80 years ago today - Britain Declares War on Germany

[Yertis]

s2art said:

Thats not clear. It depends on if the Yanks continue to supply the UK. If they do, the UK atom bomb project comes into fruition in approx 46. We know from hindsight that they were on the right lines to build a simple little boy type bomb. On a shoestring compared to the Manhatten project, but it would have worked. So what happens if Berlin is nuked?

Very much on the right lines and furthermore we had a system capable of delivering it, something the Germans did not and the US only by heavily modifying the B29 (the original plan was to use Lancasters to get Little Boy etc to Japan, bu this was considered politically unacceptable).

Off topic but I thought it worth adding that the atom bomb B29s were fitted with Avro Lancaster bomb release mechanisms (as designed for Tallboy etc). Everyday a schoolday etc.

Edited by Yertis on Tuesday 19th May 12:03

[Pan Pan Pan]

DoubleD said:

Pan Pan Pan said:

DoubleD said:

s2art said:

And yet, after wargaming several times by experts including those who were there at the time, the Germans could not have successfully invaded the UK due to lack of seapower. They even wargamed it with the RAF and RN out of the way, didnt matter its always a disaster for the invasion force.

You cant win a war from the air!

Tell that to the Japanese! In fact tell that to the Russians, the US, and just about any country in range of aircraft, and ballistic missiles.

Which wars have been won just from the air?

Which wars have been prevented by having a deterrent that comes from the air?
The US and Russia certainly believe, and believed that any new war, would be on from the air. Air power or war from the air if you want to call it that, now has the ability, to make all other types of war fare obsolete.

[s2art]

Pan Pan Pan said:

DoubleD said:

Pan Pan Pan said:

DoubleD said:

s2art said:

And yet, after wargaming several times by experts including those who were there at the time, the Germans could not have successfully invaded the UK due to lack of seapower. They even wargamed it with the RAF and RN out of the way, didnt matter its always a disaster for the invasion force.

You cant win a war from the air!

Tell that to the Japanese! In fact tell that to the Russians, the US, and just about any country in range of aircraft, and ballistic missiles.

Which wars have been won just from the air?

Which wars have been prevented by having a deterrent that comes from the air?
The US and Russia certainly believe, and believed that any new war, would be on from the air. Air power or war from the air if you want to call it that, now has the ability, to make all other types of war fare obsolete.

Not in the middle East it hasnt. Or parts of N Africa.

[Pan Pan Pan]

s2art said:

Pan Pan Pan said:

DoubleD said:

Pan Pan Pan said:

DoubleD said:

s2art said:

And yet, after wargaming several times by experts including those who were there at the time, the Germans could not have successfully invaded the UK due to lack of seapower. They even wargamed it with the RAF and RN out of the way, didnt matter its always a disaster for the invasion force.

You cant win a war from the air!

Tell that to the Japanese! In fact tell that to the Russians, the US, and just about any country in range of aircraft, and ballistic missiles.

Which wars have been won just from the air?

Which wars have been prevented by having a deterrent that comes from the air?
The US and Russia certainly believe, and believed that any new war, would be on from the air. Air power or war from the air if you want to call it that, now has the ability, to make all other types of war fare obsolete.

Not in the middle East it hasnt. Or parts of N Africa.

Agreed,
but air power has greatly restricted the type of war that the such antagonists in those conflicts have been able to wage, Not least the coming of drones which can take out minor targets with relative ease..
Nuclear power whilst it could obviously be decisive, is a sledgehammer not best suited to cracking a nut.
Isis, etc might agree that using aircraft is an effective way of waging war, and even Bin Laden might certainly have wished that air power did not exist, since it was air power in the form of modern helicopters which brought about his demise.

[DoubleD]

Pan Pan Pan said:

s2art said:

Pan Pan Pan said:

DoubleD said:

Pan Pan Pan said:

DoubleD said:

s2art said:

And yet, after wargaming several times by experts including those who were there at the time, the Germans could not have successfully invaded the UK due to lack of seapower. They even wargamed it with the RAF and RN out of the way, didnt matter its always a disaster for the invasion force.

You cant win a war from the air!

Tell that to the Japanese! In fact tell that to the Russians, the US, and just about any country in range of aircraft, and ballistic missiles.

Which wars have been won just from the air?

Which wars have been prevented by having a deterrent that comes from the air?
The US and Russia certainly believe, and believed that any new war, would be on from the air. Air power or war from the air if you want to call it that, now has the ability, to make all other types of war fare obsolete.

Not in the middle East it hasnt. Or parts of N Africa.

Agreed,
but air power has greatly restricted the type of war that the such antagonists in those conflicts have been able to wage, Not least the coming of drones which can take out minor targets with relative ease..
Nuclear power whilst it could obviously be decisive, is a sledgehammer not best suited to cracking a nut.
Isis, etc might agree that using aircraft is an effective way of waging war, and even Bin Laden might certainly have wished that air power did not exist, since it was air power in the form of modern helicopters which brought about his demise.

But you still need forces on the ground in a non nuclear war. It cant be won just from the air.

[s2art]

DoubleD said:

Pan Pan Pan said:

s2art said:

Pan Pan Pan said:

DoubleD said:

Pan Pan Pan said:

DoubleD said:

s2art said:

And yet, after wargaming several times by experts including those who were there at the time, the Germans could not have successfully invaded the UK due to lack of seapower. They even wargamed it with the RAF and RN out of the way, didnt matter its always a disaster for the invasion force.

You cant win a war from the air!

Tell that to the Japanese! In fact tell that to the Russians, the US, and just about any country in range of aircraft, and ballistic missiles.

Which wars have been won just from the air?

Which wars have been prevented by having a deterrent that comes from the air?
The US and Russia certainly believe, and believed that any new war, would be on from the air. Air power or war from the air if you want to call it that, now has the ability, to make all other types of war fare obsolete.

Not in the middle East it hasnt. Or parts of N Africa.

Agreed,
but air power has greatly restricted the type of war that the such antagonists in those conflicts have been able to wage, Not least the coming of drones which can take out minor targets with relative ease..
Nuclear power whilst it could obviously be decisive, is a sledgehammer not best suited to cracking a nut.
Isis, etc might agree that using aircraft is an effective way of waging war, and even Bin Laden might certainly have wished that air power did not exist, since it was air power in the form of modern helicopters which brought about his demise.

But you still need forces on the ground in a non nuclear war. It cant be won just from the air.

Particularly in conflicts like the UK and IRA in N.I.

[Pan Pan Pan]

s2art said:

Pan Pan Pan said:

DoubleD said:

s2art said:

And yet, after wargaming several times by experts including those who were there at the time, the Germans could not have successfully invaded the UK due to lack of seapower. They even wargamed it with the RAF and RN out of the way, didnt matter its always a disaster for the invasion force.

You cant win a war from the air!

Tell that to the Japanese! In fact tell that to the Russians, the US, and just about any country in range of aircraft, and ballistic missiles.

Well Yes, if you possess Nukes and are prepared to use them you can win a war from the air.

Doesn't have to be nukes though does it?
The V1`s and V2 `s caused considerable damage to the UK, with the V2`s being unstoppable, and because at the time, no one on this side of the channel knew how many the Nazis were capable of deploying at the time, they could have knocked the UK out of the war, or at the least seriously threatened D Day, and its preparations.
It is easy to say in hindsight` that the Nazis could not have, but the UK did not know at the time what they subsequently found out about them AFTER the war was concluded in Europe.
Even the US bluffed that it had more nuclear bombs available to drop on Japan, when it patently did not., So, it is not just capabilities of the weapon itself that people had to deal with, but also the potential threat posed by what it could do.
What effect do you think MAD has had on warfare since WW2? That is war coming from the `air' .

[s2art]

Pan Pan Pan said:

Doesn't have to be nukes though does it?
The V1`s and V2 `s caused considerable damage to the UK, with the V2`s being unstoppable, and because at the time, no one on this side of the channel knew how many the Nazis were capable of deploying at the time, they could have knocked the UK out of the war, or at the least seriously threatened D Day, and its preparations.
.

Except they really didnt do that much damage. Take a look at what the RAF and Yank bombers were doing to Germany. Arguably the money spent on the v2 was wasted. A decent 4 engined bomber would have been more useful.

[Eric Mc]

V2s killed more Germans than Allies.

[DoubleD]

Eric Mc said:

V2s killed more Germans than Allies.

Is that from the slave labour?

[CambsBill]

20th May 1940. Heavy bombing, supply dumps destroyed or impossible to get to and the retreat continues.

[Eric Mc]

These reports make excellent reading and underline the chaos of the retreat. The story of the French Mayor crying because he thought that the town archives would be destroyed by the Germans was quite poignant. I wonder if they were or did they survive the war.

And the Germans reached the Channel cost today.

[Zirconia]

Certainly reads more "of the moment and real" so to speak than a researched book if you get my drift.

[CambsBill]

My grandfathers reporting from 21st May 1940. That's it, but in some ways the most poignant of the whole campaign bearing in mind he and the rest of his unit were middle-aged family men who'd been deployed as reservists to act as a provisioning and dispersal unit.

[Ayahuasca]

May 1940 - the Spitfire Fund was launched - the idea being that people would contribute any spare change to buying warplanes. A Spitfire ‘cost’ a notional £5,000. Schoolchildren, housewives, pensioners, all handed over cash.



No idea if the funds were actually spent on Spitfires. I doubt a ‘Boulton Paul Defiant’ fund would have captured the public imagination in the same way.

[kowalski655]

The Defiants could have contributed a load of scrap metal...after being shot down

[Zirconia]

Bletchley crack the German Airforce code today and read them all the way through. Navy uses a different machine and continues to vex Bletchley on an doff through the war.

https://bletchleypark.org.uk/news/collections-unco...

[CambsBill]

This day in 1940

[Ayahuasca]

CambsBill said:

This day in 1940

A lot of places more familiar in the First World War context there.

[CambsBill]

23rd May 1940