Nobody here has to be reminded of what Michael Wittmann did at Villers Bocage. THAT would have been impossible with one airplane. Then there's the story of one KV-1 tank holding up a whole bunch of Germans for a long time....... tom
There is an aesthetic beauty in aircraft that tanks do not have I agree. The aeroplane was designed for civilian use before the military found a use for it, originally for reconnaissance. The Tank on the other hand was born out of the frustration of the Western Front in The Great War, it was designed as a killing machine. The are NO civilian uses for a tank. (ie one with a gun). Even with an iconic aircraft such as the Spitfire it can be forgotten that it is a weapon of war. It is so graceful as it dances through the air. On the other hand a tank lumbering across a field cannot be mistaken for anything but a bringer of death and destruction.
Nobody here has to be reminded of what Michael Wittmann did at Villers Bocage. THAT would have been impossible with one airplane. Then there's the story of one KV-1 tank holding up a whole bunch of Germans for a long time....... tom Look at the major tank battle that have taken place since its inception and of many individual actions where one tank held up troops
A division for 6 hours in the case of the KV if I remember right Tom! There are NO civilian uses for a tank. (ie one with a gun). Oooh I dunno, I can think of a few. I love that quote from Za: "Soviet military WW2 saying: "The best AA gun in the world is a T-34 sitting on the enemy runway". And they meant it!"
It did exist before air war, but now that air war is here it cannot exist without it. A well placed aerial attack can take out a target that it would take hundreds of ground troops to achieve in modern warfare. This saves on the ground war where other objectives can be pursued. A war without air superiority now is unthinkable. Without it you leave yourself open to screaming death from above no matter where you are. The plane can and will rule everything. War these days is not the personal one it was 15 years ago. Now war is carried out from over the horizon. it is only geography that may affect this, and if a plane can't hit it then a tank certainly can't. Then we come back to the foot soldiers. In the First Gulf War the air supremacy annihilated the Iraqi defence on the ground and had them running before the land contingent of Desert Storm kicked in. That is the power of air war, it comes from nowhere, it destroys and can chase anything down, then it can be gone again to come back from who knows where. Tanks cannot do that, Yes they are fast now, but at the end of the day they can be seen coming. A fast jet screams over a mountain and is there, done and gone. Now air war is the predominant form of warfare, it is only when it is mishandled that it fails. I was under the impression that this thread started as a light hearted discussion on tastes only, now I see reactions reminding me of my cats defending their territory at 5 in the morning. Also I was under the impression that this forum was titled WW2Talk. And yes, air power nowadays certainly is devastating, but it's the dogfaces that have to go after the mujaheddin and face the IEDs after the F-16s are gone back to their air conditioned compounds for ther squash game that had been interrupted. And staying momentarily outside the forum timeframe, there's a certain beauty when a M-1 smacks a T-72 with and APDSFS round throug a 2m embankment
In a WW2 context, I can deal with you plane or tank with this. I see your gun and raise you a Grandslam: Dropped from over a mile away and a fair few Angels high, didn't need to be totally accurate, and took out a BIG area.
I see your gun and raise you a Grandslam: View attachment 6886 Dropped from over a mile away and a fair few Angels high, didn't need to be totally accurate, and took out a BIG area. Yep and took out half the allied troops with it..........:goodnight:
There is an aesthetic beauty in aircraft that tanks do not have I agree. The aeroplane was designed for civilian use before the military found a use for it, originally for reconnaissance. The Tank on the other hand was born out of the frustration of the Western Front in The Great War, it was designed as a killing machine. The are NO civilian uses for a tank. (ie one with a gun). Even with an iconic aircraft such as the Spitfire it can be forgotten that it is a weapon of war. It is so graceful as it dances through the air. On the other hand a tank lumbering across a field cannot be mistaken for anything but a bringer of death and destruction. I read once that at one time a panzer tank crew were the most feared fighting men on earth. Works for me. tom
There is an aesthetic beauty in aircraft that tanks do not have I agree. Sure! Here's the Blackburn Blackburn and the Blackburn Blackburd :wow: I read once that at one time a panzer tank crew were the most feared fighting men on earth. No, the most feared men in the battlefield were a team of cooks with a container full of chickens past their sell-by date.
Sure! Here's the Blackburn Blackburn and the Blackburn Blackburd :wow: No, the most feared men in the battlefield were a team of cooks with a container full of chickens past their sell-by date. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder! Why do they call cooks fitters and turners? Because they fitt food into pots and turn it into s**t!
Yep and took out half the allied troops with it..........:goodnight: Now thats where you are wrong honey. Grandslam and Tallboy were never responsible for the death of Allied troops. Unless they happened to fall into the crater it made a few weeks later. Now if we are talking about 'precision' American daylight raids.....
A thread from the dim & distant springs to mind. No idea why... (With apologies for the usual confusing loss of quotes in replies. it was a forum move. We try to clean it up bit by bit.)
I'm surprised that the forum didn't go through a process of rating tanks and airplanes according to whether or not you can make tea in them.
