It sounds like a modern military fiction story, but its what actually happened in the 1940s.
Here s What You Need To Remember: As military planners today contemplate ways to defend against the threat of today’s far more survivable, longer-range, and precise cruise missiles, the Allied experience in Operation Diver should offer both hope and a sobering warning.
London was under siege as it never had been before. Starting June 13, 1944 merely a week after the triumph of the D-Day landings V-1 cruise missiles launched from Nazi-occupied France began raining down upon the metropolis, their rapid-firing pulset jet motors emitting a horrid buzzing drone.
So Much For Neutrality: Switzerland Almost Fell Victim to the Nazi War Machine
Had Germany invaded Switzerland between the conquest of France in July 1940 and the invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, Switzerland would have been alone.
Here s What You Need To Remember: Nazi Germany had defeated France reputed to have the finest army in Europe in just six weeks. They would have made short work of Switzerland.
Switzerland emerged from World War II unconquered but not untarnished. Switzerland did survive as a free, democratic state in a Europe prostrate under the Nazi jackboot. But the Swiss also emerged under a cloud of collaboration with the Third Reich.
Nothing about the first Korean War would prepare U.S. troops for the magnitude of the second.
Here s What You Need To Remember: Whether Korean War II would drag on into a permanent stalemate, given North Korea s economic fragility and Western reluctance to endure yet another “long war,” is another matter. Yet barring a collapse of Kim Jong-un’s regime or its army, it seems unlikely there will be any lightning advances or bug-out retreats up and down the Korean Peninsula.
If a Second Korean War were to erupt tomorrow, there is one thing we can be sure of.
It won’t be like the First Korean War of 1950-53.
While World War I submarines could only remain submerged for brief periods, they were highly successful at picking off unescorted merchants ship in the Atlantic and Mediterranean. Washington had to something about that.
Nazi Germany s Would-Be Wonder Weapon Was an Epic Fail
Germany wanted a fighter with a longer range. Instead, it built Frankenstein s monster that was too big to maneuver.
Here s What You Need To Remember: There is never a free lunch in aircraft design. Carrying all that extra fuel meant a bigger, heavier aircraft. A bigger, heavier aircraft required two engines and two propellers, which added even more weight. The result was that the Bf 110 weighed more than four tons, or twice that of the Bf 109.
In the mid-1930s, Nazi Germany had a problem. Its twin-engined medium bombers, such as the Heinkel 111, had a range of perhaps 1,500 miles. However, the Luftwaffe s single-engined fighter plane, the Messerschmitt Bf 109, had a range of only 400 miles (it wasn t until mid-World War II that fighters carried drop tanks). Before 1939, airpower enthusiasts believed the bomber will always get through enemy air defenses, but the Germans also realized they needed a fighter capable of escort