Have you watched Ken Burns' new Vietnam War series?
Hope it's ok to put the following here. The video is great. Definitely need to watch it
Texas soldier sends daughter custom teddy bear and her reaction is priceless
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/10/14...priceless.html
Thanks to MasterShake for my great signature
Rest in Peace - Demaryius (88) - Darrent (27) - Damien (29) - Kenny (11)#7 - JOHN - #44 - FLOYD - #80 - ROD
THIS ONES FOR JOHNWOULD YOU RATHER WIN UGLY, OR LOSE PRETTY?
Dread, can you post a rant on the battle of the bulge?
Will do. The Bulge has always struck me as one of the stupider operations ever launched. Why? Because there was no worthwhile end objective for the Germans. The idea for the Germans was to drive through the Americans and take Antwerp to disrupt the shortened allied supply lines. The capture of Antwerp and the Scheldt estuary by the British and Canadians in Fall 1944 had drastically shortened Allied supply lines, so the German idea of retaking Antwerp had some surface appeal ... I guess. Except then what? The Allies were still going to be able to continue to pour in men and material through other ports, as they had been doing leading to the German collapse after the battles at the Falaise pocket. In essence, the Germans pulled their goalie to do the Bulge attack, by stripping nearly every elite Panzer and SS unit they still had left on both fronts, and concentrating them in one place for one big throw of the dice. Bad news for a couple of American divisions that got over-run early on, but it was a huge gamble that didn't pay off - and I would argue could't have paid off even if the Germans had achieved all of their objectives. I think the Battle of the Bulge shortened the war significantly by eliminating most of the German forces most able to have made the final conquest of Nazi Germany a bloody slog
So what should the Germans have done instead? In December 1944 they had almost no options, because the 3rd Reich was a Dead Man Walking. I guess they probably should have tacitly admitted the obvious and focused on stopping the Russians in the hopes that the British and Americans occupied as much of Germany as possible before the Soviets could, and had their Army surrender to the Western allies before the Commies could get their mitts on them and either shoot them on the spot or ship them to Siberia. But that presumes that the German leadership wasn't living in fantasy land, as we know they in fact were.
Last edited by Dreadnought; 10-17-2017 at 11:34 AM.
“What fresh hell is this?”
"A man who picks a cat up by the tail learns something which he can learn in no other way." - Mark Twain
Hey Dread, how much of WWII's overall course was dictated by massively disruptive technology (subnautical warfare, atomic bomb, rockets, MAGIC/ENIGMA + codebreaking) vs. traditional logistics, strategy (oil in particular), and tactics (I would put slight asymmetrical tech advantages in weaponry--ie Messerschmitt 262 type tech here)? Not sure where I'd put psy ops/propaganda.
Not looking for massive treatise, just your general feel--was it more tech driven, or grandmaster driven? If WWII was a chess match (with unique pieces corresponding to tech), was it dictated more by the pieces each player had, or their playing ability?
Originally Posted by Sting
Sorry, I had meant to respond to this, which is an interesting question. Of the two, I would rate traditional Strategy, tactics, and Logistics as the more important, which is not to dismiss disruptive technology.
Now, let me throw in a curveball, looping back to WW1 in this case. WW1 highlights to me an entirley different metric, which applies to WW2 as well - the ability/willingness of a society to absorb and accept punishment, in terms of casualties and deprivation. Almost all combatants in WW1 eventually cracked under the strain of that war. The Austro-Hungarians after the Russian Brusilov offensive in 1916 were shattered, and only kept upright by the Germans. The Russians cracked and broke in 1917, unwilling to put up with the absurd misgovernment of the Tsarist regime and horrific casualties any longer. The French army mutinied in 1917 after the Nivelle offensive, with numerous units shooting their own officers - and were kept in the game by the British. The Italians were nearly broken at Caporetto in 1917, again, kept in the game by the British. Finally, the Germans were broken by the failure of their Spring offensives in 1918, by the British blockade, and by the prospect that the impending arrival of the Americans had made victory impossible. The British were able to carry on, but I wonder if that could have continued without the promise of American help on the horizon. All of the major combatants had suffered indescribable casualties and all from serious if varied levels of civilian deprivation
In WW2 the French collapsed more from an unwillingness or inability to face this all over again than from strictly military or technical considerations. The Russians OTOH were amazingly resilient. The Japanese counted on the U.S. to be "soft" and unwilling to sustain casualties, and were disastrously wrong. That same basic strategy of waging war by simply making things too costly and awful for a stronger power to see the matter through did however work for the Communists in Vietnam, so its not always a loser
Last edited by Dreadnought; 12-11-2017 at 11:56 AM.
“What fresh hell is this?”
"A man who picks a cat up by the tail learns something which he can learn in no other way." - Mark Twain
Dread I’ve often wondered how the countries the allies liberated felt towards us. Have you read anything on this? Were the soldiers welcomed?
Which evil WWII-era dictator would you find most interesting to grab a drink and discuss things with: Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, or Tojo?
Admiral Horthy. They fundamentally all suck ass; Tojo was a bog-standard Militarist, and not interesting. Stalin was a homicidal Marxist maniac, and Hitler was just as unhinged - plus Hitler's weirdo Norse pagan obsessions and goofy racial theories are deeply uninteresting. Mussolini was more of a conventional 20's and 30's politician - not all that unique, given other Euro-Fascists like Dollfus, Quisling, the Romanian Iron Guard guys. Mussolini combines socialism with his own dopey Progressive Futurism vision, leavened with a heavy dose of silly Roman Empire nostalgia. The only one of them I could hang with for any length of time was probably Admiral Horthy of Hungary, if only because he actually hated the Fascists only a little less than he hated Communists. As central European anti-semites go he was marginally less virulent than the run of the mill 1930's anti-semites too.
“What fresh hell is this?”
"A man who picks a cat up by the tail learns something which he can learn in no other way." - Mark Twain
I refer here to a guy I read about recently, the Finnish sniper Simo Häyhä. This guy had 505 known kills in late 1939 during what is known as the Winter War. The Soviets invaded Finland in November of 1939, mainly because they thought it would be easy. What they got was as epic a beating as ever was inflicted on a Great Power by a tiny opponent that I can think of. Bad planning, poor preparation, over-confidence, terrible logistics, and worse weather all contributed, as did the fact that just prior to the invasion of Finland the Communists had executed well over half of their own officer corps during Stalin's purges.
Anyhow, the Soviets invaded and it became a fiasco, complete with starving Russian freezing to death by the thousands in the forests of Finland in their Summer uniforms, while Finnish ski troops attacked Soviet supply columns at will. Amongst the most effective was a tiny (five foot tall) moose hunter named Simo Häyhä, who shot over 500 Soviets in @ three months. With a WW1 bolt action Moisin-Nagant rifle. And over iron sights. He never used a scope because a possible reflection on the sight might give away his position, and anyways he did almost all of his sniping from within 150 meters (!?). He shot a fair number of Soviets with a sub-machinegun as well, so he was versatile. The Russian troops called him "the White Death." Just before the war ended a Russian finally got him, blowing off a good chunk of his face, but he eventually recovered and lived into his mid 90's.
“What fresh hell is this?”
"A man who picks a cat up by the tail learns something which he can learn in no other way." - Mark Twain
OK men. Who here wants the straight dope on how to knock out a Heinie tank? Let me tell ya brother, they're tough alright, plenty tough. But you've got the tools, and I'm gonna wise you up on how to knock these steel monsters out. Once you got the know-how they ain't so tough after all!
This is a US Army training film from 1943, and is a very cool artifact. Some very useful info mixed with wildly optimistic assurances, for example on the only marginally useful anti-tank rifle grenades of 1943, and overlaid with a generous helping of pure golden 1943 slang
“What fresh hell is this?”
"A man who picks a cat up by the tail learns something which he can learn in no other way." - Mark Twain
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