Ask Us About Military History: Remove Balls To Fire Blanks

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brozozo: Apr 27, 2007; Conclusion: Dinosaurs.

Rodrigo Diaz posted:

Also, according to Hew Strachan when I spoke to him, any time Keegan talks about Clausewitz or WWI. lmao

How is Keegan deficient in regards to WWI?

# ¿ Nov 14, 2013 21:40

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# ¿ Apr 30, 2024 11:58

brozozo: Apr 27, 2007; Conclusion: Dinosaurs.

a travelling HEGEL posted:

The Battle of Rocroi. Spain's performance here (they lost) wasn't the result of "decline," which is a term I don't like since it can have a lot of teleological baggage attached to it, but of specific poor decisions made by the government.

For a hundred years prior to this battle, Spain's infantry had been the best in Europe. Under Philip the Second its military budget alone surpassed the entire budgets of most other heads of state, and its army was very well trained. (For instance, they could move at the blistering speed of four and a half miles per day! )

Under the administration of the Duke of Alba, the officers of the Army of Flanders were commoners or members of the impoverished lower nobility, many of them former common soldiers, promoted by merit. The Count-Duke of Olivares, prime minister from 1621 to 1643, reversed this policy, promoting only higher nobles. Ironically, since none of them actually wanted to be there or enjoyed army life, he secretly diverted funds from the intelligence budget to give them kickbacks.

The quality of officers, predictably, declined, but Spain's tercios were still among the best infantry in Europe.

We can see both of these factors on display at Rocroi, where most of the high command fled within half an hour of the first engagement, refused to commit cavalry reinforcements to the Spanish infantry, and possibly forgot to order them to retreat. (The only Spanish high officer in the field who knew anything about anything, the ill and elderly Count of Fuentes, there for the sole and specific purpose of telling the Duke of Albuquerque what to do since he refused to listen to anyone who wasn't at least as well-born as he was, died early in the fight. Turns out if you're carried to the field in a litter, you're somewhat visible.)

So from eight in the morning until ten, the tercios stood under artillery fire--which is quite rare in this period, it's usually a defensive weapon or used for sieges--and repulsed four French cavalry charges. (Their German coworkers meanwhile, seeing what was coming, had already surrendered.)

The Duke d'Enghien (who would later level up as Conde) eventually gave the tercios surrender terms like those given to an enemy fortress, and they were allowed to leave the field with their flags flying and their weapons in their hands.

"It's time to act like what we are," said the Duke of Albuquerque just before the battle began, and he was right--both the Spanish noble officers and the Spanish infantry acted exactly like what they were.

Can't talk about Rocroi without posting this.

# ¿ Nov 15, 2013 21:17

brozozo: Apr 27, 2007; Conclusion: Dinosaurs.

Can anyone explain the strategic thinking behind Napoleon's campaign in Egypt? I've heard that it was an attempt to link up with the Tipu Sultan and smash Great Britain's influence in India, but wouldn't it have been simpler to ship Napoleon's army to India instead? Or was it merely an attempt to remove a popular general from the turmoil of Revolutionary France?

# ¿ Nov 28, 2013 23:40

brozozo: Apr 27, 2007; Conclusion: Dinosaurs.

Fangz posted:

The British Navy controls the exit to the Mediterranean, launching such an expedition without control of the seas is impossible.

That's true, but Great Britain was also able to exert a large amount of force over the Mediterranean itself. Napoleon's convoy to Egypt was able to evade Nelson but at great cost once the expeditionary force disembarked. Did France honestly believe such an expedition was worth the expenditure of men and ships? Was Napoleon really expected to conduct an overland campaign all the way from the Nile to India? Furthermore, hadn't the Ottoman Empire been France's nominal ally for centuries? If campaigning all the way to India had been the plan, couldn't France negotiate safe passage?

# ¿ Nov 29, 2013 04:12

brozozo: Apr 27, 2007; Conclusion: Dinosaurs.

Panzeh posted:

I don't think the Egyptian expedition was made purely for strategic purposes.

So it really was just the Directory shuffling Napoleon off to somewhere they thought he couldn't do too much damage?

# ¿ Nov 29, 2013 04:50

brozozo: Apr 27, 2007; Conclusion: Dinosaurs.

a travelling HEGEL posted:

The great thing about that dude is that he probably didn't hate his enemies personally, and he certainly didn't care one way or another about the noncombatants. It was just what you do. It's amoral, but it's a much more easy-to-deal-with policy than religious fanatics or ideologues or something. Would you rather live next to him or to the Muenster Anabaptists? Or, you know, Nazis.

Edit:

Was that Hoess? What a self-indulgent, sentimental little goonlord.

I dunno, I think there's something different about the flavor of early modern horror compared to modern atrocities. The latter takes place against the post-Enlightenment consensus that that sort of thing shouldn't happen (and it's sentimental, like when Nazis begin to feel sorry for themselves because they've been exposed to the things they were doing); the former is part of combat. You cease to be a Christian the moment you begin to trail a pike, and all that. (Although tbh, I am simplifying--a number of generals attempted to ride herd on the morality of their soldiers and people were developing the idea of a code of conduct for war. The first recorded war crimes trial was in 1474.)

Can you shed a little light on that first war crimes trial?

# ¿ Dec 5, 2013 19:54

brozozo: Apr 27, 2007; Conclusion: Dinosaurs.

During the American Civil War, did the Union have any contingency plan for the capture of Washington? Would capturing Washington really decide the war in the Confederacy's favor?

# ¿ Dec 9, 2013 02:38

brozozo: Apr 27, 2007; Conclusion: Dinosaurs.

Since a few "what if X fought Y" discussions have popped up recently, here's an article that discusses a hypothetical battle between Iowa and Yamato. The author quotes Jon Parshall, one of the guys who wrote Shattered Sword, pretty liberally.

# ¿ Dec 11, 2013 23:02

brozozo: Apr 27, 2007; Conclusion: Dinosaurs.

I got Shattered Sword for Christmas as well! The other milhist book I got was Quest for Decisive Victory by Robert Citino.

Does anyone here have a good grasp on the history Imperial Japanese Army? In particular, I'm interested in its leaders. We always hear about Patton, Montgomery, Zhukov, and Rommel, but nary a word about skilled Japanese (land) commanders.

Through its history, did the IJA have any important theorists? How did the experiences of the First Sino-Japanese War and the Russo-Japanese War shape the IJA?

# ¿ Dec 25, 2013 19:01

brozozo: Apr 27, 2007; Conclusion: Dinosaurs.

The other book I got for Christmas is Grey Wolf: The Escape of Adolf Hitler :tinfoil:

# ¿ Dec 28, 2013 05:00

brozozo: Apr 27, 2007; Conclusion: Dinosaurs.

my dad posted:

What do you guys think about "The Crusades Through Arab Eyes" by Amin Maalouf? Is it worth reading?

I read it several years ago, and I enjoyed it. If I remember correctly, it's made up mostly of Arab primary sources, so it's a pretty interesting counterpoint.

# ¿ Dec 29, 2013 01:18

brozozo: Apr 27, 2007; Conclusion: Dinosaurs.

veekie posted:

Something more recent I'm curious about. How did submarine warfare go back in WWII? Don't seem to hear much about it, other than a few hijinks the Japanese pulled.

Well, there was that whole Battle of the Atlantic thing.

# ¿ Jan 1, 2014 01:12

brozozo: Apr 27, 2007; Conclusion: Dinosaurs.

I think it's very important to not exclude the Chinese viewpoint when discussing their intervention in the Korean War. They weren't simply reacting to the triggering of a tripwire. I know it's stating the obvious, but the People's Republic was protecting its interests by intervening in Korea. Earlier this summer, I read China's Road to the Korean War by Chen Jian. Chen suggests that "three fundamental and interrelated rationales had dominated Beijing's formulation of foreign policy and security strategy: the party's revolutionary nationalism, its sense of responsibility toward an Asian-wide or worldwide revolution, and its determination to maintain the inner dynamics of the Chinese revolution."

I'll try to summarize those three points:

The party's revolutionary nationalism comes from Mao and other CCP leaders growing up during China's century of humiliation. What they saw as China's national interests were influenced by being on the poo poo end of all those unequal treaties. Furthermore, they were committed to the revitalization of China through revolution and China's assumption of the position as the "Central Kingdom" in a new world.
Not surprisingly, the CCP leadership wanted their revolution to spread to the rest of Asia and the world at large. Mao & company felt they were obligated to support other communist revolutions and other national liberation movements. They thought their successful revolution set a standard for other oppressed peoples. CCP leadership made it clear that old diplomatic legacies would be ignored, the PRC would be aligned with the USSR, and that China was not bound to existing norms or codes of behavior in international relations. "[Mao] believed that the rejuvenation of China's position as a central world power would be realized through the promotion of Asian and world revolutions following the Chinese model."
Regarding "inner dynamics", CCP leadership felt that victory in the civil war in 1949 was just the first step, and they were worried that momentum could be lost. The US was emphasized as a threat to the revolution, and China prepared for confrontation with the US in the future. The CCP leadership saw the Korean War as a way to "mobilize the Chinese nation under the CCP's terms."

If anyone has any question's about Chen's work, I'd be happy to answer them :shobon:

Finally, a few questions of my own about WWI:
In the book I'm reading right now, Quest for Decisive Victory by Robert Citino, the author seems to imply that one of the aspects that lead to Germany's victory at Tannenberg in 1914 was that Russia's First Army was transmitting its orders in the clear. Since the Germans knew the Russian First wasn't moving and was waiting for supplies, the German Eighth Army was able to turn south towards the Russian Second Army and encircle it. Citino didn't provide a citation for that. Is it common knowledge that Russia had shoddy (or non-existent) cryptology? What was the state of other countries' cryptology practices during WWI?

Can anyone talk at length about Austria-Hungary during WWI? To me, they've always seemed like a neglected actor in the conflict despite having a huge hand in its genesis.

# ¿ Jan 3, 2014 01:23

brozozo: Apr 27, 2007; Conclusion: Dinosaurs.

If anyone lives in or is visiting Central Texas, I'd definitely recommend visiting the Texas Military Forces Museum at Camp Mabry in Austin. The exhibits focus for the most part on Texan units throughout American history, but it's still pretty interesting. They also have lots of old tanks, more M113 variants you can shake a stick at, and a Jagdpanzer 38(t)!

# ¿ Jan 6, 2014 18:36

brozozo: Apr 27, 2007; Conclusion: Dinosaurs.

gradenko_2000 posted:

This is from a couple pages back, but I finally got to the relevant part in Guns of August.

Part of the problem was logistics: There were no east-west rail lines running from Russian Poland to German Prussia, and Russian and German rail gauges were incompatible anyway (a fact that would also weigh heavily in the next war), which meant that as Russian supplies reached the pre-war border, they could only be sent to the front via horse-drawn transportation. This made it very difficult to establish telephone and telegraph lines running from the front back to Russian high command, on top of the Germans destroying any telegraph/telephone stations and lines they left behind as well as evacuating all rolling stock to prevent Russians from using rail-lines without need for gauge conversion.

The net effect was that the Russians could only communicate to their General Staff via radios, and they were forced to broadcast unencrypted messages because their cryptologists could not find transportation to the front either.

The second time Russian cryptology was mentioned, it was supposedly in a very simple code that was broken quickly by a cryptologist attached to the German 8th Army staff. There's no explicit mention of what the code was or what cryptology was like for the Russian Army as a whole, but I would not be surprised if the Russian Army lacked formal procedures for it, either due to the general backwardness of their doctrine/technology or just during the battle as a result of the abbreviated mobilization they pulled off in order to meet their obligations with the French.

Thanks for the informative answer!

# ¿ Jan 8, 2014 19:05

brozozo: Apr 27, 2007; Conclusion: Dinosaurs.

Bacarruda posted:

On the subject of the Russo Japanese War and lessons (not) learned.

https://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA430841
http://www.historynet.com/russo-japanese-war-japans-first-big-surprise.htm

I know I sound like a broken record, but I can't recommend Citino enough. This column is interesting, and in Quest for Decisive Victory Citino goes into great detail to explain the "lessons learned" from the wars of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

# ¿ Jan 11, 2014 18:47

brozozo: Apr 27, 2007; Conclusion: Dinosaurs.

Fangz posted:

Incidentally the BBC has a podcast about that up right now.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/iot

This is a really interest podcast. Thanks for posting the link!

# ¿ Jan 17, 2014 02:04

brozozo: Apr 27, 2007; Conclusion: Dinosaurs.

Ferrosol posted:

Ironically a war on the continent was the best thing that could happen to the United Kingdom. In the absence of World War I there was a good chance that Britain may have descended into civil war before 1914 was over. Home rule for Ireland was such a contentious issue that there were plots to mutiny in both the army and navy with the regiments in Ireland planning defect to the protestant unionists and certain elements of the navy willing to do he same. Add in the wave of socialist inspired strikes that were building throughout the year cumulating in a Dockers strike that shut down the port of London in the summer of 1914 and the increasingly radicalised suffragette movement that had already began sending letter bombs and it was feared that they were plotting to assassinate government ministers and you have a country on the edge of chaos. Really the crisis and subsequent invasion of "Brave little Belgium" buried any animosity for the duration of the war and bought time for the British establishment to survive.

Whoa, I had never known that. Could you or other posters flesh out the sociopolitical picture of Europe before World War I?

# ¿ Jan 21, 2014 00:25

brozozo: Apr 27, 2007; Conclusion: Dinosaurs.

I'm reading Shattered Sword right now, and I have a question for fellow readers or posters familiar with Japanese naval aviation. As you may know, Parshall and Tully go to great lengths to explain how the Japanese operated the flight decks and hangars of their carriers. They mention several times that the Aichi D3A dive bomber was only loaded with its ordnance once it was spotted on the flight deck, but they never explain why. Can anyone shed some light on that? I know it may seem insignificant, but they mention it so much throughout the first 150 pages or so that I figure that there must be something to it.

# ¿ Jan 23, 2014 00:19

brozozo: Apr 27, 2007; Conclusion: Dinosaurs.

Right, equipping the dive bombers on the flight deck can throw a pretty big wrench into flight deck cycles. However, I'm curious as to why the Japanese equipped their dive bombers in this fashion. What was the reasoning behind it? Ordnance was loaded onto every other plane in the hangar. What necessitated the dive bombers being armed on the flight deck? The authors mention that Japanese carriers had ordnance lifts to the flight deck to deal with the dive bombers, and since they mention it so many times I'm guessing American carriers didn't operate this way.

brozozo fucked around with this message at 00:58 on Jan 23, 2014

# ¿ Jan 23, 2014 00:46

brozozo: Apr 27, 2007; Conclusion: Dinosaurs.

meatbag posted:

Please enlighten me.

I'm also curious in hearing about Massie's shortcomings. I've read Dreadnought, and I've been interested in reading Castles of Steel as well.

# ¿ Jan 28, 2014 00:09

brozozo: Apr 27, 2007; Conclusion: Dinosaurs.

I can't remember if this has been posted in this thread, but MrChips has made some great posts about American and Soviet aircraft. You should check them out!

MrChips posted:

MAIN POSTS

Myasishchev M-4 "Bison"
Myasishchev M-50 "Bounder"
Sukhoi T-4/Myasishchev M-18/Tupolev Tu-160 "Blackjack"
Sukhoi Su-9/Su-15 "Fishpot"/"Flagon"
Tupolev Tu-22 "Blinder/Tu-22M "Backfire"
Tupolev Tu-128 "Fiddler"
Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-25 "Foxbat"/MiG-31 "Foxhound"
Sukhoi Su-27 "Flanker" family
Tupolev Tu-95 "Bear"
Republic XF-103 and North American XF-108

SHORT POSTS

McDonnell-Douglas/General Dynamics F-4X/RF-4X
Tsybin RSR
Lockheed D-21

HISTORY OF...POSTS

VTOL Aircraft, Part One
VTOL Aircraft, Part Two

# ¿ Jan 28, 2014 17:16

brozozo: Apr 27, 2007; Conclusion: Dinosaurs.

Can anyone tell me about the development of air warfare before and during World War I?

# ¿ Feb 20, 2014 00:08

brozozo: Apr 27, 2007; Conclusion: Dinosaurs.

ALL-PRO SEXMAN posted:

That's a pretty broad question. Is there anything specific you'd like to know?

Okay, I'll try to narrow the scope a bit. In the summer of 1914, what was the state of the various combatants' air services? Were fighters and bombers (and their respective doctrines) developed before or during the war?

# ¿ Feb 20, 2014 19:14

brozozo: Apr 27, 2007; Conclusion: Dinosaurs.

Handsome Ralph posted:

Anyone else ever read Keegan's Intelligence In War? Just finished reading the epilogue, and while the rest of the book was enjoyable, the last part on Iraq and Al-Qaeda though, ugh.

He basically spends a paragraph talking about how Al-Qaeda is able to circumvent western intelligence using SOE/OSS network methods that the Gestapo cracked easily using torture. He then implies that the only thing stopping the West from disabling these terror networks is their non-use of torture. Granted the book was written in late 2002/early 2003, it just feels like such a retarded logical jump considering the other work the guy had published over the years is rather well written and thoughtful in its scholarship.

God dammit Keegan

I read it several years ago. I thought it was decent, but I definitely don't remember that.

# ¿ Feb 28, 2014 05:53

brozozo: Apr 27, 2007; Conclusion: Dinosaurs.

I've got a question about historiography. What exactly is the distinction between academic and popular histories? I feel like I know a popular history when I see one, but I'm never quite sure why it's one and not the other. What makes something academic? Is it the use of a certain citation style, the author's credentials, or the work being peer reviewed?

# ¿ Mar 16, 2014 20:23

brozozo: Apr 27, 2007; Conclusion: Dinosaurs.

Is anyone familiar with the amphibious feint undertaken by the United States during the Gulf War? Was it always planned to be a diversion, or would it have gone forward if things in the western desert didn't go so well?

# ¿ Mar 22, 2014 22:31

brozozo: Apr 27, 2007; Conclusion: Dinosaurs.

Handsome Ralph posted:

Don't forget about this, I'm still interested!

Oh man, definitely echoing this sentiment.

# ¿ Mar 26, 2014 00:40

brozozo: Apr 27, 2007; Conclusion: Dinosaurs.

BurningStone posted:

I'm not a Keegan fan myself. McPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom is often called the best single volume book. Shelby Foote's trilogy is also good, but may be too much detail if you're just trying to grasp the major points.

I was going to recommend Foote as well. I'm pretty sure they've broken down the trilogy in recent years to many smaller parts. For example, if you're just interested in the Vicksburg campaign, go ahead and grab that minivolume. I think they're about three hundred pages each.

# ¿ Apr 2, 2014 18:46

brozozo: Apr 27, 2007; Conclusion: Dinosaurs.

Panfilo posted:

I've heard from some sources that the Imperial Japanese Navy was nothing more than a "paper tiger". That had they not sucker punched the US at Pearl Harbor they wouldn't have been able to face our industrial might.

-Coral Sea was a 'stalemate' but Japan couldn't really make up the losses in airmen suffered. It could be argued that it was the beginning of the end.

-Midway wiped out the majority of Japan's carrier air force. From then on, they were forced to fight on the defensive, and as time passed, their air corps did worse and worse.

-Kamikaze tactics were more a product of desperation than anything. They figured if a Dive Bomber/Torpedo Bomber couldn't reliably get through to score a hit, why not just crash directly into the ship itself? But even this didn't really do much of a difference.

-The only reason the war in the Pacific dragged on as long as it did was Japan's fatalistic attitude; had they continued conventional tactics they would have surrendered/retreated rather than die; and capitulate rather than get nuked.

In most cases early on Japan's army/navy were fighting colonial or local forces unable to deal with the numbers/technology of Japan's forces, but once faced with a decent adversary they seem to have folded at every turn. Were there any islands or fortresses re-taken by IJN forces during WWII? After Midway it was the beginning of the end for them; man for man, plane for plane, ship for ship they were inferior to the USN; they were fighting the Russo-American war in 1941 with predicable results.

I know you weren't asking for book recommendations, but I highly suggest reading Shattered Sword. Its focus is Midway, but it does a great job explaining what the IJN did right and wrong.

# ¿ Apr 6, 2014 01:03

brozozo: Apr 27, 2007; Conclusion: Dinosaurs.

Can anyone in the thread offer some insight or recommend some good books on the Indo-Pakistani Wars?

# ¿ May 6, 2014 16:13

brozozo: Apr 27, 2007; Conclusion: Dinosaurs.

Do they really get McChrystal to talk about MacArthur? 'Cause that is some poo poo I've GOT to see.

# ¿ May 29, 2014 04:34

brozozo: Apr 27, 2007; Conclusion: Dinosaurs.

Fragrag posted:

Thanks, that was the one I was looking for! You don't get stuff like that on SA anymore.

Killing For Peace is on Amazon, I might actually buy it.

Killing for Peace is what motivated me to buy an account here back in 2007. Nice to see it come ups every now and then

# ¿ Jun 21, 2014 16:48

brozozo: Apr 27, 2007; Conclusion: Dinosaurs.

Anybody read Battle of Surigao Strait by Anthony Tully?

# ¿ Jul 29, 2014 03:57

brozozo: Apr 27, 2007; Conclusion: Dinosaurs.

PittTheElder posted:

Well that all depends on how you look at it. As a machine built to perform its designed mission, it's a god damned triumph. Problem is that the required mission capability was ridiculous, and utilized exactly zero times.

Can you expand a bit on mission capability and zero utilization? I don't know that much about the Space Shuttle.

# ¿ Jul 30, 2014 18:17

brozozo: Apr 27, 2007; Conclusion: Dinosaurs.

bewbies posted:

So it turns out my new boss has his doctorate in modern European history and is arguably an even bigger nerd than I am. He and I spent the whole afternoon debating what I thought was a very interesting hypothesis.

His statement: had the Balkan crises been delayed by five or so years, the reichstsag would have taken power from the Kaiser and the junkers within the German Empire and move to Germany to wards an anti-war, anti-colonial position, which likely would have prevented both world wars.

I am not doing justice to his arguments here, but I am curious what you other nerds think of this proposal.

Sounds pretty nuts to me, but I know hardly anything about domestic politics in the German Empire. Can you relay to us some reasons why he thinks it would have shaken out that way? And what's your position on his hypothesis?

# ¿ Aug 13, 2014 01:26

brozozo: Apr 27, 2007; Conclusion: Dinosaurs.

During the late nineteenth century, how did muzzleloading naval artillery work? At this point, you've got the guns in turrets, so do you just have a whole bunch of men on the deck in front the turret to handle loading and reloading? What are the men inside the turret doing? All in all, the 1860s and 1870s seem like a very strange time in naval history. So much innovation!

# ¿ Aug 30, 2014 22:44

brozozo: Apr 27, 2007; Conclusion: Dinosaurs.

Thanks for all the informative posts on naval artillery! I've got a followup question: why did so many warships in the late nineteenth century have such low freeboard? Presenting a smaller target seems handy, but are there any other reasons that led to many turretted warships being built with low freeboard? Did the heavy turrets of the time prevent a ship from having a higher freeboard, i.e. being heavier? It seems like the kind of thing you can get away with riverine or coastal ships, but it's clearly a disadvantage with seagoing vessels.

Also, I'm really enjoying Trin Tragula's 100 Years Ago posts! Keep it up!

# ¿ Aug 31, 2014 22:24

brozozo: Apr 27, 2007; Conclusion: Dinosaurs.

gradenko_2000 posted:

http://www.pritzkermilitary.org/whats_on/programming-overview/

The Pritzker Military Library podcast is very Americentric, but otherwise puts out lots and lots of Mil-Hist related content. They have this excellent piece on Nomonhan/Khalkin Gol, another where Jonathan Parshall (Shattered Sword) and John Lundstrom (The First Team) talk about alt-history outcomes for Midway and lots of veteran interviews. The last one I listened to was Gen. John Allen giving a talk about leadership principles - it was a hell of a thing to find out a week later that he was the newly appointed guy in charge of the current offensive in the MidEast.

I've been looking for some more history related podcasts as well, and this fits the bill nicely!

Rodrigo Diaz posted:

Radio 4's In Our Time is usually pretty good, though the host has a tendency to talk over the participants, presumably to keep things moving. One of its big plusses though is that it always features academics as guests, including some fairly big names in their field.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/2Dw1c7rxs6DmyK0pMRwpMq1/in-our-time-archive

Seconding this recommendation! I've been listening to In Our Time a lot lately. All the episodes that focus on history have been very enjoyable in my opinion.

# ¿ Sep 26, 2014 05:18

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# ¿ Apr 30, 2024 11:58

brozozo: Apr 27, 2007; Conclusion: Dinosaurs.

Syncopated posted:

Was reading about the Korean war on wikipedia and the main article says that "experienced Soviet generals" planned the north korean attack. I've been trying to find out who the generals were but even going back a few pages in the google results is giving me nothing. Does anyone else have some better sources/ is this known?

The source cited on Wikipedia says on page 30 that Major General Smirnov and then Lieutenant General Bashilev headed the military advisory group. If you haven't already checked that, it might be worth a read.

# ¿ Sep 29, 2014 04:59

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