British team in Burma begin lost Spitfire hunt

@cernel

So sad. :(

@Private:

Here is a different take that resonates for me:

I have seen it argued that both Germany and Japan* were strategically weak. Both lacked natural resources and needed access to those from elsewhere to maintain their war machines.

In the case of Japan that required secure supply lines from the East Indies, which their naval losses and strategic myopia denied them.

Germany needed to conquer territories that would secure those resources.

By contrast the allies were resource rich. Command of the seas gave access to resources from across the globe. Japan challenged US command of the Pacific for only a very short time frame. German U Boats did cause the Allies difficulties in the Atlantic for a longer period of course, but denying global resources to the UK is not the same as denying them to the USA, let alone gaining them for Germany.

Axis supremacy needed victory after victory in the face superior Allied production and manpower. The Allies only needed to deny them a sufficient proportion of those victories.

Of course, those that faced the Axis onslaught did not perceive any such “inevitable” Allied victory. And for a time those victories did keep coming …

*I include Japan in this answer because one of the reasons why Germany lost WW2 is that Japan never diverted enough allied resources away from the European theatre.

I agree with this, but that may not even fully capture all the reasons Germany lost.  In terms of just pure industrial production capacity Germany could not compete against the US, especially with the latter protected by its isolation from bombing.  I recently read an interesting book, Death Ride, that made much of Germany’s failure to develop long-range bombers, and with much of the USSR’s industry moved well East of Moscow Germany could not bomb it.  Göring apparently preferred lots of little short-range bombers to fewer and larger long-range bombers.  It also made much of the Germans’ decision to divert part of its Eastern Front ground forces to Italy leaving them under-supplied and outnumbered in Operation Citadel.  The near-impossibility of maintaining distant supply lines, despite Göring’s assurances that he could make up for it, have been discussed to death.

All-in-all, I think the reasons are so many that in retrospect it would have taken a near-miraculous perfect storm of events for Gemany to have emerged victorious.

@CWO:

It would be an intriguing intellectual exercise to devise a set of house rules for a strip version of A&A…but regretably it would also be kind of pointless because, alas, most A&A players are guys.

I feel like a house rules version of “strip A&A” would be about as useful as my drinking game version of A&A. I lasted about 3 rounds before the game got called, mainly because I crawled under the table, refused to come back out, and promptly fell asleep. Mind you the rule was one shot for each territory you lost and a double if you lost your capitol, and it was me and one other person playing.Needless to say the fall of France really messed me up.

Either way, bad idea, or “bad” idea, i’ll let you figure out which it is  :-P

@empireman:

I saw somewhere that the Ark of the covennant is in ethopia.

Ethiopian Lies.

http://www.amazon.com/Jekyll-James-Nesbitt/dp/B000QXDEH2/ref=sr_1_2?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1367698505&sr=1-2&keywords=jekyll

Modern day version, but with flashbacks to the Victorian original.

A: 96 Panthers ( 2nd year in league, end of story )
B: 03 Panthers should have won! We were better than them, but all the Brady-ites messed it up!
C: 09 Panthers ( Delhomme’s fault )
D: 05 Panthers ( Injuries fault )
E: 06 Panthers ( Slinkey Weinke’s fault )
F: 11 Panthers ( Schedule Maker’s fault )

If you go into tactics, then the main reason for the weaker performance of the Me 109 probably was the weak bombers of the germans. I mean, the only planes capable of defending the He 111 or -even worse- Ju 78 was not the bombers themselves but their escorts. So, if the germans had paid more attention to heavy bombers (something that Göring fortunately did not understand), these could have take care for themselves longer and the escorts would have had time to watch their own back also.

I would agree with you F_alk, the Germans just followed different trains of thoughts with the British regarding the use of bombers after WWI. However, my point still stands, I have yet to see stats heavily favoring the 109 over the Spit. If you want to compare the Spit MK II vs the Bf-109 (the types that were used during the BoB), the MK II had speed and maneuverability over the 109 (though the 109 could outclimb the Spit).

My partner wimped out and couldn’t go :( But I watched other debaters, I’m telling you, we would of wasted them!