Nazi Salute.

17 pages... what? 

Atavachron wrote: Right, but laws and freedom of speech can coexist; if the Germans don't want people flashing Hitler salutes, that's their right to decide as a democracy.  And I don't blame them one bit.

Yikes...14 new pages in this thread since yesterday afternoon.

um

tl;dr

I thought this thread would have died when it shifted to German cuisine. 

Here's another beautiful German feat of aeronautical ingenuity. The Mistel(  or Mistletoe ) composite aircraft, well,  aircraft / bomb.as the lower aircraft was filled with high explosives. Alternatively, the nose of the lower aircraft a war weary bomber was removed anda particularily powerful warhead similar to a an anti tank weapon was installed that was supposed to bring the good news to the enemy. The throttle and flight controls of the unmanned lower aircraft were wired to the piggyback plane usually an FW 190 or Bf-109 and  the pilot would  engage an autopilot, release the bomber from a 30 degree dive and hope for the best. Although it worked well in tests the idea didn't farewell operationally against intended targets such as bridgeheads and warships and they were sitting ducks for allied fighters.

The Americans used old B-17 Flying Fortresses  in a similar way only they were manned bombers laden with high explosives. The pilot and the copilot would guide the aircraft to the target by means of a television guidance system and then bale out after which a mothership would take over and place the "flying bomb" on a fortified target such a  oil refineries and submarine pens. Known as Operation Aphrodite the project was a dismal failure. The only one that reached it's target gave the Germans a relatively intact Flying Fortress  Read more in the book  Aphrodite : A Desparate Mission by Jack Olsen

                                                                


Edited by Vibrationbaby - March 02 2011 at 10:43

Epignosis wrote: Yikes...14 new pages in this thread since yesterday afternoon. um tl;dr

James wrote: Is that a model, VB? I know of the Mistel.  A very ingenious design.  They also had the Bachem Natter, the Me 163, Do 335 and of course, the Bv 141.  Later in the war they also had the Me 262, Ar 234 and He 162 and if the war had lasted longer and they had the tools and resources available, they would have had other Jet aircraft as well.

Yeah pretty cool eh ? The allies found all kinds of crazy sh*t during their advance through the Rhineland. I read a lot about this as a kid. A lot of the technology that they were working on was incorporated into projects that were already underway in the UK and The US. One particular aircraft they were working on was the Messerschmitt P.1101 jet fighter that featured the first attempts at a variable geometry wing that sort of mimicked bird flight . In order to glide or slow down birds flare out or extend the wings and to accelerate they tuck them in. Although it never flew it was was captured intact but uncompleted and some of the parts were actually incorporated into the American Bell X-5 ( almost a carbon copy of the P.1101). The X-5 was a more or less a catastrophe. It became nose heavy when the wings were swept back for high speed flight and the shift in the center of pressure and gravity caused a tendency for the aircraft to enter into a fatal spin. One test pilot was killed as a result and the project was shelved. But the data eventually paved the way for variable geometry aircraft such as the F-111, F-14, Mig 23 and Panavia Tornado. But we can thank the Germans who first came up with such an audacious idea.

                           






Edited by Vibrationbaby - March 02 2011 at 12:53

thellama73 wrote: sleeper wrote: I should be surprised, but I'm not, that its primarily the Americans that get all uppity about this law that wont even effect them unless they go to Germany. Of course, for the yanks they dont have to deal with the genocidal legacy of the Nazis, which is still very recent in historical terms, as part of their heritage so its much easier for them to criticise. I hesitate to bring this up for fear of being misinterpreted, but why is genocide considered worse than simple mass murder? Surely killing people at random is just as bad as killing people based on their race. In fact, it might be argued that at least the genocidist has a goal that he believes to be noble, whereas the random killer hates all mankind indiscriminately, which I think is worse. Please don't accuse me of promoting or apologizing for genocide.

Interesting question, I think it may have to do with the fact that genocide tends to get perpetrated on a far larger scale, though its like picking out the lesser of two repugnant evils.

There are shoot-outs everywhere and not always by nazis. But pretty much always by criminals. 

This is funny.

 A complete tit standing doing it in front of a building where it is bound to cause offence isn't.

The silly berk deserves to be arrested for sheer incredulous stupidity as much as anything else.