German engineering

The German submarines were unmatched in their destructiveness.


Might be worth you checking up on the U.S.' submarine blockade of the Japanese Home Islands; it came far closer to influencing the course of the war in the Pacific than the uboat campaign did in the Western hemisphere.

The Bismark in WWII took on almost the whole British Fleet. I think that says a lot


Yes it does. It says you've forgotten about the big chunk in the Eastern Mediterranean, and the Far East, and on Atlantic convoy escort in May 1941...

And on the issue of the Bismark and German battleships in general, the Upstart German navy whooped the massive British imperial navy in their one big fight at the Battle of Jutland in WWI.


Their "one big fight"? Maybe their one big fight in the North Sea, their intended playground....but you're forgetting little incidents like Coronel and the Falklands, and Dogger Bank (1915).

And I'm afraid virtually NOONE regards Jutlands as a "whooping". The Germans came out slightly ahead on ships lost...but their attempt to break the RN's dominance of the North Sea was a failure; Jutland at best was tactically inconclusive...but was still a strategic failure on the Germans' part. The British on the other hand fought the battle their fleet was designed for - to retain dominance of the North Sea.




P.S. in case you haven't bothered checking... No. 616 squadron RAF was posted operational with Meteors in the second week of July 1944....when the Me262 was still undergoing operational testing and tactical experimenting with Ekdo 262's range of prototypes and early-series production oddballs. The earliest the Germans managed a fully "operational" unit or anything approaching it was when 9 Me262s of .3/KG 51 were rushed to France slightly later in July 1944 as Eins.Kdo Schenk....but they were barely out of conversion training and proved almost useless; they were withdrawn back to .3/KG 51 to complete their conversion in Spetember.

 

The Germans had a significantly smaller fleet. So to have taken down more of the Bitish ships at Jutland is absolutely a tactical victory

 

The Bismark in WWII took on almost the whole British Fleet. I think that says a lot

Depends on what 'almost' means :

Royal Navy Warship Strength
The Royal Navy, still the largest in the world in September 1939, included:
15 Battleships & battlecruisers, of which only two were post-World War 1. Five 'King George V' class battleships were building.
7 Aircraft carriers. One was new and five of the planned six fleet carriers were under construction. There were no escort carriers.
66 Cruisers, mainly post-World War 1 with some older ships converted for AA duties. Including cruiser-minelayers, 23 new ones had been laid down.
184 Destroyers of all types. Over half were modern, with 15 of the old 'V' and 'W' classes modified as escorts. Under construction or on order were 32 fleet destroyers and 20 escort types of the 'Hunt' class.
60 Submarines, mainly modern with nine building.
45 escort and patrol vessels with nine building, and the first 56 'Flower' class corvettes on order to add to the converted 'V' and 'W's' and 'Hunts'. However, there were few fast, long-endurance convoy escorts.


Stay down down take the count, will you please?

 

The Germans had a significantly smaller fleet. So to have taken down more of the Bitish ships at Jutland is absolutely a tactical victory


Adm. Scheer's plan was to remove the RN's dominance of the North Sea by destroying a substantial portion of the British fleet; this he failed to do, his tactics on the day failed to achieve that end. The RN engaged him with 28 battleships....and returned home with all 28.

 

And on the issue of the Bismark and German battleships in general, the Upstart German navy whooped the massive British imperial navy in their one big fight at the Battle of Jutland in WWI. The Bismark in WWII took on almost the whole British Fleet. I think that says a lot

Adam, I don't think he got your gently-worded hint.

Toke, he asked for sources; you gave opinions, uh-gin. Saying that something "took on" anything is not cause to declare it superior.

You stated that the Bismarck was the on the recieving end of some 700 "direct" hits. How many did it land on it's opponent in that same fight?

You should read this: Bismarck's Final Battle - Part 1
It can be called a source. Please notice the abundance of references at the conclusion of the article. Those are also called sources.

 

T,

You need to lay off the Kool-Aid and go back and read Adam's post several times.

Basing the engineering superiority of the Bismark on the conduct of a single military action is simply ill-conceived. Neither the battle nor the outcome was a controlled experiment. Your radical conclusion ignores the natural chaos of battle and the infinite range of possibilities, probabilities, good luck, bad luck and individual human action.
As Dave points out, it was nothing close to the "whole British fleet" but even if it was, what difference does that make? In fact, the British quite wisely chose to send an overwhelming force to ensure that the outcome was in their favour. War is not a statistical endeavour. The number of ships employed to sink the Bismark is less a compliment to German engineering and far more a tribute to British tactics.

The delightful irony in all your examples (Bismark, Panther, Me 262, etc.) is that despite any engineering supremacy Germany may have had, it was equally wasteful of those same resources and expertise. Just as sending the Bismark on a solo mission was ill-advised, the scant production of new tanks and jet aircraft was a mis-application of technology. However advanced!

You can closely examine the engineering of the Missouri by going to Hawaii. The same examination of the Bismark is problematic.

Viagra is a wonderful scientific advance but entirely pointless if you can't get a date!

 

Please, the German warships hammered the British ones in that battle. You guys wanna talk about them still having their fleet in the 1930s. That's not even remotely the point. Is this a British forum or something? The point is, the German fleet was ambushed, they had far few ships. It should have meant the demise of the German fleet in that engagement. Instead, the British ended up with much greater injury. That's a major win. An to those who said Jutland wasn't a major sea battle... Hah! Wow.

 

I am not going to waste any more time here. The poster is simply an ill informed fanbois and is beyond any reasoned discourse.

 

'Stop making me out to be the a-hole. You're comrades have attacked me from the beginning, not because I was being a jerk on my attitude, but because they thought my opinion made me a jerk. I get it, you all want to contrive reasons why German engineering was not superior, cuz it obviously somehow really gets your goat to think otherwise. But I didn't start the flame war here. I was for the most part reasonable'.

I have no intention of making you look a jerk - you are making a fine job of it on your own and it would be un-British and unsporting to interrupt you whilst you are doing so well.




- I'm off!

 

I am not going to waste any more time here. The poster is simply an ill informed fanbois and is beyond any reasoned discourse.



Yeah, I'm done here, too.

 

I am not going to waste any more time here. The poster is simply an ill informed fanbois and is beyond any reasoned discourse.



This chick could indubitably kick all your asses. You guys got your heads so far up the ass of the former British Empire it's hilarious. All you guys do is spew long sentences of nonsense like consultants. You try to nitpick every little thing, because you don't want to see the big picture. Britain needed America to enter the war, because Germany was going to win without America's help. One of you Nimrods told me that Roosevelt lined up a Germany First policy only because Hitler declared war. Oh, and what was the attack on Pearl Harbor? An act of diplomacy? Hitler may have declared war, but that was nothing compared to actually bombing our warships on our turf. Please. Roosevelt went after Germany first because he had to for the Allies to win. You are all so pathetically desperate to prove what is obviously bulls***. Then you have the audacity to say I'm a fanboy. I'm moving on now, because there is nothing that anyone of intellect can gain from you. Have fun propagating lies about how tough and smart The British Empire was. I guess it's still hard to deal with how badly Germany emasculated you

 

This chap is one of those you cannot place -but are reasonably sure you have trodden in before.

 

Don't let the door hit you where the good Lord split you on the way out.
I'd give that flounce a 4.5 out of ten. Trying just a little too hard with the multisyllabic words.

 

One might be forgiven for wondering why he continues to use (somewhat badly) the language of Empire.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vypGPc2LVFo

 

March has been a great month, eh?