How The Red Baron met his maker

That was cool. Not 5:49 cool...but it was cool.
 
I really enjoyed reading Ernst Udet's book, in it he describes flying with Richtofen in some detail. Including what kind of flyer you had to be in order to be "invited" to join the Flying Circus. Also, discredits Goering as a blow hard poser (we all know a few of those). I don't believe anything killed Richtofen except himself, he was just too good. Perhaps enraged over Wolfren, or that coupled with impaired judgement from a head wound, it is hard to say, but he put himself in a position he knew was foolish.

I'm always left wondering if the world has men with the same temper of steel as in those days.
 
> I would love to see a mock dogfight with biplanes at an airshow.


Almost every weekend at Old Rhinebeck ...
 
Great video... Did anybody notice the engines starting with nobody swinging the propeller? Must be those updated WWI fighters with the self-starters installed... :D
 
I wish Goering bought it instead.
 
rainsux said:
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Almost every weekend at Old Rhinebeck ...
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The whole show is really great, and don't get me wrong, I loved watching the old birds take to the air. But watching the air-combat is as exciting as watching paint dry. Two airplanes slugging it out at 60MPH...? not a lot of adrenalin there.
 
Anthony said:
I wish Goering bought it instead.
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I'm not so sure I would agree with that sentiment. Thanks to Goering's sound leadership, I would guess that he was a contributing factor to the outcome of WWII in Europe. It is possible that he was one of our best generals.

What if it was him instead of Richthofen that got himself killed, and it was Richthofen that comanded during WWII?

-John
 
John Baker said:
What if it was him instead of Richthofen that got himself killed, and it was Richthofen that comanded during WWII?
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Makes no difference whatsoever. It's the Russian solder-producing wombs supported by American industrial might that crushed Hitler. The air war in the European theater holds our imagination but did very little to alter the course of the whole conflict. And if Hitler flopped on until August 1945, he'd be getting the nuke instead of Hirohito, that's all (delivered by something like Canberra).
 
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zaitcev said:
Makes no difference whatsoever. It's the Russian solder-producing wombs supported by American industrial might that crushed Hitler. The air war in the European theater holds our imagination but did very little to alter the course of the whole conflict. And if Hitler flopped on until August 1945, he'd be getting the nuke instead of Hirohito, that's all (delivered by something like Canberra).
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Germany tried to defeat Great Britain by air. Had Germany succeeded, and invaded and occupied England, the US probably would have never entered the war, and the Soviet Union would not have received the American support that it did. Certainly Goering holds some of the blame for the failure to reduce GB enough to allow an invasion.

Goering was a politician with poor strategic sense and no backbone. Germany never had a successful long-rate bomber to engage Soviet industries, and he caved in when Hitler directed the Me-262 be configured as a tactical bomber rather than air defense.

Your point about the land battles in the east are well taken, however. Most people in the Western hemisphere don't really appreciate magnitude of the fighting on that side of the continent, and how many men couldn't throw the Allies off the beaches of France because they were fighting Russians in the East....

Ron Wanttaja
 
John Baker said:
I'm not so sure I would agree with that sentiment. Thanks to Goering's sound leadership, I would guess that he was a contributing factor to the outcome of WWII in Europe. It is possible that he was one of our best generals.

What if it was him instead of Richthofen that got himself killed, and it was Richthofen that comanded during WWII?

-John
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You are probably right. He and Hitler were incompetent, military leaders, and horrible tacticians, not to mention murderers, and criminals. My statement was more out of utter distaste for him.

If Richtofen had survived, he may have been in Goerings place, and if so done a better job. He certainly would have done a better job suppressing England than Goering, and that could have been a long term disaster.
 
Had England fallen, leaving the U.S. and other countries with no staging area in western Europe, the war would certainly of had a much different outcome. Or at best, dragged on many more years.

Unless, of course, we did use our nuclear capability against Hitler. I'm not so sure that idea would have been easily sold back in those days. Yellow people, OK, white people, not so much. The world was a very prejudiced place back then, much more so than today.

We would probably have been using Russia as a staging area. I doubt if uncle Joe would have gone along with dropping the bomb so close to his own turf.

-John
 
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John Baker said:
Had England fallen, leaving the U.S. and other countries with no staging area in western Europe, the war would certainly of had a much different outcome. Or at best, dragged on many more years.

Unless, of course, we did use our nuclear capability against Hitler. I'm not so sure that idea would have been easily sold back in those days. Yellow people, OK, white people, not so much. The world was a very prejudiced place back then, much more so than today.

We would probably have been using Russia as a staging area. I doubt if uncle Joe would have gone along with dropping the bomb so close to his own turf.
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It's only an issue if the US had become invoved in the European war. There was considerable isolation sentiment, and a pro-German portion of the population as well. Had Great Britain been defeated in 1940, both segments would have been strengthened.

Remember, the US didn't declare war on Germany until German declared war on *us*. We declared war on Japan after December 7th, and Hitler declared war on us a few days later due to treaty obligations. Had Hitler knocked England out of the war a year earlier, he probably could have announced "Germany is at peace" and refused to participate in Japan's war. Or declare war...and do nothing but send U-Boats to the US coast. Pretty cheap war.

Fighting a united Europe without bases in England would have been practically impossible. There was also considerable anti-Soviet sentiment in the US (see "premature anti-fascist", for example), so deciding to ally with the SU might have been politically impossible. We'd have ended up with a carrier-based war, like the Pacific, but without isolated points that you could gain a temporary force advantage.

Supplying Russia WITHOUT Great Britain would have been tough. IIRC, the Murmansk convoys were mostly escorted by Royal Navy ships. One would have to assume the RN would have taken a lot of casualties in an invasion of England. Without the threat of the RN battleships in Scapa Flow, Germany could have operated the Bismarck, Scharnhorst, Gnesisnau, etc. out of Norway with impunity. With U-Boats now based in England, say goodbye to the Mumansk convoys. Likely, without the RN, the US would have been driven out of Iceland as well. Good luck getting convoys through the GIUK gap, with U-Boats, JU-88s, and Condors based there.

Supply the Soviets via the Pacific (i.e. Vladivostok)? Even assuming a delay in the Japanese war, that is a huge, long, supply line with only the Trans-Siberian express to move the equipment west. Note the body of water Vladivostok sits on is the "Sea of Japan." *If* Germany does still declare war on the US after Pearl Harbor, they can probably push the Japanese to declare against the SU as well, just to justify taking out the supply line.

Returning to the *first* departure from the main thread :-), I've come to the opinion that Richtofen would not have been that much of an improvement over Goering. The Baron's and Goering's military backgrounds were identical. While one might think Richtofen would have shown more spine, the fact is, most of his experience was as a fighter pilot and there's nothing to say he'd have been any better developing a strategic air arm. 'Daddy" Molders would have been a better pick, but...

Ron Wanttaja
 
wanttaja said:
Germany tried to defeat Great Britain by air. Had Germany succeeded, and invaded and occupied England, the US probably would have never entered the war, and the Soviet Union would not have received the American support that it did. Certainly Goering holds some of the blame for the failure to reduce GB enough to allow an invasion.
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Gotta agree. A real general with a little more spine would have continued bombing airfields and radar stations. The Germans would have achieved air superiority sufficient to commence invasion. That would have been it for the war for some time.

wanttaja said:
Goering was a politician with poor strategic sense and no backbone. Germany never had a successful long-rate bomber to engage Soviet industries, and he caved in when Hitler directed the Me-262 be configured as a tactical bomber rather than air defense.

Ron Wanttaja
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Not so certain I agree with that, Ron. The Jumbo engines had reliability problems, required strategic materials, were thirsty as all get out, and the jets needed big long runways susceptible to allied bombs. I am less than convinced that the ME262 was the super weapon that could have changed the outcome of the war in any event.
 
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