1917. Churchill's (alleged) idea didn't work very well, did it?

IMO both the Brits and Americans should have sat out WW-I. Neither of us had a dog in that fight.

Strelnikov

 

[BigJim]

Lusitania was sunk in 1915. We didn't enter the war until 1917. Churchill's (alleged) idea didn't work very well, did it?

IMO both the Brits and Americans should have sat out WW-I. Neither of us had a dog in that fight.

Strelnikov

Strel, are you deliberatley trying to piss me off for the sake of argument? It was ONE of several different political tactics that was used. Also it doesn't take much imagination to believe that it'd take 2 years for the US to get it's collective arse into gear.