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Slavvy posted:It's apples and oranges though, the western allies were focused on strategic bombing while the soviets used their air force as part of combined arms operations with the army. The Allies did plenty of this, too. In fact, I'd argue RAF CAS was probably the most effective and most responsive tactical air support system developed during the war. As early as 1941, the British had the "Cab Rank" system. RAF or Army ground spotters would have ground targets marked with mortar or artillery smoke. Orbiting RAF fighter-bombers like the Hawker Typhoon would then be pulled from an orbiting "cab rank" and attack the marked targets as needed. The USAAF eventually adopted something similar to the British model and used dismounted pilots as tactical air controllers and air liaison officers (something that the USAF and USMC still do today).
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Feb 24, 2015 07:20
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xthetenth posted:The US had a considerable amount of manpower they could have used but didn't, and a pretty hefty chunk of guys in the Pacific that weren't in use. Plus I don't think that WWII was a flat out demographic disaster for the US. Pretty sure there wouldn't have been any time to organise fresh troops or bring to bear the US' incredible economic might because berlin to the french coast really isn't very far at all. Bacarruda posted:The USAAF eventually adopted something similar to the British model and used dismounted pilots as tactical air controllers and air liaison officers (something that the USAF and USMC still do today). Very cool!
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Feb 24, 2015 08:05
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HEY GAL posted:Meanwhile, in Magdeburg: I always find it incredibly unnerving every time I am reminded that soldier's wives and children can be complicit in war crimes 
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Feb 24, 2015 08:58
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Phobophilia posted:I always find it incredibly unnerving every time I am reminded that soldier's wives and children can be complicit in war crimes
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Feb 24, 2015 09:11
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Phobophilia posted:I always find it incredibly unnerving every time I am reminded that soldier's wives and children can be complicit in war crimes Hey, you need to live somehow. I am sad reading about them burning books stuff. Weren't there people who'd buy poo poo like that? It's not like you have a high chance of stealing medieval 50 Shades of Grey instead of a valuable manuscript. drat mongols and their sack of Baghdad!
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Feb 24, 2015 09:12
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Eej posted:Speaking of, why does the Mediterranean theatre tend to be not talked about as much as other theatres? Was it really not that important in the big picture? The British victory at El Alamein was one of the first great victories of the Western Allies (and coincides neatly with the first great Soviet victory at Stalingrad and the first great Pacific victory at Guadalcanal), the Torch landings and the capture of Algiers, Morocco and Tunisia let the Americans pick up tons of sorely-needed battle experience (sometimes hard-won, see Kasserine) and the subsequent invasion of Sicily and Italy put pressure on the German war machine that they really couldn't afford (most notably, SS Panzer divisions were pulled out of a critical moment in the Battle of Kursk to reinforce Italy) It just sort of petered out by the time the Allies get to Northern Italy because the terrain there is so defensible, but the Mediterranean campaign was plenty important. Learnings from the Italian landings were pivotal in planning for the Normandy invasion. I'd recommend Rick Atkinson's Liberation Trilogy if you want to know more - An Army at Dawn starts off with the planning for Operation Torch and ends with the fall of Tunis.
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Feb 24, 2015 09:39
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The Red Army had a 'manpower crisis' in 1945 in the sense that it couldn't just lose a couple of million men in a mass encirclement and have them replaced 6 months later like in 1941/2. It was still using more men in the assault of Berlin than Germany had committed to the whole of Barbarossa.
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Feb 24, 2015 09:51
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Speaking of which, was there anything that could have been done better during the assault on Berlin? I kept getting the impression from what I've read of it that there are historians that think Zhukov was too ... blunt? with how he conducted it.
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Feb 24, 2015 09:54
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gradenko_2000 posted:Speaking of which, was there anything that could have been done better during the assault on Berlin? I kept getting the impression from what I've read of it that there are historians that think Zhukov was too ... blunt? with how he conducted it.
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Feb 24, 2015 10:06
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gradenko_2000 posted:(most notably, SS Panzer divisions were pulled out of a critical moment in the Battle of Kursk to reinforce Italy) So these forces might have managed a better fighting withdrawal and there was a chance of cutting off the Second Tank Corps and Second Guards Tank Corps in the Gostishchevo-Liski pocket and thus delaying future counterattacks, but any chance of victory at Kursk was probably lost once Hitler shifted the timetable so far forward. (also all the ULTRA intelligence on German plans was probably far more helpful than the landings in Italy).
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Feb 24, 2015 10:31
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gradenko_2000 posted:Speaking of which, was there anything that could have been done better during the assault on Berlin? I kept getting the impression from what I've read of it that there are historians that think Zhukov was too ... blunt? with how he conducted it. Wasn't there around 250,000 Soviet casualties? Sure sounds like a hell of a lot given how shattered Germany was by this stage.
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Feb 24, 2015 10:36
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AceRimmer posted:Meh, quite a few of the withdrawals were due to Soviet offensives in other areas. Liebenstandardte was used in the Mius line counterattack before being moved to Italy (on August 3rd) and the 1st SS Panzer Grenadier was moved back to the east by November of 1943. Everything else in the II SS Panzer Corps remained under Manstein IIRC. Other reserves were shifted to reinforce the Orel salient (Grossdeutchland and other units). You know, you're right. I even read a whole book about the Mius offensive and I still forgot about that.
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Feb 24, 2015 10:39
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AgentJotun posted:Wasn't there around 250,000 Soviet casualties? Sure sounds like a hell of a lot given how shattered Germany was by this stage. You have to take casualties if you want to take a city the size of Berlin in a week.
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Feb 24, 2015 11:08
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Alchenar posted:The Red Army had a 'manpower crisis' in 1945 in the sense that it couldn't just lose a couple of million men in a mass encirclement and have them replaced 6 months later like in 1941/2. It was still using more men in the assault of Berlin than Germany had committed to the whole of Barbarossa. You don't make machine gun artillery battalions unless you're trying to find men to hold rifles for the armies actually on the offensive. Russia wasn't "out" of men, but no one ran "out" of men in ww2, it was more they were feeling the squeeze from how they fought in 1941-42 and had to economize. Another war in 1946 or whatever might be a bit much for an army in that situation. The US did choose not to use as much manpower as it could have, though, and the Army's infantry felt the squeeze from that policy, too, as there were a lot of complaints about getting the worst replacements possible compared to the Navy and AAF.
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Feb 24, 2015 11:28
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Arguably the Germans ran out of men, didn't they?
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Feb 24, 2015 11:43
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Pushing grandfathers and kids into service is quite the definition of running out of men.
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Feb 24, 2015 12:25
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100 Years Ago Yeah, still short-changing the Eastern Front. But can you blame me, when there's this excellent story to tell about a silly-rear end subaltern who gets completely confused when confronted by boiled beef? The paper is a goldmine of patent medicine adverts today. Kutnow's Powder takes out a full-page job! And apparently there are even supplements for little children now.
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Feb 24, 2015 12:35
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gradenko_2000 posted:Speaking of which, was there anything that could have been done better during the assault on Berlin? I kept getting the impression from what I've read of it that there are historians that think Zhukov was too ... blunt? with how he conducted it. Surround it, pound it with artillery and bomb the gently caress out of it, wait for the inevitable mass surrenders, then send in the infantry. edit: it wasn't getting done for much less than about 100k casualties either way you slice it, since the First Belorussian Front took about 20k clearing Seelowe Heights alone. KYOON GRIFFEY JR fucked around with this message at 14:23 on Feb 24, 2015 |
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Feb 24, 2015 14:20
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HEY GAL posted:Meanwhile, in Magdeburg: I remember that story about Tilly awkwardly trying to feed a baby he'd rescued from its dead mother while trying to rally his troops.
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Feb 24, 2015 14:51
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For another bomber becoming a writer, Howard Zinn was a bombardier. He eventually wrote an interesting essay about participating in the bombing of Royan, which was a strategically insignificant city on the Atlantic coast of France still held by Germans in January '45. It was totally isolated but the Army Air Corps completely annihilated it, including with an early use of napalm bombs. 2700 French civilians died in two raids, as against IIRC 25 Germans or something like that.
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Feb 24, 2015 15:21
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EvanSchenck posted:For another bomber becoming a writer, Howard Zinn was a bombardier. He eventually wrote an interesting essay about participating in the bombing of Royan, which was a strategically insignificant city on the Atlantic coast of France still held by Germans in January '45. It was totally isolated but the Army Air Corps completely annihilated it, including with an early use of napalm bombs. 2700 French civilians died in two raids, as against IIRC 25 Germans or something like that. Good memory. Here's what Wikipedia has to say about it. quote:Destruction of Royan
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Feb 24, 2015 16:43
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:Surround it, pound it with artillery and bomb the gently caress out of it, wait for the inevitable mass surrenders, then send in the infantry. Was it the Seelowe heights where Zhukov had a whole bunch of spotlights brought in to illuminate the far side and ended up silhouetting the first wave of troops?
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Feb 24, 2015 17:34
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Raskolnikov38 posted:Was it the Seelowe heights where Zhukov had a whole bunch of spotlights brought in to illuminate the far side and ended up silhouetting the first wave of troops? Yeah, that was not a great idea. But even without the spotlights, the heights were a nasty piece of terrain that were defended by the highest-quality and best-equipped German formations in prepared defenses in depth. The spotlights didn't help, but it was going to be a bloodbath no matter what. Zukhov's guys were helped by the presence of a bridgehead across the Oder, but their axis of assault was easily identified. Konev had a relatively easier time of the crossing due to terrain and defenders, but the First Ukranians were also a little more intelligent about their assault plan - heavy on assault boats, smoke generation and a creeping barrage with multiple points under attack at the same time.
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Feb 24, 2015 18:15
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I know next to nothing about Seelow heights 
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Feb 24, 2015 18:41
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Heinrici, the German commander at Seelow Heights had some later quote saying that as long as the odds were 18:1 against him, he could hold a position but 24:1 was pushing it.
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Feb 24, 2015 18:45
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I don't really think much can be done differently about Berlin. You just have to remember that taking Berlin is about ending the war. Yeah, sure, the Soviets could have tried to encircle the city and starve/bombard out an unevacuated city of a few million to spare maybe a couple hundred thousand casualties, prolonging potentially for months a fight that was costing them an average of 20k casualties per day, all while the political picture of post-war Europe was in flux... Or they could just end this thing ASAP. In the giant bloodbath of the Eastern Front, individual battles in end are but small teacups. Edit: The Soviets actually attacked the Seelowe Heights with a force advantage of 9:1 and brushed through his defence in 3 days. Heinrici is rather exaggerating. EDIT2: Also his entire defending force got encircled and destroyed afterwards and thus was unable to participate in the Battle of Berlin. Of course if you listen to his admirers this was all according to plan so as to spare Berlin urban combat. 
Fangz fucked around with this message at 20:25 on Feb 24, 2015 |
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Feb 24, 2015 19:15
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StashAugustine posted:I remember that story about Tilly awkwardly trying to feed a baby he'd rescued from its dead mother while trying to rally his troops. Edit: 72, he was born in 1559. And he only lost two battles in his entire career. HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 21:21 on Feb 24, 2015 |
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Feb 24, 2015 19:33
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Fangz posted:Edit: The Soviets actually attacked the Seelowe Heights with a force advantage of 9:1 and brushed through his defence in 3 days. Heinrici is rather exaggerating. Wouldn't be a German general if he wouldn't.
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Feb 24, 2015 19:49
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Raskolnikov38 posted:Was it the Seelowe heights where Zhukov had a whole bunch of spotlights brought in to illuminate the far side and ended up silhouetting the first wave of troops? Have some Soviet operational research regarding the use of spotlights
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Feb 24, 2015 19:55
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Kemper Boyd posted:Wouldn't be a German general if he wouldn't. Perhaps he fell victim to the propensity to fight the last war  Speaking of, is there any writing on how German WWI veterans (in field command) reacted to the RKKA pushing the Wehrmacht back across Europe in WWII? Was it as much a shock to them as I think it would be?
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Feb 24, 2015 20:57
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To really get your mind around the Battle for Berlin you really need to be thinking of the political stakes involved and what everyone's priorities were for the post-war period. Planning for the post-war period in general was really sketchy and all in all badly done, and a lot of major decisions weren't really made until Potsdam. One thing that everyone was freaked out about, however, was the potential for a post-war resistance in occupied Germany. The general thinking was that the longer the Germans are confronted with the stone cold reality of a lost war but a frontline quasi-stable enough to do some planning behind the greater the possibility that they start to plan for the occupation themselves - e.g. creating hidden arms caches, detaching members of the military to set up post-war guerrilla units, or even standing down entire formations with the thought of reconstituting them later. Imagine the havoc that could have been wrought by even a single battalion of die-hard SS nutjobs operating out of prepared hideaways in the forests and hills of bumfuck nowhere Bavaria well supplied from arms caches hidden in the last months of a protracted end-phase of the conflict. Basically the Battle for Castle Itter writ large. Imagine how much worse that gets if someone convinces Hitler to GTFO of Berlin and he's sending out tape-recorded messages from prepared hideaways a la Osama. A lot of the reason that everyone went so balls to the wall full speed ahead once the German frontier was breached in both the E. and W was that we very specifically didn't want that stuff happening. A good part of the Soviet logic behind shutting down Berlin ASAP was to try and kill or capture as much senior leadership as they could then and there. The US Army also exerted a lot of energy tracking down senior Nazis in the areas we occupied. This is also the reason that everyone went so crazy confiscating every civilian firearm we could find in Germany after the war, securing military arms depots, and in general disarming the German population as thoroughly as possible. tl;dr - we wanted the occupation we got, more or less, not a Central European 1940s version of Iraq 2003-2013. Watch this if you really want some of that fine 1940s flavor. THe whole thing is good, but the really great bit starts around 6:00 or so. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=821R0lGUL6A
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Feb 24, 2015 21:07
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gradenko_2000 posted:Speaking of which, was there anything that could have been done better during the assault on Berlin? I kept getting the impression from what I've read of it that there are historians that think Zhukov was too ... blunt? with how he conducted it. Rokosovsky also crossed the order further north without too much of a hassle, but his operational circumstances were quite a bit different then Zhukovs. Sometimes a sledgehammer (Zhukov) is what you need, Rokosovsky was more of a dagger ("Dolch", which is a largish dagger, was his actual nickname as far as the Germans were concerned) in comparison. Konev was imho better at Maskirovka then Zhukov (Konev arguably learned it from covering up his own fuckups, successfully applying Maskirovka to Stalin makes for some pretty drat intense training. IIRC the only guy who survived getting sacked by Stalin twice.), but even more of an rear end in a top hat personally. Zhukov was good at getting the resources he needed, and at making a usually quite good plan and then sticking with it (this is a lot more difficult in practice then it sounds). But as a general statement, I got a bit of a bias in favor of Rokosovsky (that is one hell of a rollercoaster live), and read a bit too much Konev/Zhukov propaganda.
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Feb 24, 2015 22:59
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Cyrano4747 posted:Basically the Battle for Castle Itter writ large. Is there a movie made about this, and if not, why is there not? This is almost perfect Hollywood stuff!
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Feb 24, 2015 23:01
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Fangz posted:I don't really think much can be done differently about Berlin. You just have to remember that taking Berlin is about ending the war. I don't think Heinrici did a particularly good job either - pushed all of his eggs in to the Seelowe basket, and thus made it tougher for von Manteuffel to defend against Rokossovsky, which made defending Seelowe irrelevant in the long term. However, with the forces at his disposal, there wasn't exactly a favorable outcome that could be achieved.
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Feb 25, 2015 01:01
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Ensign Expendable posted:Maybe selling discarded weapons was how the townsfolk got their stuff back. Speaking of, was there a market for second hand weapons, and who would loot the battlefield? The effects of this could be expected. From the English Civil War: quote:Soldiers lost their arms when wounded, threw them down as they surrendered or fled leaving them to be retrieved by pursuers, and sometimes sold them as they ran: after a skirmish in 1642 royalist foot 'fled and offered their armes in the townes adjacent for twelve pence a piece.' (Barbara Donagan, War in England 1642-1649) Also see "'The Magazine of All Their Pillaging:' Armies as Sites of Second-Hand Exchanges during the French Wars of Religion," Brian Sandberg. (The title is three different puns: in 17th century French, magasin means a military supply depot, an accumulation of goods, or a place to sell merchandise.) Edit: Lol, he says there's evidence hotel keepers sold small arms during this period. HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 08:03 on Feb 25, 2015 |
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Feb 25, 2015 07:44
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HEY GAL posted:Yo, I just learned that there were healthy markets for second-hand weapons. So real life in the medieval period and renaissance was literally a D&D game or Skyrim?
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Feb 25, 2015 08:31
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chitoryu12 posted:So real life in the medieval period and renaissance was literally a D&D game or Skyrim?  And everything I talk about is from the early modern period, not medieval/renaissance. It's like modern, but...earlier HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 08:50 on Feb 25, 2015 |
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Feb 25, 2015 08:37
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100 Years Ago The weather's cleared up at the Dardanelles, and the fleet has a good day, effectively silencing the outer forts. Enver Pasha needs a scapegoat for his humiliation at the Battle of Sarikamis, but fortunately there's a convenient ethnic and religious minority practically on his doorstep. And industrial relations in Britain aren't going so well as the cost of living continues to rise.
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Feb 25, 2015 12:25
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Trin Tragula posted:100 Years Ago The Empire Strikes Back (against the wrong people, in the millions)
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Feb 25, 2015 13:02
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This seems like an appropriate point at which to ask: Yes, the Armenian Genocide was, IMHO, a genocide. No real question there, I think. But what I'm wondering is: Was it an intentional genocide, or was it a genocide the Ottomans somehow...I dunno...blundered into? Did they go in intending to wipe out the Armenians (a la Germany and the Jews 20-30 years later), or did they just...do what they did and the effect was to commit genocide in any case? (It feels weird to describe a genocide as accidental, but stranger things have happened...)
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Feb 25, 2015 17:25
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