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Arquinsiel posted:Apparently north and south still don't like each other very much. I saw some demonstration about how the filthy southerners are a drain on the booming northern economy or some such about seven or eight years ago when I was on holidays in Venice.
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Dec 3, 2013 21:58
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Arquinsiel posted:I googled it, but it's a FN FNC, not a Minimi. The Minimi is a LMG which would make sense to be heavy. Oops, yeah i meant the FNC. I was drawing from memory and remembered the wrong name for the weapon. The Minimi is also used by the Swedish Army, hence my confusion. Shows how much i know. Falukorv fucked around with this message at 22:05 on Dec 3, 2013 |
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Dec 3, 2013 22:00
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a travelling HEGEL posted:It's true: southern Italy is one of the poorest places in the EU. Why it is so poor is, however, never discussed in the North.
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Dec 3, 2013 22:04
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Can anyone tell me anything about carthage? They're always just portrayed as the roman republic's arch nemesis but I don't really know much about them, aside from that they controlled what is now Spain/Portugal and a good stretch of north Africa. How did their government work? Did Hannibal just get told to proceed to Europe and gently caress some guys up at his own discretion, or was there some kind of specific targeted plan to take down rome?
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Dec 3, 2013 22:07
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North Italy is a broad flat basin below the Alps, whereas South Italy is just mountains all the way down. There are obvious infrastructure consequences.
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Dec 3, 2013 22:08
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Arquinsiel posted:What I've been told is that Marshall Aid was funnelled north and used to rebuild industry while the south was just kept agricultural for <reasons> but I suspect the sources had a reason for wanting me to hear that version.
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Dec 3, 2013 22:19
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Arquinsiel posted:What I've been told is that Marshall Aid was funnelled north and used to rebuild industry while the south was just kept agricultural for <reasons> but I suspect the sources had a reason for wanting me to hear that version. The north had all the big industries before the event. If you want to keep the industrial workers happy & non-communist (one of the purposes of Marshall plan), you mostly want to invest there, building big expensive factories to where there is no supporting infrastructure, workforce or significant resources just doesn't make economical sense anyway.
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Dec 3, 2013 22:28
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a travelling HEGEL posted:Also centuries of foreign occupation/exploitation. Does that mean Sardinia is effectively part of "the south"? IIRC it was under Aragonese/Spanish control for longer than Napoli and environs.
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Dec 3, 2013 22:54
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Hey Hegel, is it true that 7,000 soldiers died in one month to avalanches on the Italian Front?
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Dec 3, 2013 23:30
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khwarezm posted:Hey Hegel, is it true that 7,000 soldiers died in one month to avalanches on the Italian Front?
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Dec 3, 2013 23:55
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Rabhadh posted:No mention of The Price of Glory in WW1 book chat? Fantastic book about Verdun. The White War has been mentioned already, just want to second that. I've walked those mountains around Tolmin in Slovenia, I can't imagine fighting a single battle there, never mind loving 12. Yeah, I want to second this. Price of Glory is amazing, it tells both the big strategic picture around Verdun but also the tactical level, what was it like on the ground story. Alistair Horne is a fantastic historian.
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Dec 4, 2013 00:04
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Bringing up awful general chat again, someone needs to talk about General Mark Clark, commander of the Allied forces in Italy. You know, the guy who allowed an entire German army to slip away just so he could be the one to capture Rome.
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Dec 4, 2013 06:05
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To be fair if my name was Mark Clark id be a massive prick too.
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Dec 4, 2013 08:09
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a travelling HEGEL posted:
My favorite is this gem I stumbled on doing research as an under grad. Hang on... as the Allies scramble to deal with the remnants of the OE, the Italians wanted their chunks, and the ambassador starts pestering Balfour. His response (after like the ninth 'BTW, Rome called, they want to talk about...'): "The Italians will never be able to penetrate any part of Yemen worth having if their Abyssinian and Tripolitan deeds are any guide... Italy has no business in the Aegean, still less in Asia Minor."
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Dec 4, 2013 08:13
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Just seeing the name Gabriele D'Annunzio fills me with so much rage.
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Dec 4, 2013 08:26
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When I visited the Swedish Army museum I thought that the 30YW exhibition would be all RAH RAH Gustavus Adolphus, but I was pleasantly surprised that a lot of it was more like this:  Tbh I don't know how accurate scenes like this were during the 30YW (Hegel probably knows) but it sure left an impression on me. I also found out while GiSing for pictures that they had a temporary art exhibition with, well, modded guns: http://i.imgur.com/s2g1pRq.jpg (might be  )
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Dec 4, 2013 09:24
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What the gently caress? 
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Dec 4, 2013 10:23
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My great grandfather and his brothers fought at the Isonzo. He told my mom that somewhere around there, the tip of a mountain that was particularly well defended was undermined and blown up. I forgot the name. Have you ever been to the Carnic Alps? It's very rough and beautiful. Steep valleys, narrow gorges, high plateaus and towering summits. A great place to go hiking, but trench warfare?    I think it was 2 or 3 years ago that they found 3 bodies way up there that were sticking out of a cornice. They were killed by an avalance. The snow had melted and some alpinists noticed the bodies. Check out the pictures on this (horrible looking) website: http://www.kleiner-steinfisch.de/fernkampfwerke_stellungen_stollen_1wk_sperren_fortezza_dolomiten.htm That should give you an impression of the area. There's still lots of these fortifications left, even way up high where there's snow all the year.
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Dec 4, 2013 11:10
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What matters to Italy is that it finishes the war on the right side. 
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Dec 4, 2013 12:46
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Godholio posted:Taps is the signal for lights out, Retreat is still played on US bases at the end of the duty day. The specific time is up to the installation commander, but it's usually 4:30 or 5pm. My last base changed it to 5 because it was completely loving up traffic flow as everyone raced to go home (if driving, you're supposed to stop during Reveille and Retreat). The only "bugle" call (played on a phonograph) I ever recall hearing aside from Reveille and Taps at Camp Pendleton, was Colors. (e): The only time Taps was used for "lights out" was during boot. Outside Dawg fucked around with this message at 16:46 on Dec 4, 2013 |
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Dec 4, 2013 16:44
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Ghost of Mussolini posted:What matters to Italy is that it finishes the war on the right side. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeVWupFBkA8 (it was a lot easier to find this video than to find and copy/paste a lengthy section from the book  )For content, I recently read Beevor's D-Day: The Battle for Normandy, and basically he makes Montgomery sound like a pompous, incompetent rear end all the way through, though with a few random nods to his "undoubted abilities" or something like that, though said abilities are never really supported by the text. So, what exactly was Montgomery good at? I know he made his name beating Rommel in Africa, but how much of that was due to being a good general, and how much was due to America's entry into the war and material superiority over the Germans? I hear and read a lot of disparaging opinions of him, but he had to have something good about him I assume, since the Eight Army went through a few commanders before sticking with Monty.
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Dec 4, 2013 17:11
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Pornographic Memory posted:For content, I recently read Beevor's D-Day: The Battle for Normandy, and basically he makes Montgomery sound like a pompous, incompetent rear end all the way through, though with a few random nods to his "undoubted abilities" or something like that, though said abilities are never really supported by the text. So, what exactly was Montgomery good at? I know he made his name beating Rommel in Africa, but how much of that was due to being a good general, and how much was due to America's entry into the war and material superiority over the Germans? I hear and read a lot of disparaging opinions of him, but he had to have something good about him I assume, since the Eight Army went through a few commanders before sticking with Monty. He cared about getting his logistics right. That isn't sexy and it doesn't get him the propaganda love that the traditionally overrated generals get but it means he wins battles. He's slow and deliberate, but given the allied armies were made up of people who weren't generally willing to risk their necks that much he makes the best of what he's given. He's fighting an industrial war where his side has all the advantages, so he fights in a way that low-risk and leverages his material advantages to the full. The one time he doesn't do that it's a failure. He never shows real genius, but equally he was never going to screw everything up aside from his massive ego-tripping pissing off his allies. His best moment is probably his reaction to the Battle of the Bulge (he takes over 2 US Armies that had lost communications with Bradley and gets them to reform the line in the north), his worst is promptly followed by that where he takes credit for the whole battle and rubs his ally's faces in their most embarrassing moment.
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Dec 4, 2013 17:26
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In that context, how bad of a miss was it for his failing to close his part of the Falaise pocket?
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Dec 4, 2013 17:59
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Outside Dawg posted:The only "bugle" call (played on a phonograph) I ever recall hearing aside from Reveille and Taps at Camp Pendleton, was Colors. It's played at like 10 or 11 on AFBs.
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Dec 4, 2013 18:18
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Alchenar posted:He cared about getting his logistics right. That isn't sexy and it doesn't get him the propaganda love that the traditionally overrated generals get but it means he wins battles. He's slow and deliberate, but given the allied armies were made up of people who weren't generally willing to risk their necks that much he makes the best of what he's given. He's fighting an industrial war where his side has all the advantages, so he fights in a way that low-risk and leverages his material advantages to the full. The one time he doesn't do that it's a failure. For most of the war, the allied tactic was basically: 1. Attack and get beaten back, 2. attack again and get beaten back again, 3. assemble an overwhelming advantage in material and attack, then go back to step one. Monty skipped steps one and two and focused on step three. And frankly his ego wasn't that much worse than, say, Patton. Compared to MacArthur, he was probably downright humble.
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Dec 4, 2013 18:18
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ArchangeI posted:For most of the war, the allied tactic was basically: 1. Attack and get beaten back, 2. attack again and get beaten back again, 3. assemble an overwhelming advantage in material and attack, then go back to step one. Monty skipped steps one and two and focused on step three. Rather he would replace step one and two with lying about what his army was capable of and setting too grand of goals he couldn't achieve, endlessly pissing off Eisenhower. He didn't have an ego problem, he had a setting reachable objectives problem.
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Dec 4, 2013 18:46
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InspectorBloor posted:My great grandfather and his brothers fought at the Isonzo.    Qvark posted:Tbh I don't know how accurate scenes like this were during the 30YW (Hegel probably knows) but it sure left an impression on me. Meanwhile, the population of Europe had risen precipitously during the 1500s, and was at an all-time high right before the 30YW. Which means that even had nothing else happened, they would have been well positioned for some kind of crash during the global climate change which occurred during the 1600s. The Northern Hemisphere was not a fun place to be even without war. Exactly how bad the 30YW was has been debated so much that the topic still ends up on quals a lot. There are areas of central Europe that remained free from conflict for the whole time. (Not to mention, of course, that most primary source reports of cannibalism involve hearsay and rumor.) But in my opinion, it was real bad. She's lucky to have found that..elk? Whatever it is. Edit: I copied some excerpts from William Crowne's diary during the government shutdown, if you'd like some anecdotes from the 30YW. HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 19:26 on Dec 4, 2013 |
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Dec 4, 2013 18:53
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Alchenar posted:He cared about getting his logistics right. That isn't sexy and it doesn't get him the propaganda love that the traditionally overrated generals get but it means he wins battles. He's slow and deliberate, but given the allied armies were made up of people who weren't generally willing to risk their necks that much he makes the best of what he's given. He's fighting an industrial war where his side has all the advantages, so he fights in a way that low-risk and leverages his material advantages to the full. The one time he doesn't do that it's a failure. gradenko_2000 posted:In that context, how bad of a miss was it for his failing to close his part of the Falaise pocket?
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Dec 4, 2013 19:10
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a travelling HEGEL posted:Edit: If you want to watch Italy still not be a nation, you need to read R.J.B. Bosworth's Mussolini's Italy, in which a bunch of nerds, roughnecks, and thugs try to hammer Fascism on top of the heterogeneous hate-pile that is Italy and it doesn't work. Most common punishment under Fascism: internal exile, where you send a dude you don't like to a part of Italy that he doesn't come from, i.e., a foreign country. My Christmas list this year is just a giant pile of books mentioned in this thread. e: "heterogeneous hate-pile" was the big seller, yes Chamale fucked around with this message at 22:06 on Dec 4, 2013 |
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Dec 4, 2013 19:26
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AATREK CURES KIDS posted:My Christmas list this year is just a giant pile of books mentioned in this thread.
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Dec 4, 2013 19:40
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Arquinsiel posted:To expand on this, he was also very VERY concerned with getting the average Tommy home safe since the threat of having Britain collapse post-war via a low birthrate was a real issue. To be fair to him though, he did TRY to make sure he had the logistics for Market Garden, but Bradley decided to tell Patton to ignore specific instructions from Ike and keep pushing, getting himself stuck out in the arse-end of nowhere surrounded and in need of supply. Where did that supply come from? If you guessed "poo poo earmarked for Monty" then you'd be right. That said, the problem with the plan wasn't inherently the supply end of things, it was more how his subcommanders also decided to ignore it and do their own thing on the ground. Whether or not the bridgehead over the Rhine was going to be held or lost is going into pure speculation, so the plan might still have come apart due to logistics in the long-term. Lots of stuff went wrong with Market Garden that didn't necessarily have to go wrong at all, but the premise of the plan was still 'the Germans are beaten and won't try to fight back'. In the grand scheme of things supply was actually the problem because as Monty admitted post-war, it would have been far better to focus on clearing the Scheldt and opening Antwerp for business. Then there would have been supplies for everyone.
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Dec 4, 2013 19:46
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Of course when Monty does focus on the Scheldt he fucks that up constantly and takes forever to clear it.
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Dec 4, 2013 19:50
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Raskolnikov38 posted:Of course when Monty does focus on the Scheldt he fucks that up constantly and takes forever to clear it. That's because he wastes time on Market Garden and the Germans use the chance to stop everyone running and dig in hard. Pretty much everyone agrees that if it had been the priority from the start then it would have been cleared without much opposition.
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Dec 4, 2013 20:02
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Pornographic Memory posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeVWupFBkA8 Apart from the stuff already mentioned, Montgomery was also responsible for putting together the plan for Overlord (cancelling the earlier plan of 'hey, let's split our forces and land half the guys near Marseille, also just concentrate our forces on to a narrow beachhead, surely that can't go wrong!'), and correct in his criticism of the plan for the southern landings in Italy (He correctly foresaw that the Germans would basically ignore them and the result was that a bunch of Allied troops ended up days away from where the fighting was). Ultimately, Montgomery was a competent, not brilliant commander, but a lot of other commanders amongst the western allies weren't even that.
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Dec 4, 2013 20:18
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Slightly tangential to military history, but why is it that all the diplomatic accounts of WWI have an ambassador requesting for his passport? Is it standard practice for an ambassador to have his passport impounded by the host nation until he gets expelled or recalled?
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Dec 4, 2013 20:23
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Alchenar posted:Lots of stuff went wrong with Market Garden that didn't necessarily have to go wrong at all, but the premise of the plan was still 'the Germans are beaten and won't try to fight back'.
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Dec 4, 2013 20:29
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DerLeo posted:Slightly tangential to military history, but why is it that all the diplomatic accounts of WWI have an ambassador requesting for his passport? Is it standard practice for an ambassador to have his passport impounded by the host nation until he gets expelled or recalled? No, they have diplomatic immunity so they don't need a normal passport to travel in and out of the country. But diplomatic immunity is something granted to an ambassador by the host state, so in the event of a war, they'd be in the same situation as any citizen of the hostile nation: welcome to the internment camp. Asking for "the" passport is really asking for a document granting the holder safe passage out of the country.
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Dec 4, 2013 20:34
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gradenko_2000 posted:In that context, how bad of a miss was it for his failing to close his part of the Falaise pocket? Not closing the Falaise pocket was a misjudgement (or a case of failure of communication?), but I think the effects are exaggerated. quote:What critics of Bradley's decision sometimes overlook is the fact that by escaping through the Argentan-Falaise gap, the Germans ran a gantlet of fire that stretched virtually from Mortain to the Seine. Artillery and air took a fearful toll of the withdrawing enemy troops. No one knows how many Germans escaped Argentan-Falaise and later Chambois. Estimates vary between 20,000 and 40,000 men. Not many more than fifty medium and heavy artillery pieces and perhaps that many tanks reached eventual safety. Radios, vehicles, trains, supplies were lost; "even the number of rescued machine-guns was insignificant." [41] All that remained were fragments of two field armies, the Fifth Panzer and the Seventh, which had effectively bottled up the Allies in Normandy during June and July, before the American breakout. The Allies took 50,000 prisoners in the Argentan-Falaise area; 10,000 dead were found on the field. [42] Those who escaped had still to reckon with the Allied forces at the Seine. An indication of the additional losses suffered by the Germans there may be found in the fact that seven armored divisions managed to get the infinitesimal total of 1,300 men, 24 tanks, and 60 artillery pieces of varying caliber across the Seine. [43] The German remnants east of the Seine, lacking armament, equipment, even demolitions to destroy bridges behind them, could do nothing more than retreat toward Germany. http://www.history.army.mil/books/70-7_17.htm The suggestion that Falaise was 'the battle that should have won WWII', from the title of one history book, is deeply hilarious. An extra 20-50k POWs sounds like a lot, but the Germans had 3 million men fighting on the Eastern front at the time. Fangz fucked around with this message at 20:45 on Dec 4, 2013 |
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Dec 4, 2013 20:34
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Pornographic Memory posted:So, what exactly was Montgomery good at? I know he made his name beating Rommel in Africa, but how much of that was due to being a good general, and how much was due to America's entry into the war and material superiority over the Germans? I hear and read a lot of disparaging opinions of him, but he had to have something good about him I assume, since the Eight Army went through a few commanders before sticking with Monty. In part the 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein's victory in the desert is slightly diminished by how the basis for his eponymous victory was laid down by Auchinleck. It's not THAT demanding to come up with something when your enemy has been stopped dead on tracks in front of your superior force by your predecessor and you have a railway while your enemy's supplies have to be trucked in from Libya. Monty could take his dear time to micromanage a battle plan In addition, Germany could no longer just willy nilly toss an endless supply of men and panzers and petrol to stroke Rommel's and Mussolini's egos. Germany had bigger worries in the vast Eastern Front, especially after Stalingrad. That the flow of superior US equipment started reaching the 8th Army at that time helped, too. I don't mean to say that the 2nd Alamein was just good luck on Monty's part, but the table was catered ready for him so that he could binge on the bits that he liked the most - elaborate battle plans. Once it came to the pursuit he failed in keeping up with the DAK.
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Dec 4, 2013 20:40
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quote:I don't mean to say that the 2nd Alamein was just good luck on Monty's part, but the table was catered ready for him so that he could binge on the bits that he liked the most - elaborate battle plans. Once it came to the pursuit he failed in keeping up with the DAK. Montgomery might have been slow, but you don't see any western allied units overreaching and getting cut off, as happened to both the Germans and the Soviets on the offense. It is easy to critique Montgomery today in full knowledge of what the Germans had against him and where they were, but a general at the time has no such 'god's eye view'.
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Dec 4, 2013 20:49
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