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Shimrra Jamaane posted:Vichy France was all too eager to help the Germans. To be fair the German war machine didn't exactly suffer from a lack of volunteers from anywhere else either - save the British Isles.
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Mar 7, 2013 16:52
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Anosmoman posted:To be fair the German war machine didn't exactly suffer from a lack of volunteers from anywhere else either - save the British Isles. I think that there actually was a platoon sized volunteer SS unit from the Channel Isles but yeah, I would hardly define that as collaboration on any real scale.
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Mar 7, 2013 17:05
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Shimrra Jamaane posted:I think that there actually was a platoon sized volunteer SS unit from the Channel Isles but yeah, I would hardly define that as collaboration on any real scale. The relatively peaceful occupation of the island was seen as a source of shame initially and after the war, but they didn't really have much choice; instead many resorted to subversive opposition, such as anti-German graffiti posting or listening to BBC radio even when radios were banned. The number of German troops stationed on the island was extraordinarily high - one soldier to every two islanders - and completely out of proportion to the strategicworth of the island. Passive resistance was the best option, as simply by being stationed there, German troops and resources were being kept from deployment where they would actually be more of a threat. Kegluneq fucked around with this message at 17:15 on Mar 7, 2013 |
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Mar 7, 2013 17:12
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Shimrra Jamaane posted:That is largely true (the first point at least. Its arguable whether a French invasion of Germany while it was involved in Poland would have worked. I would argue that it would't have.). However, these are things we now know due to hindsight. To the world at large at the time the German victory over the French essentially "proved" the unsurpassed military might of Nazi Germany. The specific reasons why the Germans were able to so decisively crush the French in under a month did not become apparent until years after. We now know that it was a hilariously awful clusterfuck that should have NEVER happened. But as far as anyone was concerned the Wehrmacht were capable of the impossible. It also bears mentioning that prior to 1940 the French army was widely considered the finest in the world. When the Nazis smashed them it was a tremendous shock and it seemed to prove that the Wehrmacht were indeed capable of the impossible. This also fed into the ridiculous German expectation of being able to thrash the Soviets in a few weeks; whilst they had just conquered much of Europe and done in the French army in a few weeks, whilst the Red Army barely prevailed against the Finns of all people, and the Winter War seemed to justify the "Kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come down" angle.
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Mar 7, 2013 17:42
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Mister Adequate posted:It also bears mentioning that prior to 1940 the French army was widely considered the finest in the world. When the Nazis smashed them it was a tremendous shock and it seemed to prove that the Wehrmacht were indeed capable of the impossible. This also fed into the ridiculous German expectation of being able to thrash the Soviets in a few weeks; whilst they had just conquered much of Europe and done in the French army in a few weeks, whilst the Red Army barely prevailed against the Finns of all people, and the Winter War seemed to justify the "Kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come down" angle. The soviet failures during the Winter War eventually saved them in WW2. When the assault into Finland didn't go as planned, Semyon Timoshenko took charge from Kliment Voroshilov (a politician). Timoshenko's success, alongside other factors, lead to the signing of the peace treaty. Political appointments in the soviet military decreased and many effects of the purges, often coordinated by Voroshilov, were reversed. And just in time, its hard to imagine what even half a year less of soviet military development would have resulted in.
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Mar 7, 2013 18:01
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Oh yeah, I didn't mean to suggest the Nazi view was an accurate one or that no developments took place after the Winter War that changed things, just that their notion of beating the titanic Soviet Union and the endless numbers of the Red Army wasn't completely insane out-of-nowhere fiction.
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Mar 7, 2013 18:11
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Kegluneq posted:Er, no. There probably wasn't a large enough adult male population to support such a recruitment (especially since many had left Jersey to serve in the British or French militaries), and the actual number of collaborators was not especially great. It's worth visting the absolutely off-the-scale fantastic museum in Jersey, the biggest channel island, which is housed in a huge underground bunker built by the Germans. Some of the letters sent by islanders to the local Gestapo are quite chilling; people reporting their neighbours for listening to the radio for example. Shimrra Jamaane was probably referring to the British Free Corps, a Waffen-SS unit which recruited mainly from British POWs. According to the wikipedia article there were 59 members but never more than 27 at a time; actuually smaller than a German platoon. I belive they distinguished themselves on the eastern front by withdrawing from the line when their German officers weren't looking and finding an abandoned farmhouse to sit around in and make tea and smoke cigarettes, whilst letting someone else do the fighting. In that respect at least they were about as British as you can get 
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Mar 7, 2013 18:49
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Mister Adequate posted:Oh yeah, I didn't mean to suggest the Nazi view was an accurate one or that no developments took place after the Winter War that changed things, just that their notion of beating the titanic Soviet Union and the endless numbers of the Red Army wasn't completely insane out-of-nowhere fiction. I was just pointing out that the very differing lessons the soviets and the Germans took from the Winter War affected the outcome of WW2. The Germans did not consider that the soviet military would restructure after their failure. The German view of the soviet military was antiquated, and heavily influenced by Soviet-German military cooperation in the 20s and 30s. In a secret recording of the conversation between Hitler and Mannerheim, Hitler stated very clearly that the German military did not expect the soviets to have such well developed armored units. Whether this attitude actually prevailed in the German military structure or was just Hitler's normal ignorance is beyond what I know. Content!  The Fergana Valley is a fertile valley in an arid region with multiple countries bordering it. Increased exploitation of water supplies, several enclaves shown on the map, and disputes over rights to pastureland give rise to tensions in the region. 
Bensa fucked around with this message at 19:06 on Mar 7, 2013 |
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Mar 7, 2013 19:03
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Shimrra Jamaane posted:Vichy France was all too eager to help the Germans. Vichy France actually scuttled the fleet in Toulon when Hitler moved to take it as part of Operation Lila. Which retroactively cast a pretty poor light on the British attack on the French fleet in Mers-el-Kébir  It is a pretty weird part of WW2 I didn't know about till recently, that there were casualties in WW2 from deliberate fighting between the British and French (though the British only lost two airmen compared to the French losing over a thousand sailors). eSports Chaebol fucked around with this message at 19:07 on Mar 7, 2013 |
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Mar 7, 2013 19:05
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Kegluneq posted:Er, no. There probably wasn't a large enough adult male population to support such a recruitment (especially since many had left Jersey to serve in the British or French militaries), and the actual number of collaborators was not especially great. A platoon is like 30 guys, its not that much of a stretch that the Germans were able to find 30 assholes on islands with tens of thousands of people.
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Mar 7, 2013 19:06
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eSports Chaebol posted:Vichy France actually scuttled the fleet in Toulon when Hitler moved to take it as part of Operation Lila. Which retroactively cast a pretty poor light on the British attack on the French fleet in Mers-el-Kébir Honestly they couldn't take the chance. The slave of my enemy is also my enemy.
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Mar 7, 2013 19:30
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eSports Chaebol posted:Vichy France actually scuttled the fleet in Toulon when Hitler moved to take it as part of Operation Lila. Which retroactively cast a pretty poor light on the British attack on the French fleet in Mers-el-Kébir Sometimes in war you just need to occasionally inflict a few casualties on your allies to prove a point 
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Mar 7, 2013 19:49
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The thing that bothers me the most about the axis is basically how japan refused to change tactics to counter the submarine threat and really the lack of change in Japanese tactics overall until it was basically too late.  Edit: I just looked up the submarine war and it looks like japan even refused to do basically any commerce raiding at all or intercept the massive lifeline to the soviet union that the us had set up. 
Lawman 0 fucked around with this message at 20:10 on Mar 7, 2013 |
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Mar 7, 2013 20:04
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Lawman 0 posted:The thing that bothers me the most about the axis is basically how japan refused to change tactics to counter the submarine threat and really the lack of change in Japanese tactics overall until it was basically too late. Any day now, the Battleship showdown is gonna happen!
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Mar 7, 2013 20:10
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Amused to Death posted:Sometimes in war you just need to occasionally inflict a few casualties on your allies to prove a point It's kind of shocking to realise stuff like this actually happened. We're generally given an image of perfect harmony between the anglophone nations in most matters during the 20th century, but in reality the cultures were, and still are, surprisingly different. Bensa posted:Content! Regarding Uzbekistan and Central Asia:  I'd never been so disturbed when I realised that the Aral Sea is basically ... gone. For all the talk of climate change it still feels like a distant problem, and then I realised that something I'd taken for granted in maps is no longer there, and it all disappeared in just a few decades. It weirds me out whenever I see a map of the region now.
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Mar 7, 2013 20:14
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Koramei posted:I'd never been so disturbed when I realised that the Aral Sea is basically ... gone. For all the talk of climate change it still feels like a distant problem, and then I realised that something I'd taken for granted in maps is no longer there, and it all disappeared in just a few decades. It weirds me out whenever I see a map of the region now. The best introductory line to a Wikipedia article begins, "The Aral Sea was a lake..."
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Mar 7, 2013 20:18
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Koramei posted:I'd never been so disturbed when I realised that the Aral Sea is basically ... gone. For all the talk of climate change it still feels like a distant problem, and then I realised that something I'd taken for granted in maps is no longer there, and it all disappeared in just a few decades. It weirds me out whenever I see a map of the region now. To play devil's advocate, the Aral Sea was especially destroyed by a series of poorly built canals. It's actually a good case of poorly thought-out geo-engineering for the plan of squeezing out some money (Soviet export of cotton).
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Mar 7, 2013 20:25
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Koramei posted:It's kind of shocking to realise stuff like this actually happened. We're generally given an image of perfect harmony between the anglophone nations in most matters during the 20th century, but in reality the cultures were, and still are, surprisingly different. I think American soldiers in England during WW2 were somewhat resented too. They were paid far better than everyone around them and hadn't been living under strict rationing for five years so they seemed like filthy rich, wasteful assholes to the common english person.
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Mar 7, 2013 20:51
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withak posted:I think American soldiers in England during WW2 were somewhat resented too. They were paid far better than everyone around them and hadn't been living under strict rationing for five years so they seemed like filthy rich, wasteful assholes to the common english person. Well they were also sleeping with all their daughters and trashing all their pubs. These are pretty normal problems when you've got troops around, even in allied territories or peace time.
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Mar 7, 2013 21:03
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LP97S posted:To play devil's advocate, the Aral Sea was especially destroyed by a series of poorly built canals. It's actually a good case of poorly thought-out geo-engineering for the plan of squeezing out some money (Soviet export of cotton). Yeah. Not to deny Climate Change, but it isn't what shrank the Aral Sea. I think humanity's track record in terms of creating and draining lakes comes out pretty close to even. Not that that is necessarily good for the Earth either way.
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Mar 7, 2013 21:07
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Bensa posted:I was just pointing out that the very differing lessons the soviets and the Germans took from the Winter War affected the outcome of WW2. The Germans did not consider that the soviet military would restructure after their failure. The German view of the soviet military was antiquated, and heavily influenced by Soviet-German military cooperation in the 20s and 30s. In a secret recording of the conversation between Hitler and Mannerheim, Hitler stated very clearly that the German military did not expect the soviets to have such well developed armored units. Whether this attitude actually prevailed in the German military structure or was just Hitler's normal ignorance is beyond what I know.
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Mar 7, 2013 21:14
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Lawman 0 posted:The thing that bothers me the most about the axis is basically how japan refused to change tactics to counter the submarine threat and really the lack of change in Japanese tactics overall until it was basically too late. The Japanese did everything possible to avoid a conflict with the Soviets for good reason The Japanese position in China was very weak and a Soviet attack into Manchuria would have destroyed their war effort, at the same time the Soviets couldn't afford to pull troops from their western front which is the reason for their strange ceasefire throughout the period.
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Mar 7, 2013 21:21
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Red_Mage posted:Yeah. Not to deny Climate Change, but it isn't what shrank the Aral Sea. I think humanity's track record in terms of creating and draining lakes comes out pretty close to even. Not that that is necessarily good for the Earth either way. LP97S posted:To play devil's advocate, the Aral Sea was especially destroyed by a series of poorly built canals. It's actually a good case of poorly thought-out geo-engineering for the plan of squeezing out some money (Soviet export of cotton). Oh I didn't mean to phrase it quite like that, just to draw a parallel between something that has happened and something that will, with a fairly startling example. And I wouldn't really compare this to drained lakes and marshes; the removal of the Aral Sea was not intentional, it was a side effect through negligence. That water isn't relocated somewhere nearby, it's gone. That area of the world is now a lot drier. withak posted:I think American soldiers in England during WW2 were somewhat resented too. They were paid far better than everyone around them and hadn't been living under strict rationing for five years so they seemed like filthy rich, wasteful assholes to the common english person. This isn't emphasized particularly in the Wikipedia page for the Brisbane conflict so I don't know how much of a factor it was there, but in Britain there was serious resentment of the American Troops' treatment of minorities, and likely resentment from the Americans because of a lack of bother to accommodate their "need for segregation", too. Although to be fair I bet the British soldiers cared a hell of a lot more about salaries than civil rights. Koramei fucked around with this message at 21:28 on Mar 7, 2013 |
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Mar 7, 2013 21:24
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Shimrra Jamaane posted:A platoon is like 30 guys, its not that much of a stretch that the Germans were able to find 30 assholes on islands with tens of thousands of people. Yeah, I fail at unit sizes  I think duckmaster had this pretty much covered though.
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Mar 7, 2013 21:51
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 Here (source) is a Soviet propaganda poster for the 'Great Plan for the Transformation of Nature'; Stalin is sketching out an ambitious geoengineering scheme to end the droughts. You can see Moscow (red star) and the Caspian Sea (blue blob); the Aral Sea is just off the edge of the map. The other red highlighted city, along the Volga and near Stalin's elbow, is Stalingrad. 'Climate Dependence and Food Problems in Russia' by Nikolai Dronin and Edward Bellinger posted:The first post-war years were marked by a new wave of ideological fighting in Soviet science. In 1948, for example, genetic and other important developments were condemned as "bourgeois" theories. Instead, often strange and fantastic concepts appeared and were successfully backed by Marxist philosophers. Some of the concepts were applied to Soviet agriculture as they promised to resolve problems once and for all. One project, which was named "The Great Stalin Plan for the Transformation of Nature", was adopted in the autumn of 1948. The main target of this plan was to combat droughts in the steppe and wooded steppe zones of central Russia by planting several giant shelter belts and constructing large irrigation channels and water reservoirs. The Great Stalin Plan was to be implemented over three to four years, and more than 5000 kilometers of shelter belt were to be planted in the southern part of the country. From 1948 to 1953, the number of trees planted in the country exceeded the number planted during the previous 250 years of Russia's forestry history. However, by the autumn of 1956, the proportion of healthy trees in these belts reached only 4.3 percent. The main reason was the adoption of an erroneous technique by academician T. D. Lysenko. He proposed that trees (oaks, for example) should be planted in very compact groups, which he called the "nest" method of planting. According to his concept, plants belonging to one species did not compete with one another but even collaborated (against weeds and other common enemies). The failure of the plan cost an enormous amount of money, and after 1953 no mention of the plan was found in the Soviet media.
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Mar 7, 2013 22:22
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Lawman 0 posted:The thing that bothers me the most about the axis is basically how japan refused to change tactics to counter the submarine threat and really the lack of change in Japanese tactics overall until it was basically too late. The Japanese were never going to intercept Vladivostok-bound US convoys even after Dec 7 because they already got their asses kicked by Zhukov himself in 1939 at the Battle of Khalkin Gol. But yes, telling your submarine commanders to basically ignore merchant shipping and concentrate on sinking warships when your side possesses arguably the best torpedo in the world was a huge missed opportunity.
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Mar 8, 2013 00:51
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sbaldrick posted:My favorite part of any maps like this is the fact that for some reason Canada is willing to pipe our water to other countries.  If Canada will do it with oil, why not water?
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Mar 8, 2013 03:40
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Tony Jowns posted:ahem
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Mar 8, 2013 04:07
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Shimrra Jamaane posted:Vichy France was all too eager to help the Germans. The leadership perhaps, but would the rank and file really want to fight their former Allies at the beckon call of their invaders? Even after the idiocy that went down at Mers-el-Kébir and Dakar and Syria the average Vichy servicemen weren't interested in fighting for the Germans. The French Navy scuttled itself en masse when Vichy was invaded specifically to deny their ships to the Germans despite the fact that the British and Americans were invading French North Africa at the same time. Shimrra Jamaane posted:A platoon is like 30 guys, its not that much of a stretch that the Germans were able to find 30 assholes on islands with tens of thousands of people. The pitifully few men who joined the British Freikorps weren't from the Channel Islands and had gently caress all to do with them. They were POWs from the Commonwealth armed forces, some of whom actually signed up for the unit to either spy on it or sabotage it from the inside. Vincent Van Goatse fucked around with this message at 05:06 on Mar 8, 2013 |
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Mar 8, 2013 04:59
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Tony Jowns posted:ahem Eh, there's a ton of these things already: 
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Mar 8, 2013 06:26
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 Chinese map translated into literal English.
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Mar 8, 2013 16:27
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Ah, Nepal is chinese for Nepal.
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Mar 8, 2013 16:36
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The Chinese name of Nepal is a transliteration of the English name anyway. Look for "Expensive State" at the bottom. It's quite fun figuring out what the Chinese name is supposed to be without any knowledge of Chinese geography.
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Mar 8, 2013 16:47
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zoux posted:
Meanwhile, on a related note:  Doesn't "New Spear Island" sound much more awesome than New Jersey? Also I think that Louisiana would be more properly translated as King Louis's Land. Finally, the translation of Idaho may be an urban legend, since it's possible it comes from the Plains Apache word ídaahę́, which means "enemy" and was apparently used to describe the Comanches. Vincent Van Goatse fucked around with this message at 16:59 on Mar 8, 2013 |
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Mar 8, 2013 16:53
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Vincent Van Goatse posted:Meanwhile, on a related note: I like that we end up with two states with the same name (Alaska and Maine). The translation of Idaho is anyone's guess. The guy who first suggested the name later said that he made it up (Idaho on Wikipedia). You would think, for a name that's only been around for 150 years, we would know where it came from.
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Mar 8, 2013 18:52
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Not a map persay, but this is the flag of Detroit the lettering translates as "We hope for better things" and "It will rise from the ashes", after the city was literally burned to the ground in the early 1800s. A little ironic/appropriate these days.
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Mar 8, 2013 19:11
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Wow, not too many places would be boss enough to have themselves burning to crisp in a flag.
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Mar 8, 2013 19:14
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zoux posted:
Chinese often uses phonetics from one syllable of the country's name for foreign nations. America is The Beautiful Country (and Americans are The Beautiful Country People, American style is Beautiful Style, etc). France is The Legal Country, England is The Brave Country, Germany is The Moral Country etc. Sounds cool if you don't realize aMErica = May-guo, FRAnce = Fah-guo, ENGland = Ing-guo, DEutschland = Duh-guo. Other country names are either phonetic or literal. edit: oh yeah, and Korea, called Hangook in korean, is Leader Country, or Han-guo. Thailand is Peaceful Country, Tai-guo. Modest Mao fucked around with this message at 06:14 on Mar 9, 2013 |
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Mar 9, 2013 06:06
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Vincent Van Goatse posted:Meanwhile, on a related note: The source of the name "California" is interesting in that it is not a real word or even derived from a real word in any language. Rather, it seems to have come from the name for a mythical island in a popular novel of the time. Like, if it were discovered today and named 'Narnia' or 'Arrakis' or something like that.
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Mar 9, 2013 07:30
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Vincent Van Goatse posted:Meanwhile, on a related note: Good god Delaware is the most improved name.
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Mar 9, 2013 07:35
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