Posts made by Obergruppenfuhrer

That quote moves me too man. Wow.

Wow Ducky! I would love to hear his story!! They had courage. They were trained that they were superior and could not be defeated. Their belief was so strong that they held lines when outnumbered hundreds to one. Their mental indoctrination as members of the Elite SS, was so strong and so was their loyalty and bravery. The US Marines use many of the same methods today because after WW II, they couldn’t believe how long the SS had held out under overwhelmingly unfair odds.

I can’t wait to get that 88! You are right. The Supermarine spitfire could out turn the 109 but it couldn’t out climb it by a damn sight. I don’t mean to get religious on you but I really think that hand of god was in that fight. British pilots were seasoned veterans and deserve tons of credit. However, the introduction of the FW-190 A-3 and beyond was feared by the British intensly. Unfortunately, that aircraft wasn’t in full service until late into the Battle of Britain when Operation Sea Lion had no hope because of Hitlers decision to attack civilian targets instead of continue to wipe out the RAF when they had the chance. It’s an arguable debate and I respect your opinion.

We must remember that the British won the Battle of Britian with almost NO help from the US. Their pilots deserve immense credit.

I just spoke at length on this matter in the Minatures Discussion board on the “What if you were the Germans” poll regarding Leningrad.

I think if the RAF would have been crushed and Hitler hadn’t diverted all air efforts towards civilian targets as a result of his rage after a few bombs fell on Berlin one night, Sea Lion would have gone through. They WOULD have taken the beach head with air support but the British would have fought city to city, building to building. Just as the Germans did in Berlin.

The UK would have fallen but only surrendered after every major city had been fought for “building to building.” This would have been at a tremendous cost to the Nazi resources but would have prevented the US from sending the B-17’s and other air support that allowed us to attack fortress europe at close proximity. D-day would have never happened. However this exendature would have put the Eastern Front under tremendous duress from lack of manpower, air support and supplies.

I think the Germans would have recovered however once they set up shop in Great Britain. They would have been fighting against one less powerful front. The very allied front that took air supperiority from them, pulled valuable resources from the East and bombed their industrial heart into oblivion; setting the stage for the invasion of Normandy.

That is the most awesome quote Gewehr!

“It is the soldier,not the reporter,
Who has given us freedom of the press.
It is the soldier,not the poet,
Who has given us the freedom of speech.
It is the soldier,not the campus organizer,
Who has given us the freedom to demonstrate.
It is the soldier,not the lawyer,
Who has given us the right to a fair trial.
It is the soldier,
Who salutes the flag,
Who serves under the flag,
And whose coffin is draped in the flag,
Who allows the protester to burn the flag”

Thanks! I think it’s the romantic nature of the war. All the nationalism that was going on, the style of the 40’s and most importantly, it was the last war where a mans skill took precidence over technology. It was the last war of real “dogfighting.” We saw bravery in World War 2 and self sacrafice on all sides that inspires us. Every nation was united. There were no “anti-war” protests. There were some of those feelings going around but they weren’t popular.

Instead of “Why are we in this war?” the attitude seemed to be what can I do to help? As members of every social class rose to help the war effort, the great depression died and economies flourished in Europe and the US. In Europe a poor man could serve his country and become widely respected and finally feed his family.

Hope was alive in World War 2. Even in the most desperate times of the war, hope and perserverance prevailed. We will never see the epic battles that took place in that time ever again. Thousands of planes at war in the sky. Hundreds of thousands of men doing battle on the field in close proximity.

That era is very romantic to me. I would love to have served on B-17F Flying Fortress, firing those 50’ cals at 25,000 feet with no fighter escort. The comradery, and bravery of those men. Even if I died, bleeding to death on the floor of a B-17F as my crew held me as we neared the English coast with 2 engines burning; no one would bail out just because they wanted me to have a chance. That would be one of the most honorable deaths I could ever imagine. You can see how romantic so many of those stories are. I read stories from that war that seem like they are straight out of a fiction book but they are not. Man I could go on forever with amazing stories but I won’t. I get caught up writing about it.

I strongly recommend books by Martin Caiden.

I like your build a lot too man. One of the only thing that irritates me about this game is those damn Screaming Eagle paratroopers. I hate the rules becuase parachuting was such an inaccurate thing. You could land anywhere or even get killed on the way down. I think there should be some sort of radom generator on where any paratroopers in the game end up landing.

I have a decent German Army now and seeing any of those “Screaming Eagle” troops on the field still strikes fear into me.

Nice balance. I’m working on doing a 2 pronged attack in most of my games now. Trying to build two seperate battalions with artillery support. Balance is key.

Thank you so much! I should take it slow but it’s hard when your so hooked. I love WWII history so much that Axis and Allies is like some “dream come true” of a game to me. Love your singnature quote by the way.

That is funny. Beautiful picture of Himmler there with Hitler with the buildings in the background.

What never gets talked about is how anti-sematic England was as a whole including Churchill. As a Jew in the UK, you could not own property or have a job without the sponsorship of a “Proper Christian Family.” England also signed “The White Papers” which limited the number of Jews that could emmigrate from Europe as the Nazis’ were about to take power. England also protected itself from having to deal with the “Jewish Problem”, meaning they wouldn’t grant asylum to most Jewish people trying to flee Europe.

Europe as a whole, including Great Britain, was a vastly antisematic climate.

One thing I love about Axis and Allies the primary, world wide game, is how historically acurate everything plays out. It’s really quite amazing. I have avidly studied the 3rd Reich for 10 years and recently focused on the Luftwaffe and the SS in detail.

Early in the beginnings of the 3rd Reich, Walter Weaver was a man who held tremendous sway with Hitler. He was organized, well respected and knew how to delegate responsibilities much like a successful CEO of a huge company.

Unlike most of the people in the high command, Weaver had read Mein Kampf through and through and understood many years before Germany went to war, that Hitler wanted to take Russia above all else. He was a champion of the “4 engine bomber program” which Goering opposed. Weaver knew that to defeat such a large country, Germany would need long range bombers capable of striking their industrial heart all the way into the far reaches of the East.

Goering, much like everyone else who had sway with Hitler, was planning for a short war. He wanted MORE planes, not better ones. He thought the idea was ridiculous and that kind of plane would take too long to build and use too much fuel. (He would rather have 2 BF-110’s over one 4 engine plane.)

Walter Weaver was an aspiring pilot himself and had little flight experience but was learning. Running late for an important funeral, he elected to fly a Heinkel bi-plane solo, rather than take the train. In his haste, he neglected most preflight checks and left the elevators and airlooms locked. When he took off, the plane went straight up, stalled & fell; exploding on impact. (Ironically, the same accident happened when Boeing first flew a test flight of the B-17 Flying Fortress in front of the US military to sell it to them)

What’s so ironic is the daylight strategic bombing is what won us the war against the Nazi’s. The very same strategy Weaver envisioned to take Russia. Along with Walters death, so died the 4 engine bomber for Germany. I voted for a counter attack with long range bombers in mind. (I should have voted for a defensive line while the bombers were tested and mass produced.)

That and one other key mistake lost Germany the war. During “The Battle of Britain”, Hitler became enraged when a few bombs fell on Berlin one night, causing no casulties or serious damage. His pride was hurt and in a rage, he ordered the Luftwaffe to turn all attacks away from airfields and ship yard to civilian targets like London.

Every officer of significant rank was opposed to this. The UK had less than 250 operational fighters at the time and the Nazis had air superiority. They were months away from completely destroying the RAF. The next few months of civilian bombing in England gave the RAF just enough time to rebuild their air force. They worked ‘round the clock. Soon the air victory ratio changed in the RAFs’ favour as hundreds of new Spitfires rose to do battle with the now outdated Heinkel 111’s and Bf-110’s. “Operation Sea Lion” (the invasion of England) was postponed indefinately after the U.K.s’ raid on Dieppe. A bloody and fruitless prelude to D-Day. While the British had attempted to attack fortress Europe and taken devistating casulities, Germany was now in no position to invade England.

2 major mistakes here on Hitlers part mainly due to pride. His own arrogance and fanatasism lost him the war.

Sorry to rant here but I’m way into WWII history and I strongly believe under the correct leadership and with different decisions, Europe and Russia would be Nazi territory to this day. Thank god Hitler didn’t know a thing about military strategy, nor did he listen much to his subordiates that did.

I apologize to bug you guys about this but I’ve been reading pages and pages of this forum and I can’t seem to figure this question out.

If a unit elects to fire in the movement phase instead of move (they can do that, right?) and that unit Kills another unit. Does the unit that was killed get to move and fire as normal if the attacker had the initiative and fired first?

The exact situation is My German “Tank Killer” elected to fire in the first turn during it’s movement phase and it destroyed a Sherman. Does that Sherman get to do anything? We thought it would make sense if the Sherman could still fire as norman that turn but was not allowed to move. Please help me clarify this you experts out there. I’m hooked on this game and really want to understand it in full.

More SS units including “Honour Brigades” would be awesome. To give an example: An SS honour unit on the Russian front had tens of thousands of men. All were wiped out but one man on a 37 or 88mm gun. (They should add those guns to the game) His entire squad was killed including the other 2 men that were helping him fire the cannon. The Russian tanks were shelling and advancing with thousands of men. He stould alone with a pile of bodies and loaded these heavy shells himself and continued to fire the cannon that normally took 3 men to operate.

Long story short, he took out 12 tanks and around 3-500 men as they drew within less than half a mile of him. Reinforcements unexpectedly arrived and helped him push back the Reds. His saviors (An SS bridage) was astonished he had not left his post. He was decorated with the Knights Cross.

Also it would be cool if the German planes had more of an impact on the game and cost more accordingly as the Luftwaffe had the best pilots in the world. (Refference Erich Hartman who holds the world fighter pilot record with 352 confirmed kills. Mind you, that’s just ‘confirmed’. Read a synapsis of his amazing story at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erich_Hartmann#cite_note-Khazanov-54

Norway had one of the 3 most highly decorated SS units “Der Viking.” All Norwiegan volunteers. I would love to see the german army go much further with the bravery most of the the SS fought with. I’ll give an example in my next post.