Ah! - Obviously a Medel of Honour 5 player!

Really? A minor role? had our efforts between 1939 and the summer of 1941 when the Soviets jumped in Hitler's Germany would've been a very, very powerful force for the Soviets to tackle.

I am not so sure you can look at any one countries role in isolation to that of another.



[urlhttp://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwtwo/battle_of_britain_05.shtml[/url

Battle of Britain, great film, Young Michael Caine.

watched it in HD on Channel 4HD the other week!!!!!!

Soviet casualties in WW2 25m+
British casualties in WW2 Approx 388,000

Sources:

(1). Alan Bullock - Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives pp987
(2). The Times Atlas of the Second World War pp204,205
(3). Richard Overy - Russia's War pp288

The huge bulk of the fighting and losses fell on the Soviets. Without them there would have been no D-day under consideration let alone enactment.

That said, they fought with some benefit of small numbers of troops being tied down in the west and significant benefit of US materials and Royal Navy ships escorting convoys to them.

Had Britain sought peace in 1940 - and we very nearly did in June and again September - there is a strong likelihood that Barbarossa would have succeeded. The Soviets were instrumental in the ultimate victory but we played our part in making it possible.

That, perhaps, is the legacy of Dunkirk & the Battle of Britain - not that they prevented invasion as that was never a realistic proposition - but that they bought time and allowed Britain to choose to hang on.

THat's not rally the point. Attempts to dismiss the role of any of the major Allied forces (including the US, Britain and Soviet Union, and also France, China, Greece etc) as minor are doomed to failure, and if you don't mind my saying so, rather flippant. Had Hitler succeeded in subduing Britain, the US would likely not have intervened to prevent our fall, and the German attack on Soviet territory would have been less diluted and more likely to succeed. The reciprocal is also no doubt true.

Why mention what? You've done all the mentioning. I've simply been checking up on what you have been saying.



Ok, let's look at the whole of your paragraph.



Your statement that "[iThe only campaigns where the majority of troops under British command were British were the 1940 defeats in Norway and France[/i" was wrong.

You pointed out the involvment of non British troops in the Battle of Britain. I accepted that but demonstrated that the majority were British.

You then countered by dismissing the Battle of Britain as not being a "campaign" as if it weren't as worthy as the much shorter French surrender of 1940 which you bestowed the title of "Campaign".

I than asked you for your source to justify "[iThe only campaigns where the majority of troops under British command were British were the 1940 defeats in Norway and France -[/i" and I gave some interesting background material. As far as I can see I have not taken issue with your statement about the Britishness of the troops under British command in France or Norway 1940.

I [ihave[/i taken issue with your statements that these two examples were the [ionly[/i campaigns where the majority of troops under British command were British and I think I have demonstrated that to be wrong with the reference to the Battle of Britain, unless of course we're going to go into the discussion about Campaigns and Battles again.

And?

See El Diablo and Puig Aubert's posts above.

That fact that they suffered more casualties doesn't mean they played a greater role in winning the war.

They may have suffered even more had they not engaged in the Battle of Britain and suffered major damage to the Luftwaffe

A fair summation.

Also, thank goodness that Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding disagreed with Churchill's tactics. His reward for being responsible for the victory? The sack from Churchill!

If you want to talk about games kindly find a relevant board.

TIA

Keep on topic. Final warning.

Battle of Britain was quoted way before i did!

anyway, who put you in charge?

your quoting every post of mine is getting worrying, do i have to get G1 to slam a resrtaining order on your a55!

Stalker!

I'd love to know how many of the soviet lives lost were of their OWN doing!!

I'm only playing games here really but you'd struggle to find any serious historian who wouldn't agree that the USSR played the most important role in winning the second world war in Europe.

I was being rather flippant too but the fact remains. While the contribution of the RAF in the Battle of Britain was important in staving off a potential Nazi invasion, by September 1940 the Nazi High Command was fully absorbed in planning Barbarossa, the issue of Britain was a sideshow as far as the Nazis were concerned, to them at that time we were defeated and not a serious threat.

The Luftwaffe may have lost a lot of experienced pilots in the B of B but I don't think this was a major influence on the outcome of the war in the East where the largest and most intense fighting of the war took place. The Luftwaffe enjoyed enormous superiority in 1941/42 yet it was powerless in the face of the Soviet Army from 1942 onward. The Nazis had bitten off far more than they could chew in the East.

Perhaps without the resources sent by convoy to the USSR and the opening of the second front things may have been different. However I do think that it would have simply prolonged the war rather than affected the outcome. The Soviets had little use for western small arms, artillery, tanks or planes which for the most part were inferior to the ones they produced. Once the USSR became fully mobilised in terms of war production it was always going to be on the winning side.

How could a debt recovery specialist do that?




SNIGGER

The Soviets inflicted the first German defeat of WW2 and seriously dented their capacity to wage war against the rest of the Allies. After all you really have to be thick to try and fight a war with two massive fronts as the Germans did. The outcome would have been different had the Germans captured the oilfields in the Ukraine but luckily they were halted by the defenders at Stalingrad. When the Eastern Front started the Allies watched to see how it would unfold which Stalin wasn't thrilled about as he wanted a second front which did not happen. Most of the German forces were pointed towards the Soviets.

Read Stalingrad by Antony Beevor as that will tell you all about the battle and the monumental mistakes by both sides committed during that campaign.

You mean the Great Purge by Stalin before WW2 that robbed the Soviet Armed Forces of many of their officers ? Or the millions starved by Stalin just to show the world how much wheat and grain they could produce ( he sold it abroad ). There were also many who died by their own Soviet masters during WW2 too.

do you have permission to use that picture?

breaking the AUP

tut tut tut

I don't remember any of this being covered on Allo Allo.

Its a dangerous game playing 'what if?' but if we assumed that Britain made peace in June or September 1940 and adopted benevolent neutrality in any future German advances I don't think its unrealistic to assume:

1) German access to middle eastern oil
2) A free hand for the Kriegsmarine in the Baltic and the Italian fleet in the Black sea
3) Spain & Yugoslavia joining the Axis
4) Probable granting of bases in Iraq
5) Very limited requirement for German & Italian troops in France or the desert
6) High probability of Turkish participation in any attack on the USSR


That would, at a guess, mean Barbarossa could have been launched some 6 weeks earlier with a force about 20 Divisions stronger on multiple fronts. My guess is that would have given Germany the quick victory she needed in order to defeat the USSR.

Please direct me to the copyright statement regarding the image.

TIA

The delay of Germany launching Operation Barbarossa was a massive mistake. Even when they had got going they froze to death in the Soviet winter and to keep warm they either took clothes off dead soldiers or from Soviet peasants and let them freeze to death. How Europe would have looked if there had been a peace with the Allies and the destruction of the Soviet Union is not something you want to think about as the Germans would have had free reign to do whatever they wanted to those they saw as Untermenschen.

I hate to say this but your right.

And I'd even go further with it.

Forget the AUP.

A picture of Schoie's bloated, boozed up face, breaks the normal standards of decency.

Shouldn't be looked at in the daytime and children should be advised that looking at pictures of Schoie can cause long term mental damage.

Plenty of what ifs as you say.

All I'm saying is that the USSR contributed most to the end of the war in Europe. Obviously there were critical contributions from other allied countries that shouldn't be discounted but in terms of the effort and sacrifice made the Soviets lead the running.

As well as Beevor's books Stalingrad and Berlin the Alan Clark (yes him) book "Barbarossa" gives a superb account on the war int he East.

BTW G1 Dowding wasn't sacked by Churchill, he retired. In fact he was persuaded to stay on past retirement age in order to see through preparations of Britain's air defence before the B of B. "Stuffy" was succeeded by a group of officers who had differing ideas and he never really got the credit he and Keith Park deserved for their efforts but he wasn't sacked.

Stalingrad is a cracking book.