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Agesilaus posted:At any rate, as a specific military question, does anyone remember that dreadful movie "Patriot" with the burning church scene? It was largely a work of fiction, to be sure, but I am curious about that scene because the script-writer attributes the burning to Royalist forces. I later read a book called Rebels and Redcoats by Hugh Bicheno, and early on in that book it states that the church scene was actually based upon the actions of people fighting against the Crown. Does anyone know of any contemporary source for that church burning incident? You won't find any comtemporary accounts of the church burning incident because it quite simply did not happen. It was fabricated by the scriptwriters who admitted they got the inspiration from it when finding out about Nazi war crimes when writing the script for Saving Private Ryan. The most utterly despicable scene of that movie is when the white racist guerilla tells the black guy that he's already fought long enough for his freedom, the black guy says he's fighting as a free man and the white guy says he's honoured to fight by his side. Very cute, but the second the war finished that black guy was going to be beaten to within an inch of his life and chained to a plough.
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Nov 7, 2012 19:52
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IIRC that scene in The Patriot was directly inspired by the Nazi massacre of Oradour-sur-Glane. Why the writers thought it appropriate to draw allusions to it in a Revolutionary War movie I have no idea.
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Nov 7, 2012 20:35
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Zorak of Michigan posted:Have you read Lawrence's book? Recommending someone to read Seven Pillars Of Wisdom is a particularly cruel thing to do to anybody. It is awful. Full of very strange writing and purple prose it borders on the un-readable. It is also very very long. Jeremy Wilsons Authorised Biography is very good and I quite like the film Lawrence of Arabia. Lawrence did write one good book- The Mint. Its about his time in the RAF and contains an excellent bit of writing about racing his Brough Superior with a Bristol fighter biplane.
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Nov 7, 2012 20:49
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Shimrra Jamaane posted:IIRC that scene in The Patriot was directly inspired by the Nazi massacre of Oradour-sur-Glane. Why the writers thought it appropriate to draw allusions to it in a Revolutionary War movie I have no idea. For the same reason why the Galactic Empire wore SS uniforms and spoke with posh British accents.
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Nov 7, 2012 21:13
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Alekanderu posted:While this is, of course, completely true, Scanian is actually not very similar to modern standard Danish at all, but rather a dialect that is distinct from both modern Swedish and Danish. To add to this: There is a surprising amount of documentation about the relationship between Skånska and Danish from the 1500-1600's, considering it's pretty distant from the two languages' prestige dialects. Parish priests were educated largely in Denmark and sent out to Skåne by the Church. There was quite a bit of correspondence between local clergy and the dioceses about trouble teaching the people of Skåne to write and speak proper Danish. This is also where some of the earliest clear examples of "transcribed" Skånska come from. Even the Danes were irritated by this dialect.
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Nov 7, 2012 21:19
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I'd like to know more about the Eastern Front. No, not THAT Eastern Front, the one in World War I. Was there the same style fighting as the Western Front? Trenches and the like? Did advances grind to a halt or were there massive land gains? What happened when the Russians said "gently caress it."? Was it just a "Germans, go home, were gonna kill the Tzar" sort of thing? Did the war contribute to the revolution?
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Nov 7, 2012 21:23
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Phobophilia posted:For the same reason why the Galactic Empire wore SS uniforms and spoke with posh British accents. Thats just because English actors are so much cooler. Boba Fett doesn't even speak but he's an English actor so he just stands there and looks menacing and cool. Its a national trait. We just can't help it. To contribute and not derail too much; Why is it considered acceptable to fire CS gas as part of a civil police operation but it becomes an outlawed chemical weapon when fired at enemy combatents? This has always puzzled me. On the one hand you have civilians of unknown various ages, genders and states of health and on the other hand you have young ( for the most part ) adult males who have undergone screening to ensure they are fit and healthy.
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Nov 7, 2012 21:43
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Blckdrgn posted:I'd like to know more about the Eastern Front. No, not THAT Eastern Front, the one in World War I. Considering the Germans inserted Lenin into Russia like a virus, yes. The Germans had the Russians pretty well beaten by the time 1917 rolled around, and the revolution accelerated acceptance of the rather humiliating Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. Ludendorff poured a great majority of his time into governing these conquered territories. As for massive gains and losses see Battle of Tannenberg, Brusilov Offensive, etc.
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Nov 7, 2012 21:47
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duckmaster posted:The most utterly despicable scene of that movie is when the white racist guerilla tells the black guy that he's already fought long enough for his freedom, the black guy says he's fighting as a free man and the white guy says he's honoured to fight by his side. Very cute, but the second the war finished that black guy was going to be beaten to within an inch of his life and chained to a plough. In fact, many more black people fought for the British than the revolutionaries, seeing as the latter were the ones with the slave plantations. The British promised freedom to black slaves who fought on their side, and this was the largest freeing of slaves in America til the Civil War a century later - http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part2/2i1615.html Similarly, the British backed the Native Americans on whose territory the patriots had been encroaching pre-war, against the instructions of the British government (since defending against Native American reprisals wasn't cheap and the colonies weren't keen on paying the taxes needed to support the British troops defending them). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Proclamation_of_1763 The American War of Independence: a nation founded on the principles of protecting slavery, exterminating Native Americans and preserving the income of colonial tea smugglers. 
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Nov 7, 2012 21:50
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SeanBeansShako posted:It was only an invasion in the mind of Winston 'Hating on commies before it was cool with Reagan' Churchill. Well, there were British troops on the ground in Archangel occupying the place. If a bunch of Russians took over Penzance, we'd still call that an invasion, no?
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Nov 7, 2012 21:55
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feedmegin posted:Well, there were British troops on the ground in Archangel occupying the place. If a bunch of Russians took over Penzance, we'd still call that an invasion, no? Freezing your balls off in a port in Siberia with a tiny amount of Marines is hardly invading Russia though.
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Nov 7, 2012 21:57
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Just how many people died in Moscow after it was lit on fire to spite Napoleon? People tend to mention how cunning it was and how Napoleon was forced to pull back but i assume a massive city like Moscow going up in flames would result in a hell of a humanitarian crisis to deal with, what with all those people without homes now.
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Nov 7, 2012 22:17
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General China posted:Recommending someone to read Seven Pillars Of Wisdom is a particularly cruel thing to do to anybody. It is awful. Full of very strange writing and purple prose it borders on the un-readable. It is also very very long. What can I say, I'm a sucker for primary sources. I also think the reveal of Lawrence's descent into self-loathing makes a real impression that the movie just hinted at. In the end I do agree with you. I think I've re-read Massie's Dreadnought four times now, but never re-read Seven Pillars of Wisdom and don't intend to.
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Nov 7, 2012 22:20
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Mans posted:Just how many people died in Moscow after it was lit on fire to spite Napoleon? People tend to mention how cunning it was and how Napoleon was forced to pull back but i assume a massive city like Moscow going up in flames would result in a hell of a humanitarian crisis to deal with, what with all those people without homes now. About 10,000 civilians died in Moscow itself from fire and famine, and many civilians accompanying Napoleon's army later died. The fire wasn't a single event; after four days of burning destroyed over half of the city, Russian loyalists set fire to many more buildings in an effort to drive the French out of Moscow.
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Nov 7, 2012 22:49
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If you didn't starve or managed to save some form of posession not looted by the Grande Armee well gently caress you because you'll get murdered in your sleep by unruly Russian zeks now roaming free in the burning ashen streets!
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Nov 7, 2012 22:56
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Zorak of Michigan posted:What can I say, I'm a sucker for primary sources. I also think the reveal of Lawrence's descent into self-loathing makes a real impression that the movie just hinted at. In the end I do agree with you. I think I've re-read Massie's Dreadnought four times now, but never re-read Seven Pillars of Wisdom and don't intend to. I tried to read it once, and I agree never again. Massie's dreadnaught is a completely different kettle of fish entirely. Unless you only compare books by thickness. They probably take up the same amount of shelf space. This is the reason we invented free public lending libraries inbetween just looking cool. General China fucked around with this message at 23:27 on Nov 7, 2012 |
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Nov 7, 2012 23:24
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So pretty much anytime in history that someone has gone to war with Russia, gratuitous acts of barbarity by everyone involved is the norm?
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Nov 7, 2012 23:29
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DasReich posted:So pretty much anytime in history that someone has gone to war with Russia, gratuitous acts of barbarity by everyone involved is the norm? Alternatively, pretty much anytime in history that someone has gone to war with any nation, gratuitous acts of barbarity by everyone involved is the norm? Its a pretty pointless question. Define barbarity.
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Nov 7, 2012 23:40
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Blckdrgn posted:I'd like to know more about the Eastern Front. No, not THAT Eastern Front, the one in World War I. Short answer: Fighting was much more mobile, with limited trench warfare and large amounts of land changing hands due to the sheer size of the front. And yes, the war massively contributed to the revolution, what with food and fuel shortages and massive Russian casualties combined with the feudalism of 1910s Russia.
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Nov 8, 2012 02:01
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General China posted:Why is it considered acceptable to fire CS gas as part of a civil police operation but it becomes an outlawed chemical weapon when fired at enemy combatents? This has always puzzled me. On the one hand you have civilians of unknown various ages, genders and states of health and on the other hand you have young ( for the most part ) adult males who have undergone screening to ensure they are fit and healthy. I think its, in regards to the 1993 CWC (and by extension the rest of them)... 1) Not many countries would have signed a treaty that interfered in the domestic use of chemical weapons, of which CS gas and I suppose synthetic pepper spray would have counted. 2) The idea was to stop the use of chemical weapons on the battlefield - adding exemptions would have just undermined the conventions and open the door for escalation. Also, in war you're trying to kill the other side, them being able to withstand any lethal effects of CS gas doesn't come into it.
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Nov 8, 2012 02:05
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I read about US forces using CS gas to clear tunnels in Vietnam, but it was a very specific use in a very specific scenario. The problem with using CS is the same as with any airborn chemical agent - once you start throwing it out it's very difficult to control and use in a targeted manner. So the enemy is occupying a position, you unleash gas on them, but now your own forces have to presumably attack and take the position and are now exposed to the gas, if it hasn't already blown over to your own lines already. People have to remember the old Clauswitz thing that the difference between armies fighting wars and random assholes loving with each other is that an army fights a war for a specific (political) goal, and that extends all the way down to the lowest ranking soldier on the front line. Chemical weapons are one of those things that is pretty lovely but also in most situations not really even that helpful, when you actually have a specific objective/goal, so generally armies try and stay away from it.
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Nov 8, 2012 02:56
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Blckdrgn posted:I'd like to know more about the Eastern Front. No, not THAT Eastern Front, the one in World War I. The Western Front stalemated because the Germans and Entente forces were able to pack huge numbers of men and guns into a frontage that was, compared to European Russia, very narrow. Infrastructure in the area was also highly developed, which meant that it was easy to counter offensives by shuffling reserves into the contested area almost as soon as battle was joined. Stalemate resulted. The much greater area of the Eastern Front and the thinner transportation networks made stalemate much more unlikely, and maneuver was actually an important element of the fighting. The victory that gave the Germans the initial advantage, the Battle of Tannenberg, turned on an adroit movement of troops that allowed the Germans to flank, isolate, and finally inflict a defeat in detail on their Russian opponents. However, the sheer size of European Russia also meant that it was difficult to land any kind of knockout blow. The Germans made steady gains and killed large numbers of Russian soldiers, but in the end they prevailed because the Russian state collapsed under the strain, not because they won a specific battle or captured some piece of territory. quote:What happened when the Russians said "gently caress it."? Was it just a "Germans, go home, were gonna kill the Tzar" sort of thing? In March 1917 (Russia still used the Julian Calendar, which was a couple weeks behind, hence this is known as the "February Revolution") the Tsarist government fell, but the Provisional Republic that replaced it was ostensibly committed to continuing the war on the side of the Entente. This was unpopular but for diplomatic and political reasons the parties that controlled the Provisional Republic felt it was necessary. As head of the Bolshevik faction Lenin was vociferous in his opposition to continuing the war, and this was among the issues that led to the October Revolution (again, actually occurring in November). After the October Revolution Russia began to descend into civil war, and military discipline completely evaporated. It was no longer possible for Russia to effectively resist the Germans, and the Germans knew this when they sent their peace offer to Lenin. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk entailed gigantic annexations of Russian territory, including the whole of Ukraine, such that the Bolsheviks initially balked at agreeing to it in spite of their commitment to peace. The Germans proved their point by launching a general offensive that advanced almost without resistance, and increased their demands slightly, and the Bolsheviks could do nothing but agree. Of course, Germany's subsequent collapse voided the treaty and during and after the Russian Civil War, the USSR was able to redeem a good part of those territorial losses. quote:Did the war contribute to the revolution? Yes, it would not otherwise have happened.
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Nov 8, 2012 04:36
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General China posted:Thats just because English actors are so much cooler. Boba Fett doesn't even speak but he's an English actor so he just stands there and looks menacing and cool. Its a national trait. We just can't help it. Because the rules of war are designed to protect belligerent westerners from overescalating against each other. Because civilians have no power, anything they do can be automatically defined as rioting or terrorism, giving carte blanche for authorities to escalate as much as they'd like.
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Nov 8, 2012 10:23
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Phobophilia posted:Because the rules of war are designed to protect belligerent westerners from overescalating against each other. Because civilians have no power, anything they do can be automatically defined as rioting or terrorism, giving carte blanche for authorities to escalate as much as they'd like. Also, there is the fact that in a war, the enemy army isn't going to stick around to find out if you used lethal or nonlethal gas. They are going to assume the gas is lethal, and escalate from there.
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Nov 8, 2012 11:22
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Konstantin posted:Also, there is the fact that in a war, the enemy army isn't going to stick around to find out if you used lethal or nonlethal gas. They are going to assume the gas is lethal, and escalate from there.
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Nov 8, 2012 12:18
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Well there's also the fact that once everyone is using gas it's actually fairly easy (if really inconvenient) to protect against. For soldiers. If you are a civilian in the battle zone then you are hosed. Which is the other side of the rules of war - they aim in particular to limit escalations which have negligible military benefits but terrible consequences for civilians.
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Nov 8, 2012 12:24
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Is that thing you hear about shotguns being disallowed after WWI completely apocryphal or is there some nugget of truth? What bout 50 cal/sawback bayonets/whatever else?
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Nov 8, 2012 22:45
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Due to the American trench gun's effectiveness, the Germans tried to get shotguns banned, but failed. .50 cal isn't prohibited either, and I'm not aware of any attempts to make it so. I have heard the theory that it was a rumour spread to keep the men from using up all the AA ammo (the US used quad .50 cals in this role) shooting at entrenched infantry.
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Nov 8, 2012 22:49
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The US used .50 for everything!
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Nov 8, 2012 22:51
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I've said it before, I'm convinced that .50 cal rumour was meant to delegitimise the very concept of rules of war. Especially if you can get around it so easily by "shooting their belt buckles".
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Nov 8, 2012 22:51
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Someone said the western front was narrow with respect to the eastern front, but the idea of trenches stretching from the sea to Switzerland has always captured my imagination. What did the trenches look like when they hit geographic boundaries like rivers or mountains? What about the swiss border? Was there a sign that said "please stop shooting past this line" or something? Is there a mountain that marked the southern border of the trenches?
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Nov 8, 2012 23:05
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Ron Jeremy posted:Someone said the western front was narrow with respect to the eastern front, but the idea of trenches stretching from the sea to Switzerland has always captured my imagination. What did the trenches look like when they hit geographic boundaries like rivers or mountains? What about the swiss border? Was there a sign that said "please stop shooting past this line" or something? Is there a mountain that marked the southern border of the trenches? I don't know about the western front but on the Italian front there was a ton of fighting in the Alps. The Austrian troops literally just set up shop on top of the mountains and rained down artillery and boulders on the poor Italians, which is why they didn't get much of anywhere.
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Nov 8, 2012 23:22
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Swiss border: There is a german website that has some nice pics about it here: http://sundgaufront.j-ehret.com/ Really close to the border (couple hundred meters), trenches stopped. There was on each side a MG bunker rather close to the border signaling the end of the frontline. Their range easily covered into siwtzerland, so fighting there was extremely rare to not piss of the Swiss. Barbed wire went all the way to the border. On the other side at Switzerland, there were a few observation posts. The border was fenced on both sides, gates were covered in barbwire. Check out this video (german, done by an amatuer I think) - at the 4:20 mark. What you see there is the frontier to switzerland. At the beginning of the video, the water that is seen there, is not a creek. Its the flooded trenches almost 100 years later: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iARwLWPTL6c The Sundgaufront website author has some german reports about what happened on the swiss side, example here: http://sundgaufront.j-ehret.com/pdf/schweizergrenze1.pdf Thats where you get also an idea on how the trench system stopped close to the border. The closest they have on it, is a mere 2 miles from the swiss border: https://www.google.de/maps?q=47.557878,7.212839&num=1&t=h&z=13 You can see whats left from back then here: http://sundgaufront.j-ehret.com/sennhuette.htm Crossing mountains and stuff: Check out these pictures. This is a mountain, that had been fought over four years between France and Germany. http://www.moesslang.net/hartmannswillerkopf_seite2_1_wk.htm (Make sure you click on "Weitere Fotos" for more pics.) And now for soemthing crazy - I did a thread two years ago in Ask/Tell about bunkers from WW1 and WW2 (and others) and included some pics from Vauquois and its tunnel systems. I think it might be archived now, but I lack archives, so I cant check that. Vauquois is another place where for four years there was fighting going on on top and UNDER (!) a mountain since neither side managed to conquer the mountain top. Check out the Googlemaps view of it. What looks like huge circles, is in fact gigantic craters from mines going off from both sides, trying to get the other side off the mountain. That gives an idea to what extreme measures they went to, making sure that rivers, mountains etc. could not be used as a path to get through the trenches... https://www.google.de/maps?q=49.205815,5.069878&num=1&t=h&z=17 (Further reading here: http://www.hoeni.de/pages/hobby_lesen_e.html scroll down past the Maginot line bunker, about middle of the page is where pics from Vauquois start.) Hoeni fucked around with this message at 00:19 on Nov 9, 2012 |
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Nov 9, 2012 00:09
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Flippycunt posted:I don't know about the western front but on the Italian front there was a ton of fighting in the Alps. The Austrian troops literally just set up shop on top of the mountains and rained down artillery and boulders on the poor Italians, which is why they didn't get much of anywhere. And yet the Allies didn't learn from this and decided to attack the "soft underbelly". I have no doubt had the Allies made it to the Alps the Wehrmacht would have set up shop in the mountains and made life a living hell for the Allies.
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Nov 9, 2012 00:22
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DasReich posted:And yet the Allies didn't learn from this and decided to attack the "soft underbelly". I have no doubt had the Allies made it to the Alps the Wehrmacht would have set up shop in the mountains and made life a living hell for the Allies. Didn't the invasion of Italy prove to be beneficial anyway in terms of the number of Wehrmacht troops diverted away from the Eastern and later-Western fronts? In fact, weren't a significant number of troops diverted away from Operation Zitadelle at a critical moment once Hitler received word of the landings in Sicily?
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Nov 9, 2012 04:46
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Flippycunt posted:I don't know about the western front but on the Italian front there was a ton of fighting in the Alps. The Austrian troops literally just set up shop on top of the mountains and rained down artillery and boulders on the poor Italians, which is why they didn't get much of anywhere. The Austrian-Italian front in World War I involved some of the worst fighting conditions in the history of warfare. Mountain warfare in the winter, (the Italian lines collapsed late in the war, but the Austrian soldiers were so hungry and cold they decided to raid their food stores rather than pursue) generals who made the guys on the Western Front look like geniuses (Hey guys, lets attack over the same river 10 times in the same way!!!)
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Nov 9, 2012 05:04
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Hoeni posted:awesome stuff
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Nov 9, 2012 05:51
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gradenko_2000 posted:Didn't the invasion of Italy prove to be beneficial anyway in terms of the number of Wehrmacht troops diverted away from the Eastern and later-Western fronts? In fact, weren't a significant number of troops diverted away from Operation Zitadelle at a critical moment once Hitler received word of the landings in Sicily? Fighting in the Mediterranean. by itself, diverted axis manpower from other purposes. There were something like 60 divisions in garrisons from Southern France to Greece, posted because there was no way for Germany and Italy to fight the Royal Navy. The garrisons were kept around even after the Italian front opened up, because the Allies would run psyops poo poo and pretend to invade Corsica or something. The actual fighting in Italy was more of a constant drag on manpower. Despite the Monte Cassino rep, casualties on both sides reached a parity in numbers. The terrain was lovely, and there was a tinge of the Great War to it all. But it was such a narrow front! You just couldn't fit so many guys along that line. No single operation in Italy could create any sort of drag on the Eastern front, and there'd be no way to get a division from Belarus to Anzio in a meaningful time frame.
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Nov 9, 2012 08:53
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gradenko_2000 posted:Didn't the invasion of Italy prove to be beneficial anyway in terms of the number of Wehrmacht troops diverted away from the Eastern and later-Western fronts? In fact, weren't a significant number of troops diverted away from Operation Zitadelle at a critical moment once Hitler received word of the landings in Sicily? I would say it would be debatable. The relative size of the front combined with the German strategy of simply tying up as many Allied troops as possible seems to me the best way to tip the scales in the cross channel invasion pretty much anyone could see coming. Where is the endgame in this campaign anyway? Where does the offensive stop? Once you hit the Alps you're in pretty poor country until you hit central Germany. The Germans had nightmarish logistical problems moving into Austria during the Anschluss, and that was unopposed. Combat conditions would probably magnify that significantly.
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Nov 9, 2012 15:44
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Farecoal posted:(Hey guys, lets attack over the same river 10 times in the same way!!!) Ah, Luigi Cadorna. Contender for the worst general in any modern army ever. Reading the Wiki article on that guy is going to measurably lower your faith in humanity.
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Nov 9, 2012 15:50
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