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SlothfulCobra posted:Lord of the Rings has a similar pattern of being really bad with numbers, but it doesn't stand out as much since Tolkien wasn't trying to think tactically or show technological growth. Mostly he just wanted to cover massive spans of time so he could chart out the evolution of his imaginary languages. Keep in mind, at least one version of his stories that were made into the Silmarillion has the Numenoreans maintaining a colonial empire using stuff like modern-ish battleships, and also mentiones orcs using what sounds awfully lot like tanks while attacking an elven city. He himself was never quite sure about what he wanted the bygone era before LotR to be, but LotR is effectively set in a post-apocalyptic setting in a world devastated by a war of gods that destroyed the most populated continent, and the one remaining advanced human civilization got Atlantis-d at the peak of its power later on, with only a handful of survivors fleeing it.
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Jun 19, 2016 03:57
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This thread is very frustrating: it has made my standards too high. I am now stuck with the urge to retroactively smack the head of every history teacher I ever had that made ww1 boring, and every poster on the net waffling about how Tolkien's works are Bad because they celebrate a regressive culture and were written by a sheltered academic. Sigh. E:for the grammars Tree Bucket fucked around with this message at 04:38 on Jun 19, 2016 |
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Jun 19, 2016 04:30
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I like Game of Thrones. Pretty sure I like LotR, too.
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Jun 19, 2016 07:41
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Rodrigo Diaz posted:I mean that's interesting but the double armed man was also a contemporary military theory. People were trying all kinds of garbage things (and, more importantly, writing down every harebrained idea) in the early modern period. Tree Bucket posted:This thread is very frustrating: it has made my standards too high. I am now stuck with the urge to retroactively smack the head of every history teacher I ever had that made ww1 boring, and every poster on the net waffling about how Tolkien's works are Bad because they celebrate a regressive culture and were written by a sheltered academic. Sigh. and Tolkein was only a sheltered academic if the trench in his area was good
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Jun 19, 2016 08:25
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JcDent posted:I like Game of Thrones. Pretty sure I like LotR, too. They're cool and good. I don't really understand why people try to rationalize fictional worlds, then rate those fictional worlds based on how well they can rationalize them.
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Jun 19, 2016 09:15
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HEY GAL posted:and Tolkein was only a sheltered academic if the trench in his area was good Tolkien was also incredibly poor for a long period of his life.
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Jun 19, 2016 09:23
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Kemper Boyd posted:Tolkien was also incredibly poor for a long period of his life. That's interesting. Like, genuinely poverty-stricken? There's a really heartbreaking line after Sam helps Frodo escape the tower, and tells Frodo that thinking about the ordeal will only make it worse. (Can't remember the exact wording.) It's easy to imagine a young Tolkien being given the same advice in the trenches. Tolkien always comes across as such a sensitive person. I will never understand how he came out of the war with his sanity and genius intact.
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Jun 19, 2016 09:47
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Tree Bucket posted:That's interesting. Like, genuinely poverty-stricken? His father died when he was four, leaving the family with no income. Wikipedia unfortunately doesn't go into a lot of details, but the family survived because they happened to have relatives (not rich relatives, mind you) who could support them. His mother died when he was 12.
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Jun 19, 2016 09:57
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Tree Bucket posted:This thread is very frustrating: it has made my standards too high. I am now stuck with the urge to retroactively smack the head of every history teacher I ever had that made ww1 boring, Word. My WW1 education: Poems, trenches, treaty of Versailles.
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Jun 19, 2016 11:04
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If you want to find the headmaster I know where he is, I know where he is, I know where he is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_K1BdDVvV9Q
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Jun 19, 2016 11:23
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Slim Jim Pickens posted:They're cool and good. I don't really understand why people try to rationalize fictional worlds, then rate those fictional worlds based on how well they can rationalize them.
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Jun 19, 2016 11:25
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Trin Tragula posted:If you want to find the headmaster
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Jun 19, 2016 12:43
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Your Gay Uncle posted:Sorry if this was covered in the past 20 trillion pages but it's something I've always wondered about. Josef Stalin was one of the most paranoid people to ever live. He purged his army officers,cabinet members,party officials, etc. So why did he believe that Adolf Hitler would stick to their Non Aggression Pact? I'll add that Stalin's paranoia wasn't of the form that he trusted nobody. In each of those purges there was a band of apparatchiks that benefited. What he generally feared was opposition or potential opposition to his power, but people sucking up to him could earn his protection, especially if they fingered someone else as the true threat. Allying with Germany appealed because it fed into his distrust of the British and the rest of the capitalist West. Once Stalin decided he liked someone, he can be quite stubborn about it even if the evidence pointed otherwise. Fangz fucked around with this message at 13:14 on Jun 19, 2016 |
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Jun 19, 2016 13:08
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Fangz posted:I'll add that Stalin's paranoia wasn't of the form that he trusted nobody. In each of those purges there was a band of apparatchiks that benefited. What he generally feared was opposition or potential opposition to his power, but people sucking up to him could earn his protection, especially if they fingered someone else as the true threat. Allying with Germany appealed because it fed into his distrust of the British and the rest of the capitalist West. Once Stalin decided he liked someone, he can be quite stubborn about it even if the evidence pointed otherwise. After the first week of the invasion, Stalin was pretty much on point and ready to go to fight the war. So, the Nazi-Soviet pact wasn't viewed the same way the whole duration of it. People tend to think that thought is just one way, monolithic, but basically, in the last eight months of the pact both sides had a pretty good idea war was coming. The fight over Bessarabia basically ended any notion of continuing and by the time that happened, Hitler was already looking eastward. It was not an alliance bound to last because neither side gained very much. Stalin was always shorting Hitler raw materials and Hitler was always shorting Stalin on the technical expertise and finished goods, even in the first year of the pact when both sides seemed on board with it. Even back then, people were considering it very odd that the two sides who'd fought a massive propaganda war for most of the 30s ends up making a pact. It was a lot like Lenin justifying obedience to the treaty of Brest-Litovsk while the Germans were still strong, which came off as a lot weaker than his earlier stuff. That was one of the earlier disagreements- Trotsky wanted to do "No war, no peace" after hearing the terms the Germans wanted but by 1918 there wasn't enough left to defend the country. If Kerensky had taken that approach he probably would never have been ousted because in 1917 there was still a Russian Army to resist the Germans. Then again, the Entente powers would've had a shitfit if the Russians quit out like that.
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Jun 19, 2016 13:47
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HEY GAL posted:Trin, do you...um...ever read or do anything happy? are you feeling ok The Somme is coming. We all get a little mopey and sad when we think of that day  .
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Jun 19, 2016 13:55
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SeanBeansShako posted:The Somme is coming. We all get a little mopey and sad when we think of that day There's the French at the Somme, who actually met their objectives. Sucks to be you, brits.
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Jun 19, 2016 13:58
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What ARE the objectives of the Somme? Haig seems to be making it up as he goes along to fit whoever he talked to last.
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Jun 19, 2016 14:37
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Comstar posted:What ARE the objectives of the Somme? Haig seems to be making it up as he goes along to fit whoever he talked to last. To move Haig's liquor cabinet six inches closer to Berlin.
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Jun 19, 2016 14:42
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Fangz posted:I'll add that Stalin's paranoia wasn't of the form that he trusted nobody. In each of those purges there was a band of apparatchiks that benefited. What he generally feared was opposition or potential opposition to his power, but people sucking up to him could earn his protection, especially if they fingered someone else as the true threat. Allying with Germany appealed because it fed into his distrust of the British and the rest of the capitalist West. Once Stalin decided he liked someone, he can be quite stubborn about it even if the evidence pointed otherwise. Voroshilov outright blamed him for the Soviet defeats in the Winter War to his face at a dinner and survived. He also flew Budenny out of the collapsing Kiev Pocket in 1941 because reasons.
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Jun 19, 2016 15:20
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ALL-PRO SEXMAN posted:He also flew Budenny out of the collapsing Kiev Pocket in 1941 because reasons.
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Jun 19, 2016 15:32
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But that moustache is a Russian cultural artifact. Just somehow take it from him THEN send him back.
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Jun 19, 2016 15:44
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SeanBeansShako posted:But that moustache is a Russian cultural artifact. A death mask, but only for the moustache region? A moustache mask?
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Jun 19, 2016 16:27
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This might sound weird, but I think people sometimes attribute too much of Stalin's (and Hitler's and Churchill's and...) decisionmaking to his personal traits, rather than to the imperfect information he had available to him and how the choices he made relate to the overall goals he was working on.
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Jun 19, 2016 16:33
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A guy I used to work for is doing research on a student who was attending Indiana University, got recalled to Germany to fight in WWII, and died during the war. He's asked for help translating (my German is really rough) the person's service history. It would also be awesome if any of you have knowledge of what the units were involved in during the deceased's time of service. 
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Jun 19, 2016 16:43
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What are the best military histories of the Vietnam War?
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Jun 19, 2016 16:49
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mlmp08 posted:A guy I used to work for is doing research on a student who was attending Indiana University, got recalled to Germany to fight in WWII, and died during the war. Looks like he spent his career in Germany until being sent to the area of Leningrad in 1943 and got killed as the Germans were being forced back into Estonia. Narwa is the German spelling of Narva, which is right on the border.
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Jun 19, 2016 16:57
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ALL-PRO SEXMAN posted:Looks like he spent his career in Germany until being sent to the area of Leningrad in 1943 More specifically in Shlisselburg area, the narrow area that cut Leningrad off from 1941 to January 1943 when Soviets launched Operation Iskra. Our Freiherr was wounded there and was hospitalized until March 1943 after which he was sent to a replacement battalion and then presumably to the Estonian front. 
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Jun 19, 2016 17:15
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my dad posted:This might sound weird, but I think people sometimes attribute too much of Stalin's (and Hitler's and Churchill's and...) decisionmaking to his personal traits, rather than to the imperfect information he had available to him and how the choices he made relate to the overall goals he was working on. I have a document from a "reliable source" from Germany saying that an attack is imminent where Stalin wrote "tell your source to go gently caress himself" over it, so maybe it was a little to do with his personal traits.
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Jun 19, 2016 17:43
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my dad posted:This might sound weird, but I think people sometimes attribute too much of Stalin's (and Hitler's and Churchill's and...) decisionmaking to his personal traits, rather than to the imperfect information he had available to him and how the choices he made relate to the overall goals he was working on. Generally, the reason their decisionmaking is critiqued as such is because they had reliable information available to them but ignored it because it contradicted their personal opinions or tastes.
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Jun 19, 2016 17:49
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Ensign Expendable posted:I have a document from a "reliable source" from Germany saying that an attack is imminent where Stalin wrote "tell your source to go gently caress himself" over it, so maybe it was a little to do with his personal traits. Oh, he was a paranoid nutcase, and I'm sure he hosed up a lot because of it, the situation you mention included. It's just that sometimes seems to me that people attribute all of his mistakes to his personal hosed-up-ness even when there's another good explanation for them.
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Jun 19, 2016 17:50
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Enh, a lot of what we look at now as 'reliable information' is only reliable in retrospect.
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Jun 19, 2016 18:06
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mlmp08 posted:A guy I used to work for is doing research on a student who was attending Indiana University, got recalled to Germany to fight in WWII, and died during the war. Sep 39 - received his dog tags at 3./Infantry Replacement Bn 469 in Eutin, Holstein. Rank: Feldwebel. Nov 29, 39 - sent off to 12./Inf Reg 391 of 170th ID 7. Mar 40 - 3./Inf Reg 401, 170th ID confirms his arrival Jan 13 1943 staff officer of Infantry Regiment 401 with a rank of Oberleutnant. Posted to the Schlüsselburg area, near Leningrad. WIA, spent time in military hospitals until Mar 3, 1943, then posted to Grenadier replacement Bn 47 at Lüneburg. Mar 2, 1944 KIA at Toila near Narva, Estonia. Rank: Hauptmann. Buried in the cemetery of Toila, Estonia promoted to Major effective Mar 1, 1944 Home address: Stepfather Dr. Hans Fusban, Essen-Bredeney, Grashofstr. 16 There are plenty of dubious internet sources on what 31 and 170 ID were up to, or, if you want better than that, you could hit up the military archives at Freiburg maybe? http://www.bundesarchiv.de/bundesarchiv/dienstorte/freiburg/index.html.en aphid_licker fucked around with this message at 19:42 on Jun 19, 2016 |
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Jun 19, 2016 19:36
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Thank you all for the replies and info!
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Jun 19, 2016 19:43
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HEY GAL posted:it's a fun game, like how i wonder how the events of the 1632 series would have gone down if the writers weren't almost all idiots You're basically writing your own story at that point, one where rationalization is more applicable because its the literal real world morphing into the historical real world. A more productive enterprise than "Well in the 1632 universe, time travel MUST be possible because X". You could even flip the direction of rationalization, and let the 30YW reality override our own. Then follows the argument "In the 1632 universe, time travel is possible because Tilly is a wizard.", which is impregnable.
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Jun 19, 2016 20:25
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Slim Jim Pickens posted:You're basically writing your own story at that point, one where rationalization is more applicable because its the literal real world morphing into the historical real world. A more productive enterprise than "Well in the 1632 universe, time travel MUST be possible because X". It's funnier if it's Wallenstein and both what he's asking for, what he gets, and how they actually do make sense as a pair only make sense to him.
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Jun 19, 2016 20:38
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Slim Jim Pickens posted:... let the 30YW reality override our own.
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Jun 19, 2016 20:40
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I need those hats in my life
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Jun 19, 2016 21:16
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Bazookas and Kar98k's side by side. Truly this 30 years war of the future-present-past is a confusing conflict.
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Jun 19, 2016 21:23
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So, a question for WW2 buffs in the thread: Yamamoto is constantly quoted as saying stuff along the lines of 'We're 100% hosed in the long run if fight against US and UK.' Is this being exaggerated to make a story, or did the rest of Japanese leadership really just ignore what he was telling them?
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Jun 19, 2016 21:34
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Tree Bucket posted:I need those hats in my life There's been some discussion here recently about what marks the transition from "medieval" warfare to "early modern" warfare. Many good points were made about the increased importance of gunpowder, the growth of the fiscal-military state, etc., but I think the truly critical point of distinction between the two eras is that the hats were much better in the early modern period.
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Jun 19, 2016 21:34
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