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So I'm about to GM a roleplaying session where my players get the unenviable roles of squad members in the Romanian 4th army, during the Battle of Podu Iloaiei. It's basically going to be an instructive, nerve-pumping "look how lovely WW2 is if your equipment is not up to scratch" game played for an afternoon or two. I've just made Seasoned Riflemen in GURPS, which represents soldiers relatively bloodied by the initial invasion of Romania and competent enough - but without much equipment. I've given them: Uniforms, Vz. 24 rifles, knives Ruby pistols Orita M1941 SMG A smattering of grenades and support weapons. I'm trying to give a "crash course" on the Romanian mindset, but while Antonescu was ready to commit his forces to retake lost Romanian territory, how did the average soldat understand the conflict? Was commitment to Iron Guard ideology widespread, or was it more of a lip service thing? Did they know how badly Soviet tank regiments outclassed them? The thing is, I don't know a great deal about how life as a Romanian soldier was, except that they were often maltreated and had inferior heavy weapons, save where the axis loant them Pzkw III / IV. Internet searches yield nothing about the Romanian soldiers, and I'm intent on trying to portray it as realistically as I can. Anything you can tell me about the Romanian mindset, culture (civilian or military) and equipment at the time would be really appreciated!
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Dec 17, 2014 12:21
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Well, they were already in use as musicians and couriers well before gunpowder, but it's not really my strong suit. One really lovely use was as "powder monkeys", running with gunpowder to load cannon during the age of sail, while a naval battle raged around them! By most accounts, those who survived were heavily traumatized.
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Dec 17, 2014 17:31
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No one? I realize it's a fairly overlooked part of the war, but anything helps, even if you can just point me at another source:Tias posted:So I'm about to GM a roleplaying session where my players get the unenviable roles of squad members in the Romanian 4th army, during the Battle of Podu Iloaiei. It's basically going to be an instructive, nerve-pumping "look how lovely WW2 is if your equipment is not up to scratch" game played for an afternoon or two.
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Dec 17, 2014 21:28
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Grand Prize Winner posted:This is a little bit reductive, but Steve Jackson Games actually published a Romanian WWII sourcebook. Have you given it a look? No! Thanks a lot, it seems worth a peek for :5bux: Panzeh posted:After the disasters around Stalingrad, the Romanians took more than a year basically trying to recover from the disastrous loss. In 1944, they had finally managed to reconstitute a proper army, and morale was reasonably high in anticipation of defending the country. Most Romanian soldiers were very poor, and the country still had the paradigm of aristocratic officers and peasant soldiers. The country was backwards in almost every respect. Oil production made the country rich enough to buy a sizable and equipped army, but the men manning it were inadequate in technical education and skill. While this was not as bad in 1944 as it was in say 1941, it was still a problem in the country. There was very little mechanical knowledge, and agriculture was not mechanized very well at all. The Romanian army was extremely poorly motorized, and many of the soldiers had scarcely seen a car, much less a tank. ..So they wouldn't really be using tanks at all by April 1944? The entry describes the battle such:"First Romanian Panzerdivision held off the Soviet tanks for a single day. At the end of the battle, the Germans managed to drive the Soviets back to the positions they held before the battle." Which raises the question, if it was only a romanian division, how did GERMANS manage to drive the soviets back? Also, I wonder what kind of mechanization is present, calling it a panzer-division seems to merit at least a couple of armoured cars or something. quote:The Iron Guard was actually suppressed during the war. Antonescu distrusted them and while there may be some sentiments among the men, it was not open. The Germans did keep Horia Sima, the Iron Guard leader in exile, but in general they preferred Antonescu and thought him much more competent than Sima. This is probably why the coup in late 1944 was able to succeed. Right, my bad - I was trying to enquire about the general level of loyalty to officers and the ideal of obeying the Marshal. My feeling is that soldiers were pretty stoked about defending Romania itself, but must have known that a great deal of Russian armor was headed west. Thanks a lot for your help!
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Dec 18, 2014 11:44
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I think I have family who went with Christian Von Schalburg and fought as part of the Schalburg_Corps, or possibly Free Corps Denmark, volunteering to fight the Soviets sometime during 43-44. I'll have to ask my dad what became of him, though the answer is probably depressingly obvious.
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Dec 21, 2014 15:19
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Disinterested posted:Assuming such a person wasn't KIA, what would have been the outcome for a person like that in Denmark after the war? It's my impression that most people who survived the ordeal would try to disappear. For those involved with the Peter group (irregular milita helping Gestapo/SS retaliate against the Danish population after acts of resistance) or otherwise contributing to the murder or opression of Danes, harsh penalties up to and including death would be the reality. Social ostracism and harassment would probably result, as well. Our history is eerily silent on the matter, so you've inspired me to dig around a bit. I'll be back.
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Dec 21, 2014 19:08
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Disinterested posted:Assuming such a person wasn't KIA, what would have been the outcome for a person like that in Denmark after the war? As luck would have it, there was an article about the Free Corps in todays paper! They interviewed a dude who actually went fighting with them, and he was incarcerated for 1½ year for serving as an Ostfront volunteer. He was (understandably, I'll grant) pissed about this, because the Danish government of the time explicitly allowed civilians (and officers of the Royal Danish Army!) to sign up with the SS in a special law, so they thought they were home free. Changing the rules was a bit of a kick in the rear end for him, as he'd just survived seeing all his friendy get blown to poo poo by the soviet advance.
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Dec 22, 2014 17:37
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Arrath posted:Just ask anyone in your family for scary stories or sketchy situations or "holy poo poo gramps, you almost died!" Anyone will have at least a few whether they're militarily related or not. Yeah, this is why learning from past generations is both important and horrifying. My dad gives me the impression that he'd been better off in a war, with all the crazy poo poo that happened to him. He was (almost literally) raised by wild dogs in one of Copenhagen's old-time working class neighbourhoods, and started fighting gang wars with the hood kids as soon as he could walk, and soon after he became an alcoholic, was abused sexually, and a lot of other lovely things  When I got emotional over it, he told me to suck it up, because with all the dope he was doing during my conception, I'm lucky I don't have three arms! Old people 
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Dec 23, 2014 08:29
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 More proof it's a good idea to talk poo poo when mentioning capabilities, I guess. Happy holidays, thread!
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Dec 25, 2014 00:31
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Disinterested posted:What military history related poo poo did everyone get for Christmas, then? Inspired by someone itt, I got myself Zen at War. Hasn't arrived yet, but I'm really excited about it  E: Fun fact, most of the bloodiest labor suppression ops in Danish history were carried out by police dragoons! There were others, but the most famous is probably the Battle of the Commons in 1872, where cops straight mounted up and rode protesters down with drawn sabers! E E: 
Tias fucked around with this message at 14:42 on Dec 26, 2014 |
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Dec 26, 2014 11:48
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Benny the Snake posted:So I talked with a buddy of mine who served in Afghanistan about Simo Hayha, the sniper with the highest confirmed kills at 505, and he told me he couldn't believe that one man could manage so many kills with only a hunting rifle using a heavy round and with iron sights. Is Simo's 505 kill count legit? As far as we're able to determine, it's quite legit, and I personally think it is. PittTheElder illustrates well how Hayha was operating under easier conditions than most modern marksmen have to.
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Dec 30, 2014 18:31
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Zhukov wasn't unique, he was just a skilled commander who made good decisions right off the bat, against Japanese officesr who dropped the ball. Fun fact: when he was summoned to Moscow, he figured he was going to be tortured and jailed, because he knew a lot of officers who died in the purges. In fact, he had a luggage case packed for two years since the purges started, ready for jail. He wrote his wife, saying "I have this request for you. Don't whine, remain calm, and try to tolerate our painful separation with dignity". But then he was sent to gently caress up Kalkin Gol, and did allright for himself!
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Dec 31, 2014 20:44
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Mightypeon posted:You have a point actually, but yeah, that thing was a really big deal PR wise. OOh, let's talk about baron Roman von Ungern-Sternberg! There's a character!  Born to noble baltic parents, he enrolled in marine officer school and hared off to fight in the russo-japanese war, but it had sort of ended by then, and he was transferred to Siberia, where he fell in love with mongol culture and religion! In 1913, he went native and tried to help mongols gain their independence from China, but his superiors crimped his style. Along came WW1, where he fought rear-guard actions against German troops, and already at this point he was deemed a "reckless, unstable officer" according to others. Also, he was discharge for disobeying an order. Then he kicked around the ME leading syrians and doing allright for himself, but then the Russian revolution happened! Flipping off the whites and the bolsheviks simultaneously, he nominally followed Semyonov, but had his own thing going, forming the "Savage Division" of Buryats, Baskir, Mongols, Tatars etc. and leading them on raids from a reinforced train station. At this point he became known as "The Mad Baron" for being At this point, Ungern got the idea that monarchy was the only social system which could save Western civilisation from corruption and self-destruction. He wanted monarchies all over Europe, and was especially enamoured by the idea of resurrecting the empire of Genghis Khan with a Qing emperor (the "Bogd Khan"), and a shamanic state religion. This is from memory so bear with me, but in a memoir he says "Ah! The idea of central Asia united in the worship of the burning sun, hearts thumping to the beat of the reindeer-hide drum.". Oh, Roman Eventually, he realized this ambition by freeing Mongolia from the Chinese, restoring the Bogd Khan as civil and spiritual head of state, though in practice he lead it as a dictator. He was granted the title of darkhan khoshoi chin wang, a high hereditary title in that culture, and apparently believed himself to be the reincarnation of Genghis Khan! Finally, the soviets got to him, and he was shot. One source, says that "When he learnt of his death, the Bogd Khan ordered prayers for his soul to be read throughout Mongolia. They were undoubtedly needed."
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Jan 1, 2015 16:18
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Where can I read this?  I think I came across him in a comic book where the protagonist meets him, it was possibly Corto Maltese?
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Jan 1, 2015 22:23
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Panzeh posted:I don't see how a strategic bomber would have really helped the Nazis though. They could not put anywhere near as many resources into it as the allies did and an aerial war of attrition(the biggest effect of strategic bombing) did not favor the Axis. As always, the weird conceptual boners of nazi leaders trumped actual conditions. Hitler "dreamed of bombers that could bomb the American coast" according to Beevor 
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Jan 2, 2015 17:30
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Which one are you talking about?
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Jan 3, 2015 14:14
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Acebuckeye13 posted:The reason why many American tanks had a rear-facing Machine-gun was because this MG was intended for defense against aircraft, not infantry. Of course in the absence of any German aircraft it was often used very effectively against German infantry instead, as noted by at least one individual. Which gun was normally used for this purpose? .50 cal?
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Jan 3, 2015 15:11
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Ensign Expendable posted:Most of them haven't ever seen a tractor, let alone worked with one. The cavalry was just incredibly conservative and averse to change. I think people are giving soviet cavalry too little credit. They were incredibly effective in the woods at Leningrad during WWII, running through the freezing snow and loving (admittedly demoralized and losing) german infantry up with sabers. Their knowledge of rough terrain fighting, hardy steeds and no-fucks-given cossack attitude arguably did the same things tanks could, and a lot faster. Tias fucked around with this message at 13:34 on Jan 6, 2015 |
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Jan 6, 2015 13:30
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Groda posted:No, that period is pretty much the George RR Martin back catalog. Hear, hear. If we weren't slaughtering each other, we got our poo poo together for long enough for Germans and Swedes to kill us 
Tias fucked around with this message at 09:36 on Jan 9, 2015 |
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Jan 9, 2015 09:30
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Who are those guys?
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Jan 10, 2015 14:00
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Thanks. So, I'm nearly through Zen at War, and it's a pretty good read. As a labor history buff, I'm pretty happy that it touched upon Uchiyama Gudō, anarcho-communist, anti-war radical zen priest with balls so large they really should have their own island! It also touches upon the role of the Yasukuni shrine. Can anyone give me a quick run-down on why the shrine still remains a hot-button issue in Japan? I understood that honouring it shits upon the memory of Koreans and Chinese dead during occupation, but now it seems like there is more to it.
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Jan 10, 2015 14:33
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Sure, but most other countries didn't have an empire that imposed theocratic fascism upon their vassals, forcing them to adopt japanese names and telling them that their way of being buddhists were wrong. There's a lot of bad blood tied to the shrine for those reasons.
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Jan 10, 2015 18:43
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Koesj posted:I think (s)he's coming at it from an 'in daily life' perspective, in which case you could substitute Britain for pretty much any other 'Western' country. 
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Jan 13, 2015 16:26
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bewbies posted:In the US at least “veteran” is legally defined as a “person who served in the active military, naval, or air service, and who was discharged or released therefrom under conditions other than dishonorable.” There's no proviso for combat. To be fair, the US has an unhealthy degree of militarism, one of the features of which seems to be hailing all military personnel like warfighters.
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Jan 16, 2015 19:51
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bewbies posted:Basically it is whatever the president says (this is for tax and pay purposes) . Right now it is most of the middle east, for example. See Slavvys post below yours. There's a higher tendency in the US (I am told, I have never been, so take it with a grain of salt) to worship those who serve as heroes, even if they never deployed to a combat zone.
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Jan 16, 2015 21:41
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Nuclear War posted:Its becoming more and more prevalent in Norway/Europe too. I see people with those yellow ribbon pins with inlaid Norwegian flags a lot, and, I poo poo you not, a guy in his late fifties, early sixties came up to me and thanked me for my service and for doing 'my part' . (I travel in uniform a fair bit and have for some years, and its only in the last few years this ribbon thing has started up). No kidding, I'm in Denmark and it's the same. It seems to be directly correlated with anti-arab racism and islamophobia in the news and folketinget  Slavvy posted:Wasn't the SU-152 absolutely lethal against armour despite having a really slow gun? Yes. In fact I believe (NOT AN EXPERT) that for a considerable window of time, it had to be used as AT instead of the intended assault gun role, because it could reliably gently caress up German armor. Tias fucked around with this message at 10:42 on Jan 17, 2015 |
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Jan 17, 2015 10:37
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I don't know about the rest of Scandinavia, but Denmark has been sucking neo-con cock for 10+ years, we're on a fast track to being Bush-admin lite.
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Jan 17, 2015 12:21
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JcDent posted:I think there was a Gurkha who beat a Talib with either an MG or MG tripod. That would be Corporal Dipprasad Pun, who, with typical Gurka balls of cast iron, explained later that he thought he was going to die, and, having nothing to lose, might as well kill as many people with an improvised weapon as he could. E: and who is apparently related to Tul Bahadur Pun, who is also balls-to-the-wall badass. He captured a Japanese bunker in Burma by running chicken-style at them while hip-firing a Bren 
Tias fucked around with this message at 14:30 on Jan 18, 2015 |
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Jan 18, 2015 14:28
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Tukhachevsky supressed the Kronstadt rebellion, didn't he? gently caress him. 
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Jan 26, 2015 22:11
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wide stance posted:Any tanker books like Tigers in the Mud but from an allied perspective in North Africa or the Western Front? I feel like mentioning Stalingrad here, where one T-34s armour was too thick for German grenadiers to penetrate, so they just kept wailing on the front plate, till the crew emerged to surrender, all completely deaf.
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Jan 27, 2015 14:00
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Pyle posted:That was Beevor's Stalingrad and the opening days of the invasion to Soviet Union. The tank in question was KV-1, which Beevor described as "KV Tank Monster". According to the story, German panzers lined up and pounded KV until they ran out of ammo. The KV's crew emerged from inside deaf and dazed, but tank did not have a scratch. I'd love to have some verification to this story. Ack, you're right I only have the Danish translation, in which it's merely "a tank", which I took to be a T-34, since the previous paragraph rambles on about quick T-34 deployment from factory to streetfight.
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Jan 27, 2015 17:39
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Tomn posted:Also, look at the way you get football riots over bad results or referee calls, or the way people argue endlessly and bitterly over balance changes in online games. Now raise the stakes to include major strategic national resources, potentially devastating economic impacts, and actual people dying. You'd basically have wars starting over the results of a war. One might argue that this has already happened. Bitterness over past wars have been a major influence in starting new ones, after all.
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Jan 29, 2015 09:35
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Azran posted:Still reading Ivan's War. Holy poo poo, it's amazing how incredibly DIRE the situation was for the USSR during 1941-1942. I mean, yes, everyone knows that - but when a book goes into it detail by detail it's mindblowing they managed to recover like they did. The sheer amount of political meddling and terrible commanders getting thousands of people killed bothers the poo poo out of me even when we're talking about something that happened eight decades ago. What a great book. Just got done with it. I still can't fathom how they actually recovered, considering how much lovely nutrition, a faulty/sabotaged supply situation, poor leadership and lack of proper equipment fucks over a soldier. To some extent, it perpetuates the myth that the convinced and determined communist patriot cannot be defeated, which long exposure to propaganda has almost rendered too silly - but there does seems to be a uniquely Russian will at play. That, and the willingness of Soviet leaders to throw so many people in front of German panzer, that the sticky goo their bodies are ground into gums up their machinery.
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Jan 31, 2015 12:17
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Arquinsiel posted:I dunno, kind of has the vibe of a prank played on a newbie that they forgot to clue him in on, and then eventually that newbie was the top ranking NCO in the area and "THAT IS THE WAY IT IS DONE PRIVATE!" + 100 years = "tradition". Isn't it more plausible that the inherited british parade ground traditions + the strong enmity between the nations (necessitating a show of force, even if only ritual) combined to form the showdown?
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Feb 2, 2015 17:31
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I've never served  That said, it's the same on any workplace.I'm just questioning the fact that this absolutely HAS to be a joke that somehow got converted into military tradition, you guys are taking the long road around Occam's Razor that this is just a remnant of a legitimate military practice 
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Feb 2, 2015 19:17
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In time, perhaps. For now, our royal family here in Denmark is still guarded by dorky dudes in tall bearskin caps and rocking bayonet assault rifles
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Feb 3, 2015 16:56
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Disinterested posted:WW1 was a bloodbath for the sons of British members of parliament and the aristocracy, so it's no guarantee. It was also a bloodbath for former privileged members of my alma mater, Cambridge - long lists of them are splashed liberally on war memorials across all of its colleges. Please tell me he actually made laws, and that I can go to jail for breaking the Boner Laws.
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Feb 5, 2015 17:44
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Since I'm really stoked about the upcoming premiere for 9th of April, let's talk about the Operation Weserübung, the invasion of Denmark! It's been a while, but if I remember correctly, we gave good officers leave in Sweden, and refused to take defensive positions, because the government didn't want to provoke Germany or give them any excuses The first to meet the Germans were a bicycle/motorcycle platoon, who actually put a dent in the invasion before leaving.. And then Denmark was crushed flat like a pancake. Our exceedingly quick capitulation after 6 hours stands as the record for shortest military operation during the war Oh well, at least our resistance tore them a new rear end in a top hat. Trailer for 9th of April: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmcttiebIN0
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Feb 9, 2015 16:17
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Our leadership was really loving cowardly. I mean, what would be the point of sending our officers on leave, if there was no country to defend when they got back anyway? As I've mentioned before, there was actually a law passed that made it legal for officers in the RDA to serve in the SS on the eastern front
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Feb 9, 2015 18:01
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Heavens, no. To clarify, I (like most people here) am angry that we threw a handful of platoons of frightened conscripts at Germanys vastly superiour force, instead of surrendering right away. Our resistance movement did indeed own, and I think the Danish people comported themselves really well considering the lovely situation they were in. I don't know, man. I mean, I'm all for fascists killing themselves, but it just seems dishonest to pass the law, seeing them get fragged to hell and back, and then putting the survivors in camps because hey, we were liberated in the meantime.
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Feb 9, 2015 18:22
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