Is Rafale dead?

From: Hobo

My point is that the Russians were willing to give Nazi Germany all the
help they asked for. Nothing the Russians did was to help anyone else.
Everything the US did was of no direct benefit to the US and was only
done to help the world. The French and Russians can't say that and the
French can't even say that they fought very hard.

Stalin was buying time. As screwy as he was he knew war was inevitable yet was
surprised when the invasion started.

The U.S. may have helped but there is no way you can say it had no direct
benefit to the U.S. since war with Germany was also inevitable once the Germans
declared war on the U.S. 11 December 1941. The French soldiers fought extremely
hard but failed due to poor leadership.

I have no love for most things French. Unlike you I have bothered to learn what
actually happened. The French and British had a plan of action based on no
attack through the Ardennes. They stuck to it ridgidly until it was too late.

If you think the U.S. planning was near perfect how come the Germans managed to
attack through the same place the Brits and French thought they couldn't 3
years before? Remember the battle of the bulge? The Germans went through the
Ardennes. They pushed right through American forces there as easily as they
had done the French earlier. Are you going to tell us the U.S. forces didn't
fight very hard?

Your conclusions aren't based on ground combat experience, are they?

Dan, U. S. Air Force, retired

"Hobo" wrote
"Paul F Austin" wrote:

Richard Overy's invaluable "Why the Allies Won" has the data: in
artillery,
the USSR outproduced the US every single year of the war, by close to
2:1.
In tanks, the US outproduced the USSR only in 1943 and the aggregate
production of the USSR is much larger than the US. The US outproduced
the
USSR in aircraft, logistics support and in major naval vessels.

Everything the Russians made they used themselves. US production was
distributed to the Brits and Russians. The Russians helped the Germans
to rearm during the '30s. It was this cooperation which allowed the
Germans to plant false documents implicating Russia's best generals in
an imaginary plot against Stalin, leading to their assasination.
Germany's invasion of Russia was delayed for a week in order to recieve
a shipment of Japanese rubber through the Soviet rail network. The
Russians agreed to carve up Poland with the Germans.

My point is that the Russians were willing to give Nazi Germany all the
help they asked for. Nothing the Russians did was to help anyone else.
Everything the US did was of no direct benefit to the US and was only
done to help the world. The French and Russians can't say that and the
French can't even say that they fought very hard.

That's pretty much true: "Arsenal of Democracy" is a real description of the
US effort. But understand what that means. In the part you snipped, I
compared the number of division sets raised by the US, Britain (and Empire)
and the USSR. We built a great deal of hardware but we didn't (thankfully)
have to fight and bleed on the scale that the Brits did and much much less
than did the Sovs.

Stalin was a paranoid fool and I use both terms precisely. The USSR
didn't_deserve_to survive the catastrophes in 1941-1942. That said,
Churchill and Roosevelt didn't bend over backwards to keep Stalin in the war
because they loved him. Churchill in particular hated and feared the
Bolsheviki. If he could have let Hitler and Stalin consume each other, he
cheerfully would have done so. Churchill and Roosevelt didn't do so because
they_needed_Stalin in the war. For all our war production, it was the Sovs
who broke the teeth of the Wehrmacht. It's also a false description of our
war effort as altruism. We manufactured and supplied tremendous amounts of
hardware to the Brits and the Sovs not out of altruism but in the knowledge
that_our_troops would be dying on a smaller scale than if we had manned all
that production ourselves.

If we had sat out the defeat of Britain and the USSR because Germany wasn't
a direct and current threat to the US, we would likely have had to fight
Germany alone, later. It would be the Germans who had been building
beachheads into the Americas rather than us building them into Europe.

"B2431" wrote
From: Hobo

My point is that the Russians were willing to give Nazi Germany all the
help they asked for. Nothing the Russians did was to help anyone else.
Everything the US did was of no direct benefit to the US and was only
done to help the world. The French and Russians can't say that and the
French can't even say that they fought very hard.

Stalin was buying time. As screwy as he was he knew war was inevitable yet
was
surprised when the invasion started.

If he was buying time, he had an odd way of showing it. The historical
record is clear: he had anyone who said that the Reich was preparing to
invade the USSR recalled and shot. I think that Stalin was barking mad.

On Thu, 25 Dec 2003 19:59:00 -0500, "Paul F Austin"
wrote:



Richard Overy's invaluable "Why the Allies Won" has the data: in artillery,
the USSR outproduced the US every single year of the war, by close to 2:1.
In tanks, the US outproduced the USSR only in 1943 and the aggregate
production of the USSR is much larger than the US.


Not without US supplied machine tools and key strategic raw materials they
wouldnt.


greg

--
Once you try my burger baby,you'll grow a new thyroid gland.
I said just eat my burger, baby,make you smart as Charlie Chan.
You say the hot sauce can't be beat. Sit back and open wide.

From: "Paul F Austin"
Date: 12/26/2003 8:43 AM Central Standard Time
Message-id:


"B2431" wrote
From: Hobo

My point is that the Russians were willing to give Nazi Germany all the
help they asked for. Nothing the Russians did was to help anyone else.
Everything the US did was of no direct benefit to the US and was only
done to help the world. The French and Russians can't say that and the
French can't even say that they fought very hard.

Stalin was buying time. As screwy as he was he knew war was inevitable yet
was
surprised when the invasion started.

If he was buying time, he had an odd way of showing it. The historical
record is clear: he had anyone who said that the Reich was preparing to
invade the USSR recalled and shot. I think that Stalin was barking mad.

Agreed. I never said Stalin was playing with a full deck, but he was aware
there would ultimately be war with Germany. On the other hand he seems to have
genuinely respected and trusted Hitler. The guy was cracked.

Dan, U. S. Air Force, retired

On Thu, 25 Dec 2003 19:22:31 +0000, "Paul J. Adam" wrote:

In message , Alan Minyard
writes
On Tue, 23 Dec 2003 22:23:08 +0000, "Paul J. Adam" news@jrwly
nch.demon.co.uk wrote:
Perhaps French troops could be excused for a lack of conviction that US
troops were coming to bring liberation and freedom, given the US's
disinterest so recently before. They were wrong, but the US had done
nothing to earn their confidence.

And their German friends had?

Oddly enough, the German occupation of most of Vichy France wasn't
hideously onerous or oppressive as long as you weren't blatantly Jewish,
gypsy, gay or retarded.

That was Vichy, what about the rest of France? Or did the folks in
Vichy simply write off their countrymen? Incidentally, what if your best
friend were a Jew?

Why should young Frenchmen believe that the US was going to bring
anything better?

The US had seen the europeans
fight WWI, and we then realized that it was NOT a US problem.

Then why did the US fight?

Ever heard of Pearl Harbor? Or the Battle of the Atlantic?

And where do you get your fantasy about the number of French
vs US military casualties?

John Keegan, "The Second World War".

I was slightly off in one regard: the French lost 600,000 dead of whom
only 200,000 were military, as compared to 292,000 total US fatalities.
In terms of total deaths the French didn't shy from fighting: in terms
of relative casualties they put up far more of a fight than the US.
Trouble is, they didn't have any oceans to hide behind.

In terms of "total casualties" they hardly fought at all. Not that the above
figures are for the total war, hardly "before the US entered".

If not for the US, they would have ended up under either Hitler of
Stalin, yet they attacked the US. And they are still doing it.

Al Minyard

On Thu, 25 Dec 2003 19:59:00 -0500, "Paul F Austin" wrote:


"Paul J. Adam" wrote
Alan Minyard writes
"Paul J. Adam" wrote:
Perhaps French troops could be excused for a lack of conviction that US
troops were coming to bring liberation and freedom, given the US's
disinterest so recently before. They were wrong, but the US had done
nothing to earn their confidence.

And their German friends had?

Oddly enough, the German occupation of most of Vichy France wasn't
hideously onerous or oppressive as long as you weren't blatantly Jewish,
gypsy, gay or retarded.

Why should young Frenchmen believe that the US was going to bring
anything better?

The US had seen the europeans
fight WWI, and we then realized that it was NOT a US problem.

Then why did the US fight?

And where do you get your fantasy about the number of French
vs US military casualties?

John Keegan, "The Second World War".

I was slightly off in one regard: the French lost 600,000 dead of whom
only 200,000 were military, as compared to 292,000 total US fatalities.
In terms of total deaths the French didn't shy from fighting: in terms
of relative casualties they put up far more of a fight than the US.
Trouble is, they didn't have any oceans to hide behind.

A lot of Americans are under the impression that we Won The War (with a
little help from the Brits) and everybody else got a free ride. While the US
produced amazing amounts of material, in many catagories, the USSR produced
as much and in terms of mobilization, according to Keegan (from memory), the
USSR raised 600 division equivalents, the Brits 300, the US 100.

Richard Overy's invaluable "Why the Allies Won" has the data: in artillery,
the USSR outproduced the US every single year of the war, by close to 2:1.
In tanks, the US outproduced the USSR only in 1943 and the aggregate
production of the USSR is much larger than the US. The US outproduced the
USSR in aircraft, logistics support and in major naval vessels.

Overy's book points out that defeat of Germany (never mind Japan, that was
never in doubt) was not a forgone conclusion. In fact if the Germans had
done any of the following: pinched off the Dunkirk perimeter prior to the
evaculation, mobilized the industrial production of occcupied Western
Europe, fully mobilized Germany in 1940, not attacked the USSR in 1941, not
driven the Ukrainians back into Stalin's arms... They likely would have won.

The French fought bravely but badly in 1940. The French have lost wars but
not because of lack of valor. _No_one at all familiar with the French
experience in WWI can call them a nation of cowards.

Of course the troop mutinies, desertions, etc help that adjectives use.

They are misguided, as
many Europeans are, that the price of peace is perpetual negotiations and
that fighting is likely to be disastrous but that's a product of a century
of warfare. Remember the effect of minimal casualties had on the US in the
thirties or for that matter the much greater butcher's bill effect on the
British at that time. I may think the French and Germans are wrong for many
reasons regarding the present danger (I do) but I won't make them out to be
fools and cowards.

I fully agree that Stalin was able to mobilize the Soviet Union completely (of course,
being an absolute despot helped). Many individual Frenchmen undoubtedly
fought with great valor. Their government was, unfortunately, made up
of both fools and cowards.

And don't forget the "Uncle Joe" had another agenda, he wanted to rule
all of Europe (ala Finland).

Al Minyard

From: Hobo

If you think the U.S. planning was near perfect how come the Germans
managed to attack through the same place the Brits and French thought they
couldn't 3 years before? Remember the battle of the bulge? The Germans went
through the Ardennes. They pushed right through American forces there as
easily as they had done the French earlier.

That's a lie. The Americans stopped the Germans during the Battle of the
Bulge. We didn't just crap our pants and quit because the Germans came
from an unexpected direction.

The 101st Airborne held Bastogne against the Germans even though they
were a lightly equiped paratrooper unit fighting against tanks, so the
difference between the American response and that of the French can't
just be about equipment, etc. Even when out-equiped the Americans were
willing to hold ground in a way that French soldiers never did.


Are you going to tell us the U.S. forces didn't
fight very hard?

No, I leave that to people like you.

Your conclusions aren't based on ground combat experience, are they?

Dan, U. S. Air Force, retired

I did not fight in WW2 or any other war. Which war did you fight in?

Bastogne is not near the Ardennes. The American forces in the Ardennes failed
to hold for several reasons. The fact that the Nazi troops even got to Bastogne
proves this. The men in the Ardennes fought to the best of their abilities. It
just wasn't enough.

It is evident to me you have not the skills for a civil debate. Further you
have no understanding of what bravery in combat is. Your implication you make
that the French soldiers were cowards proves this.

As for my combat experience I was in Viet Nam when I was in the Army. We lost
that war. Are you now going to call those of us who served there cowards?

Dan, U. S. Air Force, retired

Did the USA quit when the Brits burned down the White House? Not every
country in the world jumps down on their back as quickly as the French
did in WW2.

Hmmmm..... how about something a little more historically relevent

Corregidor

Cheers
John Cook

Any spelling mistakes/grammatic errors are there purely to annoy. All
opinions are mine, not TAFE's however much they beg me for them.

Email Address :-
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tadaa wrote:

France was obligated by treaty to attack Germany two weeks after a
German attack on Poland. The French did nothing.


Eh, *******, where were you at that time? At least we had the ball to
start war with Nazi Germany, while US companies were taking profit on
it, even on Nazis companies....
And don't say we did nothing. THose who losed thier life at that time
died in company with a lot of Brits, Poles...
And at the time Nazis entered PAris, may I remind you that Soviets
entered Baltic States.
SO, WHERE WERE YOU, STUPID CHICKENS?