Agean90 posted:Besides wouldn't the soviet troops be just as sick of it as anyone's? Especially considering they got hit harder by WW2 than anyone. They'd be on the defensive in an Unthinkable-like situation, and there'd been a steady stream of propaganda and paranoia about the USA and UK planning to destroy the USSR once the war was over.
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Jan 26, 2015 22:01
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Effectronica posted:Really, Khalkin Gol redeemed deep battle within the Red Army, so the main issue would be whether he could bring about the radical transformation of the Soviet military in time for it to be able to effectively implement deep battle operations. I guess the biggest issue would be what having a competent commander in charge of the Winter War from the start do. The problem with Tukhachevsky is that there are a lot of conflicting accounts and opinions about him. Some make him appear to be a brilliant theorist ahead of his time, others - a mostly incompetent nincompoop the likes of which Red Army had in droves. The only thing we know more or less for certain is that he at one point proposed a fairly radical idea of a mobile mechanized/armoured force TOE for the Soviet army, and that he was a war criminal who gassed villagers in Tambov. Pilsudski's account is a mixed bag: on the one hand he pays him a substantial dose of respect, even if it is underlined with a hearty dose of "I know you keep calling me a bloodthirsty lapdog of global reaction in your book, but guess who won the war", and on the other he revels in pointing out every single factual inaccuracy in The March Across Vistula. And if he is to be believed - and he corroborates the Polish sources with accounts of a few other Red Army commanders from the war, most notably one Mr Sergeev, an army commander under Tukhachevsky - then the Soviet chief seems to have picked up a lot of typical habits of people with a very high opinion of themselves and a very low capacity to learn from their mistakes. Namely, he keeps fudging the statistics in order to make himself look better, he might be lying about the actual strategic situation, or withholding important information about it, and also to claim his intentions were different after the fact. This last one is interesting because it can be very clearly visible in the part of Pilsudski's book referring to the initial part of the July Soviet offensive: Tukhachevsky claims that he intended to break the Polish line with a concentrated attack of his best forces as a sort of "battering ram" - looks like a proto-schwerpunkt to me. But according to Sergeev's version, and he claims to be quoting actual orders, the actual intent was to perform a pincer manoeuvre, which failed after the Soviets bungled up logistics, movement, and pretty much everything they could and the Poles just fell back a bunch.
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Jan 26, 2015 22:01
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feedmegin posted:But then you're talking about a situation where the Soviets attack the Allies first, no? Given how the Soviets had infiltrated the US and UK government, I can't imagine it being much of a surprise attack, unless it were some junior officers trying to force the issue.
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Jan 26, 2015 22:01
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Tevery Best posted:The problem with Tukhachevsky is that there are a lot of conflicting accounts and opinions about him. Some make him appear to be a brilliant theorist ahead of his time, others - a mostly incompetent nincompoop the likes of which Red Army had in droves. The only thing we know more or less for certain is that he at one point proposed a fairly radical idea of a mobile mechanized/armoured force TOE for the Soviet army, and that he was a war criminal who gassed villagers in Tambov. I mean, I'm assuming that Tukhachevsky surviving means that a lot of his fellow deep battle theorists survived too, and that he doesn't end up killing them. It's more that in the scenario where the purges don't happen, it's unlikely someone as stupid as Voroshilov is in charge.
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Jan 26, 2015 22:07
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Tukhachevsky supressed the Kronstadt rebellion, didn't he? gently caress him. 
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Jan 26, 2015 22:11
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Hogge Wild posted:War weariness is a real thing, but you're overestimating the effectiveness of the Soviet propaganda. Eg. Finnish soldiers were allowed to collect it, because it was thought to be so harmless. In this situation? To ordinary working class men who have just been told to launch an unprovoked attack on their ally of the last 4 years and instead switch sides to ally with the actual, literal Nazis who they've just finally beaten, for no good reason that they can see? The people who voted for the most socialist government Britain has ever had in 1945? You underestimate how much something as stupid as this would prove everything the Soviets had been saying for the last few decades about a capitalist/imperialist desire on the part of the ruling classes to trick the workers of the world into destroying socialism. It would back up and prove the most paranoid of paranoid Soviet propaganda of years past. Anyone who isn't literally Joe McCarthy would balk at it. Bear in mind 1945 isn't 2015 or even 1960. Lots of people in the West still had sympathetic views to the Soviet Union and even Stalinism at the time. Edit: as to 'paranoia' about Churchill wanting to destroy the USSR in this scenario - what's paranoid about it in this case? Under the circumstances it seems a pretty legitimate concern; it'd pretty much look like Operation Barbarossa 2: Barb Harder to anyone in the Soviet Union. feedmegin fucked around with this message at 22:21 on Jan 26, 2015 |
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Jan 26, 2015 22:16
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Tias posted:Tukhachevsky supressed the Kronstadt rebellion, didn't he? gently caress him. If you're looking for decent people among the upper echelons of the Bolsheviks, you won't find them. feedmegin posted:In this situation? To ordinary working class men who have just been told to launch an unprovoked attack on their ally of the last 4 years and instead switch sides to ally with the actual, literal Nazis who they've just finally beaten, for no good reason that they can see? The people who voted for the most socialist government Britain has ever had in 1945? You underestimate how much something as stupid as this would prove everything the Soviets had been saying for the last few decades about a capitalist/imperialist desire on the part of the ruling classes to trick the workers of the world into destroying socialism. It would back up and prove the most paranoid of paranoid Soviet propaganda of years past. Anyone who isn't literally Joe McCarthy would balk at it. Bear in mind 1945 isn't 2015 or even 1960. Lots of people in the West still had sympathetic views to the Soviet Union and even Stalinism at the time. Soviet propaganda was really, really crude.
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Jan 26, 2015 22:20
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Effectronica posted:A defensive operation would have seen them fight, yes, but I seriously doubt that there's any practical situation in which the American and British armies are going to line up with the Wehrmacht and attack the USSR. I'm not thinking a widespread revolt of the enlisted, but rather the high commands attempting to maneuver their way out of going through with it, as the British command did historically with the proposals for Unthinkable. Well, the second iteration of Unthinkable was essentially defending western Europe from some form of Soviet aggression; I wouldn't think that they'd have much issue recruiting Germans to help out with that. That being said their manpower and equipment contributions would be pretty minimal.
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Jan 26, 2015 22:22
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Effectronica posted:I mean, I'm assuming that Tukhachevsky surviving means that a lot of his fellow deep battle theorists survived too, and that he doesn't end up killing them. It's more that in the scenario where the purges don't happen, it's unlikely someone as stupid as Voroshilov is in charge. Voroshilov wasn't in charge because there wasn't anyone better, it's because Stalin liked him more. Many of the dumbest guys in the Red Army got promoted in that way. The purges not happening are not a guarantee of a better situation in Soviet command in 1941, or even 1939. They are not a guarantee of a reform in the military forces either, as Stalin would have probably blocked them anyway.
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Jan 26, 2015 22:31
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Weren't the British disbanding entire Divisions by 1945 just to keep the frontline units at full strength? I just can't see them be able to sustain another year or two of total warfare at the scale a war with the Soviet Union would require. Arming the Wehrmacht doesn't really help matters, Germany was scrapping the bottom of the barrel in that regard as well, and the French were still reorganizing their nation. So the main pressure falls on the US, with all that entails.
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Jan 26, 2015 22:37
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Tevery Best posted:Voroshilov wasn't in charge because there wasn't anyone better, it's because Stalin liked him more. Many of the dumbest guys in the Red Army got promoted in that way. The purges not happening are not a guarantee of a better situation in Soviet command in 1941, or even 1939. They are not a guarantee of a reform in the military forces either, as Stalin would have probably blocked them anyway. People were suggesting Tukhachevsky killing Stalin and taking over, so Voroshilov wouldn't have his best bud backing him up or blocking reforms. I doubt that could have happened, but in a situation where Marshall Mishka wasn't purged, there's clearly a very different relationship between Stalin and the army.
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Jan 26, 2015 22:40
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feedmegin posted:In this situation? To ordinary working class men who have just been told to launch an unprovoked attack on their ally of the last 4 years and instead switch sides to ally with the actual, literal Nazis who they've just finally beaten, for no good reason that they can see? The people who voted for the most socialist government Britain has ever had in 1945? You underestimate how much something as stupid as this would prove everything the Soviets had been saying for the last few decades about a capitalist/imperialist desire on the part of the ruling classes to trick the workers of the world into destroying socialism. It would back up and prove the most paranoid of paranoid Soviet propaganda of years past. Anyone who isn't literally Joe McCarthy would balk at it. Bear in mind 1945 isn't 2015 or even 1960. Lots of people in the West still had sympathetic views to the Soviet Union and even Stalinism at the time. The propaganda would have been posters of Hitler drawn as a dog loving Churchill, and Churchill standing on a worker and having a sack with a dollar sign and the text would say 'Pee pee doo doo he is a bad Prime Minister'.
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Jan 26, 2015 22:40
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Hogge Wild posted:The propaganda would have been posters of Hitler drawn as a dog loving Churchill, and Churchill standing on a worker and having a sack with a dollar sign and the text would say 'Pee pee doo doo he is a bad Prime Minister'. In the situation where Churchill is starting WWIII? I think that propaganda would have a point.
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Jan 26, 2015 22:55
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Hogge Wild posted:War weariness is a real thing, but you're overestimating the effectiveness of the Soviet propaganda. Eg. Finnish soldiers were allowed to collect it, because it was thought to be so harmless. I think what is meant is less propaganda from the Soviets about overthrowing your capitalist exploiters or whatever, but rather Allied propaganda about the Soviets, like this well-known one:  I guess they could make a snazzy card of a guy with a Waffen-SS uniform with that caption to gin up some love for their war against the Soviets but the Western Allies didn't exactly pretend the Russians were just some guys on the other side of the continent who were coincidentally fighting that Hitler guy too.
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Jan 26, 2015 23:04
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Pornographic Memory posted:I think what is meant is less propaganda from the Soviets about overthrowing your capitalist exploiters or whatever, but rather Allied propaganda about the Soviets, like this well-known one: I've always liked how he's helpfully labelled "Russian", just in case the point wasn't totally clear. EDIT: Holy moley.
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Jan 26, 2015 23:12
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Pornographic Memory posted:I think what is meant is less propaganda from the Soviets about overthrowing your capitalist exploiters or whatever, but rather Allied propaganda about the Soviets, like this well-known one: That too, but no, I actually meant Soviet propaganda. Because in this insane scenario, Soviet propaganda would pretty much be accurate and the truth.
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Jan 26, 2015 23:18
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Hello everyone. Fascinating thread. I was wondering if anyone here has some knowledge on the aftermath of the Falklands War, specifically how it ended Argentina's military junta. I studied the atrocities (Dirty War) of the regime in college but the sources I read kind of fast forwarded the end. Sort of like "Britain made the generals look like wussbags so much they resigned in shame, The End." Needless to say, I find it hard to believe a military junta just up and folds like a single-A baseball affiliate. I was under the impression that the British didn't explicitly embark on a campaign of regime change but I could easily be wrong. Apologies if this has already been asked.
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Jan 26, 2015 23:20
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Rincewind posted:I've always liked how he's helpfully labelled "Russian", just in case the point wasn't totally clear. I assumed this stuff is for recognition purposes. 'This is a Russian guy, this is what their uniforms look like, don't fill them full of lead'. Same with the one with a British dude. The American military had kind of a reputation for friendly fire after all... (Is there an 'This guy is your ENEMY. He fights for NAZISM' equivalent?)
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Jan 26, 2015 23:22
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feedmegin posted:I assumed this stuff is for recognition purposes. 'This is a Russian guy, this is what their uniforms look like, don't fill them full of lead'. Same with the one with a British dude. The American military had kind of a reputation for friendly fire after all...  Close enough?
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Jan 26, 2015 23:25
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Acrophyte posted:Hello everyone. Fascinating thread. I was wondering if anyone here has some knowledge on the aftermath of the Falklands War, specifically how it ended Argentina's military junta. I studied the atrocities (Dirty War) of the regime in college but the sources I read kind of fast forwarded the end. Sort of like "Britain made the generals look like wussbags so much they resigned in shame, The End." Needless to say, I find it hard to believe a military junta just up and folds like a single-A baseball affiliate. I was under the impression that the British didn't explicitly embark on a campaign of regime change but I could easily be wrong. Apologies if this has already been asked. It's really that the junta was already on the way out due to internal political pressures and the Falklands invasion was an attempt to drum up some jingoistic unity. The war being a bloody failure just sped up a revolution that was already in progress.
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Jan 26, 2015 23:30
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my dad posted:Close enough? I meant specifically from the same series for recognition purposes 
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Jan 26, 2015 23:35
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feedmegin posted:I meant specifically from the same series for recognition purposes Ah. Sorry.
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Jan 26, 2015 23:35
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Alchenar posted:It's really that the junta was already on the way out due to internal political pressures and the Falklands invasion was an attempt to drum up some jingoistic unity. The war being a bloody failure just sped up a revolution that was already in progress. Thanks for the quick response! I've also read people trying to paint the Falklands as a successful example of invasions spreading Freeedum!  TM. Glad to see it's more complicated than that.
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Jan 26, 2015 23:59
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Acrophyte posted:Thanks for the quick response! I've also read people trying to paint the Falklands as a successful example of invasions spreading Freeedum! I think the war was worth supporting because supporting it necessitated the fall of a military junta, but Thatcher was a friend to Pinochet so it's hard to paint her personal motives as being anything to do with freedom. Also, the war gave her a massive popularity boost just when she needed it.
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Jan 27, 2015 00:38
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Disinterested posted:I think the war was worth supporting because supporting it necessitated the fall of a military junta, but Thatcher was a friend to Pinochet so it's hard to paint her personal motives as being anything to do with freedom. Also, the war gave her a massive popularity boost just when she needed it. It's still the occupation of territory against the express wishes of the population in an act of blatant aggression. Honestly I never understood why some people blame Thatcher for the war, as if she was the one to order the invasion of foreign territory in a PR stunt.
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Jan 27, 2015 01:14
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I think because people have lots of other things to be pissy at Thatcher for so it's easy to just add A WHOLE WAR WHERE PEOPLE DIED AND STUFF to her list of infamies. I always read the war from the Argentinian perspective as being the typical "shore up patriotic fervour to ameliorate internal pressures by directing them outwards" type of deal that backfired. I don't know if the initial plan assumed that the UK would just make a stink but let the islands go (a plan that seems to work better when you out-gun the victim nation really badly and they don't sell oil to the US) or if they really thought they could take on the UK in a military confrontation.
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Jan 27, 2015 01:35
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ArchangeI posted:It's still the occupation of territory against the express wishes of the population in an act of blatant aggression. Honestly I never understood why some people blame Thatcher for the war, as if she was the one to order the invasion of foreign territory in a PR stunt. I agree that the invasion was immoral and worth contesting for that reason as well, but it is impossible to argue that Thatcher gave much of a gently caress about Democratic freedom in south America generally. It's good that the argies lost, but also important not to lionise Thatcher too much for winning.
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Jan 27, 2015 01:41
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Slavvy posted:I think because people have lots of other things to be pissy at Thatcher for so it's easy to just add A WHOLE WAR WHERE PEOPLE DIED AND STUFF to her list of infamies. It should be noted that they attacked in the Southern Hemisphere Fall, no doubt hoping that the British wouldn't be able to mount a response before the winter shut down any attempt at liberating the islands. Then you get a couple of months where the status quo can sink in and you get to fortify the islands to the point where an attack would be impossible to launch with the assets the British actually have available. Woodward's 100 days goes into interesting detail just how tight the British window of opportunity was. Then delude yourself that the US would side with you over the British or at least be perfectly neutral and the whole thing starts to make sense.
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Jan 27, 2015 02:01
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My favourite unknown detail about the Falklands is the one that came out when the official history started appearing, and it apparently has a bit about how in 1980 they were having preliminary talks on transferring sovereignty and then leasing it back to Britain for 99 years, presumably to make an eventual handover both a fait accompli *and* somebody else's problem.
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Jan 27, 2015 03:01
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feedmegin posted:I assumed this stuff is for recognition purposes. 'This is a Russian guy, this is what their uniforms look like, don't fill them full of lead'. Same with the one with a British dude. The American military had kind of a reputation for friendly fire after all... That's now what Soviet uniforms looked like though. That helmet is hilariously obsolete by that time.
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Jan 27, 2015 03:02
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Rincewind posted:I've always liked how he's helpfully labelled "Russian", just in case the point wasn't totally clear. Freedom to dental care is perhaps the greatest freedom of all.
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Jan 27, 2015 03:05
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Ensign Expendable posted:That's now what Soviet uniforms looked like though. That helmet is hilariously obsolete by that time. Also the obscenely huge red star with hammer & sickle adorning it. And, you know, he's happy to be there.
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Jan 27, 2015 03:06
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feedmegin posted:I assumed this stuff is for recognition purposes. 'This is a Russian guy, this is what their uniforms look like, don't fill them full of lead'. Same with the one with a British dude. The American military had kind of a reputation for friendly fire after all... What were both positive and negative stereotypes of various nationalities in the ETO? You mentioned friendly fire as American (though I don't know if this is because they were considered skittish and twitchy or because they had poor operational awareness and lit up their own by mistake) which I too have heard before but I was wondering if there were any traits held in esteem even among enemies. I imagine though that one's worldview would have a significant impact on this I realize: someone in their early twenties who spent their formative years under the NS banner probably wouldn't have many kind words to say on behalf of Slavic peoples, but I could be surprised.
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Jan 27, 2015 03:09
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Any tanker books like Tigers in the Mud but from an allied perspective in North Africa or the Western Front? Also, any further reading about the story (myth?) of a Tiger crew having to surrender when 14 Shermans or so were wailing on it, due to concussions or something.
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Jan 27, 2015 03:48
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Frostwerks posted:What were both positive and negative stereotypes of various nationalities in the ETO? You mentioned friendly fire as American (though I don't know if this is because they were considered skittish and twitchy or because they had poor operational awareness and lit up their own by mistake) which I too have heard before but I was wondering if there were any traits held in esteem even among enemies. I imagine though that one's worldview would have a significant impact on this I realize: someone in their early twenties who spent their formative years under the NS banner probably wouldn't have many kind words to say on behalf of Slavic peoples, but I could be surprised.  (I heard this repeated in some documentary but haven't seen it too much)
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Jan 27, 2015 04:00
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Frostwerks posted:What were both positive and negative stereotypes of various nationalities in the ETO? You mentioned friendly fire as American (though I don't know if this is because they were considered skittish and twitchy or because they had poor operational awareness and lit up their own by mistake) which I too have heard before but I was wondering if there were any traits held in esteem even among enemies. Wait, was friendly-fire a real problem for American forces in WWII? I assumed it was a crack about some of their more recent performances.
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Jan 27, 2015 04:17
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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ArchangeI posted:It's still the occupation of territory against the express wishes of the population in an act of blatant aggression. Honestly I never understood why some people blame Thatcher for the war, as if she was the one to order the invasion of foreign territory in a PR stunt. The Thatcher government certainly has some responsibility for creating the conditions for the Argentinian attack in the first place, since they continued the draw down of British military capabilities, which included the show-the-flag naval patrols in the South Atlantic that served as a fairly effective deterrent. There's a story that when she was told about the invasion, she asked where the carrier Ark Royal was. Ark Royal had been scrapped three years earlier. But that's not what the Socialist Judean Workers High-Colonic Front types are talking about when they shout about Thatcher and the Falklands. Oh no. Vincent Van Goatse fucked around with this message at 04:26 on Jan 27, 2015 |
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Jan 27, 2015 04:24
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PittTheElder posted:Wait, was friendly-fire a real problem for American forces in WWII? I assumed it was a crack about some of their more recent performances. There was a Wehrmacht joke circa 1944: "How can we tell the air forces apart? When the British come, we duck. When the Americans come, everybody ducks. When the Luftwaffe comes, nobody ducks." We Americans also bombed our own frontline twice during Operation Cobra.
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Jan 27, 2015 04:35
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PittTheElder posted:Wait, was friendly-fire a real problem for American forces in WWII? I assumed it was a crack about some of their more recent performances. Well, not all stereotypes are true for one.
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Jan 27, 2015 04:39
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PittTheElder posted:Wait, was friendly-fire a real problem for American forces in WWII? I assumed it was a crack about some of their more recent performances. It certainly happened. 504th PIR posted:
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Jan 27, 2015 04:54
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