Even for a Board where straying from the subject at hand is considered to be normal, this is a remarkable reach.The entente as a whole were aggressors for backing serbia.
Don't repeat.
Even for a Board where straying from the subject at hand is considered to be normal, this is a remarkable reach.The entente as a whole were aggressors for backing serbia.
So now we're discussing what? The Versailles Treaty? The difficult Polish-Czechoslovakian relations and the poor choices of the Polish government?
Ah damn. Because I had the following idea in my head for some time...The rail lines specifically only going to the 6 extermination camps are out there in remote Poland.
Bullshit, Deliberate Starving of POWS is not same as logistical problems with feeding them and we both know it. Etcetera for the rest.
Ah damn. Because I had the following idea in my head for some time...
Send Mustangs and Mosquitos straffing the death trains steam locomotives, right in the boiler.
Apart from the issue of range, which you acknowledge in your first sentence, and the issue of crossing the most defended enemy airspace of the time...
...how do the pilots tell it's a "death train"?
It's a train made of closed cargo wagons.
If it's on the final secondary line only heading to Auschwitz, then yes, it's going to Auschwitz. And even then, it might be a train carrying food supplies. Stopping it will do no good to the prisoners.
If it's not on that terminal line, it might not be going to Auschwitz at all. It might be a supply train carrying ammunition, or food, or horses, or other military supplies to the front. So why should the pilots, having run the risk of being there, only shoot up the locomotive and not the rolling stock (valuable target in itself) and the contents?
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By the summer of 1944, there's another Ally who would have less range problems. It's the Soviets. And they have the ideal aircraft to shoot up trains (indeed, using Mustangs and Mosquitos is a waste of valuable resources): the Shturmovik.
But the Soviets will be even more ruthless than the Westerners. The Shturmovik hasn't great range, and they are all needed to promote immediate military advantages for the Krasnaya Armija on the ground. At the end of the day, a mission of say 10 Shturmovik might save some prisoners - 10? 100? - and it would typically entail a 10% loss rate assuming only light opposition. Two expensively trained Soviet air crewmen. Plus the other Soviet servicemen that might die that day, because the 10 Shturmoviks did not attack the German ground forces in front of them.