Russian aggressors buzz U.S. carrier and Japan

[David Floyd]

We can't really blame Russia. After all, they're just next in a long line of countries whose asses we saved turn around and hate us.

Wait, actually, that long line is just France and Russia. France's excuse is that it's full of French people. Serb, what's Russia's excuse?

[SlowwHand]

It wants to be full of French people.

[germanos]

Originally posted by Lancer
Hell just send that German kid who took off from Germany in a two seater, flew over the border into East Germany and then calmly made his way over half an evil commie empire to set down in Red Square.

It was a stealth piper cub or some such I'm sure.

NORAD on 9-11

[David Floyd]

Very poor taste

[germanos]

Originally posted by David Floyd
Very poor taste

Oh, we can laugh at the Ruskies but not at the US?

I'm sorry for the US that NORAD's incompetence had far more serious concequences.

[David Floyd]

And just exactly how is NORAD supposed to differentiate a hijacked airliner from a normal airliner, when there are hundreds of planes in the air and no indication of a major terrorist attack underway?

If anything, you should really be castigated the FAA, as they have responsibility for civilian airliners, not NORAD.

Finally, the normal response to a hijacking is NOT to shoot down the hijacked plane. Again, there was no indication that the planes were about to fly into the WTC until the first one hit, and by then it was too late to prevent the second one, at least in the real world.

And yes, you can laugh at the US all you want, but at least know what you're talking about.

[Joseph]

This was fun reading.

[Serb]

Originally posted by David Floyd
We can't really blame Russia. After all, they're just next in a long line of countries whose asses we saved turn around and hate us.

Wait, actually, that long line is just France and Russia. France's excuse is that it's full of French people. Serb, what's Russia's excuse?

We saved your pitty asses, not the other way around.

[Patroklos]

We saved your pitty asses, not the other way around.

Yes, I have pictures of my grand pappy posing with his lend lease T-34 in France. Wait

[Saras]

Originally posted by Serb


We saved your pitty asses, not the other way around.

You saved American asses from what, exactly?

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Saras


You saved American asses from what, exactly?

extra bloodshed mostly. Assuming the US was indeed determined to defeat the nazis and would not tolerate nazi control of europe then had the soviets caved or kept peace with the nazis it is likely that US casualties would have been much higher and the war much longer. With no second front those beachheads would have been far far more painful to establish and expand out from.

I'm sure it's fair to say Soviets saved many American asses through their participation in the war as allies.

[Zkribbler]

Originally posted by Serb


We saved your pitty asses, not the other way around.

We saved each other's asses.

Without U.S. military equipment and supplies, the S.U. would have fallen to the advancing Nazis.

Without the Red Army and partisans bleeding the Nazis white, the remaining allies would have never dared to invade Fortress Europa.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Zkribbler


We saved each other's asses.

Without U.S. military equipment and supplies, the S.U. would have fallen to the advancing Nazis.

Without the Red Army and partisans bleeding the Nazis white, the remaining allies would have never dared to invade Fortress Europa.

That's probably true. They would never have accepted the outrageous casualties that would have required and would have ended up trying to win with mass use of atomic weapons. Some victory that would have been.

[David Floyd]

It's certainly true. The war would have ended with a German surrender - probably after a military coup - following the dropping of the A-bomb on Berlin and either Nuremburg or a major industrial target in the Ruhr.

If we really wanted to make sure, we could have waited for a year and a half or so, and wiped Germany off the map in 1947-ish.

So in that sense, no Second Front might have easily saved American lives.

As for "some victory that would have been", well, look at Japan. That's how we ended the Pacific War, and Japan has both done quite well since and remained a fairly staunch US ally.

The fact of the matter is, Germany was royally ****ed the second it declared war on the United States. Whether it happened in 1945, 1946, or 1947 is irrelevant. Whether it happened with Allied support is irrelevant. Whether it happened due to the US Army Ground Forces or the US Army Air Force is also irrelevant.

In the end, though, a world without a Soviet Union after 1942-1943 or so would probably be a much better world.

Of course, the opposite is not the same. Without US participation in the war, the Soviet Union had little to no chance of decisively defeating Germany. Even if you accept that the Soviets could have stopped the initial invasion (probably they could have, as per history), it's a little tougher to imagine they could have pushed the Germans back as they did historically, because historically they had access to hundreds of thousands of American trucks, thousands of US and British trains, as well as unimaginable amounts of raw materials shipped from the West. And it's impossible to envision them completely defeating the Germans. And in any of those scenarios, it's absolutely true that Soviet casualties would have been much, much higher, both civilian and military.

[VetLegion]

The fact of the matter is, Germany was royally ****ed the second it declared war on the United States.

You're assuming that the US public (60% of whom claim to have some German ancestry) would have no qualms about obliterating Germany with atomic bombs and contaminating the rest of Europe in the process. I think you need a reality check.

Absent Soviet involvement in the war, it is more likely that Germany accepts some sort of peace after Hitler dies, generously retreating from most of France and some other parts of Europe (pledging to retreat from Poland as soon as the Soviets do) in return for return to normal shipping.