Best of the best in the second world war

[flamingknives]

Yeah, 5 feet is a little bit high - might as well trim the grass while you're there.

[KenH]

If he hadnt pulled up he'd have given the narrator a clip down to his waist.....

[Big Jim]

Originally posted by Michael Emrys:

I think the truly amazing thing about Normandy was the artificial harbors. Even though one was wrecked by the June storm, the remaining one outperformed the combined expectations for both. This was an engineering feat of the first order and one of Britain's greatest contributions to the war.

I think they were called Mulberries. But probably not spelt like that...

Saw a programme on TV about the people who designed the Sherman DD (?), that was pretty handy for giving fire support on Normandy beaches. When it didnt sink.

[Michael Emrys]

The Mulberries formed only a part of the artificial harbors. But architecturally they were the most impressive part.

Michael

[ May 14, 2004, 12:55 PM: Message edited by: Michael Emrys ]

[CombinedArms]

Originally posted by Big Jim:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Michael Emrys:

I think the truly amazing thing about Normandy was the artificial harbors. Even though one was wrecked by the June storm, the remaining one outperformed the combined expectations for both. This was an engineering feat of the first order and one of Britain's greatest contributions to the war.

I think they were called Mulberries. But probably not spelt like that...

Saw a programme on TV about the people who designed the Sherman DD (?), that was pretty handy for giving fire support on Normandy beaches. When it didnt sink. </font>

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by CombinedArms:

A lot went wrong with the Omaha landing. That was not the "best of the best" from a US planning standpoint.

But was it really a planning failure, or an execution failure?

[JonS]

Both. But then 'failure' isn't the right word anyway

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by JonS:

Both. But then 'failure' isn't the right word anyway

You can still fail to execute a plan and meet your objective....no?

[Kitty]

Dorosh is right. =|

Kitty

[Kitty]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

Best light infantry unit - joint US-Canadian First Special Service Force, hands down.

And he's right again.

Kitty

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Kitty:

Dorosh is right. =|

Kitty

It's been known to happen!

[Kitty]

Yep. That's twice that I can recall so far.

Kitty

[s3333cr333tz]

With good reason. I've just finished reading a pair of books (see post above) that compare the performance of American and Japanese naval fighter pilots in the first 11 months of the Pacific War, and one thing I noticed was that while the Americans on average during that period claimed about 2-3 times as many kills as the enemy actually lost, the Japanese consistently claimed something like 7-10 times the actual number. This discrepency is hard to understand or explain, but it seems that the Japanese pilots assumed that any plane they shot at was automatically dead. It might be the case that their debriefing officers were none too critical too.

Michael

I think I may have a partial explaination for this. I play mmorpgs a fair bit. Im a devout player vs player gamer. I've got a clan, we all use voice communication to coordinate better than most people, i'd go out on a limb and say we're about as "elite" as you get in mmorpg pvp games.

Not to compare a battle in a mmorpg to a dog fight in ww2, but when you are in the "thick" of it, there always SEEMS to be more of them than there actually is. The adrenaline kicks in and it looks like there are more than actuallity. I've been in fights where 10 of us have fought and actually seen kill information on 20 people. However we will consistantly over estimate just how many people they did have, while they will say we had 20+ as well. Now, we KNOW we had 10 people, and we KNOW they had at least 20 we killed them, but it seems like they had 40. Im sure to them it SEEMED like we had 20 as well. Its not untill you actually go back, and look at who killed who in the information windows that you see, no, it wasnt 40 people, it was 20 and maybe a handful that got away. This may all sound silly, but the adrenaline kicks in all the same, we play with our egos, they play with their lives.

It is probably some sort of defence mechanism related to the fight or flight responce. Your brain makes a snap judgement that says "hold up here, there is WAY WAY WAY too many lets get out of dodge". So instead of seeing 10 fighters coming at you, you see 20, sort of your brain exagerrating the threat to convince you to preserve ones self. However you don't run away, you're on a combat air patrol and this is what you are supposed to do. Only 7 Zeros got away, you know this because you counted them, so that must mean 13 at the very least were downed.

[Big Jim]

Britain for best country (with Commonwealth of course)- the only country in the war from 09/39 right through to the end, and a winner to boot. None of this coming in later nonsense.

[With Clusters]

Inserts stick into ant-pile, stirs vigorously... :eek:

[Big Jim]

lol

Thought I'd have a laugh and be very unbritish for a change. Only I've managed to offend quite a large section of the world in one go... apologies, only pulling legs again.

My vote is still for the SAS though.

[Big Jim]

Quite a lot of which were foreign as well, I might add.

[coldmeter]

Originally posted by Hans:

Best of

Most annoying country: Spain and Ireland

Just out of curiosity, whay do you think we (Ireland) were so annoying during the war?

[CombinedArms]

Getting back to overestimates of plane kills, Michael was making the (to me) interesting point that everybody over-estimates kills (that's the natural adrenaline rush thing) but that some nations seem to consistently over-estimate by a higher margin. That might reflect something else. In the case of Japanese overestimates of 7 X 1, it might indicate:

1. Ruggedness of US planes--they could absorb a lot of punishment that would kill a Japanese plane, so pilots might assume they have a kill when they've only damaged one.

2. Poor training of Japanese pilots late in the war (it's not clear if this variation is consistent through the war or not). Less well trained pilots might over-estimate more.

3. Different standards of post-flight verification.

It would be interesting to learn just what the Japanese standards in area three actually were.

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by s3333cr333tz:

Not to compare a battle in a mmorpg to a dog fight in ww2, but when you are in the "thick" of it, there always SEEMS to be more of them than there actually is. The adrenaline kicks in and it looks like there are more than actuallity. I've been in fights where 10 of us have fought and actually seen kill information on 20 people. However we will consistantly over estimate just how many people they did have, while they will say we had 20+ as well. Now, we KNOW we had 10 people, and we KNOW they had at least 20 we killed them, but it seems like they had 40. Im sure to them it SEEMED like we had 20 as well. Its not untill you actually go back, and look at who killed who in the information windows that you see, no, it wasnt 40 people, it was 20 and maybe a handful that got away. This may all sound silly, but the adrenaline kicks in all the same, we play with our egos, they play with their lives.

It is probably some sort of defence mechanism related to the fight or flight responce. Your brain makes a snap judgement that says "hold up here, there is WAY WAY WAY too many lets get out of dodge". So instead of seeing 10 fighters coming at you, you see 20, sort of your brain exagerrating the threat to convince you to preserve ones self. However you don't run away, you're on a combat air patrol and this is what you are supposed to do. Only 7 Zeros got away, you know this because you counted them, so that must mean 13 at the very least were downed.

I agree with you 100%. But the question I was trying to ask was why the Japanese overclaimed by much wider margins than the US pilots did. There's a national bias there that I'm trying to find an explanation for.

Michael

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by CombinedArms:

Getting back to overestimates of plane kills, Michael was making the (to me) interesting point that everybody over-estimates kills (that's the natural adrenaline rush thing) but that some nations seem to consistently over-estimate by a higher margin.

Right. That was the point that I found interesting.

That might reflect something else. In the case of Japanese overestimates of 7 X 1, it might indicate:

1. Ruggedness of US planes--they could absorb a lot of punishment that would kill a Japanese plane, so pilots might assume they have a kill when they've only damaged one.

That was one thought prominent in my own mind. But it is just speculative. I have no proof yet if it was the case.

2. Poor training of Japanese pilots late in the war (it's not clear if this variation is consistent through the war or not). Less well trained pilots might over-estimate more.

Not applicable. The claims I was quoting were all made during the first year of the war almost entirely by pilots whose training was completed before the outbreak of the war. They were the cream of the crop. I have no idea what the claims of late war pilots looked like. Many of them would have died before they could make any claims though.

3. Different standards of post-flight verification.

It would be interesting to learn just what the Japanese standards in area three actually were.

Agreed. I notice that Japanese claims in all areas tended to be optimistic, not to say wildly inflated. This was true not only of their air forces, but across the board. Claims were subjected to a much less skeptical scrutiny.

I sense something at work here that in a later era would be called macho posturing, but I haven't examined Japanese military culture deeply enough to be confident that that is the answer. I wouldn't expect it to be the entire answer in any case.

Michael

[Big Jim]

Originally posted by coldmeter:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Hans:

Best of

Most annoying country: Spain and Ireland

Just out of curiosity, whay do you think we (Ireland) were so annoying during the war? </font>

[Michael Emrys]

Ireland was especially irritating because it denied the British access to their Atlantic ports for basing convoy escorts. I understand that this was in violation of an agreement signed when the British withdrew from those bases just a few years previously.

Michael

[coldmeter]

Originally posted by Michael Emrys:

Ireland was especially irritating because it denied the British access to their Atlantic ports for basing convoy escorts. I understand that this was in violation of an agreement signed when the British withdrew from those bases just a few years previously.

Michael

Micheal,

Granted you could argue that the fact that the RN could not use the two treaty ports previously occupied by the British did cost the lives of seaman. However when Neville Chamberlain negotiated an agreement with Irish Prime Minister Eamon de Valera there was no concession to let the RN back in to them in times of conflict. I don't think it would have done much for our Neutrality if Allied ships were sailing in and out of Cork harbour.

There was however plenty of instances when De Valera secertly helped out the British. He secertly allowed RAF sea planes to fly through an Irish air corridor on there way from Lough Neagh to the Atlantic, reducing their time flying into theatre. There was also many a downed Allied aircrew that were taken to the border and allowed to escape.

Mark

[Big Jim]

Originally posted by coldmeter:

There was however plenty of instances when De Valera secertly helped out the British. He secertly allowed RAF sea planes to fly through an Irish air corridor on there way from Lough Neagh to the Atlantic, reducing their time flying into theatre. There was also many a downed Allied aircrew that were taken to the border and allowed to escape.

Mark

It would have mightily pissed off the Brits if he hadn't done those things though. De Valera knew he couldn't push his luck with stuff like that: attacking the RAF and holding British airmen as POWs. Wars have started for less than that!