Posted on 07/23/2017 3:18:02 PM PDT by DIRTYSECRET
The U.S. should NEVER put itself in that position. The Brits sent their civilian boaters to save them. Destroyers and most planes were left behind to 'save England.'
Make sure the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is always filled. Get the hell out of the Middle East with no more immigrints from that region. The Brits should get out of the Falklands. They have bigger fish to fry. Maybe we should al store food like the Mormons.
My history teacher, retired military, said Hitler should have bombed them all on the beach. Cost him the war.
My wife and I saw it today. VERY good movie. I highly recommend it. It will be a classic in a few years.
I have been in the co-pilot seat when the pilot of the Apache fixed wing had to pump the wheels down. Made me nervous but it worked.
When you put it in that perspective, it becomes obvious. The British land forces would have been much weaker than the Werhmacht, since they left their equipment at Dunkirk. OTOH the RAF was a lot stronger in 1940 than the Luftwaffe was in 1944, and in 1940 the Royal Navy was also more powerful than the 1944 Kriegsmarine (tho the issue would have been decided primarily by the contest between the Luftwaffe and the RAF). It was far too close to being a fair fight to have been an attractive option for the German military.
will see it on Tuesday. i am facilitating a class in the fall for OLLI on The Great Patriotic War. All my students are retirees and, like me, had 50 years of German bias as to what actually happen on the eastern front.
Hitler needed the economic resources plus defending Ploesti and his oil resources. Main reason to invade Crete. He did not make every dumb decision unlike what we grew up with. The generals will still fighting like in western Europe, take the capital and win. Russia was not like that. Hitler’s no retreat from Moscow saved the German army in the winter ‘42 and he was persuaded to attack at Kursk.
My belief from all my post Soviet Union reading (Jonathan House, David Glantz, John Mosier etc) is the Russians were going to attack out of the Ukraine in the summer of 42 and would have smashed the wehrmacht. Barbarossa, like Pearl Harbor, was a roll the dice desperation attack.
Yes i have read ICEBREAKER by Suvarov and i do not agree with his assessment.
Disagree.
If you compare war production of the major powers Russia is somewhat better than Germany...but not enough to overcome Germany alone.
In air power, Germany produced 133,387 planes of all types compared to 136,223 for Russia.
Tanks and SPG: Germany 67,429, Russia 106,025.
Mortars: Germany, 674,280, Russia 200,300.
Where Russia has the advantage is manpower...34,401,807 to Germany's 16,540,835.
But this was somewhat nullified by Germany's superior tactics that usually resulted in at least a loss of 1:2 in favor of Germany.
In a protracted war, Germany could outlast Russia.
Does Germany develop the V1 and V2 and Me262 without the threat of invasion from the West. I think they do.
The 262 would have been a decisive difference in the air war in Russia.
Now, let's see what the US gave to Russia.
Without US intervention there is no successful bombing campaign. Consider all of the fighters and 88mm and 128mm guns kept in Germany to protect the cities.
Consider the lost production due to the bombing.
There would be no second front in Africa or Italy or Normandy to draw away German forces. These could have been employed in Russia.
Without US lend-lease to Russia they don't have 500,000 or so trucks and other vehicles to mobilize their infantry. They also don't have a lot of food and clothing.
We gave them around 14,000 or so planes as well.
We gave them 1900 locomotives. Consider the produced 446 on their own.
Simply put...Russia didn't have enough industrial production to overcome Germany on her own.
1. Happened before - Napoleon- did not do him any good....
2. Look at Russia’s map, there is plenty of room to the East from Moscow...
I will agree. Not a lot of dialogue and much of what there was was difficult to understand because of the noise of what was going on. I suggested that it could use close captions. I watch lots of British TV on the streaming services and I always turn on the close captioning so I don’t miss any of the plot from not catching the dialogue due to the accents.
I thought the action in the movie was top notch. Nolan seemed to really strive to keep it realistic. There also was not alot of gore. No flying body parts and graphic stuff like Pvt. Ryan. It was very harrowing and I think that is how it was supposed to be. I was also very engrossed in the movie. Kind of white knuckled for the last hour especially.
Now I am off to watch Hacksaw Ridge which I DVR’d from HBO last night.
Be sure to let your Jewish friends know that is what you think.
The Germany Navy wasn’t strong enough to take Britain, building up the Kriegsmarine was not high on Hitler’s list. He thought the U-Boats were all he needed.
Reminds me of the SNL skit about the British movie nobody could understand....'Don' You Go Rounin' Roun to Re Ro'. One of the reviews.....'USA Today says: "I thought they were speaking a foreign language. I don't think I heard a single consonant."'
Invading Russia cost Hitler the war, just as it cost Napoleon.
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+1
The film to rent which will give you a good idea of the time is “Mrs Miniver” starring Greer Garson and Walter Pigeon.
Between 60 and 80% of the engines used in Soviet equipment came from lend lease. This is just one category. Without Lend Lease, the Soviet Union was toast.
Nikita Khrushchev, having served as a military commissar and intermediary between Stalin and his generals during the war, addressed directly the significance of Lend-lease aid in his memoirs:
“I would like to express my candid opinion about Stalin’s views on whether the Red Army and the Soviet Union could have coped with Nazi Germany and survived the war without aid from the United States and Britain. First, I would like to tell about some remarks Stalin made and repeated several times when we were “discussing freely” among ourselves. He stated bluntly that if the United States had not helped us, we would not have won the war. If we had had to fight Nazi Germany one on one, we could not have stood up against Germany’s pressure, and we would have lost the war. No one ever discussed this subject officially, and I don’t think Stalin left any written evidence of his opinion, but I will state here that several times in conversations with me he noted that these were the actual circumstances. He never made a special point of holding a conversation on the subject, but when we were engaged in some kind of relaxed conversation, going over international questions of the past and present, and when we would return to the subject of the path we had traveled during the war, that is what he said. When I listened to his remarks, I was fully in agreement with him, and today I am even more so.”
Germany had NO prospects of successfully invading the British Isles. They had no experience in amphibious operations, no equipment to successfully conduct an invasion, and no way to combat either the Royal Navy or the Royal Air Force.
If you read this link you’ll be shocked at how ridiculous German planning was:
http://www.johndclare.net/wwii6_sealion.htm
Hitler was insane.
I am a Greer Garson fan, and am familiar with that film.
I was embarrassed to hear Christopher Nolan, the British director of the film interviewed on NBC. Apparently the anchor thought that Dunkirk was a rather obscure battle that most people (Americans) would not be familiar with.
You should have seen Nolan’s face.
Thanks for all FReeper opinions on this movie. I haven’t been to a movie in years and this one piqued my interest. I’ll probably pass.
HOORAY Brits.
Would have won it without us. Creating an Eastern Front lost Hitler the war.
German infrastructures not touched, the war supplies their oil industry they are cranked out 24/7...
there’s no strategic bombing during the day destroying German industry there’s no strategic bombing the night from the Brits
if we’re not in the war Russia’s getting no material supply from us
consider all the German troops free not tied up in France on the Atlantic Wall or in North Africa or in Greece or in the Mediterranean
now add in the Japanese if they decided instead of going after us they just kept going from China and attacking the Russians on the other side
all war in the long strategy is a Siege it’s the dry up the other sided supplies and material so they have no longer a capacity to fight... if they have an industrial base behind them is cranking ing out material of men or you’re not going to beat him you have to strangle them
the key to war is material and supply the logistics to transport it there and the Men you cut that supply line you destroy it and you can’t lose
no bullets no guns no bombs no planes no tanks no trucks no gas no food no victory
My brother and I agree with you...
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