Skimmer and Stas Bush

[fgalkin]

Stas, I have found from your arguments, that you are an ingrateful son of a gun who still lives in the Cold War era...

Unfortunately, this is true of a lot of people in Russia. many still view America as the enemy, because the capitalist economy that was brought by the end of the Cold War has done nothing but to leave 60% penniless, while giving the top few control over the economy. The "democracy" that people longed while under Communism turned Russia from a superpower to a third world country, and became one of the corrupt and inefficient governments in the world. So, most Russians have no reason to love America.

Of course, America has done nothing to try to change that situation.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Thirdfain]

No-one has yet mentioned the incalcuable value of the work of the American code breakers who allowed Allied forces to operate with intelligence gleaned in real time from Nazi and Japanese communications. Without the code breakers, who were the best in the world at the time, the Allied forces would have been mush less effective- particularly in the area of submarine hunting. If American code breakers hadn't been able to read orders to U-Boats, Germany may not have needed another 100 U-boats to disrupt allied transport, and Russia and England would have been fucked. No other nation in the world at the time could have broken the Japanese Purple code or the German Enigma.

[The Dark]

No-one has yet mentioned the incalcuable value of the work of the American code breakers who allowed Allied forces to operate with intelligence gleaned in real time from Nazi and Japanese communications. Without the code breakers, who were the best in the world at the time, the Allied forces would have been mush less effective- particularly in the area of submarine hunting. If American code breakers hadn't been able to read orders to U-Boats, Germany may not have needed another 100 U-boats to disrupt allied transport, and Russia and England would have been fucked. No other nation in the world at the time could have broken the Japanese Purple code or the German Enigma.

Ummm...Poland was the one who broke Enigma, and gave it to Britain when it became certain that Poland was going to be invaded by Germany and the Soviet Union. Britain then gave it to the United States. The Americans only broke Purple ("Magic") not Enigma ("Ultra"). Although the Navajo Code Talkers may well have been the most genius idea of all.

[phongn]

Ummm...Poland was the one who broke Enigma, and gave it to Britain when it became certain that Poland was going to be invaded by Germany and the Soviet Union. Britain then gave it to the United States. The Americans only broke Purple ("Magic") not Enigma ("Ultra"). Although the Navajo Code Talkers may well have been the most genius idea of all.

OTOH, it was the British that broke Triton and computerized the whole process.

[K. A. Pital]

MKSheppard
Although I have shown you the numbers, you still deny them. Okay, let's go for case #1: U-boat war.

You're missing the point, Germany could have knocked britain out
of the war if she had had 100+ UBoats ready on 1 Sep 1939, instead
of just 30~ broken down pieces of shit (Mostly Type II Coastals, instead
of the newer VIIs)

http://www.discovermilitaryhistory.com/ ... 1523.shtml
I have found the right original name and the author. It's Clay Blair. Don't fuck UNTIL you have read the fucking book with fucking stats. Oh, I really overestimated the U-boat fucking strategic impact... So serious, I can't help laughing... You want to know how serious was the destruction of convoys in the North Atlantic? >1%. That's all. The overall convoy impact was counted by such a bad number that I won't even show it here (it's closer to 0,009%).
The basic conclusion is: U-boats at no point in the war could have TURNED the tide. If you still wanna try to prove the Allies vs. Germany importance, try some other thing...

Then why did the Russians form an entire Tank Army out of the Lend
Lease Shermans they recieved? The shermans were very mechanically
reliable, compared to the piece of shit T-34s, which had engine lives
measured in a few dozen HOURS.

Oh, stop that. T-34 didn't explode like a piece of shit. It had armour which was hard to penetrate fully, although it was easily penetrated up to half of the width. I don't know how this kind of armor is called in English. T-34 were really easy to repair, even in battlefield conditions. But if a Sherman exploded, it could not be re-used. That's a weakness T-34 doesn't have
T-34-85 outfucks Sherman in speed and firepower, and it's a universal tank which can fuck with both heavy tanks and light tanks (opposite to Sherman, which took the Panters and Tigers by awful numbers!)

And many top soviet aces achieved their kills in the American Made
P-39/P-63 Airacobra/Kingcobra.

MKSheppard, having superior technology doesn't mean this planes were supplied in huge quantities.

Meanwhile, you have raw materials coming in
from the US that are already mined and refined

Did you ever consider that no fucking lend lease could supply even a dozen percent of raw materials needed for war production?

T-24-85

Sorry for a misprint It's obvious I was talking about T-34-85

We equipped the majority of the british/Polish/Free French armies
with tanks and equipment, and still found enough left over to equip
our own armies, as well as build 300,000 aircraft, and thousands of
transports, and hundreds of capital ships.

Again, what THAT has to do with lend-lease?
The Dark

What are you smoking? We did everything we could to avoid losing ships.

The PQ-17 case. The convoy was well defended, but the fucking Command said it should be disbanded just for the fuck of Tirpitz coming out of havens. After that most of the ships fell easy prey for Doenitz' subs.

It means the loss of 300,000 tons of supplies given to Russia.

So much, I can't help laughing...

It means the loss of hundreds of American ships.

Yeah, a few every convoy. Only the PQ-17 was fucking very bad.

I'll admit, June 1942 was when merchant shipping took the hardest hits; that was when the American and Royal Navies began seriously escorting the convoys to Russia, since the Russians wouldn't or couldn't.

I agree. That's why as soon as convoys were employed, the U-boot Krieg was ultimately lost. Also, the Russians provided escort for polar convoys, if you didn't know. In the infamous PQ-17 case, they even send a submarine which attacked the Tirpitz while the Allied Fleet was fucking afraind of the very name of the ship!

It's, as I said, 0,0025 of the total supply transfer

Sorry, I missed the topic. You were talking abut the Russian supplies? Then I may agree. I was talking about general impact.

you yourself put up, losses were exceeding new construction until the middle of 1943.

Yeah right, that was the time of U-boat success. But you don't even watch the chart - the excession was so puny, that the U-boats would need about 3-4 years as resultive as 1942, and it's only in case the Allies didn't spin up ship production, which is exactly what they DID.

You claim Russia received 7,000 tanks through Lend-Lease. They received 22,800 armored fighting vehicles.

Where is this number from, huh? It will be interesting to know what kind of AFVs were these, and the years of supply, if possible.

You say claims of 100,000 trucks are too high when the actual numbers are 351,700 trucks and 78,000 Jeeps from the US alone

Hey, where did I do that? 100.000 is fine: the fuck is 500.000. And I really wonder if you actually KNOW what were this trucks for? You think Allies gave them in war time? The fuck they did: lend-lease Fords and other supply truck stuff were given to the very end of the war, for "a faster recovery of the USSR from the war".

Russia's second-highest ace flew a P-39 exclusively, Pokryshkin.

Hey, I didn' brag bout the superior quality of some of the equipment, did I? I fucked only Shermans, and they are WORTH fucking.

240,000 is the total killed and wounded between the two atomic bombs.

Makes perfect sence if you remove the word: "wounded". See, I don't mind twisting the facts a bit: I love U-boot Krieg even if it was not important. I love the German Navy, although it was fucking unimportant. I like twisted superweapons like the German jet fighters. But I don't like when someone tries to say: oh, no one died from ray-light and ever tries to give wrong numbers for the first-strike casualties...

to ignore my comment about the mass bombings performed by the British in the early 1940s

Maybe they destroyed one of the armies of the Panzerfaust? Or maybe some "27.000 Luftwaffe"? Hell, I didn't ignore that! I even agreed there could have been constant, but absolutely ineffective bombing. Do you recognise that?

We produced a lot, and we gave a lot of it to Russia

You produced a lot, but gave little to Russia. That's the proper case. Sorry. I don't say a word about the Western Front - you did open it. But the is lend-lease is nothing of a major effort. It's not, and never was, crucial, and it's exactly my point.
fgalkin

many still view America as the enemy,

Hell, do you think I do? I never did, before the fucking Iraq war...
And I repeat, if you missed that out: I have no reason to love Russia, since it's the country that made purges on my ancestors in wartime and many years after. So, don't insult me. I'm not braiwashed here.

[K. A. Pital]

Updates: facts and misbeliefs.
The Murmansk convoys have been ignored in Soviet war history
I was too quick to agree with this. Luckily I spent time to read the Soviet Great Homeland War Encyclopeadia (SGHW). It mentiones and comprehensively describes the convoys to Murmansk, gives count to the ships and credit to the Allied mariners.
The planes contributed to USSR were crucial for the Soviet aviation
Actually I already told the numbers, but it's still worth knowing the exact values. 125.655 for plane production in USSR during 1941-1945, and the aviation industry was already working on the emergency measures of production since 1939, producing about 70.000 planes, including the development of new fighter and bomber craft. The Soviets, by the way. had Il-4 long-range bombers from 1938, with range 3800 km.
The AFVs contributed to USSR were crucial for Soviet "Steel Lavina"
Again, I told the numbers, but being more precise is better. In 1941-1945 only the tanks were produced in the number of 102.800. The Soviets also produced >21.000 SPA (Self-propelled artillery). More, the tanks were developing in the USSR long before the war even drew near. The BT tanks were produced in such quantities, that to the beginning of the war Soviet Union had more of BT tanks than all the other tanks in the world together. The Soviets also developed and serially produced the very first heavy tank KV-1, earlier than anyone, even Germans, who are unsurpassed in tank industry, created a heavy tank.
The trucks supplied to the USSR were crucial for the war
One can actually laugh when such a thing is said. The USA supplied trucks in quantities which are estimated from 100.000 to 500.000 (by ambigious people), but they were supplied mostly in the very last year of the War and in post-war up to Dec. 1946, not for war purpose but to help the Soviets recover from war consequences. By that time (1945-1946) the supplied machines, even if counted in MILLIONS, do not relate to war anyhow.
The Soviets did nothing to protect the Allied convoys
The Soviets escorted the convoys in polar waters with 2-3 destroyers and up to 15 sentry ships. In the period of icing the soviet icebreakers made way for the convoys to pass. The Soviet submarines destroyed an a number (certainly below 27) of German submarines and attacked Tirpitz in the infamous PQ-17 tragedy. Actually, even besides the PQ-17, the Allies repeatedly held off the convoy departures in 1942-1944, although it was due to the fear of losing ships.

Is that enough?

[Nathan F]

Stas, where the heck do you get your numbers? Get another source.

Anyone who says that .0009 percent of convoys were lost, well, frankly they are on some bad crack.

You might be referring to the percentage of convoys that were completely lost, but not the number of ships. As I said, you really need to find another source.

All you have been doing is getting crap from a book that looks like it was written by the Soviets, which most certainly wouldn't say that the US had helped greately during WW2.

Frankly, this isn't worth the time to reply to you.

[Crayz9000]

Knock it off with the "fuck", Stas. It's getting impossible to read your posts because of all the interspersed swear words.

And stop trying to use percentages to your advantage.

[K. A. Pital]

My apologies. I didn't use the f-word in my last post, so... I stop using the f-word from now on, and I hope some ambigious individuals stop using it, too.
Crayz9000
What? Stop using percentage to my advantage? It's facts, not just sophistry, which could be used. I can try to be more conservative (even if I contradict all statistics). But then stop claiming that just if something is counted in thousands it's serious, because thousands are nothing in hundreds of thousands.
Nathan F
Nathan, please. If you don't consider Clay Blair, Liddel Hart, Karl Doenitz, Ruge, Golovko and others a good source, then what do you need? I have provided the names of the books and the authors, that's at least a source. Most of you don't provide any source or qoute some websites!... Uh... I wonder, what do you dislike about my sources. At least I provide them.

Anyone who says that .0009 percent of convoys were lost, well, frankly they are on some bad crack.

First of all: it's 0,009.
Clay Blair has revised nearly all of the stats in his book. He's done MOST of the job. So did Ruge and Liddel Gart. You didn't even bother to read them, little job is that. What can I say? Provide something to back up your claims. Like: the U-boats cut the supply routes. Or: the U-boats were actually capable of sceizind territory. Or: the U-boats prevented some descent. Search hard: I may have missed something...

You might be referring to the percentage of convoys that were completely lost, but not the number of ships.

Of course! Isn't it obvious that a ship makes regular trips until it's sunk, so sinking 1/3 of the fleet can only mean sinking 13% of the supplies!! (the best U-boat effort ever).

All you have been doing is getting crap from a book that looks like it was written by the Soviets

Well, I don't think those who were mentioned above are pro-russian. And the Soviet sources, which some tried to accuse of "forgetting" the Allied convoys, never did such a thing. You better come up with a reply, or just say u don't have access to the numbers: that will close the case. Or:

Frankly, this isn't worth the time to reply to you.

[The Dark]

Well, I don't think those who were mentioned above are pro-russian. And the Soviet sources, which some tried to accuse of "forgetting" the Allied convoys, never did such a thing. You better come up with a reply, or just say u don't have access to the numbers: that will close the case.

My number on the trucks and AFVs came from http://www.skalman.nu/worldwar2/index.htm . The guy's not a professional historian with a thesis to defend; he is a Swedish Air Force veteran who studied Economics, Economical Theory, and Political Science at Lund. The AFVs included over 4,000 Shermans, 3,700 Valentines, 1,600 Stuarts, 1,000 M17s, 1,300 Lee/Grants, and miscellaneous other vehicles, ranging from 100 M15A1s to a single M26 Pershing. Additionally, Philip Trewhitt's book Armored Fighting Vehicles points out that the Russian GAZ-67B was a knockoff of the Jeep (of which 12% of the production run were sent to Russia).

The convoy losses come from http://www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib/wwi ... onvoys.txt , a paper written using Samuel Morison and William Schofield as sources. One things I just noticed in that paper is that out of 720 ships sailing to Murmansk, 63 were sunk, or roughly 9% (or 0,09).

James Gebhardt translated a book by Dmitriy Loza, as explained at http://www.acepilots.com/planes/soviet_ ... cobra.html . This explains that the 216th Fighter Division (later 9th Guards Fighter Division) flew the P-39 exclusively from 1942 on, with a total of 28 aces with at least 15 victories. Every bullet for the P-39 was imported. Alexandr Pokryshkin, the ace I mentioned earlier, was denied a THIRD Hero of the Soviet Union because it would "glorify foreign manufacturing." At least six fighter regiments were equipped with Airacobras, just from counting the six top Airacobra aces (with 299 victories between them).

http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/research/p39.htm , the Air Force Museum, used Bell's production numbers and shipping information to find that 4,773 P-39s were shipped to Russia. This was 49.8% of that fighter's total production run.

http://airforce.users.ru/lend-lease/eng ... veries.htm also has information on the Lend-Lease Act, with some numbers I hadn't found before. According to that Russian website, the Americans sent over 400,000 trucks, 32,000 motorcycles, and 135,000 submachine guns. Of the air defense fighters in Russia, over 70% were American or British. On the Karelian front, roughly 67% of all Soviet-flown aircraft were non-Soviet in construction. The most disturbing thing is that under the Lend-Lease agreement all equipment was to be returned or destroyed, yet the majority was kept and used, such as the B-29 reverse engineered into the Tu-4.

According to http://www.wargamer.com/cmbb/lendlease.asp (which I would not use if they did not have so many references), Lend-Lease supplies of explosives was slightly over 33% of Russia's total usage. They also provided 47% of Russia's TNT. According to that site, total AFV delivery (tanks, artillery, etc.) were 19,000 vehicles, compared to Russia's total production of 98,000. This means roughly 16% of Russia's armored vehicles were foreign. The Soviets produced an estimated 281,500 trucks, compared to the 407,825 trucks sent by the Allies. In other words, 59% of Russia's trucks were built by the Allies. In Koniev's push to Berlin, five out of every six trucks were Lend-Lease supplied. The steel supplied by the Allies was enough for 40,000 tanks. In 1994 dollars, Lend-Lease supplies sent to the Soviet Union were worth $131,000,000,000 (131 billion dollars). Admittedly, Russia could probably have won the defensive war without Lend-Lease; German equipment had problems with mud freezing in it, and the Russian defenses were solid. However, the advance on Berlin could not have happened at the pace it did without Lend-Lease. If America had chosen not to send supplies to the Soviet Union, the showdowns during the Cold War would have been at Warsaw instead of Berlin. Sources for that site include Dirty Little Secrets of World War II by Dunnigan and Nofi; Encyclopedia of Land Combat: Volume I by Hamilton and Smith; Europa Magazine # 58: Forging the Red Star by Long; Russia at War 1941-1945 by Werth, Soviet Planning in Peace and War 1938-1945, by Harrison; Soviet Casualties and Combat Losses in the 20th Century edited by Col. Gen. Krivosheev; The Road to Berlin by Erickson; and The Role of Lend-Lease in Soviet Military Efforts 1941-1945 by Sokolov.

[Beowulf]

Then why did the Russians form an entire Tank Army out of the Lend
Lease Shermans they recieved? The shermans were very mechanically
reliable, compared to the piece of shit T-34s, which had engine lives
measured in a few dozen HOURS.

Oh, stop that. T-34 didn't explode like a piece of shit. It had armour which was hard to penetrate fully, although it was easily penetrated up to half of the width. I don't know how this kind of armor is called in English. T-34 were really easy to repair, even in battlefield conditions. But if a Sherman exploded, it could not be re-used. That's a weakness T-34 doesn't have
T-34-85 outfucks Sherman in speed and firepower, and it's a universal tank which can fuck with both heavy tanks and light tanks (opposite to Sherman, which took the Panters and Tigers by awful numbers!)

Having to rebuild the engine every couple days doesn't make the T-34 good. Again, Shermans don't explode when the ammo is properly stowed, and it isn't overloaded. A T-34 certainly would do the same if you did that too.

[Vympel]

Having to rebuild the engine every couple days doesn't make the T-34 good.

The only source I have ever heard claiming that the T-34 engine had a life measured in hours was an *Amercian* trial of a T-34. The Russians encountered reliability problems when the T-34 was new, and suffered a lot of break downs because of inexperience with their machine. Once they got used to their new tank, these problems and breakdowns went away. I doubt the Americans had full knowledge of how to properly run a T-34 in a matter of days.

[Master of Ossus]

Sea Skimmer
America what? Rebuilds? Gee thanks. Even their leaders only say they're after Hussein (although abvious they're after political show and Iraq's oil).

Bullshit. The leaders claim they're after a regime change, and the liberation of the Iraqi people.

Shattered by 20 years of conflict? Bring freedom? Oh-oh, the Iraq had no conflict in itself. It's a huge lie that all countries other than democracy suffer some kind of "conflict".

True, but in Iraq there has been conflict. Massive conflict.

There is no conflict. No one in Iraq wants America's "help". In case - I've happened to be there (of course, some time ago). It's all fine there. No one needs agression with NO claims for it!

I don't know what part of the country you were in, but the Kurds all wanted the Americans to come in, and they told me that not more than two months ago. I had two people tell me that they would commit suicide if the Americans did not come in. Sure, I guess that they wish to kill themselves and do not want the Americans to move in. I guess that the Americans forced the kids to cheer for them when they rode through their towns in Southern Iraq. I guess that the people of Basra, who are currently rebelling against the Iraqis, did not wish to live without Saddam.

The USA didn't wait the final results. They spit on the opinion of the majority of nations.

What "majority of nations?" Most of the countries in the region are supporting the American war, including the Saudis, Kuwaitis, Turks, Jordanians, Israelis and Iranians.

They spit on the opinion of the UN inspectors.

So do I. The UN inspectors failed miserably in North Korea. They have obviously not found the evidence of Iraqi chemical weapons (including the chemical suits and nerve-gas treatments found in a site inspected less than TWO FUCKING MONTHS AGO).

This is simple bullying: "watch we kick this unarmed country to hell".

Iraq is hardly unarmed. I guess you haven't been paying attention to the news reports that some of my friends are risking their lives to bring you about Iraqi SCUD missile attacks on Kuwait. I guess you missed the whole bit about the Iraqis buying war equipment from the Russians. I guess you missed the whole bit about how numerous marines have DIED in combat with an allegedly unarmed country. I spit on your opinions, as they are obviously erroneous in the factual input you use as a basis of making them.

As for the rockets - oh, you obviously forgot none of them even hit a single target! Oh yess... I see... Iraq is a worthy opponent and a huge threat to the world (actually the most of the world's nations are against war, but that means nothing to Bush, I suppose).

In other words, John W. Hinkley Jr. was not worth the Secret Service's time in stopping, because he never actually killed Reagan? The fact that the Americans and Kuwaitis prevented the SCUD missiles from striking Kuwait City does NOT impede the fact that they WOULD HAVE hit the city and probably killed civilians there if the Patriot systems had not been operational. I don't know where you live, but if someone tries to kill someone else, even if they fail they are seen as a threat to that person. I'm sorry you don't give a damn about the Kuwaiti civilians who were deliberately targetted by the Iraqis (SCUDS are not accurate enough to be targetted against a specific building or military target), but frankly your position that the Iraqis were not a threat because the American Patriot missiles were able to intercept those missiles is stupid to the point of incredulity.

[Vympel]

Iraq is hardly unarmed. I guess you haven't been paying attention to the news reports that some of my friends are risking their lives to bring you about Iraqi SCUD missile attacks on Kuwait.

No SCUDs have been launched at Kuwait, according to the Pentagon.

I guess you missed the whole bit about the Iraqis buying war equipment from the Russians.

Still completely unconfirmed.

I guess you missed the whole bit about how numerous marines have DIED in combat with an allegedly unarmed country.

Errr- Are you serious? Are you contending that Iraq wasn't allowed to have rifles? Iraq poses no external threat to anyone- it is incapable of posing a serious military threat.

[Sea Skimmer]

Errr- Are you serious? Are you contending that Iraq wasn't allowed to have rifles? Iraq poses no external threat to anyone- it is incapable of posing a serious military threat.

Stas Bush has insisted that Iraq is defenseless for eleven pages.

[Vympel]

Stas Bush has insisted that Iraq is defenseless for eleven pages.

Defenseless?

Stas Bush said:

Iraq is NOT a threat to anyone

Using what happens when you invade the country: i.e. inevitable infantry casualties (while Coalition forces slice through the country at incredible speed) to try and make out Iraq to be a grave threat is patently absurd- I believe it's related to the "look what happened when we attacked them, they're defending themselves, I *knew* we should've attacked them!" pro-war fallacy.

[Master of Ossus]

Stas Bush has insisted that Iraq is defenseless for eleven pages.

Defenseless?

Stas Bush said:

Iraq is NOT a threat to anyone

Using what happens when you invade the country: i.e. inevitable infantry casualties (while Coalition forces slice through the country at incredible speed) to try and make out Iraq to be a grave threat is patently absurd- I believe it's related to the "look what happened when we attacked them, they're defending themselves, I *knew* we should've attacked them!" pro-war fallacy.

Red herring. He claimed that they were "unarmed."

watch we kick this unarmed country to hell

[Vympel]

Red herring. He claimed that they were "unarmed."

In the context of his previous opinions, that obviously means that Iraq doesn't have the weapons to pose a serious military threat to anyone, not that they don't even have rifles. Don't be anal- his vocab may be crap (understandable), but he's not exactly gonna claim Iraq is Alderaan.

watch we kick this unarmed country to hell

Isn't that exactly what's happening?

[Sea Skimmer]

Red herring. He claimed that they were "unarmed."

In the context of his previous opinions, that obviously means that Iraq doesn't have the weapons to pose a serious military threat to anyone, not that they don't even have rifles. Don't be anal- his vocab may be crap (understandable), but he's not exactly gonna claim Iraq is Alderaan.

He used a lack of anti Saddam protests WITHIN Iraq as an argument. I wouldn't put him past it.

[Master of Ossus]

Red herring. He claimed that they were "unarmed."

In the context of his previous opinions, that obviously means that Iraq doesn't have the weapons to pose a serious military threat to anyone, not that they don't even have rifles. Don't be anal- his vocab may be crap (understandable), but he's not exactly gonna claim Iraq is Alderaan.

watch we kick this unarmed country to hell

Isn't that exactly what's happening?

So now YOU claim that Iraq is unarmed?

Look, after you recognize a problem, it's not good to repeat it. I don't know why having a crappy vocabulary is in any way linked to the problem I'm having with his communication. He has declared Iraq to be "unarmed." He must now justify his opinion, which he cannot do, so instead he runs around screaming that the United States has abused Iraq. The Iraqis have repeatedly violated international law. Even the Egyptian President stated that the current situation is the fault of no one but Iraq. I hardly see that the American abuses of Iraq are anywhere NEAR as serious as those that the Iraqi regime has inflicted upon the nation itself, even if we assume that the United States is responsible for the entire situation.

[Vympel]

So now YOU claim that Iraq is unarmed?

No- of course they're armed- regardless, their defense is being sliced to pieces. Look at the rapid progress being made.

Look, after you recognize a problem, it's not good to repeat it. I don't know why having a crappy vocabulary is in any way linked to the problem I'm having with his communication. He has declared Iraq to be "unarmed."

All I'm saying is that if you directly ask him whether he thinks Iraq has any weapons whatsoever, he will say yes. Ask him whether Iraq poses a threat to anyone, he'll say no. No one can be thick enough to take the position that Iraq is entirely without weapons whatsoever.

He must now justify his opinion, which he cannot do, so instead he runs around screaming that the United States has abused Iraq. The Iraqis have repeatedly violated international law. Even the Egyptian President stated that the current situation is the fault of no one but Iraq. I hardly see that the American abuses of Iraq are anywhere NEAR as serious as those that the Iraqi regime has inflicted upon the nation itself, even if we assume that the United States is responsible for the entire situation.

I don't agree with all his opininions, naturally.

[Master of Ossus]

Look, Vympel, I realize that your opinions are not his, but that does not make his statement any less outlandish.

I don't think that anyone can take the position that a country that is incapable of defending itself against the United States and thirty five other countries then it should not have been attacked in the first place, and I disagree with his statement that Iraq is a harmless nation. I fundamentally believe that all governments should be required to respect certain human rights, and that Iraq has ignored those rights of people.

[K. A. Pital]

Well... let's bring Furcht and Flamme.
The Dark

The guy's not a professional historian with a thesis to defend

Okay, then.

The role of Lend/Lease AFVs in the Soviet war effort has been the source of bitter controversy

Exactly. But if he even fails to use official data in his research... Uh.

The convoy losses come from http://www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib/wwi ... onvoys.txt , a paper written using Samuel Morison and William Schofield as sources. One things I just noticed in that paper is that out of 720 ships sailing to Murmansk, 63 were sunk, or roughly 9% (or 0,09).

Thank you for noticing this number. It's about convoys to Russia only, isnt' it? I like the chinfo page, BTW, since it has interesting naval statistics, as the one about U-boat economical and strategic effect.

the Russian GAZ-67B was a knockoff of the Jeep

The Russian BT tank of which more were produced that the whole world's tank production before the war, was designed from teh Christy tank. Does that matter?

This explains that the 216th Fighter Division (later 9th Guards Fighter Division) flew the P-39 exclusively from 1942 on

Yes, so what? Didn't I admit the superior quality of these planes?

4,773 P-39s were shipped to Russia

SO what???? !

the Americans sent over 400,000 trucks

Haven't I mentioned even these very strange estimates? And haven't I mentioned what exactly they were and why one should not brag about them?

Russia's total production of 98,000.

This what Wargamer says. Quite close to the 102.800. Fine numbers, although what they do is just count what was sent, and say "unknown" what Russians get, meaning that they figure it out themselves... Oh sorry... And 11.000 tanks to 7.000 tanks is also not a huge difference, BTW.

Admittedly, Russia could probably have won the defensive war without Lend-Lease; German equipment had problems with mud freezing in it, and the Russian defenses were solid. However, the advance on Berlin could not have happened at the pace it did without Lend-Lease.

Can I than suggest we come to an agreement: lend-lease supplies were useful (especially in 1944-1945 advances), but not decisive/crucial. OK? Because this is exactly my position.
MKSheppard
First I wanted to leave this argument unanswered, just to show respect to MKSheppard. But then I saw such obvious "hope he doesn't know what I'm talking about"... Oh... He run straight into the bullets.
Me:

Maybe you stop using the fucking "thousands" and use the 7.000 and 15.000? These "thousands" are one fucking piece of shit, see?

MKSheppard:

Then why did the Russians form an entire Tank Army out of the Lend Lease Shermans they recieved?

Oh-oh... How scary it sounds, a tank army! He means that the Russians could not form a tank army from 7.000 tanks?.. And how many tanks there are in a Soviet tank army? Well, the common TA state is 800, but in reality it varied from 200 to 1000 tanks. 7.000 is enough to form SEVEN BIGGEST TANK ARMIES.
So little wonder having a tank army from 7000 - it could be resupplied with the same lend-lease tanks even if totally destroyed every 5 years of the war, and still some LL tanks would be left after that! He tried to attack my statistics with a case that is not even near to disprove them...
The Shermans alone were supplied in about 4.000, which is enough for 4 maximal tanks armies and 20 minimal tank armies.

[K. A. Pital]

Master of Ossus

The leaders claim they're after a regime change

Which contradicts the international right, because the change of regime is the sole priviledge of the citizens of the country, all other should be sanctioned by UN. Didn't I say that before?

and the liberation of the Iraqi people

People hate enemy troops as invaders. You said something about the Kurds? Exactly. They're fine with the Kurds - the fact that others hate them doesn't bother them.

True, but in Iraq there has been conflict.

Is it not the one US is guilty for?

but the Kurds all wanted the Americans to come in

Why not, if they did. I heard US are negotiating with them so they will fight on US side. So what?

I guess that the Americans forced the kids to cheer for them when they rode through their towns in Southern Iraq.

Have you read Vympel's post?

Most of the countries in the region are supporting the American war

Yeah, right. Iraq is surrounded by agressive pro-americans and is forced to disarm completely. But America itself is so-ooo far from Iraq, one can wonder what the hell business is that. And don't forget that the UN was created for preventing such cases, not encouraging them to happen.

They have obviously not found the evidence of Iraqi chemical weapons (including the chemical suits and nerve-gas treatments found in a site inspected less than TWO FUCKING MONTHS AGO).

Yeah, old lies. The inspectors have failed miserably? Maybe it's just the US trying to find some approval for an illegal agression (including obvious and blatant lies fromt the very first day of the war)?

you about Iraqi SCUD missile attacks on Kuwait

Another lie. Trying to turn al-Samoud into a SCUD is strange.

I guess you missed the whole bit about the Iraqis buying war equipment from the Russians.

Actually the Russians deny these rumors and say they sold nothing to Iraq (and even if they did, it's still JAMMING EQUIPMENT). And it's nothing really. France can give protection to Hussein - why don't you brag bout' that? If Russia sold some jameq, these indicates Russia is not just "saying words". And Germany boycotted American goods. We're serious, if you haven't noticed. US will have the world turn on them if they continue in such a way.

I spit on your opinions, as they are obviously erroneous in the factual input you use as a basis of making them.

Spit on what? Iraq has arms not ENOUGH to be a serious threat to anyone, especially the world-famous bully...

there if the Patriot systems had not been operationa

Are you thinking of what you say? Patriot missed the missiles. Oh-oh, the Iraq missiles could not even properly aim. And they were anyway targeted at war objects, and still missed. No one was killed. But US launched HUNDREDS of bombs and rockets. This is killing civilians. And they actually killed them. Case closed.

SCUDS are not accurate enough to be targetted against a specific building or military target

Why the hell do you insist there were SCUDs?

because the American Patriot missiles were able to intercept those missiles

Exactly the opposite happened, in case you didn't know.
Sea Skimmer
Are you familiar with how a regime can be legally changed?
All
"Unarmed" means they possess NOTHING that can seriously threat the agressors.

[The Dark]

Stas:
I believe we may ultimately be in agreement, that the Soviet Union could have held the defenses and regained their territory without Lend-Lease. However, the Berlin advance in 1945 was only possible due to the added supplies, and if the Western Allies had not supplied Russia with the material for 40,000 tanks and large masses of equipment (as documented in my previous post), then the war would have dragged on far longer. Is this reasonable, or am I going to have to travel a couple hours to the nearest bookstore to find the books my references used in writing their essays?