Comments on: Saturday, 3 September 1938

By: Don Smith

Don Smith — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 22:01:34 +0000

Just catching up, a few days at a time so to speak, and until Jakob’s point above was indeed under the impression this was an earlier Heinlein. It’s interesting how difficult it can be to read objectively. Time enough for War …

By: Brett Holman

Brett Holman — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 05:56:51 +0000

Am I the only person that keeps mis-reading this as ‘Hitler and Heinlein’?

You’re lucky I don’t keep mistyping it that way!

By: CK

CK — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 12:37:27 +0000

“What’s your opinion of the McKinstry book?”

In short, Jakob, great read and I cannot believe that I bought yet another book about aircraft. Clearly, I have no life.

I think it’s a great piece of research, especially the bits about how the plane came into being, production difficulties etc etc etc.

I’m about 2/3 through, and it’s still BoB, so I’m guessing the the later Mks will be a bit rushed.

Oh. And the book confirms (yet again) that Douglas Bader remains an incompetent insufferable egotistical arsehole who should never have been placed in charge of a bicycle, let alone a piece of machinery.

By: Jakob

Jakob — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 10:59:57 +0000

Am I the only person that keeps mis-reading this as ‘Hitler and Heinlein’?

‘I love the quasi-fascist imagery of Starship Troopers, Herr Heinlein – truly your finest work.’

CK: What’s your opinion of the McKinstry book? I thought the first 2/3rds were truly excellent, but from about 1941 onwards the book tried to cover too much, and didn’t add anything that hadn’t been said many times before.

By: Brett Holman

Brett Holman — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 08:32:04 +0000

Oh, I thought there were 3? Or did that include unserviceable Spits?

There were only 60-odd Hurricanes too. Fighter Command would had to rely on the last generation of biplane fighters. But as JDK says, the Luftwaffe was not all that either, and it was in no way ready to carry out a serious bombing campaign against Britain in 1938 (particularly without bases along the Channel). Then again, it had made the monoplane transition earlier than the RAF, which would have given it an advantage.

By: JDK

JDK — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 14:39:10 +0000

CK – Running the ‘if there was wear at the time of (DebateName) Crisis’ scenario is interesting, whatever the presumptions. It’s often overlooked that the Luftwaffe wasn’t the 1940 strength foe any more than the RAF was, and the (short-range) Spitfires would have been of little use to the AASF if the Continent hadn’t been occupied. Hitler relied on a lot of bluff with his air force.

By: CK

CK — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 13:00:25 +0000

Great posts, Brett.

Just reading McKinstry’s ‘Spitfire’ (me being such a dag and all).

You know how many operational Spits were in service during Munich?

Precisely: 1.