No, this is better than the original thread. Divide and Rule. We won an Empire that way.FFS chaps take it to the Poo Poo head thread
No, this is better than the original thread. Divide and Rule. We won an Empire that way.FFS chaps take it to the Poo Poo head thread
I read a brief on price + operating costs for the Apache, Tiger and the latest USMC version of Cobra. Tiger operating costs per hour were ‘eye watering’ when compared to the other two. I thought there’d been a print error in the document, the costs were that high!
Get a room, you two.
1. Your opening line (gambit?) attempts to spread the blame too far. I don't think the British were looking for a land war on continental Europe.To be honest everyone started it, the Austrians, Russians, Germans, French and the British not to forget the Serbs.
They all wanted war and they all staggered into it like drunks. They were all convinced that after a few glorious battles and a little bang, bang, someone would give up. They all misjudged bitterly and thus laid the foundation for the Second World War.
The march through a neutral country is therefore almost a footnote.
The Schlieffen Plan was so watered down that it could no longer function and the political and military realities no longer corresponded to those at the time of its conception.
Whether the French would really have respected Belgian neutrality in an offensive against Germany, I don't know, but I dare to doubt it.
No it wasn't, because it was a lie. Did the Americans ever deployed a French weapon system?
I know that they fielded the L7 as M68 as we did with the L7A3 and they took the Rh120 as M256. Then there was our TPZ1/A3 Fuchs as M93 Fox, but did they really ever take something French into service?
Bull shite pure and utter bovine liquid waste
only a German would deny the sins of their fatherland
call it empire envy, when they built one they committed genocide to prove they were just as brutal as the Belgians
Laying the blame squarely at Metternich whose ideas led Bismarck to fighting the Austrians Danes & frogs
btw you Cnuts couldn’t even take Moscow something the frogs did....
Ah, but the Tigre/Tiger has been a rip-roaring export success. Apart from the captive from the captive European countries, you have,
Australia, er, that's it.
For the Apache,
The UK
The Netherlands
Greece ( 3 European customers won on merit)
Egypt
Israel
Saudi Arabia
Qatar
United Arab Emirates
Kuwait
India
Singapore
Taiwan
Republic of Korea
Japan
And now Australia
Morocco?
As you can see, a bit of a flop on the export front.
Seriously, would you buy from the country that gave the world this?
View attachment 540053
or this?
View attachment 540054
5,200,000 customers thought it was better getting a 2 Cv than this silly redneck rust bucket.
[cough]
I never intended to have a "blame game" but a more or less educated discussion with light or not so light banter and, from time to time, outright insults. Backed up by a great number of historians like Sir Christopher Clark, I thought it would be nice to exchange facts, but okay we do it the other way. Maybe I can pretend after due time that I'm personally culpable for things the European nations did over a hundred years ago, that of course fully in accordance with Article 231 of the1. Your opening line (gambit?) attempts to spread the blame too far. I don't think the British were looking for a land war on continental Europe.
2. The way the war ended may well have laid the foundations for WW2, perhaps the Allies should have not opted for an armistice and continued advancing east until a final German defeat somewhere east of Berlin.
3. The march through a neutral country is far from a footnote, it was the trigger for the deployment of the BEF. This arrogance was repeated in 1940 with Holland.
4. Watering down the Schlieffen Plan can only be blamed on . . . who?
5. The French would not have needed to violate Belgian neutrality in an attack on Germany. Perhaps @fantassin can advise?
Ever? If we ignore the Chauchat...
M1897 75mm cannon (AKA The French 75, before it became a drink) Mounted here in an M3 tank destroyer.
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When modified to have a sliding breech block instead of the hinged one to become the 75mm guns M2 and M3, would be found as the primary weapon system of the M3 and M4 medium tank.
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Not that the use of French armor was new. Renaults (and their derivatives) made up the bulk of the US's armor force.
Here's Patton.
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Not a weapon system, but in use with the Armed Services
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You can argue the Frenchness of Eurocopter.
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But the Matra Durandal (BLU-107 in US service) is definitely French.
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Granted, Euromissile's Roland wasn't an outstanding success, only one battalion fielded by the US.
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The US Marine M327 120mm rifled mortar was basically the French F1.
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There's probably more.
I never intended to have a "blame game" but a more or less educated discussion with light or not so light banter and, from time to time, outright insults. Backed up by a great number of historians like Sir Christopher Clark, I thought it would be nice to exchange facts, but okay we do it the other way. Maybe I can pretend after due time that I'm personally culpable for things the European nations did over a hundred years ago, that of course fully in accordance with Article 231 of thedictated "peace"erm Versailles treaty.
1. I don't need a gambit, because I'm more inclined to facts. You sadly understated the role of Grey and later Asquith and Haldane. We can go through all the moves why this and that happened again and again, but the fact is that Europe prepared some 3 or 4 decades for this war and it got and your country's role in it shouldn't be underestimated.
2. What dou you think would have happened if the Allies had tried to invade Germany at this time? The Army was still intact in large parts not that easy to continue advancing east and defeating Germany east of Berlin, if there is no second Front in the East with Russians willing to sacrifice tens- and hundredthousands, not with a French army in which a lot of soldiers had mutinied in 1917 and whose morale was more than questionable.
2a. Maybe try a truly negotiated peace treaty, not a dictated peace that leaves the defeated free to breathe and does not simply satisfy the revengeful thoughts and greed of the French, as well as, and I am sorry to say this because I hold your country in high esteem, the greed of the British for the ships of the Imperial Fleet and the German colonies.
Let's face it, Wilson was horrified by the Versailles Dictate and even Lloyd George, although the mood in England was that the Germans would have to pay no matter what, saw the treaty as far too harsh. He saw the problems that would arise if a 4 million Germans were put into Czechoslovakia. As far as I know, he even predicted that this treaty would lead to a new war in 25 years and he wasn't that wrong.
3. Even your government saw the march through Belgium more or less as a footnote, it guaranteed Belgiums neutrality, but also decided that actions should be taken on grounds of policy, not on grounds of strict legality.
4. If "we" (we are still in the "we" and "you" game, aren't we?) had done it right we wouldn't have this discussion by now. Yes it was the fault of the "Großer Generalstab" as it was its fault to back away from the total war against shipping around the British Isles.
5. I lied in point one, I did made a gambit. The Frogs made beginning with 1870/71 many nice war plans, because they are cheese eating surrender monkeys and feared the might of Germany.
For example Plan XVII from April 18, 1913 said that the French could stroll on a nice and warm day into neutral Belgium, preferably before 9 and after 5, as the clock goes and it would be okay. Earlier plans saw this possibility too, of course, but only after "news was received" that the nasty Germans had invaded Belgium earlier.
What exactly made you think that the evil, murderous Germans had to invade Belgium, but the noble, just and unbeatable French could refrain from doing so? Or was that simply prejudice?
Ah and before I forget it, fantassin couldn't advise the merde out of his cul.
Frenchie as usual you are full of self-important merde. The kind of denial I hear every time not only regarding WW1 is that Frogland isn't to blame for anything.Exactly, the kind of denial l have heard over and over again from Cherman officers...."we were all guilty, not just Chermany"....
Regarding belgian neutrality it was respected by France in 1940, there is no reason to believe it would have been different in 1914
Frenchie as usual you are full of self-important merde. The kind of denial I hear every time not only regarding WW1 is that Frogland isn't to blame for anything.La Grande NationLe gros étron in its whiny self-righteousness is never to blame nor responsible for anything.
And so I conclude with an: "Ask him about the cemeteries, Dean!"