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DiHK posted:Spandau Citadel quote:The Citadel's tracé à l'italienne design which although several hundred years old presented a difficult structure to storm. So instead of bombarding and storming the Citadel, the Soviets invested it and set about negotiating a surrender. After negotiations, the citadel's commander surrendered to the Lieutenant-General Perkhorovitch's 47th Army just after 15:00 on 1 May 1945, saving many lives and leaving the ancient infrastructure intact. I hope to God they used all the old conventions, but I bet they didn't. Also, just how Catholic are you willing to get? Because Wuerzburg is Catholic as all gently caress.
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Aug 28, 2016 15:13
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spectralent posted:Depressingly it's still a shades of grey situation since the real pieces of poo poo were perfectly happy to worm their tentacles into a lot of people who were innocent or just wanted to keep their heads down, either coercively or via outright force. The poor sod from the Dirlewanger situation is SS because he got conscripted, for instance. If you had to summarize too hard, I'd say all three stages aren't really wrong. Cartoonish villains built a society where all the shades of grey in people were used to drag people into being cartoonish villains. Sorry I can't help but make the joke 50 shades of feldgrau.
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Aug 28, 2016 15:43
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I was digging through a box today and found a translated account of my Polish Great-Grandmother's experiences in Nazi camps. I've typed it up because I found it interesting and horrifying, and thought some other people might find it interesting. 'Marianna nee Wawszczyk, born 01/09/1900 My account from the concentration camp' Last address of residence: ul. Brzozowa 17/18, Warszawa During the (Warsaw) Uprising, on 2 September 1944, Germans took me to the concentration camp in Oświęcim. They took from me everything I had: my money, jewellery; they stripped my clothing off me – my new fur. They shaved my hair to skin. Next, they gave me filthy rags and big wooden boots and told me to put them on. The boots slipped off my feet, and when I stumbled over them, a female SS guard used to hit my head with a stick. Hunger was incredible; for the whole day we were given a tiny slice of bread and a soup made from unpeeled potatoes; the soup was with sand – because potatoes were not washed. Everyday we were taken to be cold showered. While we all were standing naked, a German checked our teeth. On 18 September 1944 we were taken to the Rawensbruck camp. Number of the camp: 71864, Category: Political Despite ground frost, we spent first 3 days under the walls, on the sand; we had no garment, just shabby dresses, no stockings, shaved heads. They gave us no blankets and no hot drinks. Behind the walls there was a gas chamber; nauseating smell of burning bodies was rising from the chimneys. These were the bodies of dead women who died of debility and camp illnesses. We were told that (…) - TEXT CUT OFF (…) even when we wanted go to the toilet, otherwise we would be immediately sent to a bunker. Next, we were taken to have a cold shower. Each of us was checked for gold by a German woman on a gynecological table. In this death-trap, everyday we were woken up at 4 am by SS men with dogs and then we had to stand on an assembly for a couple of hours in rain and cold. We had only our rags on, nothing on our heads, we couldn't put anything on our heads – if we did so, they would hit us. Sometimes, one could manage to wrap some piece of paper from a palliasse around one's legs, so that it was warmer. However, not always it was possible, as when you were caught, you were taken to a bunker. They used to beat and kick us for nothing. Next, they took us to Buchenwald camp, number 34472, to ammunition plant Meuselwitz, where I had to work. We could hear blitz during days and at nights. During a blitz, Germans would lock us in the cellars under the plant. They would hide themselves in shelters. One day, our camp was bombed. It was at the beginning of March in 1945. Germans allowed us to hide in a forest which bordered with our camp. And then, it was this forest which was bombed. Many women died. A bomb fell next to me and I got covered with soil up to my waist. I couldn't walk. Since then, I wasn't asked to work at the machine anymore. Then I worked in a commando only, clearing the ruble. On 12 April 1945, there was the evacuation of the camp. They led us for 25 km daily, in rain and snow; we would sleep in a place where the night would set in: in ditches, with a stone under the head and a wet blanket, as it was sleeting. On 9 May 1945, Germans left us in the Czech Republic, where we met the Soviet Army. Joy was indescribable. We were liberated after so many sufferings. I returned to Warsaw on 25 May 1945 and got registered in the Polish Red Cross. TEXT CUT OFF' Her son, my Grandfather fought for the Free Polish, having managed to escape to England. After the end of the war, and when the Soviets weren't leaving, he settled here. Even lost his Polish citizenship, although he would occasionally go back to visit family. He left us a badge from the solidarity movement, which I find fascination. Wish he had survived long so I could have got to know him, seems like an interesting man.
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Aug 28, 2016 16:05
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P-Mack posted:Taiping Tianguo First of all, congratulations! Thanks for talking about this, I knew nothing about the Taiping War. In the current phase I feel kind of bad for Li Xiucheng since I'm a sucker for competent leaders on the losing side.
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Aug 28, 2016 17:27
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HEY GAL posted:Also, just how Catholic are you willing to get? Because Wuerzburg is Catholic as all gently caress. Let me put it this way: I'm bringing a of copy of Ninety-five Theses and some double sided tape to St. Peters Basicilla, which the only actual church on the agenda. Honestly the religiosity of the fortress doesn't matter to me in this case, I just wanted to squeeze a star fort into the Deutschland stage of the trip. I still gotta figure out Rome apart from Popeland, Historic Rome and the Coliseum. Dusty Baker 2 posted:Her parents moved her to Dresden, btw How can you cliff hang on that? So I had a great Uncle who was a US medic and was involved in the Italian Campaign. I had another great Uncle who was an 88 gunner on the Ostfront. Everybody thought he died until he showed up in '51 having walked back from a POW camp. Then there's one of his brothers who died in a Nazi camp because  , and then there's their Uncle who has a Nazi funded headstone complete with a swastika. He wasn't a soldier though, and nobody really knows what he was up to but he died in '43.
DiHK fucked around with this message at 17:36 on Aug 28, 2016 |
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Aug 28, 2016 17:32
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spectralent posted:You'd think but my uncle and grandma don't seem to bear that out. They all seem to have a bit of a "It's a shame but it was what was happening" kind of view on it. Yeah, I guess there's sort of an emergency release valve in the brain for that sort of thing. How did people clean up battlefields back in the day? I mean taking care of the bodies seems simple enough, but how did they clean up all of the blood when there was a battle at a village or city or on somebody's crops? They can't just do daily life when the ground is all bloodstained, can they?
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Aug 28, 2016 19:56
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SlothfulCobra posted:Yeah, I guess there's sort of an emergency release valve in the brain for that sort of thing. Why not?
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Aug 28, 2016 20:12
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Rodrigo Diaz posted:Why not?
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Aug 28, 2016 20:15
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SlothfulCobra posted:Yeah, I guess there's sort of an emergency release valve in the brain for that sort of thing. Somebody just posted a picture in the Venezuela thread of people queuing for bread with a bullet riddled dead body ten feet away.
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Aug 28, 2016 20:23
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SlothfulCobra posted:Yeah, I guess there's sort of an emergency release valve in the brain for that sort of thing. It's weird because there seem to be really different degrees of it. Gramps has his "funny war stories" but doesn't talk about the actual combat stuff that easily, but when he does he has a kind of quiet pride in it. Then we've got my friend's uncle, who once punched someone for saying "thank you for your service", and his grandpa, who used to tell him awesome action stories starring himself which my friend later realised meant his grandad had killed at least ten people and been shot twice.
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Aug 28, 2016 20:49
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HEY GAL posted:one sack that tilly's guys were involved in left the central fortress of the place they were sacking as bloody on the inside as though it had been painted and it stayed that way for years, but i can't find the name of the city "My lord, the crossbowmen all have hand cramps from scrubbing the dirt!" "drat, if only we didn't have to clean the blood out of everything... But them's the rules."
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Aug 28, 2016 20:56
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Rodrigo Diaz posted:"My lord, the crossbowmen all have hand cramps from scrubbing the dirt!"
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Aug 28, 2016 20:58
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"Your hauptmann shot a bullet through my window and killed my wife" "Motherfucker we have to eat dinner SOMETIME"
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Aug 28, 2016 21:06
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The dream team of all-time generals has already been done, I read a lovely novel to that effect once. I don't remember it well, but I think it included Patton, Bonaparte, and Jackson and/or Lee, among a few others.
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Aug 29, 2016 01:43
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Bad Angus! Bad!
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it would take people from each period a while to "get" war from the other ones 17th century warfare would probably drive napoleon nuts HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 01:49 on Aug 29, 2016 |
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Aug 29, 2016 01:47
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Dream team of admirals could be fun. Horatio Nelson, Chester Nimitz, and John Jellicoe are a good starting point.
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Aug 29, 2016 02:48
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Yeah, but it was bringing them all together in modern times for some reason, maybe Armageddon/Ragnorak? I agree that any officer would be frustrated, at best, with soldiers from a century and change before, but conversely, once you get the guys from 1600 (BC or AD) to wrap their heads around the concept of tanks*, they'd love that poo poo, like the scenario of giving Wm. T. Sherman an M4 Medium (well, if we're going for that joke, probably better to give Jeb Stuart an M5 Light, because he'd immediately grok the tactics), I'm pretty sure even your guys -- or hell, even the Ancient Egyptian Pharoahs, they were big on chariot-mounted archers -- would jizz their pants (hose, loincloths, whatever) upon seeing the modern state of heavy cav/lancers/dragoons. In that vein, can you even imagine showing Custer footage of his unit's recent actions?  On a tangent, does anybody do brevet ranks (awarding a higher-ranking title, without the pay or command to go with it, unless they get really desperate) these days? It was a big thing in the ACW -- Custer, for example, was brevetted to Major General during the war, the returned to his "proper" rank of LTC commanding a short regiment after -- but modern armies probably give you medals instead. *I wonder how much effort it would take to get, say, Wallenstein or a non-Stargate-verse ancient Egyptian to accept an M1 Abrams. At what point in history/what level of technology would they be more likely to accept "yeah, we have machines to do the job of horses" than Warhammer 40k-style "machine spirits 'n' poo poo"? Cythereal posted:Dream team of admirals could be fun. Horatio Nelson, Chester Nimitz, and John Jellicoe are a good starting point. And add either Dönitz or Rickover for the submarine command. Edit: Jellicoe wasn't THAT great, on the whole. He was the next best thing to Nelson, but ... using Nelson's tactics and kinda-maybe winning the big battle of his time, not a decisive victory like Nelson had. I'd swap him out for a destroyer guy in the all-star team, to cover all the bases. Chillbro Baggins fucked around with this message at 03:02 on Aug 29, 2016 |
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Aug 29, 2016 02:49
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People from uncontacted tribes can learn how to operate machinery, there's no reason anyone since the biological evolution of modern humans couldn't be taught how to drive and shoot and load.
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Aug 29, 2016 03:49
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So that British tank effortpost eh? It's on a pc which decided to kill the gently caress out of itself. Annoyingly I wad past the "make list" and "find vool pictures" stages and onto actual writing  Fingers crossed the machine shall live again within the week. Which neatly seagues in: to have a person understand a machine you teach them to take it apart and rebuild it. Teach them to be mechanics first, soldiers after. ArchangeI posted:So Clausewitz and Jomeni are irrelevant because neither predicted COIN warfare?
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Aug 29, 2016 04:04
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ArchangeI posted:So Clausewitz and Jomeni are irrelevant because neither predicted COIN warfare? They're irrelevant because everything worth saying about war was said by Sun Tzu. 
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Aug 29, 2016 05:21
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Goddamn, I got really busy right after the new thread started and it's taken the rest of the month to catch up. It's all been worth it though-this is by far the best goddamn thread on this entire forum.
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Aug 29, 2016 06:10
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Re: historical fashion: http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2016/08/13/dressing-for-king-first-book-of-fashion-matthaus-schwarz/
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Aug 29, 2016 08:29
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Disinterested posted:Re: historical fashion: http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2016/08/13/dressing-for-king-first-book-of-fashion-matthaus-schwarz/ 
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Aug 29, 2016 09:26
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Xerxes17 posted:Thread title suggestion: "Ask us about Military History: Operation Just Post".
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Aug 29, 2016 11:05
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What would people pick as a Nightmare Team of military leaders? Grigory Kulik in charge of armour, George McClellan in charge of military intel, Gaius Terentius Varro commanding the infantry, Napoleon Bonaparte handling the logistics?
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Aug 29, 2016 11:21
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Delivery McGee posted:Edit: Jellicoe wasn't THAT great, on the whole. He was the next best thing to Nelson, but ... using Nelson's tactics and kinda-maybe winning the big battle of his time, not a decisive victory like Nelson had. I'd swap him out for a destroyer guy in the all-star team, to cover all the bases. Okay, this touches on a question we might have answered before but which I can not remember: Nelson was known (or is known today) for his great reliance on individual initiative of his captains - the whole "No Captain can do very wrong if he puts his ship alongside the enemy"-thing. I also understand that the Royal Navy pretty much declared him one of the lesser Gods of Warfare as soon as he died. People keep saying that in the rough century between Nelson's death and the start of WWI, the Royal Navy became an organization that de-emphasized initiative and rewarded blind obedience to flag signals, because they misinterpreted Nelson's command style. My question is this: what did the Royal Navy think Nelson did to make them come to that conclusion? How come no one challenged that view of Nelson? Fangz posted:What would people pick as a Nightmare Team of military leaders? Grigory Kulik in charge of armour, George McClellan in charge of military intel, Gaius Terentius Varro commanding the infantry, Napoleon Bonaparte handling the logistics? Napoleon was fairly capable in terms of logistics. For real logistics fuckups you need someone like Erwin "My supply line runs through hundreds of kilometers of desert and across a sea that is heavily interdicted by the enemy, let's attack anyway because lol so random" Rommel.
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Aug 29, 2016 11:34
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Disinterested posted:Re: historical fashion: http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2016/08/13/dressing-for-king-first-book-of-fashion-matthaus-schwarz/ edit: wtf, she says you can't do anything in those clothes? that's bullshit. they are both comfortable and warm. and you keep everything up by lacing it together. yes, you have to re-tie your garters every now and then or else your stockings will fall down, but we have to re-tie our shoes now, don't we? edit 2: yessssss 
HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 11:46 on Aug 29, 2016 |
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Aug 29, 2016 11:37
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Delivery McGee posted:*I wonder how much effort it would take to get, say, Wallenstein or a non-Stargate-verse ancient Egyptian to accept an M1 Abrams. At what point in history/what level of technology would they be more likely to accept "yeah, we have machines to do the job of horses" than Warhammer 40k-style "machine spirits 'n' poo poo"? edit: just give them to pappenheim and stalhandsck, things'll sort themselves out edit 2: i think i'd take baner off my team tbh, you can have drive and "Swedish aggressiveness" without getting careless and sloppy and that's Torstensson. HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 11:54 on Aug 29, 2016 |
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Aug 29, 2016 11:41
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Fangz posted:What would people pick as a Nightmare Team of military leaders? Grigory Kulik in charge of armour, George McClellan in charge of military intel, Gaius Terentius Varro commanding the infantry, Napoleon Bonaparte handling the logistics? Roman Ungern-Sternberg as political leader in charge of objectives. Why yes, I can forge a pan-european empire united to the beat of the reindeerhide drum, with only a brigade to my name, just watch me!   
Tias fucked around with this message at 12:15 on Aug 29, 2016 |
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Aug 29, 2016 12:12
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ArchangeI posted:Napoleon was fairly capable in terms of logistics. For real logistics fuckups you need someone like Erwin "My supply line runs through hundreds of kilometers of desert and across a sea that is heavily interdicted by the enemy, let's attack anyway because lol so random" Rommel. I think you mean Erwin "hosed up my supply lines so badly even Hitler knew what a bad idea it was" Rommel. Also Halsey in charge of meteorology. Yorktown's staff and air wing leadership pretty much all go on the dream team. It's kind of funny how much better they were at it than the rest of the early war carriers. xthetenth fucked around with this message at 12:19 on Aug 29, 2016 |
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Aug 29, 2016 12:17
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Tias posted:Roman Ungern-Sternberg as political leader in charge of objectives. Why yes, I can forge a pan-european empire united to the beat of the reindeerhide drum, with only a brigade to my name, just watch me! edit: put wallenstein and jackson in a room together  
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Aug 29, 2016 12:19
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xthetenth posted:I think you mean Erwin "hosed up my supply lines so badly even Hitler knew what a bad idea it was" Rommel. what happened in their staff colleges? or did Nazism just make them all stupid
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Aug 29, 2016 12:22
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HEY GAL posted:the gently caress is wrong with the way Nazis thought about that poo poo, it seems like an entire culture of no-planning bullshit, which Disinterested went into in detail after detail "Will".
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Aug 29, 2016 12:26
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spectralent posted:"Will". 
HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 12:34 on Aug 29, 2016 |
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Aug 29, 2016 12:28
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If you want to understand, then get strung out on terrible anime where the protagonist routinely undergoes a mental break or eventually builds up enough will through hardship to overcome the enemy in a climactic stike no matter what the material conditions are. The same narrativist mentality is the driver here. No wonder there is such a crossover between anime shut ins and the alt-right. Смерть фашистам, смерть Анимэ. 
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Aug 29, 2016 12:36
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HEY GAL posted:so fascism makes you stupid, and suddenly you have a modern 20th century army reenacting the most dumb parts of the 17th century Of all the zeitgeists that could enter the mainstream political thoughts, I wish "fascism makes you stupid" would win. HEY GAL posted:the craziest Crazy General? Dude made Stalin and Hitler look like sensible strategists. "Oh hell, I'm the reincarnation of Kali, destroyer of worlds, why shouldn't I try to lead a mongol empire?" 
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Aug 29, 2016 12:37
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HEY GAL posted:so fascism makes you stupid, and suddenly you have a modern 20th century army reenacting the most dumb parts of the 17th century If you wanted to be more charitable you could say that a significant part of it was getting hopped up on their own hype and believing that logistics didn't matter because they were going to win in weeks anyway. On the other hand I dislike being charitable to nazis.
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Aug 29, 2016 12:42
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spectralent posted:If you wanted to be more charitable you could say that a significant part of it was getting hopped up on their own hype and believing that logistics didn't matter because they were going to win in weeks anyway.
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Aug 29, 2016 12:43
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Fangz posted:What would people pick as a Nightmare Team of military leaders? Grigory Kulik in charge of armour, George McClellan in charge of military intel, Gaius Terentius Varro commanding the infantry, Napoleon Bonaparte handling the logistics? Raglan and Cardigan. Oh wait, that happened.
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Aug 29, 2016 12:48
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HEY GAL posted:but that's not what you prepare for, you prepare for the worst-case scenario whether or not it'll actually happen But the worst case scenario is we win a month! Can't you see?! 
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