Placing the Fairey Battle.

[Kutscha]

When hostilities began BC was asked to deliver on its promises, and specifically to degrade the Kriegsmarine. But BC's attacks on the Admiral Scheer in the Schillig Roads on September 4, 1939, and on the Gneisenau and Scharnhorst off Brunsbuettelkoog on the same day, and its attack on the Koenigsberg, all failed completely.

Would dive bombers have faired any better than the level bombers? Think not!

I would still like to know if you consider the P-47 a 'failed' fighter.

[Jukka Juutinen]

Originally Posted by Juha

Jukka
AFDU seems to have thought that the Tempest V was a great improvement on the Typhoon IB.
See http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.o...mpestafdu.html

Juha

Did you read the report carefully for it compares a 3-bladed+ old style canopy Typhoon to the Tempest while I compared 4-bladed+bubble canopy Typhoon to the Tempest. The 4-blade prop improved the Typhoon´s speed by 10 mph.

[Franek Grabowski]

Originally Posted by Kutscha

I would still like to know if you consider the P-47 a 'failed' fighter.

I do.

[tcolvin]

Originally Posted by Franek Grabowski

Army with better equipment and better integrated all-arms - is it about Red Army?

Jawohl.

[tcolvin]

Originally Posted by Kutscha

Would dive bombers have faired any better than the level bombers? Think not!

I would still like to know if you consider the P-47 a 'failed' fighter.

Surely what happened to the Koenigsberg is evidence dive bombers would have fared better, don't you think?

I'm sorry. I don't know about the P-47. The USAAF was different from the RAF. It was an army air force.

[Kutscha]

Originally Posted by tcolvin

Surely what happened to the Koenigsberg is evidence dive bombers would have fared better, don't you think?

I'm sorry. I don't know about the P-47. The USAAF was different from the RAF. It was an army air force.

You really think so? Better do some reading up on the conflict between the land segment and the air segment of the USAAF. The American air force fought really hard to seperate from the American Army, finally succeeding in 1947.

Maybe you should do some reading on the P-47 then.

How many times do you have to be told that about dive bombers without air superiority? They would have suffered the same fate, or even worse, than the bombers with the same, or even less, bombing results.

Franek, why do you say that?

[Franek Grabowski]

Originally Posted by Kutscha

Franek, why do you say that?

Because Thunderbolt was an 'overpaid' plane. It was too heavy, too expensive, not very manouverable. Analysis of the first year of operations shows that they were not that successfull against the Luftwaffe, and it is really no wonder 8th AF asked them to be replaced by Mustangs as soon as possible. I do not mean it was a completelly useless aircraft, but certainly did not deserve that much propaganda as it get, at least in the fighter role.

Tony
I would strongly recommend to get accustomed to the recent publications, mainly Russian, concerning the eastern front. Certainly hordes of Half Tracks, Shermans, Jeeps, Studebakers, Airacobras and Bostons made the Red Army superior to the Western counterparts. Any qualities? Some Russians would hang butcher Zhukov by his balls. Referring to old propaganda is not the way to proper research.

[tcolvin]

Originally Posted by Franek Grabowski

Tony
I would strongly recommend to get accustomed to the recent publications, mainly Russian, concerning the eastern front. Certainly hordes of Half Tracks, Shermans, Jeeps, Studebakers, Airacobras and Bostons made the Red Army superior to the Western counterparts. Any qualities? Some Russians would hang butcher Zhukov by his balls. Referring to old propaganda is not the way to proper research.

Franek.

Butcher Zhukov, meet Butcher Harris!

I don't see why Russian dependence on Lend-Lease has anything to do with the qualities of the Red Army which also valued the boots and the steel and the gold braid they were sent.
The British also got Lend-Lease.
The Americans got all the British secrets from the atom bomb to Bletchley Park with centimetric radar along the way. So what?

I don't speak Russian. But I would appreciate a reference to what in your opinion is the best current English-language study of the Russian way of warfare.

I know Stalin was a better GROFAZ than Hitler, Churchill or FDR. But no one confuses that with the type of man he was - surely.

Tony

[Franek Grabowski]

And here we come to the point. You are trying to prove your points based on fragmentary or untrue publications, often not based on any primary sources. The fact is, that I am not awared of any recommendable English-language studies on the subject. Perhaps I have missed something, being not forced to read in the language only, but indeed the situation may be called dramatic, especially having in mind several pro Soviet and derogatory comments.
Certainly Soviets had some bright men or some good ideas, quite often they were able to work in simplier and effective method, but considering a more general view and longer experience in modern warfare, they were simply ineffective, human losses being most important.
Several of their designs were obsolete, ineffective or even dangerous, and get their reputation only because of years of propaganda. Il-2 is the most typical example of what propaganda could make with an average, to say the least, aircraft, but the same situation was elsewhere. More, Soviets perfectly knew of those problems and demanded more Lend-Lease.
Now you ridicule Soviet dependancy on Lend-Lease, but in the previous post you have claimed Soviets were better equipped. How it was possible if Soviets claimed they got second rate stuff?
Last but not least, I have always understood Harris was butchering the foes, but Zhukov butchered their own.

[Nick Beale]

Originally Posted by tcolvin

In 1939 the RAF was a well-equipped and well-funded strategic bomber force.
Tony

I really do urge you to read Max Hastings' "Bomber Command" on this question and his trenchant observations on just how ill-prepared Bomber command in fact was for what it had always assumed it would do in the event of war.

P.S. I still think Fighter Command did a pretty good job in the Battle of Britain - we're still here, aren't we? - so give the RAF some credit.