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Grand Prize Winner posted:So.... how about war industries of the second world war? This thread has enlightened me about the feudal mess that was the Nazi administration, but how did, say, the Italians perform? Italy was a much smaller economy than Germany or the UK and was only partially developed, as the southern half of the country remaining poor and predominantly agricultural. Also, a good part of Italian industry was geared towards limited production of very high quality goods rather than towards mass (e.g. Fiat automobiles as compared to, say, Ford). This meant that whereas individual manufactures might be of outstanding quality, overall production suffered. Italy was also weak in heavy industry, such as steel production, and in certain techniques like welding--Italian tanks all used inferior riveted armor. Another problem was the fact that Italian mobilization had commenced earlier than in other countries, which meant that much of their equipment for WWII had actually been designed and begun intensive production in the early to mid 1930s. This gave them a substantial backlog of equipment and vehicles that were quite obsolete by the time war commenced, such as military biplanes.
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Oct 18, 2012 04:06
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Grand Prize Winner posted:So.... how about war industries of the second world war? This thread has enlightened me about the feudal mess that was the Nazi administration, but how did, say, the Italians perform? Like a well olive oiled machine. 
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Oct 18, 2012 04:09
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Not to get all gay black Hitler in here, but what does anyone know of any interesting 'could have been' visions/plans that just didn't play out? I'm not talking about what-if scenarios, but actual plans for the future that various leaders had, attempted to make happen, then failed on them. One example of what I'm wondering about would be Quisling's Norway, with his quasi Nazi party just utterly failing to actually take root after the German invasion and his vision for Norway just collapsing entirely as even the Germans withdrew support for him. Another example would be the SA, the precursor to the SS that, if I remember correctly, ended up in a position to supposedly rip the reigns away from Hitler (and supposedly planned to take Germany down an even stronger nationalist path), despite originally having been a Nazi party organization, right up until Hitler had half the leaders shot. Maybe the best way to phrase it would be what were some of the more interesting failed plans surrounding history's wars, and what were the causes?
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Oct 18, 2012 05:39
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Blckdrgn posted:Page Two, tsk.
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Oct 18, 2012 06:21
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AutoArgus posted:Another example would be the SA, the precursor to the SS that, if I remember correctly, ended up in a position to supposedly rip the reigns away from Hitler (and supposedly planned to take Germany down an even stronger nationalist path), despite originally having been a Nazi party organization, right up until Hitler had half the leaders shot. Ernst Röhm never was never in a position to yank the reins away from Hitler. His key disagreement with Hitler was not exactly that he had a "stronger nationalist path" in mind. Röhm and the SA faction were more serious about the "socialist" part of National Socialist, and they wanted to spearhead a real revolution to fully displace the elites who dominated Germany. Specifically, they wanted to nationalize industry and replace the old-line Prussian military with the SA itself. This was precisely the reason he lost to Hitler and was killed. Hitler entered power because the elites that Röhm hated invited him in, and that invitation was conditional on his abandoning those sections of the party platform. If Röhm had somehow beaten Hitler and tried to enact such a radical agenda, the most likely result would be the German army and the industrialists launching a coup that would easily unseat him, with the grateful acquiescence of most ordinary Germans.
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Oct 18, 2012 07:50
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That fact that his homosexuality was an open secret didn't help either. Of course, it seems that historically, if you're part of a leader's inner circle during a revolution, your days are numbered after the leader takes power.
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Oct 18, 2012 09:34
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Grand Prize Winner posted:So.... how about war industries of the second world war? This thread has enlightened me about the feudal mess that was the Nazi administration, but how did, say, the Italians perform? I don't have much to add but here are some numbers from Adam Tooze's Wages of Destruction:    
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Oct 18, 2012 15:04
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Konstantin posted:Of course, it seems that historically, if you're part of a leader's inner circle during a revolution, your days are numbered after the leader takes power. The first people up against the wall after the revolution are always the revolutionaries, because you cannot trust those people to sit down and shut up like they're supposed to.
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Oct 18, 2012 15:17
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Well nuts, shows what I remember from the history channel years ago. Were there any other interesting 'also-ran's around the rise of Nazism in Germany? Like did the German communists have anything in motion at the time?
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Oct 18, 2012 15:53
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On a potential war with soviet union after germany's defeat. After looking at that wartime production data wouldn't britain and the US have destroyed the soviet union. Its a long distance from north america to europe or asia. But britain and the US far outproduced USSR on planes and naval craft so would have easy convoys across both oceans. One of the main arguments I keep reading of why Germany had no chance against the soviet union was because they were being out produced on war time materials. Also not even considering the use of nuclear weapons here. It seems like much earlier on in the thread some posters who were geeking out over the soviet army said they would easily dominate europe in the event of this potential war.
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Oct 18, 2012 16:50
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Otto Von Jizzmark posted:On a potential war with soviet union after germany's defeat. There's also the matter of men, experience, and doctrine. The USSR had superiority in all of those.
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Oct 18, 2012 17:08
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Phanatic posted:The first people up against the wall after the revolution are always the revolutionaries, because you cannot trust those people to sit down and shut up like they're supposed to. I don't think this happened in China, did it? I dont remember mass purgings of Mao's inner circle, at least not executions. Maybe?
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Oct 18, 2012 17:25
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wdarkk posted:There's also the matter of men, experience, and doctrine. The USSR had superiority in all of those. The Soviet Union was actually running out of manpower by 1945.
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Oct 18, 2012 17:31
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Kemper Boyd posted:The Soviet Union was actually running out of manpower by 1945. This question was already in this thread, but from what I remember of the last time it was, didn't the USSR still outnumber the French/English/US/and potential German Vets on the continent by some ungodly number like 2 or 3 times as many? Defenestrategy fucked around with this message at 17:43 on Oct 18, 2012 |
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Oct 18, 2012 17:40
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Saint Celestine posted:I don't think this happened in China, did it? I dont remember mass purgings of Mao's inner circle, at least not executions. Maybe? Deng Xiaoping was purged twice, it's more or less a miracle that he survived. His son was thrown out a window and paralyzed. Liu Shaoqi, a Long Marcher and second-in-command to Mao, was purged to death. Peng Zhen, purged. Peng Dehuai, another Long Marcher who commanded the Chinese in Korea was first purged, and then arrested during the Cultural Revolution, brutally and repeatedly tortured, convicted in a show trial and died in prison. The American Revolution's an exception. The French Revolution, not so much.
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Oct 18, 2012 17:47
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Kemper Boyd posted:The Soviet Union was actually running out of manpower by 1945. They were running out of manpower in the sense of 'we probably can't lost another army of 500k men and replace it next week like we did several times back in 1941', not in the British sense of 'oh god we're literally run out of men break up another few regiments so we can keep the rest of the army intact', not to mention the US system which despite not even coming close to tapping its manpower reserves decided that the best way of managing recruits was to let other services skim the cream as much as they want until only the dregs of the lowest quality made it to the infantry. If Stalin for some reason decides to push to the Atlantic instead of ordering the Manchuria Campaign then it's unlikely that the Western Allies are going to be able to put anything in place to stop them. Nor would there be the political or military resources to attempt a second liberation of France across the channel. Of course this wasn't ever going to happen because Stalin believed in Spheres of Influence and was happy so long as he wasn't disturbed in what he considered to be his.
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Oct 18, 2012 17:49
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Otto Von Jizzmark posted:It seems like much earlier on in the thread some posters who were geeking out over the soviet army Cute. quote:said they would easily dominate europe in the event of this potential war. A larger and more powerful army is the key military advantage. Superior production is significant because it can allow a country to eventually attain the larger and more powerful army even if it does not have it at the outset of hostilities. It is a long term strategic advantage, because it comes into play over a extended period of time through attrition. If the country with the greater population and industry can avoid total defeat while inflicting attrition on its enemy, they will be able to replace their losses and form new armies more quickly, and eventually they will have superiority on the battlefield. The problem for the Allies in a prospective war with the USSR in 1945 is surviving long enough for attrition to come into play. The Soviets are actually in a fairly bad position in this respect, because their own campaign of attrition against Nazi Germany had killed huge numbers of men of military age, so their manpower was badly depleted. However, the Soviet Army had a tremendous superiority in combat power over the Allies. Churchill commissioned the British general staff to consider about what could be done in the event of war with the USSR; they estimated that the USSR enjoyed a 3:1 superiority in combat formations. They foresaw an extremely low chance of success. After receiving their report, Churchill asked them to guess at how the USSR might try to attack the British Isles, in the event that Europe were overrun. Finally, in a later conference with Eisenhower they inquired what he might plan to do in the event of war with the Soviets. Eisenhower stated that US forces would attempt to withdraw to the Low Countries where the terrain was favorable to the defense and they could be covered by aircraft staging out of Britain, and attempt to hold out against the Soviets there--that is, he would concede most of Europe right off the bat. The gist is that the most likely result was that the Allied forces would be overrun and destroyed shortly after hostilities commenced. In such an eventuality American war production would not come into play, because combat operations would end too quickly.
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Oct 18, 2012 18:08
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On that note, my impression of most analysis of a potential conventional war between NATO and the USSR in Europe is that you get about a month and a half of really high intensity combat and then either someone's won, there's a ceasefire, or it all goes nuclear because in that length of time it would burn through everyone's war material and you can't just ramp up production of modern tanks and jet planes like you could back in WW2. That impression broadly correct?
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Oct 18, 2012 18:37
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Unless this is a war immediately following V-E Day, I don't think you'd even get months of fighting. At some point either the Western Powers are going to decide that an irradiated Europe is better than a Red Europe, or the Soviets are going to use nukes to gain a tactical advantage, and it all goes to poo poo from there on out. I think the only way that to avoid a large-scale post-WW2 war from descending into general nuclear war would be to place it in that temporal space of May 1945 onwards when there were still no nukes to be had. Or at least, none yet on both sides.
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Oct 18, 2012 19:16
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gradenko_2000 posted:Unless this is a war immediately following V-E Day, I don't think you'd even get months of fighting. At some point either the Western Powers are going to decide that an irradiated Europe is better than a Red Europe, or the Soviets are going to use nukes to gain a tactical advantage, and it all goes to poo poo from there on out. The Soviets didn't get the bomb until 1949 so I don't think the western allies had anything to fear in that department. edit: I also don't get the bolded section. Once nuclear doctrine was fleshed out, both NATO and the Warsaw Pact had plans for both strategic and tactical nuclear attacks. Even in 1945, the United States was discussing how nuclear weapons could be used against military formations(i.e. tactical use of nuclear weapons). vains fucked around with this message at 19:25 on Oct 18, 2012 |
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Oct 18, 2012 19:21
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Alchenar posted:On that note, my impression of most analysis of a potential conventional war between NATO and the USSR in Europe is that you get about a month and a half of really high intensity combat and then either someone's won, there's a ceasefire, or it all goes nuclear because in that length of time it would burn through everyone's war material and you can't just ramp up production of modern tanks and jet planes like you could back in WW2. For most of the Cold War, yes. With the caveeat that the Soviets could throw in Cat B or C troops from their strategic reserves to clean up the mess depending on how bled dry everyone is. (The Soviets maintained large stocks of old equipment for these reservist formations and simply calling them up would take several weeks.)
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Oct 18, 2012 20:23
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Magni posted:For most of the Cold War, yes. With the caveeat that the Soviets could throw in Cat B or C troops from their strategic reserves to clean up the mess depending on how bled dry everyone is. (The Soviets maintained large stocks of old equipment for these reservist formations and simply calling them up would take several weeks.) Do they still keep stocks of WW2 era equipment around? I.e. could there be Cat C troops rolling towards the Rhine in T34/85s and stuff?
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Oct 18, 2012 20:44
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Saint Celestine posted:Do they still keep stocks of WW2 era equipment around? I.e. could there be Cat C troops rolling towards the Rhine in T34/85s and stuff? I don't think so. In the 80s, Cat B/C troops would have been armed with the T-54/T-55 or the T-62. They probably still have huge stocks of WWII small arms but probably not WWII-era vehicles.
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Oct 18, 2012 20:51
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T-34s were all either sold off, scrapped, or made into monuments, but there were warehouses full of rearsenaled Mosins and Kar98ks to give out once they ran out of even SKSes. Those aren't around anymore either.
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Oct 18, 2012 21:43
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Veins McGee posted:The Soviets didn't get the bomb until 1949 so I don't think the western allies had anything to fear in that department. I think the difference there is the general nuclear philosophy the Eastern Bloc had compared to the NATO forces. Because a conventional war was virtually guaranteed to end with the USSR overrunning the NATO forces and taking Europe, American nuclear deterrence was promulgated to think in terms of MAD and responding with overwhelming force. Soviet doctrine had a greater level of differentiation between tactical and strategic deployment of nuclear weapons- to America, once someone let off a WMD, all WMD options were then on the table and able to be deployed. The Soviets didn't necessarily plan in those terms and instead categorized smaller non-ICBM nukes as basically large artillery. Admiral Snackbar covered this in much better detail waaaaaaay earlier in the thread, but the basic idea was if you look at how the USSR and the US drafted their plans for nuclear war, it seems the most likely result of a conventional war would end with the Soviets using nuclear artillery or gravity bombs to clear out concentrated forces, and the US would probably respond with an all-out ICBM attack.
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Oct 18, 2012 21:50
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Alchenar posted:On that note, my impression of most analysis of a potential conventional war between NATO and the USSR in Europe is that you get about a month and a half of really high intensity combat and then either someone's won, there's a ceasefire, or it all goes nuclear because in that length of time it would burn through everyone's war material and you can't just ramp up production of modern tanks and jet planes like you could back in WW2. Hah, more like a week and a half. Rumor has it the Brits only kept like a week of warstocks back in the seventies anyway and even for Granby ('91 GW) they had to go hat in hand for artillery rounds from other NATO countries. It's them, the Germans and the smaller allies who have to hold the Northern part of the front, an area with level terrain and only a couple of rivers which can't be easily forded by mechanized forces. So who knows what'd have happened if the Sovs were crossing the Weser on day three and threatening the Rhein-Ruhr to boot. Political solution? Demonstratory nuclear strikes? Full blown 'use em or lose em'? 'Luck' has it I'm wargaming some stuff in HPS' Modern Campaigns right now and as 1(BR)Corps commander I have to stop the 3rd Combined Arms Army in front of (Bad)Salzgitter/Lebenstedt. It's 0300 on day two and they've already smashed through the mine barrier+covering force and pulverized two out of my seven armoured brigades with three others in considerable disarray. There'll be no better chance to open a bucket of sunshine while they're still concentrated instead of fanning out past Hildesheim in regimental size while the Weser bridges are held by rear area infantry in trucks and my first line divisions and lots of German civilians are being held ransom.
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Oct 18, 2012 22:27
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Has any analysis been done as to whether or not the US would really get into a global thermonuclear war if the USSR began rolling into Western Europe? Because as much as I like Paris and Rome being relatively free, I don't want to die in a nuclear fireball for it to happen.
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Oct 18, 2012 22:46
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User 177364 posted:Has any analysis been done as to whether or not the US would really get into a global thermonuclear war if the USSR began rolling into Western Europe? Because as much as I like Paris and Rome being relatively free, I don't want to die in a nuclear fireball for it to happen. A lot of Soviet and US doctrine is only now slowly getting declassified so details are still relatively scarce, but MAD was absolutely A Thing and basically ever since the nuclear arms race began it was the stated policy of the United States to respond in kind to any WMD attack. Since the United States started spooling down their chemical arsenal and research into bioweapons during the middle of the Cold War, that meant that any WMDs used against the US would result in the US nuking whoever did it.
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Oct 18, 2012 22:54
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User 92078 posted:I think the difference there is the general nuclear philosophy the Eastern Bloc had compared to the NATO forces. Because a conventional war was virtually guaranteed to end with the USSR overrunning the NATO forces and taking Europe, American nuclear deterrence was promulgated to think in terms of MAD and responding with overwhelming force. Soviet doctrine had a greater level of differentiation between tactical and strategic deployment of nuclear weapons- to America, once someone let off a WMD, all WMD options were then on the table and able to be deployed. The Soviets didn't necessarily plan in those terms and instead categorized smaller non-ICBM nukes as basically large artillery. Admiral Snackbar covered this in much better detail waaaaaaay earlier in the thread, but the basic idea was if you look at how the USSR and the US drafted their plans for nuclear war, it seems the most likely result of a conventional war would end with the Soviets using nuclear artillery or gravity bombs to clear out concentrated forces, and the US would probably respond with an all-out ICBM attack. 1) There was actually rough parity of tank forces in Central Europe during the 70s and 80s.(maybe not rough parity, but the Soviet numerical superiority was overstated and included obsolete tanks and 2nd/3rd line units) 2) The Soviet Union didn't have enough troops or logistical capacity to carry out a true 'deep battle' attack. I think the threat of the Soviet Union rolling over NATO forces in Europe was vastly overblown. vains fucked around with this message at 23:14 on Oct 18, 2012 |
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Oct 18, 2012 23:01
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Oxford Comma posted:Has any analysis been done as to whether or not the US would really get into a global thermonuclear war if the USSR began rolling into Western Europe? Because as much as I like Paris and Rome being relatively free, I don't want to die in a nuclear fireball for it to happen. That was whole reason for the neutron bomb: Everyone in France and Germany said, "Wait, if the Soviets invade us, you're going to save us with a full-on nukefest?" So we take a modern three-stage fission-fusion-fission warhead, strip the U238 tamper from it (removing the third stage), wind up with a smallish mostly-fusion warhead that spits out a shitload of neutrons that are really good at penetrating things like tank armor. Of course, the freeze movement still hated it. tallkidwithglasses posted:Soviet doctrine had a greater level of differentiation between tactical and strategic deployment of nuclear weapons- to America, once someone let off a WMD, all WMD options were then on the table and able to be deployed. FWIW, the official Warsaw Pact doctrine said "No first use," NATO's was "first use if we deem it necessary." Everyone today has this notion that the West had this huge technological advantage but really it was mostly parity until very late in the Cold War. quote:it seems the most likely result of a conventional war would end with the Soviets using nuclear artillery or gravity bombs to clear out concentrated forces, and the US would probably respond with an all-out ICBM attack. Plus, things like the rail networks that the Soviets would have used to get massive amounts of troops to the front are, being stationary, easier targets to hit than troops in the field, particular troops that have dispersed because they anticipate that you're going to resort to nukes. It's a shame big rail networks tend to be located near cities. Phanatic fucked around with this message at 23:25 on Oct 18, 2012 |
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Oct 18, 2012 23:23
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Veins McGee posted:1) There was actually rough parity of tank forces in Central Europe during the 70s and 80s.(maybe not rough parity, but the Soviet numerical superiority was overstated and included obsolete tanks and 2nd/3rd line units) Can I ask where you're finding this information? The entire length of the Cold War had fluctuating perceptions of Soviet strength on the part of the West, and during both the early and late Cold War the Soviets enjoyed a fairly significant numerical advantage in Europe. The arms reduction treaties also had a pretty big impact on how the United States perceived their ability to fight a conventional war in Europe. Generally speaking though, it was fairly uncontroversial to assume that the Soviets had an edge in the conventional war but the US and its allies probably had better nuclear retaliatory capability. A pretty good article I found: http://www.rand.org/pubs/notes/2007/N2859.pdf
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Oct 18, 2012 23:26
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tallkidwithglasses posted:Can I ask where you're finding this information? The entire length of the Cold War had fluctuating perceptions of Soviet strength on the part of the West, and during both the early and late Cold War the Soviets enjoyed a fairly significant numerical advantage in Europe. The arms reduction treaties also had a pretty big impact on how the United States perceived their ability to fight a conventional war in Europe. Generally speaking though, it was fairly uncontroversial to assume that the Soviets had an edge in the conventional war but the US and its allies probably had better nuclear retaliatory capability. "Is there a tank gap?"(late 80s) and "Tank gap data flap"(mid 90s)
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Oct 18, 2012 23:44
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Alchenar posted:
Oh, God. Not this again. Start reading page 131. Start with R. Mute's posts about half way and continue to the next page. The idea that Stalin didn't roll across Europe in '45 because of some "spheres of influence" BS is just that, BS.
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Oct 19, 2012 00:20
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Veins McGee posted:"Is there a tank gap?"(late 80s) and "Tank gap data flap"(mid 90s) Okay I'm going through both of them although I've already read the first one some years ago. Some initial remarks on "Is there a tank gap?":
Koesj fucked around with this message at 00:38 on Oct 19, 2012 |
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Oct 19, 2012 00:35
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Koesj posted:Okay I'm going through both of them although I've already read the first one some years ago. Some initial remarks on "Is there a tank gap?": 49,800 tanks includes 2nd/3rd class Soviet/Pact reserves that wont be ready for weeks or months.
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Oct 19, 2012 01:01
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Veins McGee posted:49,800 tanks includes 2nd/3rd class Soviet/Pact reserves that wont be ready for weeks or months. Of course. I'm trying to do a quick, division based summary right now to get it into focus.
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Oct 19, 2012 01:09
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Koesj posted:Of course. I'm trying to do a quick, division based summary right now to get it into focus. That would be cool. You seem to know a lot about tanks/Cold War BS. Where do you stand on the nature of a theoretical war between the Warsaw Pact and NATO in Central Europe? Would it be a Pact steamroll victory to the Channel or could NATO forces have conceivably held in Germany somewhere?
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Oct 19, 2012 01:18
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My favorite part of the cold war is the space race. Soviets get the first man in space, then the first satellite, but then America gets the first man on the moon, and that means we won. I remember reading somewhere that around the time we were landing on the moon, the Soviets realized that there was no practical military application for landing on the moon at the time, which is why they slackened off.
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Oct 19, 2012 02:04
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Longpostin'Veins McGee posted:That would be cool. You seem to know a lot about tanks/Cold War BS. Where do you stand on the nature of a theoretical war between the Warsaw Pact and NATO in Central Europe? Would it be a Pact steamroll victory to the Channel or could NATO forces have conceivably held in Germany somewhere? I'm an economic and social historian by trade but later cold war stuff is a big hobby of mine so thanks  The question very much depends on your strategic context and periodisation. Betts paints a chilling picture where even an existential threat can be underplayed in order to hold on to the notion of the status quo, see: the Yom Kippur war in '73. My central premise is that large scale warfare in central Europe would have been unforseen but suddenly interpreted as the only viable option by the initiator of the conflict, namely the Soviet Union, probably in the face of a rapidly developing crisis. Betts lists a couple: Unrest in Poland, unrest in the GDR, war between Turkey and Greece, an intervention in Yugoslavia, a formal defense agreement between the US and China, a Eurocommunist party forming the government in a NATO state on an anti-military platform etc. It'd probably have to have been a combination of a couple of those, and others, which would have acted as the main cause for a conflict. In view of the perceived necessity of conflict you'd have to define an end state, which for the Soviets would probably an easy choice: the end of NATO as an effective belligerent, a partitioned Germany as a demilitarized, quasi-neutral zone and the retreat of all US Forces from Central Europe. So that means decisively defeating NATO along the Central Front while maintaining a defensive posture in all other areas in order to minimize the risk of further escalating the conflict towards unimaginable and uncontrollable outcomes. So when might this have happened? I'd say early eighties. I can't see the Soviets wanting to start such a conflict before they've achieved strategic parity and feel that a transpolar nuclear standoff will secure the motherland long enough for a new political status quo to develop. This pretty much precludes most options for conflict before 1975. There might have been a different path to war, like in '62, but that's not my area of expertise. Then there's the whole detente thing throwing a spanner in the works for the seventies; I don't feel like that particular political situation was very favorable towards creating a compound crisis which would have started a war. Post '85 the rut really starts to set in and the internal economic situation negates all external political pondering. My final guess? Somewhere between the spring of 1980 and the autumn of 1985: confrontational politics and a big-rear end army to throw around. As for the exact moment when they'd have gone to war: when achieving the maximum positive correlation of forces (CoF) after the political decision had already been made, it'd have been a go. It was pretty easy to extrapolate NATO's mobilisation speed versus their own, autumn maneuvers provided exactly that kind of information year after year. That's why I don't believe US forces wouldn't have come in play that much, outside of European and flyover forces of course. Those 10/15k tanks the US Army had during the period? IIRC under 3500 were actually stationed in Germany with forward deployed units or in prepositioned stocks (personnel would be airlifted, the system's called POMCUS). Would the Soviets have waited while the US president had gone to congress to call up the reserves? For units gathering in East Coast ports in plain view? For Ro-Ros to cross the Atlantic? For them to take a deep reserve role and being hard to exact, in NATO countries under martial law? All while they could get their own forces in by train, less than 500kms from their border? Hell no. It'd have been a fight between forces already in place or pretty close by, on a timetable dictated by the attacker. Their succes would have depended on the CoF and a couple of key questions: - how fast does the German Territorialheer mobilise; - how soon will the French come into play and if so, will this entail any unilateral threats from them? - who will initiate termination negotiations and will it adequately meet Soviet ends; And most of all: - Will it go nuclear? If the first three played right I believe the Soviets would have hit the Rhine within a week and start threatening all kinds of nasty stuff to have the Germans call it quits and end NATO as we know it. Terrorists win. When the nukes come in play, all bets are off. Whew, it's getting veeery late and English is not my first language but I'll try to get one other post off 
Koesj fucked around with this message at 19:37 on Oct 19, 2012 |
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Oct 19, 2012 03:36
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This is kind of a specific question, but I've been trying to figure out how to simulate how an Enigma Machine actually works, partly because I want to write a simulator for it as a programming exercise. I keep trying to make heads and tails of these instructions, but I end up just getting more and more confused and the decryption never comes out right. Are there any books/articles/sites/youtube videos I can refer to? On a related note, are modern machines powerful enough to just brute-force the thing?
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Oct 19, 2012 04:14
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