Once Again The History Channel

[BrucePowers]

As I sit here and type this, the History Channel is showing a show called Secret Luftwaffe Aircraft of WWII. I have only watched it for 10 minutes and its full of a lot of bunk. I prefer Mythbusters.

[anarchyintheuk]

I love those "they would have won the war if only" programs. They're kinda like the National Enquirer version of history.

[showboat1]

They conveniently ignore the fact: what were they gonna use for fuel and for pilots?

[marky]

lol true

but its jusa wat if scenario

alot of games including WITP ogffer those kinds of scenarios

though i do agree

wat the hell would they use for pilots and fuel?

in the last few months of the war, germany was being turned into RUBBLE by RAF and USAAF bombers by day and night

their communications, bridges, rail lines, factories, other industry, and oil facilities were being obliterated

so, wat IF they did have enuff ME 262 fighters? King Tigers? UBER weapons?

so?

wat if they did?

who the hell was gonna fly em?
or drive them?

i think all the geniuses and the uber dum@$$ hitler himself forgot about all that...

BESIDES

it was too little and FAR too late to stem the advance of the allied forces

[Mr.Frag]

If you want, go into the scenario editor, and change all the 1945 Japanese aircraft to be available when the game starts. You'll find it actually makes very little difference in the game overall.

The PTO is one of those classic examples of rock, paper, scissors.

Ships moved troops that built airfields. Any one element by itself had no real use. Crank up the power of one of them and you'll just find yourself lagging behind with the other two.

[BrucePowers]

Mr. Frag is right. Look at what the axis faced - Russia 100 million people, US 100 million plus, Great Britain, Canada, Austrailia, New Zealand, Brazil, etc. That is a lot of manpower and industry they could not touch. It would not be stopped. The US could have built more. Also, the A-Bomb would have been used where it did the most "good" even Germany.

[rhondabrwn]

I watched that show and I would hardly call it "bunk"... it was basically presenting a history of some rather impressive German aeronautical engineering and production efforts that occurred despite the allied bombing. I found the film footage of these early jet fighters fascinating.

I didn't come away with the impression that the purpose of the show was to make some sort of "what if" case for a German victory in World War II. I don't recall any wild assertions about fleets of super weapons destroying the Allies. They clearly identified the shortage of trained pilots, metals for construction, and fuel to burn.

If soeone only watched 10 minutes of it, I really don't think they are in a position to give such negative reviews.

Am I the only one here who enjoys the History Channel? It seems a popular target for bashing.

[rhondabrwn]

And more importantly, it emphasized the transfer of that technology to the Soviets when they overran Eastern Germany where most of the aircraft industry was located.

[watchtower]

On most of the progs that are about the pacific war there is one quote that is used often. It should be.

Yamamoto "I shall run wild for the first six months or a year. But for the second and third years I have utterly no confidence."

It's amazing how huch he is misquoted. Revisionised histotory?

[watchtower]

Now thats a great war game idea! War starts in forty Five. Germany has the tiger and betterin large numbers - Japan gets Aussie and india. USA has the bomb but can't use it due to reprisals in Aus. And germany is lauching v4's into new york. Russia goes for china/ hymalaya region.

[freeboy]

I always wonder at the one very real, unused weapon of mass destruction German scientist did discover... NERVE GAS... and let us be thankful that it was not used... for Normandy and the Eastern fron very likely would have slowed to a stop until we where able to copy samples or use the bomb.. shudder

[BlackVoid]

A result of a war is always in doubt.

There are tons of examples in history when the underdog won.
Greece against Persia
Alexander against the World
Byzantine against the barbarians

Just a few examples when a much smaller force achieved victory over a large one.
Because WW2 turned into an attrition war, the Allies have won it.

The Me262 could have been ready in 1943, while there was still plenty of fuel and pilots and the German economy was still in fighting shape. This could have delayed allied victory by years.

[Hartley]

The Japanese in this game sorely lack something like the B-17/B-24.

[mogami]

Hi, I am watching the History Channel "7 Wonders" show. They acted like there exists a mystery to pyramids. Listen I can explain them easy.
I visted Eygpt several times and have seen the pyramids. (all of them including the brick ones and all the ones that have fallen down over time)

Once apon a time in Egypt when a man died he was buried in a plain hole in the ground.
The guys who dug the hole were given lunch. The lunch included free beer.
Now a lunch with a free beer is nice but these guys thought "more beer is better" So they offered to build a little brick house on top of the hole. Now they got several days of free beer.
They thought "more beer is better" so they began building larger brick houses over the holes.
After a while the houses were large square buildings (mastaba's or something) So they thought "more beer is better" and began building a second house on top of the first house on top of the hole in the ground.
Well they kept doing this, piling house on top of house to keep getting free beer. Also they found that keeping the beer inside the house kept it cooler. (drinking 104 degree beer in 104 degree weather is not as good as drinking 80 degree beer in 104 degree weather)
Eventually they could not pile any more houses on top of houses. Some of them fell over and so to keep their reputations and thus their jobs they learned how to do foundations and learned to fill in the slope of the step pyramids to make true pyramids. Imagine their delight when they discovered that a pyramid was 20 degrees cooler inside compared to the boxes.
So pryamids are nothing more then the evolution of the beer cooler. Built by people who were given free beer for as long as the job lasted. Not much mystery remains since "more beer is better" and "cooler beer is better"

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: BrucePowers

As I sit here and type this, the History Channel is showing a show called Secret Luftwaffe Aircraft of WWII. I have only watched it for 10 minutes and its full of a lot of bunk. I prefer Mythbusters.

The problem with these things is that no one would watch a program called "Wild and
wonderous ideas that the Germans were playing around with while losing WW II"
Germany had flown a Jet before the war really began..., but they still didn't have
a really dependible jet engine when it ended. Radical new technology always has
lengthy "teething problems". A lot of historians have argued quite convincingly that
it was the Germans facination with "cutting edge" technology that lost them the war.
They were always looking for the "magic bullet" or ultimate weapon----which kept
them from stabalizing designs and mass producing enough good weapons to meet
their needs.

[freeboy]

Excellent point, as too the not producing enough good quality weapons, but to win the war they needed to keep the US out.. so imo they lost they war politically by alleigning with Japan, as the full weight of US production eventually, no bomb included, is goingto squish them.

I remember the really funny p[ost about her channels history way back when last year.. I will see if I can find it...
[:-]

[tsimmonds]

The Japanese in this game sorely lack something like the B-17/B-24.

So did the Japanese IRL.

[Charles2222]

ORIGINAL: irrelevant

The Japanese in this game sorely lack something like the B-17/B-24.

So did the Japanese IRL.

Really?[:)]

Well the kamikaze comes close, since it never worries about return fuel. I wonder if you can kamikaze Bettys in this game (Imagine the range - you might be able to hit Midway from Tokyo)?

[Hartley]

Kamikazes can't shut down bases.

[dtx175]

If you want insight into why the Germans didn't use nerve agents, check out the superb book "A higher form of killing" a history of biological & chemical warfare. It describes how at the end of WWI a german artillery corporal(?) was gased & temporarily blinded by mustard gas. It turned him off from chemical weapons (the corporal was Hitler). (there were also other reasons the Germans didn't use them)

The book also has a copy of a letter by Winston Churchill to his chief's of staff imploring them to "douse" German with mustard gas. He notes that they can hit Germany w/20 ton of mustard for every 1 ton the Germans could send in return (of course, he didn't know that 1 ton would be nerve agent). Churchill notes that there is no morality issue, that changing to chem weapons in WWI was no different than a woman changing the length of her skirt.

On jets: Even an unreliable jet engine is likely to be far more reliable than a piston engine. Jet engines have far less parts than piston engines and are much easier to maintain. While things like Tiger tanks were problematic because of reliability, if the Me-262 had been released early, it would have given the Germans a huge advantage.