[gOOber]

A little known terror weapon, the Schutzstaffel Feline Corps.

[Robin_K2]

This is a fun and good-natured thread, and I don't mean to comment on my fellow BEA members. But I don't understand the various cable TV channels' search for a Nazi ultimate weapon. I have seen countless documentaries on their early jets, rockets and even (alleged) flying saucers. All breathlessly delivered as if these were the worst.

They killed 6 million Jews and harvested their hair, the gold from their teeth, their clothing. Are the death camps not ultimate weapon enough?

[TheZookie007]

Though I'd still want to also have a regular (i.e.: modern, with plenty of air bags and effective HVAC) car too, if I could get my hands on a Beetle like the one pictured below for anything resembling a doable price, I'd willingly sacrifice my current (modern, safe and practical) VW if doing so made it possible to have a Beetle like this:

Just like how you could get plenty of 50s era Chevys and whatnot if you go to Habana, I'm pretty sure you could fairly easily find an old-school VW Beetle if you go to Mexico City. Or, eBay Motors

Pal replies: bringing cars in from overseas if they're not exact models that have been federalized for US sale is an extremely complex and expensive proposition if you want to be able to register and drive the car in the states. I've looked into it for cars originally made and sold in Canada... I'd assume it was similar for Mexico, though maybe you'd find one that was made/sold here at first and then brought to Mexico... that might be easier, but even then, the DMV might find some reason to object.

[pedonbio]

This is a fun and good-natured thread, and I don't mean to comment on my fellow BEA members. But I don't understand the various cable TV channels' search for a Nazi ultimate weapon. I have seen countless documentaries on their early jets, rockets and even (alleged) flying saucers. All breathlessly delivered as if these were the worst.

I have seen a couple of those programs, RobinK, and I have a bit of the queasiness you mention, but for a different reason. I find the programs amusing because they so typify the failure of the Third Reich, jumping from one "miracle weapon" to the next. A simpler example is more obvious: Hitler put Ferdi Porsche in charge of tank design. Porsche designed and put into production 36 different models of tank, most without interchangeable parts. The USSR had two and the US had two. While small boys of my generation were charmed with assembling plastic model Panzers, they were next to useless in battle. Ages ago I had a client who had been a tank commander at the Siege of Leningrad. He told me that when he had been assigned his tank, he was taken to the testing ground where his tank would go 30 mph (50 kph) on level, dry ground at 20 degrees C. He said that he was in Russia for three years of the war, and the only thing he never encountered was level dry ground in 20 degree weather.

[TysonWarm]

The Germans did have the best tanks, they just took too long to produce and used up too many resources.  In one six hour engagement a Tiger tank was hit 227 times and despite damage to it's tracks, transmission and wheels it managed to drive another 40 miles to safety.  But, only 1500 were produced.  The Germans chose quality over quantity.  World War 2 was a war of production, we won the war of production.  Unfortunately, Robert McNamara who was an analyst in the office of statistical control in World War 2 didn't realize that all wars are not the same later in Vietnam. 

[imapseudonym]

The original idea for the VW Beatle was stolen from a Jewish engineer named Josef Ganz. http://www.josef-ganz.com/

[gOOber]

By 1945, The volkswaffe squadrons were decimated by the allied bombers who simply followed the trail of oil leaks to German airbases.

[salem]

Sure the Nazi's had that, but we, the British had THIS!

[pedonbio]

The Germans did have the best tanks, they just took too long to produce and used up too many resources.  In one six hour engagement a Tiger tank was hit 227 times and despite damage to it's tracks, transmission and wheels it managed to drive another 40 miles to safety.  But, only 1500 were produced.  The Germans chose quality over quantity.  World War 2 was a war of production, we won the war of production.  Unfortunately, Robert McNamara who was an analyst in the office of statistical control in World War 2 didn't realize that all wars are not the same later in Vietnam. 

I get a kick out of non-sequiters. Yes, WW II was a war of production, or more accurately, a war of attrition. So a tank that dooms production it the "best"? Ferdi Porsche was the best friend the Allies had.

McNamara came to understand in his last years what a total fuck-up he was, but I still find Americans from the era who never have understood that we jumped into a civil war, and we jumped in on the wrong side. Eisenhower had done the math ten years before and decided to stay out. Even MacArthur, who was no great strategist, had advised Kennedy to stay out. It wasn't like McNamara didn't have people, including his own children, telling him how he was fucking up.

I have to give McNamara credit for reflection, though. I haven't seen the documentary that the same producer did with Don Rumsfeld, but I gather that Rumsfeld is too stupid or too obtuse to begin to understand how badly he fucked up.

War is a place where it is very easy to fuck up with horrible consequences, which is why it should be avoided, especially by imperial powers.

[pedonbio]

After today's World Cup semifinal, the German futbol team counts as a weapon of Brazilian destruction.