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Time does not allow me to respond in the manner that the subject
deserves. Still I am compelled to respond in near point form. to several of your points. The Germans did not come up with suicide planes, and never fought to the last man, like they did in Iwo Jima. Your language is imprecise. What is - "come up with"? Some would say that they did. Look up Reichenberg. They came up with it, but did not use it, operationally. http://greyfalcon.us/Fiesler%20Fi.htm However, they did use their Rammjaeger forces. This was arguably a suicide mission. Quoting from the Osprey book Aviation Elite 020 - Luftwaffe Sturmgruppen page 118. "Oberst Herrmann's plan was to take the Sturm concept one logical step further still. He wanted to form an all-volunteer fighter unit that would undertake to carry out a massed attack on a USAAF heavy bomber formation not using cannon, with ramming as a last resort, but with the intention from the outset deliberately to ram. As a sop to the sensibilities of the more conservatively minded in the OKL, it was pointed out that this would not be a suicide mission. Great stress was laid upon the fact that the pilot had every chance of surviving a mid-air collision, as witness the many previous instances of Sturm pilots having done just that. But as the volunteers would be flying standard Bf 109 fighters rather than heavily armoured Sturmbocke, the odds on survival would not be high!" As for your contention that they never fought to the last man. I MAY agree with this. But then I would delve further and ask why? (Or why did the Japanese on occassion fight to the last man). And the answer I would come up with is that the Germans were given the chance to surrender and the Japanese were not. Read the following to understand what I am driving at. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_..._and_civilians When prisoners were needed, for their intelligence value for example, it was NEVER difficult to obtain them. For further on this read the John W. Dower book. It is both excellent and eye-opening. Germany fought 'our' type of war. I understand what you are getting at. And in the past I may have asserted the same thing too. But I now think that this is imprecise. Verging on flat out wrong. Germany did not fight "out type of war" on the Eastern Front. When times get tough enough there is no our type of war. I was taught the sole reason for the A-bombs to hit Japan was the believe that the US would have to fight every man woman and child in every Japanese street, at unbelievable cost in human lives for the US armed forces. With respect Ron but what you were taught was wrong. There never is a sole reason for any decision. Truman had no compunction against using it against Germany had resistance not collapsed and the need remained. Back to the subject of German stealth bombers... if anyone wants to see what one was like - take a blank napkin and draw any adolescent fantasy you can dream up. Then you will have what they managed to accomplish toward the end of the war. A fantasy paper only project which does not deserve further discussion. Waldo. |
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