|
Tomn posted:So here's a question - as everybody in this thread knows, the Axis powers were doomed from the start when they decided to pit their strength against the combined industry of more or less the rest of the world. But did any of the Axis powers ever consider surrendering early? Mussolini or the smaller Axis powers like Romania for instance - did they ever look at what Hitler was doing at any point before their total collapse and think "All right, hang on, this is too rich for my blood, I gotta get off this horse somehow"? Horthy tried his damndest to get out and the Germans invaded his country and put the Arrow Cross maniacs in charge. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Panzerfaust Romania switched sides, but that didn't help them a whole hell of a lot in the end. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Michael%27s_Coup The Finns bowed out and got their own harsh peace, and even fought against their previous German co-belligerents http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lapland_War There were plenty of other incidents of Axis personnel and organizations that gave up before the final German surrender. Would you count the Italians getting rid of Mussolini and then fighting on the side of the Allies? The desperate Slovak Uprising? The ROA's vain attempt to redeem themselves by fighting against the Germans at the last second? The uprising of the Georgian Legion on Texel? That's a very interesting and broad question. Teriyaki Hairpiece fucked around with this message at 06:48 on Mar 13, 2015 |
#
?
Mar 13, 2015 06:45
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 27, 2024 23:06 |
|
|
100 Years Ago There's widespread shock at GHQ when the artillery returns arrive. They've been gobbling up ammunition like it's going out of fashion. Sir Ian Hamilton departs for the Dardanelles without much of an idea what he's supposed to be doing there, or much of a staff to help him plan it; and one whole belt of mines is swept! There are nine more, of course, but Rome wasn't built in a day, old boy.
|
|
#
?
Mar 13, 2015 19:09
|
|
|
Can anyone recommend an economic or industrial history like Wages of Destruction for any of the other major combatants in WWII [especially US or USSR]? Especially looking for something available electronically; going on vacation and want to bring some reading along.
|
|
#
?
Mar 13, 2015 19:41
|
|
|
wasnt there even a battle where regular Wehrmacht fought alongside Allied troops against some renegade SS dudes?
|
|
#
?
Mar 14, 2015 08:42
|
|
|
Somewhere in Austria in the last days of the war (or when it was already over), to free french hostages from a castle.
|
|
#
?
Mar 14, 2015 08:46
|
|
|
Kanine posted:wasnt there even a battle where regular Wehrmacht fought alongside Allied troops against some renegade SS dudes? The Battle for Castle Itter, fought after Hitler's suicide but before the formal Nazi surrender.
|
|
#
?
Mar 14, 2015 08:46
|
|
|
100 Years Ago A review of the lessons to be learned from Neuve Chapelle; meanwhile, the French report that they've cracked the German line, and Herbert Sulzbach arrives at his rest billet, deeply relieved to be out of earshot of the guns. Also, another great advert for Pianola pianos, which I'm coming to enjoy almost as much as the ridiculous claims of patent medicine.
|
|
#
?
Mar 14, 2015 09:22
|
|
|
Goddamn do I want to see a movie about the Battle for Castle Itter.
|
|
#
?
Mar 14, 2015 13:18
|
|
|
I just want to read stuff about Centurion tank.
|
|
#
?
Mar 14, 2015 13:22
|
|
|
http://www.sniperflashcards.com/index.php This whole page is a mess. He seems to think that sergeants who are only meant to be in charge of immediate vicinity tactics being unable to plan a full city invasion is a sign of the US military having weak enlisted men, and that the sniper and self-propelled AA guns are the most powerful weapons in an urban battlefield. One of his pages also point blank says that the US Army doesn't have any self-propelled mortars.
|
|
#
?
Mar 15, 2015 03:33
|
|
|
Are we peer-reviewing peoples' rambling geocities sites now? 
|
|
#
?
Mar 15, 2015 03:43
|
|
|
Koesj posted:Are we peer-reviewing peoples' rambling geocities sites now? This guy even made an Android app for the Ukrainian military to fight the Russians and rebels.
|
|
#
?
Mar 15, 2015 03:51
|
|
|
I like this Fanfic he wrote where Sarah Palin shoots down Russian helicopters http://www.sniperflashcards.com/welcome_to_hell.php#tactics_quiz
|
|
#
?
Mar 15, 2015 04:27
|
|
|
Slim Jim Pickens posted:I like this Fanfic he wrote where Sarah Palin shoots down Russian helicopters Oh my. That's awesome. I have so many responses that I want to make to that. Like, "How do you have a thousand $40 SLAP rounds but only two M-16s?" Or "Why does your squad placement matter when you clearly stated that the enemy has plenty of artillery and knows your position?" Mostly though, I know the answer: You position the "Wolverines" next to the school so that you can bang Sarah's daughter behind the gym.
|
|
#
?
Mar 15, 2015 07:04
|
|
|
Crazy Pants Fan Fic posted:“Bill was a brave man. He never flinched in the face of machine gun fire. He held the sights of his Dragon missile steady on the Russian tank until the very moment when he was hit by enemy fire. I saw with my own eyes Bill single-handedly destroy a BMP on 6th Avenue and then, later, another BMP in the city park where he died.” Yep, sounds like something you'd hear at funeral. I loved the part about Russian mothers coming there to look for their sons' corpses in burned out wrecks. Very touching.
|
|
#
?
Mar 15, 2015 10:27
|
|
|
A few pages late, but I don't think the US ever intended to build massive battleships. Their designs were always limited by the size of the locks in the Panama canal. Here's the Missouri moving through in 1945. 
|
|
#
?
Mar 15, 2015 15:50
|
|
|
The Montanas would have been too wide for the Canal and I don't think you can see they never intended to build them. They were fully authorized by Congress and they would have built them had war experience not shown that the Navy just didn't need a 28kt superbattleship.
|
|
#
?
Mar 15, 2015 16:24
|
|
|
Zorak of Michigan posted:The Montanas would have been too wide for the Canal and I don't think you can see they never intended to build them. They were fully authorized by Congress and they would have built them had war experience not shown that the Navy just didn't need a 28kt superbattleship. The Montanas were also planned around a new set of locks for the Panama Canal that were abandoned when the war broken out.
|
|
#
?
Mar 15, 2015 16:34
|
|
|
jng2058 posted:With your biggest ally down and out, you're standing alone against seemingly invincible military power that keeps doing poo poo no one thinks is possible, and lots of people are calling for a negotiated peace, Winston saying "gently caress that, we're still fighting" really was pretty courageous. This is probably going to veer into Black Gay HItler territory but assuming Britain magically negotiates a peace with Germany in 1940, what does that mean for the USSR? I mean I feel that the US would have still entered the war due to Pearl Habour. However would the loss of Allied land lease have done much to hurt the Soviet Union?:
|
|
#
?
Mar 15, 2015 17:57
|
|
|
I think the general consensus is that it would have hurt badly although they still had a decent chance.
|
|
#
?
Mar 15, 2015 18:14
|
|
|
SkySteak posted:This is probably going to veer into Black Gay HItler territory but assuming Britain magically negotiates a peace with Germany in 1940, what does that mean for the USSR? I mean I feel that the US would have still entered the war due to Pearl Habour. However would the loss of Allied land lease have done much to hurt the Soviet Union?: Stalin's strategy relied on Germany being busy in the west until 1942 or so at which point Red Army would be ready to kick some rear end. In this changed situation we don't know what Uncle Joe would have done, but he most likely wouldn't have trusted Germany so much that Barbarossa would have come as a surprise when it started in 15 May 1941 (no Operation Marita in this alt reality). The biggest "what if" comes from Soviets possibly being better prepared at the beginning, especially in the air. Also if Black Gay Zhukov had wrested power from Stalin in a Kremlin cage match so there was someone sane in charge of the operations.
|
|
#
?
Mar 15, 2015 19:23
|
|
|
The problem (or one of them) with all the "Germany beats the Soviet Union" speculations is what does a German victory look like? Panzers drive all the way to the Pacific? Stalin is overthrown and replaced by a pro-Nazi government, which signs a peace treaty? Germany stops somewhere in the middle and holds that line, indefinately? It's really hard to come up with a reasonable result that Germany likes.
|
|
#
?
Mar 15, 2015 19:50
|
|
|
At that point you might not care, it was a gamble. If Germany had reached the Arkhangelsk-Astrakhan line then Soviet Union's economy would have been pretty hosed so even though the war in the east would have continued likely forever, there certainly would have been no Red Army taking the Reichstag in 1945. Not that they had any chance in doing so, but hey the previous land campaigns had been decisively successful so what could go wrong???
|
|
#
?
Mar 15, 2015 20:40
|
|
|
BurningStone posted:The problem (or one of them) with all the "Germany beats the Soviet Union" speculations is what does a German victory look like? Panzers drive all the way to the Pacific? Stalin is overthrown and replaced by a pro-Nazi government, which signs a peace treaty? Germany stops somewhere in the middle and holds that line, indefinately? It's really hard to come up with a reasonable result that Germany likes. Germany was never aiming for a complete takeover. Generalplan Ost had the Germans control European Russia (I don't remember the exact border) while all the Slavs they haven't killed by then would be deported to Siberia.
|
|
#
?
Mar 15, 2015 21:31
|
|
|
Behold the horrors of the Ragamuffin War!
|
|
|
#
?
Mar 15, 2015 21:56
|
|
|
Just got back from the ren fest. Unfortunately the landsknechts were very hard to photograph due to the lighting (they had heavy tree cover, which made for patchy light and dark areas with no consistency), but I did get some shots of one particularly glorious codpiece.
|
|
#
?
Mar 16, 2015 02:50
|
|
|
Any tips for reading On War? It's my understanding that the text's conclusions are often delivered in a ... roundabout way.
|
|
#
?
Mar 16, 2015 04:24
|
|
|
BurningStone posted:The problem (or one of them) with all the "Germany beats the Soviet Union" speculations is what does a German victory look like? Panzers drive all the way to the Pacific? Stalin is overthrown and replaced by a pro-Nazi government, which signs a peace treaty? Germany stops somewhere in the middle and holds that line, indefinately? It's really hard to come up with a reasonable result that Germany likes.
|
|
#
?
Mar 16, 2015 14:03
|
|
|
hard counter posted:Any tips for reading On War? It's my understanding that the text's conclusions are often delivered in a ... roundabout way. you say that as if it has firm conclusions to give. It is delivered in the form of a dialectic, so in many ways it is up to the reader to interpret.
|
|
#
?
Mar 16, 2015 14:42
|
|
|
hard counter posted:Any tips for reading On War? It's my understanding that the text's conclusions are often delivered in a ... roundabout way. I haven't finished it yet, but I would track down a good translation (assuming you're reading it in English). That's what has helped me the most. I made one previous attempt at On War and couldn't get past the introduction because of the ancient translation. The edition edited and translated by Paret and Howard seems to be pretty good in my opinion. Much easier to read than one of the other translations from the late nineteenth or early twentieth centuries.
|
|
#
?
Mar 16, 2015 17:25
|
|
|
100 Years Ago Yesterday: Investigating the state of the Ottoman defences at the Dardanelles, and a look at the now-contested claim that the Ottoman forts were running seriously low on ammunition. Meanwhile, the stress of command has left Admiral Carden unable to continue, which provides a useful excuse to have a look at the Buggins' turn principle. It'll become very important later. Also, if you suffer from chilblains, then boy, do I have the patent medicine ad for you! Today: With Admiral de Roebeck now holding the reins, let's see what he's going to do in a couple of days time. General Joffre finally takes the bloody, beaten carcass of First Champagne out back to drown it in the pond, and in London, somebody's noticed that there are just a few minor issues with the preparations for using the Army at Gallipoli. Oh, and the Lusitania's sailing soon.
|
|
#
?
Mar 16, 2015 18:08
|
|
|
I was wondering if the whole "they'll welcome us with open arms" argument for attacking a nation is generally a delusion. I somehow found myself skimming the Wikipedia page on the Iraq-Iran war and it seemed like both sides thought this was true. Actually, that would have been pretty funny if it was. The only times I think that has even remotely been a thing is if you're attacking a nation occupied by another one.
|
|
#
?
Mar 16, 2015 18:41
|
|
|
The only exception I can think of is the 'Glorious Revolution' of 1688.
|
|
#
?
Mar 16, 2015 18:49
|
|
|
Rocko Bonaparte posted:I was wondering if the whole "they'll welcome us with open arms" argument for attacking a nation is generally a delusion. I somehow found myself skimming the Wikipedia page on the Iraq-Iran war and it seemed like both sides thought this was true. Actually, that would have been pretty funny if it was. The only times I think that has even remotely been a thing is if you're attacking a nation occupied by another one. Crimea? In general there's always at least minorities whose sympathies can be relied on, like Kurds in Iraq, and empires used to be far more multicultural than contemporary nation states are. In the past civilians also had two strategies for survival: a) burn your crops and go into hiding or b) greet the invader with a banquet in the hopes that they'll do less looting that way.
|
|
#
?
Mar 16, 2015 19:02
|
|
|
Rocko Bonaparte posted:I was wondering if the whole "they'll welcome us with open arms" argument for attacking a nation is generally a delusion. I somehow found myself skimming the Wikipedia page on the Iraq-Iran war and it seemed like both sides thought this was true. Actually, that would have been pretty funny if it was. The only times I think that has even remotely been a thing is if you're attacking a nation occupied by another one. Off the top of my head, some Ukrainians and Russians were happy with the German invasion, at least until the Nazis started doing what they do. Grenadians weren't too upset about the U.S. invasion of 1983, and Italians did actually great the Americans as liberators towards the end of the war.
|
|
#
?
Mar 16, 2015 19:09
|
|
|
Patrick Spens posted:Off the top of my head, some Ukrainians and Russians were happy with the German invasion, at least until the Nazis started doing what they do. Grenadians weren't too upset about the U.S. invasion of 1983, and Italians did actually great the Americans as liberators towards the end of the war. Western Ukrainians who had a pretty big independence boner that got their poo poo kicked in during the Russian Civil War by both the Soviets and the Poles were pretty happy to see a force show up that defeated them both.
|
|
#
?
Mar 16, 2015 21:10
|
|
|
Patrick Spens posted:Italians did actually great the Americans as liberators towards the end of the war. I feel like I remember reading somewhere about how Italian soldiers would go out of their way to surrender to Americans because life in an allied POW camp was better than life in the Italian army. Or something like that.
|
|
#
?
Mar 16, 2015 21:20
|
|
|
Also, Mussolini was extremely unpopular during the war and not only did nobody cry when he got removed from leadership, but his corpse was displayed in public in Milan for the purpose of ridicule and public abuse until he got tossed in an unmarked grave. Italy in general had a really lovely time during the war and was deep in the poo poo by 1942, so the Americans kicking the megalomaniac out wasn't seen as a very bad thing.
|
|
#
?
Mar 16, 2015 21:37
|
|
|
Also the US army was filled with fuckin' wops.
|
|
#
?
Mar 16, 2015 21:57
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 27, 2024 23:06 |
|
|
chitoryu12 posted:Italy in general had a really lovely time during war. Could probably just shorten it to that and it would hold true.
|
|
#
?
Mar 16, 2015 22:47
|
|
