Favorite Night Fighter of WW2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQFbgmayQ-E

I just got the HTC vive and picked up this game, and I must say it really is amazing (esp. for us WW2 geeks).  You are in a U-boat during WW2.  It can be single or multiplayer up to 4 people (some ship features like loading torps. can be put on auto if you don’t have a full crew).  I must say the realism is amazing.  The game does not assign you a role, but to be efficient the people playing need to split up resp. to complete the mission.  You are talking to these people, and running all over the ship to get the job done.  It is so realistic the other day when I was playing I had a bit of flatulence and my first thought was “can’t do that here, will stink up the ship”, just to remember a couple seconds later “uh, I am in my living room!”.

It is not just the underwater stuff.  You can go above deck and fire the 88 to take down merchant shipping, or fire the AA to knock down enemy aircraft.  When the boat is getting depth charged you have to seal the leaks and pump out the excess water.

I am not big into gaming systems.  XBOX and the playstation were not a big deal, and although I owned an xbox I almost never played it.  VR is different.  20 years from now people are going to look at the present gaming systems the same we look at 1970s ‘Pong’.

Mussolini (and many others) thought the war all but won by Germany - hence the quote you post. From that starting point, with his political views and territorial aspirations, declaring war was an easy decision.

When you say “at this day and age” I think you mean with the largely pro-facist Italian mindset of 1940? So ignoring hindsight and my own morality?

Please clarify RJL.

Thanks
PP

Hands down, US Fletcher class destroyer. 175 built, the next two US destroyer classes based off of it. It was the destroyer that screened the US carrier battle groups. 5 duel purpose 5" guns, numerous AA guns, 10 21" torpedo tubes (only effective after the US solved its torpedo problem). speed, 38 knots. a true warship. also, one could argue they won the war for the US. It was basically the Navy’s version of the Sherman tank. plus, the last one was decommissioned in 2001, so a life of 57-59 years depending on when it was commissioned.

@CWO:

I have no idea if this is a joke or not, but according to this web page (which claims to be quoting a book called “Psychological Operations American Style”), during WWII the U.S. considered and even tested (in Central Park, of all places) the idea of painting large numbers of foxes with luminescent paint and unleashing them against the civilian population of Japan, in a bid to create mass superstitious terror among them.

http://theglyptodon.wordpress.com/2011/06/24/glow-in-the-dark-foxes-and-wwii-project-fantasia/

Good article. And funny. :)

Project Pigeon was another American attempt to use animals for war.

The idea was to create a large, gliding bomb. One - three lenses would be mounted on the outside of this bomb. They would be used to project an image onto a screen placed inside the gliding bomb. Pigeons–specially trained to recognize the bomb’s intended target–would peck at the screen. The screen was attached to a steering mechanism. Pecks at the center of the screen would cause the bomb to continue its current course. Off-center pecks would steer the bomb in a different direction. The project was canceled in late '44; perhaps because humans didn’t trust birds to steer large, expensive weapons.

America’s bat bomb project solved that trust problem. Instead of allowing birds or bats to steer one big bomb–as in Project Pigeon–each individual bat was attached to a small quantity of explosive. The plan was to release large numbers of bats at night over Japanese cities. The bats would fly around for a while. Then at dawn they would hide in man-made structures. The bats’ bombs were timed to go off shortly after dawn. Japanese buildings tended to be made of wood, bamboo, or other flammable materials. A homeowner would not initially realize his home had been penetrated by a bomb-laden bat; or that the bat’s bomb had started a small fire. Only after the fire had really taken hold would the homeowner become aware of the problem.

It was a promising project–at least if the goal was to burn Japan to the ground. But it was eventually abandoned, after the atomic bomb had made it redundant.

ME 262

If you’re looking at physically discernible traits in posterity (i.e., the baby boom generation), I’d say they would require considerable epigenetic or even genetic alterations in the parents (i.e., the people living there at the time). That’s not a very likely effect from such levels of pollution. If anyone was affected in any way, it seems more probable that their overall health would suffer to some degree, but it would probably be difficult to attribute that to any specific factor. An extensive epidemiological study may be able to demonstrate some effects, but I don’t know whether anybody has done one.

Also, it’s uncertain how much of the oil even reached the beaches or the fishing grounds. It seems obvious that the marine ecosystem could handle less oil, over a much longer period of time, and at various locations, much better than the massive BP spill. So a lot of that WWII tanker oil may have evaporated, or sunk to the bottom, or gone down with the ship and slowly dissipated.

I don’t think that the war itself would have played a major role in deciding to either clean up or ignore any oil that may have landed on the beaches. If the oil would have arrived in a town like, say, Biloxi, then people would have probably cleaned it up because it posed a direct threat to the livelihood of the local fishermen. On the other hand, if it would have landed in a remote location, it would likely have been ignored, simply because environmental awareness was not exactly a major concern in the 1940’s, war or no war.

In each case, I’m only speculating - we’d need to look for contemporary reports to know the truth.

And of course, the petroleum flavor does little for the shrimps, so I don’t think too many were eaten.  :-)

@MrMalachiCrunch:

What is the topic, who will pick strawberries or something?

That was a different thread.

1. USA
2. USSR
3. UK
4. Canada
5. China
6. France
7. Australia
8. Turkey
9. India
10. ???

I like them all actually…each theater of war had its own atmosphere…

The Eastern Front:  Genocide on a grand scale…the greatest tank battles of the war (KURSK, KHARKOV)  and Operation Barbarossa…the ultimate attack plan…and of course Stalingrad…the ultimate turning point of the war

The Western Front: From the greatest evacuation in history (Dunkirk) to the greatest invasion in history (Normandy) to the greatest gamble in history (Bulge)…nothing like fighting on the Western Front

The North African Front:  Nothing like watching a Desert Fox claim victory wherever he went…ultimate battles such as Tobruk, Kasserine Pass, and El Alamein…and how British General Montgomery finally showed his brilliance…

The Mediterranean Front:  The drive under Europe’s soft underbelly…Sicilly, Salerno, Anzio…the great Italian Campaign and the word PATTON becomes a household name…

The Battle of the Atlantic:  U-boats, BISMARCK, SCHARNHORST, Convoy PQ-17, Operation Torch…need i say more?

The Pacific Theater:  Pearl Harbor, Midway, the Solomons, Leyte, to name a few basically the greatest naval war in history…

The China-Burma-India Theater:  The Burma road must stay open…the Flying Tigers and China’s plight against the Japanese…the most intense fighting in the Pacific War

I know u only wanted a favorite,but where to choose…

BTW…LETS GIVE OUR THANKS TO THE MEN AND WOMEN WHO FOUGHT AND GAVE THEIR LIVES IN THESE THEATERS OF WAR…FOR WITHOUT THEM…WE WOULDN’T BE ABLE TO CHOOSE OUR FAVORITES