Recent content by rgallant

Why would competent commander penny pack his airforce that way, you may no like the Germans and they were certainly no uber army as many want them to be but they were not morons. They applied airpower like everything else, maximum strength to the attack. not 1 plane here 2 planes there...

Bismark and Taranto, speak to my point about few successful attacks against major surface units. Although the Bismark was damaged by the torpedo attacks she was not destroyed, nor was her primary armament effected. And in the end she was sunk by surface action not aircraft. Taranto although...

I think it was as much prejudice as under estimation which amounted, to the same thing. I have never understood the US prejudice against the Chinese and by extension the Japanese. They both considered them threat and yet assumed that their technology was far behind their own. When you add...

drgondog excellent reply, I think you hit the nail on the head we all understand what was needed we just disagree on when it was accomplished.

I understand your point in the post, and there in lies the problem at what point was the strategic airwar causing damage that disrupted the German war effort enough to make a difference. Considering the people at the time could not really make that judgment, I don't think we can either. I...

My understanding is that the initial raid although doing significant damage, did not reduce the output of that field for any long period of time. Indeed those fields were attacked several more times so this argument is not really valid. I would tend to put a later date as to the...

Very good points SR, but remember Russia at the time had a very limited road and rail network outside of major centers so effectively attacking that as well would help. The objective as I see it would not so much be to destroy the Russian manufacturing centers as to limit there ability to...

If you really want to stretch the Fw200 had the bomb load at 4000lbs more or less and decent range at 2700 mils. But but it really could not take a beating or maneuver very well. And of course no long range escorts, and very few 200's. So if the Germans crank up production of these and do...

London as a target in terms of a port is a reasonably viable target but the effort in put against it was a waste. I will have to look up the percentage of aircraft used against London vs other targets, but as I remember it was out of proportion to the value of the city as a target. Indeed...

The problem as nicely put by Parsifal, is you had a government made up of little fiefdoms, now the allies had the same problems but to a far lesser degree. So not only do you require a complete change of doctrine, but indeed a complete change of political machinery. As well I suspect a far...

Well put, and the way you put it is nice and clear. I apologize for being a dense when reading Erich's post, this is a much better way to express the point about Rudel's political ideology.

Pretty much the problem with everything 60 odd years down the line. But consider this when you consider propaganda, the Nazi's were the 1st political party to really exploit the mass media. Hence individuals like Rudel and Wittman having such a mythology around them. With myth comes...

A good propaganda victory for certain, minuscule effect on the war maybe not. Consider if 3 or 4 of these actually were fired and hit or came close to NY, DC or any other large eastern seaboard city. The sheer amount of US resources that would have have been tied up would have most likely...

Thanks for sharing, I knew about some of those types in Spanish service but did not realize how longer some of the others carried on.

Check this site out cj750.net:::ww2 index The frame looks right, it may be missing the cylinder end covers if they were just cosmetic. forget that dug a little deeper here you go http://www.cj750.net/sitepics/60s/m72_01/mw66_8035.jpg