WW2 But With Todays Technology??

Ignorant_Ape,

I believe the actual report which underlined this was the Strategic Bombing Survey done by economists working for USAAF in the aftermath of WWII. Ol' Happy wanted hisself an independent Air Force and so he commissioned the work to study the sociologic and productivity factors which supported his case on an 'anti-morale campaign' basis of marrying massive retaliatory capability to traditional strategic bombing (one B-50, one city).

Though I am sure there are others (Guy Acala for one) the man you want to talk to about this specifically is Walt Bjorneby. He is a 'regular' on the RAM and ASM newsgroups and would be able to point you to the exact references because he has posted on this before.

Now, having said that snoopy, you want to dance the moron dance? Fine.

What principal industrial region on the very Western border of Germany was /already/ being 'serviced' throughout WWII and came to be known as the most dangerous bit of flak and fighter infested nastiness by which air defenses would be measured for the next 50 years?

How far is that region from the coverage of Beau and Mossie type intruders out of England? How far from Hampdens and Wellingtons?

WHAT is the damn difference between dropping frag on a factory that you can't see because it's damn dark and you're flying high within the coverage of a radar airdefense without H2S. And putting thermite on a power station from less than a 1,000ft with optimal choice of dawn/dusk lighting (west to east)?

The notional emphasis being that if you can fly a lolo profile to mark a target with a precision pathfinder (yes, I know the dates) type crew, you can put 20 incendiaries on it, independently and accurately, with a small force.

And once you lose the megawatt class T-pad it's _all over but the shouting_ for every bit of industrialized manufacturing associated therewith. Hell, for that matter, you can /strafe/ an electrical grid to death.

In terms of finding the targets, you can use simple tuned ELINT type 'spark' receivers if you're close enough, the generator rumble will be homeable. If you have maps of prewar Germany, allied to tax registries (company lists and addresses, one of the little known elements of economic espionage being the gathering of such simplistic intel) you can coordinate that with (prewar) HUMINT and combatant photo recce to quickly run down the electrical transformation capacity as it applies to the grid as a whole and the switching for local regions in particular.

'Getting There' then becomes a relatively simple exercise in point to point navigation between known high definition visual or radar significant points.
And for perhap 10-20 'Caucasian Kamikaze' (right idea, wrong application) per target, you can OBLITERATE a nation's war making capacity within /days/.

For the loss of (at most) hundreds compared the the FIFTY MILLION LIVES some yutzian fools /threw away/ on 'moral high ground' reasons.

I _may_ be wrong about the total facility count, it's been half a decade since Walt and I last spoke. But I think not since Germany had only been industrialized from the late 1890's and so was likely operating on very much a centralized rather than regionalized distribution system, especially given the way Hitler got things up and running after the 20-30 crisis period.

In any case, the nature of a grid is inherent to it's voltage carry and total breaker capacity under surge load for distance. i.e. You take down one facility at a key juncture and it will cause knockon failures in a surrounding ring that, with just a few more snips, can isolate entire regions.

And since, unlike you, I don't use photos of modern '100K town' facilities and compare them to a 1940's national industrial requirements, if you want to impress me YOU find the dated grids and factory locales. You're the one trying to prove my arguments false.

THE POINT I AM TRYING TO MAKE HERE is that you could beat WWII Germany with a snap of your fingers using _modern thinking_ and period systems.

And that is the real shame of it all.

Because it provides the perfect historical casepoint precedent by which 'the system' endemically violates the trust placed in it by the population who don't realize the kinds of psychologies that they are vesting the power of warfares expert-prosecution in.

For the warriors want to butcher rather than protect citizens (hint, you can't protect the herd, only avenge it, usually on someone else' herd).

The citizens wanted to cheerlead the warriors rather than avoid being their victims. Because to them, admiring a warrior meant admiring his exciting _freedom_ to kill rather than the other-side consequences of doing so (Coventry begets Hamburg begets the V-1 campaign etc.).

And the leadership only wants to get filthy rich(er) 'authorizing' the military expenditures which rape the taxbase for the benefit of industry, not the society as a whole. Uncaring as to how many economies are artificially primed to a decades-later debt ruination. So long as their own wealth is assured today.

THIS PATTERN OF RATIONALIZED STUPIDITY still being in evidence today. As we stretch ourselves thin on the rack of the ME. Threatening preemptivism as the very thing which justifies other nations building the more-dire means to stop us. Rather than hunting down specific -point targets- by which we could ruin our enemies without committing megabucks to raising up wolves into men. By using wolves not trained to the task but imbedded in a culture of elitist destructive staticism inherent to Cold War socio-economic doctrine.

A doctrine based on _hostaging_ a threat society to ultimate destruction or occupation. Rather than /destroying/ it's warmaking capacity to teach the lesson of trusting fools without denying a potential future.

If you look at WWII from that _loser's_ perspective, you begin to find the basis of true wisdom inherent to wondering **what are we not THINKING about today** that some 'future historian' (writing down his opinions on an animal skin no doubt) will pause to wonder at as being 'so obvious' as a missed chance of achieved victory at minimum effort in the GWOT/GSAVE campaign.


KPl.

Originally posted by Lonestar24

An M1 or any other tank would react exactly the same as a Sherman to a StuKa-dropped 250kg bomb on its roof - not favourable

LOL, so you still think Stuka's would be flying, after dealing with modern het fighters and movile SAM and AAA defences. I don't think so
You should look at the whole picture, not just a tiny segment of it.

Originally posted by StellarX

Originally posted by rogue1
Complete and utter BS, you are completely wrong,

Well i prove you wrong five times a day given i only respond to one of your posts. Do you have a real objection or are these the same type you normally raise ( with never a fact in sight) when responding to me? Please post a source as to why you disagree as I'd rather not bother Ch with this kind of nonsense.

Go away kiddy. I wasn't talking to you. Now if you have a problem with other posts where I prove your delusional ranting completely wrong, then take it up there. Don't taint this post with your crap.
Obvious that you are either a kid or are immature with your constant overexaggeration ie. proving me wrong 5 times a day try proving me wrong once, you still haven't managed that

It's obvious you've only repsonded here to hvae a go at me, you have contributed nothing to the thread

I can assure you it's has far more to do with what you do not know that it has with what he does. English is not even my first language and it understand EXACTLY what his saying ( well not always the first time

) so what is your excuse?

LOL, whatever. The thing is a person of such limited intelligence as yourself, seems to get dazzled with big words. So you convince yourself that you understand what is being said, so you don't feel stupid. We both know otherwise though don't we
I think it's fairly evident in your other posts

Now when i do not understand what is going on i normally shut up and try learn from my superiors. I suggest you do the same for ONCE.

Hmm, most people are your superiors, so I can sympathise with your mentality. I am somewhat different

How about everyone chills out? I know this is the 'Weaponry' forum, but there's no need to start a war...

The war would last at most a month. I think it would be interesting to see the M1A2 Abrams and Challenger 2's up against Panzers and Tigers. It would be a comeplete slaughter.

But my question is, why you ask?

Originally posted by Kacen
The war would last at most a month. I think it would be interesting to see the M1A2 Abrams and Challenger 2's up against Panzers and Tigers.

It would be a comeplete slaughter.

luckely they got AH-64's as backup, it wouldnt be a complete massacre...

"LOOK, at what I am saying. NOTHING in the orginal question mentioned economy or polotics... if we could fight WW2 Germany with what we have NOW. "

The original question was what would happen if one side had modern technology - not modern economics.
And without the modern econimics, the technology is of questionable value.

"The war would last at most a month. I think it would be interesting to see the M1A2 Abrams and Challenger 2's up against Panzers and Tigers."

Which of course you wouldn't. The Germans did not have Tigers until much later on in the war, and of course the US did not join for a couple of years.

(But how would you defend a front of several hundred miles with just a handful of tanks? Back in the Cold War days, the UK was only responsible for a small section of the border and has forces geared to that...)

Much depends on how much the other side knows. If the Nazis knew they were up against a superior force, they would not have attacked, simple as that. They would have acquired the technology and spent a few years building up their forces. Then you would see a really unpleasant war.

Originally posted by rogue1

Originally posted by Lonestar24

An M1 or any other tank would react exactly the same as a Sherman to a StuKa-dropped 250kg bomb on its roof - not favourable

LOL, so you still think Stuka's would be flying, after dealing with modern het fighters and movile SAM and AAA defences. I don't think so

You should look at the whole picture, not just a tiny segment of it.

Well, YOU spoke of an armored advance against the German army, not the Luftwaffe, and how the M1 tanks would drive straight to Berlin. You also said that the Germans had "nothing to stand against them". So you didnt describe the "whole picture" in the first place.

Give a precise statement and I can give a precise answer

[edit on 25/3/2006 by Lonestar24]

Originally posted by Wembley

"The war would last at most a month. I think it would be interesting to see the M1A2 Abrams and Challenger 2's up against Panzers and Tigers."

Which of course you wouldn't. The Germans did not have Tigers until much later on in the war, and of course the US did not join for a couple of years.

(But how would you defend a front of several hundred miles with just a handful of tanks? Back in the Cold War days, the UK was only responsible for a small section of the border and has forces geared to that...)

Much depends on how much the other side knows. If the Nazis knew they were up against a superior force, they would not have attacked, simple as that. They would have acquired the technology and spent a few years building up their forces. Then you would see a really unpleasant war.

When the Germans invaded Russia the often encountered small groups of T-34s and KV-1s and KV-2s. These tanks were immune to penetration from the bulk of the german tanks and at guns while being vulnerable to penetration from the same threats. They defeated them still. In one case a squadron of Czec Pz38t encountered a troop of KV-IIs in such an encountered and using concentrated fire, disabled those tanks by firing repeatedly at the turret rings and tracks. These jammed the turrets and immobilised the tank. Track systems today are about as vulnerable to damage as they were in WW-II. Certainly 6" arty fire could disable any track system today as it had done 60-70 years ago.

Tanks today are just as vulnerable as they were back in WW-II.If you were trying to defend a front the size of the eastern front with the combined French /UK armies they would be overwhelmed. They could not hope to defend such a front against overwhelming odds.Once the panzer korps get into your rear, the fight would not be between Challengers and Pz-IIIs but against Hummers and HEMTTs and Pz-IIIs ..... no contest. No logistics means those battle tanks are defeated.

[edit on 25-3-2006 by psteel]

[edit on 25-3-2006 by psteel]

I believe it would've take every bit of at least 3 years. We've been in Iraq now for 3 years and the insurgency is still attacking US troops and it's allies with home IED's.

I love this thread, it is so funny.

The original post was if we took the technology of 2006, went back in time to Europe of the 1930/40s, how long would it take to defeat Nazi Germany?

An interesting question. There is no simple answer.

1. I presume we are talking about the early months of WWII?

2. I presume that the Wehrmacht, Kreigsmarine, Luftwaffe and Waffen SS units fielded in the 1940 German Order of Battle, can and will be resupplied in the field.

3. I presume that the 2006 era European fighting force comes complete with original load-outs than cannot be replaced after expenditure, as there is no manufacturing capability to restock and resupply.

4. I presume that once Germany has survived the initial retaliatory strikes from Polish, French and English aircraft, Germany would not capitulate and surrender in Poland?

5. I envisage that most, if not all, Regimental, Brigade, Divisional and Corps HQs would be destroyed (if correctly identifyed); Fluge/Luftlotte Divisional HQs destroyed and all naval bases severely damaged with some infrastructure destroyed?

If this is indeed the case, then I think that Germany would continue to overrun the rest of Poland - but Hitler may well rethink his invasion of the Low Countries and France.

This would in turn give France and the Uk time to reinforce the Low Countries and redeploy to cover the likely German approach routes.

Whilst this is going on SAS, SBS and French SF would be infiltrating Germany and Occupied Poland to identify tgts for second wave strikes from Anglo-French Naval Task Forces. In the meantime, the UK would by now, be assembling armoured forces and transit to continental Europe from UK.

Sea Lanes through the Atlantic would, I presume, be patrolled by US Nuclear submarines whilst the North Sea and Mediterranean Sea would be patrolled by the UKs Polaris/Trident submarines.

The War of Liberation (Poland) would begin with an air and missile strike once Anglo-French air forces were in position to do so, provided there was sufficient ordnance available for them to do so.

I cannot envisage any action by the USA. I think the administration would try to remain neutral as they did in 1940. This would remain an Anglo-French v German, (European) conflict.

Given the above scenario, and the time frame in which the UK could deploy it's armoured forces, I think the campaign to liberate Poland would take about 3 to 6 months.

Would the Anglo-French forces be in a position to invade Germany? I think so. Would there be the political will to do so, I seriously doubt it.

Is this a serious scenario?
they want to?

The power projection of the RN/RM would be maybe 2 mechanized divisions with a carrier strike group of 2-3 carriers . How well do you think modern SSN be at finding WW-II SS? They are just as invisible as modern SSKs. With maybe 40 GR-9 and another 30 Super Etnd plus a hand full of RafaleM. Thats a sustained sortie rate of maybe 100 per day carrying one LGB each. How much damage do you think 70-100 LGB /per day do? Do we really believe that 2 mechanized divisions can retake Poland from a german army of 50 divisions ?

While striking at fixed targets is very easy with modern lazer guided ordnance. Most navigation systems use GPS, which rely on satellites, but their are no satellites for another 15 years? I doubt the allies would find or be able to attack anything but a small portion of the German HQ . What would be KOed, could be quickly reassembled and restaffed with reserve officers.

Yes Tornados could operate out of UK and or France if they have big enough airports. Do they even have hard surface airfields large enough to operate such jets? Could modern jets even use the fuel available in 1940? I doubt they could operate large jets like AWACS or refueling jets, since the runways just aren't big enough. That means they can only react to mass german bomber attacks through GCI. The allied jets would be better of used as bombers, since the should get through the german airdefense. But with only basic CCIP bombing they will not be like LGBs and would suffer hits from 88mm flak.

Fritz,

1. If 'The Early Months' from September 1939 to April 1940 encompass the sitzkrieg then the MODERN DOCTRINE (as well as awareness of Hitler's ultimate intent and utterly debased genocidal attitudes) has failed. British and French forces did not make a serious push into Germany /despite/ declaring war because they simply did not have the offensive logstics to make a 2-front campaign workable. OTOH, modern systems would ONLY work (as shock/hard psyop devices) during the opening days if not hours that a 'Final Countdown' type engagement could be fought. Because without the supporting infrastructure, the Allies would never be able to support modern systems. And with it, the Germans would never attack.

2. Assume what you like. What destroyed the French army in the field was the lack of communications and decent command architecture. If you don't send the British into Belgium (alls you need do is drop bridges and the best Hitler can do is burn the capital) and you keep the French armored corps together, the Germans have NO CHANCE because they will be met as they exist the logging trails and bottled up by a BOTH numerically -and- technically superior force. In this one key area modern weapons systems might actually be useful in that there would largely be no CAS/BAI (pure blitzkrieg) campaign as even simple cannon rounds (with 400+ knot speeds and smart LCOSS) give modern Jets a more or less insuperable advantage of 1-3 shells per kill.

3. Damn straight you do. But since you cannot just 'transfer' single units (teleport an entire airbase through time) you would be better off going with composite elements which /probably/ have a 30 day deployment pallet count and attached if not imbedded CS/CSS units. The best example, again, being the notion of an on-cruise CVBG.

4. This is foolish. Because Germany engineered the border crossing incident as 'their 9/11' SPECIFICALLY because they knew that the threat could not stand up to their weapons systems, 1v1. Now, you use largely similar Polish tactics of dispersal with airpower ONLY and Gripens or MiG's as the representative modal, and the Germans will _lose their entire first wave_. Past which strategic interdication on logistics and Warsaw/Krakow don't mean much because, even if Germany can 'sort and reshuffle' a terrible morale crisis; those same AIRCRAFT no obsolesce the mobile group tactics of BOTH the Panzer I/II -and- the Cavalry.
Of course, IMO, people greatly misplace confidence in 'their' slaughter dogs simply because there are so few instances in history where the technology and the tactics are so badly predicted that the a force disparity of the kind we are talking about could occur. i.e. Bullies whack the weak. If you were to knock out 20-40% of ALL D1/R1 mission aircraft, political factors would take over to prevent a national collapse and/or mutiny as the forces routed.
Again, for this scenario to happen, you must introduce modern weapons systems into a 'quick response' type engagement where you are working the silver bullet factor (limited expenditure of munitions for maximum shock value) more than anything.
Let Pearl Harbor Burn. Kill the Japanese CVBG etc.

5. Why? Why fight an enemy with limited stocks of smart weapons when the ONE THING that is saving your ass is your ability to _rapidly regenerate_ combat power. You blow YOUR bridges. You cluster bomb THEIR front line brigade units. And then, maybe, if you know exactly where he was sleeping on that particular night, you put a Storm Shadow into the Wolfs Layer and the Eagles Nest and the Chancellory. You cannot afford to be picky with long duration missions when the enemy is advancing, not in the paltry tens of an OIF type tank brigade. But HUNDREDS. With the simple intent of rolling up your basing modes from under you.
Again SHOCK VALUE plus INTENSITY dictates the tactical target set selection and particularly for the RDF:1940 scenario, you need to consider how much of the big picture you need or have in the first few hours.
Once you have dealt with the initial threat of contested air supremacy, then, maybe during the NIGHT of Day 1, you can do some semi-strategic attacks.
But there is just no reason to assume that the battle would last long enough (or the Allied OOB be unitrganic populated enough with things like automated COMINT/SIGINT and artillery networking) to have anything but the initial results (airpower dictated) matter.

ARGUMENT:
If your assumptions are wrong, so will your conclusions be. 'Assuming' I was not operating from within the threatened country, my big worry would not be Poland. Because given I can sterilize the German ubermenche machoism in the testacle, through real-politick strikes on the innermost of the five rings, I can always reliberate that nation.

No. My worry is what about Russia? If you humiliate the Germans you have created a power void which you had damn well better be able to fill and with a UNIT LIMITED force of modern systems and logistical support this is not going to be possible.

Which invites political instability and the Soviet communism in a worst case scenario (inplace WOL or active combat). Even as the USSRs strategic depth and slave labor pool limits the number of options available to interdict with tacair and ground forces from a 'containment and counterstrike' POV.

At best, it invites you to face off with a nuclear armed Soviet state 'in another 10 years' and STILL face 5 plus more decades of 'lost the long war' economic waste.

OTOH, if you /let/ Germany win the principle Eastern fights. And then stem the tide of the ground war with conventional (period) force application using modern doctrine and C2 of existing French/Brit forces. While smacking Hitler down, you can start the process of reducing Europe from a bunch of stuck up feudalistic city states towards one federalized NATION state.

Which is what a lot of the LOMD psychology here is about. Not 'what if' tactical gaming (nothing in the way of unit TOEs and total OOB as a supporting logistical infrastructure). Just a bunch of sore football losers trying to replay the big game with weapons that -they think- would surely let them win.

Without THINKING about doing anything better with the 'obvious outcome' than whipping it out and saying "SEE OURS WERE BIGGER THIS TIME!".

If you want to rewrite history, do it in a big way. Leave Germany to reoccupy at least the AHE states as a breakwater against Russia AND a stalking horse one to the Allies. Then /challenge/ the West to come up with an integration plan which makes something out of Europe other than a Marshal-Becomes-NATO welfare dependencies.

CONCLUSION:
Time Travel with military force is less about staving off the Alamo scenario than it is leverage the existing outcome into a new possibility. Anything less is strategically stagnant as well as tactically unlikely to succeed. Commandos would never survive in a rabidly Nazist Germany of 1940. Any more than they did in the real war. A U.S. that could afford boomers and attack boats in the midoceans would never have the economic problems to either slow their rearming or to require a sneak attack (isolationist defeating) political impetus for joining another idiotic 'over there' knight-war hypocrisy. Because, just as today, we would think that war would be cheap and bloodless as a Sunday sporting event.
So again, you have to assume a highly limited super-force rather than a generally overwhelming one.
The only thing to be gained from refighting such a campaign 'as an independent operator' (able to provide tactical advisement as much as systems expertise to select governments given specific SHAFE type controls over their national forces) would be if you acknowledged the one thing that everyone misses:
Hitler was right. Not in what he did. Nor certainly in the way he went about doing it. But in ultimately coming close to creating a continental power block that could economically and socially withstand external pressures even as fallout from a megalomaniacal personal ego.
He was right.
The 'smart idea' then being to let him get /almost there/ while unifying Allied responses to his threat (assuming the Stalking Horse role) so that a sudden-save could still leave sufficient dynamism to overcome a staticist inertia that plagues Europe to this day.
Dynamism meaning defeat with ease so that society has no overwhelming nationalistic hatred of a people. So much as a well defined image of 'what could happen if...' we don't all band together to police ourselves.


KPl.

Originally posted by ch1466

Though I am sure there are others (Guy Acala for one) the man you want to talk to about this specifically is Walt Bjorneby. He is a 'regular' on the RAM and ASM newsgroups and would be able to point you to the exact references because he has posted on this before.

Ah , passing the buck , nice cop out ,

Now, having said that snoopy, you want to dance the moron dance? Fine.

No thank you , stupidity is your forte , an I have seen the way you dance – I value my toes

And since, unlike you, I don't use photos of modern '100K town' facilities and compare them to a 1940's national industrial requirements,

I didn’t , re read it - just to humour you I showed you that the transformer far for ONE small city was bigger than you claimed the entire transformer capacity of germany was

if you want to impress me YOU find the dated grids and factory locales. You're the one trying to prove my arguments false.

Ah , you want me to do your home work ? ROFLMAO - is that the sum of your debate style ? – the burden of proof lies with you are you really too dumb to realise that , or are you just being a troll ?

Its your claim – you cite it – and reference these “ pree war maps “ – that allegedly show the massive vulnerabilities of the german electric system

Then we can take it from there

THE POINT I AM TRYING TO MAKE HERE is that you could beat WWII Germany with a snap of your fingers using _modern thinking_ and period systems.

Ah , so you are simply handwaving – thanks for that admission

APE OUT

Firstly, can somebody please explain what ch1466 is on about? I have read then re-read all his [or her] posts on this subject but truthfully, have no idea what she [or he] is about.

As I said it my first reply, we are assuming that we are talking about the actual start of the shooting war, i.e after the border incident when the Germans invaded Poland.

As I see it, irrespective of the deployment of the Polish Air Force, armoured forces, infantry or artillery, 2006 recce drones would have given the Polish some advance warning that those nasty Nazis were about to invade.

If we surmise that this is indeed the case and the German invasion was not an absolute surprise, then with France and England declaring war on Germany and the deployment of Anglo-French forces, Germany would be held and repulsed from Poland within 3-6 months, as I originally stated.

At no time would the USA enter the picture, as Japan and Germany would not be allies because Germany would have been defeated no later than July or August 1940.

I understand ( most; i think at least ) of what Ch says without needing to reread it and if anyone requires a map just ask him ( or me; i'll try) to explain it to you. It's NOT that complex and i am fast losing faith in humanity the way supposedly progressive parts of it has such trouble understanding plain old English. What is the problem here guys and why do you imagine whatever it is has to do with him and not yourselves?

Stellar

I am so sorry people but I must be really thick to misunderstand the political rhetoric and claptrap spouted by CH.

This is not, repeat is not, a dig at him [or her]. Far from it.

The person concerned is using modern speak and language which I do not begin to recognise or speak. I am a simple ex-soldier, in the twilight of his [or her] years - depending on whether or not you know me.

Politics have never interested me apart from who is going to put enough pennies in my pockets in order for me to pay my bills and put food in my belly.

Having said that, I do take an interest in politics, especially when our leaders take us in to an illegal war, notwithstanding what the American people voted for.

My original arguament was that if you took Anglo-French weapon systems of the year 2006 and somehow was able to fight Germany in Poland, alongside the Poles, during the early stages of the invasion, then Germany would loose the war within 3 to 6 months.

The threat to Russia would be non-existant, Japan would not attack the naval base at Pearl Harbour [or would she?], the US would not enter the war in Europe because a defeated Hitler would not declare war on the US.

From the above statement, where do you get any ramblings about power stations, politics or anything else for that matter?

I'm with fritz on this one. I find the paragraphs too abstract and filled with acronym's I might I have knew at one point but long ago dismissed as 'double speak'. The whole point of communicating is to simplify and inform or ask basic questions to gain information. To do that you must be as clear and direct as possible. Filling up with other interests or side issues clouds the issues at stake. So then instead of focusing on the material presented , we are left to wonder if the point is to impress, confuse and throw people off or only for the inner circle that use this language/rhetoric all the time?

We are all at different levels in our understanding of history and warfare etc. I always find the 'lowest common denominator' is the best approach. The problem with these kinds of threads [as interesting as they are] is that the devil is in the details. What do you include in the scenario is vital to determining the out come.

I can tell you with out hesitation that if you took the modern weaponary of today and gave it to the people of that period with training, they would only fair marginally better than the historcial case. Weapons are only as good as the people who use them and their doctrine and few could approach the germans in their contemporay understanding of the tools or war and how best to use them.

Allied doctrine of 1940 was based on defense [expected 2 year fight] ,while the Germans had evolved to the realisation that the only real defense was to disarm your enemy, by rapid all out campaigns of invasion.

BTW occuping a Germany seething with revenge over Versailles etc would be hell on earth I would not recommend that. It wouild make the current occupation of Iraq look like a tea party in comparison, not even the whole of NATO could do that.

[edit on 28-3-2006 by psteel]

Well said psteel. My sentiments exactly!

However, to pander to those of you who wish for a slanging match,

Who need an F-22? There asses could be kicked with mig-21s and f-4s BVR
The F-14 with the phoenix missile. Each AAM could destroy several bombers, maybe even a small formation.

A 24/7 strategic bombing campaign( no nukes). Raids that used to take 12 hours would run 1/3 that. They would quit very fast
Hitler would # a brick if he saw a formation of B-1s doing a .92 mach bombing pass at 500 ft


[edit on 28-3-2006 by uuhelpus]