Latest Polls and Latest Odds

[Highlandmagar]

9 minutes ago, GordonS said:

The UK wouldn't have been creamed without the Americans, they would probably have had enough to prevent an invasion of the UK and Ireland. They fought alone(-ish) in North Africa before the yanks showed up. But they'd never have been able to invade continental Europe without the US.

An entirely feasible alternative world without Pearl Harbor is the USSR defeating the Nazis and taking over Europe. But without the huge support they got from the USA that seems unlikely too. Who knows.

If there's one thing gammon twits need to learn about WW2, it's that it was won by an international anti-facist collaboration. 

Oh. I think if Hitler hadnt opened up a second front on Russia he would have invaded us. We were on the ropes at Dunkirk

Edited June 8 by Highlandmagar

[GordonS]

52 minutes ago, Highlandmagar said:

Oh. I think if Hitler hadnt opened up a second front on Russia he would have invaded us. We were on the ropes at Dunkirk

Pushing the infantry off the continent is one thing, when all the supply lines are in your favour and against your enemy. Launching by far the biggest amphibious assault in history in the face of the British Navy and the RAF is quite another. 

[HibeeJibee]

Tbf such polls presumably find Americans saying USA and Russians saying USSR in similar proportions. It couldn't have been won without both.

(Hopefully the French do not have the brass neck to say France though... and incidentally everybody forgets the Chinese in context of defeating Japan - after all they had been at it since 1937).

However it couldn't have been won without the British Commonwealth either. For starters from mid-1940 to mid-1941 we stood alone (with the Greeks for a time); we stopped and ultimately beat the Axis in North Africa, preventing them taking the canal and Middle East oilfields; our Arctic convoys were initially important to the Soviets when they were on the ropes (more than half the tanks used in the Battle of Moscow were British supplied... in first 6 months after the eastern war began so were a quarter of Soviet medium + heavy tanks); we represented half - likely more? - of the strategic bomber offensive against Germany; contributed heavily to invasions of Italy and north-western Europe; the atom bomb project; etc. etc.

Without this and the Battle of the Atlantic would a stronger unhindered Axis eastern front have been stopped then driven back by the USSR? or taken far longer? Had we capitulated where could the Americans have invaded Europe from? Without us how much more of central/western Europe would've ended-up behind the Iron Curtain? Some sobering "what ifs" frankly.

Edited June 8 by HibeeJibee

[vikingTON]

http://theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jun/08/rishi-sunaks-chances-were-always-slim-and-the-numbers-just-get-worse

The 'Government handling of issues' section is absolutely mind-bogging. Surely these are the worst (notional) ratings that any UK government has ever recorded. Practically everyone thinks that the incumbent is utter shite on every issue - including a large number of Tory voters. 

Sunak must have had some indication of this before calling the election. It looks more and more probable that he just wanted to chuck it and slither across to California before the summer ends (can't blame him given the current weather TBF). 

[GordonS]

15 minutes ago, HibeeJibee said:

Tbf such polls presumably find Americans saying USA and Russians saying USSR in similar proportions. It couldn't have been won without either.

(Hopefully the French do not have the brass neck to say France though... and incidentally everybody forgets the Chinese in context of defeating Japan - after all they had been at it since 1937).

However it couldn't have been won without the British Commonwealth either. For starters from mid-1940 to mid-1941 we stood alone (with the Greeks for a time); we stopped and ultimately beat the Axis in North Africa, preventing them taking the canal and Middle East oilfields; our Arctic convoys were important to the Soviets when they were on the ropes; we represented half (likely more?) of the strategic bomber offensive against Germany; contributed heavily to invasions of Italy and north-western Europe; the atom bomb project; etc. etc.

Without this and the Battle of the Atlantic would a stronger unhindered Axis in the eastern front have been stopped then driven back by the USSR? Had we given in where could the Americans have invaded Europe from? Without us how much more of central/western Europe would've ended-up behind the Iron Curtain? Some sobering "what ifs" frankly.

 

That's all absolutely fair, but not completely relevant to the poll, which asked which single country did the most to defeat the Nazis, not who could have done it alone. Maybe people who know more will tell me I'm wrong, but I think this might be one of those questions with an unequivocal right answer.

Incidentally hidden with the stats for the USSR is the more localised suffering - for example, Belarus lost of third of its population. And the vast majority of Poland's deaths are obviously Jews.

China's suffering was unimaginable too because of Japan's genocide and the West's failure to remember that, plus its chumminess with Japan, is one of the reasons they hate us. Plus opium, colonialism...

Meanwhile the gammon are flying Spitfires made of drones and pondering Lest We Forget.

[vikingTON]

2 hours ago, HibeeJibee said:

However it couldn't have been won without the British Commonwealth either. For starters from mid-1940 to mid-1941 we stood alone (with the Greeks for a time); we stopped and ultimately beat the Axis in North Africa, preventing them taking the canal and Middle East oilfields; our Arctic convoys were important to the Soviets when they were on the ropes; we represented half (likely more?) of the strategic bomber offensive against Germany; contributed heavily to invasions of Italy and north-western Europe; the atom bomb project; etc. etc.

Without this and the Battle of the Atlantic would a stronger unhindered Axis in the eastern front have been stopped then driven back by the USSR? Had we given in where could the Americans have invaded Europe from? Without us how much more of central/western Europe would've ended-up behind the Iron Curtain? Some sobering "what ifs" frankly.

This is utter nonsense. The reality is that the Soviet Union was a stronger military and economic power than Nazi Germany in 1941, irrespective of Britain's involvement in the war. The Nazi push into the Soviet Union was not stopped due to a fundamental lack of oil - it was stopped by the flaws of a massively extended logistics/supply train meeting the increasingly stubborn resistance of a superior military-economic unit. That's how the Moscow campaign and Stalingrad were decided - Rommel moving into Syria after winning at El Alamein would not have changed those campaigns one bit. Let's not forget that the Nazis actually captured oil-rich areas in the Caucasus in 1942, but they were, err, predictably sabotaged before capture and the Nazis had no credible logistical means to transport any oil back to their core anyway. And that's even by land rather than by sea. 

The British Empire was responsible for maintaining a general state of war after June 1940 rather than a peace that might (just might) have allowed the ramshackle Nazi state to organise its conquests to deliver an effective knockout blow in the east*. It also undoubtedly reduced the length of the war, probably by a couple of years. But there's no serious doubt among historians that once the German offensive in the east stalled out - as it was always likely to do against that superior economic-military power - then the issue would have been when not if the Red Army rolled them all the way back. Read Richard Evans' work to understand just how dysfunctional and inefficient the so-called Nazi economic sphere in Europe actually was in contributing to its war effort. The whole of French industry produced something like 100 tanks for the Nazis before the end of 1941. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

* The Nazis were interested in sheer plunder rather than rational economic integration. This was a crucial motivating factor in conquering Austria and Czechoslovakia without a general war; but once war broke out, literally none of the annexed territories made a significant economic contribution towards their war economy. 

Edited June 8 by vikingTON

[Fullerene]

Militarily it is incredibly difficult to invade an island.  There are countless examples of massive naval forces being used to Invade relatively small islands with small populations.

Hitler could never have invaded Britain.  The German Navy was pathetic compared to the Royal Navy (apart from the U-boats but I wouldn't suggest using them to invade anywhere).  Hitler did not want to defeat Britain.  He wanted Britain to withdraw from the war '- maybe keep its empire but leave him a free hand in Europe.

By comparison Hitler invaded Russia (and elsewhere in the East) for the same reason as Napoleon and others before him - lots of land for much less effort than trying to invaded Britsin or even Ireland.  That was the war he always wanted.

[dirty dingus]

26 minutes ago, Fullerene said:

Militarily it is incredibly difficult to invade an island.  There are countless examples of massive naval forces being used to Invade relatively small islands with small populations.

Hitler could never have invaded Britain.  The German Navy was pathetic compared to the Royal Navy (apart from the U-boats but I wouldn't suggest using them to invade anywhere).  Hitler did not want to defeat Britain.  He wanted Britain to withdraw from the war '- maybe keep its empire but leave him a free hand in Europe.

By comparison Hitler invaded Russia (and elsewhere in the East) for the same reason as Napoleon and others before him - lots of land for much less effort than trying to invaded Britsin or even Ireland.  That was the war he always wanted.

Could he not have just rolled his panzers through the Eurotunnel. According to all those patriot gammons who are always defending Oor Kultcha all you need to overthrow Blighty is a rubber dinghy and someone to point you in the direction of Dover.

[orfc]

Why has everyone turned into Mark from Peep Show?

[BFTD]

[Fullerene]

14 hours ago, GordonS said:

If there's one thing gammon twits need to learn about WW2, it's that it was won by an international anti-facist collaboration. 

The irony is that at the time people would have said Britain was different from the continent because it wasn't full of thugs roaming the streets terrorising everyone and attacking anyone who was different (often with government support).

Edited June 9 by Fullerene

[BFTD]

14 hours ago, GordonS said:

If there's one thing gammon twits need to learn about WW2, it's that it was won by an international anti-facist collaboration. 

Antifa won WWII?

Outrageous woke revisionist nonsense. You'll be claiming Hitler was a Nazi next.

[Granny Danger]

33 minutes ago, BFTD said:

Antifa won WWII?

Outrageous woke revisionist nonsense. You'll be claiming Hitler was a Nazi next.

Good folk on both sides…

[Oceanlineayr]

21 hours ago, Highlandmagar said:

Oh. I think if Hitler hadnt opened up a second front on Russia he would have invaded us. We were on the ropes at Dunkirk

Problem with that is the Kreigsmarine was not capable of any major amphibious operations against Britain.

They invaded Norway but that was against a country with a tiny airforce and a tiny navy. (The Kriegsmarine lost pretty much half of its own destroyers in Norwegian waters when Britain and France sent help to Norway). 

Not to mention the Germans were running about the Rhine getting barges and houseboats to use as invasion craft. 

[doulikefish]

It woz Tommy and Nigel that won it 

[BFTD]

So it Ze Germans or Russians had taken over Europe, we could've ended up an isolated backwater, terrified of a united Europe and obsessed with being invaded from the sea?

Certainly glad that never happened.

[Fullerene]

4 hours ago, Oceanlineayr said:

Problem with that is the Kreigsmarine was not capable of any major amphibious operations against Britain.

They invaded Norway but that was against a country with a tiny airforce and a tiny navy. (The Kriegsmarine lost pretty much half of its own destroyers in Norwegian waters when Britain and France sent help to Norway). 

Not to mention the Germans were running about the Rhine getting barges and houseboats to use as invasion craft. 

It is often forgotten that the Nazis' main weapon of attack was not the tank but the horse.  Similarly the Japanese captured Singapore because of their ability to move troops by push bike.

I blame Boris Johnson.

[ICTChris]

 

[ICTChris]

Scotland only poll klaxon

 

 

[TheScarf]

Voters defecting from a Nationalist party to a Tory-lite Unionist party need to be in nursing homes, or have 24 hour care.

Edited June 11 by TheScarf