|
George C. Marshall also deserves some screen time for any WWII documentary. Man organized the largest expansion of the army in US history. Many of America's most well known generals from WWII were given command based on recommendations from George C. Marshall. Some quotes about him from wikipedia: quote:After leaving office, in a television interview, Harry S. Truman was asked who he thought was the American who had made the greatest contribution of the preceding thirty years. Without hesitation, Truman picked Marshall, adding "I don't think in this age in which I have lived, that there has been a man who has been a greater administrator; a man with a knowledge of military affairs equal to General Marshall."[40]
|
#
?
May 29, 2014 15:56
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 27, 2024 12:04 |
|
|
Mustang posted:George C. Marshall also deserves some screen time for any competent WWII documentary.
|
|
#
?
May 29, 2014 16:04
|
|
|
Outside of Pawn Stars which I unapologetically adore I've not really watched the History Channel for many years. It used to have some pretty great shows (I loved Civil War Journal and Modern Marvels and History of Sex....). Oh, and Vikings is fantastic, I guess I watch that too though I didn't even realize until right now that it was a HC show. Anyway, I just read through like 50 posts making fun of it so what gives? Is it bad now?
|
|
#
?
May 29, 2014 16:14
|
|
|
bewbies posted:Outside of Pawn Stars which I unapologetically adore I've not really watched the History Channel for many years. It used to have some pretty great shows (I loved Civil War Journal and Modern Marvels and History of Sex....). Oh, and Vikings is fantastic, I guess I watch that too though I didn't even realize until right now that it was a HC show. They show a whole lot of pseudo history and claim it as fact. What I've seen of their Hitler documentary is just the tip of the iceberg for bad documentaries. Last time I turned on the History Channel, there was some documentary about how aliens actually influenced all of the ancient buildings interspersed with ads about finding Atlantis. A shame, because I used to love the poo poo out of the History CHannel.
|
|
#
?
May 29, 2014 16:25
|
|
|
gradenko_2000 posted:GJ Meyer's A World Undone is an excellent work on the entire war that has enough detail everywhere (except perhaps the German East Africa campaign, but eh) to really give you an overall understanding A World Undone is the best "all in one" WWI book I've read though. I read it for the first time after reading The Guns of August because I wanted to know what happened next.
|
|
#
?
May 29, 2014 16:25
|
|
It is pretty bad, here have a break down of the first episode which Shimrra Jamaane attempted to endure.Shimrra Jamaane posted:I just turned to the channel because of my awful lack of self control. The opening scene is literally a man calmly placing a chair in front of a window, opening said window, and stepping out and falling to his death. That sums up literally everything about this show. I miss the old History channel back when they showed proper documentaries, even if most of it was WW2/Cold War  .
|
|
|
#
?
May 29, 2014 16:25
|
|
" However apparently the Munich Agreement was a one on one conversation between Chamberlain and Hitler in his office over the course of 3 minutes. But overall not insultingly awful.
" "Well sir, the Japanese are dependent on oil" FDR then asks "well who supplies it to them? 
" "We do sir" And that is how the oil embargo happened. Apparently FDR was an oblivious idiot
|
Hegel just reminded me of a cool anecdote that you guys might get a kick out of. So, for work I have to read lots of Old rear end Chinese poo poo. Like, literally everything and anything spanning a couple thousand years. I'm a linguist, not a historian, so really I'm just concentrating on how they're saying stuff and the content is kind of what the gently caress who gives a poo poo ; I tend to zone out after hour 5 of reading random bullshit and just wish they'd say "isn't" more. Anyway, so I get to the early 13th century and there's a kind of repeated refrain across a bunch of them that I took notice of and probably find much funnier than I should : 1200 or so : "Huh, the steppe nomads seem to be really organized now. I wonder what's up with that." Couple years later : "Apparently there's someone named 'Genghis Khan'? Something about being the 'Lord of All Who Dwell in Tents'? lol" Just a tick later : "O holy gently caress! O god!" Giant loving gap of no one talking. "The Mongols are great! We love the Mongols! We've always been the best of bros!" (I'm highly over simplifying because I'm summarizing a general trend.)
|
|
#
?
May 29, 2014 16:40
|
|
|
Honestly a lot of the old history channel that we have such nostalgic memories of was pretty terrible as well when watched with the benefit of 15-20 years of aging and education. That said, the new stuff is just awful poo poo. The history channel has always been edu-tainment. gently caress, my favorite show on it used to be "Tales of the Gun" which, re-watching today, is basically anecdotes about gunfights interspersed with some just awfully researched, frequently incorrect corporate and military history. I think the difference between what we had then and what's going on now is that they've abandoned the core subject of history in favor of a lot of speculative horseshit (did ancient aliens conspire to cover up the truth about 9/11?) and pseudo-reality TV (tonight on "Pawn Shop Hillbillies of the Ice Road". . . ). When they do actual history it tends to be less B-Grade documentaries like back in the day and more slickly produced special effects bullshit that tries to neither tell a coherent story or make an argument. A good documentary has some kind of thesis at its core, the same as a good paper or monograph, and a lot of the crap we see today is the film version of a badly descriptive freshman report that Michael Mann slapped some high octane special effects on.
|
|
#
?
May 29, 2014 16:43
|
|
|
cosmosisjones posted:Just finished Guns of August today and with hindsight being what it is I just wanted to reach back and shake the poo poo out of some of them. Any other good books on WW1? I highly recommend The Price of Glory, which is all about the battle of Verdun. It's exhaustively researched but has a readable narrative style. Verdun was one of the biggest battles of the war so it gives you a close-up view of what actually happened. Another great series is Lyn Macdonald's series of books on the British experience. It's almost entirely based on interviews with veterans and reviewing letters sent home, and is focused on what the actual experience was like for the Tommies at the front. I've read They Called It Passchendaele and Somme but she has several others in the series, basically one book for each of the five years in the war.
|
|
#
?
May 29, 2014 17:07
|
|
|
gradenko_2000 posted:Also Churchill technically did storm ashore Normandy with a broadsword and a bow and arrow. Jack Churchill actually didn't participate in Operation Overlord, he was off doing Yugoslav partisan stuff at the time.
|
|
#
?
May 29, 2014 17:52
|
|
Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
|
PittTheElder posted:Jack Churchill actually didn't participate in Operation Overlord, he was off doing Yugoslav partisan stuff at the time. He veritably was there, landing on Gold, Juno and Sword beaches during the same morning, wielding bagpipes, longbow and claymore respectively. In fact that is what Sword's name comes from Any claim to the contrary is a filthy lie.
|
|
#
?
May 29, 2014 18:25
|
|
|
Ofaloaf posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxK-qR14pVg Let's not forget the books Lyn Macdonald got out of the same research. I can particularly recommend her 1915: the End of Innocence. She's got great material on Gallipoli e;fb mllaneza fucked around with this message at 22:26 on May 29, 2014 |
|
#
?
May 29, 2014 22:19
|
|
|
Who had the strongest military in 1938 then? A quick browse through google states czech had 36 full strength divisions opposing germans 34ish divisions and russia had about 90 divisions.
|
|
#
?
May 29, 2014 23:34
|
|
|
Chillyrabbit posted:Who had the strongest military in 1938 then? The French by a country mile. The Japanese may have been in contention if not for the fact that they got routed by the embarrassingly awful Red Army in 1938/39. Seriously, the Red Army was in complete and utter shambles in 1938 due to the purges still going on. And all of their equipment (tanks/planes/etc) was still total trash. Remember, we are still 2 years from early production models of T-34s and KVs.
|
|
#
?
May 29, 2014 23:40
|
|
|
"Strongest" is a really relative term and slippery as all hell, especially for the pre-WW2 world when most militaries were very regional and relatively specialized for fighting in their own back yard. That said, for continental Europe you're looking at it being the French by most metrics, especially if you factor in both size and the over-all quality of the arms and training the men received. The other major nominee would be the Russians, although they had some just awful communication and leadership issues as evidenced by how the Winter War panned out for them plus a lot of their equipment was really outdated. The Japanese would be a strong contender, but they're kind of an oddball case and frankly had a whole bunch of issues of their own, and their whole military was just built to do some profoundly different things than what the French or even the English were doing. e;fb
|
|
#
?
May 29, 2014 23:47
|
|
|
Shimrra Jamaane posted:The French by a country mile. The Japanese may have been in contention if not for the fact that they got routed by the embarrassingly awful Red Army in 1938/39. The BT-7M was a very competitive vehicle for its time. Just because it wasn't a gamechanger like the T-34 was doesn't make it trash. Of you look at what the rest of the world was running around with, even the venerable T-26 could kick rear end. The Red Army had a hosed up doctrine that could be summarized as  and only trained to win a very specific kind of war, so it really depends on how the fighting would pan out.
|
|
#
?
May 29, 2014 23:54
|
|
|
Can't one argue that the Red Army was simply incapable of fighting any type of war due to the ongoing chaos at all levels of leadership due to the purges?
|
|
#
?
May 29, 2014 23:56
|
|
|
They managed just fine at Lake Khasan, so I wouldn't say that. This was before the 1940/41 swelling up when tons of junior officers were promoted beyond their competence.
|
|
#
?
May 30, 2014 00:00
|
|
|
Could you do some kind of comparison between the Japanese and Soviet tanks used there?
|
|
#
?
May 30, 2014 00:03
|
|
|
Chillyrabbit posted:Who had the strongest military in 1938 then? Using only the number of divisions a country has is kind of misleading if you want to know how strong a country's military is. Russia's military was strong on paper but the Great Purge removed most of their officers and left the Red Army a disorganized mess that only got worse as more and more officers were removed, "disappeared" or were just executed after a sham trial. The Soviet Air Force was also huge on paper, but IIRC most of those planes were either biplanes or heavy, long range bombers good for setting records but not good at tactical interdiction. Plus the Red Fleet... well, it technically existed and I think that's the only nice thing you could say about it in '38. For the strongest military overall I would probably go with either France or England, since they were still the premier great powers, if not as powerful as they were pre-WWI. edit: what all those people above me said better than I could
|
|
#
?
May 30, 2014 00:06
|
|
|
Ensign Expendable posted:The BT-7M was a very competitive vehicle for its time. Just because it wasn't a gamechanger like the T-34 was doesn't make it trash. Of you look at what the rest of the world was running around with, even the venerable T-26 could kick rear end.
|
|
#
?
May 30, 2014 00:11
|
|
|
Hogge Wild posted:Could you do some kind of comparison between the Japanese and Soviet tanks used there? Red Army T-26 The design of the T-26 dates back to old Vickers tanks from the late 1920s. While the most recently produced T-26es were much better, the Far East wasn't exactly the pinnacle of up to date tanks forces. The tank had up to 15 mm of armour, which really only protects from bullets and the most obsolete cannons. The gun on most T-26 tanks was a 45 mm model 1937, which could knock out any Japanese tank at any effective range. BT tanks There were various BT tanks fighting at Khalkin-Gol, from the very first BT-2s to fairly advanced BT-7s. While the intermediate BT-5s shared turrets (and a lot of problems) with T-26 tanks, the latest BT-7s had (slightly) better armour, superior turret layouts, and all wheel drive. The gun was still the same as the T-26. While the speed of the T-26 was about the same as the Japanese tanks, the BT-7 was a hell of a lot faster, and had the ability to make rapid marches without wearing down its components as much, due to its convertible drive. T-37 A scout tank based on a Vickers-Carden-Lloyd design, armed only with a machinegun, but with amphibious capability. Armour was about half as thick as the T-26, and it was vulnerable to armour piercing bullets and high caliber machineguns. Japan Type 89 Japan's first mass produced tank, based on the British Medium tank Mk. C. The tank had comparable armour to a BT tank, but its armament was a short 57 mm gun. While this shell could fit a little more explosive than the Soviet 45 mm guns, its penetration was abysmal, and it would be unable to meaningfully damage Soviet tanks from over 500 meters (I don't know if they even got armour piercing shells, though). This tank was very slow, even slower than the T-26. Type 94 A machinegun-only light tank, this vehicle had slightly better front armour than the T-37, but was not amphibious. Type 97 Te-Ke Another light tank, designed to be an infantry support tank with only a machinegun, replacing the Type 94. Nevertheless, Japanese engineers managed to cram a 37 mm gun previously rejected for the Type 89 design for having a weak HE shell. This gun's shells were fast enough to penetrate Soviet tanks at considerably larger distances than the 57 mm gun. Nevertheless, these tanks were largely used for reconnaissance and infantry support, not to fight other tanks. The armour of this tank was comparable to the T-26 tank. Type 95 Ha-Go A cavalry support tank, armed with a 37 mm gun, designed to replace the Type 89. A reduction in armour made this tank fast enough for cavalry, but it still couldn't outrace a BT. Type 97 Chi-ha A medium tank, the most impressive in Japan's arsenal at the time. The relatively thick armour (up to 27 mm) was almost as thick as the maximum of the Soviet opposition, but it was armed with the same unsatisfactory 57 mm gun. Despite the tank being heavier, its speed did not drop significantly, and it could compete with the rest of the Japanese tanks. Arquinsiel posted:It occurs to me that you might know this. What the hell does the "M" appended to a previously existing tank designation actually mean? Modernized.
|
|
#
?
May 30, 2014 00:52
|
|
|
Ensign Expendable posted:Modernized.
|
|
#
?
May 30, 2014 02:25
|
|
|
Arquinsiel posted:Huh. That seems kind of confusing to me, given that you could modernise a tank multiple times. Does A then mean "Armoured" or something entirely different? A as a prefix (A-7, A-34) indicates a factory #183 prototype. As a suffix it can mean a modification (T-54A, T-62A) or in the case of the BT-7A, the artillery support model. An up-armoured version would be occasionally indicated by E (Ekrannirovanniy: with screens).
|
|
#
?
May 30, 2014 02:51
|
|
|
FAUXTON posted:drat, dude's name was Bill Hitler. Sounds like an SNL skit. http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos/rk9abw/bloggers On topic: Did japanese armor improve much during the war? It seems like the theaters they fought in during the war wouldn't have benefited much from better tanks.
|
|
#
?
May 30, 2014 05:07
|
|
|
Not really at all, in 1945 those same Ha-Gos and Chi-Has with a slightly better gun fought against Shermans and T-34s. That didn't end well.
|
|
#
?
May 30, 2014 05:31
|
|
|
Japan made a conscious decision early on to not give a gently caress about tank design and production at the expense of anything else. All things considered it was the right call.
|
|
#
?
May 30, 2014 05:54
|
|
|
It would have come in handy if they were planning on pushing into the mainland more, but that would involve not fighting a war with the Americans.
|
|
#
?
May 30, 2014 05:55
|
|
|
Shimrra Jamaane posted:Can't one argue that the Red Army was simply incapable of fighting any type of war due to the ongoing chaos at all levels of leadership due to the purges? They kicked some serious rear end in Khalkin Gol - the battle was a near-textbook envelopment that Zhukov would pull off again (and again) years later fighting the Germans.
|
|
#
?
May 30, 2014 06:08
|
|
|
Ensign Expendable posted:It would have come in handy if they were planning on pushing into the mainland more, but that would involve not fighting a war with the Americans. Except tanks need oil and the Japanese simply didn't have enough to maintain a respectable tank force along with their navy. And steel come to mention it. You could wonder what might have happened if the Japanese did direct their priorities differently and aimed to expand inland instead of into the Pacific, but from what I know of Japanese military politics there was no chance in loving hell that the navy wasn't getting their share. Shimrra Jamaane fucked around with this message at 06:29 on May 30, 2014 |
|
#
?
May 30, 2014 06:26
|
|
|
Yeah, it turns out that a military dictatorship without an actual dictator to get poo poo done ends with your state at war with nearly everyone while your army and navy pursue radically different and mutually exclusive goals! That'll work great! 
|
|
#
?
May 30, 2014 07:20
|
|
|
I've heard a lot of complaints about the idea of a constantly retreating Soviet army during Barbarossa. Considering there's a lot of stuff that's just wrong that keeps getting repeated in modern media about the Red Army, what's the truth of the matter on this one?
|
|
#
?
May 30, 2014 07:20
|
|
|
Azran posted:I've heard a lot of complaints about the idea of a constantly retreating Soviet army during Barbarossa. Considering there's a lot of stuff that's just wrong that keeps getting repeated in modern media about the Red Army, what's the truth of the matter on this one? This is a pretty good place to start. The short form is that the Red Army launched a number of local counter-attacks that were generally disastrous but forced the Germans to expend men and supplies that they would later need in the winter.
|
|
#
?
May 30, 2014 07:24
|
|
|
jng2058 posted:This is a pretty good place to start. The short form is that the Red Army launched a number of local counter-attacks that were generally disastrous but forced the Germans to expend men and supplies that they would later need in the winter. I keep meaning to watch that! Just realized I bookmarked it three times, haha. Thanks. 
|
|
#
?
May 30, 2014 08:44
|
|
|
Shimrra Jamaane posted:Can't one argue that the Red Army was simply incapable of fighting any type of war due to the ongoing chaos at all levels of leadership due to the purges? No, that's definitely an incorrect interpretation. Although the purges and the athmosphere of paranoia certainly limited Soviet army's capabilities, they were quite capable and definitely no pushover. After banging their heads against Finnish defences for over two months and after suffering huge casualties, they efficiently regrouped, reorganized, sacked the old guard and completely smashed Finnish army in two weeks in 1940. Zhukov also smashed Japan in Mongolia in 1939 in less than two weeks. All of those experiences were later put to good use against Germans.
|
|
#
?
May 30, 2014 10:39
|
|
|
Ensign Expendable posted:It would have come in handy if they were planning on pushing into the mainland more, but that would involve not fighting a war with the Americans. Both the Chinese and Japanese did not get great use out of their tanks in China, and the coastal areas are the best parts of China for armored warfare, well, the best parts that had any real value. That being said, the Japanese did make improved tank designs, but they never left the home islands. There's not a lot of evidence that they would have made a lot of difference. The US was much much better at mechanized warfare than the Japanese were and I think in the more open territory of Honshu the US could have made good use of that advantage.
|
|
#
?
May 30, 2014 12:21
|
|
|
You could the Japanese a couple hundred Panthers by 1942 and they'd just get Jabo'd to death by American airpower
|
|
#
?
May 30, 2014 12:43
|
|
|
Panzeh posted:Both the Chinese and Japanese did not get great use out of their tanks in China, and the coastal areas are the best parts of China for armored warfare, well, the best parts that had any real value. The Chinese limited capacity consisted mostly of what would be reformed into the 200th mechanized division, and even then it was mostly obsolete light designs and armored cars. Over all they had enough to last them for one battle as a cohesive unit, so I don't think there was a way for them to use those assets in a meaningful way.
|
|
#
?
May 30, 2014 13:25
|
|
|
Chiang Kai-shek could have gone cruising for chicks in one and throw some litter from them at Mao.
|
|
|
#
?
May 30, 2014 13:51
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 27, 2024 12:04 |
|
|
Ensign Expendable posted:A as a prefix (A-7, A-34) indicates a factory #183 prototype. As a suffix it can mean a modification (T-54A, T-62A) or in the case of the BT-7A, the artillery support model. An up-armoured version would be occasionally indicated by E (Ekrannirovanniy: with screens).
|
|
#
?
May 30, 2014 13:54
|
|