Dark skies [the Messerschmitt 262 and slave labor-long]

Jerusalem Post ^ | 2-11-07 | ANSHEL PFEFFER

[SJackson]

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High Volume. Articles on Israel can also be found by clicking on the Topic or Keyword Israel. or WOT [War on Terror]

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The good news, since Hitler had a thing for Jews, the Manhattan Project operated in Chicago and New Mexico, not the outskirts of Berlin, where slave labor might have produced nuclear weapons.

[Squawk 8888]

Me262 ping

[ScaniaBoy]

The good news, since Hitler had a thing for Jews, the Manhattan Project operated in Chicago and New Mexico, not the outskirts of Berlin, where slave labor might have produced nuclear weapons.

True, and just like Saddam, Hitler wasn't patient enough and started the war before a lot of the more modern weapons (such as the Me262) had reached maturity.

Of course if Saddam had waited a year or so before invading Kuwait he would have had a nuclear bomb as his ace in the sleeve. Don't think even Lady Thatcher would have been able to perform a backbone transplant on Bush Sr then - and anyway by that time she would have been replaced by the wet squib John Major.

[Boundless]

> ... an exact replica painstakingly recreated by
> a group of American enthusiasts ...

http://www.stormbirds.com/project/index.html
for anyone interested

[investigateworld]

National Socialist aviation ping

[George W. Bush]

I think it's disgraceful for Americans to participate in such a display.

They should at least be forced to paint a Star Of David on its tail to commemorate all the Jews they murdered during its production. And maybe a few symbols of the old Army air wing who suffered such losses to these Nazi planes.

You cannot honestly divorce the plane from those murdered to produce it and those Allied airmen it was used to kill.

[Paleo Conservative]

If you want on or off my aerospace ping list, please contact me by Freep mail.

[SJackson]

Well, I admit it not something I'd celebrate.

As a celebration, does anyone celebrate the inventinve Japanese engineer who developed the wooden fins for their torpedoes.

Don't think they had time to paint the Star of David on them, but the Arabs being armed with Britains best, Israel got along with what planes they could scrounge up. The IAF's first air to air victory was an Egyptian Dakota transport, converted to a bomber, downed over Tel Aviv by an Israeli Messerschmitt.

[DuncanWaring]

... Hitler wasn't patient enough and started the war before a lot of the more modern weapons (such as the Me262) had reached maturity.

It's not even necessarily a matter of "more modern weapons".

I've heard an assertion that if the Reich had 50 more submarines at the start of the war they would have won the Battle of the Atlantic, and thus the war.

[Paleo Conservative]

I've heard an assertion that if the Reich had 50 more submarines at the start of the war they would have won the Battle of the Atlantic, and thus the war.

I doubt it. Once our airborne radars were able to patrol the North Atlantic, the number of submarine kills increased sharply. Once B-24's became available for patrol duties, there was no longer a gap in the antisubmarine patrols over the North Atlantic.

The U-boats had to surface at night to recharge their batteries. They also were incapable of using their diesel engines while under water limiting their speed underwater. It was only later models developed towards the end of the war that had hydrogen peroxide tanks to supply oxygen for underwater operation of the diesels allowing higher speeds and evasive maneuvers, but they weren't available in quantities necessary to affect the outcome of WWII. If the Germans had built 50 more submarines before the war, they would have been the less advanced prewar models anyway, because it was the war that cause design criteria to change.

[Wilhelm Tell]

Along the same lines, fortunately Hitler interfered in military matters he did not understand so he ruined many a plan. It is a weakness of dictatorships that the dictator ultimately decides everything and everyone is afraid to correct the dictator when he makes mistakes.

[ScaniaBoy]

because it was the war that cause design criteria to change

Good point.

[SJackson]

I've enjoyed Newt's Civil War revisionist novels. If he doesn't run, there's plenty of book fodder in WWII. Though the alternative resolutions aren't popular. Vietnam might be better to rework. Or the war with Mexico.

[ScaniaBoy]

http://israelvets.com/af_hist.asp

[investigateworld]

Interesting points, but at one moment in that era, Britain has less than 30 days worth of oil, and about 60 days in foodstuffs.
Without Britain to act as a giant aircraft carrier and staging point, could we have retaken the Continent?

[Calvin Locke]

...not the outskirts of Berlin, where slave labor might have produced nuclear weapons.

I don't think the remaining German scientists really thought a practical atomic bomb could be made.

The OSS bugged the German nuclear scientists and when they heard the radio report of Hiroshima, the reaction was one of astonishment.

And, slave labor for that type of work wasn't exactly reliable, if not overtly sabotaging. V-2 production was thankfully slowed due to the fatally heroic efforts of some of them.

[raygun]

My understanding is that the P-51's would loiter around airfields and take out the Me-262's during takeoff/initial-climbout or during final approach.

[Zuriel]

What if.........

It's sad that there wasn't a W. Churchill administration in power in 1938 to preemptive strike the Nazi machine, then show the world what Hitler was building.

Or at least, when the German troops reentered the Rhineland, the battle to throw them back should have begun.

[COEXERJ145]

The OSS bugged the German nuclear scientists and when they heard the radio report of Hiroshima, the reaction was one of astonishment.

And when Heisenberg read a newspaper about Hiroshima, he called all of the scientists together and explained to them where they went wrong and the correct way to build an atomic bomb. The German scientists were stunned since the "superior" Germans totally missed such a simple concept.