Nigel Farage says it as it is

JustinDee

anymore wrote: »

Yeah right FELLA - just like all of britiain's 'colonies'. For 'Colonies' read countries that they robbed raped and plundered ! In fact the British Empire was a primary source of inspiration for the nazis.
For your information , I havent used WIKi at all for my posts on this part of the thread and I certainly dont rely one one book. I have read very extensively on the European conflicts over the last 20 years.
Some facts that I have referrd to are simply bare faced undeniable facts such as the fact that Britain forcibly at gun point handed over some of thier own allies into Stalin's murderous hands. And of course Churchill's aptly coined phrase ' iron curtain' turned out to be quite true. Of course in turn Churchill got to return to the ' liberated ' colonies !
Again the primary and undenable cause of HITLER'S defeat was the enormous sacrifice that was made the peoples of the Soviet Union. Thier sacrifice is treacherously and scandalously overlooked by all who claim to want to ' Hounour the heroes' of the second wrold war.

You seem to have a big bumble in your bonnet about Britain here with all the guff about "colonies".
You are also under the misconception that nobody realises what the Soviets managed once their 'government' found itself on the other side (again). Of course they do.
Now you're writing some simplistic line about Churchill handing over East Germany, the Baltic countries, Poland, Romania etc. If you've read "extensively", you will know that it was hardly that simple. The thing about the ending of what we know as the Second World War is that nobody wanted any more once the Axis alliance was defeated. You appear to be arguing that yet another treaty should have been torn up and war declared by the Allies on the USSR. As with almost all conflict resolution what transpired was compromise.
Without Britain and the US, the Soviet advance westwards would not have stopped where it did.

As for Nigel Farage...there is no relevance with someone like him apart from bullbreath rhetoric and deluded flag-waving.

anymore

Scofflaw wrote: »

Again, though, both the Iraq wars were primarily won by the air force and the use of the initial airborne "shock and awe" - leaving relatively little to be mopped up on the ground, because the US is pretty allergic to body bags. And the claim that the US ground forces were relatively poor in quality in WW2 isn't contradicted by the point that their use was necessary - if a US division was only 75% as effective as, say, a British one, that's hardly the same thing as their being useless.

I can understand Batsy's adulation of British forces, but I can't really understand other people's apparently uncritical admiration for US forces, unless they're actually American themselves. It seems more than a little weird to me.

cordially,
Scofflaw

I presume you must know that the US's attitude to ' body bags' is due to its experience in Vietnam. I dont really see why you make the US's aversion to seeing its forces killed like a criticism ????
What basis do you have for saying US's forces were less effective than british forces ? And why should you be puzzled that anyone would acknowldege the huge contribution the US made to Worls war 2 ?
I appreciate that many irish people have a very bizzare and illogical resentment towards the US, but it is not a compulsory requirement for irish citizenship !

anymore

JustinDee wrote: »

You seem to have a big bumble in your bonnet about Britain here with all the guff about "colonies".
You are also under the misconception that nobody realises what the Soviets managed once their 'government' found itself on the other side (again). Of course they do.
Now you're writing some simplistic line about Churchill handing over East Germany, the Baltic countries, Poland, Romania etc. If you've read "extensively", you will know that it was hardly that simple. The thing about the ending of what we know as the Second World War is that nobody wanted any more once the Axis alliance was defeated. You appear to be arguing that yet another treaty should have been torn up and war declared by the Allies on the USSR. As with almost all conflict resolution what transpired was compromise.
Without Britain and the US, the Soviet advance westwards would not have stopped where it did.

As for Nigel Farage...there is no relevance with someone like him apart from bullbreath rhetoric and deluded flag-waving.

lets jsut simplify this. without the Soviet march westwrds, there would not have been any D day landings. Also, how many people have even the remorest knolwldge that the Soviets were instrumental in limiting the effectveness of japans war ?

JustinDee

anymore wrote: »

lets jsut simplify this. without the Soviet march westwrds, there would not have been any D day landings

Far too subjective. Its as if you're just arguing for the sake of arguing.

Using the above as a guide, we should now all be thankful that Germany about-faced, broke its treaty with the USSR, its partner in kicking off the European conflict in the first place and declared war on them?

Without US and Britain, the Soviets would have broken further west, a fate surely just as calamitous for Europeans as Nazi Germany emerging as victors.

Scofflaw

anymore wrote: »

I presume you must know that the US's attitude to ' body bags' is due to its experience in Vietnam. I dont really see why you make the US's aversion to seeing its forces killed like a criticism ????
What basis do you have for saying US's forces were less effective than british forces ? And why should you be puzzled that anyone would acknowldege the huge contribution the US made to Worls war 2 ?
I appreciate that many irish people have a very bizzare and illogical resentment towards the US, but it is not a compulsory requirement for irish citizenship !

The criticism of US forces is based on what was said about them at the time, by US generals like Patton. I don't see how one can really argue around that one, unless one is going to claim a greater understanding of US forces in the field in WW2 than one of their top generals.

And I'm not in any sense underplaying or not acknowledging the vital contribution of the US to Allied success in WW2, although I'd agree that the Soviet contribution was the decisive one - I just find it a bit weird that there would be non-Americans who react in this sort of jingoistic way to any criticism of US forces. US ground forces don't have a great record, and that's very evident from their record. So what? Why does that bother anyone? I'm not saying they're cowards, or idiots, or wrong, just that they're not as good at soldiering as they might be, and as the soldiers of some other countries are.

puzzled,
Scofflaw

Batsy

Originally Posted by irishh_bob
all of that is true but the battle of britain was much less important than eastern front , the soviet union won the war for the allies

Rubbish. If Britain lost the Battle of Britain it would no doubt have been invaded, therefore making the Invasion of Normandy impossible and probably causing the eventual defeat of the allies.

Batsy

anymore wrote: »

I suggest you read UK historian Niall Ferguson's account of the war,
As he poits out, the RAF had an incomparable advantage in the battle of Britain.

So what? If we had some sort of advantage over the Germans during a battle and it therefore helps us to win then that's the way it goes.

The only reason and the absilutely reason why all of Europe, other than those parts allied with germany or neutral, was not under German rule was the Soviet Union. The UK was a minor miltary power in that sense.:D

Nope. A major factor in the Allies' victory was Britain's win in the Battle of Britain, which came before the USA and USSR even entered the war. If we lost that Britain would have been invaded and D-Day and the Invasion of Normandy would have been impossible. And without the Invasion of Normandy the Allies may have lost the war.

Boskowski

Bloody hell, not keeping an eye on this thread for a day or two and here they are reenacting WW2. So much for open-minded and outward looking. SCNR

And btw, Battle of Britain or not, only for Hitlers retardedness (thank god) to open a second front we would all be speaking German here. And for the record, that's not misguided patriotism speaking and I'm glad we don't, just a sober opinion.

Wibbs

Batsy wrote: »

So what? If we had some sort of advantage over the Germans during a battle and it therefore helps us to win then that's the way it goes.

Even with those advantages it was a bloody close run thing. The RAF were fast running out of pilots, their tactics were archaic compared to the much more experienced German pilots, their southern airfields were under serious pressure from bombing and it was only by luck, stupid decisions by German high command(namely switching to civilian bombing) and the continuing bravery of "the few" that saved the day. That was my great uncles take anyway and he was at the sharp end of it and they really thought the jig was up at the time. While I'd debate some of the above, I'll take it over the uninformed jingoism too often found today from those who stop reading the Sun for a second, catch sight of a pair of Spitfires thundering down the mall and believe the hype. Oh yes and the Hurricane won it, far more than the Spit. The latter is sexier mind you. Well... radar and old geezers staring up with binoculars and women in bunkers and factories "won" it.

Nope. A major factor in the Allies' victory was Britain's win in the Battle of Britain, which came before the USA and USSR even entered the war. If we lost that Britain would have been invaded and D-Day and the Invasion of Normandy would have been impossible. And without the Invasion of Normandy the Allies may have lost the war.

They might have invaded, chances are they would have starved the country out instead. The U boat very nearly did. Even if that happened the Russians would have likely still beaten Germany over the long term or forced it back to it's eastern borders. The battle of the Atlantic was arguably more important for Britain overall. The battle of Britain was important, but more after the fact and as a "PR win" and major morale booster.

What I find most interesting about some attitudes in the UK today is this notion of the "little guy" stopping "evil Mr Hitler". Britain had the largest empire in the world. A huge navy and global military might and had exercised that military might for a long time. They were no "little guys" and looking from the other side, it's equally impressive that a Germany, not long out of a massive defeat and subsequent social and financial breakdown, could muster in less than a decade a military campaign that captured most of Europe and had the empire where the sun never sets up against the wall and in serious trouble.

Boskowski wrote: »

And btw, Battle of Britain or not, only for Hitlers retardedness (thank god) to open a second front we would all be speaking German here. And for the record, that's not misguided patriotism speaking and I'm glad we don't, just a sober opinion.

Funny I'd disagree with that, but that's for another thread and forum.

Scofflaw wrote: »

So what? Why does that bother anyone? I'm not saying they're cowards, or idiots, or wrong, just that they're not as good at soldiering as they might be, and as the soldiers of some other countries are.

Seems to have been the take of those who fought alongside them, even with them. My dad was among the former and another uncle among the latter. Both said they were incredibly brave fighters, but disorganised and let down by bad decisions up the chain.

swordofislam

Batsy wrote: »

In fact, the British Empire is the only power on the planet to have fought both world wars from beginning to end. It is the only power to have fought WWI from 1914 to 1918 and then WWII from 1939 to 1945.

By picking 1939 as the date for the beginning of WW2 you are doing that thing where the conclusion is the premise. One could just as well say that WW2 began in 1937 or 1941 as 1939.

Surely the Germans fought both wars from beginning to end. And if you point out that VE day was before VJ day I will point out that Austria declared war on Serbia before GB declared war on Germany.

Anyway not sure that this is something to boast about doesn't it just demonstrate that the British Empire was especially bellicose?

anymore

JustinDee wrote: »

Far too subjective. Its as if you're just arguing for the sake of arguing.

Using the above as a guide, we should now all be thankful that Germany about-faced, broke its treaty with the USSR, its partner in kicking off the European conflict in the first place and declared war on them?

Without US and Britain, the Soviets would have broken further west, a fate surely just as calamitous for Europeans as Nazi Germany emerging as victors.

Since when did people east of Berlin stop being ' European' ? i know Chamberlain said of Czechoslovakia, that it was a far away country of which we know little, but to relegate them to non - european status is a bit much !

JustinDee

anymore wrote: »

Since when did people east of Berlin stop being ' European' ? i know Chamberlain said of Czechoslovakia, that it was a far away country of which we know little, but to relegate them to non - european status is a bit much !

Falling under the Soviet boot would have been as bad for anyone in Europe as succumbing to Nazi Germany is what I was saying.

"Without US and Britain, the Soviets would have broken further west, a fate surely just as calamitous for Europeans as Nazi Germany emerging as victors"

Batsy

Wibbs wrote: »

Even with those advantages it was a bloody close run thing.

We still won.

The RAF were fast running out of pilots, their tactics were archaic compared to the much more experienced German pilots, their southern airfields were under serious pressure from bombing and it was only by luck, stupid decisions by German high command(namely switching to civilian bombing) and the continuing bravery of "the few" that saved the day.

Rubbish. The RAF proved to be a better combat force than the Luftwaffe in almost every respect. The decisive factors were British capability and determination, but German mistakes, before and during the battle, contributed significantly to the outcome

The RAF had a great British invention to help them out that the Hun didn't possess - radar.

As it says here:

Britain had a chain of 29 RDF stations along its southern and eastern coastlines. The radar was effective for more than 100 miles out. Once Luftwaffe formations crossed England’s coastline, the Royal Observer Corps began tracking them. The RAF knew when and where to respond, and could delay scrambling its fighters until the last moment.

Unbeknownst to Berlin, Britain had cracked the high-level German "Enigma" code. The intelligence product derived from these intercepts was called "Ultra." It provided useful information about the Luftwaffe’s overall moves, but it did not add greatly to the day-to-day intelligence from other sources.

Yet another RAF force multiplier was high-octane fuel. When the war began, both the Luftwaffe and the RAF were using 87 octane aviation fuel. Beginning in May 1940, the RAF obtained 100 octane fuel from the United States and used it throughout the battle. It boosted the performance of the Merlin engines in the Hurricanes and Spitfires from 1,000 to about 1,300 horsepower.

http://www.airforce-magazine.com/MagazineArchive/Pages/2008/August%202008/0808battle.aspx

Also the British were able to produce aircraft faster than they could be shot down.

The battle of Britain was important, but more after the fact and as a "PR win" and major morale booster.

I've still yet to meet anybody who can explain to me how the Invasion of Normandy - the major event which helped the allies win the war - could have happened without the RAF prevailing in the Battle of Britain.

What I find most interesting about some attitudes in the UK today is this notion of the "little guy" stopping "evil Mr Hitler". Britain had the largest empire in the world. A huge navy and global military might and had exercised that military might for a long time. They were no "little guys" and looking from the other side, it's equally impressive that a Germany, not long out of a massive defeat and subsequent social and financial breakdown, could muster in less than a decade a military campaign that captured most of Europe and had the empire where the sun never sets up against the wall and in serious trouble.

I'll have you know that, during the time of the Battle of Britain, the Luftwaffe was not only much larger than the RAF - at least twice the size of it - it was also the largest airforce in Europe. The odds against the little RAF prevailing against the mighty Luftwaffe were so little that the Americans - who weren't in the war yet - thought the RAF would be annihilated. The French - the same French who surrendered in the same year as the RAF prevailed in the Battle of Britain - also predicted a complete defeat for the RAF.

Also, the German Army was much larger than the British Army, too.

As it says here:

Joseph P. Kennedy, US ambassador to Britain, informed the State Department July 31 that the German Luftwaffe had the power to put the RAF "out of commission." In a press statement, Sen. Key Pittman (D-Nev.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, declared, "It is no secret that Great Britain is totally unprepared for defense and that nothing the United States has to give can do more than delay the result." Gen. Maxime Weygand, commander in chief of French military forces until France’s surrender, predicted, "In three weeks, England will have her neck wrung like a chicken."

America’s most famous aviator, Charles A. Lindbergh, a Nazi sympathiser, toured German bases and factories in September 1938. "Germany now has the means of destroying London, Paris, and Prague if she wishes to do so," Lindbergh wrote in a report to Kennedy in London. "England and France together have not enough modern war planes for effective defense or counterattack."

The Luftwaffe’s fearsome reputation was enhanced by the pushover German victories in Poland, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. In July 1940, it was about twice the size of the RAF, but the critical measure was not gross numbers. Essentially, the Battle of Britain pitted the first-line fighters of RAF Fighter Command against the fighters, bombers, and dive bombers of two German air fleets. In that matchup, the German advantage was significantly greater.

Air Chief Marshal Hugh Dowding, commander of Fighter Command, said, "Our young men will have to shoot down their young men at the rate of five to one."

http://www.airforce-magazine.com/MagazineArchive/Pages/2008/August%202008/0808battle.aspx

However, as we all know, it was a handsome win for the RAF, embarassing those Yank and Frog doom-mongers.

Batsy

swordofislam wrote: »

By picking 1939 as the date for the beginning of WW2 you are doing that thing where the conclusion is the premise.

I pick 1939 as the beginning of WWII because that's when it started. It started on 1st September 1939.

Surely the Germans fought both wars from beginning to end.

They didn't. In WWII, Germany surrendered on 8th May 1945, nearly four months before the war ended.

Anyway not sure that this is something to boast about doesn't it just demonstrate that the British Empire was especially bellicose?

No. It proves that the British Empire put a lot of effort into fighting for your freedom.

Wibbs

Batsy wrote: »

Rubbish. The RAF proved to be a better combat force than the Luftwaffe in almost every respect.

You are joking surely? Their fighter tactics in particular were highly outmoded. Many young men were shot to pieces flying in tight pre war V formations, compared to the Luftwaffe pilots flying in much better loose "finger four" formations learned in practice in previous campaigns. Some of the other tactics of fighter command were a tad dubious too and only the German limitations saved the day. The men who actually flew the Hurricanes and Spits would tell you the same.

The decisive factors were British capability and determination, but German mistakes, before and during the battle, contributed significantly to the outcome

Significantly isn't in it.

The RAF had a great British invention to help them out that the Hun didn't possess - radar.

Eh no. If you put down your The Sun Bumper book of British history for a second... A certain Herr Hertz was the first to come up with the idea. Hertz not being exactly a common surname down Somerset way. Another German chap by the name of Huelsmeyer was the first to demonstrate the effect agains ships at the very start of the 20th century. The Yanks and the French and the Russians built on this. The British didn't really get going on it in any sort of practical sense until the mid 1930's. While British men and women(mostly Scots) have most certainly made many strides and great inventions, I hate to break it to you radar was not one of them.

Unbeknownst to Berlin, Britain had cracked the high-level German "Enigma" code. The intelligence product derived from these intercepts was called "Ultra." It provided useful information about the Luftwaffe’s overall moves, but it did not add greatly to the day-to-day intelligence from other sources.

Like it says Enigma code didn't make much of a difference. Oh and hate to break something else to you it was a Pole, not a Briton who made the breakthrough. In the 1930's.

Also the British were able to produce aircraft faster than they could be shot down.

This is also incorrect. Rather it's half correct. By August of 1940, the so called "desperate days" production could no longer keep up with losses. Plus as I pointed out the lack of trained pilots was much more of a problem. To quote Winston "In the fighting between Aug. 24 and Sept. 6, the scales had tilted against Fighter Command.". Seriously you should read up more on your history(and everyone elses).

I've still yet to meet anybody who can explain to me how the Invasion of Normandy - the major event which helped the allies win the war - could have happened without the RAF prevailing in the Battle of Britain.

Maybe you should mingle with more better historically informed people? Without winning the battle of the atlantic the invasion of Normandy would never have happened either. And Britain would have been starved of men materiel and food.

I'll have you know that, during the time of the Battle of Britain, the Luftwaffe was not only much larger than the RAF - at least twice the size of it - it was also the largest airforce in Europe. The odds against the little RAF prevailing against the mighty Luftwaffe were so little that the Americans - who weren't in the war yet - thought the RAF would be annihilated. The French - the same French who surrendered in the same year as the RAF prevailed in the Battle of Britain - also predicted a complete defeat for the RAF.

Two things. The reputation of the luftwaffe among others was way out of proportion to reality(as were the german tanks. The Germans prosecuted much of the early war using horses). The speed that Germany overran Europe fostered this further. Their opponents before the UK had out of date aircraft and didnt have the strategic advantage of being an island. If you had transferred fighter command lock stock and barrel to France they would have been reduced to burning wreckage. Secondly larger isn't everything. The Luftwaffe had no long range strategic type bombers. They over relied on dive bombing as a tactic. Their fighters had limited range and about 15 minutes of operational fuel over Britain(as did the UK fighters but they were fighting on home ground). The entire Luftwaffe was geared for a support role in Blitzkrieg. Airborne forward artillery role much more than an air supremacy role. Even with all that their biggest error was switching from bombing airfields to cities, therefore taking the pressure of fighter command. If they hadn't the battle could have gone very badly for the RAF. At best they would have had to retreat their airfields to the north out of harms way. If the Germans had crossed the channel with ground forces and the luftwaffe in support, history might have been very different. Would their have been mass civilian defence like Churchill hoped for in such a scenario? Possibly, but look to the Channel islands and then get back to me.

However, as we all know, it was a handsome win for the RAF, embarassing those Yank and Frog doom-mongers.

Without those "Yank doom-mongers" Britain would have been in serious trouble, battle of Britain or not. BTW there were enough British doom-mongers and calls for appeasement about at the time too. Kinda forgotten today.

No. It proves that the British Empire put a lot of effort into fighting for your freedom their very lives. Any freedom involved was a side effect of that.

Fixed your post.

Boskowski

This thread kinda sums up for me why the European project must not fail.
There is obviously still voices out there who revel in the dark ages of 'Hun speak' and who has the bigger dick and all that.
We all would want to be certified if we even went an inch back into that direction.

anymore

batsy let me ask a question I asked earlier, why is a poster who has declered himself such a proud UK citizen posting so much on a relatievly small irish political website ? Surely if you wish the UK to so independent of the European project, the place to do so is on a UK website ? Dragging a thread on an irish political website back into 60 year old history doesnt really suggest that much interest in current politics, does it ?
Fond remembrance of an imagined time gone by would seem to be more for the history section than politics !

Batsy

Wibbs wrote: »

You are joking surely? Their fighter tactics in particular were highly outmoded. Many young men were shot to pieces flying in tight pre war V formations

Yeah. The RAF tactics were so "outmoded" that they managed to kill 2,698 Luftwaffe pilots whereas the Luftwaffe managed to kill just 544 RAF pilots.

Eh no. If you put down your The Sun Bumper book of British history for a second... A certain Herr Hertz was the first to come up with the idea. Hertz not being exactly a common surname down Somerset way. Another German chap by the name of Huelsmeyer was the first to demonstrate the effect agains ships at the very start of the 20th century. The Yanks and the French and the Russians built on this. The British didn't really get going on it in any sort of practical sense until the mid 1930's.

The British were the first to fully exploit radar as a defence against aircraft attack. This was spurred on by fears that the Germans were developing death rays.[20] The Air Ministry asked British scientists in 1934 to investigate the possibility of propagating electromagnetic energy and the likely effect. Following a study, they concluded that a death ray was impractical but that detection of aircraft appeared feasible.[20] Robert Watson Watt's team demonstrated to his superiors the capabilities of a working prototype and then patented the device.[14][21][22] It served as the basis for the Chain Home network of radars to defend Great Britain.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_radar

But it was Robert Watson’s invention that showed the radar’s full potential. In 1935, Watson showed his work to the British Air Ministry. During this time, the British were more concerned about the alleged German death ray.

Watson stated that such a device was unlikely. At the same his radar impressed the British military that it became part of their defense system, the first in the history of radar.

World War II and the Cold War

World War II saw more rapid developments in radar technology. Both the British and the Germans were engaged in a race to produce larger and more sophisticated radars. However the Germans (as did the Japanese) were not able to fully harness it. It was the British that were able to utilize it more effectively.

http://www.whoinventedit.net/who-invented-radar.html

Like it says Enigma code didn't make much of a difference. Oh and hate to break something else to you it was a Pole, not a Briton who made the breakthrough. In the 1930's.

So what? During the War the great men at Bletchley Park in Buckinghamshire did a great job of deciphering German Enigma codes, thanks in large part to the world's first electronic computer - another British invention.

To quote Winston "In the fighting between Aug. 24 and Sept. 6, the scales had tilted against Fighter Command.". Seriously you should read up more on your history(and everyone elses).

So? The so-called "inferior" RAF won, losing only about half the number of planes that the Hun lost.

Maybe you should mingle with more better historically informed people? Without winning the battle of the atlantic the invasion of Normandy would never have happened either. And Britain would have been starved of men materiel and food.

And it was the British who played the leading role in the Battle of the Atlantic.

If you had transferred fighter command lock stock and barrel to France they would have been reduced to burning wreckage.

I don't know if that's true but even if it was it doesn't matter. Fighter Command was NOT in France. Stop dealing in ifs and buts.

Possibly, but look to the Channel islands and then get back to me.

The Channel Islands were a different kettle of fish to Britain.

On 15 June 1940, the British government decided that the Channel Islands were of no strategic importance and would not be defended. They decided to keep this a secret from the German forces. So, in spite of the reluctance of Prime MinisterWinston Churchill, the British government gave up the oldest possession of the Crown "without firing a single shot".[1] The Channel Islands served no purpose to the Germans other than the propaganda value of having occupied some British territory. The "Channel Islands had been demilitarised and declared...'an open town' ".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupation_of_the_Channel_Islands

BTW there were enough British doom-mongers and calls for appeasement about at the time too. Kinda forgotten today.

Thankfully those British doom-mongers were not in the highest echelons of government otherwise you'd be speaking German now.

Batsy

anymore wrote: »

batsy let me ask a question I asked earlier, why is a poster who has declered himself such a proud UK citizen posting so much on a relatievly small irish political website ? Surely if you wish the UK to so independent of the European project, the place to do so is on a UK website ? Dragging a thread on an irish political website back into 60 year old history doesnt really suggest that much interest in current politics, does it ?
Fond remembrance of an imagined time gone by would seem to be more for the history section than politics !

Posting on a discussion forum will not make the UK independent of the EUSSR.

I play my part in trying to get Britain out of the EUSSR at the polling booth when I vote for UKIP.

Wibbs

Batsy wrote: »

Yeah. The RAF tactics were so "outmoded" that they managed to kill 2,698 Luftwaffe pilots whereas the Luftwaffe managed to kill just 544 RAF pilots.

Break down the figures. The largest casualty numbers were among German bombers. In fighter tactics the Germans were simply better at the start.

World War II saw more rapid developments in radar technology. Both the British and the Germans were engaged in a race to produce larger and more sophisticated radars.

Oh sorry I though you said the "Hun" didn't have radar?

In any event you said and I quote The RAF had a great British invention to help them out that the Hun didn't possess - radar. Face facts and actual history, you were most certainly wrong. It was a German who invented the concept of Radar and it was a German who put it to military use just under 30 years before the British thought of doing so.

thanks in large part to the world's first electronic computer - another British invention.

Nope 'friad not, wrong again. Both the Yanks and one of those pesky "Huns" beat you to it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z3_%28computer%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atanasoff%E2%80%93Berry_Computer

So? The so-called "inferior" RAF won, losing only about half the number of planes that the Hun lost.

Barbarians brought down the Roman empire militarily, yet ony a fool would consider them to be a superior fighting force. The British army at the height of it's imperial powers lost against Irish republican forces in the battle for Irish independence. Only a fool would consider the various resistance groups as being superior to the British army as a fighting force. Unlike what seems passes for your worldview and "history" things are always much more complex than that.

And it was the British who played the leading role in the Battle of the Atlantic.

Without the Americans involvement from '41 onwards the British naval and RAF forces would have been in serious trouble. Even so until quite late on in the war it was a close run thing. Something again Old Winston acknowledged.

I don't know if that's true but even if it was it doesn't matter. Fighter Command was NOT in France. Stop dealing in ifs and buts.

..when it may not agree with your way of thinking. No ifs or buts? OK then see how well the British expeditionary forces actually did up against the Germans on land, without their island protection. Soundly routed, cut off and driven to the coast in short order and the RAF were as much use as a chocolate teapot. The navy wasn't any great shakes either and required the services of a motley crew of pleasure and fishing boats and their bloody brave civilian captains to save the day and get the men off the beaches.

The Channel Islands were a different kettle of fish to Britain.

You're conveniently missing my point re the level of civilian resistance and the level that may have been expected on mainland Britain.

Thankfully those British doom-mongers were not in the highest echelons of government otherwise you'd be speaking German now.

One of them (among many others) was the previous PM to Winston. Thankfully for you he got in. The "speaking German" part is beyond silly too.

Wibbs

And if I may add on the speaking german stuff. What so many "little englanders" conveniently forget is that without the help of so many others outside of the Russians and the Americans you'd likely have been under the jackboot. Over 100,000 Irish men and women joined up to fight Hitler on your behalf(a fair chunk of my family being among them). Scots, Welsh, Canadians, Americans(before pearl harbor), Australians, Indians, South Africans, Burmese, New Zealanders, Poles, Czechs... the list goes on for a very long time and that's in the British armed forces.

The battle of Britain? The highest scoring squadron in the BoB was a Polish Squadron. Who incidentally had a loss rate among themselves two third lower than "english" squadrons. They were far better pilots with better tactics. Without Air Marshall Keith Park a New Zealander(commander of the defence of London and the south east, the hardest hit area) the battle would have been a lot harder to win. One of the highest scoring ace was a Czech and his squadron had a higher proportion of confirmed kills than the "locals". Of the top ten scoring allied aces of the BoB, half were not "British" and if you want to get real anal about it, one of the remaining five was a Scot :eek:. Hell the youngest wing commander in the RAF(and an ace in the BoB) was a guy from Dublin "Paddy" Finucane. His dad had served under DeValera as an Irish Volunteer in 1916. An Irish guy with Republican leanings who won the DSO and DFC? You see this stuff isn't so simplistic and not nearly so jingoistic.

So next time you spout on about "without us you'd be speaking German" I would suggest you break down the "us" part for the reality it was. To be fair to you we have our own version of "let's simplify history for our own ends" over here and just as silly and devisive.

anymore

Batsy wrote: »

Yeah. The RAF tactics were so "outmoded" that they managed to kill 2,698 Luftwaffe pilots whereas the Luftwaffe managed to kill just 544 RAF pilots.



The British were the first to fully exploit radar as a defence against aircraft attack. This was spurred on by fears that the Germans were developing death rays.[20] The Air Ministry asked British scientists in 1934 to investigate the possibility of propagating electromagnetic energy and the likely effect. Following a study, they concluded that a death ray was impractical but that detection of aircraft appeared feasible.[20] Robert Watson Watt's team demonstrated to his superiors the capabilities of a working prototype and then patented the device.[14][21][22] It served as the basis for the Chain Home network of radars to defend Great Britain.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_radar

But it was Robert Watson’s invention that showed the radar’s full potential. In 1935, Watson showed his work to the British Air Ministry. During this time, the British were more concerned about the alleged German death ray.

Watson stated that such a device was unlikely. At the same his radar impressed the British military that it became part of their defense system, the first in the history of radar.

World War II and the Cold War

World War II saw more rapid developments in radar technology. Both the British and the Germans were engaged in a race to produce larger and more sophisticated radars. However the Germans (as did the Japanese) were not able to fully harness it. It was the British that were able to utilize it more effectively.

http://www.whoinventedit.net/who-invented-radar.html



So what? During the War the great men at Bletchley Park in Buckinghamshire did a great job of deciphering German Enigma codes, thanks in large part to the world's first electronic computer - another British invention.



So? The so-called "inferior" RAF won, losing only about half the number of planes that the Hun lost.



And it was the British who played the leading role in the Battle of the Atlantic.



I don't know if that's true but even if it was it doesn't matter. Fighter Command was NOT in France. Stop dealing in ifs and buts.



The Channel Islands were a different kettle of fish to Britain.

On 15 June 1940, the British government decided that the Channel Islands were of no strategic importance and would not be defended. They decided to keep this a secret from the German forces. So, in spite of the reluctance of Prime MinisterWinston Churchill, the British government gave up the oldest possession of the Crown "without firing a single shot".[1] The Channel Islands served no purpose to the Germans other than the propaganda value of having occupied some British territory. The "Channel Islands had been demilitarised and declared...'an open town' ".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupation_of_the_Channel_Islands



Thankfully those British doom-mongers were not in the highest echelons of government otherwise you'd be speaking German now.

hardly surprising that a german force consisting mainly of BOMBERS would shoot down fewer pilots than a defence force consisting of attack aircraft would !
So any chance the thread would actually deal with politics ?
That is what this section actaully is !

Plautus

Batsy wrote: »

Posting on a discussion forum will not make the UK independent of the EUSSR.

I play my part in trying to get Britain out of the EUSSR at the polling booth when I vote for UKIP.

I don't know why you expect anyone to take you seriously.

Between that, and 'Hun', 'Frog' and 'Yank' I'm beginning to think you're Colonel Blimp.

JustinDee

Batsy wrote: »

Posting on a discussion forum will not make the UK independent of the EUSSR.

I play my part in trying to get Britain out of the EUSSR at the polling booth when I vote for UKIP.

Sit down and chat with anyone around the age of 40 yrs old who has lived in the Eastern Bloc before 1989. Compare notes and you'll see just how bloody stupid what you call the EU is.
Without going into the sheer fantasy that Britain has the capability for self-subsistency, stupid monikers as above are why the likes of UKIP are pigeon-holed in the wingnut file.

Batsy

Wibbs wrote: »

Break down the figures. The largest casualty numbers were among German bombers. In fighter tactics the Germans were simply better at the start.

The RAF killed 2,698 Hun. The Hun managed to kill a poxy 544 RAF lads. End of story.

Oh sorry I though you said the "Hun" didn't have radar?

It was the British who were the first to use radar in war and that was during the Battle of Britain. It was that radar which helped us to destroy the Hun during that battle.

It was a German who invented the concept of Radar and it was a German who put it to military use just under 30 years before the British thought of doing so.

No. You are wrong (again). The British were the first to use radar as part of a defence system. That was during WWII.

Nope 'friad not, wrong again. Both the Yanks and one of those pesky "Huns" beat you to it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z3_%28computer%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atanasoff%E2%80%93Berry_Computer

You are wrong again, I'm afraid. You can't consider that computer to be the first actual electronic computer. As that Wikipedia page says:

the machine was not programmable, being designed only to solve systems of linear equations. It was successfully tested in 1942. However, its intermediate result storage mechanism, a paper card writer/reader, was unreliable, and when inventor John Vincent Atanasoff left Iowa State College for World War II assignments, work on the machine was discontinued.

The page goes on to say that, at the time, it was America's ENIAC - which dated from 1946 - which was considered to be the first computer in the modern sense. However the people at the time who thought that (probably mostly Yanks who didn't know of the top secret British Colossus computer which went operational in 1943) were wrong. The first computer in the modern sense was, without doubt, Britain's Colossus, which helped to break the supposedly unbreakable German codes and it pre-dated America's first electronic computer by three years:

On 9th May 1941 HMS Bulldog depth charged the German U boat U110, it came to the surface and the crew surrendered. An Enigma M3 machine (which had three wheels with 26 letters each) was recovered together with the code book. This was found to be able to enter morse code and had 150,000,000,000,000,000,000 (150 million trillion) combinations.

U-boat 110 and HMS Bulldog

The team at Bletchley used this to better understand how the machine worked and to decipher the German Naval Enigma codes. However the Germans added a fourth wheel (the M4 Enigma), which took another 9 months to crack. This helped the allies to locate the U-Boat wolfpacks and re-direct the convoys accordingly. At the same time the German Navy realised that its codes were being cracked, and when they introduced more complex ciphers, the German hit rate also reduced significantly.

Worlds first electronic programmable computer

Hitler’s own messages were encrypted with a much more sophisticated cipher machine named “Lorentz”. The Germans thought that it was unbreakable. It had TWELVE wheels of 26 letters, but it was the different rotation pattern of the wheels that made it even harder to crack. The Enigma had a simple pattern of rotation of one character for the first wheel for each keystroke, until all 26 positions had been used, where upon the next wheel would rotate one character and so on. The Lorentz machine had greater complexity where the wheels would sometimes rotate on each keystoke!

A radio operator’s mistake in sending two very similar messages with the same machine settings enabled a brilliant British mathematician, William Tutte to work out its architecture. Bletchley, in Buckinghamshire, built a machine that simulated the Lorentz operation, called the “Tunny machine”.

Tutte then worked with TJ Flowers to build a valve-based electronic computer to crack the codes. This was called Colossus due to its size and was built in 1943, pre-dating the US built ENIAC by 3 years.

Colossus’ most important decipher was a message from Hitler dismissing the idea of a possible Normandy invasion, he was convinced the allies would attack at Calais – he had swallowed the allies deception campaign. This information enabled Montgomery and Eisenhower (later US President) to make the decision to launch the D-Day landings. Based on an idea by mathematician Max Newman and built by Engineer TJ Flowers. Colossus 1 had 1800 valves and Colossus 2 2400, replacing electro-mechanical switches of previous devices. This key step was the birth of the modern computer era.

Tommy Flowers could not cash in on his computer invention, as Churchill insisted that it was kept secret. Most of them were later destroyed. A fully operational Colossus machine has incredibly been rebuilt from scratch by computer expert Tony Sale. See a video of it working here Note the paper tape reader and optical reader – rather like a CD! The speed of the paper tape determines the speed of the computer.

Bletchley is now a museum open to the public, housing the
code breaking equipment and also the National Museum of Computing, with the Colossus as its centerpiece. Tracking the development of computing power since the “valve era” is very interesting. The early computers used valves acting as switches, later machines used discrete transistors and then finally transistors etched onto the silicon chips used by all modern computers. The power of the computer is related to the number of “switches”. 1943 Colossus – 2400, 1946 ENIAC 18000, 1950′s.

http://advancedphototech.wordpress.com/hardware/bletchley-park-enigma-and-the-worlds-first-electronic-computer/

Barbarians brought down the Roman empire militarily, yet ony a fool would consider them to be a superior fighting force. The British army at the height of it's imperial powers lost against Irish republican forces in the battle for Irish independence.

Only a fool would consider a ragbag group of terrorists to be a superior fighting force to the highly-skilled British Army.

Without the Americans involvement from '41 onwards the British naval and RAF forces would have been in serious trouble. Even so until quite late on in the war it was a close run thing. Something again Old Winston acknowledged.

The Battle of Britain wasn't a close run thing in the end, not in terms of the numbers killed. In that sense it was a victory by a huge marging for the RAF lads. And at the time of that huge victory the British were fighting Hitler's hordes alone.

..when it may not agree with your way of thinking. No ifs or buts? OK then see how well the British expeditionary forces actually did up against the Germans on land, without their island protection. Soundly routed, cut off and driven to the coast in short order and the RAF were as much use as a chocolate teapot. The navy wasn't any great shakes either and required the services of a motley crew of pleasure and fishing boats and their bloody brave civilian captains to save the day and get the men off the beaches.

Who cares? All that doesn't matter now. We won, the Hun lost. That's all that matters.

You're conveniently missing my point re the level of civilian resistance and the level that may have been expected on mainland Britain.

In the event of an invasion the British people would have put up a much better fight that many of their European neighbours, such as France, did. We even had a force of almost 2 million men - the Home Guard - who would have out up a fight should the Hun have invaded.

One of them (among many others) was the previous PM to Winston.

Chamberlain was not a defeatist. The reason why he resigned from Government in 1940 was because he believed that, in order to defeat the Hun, a Government of all the parties was necessary. However the Labour and Liberal parties would not join a government headed by him, so he had to resign. It was also, of course, Chamberlain himself who declared war on Germany. He wouldn't have done so if he thought Britain had no chance of winning it.

Thankfully for you he got in. The "speaking German" part is beyond silly too.

If it wasn't for the British you'd be writing this post in German, probably in a brutal concentration camp or something similar.

Batsy

JustinDee wrote: »

Sit down and chat with anyone around the age of 40 yrs old who has lived in the Eastern Bloc before 1989. Compare notes and you'll see just how bloody stupid what you call the EU is.

It's time Britain left the EUSSR, I'm afraid. It should have no part in such an awful organisation.

Without going into the sheer fantasy that Britain has the capability for self-subsistency

Britain is a nation of 63 million people (which'll be 73 million in the near future) and has the world's sixth largest economy.

To say that it would not be able to survive on its own, without being in the "oh-so wondrous" EUSSR is, frankly, ludicrous, especially when the vast majority of those 83% of the world's countries that are NOT in the EU are much smaller than Britain (it must be a complete mystery to you weird and inward-looking pro-EU folk how New Zealand, a nation of just 3 million people, manages to survive without being in the warm embrace of Mother EU).

To say that Britain cannot survive on its without being in the "oh-so wonderful" EU is not only absolutely ludicrous and wrong but it smacks of nothing more than complete and utter pro-EU propaganda. "You can't leave the EU, Britain, because you will never be able to survive as an independent nation! I know you managed so well for centuries before joining the EU but now you will never survice without the caring embrace of Mother EU. Leave the EU and you will DIE! HAHAHAHAHAHA!"

What absolute rubbish. It's similar to the rubbish propaganda we heard ten years ago from the same people when the Euro was introduced and us Brits were called "Little Englanders" and "Bad Europeans" just because we had the audacity to think it was not a good idea to join the Euro and those same numpties were predicting that, as a result, Britain will suffer whilst the countries that have the Euro will boom and that Paris and Frankfurt will overtake London as financial powerhouses.

Instead all that has happened is that the Euro is sinking - how appropriate if it finally and irreversibly sinks on 15th April 2012, the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic - and London has just pulled even further ahead of Paris and Frankfurt (and also overtaken New York) as a financial powerhouse.

So those numpties who predict that it will be bad for Britain should it leave the EU are the same who predicted the end of Britain when it failed to adopt the Euro ten years ago. They were wrong on that score and they are wrong when it comes to their predictions on what will happen to Britain when it leaves the EU.

Britain managed to survive okay for centuries before it joined the EU in 1973 and it would continue to survive okay for centuries once it leaves the EU (and I'm 90% certain we'll have an in/out referendum by 2015).

stupid monikers as above are why the likes of UKIP are pigeon-holed in the wingnut file.

If UKIP are so bonkers and barmy they wouldn't be so popular as to get more votes than Labour and the Liberal Democrats in the 2009 EUSSR Elections (coming second for the UK behind only the Tories) and they will also not be doing respectably well in General Elections, too.

Also, those people who, for some reason, don't want Britain to be independent from the EU and don't like those who vote for UKIP are hypocrites. They are hypocrites because many of those same people seem to have no problem with those Scots who want Scotland to be independent of the UK and who therefore vote for SNP. Many of those same people also believe that it was right for the Republic of Ireland to gain independence from the UK. Yet, for some bizarre reason, they dismiss as crankpots those people who believe the UK should be independent of the EU and who vote for UKIP, who they also dismiss as crackpots. Yet they would never dismiss Scottish nationalists and the SNP as crankpots. It's very strange. In their worldview Scottish independence from the UK should be positively encouraged. The SNP are not crankpots. Irish independence from the UK was also a good thing. Irish republicans were not crankpots. Yet British independence from the EU is seen as something positively evil and those who support it, such as UKIP, are seen as crankpots. Very hypocritical indeed.

Batsy

Plautus wrote: »

I don't know why you expect anyone to take you seriously.

Between that, and 'Hun', 'Frog' and 'Yank' I'm beginning to think you're Colonel Blimp.

I bet, though, you'll have no problem with a Yank calling a Brit a limey or a Scot calling an Englishman a Sassenach. For some reason that'll be different.

Batsy

Wibbs wrote: »

Scots, Welsh, Canadians, Americans(before pearl harbor), Australians, Indians, South Africans, Burmese, New Zealanders, Poles, Czechs... the list goes on for a very long time and that's in the British armed forces.

The Scots and Welsh are BOUND to have fought in the British Army during WWII because Scotland and Wales, like England, are in the United Kingdom. The Scots and Welsh ARE British.

And it's obvious the Australians, New Zealanders, Indians, South Africans, etc, fought alongside Britain during the war. They did so as a result of being in the British Empire, of course.

The battle of Britain? The highest scoring squadron in the BoB was a Polish Squadron. Who incidentally had a loss rate among themselves two third lower than "english" squadrons.

You forget (or conveniently decide not to mention) that not all of the pilots in that squadron - which, by the way, was led by a County Durham-born Englishman during the Battle of Britain - were Polish.

And it doesn't matter what nationality they were. They were still the RAF. I'd also bet a good deal of money that many of the Luftwaffe pilots weren't even German.

They were far better pilots with better tactics. Without Air Marshall Keith Park a New Zealander(commander of the defence of London and the south east, the hardest hit area) the battle would have been a lot harder to win.

Keith Park may have been born in New Zealand but his parents were British.

One of the highest scoring ace was a Czech and his squadron had a higher proportion of confirmed kills than the "locals". Of the top ten scoring allied aces of the BoB, half were not "British"

I don't know why you put British in inverted commas.

and if you want to get real anal about it, one of the remaining five was a Scot

Wow. A Brit fighting in the British air force. Big deal.

. Hell the youngest wing commander in the RAF(and an ace in the BoB) was a guy from Dublin "Paddy" Finucane.

That was unusual, then. Most of his fellow Irishmen were sitting on their arses doing nothing as Hitler's hordes attempted to overrun Europe.

His dad had served under DeValera as an Irish Volunteer in 1916.

I've heard of De Valera. He was that anti-Semitic Nazi sympathiser who tried to get all the Jews kicked out of Ireland and then, in 1945, became the only world leader apart from Japan's to sign a book of condolence on Hitler's death.

So next time you spout on about "without us you'd be speaking German" I would suggest you break down the "us" part for the reality it was.

I'm afraid to say that, without the British, you'd be speaking German. It's a pity not many Irish people can see that. Fortunately, some people do. The Norwegians certainly do. Every Christmas Norway gives Britain a giant Christmas tree, which is displayed in Trafalgar Square, as a "thank you" to Britain for liberating Norway from the Hun. The chances are that, if I went to a bar in Belgium or Holland, I'd be given a free beer for coming from the nation that liberated their country. That has happened before.

whatstherush

Batsy wrote: »

I'm afraid to say that, without the British, you'd be speaking German. It's a pity not many Irish people can see that.

Ya and without the tans we would be speaking Irish.

anymore

Batsy wrote: »

The Scots and Welsh are BOUND to have fought in the British Army during WWII because Scotland and Wales, like England, are in the United Kingdom. The Scots and Welsh ARE British.

And it's obvious the Australians, New Zealanders, Indians, South Africans, etc, fought alongside Britain during the war. They did so as a result of being in the British Empire, of course.



You forget (or conveniently decide not to mention) that not all of the pilots in that squadron - which, by the way, was led by a County Durham-born Englishman during the Battle of Britain - were Polish.

And it doesn't matter what nationality they were. They were still the RAF. I'd also bet a good deal of money that many of the Luftwaffe pilots weren't even German.



Keith Park may have been born in New Zealand but his parents were British.



I don't know why you put British in inverted commas.



Wow. A Brit fighting in the British air force. Big deal.



That was unusual, then. Most of his fellow Irishmen were sitting on their arses doing nothing as Hitler's hordes attempted to overrun Europe.



I've heard of De Valera. He was that anti-Semitic Nazi sympathiser who tried to get all the Jews kicked out of Ireland and then, in 1945, became the only world leader apart from Japan's to sign a book of condolence on Hitler's death.



I'm afraid to say that, without the British, you'd be speaking German. It's a pity not many Irish people can see that. Fortunately, some people do. The Norwegians certainly do. Every Christmas Norway gives Britain a giant Christmas tree, which is displayed in Trafalgar Square, as a "thank you" to Britain for liberating Norway from the Hun. The chances are that, if I went to a bar in Belgium or Holland, I'd be given a free beer for coming from the nation that liberated their country. That has happened before.

Without the brtish our population would be significantly larger owning to british policy having resulted in the deaths of one million and the forced emigration of a million more - not really that much difference between the 20th century nazis and 18/19 century Brits really.

bmaxi

anymore wrote: »

Without the brtish our population would be significantly larger owning to british policy having resulted in the deaths of one million and the forced emigration of a million more - not really that much difference between the 20th century nazis and 18/19 century Brits really.

A rather simplistic view. The famine was not a deliberate policy of the British Government and schemes were put in place for famine relief.
Much like today greedy Irish people were as much at fault as the British Government, farmers and landowners prevented the import of food because it would affect their prices.
One of the the main problems was the duration of the famine, famines were not uncommon in Ireland and at least ten were documented in the previous hundred years but none had lasted as long.

AlekSmart

I wonder if Mr Van Rompuy has responded to Nigel yet....?

Dr Galen

Back On Topic please everyone

Cheers

DrG

JustinDee

Batsy, there's a very good reason that Britain is still in the EU and why it borrows so much to remain so (and loans so much to its Euro trade partners too). If you actually set aside the delusion of self-subsistance and the accompanying myopia, take a look at Britain's BofT and BofP.

JustinDee

Spud's Law has raised its hilarious head in this thread, it appears. Like 'Godwin's Law' and Nazi Germany, when all else fails, bring up the effing famine...

Lab_Mouse

Plautus wrote: »

I don't know why you expect anyone to take you seriously.

Between that, and 'Hun', 'Frog' and 'Yank' I'm beginning to think you're Colonel Blimp.

Just read all his posts in this chaps voice.It takes the sting out of them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PL1jDcAHkc8

Plautus

Batsy wrote: »

I bet, though, you'll have no problem with a Yank calling a Brit a limey or a Scot calling an Englishman a Sassenach. For some reason that'll be different.

Er, I have exactly the same problem with nationalistic Scots or Americans using racially loaded epithets like those.

Seriously, EUSSR? Hun? This is twilight zone stuff.

Wibbs

Batsy wrote: »

No. You are wrong (again). The British were the first to use radar as part of a defence system. That was during WWII.

Clearly no amount of actual historical fact will sway you. You think radar was a British invention, it was not. You think the first use of radar in a military setting was British, it was not. Even worse for you it was the Germans, sorry "Huns" who did it. If you ever read this Ms. Alannis Morrisette, that's ironic.

However the people at the time who thought that (probably mostly Yanks who didn't know of the top secret British Colossus computer which went operational in 1943) were wrong.

Hate to break it to you again, but the "yanks" already knew about colossus and many of their experts had access to and helped refine it.

The first computer in the modern sense was, without doubt, Britain's Colossus, which helped to break the supposedly unbreakable German codes and it pre-dated America's first electronic computer by three years:

Nope again. The codes were already broken before colossus came along. How do you think they programmed it? Do you understand how this works? It was a pole who first cracked the cypher. It refined the German changes to their device and sped up the process by a large and war winning margin. That was it's purpose.

Only a fool would consider a ragbag group of terrorists to be a superior fighting force to the highly-skilled British Army.

Yet they won. Paging Ms Morrisette to the thread.

Chamberlain was not a defeatist. The reason why he resigned from Government in 1940 was because he believed that, in order to defeat the Hun, a Government of all the parties was necessary. However the Labour and Liberal parties would not join a government headed by him, so he had to resign. It was also, of course, Chamberlain himself who declared war on Germany. He wouldn't have done so if he thought Britain had no chance of winning it.

Oh god.

Batsy wrote: »

I bet, though, you'll have no problem with a Yank calling a Brit a limey or a Scot calling an Englishman a Sassenach. For some reason that'll be different.

"Sasanach" is the Irish/Scots Gaelic word for an Englishman(In Welsh it's Saeson). A derivation of Saxon. It's a descriptive term. It's root and use in such languages is not pejorative.

That was unusual, then. Most of his fellow Irishmen were sitting on their arses doing nothing as Hitler's hordes attempted to overrun Europe.

Maybe you should read my post again. Over 100,000 Irish men and women joined up and fought against Hitler. My father, an uncle and two great uncles included.

Britain is a nation of 63 million people (which'll be 73 million in the near future) and has the world's sixth largest economy.

A nation who can no longer feed itself without outside help and couldn't even during the war. You had rationing until the 50's.

So those numpties who predict that it will be bad for Britain should it leave the EU are the same who predicted the end of Britain when it failed to adopt the Euro ten years ago. They were wrong on that score and they are wrong when it comes to their predictions on what will happen to Britain when it leaves the EU.

If it does you may regret it. For at least a generation.

Britain managed to survive okay for centuries before it joined the EU in 1973

You do realise the world has changed in those centuries? What worked then(or didn't as the case may be) doesn't work today. The financial world is radically different and very much more interdependent. The UK may not have the euro, but it is in the eurozone.

Also, those people who, for some reason, don't want Britain to be independent from the EU and don't like those who vote for UKIP are hypocrites. They are hypocrites because many of those same people seem to have no problem with those Scots who want Scotland to be independent of the UK and who therefore vote for SNP. Many of those same people also believe that it was right for the Republic of Ireland to gain independence from the UK. Yet, for some bizarre reason, they dismiss as crankpots those people who believe the UK should be independent of the EU and who vote for UKIP, who they also dismiss as crackpots. Yet they would never dismiss Scottish nationalists and the SNP as crankpots. It's very strange. In their worldview Scottish independence from the UK should be positively encouraged. The SNP are not crankpots. Irish independence from the UK was also a good thing. Irish republicans were not crankpots. Yet British independence from the EU is seen as something positively evil and those who support it, such as UKIP, are seen as crankpots. Very hypocritical indeed.

I would agree somewhat with much of that. However I make the distinction that one can be independent, yet be part of a larger entity for mutual gain. A "commonwealth" as it were. I'm sure you would support a stronger commonwealth of ex British empire countries who wanted part of that, so why not similar within Europe? Hardly crackpot?

anymore

Batsy wrote: »

The RAF killed 2,698 Hun. The Hun managed to kill a poxy 544 RAF lads. End of story.




It was the British who were the first to use radar in war and that was during the Battle of Britain. It was that radar which helped us to destroy the Hun during that battle.




No. You are wrong (again). The British were the first to use radar as part of a defence system. That was during WWII.




You are wrong again, I'm afraid. You can't consider that computer to be the first actual electronic computer. As that Wikipedia page says:

the machine was not programmable, being designed only to solve systems of linear equations. It was successfully tested in 1942. However, its intermediate result storage mechanism, a paper card writer/reader, was unreliable, and when inventor John Vincent Atanasoff left Iowa State College for World War II assignments, work on the machine was discontinued.

The page goes on to say that, at the time, it was America's ENIAC - which dated from 1946 - which was considered to be the first computer in the modern sense. However the people at the time who thought that (probably mostly Yanks who didn't know of the top secret British Colossus computer which went operational in 1943) were wrong. The first computer in the modern sense was, without doubt, Britain's Colossus, which helped to break the supposedly unbreakable German codes and it pre-dated America's first electronic computer by three years:

On 9th May 1941 HMS Bulldog depth charged the German U boat U110, it came to the surface and the crew surrendered. An Enigma M3 machine (which had three wheels with 26 letters each) was recovered together with the code book. This was found to be able to enter morse code and had 150,000,000,000,000,000,000 (150 million trillion) combinations.

U-boat 110 and HMS Bulldog

The team at Bletchley used this to better understand how the machine worked and to decipher the German Naval Enigma codes. However the Germans added a fourth wheel (the M4 Enigma), which took another 9 months to crack. This helped the allies to locate the U-Boat wolfpacks and re-direct the convoys accordingly. At the same time the German Navy realised that its codes were being cracked, and when they introduced more complex ciphers, the German hit rate also reduced significantly.

Worlds first electronic programmable computer

Hitler’s own messages were encrypted with a much more sophisticated cipher machine named “Lorentz”. The Germans thought that it was unbreakable. It had TWELVE wheels of 26 letters, but it was the different rotation pattern of the wheels that made it even harder to crack. The Enigma had a simple pattern of rotation of one character for the first wheel for each keystroke, until all 26 positions had been used, where upon the next wheel would rotate one character and so on. The Lorentz machine had greater complexity where the wheels would sometimes rotate on each keystoke!

A radio operator’s mistake in sending two very similar messages with the same machine settings enabled a brilliant British mathematician, William Tutte to work out its architecture. Bletchley, in Buckinghamshire, built a machine that simulated the Lorentz operation, called the “Tunny machine”.

Tutte then worked with TJ Flowers to build a valve-based electronic computer to crack the codes. This was called Colossus due to its size and was built in 1943, pre-dating the US built ENIAC by 3 years.

Colossus’ most important decipher was a message from Hitler dismissing the idea of a possible Normandy invasion, he was convinced the allies would attack at Calais – he had swallowed the allies deception campaign. This information enabled Montgomery and Eisenhower (later US President) to make the decision to launch the D-Day landings. Based on an idea by mathematician Max Newman and built by Engineer TJ Flowers. Colossus 1 had 1800 valves and Colossus 2 2400, replacing electro-mechanical switches of previous devices. This key step was the birth of the modern computer era.

Tommy Flowers could not cash in on his computer invention, as Churchill insisted that it was kept secret. Most of them were later destroyed. A fully operational Colossus machine has incredibly been rebuilt from scratch by computer expert Tony Sale. See a video of it working here Note the paper tape reader and optical reader – rather like a CD! The speed of the paper tape determines the speed of the computer.

Bletchley is now a museum open to the public, housing the
code breaking equipment and also the National Museum of Computing, with the Colossus as its centerpiece. Tracking the development of computing power since the “valve era” is very interesting. The early computers used valves acting as switches, later machines used discrete transistors and then finally transistors etched onto the silicon chips used by all modern computers. The power of the computer is related to the number of “switches”. 1943 Colossus – 2400, 1946 ENIAC 18000, 1950′s.

http://advancedphototech.wordpress.com/hardware/bletchley-park-enigma-and-the-worlds-first-electronic-computer/



Only a fool would consider a ragbag group of terrorists to be a superior fighting force to the highly-skilled British Army.



The Battle of Britain wasn't a close run thing in the end, not in terms of the numbers killed. In that sense it was a victory by a huge marging for the RAF lads. And at the time of that huge victory the British were fighting Hitler's hordes alone.



Who cares? All that doesn't matter now. We won, the Hun lost. That's all that matters.



In the event of an invasion the British people would have put up a much better fight that many of their European neighbours, such as France, did. We even had a force of almost 2 million men - the Home Guard - who would have out up a fight should the Hun have invaded.



Chamberlain was not a defeatist. The reason why he resigned from Government in 1940 was because he believed that, in order to defeat the Hun, a Government of all the parties was necessary. However the Labour and Liberal parties would not join a government headed by him, so he had to resign. It was also, of course, Chamberlain himself who declared war on Germany. He wouldn't have done so if he thought Britain had no chance of winning it.



If it wasn't for the British you'd be writing this post in German, probably in a brutal concentration camp or something similar.

I am jsut wondering what role the Duke of Windsor ( former King)would have been playing in a Nazi ruled Europe as he was such a fan of the Nazis ? In fact I believe american intelligence was very concerned about his links to the Nazis. Of course as I noted previousily, many of Britain's upper crust were, before the war, admirers of Herr Hitler.
Indeed, to bring the thread back to the present day, did not one of the present Princes go a party dressed as a Nazi ? Anyone remember that ?

Batsy

Lab_Mouse wrote: »

Just read all his posts in this chaps voice.It takes the sting out of them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PL1jDcAHkc8

They're a great group are the EDL. They are, sadly, the only group in Britain who are actually trying to do something about the evils of Islamofascism. They should become a political party. They'd do very well. I'd certainly vote for them.

Batsy

Plautus wrote: »

Er, I have exactly the same problem with nationalistic Scots or Americans using racially loaded epithets like those.

Seriously, EUSSR? Hun? This is twilight zone stuff.

The sooner that Britain gets out of the Hun-dominated EUSSR, the better.

Batsy

anymore wrote: »

I am jsut wondering what role the Duke of Windsor ( former King)would have been playing in a Nazi ruled Europe as he was such a fan of the Nazis ?

The Duke of Windsor couldn't have done much. He was a duke, not a politician.

In fact I believe american intelligence was very concerned about his links to the Nazis.

The Yanks - the same ones who initially stood by and did nothing about Nazism when British cities were being bombed by the Luftwaffe and the RAF inflicted the Nazis' first major defeat of the war (the Battle of Britain) - should have been looking closer to home rather than being concerned about other people's links to the Nazis. The famous Ford motor company had big links with the Nazis, links which continued even when the war started. In 1998 a Belgian woman even sued Ford because she was forced to work as a slave labourer at a Ford manufacturing plant in Cologne during World War II. The civil action was also filed on behalf of the thousands of other slave labourers who worked at that Ford factory.

Of course as I noted previousily, many of Britain's upper crust were, before the war, admirers of Herr Hitler.

However, unlike many European countries, including Ireland, Britain didn't have a government which openly, or secretly, supported the Nazis.

Indeed, to bring the thread back to the present day, did not one of the present Princes go a party dressed as a Nazi ? Anyone remember that ?

It was actually a fancy dress party that Prince Harry went to dressed as a Nazi. And, of course, it's quite common for people to go to fancy dress parties dressed as Nazis, axe murderers or monsters. It was all of a fuss about nothing. And to accuse a serving member of the British Army of being an admirer of the Nazis is ludicrous.

jmcc

Batsy wrote: »

The RAF killed 2,698 Hun. The Hun managed to kill a poxy 544 RAF lads. End of story.

Yes but the dastardly Hun also killed a lot of civilians and they don't seem to appear in those numbers.

It was the British who were the first to use radar in war

Actually, if I recall correctly, the German Naval radar was far more advanced than that used by the British as the Royal Navy found to its cost. The Germans also had ground radar but had not deployed it in the Chain Home manner.

The British were the first to use radar as part of a defence system. That was during WWII.

Well there wasn't much opportunity for the British to use radar as part of an offensive system.

You are wrong again, I'm afraid. You can't consider that computer to be the first actual electronic computer. As that Wikipedia page says:

Perhaps you should have a look at this Wikipedia page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konrad_Zuse

However the people at the time who thought that (probably mostly Yanks who didn't know of the top secret British Colossus computer which went operational in 1943) were wrong.

By 1943, codebreaking at Bletchley had become a very auomated affair and many of the large code breaking devices (the Bombes) were being manufactured and supplied by the Americans. Colossus was used to attack the Tunny codes which were a far more complex (more wheels) version of Enigma.

The Germans had, apparently, used Zuse's computers to develop aircraft and what would become the first cruise missiles.

Only a fool would consider a ragbag group of terrorists to be a superior fighting force to the highly-skilled British Army.

The whole point about a superior fighting force is that it beats the enemy.

The first World War financially crippled the British Empire. The Second finished it and made the UK a satrap of the United States. Ironically the UK is now caught once more between the US and Germany.

Regards...jmcc

anymore

Batsy wrote: »

The Duke of Windsor couldn't have done much. He was a duke, not a politician.




The Yanks - the same ones who initially stood by and did nothing about Nazism when British cities were being bombed by the Luftwaffe and the RAF inflicted the Nazis' first major defeat of the war (the Battle of Britain) - should have been looking closer to home rather than being concerned about other people's links to the Nazis. The famous Ford motor company had big links with the Nazis, links which continued even when the war started. In 1998 a Belgian woman even sued Ford because she was forced to work as a slave labourer at a Ford manufacturing plant in Cologne during World War II. The civil action was also filed on behalf of the thousands of other slave labourers who worked at that Ford factory.



However, unlike many European countries, including Ireland, Britain didn't have a government which openly, or secretly, supported the Nazis.



It was actually a fancy dress party that Prince Harry went to dressed as a Nazi. And, of course, it's quite common for people to go to fancy dress parties dressed as Nazis, axe murderers or monsters. It was all of a fuss about nothing. And to accuse a serving member of the British Army of being an admirer of the Nazis is ludicrous.

Well th Queen of Englad, Lizzie Saxe Coburg (her real name) isnt a politician either but lot all owe your loyalty to her ! And given the complete pantomine nonsesnse enacted here for the first visit of Mrs Saxe Coburg, monarchs and even fromer monarchs clearly have big symbolic and legal significance in teh UK - I repsume that the plan was that the' Duke' should retake his rightful position as monarch of nazi Britain.
Niow to reitereate, it is clear and logical that a force of mainly bomber pilots will inflict far few kills of attack pilots than the other way around. Youare determinedly ignoring that little point in your rewriting of history.

Whiulst catigating the Yanks - the people who had saved your asses in the First War, you fail to acknowledge land Lease which supplied the UK with so much stratec material - Britain would have collapsed woithout it.
What is it with this complete lack of gratitude towards america / How many americans have to die saving the brits from messses they have gotten into ?

Batsy

Wibbs wrote: »

You think the first use of radar in a military setting was British, it was not.

Yes it was.

Hate to break it to you again, but the "yanks" already knew about colossus and many of their experts had access to and helped refine it.

Nope again. The codes were already broken before colossus came along. How do you think they programmed it?

Not all German codes were broken before Colossus came along. Why do you think Colossus was built? Also, what do you think the codebreakers at Bletchley Park did? They weren't called codebreakers for nothing.

Colossus - which was technologically more advanced than anything the Yanks had - was designed and built by Londoner Tommy Flowers. It was, at the time, the most powerful computer by far ever built.

Colossus was the world's first electronic, digital, programmable computer. Colossus and its successors were used by British codebreakers to help read encrypted German messages during World War II. They used thermionic valves (vacuum tubes) to perform the calculations.

Flowers's first contact with the wartime codebreaking effort came when he was asked for help by Alan Turing - the English computer scientist who is regarded as the father of computer science and Artificial Intelligence - who was then working at the government's Bletchley Park codebreaking establishment 50 miles north west of London in Buckinghamshire.

Although the decoder project was abandoned, Turing was impressed with Flowers's work, and introduced him to Max Newman who was leading the effort to break a German cipher generated by a teletypewriter coding machine, the Lorenz SZ42, one of their "Geheimschreiber" (secret writer) systems, which was called "Tunny" by the British.

This was a much more complex coding system than Enigma; the decoding procedure involved trying so many possibilities that it was impractical to do by hand. In February 1943, Flowers proposed an electronic system, which he called Colossus, using over 1,800 valves (vacuum tubes). Because the most complicated previous electronic device had used about 150 valves, some were sceptical that such a device would be reliable. Flowers countered that the British telephone system used thousands of valves and was reliable because the electronics were operated in a stable environment that included having the circuitry on all the time. The Bletchley Park management were not convinced, however, and merely encouraged Flowers to proceed on his own. He did so, providing much of the funds for the project himself. On 2 June 1943, he was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE).

Flowers gained full backing for his project from the Director of Dollis Hill, W. G. Radley. With the highest priority for acquisition of parts, Flowers's extremely dedicated team at Dollis Hill built the first machine in 11 months. It was immediately dubbed 'Colossus' by the Bletchley Park staff for its immense proportions. It operated 5 times faster and was more flexible than the previous British system, named Heath Robinson, which used electro-mechanical switches. Anticipating the need for additional compuers, a Mark 2 redesign utilizing 2,400 valves was begun before the first computer was finished.

The first Mark 2 Colossus was put into service at Bletchley Park on 1 June 1944, and immediately produced vital information for the imminent D-Day landings planned for Monday 5th June (postponed 24 hours by bad weather). Flowers later described a crucial meeting between Dwight D. Eisenhower and his staff on 5 June, during which a courier entered and handed Eisenhower a note summarizing a Colossus decrypt. This confirmed that Hitler wanted no additional troops moved to Normandy, as he was still convinced that the preparations for the Normandy Landings were a diversionary feint. Handing back the decrypt, Eisenhower announced to his staff, "We go tomorrow."

Years later, Flowers described the design and construction of these computers. Ten Colossi were completed and used during World War II in British decoding efforts, and an eleventh was ready for commissioning at the end of the war. All but two were dismantled at the end of the war. "The remaining two were moved to a British Intelligence department, GCHQ in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, where they may have plaed a significant part in the codebreaking operations of the Cold War". They were finally decommissioned in 1959 and 1960.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Flowers

I would also say that the world's first actual computer was that invented by the Englishman Charles Babbage in 1837. It was known as the Analytical Engine. That, however, was not electronic.

"Sasanach" is the Irish/Scots Gaelic word for an Englishman(In Welsh it's Saeson). A derivation of Saxon. It's a descriptive term. It's root and use in such languages is not pejorative.

Sassenach is a perjorative term for an Englishman.

Noun

sassenach (plural sassenachs)

1. (Scotland, pejorative) An English person.

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sassenach

sassenach

IPA: /sæs.ənˈæk/ , Sampa: /s{s.@n"{k/ ,
Translations:

• sassenach (Noun, )

(Scottish, pejorative) An English person.

http://glosbe.com/en/en/sassenach




"Come to think of it, the English.....we call them Sassenachs, but I'm sorry to say it does not quite have the same amicable ring to it as does Jock. When we use the word Sassenach it tends to be used a wee bit pejoratively."

http://www.antimoon.com/forum/t5156.htm

You had rationing until the 50's.

So did many countries that fought in the war. The US had rationing until 1946.

If it does you may regret it. For at least a generation.

Most people in Britain will not regret leaving the EU. Leaving the EU will only be of benefit to Britain, her demoracy and her economy. Quaint as it may sound to the swivel-eyed, mouth-foaming Europhiles but I actually want Britain to be run by the British.

Also, I tend to ignore any prophecies of doom from the Europhiles regarding Britain and its place in the EU. We had all the same doom-mongering prophecies from you lot in 2002 when Britain refused to join the euro. We were called Little Englanders and Bad Europeans and were told our economy would suffer as a result of us not joining the euro. Instead, as recent events have shown, those Europhile doom-mongerers were very wrong and that, in fact, Britain refusing to join the euro was one of the best decision it has made in its recent history.

So excuse me for not believing the doom-mongering from the Europhiles about what would happen to Britain if she left the EUSSR.

You do realise the world has changed in those centuries? What worked then(or didn't as the case may be) doesn't work today. The financial world is radically different and very much more interdependent.

We got on okay for centuries without being in the EU and, once we leave the EU, we'd keep continuing to go ok for centuries. Strange as it may seem to you loony Europhiles but Britain does NOT rely on the EU for its national survival. Britain's place in the world needs to be with the 87% of the world's countries that are NOT in the EU, not with the sclerotic basket-cases who make up the poxy 13% of the world's countries who are in the EU.

Britain needs to leave the EU and concentrate on the global Commonwealth. New Zealand, for example, still hasn't quite forgiven Britain for joining the EU in 1973. Doing so caused New Zealand's economy to suffer.

The UK may not have the euro, but it is in the eurozone.

No, it isn't.

I would agree somewhat with much of that. However I make the distinction that one can be independent, yet be part of a larger entity for mutual gain. A "commonwealth" as it were. I'm sure you would support a stronger commonwealth of ex British empire countries who wanted part of that, so why not similar within Europe? Hardly crackpot?

I do not want Britain to be a part of a larger political and economic union. I do not want it to be a part of a monstrosity which has aspirations of being an actual country. I want Britain to be fully sovereign with the British running it. The Commonwealth, unlike the EU, is NOT a politicial and economic union and does not have aspirations of being a superstate. It does not have a capital city or a government. It is simply a loose, intergovernmental organisation similar to the UN.

anymore

Batsy wrote: »

Yes it was.




Not all German codes were broken before Colossus came along. Why do you think Colossus was built? Also, what do you think the codebreakers at Bletchley Park did? They weren't called codebreakers for nothing.

Colossus - which was technologically more advanced than anything the Yanks had - was designed and built by Londoner Tommy Flowers. It was, at the time, the most powerful computer by far ever built.

Colossus was the world's first electronic, digital, programmable computer. Colossus and its successors were used by British codebreakers to help read encrypted German messages during World War II. They used thermionic valves (vacuum tubes) to perform the calculations.

Flowers's first contact with the wartime codebreaking effort came when he was asked for help by Alan Turing - the English computer scientist who is regarded as the father of computer science and Artificial Intelligence - who was then working at the government's Bletchley Park codebreaking establishment 50 miles north west of London in Buckinghamshire.

Although the decoder project was abandoned, Turing was impressed with Flowers's work, and introduced him to Max Newman who was leading the effort to break a German cipher generated by a teletypewriter coding machine, the Lorenz SZ42, one of their "Geheimschreiber" (secret writer) systems, which was called "Tunny" by the British.

This was a much more complex coding system than Enigma; the decoding procedure involved trying so many possibilities that it was impractical to do by hand. In February 1943, Flowers proposed an electronic system, which he called Colossus, using over 1,800 valves (vacuum tubes). Because the most complicated previous electronic device had used about 150 valves, some were sceptical that such a device would be reliable. Flowers countered that the British telephone system used thousands of valves and was reliable because the electronics were operated in a stable environment that included having the circuitry on all the time. The Bletchley Park management were not convinced, however, and merely encouraged Flowers to proceed on his own. He did so, providing much of the funds for the project himself. On 2 June 1943, he was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE).

Flowers gained full backing for his project from the Director of Dollis Hill, W. G. Radley. With the highest priority for acquisition of parts, Flowers's extremely dedicated team at Dollis Hill built the first machine in 11 months. It was immediately dubbed 'Colossus' by the Bletchley Park staff for its immense proportions. It operated 5 times faster and was more flexible than the previous British system, named Heath Robinson, which used electro-mechanical switches. Anticipating the need for additional compuers, a Mark 2 redesign utilizing 2,400 valves was begun before the first computer was finished.

The first Mark 2 Colossus was put into service at Bletchley Park on 1 June 1944, and immediately produced vital information for the imminent D-Day landings planned for Monday 5th June (postponed 24 hours by bad weather). Flowers later described a crucial meeting between Dwight D. Eisenhower and his staff on 5 June, during which a courier entered and handed Eisenhower a note summarizing a Colossus decrypt. This confirmed that Hitler wanted no additional troops moved to Normandy, as he was still convinced that the preparations for the Normandy Landings were a diversionary feint. Handing back the decrypt, Eisenhower announced to his staff, "We go tomorrow."

Years later, Flowers described the design and construction of these computers. Ten Colossi were completed and used during World War II in British decoding efforts, and an eleventh was ready for commissioning at the end of the war. All but two were dismantled at the end of the war. "The remaining two were moved to a British Intelligence department, GCHQ in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, where they may have plaed a significant part in the codebreaking operations of the Cold War". They were finally decommissioned in 1959 and 1960.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Flowers

I would also say that the world's first actual computer was that invented by the Englishman Charles Babbage in 1837. It was known as the Analytical Engine. That, however, was not electronic.



Sassenach is a perjorative term for an Englishman.

Noun

sassenach (plural sassenachs)

1. (Scotland, pejorative) An English person.

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sassenach

sassenach

IPA: /sæs.ənˈæk/ , Sampa: /s{s.@n"{k/ ,
Translations:

• sassenach (Noun, )

(Scottish, pejorative) An English person.

http://glosbe.com/en/en/sassenach




"Come to think of it, the English.....we call them Sassenachs, but I'm sorry to say it does not quite have the same amicable ring to it as does Jock. When we use the word Sassenach it tends to be used a wee bit pejoratively."

http://www.antimoon.com/forum/t5156.htm





So did many countries that fought in the war. The US had rationing until 1946.



Most people in Britain will not regret leaving the EU. Leaving the EU will only be of benefit to Britain, her demoracy and her economy. Quaint as it may sound to the swivel-eyed, mouth-foaming Europhiles but I actually want Britain to be run by the British.

Also, I tend to ignore any prophecies of doom from the Europhiles regarding Britain and its place in the EU. We had all the same doom-mongering prophecies from you lot in 2002 when Britain refused to join the euro. We were called Little Englanders and Bad Europeans and were told our economy would suffer as a result of us not joining the euro. Instead, as recent events have shown, those Europhile doom-mongerers were very wrong and that, in fact, Britain refusing to join the euro was one of the best decision it has made in its recent history.

So excuse me for not believing the doom-mongering from the Europhiles about what would happen to Britain if she left the EUSSR.



We got on okay for centuries without being in the EU and, once we leave the EU, we'd keep continuing to go ok for centuries. Strange as it may seem to you loony Europhiles but Britain does NOT rely on the EU for its national survival. Britain's place in the world needs to be with the 83% of the world's countries that are NOT in the EU, not with the sclerotic basket-cases who make up the poxy 13% of the world's countries who are in the EU.

Britain needs to leave the EU and concentrate on the global Commonwealth. New Zealand, for example, still hasn't quite forgiven Britain for joining the EU in 1973. Doing so caused New Zealand's economy to suffer.



No, it isn't.



I do not want Britain to be a part of a larger political and economic union. I do not want it to be a part of a monstrosity which has aspirations of being an actual country. I want Britain to be fully sovereign with the British running it. The Commonwealth, unlike the EU, is NOT a politicial and economic union and does not have aspirations of being a superstate. It does not have a capital city or a government. It is simply a loose, intergovernmental organisation similar to the UN.

Could you jsut post s short summary of above to save me the trouble of wading through it ? And preferably just a summary of any bits relevant to the thread ?

Batsy

anymore wrote: »

Well th Queen of Englad, Lizzie Saxe Coburg (her real name) isnt a politician either but lot all owe your loyalty to her !

Queen Elizabeth II is our Head of State and has been for almost 60 years. During that 60 years she has remained very popular. It'd be hard to find any President that could be in power for decades and remain very popular.

And given the complete pantomine nonsesnse enacted here for the first visit of Mrs Saxe Coburg, monarchs and even fromer monarchs clearly have big symbolic and legal significance in teh UK

The "pantomime nonsense" in Ireland during the visit by Queen Elizabeth II was no different from that of any other Head of State visiting Ireland.

- I repsume that the plan was that the' Duke' should retake his rightful position as monarch of nazi Britain.

The Duke of Windsor had no rightful place on the British throne once he abdicated in 1936.

Whiulst catigating the Yanks - the people who had saved your asses in the First War,

The ones who entered WWI just a year or so before it ended, who had a force just half the size of Britain's and suffered nowhere near the amount of casualities that the British suffered.

What is it with this complete lack of gratitude towards america / How many americans have to die saving the brits from messses they have gotten into ?

Britain only got into such messes because, in 1939, Britain actually decided to so something about Hitler and the Nazis. We decided to FIGHT them. This is quite unlike the Americans, who didn't do anything at all until the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour and then the Germans and Italians declared war on them. And the Irish didn't get into such messes because they decided to sit on their butts and do nothing about the Nazis all the way through the war, or "The Emergency" as you called it.

jmcc

anymore wrote: »

Could you jsut post s short summary of above to save me the trouble of wading through it ?

Wikipedia. Making people appear smarter and more learned than they are since 2004.

Regards...jmcc

jmcc

Batsy wrote: »

The ones who entered WWI just a year or so before it ended, who had a force just half the size of Britain's and suffered nowhere near the amount of casualities that the British suffered.

Yes but the British and the colonies had been fighting since 1914 and if it hadn't been for the intervention of the USA, there is a possibility that the Allies could have been defeated. The Zimmerman Telegram and unrestricted submarine warfare more than concern for the British Empire brought the USA into WW1.

Britain only got into such messes because, in 1939, Britain actually decided to so something about Hitler and the Nazis.

It was Realpolitik. The Germans had been annexing Europe and had taken over Czechslovakia and Austria. It was rapidly becoming the major player in European politics and this was downgrading the UK's position. In some respects, the same dynamics are at work now with the EU though it is ostensibly a peaceful annexation of states.

Regards...jmcc

jmcc

Batsy wrote: »

Not all German codes were broken before Colossus came along. Why do you think Colossus was built? Also, what do you think the codebreakers at Bletchley Park did? They weren't called codebreakers for nothing.

Some of them made tea too. But not all the people at BP were codebreakers. Codebreaking is actually a lot tougher than it sounds and only a handful of people have the necessary abilities. What made BP unusual was the way that it concentrated and streamlined the whole process of decryption and intelligence distribution. Perhaps this might be getting beyond the simple jolly hockey sticks version and straying into the realm of cryppies and intelligence matters but it was a very serious business.

Britain needs to leave the EU and concentrate on the global Commonwealth. New Zealand, for example, still hasn't quite forgiven Britain for joining the EU in 1973. Doing so caused New Zealand's economy to suffer.

If I may be so bold as to ask, why are you telling us this? Do you secretly want to return to Britain's Celtic roots and have a confederation of Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England?

Regards...jmcc