EU as joke (modified)

On Fri, 14 Nov 2003 00:19:17 GMT, "Bjørnar Bolsøy" wrote:

Alan Minyard wrote in
:

The Nazis had quite a lot of trouble invading. ISTR they lost
a few ships and took heavy casualties from shore-based
defences.

Actually, they took few casualties, they virtually walked into
Oslo.

At some point you migth have picked up the term "Quisling"
which, you might find in your dictionary, is synonymous
with "treason". It stems from the fact that in 1940 Vidkun
Quisling, the former minister of defense, helped the
Germans to prepare the invation.

So you think that the fact that many Norwegians supported
the Nazis makes up for your rapid retreat and surrender??
Strange logic there.


The Loss of Blucher was a major blow to the Germans, and we
fought, with the Brits, for two months before capitulation.
Our resistence movement was determined throughout the war.

The loss of one ship was hardly a "major blow", and fighting
minor engagements for "two months" is hardly a credible
defense.

The "resistance" in both France and Norway has been
grossly over rated. How many Norwegians actually shot
at the Germans?

The 15,000 ton cruiser Blucher, most notably, which halted
the Germans long enough for the goverment and king to escape
from Oslo.

One ship?? Not much in the way of casualties there, and wars
are not won by "escape from Oslo"

Sunk one heavy cruiser, damaged or badly damaged another
two and some smaller vessles. Shot down 6 He 111´s and
Me 110's, damaged another two cruisers and sunk a couple
of troopships in other fights up and down the coast on
that first day.

Wow, shot down 6 aircraft, what a devastating defense.

Perl Harbor was 29 planes and 5 minisubs?

We won the war, with the staunch help of the Brits.


Of course it's a whole different world today. The coastal
forts have been deemed very effective in postwar time, but
part of the arguments against it today is that presicion
delivered hard-hitting weapons would greately reduce the
effectiveness of the natural protection of the guns -- the
granite mountain rock. Besides they are fixed installations
and very expensive to operate.

Fixed forts have been ineffective since WWI.

Not in the narrow Norwegian fjords. Blucher was sunk
(and it's attack group halted) by three 28cm Krupp's
(built in 1892) a couple of 15cm and 5.7cm guns and
two torpedoes.

Hardly prevented the invasion.

Comparably, the fort was airbombed and shelled with
around 600 shells from the cruisers without damaging
the guns or fort.


So a bunch of guys hiding in a fort survived long enough
to surrender.

The larger Oslofjord:

http://home.online.no/~hcaakre/SONKAR3.gif


And crop of Drøbaksundet (topmost), where Blucher
was sunk:

http://home.online.no/~hcaakre/A-702.jpg


That narrow pass is only 400-500 meters accross, so
you can imagine what kind of damage a few well placed
guns will do.


Defence of Oslo isn't as high priority as you think.
There are very few tactical milletary installations,
as with the south in general. The war is fought up
north, the south is protected by the NATO forces
around the Baltic and Skagerak and the east by two
neutral countries, Finland and Sweden, which an
invation force would have to fight its way through
first.

So your strategy is to run for the hills, and wait for the
US to bail you out. Not much of a strategy.

We would hardly run for the hills. Any attacker from
the north or north east (the old Soviet) would have
a difficult time traversing the thundras or landing
by sea. The most effective tactic would be a massive
airlift, but it's hard to land an invation force when
the air runaways are disabled..



Regards...

Well, you DID run for the hills when the Germans
showed up. The Germans simply walked into
Oslo, and the airfield around it.

Al Minyard