|
VikingSkull posted:It's worth pointing out that the last nation to start using area strategic bombing was the United States, and that was well after every nation whether Allied or Axis was doing it. Yeah, this sort of gets lost in all the endless atom bomb arguments. Also note that nobody on either side got prosecuted for bombings, whether nominally-strategic or outright terror, and bombs at the time were incredibly imprecise- so the idea that they are a war crime by default is at least questionable. (Nowadays I agree they ceetainly would be- we have access to much more precise munitions.) Note that at the outbreak of hostilities the US government urged belligerents not to bomb civilian targets, and that the RAF held to this policy until the Luftwaffe broke it first. This was consistent with what was considered moral at the time- if the other side does it to you, retaliate. The alternative would have been to hold strictly to military targets while conceding to the enemy the right to strike Allied cities, by any metric a betrayal of the civilians the various governments were beholden to defend. The german and japanese governments must therefore be held at least partially-responsible for escalating hostilities by deliberately targetting civilians. (And being fascist belligerents who started the war.) That the strategic bombing campaign had no effect is outdated scholarship- consider not just direct industrial damage but the massive numbers of flak and rescue crews on constant alert in Germany, or the huge benefit given to the critical Eastern Front by diverting the Luftwaffe into home defense and destroying it there. Ask the milhist thread, they're definitely laughing at this one. Ultimately this was a horrible war made more horrible by the use of dumb bombs and unguided munitions and every nation has innocent blood on its hands- but I feel our modern perceptions and attitudes tend too much to focus on the Allies and especially the US' percieved faults and to ignore that they did not start or escalate the war. Every action taken was a result of Hitler, Mussolini, and Hirohito's belligerence. It wasn't the Iraq War or Vietnam. The Axis actually started it, and so their governments must take a share in the blame. I think we're all leftists or liberals here, for the most part, and none of us support US or british imperialism or all the actions taken before, during, or after the war. We're predisposed to criticize our own side but in this case, remember, we're talking about people who lacked all the hindsight we have and had some literal fash to bash. If you really want to criticize US or british conduct, what wartime nation of the 1940s took more pains to reduce civilian casualties? How should the war have been fought differently? I can't speak to the morality of the atom bombs themselves (although the flak they get is overblown compared to all other bombings and campaigns of the war),but in light of what the world had just been through, is it really that strange or bloodthirsty that the Allies would throw everything they had at Japan until the war ended? How long does a government justify waiting for the military junta to make up its mind before they throw the next punch? Should they have held back for a few weeks while the soviets rolled up Korea and China just to check if Japan would give up in a day, or a week, or a month? What about the 12,000 civilians a day killed by the japanese? vintagepurple fucked around with this message at 13:05 on Oct 28, 2016 |
#
?
Oct 28, 2016 13:02
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 7, 2024 10:58 |
|
|
Another great statistic is the amount of men (and women, and children) that strategic bombing forced the Germans to field to defend Germany. Upwards of one million troops were required to man AA networks, with the vast majority of those being pulled from the Eastern Front. Which, given that Western strategic bombing didn't really ramp up in effectiveness until after Stalingrad, meant that Hitler was even more hamstrung on the Eastern Front than he would have been otherwise.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2016 13:35
|
|
|
VikingSkull posted:Another great statistic is the amount of men (and women, and children) that strategic bombing forced the Germans to field to defend Germany. Upwards of one million troops were required to man AA networks, with the vast majority of those being pulled from the Eastern Front. Which, given that Western strategic bombing didn't really ramp up in effectiveness until after Stalingrad, meant that Hitler was even more hamstrung on the Eastern Front than he would have been otherwise.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2016 15:53
|
|
|
To be fair, a not insignificant number of them were killed in the bombing raids, but I understand what you're getting at.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2016 16:07
|
|
|
VikingSkull posted:To be fair, a not insignificant number of them were killed in the bombing raids, but I understand what you're getting at.  The Germans would be slightly better off without the strategic bombing, at the cost of that additional million Soviet soldiers (plus various civilians under longer German "care").
A Buttery Pastry fucked around with this message at 16:29 on Oct 28, 2016 |
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2016 16:26
|
|
|
Fair point.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2016 18:20
|
|
|
Fojar38 posted:But if the Nazis are fighting using a total war mindset and the Allies didn't, that gives an inherent strategic advantage to the Nazis and considering the stakes of this war I'm glad that the allies denied them that. Ditto with Imperial Japan. vintagepurple posted:If you really want to criticize US or british conduct, what wartime nation of the 1940s took more pains to reduce civilian casualties? How should the war have been fought differently?
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2016 18:21
|
|
|
twodot posted:Yes being willing to commit war crimes does indeed give the war criminal an advantage at war. How? How do you even calculate it? What if Luftwaffe air superiority or parity over Russia is maintained for another x months due to additional flak and air assets available to the nazis? That means lots more dead russians, and they didn't start the war. vintagepurple fucked around with this message at 18:47 on Oct 28, 2016 |
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2016 18:44
|
|
|
vintagepurple posted:How?
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2016 18:53
|
|
|
Granted, a good portion of our strategic bombing actually did gently caress all against the German war effort and contemporary historians have a consensus at this point that it actually had relatively little impact on the war. Bombing Hamburg or Dresden didn't have any appreciable effect expect exacting revenge. There is a reason West German industry was able to rebuild relatively quickly, most of the machinery worked even if the buildings themselves were completely bombed out. As for air assets being pulled out, that is rather doubtful as well considering the Germans were desperate to defend their airspace in the first place. They weren't going to pull those assets out and leave themselves undefended. Ardennes fucked around with this message at 19:05 on Oct 28, 2016 |
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2016 18:56
|
|
|
twodot posted:Are you claiming this is impossible to calculate? Nothing is perfect, you take you best estimate, and you choose the action that you believe kills the least civilians. You can argue that I'm incorrect in saying a different action would result in less civilians being killed (though doing so would require you to acknowledge that such a thing could be calculated), but arguing it's fundamentally impossible to guess at which action kills the least civilians is absurd. The US did precisely this and were losing aircraft* at an unsustainable rate. What you're suggesting is that the Allies shouldn't have won the war. *more than this, trained aircrews
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2016 18:59
|
|
|
Ardennes posted:Granted, a good portion of our strategic bombing actually did gently caress all against the German war effort and contemporary historians have a consensus at this point that it actually had relatively little impact on the war. Bombing Hamburg or Dresden didn't have any appreciable effect expect exacting revenge. Seriously, actual historians have dismissed many of these arguments already. The bombing campaigns were mainly significant in forcing Germans to maintain a sub optimal resource allocation. twodot posted:We should have killed less civilians. I understand at the time, killing civilians was generally acceptable, but it is a bad thing to do, much like while slavery was considered generally acceptable in 1800, it was still a bad thing to do. Imagine a war in which one side is abolitionist, but due to protracted fighting decides to use POWs as slave labor, and keeps them as such even after the war, til they can fix major war damage.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2016 19:01
|
|
|
vintagepurple posted:How do you even calculate it? If you insert enough condescending vitriol towards "AMERICANS" while also positing utterly asinine theories of warfare that are better shown in the average Japanese Anime and pretending they apply to reality, you don't need to calculate anything. You just need to ~believe in yourself~ and Monday morning quarterback a war that ended 71 years ago. And also have a questionable understanding of history in general.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2016 19:02
|
|
|
VikingSkull posted:The US did precisely this and were losing aircraft* at an unsustainable rate. No you see, if the only way to win ww2 is doing war crimes (as defined after ww2) then you have a divine duty to lose the war. Sieg heil.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2016 19:01
|
|
I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!
|
It would have been much more humane if German cities had been pulverized by artillery fire of advancing divisions, rather than by bombers.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2016 19:04
|
|
|
VikingSkull posted:The US did precisely this and were losing aircraft* at an unsustainable rate.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2016 19:09
|
|
|
twodot posted:Are you claiming this is impossible to calculate? Are you actually going to answer how we should have killed less civilians to win the war rather than firing back questions that were never asked to begin with? Not only did we know how to calculate the vast majority of our available options, we had a pretty good idea of how many people would have died for a number of them. Millions starving, tens of thousands vaporized in an instant, millions killed over the course of years from an extensive bombing campaign, whatever the case may have been, we ultimately knew that we were killing people and killing them horribly in every way. War is horrible, and it is nice to pretend that whatever bizzaroworld fiction you will deign to post in here about how things could have been nicer for all involved would have, in effect, ended the war in a more satisfactory fashion to Something Awful Poster twodot. But there is no guarantee that the other options would have resulted in more or less deaths, short of just not fighting wars, ever. That would be nice, maybe (belligerent nations here) should think about this before they start some poo poo next time. twodot posted:Winning wars is only good if winning the war results in the some positive benefit. QED, it's good that the allies won World War 2. fivegears4reverse fucked around with this message at 19:13 on Oct 28, 2016 |
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2016 19:10
|
|
|
twodot posted:Yes, if winning a war requires that you kill more civilians than losing the war would, you should lose the war. Winning wars is only good if winning the war results in the some positive benefit. I wish Hitler and Tojo could have carried out their goals of complete genocide without being forced to kill people.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2016 19:13
|
|
|
fivegears4reverse posted:Are you actually going to answer how we should have killed less civilians to win the war rather than firing back questions that were never asked to begin with? quote:Not only did we know how to calculate the vast majority of our available options, we had a pretty good idea of how many people would have died for a number of them. Millions starving, tens of thousands vaporized in an instant, millions killed over the course of years from an extensive bombing campaign, whatever the case may have been, we ultimately knew that we were killing people and killing them horribly in every way.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2016 19:13
|
|
|
twodot posted:Yes, if winning a war requires that you kill more civilians than losing the war would, you should lose the war. Winning wars is only good if winning the war results in the some positive benefit. ITT we unironically argue that the Axis should have won the war
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2016 19:16
|
|
|
Fojar38 posted:ITT we unironically argue that the Axis should have won the war edit: It's VikingSkull that's suggesting that winning the war required us to kill more civilians than the Axis would.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2016 19:17
|
|
|
As a living embodiment of horseshoe theory, It's my firm belief that the only appropriate way to deal with fascists and imperialists is with kid gloves.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2016 19:20
|
|
|
Ardennes posted:Granted, a good portion of our strategic bombing actually did gently caress all against the German war effort and contemporary historians have a consensus at this point that it actually had relatively little impact on the war. Bombing Hamburg or Dresden didn't have any appreciable effect expect exacting revenge. The bombing of synthetic oil plants ultimately crippled the Luftwaffe due to the resulting lack of oil. The air defense had to cover the gap that was opened by their aircraft sitting on the tarmac with no fuel. For instance Germany only flew a couple hundred sorties on D Day compared to over 10,000 by the Allies.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2016 19:24
|
|
|
Maintaining some operational rules to minimize civilian causalities has a cost, in terms of operational effectiveness. That cost can be expressed as making victory harder (or impossible), or just more expensive. In a limited war, or a war of a major power against a minor, those gains outweigh the costs, so you can stick to those operational rules. In a total war between highly industrialized economies, that is not the case, any advantage you give up can and will be exploited. So if firebombing dresden is easier to pull of than a more targeted (ie- closer to the ground) bombing, you firebomb dresden. That's the logic of total war. If you don't like it, good, you're have that in common with everyone else. But you don't have the luxury of ignoring it.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2016 19:27
|
|
|
The firebombing of Dresden was a poor decision, and AFAIK one of the many cases of Churchill interfering with his dumb operations ideas.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2016 19:35
|
|
|
steinrokkan posted:The firebombing of Dresden was a poor decision, and AFAIK one of the many cases of Churchill interfering with his dumb operations ideas. He wasn't exactly twisting Bomber Harris's arm over the matter though. edit: Or rather he didn't need to twist his arm
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2016 19:40
|
|
|
People at the time were highly skeptical of Bomber Harris and Carl Spaatz, feeling they were bloodthirsty maniacs convinced they had obsoleted all the other services. Today, people sincerely believe that the strategic bombing campaign was conducted in the best way possible, because Indeed, we have active defenses of committing war crimes going on, explaining why this gullibility- the purpose is quite simply to guarantee the commission of war crimes in the future by denying they could have been avoided in the past. In order to save the village, it became necessary to destroy it. In order to save Viet Nam, it was necessary to lock POWs in tiger cages and roast small children alive with napalm. There was simply nothing the USA could have done to avoid Wounded Knee.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2016 19:41
|
|
|
We must secure the existence of our WMDs and a future for their deployment.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2016 19:43
|
|
|
blowfish posted:We must secure the existence of our WMDs and a future for their deployment. Did they teach you war crimes were sometimes OK in the Bundeswehr?
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2016 19:44
|
|
|
steinrokkan posted:The firebombing of Dresden was a poor decision, and AFAIK one of the many cases of Churchill interfering with his dumb operations ideas. There's a lot to blame Churchill for, but Dresden was a military target of some value in a total war, and the British attacked it as such. Churchill alone did not draft the operational plans, not even remotely close. If anything, you should poo poo on the dude for initially being very supportive of the act until it turned out even among the British the attack was considered unconscionable and unnecessary, which prompted him to try and distance himself from the whole mess and try to lay the blame on his commanders. This doesn't make the act any less horrible, but it is what it is. We have the luxury of seven decades after the war ended to be able to discuss the issue with more detail and clarity than the wartime leaders had when they made their decisions. We are also not under the pressure of fighting an existential war when discussing this. From their perspective, they were fighting to win a war, and Dresden was an objective that went towards supporting this end.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2016 19:45
|
|
|
Much like the American cavalry brought death and disease among the huts of the Indian while stealing their land, so did the Allied forces brought terror and destruction into the midst of the peaceful German land, dead set on bringing it to ruin for no reason other than general bloodthirstiness. A worrying pattern emerges of American warriors attacking other peoples' holdings seemingly at random, possibly in order to please their so far unknown gods. Be it aimed at a Native child, or a kind German farmer selflessly taking care of his mysteriously disappeared neighbor's property, the cruelty of American raiders knows no bounds.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2016 19:50
|
|
|
OK, so you all agree that the Red Army's conduct was blameless in Germany and Poland, right? I mean, those people were definitely NOT with the partisans, meaning that anything done to them was fully justified in all particulars, no matter how seemingly grotesque, vile, and pointless it may look to the untutored. And if anything happened to women deported as slave laborers from the USSR, well they didn't kill themselves, so they obviously totally collaborated in all particulars and were no different from an SS camp guard. Frankly, it's disgusting we allowed any Germans to live at all.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2016 19:57
|
|
|
Brainiac Five posted:OK, so you all agree that the Red Army's conduct was blameless in Germany and Poland, right? I mean, those people were definitely NOT with the partisans, meaning that anything done to them was fully justified in all particulars, no matter how seemingly grotesque, vile, and pointless it may look to the untutored. And if anything happened to women deported as slave laborers from the USSR, well they didn't kill themselves, so they obviously totally collaborated in all particulars and were no different from an SS camp guard. I don't believe the British are blameless for having committed to Dresden, and neither are the Russians for having done, well, everything they did to Eastern Europe up to and after the end of the war proper. There is a key difference in that Dresden was absolutely a military target, that was defended by military assets, and the purpose ultimately served was that of ending the war sooner, even if the ultimate contribution towards that end is (rightfully) debated. By contrast, the women that Russians happily raped and murdered on their way to Berlin were not military targets, and the victimization of them served absolutely no positive end. These crimes happened in places long after the German military had abandoned the civilians they were supposedly meant to protect, in places that could not contribute whatsoever to the German war effort. In the basest sense, this was little more than pillaging a conquered village in the dark ages, with the only real differences being the technology available and the languages spoken. The Russians were so lost in their blood lust they even organized the rapes of freed Russian women who spent the war as German prisoners. There is nothing that can be said that makes Dresden less horrible, and nothing should try to allude to this. It was a horrible event, allied planners badly miscalculated how valuable Dresden was to Germany at that point in time, and ultimately 20k+ people died miserable deaths for it. But the intent of Dresden, and the intent of Russian soldiers squatting on land the opposing army had long abandoned, are two vastly different things.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2016 20:12
|
|
|
Well, that was specifically in response to steinrokkan's post. But your argument is just axiomatically assuming raping, torturing, and murdering civilians at random served no military purpose. Which is just a neat sidestep around morality. If it could be shown that Red Army brutality reduced the likelihood of partisan activity more than it increased it, you would be unable to respond.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2016 20:16
|
|
|
Brainiac Five posted:Well, that was specifically in response to steinrokkan's post. Even if such a magical world existed where it's proven that the Soviets were just trying to cover their bases, cross their t's and dot their i's, I think I'd still call the rape and murder of civilians in this context abhorent at best and much like Dresden I would say it is VERY arguable that organized sexual violence towards women and children did less to break the German spirit than, say, blowing up their infrastructure, breaking the back of the military on two separate fronts, and the wholesale slaughter of a generations worth of trained, capable fighting men. Actual recorded history and civilian accounts of Russian occupation would likely suggest that I am right. There is absolutely no way to prove that the Russians were 'reducing partisan actions' with this nonsense so bringing up a hypothetical like this in order to say "gotcha!" is pretty loving retarded.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2016 20:25
|
|
|
fivegears4reverse posted:Even if such a magical world existed where it's proven that the Soviets were just trying to cover their bases, cross their t's and dot their i's, I think I'd still call the rape and murder of civilians in this context abhorent at best and much like Dresden I would say it is VERY arguable that organized sexual violence towards women and children did less to break the German spirit than, say, blowing up their infrastructure, breaking the back of the military on two separate fronts, and the wholesale slaughter of a generations worth of trained, capable fighting men. Actual recorded history and civilian accounts of Russian occupation would likely suggest that I am right. edit: To be clear, torture and rape are bad independent of their utility towards achieving goals.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2016 20:32
|
|
|
fivegears4reverse posted:Even if such a magical world existed where it's proven that the Soviets were just trying to cover their bases, cross their t's and dot their i's, I think I'd still call the rape and murder of civilians in this context abhorent at best and much like Dresden I would say it is VERY arguable that organized sexual violence towards women and children did less to break the German spirit than, say, blowing up their infrastructure, breaking the back of the military on two separate fronts, and the wholesale slaughter of a generations worth of trained, capable fighting men. Actual recorded history and civilian accounts of Russian occupation would likely suggest that I am right. We also can't prove Bomber Harris planned his firestorms with the intent of hastening the end of the war over the intent of destroying as much of Germany as possible, and several strong pieces of evidence against it. Obsessing over a thing which is unknowable and which can be made into whatever you want is a license to justify immorality. You also don't understand the point of my post, or else are unfamiliar with the word "if".
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2016 20:33
|
|
|
fivegears4reverse posted:I don't believe the British are blameless for having committed to Dresden, and neither are the Russians for having done, well, everything they did to Eastern Europe up to and after the end of the war proper. The problem with your reasoning is that the rapes that happened after Russian advances usually weren't sanctioned acts and were conducted by second-line troops that usually were barely organized to begin with. There is little evidence this was a strategic plan by the Soviets but rather the result of how massive and at times chaotic the Red Army had become by 1945. Also, Russians raping German women comes up about 10 times as frequently as raping of Russian and other Soviet women by the Germans and their allies.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2016 21:10
|
|
|
EasternBronze posted:Perhaps we should have negotiated the survival of Hitlers government as well, in the interest of preserving lives. "The dismantlement of Hitler's government and the convening of war crimes trials" sounds like a surrender condition, which could easily have been part of a negotiated surrender. Having the Nazi government or Hitler personally take responsibility for the surrender? That's a surrender condition too. A lot can be accomplished with surrender conditions. Historically, a lot has - unconditional surrender demands are the exception, not the rule. The Allied insistence for unconditional surrender no matter what was actually a huge help to Hitler's government - it dissuaded potential mutinies and rebellions by promising that overthrowing Hitler's government wouldn't change Germany's treatment at the hands of the Allies, and was a huge boon to German propaganda efforts portraying the Allies as bent on destroying Germany as a whole rather than just the Nazi government. By all accounts, Goebbels was a huge fan of the "unconditional surrender" demand - he thought it was a huge boon to the war effort and would help to rally Germans behind the Nazi government.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2016 21:17
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 7, 2024 10:58 |
|
|
Main Paineframe posted:Historically, a lot has - unconditional surrender demands are the exception, not the rule.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2016 21:22
|
|