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I just got a diatribe from my dad about how the British Empire was uniformly good for everyone involved and the Opium Wars and famines in India are just leftist propaganda to make people feel unpatriotic  Edit: 910, the Hungarians school the Franks and the Suabians in one year at the battles of Augsburg and Rednitz
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Feb 19, 2016 11:41
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MikeCrotch posted:I just got a diatribe from my dad about how the British Empire was uniformly good for everyone involved and the Opium Wars and famines in India are just leftist propaganda to make people feel unpatriotic It was actually pretty good if you were white and rich v0v (or even brown and rich, like an Indian prince - the Empire was more classist than it was racist)
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Feb 19, 2016 11:46
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Raenir Salazar posted:It's not a good episode by their standards but their History series is generally a very good educational resource in the way it's taken more obscure historical events and made them engaging. Still, they produced some good av material: 
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Feb 19, 2016 12:20
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MikeCrotch posted:I just got a diatribe from my dad about how the British Empire was uniformly good for everyone involved and the Opium Wars and famines in India are just leftist propaganda to make people feel unpatriotic To be fair, the Opium Wars convinced China to buy more artillery from Edit: I am dumb. Libluini fucked around with this message at 12:30 on Feb 19, 2016 |
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Feb 19, 2016 12:27
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I need to know answer to this old WWII question concerning Waffen-SS. I have this argument quite often with my relatives and friends. They are not exactly wehraboos, but they have taken the regular old stance that Waffen-SS was composed of some sort of super-soldiers. You know, those volunteered hardcore nazis, who were better trained and better equipped than the regular Wehrmacht soldiers. I have understood from this forums, that the case was in fact opposite and Waffen-SS units had inferior gear and performed poorly in combat. Some of the late warSS units were just ad hoc combat units that disbanded in the sight of first battle. I need to get some good arguments from you to prove that Waffen-SS was not such a death machine after all. What was the basic training of the SS soldier when compared Wehrmacht? Better or worse? The equipment got better as the war went on, but did the high command ever favor SS units when delivering the good stuff to frontline? Which were the good combat proven SS divisions? Is this anywhere near the actual truth: 1st SS division: Hitler's bodyguards and therefore tough hardcore nazis? 2nd SS division: Das Reich, parade troops and therefore tough hardcore nazis? 3rd SS division: Totenkopf, concentration camp guards and therefore hardened war criminals even before the war started? All other SS divisions: Complete poo poo?
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Feb 19, 2016 12:36
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Pyle posted:I need to know answer to this old WWII question concerning Waffen-SS. I have this argument quite often with my relatives and friends. They are not exactly wehraboos, but they have taken the regular old stance that Waffen-SS was composed of some sort of super-soldiers. You know, those volunteered hardcore nazis, who were better trained and better equipped than the regular Wehrmacht soldiers. I have understood from this forums, that the case was in fact opposite and Waffen-SS units had inferior gear and performed poorly in combat. Some of the late warSS units were just ad hoc combat units that disbanded in the sight of first battle. Early war SS units got the pick of the litter actually, and generally received preferential treatment in terms of equipment. New, and better, tanks were earmarked for them first on most (if not all) occasions.** As for their combat capabilities, it depends on when and where we are talking. Some units were quite capable but, as you said, late-war groups could be composed of ad-hoc groups or poorly trained soldiers, like the rest of the armed forces. I don't think I've ever read a comparison between the SS and Wehrmacht regarding training. I'm trying to remember which SS division was claimed to have been the "best" but it remains on the tip of my tongue. Honestly though, the real theme of SS units was their belief and fanaticism. They joined because they believed or were sentimental to Nazism/Facism. That's why you have entire units composed of foreign volunteers, like Charlemagne composed of French volunteers or the "British Free Corps of the Waffen-SS". Admittedly, not many British people joined but there's a rather extensive list on wikipedia ** edit: I could be misremembering this, but I'm fairly certain I've read this on multiple occasions. Jobbo_Fett fucked around with this message at 13:04 on Feb 19, 2016 |
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Feb 19, 2016 13:00
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Lithuanians are extremely proud of not mustering any SS doods. We did help Nazis kill the jews, tho  Basically, what I've read (and I've read little) of SS was that they got massive casualties (which they shrugged off, because moto), but eventually won. So they're basically pre-Heresy World Eaters in that regard: insanely motivated, suicidal, would probably fare better if they were less willing to accept casualties. Also, what is with these division logos? Awww, the SS had all the coolest ones.
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Feb 19, 2016 13:10
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Cartoon posted:Really: Obviously the Japanese were wrong. It's possible from contemporary analysis and reading back from the fact that history happened as it did to explain why the US was always going to get involved. I'm only going as far as to claim that from a Japanese perspective in 1940 it wasn't totally unreasonable to expect to be able to fight a limited war. The list of US foreign adventures in the 20's is incredibly small hat compared to any European colonial power. Yes the US took an interest in South America (not the other side of the Pacific), and yes the US having managed to gain the Phillipines was still really unsure what to do with it, and yes a few hundred soldiers occassionaly pop up here and there to protect US citizens from unrest, but none of that is remotely on the scale of Britain/France threatening war at the drop of a hat to preserve their right to extract the natural resources of countries far far away in the sun. The real stickler is China and the Chinese lobby in the US, but Japan had been steadily chipping away at China since 1931 and all that had really come of that was some mean words and economic sanctions - economic sanctions which would become irrelevant if Japan could secure all the resources it needed. We know they were wrong. But is it really fair to say that from the knowledge they had they definitely came to the wrong conclusions? I'm not ready to go that far.
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Feb 19, 2016 13:11
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Pyle posted:I need to get some good arguments from you to prove that Waffen-SS was not such a death machine after all. Commenting on the 36th SS Division - Dirlewanger quote:The unit participated in some of World War II's most notorious campaigns of terror in the east. During the organization's time in Russia, Dirlewanger burned women and children alive and let starved packs of dogs feed on them.[2] He was known to hold large formations with the sole purpose of injecting Jews with strychnine. They were death machines, but they had a much easier time against people that didn't fight back...
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Feb 19, 2016 13:14
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The British Free Corps was a complete farce.
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Feb 19, 2016 13:16
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Including Dirlewanger isn't fair, seeing how he's the guy that the SS considering to be a dangerous raving maniac. Which he was.
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Feb 19, 2016 13:16
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JcDent posted:
Disagree strongly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jagdgeschwader_11#/media/File:JG11_Emblem.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jagdgeschwader_77#/media/File:JG_77_Emblem.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jagdgeschwader_1_(World_War_II)#/media/File:I-JG1-ins.svg
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Feb 19, 2016 13:18
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Finally found that Adrian Weale article on the BFC... http://australiarussia.com/renegades_ENFIN.htm Edit: Also found: a book by Richard Landwehr with a preamble: "This title is respectfully dedicated to the Waffen SS... serious, committed individuals who deeply believed in what they were doing... In future generations that fact will be treated as a true badge of honor." Erm. Fangz fucked around with this message at 13:42 on Feb 19, 2016 |
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Feb 19, 2016 13:31
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Jobbo_Fett posted:Disagree strongly Is that Stormfront? Kek. http://imgur.com/drijfoL
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Feb 19, 2016 13:40
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Libluini posted:To be fair, the Opium Wars convinced China to buy more artillery from China didn't really need the Opium wars to convince them to buy every cannon they could, since they also had the whole biggest civil war in human history thing going on. In any case, the whole scramble for concessions and influence thing doesn't really kick into high gear until later. Zuo Zongtang did end up getting some state of the art Krupp cannons that arrived too late to use against the Taiping, but got put to use putting down the northwestern Muslim rebels, who were lucky if they had any guns at all.
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Feb 19, 2016 14:06
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Disagree on the strength of the often cutesy British WW2 insignia, especially the famous 7th armoured. Lightning bolts? Skulls and crossbones? No. We are British men and we use the fearsome Jerboa. I suppose though I'm inclined to pick it as the coolest insignia because when I was little, there always seemed to be these old men on the train who would tell me these stories of the desert, show me these ancient jerboa tattoos and generally keep me spellbound and quiet for a while. It was one of the things that ended up with me getting into archaeology as a way to go out to Libya and live in the desert for a few weeks. I wonder why there were so many old desert rats living in Leeds and Bradford in the late eighties?
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Feb 19, 2016 14:14
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lenoon posted:Disagree on the strength of the often cutesy British WW2 insignia, especially the famous 7th armoured. Lightning bolts? Skulls and crossbones? No. We are British men and we use the fearsome Jerboa. Well, yes, which I rather prefer myself. Insert the 'are we the bad guys' sketch by Mitchell and Webb here...
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Feb 19, 2016 14:45
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lenoon posted:Disagree on the strength of the often cutesy British WW2 insignia, especially the famous 7th armoured. Lightning bolts? Skulls and crossbones? No. We are British men and we use the fearsome Jerboa. Hey, it worked for Paul Atreides.
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Feb 19, 2016 14:46
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Yo nerds, how false is thisquora posted:(These mines were particularly useful to the Red Army in the battle of Kursk (and other battles in the later half of the war) since by July 1943, the Red Army had no anti-tank gun able to successfully penetrate the front armor of a Tiger tank. The 45mm guns were nearly helpless, the 76.2mm divisional gun and the 76.2mm F-34 main guns on the T-34 tanks could only penetrate the side armor of a Tiger at close range ~300m. Only a small number of SPGs like the SU-152 "Beast Slayer" armed with 152mm heavy howitzers could effectively destroy the Tigers. For that reason, the Red Army relied heavily on anti-tank mines and laid more than 500,000 of them around Kursk) quora posted:The tungsten penetrators on Soviet SABOT rounds-- even those fired by Iraqi T-72, which were the top of the line as for as tanks exported by the USSR and China, did little more than ding up the paint. Shaped-charged explosive anti-tank ordnance fared little better. By the way, is XMX1100 Scorpion something that could be called a commonly used modern AT mine?
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Feb 19, 2016 15:49
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Pyle posted:I need to know answer to this old WWII question concerning Waffen-SS. I have this argument quite often with my relatives and friends. They are not exactly wehraboos, but they have taken the regular old stance that Waffen-SS was composed of some sort of super-soldiers. You know, those volunteered hardcore nazis, who were better trained and better equipped than the regular Wehrmacht soldiers. I have understood from this forums, that the case was in fact opposite and Waffen-SS units had inferior gear and performed poorly in combat. Some of the late warSS units were just ad hoc combat units that disbanded in the sight of first battle. My memory is that SS Divisions were generally sufficiently fanatical that they didn't surrender very often, and often got into the business of beating and executing conscripts for cowardice and refusing to surrender or submit to capture even when it was borderline suicidal due to their undying faith that superior aryan will would see them through. So, still less impressive than the myth, but in a different way. I could be totally wrong, I'm not particularly knowledgeable about the SS.
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Feb 19, 2016 16:01
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JcDent posted:Yo nerds, how false is this Wikipedia doesn't say/reference mines much for Kursk other than talking about how many were placed. As for the lack of ATG, it's technically correct? They did have the 85mm AA gun which had AP rounds for anti-tank needs, and I don't see why they wouldn't have used it in that capacity in a pinch. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/85_mm_air_defense_gun_M1939_%2852-K%29
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Feb 19, 2016 16:02
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Grand Prize Winner posted:Still, they produced some good av material: Also it should be pointed out that they always have a "Lies" episode where they acknowledge where they screwed up (Wrong flags, uniforms, etc), or explain whatever artistic license they took with the material. I kinda want that Stalin art for an AV now. Or James as a Soviet tanker.
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Feb 19, 2016 16:05
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The claim that the Soviets only used mines extensively because they didn't have guns to take on Tigers is nonsensical.
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Feb 19, 2016 16:09
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feedmegin posted:It was actually pretty good if you were white and rich v0v (or even brown and rich, like an Indian prince - the Empire was more classist than it was racist) Still pretty awful on the morals and ethics side of things though. And an incredibly uncomfortable subject in a modern multi cultural society too!
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Feb 19, 2016 16:19
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Fangz posted:The claim that the Soviets only used mines extensively because they didn't have guns to take on Tigers is nonsensical. mines are extremely useful though
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Feb 19, 2016 16:26
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SeanBeansShako posted:Still pretty awful on the morals and ethics side of things though. And an incredibly uncomfortable subject in a modern multi cultural society too! The fact that all those colonies strove for independence rather than remaining subjects of the British Empire is decent evidence that they weren't all that happy about it. While the Empire was undoubtedly very good for a certain small class of people, the vast majority of the people actually living under British rule didn't seem to like it much.
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Feb 19, 2016 16:27
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feedmegin posted:It was actually pretty good if you were white and rich v0v (or even brown and rich, like an Indian prince - the Empire was more classist than it was racist) I dunno, my recollection is that being a loyal Indian princeling was OK, as long as you coukd afford the huge bribes necessary. And if for whatever reason they decided to depose you and replace you with someone else, there wasn't much you could do to stop them.
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Feb 19, 2016 16:37
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:mines are extremely useful though Yeah, but that's my point. The Germans also used minefields extensively, but that wasn't because they couldn't penetrate the front of IS2s or something. Of course the Soviets would plant mines around Kursk. It's not some testament to the superiority of German armour.
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Feb 19, 2016 16:54
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JcDent posted:Yo nerds, how false is this Ensign Expendable's own website details exactly how well the Tiger could be penetrated by Soviet guns. There's even one specifically on the 45mm guns. Even those little pea shooters had a chance of penetrating a Tiger's sides or turret from 350 meters or less with the right ammo, so you can guess how accurate their claims about the 76.2mm guns are. It sounds like yet another attempt to mythologize the Tiger as some kind of invincible beast that had everyone dramatically running from in terror and only failed to win the war because there weren't enough.
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Feb 19, 2016 16:56
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Literally every biographical account of an Allied soldier's experience on the Western Front I've ever read has had a line that goes something along the lines of: "I didn't hate the Germans and I didn't like killing. I tried to treat my job as a game where I had to move my flag from one hill or field to the next until I got to Berlin and if I could do that without hurting anyone then that was as good as having to fight my way there. I really didn't enjoy killing. ... apart from when we were fighting the SS, those guys were shits" The Malmedy Massacre during the Bulge is the famous one, but right from the start in Normandy the SS continued their 'murder everyone, idelogical total war' attitude from the Eastern Front and very rapidly you can see that any Allied formation that spent any time opposite a SS unit very rapidly adopted a 'take no prisoners' attitude. They weren't necessarily seen as better soldiers than the regular German army, but they were recognised as fighting nastier and with more fanaticism and they were hated for it.
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Feb 19, 2016 17:11
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So the new season of Vikings is coming, and there are billboards all over Denmark saying "Back when a sword was a passport, and London a city in Scandinavia!". I am pretty stoked 
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Feb 19, 2016 17:25
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100 Years Ago It's still raining at Verdun. General Smuts arrives in East Africa, and immediately begins displaying a worrying inability to take any kind of criticism. Isn't that just fabulous. The French Chamber of Deputies gives off an ominous rumble; the Russians launch an amphibious operation on the Black Sea coast and it works perfectly; Robert Pelissier describes the top of the Hartmannswillerkopf; Edward Mousley describes his new OP; and we meet yet another new correspondent, and he's not going to be an officer. He's Maximilian Mugge, an incredibly minor author with the ego to match. He's also a naturalised subject of German origin, who's just been accepted by the Army after eighteen months of trying to sign up for any kind of service.
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Feb 19, 2016 17:29
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Tias posted:So the new season of Vikings is coming, and there are billboards all over Denmark saying "Back when a sword was a passport, and London a city in Scandinavia!". I am pretty stoked It's interesting to contemplate a future where King Knut/Canute (I so didn't realise Canute was a Scandinavian name until a few years ago, thanks British education)'s conquest of England stuck, the Normans didn't and we're now a Nordic country speaking a slightly weird version of Danish. Also, I highly recommend The Last Kingdom if you've not seen it.
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Feb 19, 2016 17:30
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Tias posted:So the new season of Vikings is coming, and there are billboards all over Denmark saying "Back when a sword was a passport, and London a city in Scandinavia!". I am pretty stoked I'm watching The Last Kingdom right now, and while I'm a big fan of the book series, the Vikings is a better show. Also, I was really disappointed in TLK's shieldwall.
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Feb 19, 2016 17:36
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feedmegin posted:It's interesting to contemplate a future where King Knut/Canute (I so didn't realise Canute was a Scandinavian name until a few years ago, thanks British education)'s conquest of England stuck, the Normans didn't and we're now a Nordic country speaking a slightly weird version of Danish. My guess is that the Vikings would have mixed with the local populace and adopted their language, religion, and customs like they did in France and Russia.
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Feb 19, 2016 17:43
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chitoryu12 posted:Ensign Expendable's own website details exactly how well the Tiger could be penetrated by Soviet guns. There's even one specifically on the 45mm guns. Even those little pea shooters had a chance of penetrating a Tiger's sides or turret from 350 meters or less with the right ammo, so you can guess how accurate their claims about the 76.2mm guns are. Even if the 76 had troubles, the 57mm ZIS was still around and that was the gun that was complained of for penetrating german tanks too well, so I can't see how that wouldn't have been able to purt a hurt on a tiger. EDIT: Yeah, looking at the chart it seems like the 57mm was a likely pen at 1km, which I would have said would count as "A gun capable of penetrating a tiger". spectralent fucked around with this message at 17:48 on Feb 19, 2016 |
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Feb 19, 2016 17:43
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Hogge Wild posted:My guess is that the Vikings would have mixed with the local populace and adopted their language, religion, and customs like they did in France and Russia. Or like they had already done in England, especially the northern bits, for roughly two centuries.
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Feb 19, 2016 17:44
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Hogge Wild posted:
To some extent, possibly, but note that Anglo-Saxon England spoke a language quite similar to and somewhat mutually intelligible with Old Norse (unsurprisingly since the Anglo-Saxons themselves invaded England from modern Denmark), and had similar customs and religious traditions too. You'd end up with something much, much more like the rest of Scandinavia than was true of Russia or France (and indeed did, in the Danelaw, for centuries). Edit: there's a reason that yesterday was Thor's Day in English, after all! feedmegin fucked around with this message at 17:58 on Feb 19, 2016 |
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Feb 19, 2016 17:46
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Raenir Salazar posted:Also it should be pointed out that they always have a "Lies" episode where they acknowledge where they screwed up (Wrong flags, uniforms, etc), or explain whatever artistic license they took with the material. Eh, it's a nice afterthought but I wonder how many people who watch the main episodes end up watching the entirety of the lies episode afterwards.
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Feb 19, 2016 17:48
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Jamwad Hilder posted:Or like they had already done in England, especially the northern bits, for roughly two centuries. Yeah, the only raiders that I can think of who made their subjects adopt their ways and language were Turks and Arabs.
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Feb 19, 2016 17:49
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