monkeylizard

It was codenamed Operation: Downfall. It was around 800K troops in phase 1 to take Kyushu island, and about 1 million in phase 2 to take Honshu. Some of the phase 1 troops would have been used in phase 2, so it's not fair to say 1.8m troops needed. Probably 1.2-1.5 million. That's assuming the operations were successful. Reinforcements could have brought in a lot more. Casualties for the Allies were estimated to be "in the millions" depending on the civilian resistance which was expected to be fanatical. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Downfall

I can almost guarantee that he had your plates run before you stopped. Doesn't explain why he thought you may be LEO though.

Hey K191145, this one's for you:

  We had the Australians, the Dutch, French, Canadians, New Zealanders, and Brits, plus the Chinese on our side in the Pacific. Most of that fighting was on mainland Asia (Burma, today's Vietnam/Cambodia, and of course China) and in the islands around Indonesia and New Guinea in the southwestern corner of the PTO. Early in the campaign, the Australians shouldered the brunt of the war until we could spin up our war machine, recover from Pearl Harbor, and take enough islands in the central Pacific to link up with them. The Philippines were also an ally, but once the Japanese took them over, they really weren't much help. By the end, it was mostly the US as most of our allies were busy at home fighting Hitler. We were the only ones not seriously being attacked at home by the Nazis or the Japanese so we could fight them both. The Soviets stayed out of it until pretty late. Summer of '45 was when they moved in to occupied China, but by then the Japanese were ready to reinforce the home islands as they prepared for a US invasion. Taking Korea and Outer Mongolia back from them at that point wasn't exactly a lynch pin in the Allies' strategy.

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You like big planes and you can not lie?

Speed isn't everything in a dogfight. If it were, the Me-262 would have eaten our boys for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It outpaced the P-51 by 100 mph plus it was armed with not 1, but 4 of those devastating 30mm cannons...   ... but couldn't turn worth a darn. I see your point though. The Bf-109 and the P-51 were similar in their maneuverability. In that case, I'll take the faster plane every day of the week and twice on Sundays.     In the end, I think most dogfights ended with the winner having been the better pilot as neither the P-51 nor the Luftwaffe fighters had a HUGE advantage over the other. In the cases of evenly matched pilots and removing dumb-luck from the equation, the man in the P-51 had a better chance of winning than the one in the FW-190 or Bf-109.

Sexiest warplane ever made, sure (the P-38 is a close second), but the Hughes H-1 racer was the sexiest airplane ever made in my book.

  The first part of that statement is true, but the second, maybe not so much. The Fw-190 and the Bf-109 (Messerschmitt 109) were not quite so far behind the P-51. The P-51 had a big advantage in pilot visibility and who sees the other first often fired first and won. +1 to the Mustang. It was also faster (though only slightly more so than the Fw-190) and had a longer range. The range thing was great for our bombers, but really didn't matter when it was fighter v. fighter. What that range did was allow the P-51 to get in the fight in the first place which is what changed the casualty rate so drastically. I suspect that if the older P-40 had the range of the P-51, it would have been a formidable fighter in its own right against the Nazis and would have kept that casualty rate lower from the start. Overall, the P-51 performed better at high altitudes while the German fighters performed better at low altitudes. Depending on the mission, either side could have had the advantage, but the P-51's high altitude advantage certainly helped on the bomber escorts. Luftwaffe pilots would often dive for the deck upon engaging the P-51s trying to get them to follow to where they'd have the advantage. The Fw-190 was tougher than the P-51, more like the older P-47 Thunderbolt but not quite as tough as that tank with wings. The Bf-109 outgunned the Mustang, especially with its late-in-the-war bomber-attack armament of 2 x 13mm machineguns, 2 x 20mm machineguns, and 1 x 30mm cannon. The P-51 carried 4 or 6 x cal .50 machine guns depending on model.   In the end, The P-51 was the better aircraft, but a skilled Luftwaffe pilot was a force to reckon with in either the Fw-190 or the Bf-109. I'd say that before the P-51 it was like fighting K98s with trench guns. After the P-51 it was like fighting K98s with Lee Enfield Mk 4s.

Joe Rosenthal took the photograph. He was awarded a Pulitzer for it.

WW2 ended on August 15, 1945. The US Army Air Force didn't become the US Air Force until September 18, 1947.   The USAF did fly the P-51 Mustang though, well into Korea when they were replaced by the new-fangled jet fighters by the end of 1953. They saw some limited service in specialty roles up through the 1960s, but very few.

  I'm still looking for the pic of the Air Force.

Fine....keep Jenny's identity a mystery.....WHAT HAPPENED TO THE DUFFEL BAG?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

It would be funny if you knew the person who was going to discover the body.

  The Private Eyes was one of my favorites as a kid. Lookout for the wookalar!!!!!   The Ghost and Mr. Chicken was also funny, as was The Shakiest Gun in the West.         As for George Kennedy, I always think of The Naked Gun movies, especially the scene in TNG 2 1/2 during the sex shop scene where he picks up a chainsaw-powered device. The look on his face is too funny!

One advantage the G26 has over the Shield is that it can take your G19 magazines, if that matters to you. But since you plan to IWB I say go for the slimmer Shield. I IWB a Kahr PM9 and a G43 which are closer to the Shield in thickness than the G26. I can IWB my G26 but it's much more noticeable to me that it's there than the other two.

It ends at 10am Central today. Last chance for a $900 M1, a nearly $400 Norinco SKS, and a $230 HiPoint.

Only without the rocket launching Camaro.

"Jenny"? Everyone knows her name is Vera.

I use Carbonite and like it. It's easy to use and I can access my files from any computer. It doesn't have the "share with others" feature of Dropbox.   I have a spare HDD in my PC that I also dump stuff to as a backup. Makes it easier to just copy from the spare drive if I ruin something, but Carbonite has me covered if the whole PC goes south or is stolen.

Understatement of the night:   "Confrontation's never been somethin we've had trouble with."

  No doubt, but you replied to gjohnsoniv's "FIFY" post as if he was editing your post to remove your comment amount pandemic drug abuse.

As to the topic at hand, it's a legitimate topic for a pediatrician, but no more so than general safety in the home. It could easily be handled with statements rather than questions. That gets the information to the parents and it remains none of the Dr's business.   Examples: If you have chemicals in your home, like bleach, detergents, bug spray, or a jug of battery acid, please keep it locked up and inaccessible to your child. They don't understand that it can hurt or kill them. Please be sure to always use a child safety seat in the car. Here's a pamphlet with contact information for where you can get one at no charge if you can't afford one. Look for one with (whatever seal of approval is the one to go by these days). If you have firearms in the home, please keep them locked away from your child. Hiding it on the top shelf doesn't cut it. Kids WILL find everything in your home. Here's a pamphlet from the NRA with some suggested safety guidelines. While we're on firearms, here's another pamphlet from the NRA's Eddie the Eagle program with a child-centric approach to gun safety. even if you don't have a firearm, you still need to teach your child the information in here because you never know what they might find away from your home. Be sure to check the batteries in your smoke alarms. If you don't have smoke alarms, please get some. The local fire department usually has them for free for people in the community who can't afford them. etc.