quote:

ORIGINAL: caitlyn

The American ... I'm sure the meatcleavers of the world will call me a homer, but I'm calling them like I see them. Only America and Britain in WWII, managed to understand what modern warfare was all about. Germany put all their chips on tanks and wonder weapons, while especially the American, understood that artillery and massed airpower was the way to go. Germany has some stong localized victories in the West, but for the most part, the Western battlefields consisted of American artillery and fighters demolishing Germans in the ground, while four engine bombers laid waste to German industrial might. Now Germany had some wonder weapons, but would have been a parking lot by the time they had one that could seriously threaten the United States. No real Germans navy, no four-engine bombers in large numbers, no massive wave of inexpensive fighter aircraft ... Germany was never in the game against the United States.
 

quote:

ORIGINAL: DomAviator

quote:

ORIGINAL: DesertRat

I'm a citizen and a taxpayer. As a GI, you work for me. You're defective. That concerns me. I don't feel like I'm really getting my money's worth. I know the military had to lower its standards to (try to) fill its ranks, but surely they can do better than what I see here.

Alternatively...maybe the good ones are the "silent majority". The ones doing their jobs with dignity and not drooling and coming in their diapers at the thought of violence.

Whichever case is true, there appears to be a need for some quality control.

Bob

Sorry to burst your bubble but your taxes didnt do much to fund me... Youre entire annual household income, much less the taxes you pay, wouldnt purchase one load of ordnance for one of my strikes. A basic JDAM tail kit has a unit cost in excess of $21,000 per bomb - depending what its attached to the total weapon cost is sometimes as much as $70,000 per unit ... The aircraft itself is $41,000,000 Make no mistake, Joe Anybody doesnt pay the taxes to fund the military, the corporations you work for do...  You will never earn enough in your life to pay enough taxes to keep even one F/A-18 flying for a year.  The last squadron I was in had 36 officers and 257 enlisted men.... Your taxes wouldnt fund our coffee and toilet paper bill.

I work for you - thats a fucking laugh! I paid OUT OF MY OWN POCKET over $2000 in uniform and other expenses at Pensacola. Thats right, when you report to Officer Candidate School - come with cash or a checkbook - theres a lot of shit to buy! Oh yeah, another thing - every month I had to settle up my wardroom bill because as an officer I paid for my meals. Im not even going to get into the gory details of this - but during the Clinton years the pay was so fucking bad that many military families qualified for food stamps! So big spender - dig a little deeper and how about forgoing your tax refund check so as to give your "employees" a little extra cash? LMFAO You were such a good fucking boss that a couple of times a month we would pass a cover in the wardroom so that the squadron welfare officer would be able to go buy shoes that didnt have holes in them and maybe some fucking food for an enlisted families kids. We weren't rolling in the dough either, but we did a little better than the enlisted - albeit not NEARLY what we could have gotten in the civilian world with our college degrees. However, there is a reason why an aviators drink of choice is a fucking TWELVE DOLLAR burbon from Conneticut.  Thank God that George Bush undid that and now pays military personell a living wage because the benovolant democrats sure fucked the military up the ass without so much as a reach around. 

Nonetheless. you werent my boss... You were the little kid who came in the candy store with his nickle to buy one gummy fish. I was the store clerk who was kind enough to keep the bullies from beating the piss out of you and taking your gummy fish away. LOL There is "importance" and "impotence" they sound similar but have different meanings - I suggest you look at your tax return and then the DOD budget to decide what category you fall under when it comes to us "working for you".

quote:

ORIGINAL: Stephann

Without US intervention, which language would Europe speak today; German, or Russian?

I don't think this translates to the moral 'right' the US has claimed the past sixty years in terms of our national policy.  Pragmatically, for good or ill, might makes right.  I think the US is quickly losing both between an enormous war debt and a staunch slide in economic prowess.

Stephan

quote:

Its V bombs were terror weapons but they made no material impact and were easily shot down once they were understood.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Alumbrado

quote:

Its V bombs were terror weapons but they made no material impact and were easily shot down once they were understood.

In a word, No...
Though there were many V1-s taken out by pilots and by ground crews, nothing was 'easily' about it, (Both wing flipping and closing to cannon range created risks for the pilots, and the stainless steel skin of the German rockets was proof against longer range weapons) and the material impact was significant, not the least of which was in diverting Allied resources to repeatedly bomb launch sites and fake launch sites.
And when they did get through, the nearly 2,000 pounds of HE caused damage on multiple levels, as in Antwerp. 

The Allied war bureaucracy was marginally less obdurate than their German counterparts in recognizing the value and threat of the rockets, and an earlier and better supported start to the V program (particularly the supersonic V-2s) could have been a decisive factor.

quote:

was terrifying noisemakers is an error, they were sophisticated beyond the capabilities of available defenses, and they were potentially quite lethal.

Good thing that the Germans dragged t

quote:

ORIGINAL: Alumbrado

They were not in use for a long enough time to assess their impact. 
That doesn't mean they weren't capable of having one. 

Air launched V missiles had already added quite a wrinkle to defending against them. 

Thinking that all they were was terrifying noisemakers is an error, they were sophisticated beyond the capabilities of available defenses, and they were potentially quite lethal.

Good thing that the Germans dragged their feet as long as they did.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Alumbrado

The allies repeatedly bombed fake and empty sites, and had difficulty stopping air launched V1s, let alone the supersonic V2s.  Early defensive successes were due in no small part to the German's working out the bugs, and as fast as the Allies developed something, the Germans countered it, before they simply ran out of time.   None of that makes a hit from 2,000 pounds of HE 'ineffective'.

The 'noisy but harmless' was smart British propaganda to keep the people from becoming demoralized....but if that is the best information you've got, there is some great reading on the matter.... I'd suggest you start with Antwerp.

And Sarpedon Press has a book co-authored by Benjamin King called Impact that is not short on details.

quote:

Each V2 cost about the same as a German fighterplane,