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[Jacksgranda]

 

3 minutes ago, AUFC90 said:

12 minutes ago, Jacksgranda said:

O.K., I'll spell it out. What were the western allies "spoils"? (It's fairly obvious what the Soviet spoils were, which wa simplicit in your post.)

Making sure Germany's industrial heartland and one of the largest coal seams in Europe didn't fall into Russian hands would be one of many.

That's hardly a "spoil" of war, considering after the intial occupation they were returned to German hands, under the auspices of the Federal Republic of Germany.

Try again.

[vikingTON]

14 minutes ago, renton said:

Bear in mind that fully a third of the German army and over half it's airforce were in the west or Mediterranean and thousands of artillery pieces that should have been getting aimed at Russian tanks were stuck aiming at Allied bombers. The Russians may have provided the primary, bulk effort but that doesn't mean the Western alliance contribution was not decisive.

Quote

decisive: settling an issue; producing a definite result.

The D Day landings did nothing of the sort; the outcome of WWII was settled by the German defeat at Kursk a full year earlier and the subsequent rolling up of their armies on the Eastern Front. That was the decisive contribution as opposed to 'significant but not decisive events on other fronts', in which western Europe was just a rung above Italy in the pecking order.

This should conclude the latest installment of the P and B 'but who won the war anyway?' side topic, which pops up regardless of the OP topic every six months or so.

 

[Jacksgranda]

5 minutes ago, Todd_is_God said:

There's no need to be a dick

It's de rigeur for everyone to be a dick at some point on P&B, dontcha know.

[vikingTON]

2 minutes ago, Jacksgranda said:

 

That's hardly a "spoil" of war, considering after the intial occupation they were returned to German hands, under the auspices of the Federal Republic of Germany.

Try again.

Erm no - the resources of the Ruhr industry were never 'returned to German hands' but rather pooled and shared with other Western European states under the auspices of the European Coal and Steel Community set up in 1951. That was the necessary precondition (especially from the French perspective) that allowed the creation of a sovereign West German state in 1955.

[AUFC90]

 
That's hardly a "spoil" of war, considering after the intial occupation they were returned to German hands, under the auspices of the Federal Republic of Germany.
Try again.

Try again. You ask for a spoil of war for say Belgium. My answer would be Belgium because if the allies had turned up a year late to the party maybe Stalin would have kept them as well.

And is if one of the richest and most industrialised areas in Europe not falling into Stalins hands isn't a spoil of war brought about by the UK and the US deciding, onelce the war had been won, we need to get in there in boys. You have to bear in mind Stalin had been begging for ages for them to open up a 2nd front whilst millions of Russian bodies were piling up so you tell me what would have happened if the Western powers had decided to turn up a a year and a half later to the party.

[renton]

3 minutes ago, virginton said:

The D Day landings did nothing of the sort; the outcome of WWII was settled by the German defeat at Kursk a full year earlier and the subsequent rolling up of their armies on the Eastern Front. That was the decisive contribution as opposed to 'significant but not decisive events on other fronts', in which western Europe was just a rung above Italy in the pecking order.

This should conclude the latest installment of the P and B 'but who won the war anyway?' side topic, which pops up regardless of the OP topic every six months or so.

 

Kursk handed the strategic initiative to the Russians. However, it was the combination of Bagration and Normandy that really broke the back of German resistance. The invasion of Western Europe did of course mean a much shorter route into Germany, and they expended significant resources trying to stop it. Resources that would have kept the Russians at bay.

The Western allies should have ended the war in 1944 and when they failed to do that they still should have beaten the Russians to Berlin.

[WhiteRoseKillie]

5 minutes ago, Jacksgranda said:

It's de rigeur for everyone to be a dick at some point on P&B, dontcha know.

Oh, you bad man. I have a pop at his English comprehension skills, and you go throwing French into the mix.

Nothing more dick-like than telling someone what they said isn't actually what they said - and here's what you really meant, imho.

[Jacksgranda]

1 hour ago, Wee Willie said:

That's my birthday. I've never heard of long life bread - what's the make and where can you get it?

The nearest I have is the part baked baguettes and rolls. They have a use by date of June.

 

 

Sorry, missed this in the welter of posts about how the western allies should have packed up once the Germans invaded Russia, because the war was won at that point ... I don't know where you get it, but it's called Kara.

[renton]

1 minute ago, AUFC90 said:

Try again. You ask for a spoil of war for say Belgium. My answer would be Belgium because if the allies had turned up a year late to the party maybe Stalin would have kept them as well.

And is if one of the richest and most industrialised areas in Europe not falling into Stalins hands isn't a spoil of war brought about by the UK and the US deciding, onelce the war had been won, we need to get in there in boys. You have to bear in mind Stalin had been begging for ages for them to open up a 2nd front whilst millions of Russian bodies were piling up so you tell me what would have happened if the Western powers had decided to turn up a a year and a half later to the party.

A 2nd front was a physical impossibility in 1942, and a probable failure in 1943.

[welshbairn]

Phree money.

[AUFC90]

It was about winning the war though: or more precisely winning the war on terms acceptable to the UK and the US. That's a laudable enough goal considering that it prevented the domination of Western Europe by an authoritarian dictatorship, guaranteed security of the UK by keeping both sides of the channel in friendly hands and allowing US led democracies to flourish. Those reasons alone make it s vitally important contribution.
Germany being allowed to concentrate its resources makes more than a delay possible. Depends how far back you go with your counter factual history. Had the UK been driven out of the war in 1940, and had the Germans all the extra resources afforded it by having access to the middle east, things would've definitely gone differently. Had their been no threat of a 2nd front in 1943, would the Germans have taken a strategic gamble on Kursk? Even in 1944, were there no signs of a second front, the Germans could have concentrated a far larger force to combat efforts to kick them out of Belarus. I mean, we are talking about big numbers here, a third of the total deployed army, half the entire airforce. Enough to turn a tide.

Look I give Britain more credit than the US for winning the war. They held on and harassed the Germans enough to allow Stalin and Russia to hold off the initial surge and start to get their war economy in gear. Once the Russians sorted their shit out and learned to do the German game of coordinated air, artillery and then armoured and infantry attacks the Germans were gubbed.

Britain couldnt have completed D-Day without the US and vice versa but Hitler's war had already been lost.

[Jacksgranda]

2 minutes ago, AUFC90 said:

Try again. You ask for a spoil of war for say Belgium. My answer would be Belgium because if the allies had turned up a year late to the party maybe Stalin would have kept them as well.

And is if one of the richest and most industrialised areas in Europe not falling into Stalins hands isn't a spoil of war brought about by the UK and the US deciding, onelce the war had been won, we need to get in there in boys. You have to bear in mind Stalin had been begging for ages for them to open up a 2nd front whilst millions of Russian bodies were piling up so you tell me what would have happened if the Western powers had decided to turn up a a year and a half later to the party.

They'd already opened a second front in Italy prior to D Day.

I suppose they should just have invaded before they had adequate troops, landing craft and materiel to do the job properly and had another Gallipoli/Dieppe on their hands

[AUFC90]

I'm specifically taking about D-Day here and the motivations surrounding it. Germanys losses on the Western front in terms of resources, manpower and morale was child's play compared to the years on the Eastern front.

[vikingTON]

24 minutes ago, madmitch said:

Cases                    Scotland        12,437             NZ 1,488

Active Cases      Scotland            3,130             NZ 151

Deaths                 Scotland             1,620              NZ   21 (more than half of these from one dementia unit in Christchurch)

Government meeting on Monday to review. We could all be back at work on Wednesday. 

It wasn't rocket science, NZ went early and went hard.  Went into strict lockdown 3 days after the first case of community transmission.  Nae herd immunity pish here.

Slovakia has the same size of population and broadly similar urban:rural mix to Scotland and went for the same immediate lockdown policy, instead of letting schools and other hotbeds of infection keep running for weeks because they didn't want parents to be inconvenienced with looking after their sprogs. There have been 25 deaths in Slovakia compared to over 1700 in Scotland. Community testing in neighbouring Czechia (which had a slightly larger outbreak per capita) suggests that barely 2% of their population have been exposed to the virus, but if the first wave is successfully contained as in the NZ case then these states have bought time in anticipation of new treatments or a successful vaccine.

The UK's policy has bought absolutely f**k all at a ridiculous price in both financial and social costs.

[AUFC90]

They'd already opened a second front in Italy prior to D Day.
I suppose they should just have invaded before they had adequate troops, landing craft and materiel to do the job properly and had another Gallipoli/Dieppe on their hands

They waited until the Russians had pretty much done the job so yes you're right. Good timing.

[renton]

Just now, AUFC90 said:

Look I give Britain more credit than the US for winning the war. They held on and harassed the Germans enough to allow Stalin and Russia to hold off the initial surge and start to get their war economy in gear. Once the Russians sorted their shit out and learned to do the German game of coordinated air, artillery and then armoured and infantry attacks the Germans were gubbed.

Britain couldnt have completed D-Day without the US and vice versa but Hitler's war had already been lost.

Hitler's war was not really lost until the combination of Bagration/Overlord. That's what broke their back. Everything after that was time wasting, but Overlord and the subsequent race to the German borders brought them close to collapse by itself. 

Stalin was over the moon when the Germans attempted a breakout in the Ardennes as it pushed back an Allied invasion of Germany into the Spring....

[Todd_is_God]

3 minutes ago, virginton said:

The UK's policy has bought absolutely f**k all at a ridiculous price in both financial and social costs.

They will absolutely double down on it, though, as they cannot now admit they have trashed the economy and spent billions for little (if any) benefit over doing absolutely nothing.

[renton]

Anyway, 83 today. The UK should be dissolved and absorbed into Belgium. The British political class are clearly too fucking stupid to manage a real crisis.

[Jacksgranda]

10 minutes ago, AUFC90 said:

Look I give Britain more credit than the US for winning the war. They held on and harassed the Germans enough to allow Stalin and Russia to hold off the initial surge and start to get their war economy in gear. Once the Russians sorted their shit out and learned to do the German game of coordinated air, artillery and then armoured and infantry attacks the Germans were gubbed.

Britain couldnt have completed D-Day without the US and vice versa but Hitler's war had already been lost.

That's a step up from your earlier posts.

[Miguel Sanchez]

Whenever the subject turns to history and I see VT scrambling desperately to look authoritative about something he actually has some knowledge of, I just see this in my head: