He was probably too busy having a go at the miners.

At any rate were all the factories even in the range of the wellington bombers which made up a large part of the bomber force in the early war? I know they could reach berlin at a push. Either way, sending those tired twin engined bombers over a well defended germany at that time would be suicide.

Good luck trying to correct this on the WWW :doh::doh:

:03:

My pet peeve is the misuse of the past perfect. As Henry Higgens said "English....Why in America, they haven't used it in years."

:rotfl: Typos. They'll get you every time. At least I make an effort to catch them. Still not the same as lazy grammar.

Never heard of him.

Never heard of him.[/quote]


My Fair Lady, and before that Pygmalion by G. B. Shaw;
Or perhaps you mean I misspelled his name: you're right, it is Higgins.

Rex Harrison....The rain in Spain
http://opinionsandexpressions.files...._fair_lady.jpg

Sorry Jim, you missed it.

Yep. We're all correcting each other correcting each other, and we're all making mistakes doing it.

And it's all my fault. Sorry about that, One Shot. Didn't mean to turn this into a hijack.

Is it true that the RAF never bombed the u-boat pens during their construction? I know they tried after the bunkers were completed, but they must have known about them from the Resistance much earlier.

No prob :DL

:doh:

Did the resistance exist truely at that point? Also the group here which dealt with them SOE wasn't yet set up at that point was it?
Eitherway at that point it the war we were very much on the defensive and weren't in a position to put vital resources needed for the protection of the country into an offensive which would have cost us dearly in both men and machines. Just look at what happened later with the dam buster raid for instance. It was meant to cripple the industrial heart of germany, yet within weeks they were up and running again, but 617 squadron was decimated by that raid.

Valid points.

I really don't know when the Resistance was organized in earnest. I guess I just assumed it was there in some form right from the beginning.

When did the RAF start bombing Germany? I thought that was pretty early too. With the u-boats having such success at sea I would have thought any chance to sink them in port would have been worth the losses. Then again you guys did have your hands full with the Blitz around that time....:salute:

Regrettably common in undergraduate papers, too. "Could have" contracts to "could've," misheard as "could of." It means someone hasn't been reading enough! :O:

I don't know why the Brits didn't let the SOE or the SAS have a crack at taking down the factory? If they couldn't do it I know one person who could, a British citizen turned German spy, turned double agent codename: Agent Zigzaz (german codename Fritz or Fritzen).

It is a factory in the Ruhr valley, most important region in all of Germany for industrial production, and the most important factory in that region. Moreover, it isn't anywhere near the coast, so the SAS would have to be air-dropped, in years when escorts were far and few in between, and at quite a risk of being shot down, or at least alerting the entire garrison of a city against at best, 100 men.

as others have stated all the allied bombers did was drive the germans underground and force them to become more effcient with the materials they had

that being said...

allied bombers did indeed strangle germany the destruction of synthetic fuel facilities was a death blow to german military efforts the luftwaffe didnt have enough fuel to protect the factories, the heer had no fuel to shunt thier king tigers around and the u boats had no fuel to go on patrol

another nail in the coffin was the destruction of germanys railway infastructure it was being bombed faster than it could be repaired and rail was the primary means of transporting raw materials to the factorys causing crippling shortages

another valid point is the fact that germany did not moblize its women for the factories when the men left for war leaving them desprately short of skilled workers(the germans often sent engineers and scientists to the front rather put them to work in design and constuction) which lead to ever incresing dependance on slave labor and with an increasing number of workers being made homeless by bombing raids fewer and fewer showed up for work

the end result of fewer and less skilled workers greatly exagerated existing design flaws in late war designs the main reason late war tanks were so unreliable was partly due to sabotage by unwilling slave larborers and poor workmanship(cigarette butts jammed in oil galleys, teeth deliberately chipped off gears)

had germany taken the british or american approach to mass war production the war would have certainly dragged on longer and german victory would ahve been a possiblity