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[Ass Eagle]

Those are my words, I cant remember his exactly. Been a while since I read the first and the last.

Günther Rall said the Americans had better training, and that the RAF were the 'best' allied pilots. Pretty much echos what Galland said too.

The Luftwaffe defeated itself during WWII. Hermann Göring & such were hand picking the best trainees for bomber duty. Fighter pilots got minimal training. Emphasis on flawed planes like the Me410 & Me262. This scenario came to fruition during February 1944 when the Luftwaffe no longer had air superiority. Albert Speers, Adolf Galland & such had plans to win back air superiority, but was rejected by Hilter. This wouldn't have won the war for Germany, but perhaps ended the war sooner with conditional terms, and saved Germany from utter & complete destruction.

Anyways yes.. its the men in control of the machines, like what the Fins did with the very outdated Buffalo against superior VVS aircraft. The Americans had the numbers.. 8:1 overall. The Americans would win be sheer repetition. The zero was an awesome dogfighter at very low speed, but once the rest of the USAAF/USANf adopted the AVG's practice of 'boom & zoom' the Jap planes were done.

[CWMV]

The Japanese were done before they even started. At least at the outset Germany had a slim chance. Japan no way, no how.

[Ass Eagle]

Japanese planes were done I said. The Japanese as a whole were done the moment they fired the first bullet.
Germany's attack on Russia was a fatal mistake. The Russians were like the Americans, no end to man, material,
or machine. Albeit in the begining with alot of lend/lease.. ie: American trucks. But I digress.

MkIX spit was good, tactics & pilot training are better. No plane by itself ever shot down another plane, theres
always somebody at the controls.

[LuseKofte]

Yes but I wonder how much longer the war would have been if they did not loose three carriers and many pilots in midway.

[CWMV]

I would think not much longer.
Nuke trumps carrier.

[Ass Eagle]

The Japanese were already on there knees before Hiroshima. Nagasaki was a demostration to the Soviet Union who had entered the war against Japan 2 days after Hiroshima, and the atomic bomb could be read as a strong message for the Soviets to tread lightly. In this respect, Hiroshima and Nagasaki may have been the first shots of the Cold War as well as the final shots of World War II.

Nukes are no different then the delibrate fire bombing of Dresden & Tokyo... well almost no difference.

*edit as per below response* - - in terms of total destruction that is.

[CWMV]

Quite a bit of difference actually.
Its one thing to fly a thousand bombers over you town and burn it to the ground.
Its another entirely when you wreak the same havok with one plane, dropping one bomb. Utterly changes everything.

[CWMV]

Ah...the good old days. Makes you wonder how/why things are they way they are now.

[Dark Apostle]

Lads gonna transfer this, it's kinda of off the FM ballpark a bit now, which doesn't phase me, but jus tputting somewhere more in tune IE the lounge. Feel free to continue *tips hat*

[Ala13_ManOWar]

I haven't saw this post before. Just a tip with a common mistake among virtual pilots (and often old real pilots too I must say...)...

The wing's big area of the Spitfire provides more lift and less velocity in level flight and in a dive because of more drag.
But the velocity can be compensated by the powerfull engine.
More lift means better rate of climb and better rate of turn too.

This is the reason why the Spitfires are T&B fighters and the BF-109s are B&Z fighters.

santobr.

Really not, more lift doesn't makes you climb better. An aircraft climbs only by excess power, not lift. If real Spit 25lbs were a climber it was by its engine power only. Too much lift for instance would probably make aircraft slower because drag, may be a good climber with a big engine, but worst max speed probably (it depends on wing shape and so).

S!

[dinosaurJR]

On the topic of the nuke issue; It really is different (to me, at least). You see; the Japanese knew what incendiary bombs were, they understood the way it worked. With the nuclear bomb, they were taken completely by surprise. They didn't know how many of these things there were... Hell for all they knew the USAAF could drop these things like confetti; completely wipe out the home islands.

Plus you can rebuild immediately on firebombed land, if you have the resources etc... With nuked territory, you have the nasty reality of fallout etc...

I don't doubt for a second that the nuke saved thousands of US Marines and US Navy men the horror of the invasion of the Japanese Home Islands, hell, it probably saved the lives of thousands of Japanese too. But what a price to pay, huh?

Also, I dont think the Spit Mk IX could carry one, either...

[Moggy Cattermole]

Extremely doubtful, Dino. Scientific imperative as much as anything (we've spent 4 years and $2 billion on this bastard, and $3 billion on developing its carrier; we're going to buggering well see how it works) drove the dropping of the bombs; need to make an impression on an extremely confident Stalin, who had seen since Operation Bagration the Red Army prove it was as good (or near as) as any other forces, and in one short invasion of Japanese held manchuria in 1945, roll up in a matter of days 1-1.5m Japanese troops, an Army which had proven it could fight tenaciously too, was also a major reason. Japan was as good as beaten any; the only reason it had not surrendered was because of a few die hards in the highest council (? Advisors? Government?) didn't wish to surrender. They were too busy arguing over acceptable terms amongst themselves as well. The casualties argument was really just an attempt to morally justify it.