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Yeah, but every myth of German superiority has an extremely enthusiastic take down. Though maybe it's just me. StuG lyfe, I'm ordering one from Italleri tomorrow Speaking about myths, did the Soviets produce any themselves that would need taking down a peg?
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Jan 15, 2016 17:22
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JcDent posted:Yeah, but every myth of German superiority has an extremely enthusiastic take down. Though maybe it's just me. That take down is so enthusiastic because it's a reaction to the general over-hyping of the German military that you see in both popular culture and the pop-hist end of military history. I will agree, however, that it does go a bit too far in this thread on occasion. The Soviets had TONS of myths. I imagine Ensign Expendable is better situated to talk about the miltiary ones but some great ones that leap out at me from more political and cultural areas (admittedly these are more official party line bullshit so I imagine a lot of people inside would have known them for what they were): Women have equal opportunity for advancement in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. There is no anti-Semitism in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. There is no racism in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. <Region X> was liberated by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and is a grateful and enthusiastic partner. There are also a slew of myths about the USSR that come out of the Cold War. The idea that the grand total of Soviet tactical training was human wave tactics, for example. There is also the common refrain that Soviet equipment was inferior in performance, frequently bordering on crude, but that through its raw simplicity it was extremely durable and reliable. Cyrano4747 fucked around with this message at 17:32 on Jan 15, 2016 |
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Jan 15, 2016 17:28
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Trin Tragula posted:100 Years Ago Sandes' vivid description of her company enjoying their coffee was so striking it literally made me get up to go make a cup of it.
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Jan 15, 2016 17:29
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JcDent posted:Speaking about myths, did the Soviets produce any themselves that would need taking down a peg? How many positive myths about the Soviets are there in the west? EDIT: I mean, Enemy at the Gates is literally the most positive mainstream depiction of the Soviet Union in WWII I can think of. Fangz fucked around with this message at 17:36 on Jan 15, 2016 |
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Jan 15, 2016 17:32
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Thinking a bit more on myths. One of the more pernicious ones that I run across digging around old E. German stuff is the lumping of all civilian deaths in WW2 into the grand category of "victims of fascist aggression" and a steadfast refusal to acknowledge that Jews were targeted specifically and in a relatively unique way compared to, for example, Red Army commissars, partisans, and German Socialist politicians. The DDR in particular had this emphasis on preserving concentration camps as sites where German Communists and Socialists (which, after the creation of the SED were supposedly the same thing, no matter how much old SPD politicians might have objected to being lumped in with the KPD) were persecuted and murdered. Again, that's the sort of thing that you run into if you start looking into how Soviets and East Germans memorialized WW2 and taught their children about the crimes of National Socialism. With the deaths of those political systems the myths have started to fade out, so they aren't nearly as prevalent as some of the History Channel-grade bullshit we commonly ridicule in this thread. I doubt there are too many people under the age of 50 in the former DDR today, for example, who think of the concentration camps primarily as a place where SPD and KPD members and other enemies of the regime were imprisoned and executed.
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Jan 15, 2016 17:34
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How is the Katyn forest massacre acknowledged in modern Russia?
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Jan 15, 2016 17:38
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Cyrano4747 posted:That take down is so enthusiastic because it's a reaction to the general over-hyping of the German military that you see in both popular culture and the pop-hist end of military history. I will agree, however, that it does go a bit too far in this thread on occasion. I had WWII myths by Soviets more firmly in mind. The liberation one is something that antiwestern (and prorussian, God forbid there'd be a neutral stance) peeps readily believe, but I more interested in military stuff. Maybe the Soviet role got downplayed in Cold War and they didn't have a chance to take root? SA in general helped me learn that Soviets weren't total pushovers or pushovers at all from 50s to 70s.
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Jan 15, 2016 17:39
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Cyrano4747 posted:I'll be the first to say that the early Wehrmacht was a highly competent army, but yes, the first years of WW2 are basically a litany of Allied generals and politicians (and frequently that best of all animals, the politician who thinks he is a general) inventing completely new and exciting ways to screw the pooch. It's worth noting that the countries that stuck it out against the Germans were the ones buffered from their failures by geography. France folded, but England had that nice ditch between it and the continent and Russia was just so loving big that they could retreat nearly forever. Even so Russia was a closer run thing than it had any business being, largely because of some grade-A fuckups in the summer of 1941. "Hey guys, we had these sick new tanks for like a year now, should we maybe have a maintenance manual that goes with them?" "Nah bro let's do that later, it's not like there will be a war this year lol"
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Jan 15, 2016 17:41
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Fangz posted:How many positive myths about the Soviets are there in the west? Go back to the 70s-80s and you can find a couple. Those mostly have to do with how our economy is imploding (stagflation and oil crisis era, remember) while the Soviet system seems to be marching on without a hitch (due in large part to that skyrocketing price of oil papering over the holes). Think of the people a couple of years ago who were saying that the Chinese system might be lovely when measured in terms of democracy, but boy howdy do they know how to run an economy. The soviet case wasn't as openly admiring, but there was still a lot of hand wringing about how they seemed to be riding out economic crises better than us. In a lot of ways that is a callback to very similar arguments from the Great Depression. A LOT of thinkers - especially ones that were already left-leaning - looked at the fiasco of the late 20s/early 30s and how the USSR was just hitting its stride and though that they were really onto something. There was some pretty open admiration in German and French educational circles of their strides in mass education and especially at some of the more experimental models that were being tested out. Lunacharskii's "Complex Method" in particular was all the rage with the French, who ironically enough got really vocal about praising it right after an internal shakeup ousted him and put in a much more conservative Education Commissar who reversed a lot of what he was doing.
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Jan 15, 2016 17:43
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Cyrano4747 posted:I'll be the first to say that the early Wehrmacht was a highly competent army, but yes, the first years of WW2 are basically a litany of Allied generals and politicians (and frequently that best of all animals, the politician who thinks he is a general) inventing completely new and exciting ways to screw the pooch. It's worth noting that the countries that stuck it out against the Germans were the ones buffered from their failures by geography. France folded, but England had that nice ditch between it and the continent and Russia was just so loving big that they could retreat nearly forever. Even so Russia was a closer run thing than it had any business being, largely because of some grade-A fuckups in the summer of 1941. Yeah, part of it is actually dead on about how incompetent did these people have to be to lose so much so fast, just because of how badly they did. But there's also that the Germans were always ahead on the experience curve, first because of major war games, then because of the practice they got on the guys before you. And no matter their limitations, structural or strategic issues they really didnt gently caress up much on an operational or tactical level. The problems really start when the other nations stop making mistakes and start leveraging their advantages and the Germans can't use tactical and operational success to pay off strategic failure. It doesn't help that some of the other countries develop even better capabilities but just not having major mistakes baked into their war plans and force orgs is a huge fraction of what let other armies start beating up on Germany using their advantages. Not loving up is hard, not loving up when going into the unknown doubly so, so don't take "they spent the first two years of the war not cocking up while the Allies displayed a level of competence normally reserved for anti-war caricature" as faint praise. The early WWII German military was a good implement for the sort of short swift campaign that leveraged them being the ones who had the best idea what was going on, and did a good job of that sort of campaign. Their failings later don't really detract from that even if they're pretty fun to talk about and speak to what a mess Nazi Germany was.
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Jan 15, 2016 17:43
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Cyrano4747 posted:
The one that pops out the most is 28 Panfilov's Men where 28 glorious heroes put down their lives to delay German tanks just one more day. Except the incident was investigated right after the war and turns out that not only was there probably not a battle there, not all of the 28 men were even dead, at least one survived and ended up being a German collaborator, but the investigation was kept under wraps since the government already trumpeted it up so much. Also there's the whole idea that somehow all Soviet factories were a part of one well oiled machine and what Stalin wished to be produced would start coming off assembly lines that same day at any cost. The reality was endless bickering between the factories, or even within the factories, ample "not invented here" syndrome and lots of self-professed geniuses thinking they know better. I've read endless orders listing the fuckups of some highly placed designer that told them to stop inventing things and doing as they're told.
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Jan 15, 2016 17:48
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That reminds me. What was German tactical and strategic doctrine, and why was it seemingly so effective?
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Jan 15, 2016 17:50
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JcDent posted:I had WWII myths by Soviets more firmly in mind. The liberation one is something that antiwestern (and prorussian, God forbid there'd be a neutral stance) peeps readily believe, but I more interested in military stuff. Maybe the Soviet role got downplayed in Cold War and they didn't have a chance to take root?  
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Jan 15, 2016 17:51
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hogmartin posted:How is the Katyn forest massacre acknowledged in modern Russia? The current government trips all over itself to condemn the USSR, so it's pretty extensively acknowledged. Shame they won't acknowledge how many people Yeltsin buried and build monuments to him instead.
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Jan 15, 2016 17:52
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I'm intrigued as to the "other country" option there. In terms of Soviet myths, I think my communist great-uncle propagated the most common one - the single handed victory of the proletariat against the bourgeois fascist, the wholly-united-no-dissent-or-problems Great Patriotic War. No wonder I'm more interested in public perception of history than history itself these days.
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Jan 15, 2016 17:54
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The 2-3% zone are probably the 'international jewry' or 'lizard people' or 'actually WW2 never happened' people.
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Jan 15, 2016 17:57
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While we're talking about soviet achievements, there is one that I always like to drag out. They had what was probably the fastest, most effective literacy campaign in history. Really only the Chinese can make a case for competing, but I think theirs took a lot longer to accomplish. In the Imperial Census of 1897 only 21% of the population was deemed literate. By 1939 the general literacy rate was 81% and 89% if you only tracked people who were between 9 and 49 years old. It was also much better distributed regionally. At the end of the 19th century 45% of city dwellers were literate, which was astoundingly high compared to rural literacy rates around 17% in European Russia and less than 1% in Asian Russia. In comparison the literacy rates in the US and German at that time were 93% and 99.97% respectively. That's a loving insane single generation leap in literacy, doubly so when you consider that most of the pre-WW1 educational reforms that the Tsar was pushing weren't that effective. Supposedly there was mandatory universal education, for example, but it never got above 50% compliance even in urban districts. Then you have the cluster gently caress of the Revolution and the early border wars. Really most of that progress was made between the early 20s and 1939, which is an insane time frame for something like that. As a bit of a disclaimer a lot of hash can be made about how you define "literacy." It is not nearly the either/or proposition that these kinds of statistics make it out to be. A person, for example, who can sign his name and read basic signs is not as literate as a man who can read a novel and that man isn't as literate as a professional writer. That said, even if the Soviet numbers are "can he sign his name and read the tractor manual" levels of literacy then that is still amazing for a country that couldn't claim even a quarter of its people as having basic literacy a couple decades before. Cyrano4747 fucked around with this message at 18:01 on Jan 15, 2016 |
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Jan 15, 2016 17:58
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Fangz posted:The 2-3% zone are probably the 'international jewry' or 'lizard people' or 'actually WW2 never happened' people. Or the people who answered "Germany" 
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Jan 15, 2016 17:59
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SeanBeansShako posted:Experience and not dying helps a lot in the character of an elite unit as well as education and training. Napoleon's Old Guard NEEDED you to have served at least in three of his campaigns and a shitload of other minor services and deals now. Alongside the obvious fitness and height you'd needed to be smart too. You have to earn that facial hair and those bearskins my friend. Huh, I once read that the Guards units were kinda like a training ground for new NCO's and junior officers, so that the veterans after a stint in the Guards were spread around and could use their experience to make Napoleon's armies better. However I don't remember where I read or heard it so I may be completely wrong.
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Jan 15, 2016 17:59
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wrapping around to our earlier discussion, I will loving guarantee that the 50% of brits who think they contributed the most to winning WW2 in that graph are thinking of the noble RAF saving democracy by staving off Sealion and thereby giving the Americans a place to come put their poo poo and bomb the gently caress out of the Nazis.
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Jan 15, 2016 18:01
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nothing to seehere posted:That reminds me. What was German tactical and strategic doctrine, and why was it seemingly so effective? Look at what US Army staff articles jerk off over and you'll have a pretty good idea. A lot of devolution of authority, focus on mobile units as a spearhead and so on to basically identify the center of gravity of the enemy force and neutralize it, and then exploit the enemy's imbalance with units that react faster as the situation falls into chaos so you're hitting their disordered forces with your coherent ones. I think that the coherency of early war German equipment, training, doctrine and organization into one idea of how to fight effectively is one of its big advantages and strengths, and one that was squandered in a big way late war. Also Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan did the most to ensure Axis defeat, fight me IRL.
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Jan 15, 2016 18:04
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lenoon posted:I don't think even invested so much as has become part of the national spirit of Britain. It's our finest hour, our shining moment, and it's at this point more national myth than historical fact. It's when the few, the good middle class white boys of the empire, aided by their working class mechanics, stood up to be counted when jolly old tory St Churchill called, and knocked dastardly Jerry for six while copping off with the WAAFs and never, ever, ever stopping, or dying, or failing. It's the dog at the end of the runway, it's the hurried pint and a cigarette while you dash out of the mess to your waiting Spitfire. It's the university Boffins (before Universities became breeding grounds of dastardly left-wing academics!) turning their brains, universally, towards Radar, and the young women marrying pilots as the dogfight contrails soared overhead. It happened in the summer, and it never rained. It's glorious, it's immutable, it's the Golden Age of capital-B Britishness. For some reason, Land Of Hope And Glory started playing in my head when reading this so welp I guess we Brits are all indoctrinated. Also, considering the film has the decency to mention the Poles (though annoyingly portraying them as unprofessional) is more accurate than the National myth? To me, the Battle of Britain is part of a chain of events of balls to the wall heroism, luck and courage that we managed to pull of quite well that is the actions of the British Commonwealth during the 2nd Worlf War and nothing more. It was good we pulled it off against the odds but I kind of doubt those menacing NAZI BARGES would have crossed the channel to Jackboot down Whitehall. I can see sort of why it became the National WW2 myth though, like Cyrano4747 said. Lord Tywin posted:Huh, I once read that the Guards units were kinda like a training ground for new NCO's and junior officers, so that the veterans after a stint in the Guards were spread around and could use their experience to make Napoleon's armies better. However I don't remember where I read or heard it so I may be completely wrong. Oh, I imagine some NCO's and Officers did leave the Guard, especially if they got a much nicer postion in the regular French Army and good pay now. But it still was a drain on resources as a whole. But I mean, if you weren't going to get promoted or a lovely stationing outside of Spain why bother? Look at the uniform for crying out loud. SeanBeansShako fucked around with this message at 18:12 on Jan 15, 2016 |
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Jan 15, 2016 18:08
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Delaying the invasion of Russia to bail out Italy in the Balkans was crucial. Glorious Serbia should get most of the credit for Nazi defeat.
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Jan 15, 2016 18:12
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SeanBeansShako posted:For some reason, Land Of Hope And Glory started playing in my head when reading this. I'd have gone with I Vow to Thee My Country but I'm an American so what do I know. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvouc8Qs_MI SeanBeansShako posted:I can see sort of why it became the National WW2 myth though, like Cyrano4747 said. 
hogmartin fucked around with this message at 18:20 on Jan 15, 2016 |
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Jan 15, 2016 18:13
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Fangz posted:How many positive myths about the Soviets are there in the west? Lots of stuff that the WM generals though transfered seamlessly into the western nation's new assessment of the soviet union's military features, right after the war. They particularly sing high praises about the qualities of the common soviet grunt. Like, not needing to be fed alot, being basically immune to the cold and possessing fabulous endurance and tenaciousness.
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Jan 15, 2016 18:16
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SeanBeansShako posted:For some reason, Land Of Hope And Glory started playing in my head when reading this so welp I guess we Brits are all indoctrinated. Also, considering the film has the decency to mention the Poles (though annoyingly portraying them as unprofessional) is more accurate than the National myth? Thanks, I call it my Dan Snow impression.
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Jan 15, 2016 18:21
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hogmartin posted:I'd have gone with I Vow to Thee My Country but I'm an American so what do I know. It is my generic go to 'PATRIOTIC' song now in my head. Are you thinking of this? or this one? Sometimes I play the 2nd one to just cheer myself up when I read something awful in the news  .We love our weird clunky and dated Victorian establishment music so. And yet our national anthem is still that soul crushing boring mumbling anthem to the monarchy of all people with lyrcis telling half the country it sucks. Bah.
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Jan 15, 2016 18:24
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SeanBeansShako posted:It is my generic go to 'PATRIOTIC' song now in my head. The Mitchell and Webb owns and it was a tossup whether I'd link that one or the one I did. It's a pretty sweet song. e: if there were a Dad's Army version, game over, that would have been the one. hogmartin fucked around with this message at 18:30 on Jan 15, 2016 |
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Jan 15, 2016 18:28
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lenoon posted:I don't think even invested so much as has become part of the national spirit of Britain. It's our finest hour, our shining moment, and it's at this point more national myth than historical fact. It's when the few, the good middle class white boys of the empire, aided by their working class mechanics, stood up to be counted when jolly old tory St Churchill called, and knocked dastardly Jerry for six while copping off with the WAAFs and never, ever, ever stopping, or dying, or failing. It's the dog at the end of the runway, it's the hurried pint and a cigarette while you dash out of the mess to your waiting Spitfire. It's the university Boffins (before Universities became breeding grounds of dastardly left-wing academics!) turning their brains, universally, towards Radar, and the young women marrying pilots as the dogfight contrails soared overhead. It happened in the summer, and it never rained. It's glorious, it's immutable, it's the Golden Age of capital-B Britishness. The Battle of Britain is to the British what Midway is to the Americans or Stalingrad is to the Russians, a defining moment in the war. Mythology tends to build up around these kind of events and it takes a lot of work to throw off preconceptions that are often treated as fact. Once you actually start reading into the history of the Battle of Britain the myths fall away pretty quickly.
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Jan 15, 2016 18:28
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xthetenth posted:I think that the coherency of early war German equipment, training, doctrine and organization into one idea of how to fight effectively is one of its big advantages and strengths, and one that was squandered in a big way late war. On a related note, since the Pacific War is one of my main areas of interest in history, you can see this on a smaller scale with Japan during the war, particularly the carrier force and the first wave of invasions like Singapore. Japan's overall strategic plan and internal organization were clusterfucks of extraordinary proportions, but early in the war they had very cohesive, tightly organized, highly trained, well equipped forces and an excellent doctrine of how to use them that synchronized tightly with said organization, equipment, and training, and their operational planning often used these advantages to spectacular effect. It was a fading advantage that the Japanese had no idea how to capitalize on or realized was only temporary, but I think it's a similar effect to the lionization of Germany: focus on the "glamorous" early war then glossing over the later war when strategic missteps and the flaws in their doctrine and military thinking became more apparent.
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Jan 15, 2016 18:33
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Cyrano4747 posted:I don't feel like digging through another thread to hunt for idiocy, but does he ever show how the gently caress the logistics of Sealion were going to work out? Logistics? What loving logistics?
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Jan 15, 2016 18:36
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hogmartin posted:I'd have gone with I Vow to Thee My Country but I'm an American so what do I know. GodDAMN look at that dude's cheekbones and chin. That is some Habsburg-grade genetics there. He must bleed loving ultramarine.
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Jan 15, 2016 18:41
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"It's cool guys, we tested this theory out with a paper boat in the back using Bormann's pool!"
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Jan 15, 2016 18:44
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Early war has action, excitement, stuning victories and defeats while late war is Normandy slow grind Market Garden grind grind grind Berlin? Nobody cares about Italy (much like Germans shouldn't have) and the rest of Europe is a Fury-grey slog. I would like to know more, but it... inopportune. As for Soviet soldier: old folks used to tell me that German soldier was civilized, had boots to shine and liked dining indoors while the Russian could go dirty, straight through the swamps, and that's why they won.
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Jan 15, 2016 18:54
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Kemper Boyd posted:In Finland, you get a lot of "we stopped the Soviet offensive in 1944 so our independence was saved", when it was less that and more FDR and Stalin agreeing that Finland should remain independent and Stalin being far more interested in making gains towards Berlin. So, similar to the Battle of Britain in a way. Easiest way to piss off a Finn? Point out the fact that technically, they managed to lose WWII twice. 
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Jan 15, 2016 18:59
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JcDent posted:As for Soviet soldier: old folks used to tell me that German soldier was civilized, had boots to shine and liked dining indoors while the Russian could go dirty, straight through the swamps, and that's why they won. Ah yes, the German soldier. Known wide and far from the earliest days of the 20th century for his civility.     I mean, I'm sure you can find some Clean Wehrmacht koolaid drinker on the Paradox or WoT forums or whatever who thinks it was all noble aristocratic gentleman Prussians except for that nasty SS business, but popular depictions of the German military during any period where they were actually recent enemies focuses on the most brutal aspects possible. "German militarism" was a byword for the nasty poo poo that should never happen again from about 1919 - 1959. You really only start to see the Germans getting rehabbed in that regard during the darkest depths of the Cold War, and even then the growing awareness of the Holocaust in the 60s-70s brings the nastier elements back out into the limelight. poo poo, the German government spent a LOT of money trying to get people to go there after WW2 to study and write about them, ideally things that weren't the Nazis. I had my dissertation research funded by the German Academic Exchange Service, a group that was set up after the war specifically to create stronger bonds between Germany and the rest of the world and try to undo some of the loving their international reputation took. They were loving DESPERATE to get back to people thinking of them as a bunch of Denker & Dichter sunning themselves on the Rhine or beer-swilling Bavarians instead of goose-stepping Prussian militarists. edit: god I love the bloody club labeled "Kultur" Cyrano4747 fucked around with this message at 19:09 on Jan 15, 2016 |
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Jan 15, 2016 19:06
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Oh, it wasn't praise; I mean, he lost, right? It's a sort of rustic pride of not being held back by fancy shmancy culture, need for comfort and weakness. That's how you might say, oh those American soldiers need airconditioned tents, and food and beds or they won't go to war, while our guys can do totally without Ignoring the fact that he's doing withou because we're poor because lol former eastern bloc corruption
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Jan 15, 2016 19:15
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SeanBeansShako posted:Oh, I imagine some NCO's and Officers did leave the Guard, especially if they got a much nicer postion in the regular French Army and good pay now. But it still was a drain on resources as a whole. But I mean, if you weren't going to get promoted or a lovely stationing outside of Spain why bother? Look at the uniform for crying out loud. Yeah it really grew to ridiculous proportions, it would have made sense to have maybe one or two infantry regiments and maybe a cavalry regiment instead of a separate self contained army with artillery, engineers and sailors  numbering over 100,000. I imagine that Napoleon would look upon the current US Marines and the resources they have thinking that it makes perfect sense.
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Jan 15, 2016 19:18
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Lord Tywin posted:Yeah it really grew to ridiculous proportions, it would have made sense to have maybe one or two infantry regiments and maybe a cavalry regiment instead of a separate self contained army with artillery, engineers and sailors The Guard did has uses but it certainly got quite bloated as the First French Empire and Napoleon's ego grew. I mean, what 19th century general wouldn't want a a core of elite dudes to hold back in the reserves until the right moment to unleash them on the enemy? They were pretty much the Imperial German and Royal Navies Dreadnaughts for Napoleon. I imagine losing a member of the Old Guard, pre-1812 was like losing 3-5 veteran soldiers whilst after 1812 it was certainly like losing 10-15 men. Double that is they served in the first campaigns of Napoleon. Which really explains why they were only used in the most desperate circumstances.
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Jan 15, 2016 19:23
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Acebuckeye13 posted:The big secret is that everyone hosed up and was terrible to varying degrees. The reason why the Allies won was because they had a greater ability to cover for their early fuckups, and tended to gently caress up less later in the war while the Germans gradually began loving more and more things up. The reason why this thread tends to focus on Germany is that many of their fuckups are often mischaracterized or ignored, while Allied fuckups were generally ignored because hey, they won, so their fuckups are less important. The layer of Japanese vessels on Iron Bottom Sound rests upon a foundation of Allied miscues and outright fuckups. Edit: Also you can see how some of the strategic decisions started having an effect over the long term. US pilots kept getting better while Axis pilots got worse or didn't get at all, but no doubt part of the reason why the Germany army held out against overwhelming force (albeit with the advantage of being the defenders) is that they were better able to pass on institutional knowledge to their replacements. In the long run it was an industrial war are those countries that both had the industry and utilized it properly emerged victorious. Taerkar fucked around with this message at 19:32 on Jan 15, 2016 |
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