Favorite WW2 Bomber

@EricTheGreat12:

Although no one in my family fought in the Second World War, my great grandfather was in the Canadian Army during the First World War.

He was a messanger, and unfortunately he got gassed up pretty badly. I don’t remember how long he was in the war, but I do remember records saying that he fought in the battle of Passendale. He later got brought back to Canada after he got shot in the leg   :-(

My grandmother tells me that he never talked about the war; he never even kept any part of his uniform. But at least my grandmother kept his medals and she still has a photo of him in his military uniform :-D

I wished I had asked more questions to my relatives.
I believe one serviced Halifaxs in India though on reflection
I was unaware whether they were based there, others served
in the Merchant navy or in the Fire service etc.

One account I recently read about the gassing in WW1 was
a doctor treating two patients, the Chlorine gas was so strong
on them that he left the room to be sick.

All of the above

@CWO:

I have no idea if this is a joke or not, but according to this web page (which claims to be quoting a book called “Psychological Operations American Style”), during WWII the U.S. considered and even tested (in Central Park, of all places) the idea of painting large numbers of foxes with luminescent paint and unleashing them against the civilian population of Japan, in a bid to create mass superstitious terror among them.

http://theglyptodon.wordpress.com/2011/06/24/glow-in-the-dark-foxes-and-wwii-project-fantasia/

Good article. And funny. :)

Project Pigeon was another American attempt to use animals for war.

The idea was to create a large, gliding bomb. One - three lenses would be mounted on the outside of this bomb. They would be used to project an image onto a screen placed inside the gliding bomb. Pigeons–specially trained to recognize the bomb’s intended target–would peck at the screen. The screen was attached to a steering mechanism. Pecks at the center of the screen would cause the bomb to continue its current course. Off-center pecks would steer the bomb in a different direction. The project was canceled in late '44; perhaps because humans didn’t trust birds to steer large, expensive weapons.

America’s bat bomb project solved that trust problem. Instead of allowing birds or bats to steer one big bomb–as in Project Pigeon–each individual bat was attached to a small quantity of explosive. The plan was to release large numbers of bats at night over Japanese cities. The bats would fly around for a while. Then at dawn they would hide in man-made structures. The bats’ bombs were timed to go off shortly after dawn. Japanese buildings tended to be made of wood, bamboo, or other flammable materials. A homeowner would not initially realize his home had been penetrated by a bomb-laden bat; or that the bat’s bomb had started a small fire. Only after the fire had really taken hold would the homeowner become aware of the problem.

It was a promising project–at least if the goal was to burn Japan to the ground. But it was eventually abandoned, after the atomic bomb had made it redundant.

The M14/41 gets my vote. Not the best tank by any means, but it’s just plain cool.

Just found this today.  Lots of great animations, videos and other resources about the Second World War.

http://www.history.com/shows/wwii-in-hd/interactives/inside-wwii-interactive

@MrMalachiCrunch:

What is the topic, who will pick strawberries or something?

That was a different thread.

1. USA
2. USSR
3. UK
4. Canada
5. China
6. France
7. Australia
8. Turkey
9. India
10. ???

I’m planning on buying a K98 M48 next chance I get, my friend has two K98’s one is a M48 the other was from his grandfather

KurtGodel7, very good post, thank you.

I’m still not convinced however, I’ll reply to a few of your points below further:

Germany desperately needed the Russian oil by 1943 (as well as Russian grain which I will discuss further below).  That they failed to take the Caucasus during this time was their last realistic chance at victory, IMO.  However, had they taken the oil wells, but with the Russians destroying them in the process as was quite likely, would the Germans be able to restore the flow of oil in sufficient time? It might take months, even years to rebuild the necessary infrastructure in the best of circumstances, let alone during a brutal war.  The German industry was already hard pressed to supply the necessary armaments and did not have a great deal of experience with oil industry in the first place.  I think they would not have been able to do this.

The same idea goes for the chromium, vanadium, etc., though this would be less difficult for the Germans to accomplish (or mitigate as you also suggest) than the oil problem.

While Germany might have been able to supply an equivalent amount of money, material and engineers to work on their atomic program, there simply were much fewer top nuclear physicists in all Europe than existed in the US.  Consequently, it would have probably cost more and taken longer than the US program for this reason alone.  I have no doubt they could have eventually done it, but I don’t see how they develop nuclear weapons before the allies developed a delivery system that could get through their defenses.

The German V-2 was a technological marvel, but other than size, no more advanced than the rockets being built by Dr. Goddard.  After the war, when Dr. Goddard was able to examine a captured V-2, he was convinced the Germans had stolen his work.  And the Germans might have because most of his designs were on file in the US patent office, available for public viewing (which the Germans did prior to the war).  I think had the Americans wanted to (and Dr. Goddard certainly did) they could have built a superior rocket in a couple months and have it mass-produced in six.  As the A-bombs designs at that time were quite heavy, it might have taken longer than that to build a nuclear capable rocket…but how much longer?

Alternatively, the Allies could have either copied the German jets to enable a delivery system, or devise other means (boats/submarines? special ops?) to deliver these weapons.

In addition, I consider the German attack on Russia to be about food as well as oil  The Ukraine was the breadbasket of Europe, and helped the Germans tremendously in 1943.  But food was scarce in 1944 and onward.  Partly this was due to Russian recovery of territory.  But it was also because the Ukraine was normally not sufficient by itself to feed Germany (the year of the capture of Ukraine by the Germans was one of the best years for Ukrainian agriculture as the weather was nearly perfect).  Of course, the poor treatment of the Ukrainians by the Germans did not lend itself to helping this problem either. In order to assure itself of adequate food, I think the Caucasus (the next logical food source) was needed.