wdarkk posted:I thought it got sunk because people kept posting the same stories saying "OOPS I didn't read that" Wojtek Next one should firmly state we all know about Wojtek now in the title.
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Oct 22, 2011 20:05
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SeanBeansShako posted:Next one should firmly state we all know about Wojtek now in the title. Make it a "megarule".
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Oct 22, 2011 20:09
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In fairness I loved every time that bear came up because I half though it was people history trolling the history thready  I had even prepared some notes for a stupid story about the Polish bear who became Finlands greatest sniper after getting thrown out of a window in Prague whos favourite sport was flipping foxes up into the air. And so on and so forth.Someone should remake that history thread
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Oct 22, 2011 20:54
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Rabhadh posted:In fairness I loved every time that bear came up because I half though it was people history trolling the history thready I would but  on making an OP and starting content.
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Oct 22, 2011 20:56
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Hiridion posted:I don't know, at the least you'd have thought the Allies would have been concerned about the murder of tens of thousands of their soldiers in Japanese PoW camps. Yeah, I heard the Japanese would starve PoWs, then give them lots of uncooked rice to eat, then give them a bunch of water so all the rice would expand in the PoW's stomachs. Anyone have any other horror stories about the Japanese treatment of PoW?
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Oct 22, 2011 21:23
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coolatronic posted:Yeah, I heard the Japanese would starve PoWs, then give them lots of uncooked rice to eat, then give them a bunch of water so all the rice would expand in the PoW's stomachs. There are so many that it literally makes me  to think about it.
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Oct 22, 2011 21:45
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It might help if the hypothetical History thread had an index of some sort-namely, if an event was mentioned, it could be categorized in the OP so that people could reference what they want to contribute. That way we could avoid people constantly bursting in and saying "Hey, I just read about this on Cracked and bet none of you have heard of this crazy bear..."
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Oct 22, 2011 22:12
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Just to add something to the discussion of why Japan has never been forced to confront what it did during WWII, another major factor was that many of the people who had been victimized by the Nazis actually had a seat at the table when it came to deciding what should be done. The British, French, and especially the Soviets demanded that accounts be paid in full. There were also the second-tier countries like Poland, Norway, the Netherlands, et al. who didn't get included in the four-power club but who still had to be considered when decisions were being made. Add to that the fact that allied soldiers and war correspondents had been physically present at death camps, sending back the almost incomprehensible news. That was hard to ignore. To compare this to the Japan's situation, the opinion of the US, more specifically Douglas MacArthur, was the only real factor in deciding what would happen. Chiang Kai-Shek could have had a say, if he had insisted, but he was looking ahead to the next war against the Communists. He wasn't hung up on punishing the Japanese, and in point of fact he wasn't even averse to cooperating with the Japanese troops still in China to keep Mao from taking any more territory, at least until the Guomindang had regained the strength to take over from them. This decision on his part, which was infuriating to the populace for obvious reasons, was one of the many factors in his later defeat by the Communists. As for the others who had faced off against the Japanese, like Mao and Ho Chi Minh, the USA couldn't care less what they wanted. In the end, most of the Japanese War Crimes had East Asian victims, and vengeance for the comparatively few Europeans had been for all intents and purposes achieved--Japan was wrecked, hundreds of thousands of them were killed, and then there were trials for the leaders. Another significant contrast was that the Japanese state still existed when the surrender was signed. Hirohito was still in office, and he could send his foreign minister and army chief of staff over to sign the instrument of unconditional surrender. Nazi Germany had completely disintegrated by the time Dönitz signed on the dotted line. Every leader of more than local significance was dead or in full flight, and the guy Hitler left in charge, of all people, was the chief of the (effectively nonexistent) navy. Any local official who wasn't in hiding was busy claiming he'd had nothing to do with anything. The upshot was that the occupying powers had to take over everything directly. Meanwhile, MacArthur goes ashore in Tokyo and he's meeting with Hirohito and issuing orders to the Japanese civil administration right away.
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Oct 22, 2011 23:32
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Phobophilia posted:Weren't Concentration Camps originally a PR-friendly term for imprisonment-without-trial camps, where a dilute population that was deemed hostile were rounded up and kept in a 'safe' place? Well, that depends if you take into acount the Cuban war, the definition of a concentration camp and if you are trying to take into acount the plains indians.
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Oct 22, 2011 23:57
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SeanBeansShako posted:Such a awesome shame. Anyone dropped a private message to the mods asking if we could have another in the future? Offical response: angerbeet posted:Maybe give it a while before starting a new thread, it was 159 pages and 8 months old. I know that's not much on a historical scale, but it was starting to get pretty repetitive.
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Oct 23, 2011 04:06
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Hydrogen Oxide posted:Offical response: Fair enough then, maybe sometime next year.
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Oct 23, 2011 04:44
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This thread needs more discussions about the Punic wars. I just picked up The Ghosts of Cannae and Carthage must be destroyed. Any other suggestions?
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Oct 23, 2011 05:34
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The Osprey book about the Battle of Cannae is a pretty good look at things, made me realize what an insane badass Hannibal was.
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Oct 23, 2011 14:26
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He still lost the war though. Carthage needed a brilliant general just to break even. All Rome needed was someone half competent at leading.
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Oct 23, 2011 20:21
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Klaus88 posted:He still lost the war though. Going through The History of Rome podcasts these days, and one thing struk me, and thats how the Romans ALWAYS win in the end, no matter how bad they get hosed. Rome getting sacked by barbarians? No problem, just pay the barbarians off and then invade them later after we'd rebuild. Loosing 50000 men in one day? Meh, no problem we got more where that came from. The podcasts doesnt go in any particular depth about roman society, but im guessing the romans had warfare tactics and army-organisation written down somewhere, so whenever there was great losses of men and officers, their knowledge of warfare didnt die with them. Does anybody have some info on how the republican era Romans stored information; did they inscribe lots of stone tablets? Did they even have paper?
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Oct 23, 2011 20:42
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Klaus88 posted:He still lost the war though. Scipio Africanus was way more then half competent. Also, Hannibal was completely hamstrung by the actual leaders of Carthage, who totally didn't give him enough resources to actually build upon his crazy victories. And Rome needed it's crazy population reserves and will to keep fighting to get back up too, the way they kept pulling new legions out of their asses has only been rivaled by the Soviet Union in WWII I think. But obviously the deck was stacked against Carthage. GyverMac posted:Does anybody have some info on how the republican era Romans stored information; did they inscribe lots of stone tablets? Did they even have paper? Papyrus. And they wrote a lot. DarkCrawler fucked around with this message at 21:12 on Oct 23, 2011 |
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Oct 23, 2011 21:09
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GyverMac posted:Does anybody have some info on how the republican era Romans stored information; did they inscribe lots of stone tablets? Did they even have paper? Various forms of writing mediums existed during the time. Romans used copper or bronze tablets to keep and display public decrees. Wax tablets were also as a sort of "scratch paper," for taking notes, keeping tallies and the like. And as DarkCrawler mentioned, papyrus was used throughout the ancient world. As far as information storage goes, there were quite a few libraries (some public, some private), with the most notable example being the Library at Alexandria. The remnants of libraries which survive today are actually quite impressive.
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Oct 23, 2011 21:20
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GyverMac posted:Going through The History of Rome podcasts these days, and one thing struk me, and thats how the Romans ALWAYS win in the end, no matter how bad they get hosed. Rome getting sacked by barbarians? No problem, just pay the barbarians off and then invade them later after we'd rebuild. Loosing 50000 men in one day? Meh, no problem we got more where that came from. I noticed the same thing listening to those podcasts. In all the roman history I've studied I'm always struck that Rome, pre empire, really won all of its battles through pure stubbornness. No matter the losses no matter the cost there were going to win and in all those circumstances were another nation would surrender or sue for peace they seem to just raise another army. That Roman stubbornness I think was the main reason they conquered as much as they did. Bloodred77 fucked around with this message at 08:18 on Oct 28, 2011 |
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Oct 23, 2011 21:27
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DarkCrawler posted:Scipio Africanus was way more then half competent. I'm referring to the decision to stop feeding Hannibal unprepared armies and to start fighting everywhere except where Hannibal happened to be at the time. Also Rome made "do not gently caress with us or we will destroy everything and kill everyone you hold dear" into an institution. Must have worked since they held a large stretch of Europe and the middle east under their wings for a hundreds of years. Longer if you count the Byzantines. 
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Oct 23, 2011 22:05
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Bloodred77 posted:That Roman stubbornness I think was the main reason they conquered as much as they did. I have no doubt that they were stubborn, but I really don't think that their opponents were any less so. Just about anyone will be stubborn when faced by foreign invaders wanting to enslave or tax them (unless they already were slaves and/or too poor to tax, in which case, eh). How do you measure stubborness in that case? I'm sure there are better explanations, like having sufficient resources to wage wars centuries after another, and a society well suited for such campaigns. It must also have helped to not have had too many formidable foreign enemies at a time.
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Oct 23, 2011 22:23
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Klaus88 posted:I'm referring to the decision to stop feeding Hannibal unprepared armies and to start fighting everywhere except where Hannibal happened to be at the time. Oh yeah, the course of the campaign at first was pretty retarded: "We need to force Hannibal into a decisive battle"  *Battle of Trebbia, Hannibal kills 30,000 Romans* "We need to force Hannibal into a decisive battle" *Battle of Trasimene, Hannibal kills 15,000 Romans* "Hey you know, this guy is pretty goddamn good at this whole war thing, maybe he's been leading us in decisive battles all the time. Perhaps we should wait and train our legions and meet him in a ground where we are prepared. Nothing comes good at throwing good soldiers at this human meatgrinder." "Nonsense, slowpoke. What are you, a human being? We need to force Hannibal into a decisive battle, he's can't have too much fight left in him." *Battle of Cannae, Hannibal kills 50,000 motherfucking Romans, the second worst defeat experienced by Romans in all of their history* "What was that about waiting?" 
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Oct 23, 2011 22:44
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GyverMac posted:Going through The History of Rome podcasts these days, and one thing struk me, and thats how the Romans ALWAYS win in the end, no matter how bad they get hosed. Rome getting sacked by barbarians? No problem, just pay the barbarians off and then invade them later after we'd rebuild. Loosing 50000 men in one day? Meh, no problem we got more where that came from. Well, they didn't always win. They did eventually get conquered you know. Yeah yeah, Rome as a city still exists but it's not the same thing.
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Oct 23, 2011 23:40
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DarkCrawler posted:Also, Hannibal was completely hamstrung by the actual leaders of Carthage, who totally didn't give him enough resources to actually build upon his crazy victories. A stab-in-the-back from Carthage, you could say?
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Oct 23, 2011 23:50
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DarkCrawler posted:Scipio Africanus was way more then half competent. The Romans in some sort of  forced the Carthaginians to maintain a very small navy after the first Punic war as part of the peace treaty. This of course meant Rome and her Allies dominated the sea, forcing Hannibal to cross the alps, where half or so of his men died/deserted/gave up. Also it meant Carthage could not safely reinforce Hannibal without having to deal with a navy they were not ready to fight.Also Scipio fighting in Spain was another
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Oct 24, 2011 00:30
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DarkCrawler posted:Oh yeah, the course of the campaign at first was pretty retarded:  in the middle of it all didn't panic and run, but stood their ground, formed their "empty square" formation and were able to break out in an orderly fashion, saving 10,000 men from what could have been a total annihilation.The next battles didn't go nearly as well though, at Lake Trasimene and Cannae the Romans got flat out owned.
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Oct 24, 2011 00:34
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SeanBeansShako posted:So how many Legends Of The West saw action in the American Civil War then? A fair number of the more notorious western figures saw action in the various paramilitary/militia/guerrilla conflicts going on in the Midwest. The Midwestern war didn't have the kind of body count the war in the East produced but it also didn't have a lot of rules. Banditry, torture, and massacres of civilians were common. When the war ended a lot of the guerrillas found themselves in a real ugly situation and headed West before they could be caught and hanged.
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Oct 24, 2011 04:59
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Speaking of the Civil War, Gary Brecher over at exiledonline did a neat little writeup of Ben Grierson, who showed the damned Rebs a thing or two. Speaking of which, what do all you serious war scholars think of his column in general?
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Oct 24, 2011 06:04
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Rent-A-Cop posted:A fair number of the more notorious western figures saw action in the various paramilitary/militia/guerrilla conflicts going on in the Midwest. The Midwestern war didn't have the kind of body count the war in the East produced but it also didn't have a lot of rules. Banditry, torture, and massacres of civilians were common. When the war ended a lot of the guerrillas found themselves in a real ugly situation and headed West before they could be caught and hanged. Yeah, for example Jesse James and his brother Frank rode with such charming fellows as Willam Quantrill and "Bloody Bill" Anderson, and may have taken part in the Lawrence massacre, among other atrocities.
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Oct 24, 2011 07:47
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I heard (might have been in this very thread) that one of the reasons for why the Romans "always won" was that they raised new armies all the time. Traditionally in the ancient world, once your army was defeated that was it, you'd lost. But the Romans didn't play by the rules. You defeated one legion, they'd raise another and come back later. Am I way off base here? Can someone back me up on this?
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Oct 24, 2011 09:08
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A bit later in Roman history, but anyone want to break down the Roman/Persian wars and the late Roman civil wars for me? Specifically the disintegration of Constantine's dynasty and the death of Julian the Apostate. I read an abridged Gibbon's Decline and Fall (mostly a bet) but it cut/he never wrote in a whole lot of detail on the seemingly interminable wars on the Eastern frontier, except 'and then this general died and the Roman's had to cede this city.' Also, should anybody feel willing, a quick compare/contrast with Mark Antony's failed Parthian campaign.
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Oct 24, 2011 09:28
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Since the history thread's history, I guess here is as good a place as any now to post this. CriticalPast, 57,000 historic videos and 7 million photos. http://www.criticalpast.com/
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Oct 25, 2011 01:47
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Retarded Pimp posted:Since the history thread's history, I guess here is as good a place as any now to post this. CriticalPast, 57,000 historic videos and 7 million photos. Why hello there, new open tab!
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Oct 25, 2011 01:50
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Retarded Pimp posted:Since the history thread's history, I guess here is as good a place as any now to post this. CriticalPast, 57,000 historic videos and 7 million photos. This is non-stop awesome. Such as the first thing I clicked on: someone trying to tow a cart with lions.
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Oct 25, 2011 03:45
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Retarded Pimp posted:Since the history thread's history, I guess here is as good a place as any now to post this. CriticalPast, 57,000 historic videos and 7 million photos. That's awesome! I found this: http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~pbtyc/Janes_1919/Index.html It's the entire Royal Navy section of the 1919 edition of Jane's, pretty interesting as pretty much all of the warships that survived the war are there. It's interesting seeing all the infrastructure as well, the colonial ports and things like despatch boats, colliers etc, as well as the Dreadnoughts and first generation of aircraft carriers. being a Jane's publication it's quite dry but there's loads of pictures.
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Oct 25, 2011 20:34
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Lobster God posted:I found this: http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~pbtyc/Janes_1919/Index.html I love the page about the RN monitors. Step 1: Find any available small hull. Step 2: Attach large caliber gun from obsolete battleship. Step 3: Kill huns!
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Oct 25, 2011 21:13
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Rent-A-Cop posted:I love the page about the RN monitors. You'll like the Courageous Class as well (http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~pbtyc/Janes_1919/Cruisers/Couragious_Cl.html) Basically a massive monitor, two 15 in turrets on a light cruiser hull. Another of Jackie Fisher's ideas! The pic of Glorious is especially good as you can see the planes that were flown off the top of the turrets (this was actually fairly common in WW1).
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Oct 25, 2011 21:20
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The navies of WWI were quite an advance in naval technology, but it didn't matter much since naval thinking among all the Great Powers was something like "Look at my shiny boat with all these big guns. What? You want to send her into battle where she might be sunk? Surely not old chap, our navy is the pride of the nation, we can't afford to get any ships sunk. Besides, we need to show her off to visiting dignitaries so that the world knows how great our navy is."
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Oct 25, 2011 21:35
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^ I think part of it is also economics, at least with the larger ships. You have what is basically the most powerful weapon of the day, but they're beasts to build, both in time and resources and the thought of losing one is pretty bad given the replacement time. Heck this even rings true when playing more advanced war games, like in the Hearts of Iron series. Lobster God posted:That's awesome! Wow this is fantastic, great link.
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Oct 26, 2011 02:21
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Mr. Sunshine posted:I heard (might have been in this very thread) that one of the reasons for why the Romans "always won" was that they raised new armies all the time. Traditionally in the ancient world, once your army was defeated that was it, you'd lost. But the Romans didn't play by the rules. You defeated one legion, they'd raise another and come back later. I have also heard this, but I can't remember from where, could have been a lovely history channel special for all I know. It doesn't strike me as being too accurate, at least not for most of Rome's history. Greeks would sometimes just have single dudes fight and which ever dude won would decide who won a battle, but I know Romans did not practice that. Roman soldiers didn't even learn single combat ifaik, they only learned how to fight in formation. I can't imagine too many groups would just give up after Rome raised another legion, instead of raising another army themselves, assuming they could Modern Day Hercules fucked around with this message at 02:41 on Oct 26, 2011 |
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Oct 26, 2011 02:38
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Amused to Death posted:^ That is part of it, but the thinking of the Royal Navy and Kaiserliche Marine was incredibly risk-averse to the point of absurdity. The best example of this would be the pursuit of the SMS Goeben, where during the first days of the war the Royal Navy followed a crippled German battlecruiser for days without engaging them, when the RN could have probably won the battle had they chosen to attack. Churchill is partly to blame here, since he gave the ambiguous order that the ships were not to engage 'superior forces'. The Goeben ended up sailing into Istanbul, where it was symbolically handed over to the Ottomans and was probably the deciding factor in getting them to side with Germany. It was probably the most important naval voyage of the 20th century, since the closing of the straits utterly decimated Russian trade, contributing to their revolution, and after the fall of the Ottoman Empire the middle east was divided into the current borders, which has huge effects even today.
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Oct 26, 2011 03:01
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