postcards from Verdun

[Surpmil]

Incalculable and irreparable harm was done Britain and the Commonwealth by the idiotic policy of voluntary enlistment. A policy designed to ensure that the best were killed while the morally and physically unfit survived to reproduce. That hardly anyone in leadership grasped this fact which was well known thousands of years before merely shows what donkeys we were led by. We have as an early example the idiotic comment of Kitchener after Loos that he could easily replace the 7500 odd men killed etc. etc.

Ataturk "great" Cinders? I suppose some people consider Hitler "great", but I ain't one of them. Certainly Hitler said at least once that no one would remember the Jews as hardly anyone remembered the Armenians and what was done to them. Had the Nazis won, no doubt he would have been right.

As for the Gallipoli venture, there were groups more anxious that the Russians not have access to the Med. etc. than that the Turks be defeated. The idea of the Russians restoring Constantinople to Christian hands was utter anathema to some as well. I expect the expedition was betrayed long before it got under way.

[CINDERS]

From my shelves, I suggest you get a copy of this book Surpmil have a read and digest exactly what was written from the front at Gallipoli to our Govt here in Australia.
Which ever way you look at it the wrong place landed against the probably best commander the Turks had.
History has had some very capable commanders on both sides of the fence and personally I will never ever say H*tler was a great person.
At least as far WWI, WWII & Korea our armed services were volunteers as the guys at the front said "Rather have some one there who wants to be there, than one who doesn't" I agree the conscript may flee at the first trouble and leave you in the lurch.

H*tler had some very capable commanders but thank goodness he and fatty Goering were dabblers who loved to interfere, if numptie had not wanted the 262 to be a revenge bomber it would have been in service a whole year ahead of time.
They would have then shot the flying fortresses down in droves, so we can thank H*tler for that, its great to look back on history but you cannot deny that fact if the jets had come in 12 months earlier what it would have meant to the war in the air.

[Surpmil]

I'll look that one out Cinders.

The Canadian conscripts who got to the front in 1918 were mostly found serviceable it seems; once there you don't have much option but to pull your weight or suffer the consequences.

Yes, it's one of the ironies of history that the German generals could not have started the second war, but Hitler having done so they would have won it for him had he not intervened.

[Flying10uk]

Some of Hitler's "new wonder weapons", that were in the pipeline, could have won WW2 for him if WW2 had lasted for a year or two longer. If D-Day had failed which it could easily have done in it's early stages WW2 could have gone on for another one or two years.

[baltimoreed]

Interesting thread. Would not have imagined postcards being created from such horrendous battles that close time wise to when they occurred but that was ‘news’ then. We take todays instant media for granted. Don’t need postcards or newsreels, we got 24 hr news on our tvs, pads, puters and phones. All the news that fit to print and some that ain’t.

[Surpmil]

Some of Hitler's "new wonder weapons", that were in the pipeline, could have won WW2 for him if WW2 had lasted for a year or two longer. If D-Day had failed which it could easily have done in it's early stages WW2 could have gone on for another one or two years.

Type XXI U boats in particular, but much too little, much too late.

Had D-Day failed atomic weapons would have probably been used in Europe, and the Soviets would never have got as far west as they did.

But could Overlord have been defeated even if the panzer divisions were close to the beaches, or would the softening up before the landings and after not just have been commensurately greater?

Had the full resources of Bomber Command been put into battlefield use in France would the panzer divisions have been able to do much even if closer to the beaches?

[Lithy]

Conscription has always been a very much debated topic here in Oz. Probably due to the fact we were normally backing allies in a foreign conflict.

Originally, the argument was a Catholic vs Protestant political contest and in the end it was a civil rights movement cause.

I am very proud of the efforts of our conscripts.

When they repelled the Japs in New Guinea it was against all odds especially considering the experience and equipment available.

In a later conflict in SE Asia, conscripts served alongside regulars effectively, with no animosity or quarter given or asked.

Whilst I'm in the anti conscription camp, I can't overlook the past deeds of our servicemen that probably thought that discretion was the better part of valour.

[CINDERS]

They were to scared to awaken H*tler on D-Day and as he had sole command of the Tigers they stayed put and really did not get to the front for 4-5 days as they found it difficult to move due to the air power the allies had.
As far as weaponization if they had spent more time on planes & u-boats instead of tanks, the Tiger and Panthers were over engineered only to see bigger variants Tiger II & Jagdt Tiger this ate up precious time and materials.
Gustave & Dora 80cm railguns were as good as an ashtray on a motor bike eating up 0000's of men just to use and protect the damned things, they did develop a flying saucer, sound cannons and other such folly.

But the real game changers were the aerial mines whilst in the beginning the magnetic had them worried as ships were just getting blown up, degauss the ships worked and the ships were saved.
They also used a wimpy with a large continuous hoop around the wings and tail flying low with a magnetically charged plane at tree top level exploding the mines that's hairy stuff flying over the water spout from a 1000kg of explosives going up.
So they made an acoustic fine ships had large hammer noise makers put in them detonating them, next came the Magnetic/Acoustic, another with a long tentacle wire that as soon as the ship touched it the mine detonated in shallow water this was devastating they all were actually.
The next 2 were the most lethal the George mine that had only one way into it through a base plate, just inside the base was a photo electric cell day light hits it and instant boom no more RNVR mine disposal officer to tell the world what's in there, it was defeated but more by accident with one crashing into the docks and breaking up.
The oyster mine which relies on the pressure wave of a ship they really could not defeat this one, there were others the Germans made that were so fiendish it even scared them.

Lastly with the early mines the firing mechanism required a block to slide in a groove the Germans made them both from the same material and allot of the times the block stuck, had they made one out of a different metal then allot of the mines would have self destructed when their clock ran down instead they just sat there 1000Kg of explosives.

Churchill said the only thing that scared him was the U-boat peril and its impacts it had on the outbound and incoming convoys

[Flying10uk]

The Nazis had a range of new weapons at various stages of development when the war ended. One example was the "flying wing" and a prototype ended up in America post 1945. Another example was a poison gas/chemical weapon of which the Allies had no defence.

[Daan Kemp]

1000kg of explosives per mine?