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Baron Porkface posted:I was under the impression that this was a myth as well, at least relative to Polish nationalists on Wargaming forums. Like any Nazi's statements you need to weigh it in context and consider the source - but General Westphal's assessment seems reasonable enough and runs counter to the "invincible reich" image they had been carefully cultivating. And given that it came out after the war and isn't an (obviously) self-serving statement, I'd consider it credible.
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May 23, 2014 23:15
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Baron Porkface posted:I was under the impression that this was a myth as well, at least relative to Polish nationalists on Wargaming forums. You don't spend years and years dumping your defense budget into a giant wall because you are preparing to go on the attack.
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May 24, 2014 02:23
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Omi-Polari posted:I'm curious whether a similar process occurred in the Soviet bloc. While the West had German generals to write the history of the Eastern Front for them, the Soviets really didn't have anyone. There is a lot of pointing out that the Allies promised a second front and didn't deliver until nobody but the most steadfast fanatics believed in German victory, really basic factual information (major offensives, who went where, meeting at Elbe), the begrudging admission that the Sherman was a good tank too (not as good as the T-34 or IS-2, of course), and the obligatory mention that the entire Western world shat their pants when they saw an IS-3 and scrambled around to find a countermeasure to it ASAP. OctaviusBeaver posted:You don't spend years and years dumping your defense budget into a giant wall because you are preparing to go on the attack. Actually, the Polish war plan with Germany included a counteroffensive. But yes, the Polish dream of fighting everyone and retaking all "their" territories would have never panned out. Although they should really have gotten Galitsia back, I think. moths posted:If you're not a tank nerd, sloped armor conveys has huge advantages: There's both some force deflection of impacting shells, and you 'cheat' extra thickness since incoming rounds must traverse the not-shortest path to breach the armor. (Think of crossing a street directly (regular armor) vs crossing the same street at a weird 45 degree angle.) With sloped armor you get more protection out of your armor, which is better design all the way down since it weighs less and puts less stress on other design elements. I like the German metaphor.  If you cut diagonally, your sausage slice will be longer!
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May 24, 2014 03:30
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The Panther was an excellent tank. It just broke down all the time since they were rushed out, composed of substandard raw material, and didn't have any spare parts made.
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May 24, 2014 05:54
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Also had an abysmal high explosive shell, a nearly blind gunner, and a hilarious front to side armour ratio. Other than that, it was good.
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May 24, 2014 18:13
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In all fairness you were kind of hard hosed if you got flanked in any ww2 AFV
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May 24, 2014 20:51
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Mr. Sunshine posted:The myth of nazi super-science feeds into the same self-comforting delusions. Sure, they managed some spectacular things like rockets and jet planes, but only late in the war and it never amounted to much. The legendary nazi supertank, the Tiger: The Tiger preceded the IS series by something like 2 years, so comparing them isn't exactly fair. The Tiger II (also known as the King Tiger), which was introduced during roughly the same period as the IS-2, had sloped armor, as did the Panther.
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May 24, 2014 21:14
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Plus, its not like the USSR didn't have their share of white elephants and duds: The T-35: a heavy tank with five turrets, expensive, slow and mechanically unreliable. Production run ended at 61 units. quote:There is a lot of pointing out that the Allies promised a second front and didn't deliver until nobody but the most steadfast fanatics believed in German victory, really basic factual information (major offensives, who went where, meeting at Elbe), the begrudging admission that the Sherman was a good tank too (not as good as the T-34 or IS-2, of course), and the obligatory mention that the entire Western world shat their pants when they saw an IS-3 and scrambled around to find a countermeasure to it ASAP. What, if anything, did they say about their naval power, strategic bombing capability, the massive industrial capacity of the United States and the atomic bomb? And when did the "Western World" ever see an IS-3 in action, considering that it was apparently only used in Manchuria?
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May 24, 2014 21:32
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It's pretty amusing how obsolete the German thinking was for long term tank design. In 1944 they were making designs and plans for the E series tanks expected for use in 46-47. These tanks were pretty much just incremental improvements over the early 40s designs, just more efficiently designed. The Allies on the other hand were knee deep in designing the m46 Patton and T-54, which were the first true MBTs and they would have just completely poo poo on anything the Germans could have offered.Kopijeger posted:And when did the "Western World" ever see an IS-3 in action, considering that it was apparently only used in Manchuria? I assume there were western observers and correspondents with the Soviet force in Manchuria. And the Soviets paraded IS-3s through Berlin during their victory parade. Shimrra Jamaane fucked around with this message at 21:37 on May 24, 2014 |
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May 24, 2014 21:35
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Sunshine89 posted:All of these flaws led to her sinking, the fact she was basically sent on a suicide mission and that Admiral Luetjens was overconfident and made terrible decisions notwithstanding. Except that Lutjens wasn't overconfident. In fact he knew he was on a suicide sortie from the day he got his sailing orders and, as you might expect, was thoroughly depressed about it.
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May 24, 2014 21:48
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Is this now the colony of the milhist thread? Why are you all suddenly posting battleship and tankchat here? Oo
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May 24, 2014 22:01
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JaucheCharly posted:Is this now the colony of the milhist thread? Why are you all suddenly posting battleship and tankchat here? Oo Azathoth fucked around with this message at 22:24 on May 24, 2014 |
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May 24, 2014 22:21
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JaucheCharly posted:Is this now the colony of the milhist thread? Why are you all suddenly posting battleship and tankchat here? Oo Because they're tanks and battleships used by Nazi Germany?
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May 24, 2014 22:34
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How legit is My Tank Is Fight?
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May 24, 2014 22:42
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All of those 'fictionalized' story bits are actually recovered from real wwII journals.
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May 24, 2014 23:45
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Baron Porkface posted:How legit is My Tank Is Fight? I think von braun's space station is the only thing in there that was never actually committed to blueprints at least.
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May 25, 2014 00:42
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Kopijeger posted:What, if anything, did they say about their naval power, strategic bombing capability, the massive industrial capacity of the United States and the atomic bomb? And when did the "Western World" ever see an IS-3 in action, considering that it was apparently only used in Manchuria? Haven't read anything on naval power and bombing. The IS-3 was seen in the parade, I don't think there were any used in Manchuria.
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May 25, 2014 01:56
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Baron Porkface posted:How legit is My Tank Is Fight? If you ignore the lovely fiction the descriptions of the various crazy weapons are reasonable enough for the price.
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May 25, 2014 03:51
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Just how (de)centralized was Nazi administrative control by '42 on to war's end? Just by perusing the thread it seems like Nazis were plagued with factionalism from day one, but were those divisions of court reflected by geographic divisions? Could folks like Goering or Himmler rely on certain districts, provinces, etc. moreso than other regions for their own petty purposes?
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May 26, 2014 19:14
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Ofaloaf posted:Just how (de)centralized was Nazi administrative control by '42 on to war's end? Just by perusing the thread it seems like Nazis were plagued with factionalism from day one, but were those divisions of court reflected by geographic divisions? Could folks like Goering or Himmler rely on certain districts, provinces, etc. moreso than other regions for their own petty purposes? That's an interesting question. If there's such a thing you could most likely say that about Himmler and the Generalgouvernement and most of today's Poland. Why? Because of the concentration camp industryand the mid/long term plan to erect an industrial power base for the SS. There's alot of energy going into making that happen, bribes, sweet words, invitations to luxurious resorts, blackmail, etc. I know that Himmler kept dirt on every relevant opponent and momentary friend in his safe. Göring did that too. Imagine a map of the civil administration and color coding which Gauleiter belongs to whom factionwise. Power Khan fucked around with this message at 20:21 on May 26, 2014 |
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May 26, 2014 20:19
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JaucheCharly posted:What about Versailles? The myth that the Nazis' rise was "caused" by the unreasonably harsh treaty. In reality, neither aspect of the treaty was ever popularly enforced -- Germany stopped paying the reparations almost immediately and were successfully able to negotiate an effective elimination of both the duty to pay and the French occupation of coal-producing regions that was attempting to extract value to cover the shortfall, years before the Nazis secured power. The clauses requiring the permanent dissolution of the German military were ignored from the start and an open secret by 1931, to the extent that Carl von Ossietzky was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize for announcing details on re-armament to the world. Germany suffered almost no real consequences from Versailles specifically; it was all wounded pride and effects of the unrelated worldwide depression that struck all other countries as well. The explanation for Nazism must come from those sources and incorporate a meaningful conclusion about why Germany's culture went in a direction that others did not. The "it was the Allies' fault" explanation is popular for many reasons -- contrarianism, "I've figured out the secret that the Nazis were actually not bad and am smarter than you sheeple," and general anti-Americanism or pacifism that wants to somehow draw a lesson about how we should not penalize people for making war or blame every bad thing in the world on the U.S. But it doesn't hold up when you look at the details, especially when you realize the actual time scales involved. Over seven years from the last German reparations payment to the invasion of Poland seems like a close cause-and-effect relationship when looking back at the scale of history, but at the time, it would be like attributing motives for actions in 2014 to the bomb attack on the Glasgow airport or the end of the Sopranos, or other things that happened in 2007, which seem quite a long time ago.
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May 26, 2014 22:33
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Versailles was not only not too harsh, it was way too lenient (for Germany. Turkey got all but destroyed and, surprisingly, learned its lesson and did not start WW2. Austria got ripped into pieces too and too kept its head more or less down pre-Anschluss). Compare with the post-WW2 peace which effectively shattered any chance Germany would have at even European hegemony for the foreseeable future. With lasting peace in Europe as a result.
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May 26, 2014 23:20
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Kuiperdolin posted:Compare with the post-WW2 peace which effectively shattered any chance Germany would have at even European hegemony for the foreseeable future. With lasting peace in Europe as a result. So you're saying that the fact that no major war broke out in Europe until 1991 was thanks to the division of Germany? That's... highly questionable.
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May 26, 2014 23:42
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meat sweats posted:The myth that the Nazis' rise was "caused" by the unreasonably harsh treaty. In reality, neither aspect of the treaty was ever popularly enforced -- Germany stopped paying the reparations almost immediately and were successfully able to negotiate an effective elimination of both the duty to pay and the French occupation of coal-producing regions that was attempting to extract value to cover the shortfall, years before the Nazis secured power. The clauses requiring the permanent dissolution of the German military were ignored from the start and an open secret by 1931, to the extent that Carl von Ossietzky was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize for announcing details on re-armament to the world. I wouldn't claim that the occupation of the Ruhr didn't have grave economical consequences. Versailles is a popular myth, because it was the platform that the nazis ran on (and also because it was understandably unpopular). It fell perfectly in line with the Dolchstoßlegende. Kuiperdolin posted:Versailles was not only not too harsh, it was way too lenient (for Germany. Turkey got all but destroyed and, surprisingly, learned its lesson and did not start WW2. Austria got ripped into pieces too and too kept its head more or less down pre-Anschluss). Ok, where to start? You have heard of the 14 points, right? Austro-Hungaria was dissolved, because this was politically and strategically prudent from the Allies perspective, and also because the state would have fallen apart no matter what. So instead of creating a potentially explosive situation and a civil war, the state was dissolved orderly. The same goes for the Ottoman Empire.
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May 27, 2014 09:29
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JaucheCharly posted:I wouldn't claim that the occupation of the Ruhr didn't have grave economical consequences. The coal that would have been taken from the Ruhr during the occupation period was worth around $11 billion in 2014 dollars. Obviously this is a fairly broad calculation based on the current price of a ton of coal and the rate at which coal was being produced in the Ruhr in 1938, but it's roughly around there, if not less given that production was higher in 1938 than during the actual time of Ruhr occupation. Germany at the time had a GDP equal to just under $6 trillion in 2014 dollars. The coal did not get sucked out of Germany and go to France -- most of the workers boycotted the occupation and refused to produce anything. It was all extracted for German use later on. So, I don't agree that the temporary delay of accessing 0.0018% of the economy's value is a "grave economical consequence." Like all of the Versailles myths, the practical impact was nil and it was all about the symbolic value that the Nazis and the other nationalists attached to the fact that it was legally entitled to happen. Even discussing the numbers can tempt us into missing the point, which is that the reaction to Versailles is just another manifestation of Germany's culture perceiving Germany as entitled to rule the world and any impediment to that, including a punishment for past actions, as a grave offense worthy of literally destroying the entire country that perpetrated it.
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May 27, 2014 22:26
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Alekanderu posted:So you're saying that the fact that no major war broke out in Europe until 1991 was thanks to the division of Germany? That's... highly questionable. That is one of the reasons, yes. JaucheCharly posted:Ok, where to start? You have heard of the 14 points, right? Austro-Hungaria was dissolved, because this was politically and strategically prudent from the Allies perspective, and also because the state would have fallen apart no matter what. So instead of creating a potentially explosive situation and a civil war, the state was dissolved orderly. The same goes for the Ottoman Empire. That's true but mostly unrelated to my post, so I'm not sure why you're quoting it.
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May 27, 2014 22:46
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Kuiperdolin posted:That is one of the reasons, yes. If you're seriously going to argue that post-WW2 German continued to pose an existential threat to world peace that could only be solved by partition, you're going to need to back that up.
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May 28, 2014 00:43
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Kuiperdolin posted:That is one of the reasons, yes. That's not what you said. What you said was that Versailles was too lenient on Germany because it left Germany able to start WW2, whereas the post-WW2 treatment of Germany by the victors was adequate, because Germany has not, as of yet, started WW3. In actuality, the rise of the US and the USSR as the world's only superpowers, the existence of nuclear weapons as a deterrence to any truly major war and the division of Europe (and most of the rest of the world) into two opposing power blocs meant that the particular postwar status of Germany has very little to do with the dearth of major European wars after 1945.
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May 28, 2014 00:47
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Cyrano4747 posted:If you're seriously going to argue that post-WW2 German continued to pose an existential threat to world peace that could only be solved by partition, you're going to need to back that up. Uh, the whole reason it sounds ridiculous that Germany could have started another war was because it was divided, occupied, and subject to a four-power veto by the former allies on its foreign policy. Duh.
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May 28, 2014 04:33
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Alekanderu posted:That's not what you said. What you said was that Versailles was too lenient on Germany because it left Germany able to start WW2, whereas the post-WW2 treatment of Germany by the victors was adequate, because Germany has not, as of yet, started WW3. Agreed. Geo-politics shifted dramatically after world war II. Germany, even if not partitioned and left to its own devices after WWII would have ended up in the camp of one of the superpowers or emerged into a Yugoslavia like in between if it didn't. The sheer military firepower and economic influence of both the United States and the Soviet Union was practically insurmountable and Germany couldn't have possibly emerged as a counter unless they turned nuclear themselves - not an easy feat without outside support. You see major wars start breaking out in Europe only after that balance is disrupted when the Soviet Union collapses. Testikles fucked around with this message at 05:56 on May 28, 2014 |
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May 28, 2014 05:54
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Alekanderu posted:That's not what you said. What you said was that Versailles was too lenient on Germany because it left Germany able to start WW2, whereas the post-WW2 treatment of Germany by the victors was adequate, because Germany has not, as of yet, started WW3. Had Versailles ended the existence of a unified Germany (for 40 years) and de facto ended Germany's ability to conduct any foreign or military policy that the U.S. disapproves of, then no, it would not have been very likely that World War II would have happened. After WWII, Germany was given back its domestic independence and its dignity in exchange for becoming a permanent American military base and having to politely ask permission from the U.S., U.K., France, and Russia before so much as throwing a pebble outside its borders. This is unambiguously a good thing for everyone involved and should have been done in 1919.
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May 28, 2014 09:04
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meat sweats posted:Had Versailles ended the existence of a unified Germany (for 40 years) and de facto ended Germany's ability to conduct any foreign or military policy that the U.S. disapproves of, then no, it would not have been very likely that World War II would have happened. Nobody's disagreeing with the assumption that a completely dismantled Germany in 1919 most likely wouldn't have been able to start WW2 in 1939. It is, however, a massive stretch to point to actual postwar Germany as the reason for why no more major wars broke out in Europe, since other factors are much more important. Alekanderu fucked around with this message at 11:05 on May 28, 2014 |
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May 28, 2014 10:41
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meat sweats posted:The coal that would have been taken from the Ruhr during the occupation period was worth around $11 billion in 2014 dollars. Obviously this is a fairly broad calculation based on the current price of a ton of coal and the rate at which coal was being produced in the Ruhr in 1938, but it's roughly around there, if not less given that production was higher in 1938 than during the actual time of Ruhr occupation. Ok, we're talking about strategically important natural ressources. An analogy for your reasoning: How much % of the economy's value does water managment make up? You come up with value X and then assume because of a low number that turning off water for weeks or months that there's no consequence at all, because hey, it just makes up 0,00000015% of the economy's value. Coal as the main medium of energy at that time has a coparatively equal status to industry, as water has to living organisms. How much of that coal would have went to the industry and didn't and what also happened to the energy sector and thus the rest of the economy because of that? Do you think that cutting off the most important area in terms of energy medium production has no consequence at all? It's not like that Germany can compensate that by just buying it elsewhere at that time. How much reserves does modern industry have in such a case? For how many weeks do you think e.g. steel or chemical production has coal stocked before they run out (and what happens long before they run out, scaling back production more and more). Look how long the occupation lasted. The Ruhrgebiet isn't the only industrial zone in Germany, but you can't just shut down the industrial heart in a troubled country (and continue paying the workers) and then claim nothing will happen for the rest of the economy. Also see how reparations were payed and the other reasons for the hyperinflation that followed. These are bad policy decisions, but they are made for one reason or the other because of Versailles. I don't think it was possible to sell the fine points about this to anyone affected by the stuff that followed. You look at a number and conclude that it's low and therefore it isn't relevant. Economies are complex systems (not to be confused with complicated systems), you change small numbers in core areas (like, surprise, the energy sector) and wild things happen.
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May 28, 2014 10:51
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OK, this derail is useless so I'm falling on my sword: I was wrong to suggest however unwittingly that ripping Germany apart after WW2 was the one, single reason they did not start any European war since. That changes nothing to the comparative leniency of Versailles.
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May 28, 2014 11:15
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I think the disconnect was that you meant Germany didn't start wars but phrased it as no wars occurred and assumed that the context of a thread about Nazi Germany would fill in the gap. edit: More on-topic, how legit is the stuff I've seen about IBM helping manage the logistics of the holocaust? moths fucked around with this message at 11:25 on May 28, 2014 |
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May 28, 2014 11:22
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Alekanderu posted:Nobody's disagreeing with the assumption that a completely dismantled Germany in 1919 most likely wouldn't have been able to start WW2 in 1939. It is, however, a massive stretch to point to actual postwar Germany as the reason for why no more major wars broke out in Europe, since other factors are much more important. It should also be noted that demanding a dismantlement of Germany, or a return to the status before 1866, would probably have been the one single thing that could have made Germany be willing to continue the war.
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May 28, 2014 12:57
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The Treaty of Versailles doesn't have to be actually overly punitive in order to have assisted in the rise of Nazism. It doesn't even need to have been enforced. Rather it needs only to be portrayable as such to the German people. When faced with poor economic conditions, the Nazis can point to the terms as stated in the Treaty and tell the German people convincingly that this is one of the primary causes of their current ill fortune. The average person on the street has very poor understanding of macroeconomics and it isn't reasonable to assume that this was not the case in 1930s Germany. You can make an argument that the treaty may not have hugely impacted Germany economically. You would have a much harder time arguing that it didn't impact German politically.
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May 28, 2014 13:48
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moths posted:edit: More on-topic, how legit is the stuff I've seen about IBM helping manage the logistics of the holocaust? A German IBM subsidiary used IBM punch cards and simple computers to do census data for the Nazis. This technology was later used after the invasion of Poland and the Soviet Union to implement and carry out the Holocaust. The claim that IBM knowingly helped the Nazis carry out the Holocaust can't be easily made, the evidence isn't there, but they were helping the Nazis in a general sense. No one outside of Germany and occupied Europe really knew about the Holocaust as we imagine it today at that time. People in Germany and the occupied territories spread rumors about genocidal activities but even then the mass shootings in the East were what was mostly talked about. The Holocaust was a pretty well kept secret, the Nazis were very careful about it and used codewords for everything related to it. The high ranking officers and officials involved in day to day operations were forbidden to talk about it over telephone or radio in case their conversations were intercepted as well. All Holocaust information was conveyed by SS messengers and destroyed soon after receiving them. It's only after the Allies liberated the camps and captured documents before they were destroyed that the world learned about the full extent of what the Germans were doing. RocknRollaAyatollah fucked around with this message at 14:09 on May 28, 2014 |
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May 28, 2014 13:52
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moths posted:edit: More on-topic, how legit is the stuff I've seen about IBM helping manage the logistics of the holocaust? Appropriately enough, IBM and the Holocaust is a pretty good read on the topic. While the Nazi's would absolutely have killed large numbers of Jews, Gypsies and other "undesirables" without IBM's help, IBM punchcard readers, and the Census data they provided, was vital to helping the Nazi's find all the people they wanted to murder. There is no evidence that IBM in the U.S. knew about the Holocaust exactly as it was happening. However, IBM knowingly supported German efforts to track and identify Jews, Gypsies and others, both in Germany and in occupied territories up until Germany declared war on the United States. And this was after The New York Times had published headlines about how Jews were being disappeared from Germany.
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May 28, 2014 16:48
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That's actually the book I was considering reading, but it was released under a bit of a cloud with a timed lawsuit and some more severe accusations that were dropped. I'll still check it out, I'm just concerned with how credible it is.
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May 28, 2014 17:20
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