|
I finally caught up on the thread. That took much longer than I expected.gradenko_2000 posted:I would say though that the "Moltke messed-up part" was failing to commit to the Schlieffen Plan to the very hilt. Even if we grant that pulling the extra corps from the German right flank to send to Russia was necessary (IIRC not really because the Battle of Tannenberg was executed before those extra corps ever arrived), that still doesn't excuse allowing the left flank along the direct Franco-German border to attack so vigorously and then pulling off right-flank units to reinforce the left. There was also the issue of not being involved enough in commanding the front lines such that von Kluck, von Bulow and von Hausen got into fruitless pissing matches. While Moltke probably didn't help matters by pulling units from the German right, I feel like it would be wrong to say that Germany totally would have triumphed had they just stuck to the plan. The Schlieffen Plan isn't just something Moltke could have just committed to full tilt. It called for the Germans to attack with far more troops than they actually had, included moving more troops than was probably possible through the Low Countries, and also violated the neutrality of the Netherlands. With the benefit of hindsight, I'm extremely doubtful that the Schlieffen Plan could possibly have worked at all, and avoiding the Netherlands was probably a good thing for the German war effort. And that assumes that The Schlieffen Plan was a real plan to begin with. The huge numbers of troops involved sounds much more like a pitch to the Reichstag for more military funding, and a down-to-the-hour plan is exactly the sort of thing the General Staff knew wouldn't work in a real conflict anyway.
|
#
?
Feb 4, 2014 21:52
|
|
Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
|
|
| # ? May 16, 2024 13:18 |
|
|
Raskolnikov38 posted:I thought the main reason for the existence of attack helicopters was that dumb Key West agreement and the later one from the 60s that the US army and Air Force signed. Uh except lots of countries that aren't the US have them? The Key West agreement didn't have much to do with the development of the Hind.
|
|
#
?
Feb 4, 2014 22:39
|
|
|
PittTheElder posted:I finally caught up on the thread. That took much longer than I expected. I always felt that the plan suffered too much from the desire of the period for the decisive blow right at the beginning. As mentioned by others it was a plan too much in love with the old style that probably never existed and also suffered from the greatest weakness of all overly complicated plans; it was too dependent upon everything going right, including your opponent. Hit a pocket of stubborn resistance and it starts to get really bad really quickly.
|
|
#
?
Feb 4, 2014 22:45
|
|
|
Taerkar posted:...it was a plan too much in love with the old style that probably never existed and also suffered from the greatest weakness of all overly complicated plans; it was too dependent upon everything going right, including your opponent. Hit a pocket of stubborn resistance and it starts to get really bad really quickly. Exactly. And this is exactly the sort of thing that the Prussian General Staff would have understood better than anybody, including Schlieffen and both Moltkes. Which is why I can't imagine they ever really intended to follow it. It's much more of a general concept map I think.
|
|
#
?
Feb 4, 2014 22:52
|
|
|
feedmegin posted:Uh except lots of countries that aren't the US have them? The Key West agreement didn't have much to do with the development of the Hind. AFAIK attack helicopters exist to combat the innumerable hordes of soviet tanks streaming through the Fulda gap. The Hind had a slightly different role, in that it could carry infantry and was more adapted as an all-rounder type of deal compared to apache and similar craft.
|
|
#
?
Feb 5, 2014 01:11
|
|
|
Shimrra Jamaane posted:Isn't Dan Carlin citing Neil Ferguson in his podcasts on WWI? That isn't good. I was actually the one who originally whined about that in this thread, but on balance I thought the first episode was ok. It's not like Carlin is doing "Niall Ferguson's WWI podcast," he's citing a variety of sources. Also that is just something that you have to deal with as you become well-informed about history, as with any topic. "Laypeople" will cite sources or repeat arguments or factoids less because they're substantive and more because they're interesting. The Pity of War was an interesting book because Ferguson advanced a daring thesis that challenged conventional wisdom. A scholar with knowledge of the topic would know that Ferguson advanced beyond his lines of supply--his evidence--but Carlin is an enthusiastic amateur. Anyway I enjoyed the first episode. I haven't listened to the second but I'll probably do so in the next few days. Incidentally I was reading Ferguson's wiki entry just now to make sure I was spelling his first name right and I noticed that in the section for The Pity of War it states that he disagreed with the Sonderweg thesis. That caused me to do a double take, because disagreeing with the Sonderweg thesis in 1998 is, uh, not exactly daring. That fight was more of an '80s thing.
|
|
#
?
Feb 5, 2014 01:12
|
|
|
One of the things I'm learning from this thread is that the difference between a lay person (like me) and a scholar (like lots of you) is that we tend to read a buttload of stuff on the subject, but you guys seem to know what the progression from Understanding A to Understanding B is with <topic> and the logic behind why that understanding changed.
|
|
#
?
Feb 5, 2014 01:17
|
|
|
This is true for nearly everything I think. You can't really absolutely master a subject or skill by just reading heaps of poo poo about it on the net.
|
|
#
?
Feb 5, 2014 01:21
|
|
|
Arquinsiel posted:One of the things I'm learning from this thread is that the difference between a lay person (like me) and a scholar (like lots of you) is that we tend to read a buttload of stuff on the subject, but you guys seem to know what the progression from Understanding A to Understanding B is with <topic> and the logic behind why that understanding changed. Yeah, a lot of the most valuable stuff isn't the history it's the historiography. Does that tend to come from focusing enough on a subject that you look at all the various views and compare/contrast how they changed with time?
|
|
#
?
Feb 5, 2014 01:28
|
|
|
xthetenth posted:Yeah, a lot of the most valuable stuff isn't the history it's the historiography. Does that tend to come from focusing enough on a subject that you look at all the various views and compare/contrast how they changed with time? That's a large part of it IMO, together with (some) formal training in theory and methodology, and access to journals, internationalist cabals of subject-matter experts, etc. There are big historiographical problems with both the one subject I've done most of my professional work on - contemporary infrastructural development in NW Europe - and my hobby of trying to find out more about the military history of superpower planning in the Cold War though. Lots of... let's say meso-level historical subject matter lacks a fully rounded body of knowledge, or unifying concepts and theory cutting across the niche-y interests that drove a handful of people to do pioneering but isolated work. Or at least that's my interpretation of it  Hence me being a currently useless specialist in one field, and a pedantic hobbyist in another, fighting windmills and people's usage of tropes like the 'Fulda Gap', 'induced demand', or 'nuclear apocalypse'. e: WEEDLORDBONERHEGEL posted:No, it's deliberate and targeted. There are books out there which do nothing but give you an overview of a topic's historiography and major arguments. Depends on the subject!!!!!!!! Koesj fucked around with this message at 02:03 on Feb 5, 2014 |
|
#
?
Feb 5, 2014 01:46
|
|
|
Arquinsiel posted:One of the things I'm learning from this thread is that the difference between a lay person (like me) and a scholar (like lots of you) is that we tend to read a buttload of stuff on the subject, but you guys seem to know what the progression from Understanding A to Understanding B is with <topic> and the logic behind why that understanding changed. xthetenth posted:Yeah, a lot of the most valuable stuff isn't the history it's the historiography. Does that tend to come from focusing enough on a subject that you look at all the various views and compare/contrast how they changed with time?
|
|
#
?
Feb 5, 2014 01:59
|
|
|
WEEDLORDBONERHEGEL posted:No, it's deliberate and targeted. There are books out there which do nothing but give you an overview of a topic's historiography and major arguments. Do want. Are there any subjects where the historiography is particularly interesting? (I love military doctrine because looking at patterns of thought is fascinating, and I have a feeling historiography is similarly so).
|
|
#
?
Feb 5, 2014 03:28
|
|
|
xthetenth posted:Do want. Are there any subjects where the historiography is particularly interesting? (I love military doctrine because looking at patterns of thought is fascinating, and I have a feeling historiography is similarly so). The Linguistic Turn in history is interesting to read about as a cautionary example--we discovered Derrida but never really "got" him and then freaked out for about ten years about how everything is discourse. Some people stopped being historians entirely, because if all the information you get is from archival research then it's all just text and you can never know anything and it's not real to begin with. Those people, it turns out, were wrong. HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 03:44 on Feb 5, 2014 |
|
#
?
Feb 5, 2014 03:41
|
|
|
My Theory of History prof (Ankersmit) p much bombarded us with stuff from Hayden White's Metahistory, which IMO is a pretty cool book if you want to get into the whole 'narrative and plot' side of history. e: this is the point where McCaine'd have told me to shut up in old D&D. Koesj fucked around with this message at 03:54 on Feb 5, 2014 |
|
#
?
Feb 5, 2014 03:51
|
|
|
Taerkar posted:I always felt that the plan suffered too much from the desire of the period for the decisive blow right at the beginning. As mentioned by others it was a plan too much in love with the old style that probably never existed and also suffered from the greatest weakness of all overly complicated plans; it was too dependent upon everything going right, including your opponent. Hit a pocket of stubborn resistance and it starts to get really bad really quickly. In part, I think that reflected reality - Germany, even with Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire on its side, doesn't win a protracted war with France, Russia, and England. The real flaw was that they didn't have a fallback position if that part of the plan didn't happen, other than "continue the fight and hope."
|
|
#
?
Feb 5, 2014 05:28
|
|
|
It very nearly did though. Had it been just Britain, France and Russia they might have pulled it off. The United States entry into the war, despite their small direct military contribution, was basically the writing on the wall. If the US somehow stays out the Germans could likely have scored a decent peace settlement. They likely could have done even better if Austria-Hungary stayed out too. 
|
|
#
?
Feb 5, 2014 07:05
|
|
|
The US was able to massively increase trade in weapons, food and other supplies with the Allies, one of the major reasons that they weren't starving in the trenches like the Germans were. Germany was pretty much doomed from the start once the UK stopped all supplies from going into the central continent; France and the UK were majorly propped up in the long run by the US even before we entered. The entire northern half of France with significant strategic resources were taken by Germany in the Frontiers after all.
|
|
#
?
Feb 5, 2014 08:40
|
|
|
does anyone know more about this I found it on a list of captured german aircraft. I know it was not uncommon to accidentally land at an enemy airfield during ww2. But a full blown defection and so early in the warquote:Lichtenstein BC radar-equipped night-fighter Junkers Ju-88 of 10./NJG 3 flown to RAF Dyce, Scotland by defecting crew, 9 May 1943
|
|
#
?
Feb 5, 2014 22:45
|
|
|
Slaan posted:The US was able to massively increase trade in weapons, food and other supplies with the Allies, one of the major reasons that they weren't starving in the trenches like the Germans were. Germany was pretty much doomed from the start once the UK stopped all supplies from going into the central continent; France and the UK were majorly propped up in the long run by the US even before we entered. The entire northern half of France with significant strategic resources were taken by Germany in the Frontiers after all. I'm just imagining an Operation Michael in a world where the US isn't directly involved. Would a massive German advance like that convince France and Britain to come to the table when it got going? Maybe, maybe not; perhaps Germany wouldn't have wanted to negotiate while they were ahead anyway. It just seems to me that the Germans were plausibly close to winning the first world war. Much closer than they were to winning the second.
|
|
#
?
Feb 5, 2014 22:56
|
|
|
Trench_Rat posted:does anyone know more about this I found it on a list of captured german aircraft. I know it was not uncommon to accidentally land at an enemy airfield during ww2. But a full blown defection and so early in the war quote:Sunday 09 May 43 -http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No._1426_Flight_RAF#cite_note-rafmusju88-16 I Demand Food fucked around with this message at 01:50 on Feb 6, 2014 |
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2014 01:40
|
|
|
Was there any such thing as "reverse lend-lease"? Did the other Allies send anything to the Americans in return for their material aid, or was killing Germans payment enough? I understand lend-lease was basically supposed to be free poo poo for other countries in support of the war effort, but surely there'd be some things the Americans might be interested in getting their hands on other Allies could provide too.
|
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2014 01:53
|
|
|
Pornographic Memory posted:Was there any such thing as "reverse lend-lease"? Did the other Allies send anything to the Americans in return for their material aid, or was killing Germans payment enough? I understand lend-lease was basically supposed to be free poo poo for other countries in support of the war effort, but surely there'd be some things the Americans might be interested in getting their hands on other Allies could provide too. The Destroyers for Bases deal where the US unloaded 50 late 1910's destroyers in exchange for 100 years of free basing rights in a bunch of British possessions.
|
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2014 01:57
|
|
|
Pornographic Memory posted:Was there any such thing as "reverse lend-lease"? Did the other Allies send anything to the Americans in return for their material aid, or was killing Germans payment enough? I understand lend-lease was basically supposed to be free poo poo for other countries in support of the war effort, but surely there'd be some things the Americans might be interested in getting their hands on other Allies could provide too. There was, but what the US supplied the other Allies via Lend-Lease typically far outweighed the monetary value of what they got back in return. It really was about supporting the war effort against Germany and Japan more than anything. The British supplied the US with ambulances, Canada supplied launches and de Havilland Mosquitos for ASW and photo-reconnaissance purposes, Australia and New Zealand supplied US forces in the Pacific with food and built some airports in the South Pacific for American use. I think Canada also picked up part of the tab for some joint construction projects that the US ended up using exclusively after the war and Brazil allowed the US to deploy a radio monitoring unit and conducted some spy sweeps on behalf of the US. As far as I know, the US got pretty much nothing back in return from the USSR, though.
|
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2014 02:08
|
|
|
Pornographic Memory posted:Was there any such thing as "reverse lend-lease"? Did the other Allies send anything to the Americans in return for their material aid, or was killing Germans payment enough? I understand lend-lease was basically supposed to be free poo poo for other countries in support of the war effort, but surely there'd be some things the Americans might be interested in getting their hands on other Allies could provide too. Well, there was some repayment during and after the war in shared technology, rare minerals and services like base use and refueling from pretty much all the Allied countries. And there were straight up cash repayments of the loan, though the Soviets never paid off a large portion of their loan and the US took a lump sum payment and wrote off the rest as a loss in the 1970's. Britain made it's last loan payment in 2006. Still, the Americans were writing no interest loans and giving 90% discounts on market value prices for material, so on the whole it was pretty much always going to be a huge financial loss. For the government anyway.
|
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2014 02:23
|
|
|
Did "shieldmaidens" or female warriors actually exist among the Norse in any actual capacity, or were they very rare, or did they just exist in legends?
|
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2014 02:41
|
|
|
Pornographic Memory posted:Was there any such thing as "reverse lend-lease"? Did the other Allies send anything to the Americans in return for their material aid, or was killing Germans payment enough? I understand lend-lease was basically supposed to be free poo poo for other countries in support of the war effort, but surely there'd be some things the Americans might be interested in getting their hands on other Allies could provide too.
|
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2014 02:52
|
|
|
Britain also offered to provide the US Army with a number of their Sherman Fireflies (Tanks converted to mount the exceedingly powerful 17 pounder anti-tank gun), but the US commanders decided to turn them down because they thought that their existing weapons and doctrine were more than adequate enough to deal with the German armored threat. Spoiler: They weren't.
|
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2014 05:14
|
|
|
Interesting article on Japanese war dogs and military propaganda: quote:As artillery thundered on Peitaying Barracks on the night of Sept. 18, Meri, Nachi and Kongo put their skills to work. quote:There were some 10,000 dogs in service with the Imperial Army as messengers, sentries, trackers and sled teams at time and, as Japan marched across Manchuria and later China, the military recognized the need to ensure a steady supply of animals. It asked the citizens of the empire to donate their pets to the military for use in Manchuria, which officials described as a “working dog’s heaven.”
|
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2014 06:48
|
|
|
Pornographic Memory posted:Was there any such thing as "reverse lend-lease"? Did the other Allies send anything to the Americans in return for their material aid, or was killing Germans payment enough? I understand lend-lease was basically supposed to be free poo poo for other countries in support of the war effort, but surely there'd be some things the Americans might be interested in getting their hands on other Allies could provide too. The USSR sent the UK and USA a KV-1 and T-34 tank each for trials.
|
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2014 13:58
|
|
|
Didn't the Soviet also give the US a some titanium (which were vital for the space race) as part of the payment for lend-lease?
|
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2014 16:21
|
|
|
Ensign Expendable posted:The USSR sent the UK and USA a KV-1 and T-34 tank each for trials. Well a whole lot of good that did.
|
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2014 19:06
|
|
|
I Demand Food posted:There was, but what the US supplied the other Allies via Lend-Lease typically far outweighed the monetary value of what they got back in return. It really was about supporting the war effort against Germany and Japan more than anything. The US also got Spitfires - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Supermarine_Spitfire_operators#.C2.A0United_States Not to mention everything the UK knew about both radar and nuclear weapons (i.e. the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tube_Alloys project), in both of which the UK was way ahead of the US at the time. feedmegin fucked around with this message at 21:57 on Feb 6, 2014 |
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2014 21:54
|
|
|
Acebuckeye13 posted:Britain also offered to provide the US Army with a number of their Sherman Fireflies (Tanks converted to mount the exceedingly powerful 17 pounder anti-tank gun), but the US commanders decided to turn them down because they thought that their existing weapons and doctrine were more than adequate enough to deal with the German armored threat. Spoiler: They weren't. I feel like people get a big ole boner for the Firefly, which was no doubt an effective antitank weapon, but it's the usual War Nerd Hardware Boner. Consider this: production and logistics of incorporating the 17-lbr gun's ammunition in to the existing supply chain. Is it really worth it for the marginal increase in antitank capability, which comes at a direct loss in performance against all other items? People are really stoked up about tank-on-tank crime, but for the most part tanks were used as semimobile artillery or in direct fire against soft targets, houses and machine-gun nests. Bottom line - not incorporating the Firefly was a totally defensible and correct decision.
|
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2014 22:17
|
|
|
KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:I feel like people get a big ole boner for the Firefly, which was no doubt an effective antitank weapon, but it's the usual War Nerd Hardware Boner. Consider this: production and logistics of incorporating the 17-lbr gun's ammunition in to the existing supply chain. Is it really worth it for the marginal increase in antitank capability, which comes at a direct loss in performance against all other items? People are really stoked up about tank-on-tank crime, but for the most part tanks were used as semimobile artillery or in direct fire against soft targets, houses and machine-gun nests. I think the fact that finally convinced me was that if you compare the numbers of all the tanks on either side in Normandy, you realise there were more Fireflys and 76mm Shermans than Panthers and Tigers - ie. The Allies brought more up-gunned tanks to the battle than the Germans did. What they really wanted was a heavy breakthrough tank that could take an 88mm AP round to the face and keep going.
|
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2014 22:29
|
|
|
Alchenar posted:I think the fact that finally convinced me was that if you compare the numbers of all the tanks on either side in Normandy, you realise there were more Fireflys and 76mm Shermans than Panthers and Tigers - ie. The Allies brought more up-gunned tanks to the battle than the Germans did. Also the fact that the Commonwealth guys didn't even like it enough from a performance standpoint to have the ratio of Fireflies to other tanks be higher than 1 in 4.
|
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2014 22:38
|
|
|
Ensign Expendable posted:The USSR sent the UK and USA a KV-1 and T-34 tank each for trials. I remember reading about that on your blog, yeah. It's actually kind of what got me wondering if other nations had paid back, in some way, American material assistance. Also thanks for all the answers so far, folks 
|
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2014 22:38
|
|
|
The improvement from 76mm to the 17pdr is far from marginal. It's the difference between being able to defeat German heavy armour frontally at essentially any range, to requiring either vanishingly rare special ammunition, or flank shots. That's a huge difference. Whilst it might not be reasonable for 17pdrs to be on *all* tanks, the 17pdrs should have been on, say, all the tank destroyers, if the US actually believed in that doctrine. Either way, a few mixed into tank units would have made the difference - for the British, the 1/4 17pdr worked because the British Shermans fought in formation, using the 75mm tanks to spot for the 17pdr that lingered in the back and took the killshots. Fangz fucked around with this message at 22:53 on Feb 6, 2014 |
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2014 22:46
|
|
|
KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:Also the fact that the Commonwealth guys didn't even like it enough from a performance standpoint to have the ratio of Fireflies to other tanks be higher than 1 in 4. And only 1 in 20-50 US infantrymen carried a Bazooka, Russians were therefore correct in sticking to anti-tank rifles and hand delivered AT grenades. 
|
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2014 22:53
|
|
|
KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:Also the fact that the Commonwealth guys didn't even like it enough from a performance standpoint to have the ratio of Fireflies to other tanks be higher than 1 in 4.
|
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2014 23:07
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 16, 2024 13:18 |
|
|
Fangz posted:The improvement from 76mm to the 17pdr is far from marginal. It's the difference between being able to defeat German heavy armour frontally at essentially any range, to requiring either vanishingly rare special ammunition, or flank shots. That's a huge difference. Whilst it might not be reasonable for 17pdrs to be on *all* tanks, the 17pdrs should have been on, say, all the tank destroyers, if the US actually believed in that doctrine. I don't have any hard data on this and have no idea where one would get it, but is there actual evidence that the Commonwealth performed better against German heavy armor other than anecdotes? I don't doubt that the Firefly was a better performer against heavy armor in theory, but that doesn't always directly translate to a measurable difference in practice. And even if you have a measurable improvement in practice, it doesn't mean that the increase in performance against heavy armor was outweighed by reductions in performance in other areas and increases in logistical requirements. also no TD chat.
|
|
#
?
Feb 6, 2014 23:12
|
|