And where the Russians were concerned, it was the Russian WINTER which destroyed the Germans on the eastern front, together with the lunatic who ignored the advice of his generals.

Bobby. wrote on May 5^th, 2019 at 4:18pm:



I know hell of a lot more that you, you old fool......and it's funny how you made NO mention of that........you're full of it......

Just goes to show what a fool you are blobby, the 'Enigma' code machine was to do with U-Boats and Allied Convoys, not The Battle of Britain ....you fkwit....

And for your information, my father was a sergeant pilot during The Battle of Britain............but then I could just be spouting schit like you couldn't I........

Fuzzball wrote on May 5^th, 2019 at 4:39pm:

The British were lucky, however their luck came because they were prepared to sacrifice their land army, the BEF, in Europe rather than sacrifice the defence of their country.  The RAF sent only a light force of fighters and those were Hawker Hurricanes to their advance striking force in France before the Germans invaded.   When it came to the BEF retreating to Dunkirk, they sent only light patrols to protect them.  This mean that their main force of fighters - Spitfires and Hurricanes were available to face the German onslaught.

The Germans were aware of radar but did not attach sufficient importance to it.  They attacked the Chain Home stations which were the radar stations on the first few days of the Battle of Britain and while they damaged several,  the stations had sufficient overlap so they could continue reporting on the German raids and directed the fighters to engage them while repairs were effected.

The Germans greatest mistake was lacking a long range fighter with sufficient range to fight over most of Southern England.  The Bf110 was a failure as a long range fighter.  They would have been much better off with the Fw187 twin engined fighters.  Their Bf109 fighters lacked sufficient range to stay on station and engage the RAF's fighters and protect the Luftwaffe's bombers.  The advantage was all the RAFs.

The Germans were unlucky in that they were fighting over enemy territory.  This mean that an aircraft shot down, was a loss not only of the aircraft but more importantly, the crew to the PoW camps.  The RAF was fighting over home ground and had many aircraft shot down and aircrew were back in the air within days, this meant all they need to do was make sure sufficient fighters were available to them.

The Enigma code breaking effort was important but they weren't breaking sufficient codes, fast enough for it to affect a battle until the invasion of Crete in 1941.  They had to develop and duplicate the Polish Bombes - a mechanical code breaking device the Poles took first to France and then to England.   They weren't really reading German codes properly until early 1943.   Before then, their code breaking was spotty and took time.  By 1945, they were reading the German codes in near real time, thanks to Colossus - the first electronic computer designed by Alan Turing.  Along the way, the capture of various enigma machines helped a great deal as well.

Fuzzball wrote on May 5^th, 2019 at 4:12pm:


True. If the Germans had not invaded the Balkans, they would have sufficient time to capture Moscow.  The result was a four week delay to Barbarossa.  Those four weeks were critical.  Coupled with the decision that ammunition and fuel were more important than Winter clothing for the troops doing the fighting meant that the Germans often literally froze to death.   "Colonel Mud" and "General Winter" were sufficient to delay the German attempt to take Moscow.

There was also a problem with Strategic indecision on the part of the German High Command.  They couldn't make their mind up whether they wanted to attack Moscow or the Caucasus where the Soviet oil was.  The result was a switching of priorities, with a massive movement of troops and vehicles from the north to the south of Russia.

When coupled with Hitler's refusal to allow retreat, it mean many Germans died unnecessarily.  Something we can all be thankful for.

Brian Ross wrote on May 5^th, 2019 at 5:35pm:



Was Colossus designed by Alan Turing or Tommy Flowers?

Bias_2012 wrote on May 5^th, 2019 at 8:03pm:


Alan Turing produced the theoretical design.  Tommy Flowers, along with Harry Fensom, Allen Coombs, Sid Broadhurst and Bill Chandler built it.