[Leica] There's something about German design ...

[gregj.lorenzo at shaw.ca (GREG LORENZO)]

Marc James Small writes in part: 

> Well over 75% of the US military effort was 
> dedicated to the NATO/MTO/ETO, and 80% of ground 
> forces were stationed there.  The Pacific and 
> South-West Pacific and SEAC Theaters did not 
> require and did not receive large numbers of 
> ground forces until DOWNFALL, the invasion of the 
> Home Islands, became imminent, when it was 
> planned to move the First Army from the ETO and 
> the Fourth Army from the US to bolster the 
> existing Sixth, Eighth and Tenth Armies.
> 

Putting large numbers of personnel on the ground in Europe does not mean 
that you won the land war in Europe (just ask Saddam's generals about their 
4th largest army of 1990, or the French). To win a war you need to engage 
the enemy, pin them down and destroy their combat power. Once again, the Red 
Army won the land war in Europe.

> The German jets were duds.  To my knowledge, none 
> ever shot down an Allied fighter, though Allied 
> fighters shot down a number of ME-262's.  (The 
> ME-262's were fuel hogs with VERY short 
> legs.  So, when they sortied, Allied air just 
> flew about their air bases and had a turkey shoot 
> when they returned to refuel.)  So unimpressed 
> were the Allies that they did not bother to field 
> the first jet squadrons (Meteors and P-80's) 
> although several squadrons of each were ready for battle by FEB 1945.

Where do you get these bizarre facts? Your source(s)couldn't be more 
incorrect.

German WWII Ace Heinrich B?r spent the last two months of the war flying a 
ME-262
Jet (your so-called dud). His last four shootdowns were all fighters (3 
Lightnings and 1 Mosquito). BTW, German fighters were ordered to ignore 
allied fighters and go after the bombers.

> MacDonald was an excellent author but, other than 
> his personal reminiscence, COMPANY COMMANDER, his 
> works have long ago been superseded by later 
> research and studies.  Come over to H-War and 
> post your statements there and see the wealth of scholarship revealed!
> 

I don't know what H-War is. Hopefully it is not a collection of people that 
generate facts by some weird kind of consenus. If this is the best they can 
come up with I'll go with recognised, published authors of non-fiction 
history - like MacDonald.

> The Soviet Union did a job on the Germans but the 
> modern view is that the Allies had to keep the 
> pressure on in western Europe to prevent the 
> Germans from fixing a defensive line which would 
> have been able to hold.  In other words, the 
> Soviet efforts were necessary for OVERLORD to 
> succeed but, then, OVERLORD was necessary to 
> allow the Soviets their massive gains in the summer of 1944.

I believe it was the Red Army's massive gains of 1943 and early 1944 that 
allowed them "their massive gains in the summer of 1944".

Perhaps it's time to get some books written by Soviet and German authors. 
You been reading too much of books like "War as I Knew It", etc.


Greg J. Lorenzo
Calgary, Alberta