A history lesson - WWII

[abs]

A number of the scientists had regret that they helped spawn the ideas but even without them there were others who would have taken their place. 

As it notes he wasn't needed to help develep it.  He went to visit and consult on seveeral occasions but didn't actually contribute anything important to the project itself. No, he did more than that. He used the rest of his life to warn about the consequences of a nuclear race, HE saw that even before the bomb was a reality. It is not your place to belittle this brilliat and humble man! You could learn a few things there!

Since the project itself was mainly carried out by Americans you resort to well nuclear theory in general as devloped in the 30s involved many foreigners.  Yes foreigners including Americans all took part in nuclear physics studies throught the 30s.  Academics in every major country were aware of the devlepments including Germany and Italy. 

But it was academics in the US who were th efirst to be able to build the bomb not acedemics located anywhere else. Not only did other countries not develop it on their own soon after but rather devleoped their own as a result of having been privy to US technology some with US permission others through spies. It still took the soviets till 1949 despite such spies though. 

The US had the bomb in 1945 and if the war in Europe had been bogged down the US would have used it on Germany.  Had the US been fighting alone then the war would not have been over May 8, 1945 and the US would have bombed Germany to help force an end without needing to expend more American lives on the ground the same as it would have if the Allies had been bogged down in Europe.

 

[scipio_usmc]

Scipio I just noticed above you saying "I never claimed the US defeated the Nazis" .... I missed this initially. It's good to actually read that!

The problem and argument arose in your initial post #3 above with sentences like:

"What did the US get out of defeating the Nazis"
and
"The US defeated the Nazis to help our allies"

Going by your later comment above you obviously didn't intend to imply the US defeated the Nazis alone. Therefore I shall now reframe from being 'anti-American' in my comments! I do recognise the vital part in the war played by the USA ... just as vital in the final defeat of the Nazis as Britain and Russia's contributions.

The assertion the US could have defeated the Germans alone if everyone else had surrendered and only the US were fighting them necessarily admits that the US did not defeat the Axis alone. 

Could have means didn't happen but would have been possible by definition. 

So I still don't understand how you thought I was claiming the US won the war alone. Particulary comments like "US casualties would have been higher if the US had to fight alone"

I still think your assertion the USA could have invaded Europe alone and defeated the Nazis is quite ludicrous. But the argument depends on what Germany you would be attacking; if it was the German army of early '45 decimated by the losses on the Eastern Front and D-Day landings and The Battle Of The Bulge and with Italy having switched sides then yes you probably could have defeated them at a huge cost.

But if it was the battle hardened fanatical Germans who swept aside France and the BEF in 1940 and poured into Russia you would have been decimated on the beaches. Experience of battle conditions is obviously vital; in any battle green troops against battle hardened divisions is a complete mismatch. Any American invasion would obviously be with completely raw troops with inexperienced commanders and I think you know how difficult it would have been.

I guess you don't realize how much smaller the 1940 and 41 German military was compared to in 1944.  The 1944 military was much more capable than the 1940/41 era.  Taking half of Poland the Germans suffered rather high casualties.  The tanks of that era were much less capable than the Panthers and Panzer IVs in Normany. Their aircraft less capable as well.  The advances in their tanks and aircraft happened only because they were actively at war.  Germany was ready to halt tnak production completely upon Soviet surrender and ramped tank production down towards late 1941.  They had to ramp it up and get on a floor footing because the US helped keep the Soviets in the War. 

You grossly overestimate the size and effectiveness of a force the US would have faced had the US opposed Germany alone.  You also grossly overestimate the skill of the early German forces, they were good but not significantly better than those around in 1943 and 44 that the Western Allies fougth in Italy and France. 

The least efficient military was the Soviet military.  They didn't care about losses, forcing men to stand ground and fight or be shot by their own forces above all caused the enormous casualties they suffered.  They suffered enormous losses in 1941 but continued to suffer large losses in 1942.  Some of their largest losses were during their offensives though.  They used numbers in lieu of skill.  They didn't suffer huge losses because they faced tougher Germans than others. They used inferior tactics which some say are not inferior because they did work but which people who care about minimizing loss of life consider inferior and reckless like wasting 100,00 lives just to clear Berlin.

What did all that blood accomplish?  It didn't help the people it helped the Soviet government instill puppet regimes and to annex land from various countries like Poland.  Churchill warned of such but FDR thought he had Stalin around his fignger and had communist sympathizers in his cabinet and never took a post war hard line like should have been done.  Churchill wanted to invade through Italy or the Balkins so that the Soviets would be prevented from seizing Eastern Europe but FDR refused to support it.

FDR prevailed because over 80% of the Western forces were American so it was obvious who had the leverage to call the shots and who didn't.

The bottom line is that the US facing the German military of early 1942 in France would have featured the US having far more tanks, and aircraft an more men as well because the German Army in 1942 was smaller than in 1944.  The entire 1942 military was larger than the number of troops that were in Italy and France in 1944 but not all of it would have been in France during an invasion and the US could have invaded other areas instead.

Most of the 1942 force oculd have been transferred to fight the US but not all of it because they still needed forces to garrison the gains they made elsewhere including huge swaths of Soviet land. The US could have landed a 6 million man force and expanded that to 10 million if needed.  The Germans would have not been able to match our numbers and at some point would have been forced back as they were historically.  But atomic weapons again would have ended things sooner.  Especially since they would not have wanted to have their military be totally destoryed by the US in which case the Soviets could easily annex Germany.

The Soviets would not have used peace to do nothing, they would have built up their military to eventually prepare to try to retake lost land.

Total war is a battle of attrition not a sprint where 1 battle can detemrine the entire outcome unless that one battle features losing a large percentage of your population or industrial base and thus inhibits your ability to make war.

The US industrial base and population represented 50% of the World's military potentional at the time.  That means the US had the ability to field the largest Army and air force.  The US Navy and our shipbuilding potential means the US had the ability to transport and supply that force abroad. 

That is what matters in assessing the ability of one country to defeat another in a war of attrition.

Germany didn't lose WWI because its soldiers were inferiro it lost because the Allies even without the Russians still had a larger population base than Germany and the industrial might to field a larger force.  With Russia knocked out the Germans actually had an advantage in numbers but the US nullified that advantage.  There was nothing the Germans could do to defeat the Allies they could win an individual engagement here or there but in total war had no hope and that was why they surrendered.  Their firlded force was not able to prevent an Allied advance into Germany. They lacked the ability to prevent it the same way the Germans would have lacked the ability to prevent the US from invading Germany if the US had chose to send enough men to Europe to accomplish it.

They were smart and surrendered before total destruction of the German Army and occupation of Germany which would have followed.

It is hard to say if Hitler would have been as stupid or willing to give up Western Europe to keep the gains in the East. But the atomic bomb would have resulted in destruction to the point that Germans would not have had the stomach to fight anymore and would have revolted probably if he insisted on Germany being turned into a radioactive wasteland.       



 


 

[scipio_usmc]

No, he did more than that. He used the rest of his life to warn about the consequences of a nuclear race, HE saw that even before the bomb was a reality. It is not your place to belittle this brilliat and humble man! You could learn a few things there!

The nuclear race did not result in a nuclear holocaust it resulted in MAD.

The danger is the proliferation in the hands of regimes that are unstable like the DPRK and Iran.

The US has tried to prevent proliferation but the Soviets did th eopposite as did other Europeans who only cared about money.  They are squarely to blame for nukes ending up in the hands of dangerous powers.

The only thing that can deter such powers if anything is an enormous arsenal and even that might not work against someone irrational who doesn't mind being killed.

The Soviets took a long time to recover from WWII economically and population wise and thus its military potentional did not recover until that time.  By the time this happened and the Soviets oculd potentially have taken on the West militarily in a conventional sense Stalin was gone and the US had nuclear missiles not just hydrogen bombs and it was recognized any large offensive would result in destruction.  This actually kept the Soviets in check.

Major nuclear powers ar enot going to fight  amajor war precisely because the nuclea roption is so destructive and escalation would be likely if there were a full scale war ever.

They would have been developed anyway even if he had never been born. 
Nuclear weapons are dangeorus in the hands of horrible regimes that is why efforts should be taken to prevent such but the World is full of greedy people who want to sell anything even nuclear technology and lacks people with the guts to prevent it. Something should be done before Iran develops the bomb but the US Commander in Chief is a foreign policy joke and the rest of the world too scared, lazy inept or greedy to do anything.

His talking against nuclear weapons does nothing to prevent regimes like the DPRK and Itan from devleoping them.  They would have even more desire for nukes if no one else had them because then they could blackmail the World with them.  That is the biggest problem the world faces with respect to nuclear weapons.   

[abs]

The nuclear race did not result in a nuclear holocaust it resulted in MAD.

The danger is the proliferation in the hands of regimes that are unstable like the DPRK and Iran.

The US has tried to prevent proliferation but the Soviets did th eopposite as did other Europeans who only cared about money.  They are squarely to blame for nukes ending up in the hands of dangerous powers.

The only thing that can deter such powers if anything is an enormous arsenal and even that might not work against someone irrational who doesn't mind being killed.

The Soviets took a long time to recover from WWII economically and population wise and thus its military potentional did not recover until that time.  By the time this happened and the Soviets oculd potentially have taken on the West militarily in a conventional sense Stalin was gone and the US had nuclear missiles not just hydrogen bombs and it was recognized any large offensive would result in destruction.  This actually kept the Soviets in check.

Major nuclear powers ar enot going to fight  amajor war precisely because the nuclea roption is so destructive and escalation would be likely if there were a full scale war ever.

They would have been developed anyway even if he had never been born. 
Nuclear weapons are dangeorus in the hands of horrible regimes that is why efforts should be taken to prevent such but the World is full of greedy people who want to sell anything even nuclear technology and lacks people with the guts to prevent it. Something should be done before Iran develops the bomb but the US Commander in Chief is a foreign policy joke and the rest of the world too scared, lazy inept or greedy to do anything.

His talking against nuclear weapons does nothing to prevent regimes like the DPRK and Itan from devleoping them.  They would have even more desire for nukes if no one else had them because then they could blackmail the World with them.  That is the biggest problem the world faces with respect to nuclear weapons.

Probably - but at a later date.

Niels Bohr - Model of Atomic Structure:
Niels Bohr published his model of atomic structure in 1913. His theory was the first to present:

    that electrons traveled in orbits around the atom's nucleus
    that the chemical properties of the element was largely determined by the number of electrons in the outer orbits
    that an electron could drop from a higher-energy orbit to a lower one, emitting a photon (light quantum) of discrete energy.
Niels Bohr´s model of atomic structure became the basis for all future quantum theories.

You keep belittling him - because he is not American! I am actually laughing at some of the things you say, did you know that? I am seriously laughing, you come across so ridiculously and bombastically patriotic that it becomes comical! 

[Tim Invictus]

That's it Scipio, if it's not American you belittle it. 

Leo Sziland patented the idea of the atomic bomb with a British Admiralty patent so it could be covered by the Official Secrets Act in 1934. It was Leo Sziland and Noble Prize winner Enrico Fermi from Rome who set up the first nuclear chain reaction at the University Of Chicago!

These two eminent European physicists persuaded your president of the dangers of the Nazis producing the A bomb.

There was a British Mission too working on the development and could be considered vital to the development of the bomb. Read up:

http://www.atomicarchive.com/History/british/

So even though the technology was covered under the British Official Secrets Act and a British Patent and the two physicists from Hungary and Italy basically instigated the whole project in USA you want to take full credit for it being an American invention! Remarkable .... what was the American genius at work, building the huts in the desert?

I suggest without the British and European participation the yanks would never have developed the bomb before the Germans!

Scipio you really do need to take off the John Wayne blinkers and give credit where credit is due! Unfortunately it's this inherent arrogance that seems ingrained in so many Americans that makes your nation about as popular around the world as the PDRK!

I will go back over all your other numerous points and give you my comments when I have the time.

PS: Don't use the words "the US defeated the Nazis" when you actually mean the allies, then there will be no misunderstanding!

 

[Tim Invictus]

Oh my word Scipio, I have just read back all your copious googlefest posts and I have to say, like Abs, I too laughed my head off!  To repeat constantly that I am jealous of Americas's military might 70 years ago and my ego is dented by what amounts to Scipios delusions of American greatness is laugh out loud hilarious!

Unfortunately for you Scipio you cannot give me a single instance in the history of your military where the fighting prowess of the American soldier has won the day/battle/war against overwhelming odds! To answer that question by quoting the Iraq war is frankly pathetic! The Iraqis never stood a snowballs chance in hell and you know it! They could have had a million more men and 50 x as many obsolete weapons systems and it wouldn't have made an iota of difference!

Of course 1944 was, according to Scipio, the most important year of the war because the yanks finally got round to do some fighting. Never mind that the cream of the Nazi forces had been wiped out in Russia .... never mind the war had been going on for 5 years and the real fighting had exhausted both sides! And in pop the badly trained, badly led, inept yanks to claim victory!

Try and be concise and to the point Scipio! Or is your 'battle plan' to win the argument with endless googled verbiage to bore us into submission? Less last man standing and more last man typing eh Skippy! Sometimes less is more but I guess that's not a concept that goes down well in the fattest nation on earth!

I think I will just bullet point your stupidity from now on!

* The Iraq war and Vietnam are examples of USA 'winning against overwhelming odds'! 
(Pitchforks against tanks!)

* Enrico Fermi, one of the main architects of the atom bomb, 'was American when he worked on the Manhattan Project! 
(He left Italy in 1938 because his wife was jewish)

* Even though in 1944 Germany had lost millions of their finest soldiers fighting literally the biggest battles in history on the Eastern Front, they were a better fighting force then than in 1940/41! 
(Yeah right Skippy ... that makes sense!)



 

[Tim Invictus]

Aaawwww. Poor Skippy! I just looked on the Blue forum for the first time in weeks and realise why USMC Skippy ran away from this debate. He slopped off to take on Gladys of all people in a debate on WW2!

Typical Yanks taking the easy option! And Gladys will always be the easy option although he never knows when he is beaten .... I don't mean he is tenacious, I just mean literally 'he never knows'!

Let's just hope ...... ....... revising history doesn't upset SAS GAV! 

[Mr Moderator]

The al-Qaeda attack on the USA which brought down the Twin Towers and struck at the heart of The Pentagon reminds me of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour.  Coming some 60 years apart, both attacks were possible because the US thought it was untouchable.

The world would be a very different place today had both attacks been thwarted.  The well planned attack on Pearl Harbour was a master stroke but with terrible consequences which both Hiroshima and Nagasaki were later to discover. The Pearl Harbour attack also had one unfortunate consequence in that it brought the USA into WWII as a combatant, the US being up until that point merely a supplier of war armaments.  This single action perpetrated by the Japanese saw the Nazi regime fall in Europe shortly followed by their own surrender.

Had the assault on Pearl Harbour not taken place one wonders if the US would have entered the war at all.  With a united Nazi Europe under his belt would an empowered Hitler have gone the whole hog and attacked the USA with his new intercontinental ballistic missiles which would inevitably have been developed?

[Tim Invictus]

The al-Qaeda attack on the USA which brought down the Twin Towers and struck at the heart of The Pentagon reminds me of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour.  Coming some 60 years apart, both attacks were possible because the US thought it was untouchable.

The world would be a very different place today had both attacks been thwarted.  The well planned attack on Pearl Harbour was a master stroke but with terrible consequences which both Hiroshima and Nagasaki were later to discover. The Pearl Harbour attack also had one unfortunate consequence in that it brought the USA into WWII as a combatant, the US being up until that point merely a supplier of war armaments.  This single action perpetrated by the Japanese saw the Nazi regime fall in Europe shortly followed by their own surrender.

Had the assault on Pearl Harbour not taken place one wonders if the US would have entered the war at all.  With a united Nazi Europe under his belt would an empowered Hitler have gone the whole hog and attacked the USA with his new intercontinental ballistic missiles which would inevitably have been developed?

Pearl Harbour was deliberately provoked by the USA and they were well aware before the event, it was going to happen! And the Twin Towers is a complete conspiracy. Just the same as the Gulf Of Tonkin incident which was another, now admitted, false flag operation.

All these 'attacks' on USA had one purpose only; to make the US public accept wars they would otherwise have opposed! And JFK was assassinated because he was going to pull out of Vietnam!

Just my studied opinion of course! >@@(*&)

[John]

Pearl Harbour was deliberately provoked by the USA and they were well aware before the event, it was going to happen! And the Twin Towers is a complete conspiracy. Just the same as the Gulf Of Tonkin incident which was another, now admitted, false flag operation.

All these 'attacks' on USA had one purpose only; to make the US public accept wars they would otherwise have opposed! And JFK was assassinated because he was going to pull out of Vietnam!

Just my studied opinion of course! >@@(*&)

I don't think even the Americans would be so stupid as to invite such an attack with all its devastating consequences.  I don't believe the US had any intention of entering the war in Europe which they saw merely as someone else's battle.  Had they not been attacked by the Japanese I believe they were quite prepared to let the UK fall as did just about every other country in Europe.  The question is, what would have happened next with Europe under the control of the Nazi's and the Pacific under the effective control of the Japanese?

The 9/11 attacks were a coup for al-Qaeda, it found the US sitting in total apathy.  As the Japanese commander said after the attack on Pearl Harbor, he feared that they had awakened a sleeping giant and so did it come to pass for Osama and al-Qaeda.

[Tim Invictus]

I don't think even the Americans would be so stupid as to invite such an attack with all its devastating consequences.  I don't believe the US had any intention of entering the war in Europe which they saw merely as someone else's battle.  Had they not been attacked by the Japanese I believe they were quite prepared to let the UK fall as did just about every other country in Europe.  The question is, what would have happened next with Europe under the control of the Nazi's and the Pacific under the effective control if the Japanese?

The 9/11 attacks were a coup for al-Qaeda, it found the US sitting in total apathy.  As the Japanese commander said after the attack on Pearl Harbor, he feared that they had awakened a sleeping giant and so did it come to pass for Osama and al-Qaeda.

John mate, really! Do you never question anything that is fed to us by MSM!

The yanks provoked Pearl Harbour deliberately then they made damn sure none of their major assets were in the harbour when the attack happened! Namely their aircraft carriers!

http://truth11.com/2010/10/17/pearl-harbor-was-an-inside-job-fdr-not-only-knew-about-the-attack-in-advance-but-that-his-administration-did-everything-it-could-to-cause-a-japanese-attack-on-americ/

[John]

John mate, really! Do you never question anything that is fed to us by MSM!

The yanks provoked Pearl Harbour deliberately then they made damn sure none of their major assets were in the harbour when the attack happened! Namely their aircraft carriers!

http://truth11.com/2010/10/17/pearl-harbor-was-an-inside-job-fdr-not-only-knew-about-the-attack-in-advance-but-that-his-administration-did-everything-it-could-to-cause-a-japanese-attack-on-americ/

It was sheer luck that the aircraft carriers weren't tied up in Pearl Harbor at the time of the Japanese attack, had they too been destroyed as the Japanese had planned, they would have had complete control of the Pacific, north and south.  In those circumstances Australia and New Zealand were their next target.

ETA. Do you think a copy of the McCollum fell into Japanese hands? 

[Tim Invictus]

It was sheer luck that the aircraft carriers weren't tied up in Pearl Harbor at the time of the Japanese attack, had they too been destroyed as the Japanese had planned, they would have had complete control of the Pacific, north and south.  In those circumstances Australia and New Zealand were their next target.

ETA. Do you think a copy of the McCollum fell into Japanese hands?

Wasn't it just so lucky that all three aircraft carriers stationed at Pearl Harbour were out of port!

FDR wanted war but could never have got Congress to agree without Pearl Harbour ........ ergo .......

Have a read of this John .......

http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/pearl/www.geocities.com/Pentagon/6315/pearl.html

[scipio_usmc]

Aaawwww. Poor Skippy! I just looked on the Blue forum for the first time in weeks and realise why USMC Skippy ran away from this debate. He slopped off to take on Gladys of all people in a debate on WW2!

Typical Yanks taking the easy option! And Gladys will always be the easy option although he never knows when he is beaten .... I don't mean he is tenacious, I just mean literally 'he never knows'!

Let's just hope ...... ....... revising history doesn't upset SAS GAV! 

I have not checked back because there was little need to.

I posted my points about why and how the US would have had the ability to defeat Germany on its own if there were a war between the US and Germany that didn't invovle the rest of the World.

I also posted my points about how Germany posed no direct threat to the US the threat was to our allies.

You did not dent either point with evidence of any kind you only rattled off worthless things that I had no reason to respond to. 

History is obviously not your forte which is fine.

Nor do you seem very mature with demanding examples where the US military had to face tremendous odds. There are plenty of examples of US troops taking on larger forces and previaling but they would be lost on someone like you and I am not going to bother ruining the dignity of their actions and spoiling their memory on you.   

Comparing Pearl Harbor with 9/11 is absurd but seems to keep with your character.

9/11 involved terrorists crashing civilian jet liners which no country would be apt to simply shoot down because it would kill the passengers.  Without having solid knowledge the planes were going to be used to crash into something significant no country would permit their military to shoot them down.  Civilians would make the call of whether to shoot down liners 9/11 had nothing to do with the US military.

Pearl Harbor involved a military attack that was launched against airfirelds and ships while most personnel were asleep with a war declaration occurring after the attack hence more of a surprise than had Japan declared war and attacked afterwards.   

While the loss of life was significant, in terms of loss of life in WWII it was not extraordinary by any means. Nor was the damage anywhere near as great as hoped.  The Pacific fleet was not crippled.  4 Battleships were sunk but 2 were raised and repaired. In the meantime carriers had overtaken battleships as the most potent capital ships yet the carriers were on maneuvers so totally missed.
 
I'm not a fan of FDR by any stretch but conspiracy theories about Pearl Harbor are all absurd.  The most common conspiracy theory is that FDR knew the Japanese were declaring war and going to attack but purposely failed to warn Pearl so that a devastating attack could be launched. 

There are several problems with the claims though:

1) Though we were reading the Japanese diplomatic codes the codes intercepted did not explicitly state a declaration of war was being made and were still being translated at any rate.  So there is no evidence at all that FDR was told by those reading the codes that a declaration of war was going to be declared.

2) The notion that if Japan declared war and then attacked Pearl Harbor but the US had minimized the damage even more then the US would not have declared was back and would simply have done nothing is absurd.  The US would have declared war on Japan even if the attack was less successful.  In fact had Pearl not been attacked and only the Philippines been attacked the US still would have declared war on Japan.  I don't know where people come up with the claim that had the US shot down a lot of Japanese planes and less loss of life on the ships than the US would not have gone to war with Japan.  Attacking us period and declaring war on us was sufficient to result in us responding by declaring war.

As for JFK, not only is there not a shred of evidence to suggest he was killed because he was going to pull US advisors from Vietnam, the claims he was going to pull our advisers are not sound.  LBJ kept Kennedy's foreign policy and military advisors.  It was Kennedy's advisers who recommended escalation in Vietnam.  Kennedy was elected on a strong anti-communism platform.  The conspiracy theorists claim Kennedy would have resisted their urges and that is why they had him killed because they wanted to escalate.  It was not until 1965 that US combat troops were sent to Vietnam.  His staff didn't demand an immediate escalation as LBJ took over.  Things took a slow progression.  There is nothing at all to establish Kennedy would have resisted his advisers let alone that they knew he would so killed him to be able to slowly escalate.

Nor is there evidence anyone else was interested in escalation and needed Kennedy out of the way. In fact, the conspiracy claims that Madame Nhu had Kenenedy killed for the Diem assassination is more likely than a government conspiracy among anti-communist hawks and is based exclusively on a threat she made not on any evidence she tried let alone managed to actually follow through.

If you want to debate the military and economic power of the US during WWII bring it but childish things don't interest me nor does debating stupid conspiracy theories.

[Tim Invictus]

Oh my word Scipio, you really are someone so pedantic about the most minuscule of facts but totally missing the big picture. Wake up and smell the coffee Scipio.

You delight in telling everybody how brilliant the US military is but you're quite happy to swallow the government line that tells you 'we couldn't protect our major Pacific naval base from a surprise attack'. We couldn't protect our President from getting his head blown off in Dallas. We couldn't stop hijacked planes flying around America for up to 90 minutes and then flying into absolutely no go airspace and crashing into the most protected building on the planet .... The Pentagon!

Actually it's four surprise attacks; the Gulf Of Tonkin 'surprise attack' pack of lies got you into the Vietnam war. JFK was assassinated to keep you in it! Even your government has admitted this 'attack' is entirely fabricated!

And what did all these 'surprise attacks' achieve'? They brought USA into three wars that the government wanted to be in! Surely you're not naive enough to believe all these events weren't planned by your government to get American public opinion on side! It's all utter hogwash Scipio and I am surprised you're happy to swallow it!

PS: 911 has it's own threads ... go in there if you want to discuss!