Stig, many of your comments are true, but while previously we only produced gas guzzling road giants, almost all of the American cars have shrunk by about a quarter of their previous size, and gas mileage is steadily rising. The exceptions are the Hummers and similar Sports Utility Vehicles. You mentioned that "- They have many fine dinosaur fossil locations" and I have to note that unfortunately one of the largest is our governing legislators in Washington, DC.

Others suggested that Germany habd't any strategic bombers, and one bomber was suggested in rebuttal. I would suggest that the Condor was a strategic bomber, although it lacked range to be effective as a trans-Atlantic bomber. Germany did develope the submarine tender or milk cow concept, where subs operating at the limits of their unfueled range were topped up and reloaded with weaponry by these special purpose cargo ships. This concept was further refined by technicians working under the direction of General LeMay who developed the mid-air refueling that had been toyed with in the thirties, using former bombers and cargo aircraft fitted with "flying booms", refueling "hoss" that could be guided into the midair refueling ports of bombers to increase their range. Today all fighters and bombers and some cargo planes and helicopters are equipped with air to air refueling capabilities of one sort or another. We can launch bombers or fighters from the middle of the US and fly them non-stop to almost any point in the world without landing to refuel. Most of our special mission helicopters are equipped with refueling probes to increase their range, or linger time over a position.

Dave